‘That was when I knew who he really loved,’ she concluded. Tianyi felt her heart swell. Then the tears came.
Qing’s candour made Tianyi take the girl under her wing. From the autumn of 1990 to the spring of 1991, when Lian returned from America, she stayed at their house. The two women got along well enough. Qing was good-hearted, although she had a young girl’s failings — was sometimes scatter-brained, loud-mouthed, unable to look after herself, and so on. But on the whole she was a good girl. What most touched Tianyi was that while the exhibition was on, Qing spent two whole evenings mounting the paintings one by one. Even Tianyi got fed up with the mounting, but Qing kept on working away. So as soon as the exhibition closed, Tianyi agreed to Qing’s request: she would take the girl to meet Zheng’s parents.
The exhibition made Tianyi one of the hottest artists in town. After the turmoil of 1989 through 1990, the autumn of that year should have brought peace and quiet, but the special exhibition at the Central Gallery of Art had everyone at a fever-pitch of excitement. In the Visitors Book, someone had written in large letters: New! Wild! Amazing! Early one morning, the Chinese art world’s leading critic, Wu Mengshi, paid a visit. The old man was taken around in his wheelchair and, when he saw the paintings, his eyes lit up. He nodded, and muttered to himself: ‘Only someone without formal art training would dare to paint like this.’ Tianyi shot a quick look at him and felt that this was high praise.
Then two art dealers asked to buy the three largest paintings in The Tree of Knowledge series, offering to pay $3,000 for each. Tianyi was suitably impressed but, having thought long and hard, decided that she could not bear to part with them. Each was a one-off, there would never be another one like it. Each line, she thought, was drawn from her flesh and blood. She could not let the paintings go. Of course the money was good, but she felt money had little to do with her.
But one man’s arrival proved to be a turning point for Tianyi. His name was Feng Dayuan, and he was the father of Kexing, whose lead role in the film of The Tree of Knowledge had made her a household name. In 1990, Dayuan had just taken over as deputy director of a film production company. He had already taken note of Tianyi and The Tree of Knowledge in his previous post, heading up its literary department. This was no thanks to his daughter, who was highly ambitious and never recommended any works to him, especially when it was by someone of the same sex. Kexing by dint of toadying to all and sundry, did make it abroad and became the first actress from the Chinese mainland to make it in Hollywood. Of course, in a dozen years there, she only managed to play walk-on parts and, even though she appeared scantily-clad, her body was too scrawny to attract attention.
Dayuan had not come to see the pictures, but to meet the author of The Tree of Knowledge. At their first meeting, he was disappointed. Dayuan liked three kinds of women: the young and pretty ones; those who were older but were sexy and flirtatious enough to pique his interest; and those who were not pretty but were young and unsophisticated, had a personality and were articulate, even a bit mouthy. Sadly for him, Yang Tianyi fell into none of these categories. She was young and female but physically, she looked matronly. Her writing was beautiful and highly individual, but as a person, she was neither pretty nor did she have much personality. Older women, even at thirty-six or thirty-seven, could pass as quite young if they looked after their appearance. But Yang Tianyi’s outfit was dowdy, she had a sallow complexion and dark circles under her eyes, and seemed exhausted. Whatever was wrong with the woman?
Tianyi was a woman ruled by her emotions: when she was happy, she was combative and brimmed with energy; and when she was depressed, she looked haggard and dragged herself around as if she could hardly stand upright. Dayuan must have caught Tianyi at her lowest moment. Fortunately, the success of the exhibition lifted her spirits just a little, and banished some of the shadows from her face, allowing a ray of light through. Dayuan walked around the exhibition illuminated by that light. When he came back to see her again, he had made up his mind what he was going to say to her. His producer’s eye had unexpectedly been caught by one picture. He wanted someone who could paint like that, it did not matter if she was a rubbish-collector. So for the moment, he suspended his judgment of her as a woman.
Dayuan was not particularly knowledgeable, or enthusiastic, about art. Put simply, he liked that picture because it was the spitting image of his daughter, the actress Kexing. In the picture, she was holding a bass guitar in her arms, her face curtained in sleek black hair, below which her white neck was visible. The tones of the picture were cool, the background a violet-blue colour, the kind of colour the Russian painter Vrubel so loved. Dayuan did not really understand the finer points of the painting, but he knew that was the colour his daughter most loved. How he wished he could fly her back from the other side of the world to look at the picture!
So, for the sake of a painting, this middle-aged 1990s director approached this woman who otherwise fell far short of his standards, and spoke: ‘Yang Tianyi, would you like to join my production company?’
Tianyi felt this was her lucky break. Leaving her sinecure at the Academy of Letters, and making a new start, all proved very easy. Once she had sorted out the paperwork, she prepared to take Qing to see Zheng’s parents. That morning, Tianyi helped the girl with her makeup. She knew how to apply make-up but only seemed able to use her skills on other people.
Qing was a typical provincial girl from a modest family, unsophisticated and without much taste. She had nothing suitable to wear, so Tianyi opened her wardrobe and picked out a suit in silvery blue with phoenix tail flowers embroidered on it in silver thread. Then she took out the necklace of black thread interwoven with shells, and got Qing to put it on. She put her hair up for her and put the finishing touches to her makeup. Qing smiled at herself in the mirror: ‘It’s true what they say, Tianyi, people need clothes the way a horse needs a saddle! I’m ready to audition for the Central Academy of Drama now!’
Tianyi put on a pearly-gray pencil skirt with an embroidered linen top, and they set off in good spirits. On the way, they bought some gifts of food. Tianyi thought that if Zheng’s parents were going to visit him in prison this month, they could take him some. But nothing worked out as she had expected.
When Zheng’s parents saw Qing, they looked anything but happy. Tianyi did her best to break the ice, but they were extremely reserved towards her. Tianyi racked her brains but could not imagine what the problem was. Qing seemed oblivious, as she smiled and chatted to Tianyi’s mother. Mrs Ke peeled a juicy Sichuan orange for her, but it seemed to Tianyi that she was only going through the motions. In between mouthfuls of orange, Qing talked on and on about Zheng. Then she said: ‘Tianyi, you go home, I’m going to spend a couple of days with Zheng’s Mum and Dad.’ Tianyi saw the beseeching look Mrs Ke gave her, then the older woman said: ‘Tianyi, maybe next time … The thing is the house is in a terrible mess, I haven’t cleared up.’
Qing butted in before Tianyi could speak: ‘Mrs Ke, don’t worry, I’ll do it for you. It’s no problem, I’m really good at cleaning and tidying.’ She smiled sweetly at Tianyi. ‘You go on home, Tianyi. You’ve been cooking my meals for a couple of months, you deserve a rest.’