For a moment, Wang Qiyao was so disoriented that she thought time was flowing backward. Mr. Cheng’s gray sideburns roused her from her reverie. “Mr. Cheng, is it really you?”
“Wang Qiyao? I . . . I must be dreaming.”
Tears welled up in their eyes as all kinds of memories flooded into their minds; it was all too much to make sense of, and they both felt overwhelmed. Wang Qiyao smiled when she realized they were standing next to the counter for photography supplies.
“Are you still taking pictures?”
Mr. Cheng smiled in his turn. At the mention of photography, they had found an entry point into the chaotic past that had come rushing back to them.
“Is your photo studio still there?” Wang Qiyao asked.
“So you remember . . .” At this moment, Mr. Cheng noticed that Wang Qiyao was pregnant, her face a little swollen—and a veil descended between her and the woman he had once known. When he had first seen her on the street, she appeared just as she had ever been; it was as if the past had reappeared. Now that they were standing face to face, he realized that everything had changed. When it came down to it, even time cannot stand up to scrutiny.
“How many years has it been?” he couldn’t help asking.
They counted on their fingers—twelve years. Thinking back to the last time they had seen each other—their good-bye—they fell silent. It was almost noon, and they were getting jostled by the crowd in the busy store. Wang Qiyao suggested they go outside, but it was worse in the street, and they kept being pushed to one side, until at last they found themselves beside an electric pole, where they finally began to get their bearings. But once again they were at a loss for words; they stared blankly at the array of notices posted on the pole. The sun was already emitting a spring warmth, and they felt hot in their winter padded jackets, as if their backs were pressed against a stove. After standing there awhile, Mr. Cheng offered to walk Wang Qiyao home, saying her husband must be waiting for her. Wang Qiyao said there was no such person.
“But we should be going anyway. . . . I’m sure that Mrs. Cheng must be worried sick about you,” she said.
Mr. Cheng blushed. “There is no ‘Mrs. Cheng’ and I suspect there never will be ... at least not in this lifetime.”
“That’s too bad,” Wang Qiyao rejoined mildly. “What have women done to be deprived of this privilege?”
They began to liven up and their conversation grew more animated. Looking up, they saw that the sun was at its zenith, and they realized that both their stomachs were growling. Mr. Cheng suggested lunch. Unfortunately, all the restaurants were full, with lines of customers waiting for seats. The sight of those crowded restaurants only fueled their hunger, and they could hardly tolerate the wait. In the end Wang Qiyao proposed that they go to her place for noodles. Mr. Cheng said that in that case they might as well go to his apartment, because a friend had brought some eggs and salted meat back for him from Hangzhou just the day before. They boarded the trolley, which was always empty at noon, and sat side by side, as the street scenes flashed before their eyes like images from a movie, each image bathed in a flash of sunlight. They had not a care in the world, content simply to let the trolley take them where it might.
Mr. Cheng’s apartment was still there, just as she remembered it, only older. The water stains on the outside walls were a bit more pronounced. The interior was darker, due in part to the layer of dust on the window panes, which looked as if they had not been wiped in the last twelve years. The elevator was in bad shape: its iron grating had rusted, and the clanking sound it made echoed up and down the shaft. Wang Qiyao followed Mr. Cheng out of the elevator and stood waiting as he rummaged for his key. A huge piece of a spider web hung from the domed ceiling; she wondered if it had taken twelve years to weave this. Mr. Cheng opened the door and she entered. After her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she saw that the little world inside had barely changed; it was as if the entire room had been encased in a time capsule. The wax finish on the brown hardwood floor had a lustrous sheen, the lighting frame and the camera stood in their assigned places, the carpeted wooden platform was still there, and behind them the doors and windows of the cardboard backdrop looked at once ancient and naively fresh.
Mr. Cheng went straight to the kitchen and got busy. She could hear the sounds of chopping, followed shortly thereafter by the aroma of rice and salted pork. Rather than offering to help, Wang Qiyao wandered about the studio. She moved along to the back, where she found the dressing room unaltered and saw a pleasing reflection of herself in the mirror, which was too blurred to expose the traces of age on her face. From the dressing room she passed on into the dark room. After groping for the switch, she turned on a red bulb whose rays focused on a single spot, leaving all else in a darkness that hung pensive and yet seemed symbolic of permanence in the face of change. Wang Qiyao failed to understand that it is precisely this myriad of unchanging little worlds that serves as a counterfoil to the tumultuous changes taking place in the outside world. After standing there for a moment, she switched off the light, softly closed the door, and went into the kitchen. Chopsticks and two bowls had been laid out on the round table by the gas range. A pot of rice simmered on one burner while on the other a terrine of egg custard was simmering.
Mr. Cheng served the egg custard along with the salted pork he had cooked in the rice. Sitting across from each other, they picked up their bowls, but were so much past the point of hunger that they almost didn’t feel like eating. It was not until each had finished their first helping that they realized how famished they really were. They ate bowl after bowl, as though filling a bottomless pit. After they had consumed all the rice in the medium-sized pot and polished off the entire terrine of egg, they burst out laughing in the realization that, not having seen each for twelve years, they were so focused on eating that they had barely exchanged a single word—they had probably eaten more that afternoon than the sum of all the meals they had shared in the past.
Feeling somewhat embarrassed and sensing Mr. Cheng’s eyes on her, Wang Qiyao said, “Don’t look at me like that. You only have to eat for one person, but I have to feed two. Besides, I didn’t eat any more than you!”
They were both taken aback by the way she had so frankly broached the subject; they immediately lapsed back into silence.
After a long pause, Wang Qiyao said, with a forced smile, “I know you’ve been wanting to ask . . . but even if you did, I really wouldn’t know what to say. At any rate, what you see before you is every bit of me . . . there really isn’t anything else to ask about.”
Her words were at once defiant and worldly, but they hinted at feelings of resignation and bitterness. Mr. Cheng could sense that she had lived through an epoch of sorrow. Having got that out of the way, they relaxed and were able to talk about the present without any more references to the past. Mr. Cheng said he was now working in the accounting department of a government firm. His salary was more than enough for a single man, at least up until recently, when things had got a bit tight, but he was much better off than his colleagues who had families to support. Wang Qiyao explained that her income was tight to begin with, and that of late she had to rely increasingly on the consignment store to make ends meet.
Mr. Cheng was concerned. “Selling old clothes isn’t a long-term solution. What are you going to do once you’ve sold everything in your closet?”
“What is long term?” Wang Qiyao retorted with a laugh. “How long is long, anyway?”
Seeing that he had no response for this, she said more gently, “I just hope to get through my present situation.... That is my sole long-term goal.”
Mr. Cheng asked her how she managed. Wang Qiyao gave him a detailed description of how she counted every grain of rice. Mr. Cheng in turn regaled her with tales of his Dao of austerity, learning to get three lights out of a single match. Once they returned to the subject of food, they could talk of little else. Their excitement mounted until each insisted on inviting the other to dinner; it was as if they were engaged in a spirited competition to outdo one another. Wang Qiyao had to excuse herself: she had a patient coming for an injection and then a house call to make in the afternoon. Mr. Cheng saw her to the door, and watched the elevator door close before returning to his apartment.
The spring of 1960 was one in which people could talk of little else besides food. Even the scent of the oleanders aroused hunger. Mice scurried around all night beneath the floor in their hunt for stray morsels; flocks of sparrows took to the skies like migratory birds, searching for food. Saying that the city was in a state of famine would have been a bit extreme, but people were indeed doing whatever they could to satisfy their palates. Prominent figures lined up outside Western-style restaurants, waiting for a seat. Who knows what quantities of filet mignon, pork chops with onions, and fish disappeared into the bottomless pits of their stomachs. The aroma of butter cakes was almost enough to drive someone to murder or, at the very least, to send morality out the window. Street robberies occurred one after another, nothing major, just snacks snatched from children’s hands. At bakeries, drooling onlookers vastly outnumbered paying customers. There was a sharp rise in thefts as well.
In the still of the night the city’s inhabitants were kept awake not by anxious thoughts but by the rumblings of their stomachs. In the presence of hunger, even the profoundest sadness had to take second place; everything else simply disappeared. The mind, stripped of hypocrisy and pretensions, concentrated on substance. All the rouge and powder had been washed away, exposing the plain features underneath. Under the city’s bright lights, people’s faces were thinner and sallower, but infinitely more honest. Manners went out the window. Compared to the stark candor of true “famine,” a residual layer of extravagance remained; but the water had clearly receded and the rocks were now showing through. And even though the grave solemnity of “famine” was missing—hints of comedy lingered—there were ample occasions for irony. Hasn’t it been said that comedy is created by tearing down trivialities? Trivialities were certainly being ripped up in this city, although if truth be told, a good deal of flesh and bone were also involved. Still, the damage was not major, just a little wound.
Mr. Cheng and Wang Qiyao were reunited over food. Their aim, however, was not pleasure in eating, but eating to fill one’s belly, unlike afternoon tea and midnight snacks with Madame Yan, whose purpose had been chiefly to pass the time. It did not take the two of them long to figure out that there was economy in joining forces, as well as moral support. Consequently, they had at least one meal together every day. Mr. Cheng handed the bulk of his salary over to Wang Qiyao for board, leaving himself just enough for a regular haircut and lunch at the office. He would come to Wang Qiyao’s place right after work, and they would cook together, chopping vegetables and washing rice. On Sundays Mr. Cheng would come before lunch for Wang Qiyao’s food vouchers, and then get in line at the stores and purchase what he could—sometimes it was several dozen kilos of sweet potatoes, at other times, several kilos of rice noodles. He carefully hauled the items home, and the whole way back he would ponder all the different recipes they might use them in.
His suits were getting old, the lining torn, and the cuffs frayed. He was also balding around the temples. The rims of his gold-rimmed glasses had lost their luster. But even though his attire was old and somewhat faded, Mr. Cheng was always very neat. His face too was bright and animated, not at all jaded and worn like most men his age. This caused him to stand out in a crowd; he looked like an actor right out of an old 1940s movie. By 1960 there were still a handful of men like him floating around the streets of Shanghai. Their exceptional looks were a living memorial of the past, and they always drew curious looks from the children. He was not like Kang Mingxun, who, though old-fashioned at heart, put on a Mao jacket in an effort to keep up with the times. Mr. Cheng was stubborn, and remained obstinately loyal to the old pre-Liberation fashions. A man like him never did learn how to carry a load of sweet potatoes with grace—the tin bucket kept bumping against his kneecaps, forcing him to switch it from one hand to the other. When he switched hands, he would take the opportunity to catch his breath and enjoy the scenery along the street. The parasol trees were starting to bud, casting shadows underneath. His heart very calm, he would ask himself:
Can this be real?
Mr. Cheng’s regular visits to Wang Qiyao’s apartment never became much of a subject of gossip around Peace Lane. The neighbors had long taken note of the way Kang Mingxun and Sasha came and went, as well as the fact that Wang Qiyao’s protruding belly was growing more noticeable by the day. Peace Lane was, in reality, quite open-minded and sophisticated. Wang Qiyao had long been relegated to the category of “one of
those
women,” and that was enough to satisfy the curiosity of the people who lived there. Every street in Shanghai like Peace Lane had at least one of
those
women. They used to all be concentrated in the Alice Apartments, but had had to disperse due to changing circumstances.
When couples who lived on Peace Lane got into squabbles over everyday things, one could often hear the wife protest, “I might just as well go off and live like that woman Wang Qiyao over in no. 39!”
Whereupon the husband would sneer: “Really? Have you got what it takes?”