What she found most unbearable was that Lian still refused to talk about what had really happened in the company. She felt deeply wounded, because it showed that he did not trust her. She had come through for him, as he put it, but he could discard her whenever he liked. Of course, she picked up a few clues when she overheard Lian shouting and swearing, it was something to do with his old company sponsoring someone, which led Qiankuan to accuse Lian of ‘embezzling public money.’ Even though it was the late nineties, the words still struck fear into Tianyi. How could they be used against her own husband? She tried not to hear the old cliché ringing in her years: No smoke without fire.
Back at home, Lian either slumped on the sofa at home, or took out his bad temper on his son. Tianyi found any excuse she could to get out of the house. Their home had become a powder keg ready to go off at any moment. One evening, as Tianyi huddled in her single bed under the chilly bedclothes, she wondered whether all marriages, all families, got to this point sooner or later. Perhaps everyone was unhappy, but some people put a brave face on it, while others were more upfront about their feelings. Her thoughts reminded her that a letter from Di had arrived the previous day, but she had not had time to read it. She ripped open the envelope. As usual, Di had written on thick, yellow paper lined in pale blue, and began her letter: Dear Tianyi. It was what came after that, though, that alarmed her.
Di said she had not written for so long because she had been on the verge of a breakdown. Of course, she and Du had broken up after a year of living together, Tianyi knew that because Di had written about it often enough. What was new was that Di had split up with her American, Brian Brown, and he wanted a divorce. There were many reasons, some of which she did not want to go into, but the main one was that he had wanted her to become a stay-at-home housewife. Di had put her heart and soul into her housekeeping but, to her astonishment, although she did everything perfectly capably, he and his mother never stopped criticizing her. Soon Brian was subjecting her to humiliating verbal abuse. He called her things like ‘lazy’ and ‘dirty’. Di was frank. There was no way she was going to agree to a divorce, he would get more out of it than she would and she refused to walk away from the marriage with nothing. At the very least, she would drag her heels until she got American citizenship.
Tianyi put the letter down and stared into space. Two arms locked around her from behind. She knew it was Lian and shuddered. Physical intimacy with him disgusted her, and had done for quite some time. She forced a smile and tried desperately not to let her feelings show. Lian’s eyes fell on the letter. ‘A letter from Di?’ he asked. She nodded. Lian picked it up. She was not happy, but managed to stop herself from snatching it off him. She could not keep something like this from him. Lian skimmed the letter and, sure enough, a sneer spread across his face.
‘I knew it! I knew Di’s marriage would never work. She thinks she’s so great, but she’s greedy and lazy. You know what, those sisters are jealous of you!’
‘And what,’ Tianyi replied coldly, ‘do you think they’re jealous of?’
‘That you’ve got such a good husband!’ Lian said. ‘Don’t all the neighbours say that I’m the model husband? Carrying the shopping for you every day. Where would you get another man like me?’
Tianyi gritted her teeth and said nothing. She could not rock the boat now. She had just been informed that she was to be sent on a writers’ trip to the Czech Republic. In any case, she was coming round to the idea that she was the real problem, she was too negative. Instead of confronting problems head-on, she preferred to avoid them. She felt less and less inclined to talk. She had said goodbye to the chatty girl of her childhood and had turned into a sallow, silent old woman. She used to be in love with her mirror; now, feeling she was ageing more quickly by the day, she did all she could to avoid it. Classical poetry was full of couplets to describe a woman like herself. There was Lin, the heroine of The Dream of the Red Chamber: ‘How can the lovely flowers stay intact, Or, once loosed, from their drifting fate draw back?’ Or the Tang dynasty lines: ‘Pluck the blossom while it’s there, Don’t wait until the branch is bare.’ How right the ancient poets were! The problem was, who was going to pluck her? No good man would dare to. If he was bold enough to try, Tianyi would not let him. There was nothing left to her but to wither and fall.
Trips away were her only pleasure. They were a brief chance to escape. Tianyi had first become conscious of her desire to flee when she was a child. She and her mother were not getting on, and so she would imagine a tunnel that linked her to her past, a place of tranquility. She was imagining paradise, she realized afterwards. But she was no nearer to it now than she had been then.
Here at least was a chance of a respite: her trip to the Czech Republic. There would be three others going: two writers, a novelist, Zhao Ping, and an essayist, Wu Shanliang; the first was an old man, the second middle-aged. Then there was an older woman, a translator, Qiao Chun. Decent people, good writers. Tianyi was delighted to be going with them.
She had only ever known Prague through novels and songs, but now she was really here. Her first glimpse of the city was at night. The young man who came to pick them up from the airport, Tony, was the son of one of Prague’s most famous sinologists. He had been given a Chinese name by his father, he told them: Lu Weida. Tianyi was wearing a plum-coloured velvet jacket, her short hair was neatly combed and topped with a few little curls. It was a feisty look, and her belted jacket showed off her figure. Today she was full of youthful energy. Tony gave her admiring glances.
Tianyi’s heart gave a little flutter, too, when she first saw him. He was not exactly handsome, but there was an attractively saturnine look about him. He was tall and thin, rather how she imagined Kafka in his youth. (She told him this later in the trip, and to her surprise he was pleased: ‘Yes, I played Kafka in my school play.’) When they got to the hotel, she wheeled her suitcase towards her room. Then she glanced back and saw him still standing by the stairs, under the dim lighting, staring after her.
The trip passed off pleasantly. Tony’s father, the sinologist, took them around and acted as interpreter. She did not take to the food, however. Once, the head of the Prague Writers’ Association invited them out to dinner but the table was a desert, and the best thing on offer was a plate of fried potato cakes. The next day the Chinese delegation treated their hosts to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. The table was filled with dishes to share, but to their amazement the head of the Association pulled a plate of fried meat in front of him and started shovelling it in. They stared at him in disbelief. He kept eating. Tianyi looked up from her plate and caught Shanliang’s eye, and they traded half-smiles.
Tony was a fussy eater, full after a couple of mouthfuls, after which he would turn to his coffee, sipping at it endlessly. He looked down, seeming lost in thought, at least when he was not glancing sideways at Tianyi.
A Chinese student washing dishes at the restaurant was, in turn, staring at Tony. Then she boldly walked up to him and, taking a camera out of her pocket, said: ‘Do you mind having a picture taken with me?’
Tony looked at her blankly, but in the meantime Tianyi had accepted the camera and took a few shots. Tony was serious, the girl all smiles.
Tony’s father went by the Chinese name Lu Hua. When the elder Lu suggested they go and pay their respects at the grave of another famous sinologist, Dvorak, the Chinese delegation agreed with alacrity.