Cries in the Drizzle (33 page)

This was not at all what I wanted to hear. On the other hand,
he did not press me to confess, as the teachers had done; in fact he said nothing along those lines whatsoever. Soon he stood up and said he had something to do and left, perhaps as a way to avoid causing me more distress. If he had stayed longer he would have found it difficult not to toe the teachers’ line, and now he could get clear of this embarrassing situation. Still, I was seething with indignation, for he had listened so earnestly to the teachers and never once asked me whether there was any truth to their allegations.

Were it not for Li Xiuying's expression of confidence in me later, I really don't know what I would have done. At this point, after being so misunderstood, I had sunk into deep despair, a sensation that left me constantly struggling for breath. Nobody believed me; everyone in the school was convinced that I was the author of the slogan. I had become a mendacious child simply because I had refused to confess.

When I got out of school that afternoon, I felt doubly tormented. Already I was oppressed by the feeling that my words had been twisted against me, and now I had to brace myself for another ordeal once I got home, for Wang Liqiang would surely have informed Li Xiuying. I had no idea how they would punish me and walked back to the house in hopeless gloom. As soon as she heard my footsteps, Li Xiuying called me over to her bed and asked me in a severe tone, “Did you write that slogan or not? Be truthful.”

The whole day through I had been peppered with questions, but not one had been couched in these terms. Tears rolled from my eyes, and I said, “No, I didn't write it.”

Li Xiuying sat up in bed. She called shrilly to Wang Liqiang, “There is no way that he wrote it, I can vouch for that. When he first arrived here I left fifty cents on the windowsill, and he handed
it over to me like an honest lad.” Then she turned to me and said, “I believe you.”

From the next room, Wang Liqiang expressed some displeasure with the teachers, saying, “It was a dumb thing to do, but they shouldn't make such a big deal out of just scrawling some graffiti.”

Li Xiuying was irked by this remark and reproached Wang Liqiang. “How can you say that? That's tantamount to saying you believe he did it.”

However pallid her face, however eccentric her behavior, Li Xiuying at that moment touched me so deeply that my tears would not stop flowing. Perhaps because she had been shouting so vigorously, she fell back onto the bed in exhaustion, saying to me gently, “Don't cry, don't cry. How about… you clean the window now?”

I may have gained support at home, but this did nothing to alleviate my predicament at school. I spent another whole day in that dim room. Isolation exacerbated my fears. Although I came to school just like my classmates and went home just like them too, in between times I was here in this little cubicle, questioned in turn by two grown-ups who held a position of total superiority. How could I withstand such pressure indefinitely?

In the end they described for me an absorbing scenario. In tones of great admiration they told me about a child my age, just as smart as me (an unexpected compliment, this), who committed a misdeed. Angry no longer, they began to tell me his story, and I listened with rapt attention. This boy my age had stolen something from a neighbor, so he was reproached by his conscience, for he knew he had done wrong. Finally, after a series of mental struggles, he returned the item to the neighbor and confessed to the errors of his ways.

Teacher Lin asked me warmly, “Now guess whether he was criticized.”

I nodded.

“No,” she said. “On the contrary, he was commended, because he had already recognized his crime.”

That is how they worked on me, inducing me gradually to come around to the idea that to admit error after committing error is more praiseworthy than not to have erred at all. Having been made the target of such extreme criticism, I was all too eager for approval. Now fired with zeal and hope, I at last confessed to something that had nothing to do with me.

Having achieved their goal, the two grown-ups could finally relax. They leaned back in their chairs wearily and gave me an odd look, neither praising me nor scolding me. In the end Zhang Quagliai said, “You can go to class now.”

I left the little room, crossed the sun-baked playground, and walked toward the classroom, my heart drained and empty. When I got there many of my classmates turned their heads to stare at me, and I felt my face getting red.

Some three days later I went to school a little earlier than usual. I got a fright when I entered the classroom because I found Zhang Qinghai sitting by himself on the dais, with his lecture notes spread out in front of him. He beckoned me, and when I went over he asked me in a low voice, “You know Teacher Lin?”

How could I not? Her sweet voice had cursed me and intimidated me in that claustrophobic room, and she had told me I was smart too. I nodded.

A little smile played on Zhang Qinghai's face. In a conspiratorial tone he said to me, “She's been locked up. She's from a land-lord
family, but she always kept this hidden. They sent someone to conduct an investigation, and the truth came out.”

I was stunned. Teacher Lin locked up? Just a few days before she had joined Zhang Qinghai in interrogating me. How stern and righteous, how forceful and eloquent she had been! And now she was behind bars.

Zhang Qinghai went back to his notes while I left the classroom. I looked over at the little room in the distance, mulling over the revelation that Teacher Lin was now in confinement. Other classmates went inside, and I could hear Zhang Qinghai quietly sharing the news with them too. The teacher's smile was chilling. In the little room he and Teacher Lin had seemed to be united in a common purpose, but now he was showing a different face altogether.

RETURN TO SOUTHGATE

My memories of Wang Liqiang and Li Xiuying, it is fair to say, remain fresh even now. I have often had it in mind to go back to Littlemarsh and have another look at the town that for five years I called home. What I wonder is whether Li Xiuying managed to keep herself going after the loss of her husband, and whether she is still alive today.

Although they did make me toil away at household chores, my adoptive parents often showed a touching concern for my welfare
. When I was seven Wang Liqiang decided I was old enough to go on my own to the teahouse to fetch boiled water. He said to me, “If I didn't tell you where the teahouse is, how would you know where to go?”

I came out in a sweat trying to figure this out, but in the end came up with the answer, saying brightly, “I would ask somebody else.”

Wang Liqiang laughed just as brightly. When I picked up their big two-liter thermos bottles and got ready to leave, he squatted on his haunches, trying to shrink his height to my level. He kept emphasizing that if I found I really couldn't carry the bottles an inch farther, I should toss them aside. I found this an extraordinary idea, because to me two thermos bottles were colos-sally expensive items, and here he was telling me to throw them away.

“Why should I do that?”

He told me that if I really couldn't carry them and just dropped them on the ground, the hot water might splash, and I would get scalded. Now I understood.

With two cents in my pocket I proudly headed out, a thermos in each hand. I walked along the flag stones, asking people ostentatiously where the teahouse was. I didn't care whether further inquiries were redundant and kept on asking directions all the way down the street. My little stratagem worked like a dream, for my shrill queries elicited looks of surprise from grownups all along the street. When I entered the teahouse I placed my order in an even louder voice, and the old lady at the cash register gave a start. Patting her chest, she said, “You gave me such a fright.”

Her mock alarm made me chuckle, but soon her expression
changed to one of genuine astonishment. As I left with my two brimming thermos bottles, I heard her saying anxiously to my retreating back, “You can't carry those, can you?”

How could I ever think of throwing the thermos bottles away? All these doubts about my capabilities served only to boost my self-importance. Wang Liqiang's injunction as I left the house was converted on the way home into a hope, conjuring up the following picture: when I arrived home with the bottles of water, Wang Liqiang would be so thrilled that he would give a shout to Li Xiuying, and she would get out of bed specially to witness my achievement, and they would shower me with praise.

That was my goal as I carried the bottles home, one in each hand, gritting my teeth with effort. I kept telling myself: no throwing, no throwing! I made only one rest stop.

But when I got home, Wang Liqiang disappointed me by showing not the least surprise and taking the bottles from my hands as though I had done only what he expected. As he bent over to put them on the floor, I still clung to a final shred of hope and gave him a little hint: “I stopped to rest just once.”

He stood up with a smile, as if there was nothing wonderful about that. I was so crushed that I went off by myself, thinking, “Where did I get the idea that he would congratulate me?”

One night I was so foolish as to interpose myself between Wang Liqiang and Li Xiuying, and the outcome was a beating. The nighttime interactions between husband and wife had always left me anxious and unsettled. When I first came to live with them, every few evenings after I had gone to bed I would hear the voice of Li Xiuying: pleading at first, and then with time her entreaties would change to moans. I found this quite frightening, but the next morning I would hear them chatting cordially enough, and
their calm exchanges reassured me that nothing untoward had happened.

One evening I had already undressed and got into bed when Li Xiuying, who had lain in bed listlessly all day summoned me sharply. Shivering in the cold winter air, I put on my underpants and pushed open their bedroom door, only to see Wang Liqiang in the process of taking his clothes off. He flushed bright red and kicked the door closed, telling me angrily to get back to my room at once. I did not know what was wrong, but I dared not return to my bed because Li Xiuying was still calling me desperately. I lingered just outside the door, cold and scared, shivering from head to toe. Later Li Xiuying must have squirmed out of bed; though wearing just a slightly damp item of underwear could easily make her run a fever, she was now throwing caution to the winds. I heard Wang Liqiang calling in a low voice, “Are you crazy?”

The door was flung open, and before I knew what was happening Li Xiuying dragged me into bed with her. Panting from her exertions, she said to Wang Liqiang, “Tonight we'll sleep together, all three of us.”

She put her arms around me and tucked her face so tightly against mine that her hair fell over one of my eyes. She was all skin and bones, but her body was warm. With my other eye, I saw Wang Liqiang glaring at me. He said furiously, “Get out of here!”

Li Xiuying put her lips to my ear and said, “Say you won't.”

I was like putty in her hands. I hated the thought of leaving her cozy arms and said to him, “No, I won't!”

Wang Liqiang seized me by the arm, yanked me out of Li Xiuying's embrace, and shoved me to the floor. There was a fearsome bloodshot gleam in his eyes, and when I just sat there, unmoving, he yelled, “Get out, I said!”

This provoked my stubborn streak, and I yelled back, “No, I'm not leaving!”

Wang Liqiang stepped forward and grabbed me with both hands, but I clung for dear life to the leg of the bed and refused to loosen my grip no matter how he tugged. He then seized me by the hair and knocked my head against the bed. I could hear Li Xiuying screaming in the background. Pain finally made me relax my hold, and Wang Liqiang picked me up and flung me out the door, then locked it. By now I was in a frenzy too: scrambling to my feet I pounded on the door, wailing and cursing, “Wang Liqiang, you bastard! Take me back to Sun Kwangtsai!”

I wept pitifully, hoping that Li Xiuying would come to my rescue. At first I could hear her arguing with Wang Liqiang, but after a while all was quiet inside the room. Still I cried and wailed, still I shouted abuse, until I heard Li Xiuying call my name and say in a faint voice, “You go off to bed now. You'll freeze to death staying there.”

Suddenly I felt forlorn and had no choice but to make my way back to my room, sobbing as I went. On that inky winter night my heart seethed with hatred for Wang Liqiang as I slowly fell asleep. When I woke up the following morning, I knew that my face was aching painfully, but I did not realize that I had been beaten black and blue. As he was brushing his teeth, Wang Liqiang saw me and reacted with alarm. I ignored him and picked up the mop from the wall. He stretched out a hand to stop me, and through foamy lips said something unintelligible. I shoved his arm aside and carried the mop into Li Xiuying's room. She too gave a start and muttered a reproach to Wang Liqiang: “You didn't have to hit him so hard.”

Wang Liqiang bought a couple of dough fritters that morning—just for me, he said, and he laid them on the table. It was then, just as I had an appealing breakfast in front of me, that I chose to launch my hunger strike. I refused to eat a bite, no matter how they tried to persuade me. Instead I burst into tears and told them, “Take me back to Sun Kwangtsai!”

This was more a threat than an entreaty. Wang Liqiang knew he was at fault, and his efforts to appease me simply strengthened my resolve to remain at odds with him. As I went out, satchel on my back, he followed quickly on my heels and tried to put his hand on my shoulder, but I jerked away out of reach. When he dug in his pocket for ten cents’ snack money, I refused the bribe with equal determination, shaking my head and saying obstinately, “I don't want it.”

I insisted on savoring hunger to the fullest. Wang Liqiang's consternation at my fast had inspired me with the confidence to continue, and by inflicting hardship on myself I would get my revenge on him. At this stage I was proud of the stand I was taking. I vowed never again to let any food of his pass my lips, and at the same time I knew I would perish as a result; my eyes welled up with tears at the thought of my splendid martyrdom. My death by starvation would be the greatest retaliation against Wang Liqiang that there ever could be.