LITMIR.BIZ

      Printed in Canada

      13 12 11 10 09 5 4 3 2 1

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Hozy, Penny, date-

       A cold season in Shanghai / S.P. Hozy.

      ISBN 978-1-894917-79-7

      I. Title.

      PS8615.O99C64 2009 C813'.6 C2009-904774-8

      Acknowledgements

      Many books and authors provided valuable information and insight during the writing of this book, among them: The Search for Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence, Shanghai Diary by Ursula Bacon, The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, Four Sisters of Hofei by Annping Chin, Spring Moon by Bette Bao Lord, and The Lover by Marguerite Duras, the inspiration for Annette's story.

      Throughout the book, I have used the Wade-Giles system of spelling for Chinese names and places, since it is the one that was in use during the time of the story, rather than the current Pinyin that was adopted in 1977.

      It is only when the cold season comes that we know the pine and cyprus to be evergreens.

      -Chinese proverb

      In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

      -Graham Greene,

      The Heart of the Matter [1948]

      Prologue

      It's winter in Canada, in Toronto, where I've been living for the past twenty years since my marriage ended. The snow is piling up outside my door, and I know I won't venture out for a few days. I will become even more melancholic, and perhaps I'll drink a little too much gin. But who will really care? My sister Olga will phone tomorrow to ask how I am, and I will tell her I'm fine. She'll choose to believe me because she's much more interested in her grandchildren these days than in me.

      In Shanghai, where I grew up, the winters were miserable, damp and cold. I learned to hate the rain even more than the snow. In Malaya, where I lived with my husband on a rubber plantation, the winters were as hot and sunny as the summers. The climate suited me fairly well, but in the end I could no longer endure the monotony or the marriage. I chose to come to Canada, where Olga and Jean Paul had immigrated a year after the birth of their second child. By that time both Papa and Mother were gone, both too soon and within a year of each other. Now that I've passed my sixtieth birthday, I think about the dead more than I think about the living. Sometimes this frightens me and I dump all the gin down the sink and swear I won't drink again. But nothing changes, and I buy another bottle to ease the pain and the guilt.

      Nowadays I'm preoccupied with the past. When I think back on myself as a young woman, I'm surprised at how naïve I was, but I realize it was a wilful naïveté, just another way of maintaining the pretence of my life. I was obsessed with keeping it interesting and exciting. But where did that desperation come from? The more I pose the question these days, the more I begin to understand that the problem had more to do with my own character than with any of the circumstances surrounding me. I had a good family that loved me. I lived in a place that was often dangerous, yet I felt safe and secure within my world. I was educated and read books. Why did I become so contrary?

      Today I marvel at how I could observe and participate in one kind of life and yet follow a completely different narrative in my mind. I insisted on telling the story the way I wanted it to be, and then I made myself believe it. Nobody could persuade me that the other version—the one they saw—was real. Especially not Olga or my parents. Not even Lily, when she tried. Annette, experienced in the ways of the world, never tried. She kept telling her story, “l'histoire de ma vie”, the way she wanted to hear it. But in Annette's case I could understand. There were circumstances. Circumstances that could lead one to want to alter, or soften, the harsher aspects of the narrative. In my case there were none. At least, not at first.

      But everything changed after Daniel's murder. Because I was the one who identified his body, I got to see the ugly reality of his death up close. That reality reduced the beauty of his short life to the single image of a bloated corpse on a metal table. It is an image that can still wake me in the middle of the night, gasping for air. I feel responsible, even though I didn't fire the gun that put those bullets in his heart. Is the person who pulled the trigger the only one who is culpable? Surely I must bear some of the burden of guilt. I was, after all, the one who set the whole thing in motion.

      Do we ever really forget? The dictionary says that to forget means not to remember, to cease thinking about. I forget. I have forgotten. But is forgetting an absolute? Or does memory simply drift away, evaporating like fog? Is there nothing that is active or aggressive about forgetting, no tossing away, no burning up the past so that only the ashes remain?

      Even though I have tried to forget the events of 1927, especially as they happened to me and to my friends, I find myself remembering those events as if they happened yesterday. Shanghai and the smell of death and peonies. The stench was at once so harsh and acrid that I feel a bitterness burning my nose, even after thirty years. At the same time, there was a fragrance so sweet and delicious, I want to bury my face in it and inhale its loveliness again. To remember Shanghai is to remember my life between 1906 and 1927, to remember my childhood and growing up, and to remember Lily and Annette and Daniel.

      Many things happened to the world in 1927. In Shanghai, there was turmoil and revolution. Then Daniel was murdered, and I left Shanghai forever.

      Now, Lily's letter has brought it all back to me with such clarity. She says she's coming to Toronto and asks if she can stay with me for a few days when she arrives. Her youngest brother, the one we always called Number Three Brother, has sponsored her. I'm surprised to hear that he wants her to live with him and look after his grandchildren. I would have thought she'd bring too much bad luck, but maybe he's not as superstitious as he used to be. I wonder if we will talk about Daniel when she gets here. I wonder if she will finally tell me what really happened between them.

      In the meantime, until she comes, I'll drink another bottle of gin and try again to put the puzzle together. As always, I'll go back to the beginning.

      Shanghai, China 1906

      Chapter One

      They stood at the rail of the ship as it sailed up the Yangtze River and into the Whangpoo River toward the harbour of Shanghai. They were an attractive family, Sergei, Katarina, and their two daughters, Olga and

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