Under the Hawthorn Tree (6 page)

She waited in her room without writing a single word. When it was nearly ten she heard him saying goodbye and while she was panicking, thinking of a way to slip out and tell him, he suddenly entered her room, removed the pen from her hand and scrawled a few words on a piece of paper. Tomorrow go to the mountain road, I'll be waiting for you. Eight o'clock.

She raised her head to look at him, and watched as a smile inched across his face. He was waiting for her reply, but before she had a chance to answer him Auntie walked in.

Old Third spoke loudly. ‘Thank you, I'll be off,' and left.

‘What was he thanking you for?' Auntie was suspicious.

‘Oh, he asked me to buy some things for him in Yichang.'

‘I also wanted to ask you to get me something.' Auntie took out some money and said, ‘Could you buy some wool for Lin and knit him a new jumper? You can decide the colour and pattern. Yumin told me that you're very good at it.'

Jingqiu felt she couldn't say no to this request, so she took the money. She consoled herself, I can't be Auntie's daughter-in-law, but knitting him a jumper can be my repayment.

That evening, she couldn't sleep. She kept taking out the piece of paper with his handwriting on it. How did he know she was leaving tomorrow? Doesn't he have work? What will he say, what will he do? She was delighted that he was going to escort her, but then she became worried. Girls were supposed to be on their guard with men, and wasn't he a man? Us two, alone on that road. If he wants to do something to me, can I defend myself? Isn't a man a threat? She really had little idea, didn't know what exactly that threat was. You'd often see posters plastered around with men's names on them, crossed out in red. Some had committed crimes for which they had been executed, and of course she'd heard the word ‘rape' before. There had been a few ‘rapists' on those posters, and sometimes there would even be a description of the crime, but only in the vaguest terms so you couldn't tell exactly what had happened.

Jingqiu remembered once seeing one of these posters. It had said the man had been ‘exceedingly cruel, and had forced a screwdriver into the woman's lower regions'. She had discussed it with some female friends. Where are a woman's ‘lower regions'? They agreed it must be below the waist, but where exactly had this rapist put the screwdriver? She had never managed to work it out. All of Jingqiu's friends were students at No. 8 Middle School, or else daughters of teachers at the adjoining primary school. Some of them were a bit older, and seemed to know more about life, but they enjoyed revealing only half-truths and fragments of their knowledge. To Jingqiu, puzzling it all out was like wandering around in a fog.

She had heard people saying that so-and-so had been ‘knocked up', had had their ‘belly made big' by so-and-so. She had tried to figure it out herself. She gathered it involved ‘sleeping' with a man, valuable information gleaned from her mother's colleague whose son had been dumped by his girlfriend. Angered, the mother had gone around saying to people, ‘That girl slept with my son, got knocked up, and now she doesn't want him. We'll see if anyone wants her.'

Mulling over all these stories and gossip, Jingqiu came up with a plan: tomorrow she would walk over the mountain with Old Third, but she would be vigilant. Since she wouldn't be sleeping on the mountain there shouldn't be any risk of getting ‘knocked up', but it would be better to let him walk in front, that way he wouldn't be able to surprise her, or press her to the ground. The only worry left was if anyone saw them and told her association. That would be a disaster.

At seven o'clock the next morning Jingqiu got up, combed her hair, said goodbye to Auntie, and left the house on her own. She first walked to the upper reaches of the river, crossed on the small boat, and started to climb the mountain. She didn't have much with her, so the walk took less effort than last time. She had just reached the top when she saw Old Third. He wasn't wearing his blue uniform, but rather a short jacket she had never seen before which revealed the entire length of his long legs. She suddenly found she liked men with long legs. As soon as she saw him she forgot the previous night's pledge.

Smiling, he watched her as she approached. ‘I saw you leave. When I started out I thought you might not come.'

‘Aren't you working today?'

‘I took the day off.' He reached into his backpack, took out an apple and gave it to her. ‘Have you eaten yet?'

‘No. Have you?'

‘I haven't either. We can get something in town.' He took her bag from her. ‘You're very brave. Were you prepared to cross the mountain on your own? Aren't you afraid of jackals, tigers, or panthers?'

‘Lin told me there aren't any wild animals up here. He said I should only be careful of villains.'

Old Third laughed. ‘And am I one of these villains?'

‘I don't know.'

‘I'm not a villain. You'll come to realise that.'

‘You were brave yesterday, Auntie nearly saw that note.' Saying this made her feel like they were up to no good, and as the feeling of complicity came over her, her face reddened.

But he didn't notice. ‘It wouldn't have mattered if she'd seen, she can't read. And anyway, my handwriting's messy. I was only worried you wouldn't be able to understand my characters.'

The mountain road was too narrow for them to walk side by side, so he walked ahead and had to turn around to talk. ‘What did Auntie say?'

‘She wanted me to buy some wool for Lin and knit him a jumper.'

‘Auntie wants you for her daughter-in-law, that's what she wants. Did you know that?'

‘She said.'

‘Did you . . . say yes?'

Jingqiu nearly fell over with shock. ‘What are you talking about? I'm still at school.'

‘Does that mean if you weren't at school you would say yes?' Old Third teased. ‘Did you agree to make him a jumper?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, if you agreed to knit him a jumper then you can make me one too!'

‘You sound like a child! Someone gets a jumper, so you have to have one too?' She gained courage. ‘Are you sure you want me to knit you one? What would your wife say?'

He was startled. ‘What wife? Who told you I have a wife?'

So he isn't married. She was rapturous, but continued to push him. ‘Auntie said you had a wife, that last time you left you went home to visit your family.'

‘I'm not married yet, so what wife is that? She must have been trying to get you and Lin together, otherwise why would she say that? You ask the men at my unit, they'll tell you if I'm married or not. If you don't believe me, you'll believe my unit, yes?'

‘Why would I ask your unit? What's it got to do with me whether you're married or not?'

‘I was just worried you'd got the wrong idea,' Old Third replied.

He must like me, otherwise why would he worry that I'd got the wrong idea, Jingqiu thought. But something stopped her from persisting. She'd approached an exciting but dangerous point and she could see that he didn't seem to want to continue either, instead changing the topic of conversation to her family. She decided to be candid, that she would tell him the truth to test him. She spoke of her father's denunciation, how he had been driven out to the countryside, how both he and her brother had no chance of returning, she told him all of it. He listened, never interrupting and asking questions only when she faltered.

Jingqiu said, ‘I remember at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution and my mother still hadn't been hunted down. One evening, when I was with my friends, we ran to the meeting hall at my mother's school as we heard noise and we wanted to see what it was all about. We knew they often held struggle meetings there. We thought struggle sessions were fun, watching people being criticised as traitors to the revolution. That day a teacher called Zhu Jiajing was confessing to being a traitor, but only in order to save her skin. She said she had never defected, and had never betrayed a comrade. She was often pulled out for struggle sessions but was always perfectly calm, would raise her head, and say coldly, “You're not talking sense. This is not true, and I can't be bothered to respond.” One day, I went with my friends to the meeting hall as usual to see what was going on, and this time I saw my mother in the middle of the crowd being criticised, her head lowered. My friends started laughing at me and copying my mother. I was so scared I ran home, hid and cried. When my mother returned she didn't say anything, because she thought I hadn't seen.

‘When the day came for her to be publicly criticised, she knew she couldn't hide it from us any more, so at lunchtime she gave my sister and me some money and told us to go to the market across the river, and not to come back before dinner. We stayed away until five o'clock. As soon as we entered the school gate we saw a poster so big it could have covered the sky, and on it was my mother's name, written upside down with a red cross over it, calling her a historical counter-revolutionary.

‘Back at home I saw that mother had cried till her eyes were red-raw, her face was swollen on one side, as were her lips, and her head was shaved. She sat in front of the mirror, trying to neaten the tufts of her hair with some scissors. She's a proud person, with a strong sense of self-worth. She couldn't bear being criticised in public like that. She held us as we cried, and told us if it weren't for us three children she wouldn't be able to go on.'

Old Third said softly, ‘You have a wonderfully strong mother who can bear such pain and humiliation for her children. Don't be too upset, lots of people have had similar experiences; you just need to get through it. Be like that Zhu woman, raise your head, be proud, and don't let it get to you.'

Jingqiu thought his class alignment was confused; how can he compare my mother's actions with that traitor Zhu? She was upset. ‘My mother isn't an historical counter-revolutionary, she was liberated. She's allowed to teach. Those people made a mistake. My mother's father joined the Communist Party but when he moved he couldn't find his new local branch. People claimed that he'd left voluntarily. Around the time of the Liberation he was arrested, and before they bothered to get the whole story clear he got sick and died in custody. But that's not my mother's fault.'

Old Third tried to comfort her. ‘The most important thing is that you believe in her, because even if she were a historical counter-revolutionary, she is still a wonderful mother. Politics . . . who knows? Don't use political labels to judge your loved ones.'

Jingqiu was exasperated. ‘You sound exactly like that traitor Zhu. Her daughter asked her why she had turned herself in, saying if she hadn't, by now she'd have become a revolutionary martyr. Her mother replied, “I'm not afraid of being beaten, nor of death, but your father is in prison and if I don't confess you'll all starve to death.”'

Old Third let out a breath. ‘On the one hand she has to think of her children, and on the other, the cause. I suppose it was hard for her to choose. But if she hadn't betrayed anyone there was no need to punish her like that. At that time the Party had a policy – to help them stay in power – that after being imprisoned you were allowed to leave the Party if you made an announcement in the newspaper. As long as you hadn't betrayed anyone, it was fine. Some people who had been in leadership positions, but were later imprisoned, did this.'

He rattled off a few names as examples. Jingqiu listened, stunned. ‘You're such a reactionary!'

He laughed. ‘What, are you going to expose me? These things are all open secrets in the Party's upper circles, even people lower down the hierarchy know about some of it,' he teased. ‘You're just too innocent. If you want to expose me, I'll confess and die in your arms, perfectly contented. All I ask is that after I'm dead and buried, you come put some hawthorn flowers on my grave, and erect a stone with the words, here lies the person I loved.'

She raised her arm and pretended to hit him, threatening, ‘Don't talk rubbish, or I won't listen.'

He bent his head towards her and waited for her to hit him, but seeing that she would not come closer he leaned back. ‘My mother's story might be even more tragic than your mother's. When she was young she was progressive, very revolutionary; she personally led the factory's guards to look for her capitalist father's hidden property. She watched with her own eyes, unaffected, as people interrogated and tortured him. She thought it was all for the revolution. After she married, however she kept a low profile, working as a cadre in the city community arts centre. She was married to my father for many years, and during that time was estranged from her own father, but in her bones she was still a capitalist intellectual. She liked literature, romance, and beautiful things. She read lots of books, and loved poetry – she even wrote some herself – but she didn't show it to anyone because she knew that it would be considered bourgeois.

‘During the Cultural Revolution my father was condemned as a “capitalist roader”, was criticised and ostracised, and we were forced out of our army residence. My mother too was called a capitalist, and a corrupt cadre. They used cruel methods to lure my father into dangerous waters. At that time the community arts centre was covered in vulgar posters that described my mother as a filthy, shameless woman.

‘Like your mother, she was proud. She'd never suffered a smear campaign like that before so she had no way of coping. She argued with them, speaking in her own defence, but the more she did so the worse it got. They used different ways to humiliate her, forced her to pass on details that would trap my father. Every day, when she got home, she would spend a long time washing, trying to scrub away the dirt of their insults. They hit her until she couldn't get up, and only then would they let her go home to dress her wounds.