The Interior - Страница 39

"You say that just because my interpretation deviates from yours?"

Hulan shrugged indifferently.

David didn't know where his next words came from and regretted them the moment they left his lips, but he said, "I forbid you to go."

Her eyes were cold as she said, "You're not my father." Then she left the restaurant.

12

WITHOUT THINKING, HULAN GRABBED A TAXI AND ASKED to be dropped at the bus stop for Da Shui Village. When the driver said that the last bus had already left for the day, she asked if he'd take her. Speaking into the rearview mirror, the driver said, "You're a Beijinger. Why do you want to go there?"

"You look at me and see only my face and my clothes," Hulan said. "Since that is the case, you know I also have money."

That seemed a good enough answer for the driver. He made a U-turn, stepped on the gas, and headed out of town. Soon the city lights were left behind them, and only the taxi's headlights illuminated the deserted road. Hulan stared out into the darkness. Again and again she went over the words of her argument with David. How could he tell her what to do? How could he see Siang and Peanut and Mayli and Jingren all as faceless, uneducated peasants? How could she be with someone like him? She felt as trapped as she had the day David and Zai had discussed her activities as though she weren't at the table with them.

At the crossroads, Hulan pointed left. Soon after, she asked the driver to stop. She got out of the car and paid her fare, supplementing it with a tip. But he waved away the extra money. "I have seen this on American television shows," he said. "And they say tips are now given in Beijing, but I cannot accept."

"Please take it," she said. "I was rude before, and tired. I hope you'll forgive me."

"Ha!" he said. "I thought you were just showing your city ways. So we are both mistaken." He looked out into the black fields. "You're sure this is where you want to be?" When Hulan nodded, he said good night, then sped away. In the far distance she could see the glow of Taiyuan 's lights. In another direction Da Shui's electricity provided another smaller proof of civilization. But other than these two gentle luminescences, the night seemed an opaque blanket. Hulan walked along the road for a short way, then dipped down onto a raised pathway. Eventually she came to Ling Suchee's small compound.

She entered the tiny courtyard and was surprised to see Suchee sitting on a low-slung bamboo chair talking to a man. He looked very much at home as he sat on the metal cover of Suchee's well. Suchee introduced him as her neighbor, Tang Dan, and Hulan as an old friend.

"I've met your daughter," Hulan said, trying to camouflage her distress with the usual pleasantries.

Tang Dan gave a customary response. "She is disobedient and ugly." He regarded Hulan frankly, and she returned his stare. His eyebrows were bushy over dark eyes. A few white whiskers jutted from his chin. His stomach pressed against his shirt. His sandaled feet were callused and rough. The only family resemblance between Tang Dan and his daughter was in the strength of their jaws.

"She's at the Knight factory," Hulan said. "Siang is safe."

"I wasn't worried," Tang Dan replied. "When she comes home this weekend, I will make her see sense. By Monday morning all obstacles will be removed and she will once again obey."

The words "When a daughter, obey your father" ran through Hulan's mind. Then she thought of Slang's headstrong ways, her stubbornness, her sense of entitlement, and wondered which of the two-father or daughter-would win in this contest of wills.

With a grunt Tang Dan heaved himself to his feet. His legs bowed out under him. "Good night, Ling Suchee, Liu Hulan."

"See you tomorrow," Suchee responded.

As soon as Tang Dan left the courtyard, Suchee beckoned Hulan inside.

A few minutes later, Hulan sat at the small table in Suchee's single room, sipping tea. Etiquette prevented Suchee from asking her guest what she was doing here this late at night, so she went back to an earlier chore of making shoes. Silently she took some paste made from flour and water and applied it to sheaf after sheaf of cut newspaper, taking pains to press the sheets together so that there were no bubbles or uneven areas. Wordlessly Hulan watched her friend, remembering back to the days of the Red Soil Farm and how she herself had spent long evenings making the papier mache soles, then dying them red in a vat tinted with soil, and sewing on scraps of cloth to create the tops.

"I've told you about David," Hulan said. Suchee nodded and continued her work. "Many years ago in America I left him with no explanation. It was cruel and unforgivable. All those years since that time I've been lonely. Of course, there were other men, but they meant nothing. Then, when David came back into my life, I wanted nothing more than for us to be together again. I thought we could be happy together, but I don't think we can."

"Because…"

"Because since he's come here, I don't know who I am," she said. "I act one way, he acts another. He's said terrible things."

"What terrible things were those?"

"That the women in the factory are uneducated, that our country is corrupt, that the people who run the factory are honest…"

"Ah, so it is a political disagreement."

"That, and he thinks he can treat me like a woman, like a taitai."

"Don't you want to be his wife?"

"It is a word that, like so many in our language, is a prison to me."

"I don't understand."

"Mama, baba. Separate words for older brother and younger brother- gege and didi. Separate words for older sister and younger sister-jiejie and meimei. Yeye, nainai, bofu, shushu," she rattled off the words for paternal grandfather, paternal grandmother, oldest paternal uncle and younger paternal uncle. "All these are different than the words for their maternal counterparts, and those words connote a lesser meaning because the female side is seen as unimportant."

Suchee picked up another piece of newsprint, coated it with the paste, and pressed it to the growing sole. "You aren't telling me anything I don't know."

"My whole life I've known exactly where I fit in the family tree. Even when I lived in America, I felt the pressure of that. No, not pressure, the weight, the sense that I could never truly be myself."

"But our words are a comfort," Suchee said, glancing up from her work. "They tell us who we are. They are what make us Chinese."

"No, they are what keep us locked to the past," Hulan countered. "When a daughter, obey your father; when a wife, obey your husband; when a widow, obey your son," she said, completing the proverb she had thought of when talking to Tang Dan.

At this Suchee put down her work. Once again Hulan was struck by how much her friend had aged in this harsh environment. But Hulan was doing just what she had accused David and the taxi driver of doing, judging Suchee by her face. Behind the rough skin and tragic eyes, Suchee was as she'd always been-gentle, kind, and astute.

"It is sad, Hulan. You have not changed since you were a girl. You were always running away, even when you first came running to the countryside all those years ago."

Hulan disagreed. "I was sent to the Red Soil Farm."

"Yes, but even then you ran away from the truth of you."

"I don't understand."

Suchee's eyes narrowed as she appraised her girlhood friend; then she asked, "Do you want me to say this?"

TTudclenly Hulan wasn't sure, but Suchee went on. "Here is what I remember about you: Unlike most of the girls sent here, you were happy to be away from your family. Oh, you said you were lonely, but no one ever saw you cry, no one ever saw you write a letter. When they had struggle meetings, you spoke out the loudest and said the worst words. No one wanted you on their team, because at any time you could turn against an individual person or the entire group."

"I know all this," Hulan said. "I'm sorry for the things I did."

"Are you sure? Because what I remember is that your words kept you safely alone."

"You think I spouted those slogans and reported on people's infractions because I didn't want friends? You're absolutely wrong."

"Am I?" When Hulan didn't answer, Suchee said, "If you couldn't run away from people physically, then you could distance yourself by being politically superior."

"I never treated you that way."

Suchee raised her eyebrows. A dark silence settled on them.

Finally Hulan said, "It was against the rules to have sex. That was the worst infraction."

"I was your friend," Suchee said. "You didn't have to report us."

"But everything worked out. Ling Shaoyi was able to stay here with you. The two of you had a life together."

Suchee shook her head. "Do you think a day goes by when I don't wish that you had never seen us on that day, that I had never married, that I had never given birth to a daughter? Shaoyi was sixteen and I was twelve when your train arrived. You remember how I loved him from afar? That was the love of a farm girl for a city boy. Two years later, he finally saw me, but we were not looking to spend our lives together. We both understood our differences. Like you, he was from a good family. They had always planned for him to go to university and become an engineer. But you said your words and then you ran away."

"I didn't run away. A family friend came to get me. Do you think I was happy about what happened next? I was made to say more terrible words and then was sent into exile i i America -"