Boredom

By Ling Shuhua, 1935. Translated by Nicky Harman

Read in Chinese here

The heavens have really got it in for us! As if a week of rain wasn’t enough, it’s miserable again this morning. Look, there’s more rain coming! Ruby grumbled to herself as she got out of bed.

True, the garden was looking lovely. The peach and plum blossom had fallen, but the once-bare branches were now clothed in bright green leaves. Indoors, it was a different matter: the air was filled with the damp, earthy smell of mould. Under her fingers, all the surfaces felt unpleasantly slick. The preserves stored in jars and bottles in the larder seemed to have changed colour and acquired a layer of mould too. ‘Imagine all the creatures you’d be able to see in them under a microscope!’ Ruby had said to her husband, Yisheng, that morning; now she flung open the cupboard doors and started to empty the jars of their unwholesome contents. ‘Get rid of these,’ she said to Zhang, pointing. ‘They’re no good for anything!’

But Zhang had been with them for ten years and she tended to think of the family’s belongings as her own. Her response was firm: ‘There’s no point throwing them all away. You’ll just have to spend out good money to buy more. Why not wait till the weather gets a bit better and put them out in the sun to dry. There was mould on them when we first bought them. Didn’t you see? The dried mushrooms and shrimps, they’d all started to go off but the shopkeeper took them out and sorted them out, and they looked fine.’ She was picking up all the things on the table and putting them back into their pots and jars as she spoke, without even a glance at Ruby. It was as if everything belonged to her. 

Ruby was annoyed. She turned her back and went to the window, saying nothing. The lowering sky with its roiling black clouds made her feel as if the sun would never come out again.

Zhang was delivering another homily: ‘I reckon it’ll clear up in a day or two and that’ll be the right time to get in a couple of dozen bucket-loads of coal. And Mrs Ruby, I know it’s not my place to say it, but spending so much money on garden plants is not right. You know what they say about fruit trees, it’s the next generation who pick the fruit, but you can’t be sure you’ll still be here then. You’ll just be giving it all away to the next people who move in. And nowadays, money…’ 

Determined to stem the flow, Ruby interrupted: ‘We Chinese never want to spend out on plants and trees and outside our houses is always a complete mess. Look at the way the foreigners do it, look at the Wenhua Academy, it’s one big flower garden.’

‘But Mrs Ruby, those foreigners don’t have anything to worry about! If the country falls apart, they can just sneak off home.’ 

You couldn’t argue with that. There was no comparison between the way foreigners and Chinese lived. But Zhang looked so smug that Ruby felt another spurt of annoyance. ‘You servants have an opinion about everything,’ she said. ‘You keep on and on about us spending our own money on flowers and shrubs. Doing the right thing to you means eating your dinner and sitting waiting for bed-time.’ 

Ruby remembered the day she’d overheard Zhang whispering to the servant from next door: ‘Our Mrs Ruby shuts herself away in her study and won’t talk to anyone.’ She said nothing more and hurried upstairs.

Once there, she wasn’t sure what to do. She’d rushed off so purposefully – she smiled wryly. Then she thought how bored she was and felt sorry for herself again. Petulantly, she went to the wardrobe in search of something lightweight to change into that might improve her mood. She opened the door, only to be hit in the face by a strong smell of mildew. Revolting.   

She slammed it shut angrily. It’s everywhere!  We’ll be going mouldy ourselves soon! Of course, we’re all going to end up mouldering away under the earth sooner or later. It’s just the way of things, she thought. Even though she could breathe now, and move around and sit down, some parts of her body had probably already started to decay. She was getting more and more aches and pains. That had to be a sign, didn’t it? 

Her feelings of frustration and anger seemed to her more pointless than ever. But what else could she do besides fume and weep in secret? 

Everything was boring. Boring, boring. As she repeated the words, she suddenly recalled someone admonishing her: ‘Anyone who says they’re bored and depressed is making a fuss about nothing. They’re just lazy.’ She had been struck by the truth of these words at the time; she had scolded herself more than once, and did so again today. 

They were right. Laziness was shameful, unforgivable. She went to her desk, opened the drawer, and took out the book she had been translating a month ago together with her draft. She pulled up a chair, ground some ink, and began reading. As the words fell into place, she felt her spirits lift; she finished the chapter, picked up her writing brush and translated two lines. Then there was a loud knocking on the front door. She heard Zhang’s pattering footsteps as she hurried to open it. 

‘Madam is home, please take a seat,’ she heard Zhang say, as happily as if the visitor was a member of her own family! She flung down the brush. There was nothing for it, she had better go down.

Her guest greeted Ruby, wreathed in friendly smiles: ‘I’ve meant to come and see you several times, but I’ve been so busy. How are you all doing?’

‘Fine, thank you.’ Ruby had to think for a moment what to say next. ‘The weather hasn’t been very good, so I haven’t been out. That’s why I haven’t paid you a visit.’

She never understood how these ladies always came up with absolutely the right things to say. Their expressions were always so affable, and were accompanied by such ready smiles. No wonder men said women were strange creatures. 

‘How lucky you are, free to do as you please, with no children to bother you. Your house is so beautifully decorated,’ Mrs Bai was saying.

‘Oh, no, it’s really nothing special,’ Ruby protested.

‘We can’t even keep the house tidy,’ Mrs Bai went on. ‘With our five little monkeys, we never get a moment’s peace. Things never stay in their proper place because the monkeys keep messing with them. It’s true what they say, “A boy and a girl a family does make, but many of each bring woe in their wake.” It’s a good thing they’re still afraid of their father. Otherwise, they’d pull the house down around our ears.’ 

Ruby remembered Mrs Bai telling her six years ago that she wanted to stop at the three children they already had. So why have two more? Mr Bai was skinny as a monkey himself, so the extra children must be a terrible burden.

‘But your children are very well behaved. The two eldest are almost grownup,’ she said.

‘You haven’t seen them when they’re acting up!’ Mrs Bai said, though there was a complacent note in her voice. She began to elaborate: the second and third were always getting into mischief and not even their father could manage them, and the two youngest kept insisting that they wanted Ruby as their godmother. It was a story Ruby had heard at least three times before. 

The conversation continued; They had polished off a whole plate of melon seeds and Zhang had replenished the tea three times before Mrs Bai finally got up to leave. 

As she watched the rickshaw departing with her guest, Ruby’s feeling of gloom deepened. Why was Mrs Bai so pleased with herself? It made no sense. Her five ‘little monkeys’ would always be trouble, and when they grew up, they would require even more energy. Yet Mrs Bai was so calm and even-tempered. She was truly admirable; Ruby felt she could not be too harsh on her.

Upstairs once more, Ruby as unable to shake off her despondency. She went to the balcony and looked out at the neighbouring rooftops with their perfect, evenly-laid rows of tiles. The wutong trees had finished flowering and seed pods had formed. She could hear the sound of a woman crying in the house on the east side. No doubt another husband-and-wife tiff. The couple often fought, but they also seemed affectionate, going out for walks arm in arm. In their thirties too, hardly young anymore. 

On the south side, there was a big family with seven or eight children. The mother – fortyish and very overweight – spent her days waddling in and out of the house holding a child in her arms or pulling it by the hand. Her face was sallow and bloated and her eyes were always half-closed. She rarely changed her clothes and her jacket was crumpled, its front shiny with old grease stains. She never stopped talking, or scolding her children or issuing orders to the servants. At night, after everyone had gone to bed, she sat in the lamplight waiting for her husband to come home, sometimes going into the kitchen to make him a late-night snack. She seemed indomitable, indestructible. 

A couple of houses further along stood a detached house where a young couple lived. Early in the morning, the man was picked up and taken to the office; he was not back until six or seven o’clock in the evening. By eleven or so, the woman had got herself ready and emerged, her handbag under her arm, to be driven away too. It was always two or three in the afternoon when she returned, the rickshaw piled high with purchases wrapped in fabric, or boxes of shoes. Sometimes she was accompanied by a couple of young men, their arms full of things. They were all soon gone again, and the woman would return with her husband around midnight. On occasions when she didn’t go out, she invited people around, young men and one or two fashionably-dressed women guests. The gramophone music and songs and the guests’ chatter and laughter could be heard right down the street. Apparently, she was holding a ‘salon’, salons being the height of fashion for modern young women. The neighbours found it all very puzzling.  

Ruby looked out at the houses and remembered how a famous scholar had explained the character for home (家): a homophone of the character for shackles ( 枷) and rather comically made up of two elements: a pig豕 under a roof宀. 

Why should decent people be shackled and kept like pigs? She wondered, but that thought made her feel worse than ever and she left the window and slumped into a chair.

Of course, there was nothing wrong with a pig’s life being pointless. Pigs existed to eat their fill, then sleep, then wake up and eat again. There was no room in a pig’s life for hope. Piggie, you have a nice, quiet rest in your pigsty, she said under her breath; her lips curled in a wry smile and, jumping to her feet, she went to her writing-desk and picked up her writing brush again. Then, oh good lord, there was the rat-tat-tat of another knock at the door! 

No one seemed to be answering it so she was obliged to go herself.

It was someone from Yisheng’s office with a note from him. He would not be back for lunch, he wrote, but they had been invited by Third Aunt to dinner tomorrow, to celebrate Third Uncle’s birthday. Could Ruby please go and buy a gift and take it over in the morning. ‘Something pricy but easy to carry,’ he had added.

She glanced at her watch. It was nearly twelve o’clock. The whole morning had been wasted. It would be one by the time she had had lunch, and two when she got to the shops across the river. She found it exhausting to go shopping, to drift from shop to shop like a zombie. The very thought gave her a headache. She had often heard the ladies and their daughters talking animatedly about how they made their purchases; which shops were expensive and which cheap, which ones had what goods, or had bare shelves. They never tired of the topic. It was if they were singing a popular song over and over! She had to give them credit for their faultless performances.

At two o’clock, Ruby arrived at Hankou. The rain-filled skies loomed overhead; the pot-holed roads were filled with endless puddles of black mud, and the gutters on either side gave off a pungent smell of decay. Passers-by all looked like they had not slept – their faces were bloodless and their eyes looked glassy.

The streets were lined with shops selling silks and satins, clocks and watches, western and Chinese medicines such as ginseng and deer antlers, and imported goods. Almost all were festooned with banners advertising sales bargains. Two of the silk merchants had coloured lanterns hanging in the doorway, while two of the foreign imports shops had military bands playing music in front of the windows, creating a tremendous racket. Not that the passers-by paid any attention at all, they just carried on looking blankly ahead as if they had neither seen nor heard them. The world was a strange place, Ruby thought. If those lanterns and bands were to be transported to the countryside, how the village folk would have enjoyed them!

It seemed as if only the coffin shops had no sales banners. Ruby thought of those price-obsessed ladies and their daughters; no doubt they would have swooped in to pick up a bargain if the coffins had been discounted. 

She looked in the shop windows, but could not think what to buy. Suddenly, she remembered Third Aunt saying: ‘People need dressing like a Buddha needs gilding’, and she stepped into a silk shop, one with an unadorned façade.

A shop assistant with slicked-down hair, in a light grey silk gown, came to greet her, and in a soft voice asked her what she was looking for.

‘I’m just browsing,’ said Ruby, walking down the aisles flanked by glass-fronted cabinets. You could not accuse the Chinese of lagging behind the times. The satins no longer came in traditional designs of plum blossom, orchids, bamboo and chrysanthemums, or with ruyi motifs and auspicious clouds, or symbols of longevity like pine trees and cranes; even western-style roses and violets were now passé; the new designs and colours were futuristic, abstract.

There was simply too much to choose from.  She spent a considerable time looking into every cabinet but could not settle on anything. When she looked at her watch, it was almost three o’clock.

Then her eyes lit on a roll of figured silk crepe in an elegant subtle grey, in a corner of one cabinet. It would suit a tall man like Third Uncle to perfection. She made up her mind. ‘Show me that material,’ she instructed. The assistant brightened instantly. ‘This is new stock,’ he said. ‘It arrived from Shanghai the day before yesterday, and it’s excellent quality, pure silk, not a silk-rayon mix. It’s a very reasonable price too, only one dollar fifty per foot. It’s proving very popular. Yesterday, the wife of the Commissioner for Special Taxes came in and ordered a length, and the deputy head of the Bank of Communications ordered two. It’s a genuine Chinese product, so appropriate these days when we’re all supposed to buy Chinese.’ When Ruby remained silent, he unrolled the material and, holding it across his body, declared: ‘See how good it looks when it’s opened out. Exceptionally stylish. And how expensive it looks. As good as a double silk that sells for twice the price. Can I cut you a length?’ 

‘Give me a moment,’ said Ruby with a slight frown, and turned to peer into the cabinet again.

‘Now this is New Life fabric, cheaper and better than the one I just showed you,’ the assistant went on, pulling another bolt in a plain grey colour from the cabinet. ‘It’s all about the New Life Movement nowadays, but ours is the only shop that has it. No one else has thought of stocking it. I can see that you’re an educated new woman,’ he gave a shrewd glance at the newspaper that Ruby was carrying. ‘I’m sure you’re a New Life supporter. If you don’t want this silk for yourself, you could buy a couple of lengths to give as a gift. See what good quality it is!’

Ruby was afraid that he was going to unroll this one too, and said quickly: ‘I’m going to look around elsewhere before I make up my mind.’ So saying, she walked out of the shop, leaving the assistant looking after her, bewildered.

Anyone who believed that the Chinese cared only for high culture was quite wrong. The New Life Movement had been launched less than a month ago, and already it had spawned New Life fabrics! Ruby thought. She walked down the street, irresolute. She had still not settled on a gift but could not bring herself to try another silk shop.

Once or twice, a delicate ornament in a shop window caught her eye, but she did not go in. If she did not like it and left the shop empty-handed, the assistant would glower after her; but this time she would not be rushed. More than once, she had gone into some small shop, been treated to a litany of complaints about how bad business was, and been persuaded to pay over the odds for something like a copper kettle, only to hide it away when she got it home, embarrassed by her impulsive behaviour. How she hated shopping! She sighed.

By the time she reached the end of the street, she had seen nothing that she wanted to buy, and had in fact stopped looking. Three or four shop windows were enough to exhaust her. Once or twice, a couple of passers-by noticed her looking and stopped to peer in themselves, which annoyed her even more. She began to walk quite briskly. The streets seemed to have misted over so that she could see nothing clearly, but she did not mind.

I’ve had enough of this, I’m going home. And I won’t be Yisheng’s ‘comprador’ ever again! she said to herself. She approached the lines of rickshaws and called out: ‘Hankow Customs House. Ten cents?’

A young man with a smartly turned-out rickshaw pulled it over: ‘Ten cents, I’ll take it.’

She got in. He lifted the shafts and set off at a great pace, looking as pleased as if he had a real VIP on board. As they passed other rickshaws, the pullers clicked their tongues in admiration, even a little jealousy.

What a joke! she thought to herself. Why do I need to go so fast? It’s ridiculous! I’m someone who has nothing to do and I’m making him hurtle along as if his life depended on it. It’s quite wrong for a young man to exhaust himself for absolutely no good reason! By now she was feeling acutely uncomfortable; it was as if she had a swarm of lice prickling her all over. She recalled the words of the silk shop assistant, and felt even more annoyed. Was she really the kind of person he took her for?

I suppose it’s better to be taken for a rich woman than a fool! She sighed, annoyed at the thought that she was being pulled along at full tilt for no reason. A fool, a clown, this was going from bad to worse.

Suddenly her rickshaw knocked into a man dressed in a long gown, who shouted angrily at the puller: ‘Are you blind? Why are you in such a hurry?’

Ruby looked back and caught the man glaring after them.

She nodded to herself. It was a fair point. Why was she in such a hurry? Was it just for show? She remembered seeing a rickshaw being pulled along East Avenue with a middle-aged woman passenger staring straight ahead and dressed very oddly. On her first outing, everyone thought she was a madwoman and ran alongside to get a good look. But as the days went by, they began to ignore her, simply telling anyone who was curious: ‘Poor soul, she’s mad.’

I’m no different from her, sitting in this rickshaw, Ruby thought. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Then she made up her mind: she was getting out.

The puller stopped and asked: ‘You want to buy something? I’ll wait.’

‘No, I don’t want a ride anymore.’

‘You don’t want a ride?’ The puller did not sound happy.

Ruby took the hint and got out ten cents for him. He accepted it, though he still looked suspicious.

For some reason, she could not look him in the eye. She felt an overwhelming urge to flee.

As she hurried away, she asked herself: What’s the point of being in such a hurry?