All the Flowers in Shanghai (28 page)

I looked again at the buildings across the road, built after the Japanese had burned the previous ones with the occupants inside. These new buildings changed the landscape; they were Western without Westerners. The end of the war had seen the end of the restrictions commanding Chinese one way, Westerners the other. A few days ago I had walked the Bund with Lu Meng; it was the first time we had been there together, though it had been open for some time. I closed the window and went down to the laundry courtyard as my son had asked me.

When I arrived I found Lu Meng in the middle of the courtyard with his
gong fu
master standing silently behind him. He was talking to seven or eight of his cousins. Some of these boys had fought with him and teased him before now. He looked up and saw me leaning against one of the columns, smiled at me then moved awkwardly but quickly around and took each cousin by the shoulder to move them into regimental formation. Then he took the front and center position and started to show them stances and basic techniques. He called to them by name, encouraging them to learn the maneuver as Grandfather had once called out the names of flowers to me. Across the yard I saw Xiong Fa arrive quietly and watch his son lead by example.

I walked around to join my husband.

“Are you well?” I asked him.

He had suffered during the war; he’d had to use the family’s reserves of wealth to pay off the Japanese, and had been badly beaten by the occupying forces on several occasions. He was only in his late forties but moved like an old man when he was very tired and it was cold. We had not been intimate together for many years but he never took a second wife despite his father’s wishes. Once I was strong enough, I nursed Lu Meng myself and did not want Xiong Fa in my bed. It did not seem right that Xiong Fa be in my bed when I had been nursing Lu Meng moments before. After some months Xiong Fa stopped requesting that he visit me and eventually he started visiting some of the young maids instead. He would go to their rooms, and occasionally he would take one of them out after we had our dinner, going to small unknown places deep in the city. I had seen him entering the servants’ quarters late at night or silently leaving the house in his car from the back door. He would dress them in Western-style clothes and pretend for a few hours, but he respected my status and never flaunted what he did before the other members of the family or his friends. Our time was spent eating together at dinner, short conversations when we met in the house, or attending parties with friends.

“I am well, thank you. This is good to see, our son is turning into a fine young boy.” He paused, looking from me to Lu Meng and back. “I hope I live to see him grow up,” he said in a joking tone.

“You survived the Japanese . . . can it be worse in the future?” I joked back, and laughed a little.

“I hope you’re right,” he said slowly.

“How is the family business?”

“It’s much better than before. The country is in chaos still but there are new opportunities from this. We’ve good contacts . . . those who survived anyway.” He fell silent and I knew he had finished talking and had withdrawn from me again, as I had withdrawn from him after Lu Meng had been born.

We stood together, watching our son swaying on his damaged foot, but still with the spirit and intelligence to show the way.

Xiong Fa and I rarely stood this close together and, looking at his thick neck, jowls, and hands, my mind drifted back to the things we had done and witnessed during the last fifteen years. Our traditional way of life had been wiped away by war, and still there was no real promise of its being restored—just looming uncertainty as to where the huge population of this country would direct itself. I noticed that the collars of my husband’s shirt and suit were worn. It was obvious he had quietly made sacrifices for us.

“You should take care of yourself so that you live to see your grandchildren,” I whispered to him.

He turned to me then. He looked tired, his eyes gray and watery, like the sea in winter.

“Yes, I hope I will,” he whispered back, “but our son is already something to see.”

“I thought you were going to give him away and take a second wife,” I said suddenly.

My husband looked surprised, examining my face, then turned back to look at Lu Meng busily teaching the others.

“No, that thought never occurred to me, only to Father.” He turned back to me quickly and our faces were brought close together. “I never liked any of it. I remember standing here, looking at your bedsheets with my mother, just after we had been married, arguing about when to start trying for a child. You were so young . . . but it was tradition. What did I know? In the end I did what I was told.” His face twisted and he stopped himself from continuing for a moment. “What’s the point? I should go back to work. Make sure our son gets a good supper before he goes to bed, so he becomes big and strong.”

“Like you,” I shouted after him.

“You forget, I was beaten by a young girl,” he said, without looking back at me, and continued walking into the house.

I watched the martial arts until they finished then clapped and asked Yan to take Lu Meng and all the other children to the kitchen for supper.

Chapter 19

L
u Meng did grow as Xiong Fa had hoped and became more like his father, but while he was confident enough with the other children, he still preferred his own company. He spent much of his time with Lao Tung in the gardens and so began his love of plants and animals. By the age of fifteen Lu Meng had become tall and muscular, not as broad as his father and with a face that was more sculpted, like my own Ba’s. His fingers remained delicate as fine scientific instruments, and perhaps sometimes I thought it was a shame they spent most of their time digging around in soil. On his thirteenth birthday, Xiong Fa had moved our son into an apartment of his own next to mine.

Every night, before he went to bed, I would hear my son reciting names in that ancient language I had not heard from anyone else since I was seventeen. I would open my window and standing next to my flower I would whisper to it under my breath
,
as if it were Grandfather, telling him to listen to Lu Meng. I looked out into the night and listened to Lu Meng sounding out the awkward words over and over again. His pronunciation was very bad as he’d had no one to teach him like I had.

I went into his room one night and found him sitting by the open window with two candles, looking at a book I didn’t recognize.

“Are you really going to learn all those names?” I asked him.

“Yes, I have to if I want to study in Europe.”

“You want to study in Europe? Do you know Europe . . . have you been to Europe?” I was teasing him.

He smiled. “You know I haven’t, Ma. Don’t make fun.” Then he cocked his head to his right shoulder as he did when he was thinking. “But I must learn these names to stand a chance. Right?”

“Would you like my help?” I asked him.

“Now, Ma, you’re acting foolish,” he said with a wide smile.

“That is rather rude. How do you know that I can’t help you?” I kept on.

I went over to him then and took the book. I could not read the language but I recognized many of the pictures.

“This one is a photograph of
Gardenia augusta.
And this one is
Anemone coronaria . . .
and here is
Rosa bracteata
,” I said to him. Lu Meng was very surprised. “Where did you get this book from?” I asked.

“Ba bought me it, and my other books.” He stood up and went to his desk, opening a drawer to show me several books on plants and botany. Some were written in Chinese and others were in Western languages. “He told me you knew the names of plants, though I didn’t believe it. He said you used to go to some gardens with your grandfather?”

“Yes, I did,” I said, remembering.

I sat down and looked around my son’s room. He had collected lots of books on various subjects and had cut out many pictures of plants and landscapes from old Western books, which were left for street vendors when the foreigners departed, and pinned them to his wall. Then I noticed he also had the battered toy train. I got up and went to pick it up, surprised to see this old friend. It was the same one, with the dent at the front and the hand-painted repairs.

“When did you get this?” I asked him, picking it up and clutching it to me as if it were my own long-lost toy.

“Ba would let me play with it when I visited him. He would tell me not to let anyone else know, even you. He said that Grandfather Sang didn’t like toys and that children should grow up quickly. Did he really say that?” My son finished with a question that could lead him to a thousand unhappy discoveries.

“I don’t know if he said that, but he wasn’t the sort of person who liked toys,” I replied truthfully.

I put the train down and then went across the room and moved a chair so I could sit down opposite him. We started from the beginning but it took half an hour for me to teach him five names and by then we were both exhausted.

“Will you promise to teach me five names every night? And more than that when I start to learn better?” my son demanded.

“Yes.” I was only too glad to help him. It seemed the perfect end to any day.

Yan came into the room then, followed by the new servant girl who had been assigned to Lu Meng. She looked pretty, quite tall with lustrous black hair and broad shoulders and hips. I was worried for Lu Meng, though. He had yet to meet many girls as he was more self-conscious than most and would be rather shy with them.

“Mistress and Master Lu Meng, this is Yu. Master, she’ll be your servant for the moment. She is new and is learning to serve.” Yan smiled at me, which meant that the young girl was quite hopeless. “She’ll attend to your laundry, make your bed, and bring you food.”

“Thank you, Yan, I am grateful,” Lu Meng replied politely. “Hello, Yu. Where are you from?”

Her speech was rough and the words twisted clumsily in her mouth before they came out.

“I’m from a village called Meishi, near Zhengzhou in Henan. It is very far from here.”

“You are from the old capital. What is it like there?” he continued.

She looked confused.

“Master, I’m going to show Yu where she will sleep and her other duties so perhaps you can finish the conversation in the morning?” Yan suggested.

“Yes, yes. I’ll speak to you in the morning.” Lu Meng stood up and smiled at her. She noticed his foot and stared openly, then blushed and turned her face away.

“It is fine to stare. I have had this since I was born.” He walked over to her and pulled up his trouser leg. “You see? My foot is not whole, something is missing.”

“Does it hurt?” the maid asked.

“Only a little, when it is cold or when I train in
gong fu
a lot.”

“My father knew
gong fu
fighters, they were very brave,” she said shyly.

This girl seemed simple and innocent.

“Time to go,” Yan interrupted and put her hand on Yu’s shoulder, turning her toward the door. Lu Meng watched her leave.

“Ma, my servant girl seems nice. What do you think?”

I now laughed at his innocence. “My dear son, I think she is very sweet-looking, but you need to be careful with servant girls as they often come from the countryside with little experience of our city ways. Also . . .” I smiled at him, “ . . . some of these girls are out to snare a young boy from a big family, though I’m sure Yu will be a good girl.”

“I never thought of those things. She didn’t seem very troublesome to me,” he replied, sounding rather uncertain.

“That is how they are supposed to seem.” I laughed then and wanted to change the subject. “So tomorrow we’ll continue learning the names?”

“Yes.”

“I will leave you to sleep now.” I got up and left him reading his book.

You know how pretty this girl was. She was like fresh water from a spring and her voice was soft as petals falling. Deep in my memory I knew that face; it was the face my grandfather had also seen. He would have recognized it immediately. At that time you could not see her; those who are so innocent cannot see such things, they only know what they can feel and touch. As you read these words, do you remember her? I sit here and hope that you can think of her and imagine her. If we should ever see each other again, you will find me weeping for the girl I stole from you.

Y
an woke me early at around ten o’clock in the morning.

“Mistress, Madam Ming has come to have tea with you.”

“Really?” I sat up in bed and Yan passed me my robe. I stood up, put on my slippers, and went over to the mirror. Yan followed me and started to brush my hair. “I think I’ll do this, you go and tell Madam Ming that she should go to Xiong Fa’s living room. And please can you bring us some tea?” I instructed.

Yan scuttled out of the room and I quickly brushed my hair and put on some rouge. Yu was sitting outside Lu Meng’s door and smiled at me as I walked past her to Xiong Fa’s apartment. I entered the room to find Ming sitting in one of the armchairs, still wearing her coat and white gloves. Her hair had been put up and she wore a Western-style hat with a small veil.

“I don’t want to stay too long,” she began hurriedly, “I need to get on . . .”

“Why did you come then?” I replied, and sat down opposite her.

She laughed.

“That is just like you! I’m glad we became friends, I . . .” she started to say something further but then faltered into silence for a moment. “It has been fun,” she resumed, “over the years you have made my life a joy. You’ve made a difference . . .”

“Me? Have I? What did I do? I barely know anything,” I replied quizzically, and pulled the robe around me a little tighter.

“You weren’t afraid,” she replied instantly. “You were always your own person. And now look at you.” She faltered again. “I need to tell you something . . .”

She suddenly looked very sad.

“What is it?” I asked urgently for today she seemed very different and I was now growing worried.

“We are leaving. We have decided to move to America,” she said reluctantly, giving me a tremulous smile as the last words came out of her mouth.