The Season of the Stranger

by Stephen Becker

  “There are soldiers outside,” he whispered. “They sent for me.”

  Kuo-fan’s eyes grew very large. A machine gun made noise and Wen-li jumped a little. Then he remembered that it had been making noise all the time. “What will you do?” Kuo-fan said.

  “Wait until the end,” he said. “Then if they are gone we will go. If they remain you will go to Mr Girard and I will wait here.”

  Kuo-fan nodded. His eyes gleamed. “Yes,” he said.

  So they watched the moving picture. He did not see much of it because he was thinking about the soldiers. He was wishing that he had asked Mr Girard what the corporal wanted when he came that afternoon. He did not know if the corporal was connected to the trouble the boy had had, or if he was just angry because of what Wen-li had said that afternoon. He had thought, a long time before, that he would be safe from the soldiers because he worked for Mr Girard, but it did not seem to be working out that way. He thought that the soldiers would get into trouble if they bothered Mr Girard because he was from the United States and many of the army’s supplies came from the United States. Perhaps Mr Girard was not very powerful in the United States. But he must have been. He was rich enough and they had allowed him to leave the country. Either he was powerful or he had powerful friends. So they should have been safe from the soldiers. He did not know why the soldiers were so stupid as to make trouble for Mr Girard.

  Finally he stopped thinking about it and decided to watch the moving picture. They were in K’unming now in the daytime and the light from the screen was bright. He was sure everyone in the audience could see him clearly. But after a few minutes the ratatat came again and the buzz and then it was dark and he felt better. But then they turned on the auditorium lights. He sat low down in his seat and put his head between his hands as if he had been asleep.

  While the man was fixing the machine someone called Wen-li’s name. He looked out between his fingers at him. It was not the same man, but he had never seen this one either. He dropped his hands and did not look at him. Soon he went away, walking up toward the doorway. Kuo-fan looked at Wen-li and Wen-li looked at him. Then the lights went out and the screen lit up. But the screen was dimmer now.

  It was K’unming at night and there was a girl in bed. She had become a prostitute and perhaps she did not like the work or perhaps her parents had not wanted her to be a prostitute because she was wrestling with something in her mind. She wrestled with it for a long time while the streetlight came through the slats across her window. Then she stopped wrestling with it and wept for a while. He was interested in her wrestling and he had paid attention but when she started weeping he was not so interested and he began to think of the soldiers again.

  She was still weeping when the noises came and the screen went black. When the auditorium lights came on Kuo-fan and he looked toward the back for a minute and when nothing happened Kuo-fan turned and smiled. He stopped smiling then and started muttering about the quality of the moving picture and the operation of the machine. Other people were also muttering. Ordinarily Wen-li would have muttered himself but tonight he was too busy thinking about the soldiers and watching what went on in the auditorium. The operator of the machine was bent over peering into the small opening again. A student came up and asked him a question and he answered, waving his hands and dancing a little dance of irritation. He was a tall thin man with a shaved head and dancing in his blue gown he looked like a monk doing something religious. The student turned and called another student and then there were three of them bent over the machine. People were still muttering. Someone started handclapping and others took it up.

  The doors had not opened and there was no one wandering up and down the aisle calling his name. When he looked back at the machine there were six students standing around it, all talking and waving their hands. More students were coming down the aisle to see what was wrong. The tall man was winding and unwinding the wheels. He did not look as though he were doing it with a purpose. He looked as though he were trying to appear busy while the students played with the machine. The auditorium was noisy and the children in the balcony had started to play fighting games. They were pushing each other and shouting in their high voices. Two teachers were leaning across the aisle talking to each other in low voices. The tall man had stopped playing with the wheels and a student was poking around inside the machine with a screwdriver. Kuo-fan was still mumbling to himself. Then the men around the machine laughed and shouted and went running back toward their seats and seeing this everyone grew quiet and stopped the hand-clapping. The lights went out and on the screen it was the next afternoon in a hospital at K’unming.

  The machine broke down three or four times more and there was a great deal of shouting and cheering and hand-clapping, and Kuo-fan muttered all through the picture until the man in front of him turned around and asked him if he would please stop, but the moving picture was understandable and there were many scenes that he liked very much. In the end the prostitute left her business and married the handsome soldier, who had recovered from his wound. That was what Wen-li had expected and it was good when it happened.

  But when the lights went on again at the end he was suddenly afraid. Everyone started to get up and he stayed where he was, watching them all move toward the aisles. Then a man went up on the stage and raised his hands for silence and everyone sat down again. When they had stopped talking and rustling the man spoke.

  “There is news about the fighting,” the man announced. “The reported breakthrough in the north has been confirmed. It is at a distance of one hundred fifty li. Three towns have been taken. Unofficial reports say that there is little resistance to be offered for another twenty li. The advancing armies may be considered to be at a distance of one hundred thirty li from the City.” He stopped and a buzz went through the audience. He held up his hands again.

  “I have been asked to announce that beginning tomorrow curfew will be enforced at nine o’clock at night. The curfew will be enforced in the City and in all suburban areas. Anyone found in the streets after that hour will be liable to arrest, and should he fail to halt upon command, the police and soldiers have orders to fire.”

  There was another buzz and then he went on.

  “The curfew will not apply to this university. But outside the walls of the university it will be in full force.”

  There was a buzz again and this time some hand-clapping with it.

  “I regret to announce that because of the curfew it will be impossible to have moving pictures brought from the City to the university. This night’s performance is therefore the last.” There was a groan and then someone started hand-clapping and some people laughed and then everyone was hand-clapping and lauging. The tall man who had operated the machine stopped what he was doing and made an angry face and there was more laughing and a cheer for him. The speaker jumped off the stage. The tall man went back to his work and the rest started out of the auditorium.

  “Go first,” he said to Kuo-fan. “See if there are soldiers outside. Hurry. I will wait here.”

  Kuo-fan scuttled up the aisle, dodging in and out until the crowd was too tightly packed, then letting himself be carried along by it. He reached the door and went out. Wen-li sat down and watched the last of the audience trickle through the doors. Now that the moving picture was over he felt bad. He was very frightened for the first time that evening.

  After a minute Kuo-fan poked his head around the door. He was smiling. He motioned Wen-li to come up. Wen-li walked to the door.

  “There is no one,” Kuo-fan said. “And it is snowing.”

  Wen-li walked outside. No one was in sight except the last of the dispersing audience. He looked at the spot where the soldiers had been, on the grass beside the stoop. There was no trace of anyone. There was not even any grass. He went to the spot and looked carefully. Snow was falling heavily around them in large white flakes. There was a pattern of white already on the buildings and the trees. There was no wind and now that the audienc
e had gone it was quiet. He could see his own breath and far off he heard a tinkling laugh.

  “This is where they were,” he said, “and there is now half an inch of smooth snow.”

  Kuo-fan nodded and took his arm. Together they walked home through the whirling flakes.

  20

  The next day at ten o’clock in the morning Kuo-fan knocked on his door. He opened the door and Kuo-fan came in and stood staring at him. Kuo-fan smiled and moved his hands nervously. “So you are well and all right,” Kuo-fan said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Nothing has happened this morning.”

  “Good. I could not get away sooner. Have you told Mr Girard about last night?”

  “No.”

  Kuo-fan looked worried. “Why?”

  “I have been considering. I was not sure that I should burden him with it.”

  Kuo-fan made a gesture with one hand and looked impatiently at him. “You must tell him immediately.”

  He smiled. “I will tell him this afternoon.”

  “Good,” Kuo-fan said. Then his face changed and he looked cunning and smug.

  “A breeze has been at your ear,” Wen-li said. “What is it now?”

  “It is no breeze,” Kuo-fan said. He chuckled. “No breeze. This has been seen and told to me by those who saw.” He turned his head away and looked back at Wen-li from the corners of gleaming eyes.

  Wen-li sighed. “When you are through with the performance,” he said, “you may tell me.”

  Kuo-fan straightened up and his face became grave. “Very well,” he said. “All this morning a truck convoy has been passing the university gate, headed north.” He sat down.

  “All this morning?”

  Kuo-fan nodded. “All this morning. Since very early.”

  “There are not that many trucks in the City,” he said.

  Kuo-fan shrugged. “All I know is that the convoy has been passing all morning.”

  “And is still passing?”

  “And is still passing.” Kuo-fan tapped on the table. “I am free for an hour.”

  “All right,” he said. He took his hat from the shelf.

  It was true. They were still going by. He and Kuo-fan sat on rocks near the crossroads and watched them rumble past. Six or seven trucks would go by and then there would be nothing for a minute or two and then more would come. Most of them were full of warmly dressed soldiers. The soldiers stared rudely and sometimes threateningly at the two of them. Once one of the soldiers raised his rifle and Kuo-fan and Wen-li and all the others who were watching moved quickly to get out of the way and the soldiers laughed. Wen-li was surprised that the soldiers were dressed so warmly. Some of them had jackets with hoods that came up over the head and inside the hoods at the edges he could see fur. Kuo-fan could not remain quiet on his rock. Twice he hopped up and ran nearer the road and stood there bent and staring like an old man, and then he came bounding back like a boy, with a new piece of information. “Their boots, their boots. Half of them have boots. Leather, and up to here,” and he would show Wen-li on his leg how high the boots came.

  Some of the trucks had only one or two soldiers on them and were piled with supplies. He saw bags of rice and of grain, and mortars and machine guns and wooden boxes that must have been ammunition boxes. Kuo-fan said, “And they have been coming by since early this morning.” While they sat there the trucks continued to come by. Each time there was a break in the flow of trucks they would think that the end had been reached, and then after a minute more would come.

  He was tired of watching. He felt the way he had near the end of the parade in the City after the Japanese were beaten. He wanted to go home because he was tired of watching the same things go by, but he was afraid something new would come along if he left. Kuo-fan looked as though he could have stayed all day. He was about to ask Kuo-fan if they should go when Kuo-fan hopped up and stood on his rock pointing and shouted, “Look! Tanks!”

  There really were tanks. They were old and dirty but they looked powerful and the noise they made sounded powerful. Some of them were small and nervous. They were Japanese. Others were very large and solid looking. Kuo-fan told him that they were American but he had already known that. He saw one that had a large white star painted on the back and the letters U S A. All the tanks had one man sitting in the opening on top. None of those men looked at them. They all looked straight ahead and none of them smiled or had any expression on his face.

  After the tanks came more trucks, some of them towing big guns. When he saw the big guns Kuo-fan became excited and ran to the road for a closer look. He danced out onto the road and tried to look into the muzzle of one of the guns and a guard on the truck shouted and raised his rifle and Kuo-fan came running back like a blue rabbit and sat panting on his rock. “He would have fired.” he said, “he would have fired.” Kuo-fan was very happy.

  Then came more trucks with soldiers on them. “Let’s go, Wen-li said, “We have seen it all.”

  “No,” Kuo-fan said. “Stay. There may be others. New things.”

  “New things. What new things? Planes, perhaps, rolling down the road.”

  “Nevertheless,” Kuo-fan said.

  “Nevertheless I am going,” he said. “I have work. And it is selfish of you to sit enjoying the spectacle while those at the university are unable to see it. Someone should report to them.”

  Kuo-fan considered and then smiled. “The truth,” he said. “That is the truth. Someone should report to them.” He bounced off his rock. “Let’s go.”

  He was glad Kuo-fan had decided. It was cold and grey and sitting on the rock had made him chilly.

  Two days later when he went to shop in the village he found a group of thirty or forty soldiers marching down the main street, and when he went back to the university he found them sitting outside the main gate listening to a lieutenant. He stopped to hear what the lieutenant was saying. All he could understand was something about taking advantage of rocks and trees and always having a target when you fired because ammunition was precious. Several other people had stopped to listen and they must have made quite a crowd because the lieutenant looked up and saw them and told them all to go away and stop interfering. So he went back to the house. When he went to the village again later in the day they were still there, the soldiers now smoking and talking among themselves, and up the road, toward the crossroads, there were two more groups.

  When Mr Girard got home that evening he asked Wen-li to come into the house a minute. There was something he wanted to talk about. Wen-li went into the house and stood in the living room and Mr Girard told him that he had been to the City that day and on the way in the bus had been stopped and everyone had been asked for an identity card, and the same thing had happened on the way out. And the soldiers had poked around in shopping bags and suitcases, and one man had been taken off the bus coming out because he did not have his identity card. Mr Girard said he had asked a soldier if this would be the rule in the future, and the soldier had said that it would and it would be enforced strictly. Mr Girard warned Wen-li never to leave the university without the identity card and without telling him or leaving a note.

  Kuo-fan was still excited. He could not keep quiet now and he had several ideas as to what this was all about. Wen-li told him that it was because the fighting was coming nearer and would be here soon, but that was not enough for Kuo-fan. He sat in Wen-li’s room drinking wine and saying, “It is a blind. They are going to capture the university, and they want us to think that these troops are for the fighting in the north.”

  And Wen-li would say, “There is no need to capture the university. The university belongs to them already.”

  So Kuo-fan would say, “Then it is all a bluff. They are hoping that the students will be impressed by this display of power and will send word to the Communists that an attack on the City would be fatal.”

  “If it is a bluff the Communists will know it,” he said. “Why can it not be simply that they are preparing to fight?”r />
  Kuo-fan shook his head. “There will be no fighting in the City. A bargain will be struck.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the museums and the schools and buildings of importance. No one would dare to damage them. Because of public opinion,” Kuo-fan explained.

  “Yes,” he said. “The public is so important. And perhaps for the convenience of the public they will have the fighting take place outside the City, or decide its fate over a chess game.”

  “No, no,” Kuo-fan said, and he put his chin on his cupped hands and went on dreaming.

  But he was not dreaming when he came the next day. “There is bad news,” he said.

  Wen-li looked up. “What is it?”

  “There is trouble at the main gate.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “A crowd. Soldiers and civilians. They have refused to let people out of the university.”

  “When did it start?”

  “At noon.”

  Now it was three o’clock in the afternoon. “Has there been violence?”

  “Yes.” Kuo-fan was grim. “A teacher of physical education tried to leave and they beat him.”

  “And the buses?”

  Kuo-fan shook his head. “None have left or entered since this morning.”

  Wen-li considered. This was unusual and serious. It was necessary to leave the university to buy food. If they had protested to the officials it had done no good, because the officials would have stopped the trouble before now if they had intended to stop it at all. So the officials did not care. And there were civilians in the crowd, which was worse, because they would not be punished for what they did, but a soldier could always be punished later. Perhaps when it was all over the townspeople would punish them. But that did not help Wen-li to buy food today.