—
That night, Ba Lute told her that she should cut her hair, that the long braid that slid against the small of her back was a symbol of vanity. “Cut it right to your chin,” her uncle said. “Why can’t you wear it like the other girls?” Zhuli felt a shiver of fear, but she agreed. “Here, I’ll do it for you,” he said anxiously. A rusty pair of scissors, normally used to cut chicken, already lay on the table. “No, uncle,” she said. “It’s too much trouble. I’ll ask my mother to cut it.”
“Your mother! But where is she? I’ve no idea where those two have gone! There hasn’t been a single letter or message.”
“Then I will wait.”
“Today, little Zhuli. We must do it today.”
He had lost weight and seemed to stand crookedly. His straw shoes made a weak, scraping noise against the floor.
“I will, uncle.”
When he had retreated, she saw her mother’s copy of the Book of Records on a chair beside the kindling, as if Ba Lute meant to burn it. Zhuli picked up the cardboard box and took it to her room. On the bed, she lifted the lid. She could not stop herself from withdrawing a notebook at random and opening it. Wen the Dreamer’s refined yet passionate script moved her all over again. Her parents seemed to rest in her hands, as if the novel had never been a mirror of the past, but of the present. What if Da-wei and May Fourth, separated for so many years, still wandered as exiles, and this was the reason the novel could not be finished? Missing her parents, Zhuli followed her father’s handwriting down the page. In the story, Da-wei lay awake in his New York dormitory as jazz and German lullabies crowded through the rooms, men argued and women laboured, a child wept in its newfound English, new to Da-wei as well, and he marvelled at everything he might one day understand. Month after month, he worked odd jobs. He repeatedly mended his cap and padded coat, thinking that soon, tomorrow, his life would be reinvented. Lonely and bored, he copied pages from The Travels of Lao Can, the only book he had carried from China until, on a desolate spring day, he ran out of paper. He sat staring at the iron beauty of the Hudson River, remembering a passage from a famous Lu Xun essay:
“What’s the use of copying those?” a friend had asked Lu Xun.
“There’s no use.”
“In that case, what’s your reason for copying them?”
“There’s no reason.”
What was the purpose, Da-wei finally asked himself, of copying a life but erasing himself?
When Zhuli woke, she was alone and in Shanghai once more. It was morning but still dark and she felt an extraordinary peace, a calm willingness to give in to the destiny of her life. Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata No. 2 rang in her head as if she had been practising in her sleep. She returned Chapter 16 to the Book of Records, and hid the cardboard box beneath her bed. In the kitchen, she saw the chicken scissors on the table and she put them in her bag. Outside, the air was wonderfully cool. She felt that everyone was awake but no one spoke; the shutters were closed, but all the neighbours watched. The scissors made her feel strong and prepared for all eventualities. She passed a wall that was covered in meticulously flowing calligraphy:
IF THE FATHER IS A HERO, SO IS THE SON! IF THE FATHER IS A COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY, THE SON MUST BE A SON OF A BITCH! DIG OUT THE CHILDREN OF RIGHTISTS, CAPITALIST ROADERS, AND COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARIES, DIG OUT THE SNAKES OF THE OLD REGIME! LONG LIVE CHAIRMAN MAO, LONG LIVE THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT, LONG LIVE THE GREAT PROLETARIAN CULTURAL REVOLUTION!
Prokofiev continued, the third movement now, with its poetic sweep, the violin teetering on discordant notes while the orchestra carried on, oblivious. Prokofiev was a world-weary, cantankerous grandfather shuffling ahead of her, a celebrated pianist whose sonatas sang as if they had been written for the violin. After his return from a tour in 1938, his passport was confiscated. In the campaigns that followed, his music was denounced by the Politburo as formalist, bourgeois and counter-revolutionary and he never composed again. Sparrow had told her that when Prokofiev died, in 1953, there were no flowers to be had because all the city’s flowers had been rounded up for Stalin’s death, which had occurred a few days earlier. People had made do with paper flowers instead. Sparrow had heard it from the conductor, Li Delun, who had been studying in Moscow at the time. Because of the grandeur of Stalin’s funeral, no musicians were available to play for Prokofiev, and so his family played a recording of the funeral march from Romeo and Juliet. The first 115 pages of the newspaper carried tributes to Stalin; on page 116, there was a small notice on the death of the great composer.
Her long braid touched the small of her back, a pressure like her mother’s hand guiding her through the invisible, ever-watching crowds.
—
Just before dawn, Sparrow looked up to see a figure standing in the doorway of his office. He put down his pencil. Kai stepped into the light and yet, in the same moment, seemed to disappear. In just two weeks, since their return to the city, he had lost weight. There was a confusion in his eyes, and he appeared much older than his seventeen years. “Am I disturbing you, Teacher?”
“Come in.”
Kai turned and looked over his shoulder. He retraced his steps, reached the door and shut it, and the click of the lock sent a chill down Sparrow’s spine. He stood up and busied himself with the thermos. The teacups clinked mildly against the table and Kai sat down in Old Wu’s chair. Old Wu had not shown up in the office for at least a month and his desk was covered in a film of dust.
“You didn’t come to class yesterday,” Sparrow said.
“Did anybody come?”
He lifted the cups and turned back to Kai. “Two students.”
“Let me guess,” Kai said, smiling in an off-putting way. “Was it—”
“No, don’t. It isn’t important. Tell me how you are. I haven’t seen you since…well, since a few nights ago.”
“I’m fine,” Kai said. “Don’t I look it?” He smiled again but this time it was warmer, meant for Sparrow. “Teacher,” he said. Then, beginning again, “Comrade, you must be the only one in the building. Do you never rest?”
“Isn’t Zhuli here?”
“What time is it?” he said distractedly, standing up and coming to where Sparrow was. “Around four, I imagine.”
“The best time for composing. It’s like another world.”
Kai took the tea and peered out the window.
When Sparrow followed his gaze, he saw only the darkness. I’m a teacher, the eldest son of a revolutionary hero, Sparrow told himself, and there’s no reason for me to be afraid. “Is something worrying you?” he asked.
“No,” Kai said. And then, more credibly, “No, I don’t think so. It’s quiet tonight.” He shifted and Sparrow noticed the armband on the pianist’s sleeve.
“Have you joined the Red Guards then,” he said touching the red cloth.
“Joined?” Kai said, his hand resting overtop of Sparrow’s. His voice was lightness itself. “People like me don’t join anymore. We are Red Guards, that’s all.”
We, Kai meant, as in those with revolutionary class backgrounds. Uneasy with the subject, he searched for another but could think only of Kai’s adoptive father and his dream of a great musical community. “How is Professor Fen?” he said, pulling his hand back.
“The same,” Kai said. “Superior and forgiving as always, even though his students at Jiaotong have begun denouncing him. He’s convinced this campaign is a little jolt, nothing more. A few denunciations and it will all blow over. He applauds their revolutionary fervour.” Kai sipped his tea and set the cup down noiselessly. “Maybe he’s right. He usually is.”