by Ha Jin
He was smart indeed. On his desk there was a thick pile of paper, about two hundred pages. Mr. Zhang said those were Lev’s thoughts on Lenin’s State and Revolution. But all his smartness only caused more trouble for himself. No one would believe that a common Russian soldier could write an article the length of a book and could use the horizontal bar like a professional athlete. The more you thought about him, the more he looked like a well-trained agent.
We had to find a way to beat him in gymnastics. Even our officers couldn’t perform well on the horizontal bar, so the Divisional Staff sent over Doctor Cai, who had been on the gymnastics team at the Chinese University of Medical Science, to compete with Lev. Certainly Lev was not Doctor Cai’s match. The doctor’s body was so lean and his muscles resembled those of a hound, whereas Lev’s body looked powerful indeed but was too thick to be maneuvered deftly.
Behind the building Mr. Zhang introduced them, and they shook hands. Lev grabbed up some sand from the long-jump pit and ground it between his palms. Then he dashed forward, jumped up, held the bar, and flew back and forth in the air. Soon his body began circling around. We were all impressed, not having expected he could do the grand circles. He was flying around and around until his body slowed and stood still upside down on the bar. We were so surprised, we held our breath. After about five seconds, he swung down and landed on the ground. We clapped our hands reluctantly while he was smiling at us, breathing hard. Mr. Zhang handed him a towel.
Doctor Cai didn’t bother to wipe his hands with sand. He walked calmly to the bar and hopped a bit to grab it. After remaining motionless for a few seconds, he started to move. Without doubt, our doctor was superior. In no time his body began flying in the same kind of grand circles. After five rounds, he suddenly let both hands go and swiftly flipped his body into a backward somersault. Coming down, he seized the bar again. We whooped, cheering him on. He repeated the same movement three times. Then he came to a handstand in the air. Gracefully releasing his left hand, he stood upright on only one hand. We all applauded and shouted “Bravo!”
The game was over. Lev, with a red face, went to the doctor and they shook hands again. He didn’t look happy. It was good for him to understand that we Chinese were not so stupid as he thought, and that we could do whatever he did. For two days, he remained rather quiet and dared not challenge us.
But we all agreed he was a smart fellow who learned things fast. When he had arrived he could not play Ping-Pong; within four weeks he played as well as the best of us. It was so annoying that he always demanded you compete with him. He would point his Ping-Pong paddle at his chest and say: “Russia,” and then at you: “China.” Those were the first two Chinese words he could speak. He meant that each player represented his own country in the game. It made you nervous and unable to play at your best. Once he beat me — 21 to 18. I felt so bad that I could have torn him apart, but he was happy and gave me a Ginseng cigarette.
Even worse, after six weeks he could play Chinese chess (which he must never have seen before) better than any of us. And he always wanted to play it in the Russia-versus-China way. None of us dared play chess with him anymore, so we started to play poker, because in this game he had to choose one or more partners and could not represent Russia himself.
One afternoon we played One Hundred Points with him. His team seemed to be winning. He dashed the diamond king to the table and said loudly in Chinese, “Fuck you!” His doggy eyes turned around, looking at us seriously.
We were shocked, but then we all burst out laughing, and he laughed too. He didn’t know what those words meant. From that day on, he began to use bad language in poker games. At first, we found it hilarious hearing him toss out those expressions, which we couldn’t help using among ourselves. Then we began to worry. This meant that now he could understand some words in our language, and that he was trying to learn Chinese secretly. Scholar Wang told us to speak as little as possible when we played together. It was in our own interest not to let him understand us. He was our prisoner; if he understood our minds, God knew what would happen. So before long we played poker silently.
When he could not bear the silence, he would take out his wallet and look at the photograph of a girl, who he said was his girlfriend. He would kiss her right in our presence and then shamelessly grin at us, revealing his broad front teeth; or he would press her against his ear as if listening to her talk. By now he had got used to missing the girl. In the beginning, he had often gone to bed very early because he had missed her. We were convinced that the Russians were not good fighters. If you always thought of women, how could you fight? We all saw the girl’s picture and agreed she was pretty in a way: yellow hair, gray eyes, peach-colored cheeks, and as slim as a sleek cat. She indeed looked different from other Russian women, who had breasts as large as basketballs. I was curious to see if Lev had pictures of naked women, because we had been told that every Russian soldier had at least five naked women in his wallet. But I didn’t see any. It seemed Lev had only his girlfriend’s picture with him.
Lev’s immediate purpose for learning our language was to make out his whereabouts. Though he had been at the Eastern Airport for six weeks, he had no idea where he was. They had captured him in Hutou, which was merely two hundred li from Longmen, but they drove him in a jeep for a whole night from Hutou to Longmen, circling around and around the same mountains and back and forth through the same small towns. The windows on both sides of the jeep were covered with curtains; nobody but the Lord of Heaven could keep his bearings. Later Lev asked those officers about his location, and they refused to tell him. They also ordered us not to reveal to him what city we were in. He asked us many times and even drew a map on a sheet of paper, putting on it some Chinese cities he knew of, including Beijing, but we never identified the city we stayed in. The reason was very simple: If he had known his geographical location, it would have been easy for him to get in touch with some Russian secret agents.
Though we were still uncertain of who he was, his eagerness to find out where he was further convinced us that he was not merely a soldier. In addition to that, the Russians showed unusual interest in his case. They had continually asked about him and even offered to release some information on two Chinese defectors in exchange for information on him. Our side turned them down and refused to talk about Lev. Why was he so important to them? Of course we would not let them know anything about him before we could determine who he really was and decide how to handle him according to his true worth.
One evening, the men of our squad had gone to a movie shown at the Divisional Headquarters, and only Squad Leader Shi, Ma Lin, and I stayed with Lev at home. As usual, we played poker. Interpreter Zhang never joined us and always read in the study by himself. Lev took from his pocket a box of wine candies that Scholar Wang had given him; they contained the best wines. He put it on the table and made a gesture inviting everybody to share the dessert. We three looked at one another. Though a little surprised by his generosity, we didn’t care much and just went ahead enjoying the candies. Shi picked up a maotai, Ma a five grains’ sap, and I a green bamboo leaves. These were Chinese wines contained in Chinese candies, and our country provided Lev with them; since we were the hosts, why shouldn’t we savor them?
After playing a few rounds, Lev stood up and moved to the door. Our squad leader gave me a hint with his eyes, and I immediately went out too. Lev walked into the lavatory. I followed him in, urinating and observing him at the same time. The window of the bathroom looked onto a vast cornfield. The moon was like a little boat anchored to a golden bank of clouds. After making sure he squatted down, I went out and waited in the hall. Five minutes later he came out. He moved close to me, looking mysterious. He took out a packet of Ginseng cigarettes and handed it to me. He put on a false smile and drawled in a nasal twang, “Changchun, Harbin, Jilin, Shenyang, Beijing?” He wanted me to tell him in which of these cities we stayed. His eyes were shining like a leopard’s in the dark. I pushed aside his cigarettes a
nd shook my head. He didn’t mention Longmen and must have thought we were at least a thousand li away from Russia. That night he seemed rather absentminded during the game.
One thing we all liked about the guarding job was that we could have some good food. In the beginning Chef Wang cooked a lot of grand dishes for Lev. Only Interpreter Zhang ate with him, and he explained to him the names of the dishes and the ways they were made. Certainly Lev had never tasted anything genuinely Chinese. If he liked a dish on the first try, he would eat it all without touching the other six or seven dishes. Wiping out the first one, he would move to attack the second, then the third, and then, if he still had room in his stomach, the fourth. Through the crack between the door and its frame, we saw Interpreter Zhang watching him amusedly in the dining room, and we all laughed at his barbarous manners.
During the first week, at every meal Lev left some dishes untouched, so we, eating after him, would have those dishes in addition to our stewed vegetables and sorghum or rice. Oh, I had never tasted things so good! The quails, the bear palms, the frog legs, the oysters, the salmon, everything seemed eager to jump into your mouth. But we had to be patient, since we would share the dishes. Officers and soldiers were equal, just as we were all brothers. Chef Wang was really a kind old man, and he would smile watching us gobble down everything he made. Probably, he sometimes cooked a lot for Lev on purpose so that we could have more untouched leftovers.
As there were more important people to be fed, Chef Wang couldn’t stay long to cook for Lev. There was no sense in treating an obscure Russian man like a state guest for good. In the beginning we fed him so well in hopes that he would cooperate and tell the officers whatever they wanted to know. He talked a lot indeed, and Scholar Wang always wrote down his words translated by Interpreter Zhang, but they could not figure out the credibility and value of what he said. So after three weeks Chef Wang left, and a cook was dispatched from the Divisional Headquarters. Though the new chef, Old Bi, did not cook as well as Chef Wang, he was good enough for Lev. Lev’s daily meal expenses remained seven yuan, while every one of us had only fifty-five fen a day. In terms of board expenses, Lev ate more than our whole squad. There was no way he could eat so much, so we still benefited from his leftovers. However, Lev was civilized now — he would first try everything, make a plan of operation, and then launch an all-out attack.
One day after lunch Lev came out of the dining room with a chicken leg in his hand. Mr. Zhang followed him, climbing the stairs while Lev kept chewing the meat. Passing a window in the hall, Lev threw the unfinished chicken leg outside. The interpreter saw it and started yelling at him in Russian. We didn’t understand what he said, but we could tell he was very angry. None of us could imagine such a quiet, kind man could go mad like that. After they were in their room, we still heard Mr. Zhang shouting. He thumped the table again and again. A few minutes later, Mr. Zhang came out, walking quickly across our large room, and went downstairs. In no time he returned with a pair of chopsticks and a bowl of cooked sorghum partly covered with stewed eggplant, which was our lunch. He hurried past us, panting hard, his thick goatee vibrating a little. After he entered their room, we heard the chopsticks striking the table. Immediately we gathered at their door, peeping at them through the cracks in the plank.
Lev sat on the edge of his bed, hanging his head low. His face was as purple as an eggplant. Mr. Zhang raised the bowl of sorghum to Lev’s face, and Lev turned his head away. Then Mr. Zhang went on talking loudly. It seemed he was teaching Lev a lesson — not to forget who he was, and to understand that some Chinese didn’t even have sorghum to eat. He took up the bowl and began to eat the food himself while continuing to talk to Lev. We never found out what he said. Our squad leader asked Mr. Zhang afterwards, but he was told to forget about it.
More than being respectful, Lev was sort of attached to his interpreter. Three weeks after Mr. Zhang had yelled at him, a Russian gunboat was sunk by the Chinese militia in Hutou. The Russians protested, and a border negotiation was arranged. Mr. Zhang was summoned to join the delegation as the interpreter. During his absence, a young interpreter named Jiao Mu, a recent graduate from Jilin Foreign Language School, came to accompany Lev. Lev seemed deliberately to make things difficult for Interpreter Jiao, pretending he didn’t understand Jiao’s Russian and constantly mentioning Mr. Zhang. Perhaps he meant to remind the young officer that he would never be as good as his predecessor. He even showed us how he missed Mr. Zhang — slapping his chest, saying “Zhang,” and jerking up his square thumb.
Every day Interpreter Jiao reported to Scholar Wang that Lev had asked when Mr. Zhang would be back, as though Lev had felt something ominous. It turned out that Mr. Zhang would never be back with him again. He died in Hutou right after the negotiation. When he had arrived at the county town, he felt a pain in his stomach, but he didn’t take it seriously; he just took some painkillers and set out with the delegation. Once they were in Russia, the pain grew intense. Because he was the only interpreter in our delegation, he had to be present at the talks, which were to last for a whole day with only a lunch break. During the morning negotiation, he swallowed one tablet after another and tried hard to interpret the dialogue. He came out of the hall sweating all over. While the other officers were having lunch, he lay on a sofa unable to move. The Russians sent for a doctor. The diagnosis was acute appendicitis, and Mr. Zhang needed an immediate operation. But the negotiations were to continue in the afternoon. Without our own interpreter, the talks would be controlled by the Russians and they would cheat us, and we might make some agreements in their favor, so Mr. Zhang struggled to his feet and worked until the meeting ended. Now the doctor said the patient must be operated upon, with absolutely no delay. The Russians offered to have Mr. Zhang taken to their hospital and after the operation they would send him back. Our chief delegate, Commissar Lin of our division, asked Mr. Zhang if he wanted to stay in Russia for a few days. Mr. Zhang refused, saying with tears in his eyes: “I will never have my illness cured … by our enemy. If I’m dying, please, please let me die in our Motherland!” So they drove him back to Hutou as fast as they could, but they stopped on the way again and again, finding the road flooded and two bridges washed away by mountain torrents. Desperate as they were, they couldn’t get to the headquarters of the Fifth Regiment until three in the morning. It was too late, and Mr. Zhang passed away.
He became our hero. The Political Department of Shenyang Military Region issued a general order that required all officers and soldiers to study Zhang Fan’s moving deeds and learn from his love for the Motherland and his unbreakable Chinese spirit. The newspaper Forwards described his life and his last moments in a full front-page article. When we read the paper, we couldn’t control our tears. He was awarded the First Class Merit Citation, and the Zhangs became a Revolutionary Martyr’s Family.
Though we all felt terrible about his death, none of us took it harder than Lev. Now he had to depend on Interpreter Jiao to translate Mr. Zhang’s story in the newspaper. The young interpreter spent a whole evening in the study putting the article into Russian. The next morning after breakfast, Lev read the article, and he cried loudly, as though his parents were dead. The whole building could hear him. He wailed for almost an hour. In fact, he later told Interpreter Jiao that Mr. Zhang had been like a father to him and had taught him a profound patriotic lesson. We had never thought Lev had a heart. That day he didn’t eat lunch.
After that Lev picked up a strange habit — whatever was Russian had to be good and better and the best: Russian weather was the most congenial, Russian girls the most pretty, Russian horses the most powerful, Russian pigs the most delicious, Russian apples the most juicy, Russian tongues the most clever.
We didn’t bother to argue with him whenever Mr. Jiao interpreted to us what he said, except that once Wang Min challenged him to pronounce a few Chinese sounds that Lev’s clumsy Russian tongue couldn’t manage. We laughed but then agreed to let him indulge himself in his Russian chauvini
stic dreams alone.
The officers all went home at night and slept with their wives. Interpreter Jiao took over the night command. He had been an officer for just three months and had not yet dropped the airs of a college student. Not used to acting as a superior, he would not demand to have more men if we left him only two men guarding Lev in the evening when the rest of us went to a movie or a game in Longmen City. Three people together with Lev could play any kind of poker game. Unlike Mr. Zhang, Jiao would join in whenever Lev played with us. He wanted to seize every opportunity to improve his Russian. He was the root of our troubles; after he came, our vigilance slackened little by little.
On a Tuesday evening, we all went to the Divisional Headquarters to see a movie, having left Vice Squad Leader Hsu and Wang Min with Interpreter Jiao at home. We heard that it was an anti-espionage movie made by North Korea, and everybody felt excited. No sooner was the title, The Invisible Front, shown on the screen than the lights were on again. The loudspeaker announced: “Emergency call, emergency call: All officers and soldiers leave immediately and gather outside.
“Emergency call, emergency call …”
We jumped up and ran out. In front of the movie house we joined our company. Commander Yan was walking to and fro before us with his hands behind him, waiting for more men to arrive. The whole yard was full of shouts: “Engineer Battalion —” “Communication Battalion gather here—” “Antichemical Company go to the gate.”
Our political instructor Niu shouted to the crowd rushing out of the movie house, “Here’s Guards Company.”
Commander Yan called for attention, and we pulled our feet together. “Number One has escaped,” he declared.
I shuddered. “Number One” was Lev — our first Russian prisoner. The commander continued, “The orders just came from Beijing: We must mobilize all the troops and the militia in Longmen and the neighboring cities and counties to search every field, every hill, every ditch, every yard, every cellar until we catch him. Now, we’ve no time to decide who is responsible for his escape. It happened in our company, and it’s our responsibility to bring him back. The divisional leaders have ordered us not to return until we find him.” He paused, then shouted: “Right face. Double time.”
