Three Souls

by Janie Chang,

This story takes place in China in the 1930's.  It is the time when the country is in the midst of a civil war, with the Maoists pitted against the ruling party.

A young girl Song Leyin, is from an affluent family.  As the story begins we find her floating in the rafters of a temple, with her three souls.  She realizes that she has died but doesn't remember how.  She is puzzled that she is still lingering in a soul state, and her starts to recall her life from a young girl.

When she was on the verge of completing her schooling her brother was associating with some communist sympathizers including a writer, translator, Hanchin.  Song Leyin was taken to one of Hanchin's lectures in a rather sketchy neighbourhood by her brother.  She falls in love with him and when her father finds out where she is been he is furious at her and her brother.

She steals secret moments with Hanchin and against her father's wishes applies for a scholarship to university so that she can become a teacher and go teach in villages, per Hanchin's wishes.  When her father learns of the scholarship he insists that she decline it.  She doesn't she runs off to live with one of her sisters and plans to go to univeristy.  Her parents find her, bring her home and then very quickly arrange for her to be married to a young man, poorer than her family, in a rural city.

At first she is furious at her parents banishing her.  The family she is married into is poor because the father keeps spending money on rare items and books.  She is shocked to learn that her husband is illiterate as she loves books and obviously her father-in-law does also.  She gives birth to a daughter, whom she loves dearly.  She comes to accept her life and appreciate her kind husband.  She teaches her daughter and her husband to read.  Life seems content, if not affluent.

Then one day she receives a copy of a communist magazine that Hanchin had been writing for and it suggests she visit a local bookstore.  She goes there and finds Hanchin, working as a clerk in the story.  He is hiding from the authorities as he is accused of treasonous activities against the state.  She and Hanchin have an affair and she considers leaving everything she has to follow him.  He leaves her a manuscript and asks her to hide it.  He leaves to hide elsewhere but promises he will return soon.  She finds she is pregnant again, by Hanchin and is eager to be reunited with him.

She asks her brother to send a tutor for her daughter because she wants her to be well educated.  She is delighted but puzzled when the person who arrives is a woman who was her best friend.   This woman says she is Hanchin's wife.  Song Leyin is shocked that Hanchin would have deceived her.  Hanchin's wife is there to try to find the manuscript.  Song Leyin is even more devastated when one of the staff admits that she is pregnant by Hanchin.  She is so angry about the betrayal by Hanchin that she insists the servant be sent from the house.  She discloses what she knows about Hanchin's travel plans and he is caught and killed.

Song Leyin dies after falling over a rickety railing on a veranda in the house.  Her father-in-law's spending never allowed for money to repair the house.   Both she and her unborn child die.  The family is devastated at her death and at the news that the unborn child was a son.  However, they quickly marry off their son to another woman.  Song Leyin is happy to see that the new wife is kind to her daughter, but she learns that the woman's father is a child molester.

She learns that if people dream about her she can enter their dreams and make suggestions... She decides to suggest that the pregnant servant be allowed to return to the household and when she learns that her daughter is to be betrothed to a friend of her brothers.  She influences a dream so that this will not occur, because she has "seen" that her daughter would be molested in the future if sent to that household. Her brother is murdered because it has been discovered he was working as a double agent

At the end of the book her husband and his wife and children are leaving the family home to get away from Japanese bombing.  They are going to go to a small cottage in the mountains and hope they will be safe there.

It seems that it is time for Song Leyin to move on.... she feels very heavy, has she atoned enough for her actions?

It was an interesting story, the mystery of knowing that she died, but not why, and having it slowly revealed was interesting.  However, I don't understand the presence of the three souls hovering with her, they seemed to make editorial comments at times but seemed basically superfluous to me.  And the idea of staying around as a spirit, until you could make some amends, protect your family members - can all people do this?  I don't think so because then more people could help their family from the grave?  Maybe they are and I am just unaware of it?  That part of the story line was a bit far fetched.

Initially she thinks that she must make peace with her father, who had died, or with Hanchin