Mulberry and Peach (16 page)

‘I'm pregnant.'

She suddenly turns over and takes my hand. ‘Mulberry, you're pregnant? Then I won't worry about it anymore. I don't care about money or position, all I want is a big bunch of children around me. No, no, enough children to fill the whole main hall, each holding a flower flame - a long line of burning flames like a huge fire dragon.'

‘That day will come for you. I want a lot of children.'

She presses my hand and laughs.

‘. . . Fox fur ... The People's . . . Communists . . .' The refugee students are discussing something in the courtyard.

‘Mulberry, don't go out there, it's dangerous.'

There are footsteps in the main hall.

‘Chia-kang?'

‘He went to the barber shop on the alley to get his hair cut,' I lie. I don't want her to know that he is at the People's Court.

‘Someone's coming. He has come back already.'

Hsing-hsing comes into the room. ‘Auntie, I came especially to tell you something, to prepare you for it. I saw it with my own eyes, on Wang-fu-ching Boulevard. The Nationalist slogans that used to be there are now all changed to Communist slogans. They were making a well-dressed woman in a fox fur coat crawl on the ground. A group of students surrounded her singing the Rice Sprout Song and taunting her, saying, “People in New China don't wear fur coats, only animals wear fur coats.” Auntie, I know you have a lot of furs. By all means, don't wear them. The students in the courtyard are saying that they won't let anyone wear a fur coat in this courtyard.'

‘I sold some of my furs. The rest I gave away. The only thing I have left is my fox fur jacket. It's hanging over there by the bed. When I get up I always put it on. Hsing-hsing, what should I do with it?'

‘If you try to give it away now, no one would want it.'

Chia-kang comes into the room. Hsing-hsing repeats the story again and imitates the woman in the fox fur coat crawling on the ground.

Chia-kang throws the fur jacket on the floor and stamps on it. ‘What kind of world is this anyway? If I knew things would turn out like this, I would have gone South even if I had to be a beggar.'

Hsing-hsing laughs, ‘Second Master Shen, the South is about to fall, too. The executive government has already moved from Nanking to Canton. The Nationalist representatives are at the peace talks: Shao Li-tzu, Chang Shih-chao and three others have already arrived in Peking.'

‘Hsing-hsing,' Chia-kang stares at her. ‘How do you know so much about what's going on outside? Are you . . .'

‘Chia-kang, I'm not a Communist,' Hsing-hsing says, staring back, curling her lip in a smile. ‘I couldn't be one even if I wanted to. I wasn't born in the right class. But the world is changing and we have to learn things all over again, learn how to be new, different people or else we can't go on living. The Peking Military Control Committee of the People's Liberation Army has already been established. All sorts of discussion groups have been set up, too. There are discussion groups, demonstrations, speeches every day. Yesterday two hundred thousand people held a meeting at the Gate of Heavenly Peace. Now everybody is busy: workers, students, peasants, merchants. And here you are, Second Master Shen, still at home clutching an old fur jacket and you are not able to decide what to do with it!'

‘Throw it in the outhouse!' Chia-kang picks up the fur jacket, signals to me, and heads for the door.

I follow him into the main hall.

‘From now on, you've got to be careful about Hsing-hsing,' he says in a low voice as he caresses the fox fur. ‘Maybe she's a spy for the Communists.'

‘What happened at the People's Court?'

‘Amah Ch'ien's son sued us saying we exploited her and tormented her to death. He wants half of the house as well as the expenses for her burial.'

‘What did the court decide?'

‘The house belongs to the people. It's not the Shen's nor the Ch'ien's. We'll have to give him more money to settle it. One of these days, we're going to get kicked out of here. You stay inside and don't go out. Those students are getting pushy.'

Chia-kang wraps the jacket up. When it's dark, he takes the package and steals past the students dancing the Rice Sprout Dance in the courtyard.

When he returns, Hsing-hsing is laughing as she tells us about her grandfather and Joy. Joy's belly is swelling. The old man had his fortune told: Joy will certainly have an outstanding son. The old man was delighted and strutted around joyfully. ‘Marriage at sixty, a grand birthday celebration at eighty. There are twenty good years left to enjoy.'

After Hsing-hsing leaves, the old lady calls Chia-kang to the
k‘ang
. She faces the wall and says listlessly, ‘Chia-kang, remember this: no matter what happens, the Shen family line must not be broken. Mulberry is pregnant. You two must get away to the South.'

 

It's spring. A narrow coffin is carried out of the courtyard. Chia-kang and I aren't dressed in mourning. We bury the old lady outside the City Gate in the paupers' graveyard, the Muddy Hole.

 

Chia-kang and I take a train for the South.

Peking. Tientsin. Ching-hai. Ch‘ing County. Ts'ang County. Tung-kuang. Te County. P‘ing-yüan. Yü-ch'eng. Chi-nan. Chang-ch'iu. Ch'ing-chou. Chu-liu-tien.

Everyone has to get off at each stop where we are inspected by Communist guards. It's always the same routine. The same questions. The same answers. Each person walks forward, gives the Eighth Army guard his travel pass, shows him his empty hands and turns around. What's your name? Where were you born? Where are you going? Why are you going there? What do you do? All those questions.

Chia-kang and I pretend not to know each other. He's a cloth seller from Shantung. I'm from Hsu-chou; I sell fritters of twisted dough. We sit in two separate sections of the freight train.

The Peking-Tientsin railroad already has their passenger trains running. Between Tientsin and P'u-chou, there are only freight trains. I left my wedding ring and the broken jade griffin in Peking.

 

We come to another station. Wei County is the last stop in the Communist-controlled area. Beyond Wei County is no man's land; the trains can't connect the two sides. Beyond the no-man's land lies Nationalist-held Ch'ing-tao.

Twelve men and women have been travelling in the same car since Tientsin. Now each of us picks up his own luggage and walks to the Inn. There's a sign in big black characters on the mud wall at the Inn:

The twelve of us, strangers, sleep on a large communal
k'ang
. I lie next to the wall, beside Chia-kang. We are silent, all twelve of us. I haven't said a word for six days. Now I have to say something. I take Chia-kang's hand out from under the covers and write on his palm with my finger. We talk on his palm.

 

CAN'T SLEEP
COME HERE I'LL ROCK YOU TO SLEEP
NO
?
AFRAID
SLEEP DON'T BE AFRAID
FIRST, SAFETY
SAFETY WHERE
CH'ING-TAO
COMMUNISTS ALMOST THERE
NANKING
COMMUNISTS ALMOST THERE TOO
RETURN PEKING
CAN'T RETURN
MUST KEEP GOING
UNTIL WHEN
UNTIL GOOD PLACE FOR CHILD
TAIWAN
BEAUTIFUL ISLAND
I WANT A SON
I WANT A DAUGHTER
SON CALLED YAO-TSU
DAUGHTER CALLED SANG-WA

 

No man's land.

The sun is setting. Only a few more miles to Ts'ai Village. No sign of the village in sight. The twelve people on the narrow path are silent. We are still strangers. We have to hurry. Wheelbarrows piled with
luggage creak over the dry, cracked earth. Dust rises in veils, separating each of us from the others. Each figure is blurred, hidden in a tent of dust. The faster we walk, the quicker our hands swing: clenched fists poking through the swirling tents of dust. Wherever we go, the tent of dust whirls around us, no matter how fast or how far we walk.

It's growing dark. Still a couple of miles. the twelve of us are lined up on the narrow path. Chia-kang and I are at the end.

At the front a lantern is lit.

Ah, we all murmur. Someone coughs, spits loudly; another stumbles on a rock, and curses.

The lantern is held up, lighting the path for those at the back.

‘Mulberry, I still want a son,' says Chia-kang in a low voice, leaning forward.

‘And I still want a daughter.'

‘Only sons, no daughters allowed,' he says and punches me playfully on the back.

Ahead of us a man from Shantung chuckles, ‘I could tell all the time that you two were married.'

The lantern goes out.

Ah, we all murmur again.

‘Excuse me, anyone have a match?' asks the one carrying the lantern.

‘Here!' Chia-kang yells.

The man stops and lets the people behind him pass. ‘Watch out, A pit. Be careful, folks, there's a pit. Be careful, ma'am.' He stands in the dark and helps people across.

Chia-kang walks up and hands him the matches.

The lantern is lit again.

‘Thanks, sir.' He hands the matches back to Chia-kang.

‘Keep them, man, you have to hold the lantern.' Chia-kang threw the matches back into the man's hand.

 

There are several cottages at Ts'ai Village. All empty. On the slope stands a temple with a broken signboard above its entrance. The name of the temple is in fading gold characters.

The twelve of us relax in the main hall. The Buddha with a thousand arms lies on its back on the mud floor. The child in the Goddess of Mercy's arms is headless. Only the Laughing Buddha is intact, laughing. We light the altar lamp, untie our luggage and sit on bedrolls and eat our dry food. The main hall comes to life.

‘Well, now!' someone suddenly yells. ‘Let me sing you a passage from
Beat the Drum and Condemn Ts'ao Ts'ao.

Someone else chimes in:

‘. . . Hearing that, Huang Chung gets on his horse. He points his sword and shouts, “Master Kuan,” the Great Han Army has been defeated. From the four corners of the empire gallant men rise up in the chaos . . .

‘. . . Suddenly something jumped out at me. And you know what it was? A tiger. Where did that tiger come from? He was living in a remote valley on South Peak.

‘Hey, all you opera singers, storytellers and folk singers. Stop all that noise and listen to my ghost story.'

The singing and chanting stop. Only the voice telling the story is heard:

‘Yü and the girl in the green dress finish making love. Yü asks the girl to sing him a song. She laughs and says that she doesn't dare. Yü caresses her tenderly and repeats his request. The girl in green says that she doesn't mean to be inhospitable, but she is afraid someone might overhear. She lowers the gauze curtain and leans against the bedpost and softly begins to sing:

She finishes her song and gets down from the bed. She looks out the window, looks in the corners, inspects the room. Yü laughs at her timidity and coaxes her back to bed. He begins to make love to her again, but the girl in green remains passive and melancholy, unwilling to make love. Yü entreats her and finally succeeds once more. At dawn, she gets dressed and climbs down from the bed, walks to the door, hesitates and returns to his side, quite frightened. Yü accompanies her to the door and watches as she vanishes down the corridor. Suddenly he hears her scream for help. He races over but sees no one, only hears a faint moan under the eaves. Looking closely, he sees a spider web under the eaves. The moan appears to come from the web. Looking again he sees a big spider with something in its grip. He tears down the web. A large green honey bee falls to the ground.'

 

‘Hey, I'd like to meet a bee like that!'

‘Does anybody know if the Communists have crossed the Yangtze yet?'

‘Hey, you motherfuckers, still talking about the war. In all of China this is the only place where there's no fighting. Look, see how beautiful the moon is, feel how soft the spring breeze is. The trees on the hill outside the temple are sprouting green leaves.'

‘Hey, old man, thanks for carrying the lantern for us. What's your name?'

‘Don't ask me my name. And don't ask where I'm going. I'll stay here in this dilapidated temple and become the ancestor of later generations. I'll take the first name in the Book of the Hundred
Names; just call me Chao, as in Chao founder of the Sung Dynasty.'

‘Master Chao, may I ask where Madame Chao is?'

‘That's something I haven't thought about yet. I'm still a bachelor.'

Chia-kang glances left and right, looks at my stomach and laughs. ‘I'm the one who is going to be the ancestor of later generations. My wife is pregnant. I'll take the next name in the
Book of the Hundred Names
. Call me Ch'ien.'