Wide-eyed and silent, I stared at the woman. Her eyes filled with tears, but she forced her face into a sad, tired smile. My grandmother did not prompt me again; the two women stood frozen.
This particular memory has haunted me again and again. I felt the pain of it most keenly after I had become a mother myself, and experienced the atavistic, inescapable bond a mother has with her child. What could my mother have said, faced with a daughter who was calling her ‘Auntie’?
Over the years my mother had had to suppress her feminine nature. Competing with men and fighting the stain of her family background to succeed in her career and in the Party, she had felt that children were a burden, and that her family had ruined her life. Once the belle of the ball in the army, she paid scant regard to her clothes or her appearance.
I once called my mother from England when I was finding life in a foreign culture particularly difficult. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘The most important thing is that you are taking time to discover what it is to be a woman.’
I was astonished. Well into her sixties by then, my mother was acknowledging the fact that she had suppressed an important part of herself, and was urging me not to make the same mistake.
The second time I returned to China after coming to England, I was amazed to see my mother wearing lipstick to meet my British friend. My father could barely contain his excitement at this reemergence of her elegance; she had not worn make-up for over forty years.
10
The Woman Who Waited Forty-five Years
It is characteristic of the modern Chinese to have either a family with no feelings or feelings but no family. Living conditions force young people to make jobs and housing the pre-eminent conditions for their marriages. Their parents, living amid the upheaval of political change, made security and reliability the basis on which to build a family. For both generations, practical arrangements have always come first and any family feeling there is has developed later. What most women are searching and yearning for is a family that grows out of feeling. This is why you can read about so many tragic love stories in Chinese history – stories which bore neither flower nor fruit.
In 1994, my father went to a celebration marking the eighty-third anniversary of Qinghua University – one of the best universities in China. When he came back, he told me about the reunion of two of his former classmates, Jingyi and Gu Da, who had been in love with each other as students. After university, they had been posted to different parts of China to fulfil ‘the needs of the Revolution’, and had lost touch during the decade-long nightmare of the Cultural Revolution, which had prevented any communication. The woman, Jingyi, had waited and searched for her beloved for forty-five years. At this university reunion they met again for the first time, but Jingyi was not able to throw herself into her lover’s arms: his wife was standing beside him. Jingyi had forced herself to smile, shake hands and greet them civilly, but she was obviously deeply shaken, since she had left the reunion early.
The other former classmates who witnessed this painful meeting had felt their eyes reddening and noses smarting with emotion. Jingyi and Gu Da had been the great love story of their class; everybody knew that they had loved each other deeply for four years at university. They recalled how Gu Da had found her candied haws in the middle of a Beijing snowstorm, and how she had forgone sleep to nurse him for ten nights when he had had pneumonia. My father was melancholic as he recounted this, and sighed over fate and the passing of time.
I asked my father if Jingyi had married. He told me that she had not, but had waited for her lover throughout. Some former classmates had said that she was foolish to be so infatuated with her past love: how could anyone have nurtured such hope through the years of violent political upheaval? In the face of their incredulity, she had just smiled and remained silent. I said to my father that she sounded like a water lily, rising pure out of the mire. Listening from the sidelines, my mother pitched in with a comment that a water lily withered more quickly than any other flower once broken. I wanted very much to know if Jingyi had been broken.
I found Jingyi’s work unit and address in my father’s list of university classmates, but no home telephone number or address. Her work unit was a military factory for experimental projects deep in the mountains, where living conditions were basic and to which transport was difficult to arrange. I made a long-distance call to the factory, but was told that she had not returned from Beijing. I was asked to confirm that she had left. I agreed to do this, and asked her colleagues to send someone to look for her as well. Over the next couple of weeks, I made enquiries among Jingyi’s university friends for any contact she might have had with them or other friends and family, but found no trace of her. Her work unit called to let me know that she had rung from Beijing to ask for leave, but had not called again to confirm that permission had been granted. I wondered if she could be with her old love Gu Da, but when I called him at a large-scale military factory in Jiangxi in south-west China, he could only ask helplessly, ‘What has happened, where is she?’
For several weeks, Jingyi became the only subject of conversation in my telephone calls to my family. We were all extremely anxious, but there was nothing else we could do. She was lost somewhere in China.
One evening, I took a call from a listener who identified herself as a member of staff at a hotel by Lake Taihu in Wuxi. She told me about a very odd female guest who was staying in the hotel. This guest never left the room and would not allow the cleaner to enter it. The hotel staff knew she was still alive only because she answered the telephone. The woman was worried, and hoped I could help this strange guest.
After the broadcast, I called the hotel and asked the switchboard to put me through to the reclusive woman. She answered the phone promptly, but was plainly unwilling to speak. She asked me how I had found out about her. When I replied that many people at the hotel were concerned about her, she asked me to convey her thanks to them. I was astonished that she was asking someone so far away to thank the people by her side. In my experience, shunning personal communication in this way signalled a loss of faith in life. She said she had not heard my programme and did not have any plans to listen to it.
Our first conversation was brief, but I persisted in calling her every evening after my programme, thinking of the calls as a lifeline. After several conversations, a note of acceptance crept into her voice, and she occasionally asked me about myself rather than just replying coldly to my questions.
Two weeks later, she did not answer when I called. Alarmed, I immediately called the hotel staff to ask them to knock on her door, and was relieved when they told me that she had replied from inside the room. For the next few days she did not take my calls, but I kept to my daily routine to demonstrate my concern.
As chance would have it, I was given an assignment in Wuxi not long after. Even though the subject of my report was to be the lives of Wuxi traffic policemen, I could take the opportunity to visit the woman who had shut herself away from the world.
I told the station head that I would set off for Wuxi as soon as I had finished the evening’s programme. He was puzzled: ‘Have you gone mad? If you dash off late at night you won’t get to Wuxi until the early hours, and there will be no one to meet you.’ Experience had taught me to keep explanation to a minimum.
The driver assigned to me for the trip to Wuxi hated driving in heavy daytime traffic, and was pleased when I asked him to drive me to the hotel by Lake Taihu at night. We arrived at four o’clock in the morning to find the hotel receptionists sleep-dazed and sluggish. The driver, who was impatient by nature, hectored them loudly. ‘Excuse me, please wake up! This is Xinran. She has come straight here by car after finishing her programme at midnight, and has to start her reporting at eight in the morning. Can you please hurry through the formalities?’
‘What, Xinran? Xinran who presents Words on the Night Breeze? I was listening to your programme only a few hours ago.’
‘Yes, that’s her. She’s tired
– help us out!’
‘Are you really Xinran? Yes, yes! I saw your photo in the paper, how wonderful to meet you in person. Ah, I’m going to call my colleagues . . .’ the receptionist said as she made to hurry off.
‘Don’t worry,’ I stopped her hastily. ‘I’ll be staying here for a few days. Please don’t disturb your colleagues’ rest, I really am quite tired.’
‘Oh, sorry, sorry, I’ll open a room with a view of the lake for you right now.’ The receptionist turned to the driver. ‘You’ll get the same treatment, don’t worry about being left out.’
‘Thank you for not taking offence,’ he said.
‘It doesn’t matter, your tongue is sharp but your heart is soft, eh? Anyway, everything goes in one ear and out the other with me.’
As the receptionist walked me to my room, I asked her if she knew about the unusual woman who was staying in the hotel.
‘I’ve heard that there is a lady visitor in Building Four who is rather strange,’ she said. ‘She may have been staying here for several weeks, but I can’t say for sure. Tomorrow, when we have our regular staff meeting and change shifts, I’ll ask the team leader for you.’
‘Thank you, I’m putting you to a lot of trouble.’
‘Oh no, you are the one putting yourself out for so many listeners, but how many of us can thank you in person?’ The Chinese say that the hands of men and the words of women are to be feared, but it seemed I was experiencing the gentler side of this woman’s tongue.
Once in my room, I decided not to sleep immediately but to have a wash and then plan my interviews for the next day. Just as I had undressed, the telephone rang.
‘Hello, is that Xinran? I’m the duty operator on the hotel switchboard. The receptionist in the main building told me you’d just arrived. I’m sorry to disturb you, but I heard you were asking about a particular guest. She rang me this evening, not long after your programme was broadcast, and asked if I’d listened to it. I told her I had, and asked if she needed anything, but she just hung up. I can see her room from the duty room; I’m on the night shift this week and I see her sitting by the window looking out at the lake all night. Perhaps she sleeps during the day?’
‘Sorry, may I interrupt you for a moment? Can I ask if you see her now? Is she still looking out at the lake?’
‘Er . . . I’m just looking. Yes, she’s there . . . I can see her very clearly – she never seems to draw the curtains.’
‘Thank you so much. Can I ask what her room number is?’
‘She’s . . . she’s in room 4209, on the second floor of Building Four.’
‘Thank you, operator. Is there anything I can do for you?’
‘No, nothing . . . Well, would you give me your autograph?’
‘Of course – maybe I’ll find some time to visit you tomorrow, all right?’
‘Really? That would be great. Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye.’ As I was speaking I was getting dressed again, having decided to visit the woman guest immediately, as time was so precious.
Standing before her room door, I suddenly found myself at a loss, and dithered a few minutes before I finally knocked and called out, ‘Hello, it’s Xinran here. I have come here from the other end of our telephone conversation to see you. Please open the door.’
There was no reply, and the door remained firmly shut. I did not knock or speak again but stood waiting, certain that she had heard me in the stillness of the early morning. I was sure that she was standing right behind the door and that we could both sense each other. About ten minutes later, her voice drifted through the door.
‘Xinran, are you still there?’
‘Yes, I’ve been waiting for you to open the door,’ I replied softly but firmly.
The door opened quietly, and an anxious, exhausted-looking woman beckoned me in. The room was neat and tidy and its only sign of occupation was a large travel bag by the wall. I was relieved to see packets of instant noodles in it – at least she was not fasting.
I sat down close to her, but remained silent, thinking that any words would only meet resistance. I would wait for her to talk, but until she was ready to do so, I would try to create a confiding atmosphere. We sat there listening to the gentle lapping of water against the shore, and my thoughts wandered to the lake and its surroundings.
Lake Taihu is the third largest freshwater lake in China, and lies to the south of Jiangsu Province and the north of Zhejiang Province. It is a renowned beauty spot in the Yangtze delta. Around the lake there are landscaped gardens full of pools and streams. Lake Taihu is also well known for the Biluo Spring Tea produced there. Legend goes that a beautiful girl named Biluo watered a sapling with her own blood and brewed tea for her dangerously ill lover from its tender leaves. She did this day after day until the young man finally recovered his health, but Biluo herself then sickened and died.
I mused over this and other tragic love stories to the soft rhythm of lapping water as I sat quietly beside the woman. Though the lamps were still lit, their light was no longer discernible in the dawn. The early-morning light had gradually infused our silence with a new quality.
The telephone broke our communion. The call was for me. It was a quarter to seven, and the driver had to take me to Wuxi for an appointment with the Traffic Police Propaganda Office at 8.30.
I shook the woman’s hand to take leave of her, but did not say much, only ‘Please eat a bit more for me, and have a rest.’
On the road to Wuxi I fell asleep in the back seat of the car. The kind-hearted driver did not disturb me when we arrived at our destination, but parked and went to look for the people from the Wuxi Traffic Police Propaganda Office himself. No one had arrived in the office yet, so I got an hour’s uninterrupted sleep. When I awoke, I found the people I was meant to meet standing outside the car chatting as they waited for me. I was embarrassed, and had no explanation to offer. One of the traffic policemen teased me, ‘Xinran, if you go to sleep wherever you go, you’ll get fat.’
The day unfolded at the hectic pace routine to journalism: I gathered material from several different places, and discussed the content of the report I was doing. Fortunately, quite a bit of time was spent in the car, so I snatched several catnaps.
When I returned to the hotel in the evening, I found on my bed a list of all the hotel employees who wanted my autograph. I put it aside, had a shower and went to visit the woman in room 4209 again. Even if she did not want to speak, I thought that sitting with her would be of some help. She must have been standing behind the door waiting for me, for it opened as soon as I stopped before it.
The woman smiled at me with some effort, but remained silent. Once again, we sat before the window, looking out at the moonlit lake. The surface of the lake was calm, and we kept each other company in the peace of this atmosphere.
At dawn, I signalled to indicate that I had to leave for work, and she shook my hand weakly, but with great feeling. I returned to my room, hurriedly flipped through some preparatory notes I had brought with me and wrote a thank-you note to the switchboard operator. I had fallen into the habit of carrying cards with me to autograph for enthusiastic listeners I met by chance. I signed some of these cards for the hotel employees, and left them with the attendant on my floor.
My short reporting trip fell into a regular pattern: I conducted interviews in Wuxi by day, and spent my nights sitting silently with the woman looking out at Lake Taihu. Our silences seemed to become deeper and more charged with feeling by the day.
On the last evening, I told the woman that I would be leaving the next day, but would call. She said nothing, but smiled wanly and shook my hand weakly. She gave me a photograph that had been torn in half, showing what looked like her as a student in the 1940s. The girl in the photograph bloomed with youth and happiness. On the back of the photograph was part of a sentence in faded ink: ‘water cannot . . .’ Another sentence in darker ink seemed to have been added more recently: ‘Women are like water, men are like mountains.’ I guesse
d that the person in the missing half of the photograph was the cause of the woman’s pain.
I left the hotel by Lake Taihu – but I didn’t feel as if I had left.
Back in Nanjing, I went straight to visit my parents to give them the Wuxi specialities – clay figurines and spare ribs – that I had got for them. As my driver opened the car door for me, he said, ‘Xinran, if you go on another tour like that, don’t come looking for me. I was bored to death in the car: you only wanted to sleep. Thanks to you, I didn’t have a soul to talk to!’
It was late when I arrived and my parents had gone to bed. I decided to slip into the guest room and see them in the morning. My mother called from the bedroom, ‘Was everything all right?’ and my father’s thunderous snores told me all was well with them.
The next day, at the crack of dawn, my father, who was an early riser, woke me with one of his uncontrollable sneezing fits. He did this every morning – I had once counted twenty-four sneezes in a row. Drowsy and exhausted, I went back to sleep, but was soon woken again by loud knocking, and my father calling, ‘Get up, quick, it’s urgent!’
‘What is it? What’s happened?’ I was flustered, for my retired parents’ household was normally serene.
My father was standing outside my bedroom, holding the torn photograph in his hand. I had left it on the sitting-room table the previous night. He asked excitedly, ‘Where did you get this photograph? This is her!’
‘What? What do you mean?’
‘This is Jingyi – that classmate of mine. The one who waited for her lover for forty-five years!’ My father was full of contempt at my slowness.
‘Really? Are you sure it’s the same person? Could it be old age affecting your eyes? It’s been forty-five years, and this is an old photograph.’ I hardly dared believe him.
‘I couldn’t possibly be mistaken. She was the beauty of the class – all the boys liked her and many of them were after her.’