The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices (29 page)

‘In the divorce court two weeks later, I stated that the police station would testify for me. The judge announced, “According to our inquiries, the said police station has no record of dealing with any matter concerning you.” How can the People’s Police swindle people like this?’ Zhou Ting exclaimed.

I was not surprised at the lack of scruples in the police force, but asked, ‘Did you report this to any government department?’

‘Make a report? To whom? Before I could even go back to the police station to beg them to testify for me, the local paper had published a report headlined, “A Wife’s Revenge”. I was portrayed as a violent woman who was being divorced by her husband. The report was reprinted in other papers and every time it appeared it was touched up: by the end I was a madwoman cackling in a pool of blood!’

I felt ashamed of fellow journalists who had distorted Zhou Ting’s story in this way. ‘How did you react?’

‘It was just one more thing to cope with then. My family had fallen apart, and I was living with my mother at the time.’

‘And what about your former flat?’ As soon as I asked this, I realised I knew the answer: in state-run work units, practically everything allocated to a family is in the man’s name.

‘The work unit said that the flat was in my husband’s name, so it belonged to him.’

‘Where did the work unit expect you to live?’ Divorced women were treated like dead leaves, I thought.

‘They said I would have to find somewhere temporary to live and wait for the next round of housing allocation.’

I knew that in official parlance, the ‘next round’ could take years to materialise. ‘And how long did it take for you to be assigned a flat?’ I asked.

Zhou Ting snorted derisively. ‘It still hasn’t happened nine years later.’

‘They did absolutely nothing for you?’

‘As good as nothing. I went to the president of the trade union, a woman of fifty or so, to ask for help. She said in a kind voice, “It’s easy for a woman. Just find another man with a flat and you’ll have everything you need.”’

I struggled to grasp the world-view of the Party cadre who could have said such a thing. ‘The president of the trade union said that?’

‘That’s what she said, word for word.’

I thought I had begun to understand Zhou Ting a little more. ‘So you never considered taking action against your treatment by the media?’ I asked, not expecting her to have done so.

‘No, well, I did do something about it eventually. I telephoned the newspaper office, but they ignored me, so I complained directly to the chief editor. Half joking and half threatening, he said to me, “Zhou Ting, it’s all over now; if you don’t bring it up yourself, nobody will give it another thought. Do you want to be in the news again? Do you want to take on the paper this time?” Loath to put myself through any more unpleasantness, I agreed to let the matter drop.’

‘You had a soft heart underneath,’ I said.

‘Yes, some of my friends say I have a “mouth of knives and a heart of tofu”. What’s the use of that? How many people see through your words to your heart?’

She paused, then continued. ‘I’m not really sure why I got into the news the third time; I suppose it was because of love. There was a young teacher in my work unit called Wei Hai. He wasn’t a local man, so he lived in the school dormitory. My divorce was going through the courts at the time. I loathed the sight of my husband, and was afraid he would beat me, so I often stayed on in the office after work, reading magazines. Wei Hai often sat in the teachers’ office reading the newspapers. One day, he suddenly grasped my hand and said, “Zhou Ting, don’t suffer like this. Let me make you happy!” Tears were shining in his eyes; I’ll never forget the sight.’

‘I wasn’t divorced yet, but I had other misgivings besides this about starting a relationship with Wei Hai. He was nearly nine years younger than I; women age so quickly . . . we would attract so much gossip; I was scared. You know the saying, “The words of men are to be feared” – well, they can kill,’ Zhou Ting said fiercely.

‘When my divorce finally came through, I was already labelled a “bad woman”. Luckily, this was the beginning of the period of economic reform. Everybody was busy chasing after money so they had less time to poke their noses into others’ private lives. I started living with Wei Hai. He was very, very good to me, in every possible way. I was so happy with him, he became even more important to me than my son.’

This was no mean feat, I thought, given the traditional Chinese mindset of putting sons above all else.

‘After a year of living together, a trade union representative and an administrator from my work unit came to our home to ask us to get a marriage certificate as soon as possible. Although China was starting to open up, cohabitation was considered “an offence against public decency” by some, especially women. But the happiness and strength our life together had given me far surpassed my fear of others’ opinion. For us, marriage was just a matter of time. After the visit from the officials, we decided to request our respective work units to issue us with a certificate the following week, so we could register our marriage. Having lived together for over a year already, we did not celebrate or get particularly excited.

‘On the following Monday evening, I asked Wei Hai if he had taken out a certificate yet. He said he had not. I had not managed to get mine either because I had been busy, so we agreed that we would definitely get our certificates before Wednesday. On Wednesday morning, I phoned Wei Hai to tell him I had already got mine, and asked if he had managed to get his. No problem, he said. At about three o’clock he phoned and told me that my mother wanted me to go to Ma’anshan to see her. He didn’t tell me what for. I immediately thought that something had happened to her, so I asked for permission to leave early, and rushed to the bus station at four thirty. When I arrived at my mother’s an hour later, breathless with worry, she asked in surprise, “What’s happened? Wei Hai phoned to say he was coming to Ma’anshan, and asked me to stay in. What’s going on with you two?”

‘“I’m not sure,” I said, confused. Without further thought, I left my mother and rushed to the bus station to meet Wei Hai off the Nanjing bus. More than a year together had not faded the first flush of love. I could hardly bear being apart from him then; leaving him to go to work was painful, and I looked forward to coming home every day. I was infatuated, in a trance.

‘By about half past eight that evening, Wei Hai had still not arrived at the bus station. I was frantic. I asked the driver of every bus that arrived if there had been any accidents or breakdowns on the road, and if all the scheduled buses were running. Their replies were reassuring: nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Past nine, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer so I boarded a bus back to Nanjing to see if Wei Hai was at home, ill. I didn’t dare think what else might have happened to him. Thinking that Wei Hai might be on a bus to Ma’anshan while I travelled in the opposite direction on the same road, I switched on a torch I had with me, and shone it out of the bus window, straining to see the passing vehicles. I couldn’t actually see anything, but it comforted me to try. After a while, our bus was pulled over by the traffic police. The policeman who boarded the bus said that someone on the bus seemed to have been signalling with torchlight, so they wanted all the passengers to get out for an inspection. I hurried to the front and explained that I had been using the torch because I was afraid my husband had taken the wrong bus. The furious traffic policeman sent us on our way, and the other passengers all swore at me for causing a delay. I wasn’t bothered – I just apologised and continued looking out of the window.

‘We lived not far from the bus station; as I approached our flat, I saw light from the windows, and my heart lifted. But both doors were locked, which was odd: the inner door wasn’t usually locked when someone was home. A wave of terror washed over me when I saw the flat was empty. Instinct prompted me to open the wardrobe in the bedroom. I went cold all over: Wei Hai’s clothes were missing. He had gone.’

‘Wei Hai had gone? Left the house and gone?’

Zhou Ting’s lower lip was quivering. ‘Yes, he’d gone. He’d taken all his things. Just after we had decided to get married, he left.’

I felt for her deeply. ‘Did he leave a note, a letter, an explanation, anything?’

‘Not a word,’ she said, lifting her chin to prevent a tear from rolling down her cheek.

‘Oh, Zhou Ting,’ I said, lost for words.

The tear rolled down her face. ‘I collapsed. I don’t know how long I lay on the ground, shaking all over. When I heard footsteps outside, a last thread of hope made me get to my feet. Wei Hai’s cousin was at the door. He said that Wei Hai had told him to bring me the keys. With the door still closed, I told him that it was late, and it wasn’t a good time, we’d talk the next day. He had no choice but to leave.

‘I locked all the windows and doors, turned the gas tap on, sat down and started to make a tape recording. I wanted to apologise to my mother for not repaying the debt I owed her for bringing me up; I wanted to say sorry to my son for not fulfilling my natural duty to him; I didn’t have the heart or the strength to go on living. I didn’t plan to leave any words for Wei Hai, thinking that my soul would express my love and pain to him in the netherworld. My head and my body felt as if they were going to explode, and I could barely stay upright when I heard voices outside the window:

‘“Ting, open the door, your mother is waiting for you outside!”

‘“Don’t do anything stupid, you’re grown up now. What does a man matter? The world is full of good men!”

‘“Don’t light a match whatever you do!”

‘“Quick . . . this window is big enough . . . smash it . . . hurry . . .”

‘I don’t know what happened after that. The next thing I was aware of was my mother holding my hand and crying. When she saw me open my eyes, she sobbed so hard she couldn’t speak. Later, she told me that I had been unconscious for more than two days.

‘Only I knew that I had not really come round: my heart remained unconscious. I was in hospital for eighteen days. When I left, I weighed less than six stone.’

‘How long was it before you could leave this pain behind you?’ I realised immediately how foolish my question sounded: it was impossible for Zhou Ting to forget her pain.

She wiped her eyes. ‘For the best part of two years I slept badly. I developed a strange illness: the sight of a man, any man, sickened me. If a man bumped into me on the bus, I scrubbed at myself with soap as soon as I got home. This went on for nearly three years. I couldn’t bear to stay on in my old work unit after Wei Hai had left, so I resigned. It was very difficult to leave a job then, but I had no demands and nothing to fear. I took up a job offer from a sales company. With my knowledge and a certain knack for business, I soon became a successful and popular sales agent in the food industry. I was headhunted by several big companies, and was able to accumulate experience in different places.

‘Money was not a problem for me by then. I even started to become extravagant. But I still hadn’t got over Wei Hai.’ She stared at the ceiling for a long time, as if searching for something.

Eventually, she turned back to look at me. ‘Because of my success in business, the press started to notice me again. They called me the “Sales Empress”. My business activities were reported on, and journalists found all sorts of reasons to interview me. But now I knew how to protect myself and fend them off when necessary. So my personal life was never once mentioned in the articles.

‘I got to know the director of a big Shanghai trading company, who pursued me for two reasons. First, his company needed me to help open up the market for them. Second, he had never married because he was impotent. Hearing about my hatred of men touching me, he thought that we might make a good match. He was quite persistent and offered me one-seventh of his portfolio of shares as an engagement present. I was happy with this arrangement: I no longer had to work for other people, and I had a boyfriend but did not have to put up with being pawed. A Shanghai business newspaper fought to publish an exclusive, which was headlined “Sales Empress to marry Shanghai Tycoon. Shake-up in Market expected.” The news was quickly reprinted in many other papers.

‘Is the marriage taking place soon?’ I asked, genuinely hoping that Zhou Ting would find a place where she belonged.

‘No, it was called off,’ she said blandly, touching her ring finger.

‘Why? Did the media get in the way again?’ I feared that, once again, journalists might have made Zhou Ting’s life difficult.

‘No, not this time. It was because Wei Hai reappeared.’

‘Wei Hai came looking for you?’ I felt sick.

‘No, he turned up at one of my training sessions for local sales personnel. My heart had been barren for so long; as soon as I set eyes on him, all my feelings flooded back,’ she said, shaking her head.

I could not keep the incredulity out of my voice as I asked, ‘Do you still love him?’

Zhou Ting ignored my tone. ‘Yes. When I saw him, I instantly knew that I still loved him as deeply as before.’

‘What about him? Does he still love you? As much . . . ?’

‘I don’t know, and I don’t want to ask. I’m afraid of opening old wounds. Wei Hai seems very weak now. He has lost the spirit that he had when he held my hand and asked me to live with him all those years ago, but there’s still a certain something that I yearn for in his eyes,’ she said contentedly.

Unable to hide my disapproval, I exclaimed, ‘You took him back?’ I had met too many women who always excused the men in their lives for the pain they had caused them.

‘That’s right. I returned the shares to the Shanghai businessman, broke off my engagement and rented another flat with Wei Hai. We are still together.’

I noted the brevity of Zhou Ting’s description. Concerned, I pressed her, ‘Are you happy?’