In the Pond

by Ha Jin

  At the sight of Bin, she asked, “Your pay?”

  “Yes, please.”

  She pulled out a drawer, picked up a small envelope, and handed it to him. Bin noticed two dark bruises on her forearm; he had heard that her fiancé often beat her.

  He wet his thumb and forefinger on his tongue and began counting the wages, while Nina resumed reading the magazine Chinese Women. To his surprise, there was only forty-two yuan, fifty fen less than his monthly pay; this meant he lost two pounds of beer or a dish of stewed pork. “Why did you give me half a yuan less after you took away my bonus?”

  “I docked your bonus? You lost it yourself,” she said with sudden passion, her curved eyebrows going straight. “That half yuan was the haircut fee. Director Ma told me not to give you that.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t know why. I was told to do so.” She flicked her fingers at him, annoyed.

  “If you don’t know why, why did you do it?”

  “Give me a break, all right?” She stared him in the face and put the magazine on her lap. “I’m busy, no time to listen to you talking like this. Go ask Director Ma yourself.”

  Feeling it useless to argue, Bin made for the door.

  “Lunatic,” Nina said under her breath.

  “What did you say?” He turned back.

  “Lunatic, lu-na-tic!” she cried out, stressing every syllable, then pursed her lips, glaring at him.

  “You know, girl, you have a filthy mouth, but I don’t want to clean it out for you. Don’t want to dirty my hands.”

  “Go to hell. Only because you didn’t get an apartment, you act like everybody owes you a thousand. Get out of here, lunatic.”

  “Bitch!”

  “What did you call me?”

  “I call you whore, a whore who’s stripped in every office.” He moved to the door.

  “Stop! Get your ass back here.”

  Ignoring her, Bin went straight to the director’s office on the second floor. Ma and Liu were in a meeting with two other men, the chairman of the union, Hong Bao, and the secretary of the Communist Youth League, Huang Dongfang. At the sight of Bin’s dark face, Liu and Ma stood up simultaneously.

  Bin asked loudly why Ma had had his haircut fee deducted. Ma answered, “You were one hour late for work last Thursday, weren’t you? It’s our policy to be strict and fair in meting out rewards and punishments. This is our way of keeping discipline in the plant. You should look to yourself for an explanation before coming to me.”

  Bin realized he couldn’t get the money back, so he changed his topic, reporting to the leaders that Accountant Hou Nina had called him a lunatic just now, in her office.

  “You are a lunatic,” Liu said matter-of-factly. “I believe so too.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, we all think you have a mental disorder or something,” Ma said, wiggling his forefinger at his temple. “You’d better go to the hospital and have your brain checked.”

  “What? You two are leaders. You must not insult me like this.”

  “Who insulted you?” Ma asked with a surprised look, then poked Bin in the chest with his fist.

  “Why use your hand? I came to you for help, but instead of listening to me, you call me names and beat me.”

  “Who beat you?” Ma gave him a slap on the face.

  “You, you’re doing it now!”

  Liu stepped forward and cuffed him on the neck, then asked with a smile, “Who beat you? Can you prove it? Who is your witness?” He clasped his hands behind him.

  Bin, rubbing his neck, looked at Bao and Dongfang. They were sitting there quietly, their eyes fixed on the glass top of the table.

  Ma pushed Bin to the door, shouting, “Get out of here, lunatic.” He kicked him in the butt.

  The door slammed shut and almost touched the tip of Bin’s nose.

  Bin heard Liu curse inside the office, “Such an idiot.” He wanted to burst in, spring on the two leaders, and choke the breath out of them, but he was no match for them, especially Ma, who was tall and burly and had once been on a divisional basketball team in the People’s Army. Besides, Liu wore new bluchers, which looked lethal.

  Yet the rage was too much for Bin to hold down, so he yelled out, “I screw your ancestors! I screw them pair by pair!” He kicked the door and then hurried away.

  He remembered that his father had once wanted him to learn kung fu from an old man in their home village and offered to pay the tuition for him. But Bin hadn’t been interested and had spent his free time with the art teacher at the elementary school, learning how to paint. Now, how he regretted that he hadn’t followed his father’s advice! Had he done that, he could have burst into the office and felled the two rabbits to the floor with the Eagle Palm.

  Bin didn’t want to have dinner that evening. Meilan worried and tried hard to persuade him to eat something; she even peeled two preserved eggs for him. Still he refused to touch the chopsticks, sitting by his desk, smoking and sighing; the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes had grown deeper and thicker. His dark face reminded her of a woodcut portrait of an old peasant kept in one of his albums.

  Finally it was Shanshan who brought him around. Following her mother’s instruction, she said to him, “Daddy, you’re a good boy. I follow you. If you not eat, I not eat myself.”

  He gave the baby a smile and let out a long sigh; then he moved to the dining table and began to drink the corn-flour porridge. He noticed a cooked weevil floating in his bowl. With a pair of chopsticks he fished it out and dropped it to the floor.

  Meilan wanted to tell him to stop confronting the leaders, at least for the moment. “A sparrow shouldn’t match itself against a raven” — she wanted to remind him of the saying, but she remained silent, waiting for his anger to subside.

  * * *

  The next afternoon the workers and staff of the plant again gathered in the dining hall, listening to Secretary Liu’s preliminary report on the annual achievements. Liu announced: the plant had produced 940 tons of fertilizer this production year, which surpassed the annual target by 8 percent; twenty-four families had received new housing; nine babies had been born, only one of them having violated the one-child policy; 134 workers and staff had got raises; and sixteen people had been promoted to new “fighting posts.” He concluded by declaring, “This is a victorious year. The victory is due to the solidarity and united effort of the workers and cadres of our plant.”

  The meeting was dull. Many people dozed off or let their minds wander. But after the report, the secretary switched to another topic, Shao Bin’s recent activities, which at once aroused the audience’s interest.

  Liu told them that Bin had been engaged in new calumnious work. He opened his leatherette briefcase and took out a sheaf of paper. “Comrades,” he said, “I have ironclad evidence here. Look, this is Shao Bin’s handwriting, black on white. It’s a thirty-page accusation, all written in brush. My, my, handsome brushwork indeed. What labor! He must’ve eaten a lot of meat and eggs to have the energy for such a project. But I want to ask Comrade Young Shao a few questions here: Why don’t you put more energy into your real job as a fitter? Why are you often late for work? Why are you still unable to operate a universal lathe? Why can’t you fix the forklift truck, although you have tried many times? Why do you enjoy so much fabricating stories and spreading rumors against others?”

  Liu slammed the paper on the table, then picked up the last page. He went on, “Here’s how he slandered others. He wrote to the Commune Administration, ‘I believe there is an affair between Liu Shu and Hou Nina. Please order a full inquiry.’ Shao Bin, you are a crook! Nina is just about to get married. Why did you do this to her? To make her unmarriageable? Yes, I love her, but only as a comrade, just like I love my daughter. Shao Bin, you son of a turtle, you have a dirty mind. To tell you the truth, I’ve been thinking of taking Nina as my nominal daughter. Yes, I love her. Say whatever you want, you pathetic imbecile.”

  Some people chuckled, and man
y turned to stare at Bin. Suddenly Nina burst out wailing in the front. She jumped up, running toward the table at which Bin was sitting. Her long hair was swinging around her shoulders; a few people leaped to their feet and stopped her.

  “Let me go. Let me scratch his face!” she screamed, her mouth wide open and her eyes shut.

  Liu told two young women to take Nina back to her office. After they left, the hall was so quiet that people could hear Liu breathing.

  “Yesterday somebody called him ‘lunatic,’ ” the secretary continued. “He went to Director Ma’s office to complain about that. I told him bluntly that I thought he was a lunatic too. Why? Comrades, look at what he did. He tried to destroy an innocent girl’s life, ruin our plant’s name, and in this letter he actually smears soot on lots of people’s faces. I asked myself again and again, How should I handle this fellow? If I treat him as a normal man, then he will be nobody but a reactionary, a criminal. In that way I may put a comrade into the camp of the enemy class. I’ve known him for six years and don’t think his heart is that black, so I believe he has a problem in his brain. Yes, very likely he has a mental disorder. That’s why yesterday I suggested he go to the hospital for a checkup.”

  Some people glanced at Bin, tittering and whispering. Bin felt his face burning and knew he couldn’t convince others of what had actually happened, so he remained silent.

  “Before I conclude,” Liu said again, “let me give Comrade Shao Bin a piece of advice. An ant can’t shake a tree. If a mantis tries to stop a tractor, it will only get itself crushed. Please have second thoughts before you try again.”

  Liu sat down, huffing, and lifted a teacup, as director Ma got up and went to the front.

  “Comrades,” Ma said, “I also think Shao Bin is a lunatic. Yesterday afternoon he came to us when we were in the middle of a meeting. I told him to come another time because we were busy at the moment. All of a sudden he yelled, ‘I screw your ancestors! I screw them pair by pair!’ ”

  Some men threw their heads back, guffawing. Ma went on, “Both Hong Bao and Huang Dongfang witnessed that. Probably their ancestors were defiled by Shao Bin too.” Again a few people cackled. “Comrade Shao, please leave our ancestors alone. They are dead, cold as stone, not attractive anymore. If you’re not satisfied with us, let us talk and exchange views calmly. We are humans, rational beings, aren’t we?”

  Bin wanted to jump up and yell, “I screw your mothers and daughters!” But he controlled himself and sat there motionless; he forced himself to look out the window. In the gray sky the clouds were overlapping one another and creating different shapes like mountains, billows, reefs, fields, forests. A few dried leaves were swirling in the air and gliding into and out of his sight. He kept watching the clouds until the meeting was over.

  Bin wasn’t intimidated by the leaders at all. From that day on, his brush was busier than ever. Every night he kept on writing, and sometimes not until daybreak did he go to bed to sleep for two or three hours. Now that he knew Secretary Yang of the commune belonged to the same gang, he addressed the new letter of accusation to higher authorities. This time it included Yang’s crime as well. He was going to send it to the administrations of the county, the prefecture, the province, and certainly a copy to the State Council in Beijing. Though it was said that under heaven all crows are black, there had to be a place where he could let out his discontent and find justice.

  Who were Liu Shu and Ma Gong? Two small cadres with glib tongues, uncouth and unlettered. They were wine vessels and rice bags, their existence only burdening the earth, whereas he had read hundreds of books and was knowledgeable about strategies.

  He found himself bursting with energy and able to write late into the night without fatigue.

  Four

  FROST FELL AT NIGHT. In Dismount Fort children began to wear felt hats or scarves when going to school in the morning. The sound of bellows could be heard everywhere in the afternoon, when many families were boiling cabbages to make sauerkraut. A few households were pickling kimchee, and there was a scent of garlic in the air.

  The Shaos were upset because they couldn’t pickle sauerkraut; there was no space in their room for a large crock. The corridor of the dormitory house would be blocked if such a thing was put there; also, the smell would be awful. What Meilan did instead was salt a tall jar of turnips. For storing fresh vegetables, Bin was digging a pit in the southern corner of the courtyard, near the street wall. When it began to freeze, he would place their cabbages and turnips into it and cover them up with sorghum stalks, straw sacks, and earth. By comparison, the families in Workers’ Park could put their sauerkraut crocks in their outer rooms and dig vegetable pits in their backyards; some families even built brick vegetable cellars, in which beer and fruit could be stored in summer.

  On Sunday, at noon, having shoveled earth out of the vegetable pit, Bin opened the southern window to let in some warm air. The loudspeaker, hung on a pole on the street, stopped playing music and began emitting static. Then a crisp female voice announced that Secretary Yang was a candidate for the position of vice chairman of the County People’s Congress. This was an honor for the whole commune. Together with him, there were two other people running for the position, and the election would be held the next morning at the County Administration.

  Bin was convinced that Yang was also his enemy. Obviously, Yang had passed his letter of accusation on to the plant’s leaders; this was a gross violation of the Party’s policy of protecting discontented masses. No doubt the three leaders were in the same clique and should be exposed together. In his new letter of accusation, Bin had written, “The three of them wear the same pair of trousers and breathe through one nostril.” Now, the news of Yang’s candidacy for the congress suggested to Bin a bold idea. He had to do something to prevent Yang from winning the election; the People’s Congress ought to be in the hands of an honest man who would serve the people heart and soul.

  On second thought, he wondered whether it was too rash to confront Secretary Yang so soon. He was merely a worker, whereas Yang was the Party boss of Dismount Fort. Would people believe what he said about Yang?

  Then he remembered that a few days ago Hsiao Peng had said to him in private, “Bin, cheer up. Don’t be intimidated by them. Our Maintenance supports your exposing them. Yang Chen should be reprimanded for having your letter sent to Liu Shu.” Hsiao’s words convinced Bin that he had grassroots support among his fellow workers. If the County Administration had the case investigated, surely there would be people willing to testify against the leaders.

  So he made up his mind to deal with Yang now.

  That night, he took out a big brush made of goat’s hair and wrote on a large sheet of paper: “Yang Chen Always Persecutes Me!” After the ink dried, he pasted the writing on a piece of cardboard. With a pair of scissors he poked two holes at the top of the board and attached a red ribbon to it.

  To him the five words looked strenuous and elegant, each as big as a brick. Finished with the work, he couldn’t help appreciating his own calligraphy with squinting eyes. His wife and daughter meanwhile were sleeping in the bed near the southern window; Meilan was snoring a little, her face pale and flabby and her nostrils slightly swollen. She was twenty-eight, but already had wrinkles on her forehead and temples. A yellow towel wrapped her permed hair, to keep the curls from being crushed in her sleep. One of her legs stretched out from under the flowery quilt, displaying bluish veins beneath the skin; her foot was shapely, but the toes had ringworm nails. On her sole there was a curved cut, about an inch long, inflicted by a piece of broken glass two days before. The cut seemed to have festered, so Bin moved to the tiny medical cabinet on their oak chest and took out a vial of merbromin. With a cotton ball held at the tips of the scissors, he dabbed the red solution on her wound. The moment he was done, she kicked her foot, moaning faintly, and withdrew her leg under the quilt.

  Having returned the vial to the cabinet, he resumed watching his wife and child, whose chubby f
ace was chapped by cold wind. He heaved a sigh and felt ashamed. Logically speaking, with such handsome calligraphy, he should have been a distinguished man, at least in this town. He asked himself, Why am I still a worker if these hands are cut out for brushwork? Why on earth can’t a man like me get a decent place for his family to live? Look at this room, it’s a doghouse, a snail shell.

  The more he thought, the worse he felt. I swear, he said to himself, I shall get a good apartment for my family sooner or later! There will be no end of bothering them if they don’t give me one.

  Early the next morning, after telling Meilan that he was going to the County Administration to see the designs of some propaganda posters, and that he wouldn’t be late for the second shift, Bin set out for the train station. He cycled with his right hand gripping the handlebar and his left holding the placard, which was wrapped in red paper, so that people might take it to be a framed portrait or a mirror. At the train station, he locked his bicycle to a railing bar on the wooden fence; then he bought a ticket for the eight o’clock train.

  Gold County was twenty miles to the west, only an hour’s trip. It’s a remarkable town, with historic and military importance, because it borders on the Yellow Sea and to the south there is a bay which has been used as a navy base for more than a hundred years. The Russians and the Japanese had fought over it, and in turn their fleets had occupied it.

  The sun was warm, though it was a chilly day. Trees had shed their leaves, standing naked around the large plaza before Gold County Train Station. On the east, beyond rows of poplars, perched a column of Russian-made self-propelled guns, which apparently had just rolled off a train. Soldiers were sitting on them, eating breakfast and drinking water from canteens. Once in a while, dark smoke was ejected from the rear of one of those guns; the air smelled of diesel. On the north, near the entrance to a boulevard, a crowd gathered at the bus stop, men shouldering parcels and trussed fowls and piglets, and women carrying babies and baskets full of fruits, eggs, and vegetables. Bin went across to join the crowd. Then a bus came. After a good deal of pushing and shoving, he got aboard.