DRIVING HOME FROM THE REUNION, Mei could not get Yaping out of her mind. Having seen their old friends after so long seemed to have made his absence, which she thought she had buried, sharp again.
Mei had noticed Yaping on the first day at university. He was a surprisingly tall boy from the south, with sensitive eyes, a shy smile, and soft hair that fell over his forehead. It did not take long for everyone to see that Yaping was the most talented in their class.
Mei and Yaping started going out in their third year. They discussed literature by Weiming Lake. They took trips to the West Mountains to visit temples and shrines. They went shopping in Wangfujing and Xidan, to browse through books and eat traditional Beijing specialties. They watched movies in the university hall, the best place in Beijing to see both imported and avant-garde Chinese films. Together they saw Love Story and Roman Holiday, the only two films from non-Communist countries. After Red Sorghum won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, director Zhang Yimou took his film to Peking University. Following the showing, the director and his leading actress came onstage. Mei still remembered how beautiful Gong Li looked and how everyone cheered.
But Mei’s mother, Ling Bai, did not approve of Yaping. She thought him good-looking—“in a soft southern river-town-boy way”—and very bright, but he came from the provinces, which meant he would most likely have to go back there after graduation. Ling Bai never would have allowed Mei to move out of Beijing.
Ling Bai was a painter who worked in the art department of a propaganda magazine called Women’s Life. She was an ordinary employee who had gained seniority in her old age, if not authority. Although Ling Bai had little ambition for herself, she expected her daughters to succeed. She might have been able to overlook Yaping’s residency problem, for with luck and talent, he could be allocated a job in Beijing. But he could not change his upbringing. His parents were merely schoolteachers. Yaping was not someone who could give Mei prospects and protection.
“One cannot live long on a diet of poetry,” Mama told Mei.
But Mei went on seeing Yaping anyway. They were in love.
In their last year at university, Yaping won a scholarship from the University of Chicago. After they graduated, he went to America. At first his letters were long and enthusiastic. Then they became shorter, more infrequent. A year later, after not having written for a long time, Yaping wrote to tell Mei that he had fallen in love with someone else.
Mei wasn’t entirely surprised. But she had not expected him to fall in love with another person so soon. She felt that all the things he had said about loving her forever were lies. She felt betrayed. She tore up his letters. She wanted to throw them in his face. But Yaping was far away. All she could do was curl up in bed and cry.
“I told you so,” said Mama. She was sitting in a folding chair on the balcony of her apartment with a cup of green tea. “Now you see that I was right to be against it, don’t you? I only wish you had listened to me. You are like your ba, too romantic.”
It was typical of Mama, thought Mei, clenching the steering wheel. Mama was good at making Mei feel that she could do nothing right.
Before the Cultural Revolution ended and Mama was given the job at the magazine, they moved around a lot, following her temporary jobs and temporary housing. Mama became more fragile each time they moved. Mei and her sister learned not to do things that disturbed her. These might include noise, silence, things not in their proper place, dirt, and bad news. But no matter how careful they were, Mama still cried.
It seemed to Mei that only her sister could make their mother smile. Lu was three years younger and extremely beautiful from an early age. She was sweet, charming, and talented. Lu’s teachers had only the best things to say about her. She was always praised as special, intelligent, and kind. Mama loved her so much that Mei thought she had no more love left for her older daughter.
So it was a relief for everyone when, at the age of twelve, Mei went to boarding school, though even there, she failed to fit in. This became clear to Mei when Ling Bai was summoned to the school to see Mei’s class mother. Mei sat outside Mrs. Tang’s office, bored because Mama had been inside for a long time. What could they be talking about?
She tiptoed to the door and put her ear to the keyhole. She heard the voice of Mrs. Tang. “Mei is a good student. But it is unhealthy for a girl of her age to be alone all the time.”
“I am afraid she’s got her father’s temperament,” said Mama. “He was a solitary person, the type who lived his life through literature, ideals, and principles. He was a brilliant writer. But he didn’t understand how the world worked. Eventually, his personality destroyed him. Whenever I see Mei, I see her father. They have the same eyes. She’s even got his expressions. I am scared. I try to help her, but she won’t change. My other daughter, Lu, is not like this. She’s good with people and understands everything automatically. I don’t know why Mei is so different. Not because of anything I did, I hope. I love them both and treat them the same. Yet Mei has turned out just like her father—always looking down on others, always judging. It is as if no one is good enough. No one is up to her standards.”
“Perhaps you could take her to see an herbalist,” suggested Mrs. Tang. “They know how to soothe the temperament.”
“If only they could,” said Mama.
When Mei heard her mother coming toward the door, she ran back to her seat.
The herbs and the reading of chi, life energy flow, did not help. Mei continued to live in a world of her own, surrounded by her books and her thoughts. She read everything she could find. She wanted to be a writer, like her father.
“Absolutely not.” Her mother put her foot down. “How can you even think of being a writer? Writing is the most dangerous profession in China. Whenever there is a political movement, writers are always the first to go to jail.”
But Mama couldn’t stop Mei, and neither could she convince her that pragmatism was better than principles.
They had been in Ling Bai’s living room when Mei told her that she had resigned from the Ministry for Public Security.
Mei had shrugged, trying to look lighthearted. “I will be fine. There are plenty of private companies out there. I will have no trouble finding a job. I can make more money.”
“But you won’t have the same kind of future. Don’t you know that power is all that matters? When you got that job at the Ministry, I was so happy and relieved, to tell the truth. You know how I felt about your determination to be a writer or a journalist. I was glad that you didn’t have to be either. I thought finally you were safe and I could stop worrying about you. But once again you prove me wrong.” Mama had paced in front of Mei. “There must be something in you that is self-destructive. All those perfectly fine young men you were introduced to, not a single one worked out. Why?” She stopped moving and stared at her daughter. “What happened to all the things I told you about? Guanxi networks? Compromise? Has it all gone in one ear and out the other?”
Mei had bitten her lips until they hurt.
“You could really learn from Lu,” Mama had said.
Mei couldn’t stay quiet. “I’m not like Lu. You must know that by now. Frankly, I don’t want to be like her. I don’t want to be anybody’s pretty pillow.”
“That’s a horrible thing to say about your sister.”
“How much do you think she loved those boyfriends of hers? How much do you think she loves Lining? She loves his money.”
“You’re jealous because she’s happy.”
“She’s happy because she lives for the moment and loves only herself.”
“That’s not fair. No one asked you to carry a burden. I sacrificed my life so that you could have it easy—good school, nothing to worry about. But you choose to make life hard for yourself. All your principles and morals, what good are they if they can’t make you happy?”
Mei had tried to find a retort, but the words had stuck in her throat like fish bones. She’d gotten up from the sofa and walked to the window. Below, someone was coming out of the bicycle parking hut. Mei had watched him get on his bike and ride away. She’d watched the empty afternoon. She’d seen the same story repeating itself—the odd child, the disobedient daughter, the failure.
“You are just like your father. You must act big. You set yourself up on a pedestal. You don’t care about who you hurt.”
“If anyone, I hurt only myself.”
“You hurt me, your mother. I’m worried about you.”
A violent urge had stirred inside Mei like never before. She’d turned around. All the anger and betrayal she had felt exploded. “Then I ask you to stop worrying about me. I can take care of myself. I learned to do that when I was five, thanks to you. Have you any idea what it was like for me to see my father being beaten up and humiliated every day? If you really worried about me, you wouldn’t have left me in the labor camp. You wouldn’t have left Baba there to die.”
“How dare you? You—you ungrateful little beast! You have no right to judge me.” Mama had begun to shake, her voice cracking with suppressed tears. “What do you know about love? All you do is read books. You think life is like a novel. No, reality is much darker than that. I didn’t abandon you or your ba. If I could have taken you out, I would have. But I could only take one child with me, and your sister was just two years old and very sick…” Tears had rolled down her cheeks. “I got you out eventually, didn’t I? You don’t know how difficult it was. But you’ve never appreciated it. I gave up so much for you and Lu. All I want is for you to be happy. But look at what you’ve done.”
What, indeed? Mei asked herself now, turning off College Road. Was her mother right about her? Was she really the assassin of her own happiness? But no—as difficult as it had been to leave the Ministry, she couldn’t have stayed. There can be no place for lies in true happiness, she asserted. As she turned onto the ring road and saw, in the distance, the Gate of Moral Victory, she decided that she had done nothing wrong and that she would waste no more of the weekend brooding about the past.