Wang Anyi - The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

She turned around to see Jiang Lili’s sons racing away, which left her feeling even more lost and confused.

As they had agreed, Jiang Lili arrived two days later to pick up her pants. Wang Qiyao had her try them on; they were a perfect fit and Jiang Lili was quite satisfied. The one thing that Wang Qiyao was confused about was why Jiang Lili would want a pair of polyester pants just as the weather was turning cold. Jiang Lili said she liked to wear polyester pants over her heavy cotton pants, which Wang Qiyao found inconceivable — how could she wear polyester over cotton? After they folded up the pants, they sat down for a leisurely chat. It was well after dinner time and Wang Qiyao’s daughter was in bed playing with a doll. Wang Qiyao made some tea and brought out a plate of watermelon seeds, but Jiang Lili reached into her pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes. Only then did Wang Qiyao realize the cause of the yellow stains on her fingers. When she asked her friend when she had started smoking, Jiang Lili responded by offering her a cigarette. Wang Qiyao declined but Jiang Lili insisted. They kept pushing each other until they collapsed in laughter; it felt like they were schoolgirls again. Watching the way she gestured as she smoked, Wang Qiyao couldn’t help but be reminded of Jiang Lili’s mother and asked about her.

“You know her. . she’ll never change,” sighed Jiang Lili, “…always stubbornly hanging on to the habits of the old society. All she’s doing is making things difficult for herself.”

Wang Qiyao inquired after her brother, who as a teenager always shut himself up in his room. From all that time with Jiang Lili, she couldn’t remember ever really getting a good look at her brother. Jiang Lili said he had not changed either; but at least he was now earning a living for himself as a high school teacher. But she spoke disapprovingly of his riding a motorcycle to work. According to Jiang Lili, her entire family reeked of mothballs; in this new era they were all remnants at the bottom of an old chest. Wang Qiyao had the uncomfortable feeling that she too was included in the description, and asked, somewhat testily, if an affidavit from someone like her would really be taken seriously when Jiang Lili applied for membership in the Communist Party. Jiang Lili laughed at the question and gave her a lecture on the charter of the Communist Party that Wang Qiyao found incomprehensible.

After Jiang Lili finished her lecture, Wang Qiyao asked if her application had been approved. Any trace of gaiety immediately drained from Jiang Lili’s face. After a minute, however, she smiled indulgently at Wang Qiyao’s ignorance and explained that the application was a long process, requiring unbending determination and unconditional faith. She told Wang Qiyao that joining the Communist Party is like being reborn, remade into a new person. The decision does not rest on consent from any one person. The Communist Party does not offer salvation — that is something everyone must find for themselves; loyalty and diligence are the only means to salvation. Listening to her, Wang Qiyao could almost see the old Jiang Lili, that romantic poet she had known in her youth, reappear before her eyes. Times had changed, however, and Jiang Lili’s odes to the wind and moon had been replaced by devoted words about steely determination and selfless sacrifice. Now, as then, however, the style smacked of theatrical exaggeration and was not entirely persuasive. Nonetheless, Jiang Lili’s sincerity and dedication were not to be doubted. After listening to her lecture, Wang Qiyao was at an utter loss as to what else she could say.

From this time on Jiang Lili began coming by to visit Wang Qiyao every two weeks or so. She told herself that she was merely holding true to the promise she had made, but that was only the half of it. The other thing that kept drawing her back was nostalgia; this nostalgia was so strong that it even allowed her to overlook the fact that Wang Qiyao was actually her rival in love. At the same time, however, she fancied herself as a product of the new society, someone who had made a clean break with the past. These conflicts playing out inside Jiang Lili came to the surface as resentment whenever she saw Wang Qiyao; it was as if someone had forced her to go and she had no other choice. Sometimes she would visit but barely say a word; when Wang Qiyao asked her something, she would respond with short, contemptuous answers. Even when she was in a better mood and allowed herself to talk casually with Wang Qiyao, she would suddenly grow stern, injecting a note of unease into their conversation.

Thus Wang Qiyao was always tense whenever Jiang Lili called, always struggling for things to say and prepared for a rebuke or a chilling glare at any moment. Nonetheless, she did not view Jiang Lili’s visits with distaste, and even welcomed them. To her also Jiang Lili represented the past — Wang Qiyao had nothing against nostalgia. But even more important was the subtle feeling of satisfaction she got from those visits; standing before Jiang Lili, Wang Qiyao knew that she was the victor. She might have lost everything, but as far as Jiang Lili was concerned there was one thing that Wang Qiyao had won — Mr. Cheng. For this reason she felt she could well afford to take whatever abuse Jiang Lili might heap on her. It might look on the surface as if Wang Qiyao had gone out of her way to please Jiang Lili, but in fact it was Jiang Lili who had given in. No wonder she was annoyed. When it came down to it, Wang Qiyao had indeed claimed her paltry share of the moral high ground; but how pitifully insignificant is a plot of moral high ground when one stakes it on an abyss of emptiness? Jiang Lili very early on had accepted defeat, giving Wang Qiyao the upper hand; but what did that matter when all was said and done? Between the two of them, there was such a deep mutual understanding, even mutual consideration. . but neither of them ever knew it existed.

But for all her icy haughtiness, Jiang Lili always showed her pleasant side when she was around Wang Qiyao’s daughter. Jiang Lili had three boys — all diminutive copies of Old Zhang. They spoke Mandarin with a thick rustic accent, reeked constantly of onions and garlic, and had smelly feet. All three were rambunctious, foul-mouthed, disorderly, and dirty; and if they weren’t quarreling or making a ruckus, they were out getting into a fight somewhere. The mere sight of them disgusted her, and the only time she opened her mouth when they were home was to yell at them. But the boys were not in the least bit intimidated, nor were they particularly fond of her — they were close only to their father. As sunset approached, the boys would walk hand-in-hand to the entrance of the longtang, where they would gaze at the darkening sky as they waited for their father to come home. The moment his silhouette appeared against the colors of the dusk, the boys would rush up to greet him. Home he would come, with one boy on his shoulders, the little one in his arms, and the third held by the hand. By that time, Jiang Lili would have already finished dinner alone and settled down to read the newspaper in bed; all the excitement her husband and the kids were enjoying seemed to have nothing to do with her.

Every six months or so Old Zhang’s mother would come down from Shandong province to visit; she would help out with the housework and taking care of the children. Whenever her mother-in-law visited, Jiang Lili felt like even more of an outsider. The old lady loved to entertain, and she would fill the house with relatives from her hometown as well as all the neighbors. Jiang Lili, holding her head high, would walk around the house as if no one else was there. Amid the crowd of relatives and guests, her three boys might as well have been strangers.

But the moment Jiang Lili laid eyes on Wang Qiyao’s little girl in that little yellow wool jumpsuit and saw the soft tuft of hair peaking out from beneath her bonnet, she was charmed. She held out a finger to stroke the baby’s fat chin, and the tiny face lit up like a blossoming flower. Babies always have that innate ability to awaken the pure and gentle side in people. Life was a confused mess, and amid this chaos Jiang Lili felt like a hopeless knot, impossible to unravel. It was not exhaustion that was wearing her down, but frustration. By contrast, a baby’s world is simple, and they open up a window into that world when they smile at us. Whenever she was around that baby, Jiang Lili’s heart was set at ease, at least momentarily. But when her face betrayed some of the frustration and anger she always kept bottled up inside, the baby would inevitably grow frightened and sometimes might even cry. Jiang Lili would try to sooth her, but the harder she tried, the more violently the child would wail. Helpless, she would eventually give up in despair.