Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [55]
“You shouldn’t have come back,” Auntie Hu says. “It’s dangerous for you.”
“I had to,” I say, and then I tell her about my daughter and how I’ve returned to Shanghai to find her.
Auntie Hu shakes her head. “So much sadness and heartache, no? And yet we have to go on living.”
“And you, Auntie, why did you stay?”
“This is our home,” she answers. “I was born here. My husband was born here. Our parents and grandparents were born here. And of course, Tommy was born here and is buried here. How could I leave him? How could I leave my husband?”
“How is Uncle Hu?”
She doesn’t answer directly. “When Mao and his cronies took power, they made it their business to take everyone’s property. Not everything was nationalized at once. Instead, they did it by long torture, by taxing people like us out of existence. We had to give up our property piece by piece. Eventually the government took our factory. Uncle was forced to sweep the floors of the factory his own grandfather had built. But those turtle’s egg abortions didn’t know what they were doing. Production dropped. Workers were injured. They asked my husband to resume his former post as director of the factory but with the same pay he received as a sweeper.” She pauses and takes a breath. “He was dead within two years. Now the factory belongs to the government, but I still have my house.”
“I’m sorry, Auntie. I’m sorry about Uncle.”
“Fate can’t be second-guessed, and we’ve all lost people.”
The servant returns and pours the tea. Without asking, Auntie Hu puts two teaspoons of sugar in my cup before handing it to me. I haven’t had sugar in my tea in years. The taste combined with the scent of chrysanthemums and the odor rising from Auntie Hu’s bound feet is vaguely nauseating, yet it transports me to the security, luxury, and coziness of my childhood.
“How are you able to still live like this?” I blurt out, forgetting my manners.
“It’s not so hard to keep the old life,” she admits. “A lot of us do. I have servants, because we were forbidden to let them go after Liberation.” She allows herself a delicate cackle. “Chairman Mao didn’t want us to aggravate the unemployment situation.”
Which may explain Z.G.’s servants, although they would have been little girls eight years ago.
“I still have my dressmaker,” she goes on. “I could take you to her if you’d like. Your mother would want me to do that.” But she’s not answering my question, and she knows it. “I keep my curtains closed, so people won’t know how I live. If you look inside any house on this street, you’ll find housekeepers, valets, maids, cooks, gardeners, and chauffeurs. Even in the New Society, we have to keep our homes clean and tidy.”
Auntie Hu’s face wrinkles in wry amusement. “They call it the New Society and the New China, but this is like the olden times my grandmother told me about, when the wealthy kept the exteriors of their compounds gray and simple so that wandering bandits or ill-wishers wouldn’t suspect the privilege hidden behind the walls. Our ancestors may have dressed opulently in embroidered brocades and silks inside their compounds, but they donned simple, unadorned clothes when they went into the streets so they wouldn’t be kidnapped and held for ransom. That’s what we’re doing now! Except”—she gives a devilish snort—“we Shanghainese haven’t lost our hai pah.”
It’s true, the Shanghainese have always had a unique sense of style.
“I still send my maid to buy peonies when they’re in season. I need to put them somewhere. Why can’t I use this vase?” Auntie Hu asks, gesturing to an art deco vase with a naked woman etched into the glass. Her eyes come back to mine. “Where are you staying?”
“In my old house, but it doesn’t look like this.”