The Library of Legends

by Janie Chang

  “I’ll think about it,” Lian said, “but you know I’m taking the Honors program and the assignments are quite heavy.”

  “We’re a traveling campus in the middle of a war, Lian,” Meirong said. “Our instructors will excuse anything. You could do half the work and still pass. And while working for Minghua 123 News.”

  Meirong gave her a wide, confident grin before breaking into a run. She caught up to the Minghua 123 News group, which was re-forming again at the front of the line.

  “Not much farther to go now.” Lian turned with delight at Shao’s voice, then looked down, hoping the heat in her cheeks wasn’t too obvious. She kept walking, but he didn’t say anything more, just kept pace beside her, seemingly content to walk in silence.

  Then he gave her a quick nudge of the elbow. “Look who’s coming our way.”

  Coming back from the front of the line, Wang Jenmei approached with the easy stride that made her every move graceful and leisurely.

  “Shao, Lian, good morning,” she said in greeting. “Why don’t you attend a Communist Students Club meeting sometime? It doesn’t mean you’re committed. Everyone else in Minghua 123 has come at one time or another.”

  Lian shook her head. Some classmates had attended once, just to be polite, and regretted it. Jenmei wouldn’t leave them alone now.

  “I promised my father not to get involved in politics,” Shao said.

  “You mean, not the socialist kind of politics,” Jenmei said. She seemed amused rather than hurt at this rejection. “If it makes you feel better, you can attend a Nationalist Students Club meeting to balance things out. How about you, Lian?”

  “I’m really not interested,” she replied. Kept her eyes on the road ahead. “I also promised not to get involved in politics.”

  “Well, dear classmates,” Jenmei said. “At some point, you must decide what you stand for.”

  She strolled away and Lian couldn’t help notice how Shao’s eyes followed Jenmei’s lilting, seductive walk. All the students had lost weight from poor food and constant marching, but Jenmei had somehow become both leaner and more shapely.

  “Shao, would you ever attend one of those meetings?” Lian said, hoping her voice didn’t betray anxiety.

  He paused before answering. “When we were still in Nanking, I would’ve said no, not ever. But that was before all this, everything we’ve seen. So much poverty. This isn’t how it should be in a modern republic.”

  “China is a huge country,” Lian said, “with a huge population. It takes time to modernize the entire nation. Once this war is over, once we’re able to rebuild—”

  “I agree with the Communists on one issue only,” Shao interrupted. “The war would be over sooner if we put all our efforts into fighting the Japanese. Why are we also fighting the Communists? They’re Chinese, too. We shouldn’t be killing our own people.”

  A shout from students at the front of the convoy made everyone strain to look ahead. They were within sight of Zhongmiao Village. Bathed in sunrise, whitewashed houses hugged the shoreline of a wide green lake. Small boats moved through rippling water, fishermen setting out for a day’s work. The village looked tranquil, untouched.

  BY THE SHORES of Chaohu Lake, Zhongmiao Village was only a four-hour walk from the city of Hefei, a distance that now seemed to the students quite a reasonable distance for a day’s travel. Behind the village were hills covered in forests. The students learned there were scenic caves and hot springs nearby, and some were already making plans for excursions.

  Their new lodgings were in a factory at the western corner of the village. Minghua 123 called it their “factory campus.” The owner had stripped out all the equipment and moved his manufacturing business to safety farther inland. The government then took it over to house universities. It was undeniably ugly, a collection of drafty buildings arranged around a large work yard of brown earth packed down as hard as concrete, the entire area enclosed by a brick wall topped with shards of broken glass. As if to compensate, the factory stood on a rise with a magnificent view of the lake.

  Two warehouses, still smelling of raw cotton, would be their classrooms. Minghua 123’s library went into the third and smallest warehouse. Now emptied of machinery, the long factory building became both barn and storage room. The kitchen and dining hall were just large enough for their needs. At the far end of the yard were the workmen’s quarters, a dozen bunkhouses laid out in two rows on either side of a boardwalk, bathhouse at one end, outhouses at the other. These buildings now formed the men’s dormitory.

  The large triple courtyard house, once the owner’s, was for faculty, families, and the female students. The traditional halls felt comfortingly familiar, tugged at memories of childhood holidays with elderly grandparents, of crossing courtyards to knock on an indulgent auntie’s door. Even the factory owner’s undistinguished rock garden, second-rate by any reckoning, offered solace.

  There was no way to partition the warehouses into classrooms, so professors lectured as quietly as possible, their students sitting huddled in a circle around them, some on low stools, most on cold bare concrete.

  One night a student chalked some words above a bunkhouse door: Hall of Idle Pastimes. The indignant residents soon scrubbed it off, but a day later, each bunkhouse sported a name. Hall of Contemplation, Moon Viewing Pavilion, Gallery of Refined Pleasures. Names that echoed memories of homes and gardens left behind. Someone nailed a wooden plank to the first bunkhouse, giving the boardwalk between bunkhouses a name: Scholars’ Lane.

  The ugly oblong of industrial ground bolstered Minghua 123. A month of routine and studies, of feigning normal school days, while trying to forget they lived in exile.

  Chapter 13

  The men’s bathhouse didn’t have running water. Rain barrels just outside the door collected water and inside were three shallow wooden tubs. A brick stove heated metal pails of water and a long wooden table held washbasins. By now the students considered this the height of luxury. The boys drew straws for the first shift. Shao, Shorty Ho, and Shorty’s best friend, Chen Ping, won the first draw. Towels thrown over their shoulders, the three grinned at their envious classmates and strolled through the door of the bathhouse, hands raised in mock victory.

  “Ten minutes,” shouted a student at the end of the line, “or we’ll come and tip you out of those tubs.”

  “Keep that door shut,” Shorty Ho hollered back, “you’re letting the cold air in!”

  Shorty Ho pulled off his tunic and then his cardigan and sweater, his undershirt. He poured hot water into the shallow wooden tub, added some cold water from another bucket, and climbed in. Doubled up, knees to chest, the water just came to his hips. He ladled warm water over his head and groaned with pleasure.

  It was amusing to Shao how much Shorty Ho had changed. He was no longer the fashionable, swaggering urbanite. Now he layered on clothing with more concern for warmth than style. He had shaved his head to discourage lice. Instead of his usual two-tone leather wing tips, he sported cloth shoes with straw sandals tied over them. The students’ leather shoes, made for sidewalks and classroom hallways, had fallen apart after constant walking on rough roads. As replacements, students bought the traditional cloth shoes available in every small town, the soles made from layers of cloth glued and sewn onto stiff cardboard. Then they tied straw sandals over the shoes, a trick learned from other foot travelers they’d met. The sandals kept cloth soles from touching damp earth and slowed down wear; they were also cheap to replace, only a penny for three pairs.

  “The factory owner must’ve been a good employer,” Shao said, rubbing soap on his face, “to provide sleeping quarters and bathing facilities for his workers.”

  “I can’t believe you’re that naïve,” Chen Ping said. “The owner charged them rent and took it out of their wages. He probably charged them for hot water, too. And the workers counted themselves lucky to have jobs at all.”

  “You don’t know that,” Shao said. It was a mystery how someone
as serious as Chen Ping had become such good friends with Shorty. Yet other strange friendships had developed on this journey. Lian and that talkative Yee Meirong, for instance.

  “I do. Our family owns cotton mills,” Chen Ping said, pulling a sliver of soap out of a mesh bag. “It’s how things are done. Don’t you know how your family business operates?”

  This mildly reproachful comment stung Shao. The Liu clan had so many business interests. His father’s newspaper. Real estate. There was a tin mine somewhere up north. His older brother Tienming ran one of the shipping firms. But Shao had never taken an interest in any of them.

  “Five minutes left!” a voice shouted from outside the bathhouse door. “And don’t use up all the hot water!”

  The three finished washing and quickly got dressed. They emerged into the cold air, skin pink from hot water and scrubbing. A clothesline had been strung between two bunkhouses and they hung their towels up to dry.

  “Look at the cuffs on my shirt,” Shorty remarked to Shao, “disgusting. You’ve managed to keep your clothes pretty clean.”

  “What? Oh, it’s Sparrow,” Shao said. “I think she washed a few of my things.”

  “As good as a personal maid, eh?” Shorty said. “I don’t suppose she’d be willing to do my laundry?”

  “Ask her yourself,” he said, suddenly irritated with Shorty. “I’m going to help put away library books.”

  But in the library warehouse, the shelves were already stacked, and volunteers were giving the books a final dusting. All that was left to do was put away the empty crates. Shao picked up the last two crates and carried them to the factory building. There, a dozen students had gathered, perched on empty carts and wagons, listening intently to Jenmei. He set the crates down.

  “All of us come from big cities,” she said, “cities transformed by contact with the West. Foreign movies, international newspapers, schools that gave us the education needed to qualify for university. Even the poorest scholarship students among us are better off than the peasants and villagers we meet on our travels.”

  From the quick turn of her head, he knew Jenmei had seen him.

  “But we know nothing about the rural population. The government is counting on us to shape China’s future,” Jenmei said. “The vast majority of Chinese are rural. How can we shape China’s future, how can we help our countrymen when we’re ignorant about the lives of peasants a few miles outside our cities?”

  In a rush of understanding, Shao realized Jenmei counted herself as one of the ignorant, as unprepared as the rest of them for the poverty they witnessed every day. Jenmei looked at him with a self-deprecatory smile. In the set of her shoulders Shao recognized purpose, enough to anchor a life. Resolve and determination he had yet to discover in himself.

  IN THE COURTYARD house beside the factory, the women of Minghua 123 were also busy with laundry and baths. The weather had turned sunny. Lian, Meirong, and a dozen others leaned against the smooth wooden railings of the veranda, towels wrapped around newly washed hair, the sun warning their shoulders. Some girls had rinsed their hair with an infusion of simmered bai bu roots, easily available from herbalists. Others had been lucky enough to get hold of rubbing alcohol, which they had massaged into their scalps.

  Even though Minghua 123 traveled with their own sheets and blankets, it had been impossible to stay free of pests. No matter how much they swept and mopped the floors of the inns and halls where they stayed, they couldn’t get rid of fleas and bedbugs. There were times when Lian thought bare floors were cleaner than the beds, mattresses stuffed with straw or kapok cotton that bred new generations of pests, all of which migrated to blankets and clothing.

  “And now lice. How mortifying,” Meirong said. “I wish we could wear crew cuts or shave our heads as the men do.” Most of the girls, Lian and Meirong included, had already cut their hair to blunt, chin-length bobs.

  “Has it been an hour yet?” one girl asked. “Should we keep the towels on for another ten minutes to be sure?”

  In reply, Meirong pulled off her towel. She hung her head upside down and began combing out damp hair. Specks like black sesame seeds fell to the ground.

  “Who’s next for the steamers?” one of the servants shouted from the courtyard kitchen.

  Lian and Meirong folded their sheets and blankets into neat squares then joined the line by the kitchen door. They placed the bedding in deep bamboo baskets that the servants would stack over large tubs of boiling water. An hour of steaming was the only way to be certain of killing bedbugs and their eggs.

  “After this, a few nights of peaceful sleep,” Meirong said, “and then those little demons will jump back on and we’ll be scratching again.”

  “Clean hair, clean sheets,” Lian said. “What a luxury. Almost makes me want to stay here in this ugly campus.”

  “A few weeks here means we might get one more steaming session before moving on,” Meirong said. “Lian, come with me to the library for a minute, before we go work on the newspaper. I need to find Ying-Ying. She borrowed one of my textbooks again. Took it right out of my rucksack and then asked permission.”

  Inside the factory gates, Lian automatically looked around for Shao. And for Jenmei. Fortunately, they were at opposite corners of the yard, Jenmei talking to some girls, Shao surrounded by classmates. Shorty, Chen Ping. They all looked conspicuously clean. Then Jenmei strolled across the yard to join Shao’s group. She said something and the two laughed. They broke off from the group and sat together on a bench beside the bunkhouses. Lian suppressed a jolt of dismay.

  “You go inside the library and find Ying-Ying,” she said to Meirong. “I’ll stay out here in the sun and let my hair dry a bit more.”

  She tried not to stare too obviously as Jenmei leaned closer to Shao. The look on his face was thoughtful and searching. The look that made Lian feel she had his complete attention. Would Shao become one of those students who melted away in the evenings, attending those not-so-secret political meetings?

  “That Ying-Ying,” Meirong said. She came out of the library waving a textbook. “She’s the most absentminded person I’ve ever met. Now, to the newspaper office. You promised to help.” Meirong was determined to make her take part. Lian could no longer refuse without being rude.

  Somehow Jenmei had managed to cajole Professor Kang into giving Minghua 123 News its own bunkhouse to use as an office. To Lian’s surprise, Sparrow was inside, standing at a long table built from sawhorses and boards. Her right sleeve was rolled up and she held a calligraphy brush.

  “These are the stories that have been approved,” Meirong said, after greeting Sparrow. She handed Lian several sheets of paper. “Now we need them copied onto newsprint.”

  Meirong put a stick of ink and an inkstone in front of her, then poured a little water from a beaker into the inkstone’s well. Silently, Lian began grinding the ink.

  “I don’t think Jenmei has done any work at all this week,” Meirong said, looking irritably at a stack of writing. “She promised to give these articles a final review before we started copying. I need to go remind her.”

  The door slammed shut behind Meirong. Sparrow glanced up from her writing and looked amused. Lian had never noticed the young woman’s eyes before. They were as dark as the waters of a forest pool, yet luminous as though a lamp shone in their depths. A pointed chin lent determination to her features. Slim, steady fingers guided the brush in neat columns of beautifully formed characters. Her hands were delicate, not rough and red as Lian would’ve expected from years of scrubbing floors.

  “Your calligraphy is exceptional, Sparrow,” Lian said, looking over her shoulder. “How did you learn?”

  “From a classical scholar,” Sparrow said. “The Young Master’s fourth great-uncle. When I was a child, I cleaned his study and afterward he would give me lessons. He taught me to read and write. And eventually, calligraphy.”

  “Fourth Great-Uncle must be a very kind man,” Lian said, “taking the time to do that.”


  “He had retired,” Sparrow said, “so I suppose tutoring a servant gave him something to do.”

  They worked across from each other in quiet concentration. Over the weeks and miles, students and servants had become more familiar with each other. Professors even chatted with laborers as they walked along the road. But Lian realized she’d never had a conversation with Sparrow, nor had she ever seen Sparrow gossip with any of the other servants. Lian stole a glance at the servant, who had known Shao since he was a boy, and probably knew him better than anyone else.

  “Sparrow, do you think Shao would join the Communist Students Club?” she said.

  The young woman wet her brush on the inkstone. “His family forbids it,” she said. “But the Young Master is not with his family right now. I suppose he might attend a meeting or two out of curiosity.”

  If only out of curiosity, then there was no need to report to Mr. Lee. But what if the director of student services thought she was holding back? What if he punished her by telling Shao about her father? Shao would despise her.

  And so would Meirong, she realized with an unexpectedly sharp pang of distress.

  THAT EVENING, AS the dining hall filled with hungry students, Lian looked around but couldn’t see Meirong. Food went quickly. If anyone was even a few minutes late, they’d be lucky to scrape a spoonful of rice from the bottom of the pot. She had last seen Meirong back at the newspaper office. That’s probably where she was, Lian thought, too absorbed in her work to realize how much time had passed. Lian hurried across the yard, cursing Jenmei under her breath. If Meirong was overworked, it was from trying to please the senior student. But when Lian got to the newspaper office, the bunkhouse windows were dark. The next place to look was the courtyard house where all the women lived.