Fu Ping Read online

  Living among the citizens of Shanghai, they naturally came under their influence and accumulated what they needed for a long stay in the city. But food was at the center of their daily lives, and it was the major expenditure from their combined salaries. In Nainai’s eyes, they were willing to spend whatever it took to satisfy their robust appetites, even if, in her opinion, they were far from qualified gourmets. Every two or three days, for instance, they ate in a restaurant, and always at the same few places: the Renaissance Café, which served Western food and was just across the street; the Greenfield Sichuan and Yangzhou Restaurant; the Sunya Cantonese Restaurant; and the Hong Chang Xing Mutton Restaurant, the last two a bit farther from home, on Nanjing Road. That is not to say that these were not fine restaurants, but the family lacked discerning taste and relied mainly on reputation. They returned to the same places and ordered the same few dishes over and over, those with strong flavors and large portions. That too was a habit nurtured in the military—lots of fish and plenty of meat. Nainai’s specialty was Yangzhou cuisine, which suited their tastes, and by which, over time, she raised their standards. Yangzhou cuisine is known for being thoroughly cooked, with strong, penetrating flavors, prepared with meticulous care and delicate ingredients over a slow fire. Nainai cooked country-style, with a liberal use of condiments, especially soy sauce, dishes with a rough finish. To them it was the epitome of fine dining. That was why they frequently had dinner guests, all of whom were won over by Nainai’s culinary skills. The couple had a large circle of friends, many of them military, forthright, warm, and friendly people who sat down at the dinner table as soon as they arrived and were ready to eat. And so, they hosted a dinner party every three or four days and a banquet once a week or so, instilling their life with spectacular vitality.

  When both were on assignment or headed down to the countryside, Nainai was left with the two children at home, and things quieted down appreciably. When she came to work for the family, the elder girl was in the first grade, the younger one stayed home, steadfastly refusing to go to kindergarten once Nainai arrived. The school was at the end of the lane, so between classes, the elder girl ran home for a glass of water or a biscuit before racing back in time for the next class. Nainai would take the younger girl down the lane to wait for her sister when school let out, and the two of them would buy a plateful of pan-fried baozi from the “Shandong old-timer” who sold them out of a shack he lived in at the lane entrance. Nainai ate the charred bottoms, saving the skins and filling for the little girl. The Shandong old-timer wasn’t all that old, about the same age as Nainai, perhaps in his late thirties. But he wore old-style clothes—the baggy pants with leg ties worn in his hometown—shaved his head, and was slightly humpbacked. The little mistress and her nanny were two of his favorite customers; he often stood off to the side to watch them eat their portions, bite after bite, a wistful look in his eyes, sometimes even a bit misty. Could Nainai have reminded him of a wife back home, or did the little girl conjure up an image of his own children? The elder girl would show up when the baozi had been finished off, and if she was late, Nainai would go to the school and say to her teacher, Can you tell me why our little friend isn’t out yet, Madam Teacher? Has she been kept after school? Nainai generally favored older forms of address, such as “Mistress” and “Madam Teacher,” but she was also adept at using new terms like “little friend.” Holding the younger girl’s hand, she would walk into the classroom pointed out by “Madam Teacher.” Usually, the elder girl was on cleaning duty, manning a broom along with some of her classmates, sending dust flying. With her hand over her nose, Nainai would walk up and snatch the broom out of her hand. You naughty girl! she would complain. These were clean clothes, and now I’ll have to wash them again! The girl would stomp her foot angrily, more than once, but soon quiet down and walk out of the classroom to wait. Nainai would quickly sweep the girl’s assigned part of the floor and walk outside, where she would dust herself off, take both children by the hands, and head home.

  And so, Nainai became familiar enough with the school at the end of the lane that she could simply walk into the classroom; and the teachers and students became just as familiar with her, calling her so-and-so’s aunty. Students would turn their heads and say to so-and-so, Your aunty’s here! The minute the elder girl spotted her, she invariably stomped her foot angrily to show displeasure over interference in her life at school. Unfazed, Nainai would stuff some sugar-fried chestnuts or a piece of cake into the girl’s hand. And sometimes she simply went to see if the girl was listening to her teacher and not acting up. One day the girl came home in a boastful mood, bragging about a spring outing at Renaissance Park the following afternoon. Her sister began to bawl at the news, since she would miss the chance of going to the park. Don’t cry, Nainai said, I’ll take you tomorrow. She was especially fond of the younger girl, not because she had any better qualities than her sister, but because she was home with her all day long, and that drew them closer. The next day, after the girl’s nap, she took her to the park as promised, and actually found the elder girl, who was sitting in a circle with some classmates as their teacher led them in a game of toss the hanky. Nanny and the little girl sat behind her and opened a kerchief that held washed apples, biscuits, and candy. The elder girl turned and glared at them to get them to move, but when she saw what they’d brought, she reached out for some of the treats. When it was over, the spring outing gained two tails—one big and one small—that followed them all afternoon. Sometimes, the grown-ups decided to take their children to a movie or a restaurant, and if the elder girl was still in school, Nainai went to get permission from the teacher to take her out of class early. She would stand respectfully, but not obsequiously, in front of the teacher, clasped hands held in front, explaining the situation with such clear logic that the teacher would have been hard-pressed to say no.

  As a woman of the world, Nainai intimidated the younger teachers. But she treated one of the older teachers with great respect, both for the knowledge she’d acquired and for her understanding of human interactions. Whenever that teacher saw Nainai, she stopped to have a cordial chat. On one occasion, when the teacher saw the girl stomp her foot for Nainai’s benefit, she told her she mustn’t be disrespectful of her elders. That had the desired effect. The teacher also liked to pat the younger girl on the head and ask how old she was, when she’d be starting school, and if she wanted to attend the same school as her sister. From the janitor, Uncle Youming, with whom Nainai had become friendly, she learned that the teacher was unmarried and lived alone. As a sign of her experience, she asked, Is she a Catholic nun? Uncle Youming said no. Nainai sighed. How could an educated woman have such a hard life? She was sympathetic toward a woman who devoted her life to the education of youngsters and had no home of her own. That preyed on her mind.

  The girls spent more time with Nainai than they did with their mother, and over time they patterned their behavior after her. They preferred soft pastel colors, flowers, the fragrance of toilet water, beady plastic hairpins, and Shaoxing opera. The actors’ bright painted faces and costumes, their stylized movements and singing, and the romanticized stories fascinated them. Among their favorite toys were some beads displayed in a glass case at the local toy store. The unique style and fine quality made these particular beads quite costly. Another type, used to make beaded purses and flowers, were cheaper and were available mainly at the City God Temple, where they were sold by weight out of barrels. Both poorer in quality and quite a bit darker, they could be bought in great quantities. The sisters owned both kinds, coarse and fine, all mixed together and kept in three or four small aluminum pails. How did they play with them? They strung them together with needle and thread to make ornaments like those worn by Shaoxing opera actors, then draped them over their ears, tied them to their hair, or wore them around their necks and wrists, where they clicked and tinkled when they stood on their beds to perform opera. The flaps of overhead mosquito netting during the summer months were parted and tied to the sides, like an opera stage, for a pair of little imps, draped with jewelry and towels that served as wide, flowing water sleeves, to mimic performers singing opera.

  They could play this game only behind their mother’s back. As a woman with a military background, for whom proper deportment was paramount, she could not abide this sort of childish behavior. If she saw it, she shouted at them to stop acting like little imps. What might happen when they were just getting into their roles was Nainai would quietly interrupt their “performances” with news that “Your mother’s home.” They would bring the opera to an abrupt end, scramble down off the bed, and remove their costumes. But the minute their mother was out the door again, they were back in costume and onstage, ready to start anew. After Nainai finished her chores and could rest, she would bring a chair up to the bed, sit down, and work on her embroidery as she enjoyed their antics. Any time a Shaoxing opera movie came to town, she was sure to take them to see it. So when she heard that Chasing Fish was going to be shown in color, she took the younger girl with her to stand in a line that had begun forming early in the morning, before the ticket window had opened. There was a four-ticket limit for each person in line. Nainai had the girl sit there on a stool while she ran home to start breakfast and do the laundry, returning frequently to see if the ticket window had opened and if the line had moved. She brought something for the girl to eat on each trip before returning to the kitchen. The little girl sat patiently in line until the ticket window opened, when she got down off the stool, held it in front of her, and moved up with the line, one slow step at a time. Nainai managed to buy four tickets by noontime. Then the little mistress and her nanny walked home with their purchase, red in the face from excitement. Three of the tickets were for them, the fourth for the na
nny upstairs, who was so grateful she bought them some of her semitransparent “crystal baozi.” On the day of the movie, Nainai walked excitedly to the theater, holding the girls by the hand. When they arrived, the previous showing had not let out, and the entrance swarmed with people for the next showing, mostly housewives and nannies, especially the latter, all chattering in hometown dialects as they noisily waited for their turn. The girls held tightly to Nainai’s hands as they squeezed in among the crowd, afraid that something might happen at the last minute. But finally, the doors opened and they entered the theater, where the lights went down and the screen lit up with colorful images. At that moment they were enveloped in blissful contentment.

  The days passed happily. Nainai had a wonderful relationship with the sisters. The girls shared a weakness: they were prone to tooth decay, owing mainly to all the sweets they ate, and it was up to Nainai to take them to the dental clinic to have their cavities filled, so often that she and the dentists became friendly. People tended to notice when the three of them were out on the street. The woman was always neat, tidy, and well-spoken; the girls, however, though neatly dressed and well-fed, behaved differently. The elder girl was quick to speak, her sister was slower but more caustic. Since she was the younger of the two, she was usually the one people liked to tease, saying the sorts of things people often say about young children: She can’t be her parents’ natural child. I wonder where they found her. Things like that. Her sister was always ready to add her comments. At first, the little girl took it in stride and ignored the comments. But too much of that soon had her in tears. Nainai would rush to her defense, and the talk would turn to questions about the family she worked for. Never one to reveal the sorts of things they hoped to hear, Nainai took pains not to offend them in the process. Most of the dentists at the clinic had vagabond airs; their speech was riddled with boastful, exaggerated talk, slightly on the vulgar side, but often quite witty. So the girls went to have their teeth worked on, but also for a bit of fun, which kept them there a little longer. When a patient came in to have a tooth pulled, out would come the novocaine syringe, the tweezers, and little mallets, scaring one adult and two little girls right out of the clinic.

  By the time the younger girl started school, her sister was in fourth grade, and changes began to occur. Both girls had grown, as had their tempers, especially the younger one, who wasn’t nearly as close to Nainai as she had been, nor as quiet. Now she was more likely to argue with Nainai than her elder sister, and fonder of stomping her foot. Always eager to outdo others, she followed school rules to the letter, which made for considerable pressure. She insisted on being awakened early enough to be at school in time to line up the desks and chairs, wipe the blackboard, and start morning readings. One morning she overslept, and bawled like a baby, faulting Nainai for not waking her up. She ran off to school that day without breakfast. In fact, it was nearly an hour before classes were to start. When she moved into the second grade, in order to get permission to join the Young Pioneers, she decided to start washing her own clothes, though she did not know how to go about it. So she settled for washing her handkerchiefs and socks. Discouraged to begin with, when she came home from school one day and saw Nainai washing her handkerchief and socks, she shrieked and rushed at her, reaching into the soapy water to retrieve her things as if rescuing them from a fire, and burst into tears again. She treated everything with unchildlike seriousness, which put on edge not only her nerves but those of people around her as well. The tense moods affected her looks, since she walked around all day long with a scowl. Her elder sister, on the other hand, began acting like a fastidious young mistress from a proper family, choosing what to wear with great care, and always putting on clean clothes, even on overcast days. She insisted that her clothes be folded so neatly they looked newly pressed. Ever since the girl was little, Nainai had habitually combed her hair into braids during the children’s breakfast, always in a style she liked, with her favorite ribbons or hair ornaments. Now, however, she complained that Nainai’s way made her look like a peasant. No longer did either sister pattern her likes and dislikes after Nainai. Now they preferred fresh new things and colors, and had no interest in playing Shaoxing opera. The beads they’d once treasured were carelessly left here and there, until they were all gone. Since the girls could have practically anything they wanted, they tended not to take care of their things, and when they said they didn’t want them anymore, that would be the end of it. Little by little, their fickle nature began to show. Living in the noisy world of a big city, as they had all their lives, a sort of capricious approach to life may have been inevitable. Truth is, the girls lacked a solid foundation. They had military parents, but grew up amid nannies and maids; on top of that, they were exposed day and night to the sights and sounds of urban petty bourgeois life, making it difficult to live by any set of rules. There were times when the girls made Nainai angry enough to complain to their mother: If it were anyone but you, Mistress, she’d say, I’d give notice! After doing her best to placate Nainai, the girls’ mother would straighten her daughters out, demanding that they stop acting like privileged capitalists and throwing their weight around. What’s a capitalist? Someone who goes around calling an “aunty” “amah.” That is so vulgar! They might not have known the meaning of “vulgar,” but during those days, they knew enough to hold “capitalists” in contempt.

  Fu Ping showed up at their house just as they reached the age when they opposed Nainai in everything.

  Chapter Three

  FU PING

  Fu Ping had a round face. Not thinly round, like a lotus leaf, but thick and slightly puffy. As a result, she looked less lively, less quick-witted, than most people with round faces. Small, single-fold eyes added to the dullness of her appearance. She had a small, rounded nose and mouth, both on the thick side, which increased this look of dullness. When she first arrived from the countryside, her cheeks were red, her skin rough and wrinkled, but well toned and solid. Either because she was new to the city or simply wasn’t much of a talker, she had little to say. But she paid close attention to what was said around her, keeping her eyes fixed on you when you talked. And when that happened, you would see beneath the dull exterior a keen expression just below the surface, as well as a light in her eyes. The redness in her cheeks faded as her days in Shanghai added up, and while her skin appeared at first glance to be fair, it was actually a pale yellow, which gave her a shrewd look. She kept her hair short, nearly covering her ears, parted on the side and clasped on the longer side with a plastic peacock feather ornament—a little spot of pink on green. After moving in with Nainai, she spent most of each day head down, engaged in needlework. With Nainai’s shallow sewing basket on her knees, she made clothes for Nainai, as well as for herself, from a length of colorful fabric Nainai bought for her. She spent some of the time darning the children’s socks, sewing on buttons, and doing a bit of delicate needlework. She had worked with needle and thread as a farm girl, but only on coarse material that did not require fine work. So Nainai taught her a number of sewing techniques and styles: a simple back and forth stitch, a herringbone stitch, hems with invisible stitches, and buttonholes of all types—vertical, fancy, double stitched, and hidden—enough to keep her busy practicing for quite a while. She had short, stubby fingers and thick, strong wrists that peeked out from her sleeves. With her head down, her hair fell forward, exposing the nape of her neck and a bit of her upper back, which were also thick and strong looking; it was a fleshy back. She was still young, and years of hard work had left her with well-developed muscles and a tight bone structure, a well-proportioned appearance. Nainai was thinking how farsighted her daughter-in-law had been to seek out a hardworking girl like this for Nainai’s rather delicate grandson, a true helpmate.

  Fu Ping’s clothes all seemed too small; they clung to her body. The backs of her blouses and jackets hung just above her buttocks, her collars were pulled in back. The sleeves fell to an inch or two above her wrists, about the same distance as her pant legs from her ankles. She wore blue-dyed cloth shoes, with a cross strap. Given all that tight clothing, she exhibited a garish rural flair. Her movements, like her expressions, were slow, even a little wooden. But this “wooden” bearing exuded strength. Her movements were vigorous and effective, so while she may have appeared “wooden,” she was anything but sluggish. The job of buying and bringing home rice fell to her shortly after her arrival. With a securely tied fifty-jin sack of rice on her left shoulder, she kept her left hand on her hip and held the front of the sack with her right as she stepped nimbly down the lane. That too exhibited a garish rural flair. City girls would never spread their limbs like that, nor would they walk in that crisp, bouncy manner, almost like a stage actor’s gait. All this lent Fu Ping a certain charm, which came not from her looks or her manner, but from how she carried herself, the way she moved, and how she did things. This was inseparable from her Yangzhou country background, from her youth, and from her sex, naturally.