Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [51]
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AND SO MY art training begins. As Z.G. promised, he’s not easy on me. “Your outlines are good, but your expression still is not deep enough,” he pronounces. “Our great Chairman has said there can be no art for art’s sake. You must express the thoughts and feelings of the people. It must be realistic!”
I work harder than I’ve ever worked in my life. Z.G.’s judgments are tough, but his lessons also allow me to be with Tao, whose presence makes obvious to those who crowd around us at night in the villa’s courtyard that the teacher isn’t showing favoritism to his daughter.
“Tao has a gift,” Z.G. tells the villagers. “My daughter … She is learning to paint the same bamboo leaf over and over again. Artists in the Ming dynasty perfected this technique of painting the exact same bamboo leaf again and again and again.”
That’s right. He still has me painting bamboo sprigs, just as we did on the first night we arrived. I don’t understand why, given his criticisms.
“The Ming artists were trying to create the essence of bamboo with their simple strokes,” he goes on. “Now consider the way my daughter has painted the bamboo around the Charity Pavilion. It’s pretty, but look closer. There’s nothing behind her strokes. I tell her she must cut to the bone to find her emotional heart.”
Pearl
DUST AND MEMORIES
MY DAY STARTS at six thirty a.m. I wake to the sound of rhythmic thumping—the boarders doing physical exercises to a radio program that everyone is encouraged to listen to and follow each day. By the time I’ve gotten dressed and gone downstairs, the boarders are in the kitchen, bickering and fighting for space, as usual.
“It’s my time at the stove,” one of the dancing girls snaps at the policeman’s widow.
The widow tries reason. “I just want to set my bun near your pot. The warmth from the stove will heat it.”
“You know the rules. Go away!”
The widow backs off and bumps into the cobbler. When some of his rice porridge slops onto the floor, he shouts, “Hey! Watch out, you fat water buffalo!”
“Why are you yelling at me?” the widow shoots back. “You caused the problem. You have to make room for everyone in the New Society.”
The cobbler grunts, and then puts the bowl back to his lips and slurps noisily. His other hand scratches his rump. No one moves to clean the white mess off the floor, but then it looks like no one has cleaned the floor since Liberation, maybe longer. I rise from my place at the table, pour some hot water from the thermos onto a cloth, and wipe up the porridge. Layers of grime come up, and the tile’s cracked-ice pattern that my mother so loved reappears. Thousands of greasy meals cooked by the multiple people living in my family home and maybe not one mopping, but the beautiful tile is still here. I fold the cloth over and scrub my clean spot a little larger. The early morning squabbling ceases and the room falls silent. Six pairs of eyes stare at me: the policeman’s widow in contempt, the cobbler with scorn, the two dancing girls in amusement, Cook in concern, and the professor in sympathy. I get up off my knees, rinse the cloth, and return to my cup of tea.
After breakfast, I walk back up the stairs, where, now that I look, the carpet probably hasn’t been cleaned since May, my mother, and I left the house. I reach my room and shut the door behind me. I brush my teeth, wrap a scarf around my hair, push my jade bracelet up my arm until it squeezes in place around my flesh, put on a light jacket, and go back downstairs and out the front door on my way to work. No one calls good-bye or wishes me well. It’s been this way for six weeks now. Some days I despair that Z.G. and Joy will ever return to Shanghai or that I’ll ever hear from May. I’ve been writing to my sister once a week and haven’t yet heard back. Has she received any of my letters? Or was the man at the family association full of baloney when he said my sister and I could send mail to each other through him and Louie Yun in Wah Hong Village? All I can do is wait, and follow one day after the next.
Today the mid-October sky is blue