China's Son (23 page)

During the course of the morning, word leaked out about the score line. This was a line the government drew to cut off the successful applicants from the unsuccessful ones. It was based on how many slots were open for college enrollment that year: if there were only 100 openings, the cutoff line would be set after the top one 100 scores. Everyone above that line was guaranteed a place in college, while the rest of the applicants wouldn't be considered at all. This year's cutoff point was 300 out of the total 500 points possible.

The news sent chills down our spines. We all must have done terribly.

Just after midnight, the messenger, Chung, ran into our house, sweat covering his red face. He was breathless from the three-hour ride that he had just cut to two. We surrounded him, watching his heaving chest with great anxiety.

“Water,” he croaked.

“The scores first,” Dad said.

“I'm really thirsty.”

“The scores.” Dad's voice had never been that loud with a friend before.

Chung smiled.

We stood by, our hearts in our throats.

“Jin first.” Chung swallowed. “Three hundred and fifty.” There was an odd lull. Jin was in. His face first turned ashen, then red. He was speechless.

“How about Da?”

“You want to know?”

“Yes, yes. What is it?”

“Three hundred and eighty!” I felt the blood shoot up to the very top of my head. All the muscles in my arms twitched uncontrollably.

“I'm not finished yet. According to the record, Da has one of the highest liberal arts scores in the province of Fujian, including the big cities of Fuzhou, Amoy, Chuangzhou, and Nanping—out of hundreds of thousands of test-takers.” There were no joyful shouts or happy dances, only tears. It was a moment of triumph and happiness for the whole Chen family. Mom was in Dad's arms; my sisters were sniffling and holding each other. Jin and I shook hands wildly.

A dirt-poor country boy, beating all the city brats. I couldn't believe it. It was about forty points higher than my highest estimate. I could kowtow forever.

Mom asked me to walk to her brother's house to tell Cousin Tan the news. I took the narrow road through the green fields. The fresh sea wind made the young rice dance and woke up my dizzy mind, still dazed with the intoxicating news.

Cousin Tan was holding court at his house with a few of his classmates from AU. I heard carefree laughter as I entered. They were having tea. I wanted to drop the bomb and have the AU boys running for cover. Tan stood up as I came through the door. Smart guy, he sensed something.

“Did you hear anything?” he asked.

I stood there, trying to catch my breath.

“Is it bad news?” he asked anxiously.

I shook my head. I didn't want to seem too eager to impress a bunch of AU guys, all of whom were proudly wearing their white-and-red school badges.

“Jin got three hundred and fifty,” I said.

“Well, that's very high.” Tan knitted his intellectual brows together with disbelief. “How about you?”

I took another deep breath.

“You didn't make it?” He started to smile and stretch out his uncallused hands to press on me his subtle condolence. I knew that look.

“My score was three hundred and eighty.” All his cronies stood up.

“What did you say?” Tan didn't believe his ears.

“Three hundred and eighty,” I repeated.

Silence.

“You've got to be kidding,” Tan said absentmindedly, making a readjustment in his mind. “I'm sure AU would consider you for their famous English department.”

“Give me a break, Tan,” one of his classmates said. “This fellow doesn't want to go to a college isolated on a little island in the corner of China. It's okay for a bunch of older guys to study finance there, but for English, he should and
could
go to big cities like Beijing or Shanghai.”

“I'll think about all the options,” I said diplomatically. “I'm sure AU would be an excellent choice also.” I didn't want to hurt Tan's pride.

After all, I still loved and respected my cousin. He had paved the road for Jin and me and had given us hope when we were just another landlord's family, waiting to be wasted by Communism.

I said good-bye to them and told them I wanted to go take a long nap.

They laughed and saw me to the door, slapping my shoulder in congratulation. Cousin Tan affectionately pinched the back of my neck.

Coming from a bunch of college men, I considered that
the red-carpet treatment. I was one of the boys now. In a single moment, I had arrived.

I took the same route back home to avoid being stared at in the street. By now, Yellow Stone would be like dry hay aflame with the breaking news about the Chen brothers. Having one child in a family going to college was an eyeopener, but two at the same time? The town wouldn't be able to sleep for a long while. The shock would be reverberating through the people by now.

Some people in Yellow Stone wouldn't be able to take such an insulting assault on their turf. Two landlord's children, hitting the jackpot at the same time? No way. There would be hostile letters of protest, ghostwritten and sent anonymously to the Board of Education, filled with big fat lies, aiming to try to stop us. There would be people gritting their teeth at this very moment, swearing to poke a hole in our balloon and let our dream be just another dream. I knew it was coming and that we should appear modest and undeserving in public.

Mom shut the front door early and prepared a simple dinner. We moved our dining table to the backyard. Everyone was whispering as we set the table and prepared the food. My sisters had left work early.

The young rice plants could wait, but the celebration could not.

We sat close together around the round table, all seven of us. It was a little crowded, and we kicked each other under the table and fought with our chopsticks for the last bite as we had when we were children.

We whispered and laughed quietly, lest there were ears listening outside the walls. It was okay to let people know when you were suffering, but not when you were celebrating.
They turned jealous, and evil things were bred from the seeds of jealousy.

Dad smiled like a carefree lion, smoking his pipe, while my mom still sniffled over the shock of the news. It had shaken her up in a very pleasant way. They both confessed that it was the best day of their lives. They were so happy and proud. It made their decades of suffering worthwhile. Our sisters poked us with challenging questions, like which pretty girls we would consider as brides. We went through a list with mock interest: none of them seemed perfect. The appealing ones didn't have the cows necessary for a dowry, while the ugly ones had plenty.

Our sisters giggled and giggled over our silly discussion.

We dreamed and sat there, just staring at a perfect Yellow Stone sunset.

We were given an application form to fill out, along with a list of slots open to Fujian students at all the colleges. The slots for English majors were pathetically few. From the top down, there was only one at Beijing First Foreign Language Institute and two at Beijing Second Foreign Language Institute. There was one opening at Shanghai Foreign Language Institute, a few more at other cities like Nanjing and Fuzhou, and twenty at Amoy University. There were other tempting slots in foreign trade and international journalism, both of which required a strong English performance.

The school counselor advised me that my score put me in the top two percent of all applicants. Any college I picked could be mine. My brother's score also qualified him for a leading university. He had his mind set on finance, and his university choices were all near home. He wanted to be close
to the family. But they fully supported my choice, Beijing First Foreign Language Institute, the top spot on that year's roster. I was the bird that had to fly far and high, and they wanted me to reach for the sky because I thought I could. And now they, too, were beginning to think that I could.

I turned in my application at the commune headquarters, an office near the commune jail in which the principal of my elementary school had once wanted to put me.

The lady clerk smiled at me when she saw my name and choice.

“You're the star they have been talking about. I have heard your story. I want my son to do just as well as you did. Would you mind meeting him?” she asked.

“Sure.” She stood up, went to the back room, and brought out a two-year-old toddler.

“Shake hands with him, son.” She grabbed her son's chubby, sticky hand, and I shook it. The kid was a little shy. I pinched his rosy cheek.

“Thank you. I hope he remembers meeting you.” I felt flattered. Overnight, I had become the model son to all moms.

As I headed out, she stopped me. “Here, I've got something for you. Take these and burn them.” There were a dozen badly written, lying letters of protest against Jin and me.

I ran behind the headquarters building and found a seat beneath a tree. I went through all the letters quickly. The most ridiculous accusation was a claim that Jin and I had cheated by swapping answers in the public toilets during the exam.
Yeah, right.
Jin and I had taken the tests forty miles apart. Others claimed we were from a landlord's family an
didn't deserve to be in college—old clichés and other garbage. One letter said that my brother had poor eyesight and that I hung out with bad company. That was true, but did it matter?

Two days later, we got a notice from the county that said we had to have a complete physical examination. I didn't eat or sleep too well that night. Maybe my eyes would be too weak or my legs too short. I had no muscles and was all bones. My belly button was too deep, my nipples too far apart, and my ribs heaved like an accordion. Why would our country want to invest four years of college in such a shaky person?

We went on the commune's muddy tractor. There were no showy flowers pinned on our chests or anything like that. We arrived at Putien County Hospital a little late because we had had to fill the gas tank, and the driver had stopped to push a fallen tree to the side of the narrow road, then had brawled for a good ten minutes with the farmer who owned the tree.

The nurse rushed us through a minor check, then asked us to take off all our clothes.

“Our clothes?”

“Yeah, now.” My brother and I squirmed uncomfortably. We finally stood there in our underwear, the last shred of our male dignity hanging loose.

“What's the matter? Come on, drop it, I don't have all day. There's a hundred female applicants waiting for me.” That sent us flying. We faced the wall and dropped our protection.

We stared at each other with goose bumps crawling over our bodies like ants. It was the first time we had seen each
other naked. The nurse's cold hands ran over a few things. Then she took off her plastic gloves with a disgusted look, tossed them into a garbage can, and washed her hands.

We had passed.

“I guess nothing's missing,” Jin said, pulling up his shorts. “I guess so. Mom and Dad made us right and whole.” We laughed and were out of the exam room in a second.

Not surprisingly, Jin got some generous proposals of marriage from the beauties of Yellow Stone and beyond. There were nurses, teachers, salesclerks, secretaries, and actresses. Jin showed no interest. He wanted to consider marriage only after college. But Mom, Dad, and our sisters were having a terrific time going through the list, studying them as if for real. They even broke into serious arguments over the merits of their personal choices. Some of the girls on the list shied away whenever they passed our house, acutely aware that they were being scrutinized.

One night a pretty little girl no more than seven or eight ran to our house and said that her dad was inviting me to her house to watch television. There was a special program on that night. The invitation came out of the blue. The girl turned out to be the youngest daughter of the party secretary of our commune. He was the only person in Yellow Stone to have a TV, a nine-inch black-and-white one, which he proudly placed on top of a table in the front yard. In the evenings, he would invite the town's small group of dignitaries to watch the nightly programs, starting at seven and ending at eleven. Receiving an invitation from him to witness the magic of his nine-incher was like being given his personal seal of approval. The next day the whole town would know who was there and why.

Mom was obviously flattered by the invitation and asked
me to take a long bath and put on my best white shirt and a new pair of sandals. I had dinner early, then strolled over the bridge to his walled estate. There were about fifty people sitting, standing, and squatting outside the gate.

They were there in the hope that the party secretary might be in a generous mood and let them in. If not, they would be perfectly content sitting outside the wall all night long, listening to the TV as though it were a radio.

The crowd parted as I strolled through the throng. The party secretary stood at the door, fanning away flies with a dried coconut leaf. His potbelly was barely covered by his shorts. He welcomed me enthusiastically.