The river in front of the school had nearly completely dried up, leaving only a narrow stream of water. People had made a walkway across the mud to enable them to get to a small boat that could take them over what was left of the river. On either side of the walkway the mud had dried in patches, the large cracks revealing only a glimpse of the thick sludge beneath the surface. One of the naughtiest boys from Mrs Wang’s class, a boy called Ceng, escaped the class and went to play in the mud. All on his own, he ventured out too far, and started to sink into the silt, but the more he flailed the deeper he sank.
It was only two days later that the boy’s body was found near the makeshift walkway. When Ceng’s father saw his boy’s face and mouth slathered in stinking mud he was overcome with anger and bitterness. He placed all the blame on Mrs Wang’s shoulders. Had she been a more competent teacher his son would never have run away, would never have met with this awful fate. Ceng’s father rallied his friends and relatives to harass Mrs Wang every day, demanding that she should pay with her life. The school had no choice but to send Mrs Wang to the countryside to hide for a while. No one dared take over her class, so the school assigned it to Jingqiu.
Jingqiu knew that if she refused to take this class the school would not let her teach another. So, returning to Yichang, she took over Mrs Wang’s class 4A. Ceng’s father had no complaints about Jingqiu, so he caused her no trouble. As far as the other parents were concerned, they were merely grateful that the class would finally get a new teacher.
Jingqiu threw herself body and soul into her work, preparing classes, teaching, visiting the parents, talking with her students; she was busy until late every day. She also began to practise volleyball again, and set up a girls’ team at the primary school. Sometimes she would even take the class on outings, much to the students’ delight, and they quickly became the best-behaved class in their year.
Jingqiu had very little time during the day to think about Old Third. But at night, when it was quiet and there was no one else around, she would lie in bed thinking of the past, and doubt would enter her mind. Is Old Third really such a scoundrel? Could he be lying in a hospital somewhere, dying?
It suddenly struck her that she hadn’t tried the army hospital in Yichang where Old Third had taken her when he cut himself with the knife. Maybe this was where he had been diagnosed with leukaemia. The more she thought about it the more uneasy she felt. She would ask Dr Cheng to ask for her.
Dr Cheng told her that that hospital wasn’t part of Yichang’s medical system and was under the direct jurisdiction of the central government. It had been set up as part of Chairman Mao’s call to educate the people to ‘prepare for war, fight against natural disasters’, and was built for senior-ranking cadres only. It was still difficult for ordinary folks to be treated there.
Dr Cheng spent a lot of energy trying to find out about Sun’s condition, and discovered from his medical records that it did appear that Sun Jianxin showed signs of a slight decrease in his blood platelets, but that was not a conclusive sign of leukaemia.
Jingqiu gave up all hope. She had repeated the same story that had been playing out for thousands of years. She wasn’t the first girl to be tricked, and she wouldn’t be the last. In fact, she was starting to believe that it wasn’t Old Third who she had always been in love with, but Dr Cheng. She had only fallen for Old Third because he resembled Dr Cheng in so many ways. But when it came to fundamentals they were completely different.
The production team on Jiangxin Island specialised in growing bean sprouts, so the local families based their diet around them. Jingqiu thought that Old Third and Dr Cheng were like two beans growing from the same crisp, white stem; one was blackened and rotten, while the other was still a healthy shade of yellow. The thing that made them different was their attitude to ‘success’. Dr Cheng had been married for so many years, but he was as loyal and devoted to Mrs Jiang as ever. By contrast, as soon as he had ‘succeeded’ with her, Old Third had run away from her.
She started going to Mrs Jiang’s house more and more often just to hear the sound of Dr Cheng’s voice, to see his honest devotion to his wife. Dr Cheng was, quite possibly, the only man on Jiangxin Island who carried away the dirty water after his wife and mother-in-law had washed their feet. In the summer, everyone used large wooden tubs to collect water and wash in. Not one woman on the island was able to lift the tubs, and instead they would have to empty them out one ladle at a time. But Dr Cheng would always carry out the tub himself.
Jingqiu never once thought that this compromised Dr Cheng; on the contrary, she thought him a magnificent man. It was his love for his two children that particularly moved her. On summer evenings you could often see Dr Cheng taking his eldest son to the river to swim while Mrs Jiang sat with their youngest on the bank, watching. When not out swimming, Dr Cheng would play with his sons on the bed, letting them ride him like a horse.
Dr Cheng and his wife were everyone’s idea of a loving couple, two zithers in perfect harmony. One played the accordion while the other sang along; watching them together was one of the most heart-warming sights on the island. In Jingqiu’s eyes, only a man whose thoughts and actions were one, who was constant, just like Dr Cheng, was worthy of her love.
His tender love for his wife and sons inspired her to compose fragments of poetry in her head; each scene, each feeling had to be captured. They wouldn’t leave her, as if calling out to her to be written down. When back in her room she would do so, never mentioning his name, but using only the pronoun ‘he’.
Jingqiu had moved now into a small room of about ten square metres belonging to the school which she shared with another teacher, Miss Liu. Their room contained a desk with two drawers, one each. This was her small corner of the world where she could lock away her secrets.
Miss Liu’s family lived by the river and every weekend she went back to visit, so at the weekends the room was Jingqiu’s sole domain. She would lock the door, take out Old Third’s letters and photographs and imagine that they had all been given to her by Dr Cheng. She was happy when engaged in these thoughts, intoxicated almost, because these words could only have meaning coming from someone like Dr Cheng. Otherwise, they were worthless. She copied out some of her poems so that she could show them to Dr Cheng. She didn’t know exactly why, she just wanted to.
One day, she slipped these small poems into Dr Cheng’s jacket pocket as he was taking his son back from her arms. For the next few days she was too scared to go back to Dr Cheng’s house. She didn’t feel that she had done anything wrong because she had made no effort to take Dr Cheng away from his wife. She worshipped him, that was all, loved him. She had written those poems for him, so she wanted him to read them. The real reason she avoided their house was that she feared Dr Cheng would laugh at her writing, laugh at her feelings.
One evening that weekend, Dr Cheng came looking for her. He gave back the poems and said, with a smile, ‘Little girl, your writing is beautiful, you will become a great poet, and you will meet the “him” in your poems. Keep them, keep them to give to him.’
Jingqiu was flustered and confused, and kept trying to explain. ‘Sorry, I don’t know what I was writing, nor why I put them in your pocket. I must have gone crazy.’
‘If you’ve got anything on your mind, talk to Mrs Jiang. She’s got experience, she’ll understand you. And she can keep a secret.’
‘Please don’t tell Mrs Jiang about these,’ Jingqiu begged. ‘She would be so angry with me. Please don’t tell anyone.’
‘I won’t. Don’t worry, you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve only written a few poems, and asked someone with no clue about poetry to comment on them. I’m afraid I don’t have much to say when it comes to poetry, but when it comes to real life problems, I can help.’
His voice was soft, sincere. Jingqiu didn’t know if it was because she trusted him, or because she wanted to show that she felt nothing but admiration for him, but she began to tell Dr Cheng more about her relationship with Old Third, leaving out only the night at the hospital.
‘Maybe he really has got leukaemia, in spite of what I found in the records,’ Dr Cheng said after she had finished, ‘otherwise there’s no good reason for him to avoid you. He may well have been at the county hospital to be treated for a cold. Leukaemia weakens the immune system, so it makes all these illnesses easy to catch. There is no cure for leukaemia at the moment. They can only treat the symptoms, and try to keep sufferers alive as long as possible. The county hospital might not be aware that he has it, maybe it was the army hospital that diagnosed him.’
‘But didn’t you say that the army hospital diagnosed him with a reduced platelet count?’
‘It’s possible he might have asked the hospital to keep it a secret. I’m only guessing, I might not be right. But if it were me, I’m afraid that I might do the same, because you said you wanted to die with him. What choice did he have? He couldn’t really let you go with him, could he? And how could he stand letting you see him getting thinner, more gaunt by the day? If it were you, you wouldn’t let him see you fading away like that, would you?’
‘So, you’re saying that he’s all alone in Anhui, waiting to die?’
‘I can’t say,’ Dr Cheng said, after giving it some thought. ‘He might even be in the city. If it were me, I would come back to Yichang, so that I could be . . . a bit closer.’
‘Could you possibly help me by asking around all the local hospitals then?’
‘I can ask for you, as long as you promise not to do anything stupid.’
‘I won’t, I . . . I . . . won’t say that ever again.’
‘Not that you won’t say it, that you won’t do it either. He’s worried about you, and this is adding to his worries. Maybe he’s . . . already prepared himself for his fate, maybe he’s come to peace with his death, but if he thinks you will go with him, he will be angry with himself. At the hospital I regularly see the inconsolable grief of families when they lose loved ones. The thing that strikes me most is that our lives don’t just belong to us, we can’t do whatever we please with them. If you followed him, how would that affect your mother? How awful would it be for your brother and sister? We would all be upset, and this would be of no benefit to him. While he is still alive it will only add to his worries, and after he’s gone . . . you must know there is no afterlife, there is no other world, that if two people die together they will not be reunited. He was right, as long as you’re alive he won’t die.’
‘I’m scared . . . that’s he’s already . . . Can you ask around, as soon as possible?’
Dr Cheng asked everywhere, but not one of the hospitals in the city had Sun Jianxin as a patient, and that included the army hospital. ‘I’ve exhausted all avenues, I must have been wrong, maybe he’s not in Yichang.’
Jingqiu had also exhausted all avenues; the only thing that comforted her was the thought that Dr Cheng had been wrong. ‘If it were me . . .’ he had said, but Old Third wasn’t him, in the most important respects they were like chalk and cheese. She hadn’t made this clear to Dr Cheng, so maybe his predictions were inaccurate.
One day, in April 1976, Jingqiu’s friend Wei Ling, who was studying at the district teacher training college, came to visit Jingqiu. She had visited her parents every weekend and she and Jingqiu often spent time together.
This time, as soon as Wei Ling saw Jingqiu she blurted out, ‘I’m in deep trouble, you’re the only person who can save me.’
Startled, Jingqiu asked what had happened.
Wei Ling faltered, and managed to stutter, ‘I . . . might be . . . carrying a baby. But my boyfriend never put that stuff in there, so how can I be pregnant?’
‘Put what stuff there?’
‘The stuff that makes babies, of course, boy’s sperm.’
Jingqiu didn’t really want to know the details. She wanted to help, but she didn’t want to go into the nitty gritty. But the details were important, so she had to ask. ‘Put the stuff for making babies where?’
‘Eugh, you’ve never had a boyfriend, you’ve never done it, you wouldn’t understand. Put the stuff for making babies where your old friend comes out.’ Wei Ling was angry. ‘He didn’t actually put it in there, but it went all over my front, so some of it must have got in there, otherwise how could I now be pregnant? Did it fall from the sky? I’m certain, I haven’t done it with any other man.’
Jingqiu was shocked. Put that sticky stuff in ‘there’? Disgusting!
She suddenly realised that Old Third really was everything he had seemed. He hadn’t ‘done’ anything to her, he hadn’t spread his stuff down there inside her. And if he hadn’t ‘succeeded’ with her, then all her explanations of his behaviour were wrong. He really must be sick. He must have lied to her out of fear that she would kill herself and felt compelled to run away to Anhui. In doing so, he might have made her hate him, but he was also saving her life.
She was heartbroken. She had no idea how to find him, or whether he was even still alive.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jingqiu had never imagined that she was this ignorant, that she didn’t even know what sharing a bed really involved. If Wei Ling hadn’t come to her, she would have continued to blame Old Third unfairly. She had thought that ‘sleeping together’ simply involved sharing a room with a man.
He had said that he daren’t touch her, scared that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from doing what husbands did to their wives. She had told him not to worry, that he should do it, that if he didn’t they would both die without having experienced it. Then, Old Third had climbed on top of her, and she believed what had followed was exactly that, what husbands did to their wives.
That evening she had been ignorant but curious, and as a result had said some inappropriate things, which must have upset Old Third. If only I could cut my tongue out! That night, after they had been ‘flying’, she wiped the creamy stuff from her stomach with a towel. ‘How do you know it’s not urine?’ she had asked.
‘It’s not,’ he said awkwardly.
‘But doesn’t pee usually come out of there too?’ He nodded, and she continued, ‘Then how do you know that it wasn’t pee this time? When isn’t it? Could you make a mistake?’
He was hesitant, and could only reply in a muddle. ‘You can feel it. Don’t worry, it definitely isn’t . . . pee.’ He got out of the bed and poured some water into a wash basin, wrung out the towel and wiped her hands and stomach carefully. ‘Feeling less worried?’
‘I’m not calling you dirty,’ she explained. ‘I’m just scared of this creamy stuff.’
He took her in his arms and laughed silently. ‘I didn’t ask to be made this way, maybe you should ask God.’
Then he told her about his first time. He was only in primary six at the time, and was sitting an exam. The question was very difficult, and he wasn’t sure he could do it, and as he grew nervous it felt like he was peeing, but it was also strangely pleasurable. Only later did he discover that this was what people called ‘ejaculating’.
‘You were such a . . . bad boy when you were in primary six?’
‘It’s not naughty, it’s a normal, physical process. When boys hit puberty they start to develop, and then this sort of thing happens. Sometimes it happens while you’re dreaming. Just like you girls, once you get to a certain age you get your . . . “old friend”.’
It was all becoming clear, boys had their own ‘old friends’. But why did girls feel ill when their old friends c
ame to visit, while for boys the experience was ‘strangely pleasurable’? It didn’t seem fair.
She then told him about her first time. It happened when her mother was in hospital, about five or so kilometres from their home. Her sister was still small, and couldn’t walk great distances, so she spent the night with their mother in the hospital, sleeping in the same bed. Jingqiu, on the other hand, would spend the day looking after her mother, and then went back in the evenings, to stay with her friend Zuo Hong.
One day, in the middle of the night, they both got up to use the toilet and Zuo Hong said, ‘You must have got your period, the bed’s all red. I haven’t got mine yet.’
Zuo Hong helped her find some toilet paper, and used a length of bandage to hold it in place. Jingqiu was scared and ashamed, and didn’t know what to do. ‘Every girl gets her period at some point,’ Zuo Hong told her. ‘Some of your classmates might have got it already. Just tell your mum when you go to the hospital and she’ll teach you all about it.’
The next day Jingqiu went to the hospital, but couldn’t seem to get the words out; she um-ed and ah-ed until she eventually told her mother.
‘What timing!’ her mother said. ‘And so life carries on in its mysterious way.’
When Old Third heard this he said, ‘I hope you will get married, have children, have a daughter, and then another and another, and they will all grow up just like you. That way there will be a Jingqiu in every generation.’
Under the Hawthorn Tree Page 32
