providing him with a job seemed to be the most fundamental way. Of course this was not easy. On the one hand, her younger brother was not fit for any of the existing jobs in the family business. On the other hand, her father-in-law had made it clear that he'd never put any relative on the payroll unless he was really needed. So what was Nainai to do?
Finally she came up with an idea. She persuaded my grandfather that the theater needed a reliable person to watch over it during the night and her brother was the right one to do it. All he needed to do was to sleep in the theater after the performance was over. By day he could still enjoy himself in the teahouses and wineshops. In the evening he could see as many operas as he liked. Each month he'd receive a salary, which of course would be called a gift. However, soon the brother proved that he could not deal with even a job like that. One night he caught a severe cold sleeping in the theater. A couple of months later, he joined his parents in the yellow earth.
His death made Nainai heartbroken, for she loved her little brother. In the past the two of them had traveled in the same wagon and played on the same boat. They had studied with the same tutors and Nainai had spent many hours writing characters and memorizing ancient poems with him. When the weather changed or when he was ill, she would help her mother take care of him and over the years he had become dependent on her.
Yet even this was not the real reason why Nainai was so sad when her brother died. The real reason was that he was the only male descendant in her family. When he died without issue, the once powerful and prominent Manchu family was extinct by Chinese standards. Nainai's children did not count in this case, for a daughter's children belonged to her husband's family.
Nainai's own ancestors had no more offspring. After a hundred years, who would offer them delicious meals when the festivals came around? Who would repair and sweep their graves at qingming, the special day in April on which dutiful descendants visit their ancestors? Who would burn paper money and send cash into the nether world for them to spend? Who would burn incense and chant Buddhist scriptures to expiate the sins they had committed and beseech blessings for them? . . .
Nainai's ancestors would be cold and hungry for eternity, hanging like dry leaves on a dead tree, shivering in the chilly wind of the Yin. They'd be weeping and their tears would flow out like a bitter river. But river or rain, nothing could revive this family. It was too late. Henceforth sunshine, full moon, spring wind, peaceful years, and bumper harvest, all good things belonged to other families. Nainai's ancestors were beyond help. Their relation with the human world was cut off once and for all. People would soon forget them. Their memorial tablets would be thrown out by strangers.
That was why in China families had to have sons. The more sons the better, for the ancestors would feel safer and happier. If a man failed to produce sons, he did his ancestors a great wrong. That was why Mencius said, “There are three ways in which one fails his filial duties. Not having a son is the biggest among them.” The ancestors, I guess, could not care less about daughters whose children would take the husbands’ surnames and carry on the family lines for other families.
5
Why Did Father Join the Revolution?
After Nainai married my grandfather, she gave birth to ten babies in ten years. Father and Second Uncle weighed more than seven pounds at birth. Third Aunt was less than six pounds. After her, the babies continued to come. One each year. Smaller and smaller. Nainai did not know how to stop them. Nor did she know how to save them. So the babies died in a few days or just a few hours, before they could open their eyes and see their mother's face, which was as pale as the moon.
The heavy loss made Nainai love even more dearly the three children whom heaven allowed her to keep. She hired the best wet nurse she could find for Third Aunt, because she herself was too weak to nurse her. As for her two sons, they each had a nanny too. Yet Nainai's heart was with her children day and night to make sure that they got the tender love and proper care they needed. As a result, the three of them all grew up healthy and strong.
The Chinese had a saying, “At the age of three, one's personality begins to show.” Father and Third Aunt turned out to be more like Nainai herself, quiet and sensitive. Second Uncle, on the other hand, inherited my grandfather's fiery temper. If he was happy, he would laugh out loud. If he was mad at someone, he would tell the person to his face how he felt. After he spoke up, he did not bear the person grudges. Soon he would forget what had happened between them and be the person's good friend once again.
Despite the differences in their temperament, Nainai's three children had one thing in common: their love and devotion to their mother. When she was cursed by her father-in-law, the children knew how to comfort her to bring a trace of smile back onto her sad face. When she was distressed by the deaths of her parents and younger brother, the children turned her thoughts from the past to the future. Because of the children, new hopes began to sprout up in Nainai's heart. She said to herself that in the future she would send all her children to universities. Her daughter as well as her sons. Especially her daughter! Her daughter would not be a housewife and a dependent like herself. She would have a profession so she could support herself. That way she would not need to put up with the insults she herself had swallowed with bitter tears for so many years.
After her children graduated from universities and got jobs, of course, they would all get married and have children. The more children the better. Boys and girls. All were welcome. They'd fill her house with laughing, crying, crawling, climbing, running, and jumping. She'd hire wet nurses and nannies for each of them, and she herself would tell them stories. Of course, all her children and grandchildren would live with her in her house. A big family. She could not imagine that things could be otherwise.
When the year 1942 came round, Nainai's dreams seemed to be coming true. Father, Second Uncle, and Third Aunt were all in universities. Father was a junior majoring in Western literature in Furen University, Second Uncle a sophomore studying economics in Yanjing University, and Third Aunt had just started medical school. Nainai was ever so proud of each of them.
What she did not know at this juncture was that her children were planning to leave home. They made the decision because of the Japanese invasion. In the thirties, first the northeast was lost. Then big cities like Shanghai, Nanjing, Tianjin, and Beijing fell one after another. Throughout the country people were outraged, by the Japanese as well as by the Nationalist government, which they felt was ineffective in its resistance. Many students agreed with the slogan “Although China is vast, there is no longer enough room for a peaceful desk.”
Being “slaves without a country” day in and day out was more than Father, Second Uncle, and Third Aunt could bear. Everyday in the street the students could see Chinese civilians bullied by Japanese soldiers. Western professors were made to quit one after another. Patriotic Chinese were arrested, tortured, and killed. The hated “plaster flag,” as the Chinese nicknamed it, flew haughtily above everybody's head, making it hard for a Chinese to breathe. Father, Second Uncle, and Third Aunt thought it was time for them to leave Beijing.
Father was the one who had the connections. So he first arranged for his brother and sister to leave. With the assistance of underground workers, they went through Japanese blockade lines and headed for the southwest. Their destination was more than a thousand miles away. With the war going on, the expedition was a journey of danger and chaos. On the way they witnessed bombing, looting, accidents, and all kinds of extortions. Sometimes they rode on trains and buses; sometimes they walked or ran. It took them several months to reach Sichuan, where they eventually resumed their studies in universities.
As for Father, instead of going to the southwest where he could join Second Uncle and Third Aunt, he joined the Communists at Jinchaji anti-Japanese base, a mountainous area between Hebei and Shanxi provinces. Why did he do this? This is another riddle, which unlike the previous one I have a hard time figuring out, for over the years Father has given me too many answers.
