by Lin Zhe
I am just about ready to return her calls. This character who never plays her cards in turn always provokes, but also satisfies, my curiosity. The phone in my hand suddenly rings. A “longtime-no-see!” telephone number pops up on the screen like some specter. I grasp the phone as if it were a burning charcoal and, panic-stricken, I want to hurl it out the window. For the past two years I have been changing my telephone number and every time I terminated it is because of this one’s appearance. I deleted all the contact details related to this person from my address list. But the terror etched into my heart hasn’t faded in the slightest. Even to Chrysanthemum have I never told the plain truth about this period of history. I preferred her laughing at me for being so old-fashioned and moronic, and concealed my broken heart and shame as if this were a top-secret plot.
I had thought at one time this was true love. The moment this man appeared, life was snapped off right at midpoint. The previous first love of two little innocents, a love marriage linked by flesh and blood and torn up by the roots, together with its broken history, had long turned to ashes. I returned to the time when love is first awakened. Blissful and scorched, I awaited his telephone call, awaited the sound of his footsteps, awaited his passionate embrace and kisses. That passion more ardent than flames would have been enough to melt a thousand-year-old glacier. He has a wife and child and on his hand he wears a diamond ring that he said she bought for him on their tenth wedding anniversary. This love which arrived so abruptly was like a tornado and a tidal wave that swept away every last bit of judgment I possessed. No ethics or morality could restrain such a “Great Love.” I had no doubt whatsoever that the day would come when he would remove this ring and put on another one for me.
I don’t have it in me to relate that extended process of evolution. All the memories that remain about that married man relate to my initial passion and final madness.
Arguing—endless, ceaseless arguing: over his marriage, over a telephone conversation with a man about work, over a day when my every movement wasn’t in the palm of his hand. “Great Love” is a demon camouflaged as a beautiful woman that reveals its hideous face. What is called “passion” is actually insane possessiveness. In his case human possessiveness led to extremes in taking possession of money, wealth, and women. He checked the addresses listed in my phone and the e-mail box of my computer. He lay in wait for me at the hotels and guesthouses where I had business meetings to see if I was being “immoral” with other men. A man picking up a silk scarf of mine that had fallen on the ground and helping me wrap it around my neck—such insignificant trifles became indelible evidence of guilt. That evening, when everything in the house that could be broken was broken, filled with pain and grief I ran for my very life.
Every bit of information connected with that history is like a devil from Pandora’s box that can arrive at any time to torment me. Sometimes when I am feeling humble I reflect on the bad things I did, and can do nothing but accept my punishment. If there really were a god that could pardon sins, I would kneel down before him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN – THE FISH THAT ESCAPED THE NET
1.
AFTER MY GRANDFATHER got back from Shanghai during the War of Resistance, he went more than once to Li Village in Tongpan District in the eastern outskirts in search of Young Li’s family. Young Li’s widowed mother had passed away during the war. The old people in the village only knew his young friend was in the Guomindang Army. After Liberation, Grandpa again went to Li Village where everybody supposed that Young Li was now in Taiwan.
The medical orderly and the doctor had gone through thick and thin together in the flames of the War of Resistance. Many times each had offered to the other the chance to survive in the face of death. The closeness of this kind of friendship surpassed even blood kinship. I imagine Department Head Li could hardly wait to go to West Gate to pay a visit to Dr. Lin—just like those stirring, emotional scenes in the movies, when two people meet again after a long separation and shed tears of sorrow and joy at having both survived some disaster.
One morning, Second Sister was on her way out the gate to greet the postman as always. She had reached the sky well when she saw a man wearing a hat and a surgical mask looking in. She approached him and asked, “May I ask who you are looking for, comrade?”
“I’ve heard that Dr. Lin’s medical skills are very great, and so, attracted by his fame, I have come to be treated.”
“Dr. Lin has gone out on a call. Please sit down for a while in the clinic.”
“Are you Mrs. Lin?”
“Yes.”
He looked at the red paper with its black characters pasted on the gate. “Glorious Military Dependent.”
“Your son is in the Liberation Army?”
“Both Second Son and the daughter are in the Liberation Army. Eldest Son is a revolutionary cadre who is currently away participating in land reform,” Second Sister proudly replied.
“Very good! Very good!”
Second Sister beckoned the patient to sit down in the clinic and when she went out to get the newspaper she discovered him standing in the front hall, lost in thought as he gazed at the picture on the wall, that “Happy Family Portrait” taken in 1937.
“This is the only family portrait we have. I don’t know when the whole family will ever again be able to go together to the photo studio.”
“Time is passing by very quickly.”
“Oh, yes, time is passing by very quickly.”
The fellow paused for quite a bit and then asked, “Dr. Lin is in good health, then?”
Second Sister kept looking at the pair of eyes above the surgical mask. She felt this patient was a bit strange. Don’t tell me, when you come to be treated, you also ask about his health?
“He looks thin and frail. Lately after coming back from a trip, he’s gotten even thinner. But he’s not sick or anything.”
“The clinic’s revenue is all right?”
Second Sister didn’t answer right away and again kept looking at that pair of eyes above the surgical mask. Everybody who came here to be treated was from nearby neighborhoods. Very rarely were there any strange faces among them. In taking care of them, Dr. Lin was often “paying rather than being paid.” She had her own thoughts on this point, but had never revealed them to anyone. Here was a stranger, but precisely because of that she had a sense of security. She laughed in a slightly mocking way.
“What revenue?”
“Business is no good?”
“He doesn’t see treating sick people as a business. There’s nothing to be done about that. Luckily our children are all filial. Every month they send us money.”
“Oh.”
This stranger was Young Li. He didn’t say anything more. He understood Dr. Lin and he understood Mrs. Lin sitting before him. Back then, he and the doctor had shared the same kang to sleep on and he had heard a lot of stories about Second Sister. He even knew that Third Sister had been the one the doctor liked most at first.
He lowered his head and considered whether or not to wait until the doctor returned home. Or whether or not he would identify himself to the doctor. This was a big question and one that he had not settled right up to the moment he stood in the Lin family gateway.
After Young Li had parted with the doctor on the Yangzi River, the fisherman assumed he was a communist and sent him north. And so in this way Young Li became a fighter in the communist-led New Fourth Army. At the time he was not yet fully eighteen years old. His courage and natural martial qualities came repeatedly to the attention of his superiors and when the Liberation Army crossed the Yangzi he was now a battalion commander. No one had asked him about his history before his eighteenth birthday and he himself felt strongly that period wasn’t worth mentioning at all. So, with the growth of experience, that history gradually became a millstone around his neck. He was a revolutionary cadre who had not only been in the Guomindang Army, but had moreover hidden his past. If such treachery ever came to light, he would never be abl
e to wash himself clean of this, even if he jumped into the Yellow River. He had seen with his own eyes many comrades-in-arms who had fallen from the saddle due to “historical problems,” and he shuddered each time it happened. He had seen Dr. Lin’s file. In the résumé completed by the doctor, the section on the period of his army service during the War of Resistance cited two persons as references, Division Commander Zhang and Orderly Li. Zhang had died on the battlefield and Li’s whereabouts were unknown. The doctor knew Li’s family home but barely mentioned it. Young Li sensed that the doctor had protected him and gratitude filled his heart.
He thought about telling Dr. Lin that “Whereabouts Unknown” Young Li now was a top-level Communist Party cadre. He also thought about inviting the doctor to his own home to meet his own beautiful and gentle wife and two adorable children, but that was a history that could never, ever be touched.
Second Sister saw the patient’s downcast expression and thought that he was feeling the pain of his illness. “Comrade, just bear with it a bit. I am going to call Dr. Lin.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Lin, but I think it would be better if I don’t bother him.”
“How could a patient in need of a doctor be a bother to him?” And as she spoke, Second Sister stepped out the room. By the time she and the doctor had hurried back, he was gone. They asked the girl selling firewood by their gate and were told that he had hailed a pedicab and left. The doctor thought he must have gone for treatment at the hospital. From Second Sister’s description of him, such a decision had been the right one, for he needed a chest fluoroscopy.
A few days later, the postman handed Second Sister an official letter from the district health bureau. The doctor’s name was written on the envelope.
Ninth Brother tore open the letter and after giving it a scan, laughed, “This is someone’s joke, I suppose?”
It was an offer of employment. The health bureau was offering Dr. Lin the job of head of internal medicine at the district’s People’s Hospital, with the remuneration of a state cadre.
In the early Liberation period, for some doctors, running a private clinic was the only option. Such doctors either had “historical problems,” or else had not received a standard education and were viewed as quacks, what was called “Mongol doctors.”
Dr. Lin had once taken the competitive test to qualify for employment at the People’s Hospital. Because of his age he came in “after scholar Sun Shan,” or in other words, he failed to place. Now he was over fifty years of age. If he enjoyed the remuneration of a state cadre, in a few more years he could take his pension and retire in his old age. Was such a good thing really possible?
This was all rather queer. Second Sister came around behind her husband and saw the big red stamp of the health bureau employment letter. After some thought she burst out laughing. “You have me and our children to thank for this. Because we have been positive in seeking ideological progress, the government now sees a backward element like you differently.”
“Oh, so the backward element now basks in the glory of the positive ones. Thank you all very much!”
But he thought, “What Second Sister said was true. The Communist Party really is very magnanimous in granting me such a big favor.”
He pulled Second Sister by the hand to pray together. They gave thanks to the Communist Party and to the Lord Jesus.
The doctor didn’t know that in Old Town there was a department head named Li. He was even less aware that this piece of stuffed pastry that seemed to have fallen from heaven was the gift sent by Department Head Li. Afterward, when even odder things happened, he still remained in the dark.
2.
THE DOCTOR COLLECTED his first salary. This was his reward for working for the new society. As he clutched the thick wad of cash he felt ineffably moved and happy, and for some reason he thought of his father. His father had died way back when he was seven years old. The deepest impression he had of his father was the portrait hanging on the wall. Now his father stepped out of the portrait—as alive now as he had been before—sat down in the old-style wooden armchair, and softly called him. Ninth Brother came forward. His father brought out from an inner pocket several warm silver dollars and pressed them into Ninth Brother’s hand. He remembered that he was only slightly taller than the arm of the chair then and it was New Year’s Eve money his father had given him.
The trials and hardships of more than half a century were nothing compared to this sense of total ease and comfort. The doctor forgot that he himself was now old, and for an instant he was a child once more. And just like some naughty student he idly kicked the small stones on the street as he walked all the way from the hospital gate right to the department store on East Street. He wanted to use this first salary to buy something that would be worth remembering. As he strode through the main door of the store, his gaze immediately fixed on a new model Everlasting bicycle. He had never properly learned how to ride a bicycle when he was young and that was his greatest regret. He paid no attention to any of the other things in the store, just that! (“With the Everlasting brand, we will have everlasting happiness under the leadership of the Communist Party!”) The sales attendant brought out a model for him to try, but he waved it away. “I don’t need to try it out, I’ll just buy it.”
Pushing the bicycle, the doctor took the long way around to a secluded spot beside Little West Lake and there he tried it out. His left foot thrust down on the pedal, but his right foot hadn’t yet left the ground, and he took a big tumble. He paid no attention to the scrape on his wrist as he got back up, but hurriedly pushing the bicycle to a place with more light, he clucked his tongue with an aching heart when he saw the faint scratch on the handlebars.
Second Sister was at home lighting the fire to cook dinner. When it came time to eat, Ninth Brother had still not returned so she put down what she was doing and stood by the gate peering out in all directions. Over the years, whenever anyone at all in the family was late in coming home, she would wait anxiously like this by the gate. By the time blackness was streaking the sky, the bright, crisp ring of a bicycle bell came closer and closer, and a man pushing a bicycle appeared at the street crossing. She was still tirelessly searching up and down the street.
Like a naughty boy, Ninth Brother rang the bell even more loudly as he passed by Second Sister. She wondered what kind of problem this person could be afflicted with. Ninth Brother stopped and started laughing.
“My old lady, here is my first month’s pay. I am giving it to you!”
Second Sister was amazed. This fellow who never acted his age, was it possible that he still wanted to learn to ride a bicycle? She knew that it was almost payday, and already had plans to give money to her several younger brothers. The eldest had sons for whom school fees needed to be paid. Second Younger Brother had returned to Old Town all alone without “that woman” and was expecting relief funds from his older sister. Still, she didn’t begrudge her husband this purchase. Recalling the first Lin family bicycle back in the 1930s, Ninth Brother’s purchase of a new one showed that his heart was at peace and ease. She pursed her lips into a half smile as she walked around the bicycle and said gently, “Do you know how old you are now? You never learned to ride when you were young…can you still learn now?”
“Just you wait. I’ll learn this very evening. Later on I’ll take my grandchildren to school on it!”
Ninth Brother hoisted the bicycle through the back door of the kitchen and went to the side of the moat to find Shuiguan. Shuiguan thought that some emergency had occurred at the doctor’s house and, quickly putting down his bowl of rice, went running out. The doctor pointed to his brand new bicycle. “Shuiguan, hold me up on this thing. This evening I am going to learn to ride a bicycle!” Shuiguan was also enjoying this. “Dr. Lin, why bother to learn now? Whenever you need to go out, all you got to do is just shout for me.”
“Later on I’ll invite you to ride my bike!” replied the doctor. When Second Sister brought the food in from the kitche
n, Ninth Brother had already gone. She stood in front of the gate under the oleander tree. Ninth Brother had planted this tree with his own hands during the year of victory in the War of Resistance. Many times she would stand under it, pensive and care-laden, and straining her eyes as she awaited the late arrival of some family member. This time, though, sweetness filled her being. Only now had the good days really come.
These good days passed one by one and the happy events of the Lin family kept on coming. The doctor’s three children had all married, and their first grandson had now been born. The doctor named this boy Su’er. People outside the family supposed that this word was the “Su” in the term “Su Lian,” meaning the Soviet Union. In those days, people spoke of the friendly relations between China and the Soviet Union. Only he and Second Sister knew that “Su” here meant “Ye Su.” The one small regret that blemished these happy times was that the doctor never did learn to ride the bicycle. When Baoqing returned from Korea his father presented it to him as a welcome home present.
And so the doctor walked unsuspectingly into a new “movement,” this one called “Freely Express Views.” He saw many articles in the newspapers addressing views to the party, but he didn’t feel these had anything to do with him. Those writers were all well-known figures, while he himself was merely a poor Old Town scholar. Had there been no Communist Party there would have been no good days for him. He loved the Communist Party.
The waves of this movement washed into the People’s Hospital where the doctor worked. On this particular day, the hospital closed early and held a big meeting. There the head of the hospital and its party secretary each made his self-examination. Following this, they mobilized the entire workforce to present views and opinions to the leadership. Dr. Lin was so moved by the sincerity of the two leaders that he grew misty-eyed. He had no views to present with regard to the party, but he always had views about the hospital leadership. It was just like he loved Jesus, but that wasn’t to say that he completely accepted all the other members of the church.
