The Crazed (9 page)

Now as I was sitting in this sickroom and thinking whether I should apply for a graduate program in America again, Mr. Yang yawned and said, “I must save my soul.” He smacked his lips as if chewing something tasty.

I was puzzled, but tried to imagine where he was now and to whom he was speaking. Then he declared, “I’m only afraid I’m not worthy of my suffering.”

I listened hard, but his voice trailed off.

12

The next evening all the graduate students in the Literature Department were gathered for a meeting, at which Secretary Peng presided. She was a macho woman with a Mongolian face, which would remain stern on such an occasion. Although she was not old, just in her mid-forties, she looked down on women who wore skirts. Even on broiling summer days she would dress in baggy pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Sometimes she put on an army uniform that had lost its green. Despite having only six years’ schooling, she was well versed in officialese and tended to digress in front of an audience. Without the help of a text, she’d talk on and on, “rambling like a tumbling river,” as people say about such a speaker. So at most meetings she would read from a speech or a report ghostwritten for her. Several faculty members in the department served as her “pens”; among them Yuman Tan, a man of thirty-nine and a lecturer in philology, was the glibbest one.

After everybody was seated, Yuman Tan lifted a bamboo-cased thermos and refilled the secretary’s glass teacup with scalding water. The water went on roiling the soggy tea leaves for a good while in the cup, which was a jam jar. He sat down and his rabbity face began to turn right and left. He seemed to be checking to see if every one of us had shown up. What a snob. Holding no official position whatsoever, why should he assume such a responsibility? Probably Secretary Peng had told him to count heads for her. He looked quite happy today, smirking continually.

Sitting at the head of a long table formed by six desks grouped together, Ying Peng wore a yellow pongee shirt with two baggy breast pockets. Her hooded eyes made her look sleepy. Strange to say, though this meeting seemed ominous, she had no written speech in her hands. She waved us to quiet down, then started to speak in her abrasive voice.

“Comrades, you’ve all heard some students are making big scenes in Beijing. We just received orders from the Municipal Administration that says no demonstration will be tolerated here in Shanning City. Two weeks ago, the
People’s Daily
brought out an important editorial that defined the nature of the disturbance in Beijing as ‘a plotted conspiracy—a riot.’ You all understand the full weight of those words. Without doubt some people are conspiring to overthrow the Communist Party’s leadership, to sabotage the unity of our country, and to rattle the security of our socialist system. I know that some undergrads on campus are restless, planning to take to the streets, but you graduate students, older and more mature, must keep your heads cool and must discourage every undergrad from making trouble. Let me remind you that thirty years ago lots of intellectuals were sent to jail and labor camps just because they yammered a few words against the Party leaders of their work units. Some of them were merely college kids, still wet behind the ears, but they lost their youthful years in no-man’s-land. All was due to a few rash words they let out. Comrades, please learn from the historical lesson and don’t repeat the same silly mistake. Behave yourselves and tuck your tails between your legs—like a modest creature. Bear in mind that our Communist Party has never been forgetful. As long as our Party’s in power, we won’t let you get away with your wrongdoing. So don’t go to the streets. Don’t take part in any reactionary activities. Mark my words, I won’t make any effort to protect you this time if you get into trouble. Even if you go down on your knees calling me Grandma, I won’t. Even if you treat me to a sixteen-course dinner, I won’t. Even if you present me with an eighteen-inch color TV, I won’t. Even if you open a savings account for me in the bank, I won’t!”

Laughter rang out. She looked amused, though her face remained tight. She went on: “Comrades, if you get arrested and become a counterrevolutionary, your whole family will suffer. Your siblings won’t be able to go to college no matter how smart they are. Also, nobody will marry you, and you’ll have to live as a bachelor or an old maid for the rest of your lives. Just imagine the lonesome years you’ll have to go through. So think twice before you join in anything. If you can’t help but poop and pee, come to my office or Chairman Song’s office, and let your stuff out within our department. That’ll be better than to make a big fuss on the streets, where the police will definitely whip your asses.”

A few people tittered at the foot of the table. The secretary turned to order Banping to read out the brief document that had just arrived.

With his elbows on the desktop splotched with blue ink, Banping began reading earnestly with a rustic accent: “All Party branches in the local schools must propagate this document among the faculty, staff, and students. From now on, every school must strengthen its disciplines and regulations, and must educate its students to abide by the law. Every Party member must act as a model for maintaining unity and stability, and must vigorously fight against any activities that instigate disorder and undermine the Party’s leadership. . . .”

Weiya Su was seated across the table from me. Since the dinner at Banping’s place a week before, I had run into her only once. Today she seemed under the weather, her eyes red, rather watery, and an anemic pallor was on her cheeks. Her youthful outfit, an apple-green ruffled skirt and a white shirt with ladybugs printed on it and with a shawl collar, didn’t add much life to her. I noticed she glanced at me from time to time. When Ying Peng bent down to sneeze, Weiya tossed a tiny paper ball toward me—it landed on the table. Immediately I put my palm over it, but Yuman Tan’s small round eyes caught my hand and glowered at me. Disregarding him, I undid the paper ball below the table and saw these words: “Can we talk after the meeting?” I nodded yes to her.

During the rest of the meeting she looked preoccupied. We, the eighteen graduate students, were asked to promise the Party branch that we’d stay clear of any political activities against the government. One by one we vowed not to be involved. When it was Weiya’s turn to pledge her word, she spoke rather absently.

The meeting lasted just fifty minutes, uncharacteristically short. After it, Weiya and I went behind the classroom building, where a footpath stretched along the back wall and led to the swimming pool, whose water shimmered faintly beyond the high, pointed paling. Two female undergraduates were strolling back and forth along the path, chatting in low voices and giggling intermittently. So Weiya and I chose to stand under a streetlamp whose lightbulb had burned out. A dog yapped from the yard of the school’s guesthouse, about two hundred feet away in the north. The roof of that ranch-style house was partly obscured by young sycamores and a bamboo grove, and some rows of the ceramic tiles, still wet with rainwater, glistened in the moonlight.

“What’s happened?” I asked Weiya.

“What do you think of Yuman Tan?” Her voice was slightly hesitant.

“As a colleague?”

“No, as a man.”

I frowned. To me that dapper fellow was merely a truckler, “an anus-licker,” as some people called him behind his back. “Well,” I said, “I don’t think he’s impotent, though he never impregnated his ex-wife.”

“Come on, I’m serious.”

“Why are you so interested in him?”

“Secretary Peng has introduced him to me.”

“She wants you to date him?”

The angry edge in my voice must have startled her; she lifted her face, her eyes flickering. She answered, “More than that, she asked me to be his fiancée.”

“What? Do you like him?”

“I don’t dislike him, to be honest.”

“Can you imagine yourself loving him?”

“That’s an irrelevant question. It doesn’t matter if I can love him or not. Most marriages aren’t based on love anyway. As long as a couple are compatible, their marriage may work.”

I was nonplussed. Never had I thought she could be so practical.

“To be honest,” she said after a feeble sigh, “I’ve already outgrown love. When I was a teenager, I believed I was born to love and would die for love. Romantic, wasn’t I? Some years later, on the rubber farm, I fell in love with a man who taught me how to paint propaganda posters on billboards. But after he went to college, he stopped writing to me. He was a clever fellow, too clever to be serious about a girl’s heart. He thought I got stuck in the wilderness forever.”

“All right, but do you think you’re compatible with Yuman Tan?” I asked. She had told me before about her life on a rubber plantation in Yunnan Province, where she had worked for several years, so there was no need for me to hear the story again.

“Well,” she said, “I don’t know him well enough to say that. Probably nobody really knows who he is. He seems to have different faces. But he’s talented and writes well.”

“So are some other men.”

“He’s a decent essayist, don’t you think?”

“All right, he is. But we’re talking about the man, not his pen. I can’t comprehend why you’re so interested in him. Believe me, Weiya, he’s not worthy of your attention.” I wanted to say,
To me he’s just an unbearable horsefly that can’t bite
but is always annoying. You mustn’t demean yourself this way.
But I checked myself.

She said with a drawn smile, “I’m already thirty-one, tired of being an old maid. If I don’t get married soon, I’ll become a childless woman all my life.”

“So you want a home?”

“Yes. It’s a shame to hear this from me, isn’t it?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Pity rose in my chest as I realized that like me, she too must be a lonely creature in spite of her confident appearance. She too must have been starving for companionship, longing to rest in a pair of reliable arms. Nevertheless, I pleaded, “Don’t do this to yourself, Weiya. I’m sure you’ll find a better man.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Secretary Peng can hurt me. If I don’t obey her, there’ll be disastrous consequences.”

“In what way can she hurt you?” It felt odd to hear her say that; never had I seen her so apprehensive.

“Hmm, let me just say this: she can kick me out of the department easily.”

“So?” I wasn’t convinced. Why should she barter herself for a teaching position? This would ruin her life.

“I’m not like you,” she said. “If I were a man, I wouldn’t be afraid of her, and I’d go anywhere after graduation. I wouldn’t even think of marriage at all.”

I felt all at sea about what she was driving at. She was a well-educated woman, not only independent but also thoughtful. Why did she sound so timid? She went on, “Tell me, Yuman is just a scoundrel to you, isn’t he?”

“Not only that. If you marry him, he may not be able to give you a child.”

“You mean he may have physical problems?”

I nodded, unsure how to explain, though I knew for a fact that his ex-wife had never gotten pregnant.

“Well,” she said, “I’m quite sure that physically he’s fine.”

“Did you check him out?”

Ignoring my mockery, she replied, “He entered college in 1977, after the entrance exams were reinstated. This means he had to pass the thorough physical screening in order to get admitted to college. Let me tell you a secret: one reason that most young women want to marry college students is that the men are healthy and unlikely to have major physical problems. For us it’s a safer bet.”

I was amazed by such a shrewd answer, yet I told her, “Whether Yuman Tan is physically all right or not, you deserve a better man.”

“That’s not a reasonable thing to say. We all deserve a good marriage, a happy family, and a great career, but those blessings are not for everyone. I used to dream of having a bunch of kids and a white bungalow like the one my grandparents once had, but that was just a fantasy. Besides, where could I find a better man?”

“There must be one if you look hard.”

“Tell me where to find such a man.” She gave a sly smile and went on, “To tell you the truth, recently I’ve begun to believe the feminist argument that most Chinese men have degenerated.”

Without much thinking, I patted my chest and said almost flippantly, “Well, have you ever thought of someone like me? Of course I can’t give you a bungalow.” Although I kept my tone of voice nonchalant, my heart began pounding. My impromptu offer shocked me. Yes, I was attracted to her, but I had never intended to go this far.

Surprised, she looked me in the face, then turned away laughing as if in hysterics. “You’re crazy,” she said. “This isn’t a novel or a movie, and I’m not a young heroine who needs a prince or a knight riding a white horse to her rescue. You’re already engaged, so you can’t be serious about what you just said. You probably mentioned yourself only out of pity, but I don’t need your compassion in this situation. Even if you meant to help me, what made you think I’d do Meimei such a nasty turn? Besides, you’re five years younger than me.”

I was abashed but managed to counter, “Well, Karl Marx was four years younger than his wife Jenny, but they had a great marriage.”

She laughed again, this time ringingly. “You’re so funny. We’re in China, and we’re average people.”

I realized what a fool I had made of myself, yet I said in self-defense, “Then why did you bother to ask me about Yuman Tan?”

“If Mr. Yang were not ill, I’d ask him. Other than him, you’re the only man here I can trust. You’re like a younger brother to me.”

That shut me up. I was somewhat irritated by the word “trust,” of which I had had an earful. When I was an undergraduate at Jilin University, quite a few young women had said the same thing to me: they found me honest and trustworthy. But none of them had ever thought me loveworthy. That was why they often talked to me and even confided in me. I felt like a wastebasket into which they dumped whatever they had no place for. This made me think that a harmless man must be more unfortunate than a charmless woman.

“How’s Mr. Yang doing?” she asked a moment later, her voice full of concern.

“Crazy as ever.”

“How bad is he now?”

“He’s not himself anymore. Sometimes he blabbers like an imbecile, and sometimes he speaks like a sage. I wonder if he has some kind of dementia.”

“You think he’ll recover soon?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“I’ll come to see him.”

I wanted to say,
Makes no difference,
but I held my tongue. We walked to her dormitory, which was about three hundred yards away to the east, beyond a shallow pond overgrown with lotus flowers. From the murky water a lone frog croaked tentatively. All the way we remained silent. I was sulking, because it seemed to me she should never have considered Yuman Tan as a possibility. That man had divorced his wife the summer before; to be exact, she had run out on him. She used to be a singer in the Provincial Song and Dance Ensemble and always wore lipstick, eyeliner, and mascara. She left for the United States to join an American man, Alan Johnson, a widower from Chicago with muttonchop whiskers, who had taught linguistics in the Foreign Languages Department here. Alan Johnson had begun carrying on with her after a mutual acquaintance introduced them in a teahouse downtown. They often went to restaurants and the movies. Most of the time they had to meet off campus, because the old guards at the front entrance to the compound where the foreign experts lived would not let any Chinese visitor go in without official permission. One night last spring, the two of them were picked up by a police patrol in Golden Elephant Park while they were making out on a bench there. The affair was the first one in our school involving a foreigner, so a good number of officials got reprimanded for negligence, particularly those in the university’s Foreign Affairs Office and the heads of the song and dance ensemble. Later the Provincial Education Department revoked its two-year contract with Alan Johnson, and he had no choice but to return to the United States at the end of his first year here.