by Ha Jin
“Then how in the world did they know I had another engagement there?”
“It was obvious like a fat louse on a bald head. Everybody in our delegation could see that you were not on the return flight. I’ll tell you what, stay put and keep your composure. I’ll contact Secretary Niu this minute and let her know you’re back—no damage is done. If the meeting is still on this afternoon, you should be there to defend yourself.”
“Should I mention you gave me the approval?”
Meng lowered his head; his mind seemed to be churning. He raised his thick-lidded eyes and said, “Why not just tell them the truth? After you changed your flight, you came to tell me about that. In other words, you initiated the whole thing.”
“Fine, I can do that.”
Tian called his wife, Shuna, and told her about his trouble. She was disturbed but said he must remain as composed as though he’d done nothing wrong—even if they accused him of violating rules, his offense wouldn’t be dealt with too harshly. He was the lead tenor in the People’s Ensemble, a major company of theatrical performances in Beijing, and he should be able to find work elsewhere easily if they fired him. Over the years he had been approached time and again by some troupes in other cities that offered him better-paying jobs, but he wouldn’t leave Beijing. Nowadays high-speed trains and frequent flights were so ubiquitous that he could work in another city while still living in the capital. His wife was a history professor at Tsinghua University, specializing in the Ming Dynasty. Today, a Monday, was her busiest day of the week—she had to go without further delay to teach her graduate seminar. Before hanging up, she said to Tian, “People can get jealous. If they want to confiscate the money you made, just let them have it.”
His gut told him this whole thing might not be so simple, but Shuna was right that for now he should remain calm. So he stayed in another rehearsal hall in the basement, doing some vocal practice, and waited to hear from his director.
Early in the afternoon, Meng phoned, saying Tian should attend the meeting at three o’clock. He reminded Tian to be patient and explain everything clearly, as they had agreed that morning. Tian felt a tad relieved, hoping that the leaders would be lenient if he told them the whole story. Since he was already back in person, he shouldn’t be too perturbed. He’d better play innocent with them. As long as he could escape disciplinary action, he’d swallow any criticism.
The meeting was in their small conference room, about twenty people seated around an oblong mahogany table. The atmosphere struck Tian as ominous. He didn’t talk with anyone, even though he knew some of them well. He just nodded at them. Still some wouldn’t return his nodding. Secretary Niu sat at the head of the table and motioned for him to sit down three or four people away from her, near a high window. Then she gave a sheaf of a Xeroxed handout to the young man who was a flutist and headed the Communist Youth League of their ensemble, and asked him to pass it around. Tian picked up his sheet and was shocked to see one of the group photos that had been taken onstage in Manhattan with himself, Yabin, and his colleagues. What does this mean? he asked himself, but couldn’t find an answer. His heart buckled and his head began to spin as he noticed a faint smirk cross Niu’s flat face. She was close to fifty and had been assigned to head their ensemble mainly because her husband had transferred to the capital as a vice minister in the State Council, so hers was more like a spousal appointment, considering she didn’t even have a college degree and knew little about the performing arts. Usually she had been polite to Tian, and in a way he liked her outspokenness and gusty temper.
When all the attendees were seated, Niu waved the Xeroxed sheet and said in a grating voice, “This was sent over by the Ministry of Culture. Comrade Yao Tian owes us an explanation.” She turned to him. “What on earth made you join the ranks of those reactionaries? Didn’t you know this would contravene our government’s policies?”
“I can’t follow you, Secretary Niu,” Tian said honestly. “They invited me to sing two songs on their National Day. I knew Taiwan’s National Day was different from ours, but they were celebrating China as one nation, and I joined them in that. What’s wrong with that? I can’t comprehend. Doesn’t our government always encourage cultural exchanges with the Taiwanese?”
“The show was mainly organized by Taiwan’s Pan-Green Coalition. This means most of the sponsors and organizers belong to the Democratic Progressive Party that advocates Taiwan’s secession from China. By rule, we are not allowed to mix with them. Before you left for America, we told you that.”
He became more baffled and asked, “How could I tell which party the organizers belonged to? I asked the man who approached me about the organizers of the event, and he told me it was sponsored by the Chinese immigrants in New York and New Jersey. The man was originally from Beijing and said they’d be honored if I could join them in their celebration of China as a nation. That was why I agreed to sing. In fact, President Ma Ying-jeou wrote them an official letter that emphasized one China.”
Director Meng joined in, “Tian, I just read the memo sent over from the Ministry. The organizers were mostly members of the Pan-Green Coalition.”
“Come on now, I don’t even know what that term means,” Tian said frankly.
“In essence it means independence from mainland China,” Niu told him again.
“Then why did they celebrate the National Day?” He still couldn’t make full sense of this.
Niu went on, “Because they want to gain influence over the Chinese community in New York. And you helped them, and for that you got four thousand dollars.”
He was startled. Did Yabin rat on me? he wondered. Unlikely. Then how could they know the exact figure? He’d heard there were Chinese spies everywhere in America, but he hadn’t thought they would be interested in how much he’d been paid for a small gig. He turned speechless and hung his head.
People at the meeting began to talk about his breach of rules, but most of them sounded sympathetic, especially those he knew well. One even argued that Tian should be forgiven because this was his first violation. An older woman, however, mentioned the four thousand dollars he’d made, wondering if he should surrender it to their company, but no one else picked up the topic.
Finally Niu smirked and said, “I don’t want to discipline Yao Tian either. I can see he might have stepped into this mess by accident. But we cannot afford to do nothing. This case was sent down from above, and Comrade Yao Tian should give us a formal explanation and hand in his self-criticism.”
The attendees all nodded and agreed. So she announced that she would allow him a week to write his explanation and self-criticism. In the meantime, he should stay home from work and focus on soul-searching and the writing. Once he handed it in, she would dispatch it to the Ministry of Culture and let them decide what to do. He had misgivings about this arrangement, but was not in a position to argue, so he said he’d do his best to produce what she wanted.
* * *
—
Neither Shuna nor Tian took his weeklong paid suspension as a serious punishment. She even joked that now he could cook for her and their daughter, Tingting, which he was glad to do. It wouldn’t be difficult to write the explanation and self-criticism, so he could take it easy. They lived in the university’s housing and Shuna walked to her office each day. Tingting’s middle school, affiliated with Tsinghua University, was nearby; and, already thirteen, she could go there by herself.
He slept in the next morning, and after a late brunch, he practiced his voice for two hours, exercising diaphragmic breathing, blowing his lips, and singing some long phrases slowly. He then listened to the recordings of a few classical songs and also played some snatches on his small piano to find the right notes. After the work, he went to the supermarket nearby to pick up groceries for dinner. He bought a carp, a stout bamboo shoot, and a piece of streaky pork. On his way back, he stopped at a food stand and had a ch
ive calzone and a bowl of jellied tofu spiced with a touch of chili oil and minced toon leaves. Whenever Shuna and Tingting were not home, he’d eat out at a snack bar or food stand. He was a fine cook, but usually didn’t spend much time preparing meals.
As Tian was passing a tea stand outside his building, a few old men motioned for him to sit with them and chat, but he waved back, saying he couldn’t join them today. Those elders were all retired, had too much time on their hands, and enjoyed gossiping and prattling. Once alone at home, Tian began writing the self-criticism. He wasn’t a Party member, nor did he plan to join the Party in the future, so he wouldn’t have to talk much about his political position or his ideology. Instead, he focused on his lack of discipline and on his negligence. He wrote: “First, I should have consulted our troupe’s director before I changed my return flight. Second, I should have been more careful about the background of the people who invited me, and at least asked more questions. That way and with Director Meng’s help, I might be able to figure out the true nature of the event organizers. Third, I shouldn’t have been seduced by the hefty fee. I got greedy when I heard that they would pay me four thousand dollars, and I let that sway me. Money is a useful tool for a rational person, but it must not be the other way around: letting money rule oneself. This is a painful lesson for me. Now I am prepared to surrender the whole sum to our company, or donate it to an orphanage or a senior folks’ home.”
He got stuck there, unable to say anything else of substance, so he put the paper and pen away. It was time to make dinner. Tingting loved the fish Tian cooked, so he braised the carp with his signature method. After cleaning the fish, he rubbed it with rice vinegar so that its skin wouldn’t be too slippery, then he did the same with soy sauce and cooking wine and let the carp marinate. Meanwhile, he cut the pork into small cubes, the bamboo shoot to lozenge slivers, and a handful of soaked shiitake mushrooms to slices. Next he heated a wok and deep-fried the fish. With smashed garlic, diced scallion, and ginger, he stir-fried the meat and the bamboo shoot and the mushrooms for a moment, then put in some water to make a stock. Having placed the fish into the wok, he dripped some rice wine onto it to get rid of the fishy smell. He put the glass lid on the wok and let it stew.
In addition to the fish, he made two vegetable dishes, steamed eggplant and sautéed string beans. To go with this, there were a bitter melon soup and boiled rice.
He enjoyed seeing Tingting and Shuna eat heartily. His daughter kept saying she wished he could stay home every day so he could make dinner like this for her. “Daddy, I love this fish,” she said, and her eyes gleamed. “Whenever you take over the kitchen, it’s my holiday.” She licked her thin bottom lip, which glistened with the gravy of the fish.
“Eat quickly,” Shuna told her. “You’ll have to study with Miss Chen after dinner.”
They had engaged a math tutor for their daughter. The young woman, Aili, was a student at Beijing Normal University and would come and teach Tingting math two evenings a week. They paid her eighty yuan an hour, about twelve dollars, so that Tingting could catch up with her classmates in math. Math was her weakest subject, whereas she excelled in English and Chinese. She was doing well in the foreign language partly because Tian often taught her, having majored in English at college. Like most parents who had teenage kids, he and Shuna were already worried about their daughter’s college. They had discussed Tingting’s education, and both believed she should go abroad for college. The girl liked the plan too, partly because many of her schoolmates were preparing to go to college in Europe and North America without bothering to cram for the national entrance exam. Besides the cutthroat completion for top schools, universities in China merely fed students with platitudes and jargons, manufacturing the sort of minds needed by the governing apparatus.
That night Shuna and Tian talked about his situation and the self-criticism he’d been writing. They were cuddling on their canvas sofa, her head on his chest and her hand on his belly. She urged him never to lose his temper when dealing with his superiors. Even if they put him through a denunciation session, at which he might have to read out his self-criticism, he mustn’t lose heart. Whatever they wanted, he should just let them have it. In a matter of weeks the whole thing would fizzle out.
“Don’t worry too much about that, sweetie,” he said. “Secretary Niu doesn’t seem eager to pounce on me. She just has to report back to her superiors in the Ministry of Culture and give them the impression that she has been trying to discipline me.”
“I can’t trust that woman,” Shuna said. “But just give her what she wants. We cannot afford to alienate her now.”
“I’ll be all right, believe me.”
He slipped his hand beneath her shirt, stroking her side, smooth but firm. As his hand was going down into her panties, she batted it away. “I have a ton of work to do tonight,” she said. “One of the graduate students is defending her master’s thesis tomorrow afternoon, and I haven’t read it yet.”
That meant they’d sleep separately tonight. This wasn’t unusual. Whenever he had a performance, they slept in different beds the night before. Likewise, Shuna often stayed up alone late at night, reading and writing. She was a rising star in her field and had to seize the momentum of her success so that she could be promoted to full professor and supervise PhD students. For now she could direct only master’s theses. Still, for a scholar of thirty-eight she had already accomplished a lot.
Five years ago, the Music Center at Tsinghua University had offered Tian an administrative position: a junior official of music education and events on campus, with opportunities to teach from time to time. His wife urged him to take the job—she thought it would be more comfortable for their family if they worked at the same school. She told him, “A university job is reliable and nurturing, and you can hold it for the rest of your life.” But an office job was not what he wanted. He would like to sing every day and experience the thrill of performing in front of an audience. He said to Shuna, “I belong to the stage, not to a cage of office. I won’t take a nine-to-five job.” She was displeased, saying he was too arrogant, but she passed his refusal on to her school’s administration. To date, she still believed he’d lost a precious opportunity.
* * *
—
The next morning, right after breakfast, he got a call from Tong Ran, an air force veteran who was now in charge of security for the People’s Ensemble. Ran said he’d been instructed to take possession of Tian’s passport—Tian must surrender it as soon as he returned to work. Tian was stunned and asked whether this meant he was going to lose his passport.
“Not necessarily,” Ran said. “From now on, the Ministry of Culture will directly control the international travel of senior officials and artists like yourself. You know how many criminals are fleeing abroad with their stolen wealth—our national leaders want to step up border control.”
“But I’m a singer and need the papers for performing abroad,” Tian said. “Do others in our ensemble have to turn in their passports too?”
“That I can’t tell you. I have to do what I’m told. Just bring me your passport when you come in next time.”
Tian had heard there was such a passport-control office in every ministry now, but they’d been established mainly to prevent corrupt officials from fleeing China with their money. To his knowledge, few of his colleagues had surrendered their passports. Now he seemed to have been put in a different category of strict control and surveillance.
Shuna hadn’t left for work yet, so he told her what had happened. They both saw the immediate outcome of losing free use of his passport—he wouldn’t be able to perform outside China anymore. This would damage his career in a way, because he often got invited by cultural associations from other countries. For him, this also meant the loss of the basic freedom he was entitled to. Worse yet, once he was confined within China, the authorities could reduce him little by little until
they smothered him altogether. Such suppression had already happened to many disobedient artists. There is even a saying about such cruel measures: “Shut the door and beat the trapped dog.”
After Shuna left, he tried getting his mind around the security officer’s instructions. On the spur of the moment, he wrote to Yabin and asked him to send him an invitation to perform again in New York. Tian briefly described his trouble and said he’d like to come stay awhile in America to wait for this ridiculous hubbub to die down. He felt he could trust Yabin because the man had been banished by the Chinese government, a kind of dissident. Tian assured him that owing to his frequent traveling abroad, he had an account at the Bank of America and wouldn’t compromise him financially. After sending the message, he was still on edge. He wasn’t positive that he would actually take the drastic step of fleeing to New York. For the entire day he waited anxiously to hear from Yabin. He was too preoccupied to cook dinner, for which he just went out and bought some pork buns and a box of stir-fried vegetables.
After dinner, Shuna and Tian again talked about the recall of his passport. He told her that he’d written Yabin to request an invitation letter. She was aghast, but then gathered her wits. Her eyebrows, thick and sloping, rose upward, and her slightly deep-set eyes narrowed; her mind seemed to be racing. Her jaw appeared more angular and the silky skin of her neck crinkled with two thin lines. Then she said she could see the logic of his request and believed it would do him good if he could live in America for some time. Considering she’d have to parent their daughter alone if he left home, she wanted to blame him for not talking with her first, but she refrained. She knew that as long as he remained in his leaders’ clutches, they could have their way with him. At worst, the People’s Ensemble might fire him, but that wouldn’t be a big deal. With his reputation he should be able to find employment anywhere in China. The important thing was that he must not remain passive, letting them abuse him at will. He was pleased that Shuna supported him.
