Iron and Silk (22 page)

“I wouldn’t want to trouble you like that.”

“Please! Why don’t you come every week like this, on Saturday afternoons?”

“Well—”

“It’s settled! We’ll see you next week. Here—let me get up, I really should at least see you to the door. I’ve been a terrible host.”

His wife told him to stay put and relax, she would see me off. When she and I got outside, she thanked me for coming. “He’s been excited about it all week—I think it has given him something to look forward to.”

The next Saturday he not only gave me a lesson but also presented me with a gift of several calligraphy books and journals. He promised to introduce me to a scholar of oracle bone script, the earliest known form of Chinese writing; this
scholar could acquaint me with the historical analysis of Chinese characters. On Thursday of the next week, though, I received a letter from his wife.

One of my students, Dr. Xiao, managed to find out for me which hospital Jin had entered. “Can I visit him there?” I asked. Dr. Xiao looked at me strangely. “But Teacher Mark, he is in a coma—what good would it do to visit?”

A Rat
 
 A Night Ride
 
 The Long Swords
 

“L
et’s look it up and see,” I said to the group of students who had visited me to ask about the meaning of an obscure word. No sooner had I picked up my copy of
The American College Dictionary
than I heard one of the girls scream. I looked up and saw them all staring wide-eyed at my desk. A rat had jumped on it and was running around looking, presumably, for a way to jump off. With a great yell I slammed the dictionary down on the table. I had intended only to be funny, but by unfortunate coincidence the rat darted into the path of the dictionary and was annihilated. The students laughed and applauded, saying it was a magnificent demonstration of “real gong fu.” On the spot they gave me the nickname “da shu haohan,” Rat-Killing Hero, a play on “da hu haohan,” Tiger-Killing Hero, the epithet of a legendary warrior. They had a wonderful time reviewing aloud exactly how it had happened and what it had looked and sounded like, so that when they told all their friends the story would be consistent. Eventually, though, something had to be done with the little corpse. I opted for leaving it on my desk as a warning to other rodents, but the students had a better idea: “Teacher Mark, there is a reward for killing rats! Bring it to the Rat Collection Office and you
will get a mao (about five cents) for it.” So the whole pack of us walked across the campus, with me at the front holding the rat by the tail, and my students behind me holding sheets of paper with the rat’s crimes written out on them.

By the time we reached the Rat Collection Office, we had attracted quite a crowd. I explained to the comrade-in-charge where and how I had killed the rat, put it on the table and asked for my reward. He and the other men in the office laughed heartily when they heard the circumstances of the rat’s demise, but as the comrade-in-charge went to his desk to take out a mao, one of his colleagues pulled him aside for a brief conversation. Then the comrade-in-charge took a few of my students aside and talked to them for a few minutes. At last he picked up the rat, tied a string to its tail and walked over to me. “I’m sorry to say that we can’t pay you. The regulation is that the reward be given to students who kill rats in the dormitories. But here,” he said, handing me the string and smiling, “why don’t you take it outside and play with it? When you’re done, just throw it away.”

I thanked him and left. Outside the building I asked if anyone had any ideas how to play with the rat, but no one did, so I threw it away. When we returned to the Foreign Languages Office, one of the students giggled and asked if I wanted to know why they didn’t give me the reward. “Sure—why?” “Because the other comrade pointed out that the official statement concerning rats is that they have been stamped out. Only internal documents, which foreigners can’t read, discuss the rat problem. Since you killed the rat, well, there’s nothing to be done about that. But if they give you the reward, then an official disburser of State funds will have publicly confirmed to a foreign resident that rats do exist here. They might have been criticized.”

I couldn’t resist asking the student if he didn’t think that was a bit silly. “Oh, of course it is very silly. But the comrades in the office, like anyone else, would rather do something silly than something stupid.”

“T
eacher Mark—can I trouble you?”

“What can I do for you?”

“I have a relative. She is my wife’s cousin. She is a doctor visiting from Harbin, attending a conference in Changsha for a few days. She speaks very good English and is very interested in learning more. Could I take her here to practice with you? It would only be once or twice, that would be more than enough.”

Because of the overwhelming number of relatives and friends of students, not to mention perfect strangers, who were very interested in learning English, I had to be protective of my time. I explained this to my student and apologized for not being able to help him.

“Oh dear, this is terrible,” he said, hanging his head and smiling sheepishly. “Why?” I asked. “Because … I already told her you would.” I tried to let my annoyance show, but the harder I frowned, the more broadly he smiled, so at last I agreed to meet with her once. The student, much relieved, said he wanted to tell me a bit about the woman before I met her.

“Her name is Little Mi. She is very smart and strong-willed. She was always the leader of her class and was even the head of the Communist Youth League in her school. During the Cultural Revolution she volunteered to go to the countryside. There she almost starved to death. At last she had a chance to go to medical school. She was the smartest in her class, and she excelled in English.”

Little Mi sounded like a terrific bore; I cleared my throat,
hoping that my student would simply arrange a time and let me be, but he continued: “Her specialty was pediatrics. She wanted to work with children. When the time came for job assignments after graduation, though, some people started a rumor that she and some of the other English-speaking students read Western literature in their spare time instead of studying medicine. They were accused of
fang yang pi
! [Imitating Westerners, literally ‘releasing foreign farts.’] So instead of being sent to a good hospital, she was sent to a small family planning clinic outside of the city. There she mostly assists doctors with abortions. That is how she works with children. But saddest of all, she has leukemia. Truly, she has eaten bitter all her life. I know that talking with you will cheer her up; you are really doing a very kind thing. When can I bring her?”

I told him they could come to my office in the Foreign Languages Building that evening for an hour or so. He thanked me extravagantly and withdrew.

At the appointed time someone knocked. I braced myself for an hour of grammar questions and opened the door. There stood Little Mi, who could not have been much older than me, with a purple scarf wrapped around her head like a Russian peasant woman. She was petite, unsmiling and beautiful. She looked at me without blinking.

“Are you Teacher Mark?” she asked in an even, low voice.

“Yes—please come in.” She walked in, sat down and said in fluent English, “My cousin’s husband apologizes for not being able to come. His advisor called him in for a meeting. Do you mind that I came alone?”

“No—not at all. What can I do for you?”

“Well,” she said, looking at the bookshelf next to her, “I love to read, but it is difficult to find good books in English. I wonder if you would be so kind as to lend me a book or
two, which I can send back to you from Harbin as soon as I finish them.” I told her to pick whatever she liked from my shelf. As she went through the books, she talked about the foreign novels she had enjoyed most; among them were
Of Mice and Men, From Here to Eternity
and
The Gulag Archipelago
. “How did you get
The Gulag Archipelago
?” I asked her. “It wasn’t easy,” she answered. “I hear that Americans are shocked by what they read in it. Is that true?”

“Yes, I guess so. Weren’t you?”

“Not really,” she answered quietly.

“You are a pretty tough girl, aren’t you?”

She looked up from the magazine she had been leafing through with a surprised expression, then broke into a smile and blushed.

“Do you think I am?”

“You seem that way.”

She covered her mouth with her hand and giggled nervously. “How terrible! I’m not like that at all!”

We talked for over an hour, and she picked about five books to take with her. When she got up to leave, I asked her when she would be returning to Harbin. “The day after tomorrow.” Against all better judgment I asked her to come visit me again the next evening. She eyed me closely, said “Thank you—I will,” then disappeared into the unlit hallway. I listened to her footsteps as she made her way down the stairs and out of the deserted building; then, from the window I watched her shadowy figure cross the athletic field in the moonlight.

She came the next night at exactly the same time. I had brought from the house a few handsome picture books of the United States and a few short story collections I thought she might enjoy. She marveled at the beautiful color photographs in the picture book, especially the ones taken in New England
during the fall. “How beautiful,” she said over and over. “Just like a dream.” I could not openly stare at her, so I contented myself with gazing at her hand as she turned the pages of the book, listening to her voice as she talked, and occasionally glancing at her face when she asked me something.

We talked and talked, then she seemed to remember something and looked at her watch. “Oh my …” she gasped, looking suddenly worried. “What is it?” “Look what time it is!” It was after ten o’clock—nearly two hours had passed. “I’ve missed the last bus!” She was staying in a hospital on the other side of the river, a forty-five minute bus ride and at least a two-hour walk. It was a bitter cold night; even if she was strong enough to make it by foot, she would get back after midnight and arouse considerable suspicion. The only thing to do was to put her on the back of a bicycle and ride her. That in itself would not attract attention, since that is how most Chinese families travel around town. I had seen families of five on one bicycle many times, and young couples ride that way for want of anything else to do at night. The woman usually rides side-saddle on the rack over the rear wheel, with her arms around the man’s waist, leaning her shoulder and face against his back. A Chinese woman riding that way on a bicycle powered by a Caucasian male would definitely attract attention, however. I put on my thick padded Red Army coat, tucked my hair under a Mao cap and put on a pair of Chinese sunglasses, the kind that liumang, the young punks, wear. To keep my nose out of sight I wore a surgical mask, the way many Chinese do to keep dust out of their lungs. She wrapped her scarf tightly around her head and left the building first. Five minutes later I went out, rode fast through the gate of our college, and saw her walking a few blocks down the street, shrouded in a haze of dust kicked
up by a coal truck. I pulled alongside her and she jumped on before I stopped.