In the Pond

by Ha Jin

  Despite his dark mood, he ate six eggs at noon. He sat under a large elm at the side of a playground, leafing through his notes and reviewing the answers to some general political questions. The pagoda trees around him had shed their blossoms, but there was still a touch of the sweetish scent in the air. In the shade of the trees some parents were busy serving lunch and fanning their teenage children, who were resting for the next exam. The sight of parental love made Bin feel lonely. Nobody had ever treated him with such care; his father had often kicked him and whipped his backside with wickers. “A man has to stand alone,” he mumbled.

  Politics came next. At the first part — the multiple-choice section, he was baffled after looking through the questions. It took him almost five minutes to decide on the first choice, on which he was supposed to use no more than one minute. Then he made a prompt decision and ticked all the B’s as the answers to the remaining eleven questions. He wanted to save time for the major part, the four short essays, in which he could bring his pen into full play. He spent over two hours on them and wrote long and well, especially the one on the criterion of truth. But he hadn’t completed the section on the History of the Chinese Communist Party before the bell tinkled in the hallway. If only he could have had ten more minutes. Yet on the whole, the political exam was much less difficult to him.

  Still, as he turned in the sheets and left the room, his legs felt heavy, as though a pair of sandbags had been attached to the calves. He couldn’t help repeating to himself, I’m old, and shouldn’t compete with these smart kids. Again he regretted having attempted the exams. Without any hesitation he had put his face on show. There could be no chance for him to pass, and no school would take a man his age. In fact, only about 1 or 2 percent of these youths would be admitted by a college; even if he had scored good marks, his chance would have remained close to zero.

  Bin shared a dormitory room at the school with three boys who couldn’t return home for the night. Though he had forgotten to bring along a blanket, it wasn’t too bad; the lodging was free, and the boys were quiet, all busy cramming for the next day.

  Normally, the Chinese language and literature should have been easy for him, but he didn’t do well on the last exam. The translation of ancient Chinese into the modern language was fine; the identification of the authors of some lines of classical poetry went well too; there was no problem in the sentence making and the phrase forming either. The trouble occurred in the composition, which made up 60 percent of the mark.

  The assigned topic was “Whenever I sing ‘The East Is Red and the Sun Is Rising.’ ” As Bin was working at it, somehow his talent for drama took over. His pen wandered into a story, in which many of his fellow workers sang the song together every morning as a way to get their day started. Once on this dramatic course, his pen galloped along with abandon. To set up a scene, the narrator even mentioned snowflakes flying like goose feathers and pine branches tapping on the windowpanes when the workers indoors were singing the song that warmed their hearts and blood.

  Not until the last moment did it dawn on Bin that he was supposed to write an essay, not a story, to express his profound love for Chairman Mao, who, though he had passed away, was shedding happy rays on the Chinese nation like the sun in the sky. Oh, it was too late to restart it; the bell burst out jingling. He tried to write a few more sentences to give the story a curt, essayistic ending, but the woman teacher grabbed the sheets from him, the others having already turned theirs in.

  Bin returned home with a sullen face and a boil on his gum. But at the sight of him, Meilan beamed with two dimples, saying, “Good news.” She handed him a white envelope.

  He started to read the letter. It was from Professor Gong Zheng of the Department of Fine Arts at the Provincial Teachers University. The professor informed Bin that his colleagues and he were so impressed by the photographs of his work and his publications that they would accept him as a special student, since he was too old to be a freshman.

  Bin couldn’t help smiling; his tears fell on the thin paper. “They’re going to accept me. He-he-he, they accept me!” he cried out, and held his wife up by the waist, swinging her around. One of her flying heels scraped Shanshan’s shoulder and knocked her down.

  The baby burst out crying, not only because of the fall but also because she saw her father’s tears and thought her parents were fighting. Bin held Shanshan up and kissed her on the cheek. “Good girl, don’t be scared. We’ll go to Shenyang City together. Dad is so happy. You know, there’re giant pandas in the zoo there. Don’t you want to see a giant panda? Tell Daddy, yes or no?”

  “Uh-huh.” The baby was rubbing her eyes with the back of her soiled hand.

  Meilan took out a bowl of fried mackerel she had prepared for the celebration, and Bin opened a bottle of date wine whose sweet flavor his wife liked best. The couple clinked glasses again and again while eating the fish; Shanshan had a small cup too, but she didn’t like the fish and ate sliced melon instead. They reminisced about the prophecy by Blind Bea, the secret fortune-teller in town, who had revealed to them three years ago that at the age of thirty-two things would change in Bin’s favor. Apparently the prophecy was coming true. Meilan declared she’d always believed in Bin’s ability to earn more than a common worker, and that was why she had married him. Her words almost moved him to tears again.

  She turned on the radio for some music. The tune of “Happy Heaven and Blissful Earth” floated in the room, but a moment later Secretary Yang’s caressing voice cut short the music and began speaking about the significance of the methane conference. Yang insisted that there should be a festive atmosphere in town tomorrow and that everybody must show civil virtues to the visitors. His voice dampened the happy air at the dining table. Bin turned gloomy and stopped talking, his face long and his nostrils quivering. What should I do if Yang interferes again? he thought. Surely Yang won’t let me go to college; he had made up his mind to smother me in this place.

  Meilan read Bin’s thoughts and asked, “Are you afraid Yang will stop you again?”

  Bin nodded and sighed.

  This time they had to figure out a way to prevent Yang from stepping in. But the seed of animosity had been sown deep, and it was impossible to make it up with Yang in a short time.

  Besides, Bin was merely a worker, so there was no way for him to approach the town’s Party boss. The truth was that once he bent his knees, he would become nothing in Yang’s eyes, and any gesture of reconciliation from his side would make the enemy swell up with arrogance, more eager to crush him.

  After an hour’s discussion, the couple decided to take preemptive measures. They believed that only after Bin proved himself too powerful for Yang to suppress would the secretary set him free. Begging for mercy would not help.

  That night Bin worked out a letter of complaint addressed to the provincial leaders. He used the smallest brush and wrote in the Regular Script, which was meant to demonstrate his knowledge of the ancient formality in legal matters. He supposed that if the readers of the letter were impressed by the calligraphy, they would inevitably be convinced that the writer was a virtuous scholar. The letter listed Yang’s wicked deeds against Shao Bin, a knowledgeable, revolutionary worker who had been persecuted again and again, simply because he was artistic and outspoken. It consisted of only four pages, but it took him three hours to finish.

  Nine

  AFTER BREAKFAST, Bin put the letter of complaint into his inner breast pocket and went to the theater in the marketplace, where the conference was to be held. Usually by this hour the country fair in the marketplace would be bustling with people, animals, poultry, vegetables, fruits, the explosions of corn poppers, the clanking of hammers, the croaking of bellows, the jangling of iron-rimmed cart wheels. But today it was quiet. All the vendors and craftsmen had been ordered to go to the plaza in front of the train station. At the entrance to the marketplace, a large notice was posted on a granite wall, directing customers to the plaza for the fair.

&
nbsp; Seeing a few militiamen from a distance, Bin put on his shell-rimmed glasses, which at once made him resemble an official participant in the conference. He walked deliberately with his feet splayed, once in a while taking a puff on a cigarette, as though pondering something.

  Nobody stopped him all the way to the theater. He went through the front door, made of jujube wood. Inside, a large crowd was gathering. Bin planned to wait among the people; not until all the attendants took their seats and the leaders were introduced would he ascend the stage. He would go directly to the highest-ranking official from the Provincial Administration and present to him the letter of complaint with both hands; then he would shout to the audience: “Yang Chen suppresses the revolutionary masses in this commune! Down with the bureaucrat Yang Chen! Give us an upright Party secretary!” He wanted to make it as dramatic as possible, so dramatic that Yang wouldn’t be able to explain it away in front of hundreds of people and dozens of his superiors.

  Bin had not yet decided where to sit when Secretary Liu came up to him. “What are you doing here, Shao Bin?” he asked sharply.

  “Just looking around.”

  “This isn’t a place for window-shopping. Go back to the plant and work.”

  Director Ma hurried over too. He had seen Bin a moment before but mistaken him for an official because of Bin’s glasses. Liu’s voice had helped him identify his worker.

  Ignoring Liu, Bin moved aside to take a seat.

  “Come, let’s get out of here,” Liu hissed, and grasped him by the upper arm.

  Ma went forward and grabbed his other arm, cursing, “Damn you, you can’t live without making trouble.”

  Bin was struggling to free himself, shouting, “Help! Help! They’re kidnapping me! Save my life!”

  People stood up, and some were coming over to watch. “Who kidnapped you?” Ma cried, pulling Bin closer. He was so outraged he hit him in the crotch with his knee.

  “Oh!” Bin dropped to the floor, gasping and moaning. He was lying on his back with both hands covering his crotch, his legs stretching out in the shape of a flock of flying geese.

  For a moment, neither of the leaders knew what to do with this man who was pretending to be paralyzed. Then the union chairman Bao and a few young men arrived and tried to persuade Bin to get up. But Bin refused to budge and kept his eyes shut.

  Liu stepped closer and said through his teeth, “I knew you’d show up today, you are so addicted to upsetting meetings. Now, if you don’t get up I’ll finish you off right here. Son of a rabbit, get up!”

  Still Bin didn’t move. Ma bent down and pinched his cheek, but Bin only responded with a groan. To everyone’s surprise, Liu raised his foot to straddle Bin’s head and dropped his large bottom on Bin’s face. “All right,” he said, “I’m smothering you to death on the spot.”

  Under Liu’s weight, the rims of Bin’s glasses snapped, and a lens fell out on the cement floor. Ma stepped forward and ground it to bits with his leather heel. Bin couldn’t breathe and stopped making noise, feeling his limbs grow numb as though they were no longer his own. Liu’s bottom, smelling of onion, was so heavy that Bin realized he would faint in a few seconds if he didn’t take action. So he wiggled his head a little and took a big bite.

  “Ah!” Liu jumped up, apparently crippled. With his right hand covering his hip, he was hobbling away and screaming, “Oh, my butt. He bit my butt!” His forefinger pointed back at Bin while the palm was rubbing his hip.

  Ma kicked Bin in the thigh and motioned to his men. “Get him out of here.”

  They lifted Bin’s upper body and dragged him to the entrance, while Bin kept shouting, “They broke my balls and glasses!”

  “It’s a madman,” someone said to the people who couldn’t get through the crowd to look.

  “A lunatic bit his leader,” another added.

  Sitting on a boulder outside the theater, Bin tried to collect his thoughts. Spasms were seizing his lower abdomen, and he believed his testicles were swollen with dark blood. They were so painful that he couldn’t stand up and walk home. Fortunately, Hsiao Peng happened to be at the theater and offered to take him home by bicycle.

  They arrived at the dormitory house fifteen minutes later. Meilan was not in. Bin felt sorry that he couldn’t make tea for Hsiao, but he said he wasn’t thirsty. As Hsiao was about to leave, Bin tentatively asked him whether he would mind giving witness to the beating. Hsiao said plainly, “Forget it, Young Shao. Why do you enjoy fighting so much? Nothing good will come of it if you go on like this, you know? Don’t think of fighting anymore, all right? Think about your work and your family.”

  “What do you mean by my ‘work’?” Bin’s voice turned angry. “You mean I haven’t worked well.”

  “Yes, you only know how to mess things up. To be honest, I wish you weren’t in our Maintenance. Who can keep watch on you all the time?”

  “Did they ask you to do that? To be responsible for what I do?”

  “Damn, you understand everything but never try to change. You must change yourself.”

  Bin remained silent as Hsiao raised the door curtain, which was made of strings of glass beads, and walked out. “Coward,” he cursed Hsiao under his breath.

  How embarrassing to be hurt like this. Bin felt too ashamed to go to the Commune Clinic, where he would have to show the bruise to a doctor or a nurse. All he could do was cover the purple area with a flat bottle of cold water. Meilan cried and wanted to go to the leaders and curse them and their ancestors, but he dissuaded her. It was no use quarreling with those savages who knew only one language: brute force.

  Unlike Bin, Liu didn’t mind showing the bite on his rear to others. Before the conference was adjourned for lunch and a nap, he left for the photo shop, which was on Main Street, near the entrance to the marketplace. Since the fair had been moved, few customers were in the shop. When Liu arrived, the photographer Jia Cheng was reading Evergreen News, the town’s newspaper, and smoking a pipe in the dim waiting room.

  “Old Jia,” Liu said, “can you take a picture of me now?”

  “Of course, Secretary Liu, we’re not busy today.” Jia stood up, knocking the pipe on his palm, and turned to the studio.

  “No, not there.” Liu explained that he wanted to have a photograph taken of the wound on his bottom, so there was no need for the tall camera and they had better do it in a quiet place.

  Unfortunately, the shop’s miniature Seagull camera had been sent to Dalian City for repair. They had no choice but to use the tall camera. Jia called over the receptionist, a pallid girl with two tiny brushes of hair behind her ears, and told her to stand at the door of the studio and allow nobody to enter. Then in the heat of the intense lights, Liu ascended the platform, which was used for family or group pictures, to raise his behind to the level of the lens. He was facing the backdrop, an oil painting of a vast landscape filled with terraced fields, in which red flags were flying here and there and midget human figures were working with picks and shovels and carrying baskets loaded with soil. He unbuckled his pants and let them drop over his feet. Turning a little, he kept his right hip toward the camera. His hand held up the leg opening of his red shorts; the wound was displayed above the gluteal fold.

  “Goodness, it’s black! Is it a dog bite?” Jia asked while turning to the camera.

  “No, a man bite,” Liu said with his teeth gritted.

  “How did it happen?”

  “Shao Bin, the son of a turtle, early this morning he went to break up the conference. We tried to stop him, and he went wild and turned on me.”

  Chuckling, Jia went behind the camera and covered himself with the cloth, saying, “A little bit to your left, that’s good.”

  The photograph taken, Liu buckled up his pants and followed Jia out of the studio. The girl looked at him with a knowing smirk on her face, her eyes rolling. Liu smiled back, then turned to the photographer. “Old Jia, can you make it express? I need five pictures as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll do
my best,” Jia said in a nasal voice. “At the latest, they’ll be ready the day after tomorrow. All right?”

  “Good, thanks.” Liu turned to the girl. “How much?”

  “One twenty-eight.”

  He paid and went out. But before crossing the granite slabs over the gutter to get to the street, he remembered something and returned to the photo shop. At the sight of him, the girl tittered and sniffled.

  “I need a receipt,” Liu said.

  “Sure.” She kept her head low.

  While she was writing the receipt, Liu went into the darkroom, in which Jia was coloring a photograph with a little brush. Liu said, “Old Jia, I forgot something very important.”

  “What?” Jia stood up, brush in hand.

  “I want you to put the date on the pictures. Today’s June thirtieth.”

  “I can do that. No problem.” Jia’s smile revealed a gold molar.

  On his way to the Commune Guesthouse, where the conference attendees were to eat a six-course lunch, Liu felt that this time he had caught Shao Bin. He would publicize this incident across the whole county and make him notorious as a mad, man-biting dog. Yes, he was going to heat up the water and boil this turtle alive.

  Ten

  AFTER LIU GOT THE PHOTOGRAPHS, a general meeting was held in the plant. Since everybody had heard of the incident in the commune’s theater, the attendance was unprecedented; never had the dining hall been so full. About a dozen men were sitting on the windowsills.

  Director Ma first described how Bin had bitten Secretary Liu. Next he announced that Bin was temporarily dismissed from his work, so that he could have time to write his self-criticism and self-examination. Hearing this, some men booed, because they thought Bin was lucky to have a few days off.