Mulberry and Peach (18 page)

Authors: Hualing Nieh

BOOK: Mulberry and Peach

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Chia-kang also has a pile of clippings about a British cabinet official's affair with a model. Included is a photograph of the model lying in an empty bathtub with a wash cloth covering her vulva.

There is also a pile of clippings about a dismembered corpse. Included are photos of the body, head, and each of the arms and legs.

There is a pile of clippings of scenes of old Peking. Wedding and funeral ceremonies. The flower market. The morning market. The night market. The ghost market. Opera theatres. Streetcars with bells. Mutton shops. Wine vats. Barber tents. Rickshaw pullers. The ruins of the Manchu palaces.

Chia-kang never tires of reading these clippings.

I've already copied out two books of the Diamond Sutra by hand, and two books of classical poetry. I keep copying and copying. I don't even know what I'm writing ...

The woman of Shang-yang Palace. Lady of Shang-yang
Palace.
Her fresh face slowly fading, hair suddenly white.
Prison guards in green watch at the palace gate.
How many springs has the palace been closed?
Chosen at the end of Emperor HsÃ¼an-tsung's reign,
She was only 16 then, but sixty now.
More than one hundred were chosen then.
Alone, the years pass, wilted by time.
She recalls how she accepted her sorrow and bid farewell
to her family.
She was helped into the chariot daring not to weep.
Everyone said that she would be the emperor's favourite.
Her face like hibiscus, her breasts like jade.
But before the emperor met her
Jealous Consort Yang ordered her sent away.
All her life sleeping in an empty room, sleeping in an
empty room sleeping in an empty room sleeping in an
empty room empty room

Tonight there is no gnawing on the roof. Everything is black, inside and outside. The only light comes from the house at Number Three
across the way. Chia-kang is asleep on his
tatami
mat. The clock, which is still being repaired, sits beside his pillow. In the dark I can't see what time the clock says.

Sang-wa is asleep on her
tatami
mat.

I lie wide awake on my
tatami
mat
,
waiting for the gnawing noise to begin on the roof.

Suddenly someone bangs at the gate, shouting, âHouse check.' The police often use the pretext of a census check in order to search for fugitives.

I sit up with a start.

The main gate is opening. Someone comes into the courtyard. He shouts at Old Wang. He is ordering him to wake up everyone in the house. Tell them to get out their census papers and identification cards.

Chia-kang suddenly turns over and sits up. He lies down again and then sits up.

They've come? They've come? Have they finally come? He can't stop mumbling.

I nod and motion for him to be quiet.

We sit side by side. Each sitting on our separate
tatami
mats. Backs against the wall. Holding hands.

I hear them go into the Ts'ais' house.

Chia-kang writes on my palm:

TS'AI WILL TURN US IN
NO, MY FATHER SAVED HIS LIFE
OLD WANG?
NO
I DON'T TRUST HIM
HE HAS BEEN WITH THE TS'AIS
MORE THAN 20 YEARS
THE TS'AIS HAVE SAVED OUR LIVES
YES
THEY'RE QUESTIONING HIM
MAYBE
THEY'LL SHOW HIM THE WARRANT
MAYBE
THEY ARE COMING UP TO THE ATTIC
I'M READY
I'LL GIVE MYSELF UP
NO
WHY NOT
PERHAPS WE CAN ESCAPE
THEY'LL COME SOONER OR LATER
I'LL GO WITH YOU
YOU SHOULD BE FREE
FREEDOM WHERE
THEY'RE COMING
I'M LISTENING
IN THE COURTYARD
SOMEONE IS LAUGHING
LAUGHING AT WHAT
WHO KNOWS
ARE THEY COMING
WHO KNOWS

Hey, Old Wang, the inspection is over. Go on back to bed. They talk loudly as they walk out the gate. The gate is closing. Sound of boots on the stones in the alley. They knock on the gate to Number Three. In Number Three the lights go on one by one.

Chia-kang lies back down. I am still sitting by the window. He reaches out and tries to pull me over to his
tatami
mat. I can't move.

He wants to sleep. He wants to forget. It will be all right when the night is over. He mumbles and writhes under the blanket. I pull aside the blanket and lie down beside him. I let him crawl on top of me. With one jerk he wets my thighs like a child squirting urine.

Finally he falls asleep.

The noise on the roof starts up again. It gnaws from the corner along the eaves. I suddenly remember that there's a woodpecker that lives on the roof. Old Wang told me about it before we moved into the attic.

(B) Summer, 1958

The time on the clock in the attic is still twelve thirteen. It makes no difference if it's midnight or noon. The humidity and the heat are the same. The dampness seeps into the marrow of my bones and mildews there.

Chia-kang doesn't try to repair the clock anymore. We have our own time.

Sang-wa's
tatami
mat is near the window. The sun is shining down on her. Nine o'clock in the morning.

The sun is licking her body. Licking. Licking. Suddenly I look
up. The sun has disappeared. Twelve o'clock noon.

The man who sharpens knives comes by, banging his iron rattle. Two in the afternoon.

In the distance the train whistles. Three in the afternoon.

The government commuter bus stops at the intersection. Civil servants in twos and threes walk down the lane. Five in the afternoon.

The woman who sings in the local street opera suddenly bursts into tears over a lover's quarrel on some nearby street. Seven in the evening.

The blind masseuse is blowing her whistle in the dark alley. Midnight.

For a long time there have been no house checks after midnight.

Chia-kang sits on his
tatami
mat telling his fortune over and over with a deck of cards, three cards are fanned out in his hand. He hunches over and studies them, mouthing words.

Three sworn brothers.

He motions to himself in a gesture of victory. He peers into the small mirror in the corner of the room and nods his head and laughs silently.

My hair has grown long again. I don't bother to cut or brush it. I let it flow over my shoulders.

I spend most of my time on the
tatami
mat writing the story of âHer Life'. I no longer copy the Diamond Sutra out by hand.

She is an imaginary woman. I describe the important and unimportant events of her life. A collection of odd, disjointed fragments. She marries a man who once raped her. She is frigid.

When I'm not writing, I look at old newspapers. First I read stories about people running away. There are all sorts of escape stories in the newspaper.

There's a story about someone who goes to prison in place of her husband. Lai Su-chu's husband was a merchant who went bankrupt before he died. He used her name to write bad cheques. Lai Su-chu didn't have the money to cover them. She was sentenced to six months in prison. She took her two-year-old son with her and served out sentence in the prison.

I cut out the picture of this woman embracing her child in prison and stick it up on the attic wall.

Sang-wa is sitting on her
tatami
mat drawing. She draws the
Adventures of Little Dot
on the margins of old newspapers.

I. Little Dot