The Kitchen God's Wife

  Along those alleys there were no sidewalks, just rough roads covered with coal dust and spit.

  You might think this should have been the best part of town, since the Japanese had occupied Shanghai for so many years. Certainly there were some good parts. But most of that section had been built long before the war, and I thought it had an awful smell and was dirty and crowded. If you ask my opinion, maybe it was only a little bit better than the Chinese section.

  I don’t know why so many students, writers, and artists liked to live here. Maybe they thought it was romantic—if you had no food, you could eat each other’s ideas. And there were many, many prostitutes, although not the high-class kind who lived in nightclub houses on Nanking Road. These girls were called “roadside wives,” and every few steps, it seemed, I passed one standing in front of a three-stool restaurant, or a wine shop only as wide as a door, or a steep stairway leading to a second-story teahouse.

  And then I came to a street filled with bargain stalls, so many of them, all selling used books, used maps, used magazines—history, romance, poetry, politics.

  “Forbidden stories!” a man called out to me. From underneath his table he brought out a magazine. It had an illustration of a crying young woman being held by the ghost shadow of a man. I stopped to look. They were just like those stories Peanut and I used to read in the greenhouse. And standing in the street, I remembered those stories about girls who disregarded their parents’ advice and then married for love, that sort of thing. And the endings were always sad, with scary morals given at the end: “Lose control, lose your life!” “Fall in love, fall into disgrace!” “Throw away family values, throw your face away!” I remembered the ones that made me cry the most—I used to think they were like my mother’s own life, as sad as a story.

  At that moment, and not until then, did I consider that all these stories were false—only stories. Like Peanut and everyone else, I had imagined an unhappy ending to my mother’s life. Like Peanut, I had allowed myself to be scared by those sad tales. And look what happened. It did not prevent disaster from coming into my life. Just the opposite. And then I thought about it this way: Perhaps my mother’s life was now filled with joy! Perhaps I too could still find the same thing. This was my hope.

  I can honestly tell you, that is exactly what I was thinking. This is why I have always thought that what followed next was not just coincidence. It was a sign that I had finally come to a true thought of my own. Because this is what happened.

  I felt someone tapping my shoulder. I turned around. I did not recognize him at first, this smiling man. “Winnie?” he said. “Do you remember?”

  I thought to myself, That name, Winnie, it sounds familiar. You see, I thought he was saying that was his name. I was struggling to remember.

  And then he said, “I’ve never forgotten the trouble I caused you.”

  What? What was this man talking about?

  And then I recognized his voice, the Chinese-American soldier, Jimmy Louie, the one who had named me Winnie.

  Yes, yes, your father! Just like that, five years later, our past and future bumping into one another on a strange street in Shanghai. Can you imagine? If I had not gone to see Peanut, if I had not stopped to read a silly magazine, if he had not been looking for a newspaper—one minute later, and our lifetimes would have missed each other. I ask you, isn’t that fate meant to be?

  That’s what I said to your father many years later, after we were married. How lucky we were that fate brought us together. But your father did not think it was fate, at least not the Chinese idea of ming yuan.

  “Fate,” he told me, “is somebody else deciding your life for you. Our love was greater than that.” And here he used the American word “destiny,” something that could not be prevented.

  Well, that sounded the same as fate to me. He insisted it was different, an important difference. So I told him, “Maybe you see things in an American way, and I see the same things in a Chinese way. You are saying, ‘Look at the pretty fish in the bowl.’ And I say, ‘Look at the pretty bowl with the fish.’ And it does not matter what words we use. It is the same pretty bowl, the same pretty fish.”

  But your father still insisted, “We loved each other from the moment we met, that’s why our two wills joined together to find each other.”

  After that, I didn’t say anything. How could I tell your father that I did not love him from the moment we met? Not in Kunming, not at that dance. I did not know such an instant feeling existed, so how could I feel it? Of course, after I bumped into him that second time, my love for him happened very, very quickly.

  So maybe we were both right, and it was my fate, and his destiny. But later your father became a minister, and he decided it was God’s will that brought us together. So now I can no longer explain how we found each other. All I can say is this: I was on a small road in Shanghai. Your father was at that same place.

  After we bumped into one another, we stood there making polite conversation for a few minutes. And then Jimmy Louie—I still called him Jimmy Louie in those early days, both names, like the Chinese way—Jimmy Louie asked me to have some tea at a place just across the road, to sit down and rest awhile. I agreed, but only to be polite. Really, I had no intention of starting something.

  We found ourselves sitting in a small upstairs teahouse, a place I thought was very dirty. I saw the waitress take away cups from one table and rinse them in cold dirty water before she filled them with tea and gave them to us. I had to wash those cups twice with hot tea before I would drink any. I did the same with Jimmy Louie’s cup. You see, even back then, I was already worrying about his stomach.

  We drank our tea quietly for a few minutes. And then he asked me about Wen Fu. “Does he still use the name Judas?”

  I laughed, then pretended to scold him. “That was bad, what you did. My husband was very angry with me.”

  “But I was the one who gave him that name, not you.”

  I was too embarrassed to remind him of our dance together, how friends had teased Wen Fu that I had already been conquered by an American. And I could not tell him about the fight Wen Fu and I had afterward, although my face burned with anger just thinking about it. Jimmy Louie must have seen the look on my face, because right away he said, “It was terrible, what I did. I’m sorry.”

  “No, no,” I said. “I am thinking about other matters, how so many years have gone by, how everything has changed, but nothing has become better.” Jimmy Louie knew we should not talk about this further. So instead we talked about other people. I told him about Jiaguo and his new job in Harbin, how Hulan did not yet have a child. He told me that most of his friends in the American air force had been sent north to Peking to help with the Japanese surrender. He was still with the U.S. Information Service, press relations for the American consulate general.

  “A very big job,” I said.

  “Only a big name,” he said. “I read different newspapers every day. I keep an eye on what is reported.” And then he said. “You see, I’m a spy.” Of course, he was only joking! He always liked to tease people, you remember this about your father. I don’t know why Helen still thinks he really was a spy. He wasn’t! Don’t listen to her. If he really was, why would he joke so openly?

  In any case, we had more tea, more and more. Soon I found myself telling him about my uncle’s factory, how poor they now were, how hard my boy cousins now had to work. And Jimmy Louie did not look down on them or pity my family. He had sympathy. He said the war was like a bad illness, and when it was over, it did not mean everyone suddenly became healthy again.

  I told Jimmy Louie about Peanut. I did not say she was a Communist—I only said she was divorced. And Jimmy Louie did not say, “What a bad woman that Peanut is.” He said many marriages could not survive a war.

  So finally I told him about my father, what trouble he was in for cooperating with the Japanese. He said this was a terrible tragedy, that wartime had led people to mistakes they otherwise would n
ot have walked into.

  You see how he was? I felt I could tell him almost anything and find some sort of comfort. For an American, he had a lot of sympathy. And yet I still did not tell him about my marriage, not yet.

  “How about you?” I asked. “Back home, how is your family? Do your wife and children miss you?”

  “No wife, no children,” he said. “No such luck.” And then he brought out a little photograph. It showed four young women sitting in a row, youngest to oldest, wearing modern dresses and hairstyles. They were the daughters of Mrs. Liang, a schoolmate of his aunt’s. And this Mrs. Liang, he told me, said he could pick any one of her daughters for his wife. “Each daughter is educated,” said Jimmy Louie. “Each one plays the piano. Each one can read the Bible in English.”

  “Very attractive, and stylish too,” I said. “So many choices, so hard to decide. Which one are you thinking of marrying?”

  He laughed, then became serious. “You,” he said. “But you are already married.”

  This is true! He said exactly that. He could have chosen any one of those four beautiful girls, all of them innocent and young, none of them married before. But he picked me. Why do you think he did that?

  In any case, at the time, I did not know if he was teasing or truly being sincere. My face was red. And because I could not look at him, I looked at my watch instead.

  “Oyo!” I said. “If I go see Peanut now, I will have to leave as soon as I arrive.”

  “Better come back tomorrow to see her,” suggested Jimmy Louie.

  “There’s no other way,” I agreed.

  “Tomorrow, then, I will meet you at the bookshop across the street and walk with you, to make sure you are safe,” he said.

  “No, no, too much trouble,” I said.

  “No trouble. I come here every day for the newspapers.”

  “Every day?”

  “This is my job.”

  “I was thinking I might come at ten-thirty. Perhaps that is too early for you.”

  “I will be here even earlier, in case you are early too.” And as we both stood up and walked down the stairs, I saw what he did. He left the photograph of four beautiful girls on the table.

  The next morning I woke up very early, happy and excited. I was thinking about my life, that it was about to change. I did not know exactly how this would happen, but I was certain that it would.

  But all these thoughts soon disappeared. Danru’s screams rang through the house, and a servant brought him to me, reporting how he had fallen and bumped his head down a whole flight of stairs. While I was comforting my son, San Ma came crying to me, telling me that my father had woken up with a fever and a confused mind.

  So I rushed to my father’s room. A few minutes later, the cook came running in, declaring she was leaving for good, she would not tolerate any more of Wen Tai-tai’s insults to her cooking. And from where I stood, I could hear Wen Fu shouting at the top of his voice and then the sound of something breaking on the floor. I went downstairs and saw the breakfast dishes scattered everywhere, noodles spilled all over the chairs.

  I wanted to cry. My life would never change, it seemed to me. I was forever worrying over other people’s problems, with no time to take care of my own. And I was sure all these small disasters were a sign that I would not be able to leave the house that day.

  But life is so strange, the way it can fool you into thinking one way, then another. Because as soon as I gave up my plans for the day, my chance came back again. When I went upstairs to nurse my father, he was reading a newspaper and was irritated only that I had disturbed him. “He must have been fighting with himself in a bad dream,” said San Ma.

  When I went back downstairs, Wen Fu had already left for the horse racetrack. And the cook who was mad? She had already cleaned up the mess and had gone to the market to buy food for our evening meal. Little Danru shouted to me from his bed that he wanted to get up. He had forgotten his bump and was now remembering that Wen Fu’s mother had promised that today he could go visit a family friend who had a little grandson just his age.

  Finally I could leave the house! But I saw it was too late to change my life, almost eleven o’clock already. I tried to keep all my thoughts on seeing Peanut, what a happy reunion this would be. I was carrying the little package Old Aunt had asked me to bring. To that I had added five pairs of imported stockings. How happy Peanut would be to see this.

  But of course, my mind kept turning to that little bookshop across from the teahouse. I pictured Jimmy Louie browsing through books, impatiently looking at his watch. I thought about hiring a taxi. And then I imagined Jimmy Louie looking at his watch once again, then leaving the store. I decided not to hurry myself to what would surely be an empty disappointment. So I pushed my hopes down and waited for the bus.

  When I arrived at San Ying Road, it was already almost noon.

  I had to force myself to walk slowly, calmly. And as I drew close to that bookshop, I had to force myself not to look. Keep walking, keep walking.

  I could not breathe. I told myself, Don’t fool yourself. He isn’t there. Keep walking.

  I did not allow myself to look to the side. My eyes faced the center of the road. Don’t look. Keep walking.

  I passed the bookshop. I didn’t look. I kept walking, until I was one block away. I stopped. I let out a big sigh. And I had a little ache in my heart and realized I had let some hope leak out of there. And then I sighed again, this one very sad. And another sigh followed, one of relief, only it did not come from me. I turned around.

  To see his face! The joy on his face!

  We said no words. He took my hands and held them firmly. And we both stood in the road, our eyes wet with happiness, knowing without speaking that we both felt the same way.

  And now I have to stop. Because every time I remember this, I have to cry a little by myself. I don’t know why something that made me so happy then feels so sad now. Maybe that is the way it is with the best memories.

  21

  LITTLE YU’S MOTHER

  Peanut’s place was just a short distance away. So during that brief walk, we had enough time to say only a few things.

  “Why did you wait?” I asked. “I was so late.”

  “I thought it must have been your shoes,” he said. “I was guessing you broke your shoes the same way you did at the dance in Kunming.”

  I laughed, and so did Jimmy. Then he became serious. “I have always loved you since that day, the way you could do anything, dance with broken shoes or in your bare feet. Fragile-looking, yet strong and brave, the kind of person nothing could stop.”

  This is true, your father said that. He thought I was a strong person. I had never thought about myself that way. I don’t know why he believed that. The rest of his life he believed that about me. Isn’t that strange?

  Anyway, I told Jimmy Louie how much I had suffered in my marriage, how I had tried to leave Wen Fu during the war but could not because of Danru.

  “But now I’m going to ask my cousin what she did,” I said. “I’m going to get a divorce too.”

  And Jimmy Louie said, “You see how strong you are?”

  I said, “This is not being strong. I have no more strength to fight him. Sometimes I don’t know how I can live another day with him.”

  And Jimmy Louie said, “This is your strength.” And then we were in front of Peanut’s place, a rooming house. Jimmy Louie said he would wait at the bookshop.

  “I may be gone a very long time,” I said.

  “Two, three, four hours, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “I will wait. I have already waited almost five years.”

  You see how romantic he was? It was hard to leave him there when I had just found him.

  I walked into a small common kitchen. On the floor were two little babies. I asked the woman frying her noontime meal if Jiang Huazheng lived in the house. “Anh?” she shouted. “Who do you want?” I stepped closer to her frying pan and shouted above the hissing oil. She smiled, wiped a
nother stain onto her dress, took my elbow, and pointed me toward the stairs. “Up there, little sister. Third floor, room number two. Better knock, she already has a visitor.” She went back to her cooking, laughing to herself. “So many visitors!”

  I walked up those dark stairs, and with each step I took, I became more and more worried, wondering what I would find at the top. What if Peanut had become one of those roadside wives? Wasn’t this what happened to women who lost their husbands and their families? How else could a woman support herself when she had no husband, no family?

  I stood outside the door of room number two. I could hear a voice, a man’s voice, it seemed to me. And then I heard a woman’s voice, and this one sounded like Peanut, the same impatient tone, ending in a complaint. I knocked and the voices stopped.

  “Who’s there?” Peanut called out in a rough way.

  “Jiang Weili!” I shouted back. “Your Jiang cousin!”

  And before I could say anything else, the door flew open and Peanut pulled me inside the room, slammed the door. She was pulling my hair, pinching my cheek, shouting, “Look at you! Finally you’ve come! Why did you wait so long?”

  She looked the same. That was my first thought. The same pouting smile, the same mischievous eyes. I was relieved.

  But my second thought was that she looked entirely different, someone I would have passed on the street without recognizing. Her hair was cut short, parted no particular way. She wore a plain buttoned jacket of poor quality, and so shapeless I could not tell if she had grown fat or thin. And her face—there was no white powder on it—just her plain skin. You should have seen her. Here was a girl who used to pride herself on the paleness of her skin. And now she was almost as dark as a Cantonese!

  “Hey! Meet my friend Wu,” she said, and spun me around. I saw a young man with round glasses, with very thick black hair, swept back. He held a paintbrush in his hand. Large sheets of paper covered the room—scattered on the floor, dangling from the chair, lying across her small bed. They were all about the same thing, a student meeting of some kind, protests about the new land reforms. So it must be true. Peanut was a Communist.