A Handsome Letter: A memoir of love, unexpected

By Sara L Keating

Sara and Zhang Jianlong seem destined to fall in love. The rat and the dragon are suitably matched in the Chinese zodiac. By chance they meet a few days before Sara returns to Australia after a semester of Mandarin language study at Hubei University, Wuhan in Central China. Jianlong, a uni student and fan of Italian socc

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publicious Book Publishing
• Release date: Nov 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645258622

Book preview

PART ONE

You don’t find love, it finds you. It’s got a little bit to do with destiny, fate, and what’s written in the stars.

Anaïs N

Chapter 1

February 1997 Wuhan, China: Leaving Mama Huhu

There was no winter view from my windows. I’d taped layers of newspaper over the panes of cracked glass, covering all of it with a large piece of the red, white and blue-striped plastic used to make Chinese carry bags. It had to be nailed to the splintered window frames.

I sat with my luggage, the apartment empty. A shrill ringing pierced the silence, scattering my memories. I winced as I picked up the phone. Every bump to my hands was painful, my knuckles swollen and bleeding from chilblains.

The sound of Paolo’s voice surprised me. I was expecting the caller to be Mr Wang, who had been assigned the task of accompanying me on my departure from Hubei Daxue, Hubei University.

It seemed odd that this Chinese student with the name of Zhang Jianlong would adopt the name of Paolo. Earlier in the semester, he’d offered to help my classmate Harry at the uni campus post office, introducing himself as ‘Polo.’ Somewhat bemused and curious, Harry discovered the inspiration behind the adopted name wasn’t Marco Polo but Paolo Maldini – an Italian soccer player. Harry then gave Chinese Paolo a short lesson on how to pronounce it with an Italian flourish.

Questions buzzed through my brain as I listened to Paolo’s concern about Harry’s health. Why was he calling me and not Harry, who was moping about in his flat downstairs, still recovering from the flu? I had only met Paolo the week before, when Harry and I had travelled to Paolo’s hometown. As I recalled his unassuming manner, a gentleness about him, my heart was stirring in unexpected circles. What was his phone call really about?

Paolo went on to wish me well for my return to Australia, stressing I should take care travelling. There was an awkward pause.

With a stumble of hesitation, Paolo asked, ‘Sara, will you write to me? If you have time.’

‘Yes…’ I said, my mind in a flap.

Paolo said goodbye.

I heard the click ending the call. A curious sensation floated somewhere between my head and my heart, a feeling of something unfinished, or perhaps it hadn’t even begun. Was it just my imagination – this inexplicable, tingling sensation of attraction? I couldn’t pin it down. Madness, said a tiny voice, reminding me Paolo was way too young for that to be remotely conceivable.

Waiting for Mr Wang to take me to the airport, I shifted my mind into reverse gear and travelled back to my arrival in late August of the previous year, 1996. It was the tail end of summer in Wuhan, a large city that sprawls across the Yangtze River in Central China. The weather had been stifling hot, the views smeared with shady green in a polluted palette. Plane trees with serrated leaves and mottled trunks grew between cement blocks of grey, creating an illusion of space and privacy until the arrival of winter and the reality of condensed living appeared between naked trees.

From my life as a long-time wife and mother, novice grandmother and school library assistant in North Queensland, I’d arrived as a single woman. After months of a marriage-ending fracas I’d landed in China, frazzled, unprepared for learning to be someone else, a Mandarin language exchange student. Muddling the four tones of Mandarin, labouring over Chinese brushstrokes and tripping up on cultural complexities had taken over my inner turmoil. A knock at my door interrupted my recollections.

‘We must to go now. Have you prepared your luggage?’ Mr Wang asked.

With memories tucked away in my mind’s treasure-box, it was time to go. I was strangely reluctant to say goodbye to this place, which at best could be described as mama huhu, just so-so (horse horse, tiger tiger – neither good nor bad). Most of my things had already been sent home by seamail, including my dog-eared Chinese dictionary that weighed more than two kilos and a pair of leather, rose-embroidered Harley Davidson boots, fake or authentic, I couldn’t tell. These had been a necessary purchase from the men’s shoe market to keep my feet high and dry above the wintery slush.

I pointed to my luggage, a guzheng – Chinese zither, which was a rather impulsive purchase from a music store on the other side of the Yangtze, given that my musical ability lacks the simple timing of a child’s skipping. It fitted neatly into the dark green, six-foot-long case and weighed just over 15 kilos. A large handmade label on the top, written clearly in both English and Chinese declared:

‘MUSICAL INSTRUMENT – FRAGILE: PLEASE HANDLE WITH CARE, PLEASE TOP STOW.’

‘You won’t be allowed to take that,’ Mr Wang declared. I could see his mind ticking over, convinced he’d be left holding the guzheng, as my plane lumbered towards the leaden sky. Much to his surprise, my departure went without the usual round of frustrations associated with Chinese procedures, without the slightest raising of an eyebrow by airline staff as they dealt with my special cargo. Both relieved, we said goodbye.

Tension seized me on arrival in Guangzhou. I was determined not to be conned like I had been on the way to Wuhan. I cringed at how easily I’d been led by the nose in the shape of a fake taxi driver. This time I planned to walk to a nearby hotel. But it was raining. Lugging my guzheng. Trying not to get wet. It was not going to happen. I joined the taxi queue between metal-railed barricades. My turn came but the drivers rejected me, waving arms and cigarettes in the air. Other passengers streamed past me into the taxis lined up three-abreast. Thinking I’d be stuck there until my flight the next morning, I was finally rescued by an airport security worker. He bundled my guzheng into the next taxi, tied it down in the boot with string and issued instructions through the taxi window. The driver nodded and pulled away into the river of traffic.

My neck craned to keep an eye on my guzheng, jutting into mid-air without a red flag of caution. I wasn’t aware of the friendly driver’s chatter. Suddenly I interrupted his flowing commentary, protesting that he’d gone too far, way past the hotel. He responded with a Cantonese version of ‘don’t worry, I know where it is.’ Oh no, here I go again. I bristled, steaming inwardly.

Then we arrived. Ah, my irritation evaporated. There were two hotels with the same name, so that changed my doubts about his honesty and he was surely just his following instructions. I decided to ask him to collect me the next morning to return to the airport. He seemed pleased with that and murmured assurances he’d come at the appointed hour.

The hotel doorman recited the welcome greeting and carried my guzheng through to reception where I was given the VIP treatment, even without a booking. Instantly I felt elevated to the status of a famous musician, perhaps travelling incognito in travel clothes that were just ‘so-so.’ The hotel was ablaze with glittering chandeliers, fairy lights, potted cumquats, red-ribboned floral arrangements and gold-embossed banners, all symbolising the wish for prosperity and good luck to welcome the year of the Fire Ox. It would begin on 7th February.

Venturing out into the streets awash with Spring Festival preparations, I threaded my way through the throng of bobbing black hair. Suddenly I glimpsed the back of a head, a slender neck and in that split-second my heart hurtled into over-drive. It couldn’t be Paolo. I had to call him. He’d given me his address and phone number for Jingzhou. Back in my hotel room I prepared carefully what to say, to ask if I could speak to Jianlong, not Paolo. It was my first opportunity to test my Chinese on the phone. My fingers trembled. I dialled the area code, phone number and extension. I waited, nerves jumping, staring at the numbers. Who would answer the phone? Paolo’s mother? His sister-in-law? Perhaps his cute niece who considered herself quite grown up at the age of four.

‘Hello – Wei,’ I said.

‘How are you, Sara? Are you okay?’ came the immediate response from Paolo, sounding anxious, incredulous and pleased at the same time.

The short conversation was filled with pauses, waiting for each other to speak. Much later I fell asleep, pondering the question mark dangling between us.

As I woke the next morning, Paolo’s image drifted into my dreamy haze: bones sculpting a handsome face, deep brown eyes hinting at hidden strength … But this was not the time to be dilly-dallying. I had to get moving. The morning brought confusion with the hotel staff urging me to take one of the highly polished taxis waiting at the hotel.

‘No, I have my own taxi ordered, thank you,’ I insisted.

I waited, increasingly questioning how much time I could afford to be cooling my heels. Could I trust that my good-guy taxi driver would be true to his word? Just when I was ready to ditch the plan, he arrived with ruffled hair and wrinkled clothes in his battered vehicle. He gestured prolific apologies, puffing on a cigarette with a long explanation – helping his sister with her child before making his mad dash to the hotel. With my guzheng loaded back into the boot, we were bound for the airport.

A Red-Brick Box

Arriving back from Wuhan, I knew I couldn’t slot into my old world. It wasn’t about the place, a coastal town where green tree-frogs sat on the kitchen windowsill, cane-fire ash blackened the washing and the tide receded towards islands fringed with coral reefs. Nor was it about my part-time job or the people – work colleagues, friends, family or even my ex-husband.

It was my internal compass pointing me elsewhere. Time for a new direction. I resigned from my job, retrieved my books, paintings and my grandmother’s collection of chinaware and moved to Toowoomba to become a full-time university student at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ). Up until my departure for China, I’d been studying externally, part-time.

This move meant I’d be living halfway between my daughters and their families – Kate in North Queensland and Beth in Melbourne. Beth had returned from America just before I’d departed for Wuhan. My mother was pleased, as I’d be close enough to drive to Hervey Bay and spend time with her and Alistair, my stepfather. My father was living in the Gympie area, so he was also not too far away.

I found a rental flat close to uni, a small two bedroom, red-brick box with a honeysuckle hedge along the side fence and a lemon tree in the corner of the backyard. Although devoid of frills, there was comfort in its simplicity, unlike the bu fangbian, not convenient, conditions I’d learned to live with in Wuhan. The winter there had been stark, the cold unrelenting, both indoors and outdoors. My room and the classroom were better suited to storing frozen foods than as places to study.

Here, my early mornings in winter wouldn’t be shattered by washing my hands and face in cold water. I wouldn’t need to cover the windows or use a two-bar heater that only operated on one bar. I wouldn’t need to use blu-tack to stop electrical plugs falling out of a power point. Washing could flutter in breezy sunshine instead of hanging above my bed to dry, as stiff as papier-mâché. Life in Wuhan had been teeming with people, incessant noise, noxious traffic fumes and indelible sights, like the chubby man bathing in a big metal tub on the footpath.

Now I could enjoy the late summer of my new neighbourhood – bees buzzing in the lavender, the perfume of creamy gardenias drifting on warm afternoons, deep blue hydrangeas and old-fashioned roses blooming, fading under the sapphire sky.

I unpacked photos, along with memories of strangers asking to be photographed with the ‘big-nose blue-eyes foreigner’ at the Daoist temple in Wuhan and students who wanted to be my best friend, linking my arm tightly, parading me like a new handbag. As foreigners, Harry and I would often be extended last-minute invitations to concerts, where we were the VIP guests sitting in the front row, still wearing our scruffy jeans because we didn’t realise we would be the focus of attention.

Back on familiar ground, I could easily slip back into the absence of vehicles honking relentlessly and too many people jostling for the same space, but I realised that for Asian uni students the silence was unnerving. I floundered along with them, beached on a foreign shore. For me it was a new world of lectures, tutorials and research. At the end of lectures I would bolt home to check the letter box, muttering to myself.

I must be crazy. What was I thinking? The logical brain would reason that Paolo just wanted to correspond to improve his English, but what was my heart telling me?

Chapter 2

Warm Noise

Paolo’s first letter arrived. My heart took a gigantic leap towards the long envelope sticking out of the metal mailbox, with its rust-red paintwork. The letter dated Thursday 20 February, was written on thick, unlined paper. After the Spring Festival holidays Paolo had returned from Jingzhou to begin the new semester at Hubei Daxue. I’d quickly become used to referring to the Hubei University as Hubei Daxue.

It’s getting dark, but I still remember the feeling of excitement when I received your letter this morning dated 8 February. The letter arrived in Wuhan on 13 Feb. and I returned to university on 18 Feb. so it stayed for five days in the university reception office, where there is a professional man whose work is to separate all the letters according to the departments.

It was a wonder the letter hadn’t been opened. Privacy in China had a different meaning, if any at all. There was a certain feeling of entitlement to open and read a letter mistakenly put in the wrong mailbox, before passing it on to the person it was addressed to. My letters to Paolo would remain unopened, but sometimes the stamps would be missing.

Photos were also subjected to curious eyes. I remembered the first time I’d collected my photos developed by the small Kodak shop on campus at Hubei Daxue. I’d stopped to have a look. Then I realised one person was peering over my shoulder and before I could shove them back into the packet, my photos were being passed around the gathering onlookers, complete strangers to me.

The night before Paolo had written, an event of great importance happened in China. He related the news –

Deng Xiaoping, the great leader of China, passed away on 19 February at 9 o’clock pm, shocked the Chinese land like a bomb. And 19 Feb is my twenty-one-year birthday according to the solar calendar. Oh, my God! What an interesting coincidence!

Paolo explained his family still observed a lunar calendar, a custom from when they lived in the countryside, some distance from Jingzhou. The lunar date changed every year, but the solar birthday remained the same and was now preferred by the city dwellers.

I feel good and interesting because every year I will have different birthday. No celebration on the day! I dislike re nao!

Re nao – warm noise could describe most Chinese dinners with special occasions notching the noise level up several decibels. I found myself wanting to skip over Paolo’s comments on China’s politics, hoping for something else, but what? Why had he been so excited to get my letter?

It said he didn’t want to care much about politics, but admired Deng Xiaoping for his great contributions to China and thought it was a pity Deng wouldn’t see the achievement of Hong Kong’s return to the embrace of the motherland, China. Along with his Opening Policy, Deng had devised the ‘one nation, two systems’ on Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao problems. Of course, like his fellow countrymen, Paolo wished prosperity for his country.

Friday night: Today is the fifteenth day of the first lunar month and it’s the Lantern Festival. I went to the university restaurant with two roommates for dinner. It was the first meat with rice after I returned. I had no appetite. We also ate tang yuan which is usually eaten on this day.

I imagined Paolo eating these round, white glutinous rice-flour balls, filled with sweet bean paste and served in a syrup, so thick I almost choked when I tasted them.

Paolo had also been to see Harry, who was still shuffling and sniffling around his room at Hubei Uni, waiting to go to Beijing. He gave Harry some fruit from Jingzhou, suggesting it was time for him to get rid of cigars. In exchange, Harry gave him photos of the three of us in Jingzhou, which he liked very much.

I will keep these photos well. They can remind me of those days and you. Now, I can see Harry if I want but I can’t … Those days we spent in Jingzhou will be kept in my memory for ever. It is really good for me. I think you are great. Indeed!

Please just do let me know you need help in studying Chinese.

Ok, that’s all for this letter. Keep contact! Best Wishes! Paolo

P.S. I’m sorry for it is difficult to find an envelope of high quality.

I recalled those photos when the three of us stood near the entrance to the Daoist temple; a not-too-chipper Harry, one hand tucked into his pocket and me propping myself on the edge of the stone fence as close as possible to Paolo, who was awkwardly, but not unhappily squashed between us. Did he also have the photo of him and me, standing either side of the hundred-year-old bonsai? Our bodies turned towards each other, linked by a hand on each side of the tree.

Eight Minute Calls

My chest tight, no breath. Would my call get through to Hubei Daxue from my red-brick box? I’d never made an international phone call before. In my faltering Chinese, I asked to speak to Zhang Jianlong.

My heart was jumping like a hairy goat up a mountain. The seconds ticked by in rapid succession. I waited and waited and waited. Time would run out if Paolo didn’t hurry. All phone calls were cut off automatically after eight short minutes, the limit imposed by Hubei Daxue.

Finally, I heard a breathless, ‘hello Sara.’

I could imagine that Paolo, on hearing his name broadcast over the microphone, had run from the upstairs dormitory down to the ground floor office, like a startled gazelle skittering through the forest. The sound of his voice stilled my mind, my words mere fragments floating in the air.

‘Paolo, how are you?’ I finally said, anxious about the clock.

It was another conversation filled with hesitant phrases. All stops and starts. Paolo wrote the following day to tell me how thankful that he’d been in the dormitory when my call was announced.

At seven thirty a sound from the microphone came to my ears, er er san [223] Zhang Jianlong, dianhua and I rushed to the phone. If I wasn’t in and I couldn’t answer the phone, I would feel very sad! But it seems good luck is always with me. I’m usually in the dormitory from six thirty to seven pm, because I like to read newspaper, magazines or chat with friends before I go to self-study.

He’d received the card and small notebook I’d sent for his birthday. Wrapping it for the mail, I’d wondered if it would mean anything more than a friendly gesture.

I like them very very much! I never thought you can remember my birthday, because I just mentioned it occasionally. I never had any birthday celebrations until the university.

I understood ‘occasionally’ as ‘casually’ and read more about his birthday. Although not wanting to have any celebration, he’d bought the customary cigarettes and snacks for his roommates, the snacks being for any non-smokers. (I’d be surprised if there were too many who weren’t smokers.) In the afternoon Paolo had helped Harry find information about where to study Taijiquan Tai Chi before they enjoyed dinner together. Harry drank tea and smoked a cigar while Paolo drank beer and smoked cigarettes.

We had a free talk. I really enjoyed it. To talk to my friends in quiet atmosphere makes me feel agreeable and joyful, especially on this day.

As I read on, I understood why there had been no birthday celebrations for Paolo growing up, the youngest of five children.

My mother and father lived in the countryside with their relatives and in my third year we moved to Jingzhou because of my father’s work. My father died and I haven’t any impression about him. My mother seldom mentioned him before us, but from her few words, I know my father was a good person.

My first aunt died this year and my grandmother died at the same time last year. My second aunt died several years ago. I think my mother has no tears because she always cried so much in the evenings when I was very young. I never forget these!

I admire her cleverness, kindness, diligence, amazing willpower and abilities. She never went to school because her family was very poor, but I have learnt much on how to be a man from her. It is incredible my mother could support our family alone! Many people knew it always said that my mother is liaobuqi! [amazing] I think so! But I know there are many families that have more misfortune than my mother and my family.

Although Paolo loved his mother, he said communications were not existing from childhood, but he was grateful that his mother was a strong woman. Paolo and I had both been lucky to have strong women in our families. I thought about my own mother, her mother and my father’s mother, who was already a widow when I was born. She lived in a farmhouse, a squeeze for seven children, although it had a detached kitchen and laundry. I remembered it from my childhood holidays. There was newspaper stuffed in wide gaps between rough weatherboards to stop the frosty mornings and baking-hot days intruding into unlined rooms. Hessian bags hung over the sash windows with cracked glass. I wondered if she had the energy or time to cry at night.

In 1976, the year Paolo was born, I was already twenty-seven years old, married with two daughters and working as a teacher aide. By then, China’s population had increased to 940 million.

Mao Zedong, who died in 1976 had believed population growth empowered the country. But by 1970 citizens were encouraged to marry later and have only two children before the strict One Child Policy was enforced. There were exceptions to the rule for ethnic minorities and in rural areas the strictness was not adhered to. Children who survived early childhood helped their parents work the land. Obviously, Paolo’s family had not been limited by the rule as he had four older siblings.

He wrote about the coming semester. It would be very busy with nine courses including politics. (No surprise there! How boring!)

Maybe you know, politics is very, very difficult to recite. For me, maths including infinitesimal calculus, linear algebra, probability theory is the most difficult one, because I haven’t learned. I must learn by myself. I want to be a postgraduate of management projection. The most important thing is to prepare for the entrance examination to postgraduate which will be held in February next year. Compared with other courses, English is easy.

I groaned under the weight of so much work for him to achieve his goals. It all sounded so complicated and time-consuming. Perhaps his letters would peter out. I knew I didn’t want them to stop, but why? There were other students who said they’d write to me, but I hadn’t given them a second thought.

Oh no! I lose myself, now it’s in March 7. It’s 1 o’clock am. I must go to bed. You must have been asleep like a WOOD! Good night Sara!

Smiling to myself about being a wood, I recalled the warm welcome from Paolo’s mother, when Harry and I were in Jingzhou.

Chapter 3

Three Short Days