Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused – Fiction From Today (22 page)

The Professor glanced at it and shouted, "I told you you were full of shit! Right here it says, 'Dear Brother.' It's a letter from the Crabman's little sister."

"You don't understand the first thing about love letters," Four Eyes said with a trace of commiseration.

The Professor directed his full attention to the letter, mumbling all the while, "Oh! So that's how it is… What does this mean? What does she mean 'Do you still care about me?' " When he reached the last paragraph, the hand holding the letter suddenly dropped. His face was covered with an expression of horror. "What? She wants to break up with the Crabman?"

"To break up with one guy one minute in favor of another in Shanghai the next-I wouldn't say she's exactly facing any great loss," Four Eyes said without changing the tone of his voice. "As I see it, it's just another vulgar love tragedy."

Abe Lincoln finally abandoned his earlier ideals and read the letter from start to finish. All three of them were in the throes of depression. They were in low spirits not just for the Crabman but also for all the "guys like us." It's quite likely that none of them slept very well that night, because the next day when they woke up, Four Eyes got on the Professor for tossing and turning all night, the Professor yelled at Abe Lincoln for having talked in his sleep, and Abe Lincoln complained that Four Eyes must have a bladder problem, since he had got up at least eight times during the night. The result of this loss of sleep was that they decided to go downtown to eat at the conference center for district-level representatives. At least then they could be sure of getting some nutritious food, which might perk them up.

That year, there was a popular saying among the high school graduates: "As long as there's a meeting, no one will starve." Most of the time when one eats at a meeting, the rice is free. But what about the meat and vegetable dishes? Well, for that you rely on meal tickets. Now for a table for ten, as long as everyone's willing, it's no problem to add a few more people. What? Are they willing, you ask? Of course they are. After all, we're all just poor wanderers on this earth.

The Crabman was delighted to see them. He started boasting about what a hit he had made at the meeting, how many girls had their eyes on him, and how the district leader had come over to shake his hand, which meant either that he wanted to send him to the province-level meeting as a representative or possibly wanted to recommend him to go to college. But let us no longer dwell on the Crabman's inflated ego nor describe the way the Professor's eyes seemed to pop out of his head when he heard the word
college
. After all, we must not forget that our main characters came here to eat, so let us allow them first to go into the dining room.

With eyes as bright as candles, Four Eyes sized up the situation, table by table. The amount of knowledge needed for scrounging for food was immense since not only did our heroes want to eat, but they wanted to eat well. After all, how else could they accomplish their goal of having a nutritious meal to perk them up? Based upon our experience, the best choice is to sit at a table occupied by female high school graduates. You know just how sophisticated those young ladies from Shanghai can be in front of their male peers. They'll eat only a small bowl of rice and occasionally, very occasionally, daintily pick up a morsel of food. Even then, they look at the food with expressions of disdain on their faces. They say they're full even though their bowls aren't empty and may raise their eyes and sigh in amazement as they say, "Really, I don't know what's wrong, but I just don't feel like eating." Of course, who are we to pass judgment on them? Maybe they would rather starve themselves than see their male classmates return home disappointed because they haven't eaten their fill. If that were really the case, then these young girls should be praised for having been blessed with the radiant, majestic glory that emanates from maternalism and love.

All roads lead to Rome. Four Eyes' choice just happened to coincide with our own. Since he understood the rules of etiquette far better than we, he appeared unwilling to accept other people's kindness without offering some sort of payment. After all, if he was going to eat somebody's stir-fried beef, he was definitely going to give them the benefit of his knowledge. Consequently, one could hear the uninterrupted sound of jokes and laughter coming from that table. You can imagine just how adorable those girls looked as they covered their mouths and giggled. Of course, they had no time to eat, which was perfectly normal and proper. The problem arose when Four Eyes brought up the subject of the Crabman's rescuing Old Chen, a topic of conversation that the Crabman did not find funny in the least. He shot a glance at Four Eyes, in which we can detect the silent suffering of a tough young man whose pride has been seriously wounded. What's more, the flavor of this suffering seemed to be doubly intense. From this episode, we can gain a profound moral lesson: never tell jokes about a man in front of a woman.

Unfortunately, Four Eyes had never learned this lesson, and there he was at the dining room table, bringing up that same old story one more time. The Crabman put down his rice bowl and dragged Four Eyes over to the corner. With a stern look on his face, he said, "A person should be a little more tactful when he speaks. Do you understand? Everything isn't just a big joke."

"Huh? Do you mean the part about saving the portrait?" Four Eyes still hadn't begun to take it seriously. "Don't tell me you're starting to believe the newspaper report?"

"The fact that there wasn't a portrait of Chairman Mao in the room isn't my fault. Hadn't I already risked my life by rushing in there? Can you blame me because Old Chen didn't hang up a picture? If he'd wanted to hang one up, don't you think I'd have helped him? In the ordinary course of events, every house should have a picture of Chairman Mao, so it follows that logically speaking, the newspaper report was accurate."

Four Eyes shook his head so hard his glasses nearly crashed to the floor; then he just stood there for a minute as if in a daze. You could see that he was trembling inside. Then he walked away. But he had only gone about two paces when he turned around, took the letter out of his pocket, and flung it at the Crabman. Then he stalked off, making it clear that he wasn't returning to the table. The Professor and Abe Lincoln exchanged glances. Finally, Abe Lincoln trailed after Four Eyes while the Professor stayed behind with the Crabman. At this point, it's hard to say whose loss was greater. There might have been another goal to this outing for the three of them (that is, apart from the idea of eating well to perk them up). But now that Four Eyes was gone, it's hard to gauge what the chances were of actualizing the goal.

We don't know how the Crabman felt after reading the letter. I heard about what happened later from the Professor. That night, the Crabman ignored the Professor's advice against going to the restaurant in town. Neither did he listen when the Professor tried to dissuade him from drinking so much. At the table next to them were several other young high school graduates from Shanghai who worked at the commune. The Crabman started arguing with one of them over some trivial matter, which resulted in black eyes and bruised faces all around. In the process, they managed to break several bowls and plates. The man who ran the restaurant was neither sympathetic nor amused. He called in the police, who took both sides into custody. Since the Crabman was an activist representative, he was handed over to the head of high school graduates in the district, who subjected him to a half-hour lecture. Luckily for him, this brought the incident to a close. However, from then on, there was no further mention of going to a province-wide meeting or being recommended to go to college or anything of the sort.

Can you actually say you don't feel sorry for the Crabman? Don't you think that he let things get a little out of hand? When you consider what a glorious future he had as a potential college student chosen from among all the activists in the province who answered the Party's call to go up to the mountains and down to the countryside (and getting into college then was certainly more difficult than it is now), it's hard to understand how he could throw everything away because of a girl. With all that going for him, could he possibly have been worried about not finding another girlfriend? Although your questions are perfectly reasonable from both the emotional and logical points of view, somehow the Crabman was unable to get this into his head. So we can only conclude that it must have been caused by the hand of Fate. Otherwise, as Four Eyes said, everything is predetermined by one's personality. In fact, it was that night, when the Crabman returned home so crestfallen, that Four Eyes delivered his famous lecture on how personality types are predetermined.

"Humans fall into three basic personality types," he announced. "Let me give you an example. The first type is called the prude, the second type is the womanizer, and the third is the pervert. That's to say, human desires can be elevated to the theoretical level. Now I'm a true pervert, so I'm not interested in taking any action unless that action is going to confirm my theories. Crabman, you're a womanizer, and that's why you drink and get into a fight over some trivial incident. The Professor is a prude, which is why he won't get involved in things like this. You see, the entire outcome of a person's life is predetermined by his personality type."

"You didn't mention Abe Lincoln. What type is he?" asked the Professor.

"I'm not exactly sure; he's so defensive it's hard to tell. I'd guess he's either a prude or a wild rapist."

The Crabman was seething. He said, "How the hell can he be a wild rapist when I'm just a womanizer?"

"A wild rapist is simply one type of womanizer. Most men are perverts of one kind or another. It's like class distinctions. There are a few at the two extremes, with the vast majority falling somewhere in between," Four Eyes was quick to explain.

The next day was another scorcher. Even the early-morning sun was so hot that everyone was panting from the heat. By the time the sun came out, the air was so suffocating that the ground seemed to tremble and the straw on the roofs softened into clumps The two factors needed for combustion to occur were once again present; a single spark from a chimney might produce another story that would move you to song and tears. It was at this point that Abe Lincoln displayed a sign of that "wild" quality in keeping with his personality type (we really don't have the courage to repeat the particular indelicate term used earlier). He ran into the team leader's house, insisting that he immediately send someone to repair the leak in the chimney. "Otherwise, if a fire starts," he said, pointing to the roof, "I can promise you that as sure as two times two is four, it's going to be
your
house that goes up in flames next!" The team leader, who had been sitting on his heels by the doorstep, proceeded to give Abe Lincoln a sound dressing-down. "To talk like that in a farming village is counterrevolutionary. Why, it's even more reactionary than being counterrevolutionary!" Nonetheless, after lunch, he went over to Old Chen's and rounded up a couple of workers to replace the stovepipe for the students.

Since it was such a hot day, they didn't go to work until quite late in the afternoon. When Four Eyes woke up, sunlight had flooded the room. One particular patch of light was already boring its way into the door across from him. Two mud walls away, the team leader gave an earth-shattering yawn.

Four Eyes said, "Now for guys like us, whoever has a girlfriend, whether or not she's-"

The Crabman interrupted him: "I swear on that sacred portrait that I struggled so long and hard over that if anyone ever says that again, I'll smash his face in. I'm giving you fair warning, so don't anybody accuse me of turning against a friend."

"That reminds me of a poem," the Professor said as he sat up in bed.

"If you're planning to recite from a book or something, please spare us," said Abe Lincoln.

"It's nothing like that; it's not from a book. Listen: 'On such a calm and peaceful day, how sweet it is to play hooky.''

The sound of the team leader's whistle split the long silence.

When a story begins to repeat itself, it's time to end it. But don't be in such a hurry, be patient for a couple of minutes longer, for we still have a short epilogue. That afternoon, the final touches were put on Old Chen's house. The last thing the team leader did was plaster the mud on the ridge of the roof and, for effect, place two gray bricks at an angle on the very top. After he came down from the roof, Old Chen began to set off firecrackers and gleefully passed out cigarettes. The house turned out pretty well. The straw was smoothed out flat and even, the hay for the eaves was clipped off all nice and tidy. The newly broken-off wheat stalks shone like strands of platinum. The team leader took a look inside the house and nodded his head in satisfaction. "It looks OK, doesn't it?" he said. "It's just lacking one thing." He unbuttoned his tunic and took out a sacred portrait of Chairman Mao that had been tucked away close to his heart. As he placed the portrait in the Crabman's hands, he said in a voice full of compassion, "Go hang it up. It was you who rescued it; now it should be you who hangs it up again."

While the Crabman was hanging the portrait, his hands were trembling. There was a moment when he was actually on the verge of tears, but he quickly rubbed his eyes and looked up at the straw room divider, acting as if a speck of dust or something had flown into his eye. We know he must have been feeling that he had somehow lost face (it appears that for the most part, all this was predetermined by personality type). But once again, he was wrong: no one laughed at him, not even Four Eyes. In fact, quite the contrary- Four Eyes told him later that this was the single most emotional and moving scene the production team had experienced in over three years.

Translated by Madeline K. Spring