Many years later, Lydia wrote down her side of the story: When I was seventeen, Father called me to their bedroom to talk to me. They told me to stand in front of the mirror and look at myself. I did not understand(because I did not find anything unusual about my appearance), but they told me to look closely at my left hand, which was a strange shape. Father said, "We have found a man for you to marry. It is a good chance, because if you do not marry now, you will not be able to find anyone who wants you later. I looked at myself and saw that I was truly not very good looking with my damaged left hand. I had never even thought of marriage at seventeen. I admired my school friends who were going for further studies abroad. But I heard Niang's cold voice: "I'm not going to keep another old unmarried woman in my house! You must do as we say!' I was a fool. I thought I had to obey them.
Lydia and Samuel had a big wedding 1948, with over Gve in hundred guests. Months before the wedding, presents started to arrive. The best ones were kept by Niang. Lydia moved with Samuel to Tianjin after the wedding and lived with Samuel's parents. I did not see them again for thirty one years. My brothers Gregory and Edgar had found their own ways to solve the problem of having no money. Playing in their room one day, I found a box under Gregory's bed. It contained some notepaper and envelopes from the school and some 1 James told me that Gregory had made friends with an employee in the school financial office, and was printing letters on official school paper asking for small amounts of money. Gregory's friend gave him cash for these payments. This gave him a regular stream of pocket money.
At the same time, Ye Ye had started to notice that banknotes were disappearing from his desk drawer. But he kept silent about this, as he did not want to make trouble for any of us. One day things went wrong for Edgar, who was the thief. He had taken a few American dollars from Ye Ye's desk and changed them for local money. This was the time when Chinese notes had very little value. Edgar was given an enormous bag full of Chinese banknotes. He had so much money that he did not know where to hide it He dug a large hole in the garden, put all rhe money into it, and covered it over again. He thought his secret was safe, but he had forgotten Father's dog, Jackie. Next day, while we were at school, Jackie started digging in the place where the money was hidden. Soon banknotes were flying about all over the garden. Niang told the servants to pick up the money and tidy the garden. Not a word was said until the end of dinner. Then, instead of the usual fruit bowl, the servants brought in a large plate piled with Chinese money.
Father took Edgar upstairs and hit him repeatedly with Jackie's whip. We sat in Ye Ye's room, listening to the awful sounds of the beating and Edgar's cries of pain. Ye Ye and Father were happy when the Japanese lost the war in 1945 and left China. They soon had new worries, though Almost immediately, a war began within the country, between the Kuomintang* and the Communists t Newspapers were full The Kuomintang: the Nationalist People's party in China. It formed the government in southern China after the First World War. t The Communist party: a political party which began in China in the 1920s It grew in power and became the enemy of the Kuomintang. The Communist soldiers became as the Red Army
of stories of the terrible acts that were being carried out by the Communists against business people and people with property. By 1948 the economic situation for people like my father was looking very bad. Businessmen were sending all their money to Hong Kong, the United States and Europe. On the day following my schoolfriends' disastrous visit, Father suddenly made a rare appearance on the second floor(our floor) and visited Aunt Baba and Ye Ye. He told them that he and Niang had decided to move to Hong Kong with Franklin and Susan. Would Ye Ye and Baba go too? Ye Ye accepted his son's invitation. Aunt Baba decided to stay in Shanghai. She did not want to give up her job and live with Niang's daily criticism. Communism could not be worse than a life under Niang. She asked what would happen to us. Father said he would leave his three teenage sons in their Shanghai schools, and then send them to university in England.