Wang Anyi - The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

The noise of things stirring in the night deep in those winding alleys was the sound of people living out their modest lives. Their steps are smaller than the movement of the second hand on a clock, but with each forward movement they still make a slight squeaking sound; and though they are lighter than a feather, they still leave behind their footprints, which are always moving steadily forward. The sounds of their songs and tears are barely audible, because they keep their emotions pent up inside. It is only when you lift your eyes to the mist enveloping the sky above the longtang that you discover their sorrow and their sweetness.

1965 was a good year for the city. Its stability and prosperity provided solid resources and a stage against which people could live out their dreams of having a comfortable life. Currents of happiness and warmth flowed through the city skies, nothing ostentatious, just a simple, healthy urge for enjoyment manifesting itself. With the coming of spring, bright colors once again lit up the street scenes, nurturing a vanity that was entirely wholesome. Although it was concealed, one could still sense the pulsating feeling of being alive flowing through the streets. At night the city lights were far from brilliant, but each one had its place, highlighting the people, places, and things of the city — no light was wasted on spurious glamour. It was as if the entire city had been baptized, regaining an air of normality in the process. That is what the heart of the city was like in 1965, once all the dust had settled.

Mr. Cheng started using his photo studio again and spent his holidays there. When he turned the studio lights back on, his heart felt easy; he was like a wandering son who had finally come home. He began to regain interest in what had always been his specialty — portrait shots. It started when some of the neighborhood beauty salons asked him to take photographs of different hairstyles that they could use as samples to show their customers. His reputation soon spread, and a new wave of beautiful young girls began frequenting his studio. He was forty-three years old — an old man in the eyes of these young models. A grave and conservative man, Mr. Cheng was not one to fall in love easily — such romantic feelings as he had harbored had mostly been thwarted by a woman named Wang Qiyao, and there was not an ounce of romance left in his heart. In his eyes, those beautiful young models might as well have been made of wood or clay; for Mr. Cheng, their sole value was as objects of admiration.

It was hard to say if this was owing to his age and experience or to the living hell Wang Qiyao had put him through — but he found himself even more capable when it came to capturing the true beauty of each model. Consequently, he was often able to find beauty in the mundane and so produced exceptional results. He was not one to accept assignments lightly, but once he did, he poured all his effort into producing the most exquisite images. Every photo that came out of his studio was a masterpiece. Each night he would sit alone in his darkroom, where the only source of light was the glow of a single red lamp — everything else was swallowed up by the darkness, himself included. The only things that really existed in this world were the stunning images that emerged from the fixer solution; but these were like cicada shells, empty on the inside. He would focus his energy on finding the most balanced relationship between darkness and light in each composition, and as he completed each task he would heave a soft sigh of relief. Ignoring the cup of coffee, now cold, that he had meant to drink, he would switch off the red lamp, feeling his way out of the darkroom into his bedroom. After climbing into bed, he would light a cigar — his latest indulgence, a gift bestowed on him by the prosperity of 1965. The smoke from the cigar worked like a sedative and before long Mr. Cheng would be asleep.

This was the year that things seemed to be getting back on the right track. The unproductive upheavals of the intervening years seemed to have passed, evaporating like a cloud of mist; it was as if the previous years had been a dream. Because of all the buildings, the Shanghai sky was always divided up into narrow slits through which light and rain would seep in. The Shanghai streets were bustling like always. People who did not live there would probably have noticed signs that the city had aged: the layers of ivy climbing the gables to bathe in the sunlight, the flow of the Suzhou River growing more sluggish as the water became choked with accumulated garbage, even the sliver of sky that hovered over the city growing darker as a result of the carbon dioxide being constantly spewed into the air. Every spring the new leaves on the plane trees seemed to be less shiny and healthy than the previous year. However, the city’s inhabitants had no way of seeing this, because they too were aging along with their environment. They were surrounded by these things whenever they had their eyes open. . and whenever they had them closed.

On a few occasions Mr. Cheng completely lost track of time while working in his darkroom. Time seemed to have concealed itself in the stillness of the night, and yet the stillness of the night is when time is most active. It wasn’t until he heard the sound of the milk truck making its morning delivery in the back alley that Mr. Cheng snapped out of it and realized that he had spent the whole night working. He did not feel in the least bit exhausted. After developing the last photograph, he pulled open the heavy drapes covering the window in the darkroom and saw the dawn creeping up over the Huangpu River — this was a scene that had always been dear to him, but it was something he had nearly forgotten. He choked up a bit as he thought about how long it had been since he had laid his eyes on this familiar vista, knowing full well that it had always been there, waiting for him to come back to it. At that moment a flock of pigeons suddenly took to the air from the small crevices on the side of the building on which they were perched. Is this the same flock of pigeons from years ago? Have they too been waiting for me? he wondered.

Over time Mr. Cheng lost touch with most of his friends. He even stopped keeping in contact with Wang Qiyao and Jiang Lili. Living in those penthouse apartments of Shanghai were a lot of reclusive men like Mr. Cheng. The details of their daily lives were a mystery — their pasts, an even greater mystery. They always moved about alone. Their apartments were like giant shells: who knows what kind of exotic creatures inhabited them. 1965 was a good year for those individuals who hid in their shells. That was a time when society was relatively free, even though many things were secretly playing out beyond the eyes of man. Only the pigeons that flew overhead knew.

Then came one night when Mr. Cheng couldn’t help being irritated by the ringing of the doorbell. He had no photo shoots scheduled; who dared to show up unannounced, he wondered. As he made his way to the door, he thought about how he should turn them away. Though a bit eccentric, Mr. Cheng was a mild-mannered man and quite refined by nature. But he immediately realized upon opening the door that he didn’t need to turn anybody away — standing at his door was Wang Qiyao. He never dreamed that Wang Qiyao would show up at his apartment. In fact, he had not thought about her for a long time. He was taken completely off guard, but was also quite pleased and very calm. The storm of emotion that had once consumed him had given way and all that was left were memories of a heart-warming past. He invited Wang Qiyao inside and made her tea. It was only then that he noticed that she was quite worked up about something. She gripped the tea cup tightly in her hand without seeming to realize how hot it was.