Chinese Cinderella (16 page)

Ah Sun shook her head. ‘I tried but they know you’re here. Apparently they followed you home from school and saw you enter the door. They want to give you a surprise celebration party for winning the election for class president. Everyone has brought a gift. They mean well.’

‘I know.’ I felt panic‐stricken but had no choice but to follow Ah Sun to the parlour. As I crept down the stairs, I could hear the giggles and screams of my classmates resounding through the entire house.

I bit my lower lip and forced myself to go in and greet my friends. They surrounded me, shouting ‘Surprise! Congratulations! Victory!’, singing and chanting slogans, drunk with euphoria and excitement. No one seemed to notice my tongue‐tied silence. I shifted my eyes away from meeting anyone else’s, afraid that my secret home‐life was about to be exposed. Inside, I was quaking with terror, hoping against hope that Niang would leave us alone until I could politely ask my friends to leave.

Ah Sun reappeared and touched me on the arm. ‘Your mother wishes to see you
now
!’

I fought against the panic surging within and forced a stiff smile onto my face. ‘I wonder what
she
wants!’ I said with a shrug, hating myself for the pretence. ‘Excuse me for a moment.’

My mind was blank when I knocked on the door of the Holy of Holies. My parents sat side by side, in a little alcove overlooking the garden. I tried to close the door after me but Niang told me to leave it open. I stood in front of them with my head hanging and my eyes fixed on Niang’s red silk slippers. I could hear, indeed we could all hear, the gleeful squeals of a dozen merry ten‐year‐old girls echoing through the entire house.

‘Who are these little hooligans,’ Niang began, her voice seething with anger, ‘making such a racket in the living‐room downstairs?’

‘They’re my friends from school.’

‘Who invited them here?’

‘No one.’

‘What are they doing here?’

‘They came to celebrate my winning the election for class president.’

‘Is this party your idea?’

‘No, Niang.’ I shook my head in denial. ‘They came of their own accord. I didn’t know anything about it.’

‘Come here!’ she screamed. I approached her gingerly, trembling with terror. She slapped my face so hard I almost fell. ‘Liar! You planned it, didn’t you, to show off our house to your penniless classmates. How dare you!’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Tears streaked down my cheeks and I found it hard to breathe.

‘Your father works so hard to feed and clothe all of you. He comes home for a nap and there’s not a moment of peace. What insolence to invite them into our living‐room and make such a racket!’

‘I never asked them here. They know I’m not allowed to go to their house after school so they decided to visit me instead.’

She slapped me with the back of her hand against my other cheek. ‘Show‐off! I’ll teach you to be so sneaky!’ she screamed loudly. ‘Go downstairs this minute and tell your hooligan friends to get out! They are not welcome!’

As I hesitated and shuffled my feet, she hit my face yet again. ‘Do you hear me?’ she yelled at the top of her voice. ‘I want them out of the house this minute! Are you deaf? Tell them to
gun dan
(get lost) and never come here again! Never! Never! Never!’

I clenched my fists and made my way slowly down the stairs. An eerie silence now permeated the house. My classmates must have heard Niang’s every word through the open door of the Holy of Holies. My nose and eyes were drenched and I wiped them with the back of my sleeve. To my horror, I saw bright‐red blood staining my hand and dress. Drops of blood trickled freely from my nose onto the floor. I realised Niang’s blows must have caused a nosebleed and that my face was probably smeared with a mixture of blood, mucus and tears.

I re‐entered the living‐room and stood in front of my classmates unable to say a word. I felt naked and ghastly and vulnerable. None of them looked at me and I dared not look at them. At school, I had been so careful to pretend I came from a loving family. Now they knew the pathetic truth! Unwanted and unloved by my own parents! How long did it take for a person to die of shame?

Finally, I choked out to the room at large, ‘My father wishes to sleep. They want you to go home now. I am sorry.’

No one replied but, in the painful silence, Wu Chun‐mei took out her handkerchief and handed it to me. I shrugged and tried to give her a smile of thanks but something in her eyes suddenly made it impossible for me to feign nonchalance. With tears strangling my voice, I told them, ‘Thank you for coming. I’ll never forget your loyalty.’

One by one they trooped out, leaving their gifts by my side. Wu Chun‐mei lingered and was the last to go. As she filed past the stairway she shouted towards the Holy of Holies, ‘This is unfair. You’re cruel and barbaric! I’ll tell my father!’

I gathered my presents and hesitated at the threshold of my parents’ room, thinking about running away. Their door was wide open. Father ordered me to go in, close the door and unwrap my packages.

Out came a jumbled collection of comics, kung‐fu novels, a chess set, a skipping‐rope, packages of treats: salted plums, sweet ginger slices and dried watermelon seeds, and a sheet of calligraphy paper with the character VICTORY prominently stroked out with brush and ink.

‘Throw the whole lot into the waste‐paper basket!’ Father commanded.

I hurried to comply.

‘Why should your classmates give you gifts?’ Niang asked suspiciously.

‘It’s because we won the election today. I’m now class president. We worked hard at it . . .’

Niang interrupted me in the middle of my explanation. ‘Stop bragging!’ she screamed. ‘Who do you think you are? A princess of some sort that all your friends should come and pay you tribute? You are getting altogether too proud and conceited! No matter what you consider yourself to be, you are nothing without your father. Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!’

‘You’ve breached our trust in you when you asked your friends to come here and insult us,’ Father said in a quiet voice which made me grit my teeth in pain. ‘Family ugliness should never be revealed in public. Since you’re not happy here, you must go somewhere else.’

‘But where can I go? Who will take me in?’ I asked shakily.

‘We’re not sure,’ Father replied cruelly.

Times were hard and on my way to school in the early mornings, I had seen infants wrapped in newspapers left to die in doorways. Beggar‐children in rags routinely rummaged the garbage‐cans searching for food. Some were reduced to eating the bark peeled off the sycamore trees lining the street on which we lived.

‘What’s going to happen to me? Will I be sold?’ I knelt in front of them in a state of panic.

‘You don’t know how lucky you are to be fed and housed here in these uncertain times,’ Father said. ‘Apologise to your Niang.’

‘I apologise, Niang.’

‘It’s your aunt who has taught you to lie and cheat. She feeds your arrogance by giving you money behind our backs,’ Niang said. ‘She is an evil influence. Before it’s too late, you must move out of her room and not speak to her again. We’ll find you an orphanage which’ll take you in until you’re old enough to find a job to support yourself. Your father has enough to worry about without the likes of you. You can go now.’

The thought of being separated from my aunt filled me with dread. Sombrely, I climbed the stairs and went back to the room I shared with her, perhaps for the last time.

After a sleepless night, I walked to school the next morning feeling apprehensive and ashamed. Along the way I kept asking myself, ‘What’ll my friends say this time? How will my voters look at me? Will I be the laughing stock of my class? Will everyone sneer and whisper about me during recess?’

I waited in the bathroom for a long time, reluctant to face my peers. When the bell rang, I was among the last to file into our classroom. Teacher Wong was already standing in front of the blackboard writing something with a piece of chalk. Immersed in my misery, I didn’t pay any attention until Wu Chun‐mei nudged me and pointed at our teacher’s back. I looked and looked again. To my amazement, I saw my name (
Yen Jun‐ling) written in big characters on the blackboard.

Teacher Wong turned towards me and smiled proudly. ‘I want the class to welcome and salute Yen Jun‐ling as your new class president. You have elected her of your own free will. From now on, she will be the one who will lead you in reciting Sun Yat‐sen’s last testament in front of our flag before lessons begin. When I am called away during class, she will take charge and you are to report to her!’

Everyone clapped and I glowed with happiness. The eyes of my supporters were shining with respect and admiration. I said to myself, How is it possible? Me, the same despised daughter publicly rejected by my parents yesterday is now being honoured by my teacher and classmates! Which is the true me? Though it’s blatantly obvious that my father loathes me as much as my stepmother does, perhaps he’ll change his mind one day if I bring him a few more honours. Besides, does he truly hate me or is he just going along with her because he loves her more than me and wants a peaceful life? After all, I
am
his real daughter.

All day, girls came up to offer their congratulations and pat me on my back. Nobody mentioned a word about being dismissed by my parents from my house. It was as if none of that ever happened. As I basked in their goodwill, yesterday’s horrors started fading. By the time I walked home, I had put those dreadful memories behind and was light‐heartedly skipping along the pavement from stone to stone.

I pushed open the back door and reality rushed back at once. Cook was plucking a freshly killed chicken in the kitchen. He glanced at me and called out ominously, ‘Ah Sun, she’s back from school!’ Now why did he say that? I didn’t wait to find out but my spirits sank and happiness evaporated as I climbed the stairs: past the Holy of Holies where the door was mercifully closed. Past the antechamber where my two half‐siblings were having afternoon tea. (No tea for the likes of me, of course. Never tea for the likes of me!) Past my grandfather Ye Ye’s room . . .

Ye Ye was standing at his door watching me with a sad expression on his face. He started to say something but Ah Sun was calling out in a loud voice, ‘So you’re back! Tell me what else belongs to you!’

She was in my room, kneeling on the floor and packing a suitcase.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked foolishly.

‘What does it look like I’m doing? Your Niang ordered me to pack your clothes and move you out of your aunt’s room. You are to sleep on the couch in your Ye Ye’s room tonight. Tomorrow, your father and Niang are flying to Tianjin and you’re to go with them.’

‘To Tianjin tomorrow!’ I exclaimed in dismay. ‘And Aunt Baba, what about her? Is she coming too?’

‘You must be dreaming! Your Niang says it’s a bad thing you’re always with her. She spoils you too much.’

‘But I have homework to do!’

‘Homework!’ Ah Sun scoffed. ‘What for when you’re flying off in an aeroplane at noon!’

I ignored her and sat down at my desk, laid out my books and started my homework as if my life depended on it. As I tackled my maths and did my English translation, the gloom of tomorrow’s departure seemed to lighten slightly. Ah Sun sneered at me, but I told her, ‘This is what I want to do on my last afternoon in Shanghai.’ She finished the packing and went away.

I sat forlornly at the edge of the landing on our floor, longing for my aunt to come home, desolate at the thought that I would never be able to go back to school or see any of my friends again. I pictured them waiting vainly for me to lead them in reciting Sun Yat‐sen’s last testament tomorrow morning; and I felt an overwhelming sense of despair.

For once, Aunt Baba was early. From the defeated way she walked up the stairs, I suspected she knew my fate. We entered our room and she closed the door. She peered over at my homework as she peeled off her coat.

‘Autumn has come early this year and the weather turns chilly when the sun goes down,’ she murmured, taking my cold hands and rubbing heat into them. ‘Are you wearing enough clothes?’ She looked for my sweater, fished it out of the packed suitcase and noticed a hole in the elbow. She found needle and thread and started her repair, her forehead creased in concentration.

She helped me put on my sweater. We sat side by side on her bed. She removed the key from the chain around her neck, opened her safe‐deposit box and took out my stack of report cards. I knew that in her eyes, my grades had been conferred with an extraordinary value.

‘Never mind!’ she said consolingly. ‘With such exceptional grades, you’ll be able to become anybody you want! Let this be your secret weapon, your talisman, your magic charm which will bring you all the riches you can ever wish for. One day, the world will recognise your talent and we’ll leave them and live together in our own home. Just the two of us.’

She didn’t say how I should actually achieve this goal, seeing I was only ten years old and in the sixth grade and about to be banished to a Tianjin orphanage. I saw the mortified stoop of her shoulders and had no heart to challenge anything she was saying. I understood dimly the importance of both of us relishing the dream, though I could think of nothing but the heart‐rending prospect of being sent away from her forever.