China's Son (17 page)

“Here you go.” She pulled out a bagful of books and printed papers. “These are the exercises and all the English vocabulary that you need to know to pass the test.” She patted the stack like an insurance man talking about a rainy day.

I rushed over and touched the pile with a shaking hand. This would be my salvation.

The news about the college examinations worried my parents a great deal. It meant that I would give up my science courses. Was it premature? The government was changeable on policies like that. This was a country that had changed the constitution more often than its meals. There was intense conversation between my parents. I felt it necessary to drop in the key words.

“With this policy, I might be able to apply to study English in a college in Beijing.” It was a showstopper. They were silenced. They looked at me with doubt.

But Dad thought about it for a second, then nodded with approval. “I like the sound of it.” He was the man who had made me the first violin player in the history of Yellow
Stone, however bad I was, and he was ready for me to major in English and to send me off to Beijing. He would share every bit of my progress over tea with his many friends for the rest of his life.

Dad was the dreamer. Mom was the practical enforcer who knocked on the door at five every morning to wake me and shake the mosquito net, making sure I didn't take too long a nap between studies or waste time daydreaming.

“Wouldn't that be a little too fancy and exotic for us?” Mom asked.

You bet it would. Think mud, think manure, think digging the hills, that would be more appropriate for us, but I wanted to be special.

Cousin Tan locked himself up in the attic on the day the results of the examinations came out. The pressure was so great that he hadn't eaten for days, and he had been suffering a mild depression since taking the test. He had tried alcohol. It didn't help. Then he had slept and slept, with the team leader laughing outside his window, calling him crazy. We were all worried. Then one day Tan had emerged suddenly, throwing himself into farmwork. He kept silent about the test and shut his mouth whenever anyone talked about college. He was an angry mute, immersed in his own world. He had lost weight and looked forty, even though he was only in his early thirties.

His excellent scores sent shock waves through Yellow Stone. Tan cried as the results were slipped under the door of his hideout. He at first refused to open the envelope. When he eventually did, he let out a piercing scream and danced downstairs to meet his beaming family.

He was the sort of guy born for college life. Nerdy, wearing thick glasses, he read everything, including the microscopic directions on the backs of chemical fertilizer bags. He wrote poetry and dabbled in fiction in his spare time. He was dreamy and romantic. Way beyond the marrying age, he had refused many matchmaking sessions with sorry-looking countryside girls. His vision of a wife existed only in books.

Considering he came from a landlord's family with no prospects whatsoever, he was lucky anyone would even consider him. The situation didn't trouble him a bit. He had made peace with himself. Why bother with marriage? Wait until you could afford it, he used to say, which frustrated the heck out of my uncle, who believed that by now he should have been surrounded by mischievous grandkids.

Two days after the results came out, Tan fell into another bout of depression. He said the high scores would only worsen his disappointment in the end. The scores were nothing but a cover-up. One's political background would take precedence. Such a drop from a staggering height would crush his soul. There were again rumors that candidates from the wrong families, despite high scores, would be placed at the end of the admission line. When all the slots were filled, they would be left holding an empty bag, just another way of finishing off the wrong families. Tan retreated into his attic and stared out the window all day long.

At the end of the summer, Tan became the first college student in Yellow Stone after the Cultural Revolution. Amoy University, finance major. When the certified admission letter arrived bearing his name, the whole town was stunned. Amoy University, located on the beautiful subtropical island of Amoy, was the best in Fujian. It trained the
cadres for the province. It was an old boys' club. Tan would fit in beautifully.

This time, the whole family was teary-eyed. Many years of suffering had suddenly come to an end. The sun had risen and that night the stars would shine. Tan was now the happiest of men, giving Flying Horses away as if he were getting married. I eyed his slightly bent back and tired eyes. It wouldn't surprise me if some professors were younger than he. Maybe he, too, would become a professor and marry one of his female students. I was so happy for him.

From that point on, his fate changed dramatically. Tan received three wedding proposals in the next three days from the most eligible girls in town. They came from good families and had solid bodies that could plow the fields like oxen. Their families even agreed to forgo the standard marriage fees. One of the fathers promised to throw in two farming cows as part of the dowry. Not a bad deal, we joked. Cousin Tan laughed at them all and rejected their offers. He was our hope. We celebrated with him at a big banquet before he left. He encouraged my brother to take the plunge and cautioned me to concentrate on my major, make a reasonable study schedule, and persevere.

That night I sat in my room facing a tall stack of books; I assigned a time slot for each subject. In order to cram everything into a single day, every day, I had to get up at five and go to bed at ten-thirty, allowing only short breaks for lunch and dinner. No entertainment, no goofing off with friends, no daydreaming, only hard-core studying. My heart beat with the excitement of the challenge; I couldn't close my eyes. I tried to imagine what a college classroom looked like, occupied by sharp professors and leggy city girls wearing
sexy skirts. The stars blinked from a clear sky and the moon shone through my window. I made up my mind. College was the only thing for me. I'd get out of this small-town hellhole. If Tan could swing it, so could I.

Beijing. The word split into four parts that split again, winking at me like stars as I fell asleep.

Suddenly, school had a purpose. College was the goal, and ancient teachers like Mr. Du and the Peking Man paraded the street of Yellow Stone attracting many admiring looks and greetings. Only a few years before, shamed, they had walked the same street, wearing tall hats, with thick plaques hung around their necks on which their names were smudgily written in red ink. Their heads had been shaved and their hands tied behind their backs. Kids had thrown bricks at them and adults had spat in their faces. They were stinking intellectuals. Society had had no place for them then.

Mr. Du's former wife, who had left him a few years before, now begged to come back to him. Du didn't want her. He married a young teacher who fell under the magic spell of his mighty mathematical talents.

Genius and youthful beauty: the people of Yellow Stone could live with that. There were serious debates as to whether he would live longer or die sooner, given his new, energy-consuming marriage. Different schools of thought came to different conclusions. In the end he was the superstar teacher who had guessed correctly the answers to two big questions that had been on the national mathematics exam. He deserved to enjoy his new wife.

The Peking Man didn't have any problems with his
Peking woman, but luck also came his way. He was honored with Communist party membership. He called himself a fossil newly unearthed by the party. It was a mixed blessing he had difficulty accepting or rejecting. A cynical historian, he had his doubts about the party. But he also knew enough not to refuse such an offer. The Cultural Revolution could come back anytime and then he, the Peking Man, would be the one who had rejected party membership, thereby rejecting the party itself, maybe even rejecting the country. Then he would have to change his nationality or they might lock him away in some cage like they had the real Peking man.

They said he shed tears at the swearing ceremony. Many suspected they were tears of pain and suffering, not joy. Poor guy. As for my goldfish-eyed, wheezing English teacher, he retired after his wife became bedridden and incontinent. With him gone, the school didn't lose much. I could attest to that.

The finals for the fall semester loomed before us, and hardworking students were found lurking behind closed doors, hitting the books late into the night. And the students who boarded at school clutched their books and went off to find a quiet spot in which to study.

The school announced that teachers would use the results of the fall semester finals to help determine which majors the graduating students should concentrate on. I abandoned the leaking compartments of my ship, the science courses, and steered the good parts along the misty coast.

The teachers noticed I'd stopped going to science classes but didn't express concern.

I stopped going to Professor Wei's for two weeks and reviewed the subjects within the liberal arts field. I was up at five in the morning, taking my hurting body to bed at
eleven. Teachers held review sessions for every subject. I skipped all the sessions, sequestering myself in my private spot in the wheat field outside the school's low wall, where I banged away at my books on my own.

The finals for the fall semester took three full days. At each test, I swaggered into the classroom empty-handed and chose a seat apart from everyone else. It was just me and the paper. I wanted the teachers to know that there was no possibility of cheating for this born-again student. My message was loud and clear; the teachers looked at me suspiciously. I scribbled quickly and answered all the questions in my best handwriting. Good presentation counted for a third of your score, Dad had cautioned me. I did the best I could. This was a defining moment: I was declaring my intention to join the race for college, and if anyone had any problems with it, I couldn't care less. I had been at the bottom before, crawling on my knees. Now I was limping along. Soon I would be running. I wanted the world to know that I wasn't born in order for someone to step on me.

I handed in the papers early. The teachers kept calm, their curiosity at bay, pretending not to look at me. As I left each classroom, I could feel their hands grabbing my papers and checking the answers. I knew they would be shaking their heads in amazement.

The results of the finals were significant, because the college entrance examinations were only seven months away. If you didn't make this one, you might as well go home, sharpen the farm tools, and register as a proud farmer for life, just in time for spring harvest.

I sweated through the semester finals, and the results blew me away.

On the public announcement wall on campus, my name
hovered at the top in every liberal arts subject. My proudest achievement was English. I scored 91 percent, putting me head to head with a guy they called the English Wizard, Cing, an apple-headed rival of mine since first grade.

Silently I thanked Professor Wei, my secret weapon.

Dia was busy trumpeting my victory like a pimp. He hung around the wall, smoking his thick one, shouting to anybody passing to look at the results, particularly mine. When the Head came by, Dia showed him my glories. The snobby science major sneered and told Dia that no one in the history of this lowly high school had ever dared dream of majoring in English. It was a major for the privileged city boys, not farm boys like us, who smelled like manure. It was an elegant major for high-class people: it had to do with the mysterious Western culture and capitalism; it had to do with America. The Head knew how to hurt a fragile soul. Dia spat at his feet, cursed like a sailor, and walked back to me like a loser.

“Is that true that no one in our school has ever made it as an English major?”

“It's true. Why?” I asked.

“You gotta make me proud. I was out there happy for you and the Head trashed me left and right. Now I'm totally busted up inside.”

“Let me ask you, was there anyone in the history of this lowly school who ever played the violin before?” He blinked and cocked his head for a second before shaking it slowly. A broad grin spread across his sad face. “Right, you're the first one.” He straightened up and hugged me violently.

“You could do it, man,” Dia spat out excitedly, “and you gotta do it for me and the school. Then when you pack up
and take the fabulous Fujiang-Beijing train, I'll load a shotgun and shoot the Head right on his shining skull.”

Mr. Ka, my new English teacher, was a dark-skinned young man with a head of feathery curls.

He summoned me into his office. “Congratulations,” he said. “You finally woke up.” He jerked his head violently. His curls were bothering him.

“I heard mixed things about you from some people, but it doesn't matter what they said anymore,” he continued. “I like what I see now. You have potential.” A brilliant opening line. He made a friend of me on the spot. It was us against them now.

“We have work to do to get you where you want to go.” He was good with abstract terms. “I'll give you what I have and help you with what you need. Do you know what I mean?” I was clueless. I shifted in my seat and nodded ambiguously.