by Ha Jin
“Heaven has eyes!”
“Oh, we’re saved at last!”
“Our Lord, our great Lord is coming!”
In no time their cries grew chaotic, but they had really gotten into the drama. Some were swaying their heads from side to side as they found release in wailing. Many of them were shedding tears of joy as if the new arrival were the real Heng Zhang, a legendary savior expected by millions of downtrodden people for two thousand years. Following their parents, the children bawled and kowtowed too—they looked like chickens pecking at grain seeds. I was shocked by the emotion they had worked up. They were enacting their roles much more earnestly than the professionals. As if entranced, some of them were sobbing, some sniffling, and some moaning.
Heng Zhang rose a little in the carriage and clasped his hands before his chest, smiling and nodding at the people down the slope. He then stroked his long but scanty beard, as though his mind was full of wise plans. As the vehicle slowed to a stop, all the people sprang to their feet and ran up to him, carrying baskets of foods and fruits and gourds of wine and water.
“Cut!” the director shouted and flung up his hand. “This is the fourth time today, and still you haven’t done it right. I told you not to get up too soon. Why is this so difficult? I’ve never met people as stupid as you. What can I do with you? All right, get your money from her.” He pointed at a young woman in a white gob hat and sunglasses, then went on, “Go home now. Come back tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, and we’ll try again.”
The villagers, still dazed despite the interruption, began gathering around the woman, who was calling out their names and handing out cash.
After dusting ourselves off, Hao and I came out of the ditch. I asked him, “How much do they pay each person?”
“One yuan a day.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe my ears.
“One yuan a day, the same for the kids.”
My head started throbbing as I tried to control myself. Never had I thought these people could be so poor that for a pittance of one yuan they’d allow that director to do whatever he wanted with them. Some of them must never have seen a movie before and couldn’t possibly enjoy the prospect of having their faces shown on the screen. My heart was shaking, filled with pity, dismay, and disgust. Feeling queasy, I squatted down. Hao explained, “That’s good money for us, you know. I can’t get the money myself because my dad and daughter are already there. Each family is allowed only two members in this business. Folks like us rarely have a chance to make one yuan a day. You have to sell five eggs to get that much.”
Not wanting him to see my emotion, I buried my face in my palms while breathing heavily, my elbows resting on my knees. I remained this way for over a minute.
A group of teenage girls emerged from the valley, each carrying two buckets of water on a curved shoulder pole. Their loads were crushing, and they hurried down the trail unsteadily. As I wondered how this would fit in the movie, one of them lost her balance. With a clack she fell on her behind, and her buckets clanked all the way down until they hit a huge rock. She broke into a woeful cry. A young man rushed over to help her up, but she refused to budge. Her face was smeared with dust, sweat, and tears; she was wailing shamelessly with her mouth wide open like a frog. The other girls stopped and put down their loads, but they seemed too exhausted to respond to her crying. They were just watching.
“Get away!” the director shouted. He held up the camera, busy shooting. Two guards pushed the people aside. The man went on filming the crying girl, whose eyes were shut and whose voice was croaky. She even kicked her heels on the wet spot, the soles of her rubber sneakers caked with mud.
“This is it, great!” the director said rapturously, working the camera with his left eye closed.
“My dad will whack me again!” the girl shrieked. “Oh, it’s too late to go back and fetch another load.”
A square-faced girl yelled at her, “Shut up! Shame on you. I’ll give you a bucket. Get up now.”
“She’s new. Everybody’s like this in the beginning,” a female voice whispered behind me. I watched but couldn’t make sense of this scene.
Finally the girl stopped wailing. The director turned off the camera and handed it back to the short fellow. “This is real stuff,” he said, beaming with his snaggleteeth flashing. Then he turned to the villagers. “You all saw it. Tomorrow when I say ‘Action,’ you must cry like her. Got it?”
Nobody answered.
The girl was helped to her feet. She picked up her shoulder pole and buckets, which somebody had recovered for her, and began leaving with the other girls. As she was passing the director, he took out a two-yuan bill from his wallet and gave it to her. She accepted the money without a word. Meanwhile, the film crew was packing to move to another spot deep in the valley. A cleated plank slanted up to the rear of their truck.
I figured they must have arranged the last scene, so I asked Hao, “Did they hire those girls too?”
“Nope. Can’t you see that the girl hurt for real?”
“Why was she so mad over two buckets of water?”
“Why so mad?” He sounded a little crazy too, his eyes ablaze. “She carried the whole load from Sweet Fount Village three miles away. When she had almost reached home, the water was suddenly all lost. Why so mad? Her folks were waiting for the water to cook supper with. She was too tired and it was too late to go back to fetch another two buckets. Her dad is going to beat and cuss her this evening and the whole village will hear him. Don’t you see now, why so mad?”
“She has to go that far for water? Isn’t there a closer place?” I asked with a tremor in my voice.
“Nope. There’re two wells in Peach Village, but you can’t drink the water from them. It stinks like piss and can only be used for laundering and watering livestock. Folks have to go to Sweet Fount for good water.”
“If only I had known all this!” I said, hot with rage.
“Then what?”
“I might’ve bashed in that old bastard’s snout!” I meant the director’s.
“That wouldn’t help, wouldn’t change anything.” Hao licked his front teeth. His candid words, like a slap on my face, rendered me speechless.
A moment later I asked, “Have you folks ever sunk a well here?”
“Yes, but we don’t have a deep well, so we often run out of water in summer.”
“Why didn’t you sink a deep well?”
“We have no machinery.”
“Why not get some?”
“No money.”
His answers were so simple that they made me feel like a raging fool. I looked around and saw that indeed the entire area of six or seven villages had no electricity. Actually there weren’t enough trees on the hills whose trunks could be used as electrical poles.
Having taken leave of Hao, I walked back to Hanlong Town. The scorpion-stung boy still cried at the foot of the mountain, though no longer continuously. He wailed falteringly, now stopped awhile, now resumed. I fished the piece of black bun out of my bag and took a bite. It was bitter, sticky, and coarse, made of millet husks, acacia blossoms, and sweet-potato flour. It tasted like an herbal bolus, but I chewed on it. Nothing could abate the bitterness in my heart.
29
The morning after I returned from the countryside, I went to Secretary Peng’s office to deliver the letter and also to inform her that I had decided to go to the Policy Office at the Provincial Administration.
I had made up my mind to pursue an official career not because I fancied I could become a savior of the country people. No, I wasn’t that simpleminded. I just wanted to be a man more useful than a lightweight clerk—a scholar. If I had the power to distribute resources and funds, I would help children like the screaming boy stung by a scorpion and the downtrodden folks like those at Sandy Rock. There was work to do in this province, for which I was finally ready. My trip to the countryside made me realize that like myself, the poor villagers were also meat on the chopping board. Now
I was determined to become a knife or an ax, so that someday I could cut down a few corrupt officials. In addition, this move was also a way for me to have a life different from my teacher’s. I wanted to live actively and meaningfully.
As I was about to knock at the door of Secretary Peng’s office, somebody shouted from inside, “You’ve tortured him ever since he’s been ill!” I recognized Mrs. Yang’s voice.
“No,” countered Ying Peng. “I’ve helped him all along. Anybody with good eyes can see how much I’ve done for him. You should be more grateful to me.”
“You helped him? By going to the hospital to blackmail him again and again?”
“Watch your tongue, Nanyan. Your words are wide of the mark.” She called Mrs. Yang by her first name.
“Didn’t you demand that he get a scholarship for your nephew?”
“Who told you that?”
“Never mind how I found out. You mean to torture him to death, don’t you?”
“Nanyan, how can you accuse me like I was a criminal? I tell you, he promised me to secure a scholarship for my nephew before he went to Canada last year.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Of course he did.”
“Liar!”
“Listen, if he hadn’t promised me, I wouldn’t have granted him permission to visit Canada. Do you think he could’ve gotten the funding without my support? To put it bluntly, he owes me a scholarship.”
“You’re shameless.”
“Tell me, how much is shame worth? I’m a practical person, a dialectical materialist.”
“You’re like an animal.”
“At least I’ve never gone back on my word like what your husband did. I hate two kinds of people most: ingrates and promise breakers. He’s both.”
I tried to think of a case in which Ying Peng had failed to make good on her word, but I couldn’t recall one. Strangely enough, she did seem to have a clean record on that score.
The secretary spoke to Mrs. Yang again. “Heaven knows how much I’ve done for him and you.”
“For me?”
“Yes.”
“Like what?”
“I took steps to keep him from sinking deeper into an illicit affair with his student. Don’t you see that you’re a beneficiary of my effort too? I helped save your marriage. Shouldn’t you be more grateful to me?”
Silence ensued. At last I understood why Ying Peng had yoked Weiya to Yuman Tan—she meant to separate her from Mr. Yang so as to stop their relationship and protect our teacher and his reputation. In other words, she might indeed have intended to help him out of a troublesome situation, although at the same time she had used this knowledge to coerce him into working for her nephew. From her standpoint, her effort did constitute a huge favor, for she could have exposed him and turned him in anytime, but instead, she had the affair hushed up and dissolved within the department. Heavens, she would do anything to get the imagined scholarship. How ludicrous and convoluted this whole thing was! I was flabbergasted beyond words.
I knocked on the frosted glass on the door. “Come in,” called the secretary.
Both women were surprised to see me. Mrs. Yang’s face was dilated with emotion, her round eyes fierce and her chest heaving. Her hands, with the fingers interlaced, kept rubbing each other. I gave Ying Peng the envelope that contained the investigation letter and my application for the position at the Policy Office.
Then quietly I left the room without exchanging glances with Meimei’s mother, fearing Secretary Peng might suspect that it was I who had informed Mrs. Yang of the letter of recommendation and the scholarship. Yet in Ying Peng’s glowering eyes I detected some suspicion. In fact, I had never mentioned this matter to Mrs. Yang. The only person who could have provided her with the information was Banping. Or Mr. Yang himself in his delirium.
Because of the trip I hadn’t listened to the Voice of America. Mantao told me that some army units had attempted to enter Beijing City to clear the hunger-striking students out of Tiananmen Square, but they were blocked on the streets by the civilians. Although most of the soldiers were unarmed, tanks and artillery were assembling on the outskirts of the capital. I was disconcerted by the news, but I couldn’t imagine that the government would dare to unleash military force on the citizens and students, especially with so many foreign reporters still in Beijing, who had gone there for the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s visit about two weeks before. Some undergraduates on campus were exasperated and restless, eager to leave for the capital to join forces with the students there. Mantao was considering if he should go with them.
Early that afternoon a phone call came from the hospital. With a sob Mrs. Yang said to me that my teacher’s condition had turned critical and I should come as soon as possible.
Hanging up, I hurried to the dormitory building to inform Weiya of this sudden development, but she was not in. Without further delay I set out for the hospital. It was said that recently Weiya went to paint in Yuman Tan’s apartment almost every afternoon, and that one of her paintings had been selected for an exhibition of works by young artists in the province. In my heart I still resented her getting so thick with that man in a time like this. Our teacher, her old inamorato, wasn’t dead yet, why couldn’t she wait a while? Bicycling townward, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Mrs. Yang had told me on the phone. That morning, when she was quarreling with Ying Peng in her office, my teacher had fallen out of bed and hit his head on the edge of the cabinet. After emergency treatment he came to, but he still had suffered a severe concussion and a cerebral hemorrhage.
When I arrived at the hospital, Mrs. Yang, Banping, Mali Chen, and several others were in the sickroom. Dr. Wu was there too, wearing a grimy stethoscope around his neck, a cigarette in a jade holder clamped between his teeth. At the sight of me the nurses stepped aside to let me get to the bedside. My teacher looked lifeless, his face ghastly and a large bandage on his right temple. From the evasive look in the doctor’s eyes I could tell that no medication would help Mr. Yang anymore, though an IV bottle still hung on an iron stand beside the bed, whitish liquid dripping listlessly into the brown rubber tube.
Mr. Yang’s lips moved, but his voice was inaudible. Slowly he opened his eyes, which gradually expanded into an earnest look. “Nanyan,” he murmured.
“I’m here, Shenmin.” Mrs. Yang held his hand in both of hers.
“I’m sorry, truly sorry,” he said.
“Don’t talk like this, please!” she begged tearfully.
“Forgive me, dear.”
“You mustn’t think of leaving me, Shenmin!”
“Too late,” he mumbled and closed his eyes.
A heavy hush descended in the room, and everyone watched him intently. A moment later, he opened his eyes again. His face showed an intense effort, as though he was struggling to suppress some pain. His eyes searched around slowly but with eagerness. “Tell me what you want, Shenmin,” his wife asked, sobbing.
His lips stirred again; he was saying something none of us could make out. He turned his head a little, his gaze fixed on the window half draped with green chintz curtains. On the sill sat Brecht’s Good Woman of Szechwan, which hadn’t vanished perhaps because few people here could understand the play. I went over, picked up the book, and waved it at Mr. Yang. Sluggishly he shook his head. I put it down and drew the curtains together to block out the daylight; the room at once became darker, but he shook his head again. I pushed the curtains aside to let in the light. He nodded, so I opened the window too. He observed the outside world with a distant look in his glazed eyes, his face almost vacant. Beyond the mountain of anthracite the sky was pale with smog, an elongated, underlit cloud gliding over the aspen crowns whose leaves were flickering in the breeze. Somewhere pigeons were cooing. Blankly Mr. Yang stared at the outside; he seemed disappointed, maybe already unable to see anything clearly. He went on shaking his chin as though irritated by something. A gust of wind tossed up a small cloud of coal dust; then a ray of sunlight fel
l on one of the concrete smokestacks and bounced slantwise toward the window. For a moment the room was brighter, but Mr. Yang didn’t seem to notice any change. He withdrew his eyes from the window and closed them, facing the ceiling and murmuring something again.
Both Mrs. Yang and I stepped closer and bent down to listen, but again couldn’t understand his words. So I straightened up and joined the others, standing stupefied and watching him while his wife wept, her hand on his upper arm.
“It was awful yesterday afternoon,” Banping whispered to me. “He recited poetry without a stop.”
“What poetry?” I asked.
“Mainly Dante, I guess.”
“What part of Dante? Inferno or Paradiso?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never read Dante.”
Mr. Yang heard my voice and moaned faintly, “Jian, Jian—”
All eyes turned to me as I stepped closer and leaned over him. “Mr. Yang, I’m here. This is Jian.” I held his cold hand in my fingers.
“Save me, save my soul!” he gasped.
“I’m with you, Mr. Yang.”
“I’m scared.”
“We’re all here, nobody can hurt you.”
“Oh, don’t touch me!”
I let go of his hand. “What do you want me to do, Mr. Yang?”
“Keep them away from us!”
“Who?”
“Save her.”
“Who are you talking about?”
He didn’t answer. I was on the point of asking “You mean Weiya?” but checked my tongue.
His lips still quivered, his voice tapering off. He seemed to be uttering something desperately while I strove to listen, but I couldn’t hear a thing. I observed him for a minute or two. Then he made some audible sounds again, and I put my right ear to his mouth. Now his voice was clearer. He said while exhaling feebly, “Jian, Jian—”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Be good to Meimei.”
