Under the Hawthorn Tree

by Anna Holmwood

  She didn’t want to hear it, so she covered his mouth with her hand. ‘I won’t get married to anyone else, I’ll only marry you, have your children.’

  He pulled her in closer. ‘Why are you so good to me?’ he mumbled. ‘I want to marry you too, but . . .’

  He looked so upset that she had changed the subject: ‘The right side of my body is bigger than the left.’ She put her thumbs together to show him, then her arms, and sure enough, the right was a fraction larger than the left.

  He looked at her for a while and then took hold of her breasts and asked, ‘Do you have a big and a small one of these then?’

  She nodded. ‘The right one is a little bit bigger, so when I make my bras I have to make the right cup a bit bigger too.’

  He wriggled under the covers and stayed under there for a long time, looking, until he eventually stuck his head out and said, ‘You can’t tell when you’re lying down. Sit up and show me.’ She sat up and he confirmed that one was just a little bit bigger. ‘Can I draw you?’ he then asked. ‘I’ve studied drawing a bit. When it gets light I’ll go back to the ward and get paper and a pen.’

  ‘What would you draw me for?’

  ‘So I can look at you every day . . . If you don’t want me to we don’t have to.’

  ‘It’s not that, it’s just that you don’t need to. I can show you myself every day.’

  ‘I still want to draw you.’

  In the morning he went to fetch pen and paper, and positioned her on the bed, draping the blanket over her shoulders. He looked at her and then let her lie under the covers. He drew her for a while, looking up and then drawing some more. It didn’t take him long to finish his picture. He showed her, and even though it was just a rough sketch it still looked a lot like her.

  ‘Don’t let anyone else see it or they’ll lock you up for being a pervert.’

  ‘How could I bring myself to let anyone else see it?’ he laughed.

  That day she lay naked under the covers while he ran out to empty the bedpan, collected water for her to wash with, and food from the canteen for them to eat. With a top draped over her shoulders, she sat up in bed, eating. Once she was finished she dived back under the covers, and he too removed his clothes and got in with her. They snuggled together until there was only half an hour before the last bus left for Yanjia River. Then they jumped out of bed, flung on their clothes, and ran to the bus station.

  Now, looking back on that day, she realised that he had planned it so that she could go on living, and she had falsely accused him of being selfish and immoral. He really hadn’t done anything wrong. She was overcome with regret. It had already been nearly six months since they last saw each other, and if he had been diagnosed on the day when he had cut himself, that was eight or nine months ago. He might have died at the end of last year.

  Did that mean he was still relatively strong and would live for a long time? She was suddenly optimistic. Maybe his health was better than that of most people, maybe he was still alive? She had to find him, and if he had gone, she wanted to know where he was buried. She needed everything to be out in the open.

  Jingqiu realised that her first lead was Fang, because she had known about his condition, and it was possible that she might know his address in Anhui. Fang had said that she didn’t, but Old Third might have told her to say that. If she promised Fang that she wouldn’t commit suicide, surely she would tell her Old Third’s address.

  That Sunday Jingqiu made a trip to West Village, and went straight to Fang’s house. Auntie Zhang and the rest of them were surprised to see her, but very welcoming. Lin had already married; his wife was from a small mountainous area very far away. She was really quite beautiful, and the two of them lived with Auntie Zhang while preparing to build a new house.

  Jingqiu greeted everyone and then went with Fang to her room to talk.

  ‘I really don’t know his address in Anhui,’ Fang replied to Jingqiu’s questions, injured. ‘If I knew, would I not have told you before? I would have gone with you to help look after him.’

  Jingqiu didn’t believe her. ‘He didn’t tell anyone that he was sick, only you. He must have told you his address.’

  ‘He didn’t tell me he had leukaemia, it was my brother who overheard that when Old Third was making a telephone call at Yanjia River. He’s the second guy in the second unit who’s had it, so he was asking the unit to send someone to investigate, to see if it had anything to do with their working environment.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you tell me when I came to the school after he left?’

  ‘You told him that you had heard it from me, and he came over to ask how I knew. I told him, and he told me not to tell you, to say instead that he had told me himself. He said it was lucky that you hadn’t got those letters because in them he told you that he was afraid it had something to do with the environment around here and he wanted to warn you.’

  Jingqiu said meekly, ‘So is it an environmental problem?’

  ‘Probably not. The other person who got it was in the geological unit. He left after a while, and no one knows what the cause was . . .’

  ‘Did Old Third leave with the unit?’

  ‘He left at the end of the year, said he was going to Anhui. We haven’t had any more news.’

  Jingqiu decided to use the Labour Day holidays to go to Anhui to look for Old Third in the hope that she could see him again. If she didn’t get to meet him she hoped that she could visit his grave. She knew that Old Third came from Hefei, the provincial capital, but she didn’t know exactly where. If his father is a district level military commander then all I have to do is find Anhui’s district headquarters, and from there it must be possible to find a commander. Once I’ve found his father, I’ll obviously find his son.

  She would have to ask Mrs Jiang to help her buy a ticket to Hefei for the Labour Day holidays. The father of one of Mrs Jiang’s pupils worked at the station so he could buy a ticket for her. The trains were always jam-packed during the holidays. She didn’t have time to go and queue herself and, anyway, she might not be able to get hold of a ticket even if she did.

  Mrs Jiang agreed, but she was very worried. ‘Are you going to go on your own? It’s not safe. Your mother won’t let you.’

  Jingqiu told her that she was going to look for Old Third, and she asked Mrs Jiang to help her no matter what. If she didn’t go during the Labour Day holidays she would have to wait until the summer holidays, and by then there would be even less hope of finding him alive.

  Mrs Jiang had bought the ticket within a few days, but she bought two, saying that she would go with her, so that Jingqiu wouldn’t have to go on her own. Mrs Jiang went to talk to Jingqiu’s mother, saying that she wanted to take her youngest son, Little Brother, to visit friends in Hefei, but it would be difficult to look after him on her own, and she wanted Jingqiu to accompany them to help look after the little one. Jingqiu’s mother had no objections, and agreed readily.

  Jingqiu and Mrs Jiang took Little Brother on the train, and once they arrived in Hefei, stayed with Mrs Jiang’s friend, Mrs Hu. The next day Jingqiu and Mrs Jiang took Little Brother on several different buses until they finally found the district army headquarters. It was located in a place called Peach Blossom Ridge, and surrounded by a high wall. From outside you could see the trees on the hills behind. They were all in bloom and it looked like paradise on earth. What a good thing that Old Third came back home, Jingqiu thought on seeing the beauty of the place. It’s much nicer here than staying in my small room. I only hope he’s still here.

  The gates were guarded by an armed soldier. They said they were looking for District Commander Sun, but the guard wouldn’t let
them in, saying that the District Commander here was not called Sun. Perhaps they were mistaken. ‘Then is there a deputy commander by the name of Sun, or some other leading cadre?’

  The guard checked but said no, there wasn’t. ‘What is the District Commander called?’ Jingqiu asked.

  The soldier refused to answer. ‘It doesn’t matter what he’s called,’ Mrs Jiang said. ‘We’re here to see the District Commander.’

  The soldier had to make a call to ask for permission. They waited a while until he came out, upon which he said that the District Commander was not at home.

  ‘Is there anyone else at home?’ Jingqiu asked. She only wanted to ask after his son.

  The soldier went to make another call. Each call took ages. ‘Why does it take so long?’ Mrs Jiang asked him when he came back.

  ‘You can’t get through on a direct line to the District Commander,’ he explained. ‘You have to phone an office first and they put you through. It wastes quite a lot of time.’

  After all that to-ing and fro-ing they hadn’t discovered anything, only that the District Commander’s family were all out, on holiday perhaps. When they asked where the leading cadres went on their holidays the soldier refused to reply, as if afraid that they might ambush them on the road.

  Jingqiu was downhearted. She should never, ever, have told him that she wanted to go with him. If she had wanted to go with him she should just have done it, why did she go announcing it to him? Wasn’t she worried about scaring him?

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Crestfallen, Jingqiu caught the train back to Yichang. On the way to Anhui, she had been filled with hope that even if she didn’t get to see Old Third, she would at least get to see his family, and if he had already died, they would tell her where his grave was. How was she to know that they wouldn’t even be allowed through the main gate?

  ‘Maybe they didn’t let us in because we didn’t have a letter from our work unit,’ Mrs Jiang said. ‘Next time we’ll remember to get our work unit to write one for us, then we’ll definitely get in.’

  ‘But the soldier said that the District Commander isn’t even called Sun . . .’

  ‘Maybe he took his mother’s name. Didn’t he say that when his father was being struggled against the whole family was chased out of the army compound? They must have moved back only after he was pardoned.’

  Jingqiu thought that Mrs Jiang’s analysis might have some truth to it, but it would be the summer holidays before she could return, and who knew if he would still be there then.

  ‘The whole family was away,’ Mrs Jiang continued, ‘which is both good and bad news. The bad news is obviously that we didn’t see them, but the good news is that if they are all away on holiday, there can’t have been a family tragedy recently.’

  Mrs Jiang might be right. If Old Third was in hospital, or had died, how could his family go off travelling? He must have recovered, or the army hospital in Yichang must have misdiagnosed him. Old Third had returned to Anhui and had himself checked out by different hospitals, which confirmed that he didn’t have leukaemia after all, much to everyone’s delight. Or perhaps the geological unit had been disbanded, and so Old Third had decided to stay in Anhui.

  She imagined that Old Third was with his father and younger brother, visiting some beautiful place, taking photographs of each other, even asking passers-by to take photos of the three of them. She could see it so clearly, so vividly, she even thought she could hear the sound of his laughter.

  Jingqiu immediately began to doubt her own fantasy. ‘If he’s better, then why hasn’t he come to see me?’ she asked Mrs Jiang.

  ‘How do you know that he hasn’t gone to look for you? He might be in Yichang right now, and we went to Hefei. We might have passed each other. That is a strong possibility. Maybe you’ll get home and he’ll be sitting in your house, waiting for you, while your mother gives him a grilling.’

  Jingqiu recalled the look on Old Third’s face the last time her mother had interrogated him and she couldn’t help smiling. Now she was anxious to get home, she longed for the train to go faster. It was already late into the night by the time they arrived. Old Third wasn’t there but her mother told her that Zhou Jianxin came, but he wouldn’t say what he wanted. He sat waiting for a while, and then left.

  Jingqiu was bitterly disappointed. Why was it Little Zhou, and not Sun Jianxin?

  That evening she couldn’t sleep, so she wrote a letter to the Anhui District Commander. She wrote about Old Third’s illness, and reluctantly included one of her few photos of Old Third, begging the District Commander to help her find this Sun Jianxin. She had started to believe that Old Third’s father was not in fact the District Commander, but rather some lower-level cadre in the army. But she was sure that the District Commander would be able to find him for her.

  The next day she sent the letter by registered mail, knowing that, even though it was a bit slower, it was guaranteed to arrive. She had already given up on miracles and had no option but to prepare for the worst, the possibility that not even the District Commander would be able to find Old Third. If that was the case, she would return to Anhui every summer until she did.

  On the morning of Youth Day, 4 May, No. 8 Middle School put on a celebration. As usual, Jingqiu played the accordion for each class’s performance. Just as she finished playing for one class, a teacher came up to say there was a comrade from the People’s Liberation Army waiting for her outside, and it was urgent. He was in the reception by the main gate. She had only just sent the letter so it seemed impossible that Old Third’s father could have received it already. It could only be that he had come back from holiday, and on hearing that she had been looking for him, had sent someone to see her.

  But this didn’t seem possible either, she hadn’t told the soldiers her address, so how would he know where to find her?

  Filled with confusion, she ran to the reception, and at once caught sight of a young soldier who looked incredibly like Old Third. On seeing her he walked towards her and asked, ‘Comrade Jingqiu? I’m Sun Jianmin, Sun Jianxin’s younger brother. My brother is in a very bad way at the moment, will you come with me to the hospital?’

  Jingqiu’s legs felt as if they were giving way beneath her. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Let’s get in the car and I’ll tell you on the way. I’ve already been waiting a while. I had thought of going straight in to find you, but you’re having your celebrations today so they locked the campus gate.’

  Jingqiu was too preoccupied to ask permission to leave, and instead said to the person in reception, ‘Will you ask Mrs Jiang to come play the accordion for the rest of the show, and ask my mother to take my class in the afternoon. I have to go to the hospital, my friend is in a bad way.’

  The guard agreed, and Jingqiu rushed after Sun Jianmin to the jeep that was standing outside the gate. While they were driving Sun Jianmin told her the long sad story. After Old Third was discharged from the county hospital he didn’t go back to Anhui, but stayed with the third unit in Chrysanthemum Field, for two reasons: so that he could assist in the geological unit’s investigations into the two recent occurrences of leukaemia; and because it was only a few kilometres from No. 8 Middle’s School’s farm, and he could drive or cycle to see Jingqiu easily.

  Jingqiu sat in silence while Sun Jianmin told her that after she was transferred back to the primary school in Yichang, Old Third had followed her, being transferred to the city’s military hospital. He had only returned to Anhui for a brief visit during the Spring Festival. Their father wanted him to stay in Anhui, but he wouldn’t, so the District Commander had had no choice but to let him return with a nurse from home who would stay with him, and look after him. Their father couldn
’t stay in Yichang, but made regular visits, because the distance could be covered in ten or so hours by car.

  Sun Jianmin looked Jingqiu in the eye and told her sadly and slowly that right now Old Third’s father, sister-in-law, uncle, aunt, cousins and even a few friends were all staying at the hospital. He smiled a little. ‘When he was well enough, we took him to your school to see you, and together we watched you taking the volleyball class. We could also see you teaching your regular class from the road outside. Later, when he was confined to his bed, he would ask me to go instead, and I would tell him what I had seen. He wouldn’t let us tell you he was here in the city, nor that he had leukaemia. He said, ‘Don’t let her know, let her live like this, so carefree.’

  Jingqiu could see that he was struggling to say more. ‘According to his instructions, we weren’t going to disturb you, but he’s been in pain for too long. He’s been on his death bed for several days now. The doctors have stopped giving him his medicine or trying to save him, but he won’t take his last breath, close his eyes.’ He took her hand. ‘We thought he must want to see you again, so we’ve gone against his instructions and have come to find you without his permission. We believed that you would understand, that you would come and see him one last time.’ He held her hand and shook it slightly. ‘But you mustn’t do anything extreme, otherwise his soul will blame us from heaven.’

  Jingqiu couldn’t speak. She hoped this was a dream, a nightmare. She hoped that she would wake to see Old Third bending over her, telling her that it was all fine now.

  She heard Sun Jianmin speak. ‘Comrade Jingqiu, are you a member of the Party?’

  Jingqiu shook her head.

  ‘Part of the Communist Youth League?’

  Jingqiu nodded.

  ‘Then in the name of the Youth League, promise me you won’t do anything to hurt yourself.’

  Jingqiu nodded again, unable to speak. She was numb.