Under the Hawthorn Tree

by Anna Holmwood

  As the bus approached the station she was relieved to see Old Third standing in the yellow light of dusk, underneath a street lamp, waiting for her. As soon as the bus stopped he bounded up and eagerly squeezed along the middle of the bus towards her.

  ‘I thought you weren’t coming or that the bus had crashed. Hungry? Let’s find somewhere to eat.’ He took her bags, smiling. ‘So much stuff? Are you carrying things for other people?’ Without waiting for an explanation, he grabbed her hand and led her off the bus to find a restaurant. She tried to tug back her hand but he was holding it tight, and as it was evening, she figured no one could see anyway, so she let herself be led.

  The town was small and most of the restaurants had closed for the evening. ‘If you’ve eaten, we don’t need to find somewhere,’ Jingqiu said. ‘I can eat back at West Village.’

  Old Third pulled her by the hand. ‘Come with me, I’ve got an idea.’ He took her to an area of farmland on the outskirts of town. As long as you had money there was always food to be found. After walking a while he saw a house. ‘This one. The house is big, and so is the pigsty, so they’ll have some leftover pork. Let’s eat here.’

  They knocked on the door and a middle-aged woman opened it. On hearing that they were looking for food, and seeing coins gleaming in Old Third’s hand, she led them into the house. Old Third gave her some money, and the woman started to prepare the meal. Old Third went to help to light the fire, first sitting on a pile of hay in front of the stove. Like a seasoned expert, he stacked the firewood and lit it, and then pulled Jingqiu to sit beside him. The heap of hay was small so they had to squeeze together to fit, but despite having to almost lean against him, she wasn’t scared or nervous. After all, the people in this house didn’t know them.

  The light of the flames from the stove flickered on Old Third’s face and he looked particularly handsome. Jingqiu kept stealing glances at him, as did he at her. When their eyes met he asked, ‘Are you having fun?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jingqiu had rarely had such a sumptuous meal. The rice was fresh, simply boiled and delicious, and the dishes were flavourful and fragrant: one bowl of pan-fried tofu, one of bottle-green oily spinach, some pickles, and two handmade sausages. Old Third gave them both to her. ‘I know how much you like sausages, so I asked especially, saying if she didn’t have any we’d go elsewhere.’

  ‘How do you know I like sausages?’ She couldn’t eat both, he had to have one.

  ‘I don’t like them that much, honestly. I like pickled vegetables, we don’t get them at the camp.’

  She knew he was just saying that so she would take them both. Who doesn’t love sausages? She insisted that he eat one, and that if he didn’t she wouldn’t eat any either. They squabbled until the woman, looking on, laughed. ‘You two are so funny. Do you want me to cook another two?’

  Old Third quickly pulled out some more money. ‘Cook two more, yes, we can eat them on the road.’

  After they had finished he asked Jingqiu, ‘Do you still want to go back today?’

  ‘Of course, where else would we go?’ she said, startled.

  ‘We could find somewhere to stay.’ He smiled, then said, ‘Let’s go back, otherwise you’ll worry yourself sick about what people will say.’

  When they got outside he took her hand saying it was dark and that he didn’t want her to fall. ‘You’re not scared of me holding your hand like this, are you?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’

  ‘Has anyone ever held your hand before?’

  ‘No. Have you ever held someone else’s hand?’

  It took some time for him to reply. Eventually he said, ‘If I had, would you think me a villain?’

  ‘Then you definitely have.’

  ‘Holding hands and holding hands are two different things. Sometimes you do it because of responsibility, because you don’t have a choice, and sometimes you do it . . . out of love.’

  People usually used other words, not love. Something caught in her throat as he said this. She fell silent, unsure of what he would say next.

  ‘There’s the hawthorn tree. Do you want to go over and sit for a while?’

  ‘No. Lots of soldiers were killed there, and in the dark, it’d be scary.’

  ‘You believe in Communism and ghosts?’ he joked.

  Jingqiu was embarrassed. ‘I don’t believe in ghosts, I just don’t like the darkness of the forest, that’s all.’ Suddenly she remembered the first time she’d seen the hawthorn tree and asked him, ‘The day I came to West Village, I thought I saw someone standing underneath the tree, wearing a white shirt. Did you stop at this tree that day?’

  ‘Someone in a shirt on such a cold day?’ Old Third said. ‘They’d have frozen to death. Maybe one of the Japanese soldiers’ wronged spirit looks like me. Maybe that day he appeared, and you just happened to see him, so you thought it was me. Look! He’s appeared again.’

  Jingqiu didn’t dare look around. Frightened, she started to run, but Old Third pulled her back into his arms, and holding her tight, he whispered, ‘I was joking, there’s no such thing as wronged spirits. I only said it to scare you.’ He held her for a while, and then joked again, ‘I wanted to scare you into my arms. I had no idea you would start running in the opposite direction. Obviously, you don’t trust me.’

  Jingqiu buried her head in his chest. She couldn’t pull herself away – she really was scared – and so dug herself deeper into this body. He pulled tighter, until her cheek found itself up against his heart. She had no idea men’s bodies smelt like this, so indescribably wonderful that it made her giddy. She thought, if I had someone to depend on and trust, I wouldn’t be afraid of the dark, nor of ghosts. Only of other people seeing us.

  ‘But you’re scared too.’ She raised her head to look up at him. ‘Your heart is beating very fast.’

  ‘I’m really scared,’ he said. ‘Listen to my heart beating, beating so hard it’s going to jump out of my mouth.’

  ‘Can your heart jump out of your mouth?’ Jingqiu laughed.

  ‘Why not? Haven’t you ever read that in books?’

  ‘It says that in books?’

  ‘Of course. His heart was beating so fast it was almost in his mouth.’

  Jingqiu felt her heart, and with a hint of suspicion asked, ‘It’s not fast, certainly not as fast as yours, so how could it nearly be in my mouth?’

  ‘You can’t feel it yourself? If you don’t believe me, open your mouth and I’ll see if it’s in there.’

  Before she had time to react he had already leant down to kiss her. Jingqiu tried to force him off. But he didn’t pay any attention and continued kissing her, stretching his tongue so far into her mouth that she almost gagged. It’s obscene, how can he do this? No one had ever said that kissing was like this. He can’t be doing this for any honourable reason, she thought, so I’ll have to try to stop him. She bit together so he could only slide his tongue between her lips and her teeth but his assault continued, and she continued to lock her jaw shut.

  ‘Don’t . . . you like it?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ That actually wasn’t the truth. It wasn’t that she didn’t like it, it was just that the way it made her feel, the way she wanted to respond startled her. It made her feel wanton and depraved. She liked having his face close to hers, she liked discovering that a boy’s face could be warm and soft; she had always thought them cold and hard like stone.

  He laughed, and relaxed his hold a little. ‘You’re certainly making me work hard.’ He put her backpack back on. ‘Let’s go.’ For the rest of the way he didn’t hold her hand, just walked b
eside her.

  Jingqiu asked cautiously, ‘Are you angry?’

  ‘I’m not angry, I’m just concerned that you don’t like holding my hand.’

  ‘I didn’t say I didn’t like it.’

  He grabbed hold of it. ‘So you do like it?’

  ‘You know so why ask?’

  ‘I don’t know, and you’re teasing me. I want to hear you sayﾠit.’

  Still she didn’t answer and he persisted in squeezing her hand as they walked down the mountain.

  The man who operated the small ferry had shut down for the day. ‘Let’s not shout for the boat,’ Old Third said. ‘There’s a saying around here to describe unresponsive people, it goes, speaking to them is like calling for the ferry after hours. I’ll carry you on my back instead.’

  As he spoke he took off his shoes and socks, and after stuffing his socks into his shoes he tied them together with his laces and hung them around his neck. Next he fastened his bags around his neck in a similar fashion. He knelt down in front of her so she could climb on, but she refused. ‘I’ll go myself.’

  ‘Don’t be embarrassed. Come on, it’s not good for girls to walk in cold water. It’s dark, no one can see. Jump up.’

  She climbed on to his back reluctantly, and clasped his shoulders, trying hard to make sure her breasts didn’t touch his back. ‘Lean over, and put your arms around my neck otherwise it won’t be my fault if you fall in the water.’ At that moment he seemed to slip, tilting sharply to one side, so she threw herself forward and flung her arms around his neck, her breasts pressing against his back. It was strangely comfortable. He, however, was shivering all over.

  ‘Am I too heavy?’

  He didn’t reply, trembled for a while, and then settled. Carrying her, he slowly waded across the river. Midway, he said, ‘We have a saying where I’m from, “an old man needs to be married, an old woman needs to be carried”. I’ll carry you whether you’re old or not. How does that sound?’

  She blushed, and blurted out, ‘How can you say something like that? Say it again and I’ll jump into the water.’

  Old Third didn’t respond to this but nodded downstream. ‘Your brother Lin’s standing over there.’

  Jingqiu saw Lin sitting by the river with a water bucket to either side of him. Old Third climbed on to the bank, released Jingqiu, and while putting on his shoes and socks said, ‘You wait here, and I’ll go talk to him.’ In a low voice he spoke a few words to Lin and then returned to Jingqiu. ‘You go home with him, I’ll go back to camp from here.’ With that, he slipped out into the night.

  Lin collected water in the two buckets, swung them on to his shoulders, and walked back to the house without uttering a word. Jingqiu followed behind, terror-stricken. Is he going to tell everyone about this, tell my association? I’m finished. She wanted to use the time before they got home to speak with Lin: ‘Lin, don’t be mistaken, he only accompanied me. We . . .’

  ‘He said.’

  ‘Don’t tell anyone else, people won’t understand.’

  ‘He said.’

  Everyone was surprised that she had arrived so late. Auntie asked repeatedly, ‘Did you come back on your own? Over the mountain? Oh, you’re so brave; I don’t even dare walk that way on my own during the day.’

  Chapter Seven

  Jingqiu was so apprehensive that Lin would tell other people what he had seen at the river that she took a long time to get to sleep. He hadn’t told anyone yet, but wasn’t that because she was there? Once my back is turned, he’s going to tell Auntie, isn’t he? If he really was waiting by the river for her return then he’d be sure to blab, because she knew he couldn’t stand seeing her with Old Third. The worst scenario would be for Lin to tell people about her and Old Third, and for this information to find its way to the ears of her association, and through it to her school. What would happen if the school found out?

  Her bad class status worried her for although her mother had been ‘liberated’ and was now serving as a teacher to the masses, her father was still a landowner. Of the five bad elements – landowner, rich peasant, counter-revolutionary, corrupt cadre, rightist – landowner was the stinkiest enemy to the working class of all of them. Her school would certainly seize upon any ‘bad behaviour’ and use it as a stick to beat a landowner’s daughter like her. And they’d be sure to pull in the rest of her family too.

  Her father’s class label was extremely unfair. Not only had he left home at an early age to study, but his family had not taken rent from the tenants on their land, so he was doubly wronged and should never have been classed as a landowner. He should have been seen as a progressive youth. He’d fled enemy territory for the liberated areas at least a couple of years before 1949, using his musical talents to serve the people by organising a choir for propagating Communism and Mao Zedong, teaching the masses ‘A liberated sky is a brilliant sky’. No one knew why, but once the Cultural Revolution started he was singled out and accused of being an undercover agent in the service of the Nationalists. Eventually he was branded a landowner, and sent to labour camp. The truth of the matter was that they couldn’t give him more than one label, and so only the one capable of causing the most harm would do; ‘secret agent to Chiang Kai-shek’, ‘active counter-revolutionary’ and heaven knows what else simply weren’t injurious enough.

  Even the smallest error on her part, therefore, would bring about even greater misfortune. These thoughts filled her with remorse for her actions. She couldn’t work out what had come over her, it was as if she had taken some kind of bewitching drug. Old Third told her to take the mountain road, so she took the mountain road. Old Third said he wanted to wait for her in town, so she let him wait in town. Afterwards, she let him take her by the hand, let him hold her, let him kiss her. And the worst of it all was that Lin had seen him carrying her across the river. What now? The worry consumed her. How can I stop Lin from saying something, and if he does, what do I do then? She didn’t have the energy to even think about what she felt about Old Third.

  The following few days Jingqiu was on edge, conscious of every word she said to Auntie and Lin, and scrutinising Auntie for evidence of his betrayal. She realised that Lin did not have a loose tongue; he was like a sealed calabash. It was Auntie she was worried about. If she were to hear about it, then it would definitely get out. Jingqiu felt trapped by the threads of the thoughts as they wound themselves around her. Sometimes Auntie displayed an all-knowing look, but other times she was quiet, as if unruffled by suggestions or wafts of gossip.

  Old Third still came to Auntie’s house, but his place of work had moved to another part of the village so he couldn’t come at lunchtimes. He often came in the evenings, however, and each time he would bring food. Twice he brought sausages that he had bought from a local farmer. Auntie cooked them, cut them into pieces, and prepared vegetables as accompaniments. One such evening, Jingqiu discovered a chunk of sausage hidden beneath the rice in her bowl. She knew Old Third must have put it there. Knowing as he did that she liked sausage, he was making sure she received more than the others.

  She didn’t know what to do with the extra piece of meat. It disarmed her. Her mother had narrated stories from the old days in which loving husbands from the countryside would hide meat in their wives’ rice bowls. Young wives had no status in the family, and had to yield constantly to everyone else. If there was ever something nice to eat she would have to wait for her husband’s parents to eat first, then her husband, then any uncles and aunts, and finally her own children. By the time it came to her turn, only vegetables would remain.

  Husbands didn’t dare display love in front of their parents, so if they wanted to give their beloved wives a piece of meat they’d have to resort to tricks. Her mo
ther told Jingqiu the way such a favoured young wife would eat the hidden meat: first, furtively, she would mash it up, then, lifting the bowl to her mouth, she would dig the meat out from the bottom of the bowl as if excavating a tunnel, pretending only to be shovelling rice. Quietly, she would chew, while ploughing the remaining meat back ‘underground’. She had to be careful not to eat up all the rice before taking a second helping, thereby uncovering the buried treasure. But you couldn’t go for another helping of rice without having finished the first because if her parents-in-law saw she would get a terrible telling-off.

  Her mother told her about a young girl who, because of her husband’s love, choked to death. He hid a boiled egg in her bowl, the family’s only egg, and scared that she would be discovered she stuffed it into her mouth in one go. Just as she was about to chew her mother-in-law asked her a question, and so in order to answer, she swallowed it whole. The egg got stuck in her throat and she died.

  Jingqiu looked down into her bowl, her heart thumping in her chest. If Auntie sees, won’t it be used as evidence against me? If a young wife was caught, she was decried as a temptress who had seduced her husband. If Jingqiu let anyone find out now, she’d be in an even worse position than those wives, and the news would definitely reach her colleagues in the Educational Reform Association.

  Jingqiu glanced over at Old Third and saw him looking back at her, his expression seemingly asking, ‘Delicious?’ He was artful, and she longed to strike him with her chopsticks. This piece of hidden sausage was a minefield. She was too scared to dig it out from her rice, but if she didn’t eat it her rice would soon be gone and the offending sausage would be revealed. Half a bowl in, she rushed into the kitchen and flicked the piece of meat into the bucket for the pig.