by Ha Jin
“No, he’s a good man.” Her round eyes looked at me with a steady light.
“Why do you say that?”
“He’s been good to me.”
“But he can’t be a good husband, can he?”
“What do you mean?”
I said bluntly, “He didn’t go to bed with you very often, did he?”
“Oh, he can’t do that because he practices kung fu. He said if he slept with a woman, all his many years’ work would be gone. From the every beginning his master told him to avoid women.”
“So you don’t mind?” I was puzzled, saying to myself, What a stupid girl.
“Not really.”
“But you two must’ve shared the bed a couple of times, haven’t you?”
“No, we haven’t.”
“Really? Not even once?”
“No.” She blushed a little and looked away, twisting her earlobe with her fingertips.
My head was reeling. After eight months’ marriage she was still a virgin! And she didn’t mind! I lifted the cup and took a large gulp of the jasmine tea.
A lull settled in. We both turned to watch the evening news; my numb mind couldn’t take in what the anchorwoman was saying about a border skirmish between Vietnamese and Chinese troops.
A moment later I told Beina, “I’m sorry he has such a problem. If only we had known.”
“Don’t feel so bad, Uncle. In fact he’s better than a normal man.”
“How so?”
“Most men can’t stay away from pretty women, but Baowen just likes to have a few buddies. What’s wrong with that? It’s better this way, ’cause I don’t have to worry about those shameless bitches in our factory. He doesn’t bother to give them a look. He’ll never have a lifestyle problem.”
I almost laughed, wondering how I should explain to her that he could have a sexual relationship with a man and that he’d been detained precisely because of a lifestyle problem. On second thought, I realized it might be better for her to continue to think that way. She didn’t need more stress at the moment.
Then we talked about how to help Baowen. I told her to write a report emphasizing what a good, considerate husband he’d been. Of course she must not mention his celibacy in their marriage. Also, from now on, however vicious her fellow workers’ remarks were, she should merely ignore them and never talk back, as if she’d heard nothing.
That night when I told my wife about Beina’s silly notions, she smiled, saying, “Compared to most men, Baowen isn’t so bad. Beina’s not a fool.”
I begged Chief Miao and a higher-ranking officer to treat Baowen leniently and even gave each of them two bottles of brandy and a coupon for a Butterfly sewing machine. They seemed willing to help, but wouldn’t promise me anything. For days I was so anxious that my wife was afraid my ulcer might recur.
One morning the Public Security Bureau called, saying they had accepted our factory’s proposal and would have Baowen transferred to the mental hospital in a western suburb, provided our factory agreed to pay for his hospitalization. I accepted the offer readily, feeling relieved. Later, I learned that there wasn’t enough space in the city’s prison for twenty-seven gay men, who couldn’t be mixed with other inmates and had to be put in solitary cells. So only four of them were jailed; the rest were either hospitalized (if their work units agreed to pay their medical expenses) or sent to some labor farms to be reformed. The two Party members among them didn’t go to jail, though they were expelled from the Party, a very severe punishment that ended their political lives.
The moment I put down the phone, I hurried to the assembly shop and found Beina. She broke into tears at the good news. She ran back home and filled a duffel bag with Baowen’s clothes. We met at my office, then together set out for the Public Security Bureau. I pedaled my bicycle and she sat behind me, embracing the duffel as if it were a baby. With a strong tailwind, the cycling was easy and fast, so we arrived before Baowen left for the hospital. He was waiting for a van in front of the police station, accompanied by two policemen.
The bruises on his face had healed, and he looked handsome again. He smiled at us and said rather secretively, “I want to ask you a favor.” He rolled his eyes as the dark-green van rounded the street corner, coming toward us.
“What?” I said.
“Don’t let my mother know the truth. She’s too old to take it. Don’t tell her, please!”
“What should we say to her, then?” I asked.
“Just say I have a temporary mental disorder.”
Beina couldn’t hold back her tears anymore, saying loudly, “Don’t worry. We won’t let her know. Take care of yourself and come back soon.” She handed him the duffel, which he accepted without a word.
I nodded to assure him that I wouldn’t reveal the truth. He smiled at her, then at me. For some reason his face turned rather sweet—charming and enticing, as though it were a mysterious female face. I blinked my eyes and wondered if he was really a man. It flashed through my mind that if he were a woman, he would’ve been quite a beauty—tall, slim, muscular, and slightly languid.
My thoughts were cut short by a metallic screech as the van stopped in front of us. Baowen climbed into it; so did the policemen. I walked around the van and shook his hand, saying that I’d visit him the next week, and that meanwhile, if he needed anything, just to give me a ring.
We waved goodbye as the van drew away, its tire chains clattering and flinging up bits of snow. After a blasting toot, it turned left and disappeared from the icy street. I got on my bicycle as a gust of wind blew up and almost threw me down. Beina followed me for about twenty yards, then leaped on the carrier, and together we headed home. She was so heavy. Thank heaven, I was riding a Great Golden Deer, one of the sturdiest makes.
During the following week I heard from Baowen once. He said on the phone that he felt better now and less agitated. Indeed his voice sounded calm and smooth. He asked me to bring him a few books when I came, specifically his Dictionary of Universal Knowledge, which was a hefty, rare book translated from the Russian in the late fifties. I had no idea how he had come by it.
I went to see him on Thursday morning. The hospital was on a mountain, six miles southwest of Muji City. As I was cycling on the asphalt road, a few tall smokestacks fumed lazily beyond the larch woods in the west. To my right, the power lines along the roadside curved, heavy with fluffy snow, which would drop in little chunks whenever the wind blew across them. Now and then I overtook a horse cart loaded with earless sheaves of wheat, followed by one or two foals. After I pedaled across a stone bridge and turned in to the mouth of a valley, a group of brick buildings emerged on a gentle slope, connected to one another by straight cement paths. Farther up the hill, past the buildings, there was a cow pen, in which about two dozen milk cows were grazing on dry grass while a few others huddled together to keep warm.
It was so peaceful here that if you hadn’t known this was a mental hospital, you might have imagined it was a sanatorium for ranking officials. Entering Building 9, I was stopped by a guard, who then took me to Baowen’s room on the ground floor. It happened that the doctor on duty, a tall fortyish man with tapering fingers, was making the morning rounds and examining Baowen. He shook hands with me and said that my son-in-law was doing fine. His surname was Mai; his whiskered face looked very intelligent. When he turned to give a male nurse instructions about Baowen’s treatment, I noticed an enormous wart in his ear, almost blocking the earhole like a hearing aid. In a way he looked like a foreigner. I wondered if he had some Mongolian or Tibetan blood.
“We give him the electric bath,” Dr. Mai said to me a moment later.
“What?” I asked, wincing.
“We treat him with the electric bath.”
I turned to Baowen. “How is it?”
“It’s good, really soothing.” He smiled, but there was a churlish look in his eyes, and his mouth tightened.
The nurse was ready to take him for the treatment. Never having heard of s
uch a bath, I asked Dr. Mai, “Can I see how it works?”
“All right, you may go with them.”
Together we climbed the stairs to the second floor. There was another reason for me to join them. I wanted to find out whether Baowen was a normal man. The rumors in our factory had gotten on my nerves, particularly the one that said he had no penis—that was why he had always avoided bathing in the workers’ bathhouse.
After taking off our shoes and putting on plastic slippers, we entered a small room that had pea-green walls and a parquet floor. At its center lay a porcelain bathtub, a ghastly thing, like an instrument of torture. Affixed along the interior wall of the tub were rectangles of black, perforated metal. Three thick rubber cords connected them to a tall machine standing by the wall. A control board full of buttons, gauges, and switches was mounted atop the machine. The young nurse, burly and square-faced, turned on the faucet; steaming water began to tumble into the tub. Then he went over to operate the machine. He seemed good-natured; his name was Long Fuhai. He said he came from the countryside, apparently of peasant stock, and had graduated from Jilin Nursing School.
Baowen smiled at me while unbuttoning his zebra-striped hospital robe. He looked fine now—all the bruises had disappeared from his face, which had become pinkish and smooth. I was frightened by the tub, however. It seemed more suitable for electrocuting a criminal. No matter how sick I might be, I would never lie in it with my back resting against that metal groove. What if there were a problem with the wiring?
“Does it hurt?” I asked Baowen.
“No.”
He went behind a khaki screen in a corner and began taking off his clothes. When the water half filled the tub, the nurse took a small bag of white powder out of a drawer, cut it open with scissors, and poured the stuff into the water. It must be salt. He tucked up his shirt sleeves and bent double to agitate the solution with both hands, which were large and sinewy.
To my dismay, Baowen came out in a clean pair of shorts. Without hesitation he got into the tub and lay down, just as one would enter a lukewarm bathing pool. I was amazed. “Have you given him electricity yet?” I asked Nurse Long.
“Yes, some. I’ll increase it little by little.” He turned to the machine and adjusted a few buttons.
“You know,” he said to me, “your son-in-law is a very good patient, always cooperative.”
“He should be.”
“That’s why we give him the bath. Other patients get electric cuffs around their limbs or electric rods on their bodies. Some of them scream like animals every time. We have to tie them up.”
“When will he be cured?”
“I’m not sure.”
Baowen was noiseless in the electrified water, with his eyes shut and his head resting on a black rubber pad at the end of the tub. He looked fine, rather relaxed.
I drew up a chair and sat down. Baowen seemed reluctant to talk, preferring to concentrate on the treatment, so I remained silent, observing him. His body was wiry, his legs hairless, and the front of his shorts bulged quite a bit. He looked all right physically. Once in a while he breathed a feeble sigh.
As the nurse increased the electric current, Baowen began to squirm in the tub as if smarting from something. “Are you all right?” I asked but dared not touch him.
“Yeah.”
He kept his eyes shut. Glistening beads of sweat gathered on his forehead. He looked pale, his lips curling now and again as though he were thirsty.
Then the nurse gave him more electricity. Baowen began writhing and moaning a little. Obviously he was suffering. This bath couldn’t be so soothing as he’d claimed. With a white towel Nurse Long wiped the sweat off Baowen’s face and whispered, “I’ll turn it down in a few minutes.”
“No, give me more!” Baowen said resolutely without opening his eyes, his face twisted.
I felt as though he were ashamed of himself. Perhaps my presence made this section of the treatment more uncomfortable for him. His hands gripped the rim of the tub, his arched wrists trembling. For a good three minutes nobody said a word; the room was so quiet that its walls seemed to be ringing.
As the nurse gradually reduced the electricity, Baowen calmed down. His toes stopped wiggling.
Not wanting to bother him further with my presence, I went out to look for Doctor Mai, to thank him and find out when Baowen would be cured. The doctor was not in his office, so I walked out of the building for a breath of air. The sun was high and the snow blazingly white. Once outside, I had to close my eyes for a minute to adjust them. I then sat down on a bench and lit a cigarette. A young woman in an ermine hat and army mittens passed by, holding an empty milk pail and humming the song “Comrade, Please Have a Cup of Tea.” She looked handsome, and her crisp voice pleased me. I gazed at the pair of thick braids behind her, which swayed a little in the wind.
My heart was full of pity for Baowen. He was such a fine young man that he ought to be able to love a woman, have a family, and enjoy a normal life.
Twenty minutes later I rejoined him in his room. He looked tired, still shivering a little. He told me that as the electric currents increased, his skin had begun prickling as though stung by hundreds of mosquitoes. That was why he couldn’t stay in the tub for longer than half an hour.
I felt for him and said, “I’ll tell our leaders how sincere your attitude is and how cooperative you are.”
“Oh, fine.” He tilted his damp head. “Thanks for bringing the books.”
“Do you need something else?”
“No.” He sounded sad.
“Baowen, I hope you can come home before the New Year. Beina needs you.”
“I know. I don’t want to be locked up here forever.”
I told him that Beina had written to his mother, saying he’d been away on a business trip. Then the bell for lunch rang in the building, and outside the loudspeaker began broadcasting the fiery music of “March of the Volunteers.” Nurse Long walked in with a pair of chopsticks and a plate containing two corn buns. He said cheerily to Baowen, “I’ll bring you the dish in a minute. We have tofu stewed with sauerkraut today, also bean sprout soup.”
I stood up and took my leave.
When I reported Baowen’s condition to the factory leaders, they seemed impressed. The term “electric bath” must have given their imagination free rein. Secretary Zhu kept shaking his head and said, “I’m sorry Baowen has to go through such a thing.”
I didn’t explain that the electric bath was a treatment less severe than the other kinds, nor did I describe what the bath was like. I just said, “They steep him in electrified water every day.” Let the terror seize their brains, I thought, so that they might be more sympathetic toward Baowen when he is discharged from the hospital.
It was mid-December, and Baowen had been in the hospital for a month already. For days Beina went on saying that she wanted to see how her husband was doing; she was eager to bring him home before the New Year. Among her fellow workers rumors persisted. One said the electric bath had blistered Baowen; another claimed that his genitals had been shriveled up by the treatment; another added that he had become a vegetarian, nauseated at the mere sight of meat. The young woman who had once declared she’d leave her door open for him had just married and proudly told everybody she was pregnant. People began to be kind and considerate to Beina, treating her like an abused wife. The leaders of the assembly shop assigned her only the daytime shift. I was pleased that Finance still paid Baowen his wages as though he were on sick leave. Perhaps they did this because they didn’t want to upset me.
On Saturday, Beina and I went to the mental hospital. She couldn’t pedal, and it was too far for me to carry her on my bicycle, so we took the bus. She had been there by herself two weeks ago to deliver some socks and a pair of woolen pajamas she’d knitted for Baowen.
We arrived at the hospital early in the afternoon. Baowen looked healthy and in good spirits. It seemed the bath had helped him. He was happy to see Beina and even cuddled her
in my presence. He gave her two toffees; knowing I disliked candies, he didn’t offer any to me. He poured a large mug of malted milk for both of us, since there was only one mug in the room. I didn’t touch the milk, unsure whether homosexuality was communicable. I was glad to see that he treated his wife well. He took a genuine interest in what she said about their comrades in our factory, and now and then laughed heartily. What a wonderful husband he could have been if he were not sick.
Having sat with the couple for a few minutes, I left so that they could be alone. I went to the nurses’ office upstairs and found Long Fuhai writing at a desk. The door was open, and I knocked on its frame. Startled, he closed his brown notebook and stood up.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I said.
“No, Uncle, only because I didn’t expect anyone to come up here.”
I took a carton of Peony cigarettes out of my bag and put it on the desk, saying, “I won’t take too much of your time, young man. Please keep this as a token of my regards.” I didn’t mean to bribe him; I was sincerely grateful to him for treating Baowen well.
“Oh, don’t give me this, please.”
“You don’t smoke?”
“I do. Tell you what, give it to Dr. Mai. He’ll help Baowen more.”
I was puzzled. Why didn’t he want these top-quality cigarettes if he smoked? Seeing that I was confused, he went on, “I’ll be nice to Baowen without any gift from you. He’s a good man. It’s the doctor’s wheels that you should grease.”
“I have another carton for him.”
“One carton’s nothing here. You should give him at least two.”
I was moved by his thoughtfulness, thanked him, and said goodbye.
Dr. Mai happened to be in his office. When I walked in, he was reading the current issue of Women’s Life, whose back cover carried a large photo of Madame Mao on trial—she wore black and stood, handcuffed, between two young policewomen. Dr. Mai put the magazine aside and asked me to sit down. In the room, tall shelves loaded with books and files lined the walls. A smell of rotten fruit hung in there. He seemed pleased to see me.
