by Ha Jin
Then Liu took over and addressed the audience. “Comrades, I once observed that Shao Bin had mental trouble. What happened two days ago has proved my point. You all know how important that methane conference was to our commune, but Shao Bin was so crazy he went there to spoil all the work we had done for it. Director Ma and I stopped him in time and tried to persuade him to leave. He wouldn’t listen. As we were taking him out, he turned wild and bit my butt.” Unconsciously Liu touched his behind with his right hand as though the wound had been inflicted just now.
Too outraged to stand it any more, Bin jumped up and yelled, “If you didn’t kick my privates, how could I bite you! If you didn’t sit on my face, how could my mouth reach your stinking ass!”
Some of the audience laughed.
“Who kicked your balls?” Liu asked and looked bewildered, as if he had never heard of such a thing.
The laughter grew louder.
“You, you broke my private parts!” Bin was choking with anger and truly believed it was Liu, not Ma, who had hurt him.
“I did?” Liu smiled contemptuously, his eyes half closed. “You’ve lost your mind. Show us how broken your balls are, anyway.”
A burst of laughter filled the room as Bin turned red to the neck. “Shameless snake!” he cursed and sat down.
“Watch your language, Comrade Shao Bin,” Liu said. “We’re all rational adults, aren’t we? We are here to discuss the problem and not to call each other names.” He took a wallet out of his pocket, opened it, and raised it to the audience, displaying the photograph of a dark wound. “Here’s my butt. Comrade Shao Bin, this isn’t a dog bite, is it? Your teeth marks are here. It’s ironclad evidence, as solid as a mountain, and with the date on it too.” He took the picture out of the cellophane sleeve and slammed it on the table. “I leave it here for everybody to see after the meeting. Shao Bin, you said I broke your balls. Where are your balls? Show us the evidence if you have any.”
Liu looked so serious that nobody dared make a noise, though quite a few people tried hard to hold back their laughter. On the verge of tears, Bin stood up and rushed away to the door, shouting back, “You’re worse than landowners and capitalists! More pernicious than a counterrevolutionary.”
That brought out an explosion of laughter; Bin stormed out of the meeting.
He didn’t write a word of self-criticism. Instead, he spent the following days painting plum blossoms and copying stone inscriptions from the Han Dynasty. He had always aspired to possess that kind of ancient simplicity and solidity in his calligraphy. To some degree, he felt happy to be able to practice his arts again. During the day Shanshan was at the nursery school of the department store, so he was alone at home, painting, writing, and humming at will until four o’clock, when he would cook dinner for his family.
Peace and joy, however, were temporary. A few days later the leaders sent Huang Dongfang over to see how much self-criticism Bin had written. Realizing he had done nothing, they ordered him back to work; so he returned to the plant.
Despite his calm appearance, Bin was filled with anxiety. He knew that soon the admission letter would come to the plant, and that the school would request his file and a current evaluation of his moral character, working habits, and lifestyle. This would give the leaders an opportunity to stop him again. They didn’t even have to do anything — just withholding his file would be enough to spoil the whole thing. On the other hand, the leaders couldn’t hold him back without facing some public pressure, because the admission would surely become known in town. In over twenty years only one boy and two girls in the commune had passed the exams and entered college. People would be impressed this time and say, “Shao Bin is a chosen scholar now. He’s leaving for the provincial capital and to be a big official there someday. Who could tell a golden phoenix was hatched in a henhouse? Now whoever is his enemy must be careful, and he will come back someday and have them punished.”
So far Bin dared not tell anybody about the admission; he had made Meilan promise that she wouldn’t breathe a word. He understood happiness was a private thing and couldn’t be shared with others. In addition, he didn’t want the leaders to know of the admission before the official letter arrived. If it came, he preferred it to come like thunder, to strike them dumb. Had they heard of the admission beforehand, they would have had time to calculate their moves. This would have left him little time to work on them.
He was unsure how to bring them around; too much enmity had built up recently. He dared not seek advice from anybody in town, because that would be similar to broadcasting the secret. Besides, he had no close friend here.
Having thought about the matter for several days, he decided to ask Yen Fu’s opinion, since Yen lived far away. By the time the secret spread from Gold County and reached Dismount Fort, the university’s letter would have arrived at the plant.
He wrote to Yen with a fountain pen. Because Yen knew his calligraphy well, there was no need for a brush. The letter went:
July 12
My Dear Brother Yen:
Having not seen you for almost two months, I miss you day and night. How are you? Have you done some good paintings lately?
I am having a terrible time. Two weeks ago I was informed by the Provincial Teachers University that they would admit me as a special student-artist. Then I was beaten black and blue by Liu Shu and Ma Gong. Liu kicked my private parts and sat on my face to smother me.
I don’t want to avenge my suffering now, since going to college is more important. I want to leave this madhouse and get a good education in Shenyang City. Brother Yen, this is my last opportunity. It seems that the leaders, including Yang Chen, are unlikely to let me go. What should I do? You have seen the situation here and may have a better idea — I am inside the mountain and can’t see the whole mountain. Please give me some advice. Your words are always as precious as gold.
Take good care of yourself.
Shake hands,
Words of Your Brother:
Shao Bin
After putting the letter into a small envelope, he couldn’t find the glue bottle. So he sealed it with a few grains of cooked rice. When he went to the nursery school to fetch his daughter, he took the letter with him; the post office was on the way.
Three days later, Bin received a note from the Provincial College Examination Committee. It informed him of his exam results: Math — 18; Politics — 73; Language and Literature — 64. He was so embarrassed by the note that he used it in the latrine. He didn’t even mention it to his wife. He was afraid that the plant might get such a note as well. If so, the leaders would definitely make good use of it.
Yen’s letter came the next afternoon. He advised Bin to remain calm and patient, biding his time. “Brother Shao,” he wrote, “you must be able to endure; otherwise you will lose the opportunity. Don’t talk back or argue with them. Just keep quiet.” Yen also suggested that between the two leaders Ma seemed less wicked, so Bin should work on Ma, trying to bring him around first. Meanwhile, Yen would find someone in the county town who knew Secretary Yang well, to persuade him. Once Yang and Ma agreed to let Bin go, Liu would have to concede.
Meilan and Bin thought Yen’s advice sound and feasible; they decided to work on Ma without delay.
After supper, they left Shanshan with the salesgirls who lived next door and set out for Ma’s. Bin rode his National Defense bicycle, Meilan sitting on its carrier. Coming toward the plant, he saw in the distance the houses in Workers’ Park lined up neatly, the red tiles, wet with rain, glistening in the setting sun, and the sycamores beside the houses already leafy with small crowns. Again the sight of the compound kindled his anger, but he forced himself to remain unperturbed. He kept saying to himself, a strong man must be able to stoop and stand up according to circumstances. Housing is something outside yourself and shouldn’t be valued too much.
Without Bin’s knowledge, that afternoon the official news of his admission had arrived. It indeed came like thunder and blew up the lea
ders’ plan to make a jackass of him in the eyes of the plant. Shao Bin had done it again! Whatever you called him, a lunatic or a mad dog, you couldn’t deny he was bursting with talent and energy and was a scholar by nature. With only five years’ education, he had tackled those difficult exams and got admitted to a college, whereas every one of the commune’s three hundred high-school graduates had flunked the exams this year. Who could deny that Shao Bin had an extraordinary mind?
The leaders, especially Ma, felt they should have let Bin do the propaganda work; such a conciliatory gesture on their part could have prevented the hostility between Bin and them from mounting up.
“You know what,” Ma said to Liu on their way to Workers’ Park, “we should’ve made better use of this odd man and given him an apartment last year.”
“Yes, but it’s too late now,” Liu said thoughtfully. “He’s already our deadly enemy. From now on, we must be very careful when dealing with him, or he’ll capsize our boat. Who could foretell he’d grow into such a big fish?”
Ma made no further comment and parted company with Liu. He and his wife had saved four thousand yuan for their youngest daughter’s college education, but year after year the girl failed the exams. Shao Bin, this wizard of a fitter, had made it with only two weeks’ preparation. What could you say? You had to admit he was a tremendous learner at least. In his heart Ma couldn’t help but respect Bin. It seemed there was simply no way to stop this weird fellow, and sooner or later he would become somebody.
At dinner Ma told his wife of the news. Mrs. Ma was amazed and upset at the same time, because two days ago they had been informed that their daughter was thirty points below the admission standard. This meant they would have to send her to the preparatory school in Gold County again the next year.
“How come it was so easy for him?” she asked her husband, chewing spinach.
“Beats me.”
“You know, this will be big news in town. Are you going to let him go?” Her bulbous nose was wet with beads of perspiration.
“I don’t know. Liu Shu and I haven’t talked about it yet.”
“I think you should let him go this time. If you don’t, he’ll remember you for the rest of his life. He’ll take more revenge. Who wouldn’t?” She thrust a spoon of stewed potatoes into the mouth of their two-year-old grandson, who was sitting in her lap.
Ma didn’t say another word and kept eating his corn porridge. It was his principle that his wife shouldn’t interfere with his work. He picked up a fried loach with his chopsticks and sipped the sorghum liquor from his cup. Though he tried not to think of the admission for the moment, his wife’s words were sinking in. He had five children and a grandson and two granddaughters; for them he had better accumulate some virtuous deeds, so that people would treat them well after he left this world. Shao Bin would ruin them if he hurt him too much.
The moment the Mas finished dinner, Bin and Meilan arrived. Mrs. Ma poured them each a cup of jasmine tea and then went to the kitchen to do the dishes. Bin was shocked that the leaders had heard of the admission. Ma told him the letter hadn’t been discussed yet. Bin begged him to raise his noble hands just this once and let him go; Ma said that he was not inclined to keep him here and that the admission was also an honor to the plant.
To a certain extent Ma felt for Bin, because he had hit his crotch in the theater, even though Bin thought it was Liu who had done that. “I’ll talk with Secretary Liu,” said Ma. “We’ll let you know of our decision soon.” He waved his cigarette, a skein of smoke encircling his hairy wrist.
“Thank you, Director Ma,” the couple said in unison.
“Young Shao, let me give you a piece of advice. You should learn to be modest and prudent. One always loses by being proud and gains by being modest.” Ma was referring to an instruction from Chairman Mao.
“Yes, I will remember that,” Bin said and grinned.
Ma then asked him what textbooks were more useful for the exams. Hesitating for a second, Bin told him he had used the set published by Jilin University. Ma made a mental note to tell his daughter to look into those books.
As Mrs. Ma stepped in, wiping her hands on a towel, Meilan opened her handbag and took out four green apples. “These’re for the kid,” she said, shyly avoiding Mrs. Ma’s eyes. She handed one of them to the baby boy, who was playing with a toy tank on the floor. He looked at the apple but didn’t touch it.
“No, we have a lot of fruit,” Mrs. Ma said, trying to put the apples back into the handbag.
Meilan stuck the bag under her own arm and said, “Just for the kid, Aunt. They’re Indian Green.”
Bin didn’t want to stay long, he was afraid of being seen by others, so the Shaos took their leave.
After they left, Ma’s face sank; he was not pleased with the apples. “What a bookworm,” he said to his wife when the young couple were out of earshot. “He doesn’t even know how to give a gift. Just four apples, crazy.” He tapped his cigarette on the rim of an empty honey jar he used as an ashtray.
He got to his feet and stretched his hands, yawning. With the apples in his jacket pockets, two on each side, he left for Liu’s to discuss the college admission.
Bin was working at a welding machine the next morning when Hsiao tapped his shoulder and told him that the plant’s leaders wanted him to attend a family-planning meeting in the union office at four in the afternoon. Bin was puzzled, because Meilan and he hadn’t done anything violating the one-child policy. He guessed that perhaps he was being invited to help enforce the policy. If so, this wasn’t a good sign; in the normal course of events, if he was going to leave the plant soon he shouldn’t be assigned any official role. Another thought unnerved him a great deal, namely that the leaders might know his exam results and meant to use this opportunity to ridicule him.
At four, in the union office, all the heads of the workshops and offices were present, in addition to the women representatives and the four workers who had second-born babies. In total, about thirty people sat around six long desks grouped together. Bin took a seat at a corner of a desk.
The union chairman, Bao, started by reporting on the situation of family planning in the plant. He was almost illiterate and couldn’t speak well, so in a halting tone he was reading out the report prepared for him by his assistant. He declared that the plant had intended to become a model of implementing the family-planning policy, but four second-born babies this year had spoiled the plan. The Third Workshop alone had three second-borns.
After Bao was done with the report, Secretary Liu stood up and announced that all those with second-born babies would lose a whole year’s bonus and wouldn’t get a raise for two years. Groans came from around the table.
“I’m not coldhearted, comrades,” Liu said. “The punishment for a second-born is clearly written in the most recent document. We have no choice but to implement it, unless you can prove that your firstborn is retarded or from a previous marriage” He stretched out his right hand, wiggling his fingers, as though inviting somebody to stand up and argue with him. No one moved except Ma.
Ma rose to his feet and waved to Nina, who was sitting in the next room. She came in, carrying a large string bag of National Glory apples with both hands, and put the fruit on the desk in front of Liu; then she went and sat down on a chair by the door. She gave Bin a contemptuous stare, her lips in a pout. At the sight of the red apples, Bin’s heart began kicking; he knew something was wrong. Liu squinted at him and smiled with his mustache twitching.
“Comrades,” Liu said loudly, “let me announce another decision here. Yesterday afternoon we received a letter from the Provincial Teachers University. It says they might admit Shao Bin to their Fine Arts Department and asks us, the plant’s leaders, to give an evaluation of him and the permission for him to leave. Before we reached a decision, yesterday evening Shao Bin and his wife went to Director Ma’s home with this gift.” Liu lifted the thirty-odd apples and dropped them on the desk with a thump. “And he begged Directo
r Ma to give him the permission to go. Too late, I say. You can’t embrace the Buddha’s feet only in your hour of need, when for years you’ve never bothered to burn a joss stick or kowtow to him.”
Liu turned to Bin and kept on. “Shao Bin, you’ve painted cartoons about us and made us look like corrupt officials. But why do you practice corruption shamelessly, bribing a revolutionary cadre? Let me tell you this now: We’re not that cheap; a bag of apples won’t buy us off.” He lifted the string bag again. Before he put it down, a camera flashed at him; as arranged, Dongfang had brought his camera to the meeting.
Some people smirked, while a few sighed, shaking their heads. “Comrades,” Liu resumed, “three weeks ago Shao Bin bit my butt. Now he’s tried to bribe Director Ma. I used to think he was merely a lunatic, suffering from schizophrenia or something, but the bribe has made me change my mind. He must have a moral problem too. Therefore this morning our Party Committee sent out a letter, together with the photos of my wound and these apples as two samples of his ‘work,’ to the university and informed them that we wouldn’t agree about their decision and wouldn’t provide Shao Bin’s file for them. In short, he’s not qualified to go to college, neither mentally nor morally.”
Bin broke out wailing, which scared the people around him. He yelled, “I screw your ancestors! You wait and see, I’ll dump your grandsons into a well!”
The last sentence horrified Liu and Ma, because each had only one grandson, a single seedling of the entire family, and Bin had said clearly, “grandsons,” meaning both of theirs. Though he might be bluffing, a desperate madman like him could do anything. If he did that, their family lines would be cut. Now they doubted whether they had done a wise thing by sending out the letter of refusal so soon. It seemed they had pressed Bin too hard without giving him a way out. Naturally he had exploded. Ma couldn’t help glaring at Liu, who had convinced him that they had best hold Bin back; the night before, Ma had been inclined to let him leave.
