Old Town

by Lin Zhe

  Here was another coincidence. The pastor and his wife sensed this was God’s special love for the faithful and they accepted His reward for their lifelong resolve to spread the Good News. More than once did the Bible mention that Jehovah invariably brought blessings on the people and their descendants who believed in Him. The Bible was the word of God. It was the covenant between God and His people. And God could be trusted.

  Every word of the pastor’s sermon fell into the deepest recesses of the doctor’s heart. Today he wore the Western-style suit that he hadn’t put on for so long. He brought his three children with him, intending to lead them into Jesus’ fold early in their lives. With the times the way they were, Baosheng and Baoqing would sooner or later join this party or that faction. As long as they were God’s children, their parents could rest easy about them. At home the night before, he had coached them on how to respond to the pastor’s questions, explaining why such-and-such had to be the answers. He said a lot and the children had no idea what he was talking about. They only knew that from when they were little, Daddy and Ma were Christians in the same way that they knew Daddy treated people who were sick and Ma sewed marriage dowries for people. They didn’t have any special longings, but they wanted to obey their father and make him pleased with them.

  When the pastor in his pulpit called upon the “new people,” the brothers and sister of the Lin family stood up in a row. Dr. Lin became all worked up and grasped his wife’s hand. She glanced over at him and saw the reddened rims of his eyes. Her own eyes reddened too. This event was the most valuable gift that the husband and wife received in this life.

  On Sunday afternoons, the Lin parents would usually take the children to spend time with either the Lin or the Guo elders. These relatives had all settled down in every corner of Old Town. Old Lady Guo and her drunkard first son lived above a provisions store at Drum Tower. Big Brother and Big Sister-in-Law Lin had moved into a little wreck of a place at South Gate.

  Second Sister was rushing to finish a bridal trousseau. Her husband had lost his job and again they had to rely on the livelihood from her sewing. Ninth Brother sat beside her to keep her company. Sometimes he even helped her with some stitching, so his battlefield-trained craftsmanship once again found a use for itself.

  The house was peaceful and quiet. Baohua had tucked herself away into her lady’s chamber. One of the boys had been sent out to look in on Grandma Guo and the other to visit their uncle, Big Brother. Baoqing brought over some watered-down spirits to his alcoholic uncle. Second Sister had stored away three bottles for him. While she couldn’t bear the idea of actually drinking this herself, she wanted to bring relief to her brother. Whenever he was too long away from the smell of strong drink he would just sit there on the street and burst into loud lamentations. The municipal government was at Drum Tower too. Several times, empty bottle in hand, he had wanted to barge in and demand the mayor give him something to drink. Though the liquor that Second Sister supplied to her brother became increasingly diluted, the inebriate never sensed how his big sister was dealing with him. He would drink and complain, “The morals of this world have gone to the dogs when even liquor no longer tastes like it used to.”

  This gave husband and wife a source of conversation that never ran dry. They imagined her drunkard brother guzzling up what Baoqing brought him and blinking at the thought of how the morals of this age were changing. They just laughed and laughed. Indeed, Old Town folk had this saying: “When bad luck hits, wine wouldn’t ferment.” The final years of the Qing dynasty had been hard times to be a wine merchant in Old Town.

  There was still much for them to discuss about the chaos of the war and their own separation at that time. When the children weren’t around, Second Sister would ask with a pretty pout about Shanghai. “What happened there?” After Ninth Brother had returned, the widow often wrote him. In all these letters she said she missed him. Second Sister would “eat the vinegar” of jealousy, and every time she showed it, Ninth Brother would swear up and down about his faithfulness—which would then arouse an ineffable sweetness in her. Over time those old Shanghai stories became the seasoning and spice of their married life.

  Ninth Brother gazed spellbound at Second Sister passing the thread through the eye of her needle. He often did that, and on every occasion his heart could not help but beat a little faster, as if it were the first time he was seeing this woman. The children had all grown and she was still so beautiful. He couldn’t keep himself from cupping her face in his hands to kiss her. Startled, she shied away from him, pointing to Baohua’s room.

  At this moment of marital intimacy, Pastor and Mrs. Chen suddenly arrived, together with a girl who looked like a student. Mrs. Chen’s face wore an expression that was hard to read as she said, “This young lady wants to find Enchun. Does Dr. Lin have any news of him?”

  Dr. Lin didn’t know how he should respond to this and cast a beseeching look at his wife.

  Second Sister kept on sewing as if nothing at all were amiss and, glancing with eyes half-closed at the girl, replied, “It’s been quite a few days since we last saw Enchun. If you see him, tell him to drop by and spend some time with us whenever he has the chance.”

  “Dr. Lin, I’ve heard Classmate Enchun speak of you. My name is Huang Shuyi. He would certainly be willing to see me. I need to meet with him before this evening.”

  Baohua emerged from her lady’s chamber. Full of hostility, she sized up Huang Shuyi. Isn’t this a girl student of the Teachers’ College? What’s her relationship with Big Brother Enchun? She isn’t the least bit good looking.

  Abruptly, Dr. Lin took up his medical bag. “You all stay here. I have an appointment with a patient.”

  He didn’t leave from the back door. Only after making a roundabout circuit on the street to confirm that no one was tailing him did he go by way of the moat to Shuiguan’s home.

  When Enchun heard Huang Shuyi’s name, the dark eyes behind his glasses immediately lit up.

  The doctor didn’t ask much. He guessed the girl was a communist messenger coming to coordinate something with Enchun. He told Enchun to change into the old clothes Shuiguan wore when he was pulling his rickshaw. Then he led him through the back door into the kitchen.

  Baohua saw her daddy motion the girl student to go to the kitchen. Neither he nor Ma accompanied her there, but sat with Mrs. Chen at the Eight Immortals table looking terribly mysterious. Curiosity drove her to see what this was all about. When she saw the girl student sitting and talking with Enchun at the stove, their heads practically glued together, she was so enraged she started to tremble all over. The thing she could still do was to cry, and burying herself back in her room, she did just that—a whole river of tears.

  Only a sheet of wood separated the lady’s chamber from the kitchen. At every minute, at every second, Baohua’s ears were zeroed in on Enchun and the girl. They were about to set out. Her mother lit the fire to cook something for them. Her father also helped by squeezing together rice balls for them to eat along the way. She didn’t know where they were going, or for what purpose. She only felt that they both were like a pair of eloping lovers. And the people helping them elope were none other than her own parents. Her closest and dearest people had formed an alliance to betray her. In agony and despair, Baohua just wished she could die.

  When dawn came, the doctor discovered his precious daughter was running a high fever and babbling wildly. After this there was no end of her illnesses, serious and minor. The only thing for her was to leave school and stay at home.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN – IT’S NOT THAT I DON’T UNDERSTAND

  1.

  THE REVOLUTIONARY MARTYRS’ Cemetery in Old Town was not far from our primary school. Every year during the Qingming Festival,38 the school would organize a visit to the cemetery to sweep up and offer flowers. On a wall in the cemetery’s Memorial Hall were displayed photographs of the Sixty-One Martyrs. I clearly remember that number. The Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery was on a big piece o
f sloping land outside West Gate. There the pine trees were blue-green and flowers were in bloom the whole year round. It was also a good place for us to play hide-and-seek. The old custodian of the cemetery watched over the place strictly but we always had a way of slipping in. For example, we would send a boy student to make a frontal attack to distract the old fellow’s attention, and then our large detachment of troops would pass behind him in single file. Once we were inside, if he wanted to find us, it would be like dredging the sea for a needle.

  I hid countless times in the Memorial Hall in some corner or the other, but no matter in which one, I could always see that wall. The Sixty-One Martyrs looked at me. I looked at them. It was like our saying, “Well water won’t seep into river water.”—I’ll mind my business if you mind yours.

  When Cousin Su, the one who changed his name to “Oppose Revisionists” Lin, was fifteen years old, he was sent out to do labor in the countryside. He never had the chance to attend university, but today he is the richest of his generation of Lins. Nobody remembers “Oppose Revisionists” Lin. Because of my grandfather’s wrath, the name lasted only three months. At the mention of that old matter of the name change, Cousin Su just gives a big laugh. Nowadays he doesn’t oppose revisionism; if anything, he’s only afraid there won’t be enough of it.

  Cousin Su took me to his other home, the one for his mistress. It was where a young chick who had once been a beauty contestant in Old Town now lived. He wanted me to see how good he was at moving back and forth between his two homes to make two women feel content with their lives. Starting in the early nineties, a man would keep a mistress to demonstrate how successful his endeavors had been and to show off his ample wallet.

  As we walked into the building complex, somebody’s speakers were just then blaring out a popular rock song of the day in which a singer shouted until he was hoarse, “It’s not that I don’t understand, it’s just that this world is changing too fast.”

  So true…Every morning bright and early when you open your eyes, today’s sunshine isn’t the same color as it had been yesterday. Everything is changing so drastically there’s no time to make any sense of it, and if you try you’re already l eft behind.

  Just before we arrived at Cousin’s “grand mansion for beloved women,” I suddenly felt a bit hesitant as I thought of his wife. She was a good and capable woman and loved by one and all in the Lin family. I had just decided to entrust Beibei to her, so how could I deceive her by going to visit my cousin’s other woman?

  I mentioned this worry to him, but he just planted his hands on his burly waist and laughed and laughed.

  “You’re such a hick. Are all Beijing people hicks like you? I tell you, unless your husband proves totally worthless, you’ll need to learn how to be the Number One and put up with his little concubine. I wouldn’t hurt my wife, nope, not the slightest little hair on her body.”

  Actually, I was annoyed no end about my own husband’s other woman. Chaofan was already in America. He still had that pretty violinist who had left the orchestra with him. I never dared mention to my Old Town relatives that he had now left China, or that I was at a crossroads in my own destiny—looking back, ahead, and all around—indecisive about what direction to take.

  Cousin Su misread my glum expression to mean that I was feeling some ethical or moral pressure. He took out a mobile phone as bulky as a brick and called his mistress to tell her that the visit had to be cancelled due to an unexpected event. A woman’s affectedly sweet voice carried from the hand phone. “What a bore.”

  The land this complex stood on was right where we children used to play hide-and-seek. At that time several square miles of the hillside were all part of the cemetery. Since then, though, the martyrs’ domain had been swallowed up piece by piece and was now dense with new properties for rent or for sale. All that was left was the stone Remembrance Tablet and the Memorial Hall so pitifully hemmed into one little corner.

  I said I would like to visit the Memorial Hall to see the photograph of a newly added martyr, one who had borne the crime of being a counterrevolutionary. It was only after thirty years in the Nine Springs of the netherworld that he had been rehabilitated. He had been Enchun’s leader in that long-ago time. He had also been the older brother of Enchun’s wife.

  Remembering the origin of the relationship of this martyr with my family and especially with me, Cousin Su shook his head. “For someone dead for so long…she just had to get him a martyr’s name. But, really, what was the point?”

  I knew he meant Chaofan’s mother. In order to overturn the judgment against her brother, she had bitterly struggled on for fully thirty years and more. She lost her job, her family broke up, she was treated as a rightist, she went to prison, but as long as there was one breath within her she insisted on going to Beijing to register her grievance. And when her yellow petitions39 were turned down, she cried out this injustice to the entire country.

  “Foolish.” “Silly.” This was Cousin Su’s judgment on our parents’ and grandparents’ generations. Of the whole Lin family only he had penetrated to the true meaning of life, that is, getting money and seeking pleasure. And, whatever you do, never shortchange yourself.

  Chaofan says the same thing. When he was at university in Beijing, his mother was still there seeking redress but she never disturbed her son right up until her brother’s remains were transferred to the Martyrs’ Cemetery. Then she wrote her son a long letter in which she extolled the heroic vision of the party. For more than thirty years her loyalty and belief in the party had kept her going. There were seven or eight densely packed pages of this. Her son only glanced at the letter and with a cold, mocking laugh tossed it all into the wastepaper basket. This woman, who disappeared three days after giving birth to her son, never received that son’s pity and forgiveness.

  The displays inside the Memorial Hall were just the same as when I was young. Then, when I stood before the pictures of the martyrs, their gazes seemed to come alive and touch me deeply. Their average age had been only twenty-two years. When their pictures were taken, they knew that the moment of death had come, but there was no look of terror on their faces, rather, they looked calm and collected. The oldest among them was that one there: he had suffered injustice for several decades and was no more than thirty years old. He looked out at the world with a disdainful smile.

  Maybe they had been happier than us. Just then I was rushing about madly, getting set to leave China. Crowds thronged the embassy district in Beijing all year long regardless of the season. Many people had passports simply so they could leave China. If they couldn’t get to one country they would just go to another. Those receiving visas would go wild with joy. Those who were refused visas were like people mourning a death in the family. I belonged to this latter group. Sometimes I would be startled awake in the middle of the night thinking about where my life was going. I couldn’t keep from feeling frighteningly devoid of any substance. I had to leave because I couldn’t find anything with greater meaning here. After Chaofan had gone, my life became utterly chaotic. I wanted to bring Beibei back to my old home down south and then go meet head-on a life that was even more chaotic.

  Cousin Su, standing beside me, expressed a different sort of regret as he pointed to a martyr who had only been nineteen years old. “To die so young…I’ll bet he had never even met a woman. Look how handsome he is. If he had been born in this age he might have become some youth idol and made a major bundle.”

  For most people nowadays, money is the measure of everything. While feeling real pity for these figures, Cousin Su congratulated himself at his great luck in becoming such a favored son of the times.

  Maybe I’m the incompetent one, with almost no salary to speak of and not enough money to use for measuring right and wrong. I never told my cousin that I envied these martyrs who had died so young. I envied them for their fulfilled lives.

  It’s not that I don’t understand, it’s just that this world is changing too fast.

&nb
sp; There’s another saying too: “The moment humanity starts to ponder, God just laughs.”

  Standing in the gaze of the martyrs, I tried to reflect on philosophic theories of human life, but I became even more confused than before.

  2.

  THE CONTINGENT AT the gate of the U.S. Embassy on Xiushui Street were now lining up earlier and earlier, so I also set my bedside alarm clock earlier and earlier. But even if I got there at five o’clock in the morning, I could no longer stay ahead of everyone. A lot of out-of-towners simply saved on hotel money by throwing on army greatcoats and spending the night beside the iron fence.

  The day I was first called in for an interview, I had been waiting in the snow for exactly seven hours. The consular officer was a white man, a left-handed guy. He ran his eyes over my material, glanced through the glass window at me, and then the rubber stamp in his hand came heavily down on my passport: “Visa Refused.”

  I had expected this. I’ve never been a lucky person. That’s why I’ve never bought lottery or raffle tickets. Even if the winning rate were eighty percent, for sure I would be one of the hard-luck cases of the other twenty. I had heard beforehand that a certain left-handed consular officer was really tough and, of course, it had to be me who got him. I wasn’t brokenhearted, just numb, so that those fellow sufferers lined up through the doorway couldn’t tell whether things had gone well or badly. Lots of people crowded around me to get a sense of their own prospects.

  The newspaper where I worked was pretty close to the embassy district. I also had fellow sufferers at the office awaiting my news. Young He’s new husband had gone to Japan and she was now hard at work studying Japanese, just waiting for him to earn enough for her tuition. Young Ma’s husband had already received a scholarship at NYU and she wanted to offload her baby son she was still breast-feeding so she could study with him there. Young Wang’s husband had a lover who came to their home and made a big fuss, and now Young Wang was thinking of just walking away from the whole thing. When our director wasn’t around we all eagerly discussed leaving China and our husbands.