Xiaobin Xu - Crystal Wedding

The fashion for sumptuous banquets had yet to sweep through China; people’s taste in food was not terribly sophisticated in those post-Maoist days. However, the restaurant they went to near Weigongcun Street was one of a few really fine ones, and had a grand name to go with it: the Luxury Seafood Centre. They ordered cod with shrimps and egg yolks, ham with broad beans, steamed shark, soy-stewed goose wings, crispy fried pigeon, stir-fried bean shoots, and ham and wax gourd soup. The dishes had no sooner arrived than a young woman breezed in, as if she had deliberately picked her moment to make an entrance. Tianyi, who had met few actors in person, was startled at her appearance: a dark ruby-coloured skirt accentuated the whiteness of her skin and her scarlet lipstick. At first glance, the girl looked fresh and unsophisticated, but when Tianyi looked more carefully, she realized she was being distinctly flirtatious. Her arrival certainly seemed to make Ji perk up. He looked like a different man.

Ji made flattering introductions: ‘This is Tianyi, the celebrated writer. And this is Kexing, the celebrated actress.’

Kexing beamed smiles and extended a small delicate hand, shaking Tianyi’s, as lengthily as if they were old friends. ‘How nice to meet you, Tianyi’ she said, in a hoarse voice at odds with her fragile beauty. ‘Ji has said so much about you, he says you’re a terrific writer.’ Tianyi never knew what to say to comments like that. She made a dismissive gesture: ‘… Oh, no, really!’ A long time later she realized that everyone dropped comments like that, it was the done thing. There was nothing personal about it at all, and her embarrassment simply came across as asking for more compliments.

Tianyi’s admiration of beauty predisposed her towards Kexing, at least at the beginning. On the surface, she seemed a charming young woman, utterly likeable, the sort who would be popular in any day and age. She knew exactly what to say to butter people up, knew how to smile and talk her way into everyone’s affections. Her flattery was so sophisticated it sometimes verged on the insulting, before veering off at the last moment to compliment the subject. There was hardly anyone to match her in the art.

But Kexing was not just a superlative flatterer. Gradually Tianyi learned about the other killer weapon the young woman had up her sleeve: sex. The 1980s were a time of social as well as economic liberalization and Kexing was up right there in the vanguard. She made a clear distinction between lust and love and was willing to have sex with any man, with one purpose in mind: to get whatever it was that man could give her.

Tianyi had a good time at the banquet that day. But not long afterwards, Ji phoned to ask her to recommend a woman for the female lead: ‘Anyone who comes to mind who you think would be right for the role? Have a think … someone you’ve met, with the temperament that fits the role, anyone you can recommend …’ Finally, Ji threw in anxiously: ‘It could be someone you’ve only just met!’

But Ji was out of luck. Tianyi was ultra-sensitive, but her sensitivities did not lie in that direction. No matter that Ji talked round and around the subject, Tianyi just did not get what he was hinting at. The trouble was that Tianyi was too straightforward. She did not understand subtexts. As Ji spoke, she was racking her brains as who might play the lead role. Who would be right for it? Suddenly she remembered having watched a film called Youth two years before, where the female lead was a young woman with a hazy look in her eyes, impoverished, a devout Buddhist. She was called something like …

‘Lina Duan!’ she cried. Ji, at the other end of the phone call, said nothing. Tianyi was nonplussed. Why wasn’t he saying anything? ‘That girl’s eyes are remarkable, don’t you think? Even though she was dressed in rags, her character shone through, like a princess fallen on hard times, don’t you think …?’ She babbled on until she ran out of things to say. It dawned on her that there was still silence at the other end of the phone.

It was an afternoon in the middle of summer, and Tianyi had gone to the neighbourhood residents’ committee office to take Ji’s call, as they did not have a phone at home. It was quite a business to apply for a phone to be installed in those days, and it took a long time, so Tianyi always gave people the residents’ committee number and got the woman to come and fetch her. The phone booth window was open, and outside some old ladies were fanning themselves in the shade. It began to drizzle, and a great dark cloud settled overhead. The old ladies picked up their stools and, holding their fans over their heads, scuttled for cover, all except for the one in charge of the phone who came into the booth. Then something happened that Tianyi was never able to explain: there was a clap of thunder and a streak of white light shot from the telephone. Instinctively, Tianyi flung the receiver from her but just at that moment, it was as if something stabbed her in the ear. I’m finished, she thought. But it only lasted an instant, no more. Then it was gone, leaving nothing behind. And Tianyi could not recall what the pain had felt like, except that it was like a solid object thrusting into her ear canal. Days later, when the pain had completely gone, Tianyi suddenly realized that she was feeling a wonderful emotional release.

While Tianyi was still in this elated mood, filming began for The Tree of Knowledge . The female lead was Kexing and finally Tianyi understood the director’s laborious hints. But then she put her foot in it once again.

‘You can’t have Kexing!’ she burst out without thinking. ‘She’s the very opposite of how I imagined the female lead would be. How can she play her?’ She was talking to the assistant director. Then she added: ‘She can’t play the heroine. But she could play Shanshan, she’s got the right kind of shrewdness.’

At the next production team, Kexing dropped all pretences at affection and went stony cold on Tianyi. Ji was as polite and respectful as he had always been. ‘Mrs Yang,’ he said, ‘when the film is finished, I hope you’ll help us with promoting it.’ In those days, Tianyi had no idea what doing business meant.

She did not sleep well that night. Insomnia was a chronic problem, and she never found a long-term cure for it. It had got better for a short time after she got married, and she was actually able to sleep through Lian’s stentorian snoring. But after her baby was born, it got worse again, because she was not sharing a bed with Lian. He had the baby in his bed, she had to sleep alone.

She was nine years old when the problem began. (Heavens! Was she really that young?) The culprit was the novel, The Story of the Stone . The complete set of volumes had just come out in an illustrated edition, and her father bought them for Tianyue, who had just started middle school. However, there was no way he was going to let Tianyi and Tianke read it.

Each of the three children had their place in the family, and Tianyi was her father’s pet. He never stopped treating her as his little girl, even when she was grown up, but he never knew what really went on deep in his darling daughter’s heart, nor the extent of her curiosity. The very evening that he issued his edict about The Story of the Stone , Tianyi scrambled to the top shelf of the book case at dead of night. She took down the book, still fragrant with the smell of printing ink.

As she leafed through the book, looked for the first time at the fine-line illustrations, and read the names of the star-struck lovers, Baoyu and Daiyu, she was gripped. She had read about love before, mostly in the huge assortment of children’s picture books (more than 400 of them), most of which had been collected by her big sister. Tianyue was neat and tidy and kept all four hundred-odd books arranged in four drawers, to keep them clean, and had listed every one so that if any of the neighbours’ children came to borrow them, she could note down the date they were borrowed and the date they were returned, and it was all nice and clear.