The Train to Lo Wu (4 page)

Wei,
his sister mumbles, jabbing an elbow into his side. Stop
moving! Go back to sleep.

Jie-jie,
he says. Tell me again.

Tell you what?

What you remember.

It’s a very small place, she says. Just a bunch of houses with court-yards. And green fields on all sides. It’s in a valley, you know, but
you can never see the mountains, they’re always hidden in the
clouds. You won’t like it there.

Why not?

The boys are rough. They’ve hardly been to school at all—they only
work in the fields. They like to fight. And they say dirty things all
the time.

I’ve been in fights.

Don’t be ridiculous, she says. You shouldn’t resist them. Just make
friends with the toughest one, the leader. Teach him how to write bad
words. Otherwise they’ll tie a stone around your neck and throw you
in the river.

The boy curls his arms around his stomach and turns to face
the wall.

I’m only joking, she says. You take everything so seriously.

The family in the room above his listens to the television at full volume; the sound echoes in the pipes and rattles the window-panes. In the winter he lies in bed with his headphones on, listening to the radio, but now he opens the window and moves his chair against the wall so that he can lean his head back on the sill and doze to the faint sound of traffic, ten stories below. Coming out of the dream, he hears buses hissing along Nathan Road, delivery trucks creaking on old brakes. Drumbeats from a car stereo. He flattens a hand against his chest and feels his heart reverberate like footsteps in an empty hall.

You will go mad this way, he thinks.

Thirty-one years. And you have not yet leaped from the train.

He lifts his head slightly. A feeling of danger lingers in the distance, a sound barely within range. Old Chen, he thinks, what’s wrong with you? What do you have to be afraid of?

Last year at this time, he remembers, we went to the flower market, Lao Jiang and his wife and I, each of them holding an elbow. Peonies, orchids, amaryllis. Buffeted by clouds of scent, like a perfume factory. Last year I wasn’t afraid of dreams.

And what has changed recently in your life, old head?

The American girl.

He sits up straight, and then stands, pacing the room, taking deep, angry breaths. It isn’t possible, he thinks, she’s done nothing wrong, she only has a soft heart. But then there are the funny questions she asks sometimes, the talk of interviews. He laces his fingers together and pulls them apart. Isn’t she only a polite girl?

How could she possibly know?

Tell me again what is you study, he says to her. He is washing his hands between customers, craning his neck to hear her over the hiss of the faucet.

Anthropology.

No, no. Your project.

Patterns of adjustment over time, she says. The way people who have survived traumatic upheavals adapt to changes in their environment later on.

Ah.

Taking the situation now in China as an example. The last ten years: 1988 to 1998. And then the decade before that— beginning with Deng Xiaoping’s election. And then the twelve years before that.

He feels as if someone has knocked against his chest like a door.

Cultural Revolution time, he says, reaching for a towel. So long ago.

For some people it’s as if it were yesterday.

He dries his hands carefully, rubs his palms together and massages his face; there is a sharp pain between his eyes that will not go away. Here there many protests, he says, remembering what Lao Jiang has told him. Riots. Always police in the streets. I stay inside for many days.

Hong Kong was lucky, she says. One woman I met in Wuhan was locked in the same room for a year with her three little sisters. One of them died. One jumped out the window. One went crazy. The man that was responsible is now the head of her work unit. Still lives down the street from her.

Anybody can make a story, he says. How you know who to believe?

I trust them. And I ask lots of questions.

He turns and spreads a new towel out on the table, smoothing its wrinkles. Lao Jiang, he thinks, don’t be so shy, come interrupt us. Tell a joke, for once. Talk about the weather. But the shop is quiet and sleepy. A fly drones past his ear.

Let me give you an example, she says. If you were someone I wanted to interview, first I would listen to you tell your story. In a very relaxed way—no pressure, not too many questions. Then I would go around and talk to other people, and see if they remembered things the way you did. Maybe I could find a document, some kind of official record. Then I would come back and ask the hard questions. Connect the dots.

He laughs, too loudly; the sound reverberates harshly in the small room. I think you have a hard time with me, he says. I am orphan, you know. I do not even know when I come from China. In the 1950 nobody keep this kind of record.

Is there any way of finding out? What about your passport?

Why need passport? Where I go?

You never tried to find out about your parents? Where you were born?

He wets his handkerchief under the tap and wipes his face.

It is impossible. But finding out not so important.

I think I could help you, she says. The records must be there somewhere. At least we would know when you came, and who brought you. Maybe even your age.

Xiao Ma, he says. I have no story for you. Nothing tell.

But I might be able to help you remember.

Why? Why you want do this for me?

So that you can know.

Just for me? All this work?

Also for my research. For a—for a later project.

Ah. So I am also subject.

Mr. Chen, she says, I think you have a story that would be interesting to many people. There has been very little work done on the experience of the blind in China. You could bring to light—

This not China. This Yau Ma Tei. Hong Kong.

If I find something, can I bring it to show you?

Maybe better not.

In the front room Lao Jiang is arguing with a customer over the benefits of wild versus cultivated ginseng; the young man has a high, nasal voice, and his Cantonese is slurred and shrill, filled with abuse.
Don’t try to cheat me, old man. Look at yourself! Are
you an advertisement for your products?
Standing there, listening, Chen feels a slow paralysis working through his veins, as if his blood had turned to ice. We are finished, he thinks. These young people are the voice of the end.

Mr. Chen?

You very determined girl, he says, turning his head to her with an effort. I sorry I can’t more—can’t cooperate.

I’m not asking for so much, she says, her voice hard and tight. Just the truth. I want to help you find the truth of what happened.

No, he thinks. You want a prize. You want me to be your prize. He clears his throat. You understand, he says. I live here so long, very quiet, and now I am old and no memories. Only food taste good, weather hot, children make too much noise. You ask someone else.

He hears the muffled slap of a notebook closing, a pen clicking shut. Keys jingling as she picks up her bag.

Mr. Chen, she says, you are not a fool. And I am not a fool.

No. He takes a long breath. No, he says. That not the question.

Dadao Liu Shaoqi! Dadao Liu Shaoqi!

Running steps thunder in the corridor. A young man thrusts his
face into the compartment. Down with Liu Shaoqi! he screams. His
face is smeared with coal dust; his eyes are bloodshot. The boy’s father sits up abruptly, banging his head on the bed above. Long live
Chairman Mao! Down with Liu Shaoqi!

Long live Chairman Mao, his father says weakly.

Down with Liu Shaoqi!

Down with Liu Shaoqi!

His father’s voice rises into a yell and cracks. The young man
seizes him by the shoulders. Down with Liu Shaoqi! he screams. Say
it! Say it! Down with Liu Shaoqi!

All during the night and into the morning the train fills with
them.

Blue jackets, blue trousers, blue caps; the girls have their hair
tucked up underneath. Red armbands. Red buttons and pins. Red
stars. Some of them have bedrolls or satchels, but most carry nothing
at all. They cluster together in clumps of eight or ten; if one is left
behind she runs frantically to catch up, butting away everyone in her
path. At every station they pull into, there are more on the platform.
Some have their own flags: “Nanjing Revolutionary Red Guards
Group Five.” Periodically they burst into song:

The east is red
The sun rises
China has brought forth a Mao Zedong!

I want a button, the boy says loudly. Mama, can I have a button?
A girl passing by hears him and bends down, squeezing his arm.
Stand up straight! she shouts. He stiffens, thrusting out his chest.
Salute! His fingers smack his forehead.

Down with the four olds!

Down with the four olds!

Here, she says, taking a large pin from her shirt. This is from Beijing. It is in the shape of Tiananmen Gate, with Mao’s face in the
middle, and the five stars above, like a crown. His mouth forms an
O. The redness of it burns through his hand; he has never seen
any
thing so saturated with color, like an eye staring at him.

Say thank you! his mother shouts from inside the compartment.

No, the girl says. Say, Long live Chairman Mao.

Long live Chairman—

Give me that, his mother says as soon as he steps inside the door.
Take that wretched thing off! She sits up on the bed, fumbling with
the clasp, and yanks it away, leaving a small hole in his shirt. And
don’t go outside anymore.

Xiaomei, his father whispers from his bunk. It’s protection. Let
him have it.

We don’t need protection, she says loudly. Unbound, her hair
falls across her face like a curtain, and she pushes it aside impatiently. We haven’t done anything.

Mama, why can’t I—

They killed Wang Huili’s mother, his father hisses. They took her
off a bus on Zhongshan Lu and beat her to death in the street.

The boy’s hands drop to his sides. He has never heard his father
talk like this: like a street vendor would say it.

They don’t know us, his mother whispers. Her hair has fallen back
in front of her face, and the boy notices now that it is streaked with ash
gray. We’re not important enough. Why should we act afraid?

Put the pin back on, his father whispers. Go out there with your
sister and salute.

Minutes later, his face again pressed against the window, he hears
the familiar snick-snick of his mother’s sewing scissors, the tearing
sound, and he realizes she is cutting her hair.

That night the Guards sleep crammed together on the floor of
their compartment and in the corridor outside.