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“What happened to your master?” I ask, once again letting my American side show.
“After they let him suffer in heartbreak for another four years, they came for him,” Kumei recounts. “It was winter. They had him strip down to a thin cotton garment. Then they tied him to the scholar’s tree and poured cold water on him. They left him outside all night. By morning he was dead, his clothes frozen into ice on his body. The villagers laughed and said he was wearing glass clothes.” She pauses for a moment before going on. “To tell the truth, in some ways he was already on his way to the afterworld, having said good-bye to all that he’d known and cherished. Some nights when we were alone in his room, he had me dress in old clothes. Remember the costume Sung-ling made me wear for the play? That was one of the things the master put on me. The clothes were soft, shiny, and in beautiful colors.”
“They were silks, satins, and brocades,” Yong translates for her.
It occurs to me that this is not unlike Z.G., my mother, and my aunt—always remembering the past, dressing up, dressing me up. But I have to admit that there’ve been times this winter when I’ve thought longingly of my Levi’s, the fancy clothes Auntie May bought for me, the costumes I wore on movie sets, and the cowgirl outfit I loved as a little girl.
“He would stare at me, play his instrument, and weep,” Kumei continues.
“The violin,” Yong clarifies, using the English word.
“It was not our Chinese music. I didn’t like it, but it always calmed my baby.” Kumei pauses, dwelling in the past. Finally, she resumes. “Even when I saw so much bloodshed, even when common sense told me to run away, I couldn’t leave my master.”
“I couldn’t leave him either,” Yong adds. “We two had been treated the worst by the other women in the villa, but we were the most loyal.”
Kumei sighs.
“The master wasn’t a bad man,” Yong says again, and this time Kumei nods in agreement.
Maybe the two of you didn’t know any better, I think.
“The master could trace his family back thirty generations,” Yong says. “He had imperial scholars in his family, which is how he came to own so much land. He took care of the people in Green Dragon. He truly was a benefactor. He was also a fine musician. When I was a girl in Shanghai, my parents gave me piano lessons. Not so easy with bound feet! I met the master at a recital.” She turns to Kumei. “Did I ever tell you that?”
Kumei shakes her head, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know what a recital is anyway.
“The master and I used to play together,” Yong adds wistfully. “We were educated, like your mother,” she says to me.
Now I understand why Yong and my mother got along so well. Their lives have been different yet similar. Yong has bound feet; my mother was born just four years after footbinding was outlawed. Yong married a wealthy man who brought her to the countryside; my mother married a poor man from the countryside who took her away from the city she loved. Neither had children of her own, yet Yong has Kumei and my mother has me. Both had their lives shattered by political circumstances. Both, for whatever reasons, loved the men they married. But wait…
“At my wedding, you talked about how hard the day of your wedding was and how stern the master was when he lifted your veil,” I say. “But it sounds like you wanted to get married.”
“It wasn’t an arranged marriage,” Yong replies. “My parents insisted I bind my feet, but in other ways they were very modern. They wanted me to marry for love—”
“But at my wedding you said—”
“Aiya! Do you need to have everything explained? I was married to the master and I’m from Shanghai. I can read and play the piano. I’m not like Kumei. I’m not from here. No one will ever have sympathy for me. I say and do what is necessary to survive. If that means lying to a room full of small radishes …”
She drifts off, and I allow what she said to sink in. I’m not from here. I come from imperialist America. I can read and write. I express my opinions too freely. I haven’t been careful enough…
“After the master was killed, new soldiers arrived,” Kumei says suddenly. “They asked if I wanted anything. Why would they do that, when no one was supposed to want things? So I said I didn’t want anything. But the captain looked at my baby and he gave him the violin.”
“And you survived. All three of you are still alive.” After everything I’ve heard, I ask, “How can that be?”
“There came a time when all I could think about was how to save myself and Ta-ming,” Kumei admits. “I thought I could turn on Yong. I thought about joining others when they taunted her. I thought about running away from this place, but where could I go? What could I do? Beg? Sell my body? Who would buy it? And what about Ta-ming? Didn’t I have a duty to him? He was born here. His father was born here. This is Ta-ming’s ancestral village. And Yong?” Kumei juts her chin.
“She had too much goodness in her heart to desert me,” Yong tells me, as though I didn’t understand this already.
“I told myself to look clearly,” Kumei says. “The soldiers were simple and polite. They didn’t steal from us. They didn’t kill the master. It was the villagers who had blood in their hearts, but through it all they hadn’t hurt me or my baby. You see, I may have a black label, but I’m from this village, and for years everyone had seen how I was treated. I was one of them. I’d never demanded special foods or expected people to kowtow to me when I walked through the village. Why would anyone kowtow to me? I was emptying and cleaning the villa’s nightstools in the fields just like other women. But mostly I couldn’t leave, because this was my son’s home. Just as this will be your son’s home.”
“I don’t have a son,” I say, startled.
Kumei and Yong once again glance at each other.
“You’re going to have a baby,” Yong says. “Don’t you know that?”
I wave my hand back and forth. “Not at all! Not possible!”
Yong’s eyes widen. “Didn’t your mother teach you about these things before she went back to Shanghai?”
