Old Town by Lin Zhe Page A

on poles again filled the town announcing the search for a bride for Ninth Brother. He was dragged along to meet the girls of several families and in every instance he shook his head in refusal.
    Very soon, the vacation would be over. All during this period, he still made daily entries in his diary. And every day, with tear-filled eyes, he would pour out his sorrows and melancholy to the now-dead Third Sister.
    On the day that Ninth Brother purchased a boat ticket back to Shanghai, he couldn’t help walking to West Street. He knew Third Sister’s home was that courtyard with the dark red steps leading up to the gate. For quite some time he hung around in front of it, wanting to pay a call on her parents and just have a look at her memorial portrait. And maybe he could even manage to get a picture of her to keep as a memento. Just when he drummed up enough courage to climb the steps, my grandma, Second Sister, walked out. At first glance he thought she was Third Sister, her student uniform changed into a well-fitting qipao . 4
    Standing under the sky well, Second Sister asked, “Visitor, who are you looking for?”
    “Third Miss.”
    Before, there were always some outsiders who could never tell Third Sister from Second Sister, but after the great scandal hit the Guos, it would have been rare for anyone to make this mistake.
    “Visitor, where do you come from?”
    Ninth Brother’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I too used to worship at the West Gate church. Three years ago I went to Shanghai to study.”
    Oh, a student . Second Sister now addressed him as “Sir.” “Sir, you are mistaken. Our Third Sister has gone on a long journey. I am Second Sister.”
    Ninth Brother soared up to the heavens. He floated at the tip of “an eighteen- li cloudy mist,” as they say, and, muddled as he was, asked, “May I enter your mansion to sit for a brief moment?”
    Second Sister should have turned away this unexpected visitor. There were no adult men at home. A man and a woman should have no contact outside of marriage, it is taught. What’s more, he was looking for Third Sister. Third Sister was a painful sore that the whole family feared to touch. But this student’s face was delicate and unusually handsome. A pair of sincere and kindly eyes that seemed to radiate some magic power confused Second Sister’s sense of principle. She invited Ninth Brother into the main parlor, and only while she served him tea did she remember that the shop boy was waiting to go with her to South Town to buy some goods. So she handed Ninth Brother over to Eldest Sister who was right there also, teaching her little brother to read. “Sis, serve another cup of tea to this gentleman.”
    Great-Auntie not only loves to write letters, she also loves to talk. And so, in the space of two cups of tea, the entire tragic fate of the Guo family was related to the visitor. Because of Third Sister’s “elopement,” Father, in grief and sheer exasperation, coughed blood and died, Mother and old Grandmother took to their sick beds, and in two years, not one person had come to the Guo home to discuss marriage.
    Ninth Brother had already accepted the fact of Third Sister’s no longer being in the land of the living. Now he found out that she actually hadn’t died but had eloped. It must have been with a man she had been infatuated with. This was gratifying news. In Shanghai, Ninth Brother had absorbed new ideas and new concepts. He approved of free love. At this moment, however, he felt as if he had fallen into a bitter sea on a dark night. Each pounding of the violent waves was one blow to his heart. He couldn’t hear Eldest Sister’s mournful chatter. He bowed his head and lost himself in his own world. As a Christian, he realized that he was sinning. Third Sister was now some other man’s wife and he shouldn’t be thinking of her anymore. He silently asked Jesus for help: Lord, just let me forget Third Sister, and let me bless her from an ordinary