Wang Anyi - The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

Wang Qiyao ran into her old friend Mr. Cheng at a consignment store on Huaihai Road. Supplies of nonstaple foods were becoming increasingly tight that year; although quotas had not been reduced for staple products, it was evident that they were running low. To limit consumption, the government started issuing vouchers for an ever-expanding range of items. A black market quietly emerged, and food was sold at many times the official price to meet demands. Panic was in the air. People were worried about where their next meal was coming from. Being pregnant, Wang Qiyao had to eat enough for both herself and the baby, and was forced to resort to the black market. But the income from her practice, normally just enough to cover her monthly expenses, couldn’t buy two chickens on the black market.

Before their last parting, Director Li had left her several gold bars. She had kept them under lock and key all these years, saving them for an emergency. That time was now at hand. Late one evening Wang Qiyao took the mahogany box from the drawer and placed it on the table. As the light shone down on the wooden lid, the Spanish-style carvings evoked a splendor buried deep in the recesses of her memory. The box remained indifferent to her touch, as if separated from her by thousands and thousands of years. She sat looking at it for a long time, and then returned it to the drawer unopened. To touch the money now, even after all these years, was still premature. Who could tell what future hardships might be lying in wait? Better to take a few of the old outfits she no longer wore to the consignment shop before the roaches got to them. She hauled the chest out of the closet and, lifting its cover, was quite dazzled by its contents. The first item to meet her eyes was the pink cheongsam ; the silk slipped from her hands like water and lay in a heap on the floor. She could hardly bear the sight of these garments; to her they were not mere clothes, but skin she had sloughed off over time, one layer after another, like the shells of a cicada. She grabbed a few fur pieces at random and closed the lid. Later, rummaging through the chest became a routine. The chest was opened and shut many times as she frequented the consignment shops and learned how they operated. One day, having received notice that some of her things had been sold, she went to the store to pick up the money. She was on her way out when someone called her name. Turning round, she saw Mr. Cheng.

For a moment, Wang Qiyao was so disoriented that she thought time was flowing backward. Mr. Cheng’s gray sideburns roused her from her reverie. “Mr. Cheng, is it really you?”

“Wang Qiyao? I. . I must be dreaming.”

Tears welled up in their eyes as all kinds of memories flooded into their minds; it was all too much to make sense of, and they both felt overwhelmed. Wang Qiyao smiled when she realized they were standing next to the counter for photography supplies.

“Are you still taking pictures?”

Mr. Cheng smiled in his turn. At the mention of photography, they had found an entry point into the chaotic past that had come rushing back to them.

“Is your photo studio still there?” Wang Qiyao asked.

“So you remember. .” At this moment, Mr. Cheng noticed that Wang Qiyao was pregnant, her face a little swollen — and a veil descended between her and the woman he had once known. When he had first seen her on the street, she appeared just as she had ever been; it was as if the past had reappeared. Now that they were standing face to face, he realized that everything had changed. When it came down to it, even time cannot stand up to scrutiny.

“How many years has it been?” he couldn’t help asking.

They counted on their fingers — twelve years. Thinking back to the last time they had seen each other — their good-bye — they fell silent. It was almost noon, and they were getting jostled by the crowd in the busy store. Wang Qiyao suggested they go outside, but it was worse in the street, and they kept being pushed to one side, until at last they found themselves beside an electric pole, where they finally began to get their bearings. But once again they were at a loss for words; they stared blankly at the array of notices posted on the pole. The sun was already emitting a spring warmth, and they felt hot in their winter padded jackets, as if their backs were pressed against a stove. After standing there awhile, Mr. Cheng offered to walk Wang Qiyao home, saying her husband must be waiting for her. Wang Qiyao said there was no such person.

“But we should be going anyway. . I’m sure that Mrs. Cheng must be worried sick about you,” she said.

Mr. Cheng blushed. “There is no ‘Mrs. Cheng’ and I suspect there never will be… at least not in this lifetime.”

“That’s too bad,” Wang Qiyao rejoined mildly. “What have women done to be deprived of this privilege?”

They began to liven up and their conversation grew more animated. Looking up, they saw that the sun was at its zenith, and they realized that both their stomachs were growling. Mr. Cheng suggested lunch. Unfortunately, all the restaurants were full, with lines of customers waiting for seats. The sight of those crowded restaurants only fueled their hunger, and they could hardly tolerate the wait. In the end Wang Qiyao proposed that they go to her place for noodles. Mr. Cheng said that in that case they might as well go to his apartment, because a friend had brought some eggs and salted meat back for him from Hangzhou just the day before. They boarded the trolley, which was always empty at noon, and sat side by side, as the street scenes flashed before their eyes like images from a movie, each image bathed in a flash of sunlight. They had not a care in the world, content simply to let the trolley take them where it might.

Mr. Cheng’s apartment was still there, just as she remembered it, only older. The water stains on the outside walls were a bit more pronounced. The interior was darker, due in part to the layer of dust on the window panes, which looked as if they had not been wiped in the last twelve years. The elevator was in bad shape: its iron grating had rusted, and the clanking sound it made echoed up and down the shaft. Wang Qiyao followed Mr. Cheng out of the elevator and stood waiting as he rummaged for his key. A huge piece of a spider web hung from the domed ceiling; she wondered if it had taken twelve years to weave this. Mr. Cheng opened the door and she entered. After her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she saw that the little world inside had barely changed; it was as if the entire room had been encased in a time capsule. The wax finish on the brown hardwood floor had a lustrous sheen, the lighting frame and the camera stood in their assigned places, the carpeted wooden platform was still there, and behind them the doors and windows of the cardboard backdrop looked at once ancient and naively fresh.

Mr. Cheng went straight to the kitchen and got busy. She could hear the sounds of chopping, followed shortly thereafter by the aroma of rice and salted pork. Rather than offering to help, Wang Qiyao wandered about the studio. She moved along to the back, where she found the dressing room unaltered and saw a pleasing reflection of herself in the mirror, which was too blurred to expose the traces of age on her face. From the dressing room she passed on into the dark room. After groping for the switch, she turned on a red bulb whose rays focused on a single spot, leaving all else in a darkness that hung pensive and yet seemed symbolic of permanence in the face of change. Wang Qiyao failed to understand that it is precisely this myriad of unchanging little worlds that serves as a counterfoil to the tumultuous changes taking place in the outside world. After standing there for a moment, she switched off the light, softly closed the door, and went into the kitchen. Chopsticks and two bowls had been laid out on the round table by the gas range. A pot of rice simmered on one burner while on the other a terrine of egg custard was simmering.