Rehearsing the Old Play in the Heat

On the hottest days of the seventh month, Gao Shoucheng moved rehearsals to first light. When A-Zhao arrived, the hall hadn't been swept clean yet, but Gu Ming was already standing on two short planks, using a tasselless wooden sword to push aside the rope stretched in front of him. He now practiced a separate piece from the Changqing Troupe's repertoire every day, and there was always sweat at his temples. Seeing her with the bundle of clothes, he stepped aside without reaching to take it. They hadn't spoken privately for ten days or so.

A teacup sat upside down on a stool in the hall. Cai Heng struck the drum three times and waited for Xiaoman to come in. She was a beat late, so Gu Ming couldn’t turn. His wooden sword hung in midair like a clothes pole he hadn’t found anywhere to put up. Lu Heniang laughed until she sat down on the bank and called, ‘If this boat doesn’t get moving, I’ll grow old first.’ Xiaoman kept a straight face and asked Cai Heng to try again from the old score.

They missed the cue the second time too. Cai Heng set down his drumsticks and said that with both strokes packed into the same breath, his wrist couldn’t turn fast enough. “That’s how we always did it before,” Xiaoman said. The hall went suddenly quiet. A-Zhao looked down for a clasp, but her eyes fell on the old score in Xiaoman’s hand. Lu Zheng had left thick ink dots on the sheet. When they took apart the drum stand in June, Xiaoman hadn’t been able to throw it away and had brought it along tucked inside a notebook.

Cai Heng nudged the paper forward. “I know Master Lu could play it. This is how I can play it.” He showed them his way. The extra half beat made it look as though a wave had checked the boat for an instant. Xiaoman frowned and said it dragged. But Lu Heniang rose from the boards, braced the pole behind her as she moved, and lifted her eyes to Gu Ming. Suddenly the straightforward farewell held a flicker of reluctance to let go.

Gu Ming put the wooden sword back at his waist, gave a little tug to break free, and crossed the rope right on the next drumbeat. Lu Heniang reached to pull him back and caught nothing. She took a step back and called him “薄情,” a “heartless man,” though it wasn't in the script. Only then did everyone in the hall laugh. Gao Shoucheng said they couldn't keep the line because she still had to see him off later. Lu Heniang told Gu Ming not to pull away for real then. Surely a scholar knew how to pretend. On the spot Gu Ming gave her an exaggerated bow. The wings of his hat brushed the tip of her nose, and he got another whack with the pole.

Xiaoman laughed too. She drew a little circle in the margin, leaving the original ink dots as they were. On the third run she moved her sung phrase to just after the drumbeat and at last stopped asking Cai Heng to turn his wrist like someone who was no longer there. A-Zhao handed Lu Heniang a towel and saw Xiaoman still staring at that short passage, the end of her brush held lightly between her teeth. She hardly looked at ease. She was willing to keep trying.

After they had tried half an act, Lu Heniang shook the costume out on the table. It had been worn twice at small performances; one part of the lining still clung to her shoulder, and a string of the removed bead ornaments had come loose. Only after asking whether it could be repaired before the next performance did she draw a small string of coins from her sleeve. “The hundred left from last time. The troupe settled up today. It’s yours.” A-Zhao counted it and put it in her own purse. This was the second half of her two-hundred-wen fee. Ye Zhen’s thirty-six wen had already been paid in full; she could not count someone else’s unpicking and washing as extra earnings of her own.

The money was real, and so was the pleasure of staying here and making costumes. She picked at the sweat-stained spot, still a little proud. Lu Heniang now looked for her first when she changed, instead of just thrusting the bundle at Xiaoman. But the new costume had done nothing to bring back the money from the show they had lost in the sixth month. Two sets of bedding for temporary stagehands were gone from the wall, and a cubby in Gao Man's fabric cabinet stood empty.

Gao Shoucheng was in the courtyard discussing the ninth month's performances. Someone brought up Gu Ming, and Gao Shoucheng said through the window, “We have someone to take over as Liu Sheng. The show can go ahead.” Gu Ming was drinking water. He paused with the bowl at his lips, then drank on. A-Zhao was drawing the coarse stitches out of Lu Heniang's shoulder lining. Her hand tightened suddenly and the thread cut into her knuckle until it went white. She had thought he said he would leave after autumn, with time to play the ninth month's shows.

At midday Gu Ming came to return the tie she'd taken off the costume. He told her Changqing wanted him to leave Lanting with the troupe on the twenty-sixth of the eighth month and go first to Xuncheng in the ninth. He'd be covering two parts and working several engagements before getting anywhere near top billing. Lodging, meals every day, and base pay were all settled, steadier than getting a share here only when there was a show. Azhao asked, “What are you still hoping for, then?” He smiled. “A scene I get to sing in my own right soon, without filling in for anyone.”

She nearly said he already had an entire play here in which he could sing the part of Scholar Liu, but held the words back. She couldn't decide for him which was worth more, the whole play in a narrow hall or one scene on a big stage. Gu Ming didn't try to console her by talking about his prospects. He said there were many people he would miss, looking at her hands as he spoke, then turned back to the wooden sword in the courtyard, as if saying too much might make it impossible to leave.

“Liang Qiu asked about you,” he said at last. Liang Qiu ran Changqing's wardrobe room. She'd seen Lu Heniang's costume with the detachable heavy trim at a small performance and was looking for someone who could follow measurements and was willing to take old costumes apart. The work would start with mending inner garments for scene changes, with wages paid monthly and extra pay for night work in busy months. Responsibility for whole costumes would come later. Gu Ming said Liang Qiu herself had asked two days ago. If Azhao was interested, she should go see her in person. She had no need of him to vouch for her.

The first part made A-Zhao's heart lift, and then she grew wary. “Did she see the costume, or did she hear about me from you?” Gu Ming admitted he'd mentioned her name first and Liang Qiu had seen the costume later. A-Zhao felt put out for no clear reason, as though the costume had suddenly lost half its merit. Gu Ming didn't notice. He went on to say there was a courtyard just for washing and drying, so damp linings didn't have to fight for room on the same line as the outer garments needed the next day.

Gu Ming also said Liang Qiu wouldn’t have everyone in the workshop running after the leading actor. Someone had to see each job through. At that, A-Zhao realized that when she had pictured a formidable person, she had imagined someone who would throw another person’s work on the floor and tell them to do it over. She had never met Liang Qiu, yet she had quietly peopled the big workshop with forbidding faces so she could feel at ease about staying away. She asked if she could just look around before giving an answer. Gu Ming said Master Liang was busy and wouldn’t hold a place for half a year for someone who hadn’t even turned up. She should go and ask for herself soon. It wasn’t a pleasant way of putting it, but for the first time the road led somewhere, and there was a time to go.

By dusk A-Zhao was still thinking about that separate drying line. She remembered watching over damp costumes in the sixth month, too concerned about saving oil to keep the lamp going a little longer. She remembered how her elbow kept bumping Ye Zhen’s when she came to help. What would it be like to make clothes if you had enough space, and someone issued the cloth in measured amounts, and you didn’t have to worry every time you cut a piece that there wouldn’t be enough for patches later in the month? She had never seriously pictured having a place in a workshop like that herself.

When Azhao asked about Liang Qiu, Xiaoman said first that she'd heard of her and that she was formidable. After a while she added, “A big troupe has a lot of rules.” Azhao suddenly felt a little angry. “And there aren't many here?” Xiaoman set down the collar she was folding and looked up. They both thought of the two bolts of cloth meant for everyone, the sleeves, and the dim lamp neither had dared mention on the first night Azhao stayed. Neither went on with the list.

“I'm afraid you'll go when you've only just learned a little and no one there will let you touch a proper costume.” As soon as Xiaoman said it, she felt it was unfair and added, “Maybe they'll teach you better than I do.” A-Zhao hated to admit that this was exactly what she was afraid of. Here people already came looking for her. Sometimes she forgot to ask herself whether they came because she was handy to have around or because they truly could not do without her.

A-Sheng ran in from outside carrying the few characters he had just learned. Teacher Shen had asked him to write down a place he went often. He had written “戏堂” (theater hall) and left out a stroke. Gu Ming saw it and joked that it was just right. He should leave that corner empty for the space Gu Ming would leave behind. The boy missed the joke and carefully added the stroke. Xiaoman used the sheet to hold down a curling corner of the score and asked Gu Ming to try the new beat again. They had just finished talking about his leaving, and the hall still needed him to sing this scene all the way through tonight.

A Zhao sat by the threshold and listened. Before going on, Gu Ming felt at his waist, discovered that the strap holding the wooden sword was fastened incorrectly, and looked toward her. She did not go over to fasten it for him, but merely pointed to the second hole. He lowered his head and refastened it, smiled at her, then stepped onto the edge of a board as he entered. Immediately he turned the stumble into a farewell kneel, making Lu Heniang laugh and scold him for stealing another little scene. A Zhao laughed too, though the ache in her chest did not disappear.

When work ended, Gao Shoucheng gave her an old robe and told her to prepare to alter it using Gu Ming as the model. She asked who would wear it. The troupe leader said Han Rong. He would arrive in the eighth month, he was a little older, and he had not played a young scholar in years. A-Zhao laid the robe back on the worktable and asked him to wait until Han Rong arrived to settle the sleeve length. He thought she was being slow, but in the end he just nodded and kept the sheet of measurements Gu Ming had left.

Back in the room, she opened her own notebook. Many entries at the front still followed the way her mother had written on the old sheets, with tiny notes crowded beside waist, shoulders, and sleeves. Farther back, though, there were notes on after sweating, taking the drum cue, stepping back, and the order of removing costumes—many things even her mother had never worked on. She flattened a fresh sheet beneath a ruler and wrote Liang Qiu's name, then the rear courtyard of Qingxing Stage. The characters were neat, as though she were first measuring out room for a position she had not yet agreed to take.

At the other end of the bed, Xiaoman was unpicking the stitches in the old score so she could sew the loose pages together again. A-Zhao reached over to hold them down, and neither spoke of who would go and who would stay. Hot wind came through the window and lifted the pages together. Xiaoman suddenly said the old farewell had gone by too fast. Scholar Liu was already ashore before A-Heng had time to get angry. ‘You could see it clearly today, when her hand came up empty,’ A-Zhao said. Xiaoman listened and drew another small circle beside the new beat.

They sewed the old score back into a single book, with both the thick ink dots and the new circles still there. Azhao was going to see the workshop the next day. Tonight she threaded the needle for Xiaoman. The eye was tiny and the wick leaned to one side. She moved the lamp once and got the thread through, without making that small thing into a reason to stay.