The Crazed (7 page)

I fished some coins out of my pants pocket and gave them to her. Without a word she ran away on her bent legs, her feet in tattered sneakers. Reaching the end of the corridor, she waved her fist and gave the money to a woman, obviously her mother, who shot glances at me. I glared at the sunken-mouthed woman, cursing under my breath, “Bitch.” I felt cheated, as I had thought the child was on her own.

Not knowing how long I had dozed, I rose to my feet, my right leg still sleeping. I was a little anxious and wondered if the visitor had left, so I hobbled to the door of the sickroom and put my ear to the keyhole. Vice Principal Huang was still in there. He was saying earnestly to my teacher, “Let her decide what to do herself, all right?”

“No,” Mr. Yang answered.

Silence followed.

About half a minute later, Huang said again, “Okay, Old Yang, take it easy. We’ll talk about this when you’re well.”

My teacher made no response.

Hearing footsteps coming toward the door, I leaped aside. The vice principal came out. He nodded at me, meaning I could go in now. “Take good care of Professor Yang, will you?” he said to me.

“Sure I will.”

“Good-bye.” Without giving me another look, he walked away. He seemed unhappy and preoccupied.

I tiptoed into the room. Mr. Yang sat on the bed with both heels tucked under him, his head hanging low and his eyes shut. I sat down and observed him closely. He looked like a sleeping Buddha, as inert as a vegetable, but with both hands cupped over his kneecaps instead of rested palm upward. A moment later he opened his eyes a crack. The look on his face showed he was alert, but why had he pretended to be drowsing just now?

“He’s gone,” I told him.

“Who?”

“Vice Principal Huang.”

“Who’s he? I don’t know him.”

Perplexed, I had no idea how to deal with his denial. And anger surged in my chest. Of course he knew Huang. Who else had he been talking with a short while ago? But I kept silent, thinking of the dream I’d just had. Why couldn’t I eat the fish soup, my favorite food? My mouth wasn’t small at all, at least as big as most people’s. As if I could have smelled the delicious soup, I went on sniffing.

Meimei in fact was not a good cook. She couldn’t even make steamed bread, not knowing how to use yeast and baking soda, let alone a crucian carp soup. But this didn’t bother me. I had promised her that I’d cook most of the time after we married. She said she would wash dishes.

“Revenge!” Mr. Yang bawled, as though he were playing the part of an official executioner or a rowdy in an old opera. “I shall raise this nine-section whip and thrash your fat hips, pack, pack, pack—I want to taste your blood and flesh. Ah, with full resolve I shall root out your whole clan like weeds! A debt of lives must be paid with lives!” His shrill voice was getting louder and louder.

I was totally baffled, not knowing whether he was faking or truly believed he was onstage. Holding my breath, I watched him wriggling as if he were bound by invisible chains. He looked in pain and probably imagined exchanging words and blows with an enemy.

He chanted ferociously, “I shall eliminate all the vermin of your kind, and shan’t withdraw my troops until the red clouds have covered the entire earth . . .”

Dumbfounded, I listened. He enacted this militant role for about half an hour. I couldn’t tell why Vice Principal Huang’s visit had disturbed him so much. By no means did it seem that the official had come to press him for the $1,800. Then why did Mr. Yang go berserk like this?

9

Two days later Kailing Wang, the woman lecturer in the Foreign Languages Department, came to see Mr. Yang. She brought along a bouquet of red silk roses and a copy of
The Good Woman of Szechwan,
which had just come out from Tomorrow Press in Shanghai. She said the book was well received and there would be a review in the journal
Foreign
Drama
praising the brisk, sturdy translation. Having no idea what to do with the artificial flowers, I just held them for her as she tried to talk to my teacher.

She was of medium height and wore a puce dress, which made her appear less plump and set off her full bust. Although her appearance reminded me of Mr. Yang’s words about the peachy breasts, I bridled my wayward thoughts. Actually I very much respected Kailing. Ten years ago her husband, a regimental staff officer, had been killed in a border battle between Chinese and Vietnamese armies. Since then, she had raised their son alone. Today apparently she hadn’t expected to see my teacher in such a wretched condition. She said to me, her voice torn, “He wasn’t like this last week. Why did they tell me on the phone that he was getting better? This is awful!” She kept wringing her hands while her eyes misted up.

Indeed this afternoon Mr. Yang was too delirious to talk with anybody. Now and again his lips twisted into a puerile grin as if he were a victim of Down syndrome. The book that bore his name as a cotranslator made no special impression on him, and Kailing seemed to him a total stranger. To whatever she said he wouldn’t respond. I couldn’t tell whether he recognized her or not. He grunted and groaned vaguely as if having a migraine, and his upper body shuddered frequently.

Taking Mr. Yang’s lifeless hand and folding his fingers, Kailing burst into tears. She went on wiping her cheeks with a white handkerchief. Her face at once looked aged, slightly sallow, as if its muscles had lost their elasticity. Her nose was clogged and a little rounded. As she sobbed, her full chin couldn’t stop shaking. Observing her, I wished I could have said something to console her. Then she bent forward to peer into his eyes, which were still blank and rheumy and without any trace of recognition. On his swollen face his eyes appeared thready and his lips parted. I was fighting down the impulse to grab his shoulders and shake him out of this wooden state.

Kailing remained standing in front of him for more than twenty minutes. Now and again she looked into his eyes, eager to find out whether he still knew her, but he seemed like a senseless retardate. I told her that this was just a bad day and that usually he was much more lively and clearheaded. She nodded without a word.

At last she let go of his hand. Placing the book near his knee, she said, “Professor Yang, you must get well. I need you. You promised to work with me on Brecht’s poetry.” He made no answer.

“I’ve done a draft of some of his poems and like them very much,” she added.

Still he was wordless. She looked at me, her eyes filled with disappointment, while her right thumb was massaging her temple.

On leaving, she told me to let her know if Mr. Yang needed anything. She said quietly, “When he’s himself again, show him the book. He’ll be pleased.”

“I’ll do that,” I promised, putting the roses on the bed so as to see her off.

“I’m sorry to give way to my emotions like this. I’m so upset.” She managed a smile.

“I understand.”

“I wish I could’ve brought some fresh flowers. I went to several stores but couldn’t find any.”

“Don’t worry about that. These last longer.”

She smiled rather bitterly and took her leave. As she slouched out of the room, I followed her for a few steps, then stopped to watch her shuffle away until she disappeared at the corner of the stairs.

Whatever her role in Mr. Yang’s life, her visit saddened and touched me. She was a widow about whom there had been a great deal of gossip, yet today, in my presence, she was not ashamed of shedding tears for him, a man she cared about deeply. It was common knowledge that after studying a foreign language for some years, some women tended to become effusive, romantic, and even warmhearted. This must be one of the reasons why the girls in the Foreign Languages Department were usually more attractive than those majoring in other fields. But this didn’t explain my feelings about Kailing. I was moved by her visit because she had brought into this spooky room some human warmth, which continued to affect me after she left.

Why is
The Good Woman of Szechwan
so popular these days? The question came to mind again. I couldn’t figure out a definite answer. I had read several articles on this play, none of which said anything illuminating, all in the manner of a biographical introduction. The critics, or buffs, just praised it as a masterpiece, but couldn’t say why. Perhaps because the story was set in China, a place rarely presented in serious Western literature, they had rushed to write about it when Brecht’s works could finally be translated into Chinese after the Cultural Revolution. To me, however, the play seemed inferior to
Mother Courage and Her Children
and shouldn’t be judged his best drama as they claimed.

Mr. Yang stirred a little and opened his eyes, which seemed apprehensive, shifting. I was puzzled, wondering why he hadn’t recognized Kailing just now if he was wide awake.

“Help me, please,” he whispered earnestly.

“With what?” I asked in surprise.

“I—I wet my bed.” He averted his face.

I touched the sheet beneath his thighs. My goodness, he had soiled his pajamas, the quilt, the sheet, and the cotton-padded mattress. The pallet must have been wet too. “Sit tight, I’ll be right back,” I told him, then hurried out to the nurses’ station.

Hong Jiang, the old woman, happened to be on duty. She came up with me immediately. Together we pulled a rattly gurney loaded with clean bedding and clothing. To my knowledge, this was the first time Mr. Yang had lost control of his bladder, which Nurse Jiang said was common among stroke patients.

At the sight of us my teacher murmured, “I’m sorry, really sorry.”

“It’s all right. Don’t feel bad about it,” the nurse told him.

I helped him climb onto the gurney so that Hong Jiang could change the bedding. It was impossible for us to replace the thick pallet, whose rice straw had an eye-catching blotch in the middle, as big as a large lotus leaf, so the nurse spread a plastic bag over the wet spot, then went about making the bed with the things we had brought—she unrolled the thin mattress, threw the sheet over it, and unfolded the quilt. She did everything expertly.

Meanwhile, I took off his striped pajamas and flowered shorts. I crumpled them into a ball and wiped his fleshy thighs and backside with it. He reddened and kept his eyes shut all along. He was very cooperative, so without difficulty I helped him put on the fresh shorts I had taken out of the cabinet, in which his underclothes and socks were stored. Next I pulled the clean pajamas on him, then changed his shirt, whose tail was wet too.

Nurse Jiang drew away the gurney loaded with the soiled bedding and clothing while I was huffing and puffing. Quietly Mr. Yang began sobbing. He lay on his side with his face toward the window. I walked around the bed and said to him, “This is normal. Don’t feel so bad.”

“I never thought I could become such a nuisance,” he said. “Oh, I should have died.”

“Come on, nobody blames you.”

“I want you to promise me never to tell anyone about this.”

“Of course, I won’t breathe a word.”

“Thank you.” He let out a heavy sigh and closed his eyes again.

I leaned my rear end against the windowsill and observed his jowls twitching and his Adam’s apple jiggling. Once every few seconds he stuck out his tongue to lick his gray mustache.

10

I didn’t sleep well that night and felt out of sorts in the morning. My temples were numb as though squeezed by a vise. Mr. Yang’s ravings had distressed me palpably—my roommates complained that these days I was too irascible. Mantao once said, “Jian, you must have been stuffed with gunpowder. Any sparks can start an explosion.” Indeed, my temper often flared. Aside from worrying about my teacher, I was unsure whether I could tackle the exams without thorough preparation.

It was a cool, sunny morning. Raindrops from a shower the night before still flickered on the tops of the elms and willows on campus. On the playing field a tall man in a red gym suit blew a brass whistle and stretched his limbs. Following him, a group of middle-aged men and women were doing calisthenics. Some undergraduates, books in their hands, strolled about among the lilac and cypress bushes, reviewing lessons and reciting texts in foreign languages. Their voices hummed in the air, which throbbed with the sonorous cry of a cuckoo, whose two-note calls stopped each time just long enough to let the foliage absorb the vibration. Beyond the depths of a distant poplar wood, where the bird was, mist spread billowing like a body of water.

On my way to the dining hall I ran into Professor Song. He pulled his pipe from his teeth and waved it to stop me, his other hand holding a black canvas bag on which a pair of sea-gulls was in flight. Apparently he had just jogged to school, his gaunt face covered with pinkish patches, a film of sweat oozing from his forehead. Mr. Yang’s stroke had intensified the concern for health among the older faculty in the department, most of whom had begun exercising seriously. Some went swimming in the afternoon; some often played table tennis in the lobby of the classroom building. They would remind one another that health was their main asset and that as long as they lived long enough, eventually they could get promoted to professorship, so there was no need to work hard.

Mr. Song wore a pair of blue sneakers and a gray jacket, which was shoulderless and barrellike—a standard garment for middle-aged male college teachers at the time. I was amused to see him in such a jacket even when he was jogging.

“How’s Mr. Yang?” he asked me.

“Not very well.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He paused for a moment, then went on, “Can you tell him that I’ll come to see him when I have time?”

He seemed to treat me as a family member of the Yangs, sounding me out on whether his visit would be welcome. I told him he could go to the hospital anytime.

Then he switched the topic. “How well are you prepared for the exams, Jian?”

“I can’t do much these days. I have to spend a lot of time in the hospital.”

“Maybe our department should hire somebody to replace you. Do you know if Mr. Yang has some relatives in town?”

“I don’t think he has any here.”

“How about in the countryside?”

“I have no idea.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll see to this. Our department still has some money left for this year. I’m going to talk to Secretary Peng about it. Meantime, concentrate on the exams, Jian. If the Beijing University program accepts you, that will be a great honor to our department, and Mr. Yang will be pleased too. Also, you’ll grow faster as a scholar there.” He cleared his throat and spat into a puddle of rainwater on the roadside.

“I’ll do my best,” I said, glancing at the blob of phlegm floating on the rust-red water.

“Good. If you need any help, let me know.”

“I will.”

As he walked away, a muffled jangle came from his flank. He always carried a large set of keys on his belt. He left behind a tang of alcohol, sweetishly sour. It was said that he would start his day with a cup of liquor. He was so fond of drink people joked that a bottle was a must if you went to him for help. It was rumored that a graduating senior had once gotten a good job assignment because he had presented Chairman Song with an expensive-looking bottle of French brandy that later turned out to be cheap champagne (another version of the story claimed it was plain water). But I don’t think any student would dare to trick him that way.

I was unsure whether Professor Song’s concern for Mr. Yang and me was genuine. For over a year, whenever possible, he had kicked me around; since he couldn’t always lay his hands on Mr. Yang, he’d take out his anger and frustration on me. A couple of times he criticized me for listening to foreign English broadcasts. The previous summer he assigned me to join a team of faculty members in grading the college entrance exams, so that I had to stay at school two extra weeks after the summer break started. Owing to his opposition, the department had almost refused to hire me as an instructor if I couldn’t get into the Ph.D. program at Beijing University. Eventually it agreed to keep me, mainly because I had just published a lengthy paper in
Poetic Inquiry,
which stirred up a debate, and because a few senior faculty argued that I was quite promising in the field. Yet despite my suspicion of Professor Song, I did have some positive feelings about him today. Perhaps he at last meant to make reconciliatory overtures to Mr. Yang.

I went on to the dining hall, which was full of people eating breakfast. There wasn’t a single stool in the room, so they were all standing around a dozen tables, whose tops were covered with grease, dust, and dead flies. Most students and staff would go to a much larger dining hall at the southern end of the campus, which was cleaner and had hundreds of stools in it, but this smaller place was closer to my dormitory, so I preferred to eat here. I bought a bowl of millet porridge, a twisted roll, and two salted eggs. Holding my breakfast, I walked across to a corner and began eating.

At the door, Little Owl was delivering a speech again. I call him that because I don’t know his name and because his small body, round face, yellow eyes, tufty hair, and aquiline nose always reminded me of an owl. He was known as a madman who had been a lecturer in the Chemistry Department three decades before. In the late 1950s he was branded a rightist, arrested, and sent away to a prison camp near Siberia. When he saw that the convicts were beaten every day and heard that some of them, unable to endure the torture and hard labor, had committed suicide, he started to feign madness. He shouted slogans, chanted songs, imitated animals’ cries, talked nonsense, and smeared mud and human feces on himself so as to avoid beating, interrogation, and backbreaking work. He played the idiot for more than twenty years, which helped him outlive most of the convicts. But somehow this faked insanity had grown into his nature—when he was finally released, he could no longer control himself and had to continue to rave and curse every day, suffering from “mental incontinence,” as some people put it. He often laughed or wept or blustered randomly; the more attention you paid to him, the more excited he would get. The dining hall was his favorite place for giving speeches.

“Comrades, George Bush is the number-one Current Counterrevolutionary,” he announced, still using the outdated language. “Bush has the blackest heart and guts. We must overthrow him, beat him to the ground, and trample on him, so that he will never stand up again!” The ferocity in his voice could hardly arouse any interest from the breakfasters. This was a daily show, of which people had wearied.

Having sensed he didn’t have a responsive audience today, Little Owl tried something different. He burst out singing:

The east wind blows
While the battle drums roll.
Who fear whom on the globe?
People are not afraid
Of the American imperialists,
Who actually fear people. . . .

He sang hysterically, beating time with his tiny fists, one of which had a battered knuckle. Nobody listened to the song, which had been long out of fashion. But today his crazed voice grated on my nerves, so I cried, “Shut up!”

All eyes turned to me as if I were a madman too. Little Owl yelled ecstatically, “Look, comrades, he’s on the side of American imperialism!”

Several girls giggled, looking my way. One of them had a carmine dot on her forehead like an Indian woman. I picked up my bowl and started for the door. To my surprise, Little Owl followed me, brandishing his fists and shouting, “Down with this imperialistic lackey! Down with him! Down with this American running dog!” It was as if I were being paraded on the street. I could do nothing but ignore him.

I placed my bowl on the ground under a large elm tree, squatted down on my heels, and resumed eating. I peeled an egg, but no sooner had I taken a bite of it than a hand was thrust before my face. It was Little Owl’s dirty, scabbed paw. He wanted to share my breakfast.

“Get lost!” I said.

He declared vociferously, “Chairman Mao has instructed us: ‘We come from all corners of the country and have joined together for a common revolutionary cause. So our cadres must show concern for every soldier, and all people in the revolutionary ranks must care for each other, must love and help each other.’ Now, you must give me some grub, I’m your soldier. You cannot discard me like a cracked pot just because you’re a big shot now.”

“Give me a break!” I snapped. Meanwhile, more than twenty people were gathering around to watch.

He wouldn’t leave me alone and went on quoting instructions from Chairman Mao, as if the Great Leader were still alive. Too embarrassed to remain the target of his harangue, I put my uncracked egg in his palm. He grabbed it, whisked around, and scampered away to the hot-water room, holding the egg above his head and shouting, “Long live Chairman Mao! Long live the Communist Party!” That was an old way of expressing one’s joy, but now the shibboleth sounded farcical.

Despite his pitiable condition, Little Owl ate better food than most of us. Usually people were generous to him, and he could eat his fill in the kitchen. My roommate Mantao often quipped that China was a paradise for idiots, who were well treated because they incurred no jealousy, posed no threat to anyone, and made no trouble for the authorities—they were model citizens through and through. Indeed, most of the retarded and the demented were taken care of by the state. Mantao went so far as to claim that this “pseudo-philanthropy,” a word he actually used, had caused China to degenerate intellectually as a nation.

After breakfast I was so distressed that I didn’t go to Mr. Yang’s office to review my notes on ancient prosody as I had planned. Instead, I went to the library and spent two hours browsing through some journals and magazines. Afterward I decided to take a break for the rest of the morning to get myself ready for the afternoon. It was depressing to sit with Mr. Yang, and I’d better unwind a little.

In town there was an exhibition of artwork by some painters from the Southern coastal provinces, mainly from Fujian and Guangdong. I had seen an advertisement for it on the side wall of the White Crane Hotel. To see the paintings might ease my mind, so I decided to go. The gallery was not far from my school, just fifteen minutes by bicycle. In a way I wished it were farther away, because I wanted to pedal longer on a breezy morning like this one.

On the way I noticed there were more police in town today. Their green vans and motorcycles with sidecars perched at the mouths of alleys and at street corners. One man held a walkie-talkie, though none of them seemed armed. The word was that some students at Shanning Teachers College planned to demonstrate downtown, so the police were stepping up security.

The exhibition differed from what I had expected. The hall couldn’t serve properly as a gallery, not providing enough wall space for all the paintings. And dozens of screens were set up in the middle of the hall for some smaller pieces, which, hung on the green or sky-blue silk, looked strange, even sloppy—the colors of the backdrop interfered with those in the paintings. Though three of the artists in this group were famous as master painters of animals, there were fewer visitors than working staff members at the show.

Facing the entrance was a piece over thirty feet long horizontally, entitled
A Thousand Chickens,
which presented a scene on a poultry farm. Hundreds of chicks with yellow, fluffy down had been arranged to welcome visitors. I was not impressed by it because all the chickens looked identical, as if printed with the same mold. Moving counterclockwise, I went through paintings of country life: peasants, animals, vegetables, tractors, plows drawn by buffaloes, fields of crops, waterwheels, a pond of ducks, boats laden with splashing bass, even peacocks and peahens. Then came landscapes and seascapes, some of which were so coated with indigo and brown that they appeared muddy.

I was more interested in people than in scenery and animals, so I stayed longer in front of the human figures. I stood for a good while before a painting of a Uigur girl, who couldn’t have lived in the South. The artist must have done this piece on a copying-from-life trip to the Northwest. In it the girl in a tight vest danced wildly with her numerous braids flying. Her movement and her supple limbs were well unified, pivoting from her slender but sturdy waist, below which a saffron skirt was swirling into a canopy. One of her heels kicked backward knee-high. Her lovely calves were slightly pink, gleaming with a soft sheen. I liked her long lashes best, which almost shaded her naughty eyes. There was a kind of fervent loveliness that illuminated this girl, who made me think of my fiancée. Meimei usually seemed carefree, and her insouciance gave her a peculiar charm; yet beneath her casual appearance was the fire fueled by her determination to achieve. What’s more, she always liked to have things her way, right or wrong, but that was all right with me. Ever since we got engaged, whenever I saw a pretty woman, I couldn’t help comparing her with my fiancée. The habit was weird, but too ingrained for me to outgrow.

I lingered in front of the Uigur girl for ten minutes solid, until I stepped closer and murmured with my nose almost touching her knee, “I love you.”

“Don’t touch it!” shouted a sharp female voice. I spun around and saw a fiftyish woman, her fat rump resting against a metal-legged desk, pointing her forefinger at my face. Several people paused to look at me.