Under the Hawthorn Tree by Anna Holmwood

Author:Anna Holmwood [Ml, Al & Mi, Ai & Holmwood, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Literary, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780887842917
Publisher: House of Anansi
Published: 2011-11-29T05:00:00+00:00

As she had no way of knowing if he had found somewhere to stay or not, Jingqiu feared for Old Third’s life that night. She was terrified that Fang would appear suddenly one day to tell her that Old Third had been found, frozen to death, and that she was invited to the memorial service.

Every day she found reasons to go to her mother’s office so that she could flip through the newspapers in search of news of frozen bodies found around the city. But probably the newspapers would not report it anyway because Old Third had brought it on himself, he had not died trying to save someone else. Why bother reporting that?

She thought of going to West Village to see if he was still alive, but she couldn’t ask her mother for the bus fare and she could think of no excuse that would let her be away for a whole day. She had no choice but to wait anxiously for news.

It occurred to her that she knew a doctor called Cheng who worked at the city’s largest hospital. She went looking for him. Dr Cheng told her that he had not received any patients suffering from frostbite. ‘Could someone freeze to death outside in the kind of weather we’re having?’ she asked.

‘If they’re wearing too little then, yes, perhaps.’

Old Third had been wearing a military jacket so he was probably okay, she thought.

Dr Cheng reassured her that nowadays people did not tend to freeze to death; if they were caught out in the cold they could go to the station waiting room or the one by the pier, or else the police would pick them up as a vagrant. His logic comforted her somewhat.

Dr Cheng’s mother-in-law and Jingqiu’s mother had been colleagues. As both women had the same last name, many of the families on Jiangxin Island had, for several generations, been taught by a Mrs Zhang. Dr Cheng’s mother-in-law had already retired, but they lived by the school. Dr Cheng’s wife was also a teacher in the city as well as a proficient accordion player and passers-by often stopped to listen as husband and wife sang and played together.

Jingqiu was entirely self-taught at the accordion. She had initially started playing the organ as her mother’s school had one in the music room where she could go to practise, but the students often went travelling around singing revolutionary songs, and they needed someone to accompany them. The organ was too heavy for that so she started to learn the accordion instead. She often heard Dr Cheng’s wife Mrs Jiang practising as she passed by their house, and she admired her music immensely, so she asked her mother if she could study with Mrs Jiang. Before long she had got to know the family well.

Dr Cheng didn’t look very Chinese: his nose protruded and his eyes were deep-set, earning him particular fame on the island, the nickname ‘foreigner’, and the islanders’ curious looks.

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