Falling Leaves: The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah

bridge player, had chivalrously chosen me as his partner. He took his bridge seriously and would rant and rave whenever I played the wrong card or wasted a trump. Though I disliked being called dumb and ignorant, I accepted the abuse because Gregory’s reasoning was always logical and his skills superior. Now Lydia became Gregory’s partner. The game was more complicated than she had bargained for. Quick mathematical calculation and assessment of probabilities were not her forte. To the delight of Edgar and James, the new partners began to lose hand after hand.
    Unwilling to accept Gregory’s criticisms delivered in ever higher decibels, Lydia threw down her cards in a huff and stomped downstairs, swearing that she never wished to play with Gregory again. To this Gregory replied that he would rather take me, Franklin or even three-year-old Susan as his partner than Lydia. That evening at dinner, Father reprimanded Gregory for being disrespectful to his older sister.
    The special treatment of Lydia grew apace. One of my vivid memories is Lydia bounding up the stairs one Sunday afternoon, dressed in a pretty pink western dress and matching shoes, singing snatches of a song from the latest Hollywood movie, jingling some loose change in her pocket. Without breaking her stride, she disdainfully placed the exact tram fare for the week in front of each of my brothers, carefully avoided my gaze and hurried back downstairs. Silently the boys counted their coins while her song receded into the background: ’You are my sunshine …”
    She entered the antechamber; the door banged shut behind her, and silence filled the hallway. Finally Gregory growled contemptuously, ’Showing off!’
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    Undeniably she had become a member of Niang’s elite world.
    In Shanghai, Aunt Baba was not having an easy time. She no longer enjoyed the informal yet respected place she held in Tianjin. Niang had demoted her, making her feel like a superflous spinster.
    Aunt Baba was always like a mother to me. Now we drew even closer. She paid the greatest attention to everything about me: my appearance, my health and my personality. Most of all, she cared about my education, probably mindful of the fact that her own had been curtailed. She checked my homework every evening. On days when I harl a rest, she woke me at five so that I could set off for school with my head crammed with last-minute revisions. She was determined that I should eventually gain a college degree … the ticket to escape, independence and limitless achievement. Some things she did not say but I understood. I knew that I was the least-loved child because I was a girl and because my mother had died giving birth to me. Nothing I did ever seemed to please Father, Niang or any of my siblings. But I never ceased to believe that if I tried hard enough, one day Father, Niang and everyone in my family would be proud of me.
    So I studied hard, not only to please my aunt but also because this was the only time I could lose myself, forget my fears and momentarily escape from this home so full of sinister manoeuvrings and hidden machinations.
    At school I gained the nickname ’genius’ because I came top in every subject except art. My classmates sensed my vulnerability and yearning for acceptance behind the irmatmgly perfect scholastic record. They must have realized that there was something pathetic about me. I never mentioned my family. I possessed no toys, trinkets or pretty clothes. I had no money to spend on sweets or excursions. I refused all invitations to visit anyone outside the school and never asked anyone to my home. I confided in no one but went to school every day carrying inside me a terrible loneliness.
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    At home, I did my homework, invented my own solitary games and read Kung Fu novels.
    It must have been awkward for twenty-three-yearold Niang to acknowledge the presence of five stepchildren in front of Father’s friends. We suspected that she often denied our existence and