All the Flowers in Shanghai (4 page)

Enjoying her imminent triumph, Ma smiled at everyone with nothing more than the daydreams of the glory to come in her head. Sister looked beautiful and relieved somehow, as if this moment marked the end of a long night’s restless sleep. She stood by her suitor, who was wearing a Western-style suit that was slightly too short for him. He looked ungainly. Yet with Sister beside him, he looked like a man, and you could see why his parents had decided she was the right wife for their oldest and dearest son.

I went back to Grandfather and told him what I had seen, and he smiled at me and to himself. It was one of those smiles that are so close and warm and wide that you can never forget it. Even now, thinking of him smiling like that feels like the warmth of the sun on a bright day when you close your eyes and let the heat just wash over your face.

“So here is their beginning, Xiao Feng.”

Chapter 3

B
a and Ma started preparing for the wedding. During the next four months, they spent most of their savings; this ceremony was to be the culmination of their life’s work. Nothing would be left for my wedding. I was expected to stay at home and look after my parents in their old age.

They brought each member of our family to the house and had each of them measured for new clothes. I think the tailor visited our house every day for three months. His servants brought beautiful bolts of cloth, mostly silk but also some coarser dark foreign materials with dull simple patterns, which Grandfather told me were even more expensive than the silk. I could not understand why anyone would want to wear a whole suit in such rough cloth.

The bolts were laid out on the table in the dining room and had to be moved every time we had a meal. Often Grandfather and I would eat in the kitchen to save the maids from having to replace everything, which could cause many problems for them, because Sister would often stand in the dining room feeling the textures of the cloth and they would have to work around her. She would stand for hours, staring at the rolls of silk, cotton, and thick foreign cloth, as if lost in fantasies of herself wrapped in dresses or gowns. I would watch her sometimes from the other end of the reception room.

“Xiao Feng, I know you are watching me again. Come in here and let me teach you something,” she told me one day.

I was motionless. I did not want to be alone with her in that room, knowing I would be trapped and she could tease me mercilessly.

“Xiao Feng . . .” though she called to me in a soft loving voice, she was ready to taunt me, I knew. “ . . . Feng Feng, come in here! I’m not going to bite you.”

In soft cotton slippers my footsteps were barely audible. When I reached the dining end of the room, she was surprised to turn around and find me already standing behind her.

“Feng Feng, why must you creep around like a cat?” She held out the corner of a bolt of dark blue silk. “Feel this. It’s so smooth, it’s like holding a fine mist. These are the things our family can never hope to enjoy. You don’t understand, but to be someone, to receive respect, you must have the best of everything. You must have these things and everything like them.”

I touched the silk. It was indeed lustrous and fine, but no finer or smoother than the flower petals Grandfather had shown me.

“But how does having these things make people respect you?”

She had started looking at another full bolt of bright yellow silk on the other side of the table, speaking as she unfurled it.

“You are a funny girl. How did we grow up so differently?” Her head remained bent over the silk she was examining but her eyes looked up at me, framed prettily by her fine arched brows. But they were hard, challenging me to make another foolish remark. She continued before I could do so, “It is all about what everyone can see. If you are perfect then everyone will respect you, they will look up to you. They will give you face.”

“But is anyone perfect?” I replied hesitantly.

“No, but if you never let other people see that you’re not, and you never admit to anything bad about yourself, then because they won’t risk showing you that
they
are not perfect, they won’t challenge you and they’ll leave you alone and give you face. Anything less than perfect, though, means you will be treated accordingly. You will be less than others. For example, your ragged clothes . . . what do they say about you and us?”

“They say nothing.”

“No. They say you are poor . . . or wealthy and don’t care . . . but they tell everyone that you have low standards,” she said decisively.

“Low standards? But who can live only according to the highest standards?” I asked more forthrightly.

“The Sang family can live like that. The emperors lived like that. They are mandated by heaven. Gods.”

“It doesn’t seem a good way to live to me. Like gods.”

She dropped the silk she was holding and walked around the dining table to me. Putting her hands on my shoulders, she forced me to look her square in the face.

“Feng, it is the only way to live. It is what everyone wants.”

She frowned at me and shook me slightly.

“You must grow up. Foolish, foolish girl.”

She left me, to return to studying the silk. I could not imagine wearing clothes made from this material. What would be the point? I left the rolls in their dazzling piles.

Sister was right: I didn’t understand.

M
a and Ba had also bought many other beautiful things for Sister’s dowry, all the items that they believed necessary to impress a wealthy family: embroidered silks, piles of foreign cloth, tall vases painted with dragons and flowers, beautiful scrolls and calligraphy, expensive tea sets and preserved fruits, showing them that we were perfect. As well, of course, as all those things that the Sang family said were required by tradition; many of them things Ma and Ba would never possess themselves, such as gold jewelry, jade bracelets, and large tins of foreign foods. The house began to resemble the shining factories Grandfather had shown me in photographs from Europe and America. Deliveries arrived and gifts were dispatched constantly; all the maids were directed to work only on the wedding preparations, to ensure that nothing was misplaced or incorrectly distributed. It would be a terrible loss of face for our family if tradition and custom were not followed, and that included which invitations and gifts went to which people, in the correct order. In keeping with much of my childhood, Grandfather was left to supervise me and our time was spent drifting through the long grass of the gardens, hearing Ma scream at the maids in the house nearby.

Sister became increasingly tired and short-tempered; she had no patience with anyone who made a mistake, as if each fumble could jeopardize her whole future. With the wedding approaching, Sister would ignore me unless she wanted me to help her, and even then treated me more like a servant than her sibling. At the time I thought that because she had found what she wanted, she saw my feelings as irrelevant, no longer of any interest to her. She saw no bond between us; I was just another person who had existed in one place and period of her life. Ma had not taught her to care for me and so she would not miss me when she left. I would not be part of her new life with her new family; my destiny was to remain here, at home, though Grandfather would occasionally try to tell me about marriage. I think he hoped that one day I would find someone.

“Men and women don’t really understand each other and I don’t think they ever will. It is natural for a man to enjoy many women, some wives and some mistresses. Look at the emperors of ancient times . . . they had hundreds of wives and all very beautiful. But I think love can make us different,” he told me while we were out in the garden one day.

He stopped and pushed back his hair from his face. A strong wind had set the long grass dancing. Grandfather put his hands on his hips and stood looking around at the swaying trees and the sun sinking slowly behind them.

“It’s just like this . . . look . . . the trees and the sun. The green leaves and brown branches and this huge ball of yellow gleaming behind them. It does not make any sense. One huge object far away and these trees so insignificant in comparison, but from where we stand here they look perfect together. How can we explain it? That together they create this perfect picture.”

He looked at me and smiled.

“I wish you could have known your grandmother, because she was the most loving person I have known. I can tell you, I was a better man for being with her. She always put everyone else before herself. My family had warned me that I should not marry her,” he shook his head, “no, they did not like her. Even after we married they would say I should have chosen better, because she was always very weak and would become ill easily. They would nag me that she would always suffer from poor health and that our children would be weak as well. Tell me that I should take another wife.”

He paused and touched my cheek.

“You probably won’t understand.” He breathed in sharply as if in pain. “I will never understand why she had to leave us and prove them right. If only she could have given us a few more years together . . .” He smiled his big smile.

“Your grandmother died because of her bad lungs.”

I knew that; had heard how he sat with her while she faded a little more each day, forgetting even their young son in the pain of imminent loss.

Grandfather pressed one palm to his chest; his skin was loose and marked with dark freckles, I noticed. His face, too, was dark from the sun and his lips had thinned over the years. He had quite a sharp nose, not big like a foreigner’s but a little pointed. Despite his age, though, he still had strong cheekbones and thick hair.

“I looked after her until the day she left me. We had just fourteen years together. Not very long, was it?” He continued to stare at me. “How old are you now? Older than fourteen, I know. Sorry, Feng Feng, I forget. But I’d say fourteen years of happiness is preferable to none at all. I am not sure this is a good match for your sister, but what can we do? Just you and me, heh? It is out of our hands.” He laughed wryly.

“Even if she had a second chance, she probably would not choose any differently anyway. She seems to know little of love or even to be interested in it, but every marriage should have a little love, no matter how many wives a man has.” He chuckled to himself then and I was lost. “She may be treated as a servant by her new family, seen as being there only to bear them heirs. It is probably all my fault for allowing your father to marry your mother. People don’t respect education anymore, now it is only about power and money. After thousands of years suddenly things have changed.”

He drew a deep breath, one that would transport him back in time—back to happiness.

“People told me to get another wife but I was not lonely for company, I was lonely for her. Do you understand that? I hope you will . . . one day.”

He sucked his teeth and sighed a little, hurling a small stone into the river. We watched the ripples spread out and fade back into the river’s current, then walked back to the house.

T
hree days later during another walk in the public gardens we met a young boy fishing by the river. I could not stop looking at him. He had cropped hair and large eyes whose deep brown pupils held a stillness and peace that fascinated me. Grandfather introduced himself to the boy.

“How is the fishing today?” he asked.

“It is a good day. This is one of the best places to fish on this stretch of river. You see, in this particular place the fish become transfixed by the sight of the weeping willow branches as they sway in the breeze.” The boy spoke so confidently, I could not stop myself from staring at him. His eyes followed Grandfather’s mouth closely as they spoke together, pupils narrowing in concentration. This was not his dialect but he was determined to express himself. “Sometimes the fish are so mesmerized you can pluck them with your bare hands, straight from the water,” he announced.

“Really?” Grandfather laughed. “I have worked helping the gardeners here for many years and no one has ever noticed that before. You do not live here in the city, do you?”

“No, grand-uncle, I live in the countryside.”

“Are you a fisherman at home?” Grandfather asked him.

“I’m learning . . . my father is teaching me. But the fish are a lot cleverer at home than in this river. It’s easy here.”

“What is your name, young man?” Grandfather asked him.

“My name is Bi, grand-uncle,” he said respectfully.

With that the boy stepped down from the bank and entered the river. A breeze was blowing across the garden and the branches of the willow tree swayed in time with the ripples in the water. Bi stood very still. After a few minutes a fish swam between his legs. It floated just beneath the surface. Very slowly he slid his hands into the river and cupped them around the fish. He held it momentarily under the water.

Throughout this, I stood dutifully by Grandfather’s side. I had not been able to stop myself from staring at Bi while he had talked and kept watching as he stood in the river. Suddenly he looked up and threw me the fish. I caught it but it thrashed wildly against my hands and fell back into the river where it swam away. I gasped in shock and the boy and Grandfather laughed. Then Bi smiled at me directly. I felt my cheeks flush, and looked down and away from his eyes.

“Now you will be hungry tonight!” Bi laughed.

“No, we have a cook . . .” I quickly replied, then stopped.

Grandfather and Bi laughed together again.

Next day Bi was in the same place. Grandfather and he sat by the bank and continued their discussion on fishing, the wind, and the river. Eventually, Grandfather formally introduced me and allowed me to sit on the bank and watch the boy fish. I sat there while Grandfather helped the gardener prune the saplings. In the beginning we were mostly silent. Bi fished and I watched the river and the insects hovering and skirting around the reeds and lilies. It did not feel awkward, because I did not want to talk. I had nothing to say and being quiet with Bi did not make me feel nervous or anxious.