by Lin Zhe
The head of the hospital and the party secretary both were originally northern cadres assigned to the south. The head of the hospital had been in the army medical corps and the secretary had come up from the battlefield, but every time there was a consultation within the hospital, they both would make peremptory decisions. They would issue orders like “you just have to cure this patient!” to the chief physician. Dr. Lin felt their style deviated from scientific practice and had on many occasions presented his dissenting views directly to these leaders. These two clearly felt disgusted with him and for a considerable period of time he was not invited to take part in consultations. However, this year Dr. Lin’s name was included on the list for promotions and salary increases. This surprised him and his colleagues, as well, and there were some who guessed that he was related to a leader at an even higher level. The promotion and salary increase really couldn’t dispel Dr. Lin’s bias against the hospital leaders. However, on this day under the party’s leadership, the head of the hospital and the party secretary finally recognized their problems and humbly they requested the views of those present. It was their style of the “self-effacing true gentleman” that so moved Dr. Lin.
The meeting hall grew completely still. Old Town folk are timid and conservative. Normally they would do no more than to let loose with complaints in private. When the leaders solicited their views right then and there, everyone became as quiet as the proverbial cicadas on cold days.
When Dr. Lin slowly stood up, all eyes were upon him. Fighting back his tears, he said, “This is just the broad-mindedness that communists ought to possess. You—the party secretary and the head of the hospital—are human. All humans all have flaws and make mistakes. You are the heroes and statesmen of the Revolution, but curing sickness and saving people requires specialized knowledge and in this respect you are laymen. You frequently go against specialized conventions and interfere with the established treatment programs of doctors for their patients. I hope that from now on you can improve in this respect.”
The party secretary straightway humbly expressed his acceptance of Dr. Lin’s views and at the same time extolled him for “saying all you know, and saying it without reserve.”
Then the floodgates opened and all the secret complaints came pouring forth. The clerk immersed himself in recording them, writing page after page. Up on the dais, the party secretary flushed red and the hospital head blanched waxen, and they both never stopped wiping away their perspiration.
Dr. Lin didn’t feel good about this. Some people’s views were excessively sharp. A very fat nurse in internal medicine who had been punished because of an accident in treating a patient became totally unbridled in voicing her dissatisfaction and in rapid-fire fashion, attacked the hospital head. Unable to put up with this, he shouted, “You’ve gone too far!” However, the emotions of the meeting had gotten out of control and no one heard him.
It was already late at night when the meeting ended. The two leaders left the meeting hall amidst swarms of people who still wanted their say. The doctor also wanted to go up and have a word with the leaders. He wanted to say, “Actually, your excellent points far outweigh your shortcomings.” But after following for a few steps he saw he wouldn’t get a word in and withdrew back into the hall where he sat dazed and all alone in a corner. His sense of having done something wrong filled him with guilt, but he just couldn’t place what his mistake had been. The duty staff turned off the lights and shut the doors. But he still sat there in the darkness.
This evening Second Sister was frantic. She waited for Ninth Brother by the gate until her legs went numb from standing. Worry and anxiety entwined her heart like poisonous vines. She thought something had happened to him. His shape finally emerged from the darkness at the West Gate crossing. His body had returned, but his soul was lost who-knew-where. Tight-lipped, he refused to say what had happened. The next day he went to work as usual, but Second Sister had the strong feeling that something unknown was about to happen. Disasters often suddenly fell from the heavens at unguarded moments. She grew terribly afraid.
Two months later, the “Oppose Rightists” movement followed on the heels of “Freely Express Views.” Again in that same meeting hall, the party secretary vehemently asserted that rightist elements were using the “Freely Express Views” movement to attack the party and socialism. “We have rightists in our midst, and, what’s more, many of them.”
Once again Dr. Lin stood up and the meeting hall went deadly silent. “At the time of ‘Freely Express Views,’ the views I presented to the hospital leaders were too extreme, but in no way was I attacking the party and socialism. Even so, if it is a question of investigating and prosecuting rightists, I should be counted as one of them.”
This was quite unlike last time when “pulling one vine moves the whole mountain.” Now he was standing utterly alone. Pair upon pair of panic-stricken eyes focused on him. Why should they be so frightened? He very much doubted that people’s thinking could possibly be all the same. There would always be those who tended to the left and those who tended to the right. It was precisely the left and the right checking and containing each other that things never ended up in too great a deviation either way. He saw the fat nurse, her head buried in her arms. Surely she must be feeling that her accusations at the earlier meeting had been too extreme, so why doesn’t she stand up and big-heartedly recognize her mistake?
When the doctor admitted he was a rightist, he felt a great sense of relief and after the meeting he went home in exceedingly good spirits. Along the way he bought peanuts and some of Old Town’s aged rice wine. It had been several months since he and Second Sister had sipped wine under the lantern. Today he finally felt unburdened of all he had been carrying since “Freely Express Views.” He wanted to invite Second Sister to enjoy some wine and have a chat.
Day by day, the big character posters in the hospital grew in number. This new “rightist” designation steadily grew into something quite terrifying. You could almost say it in the same breath as “counterrevolutionary.” Every day, Dr. Lin went around the outer wall of the hospital reading a string of big character posters. There in black ink on white paper was his name and the names of many others. Many people attacked each other as rightists.
What is going on here? Dr. Lin just couldn’t figure it out.
On this month’s payday, Dr. Lin was called to the personnel section where the section head gave him three months’ salary and said, “The leadership of the health bureau is of the view that your work level does not reach that required in state hospitals. In accordance with the spirit of higher authority, we suggest that you take the initiative of resigning.”
The doctor was at a total loss as he stood in front of the desk in the section head’s office. When he had first received the employment letter he thought someone was playing a joke on him. Today he was being forced to quit and this also seemed like a joke. He had a vague sense that a pair of hands behind him was manipulating the ups and downs of his destiny. Who could that person be? Suddenly he laughed, “All right, all right. Good-bye.”
He was still wearing his white smock as he left the personnel section office, and gripping the three months’ salary, he walked straight out of the hospital. People at the gate greeted him, but he heard nothing and saw nothing. Despondently he implored Jesus. O Lord, I truly am all confused. Why should people play such practical jokes on me? How will I ever explain this to Second Sister? She is so concerned about my work. I don’t blame her. She’s had a lifetime of the upheavals I have been entangled in. Before, I thought that when we got old I could finally give her “a high pillow” and a life free from care, but I am truly an incompetent man. O Lord, I beseech you to comfort Second Sister, and keep her from being too worried.
The doctor looked up and discovered that he had now walked all the way to West Street. Half a century before, that was Mr. Qiao’s residence right there in front of him. A wave of warmth swept through him and a feeling of gratitude like a sunb
eam swept away the gloom of his bad feelings. What do I amount to? When I was eight years old I should have died like a wild dog by the roadside. But I survived, had a family, built up a practice…my wife and children are perfect, so what does a tiny setback count for?
He kept pinching the wad of paper currency he held in his pocket. Feeling much better now, he wanted to go home and play a joke on Second Sister. He would tell her that higher authorities had especially commended him and tripled his salary. The sight of Second Sister squinting as she counted the money would be just so adorable.
At the West Gate street crossing, the doctor stopped to take a look. There was no sign of Second Sister under the oleander tree. He supposed she had gone back to the kitchen to fill the rice bowl and bring out the food.
“Second Sister!” As he passed through the door he stopped in midstride. Second Sister, together with Baosheng and Baoqing, were sitting together at the Eight Immortals table, looking very stiff and formal.
Don’t tell me they already know that I’ve lost our rice bowl…
“What brings you back here together?”
“Dad, Baoqing and I would like to have a word with you,” Baosheng said.
Surprised at this, the doctor asked, “About?”
Second Sister stood up and interrupted them. “First, let’s eat. Afterward, then you can talk.”
“You sit down. I want to hear what they have to talk about!”
Although his two sons had already married and had families of their own, they still felt respect and awe toward their father. They looked at each other, and Baoqing said, “Bro, you just go ahead and say it.”
Baosheng cleared his throat. “Umm, let me put it this way. Baoqing’s and my salaries aren’t too bad. We wish you wouldn’t report to work or run the clinic anymore, but just stay at home with your grandchildren. Su’er often gets sick when he’s placed in the child-care center.”
Oh, so that’s it. These two have come at just the right time.
The doctor asked Second Sister, “And what do you say?” Second Sister hemmed and hawed. “I…I would like you to have work, and then retire after a few more years. And with your pension you could stay at home with the grandchildren. But what our sons are saying makes sense. The ‘Oppose Rightists’ movement’s under way now and you’re too frank and outspoken. Don’t call some disaster upon yourself in your old age.”
“What’s ‘Oppose Rightists’ got to do with it? China, with its hundreds of millions of people, can’t be all leftist, so I’m an ideologically conservative rightist.”
Baosheng exclaimed in fright, “Dad, whatever you do, don’t talk such nonsense!”
Baosheng looked down and paused for a moment, then with a grim expression on his face said, “Dad, just come back home, all right? For me and Baoqing. We guarantee that you and Ma will never worry about food or clothing.”
That morning, Baosheng had met his old boss, Deputy District Head Bai, and found out that the hospital had a big character poster calling Dr. Lin its number one rightist. His old boss said to him in a flat tone of voice, “Persuade your father to resign and just go back home.” Baosheng knew well just how much weight these words carried. His father’s historical problems made his own promotion fail just when it was on the point of success. When Baoqing returned from Korea and was about to report to the military academy, he received his demobilization notice. If their daddy had one more charge against him, his sons and grandchildren would probably all be dragged into this.
The doctor felt his two sons were too chickenhearted and this disappointed him greatly. He spoke with studied reserve. “All right then, both of you go back home. I’ll talk this over with your ma.”
“Dinner is ready. Eat first and then go,” Second Sister said.
“Let them go back to their own homes to eat!”
The two brothers looked at each other in stunned amazement and didn’t know what to do.
Baosheng stood up. “Dad, we’re doing this for your own good.”
“Just go and leave me in quiet for a while.”
Their sons left. Husband and wife ate without saying a word to each other. Then Second Sister cautiously put in, “Actually, you are a doctor. In the hospital just go ahead and take care of sick people. Why get involved in this rightist-leftist business?”
Then she noticed that Ninth Brother was still wearing his white smock. “How is it you’ve come home wearing your work clothes?”
The doctor removed the garment and took out the salary from his pocket. Then he played his joke on Second Sister. “I got a raise this month.”
She counted the money. “How come it’s this much?”
“That’s right! And you still want me to quit?”
Second Sister thought this over for quite a while, the money in her hand. “Peace and security are the most important things. Our sons work in the government and know a lot more than we do. ‘Wind doesn’t just blow out of a hollow rock’…”
The doctor suddenly got all worked up. “I’m sorry, Second Sister. I’m always getting you involved. You’ve eaten so much bitterness in this life with me, and now that we’re old, there’s still no peace. Have you ever regretted marrying me?”
“What’s the matter with you today?”
“Really, tell me, have you ever regretted this?”
“Yes, extremely. What about you? Have you regretted marrying me?”
“Mmh, yes, I have.”
They both looked at each other and smiled.
The doctor said, “Heat up some wine. Tomorrow I won’t be going to work. Let’s drink a little more and talk a little more.”
“You’ve decided, then?”
Two cups, then three cups of wine, warmed their stomachs. The doctor told Second Sister all about his resignation. The two of them pondered late into the night and still couldn’t make any sense of the sequence of all these events that had come so quickly, one after the other.
3.
SU’ER WAS JUST the kind of big-headed, big-eyed boy that everyone loved at first sight. Every day he would run about under the knees of his Granny and Gramps wearing his split-seat trousers and chirping endlessly, like a little talking magpie. Since coming into the West Gate home, he became the focus of Dr. and Mrs. Lin’s love. A dense and enveloping family joy shut Dr. Lin off from the outside world. And at that moment, the outside world was all stirred up. Throughout the entire country, half a million people were designated as rightist elements. The provincial newspapers had just published this terrifying number.
At ten o’clock in the morning, the postman handed the newspaper to Second Sister. Glancing back, she saw Ninth Brother with their little grandson planting flowers in the sky well. Su’er was playing in the dirt with a spoon. She wanted to go over and stop him but she was moved by this scene of love between grandfather and grandchild. Hazily she recalled Baosheng and Baoqing when they were both very little. Then they had experienced more than enough of the chaos and dislocations of war and only rarely this kind of happy time.
It was now several months since Ninth Brother had resigned from the hospital. Second Sister, as always, held daily meetings in her capacity as director. She was all the more aware of how perilous a calamity their family had avoided, otherwise today Ninth Brother would be “Wearing the Rightist Hat.” Perhaps he might even be sent to some distant and isolated mountain district for labor reform. O heaven! She shuddered to think of it. Peace and security were blessings. No amount of money could buy the happy scene of children or grandchildren playing at one’s feet.
She placed the newspaper on Ninth Brother’s desk and, remembering that she should renew its subscription for the next quarter, rushed into the sky well and said, “Gramps! Don’t forget to go to the post office to renew the newspaper subscription.”
After Su’er had come to them, they imitated Su’er’s calling them “Gramps,” and “Granny.”
Ninth Brother kept on busily gardening. “No need to subscribe anymore. Gramps hasn’t been read
ing it for a long time already. Gramps’ ears aren’t listening to what’s happening outside and all I want to do is play with Su’er.”
“I agree. Since your thinking will never keep up with the revolutionary tide, it would be better not to have any ideology at all.”
“That’s right, the little flowers and plants don’t have ideology. Every day they wear pretty clothes. The birds in the trees don’t have any ideology and every day they sing happy songs. Su’er, is Gramps right?”
“Gramps is right…and Granny’s right too.” Su’er had a nimble mind. He was not yet two years old and he already understood balanced diplomacy.
Ninth Brother laughed. “Su’er is the flower on the top of the wall that bends with each wind. When he grows up, for sure, he can’t be a rightist.”
“Don’t keep going on about rightists and leftists. This is a very serious matter.”
“You’re the one who makes it serious. In our home, you’re the leftist, I’m the rightist, Su’er is the middle-of-the-roader, and we’re still near and dear to each other.”
“Oh, you!” Second Sister shook her head and changed the subject. “How could you have given Su’er the spoon to play with?”
She somehow felt that, inside, Ninth Brother was very clear about everything and only pretended to be all muddled up as his way of escaping reality. In this she sensed great danger. She worried that he might boldly and self-righteously go to the government and announce that he was a rightist. Sometimes at meetings she heard air raid alarms going off inside her and was terrified that he was stirring up some calamity at home.
Taking the sewing basket, Second Sister sat down at the Eight Immortals table to make a little stomach bib for Su’er. As she sewed she pondered over whether or not she should come out straight about all this with Ninth Brother. She recalled that Pastor Chen had said that Christians had to submit to authority. Rightist elements did not submit to the government and so they had to be punished.
