They were extremely discreet, getting together only at hours that did not raise suspicion, but there was no way they could have escaped Madame Yan’s detection. She had been keeping an eye on them from the start and had a pretty good handle on the nature of their relationship as it started to develop. She blamed herself for having unwittingly brought them together. She blamed Kang Mingxun for not listening to her. Most of all, she blamed Wang Qiyao for throwing caution to the winds and landing all three of them in hot water. She wanted to scream at her: “Even if Kang Mingxun didn’t know what you are, there’s no way you could pretend not to know!”
Her guess was that Wang Qiyao was a former taxi dancer or a nightclub girl who had to go into hiding now that the world had changed. Madame Yan felt ill-used — she had considered Wang Qiyao a friend with whom she could share her nostalgia for a bygone world, but who now revealed herself as selfish and greedy. At the cost of giving up her beloved mahjong games, she stopped visiting Wang Qiyao, citing different excuses. Needless to say, Wang Qiyao and Kang Mingxun knew why she had stopped coming. Sasha, on the other hand, kept up his visits, whether oblivious of the situation or pretending not to have noticed, and thus became both a nuisance and a convenient smokescreen for the lovers. Once Wang Qiyao asked Kang Mingxun whether Madame Yan might tell his family about their relationship, to which he replied not to worry, that he would simply deny everything and then they would have no recourse. Wang Qiyao greeted this with silence.
After a long pause, she said, “If you deny everything with me too, what recourse will I have?”
“Whether I deny it or not, there is still nothing we can do about our situation.” Wang Qiyao was disarmed by his candor. Kang Mingxun assured her, “Whatever happens, you will always be in my heart.”
Wang Qiyao was scornful. “I am not a phantom that lives only in your heart.”
Although she said this with asperity, it was not out of anger but deep sorrow. This is something they had not counted on. They had not known that their happiness would be adulterated with sorrow, nor had they bargained on having to mortgage their future for the present. Life is a series of interlocking links; it is never easy to separate one out from the rest.
In the depths of their despair, hope grew where there was no hope and concessions were made on top of concessions. All this flowed from the initial compromise. In private, they were both secretly waiting for a miracle to deliver them from their predicament. One day Kang Mingxun arrived home to find the whole family giving him the cold shoulder. Second Mother’s face was streaked with tears, her nose red and her lips purple — he hated seeing her like that. His father had shut himself up in his room and refused to emerge for dinner. On the living room table was a boxed cake, the telltale sign of a visitor. He found out from the servant, Mama Chen, that the visitor was Madame Yan. The cake, left untouched, looked very much the part of a rejected scapegoat. He dared not leave the house the following day, which he spent going from bedroom to bedroom, paying his respects to all the elders of the house, who snubbed him at every turn. Father kept shutting himself up. Instead of crying, Second Mother took to sighing.
It wasn’t until the third day that Kang Mingxun managed to sneak out of the house to tell Wang Qiyao what had occurred. Mingled in her consternation was a new element of elation: now that things were out in the open, and light was shining in through the broken window, one could never tell what might happen next. Old-fashioned families like his cared enormously about appearances, and now that the rice was already cooked, they might just decide to let things pass and swallow their pride. Kang Mingxun also felt more at ease. He had a different secret wish. He told himself that if his father should explode and disown him as a son, he would simply leave home and that was that. On this day, they shared a stirring of hope and were more affectionate than usual. By chance, Sasha had not come by to make a nuisance of himself, which allowed them to snuggle up on the sofa under a blanket, watching silently, hand-in-hand, as the light on the closed curtains turned from bright to dark. The noise in the longtang under the window spoke for them, as did the chatter of the sparrows. These fragmentary sounds, scattering like fallen leaves and broken branches over their heads, were minute keepsakes of their love and sorrow. After night had fallen, they did not turn the light on, but let time and space evaporate around them among the dark shades, exulting solely in the solid reality of their warm bodies.
However, Kang Mingxun was to be frustrated in his secret wish. As soon as he reached home that evening, he knew that the ice had melted. Even though it was past eleven, no one demanded to know where he had been and why he was back so late. The door to his father’s bedroom was ajar, and he could be seen sitting under a down comforter reading his newspapers, his face serene. From his sisters’ rooms came music over the radio — robust modern sounds, indicating that everything had returned to normal. Mother asked him whether he wanted some dim sum. He was not hungry but nodded in acceptance of her gracious offer. As he ate the lotus plumule and jujube stew, Mother and Second Mother sat by him to knit and chat about the latest Shaoxing opera coming to town. They asked if he wanted to see it. He replied that, if Mother and Second Mother wished, he would get tickets for them.
“If you have time, that would be delightful, but don’t press yourself if you are busy,” they chirped merrily.
Three more days passed without incident. At first he thought they might ask about the affair, but it gradually dawned on him that the subject would never come up. His entire family had agreed to let the matter pass, pretending to know nothing about what had happened. The cake too had disappeared. He did not know how to react to this change in the course of events and avoided Wang Qiyao for an entire week. Instead he spent the time accompanying his two mothers to Shaoxing opera performances, escorting his sisters to Hong Kong movies, and going with his father to the Yude Bathhouse. After their baths, they lay, wrapped in towels, on the bench, drinking tea and chatting like two old friends. He recalled how things used to be when his father was still young and he himself a little boy. But now he had to turn his eyes away, heartsick at the layers of excess flesh on his father’s neck.
Day after day, Wang Qiyao waited for him, anxious at first but growing calmer as she consoled herself with the thought that, the more violent the storm in his household, the greater the possibility that a change would come. During this time, Madame Yan came by once to spy on her, but Wang Qiyao was careful not to reveal anything, only showing her the usual hospitality. Madame Yan, however, could not resist asking why Kang Mingxun was not there.
Wang Qiyao laughed. “Since you started keeping your distance, we no longer have a foursome for mahjong. Kang Mingxun also stopped showing up, and now only Sasha remembers me and comes regularly.”
Even as she said this, they heard footsteps on the stairs and, as if to confirm the statement, Sasha entered. To vent her anger and bitterness, Wang Qiyao made a show of abandoning Madame Yan, and talked gaily with Sasha instead. But deep down, she was being torn apart. Tears welled up in her eyes as she wondered: Will he ever come back?
It was eight days before Kang Mingxun finally came to see Wang Qiyao again. They both looked somewhat haggard. Her heart, which had been floating in uncertainty, sank, but it seemed to have landed on solid ground. This time, they each sat quietly in opposite corners, eyes averted, their faces turned away, as though each was afraid of being ridiculed by the other. The afternoon faded into night.