Wang Anyi - The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

The moonbeam writes Wang Qiyao’s name on the longtang walls; the pink leaves of the oleander spell out Wang Qiyao as they fall to the ground; the lamplight behind the screened window also inscribes her name; now and again a soft voice whispers in Shanghai dialect with a Suzhou inflection, and what it utters is the name of Wang Qiyao. When the peddler of osmanthus porridge sounds his clapper to attract customers, he seems to be counting off the hours of the night for Wang Qiyao. The young writer in the third-floor tingzijian , having finished his take-out supper, is busy writing a modernist poem dedicated to Wang Qiyao. The dewdrops on the parasol tree are the traces of Wang Qiyao’s tears. By the time the maidservant slips out the back door to meet her lover, Wang Qiyao is lost somewhere faraway in her dream.

If there were no Wang Qiyao, the Shanghai longtang would lose all their passion. This passion seems to have been squeezed out from the fissures of everyday life, like the golden dandelions growing out of the cracks in the wall, sneaking out where you least expect them. But this passion also seems to dissolve and spread, like lichens creeping across the wall. It can sustain itself on nothing but wind and dew; this is what is meant by “A single spark can start a prairie fire.” However, the process involves tenacious struggle and inconsolable pain. It is because there is passion in the Shanghai longtang that there is also pain; as for the name of this pain, it too is called Wang Qiyao. Occasionally one finds in the Shanghai alleys a wall completely covered with a thick carpet of Boston ivy; the ivy, with its old, clinging tentacles, is emblematic of passions that have persisted through time. In persistence is inconsolable pain, on which are inscribed the records of time, the accumulated debris of time as it is pressed down and slowly suffocated. This is the everlasting sorrow of Wang Qiyao.

FOUR DECADES THE story spans, and it all began the day she went to the film studio. The day before, Wu Peizhen had agreed to take Wang Qiyao to have a look around the studio. Wu Peizhen was a rather careless girl. Under normal circumstances, she would have suffered from low self-esteem because of her homeliness, but because Peizhen came from a well-to-do family and people always doted on her, she had developed unaffected into an outgoing young lady. What would have been poor self-esteem was replaced by a kind of modesty — modesty ruled by a practical spirit. In her modesty, she tended to exaggerate other people’s strengths, place them on a pedestal, and offer them her devotion. Wang Qiyao never had to worry about Wu Peizhen being jealous of her — and she certainly had no reason to be jealous of Wu Peizhen. On the contrary, she even felt a bit bad for Wu Peizhen — because she was so ugly. This compassion predisposed Wang Qiyao to be generous, but naturally this generosity did not extend any further than Wu Peizhen.

Wu Peizhen’s carelessness was the function of an uncalculating mind. She appreciated Wang Qiyao’s magnanimity and tried even harder to please her as though repaying her kindness. Basking in each other’s company, they became the best of friends. But Wang Qiyao’s decision to befriend Wu Peizhen meant, in some way, that she was pushing a heavy load onto Wu Peizhen’s shoulders. Her beauty highlighted Wu Peizhen’s unattractive appearance; her meticulousness highlighted Wu Peizhen’s lack of care; her magnanimity highlighted Wu Peizhen’s indebtedness. It was a good thing that Wu Peizhen could take it; after all, the weight of everyday living did not rest as heavily on her. This was partly because she had plenty of psychic capital to draw on, but also because she simply did not mind. Things came easy to her and she was willing to bear more than her share. Thus an equilibrium of give-and-take was maintained between the two girls and they grew closer by the day.

Wu Peizhen had a cousin who did lighting at the film studio. Occasionally he would come over to see her. In that khaki uniform of his, with its copper buttons, he came across as a bit flashy. Wu Peizhen really could not have cared less about him; the only reason she kept him around was for Wang Qiyao. The film studio was the stuff of girls’ dreams — a place where romance is created, the kind that appears on the silver screen in movies that everyone knows as well as the off-screen type that one hears about in the enchanting gossip and rumors surrounding the lives of film stars. The former is fake but appears real; the latter is real but seems fake. To live in the world of the film studio is to lead a dual life. Girls like Wu Peizhen who had all of their needs taken care of seldom wallowed in dreams; moreover, as the only girl in a house full of boys, she grew up playing boys’ games and never learned the social skills and canniness most girls picked up. However, after making friends with Wang Qiyao, she became more thoughtful. She came to see the film studio as a gift that she could offer to Wang Qiyao. She arranged everything carefully, only informing Wang Qiyao after she had already set a date, and was surprised when Wang Qiyao greeted the news with apparent indifference, claiming a prior engagement. This compelled Wu Peizhen to try to change Wang Qiyao’s mind by exaggerating the glamour of the film studio, combining stories her cousin bragged about with others from her own imagination. Before long, it was more like Wang Qiyao was doing her a favor by going with her. By the time Wang Qiyao finally gave in and agreed to go some other time, Wu Peizhen was acting as if yet another gift that she herself had to be thankful for had been bestowed upon her, and she ecstatically scurried off to find her cousin to change the date.

Wang Qiyao did not, in fact, have any prior engagement, nor was she as reluctant as she appeared; this was simply the way she conducted herself — the more interested she was in something, the more she held back. This was her means of protecting herself — or then again, was it part of a strategy of disarming an antagonist by pretending to set her free? Whatever the reason behind her action, it was impenetrable to Wu Peizhen. On her way to her cousin’s place, she was consumed with gratitude for Wang Qiyao; all she could think about was how much face Wang Qiyao had given her by agreeing to the invitation.

The cousin was the son of Wu Peizhen’s uncle on her mother’s side. This uncle was the black sheep of the family. He had driven a silk shop in Hangzhou into the ground and Wu Peizhen’s mother had dreaded his visits because all he ever wanted from her was money or grain. After she gave him some heavy doses of harsh words and turned him away empty-handed several times, he gradually stopped coming around and eventually broke off all relations. Then one day his son had showed up at her door wearing that khaki uniform with copper buttons and carrying two boxes of vegetarian dim sum as if they represented some kind of announcement. Ever since then he would come by once every two months or so and tell them stories about the film studio. Nobody in the house was interested in his stories — nobody, that is, except Wu Peizhen.

Wu Peizhen went to the address in Qijiabing in search of her cousin. All around were thatch-covered shacks surrounded by small unmarked trails that extended in different directions, making it virtually impossible to find one’s way. People stared at her. One glance told them that she was an outsider, but just as she was getting ready to ask directions they would immediately look away. She finally found her cousin’s place, only to discover that he was not home. The young man who shared the shack with her cousin asked her in. He was wearing a pair of glasses and a set of coarse cotton clothes. Wu Peizhen was a bit shy and waited outside. This naturally drew more curious gazes. It was not until dusk that her cousin finally staggered in with a greasy paper bag holding a pig’s head or some other cheap meat he had bought over at the butcher’s shop.