For this week’s Translation Tuesday, we bring you a short story by Ling Shuhua, translated from the Chinese by Nicky Harman. The Wu family has escaped to the mountains for their holiday, but their tranquil lifestyle belies the turmoil brewing around them—they’re in 1920s-1930s China. For Katherine, the youngest daughter, every day is a battle with her status-conscious mother, who is intent on shaping her children according to trendy Western sensibilities. Katherine finds solace in the company of Silver, her nanny’s daughter, whose practical countryside wisdom provides a counterpoint to her mother’s imported values. Their innocent antics set off a chain of events that exposes the fragile facade of propriety so carefully maintained by the Wus, and, more generally, the affluent class to which they belong.
The rain stopped at dawn, and a mist descended over the trees in the valley. Amid the white-out, all that could be heard was the waves breaking on the beach, their steady rhythm seeming to promise a beautiful morning.
A long-drawn-out hoot broke the silence. The jade-green foothills lay in a dreamlike haze, the mountain peaks facing out to sea floated clear of the mist as if from behind clouds at sunset, and the coastline emerged in perfect chiaroscuro, like a Chinese ink wash painting.
The surface of the water began to glow with brilliant dawn colours and the sand on the beach caught flickers of light; in the eastern sky, the sun spewed bright golden rays of light through the layers of crimson clouds.
Then the mist vanished and on the hills, buildings painted red and green, as neat as little doll’s houses, could be seen amongst the greenery.
Set back at some distance from them was an impressive-looking villa painted a vivid red and flanked on one side by a broad veranda in pale green. This, the summer home of company director Wu, could be seen from miles away.
On the veranda, the aroma of coffee and buns filled the air; Mr. Wu was having breakfast with his wife and two of his children—a boy and a girl of twelve or thirteen, smartly dressed in Western-style clothes.
Below them, on the lawn, a big empty space dotted with bright flowering trees and shrubs, the youngest daughter, Katherine, was sitting on a rock playing at cockfighting with Nanny Wang’s daughter, Silver. They were jabbing at each other with big handfuls of pine needles. Suddenly, Katherine stopped and gazed out at the sea.
“Silver, have you seen a film?” she asked.
Silver shook her head. “My mum says she’s going to take me but she hasn’t.”
Katherine pointed at the sea: “Suddenly just now it looked like a film, but films aren’t as pretty.” She meant that films were only black and white, while the seascape had light and colours that changed from minute to minute. It fascinated her even though she couldn’t find the words to describe it.
“Really?” said Silver. “Why didn’t you tell me when it was happening?”
“Look, the mountains over there have come out again, and you can see half the school. Silver, look at the swing up in the air and the light on it, it would be such fun to get up there and play on it!”
As she spoke, they heard her mother call: “Katherine!”
“Yes, Mummy?” Katherine answered in a quavering voice and went towards the veranda. She was a gangly child with a sallow complexion, big eyes and a small nose and mouth, who reminded one of a half-grown chick.
“Come here and let me look at you! I’m not a dragon, don’t act like you’re scared to come near me!” Mrs. Wu reprimanded her. Then she exclaimed: “Nanny Wang’s so stupid, it doesn’t matter how often I tell her, she still doesn’t get it, she can’t put you in that red waistcoat, the colour clashes with your green dress, it looks so vulgar!” She pulled her daughter to her and took off the waistcoat.
“Alice, bring me her brown sweater,” Mrs. Wu told the older girl. She said brown in English.
“George, you’ve only been here a few days but you must be able to see I don’t have a free moment! I have to sort out all their clothes myself,” she turned to her husband.
“But what does it matter what she wears in the hills?” Mr. Wu replied.
“It’s all very well for you to be so half-hearted about it, husband! Look at all the expat families round here. If we dress our children any-old-how, it reflects badly on all the Chinese community! I can’t understand Mrs. Zhang: she dresses herself up like a dancer, but her children are disgracefully scruffy. Poor Mr. Zhang, a man like him who’s been abroad, I don’t know why he doesn’t put his foot down….”
Mr. Wu smiled faintly. That could have meant approval, or sympathy for his wife, perhaps even he did not know. Mrs. Wu had been abroad herself and was well-known within his company as a very superior wife.
“Where’s Baby?” Mrs. Wu asked Katherine.
“Nanny took him outside in his cart to play.”
“I don’t like you spending so much time with Nanny Wang’s daughter. You be careful you don’t catch nits off her. Why don’t you play with your brother more?”
Katherine muttered something, then stepped down from the veranda. She didn’t understand why her mother was so against her playing with Silver. She was fascinated by this little country girl. Besides, she had never seen a nit, and quite wanted to see one.
“Alice and David, in a little while, you can walk with your father up the mountain. It’ll be fun for you. He needs to make the most of his few days’ holiday.” (Mrs. Wu used the English word.) “Otherwise, he’ll just fritter away the time with his nose in a book,” she added.
“Can’t we take Katherine?” David asked, looking a bit sorry for his kid sister.
“No, you can’t. If she goes, Baby will want to go too, and then another servant will have to go with them. It’ll be much too much of a business, your father won’t manage.”
“Right, it’ll be such a bore if we take Katherine,” said Alice, in her most grown-up voice. These days she always echoed what Mummy said.
“Mummy, I want to go,” three-year-old Baby whined, scrambling up the veranda steps.
“And where do you think you’re going, Baby? Mummy’s not going!” Mrs. Wu reached out and picked him up.
“I want to go,” the little boy repeated. “I want to have fun.”
“Who said we’re going up the mountain? Did Katherine say that?”
“No! I want to go!” The boy clung around his mother’s neck.
Their father put his coffee cup down and rallied behind his wife.
“Baby, come and get on the swing, and I’ll give you a big push…” And Mr. Wu picked him up, put him on the rope swing and sent him flying into the air.
*
“Silver, have you been up to the top of the mountain?” Katherine asked. She was standing outside the kitchen by the bamboo fence.
“The mountain? Yes. It’s no fun at all. My dad’s taken me there lots of times to chop wood,” said Silver, busy eating her lunch inside.
“It is fun,” Katherine insisted, wistfully. She hadn’t forgotten her mother’s words, however, and didn’t dare go into the kitchen.
“It’s not fun, I don’t want to go,” Silver repeated. Two years older than Katherine, she tended to look down her nose at games, even though she was only eight.
“My brother David said there’s a cannon on top to shoot foreign warships. And you can pick wild strawberries and cherries on the way up, and they’re really good.” Katherine could see her friend’s mouth beginning to water and added cheerfully: “You can see all sorts of strange-shaped peaks from up there. My brother said fairies used to live there. He read it in a book.” When Silver didn’t answer, she paused for a moment and sighed: “I really, really want to go up the mountain and have a look. David says the mountains go right up into the sky. He says one day we can go in a plane and see them. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“But there’s nothing to do on the mountain. I want to see a film,” said Silver, rinsing her empty bowl. She was a typical country girl, with her sunburnt face and dull-looking hair tied in pigtails so short they stuck out like a brush. When she had finished washing her bowl, she wiped her mouth and hands on the front of her jacket.
“Why don’t you go and see a film then? There are lots of cinemas,” Katherine stared at her.
“I’ve got no money.”
“Well, get your mother to give you some.”
“She won’t. She sends all her money home to give to my dad.”
By this time, Katherine was getting impatient. She started to go back to the house, then stopped and turned around: “Come out and play, Silver. My mum and dad and David and Alice are all out. There’s no one at home. Come on! I’ll take you around the house. There are so many things you haven’t seen.” And she ran on ahead.
Silver figured her mum wouldn’t let her, but she looked into their room and saw her lying on the bed, snoring loudly. Relieved, she crept out.
Katherine was catching butterflies near the steps, and was delighted when Silver turned up to help. In just a few minutes they had caught three big ones with beautiful patterns.
Where were they to keep them? Suddenly, Katherine remembered an empty glass jar in her mother’s bedroom, so she ran in to get it.
Silver followed her, then began to back out.
“Silver, come on! One of the butterfly’s flown away!”
Silver went back into the room, caught the butterfly in her hand and put it in the jar.
“Whatever’s this material on madam’s bed? It’s full of holes, and it’s got patterns all over!” She exclaimed, running her hands over the lacy bed coverlet.
“What’s so strange about that?” Katherine said in a casual tone, the way her sister spoke. “Wait till you see these—I bet you’ve never see these before. Come and look at my mother’s clothes.” She opened the door of the closet. It was full of brightly-coloured dresses. Silver had never even dreamed such things existed.
“This dress is thinner than paper, I can see you through it!” Silver exclaimed, fascinated and envious. She lifted the front of the dress and peered at the material. Then she looked around and suddenly cried:
“A weasel!”
“Where?”
“There it is, up there! They eat chickens.” Silver pointed to a fur stole on a hanger.
“That’s not a weasel. I can’t remember what my mother called it. She said it cost a lot of money to buy.”
“It is a weasel. We’ve got lots in the village. I’ll ask my dad to catch some for you when I go home,” Silver said.
As Silver inspected all these strange objects, Katherine spotted her mother’s watch on the dressing table. She picked it up and told Silver: “This is a watch. You wear it on your wrist. The hands move. Those numbers inside are the time. The hand moves to the next number every hour. Do you see what I mean?”
“How does it move? I don’t understand.”
Katherine put the watch to her ear and listened, her eyes wide with interest. She had completely forgotten her mother’s constant warnings not to touch it. She turned the winder until it wouldn’t move. She must have over-wound it, because the watch stopped immediately.
Katherine shook it hard but it did not start ticking. She remembered her mother saying she would punish her if she touched it, and panicked. Her hand shook, the watch fell to the ground, and the glass face cracked. What were they to do now?! The two of them were aghast when they picked it up. Katherine’s mouth turned down. She was on the verge of tears.
But a few moments later, Silver came up with an idea: “Don’t cry,” she said. “Let’s hide it somewhere.”
“Yes, yes, we’ll hide it…but where?” quavered Katherine.
Silver thought, then said: “We’ll dig a hole and bury it.”
They slipped out of the room, Katherine holding the watch tight in her hand. Luckily, there was no one around; Nanny Wang was still asleep, and the cook had gone shopping. They checked the garden then Silver found a spot under a clump of night-fragrant jasmine and picked up a stone. She dug a hole, buried the watch in it, and covered the soil with some loose pebbles so that no one would see. Katherine nodded, admiring though still teary-eyed.
At dusk, the rest of the family came back. Her sister and brother had a basket full of things they had bought, and her grandmother had sent a lot of toys for Baby—gun carriages and tanks, cars and horse-drawn carriages. So many of them! Katherine looked on, feeling desolate. She was on the point of crying when her mother saved the day; she brought out a pack of brightly-coloured chalks and gave them to her younger daughter. Her mother still loved her after all! thought Katherine. Then she remembered the watch and burst into tears.
“Don’t you like the chalks?” Mrs. Wu snapped, infuriated. “Then give them back to me.”
“No!” Katherine said. She clutched the chalks and ran to her bedroom.
*
The next morning, there was pandemonium as everyone turned the house upside-down in search of the watch. It was nowhere to be found. Then Mrs. Wu had the glimmerings of an idea.
“Katherine, come here,” she commanded. “Tell me the truth now, did you take my watch?”
“No, Mummy,” Katherine said, pale with fright.
“Then why are there butterflies in the glass jar in my room? You must have gone into my room!” Mrs. Wu exclaimed furiously. “Wretched child! Your father’s always telling me I’m unfair to you but you’re so disobedient. You went into my room as soon as I left the house. What were you doing?” She checked herself when she saw that her daughter was trembling with fright and said more gently:
“Only you and Nanny Wang and Silver were at home, and the front door was locked so no one could get in. I suppose someone could have got in through the back. Nanny Wang sleeps like the dead. Now tell me truthfully, did you take a nap?”
Katherine, fearful that admitting she had not would get her into more trouble, could only nod. “Yes.”
Nanny Wang rushed to her defence: “She did take a nap, she slept for two hours. She didn’t get up until the milkman came.”
Mrs Wu was silent for a moment, then said to her daughter: ‘Silly girl, why are you crying? Now tell me, when you’re in bed in your room do you hear people outside in the street?’
Katherine could see her mother wasn’t so angry now; things were taking a turn for the better. Taking her courage in both hands, she said: “Just when I was waking up, I thought I heard someone creep into the house and then go out again.”
“Why didn’t you call out?”
“I called, ‘Who’s that?’ but no one answered.” Katherine said, more boldly.
Mrs Wu nodded. She ordered Katherine to her room; a long nap was to be her punishment.
That afternoon, she told Nanny Wang and her daughter to pack their bedding and go.
Nanny Wang swore blind that she and Silver hadn’t stolen the watch. “Don’t send us away while it’s still lost!” she begged.
But Mrs. Wu was immovable. “I’m only letting you go because you’re poor and I’m sorry for you,” she said. “Otherwise, I’d get the police to lock you up for a few days, and make you say where you put the watch. That would teach you! Now get out!” That woman was brazen, thought Mrs. Wu. And she’d brought her daughter to live with them, and the girl had had her meals here scot-free for more than a month. She was outraged.
Nanny Wang silently wiped away her tears and said goodbye. Then she shouldered her bedding roll and left, her daughter trailing behind.
It rained heavily for three days, then all of a sudden, on the third afternoon, the sky cleared. The trees on the mountainside, washed clean by the storm, shone a glorious green. Springs gurgled down every slope. Vermilion clouds lit up the western peaks. The brilliant sunshine was very cheering, and small groups of women, both Chinese and Western, strolled past up the mountain road, their skirts fluttering, their children following behind, dressed so prettily they looked like dolls in a shop window.
“Why don’t we go out for a walk too?” said Alice from the veranda, watching the passersby.
“George, it’s so nice outside, shall we all go out for a walk?” Mrs. Wu called to her husband in the garden.
“But it’s lovely in the garden. We don’t need to go out to enjoy ourselves. Look how pretty the waterfall by that rock is!” her husband said.
“Come on, Alice, let’s go and look,” said Mrs. Wu and they walked down the steps.
The blooms looked extraordinarily vivid after the rain, and the air was filled with their fragrance. The younger children ran around playing, cheeping like chicks.
Husband and wife strolled together. There were new little rills in the garden and the flowers and shrubs had burst into bud. They arrived at the night-fragrant jasmine, and suddenly Mr. Wu exclaimed: “What’s that down there, that shiny thing?” He bent down to pick it up. “Isn’t this your watch? The face is broken.”
Mrs Wu took it from him. Yes, it was her watch, but what was it doing in the garden?
“Did you drop it when you went out that day?” Mr. Wu asked with a smile. It was on the tip of his tongue to say that Nanny Wang was blameless after all but, before he could get the words out, his wife said: “I’m not so scatterbrained that I’d drop my watch without realizing. I never put it on because I was worried Baby would ask to be carried and it might get damaged, so I left it at home.
“It’s obvious Nanny Wang got scared when I threatened her with the police. She was clever enough to drop it in the garden. It’s taken us three whole days to find it!” Mr. Wu looked as if he wanted to say something else, but just then Katherine ran past with Baby running after her. As a pair of long child’s legs followed by a pair of fat short legs shot past Mrs. Wu, she called out:
“Stop, Katherine! It’s slippery. Don’t let Baby chase you, he’ll fall over!”
Katherine stopped, muttering: “It was Baby chasing me, I never…”
Her mother cut her off: “Katherine, if you answer me back one more time, I’ll shut you in your room with the light off!’”
Katherine saw her mother holding something in her hand, stroking it unhappily. The watch. She stood rooted to the spot, feeling numb all over.
Luckily for her, her parents were on their way back to the veranda and did not notice. Katherine got a grip on herself. If Silver was here, she’d be shocked too! she thought. The memory of her friend suddenly made her feel lonely and she found herself walking towards the kitchen.
Translated from the Chinese by Nicky Harman
Ling Shuhua (1900-1990) was one of the most important and admired modernist writers in China of the 1920s and 30s. The daughter of a concubine of an imperial official, she grew up in two very different worlds. The family life of her childhood had not changed for centuries; she had a classical education and was taught painting by one of the imperial court painters. But she also had a modern education, studying in Japan and in Yenching University Beijing. Among educated Chinese of her time, she was unique in having close connections with the Bloomsbury group; she was a friend of Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell and Vita Sackville-West. She understood and wrote about the old society, while at the same time, she had modern sensibilities. She gives an unvarnished view of the lives of the women around her; her stories are engaging and feel modern in their preoccupations.
Nicky Harman is a freelance literary translator from Chinese. When not translating, she works both as a volunteer and as a trustee for Paper-Republic.org, a non-profit website promoting Chinese literature in translation. She also organizes translation-focused events, mentors new translators, teaches translation summer schools and judges translation competitions. She was co-Chair of the Translators Association (Society of Authors, UK) from 2014 to 2017, and is an Advisor to The Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing, University of Leeds. She plans to translate a collection of Ling Shuhua’s stories and see them published.
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