Gold Boy, Emerald Girl (18 page)

“Thanks, aunties,” Dao finally said, and Mrs. Mo thought that despite his vagueness, he respected their ages and addressed them properly; such old-fashioned manners were less common in his generation. “My problem is, I don’t know where to start.”

“Start with your wife,” Mrs. Lu said. “Does she still live with you or has she left for someone else?” The man thought about the question for an excruciatingly long time. Mrs. Tang, already losing patience, picked peanuts from the plate and lined them up in front of her in formations.

“There must have been something in your mind that we could do for you when you called us,” Mrs. Mo ventured.

“We specialize in marriage crises, as you may or may not know,” Mrs. Cheng said. “And trust me, we’ve seen all sorts of marriage problems in our business.”

“And we keep secrets well,” Mrs. Guan added, and sent away the girls from the shop who had come in with newly boiled water. “There are things we can do better than younger people. You’ve seen the documentary. We’re successful for good reasons.”

“Look at it this way, young man,” Mrs. Cheng said with a grin. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-four.”

“In the old days I would be your grandmother’s age,” Mrs. Cheng said. It had been a lifelong regret of hers that she had married late—she had been dazzled by all the possibilities and had forgotten that time acted against a woman. At seventy-two, all she wanted was to see a grandchild, though neither of her two sons was in a hurry to marry and produce a baby for her to dote on; in the old days women her age would be holding a great-grandchild by now. “Look at it this way. You can tell us your problem as you would tell your grandmother. We’ve seen so much that nothing surprises us.”

Dao nodded in gratitude. He opened his mouth but a deep sigh came before the words. “My wife, she still lives in our house,” he said.

“A positive sign, no? Do you have children? Still share a bed?” Mrs. Cheng said. “Well, don’t let me interrupt you. Go on, go on.”

Mrs. Lu and Mrs. Guan exchanged a smile, but they did not stop Mrs. Cheng. The same words would have come out wrong from a different mouth, yet Mrs. Cheng, the most harmlessly nosy person one could meet in life, seemed to have a talent for turning even the most offensive question into an invitation.

“We have a son,” the man said. “He just turned one.”

“How is the
bedroom business
with your wife since your son’s birth?” Mrs. Cheng said.

“Sometimes she says she is tired when I ask, but once in a while it is good.”

Men were creatures ignorant of women’s pains, Mrs. Fan thought. In her mind she was ready to dismiss the case as an inconsiderate husband unable to share a new mother’s burden and casting unfounded blame on her. Mrs. Fan’s husband had complained about her lack of enthusiasm in
bedroom business
after the births of both children, and she wondered why she had never seen through his coldhearted selfishness back then.

“Sometimes it takes a while for the new mother to return to her old self,” Mrs. Mo said.

“But isn’t a year too long?” Mrs. Tang asked. “Young women these days are pampered and way too delicate, if you ask my opinion. I don’t know about you, but I served as a good wife once my baby was a month old.”

“Let’s not distract our guest here with an irrelevant discussion,” Mrs. Guan said. “Please forgive us, young man. You must have heard that three women are enough to make a theater troupe, and among us we have two troupes. But don’t let us distract you.”

Dao looked from one woman to the other and returned to his study of the tablecloth. He seemed unable to grasp what had been said to him, and the thought occurred simultaneously to several of the six women that perhaps he had a problem with his brain, but before anyone said a word, he looked up again, this time with a tear-streaked face. He did not mean to be rude or waste their precious time, he said, but his problem was more than unsuccessful bedroom business between husband and wife—there was another man between him and his wife, and he did not know what to do about the situation.

“So you know the man?” Mrs. Cheng asked. It came as a pang of disappointment that there might not be any puzzle for her to solve.

“My father,” Dao said. “He’s lived with us for two years now.”

“Your father?” the women exclaimed at the same time, all sitting up and leaning forward.

“You mean, your father and your wife?” Mrs. Tang said. “If your claim is baseless I’m ready to spank you.”

“Let him finish,” Mrs. Guan said.

Dao looked down at his hands folded on the tablecloth and said it was only a feeling. The reason that he had come to them, he said, was to ask the women’s help to determine if his wife and his father had in fact maintained an improper relationship. “Your father, how old is he?” Mrs. Tang said.

“And why do you suspect him and your wife of having an improper relationship?” Mrs. Cheng said.

“Do you have siblings?” Mrs. Lu said. “Where’s your mother?”

Dao winced at each question. Mrs. Mo sighed and with a gesture she begged her friends to keep quiet, even though her own hands shook from excitement as she poured a new cup of tea for Dao and told him to take his time.

The story came out haltingly: The man had been born the youngest of five siblings, the only boy of the family. His parents had been the traditional husband and wife of the older generation, he the king of the household, governing his wife and children with unquestionable authority, she serving him wholeheartedly. The four older sisters were married off when they reached marriageable ages, three to men picked out by the father, but the youngest sister, a few years older than the little brother, chose her own husband against the father’s will. She became an outcast in all family affairs, a punishment from their father and a precaution from the rest of the family, as they would not risk the father’s anger to remain in touch with the estranged sister. A few years ago, the mother was diagnosed with liver cancer. By then Dao was over thirty, and shy as he was, he had not had a date. The mother, in her sickbed, begged the father to help their son secure a bride so that she could take a look at her future daughter-in-law before she exited the world. An arrangement was made and Dao was introduced to his wife, a pretty woman, though not a virgin, as she had been widowed once, leaving her only son for her in-laws to raise.

“Did your father know your wife before you met her?” Mrs. Cheng said, thinking fast and sensing shadiness in the arrangements. What kind of father would foist a secondhand woman on his own son as a wife?

Dao said that he did not know. He had been nervous when he was introduced to his wife, and in any case, he had not thought to question the woman and his father back then.

“Did you love her when you married her?” Mrs. Cheng said.

Dao said that he supposed he loved her, or else he would not have agreed to marry her. Mrs. Tang thought he sounded uncertain. What a despicable thing for a man to be so passive.

Dao continued, calmer now, as if he had got over the initial shock of hearing his own voice. The six friends listened, all bursting with questions they tried hard to hold back so the easily intimidated man would not drown in their curiosity. Life after the wedding had been quiet and eventless, he continued, until six months later his mother had passed away, and as was common practice, Dao and his wife, the newlyweds, invited his father to come and live with them; Dao was the only son and it was a son’s duty to support his father, even though at sixty his father was still strong and healthy as a bull. For more than a year now Dao had been plagued by the fear that his father had cuckolded him. Such a thought he could not share with his sisters, and the birth of the baby, a boy who looked just as Dao had looked as a bald baby, did not release him from the grip of suspicion.

“You mean the baby could be your half brother?” Mrs. Lu said.

Had he known the answer, Dao replied, he would not have approached the six friends. There was little evidence, but his wife worked odd shifts as a nurse, and there were always stretches of time when she and his father were at home together without him.

“But that doesn’t mean they would cuckold you,” Mrs. Cheng said.

It was a nagging fear, Dao said apologetically, and hung his head low.

“How does she treat you?” Mrs. Fan asked.

His wife treated him like a good wife should, Dao said. She cooked good meals, cleaned the house, and did not ask for expensive clothes. She put her earnings into their joint account and let him control the finances of the household. What else could a man expect from a wife? Dao asked unconvincingly.

Mrs. Cheng cleared her throat. “Back to my original question,” she said, deciding by now that Dao must have some hidden illness he was too ashamed to share. “How is your bedroom business? Do you satisfy each other?”

Dao blushed and mumbled a yes. Mrs. Mo looked at him with sympathy and poured fresh tea to distract him from his embarrassment. The world was intolerant of men with sensitive hearts, but how many people would bother to look deeper into their souls, lonely for unspeakable reasons? Her own husband, dead for twenty years now, had been nicknamed “Soft Yam” by his colleagues; he was the first to be bullied and ridiculed, and had been taken advantage of in promotions. When she married him, her family and friends thought her crazy; she was an attractive girl, with better options than the man she chose for herself. He was a kind man, was the reason she had given, but it was his sadness that moved her. She had made herself an ally to his parents when she courted him, and had thought herself capable of liberating him from the sadness she could not understand. Such an innocent criminal she had made herself into, she thought, when she discovered his love affair of two decades with another man. She had always assumed that the traffic accident at the railroad crossing was a cover for a long-planned suicide, but their only daughter, then eight, adored her father, and Mrs. Mo had taken it upon herself to uphold the image of the idol in her daughter’s heart and to reject all offers for another marriage. People admired her virtue and loyalty, but people were easily deceived by all kinds of facades.

“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Tang said. “You do all right in bed and she treats you well. Then why do you suspect her of anything? If I were you, I would be celebrating my good fortune to have found such a wife.”

“And why on earth your father?” Mrs. Cheng added. “Just because the baby looks like your father’s grandson?”

“Let’s not interfere with our own opinions,” Mrs. Guan said, trying to save Dao from further embarrassment. Mrs. Guan was finding some of her companions annoying today, their attitude unbusinesslike, but on second thought, these women had always been like this and she had enjoyed them well enough. Perhaps she was the one running out of patience. Mr. and Mrs. Guan were well maintained by their pensions from their civil servants’ jobs and an annual remittance from their son in America. Still, they were witnessing a historic economic boom in the country, and it hurt Mrs. Guan not to be part of it. She had previously sold cosmetics and tonics to neighbors and friends, and perhaps it was time to invent another business now.

“But we need to understand his situation,” Mrs. Cheng said. “I, for one, don’t see a problem unless the young man here is hiding something from us.”

It was how his father had changed, Dao said. A tyrant all his life, the older man had handed over his rule to his daughter-in-law ever since he had moved in with them. And how happy she was, Dao added. There was little reason for her, a widow who had given up her son to be remarried to a shy and quiet man, to be contented. They never behaved improperly in front of him, but he felt there was a secret from which he was excluded. “Like they built a house within my house, and they live in it,” Dao said, shamelessly weeping now. What sadness, Mrs. Mo thought, and wondered if Dao would ever be able to reclaim his life. It had taken her years, but it might be different for him. Men were less resilient than women, and in any case, some sons never escaped their fathers’ shadows.

“Aunties, I saw your program. You’re all experienced with men and women. Could you go meet them and find out for me?”

“But how?” Mrs. Cheng said. “It’s different from locating a mistress. Shall we move into your house and make a nest for ourselves underneath your father’s bed? Would you divorce your wife? Would you give up the baby to your father? Tell me, young man, what would you do if everything is true as you imagine?”

As if Dao had never thought about that possibility, he looked down at his hands in agony and did not reply.

“You want us to find out for you that they’re innocent so you can live in peace, no?” Mrs. Lu said. “Let me tell you,
If you suspect a ghost is sitting next to your pillow, the ghost will always be there; if you imagine a god, a god will look after you from above
.”

The vehemence of Mrs. Lu’s words shocked not only Dao but also the five women. Mrs. Lu bit the inside of her cheek and told herself to shut up. Peace came from within, she often said to herself, and she had taken up the detective work with her friends in the hope that by saving other people’s marriages she would finally dispel the phantom of a long-dead girl, but such hope had turned out to be in vain. She had done nothing wrong in reporting the girl, Mrs. Lu repeatedly reminded herself over the years—she had found the girl naked in bed with a male classmate and both had been expelled from the university by the end of the week. The girl sneaked into the dorm building a month later, when Mrs. Lu was busy with the mail, and jumped from the top floor. The thud, ten years later, still made Mrs. Lu shiver at night.

“Mrs. Lu here has a point,” Mrs. Fan said. “We could work for you but you have to make up your mind first. What we find out could make you more miserable than you are now, you see?”

Dao looked down at his hands, folding and unfolding them on the table. “I wouldn’t do anything,” he said finally. “There’s nothing for me to do. After all, he’s my father. All I want to know is if they’ve cheated on me.”

Such a spineless man, Mrs. Tang thought. Her husband would have picked up an ax and demanded the truth from the wife and the father instead of crying to some strangers. Her husband had always been the quickest to react, and how unfair that he, the most virile among his friends, was the first to be defeated by age.