Wang Qiyao encouraged Weiwei and her friends to dance while she sat off to one side watching. A draft stole in from the French window. She felt as if the scene before her had been transported from thirty years earlier — the only difference was that, having gathered thirty years of dust, it looked somewhat grayer. She even fancied that she could see whole strands of dust drifting down from the old curtains onto the scene before vanishing without a trace. Once more of the young people got up to dance, however, the scene grew livelier.
A few of them were really decked out; although they looked out of place and their dancing skills were dubious, they certainly grabbed your attention. All it takes to liven up the atmosphere is a little eye-catching youthfulness. Some of these young people are dancing frantically, getting all out of rhythm but still carrying on till the bitter end, when the music stops. Some mistake dancing for walking and end up traipsing all over the hall. In the middle of the dance two men suddenly come in carrying two cartons of soda pop, instructing everyone to show their ticket stubs before claiming their bottle. Impatient dancers walk straight across the floor to get theirs. The hall suddenly fills with the sound of bottle caps popping. A few even take the liberty of going over to the boom box to stop whatever is playing in mid-song and put on their own tape instead, leaving no time for the dancers either to stop or to get in step up with the new tune. Before long it turns into a free-for-all, with people dancing the four-step to folk melodies, and the formerly decorous scene evaporates.
Wang Qiyao was sitting by herself when she was asked to dance, as it turned out, by an older gentleman. By then things were getting a bit out of control and everybody seemed to have the right to ask anyone they wanted for a dance. Slowly Wang Qiyao was led out onto the floor, surrounded by people who were oblivious to all but their own movements. Dancing to the same song, everyone did it their own way. The older gentleman wavered a bit before finally getting into rhythm; his steady steps were like a coral reef in a tumultuous sea. Wang Qiyao could ascertain the kind of person he was from the way he danced: an honest, dutiful, hard-working man with solid assets and a virtuous wife, the sort who would set foot in a dance hall only for social engagements related to his work. Back in the old days he was the kind of man that parents of unmarried girls kept a sharp lookout for. Now his hair was gray and he no longer dressed the way he used to. At the end of the dance he saw Wang Qiyao back to her seat, gently shaking her hand and bowing slightly before turning to leave. Right after that came the last song of the evening, the theme from Waterloo Bridge, “Auld Lang Syne.”
Besides dances organized by different work units, there were also dance parties held in people’s homes. All that was needed for these was a large room and a tape player. Zhang Yonghong’s latest boyfriend, Xiao Shen, was a frequent organizer of such parties and held them at his friend’s house. He invited Wang Qiyao to one of them, saying he wanted her to teach them how to dance. Wang Qiyao insisted that she had nothing to teach them; but she went anyway. Xiao Shen’s friend lived in the Alice Apartments, in a ground-floor flat two doors down from where Wang Qiyao used to live. Although it was dark when they arrived and the surroundings had dramatically changed in the years since she had last been there, Wang Qiyao recognized the place as soon as she set foot inside the compound. She thought it strange that over the years she had never once been back — if it hadn’t been for the dance party that night, she might never have gone back as long as she lived. The place was only three or four bus stops away from where she now lived, but it felt like a world separated by mountains and oceans. Occasionally, when her thoughts drifted to the Alice Apartments, it had seemed a previous life.
Xiao Shen’s friend’s apartment, though also on the ground floor, had a different layout from Wang Qiyao’s old place. It had two bedrooms and an extra area in the living room. His parents and sisters had, one after the other, emigrated to Hong Kong, so he was the only one left in Shanghai and had the entire place to himself. It was clean and had all the amenities, but didn’t have a lived-in feeling. The friend didn’t boil hot water for tea for the guests, but simply set out bottles of soda and beer on the table. By the time Wang Qiyao and the others arrived, several couples were already dancing slowly to the music. It was hard to tell the host apart from the guests, as people seemed to know each other very well. Everyone helped themselves to ice cubes from the refrigerator; when the doorbell rang whoever was closest opened the door; new arrivals made themselves right at home. One guest, apparently uninterested in dancing, even went to take a nap in the master bedroom.
Wang Qiyao had been invited as their dance teacher, but no one seemed interested in learning anything from her; they were all focused on themselves. She felt awkward at first, but seeing how everyone took care of themselves, she relaxed a bit. As no one else was playing host, she went to boil herself a pot of water in the kitchen and poured it into a thermos. Then she found a box of tea leaves and made herself a cup of tea before sitting down in a quiet corner. Others followed suit and made tea, but no one bothered to ask who had boiled the water, as if it should have been there in the first place. By then there were about two dozen people in the room, and someone had turned off the lights, leaving on only a single desk lamp. The shadows of people, thrown onto the wall by the hazy yellow light, resembled a black forest. Wang Qiyao sat alone in an unlit corner, content that no one was taking any notice of her. She had returned to Alice, but Alice was now a different Alice — and she was a different Wang Qiyao.
As she sat on the sofa, the teacup she was holding gradually grew cold. Amid the thick forest of shadows, her own shadow had been swallowed up. She almost forgot who she was. But she is the heart of the party! She may have been the only one not dancing, but she was the essence of the party. That essence came in the form of the memories she held within. Never mind the people waving their arms, shaking their hips, and stomping on the dance floor. They wouldn’t know a real dance move if it was staring them in the face. The music they knew was merely the cast-off shells of true music, shed in a century of metamorphoses since the days of Johann Strauss, a whole heap of them. Those swirling motions that once turned circling skirts into blossoming lotus flowers — turn and turn as they might, the figures they trace are empty air, for not a jot of romance remains. All that was left of the old romance was memories in the hearts of a select few — Wang Qiyao being one of them. The memories were fragile and could not endure being put on display, like ancient tombs best left unexcavated; once unearthed, their contents disintegrate with the first breath of air. There is no point in such a party, thought Wang Qiyao. Between two numbers, she heard the sound of the trolley coming from the direction of the Paramount. Just another night at Alice’s? she wondered.
Vacation
When Xiao Lin received his college admission notice, Wang Qiyao offered to send him and Weiwei on vacation to Hangzhou by way of congratulations.