SHE DOESN'T REMEMBER how the trouble started. It began slowly, crept up on them and then there it was. She assumes that there is too much heat in both of their personalities and that this has begun to melt their relationship down. They battle over what seems to be nothing yet everything. Bills, jobs, habits, differences in opinions. She knows another reason-she is not getting any offers from the studio and Tang Nah's connections are not helping. She is frustrated that he not only doesn't help to fix her trouble, he doesn't take her trouble seriously.
You can always survive by doing something else, he suggests. Be a secretary or a nurse, for example.
She feels like a peacock being forced into a hen cage. She tries not to argue back. She tries to make herself understand that Tang Nah has troubles of his own and needs support. Because of his radical views his paper recently became the target of the government. As a result Tang Nah was fired as the paper's key writer. At first he felt proud that he had stood up for his beliefs. But lately his job hunting hasn't been successful. She has tried to be supportive. He pretends to be unconcerned and shrugs her off.
Before my eyes Tang Nah slips into misery. No one will hire him and he is becoming short on money. He shouts at himself. And yet he still goes to restaurants. He can't live without style. He borrows money to buy me gifts. He has to feel rich and capable. He continues to throw big parties to entertain his friends.
I am scared of going into debt, scared of Tang Nah's desire to keep spending. I pull money out of our joint account and hide my savings. One day I am caught and he accuses me of betraying our love.
We haven't spoken to each other for two days. I feel guilty and try to make up by cooking dinner. I prepare his favorite food, pot-stickers. I do it carefully, making sure each pot-sticker turns a perfect golden brown.
He lies on the bed, staring at the ceiling and smoking.
Dinner is ready, I call.
He gets off the bed and comes to the table.
I serve him, putting a pair of chopsticks, a napkin and a little bowl of vinegar in front of him.
He pushes away the plates and begins to speak in a strange voice. Craving for fame is the enemy of happiness. There is nothing worse. You are losing your best qualities. You are influenced by the worst of Shanghai. You have bought its superficiality. I am worried about you. You are destroying yourself. You can't see it because of your poor education. I feel sad and sorry for you. You play smart at small situations but you lose the big battles. You are losing. It is like covering your ears while stealing a bell-you think no one is going to hear you. You know what you are turning into? A philistine. Yes, you are.
She tries to ignore him. She stuffs her mouth with pot-stickers and chews viciously. She tries to think that he is taking his frustration out on her and doesn't mean harm. He has nowhere else to deposit his anger. She has to be there for him. It's time to prove her love. He needs her to hold his trash. That is what she should do for him.
She endures until she reaches her limit.
He continues. I am beginning to believe what my friends say about you. You have come from a small place. I am trying to grow a flower out of a cooked seed.
At this point her rage rises. The impact chokes her. You are my lover, she says, pointing her finger at him, her tears pouring. I can bear nasty rumor, insulting gossip and mean criticism. I can hold up a falling sky, but not your words.
It hurts her too much to go on. She picks up the pot-sticker plate, carries it into the bathroom. She dumps the pot-stickers into the toilet and flushes. She shuts herself in and sobs.
He comes, knocks and begs her to open it. It's all because of my frustration. I apologize. I am afraid. I fear that you will be disappointed and you will leave me.
At midnight, she opens the bathroom door and comes out. She tells him that she can't stay with him anymore. She is unable to erase what he has said from her head.
He looks at her as she starts packing. She takes out her jackets, pants and shoes, her toothbrush and towels. She has a small suitcase and she doesn't have much to pack.
Is this the way you punish me? he says bitterly. You know I have no strength to resist you. All my friends predicted that. But no one can talk me out of loving you. I thought you cared, but… You don't give our love a second chance. You don't. He breaks down.
She has never seen a man sob like this. His whole frame shakes like cucumber frames beaten down by a storm. She quits packing.
After a long while he stops sobbing. He gets up, goes to the door and opens it widely. Don't bother with me. Just go.
The room is quiet. The water pipe in the toilet tank has stopped filling.
She gets up and walks to the door and closes it. After that she looks at him and waits.
Ping, he calls.
She stretches out her arms.
It is a night of tears and promises. We swear to never let anything get in the way of our love. The next day he is confident again. He goes out job hunting and comes back with flowers in his hand. No good news, darling, but love is the best news, isn't it?
I smile and hug him. I tell him about my news-no roles but I got myself a part-time job, a production assistant.
The days go on. Weeks and months. Still no good news for Tang Nah. To avoid embarrassment he hangs out late. He comes home drunk and doesn't get up until noon. He parties with friends endlessly.
The world stinks, he says to me. It absolutely stinks.
Dan and Junli continue to embrace Tang Nah. They listen to him with pleasure. They put no pressure on him and he leans on their support. He even talks enthusiastically about Dan's new role and Junli's new movie. He makes it sound like his own success.
What about you? I ask. My tone is sharp and I don't intend to hide my disappointment.
His parties and friends become irritating to me. I can't stand them. Tang Nah has run out of tricks to solve the trouble building between us. To avoid conflict I start to close myself. We withdraw affection and rarely make love. When we do, it is a way to stop a fight, a way to escape reality. But it is losing its magic.
Her own frustration comes to bite her now. None of her auditions are picked up. One day her temper bursts. They are attending the opening of a play, Empress Wu. She and Tang Nah have come with friends. She is fashionably dressed in an indigo-blue full-length silk gown with a thin scarf around her neck of the same fabric. Tang Nah is in a white Western suit. They look handsome together. At the beginning she seems to be having a good time. Empress Wu is an experimental play. It is the first time Chinese actors recite prose instead of poetry. Empress Wu is depicted as a woman of greatness. The audience cheers loudly when the curtain descends.
It is at the reception that Lan Ping loses control. She speaks harshly. The performance is much too dull in my opinion. It lacks energy. The actress is unfit. There is no sincerity. She is not acting, she is a young monk chanting-with her mouth, not her heart.
People are shocked. But Lan Ping keeps going. In her animation her scarf falls off the shoulders. She keeps picking it up but the scarf keeps falling. Finally she leaves it off. She continues to criticize, her voice gets louder and louder. She wraps her fingers with the scarf nervously. Tang Nah comes. He pulls her gently to the side. Come on, you are tired.
Let me finish!
Listen, I am a critic. And it's my job to comment and I think it is a good show.
Oh, Tang Nah, you are a lousy critic and that's why you are not hired.
At this point Tang Nah shoots back. He says what hits a nerve, says the words that split them forever. You know what, Lan Ping? The only reason you are angry is because you didn't get to play Empress Wu!
For Lan Ping the winter of 1936 starts with slammed doors and tears. The couple has decided to separate and each is renting a different place. Although they try to come back together again, there is a wall between them. Mentally she tells herself that she is finished with Tang Nah, but physically she is unable to break the habit-their bodies depend on each other. After every fight she goes back to him only to run away the next day.
One night he comes to see her with roses to congratulate her on a new stage role she has been offered. It is a small role, but it gives the two a reason to meet. After the door has been closed only a few minutes, an upstairs neighbor hears Lan Ping's cry, followed by sounds of furniture being smashed. Fearing for Lan Ping's life the neighbor rushes down and breaks in. The lovers are at each other's throats.
On stage, I play a working-class girl who is at a turning point in her life. A girl very much like me, from a small town, confused by big city living. During the performance I take the opportunity to weep for myself. I am ill. My headache is severe, but I can't leave the stage. I have no other place to go.
I can't close my eyes. If I do, there is Tang Nah.
The night of March 8 I suffer from the desire to see him again. I am risking my health. My fever is getting worse. Maybe this is why I want to see him. My sense that I might be dying. Maybe I will be relieved-my body is doing the job on behalf of my heart.
I deliver myself to his apartment even as my head keeps telling me no. He lives on Nan-yang Boulevard in Chingan District. It is a cultured, upscale neighborhood. A place that suits his fashionable tastes. What am I doing here? I am out of myself. He has given me the keys, but doesn't expect me-I have declined his invitations. I have told him that it is not in my character to look back.
I break my own promise this time. I want to let go, to speak with him for the last time, to love him for the last time. On stage it would be the farewell scene. A heartbreaking but liberating act.
Her body is shivering, sweating from fever. She longs for his arms. She turns the key and enters. He is not in. The room is neat, as she had imagined. Everything is in its place. Shoes lined up behind the door, dishes piled up in baskets. Magazines and books stacked up, dust-free. A window is left open slightly. The white curtain moves with the breeze. She has only been in this room once before. It was two months ago.
There is a book on his desk. Something sticks out from its pages. Letters. She can't help her curiosity and decides to take a look. Two letters. One is a stranger's handwriting. A female-fan letter admiring one of his past columns. At the end she flirts. It is sweet but stupid. The writer says that she can't wait, has been dreaming about him. Says he is meant for her. She begs for a chance to meet him. The signature is like a dragon-dance, shows that she is not well educated. The paper smells fragrant with the scent of wild lilacs.
The other is Tang Nah's. It is sealed, waiting to be mailed. She feels the burn inside her. She can't think further. She has to open the letter and she does. She tears the seal, her hands trembling. I am greatly interested, she reads, for love like this is unusual and rare. His charm, again lavishing his knowledge and wisdom. He gives compliments to the girl using phrases he once used on Lan Ping. The words Lan Ping once held in her heart, depended on for strength and took as a weapon against her mother's ghost. Now as her eyes hit Tang Nah's elegant handwriting her breath stops.
I force myself to sit still and breathe. I leave him a note. I thank him for the opportunity to read the letters. I say things seem to be going very well. Now there is nothing to worry about anymore. Everything is falling into the right place. I couldn't be happier for him. I wish that I didn't so appreciate his handwriting, but unfortunately I do. It is beautiful.
Without telling a soul I go to the train station. I buy a ticket to Jinan. I don't know why I am running off to Jinan. My grandparents have died and I have long ago lost contact with my mother. But Jinan is my hometown and there is comfort in the idea. After I get off the train I head toward my grandparents' old house where I find a distant relative occupying the place, who doesn't recognize me. I decide to call her Aunt and I ask if I can stay for a while. She welcomes me.
I can't believe it when I receive a message from the manager of the town's only hotel. It is the third day. Tang Nah is waiting in the Railway Inn for me. I am surprised that he has found me. But I refuse to see him. He keeps begging, comes to the neighborhood, walks up and down the street and stands in front of the house. Finally my aunt invites him in.
He looks pale as if his blood has drained out of him. He says he needs to clarify something.
What's the point? We're finished. We can't change ourselves.
He yells loudly, almost screaming, I knew I would not be able to fight fate the moment I met you!
I fail to help myself. It is impossible to gather my thoughts. My will retreats but I manage to say, I won't go back.
He says fine, never mind. It is no problem.
The next morning, the hotel manager runs gasping up to our house. He looks like a man who has lost his soul. We can hardly make sense out of his words. Finally he gets me to understand that Tang Nah has overdosed himself with sleeping pills and is in the hospital.
I rush to his bedside. I call his name. He opens his eyes, tries to force a smile and passes out again. I don't know what to say. After Tang Nah gets out of the hospital I bid my aunt good-bye and go back to Shanghai with him.
Lan Ping moves into Tang Nah's place. They make themselves believe that love will conquer all. While they put on their best behavior they are still on guard. When his body recovers and he wants to make love, she is unable to. He feels her rejection. Her body's coldness, its stiffness. He feels its dying. He weeps. He knows that they can't go on. He gets up and asks if she has forgiven him.
For what? The letters?
It was terrible, he repeats over and over. I was frustrated and drunk. It doesn't mean anything. I don't even know the girl. She could be a prostitute. I don't remember her at all.
He says he is destroying himself-that is who he is without her affection. She says, It is not up to me. My heart has its own way. You see how hard I try. You see I am forcing myself. But my body remembers the hurt. Again it is not up to me. One reaps what one sows.
He gets up and passes into the drawing room, which they share with other tenants. She lies in bed. She is not aware that he is leaving her a note.
She doesn't recall how long it took her to find the note. She followed him as one sleepwalker might follow another, tracing his steps along on the edge of a high roof. The shadow of their past, the ghost of their love must have dragged her. She discovers his note. It says that he is going to kill himself again. There is no other way, the note says. He has to go. That way he will free her from his trouble.
Show my note to the police, so they'll know that it is my own choice to end my life. You may pity me for I am unable to give up this love. Now, finally, you know the truth about me, you know that I am not strong enough for you.
She looks into the crowd, trying to locate him. Finally she sees him, running away from her. She races.
They are face to face. He is stared at by death. Yes, this is the look in his eyes. Stared at by death. She shakes him. He doesn't respond. The buses, bicycles, crowds pass by them. Scenes seem unreal. People, objects move, pull in and out. The suffocation. Slowly everything begins to freeze. The way death stills. She hears her heart's cry.
We will talk, she says.
They are coming down from the peak of their crisis. In Lan Ping it takes the form of fever. She lies in bed in his arms, shivering, collapsing. One moment she cries hysterically, sits up, punches the mattress with her fist. The next moment she passes out, unconscious. He tends her, in repentance. He feeds her porridge the way a mother would her infant. He is at her bedside every time she wakes. Sometimes it is at midnight. Three o'clock in the morning. She opens her eyes, sees him sleep, head over his folded arms, on a stool. In front of him, a bowl of porridge, still warm.
She weeps, doesn't know what to do with him and herself. She feels for him but cannot love a man who has lost his way. The image of the letters haunts her. She pities him, wants to love him back but can't break through the wall. It is impossible to see him in a new light. She can't erase what happened-can't even decide what troubles her most: his infidelity or his attempts to take his own life.
Yet another part of her fights this logic. There are reasons to revive their love. She is attracted to his stubbornness, his doglike loyalty. His willingness to die for her. The way he bluntly said that if love doesn't conquer, then it is not love. She is moved by his faith in love and his promise that he will never abandon her. She is sure there is no other man on earth who would do what Tang Nah does for her. She remembers the unhappiness of living without love. She is not sure which is worse.
They bury themselves in work. He becomes a freelance writer and she still hunts for roles in theater and film, but their loneliness grows. She doesn't want to find out about the girl who wrote the letter, and yet she can't let go. The girl preoccupies her thoughts-the ghost opens a kitchen in her mind and cooks. She can taste her in him sometimes. She is suspicious. She can't stand him touching her. She has lost her desire for him completely.
He goes out, spends evenings with his friends, doesn't stop drinking until he's drunk. In Dan and Junli he finds comfort and understanding. They have been trying to help him locate a staff position on a paper or magazine, but the editors reject him-his suicide attempt is now a household story. In their eyes Tang Nah has sacrificed his dignity.
Interestingly enough, on Lan Ping's part the story increases her popularity and helps her find work. She becomes involved in political low-budget movies produced by independent film-makers. She has had no luck getting roles in mainstream romantic-themed movies. She can't beat those moon-face and vase-body creatures. But the political films serve her well. There is less competition. The producers are unable to get the famous actresses so they turn to the starlets and even unknowns.
China, my country, matters more to me than my personal misfortune. The news of Japan's preparation for further invasion has filled the papers. To my distaste, the Shanghainese are not terribly affected. Seeking pleasure is forever the city's priority. Theaters are still packed for romantic movies. The audience's lives seem to require sucking on illusions. I resent those who play conscience-numbing doctors, those who offer opium-feeding tubes to the masses' brains. Many of them are Tang Nah's friends. Tang Nah hangs out with them to escape his own frustration. He has become a layabout.
Tang Nah no longer answers her challenge. He avoids her. Soon she discovers that he is having an affair again.
She finds herself too hurt to weep. She goes out and walks in the shadows of the streetlights. One night she stops at the door of Zhang Min, the director of A Doll's House. She knocks. He is home and is surprised at her visit. She asks if she can come in. He opens the door, offers a chair, puts out drinks, tells her that his wife and daughter are away. She breaks down, sobbing, tells him her story. He has all the time and attention in the world for her. He has always adored her.
They drink, she feels better. She says she doesn't want to go home, says that there is no reason. He offers his arms. It is what she wanted. She is here for this. To be cared for.
She thought she would feel better afterwards. But it is not the case. She can't speak of it to herself. She gets up to go. Says it's time. He understands and goes to open the door. He helps her into the coat and hugs her good-bye. Ping, I want you to know that I will always be here for you.