Old Town (28 page)

Standing off to the side, Dr. Lin saw this as nothing accidental or unforeseen. He vaguely sensed that Enchun may have accepted communist ideas. It was easy for decent and upstanding young people like Enchun to be attracted by communism. In Shanghai, he himself had several classmates who went rushing off to the communist-liberated areas. All of them were decent, upstanding youths. He also had a classmate who called himself a communist sympathizer because communism and Christianity had no essential differences between them. The basic ideas of communism were to level the differences between rich and poor, the equality of all people, and food for people to eat. Wasn’t this exactly the New Heaven and New Earth sought for in Christianity? And there were many records in the Bible of the early Church advocating that everything be shared in common, to each according to his need.

The doctor told his wife to take the children home and asked the pastor’s wife and Enchun to leave them. He then discussed his own views with Pastor Chen, but before opening his mouth he addressed a silent prayer to Jesus:
O Lord, the wisdom of your child is limited. If your child’s thinking is wrong, please correct it
.

Pastor Chen heard the word “communism” and tiny beads of sweat started oozing from his forehead. His mind formed a gruesome picture: Enchun, with his hands bound behind him, being led to that barren field outside West Gate.

The doctor’s sympathy toward communism and his understanding of it made the pastor feel for the first time his own poverty and dull-wittedness. He didn’t know whether making an analogy of communism with Christianity would offend Jesus. An even greater worry arose from the selfish heart of a father. Enchun had still not been baptized. In the event of some unforeseen disaster, he could never enjoy eternal life in heaven. The pastor spoke of these worries and the doctor said he would try to influence Enchun. The doctor loved Enchun as his own son.

Several days later, the doctor arranged to delve into the subject of communism with Enchun. They were like two underground activists secretly contacting each other, and they had a long talk in the pavilion at Little West Lake. The doctor came straight to the point. “I don’t know if you are a communist or not, but I would like to know what communism is.” Enchun told him that communism represented the interests of the broad laboring classes. As the doctor saw it, Jesus was the spirit that watched over the toiling masses. Jesus had said, “It is harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.” The more he pondered this, the more he discovered similarities between the ideas of communism and those of Christianity. The darkness of society’s realities aroused his sense of justice. He expressed to Enchun his own willingness to be a Christian who supported communism. At the same time he still tried to persuade Enchun to be baptized. “Political parties are only the work of this life, but by accepting Jesus you can gain eternal life. The two should not be contradictory.” Enchun smiled but made no reply.

3.

H
AD
Y
OUNG
M
ISS
Baohua also sat at that Eight Immortals table, cupping her chin in her hands and gazing out at the drenched streets, lovesick and moonstruck over her Big Brother Enchun?
³⁵

The owner of this building and his whole family had moved to Indonesia during the War of Resistance. Here the Lin family would live peacefully and contentedly for half a century. Undoubtedly this was God’s plan. Dr. and Mrs. Lin had prayed the whole night through in their tearful gratitude at this. Although they were often so bad off that “in pulling down their sleeves, the elbows showed,” compared to the separation and chaos of the war period, they felt heavenly splendor and joy every moment of every day.

Baohua was still the pearl in the palm of her father’s hand and he continued to speak to her in soft and gentle tones as in years past. Whenever he had the time, he would still escort Baohua to school himself. But he had not realized that now that she had grown, something was weighing on her mind.

Enchun’s behavior on his eighteenth birthday had hurt his parents’ feelings and hurt Baohua’s. One month earlier, she had begun to prepare a gift for him. Every evening, she would hide herself away in her “lady’s quarters” to knit a scarf. Her hands were not as nimble or skilled as her mother’s, so she often missed loops and had to undo double stitches. She also embroidered a heart on one corner of it. She believed that when Big Brother Enchun wore this scarf he would have a clear sense about her good feelings for him. That evening she didn’t have the opportunity to give him this present, though, and for several days following when she pretended she was going to the Chens’ home to ask about problems in mathematics, she never ran into Enchun there. But she did hear that every night he was very late in returning home. The main doors of the College of Commerce and the Women’s Teachers’ Training College faced each other and these days “free love” was the big thing.
Would he be doing this free love?

Baohua looked at the mathematics workbook spread out in front of her. Without Enchun beside her to guide her, she couldn’t make sense of even the topic headings and as she thought and thought, tears fell from her eyes. Her two younger brothers who were also there doing homework secretly glanced at each other in amusement. Baosheng teasingly said, “Big Sister’s sums are scarier than wooly caterpillars, aren’t they?” Holding her workbook close to her breast, Baohua went back to her room and slammed the door shut.

Her parents were both sitting off to the side. Daddy was reading a medical book and Ma was sewing. They smiled as they gazed at their three children and never intervened in their squabbles. Even if the children yelled fit to raise the roof, this also was all part of family happiness.

No one understood what was weighing on Baohua’s heart. She felt very much alone and as she sat in the darkness, her hands clutching that scarf to which had been entrusted a young woman’s feelings, she let her tears pour forth freely. Would he do this free love? If he did, then he was a heartless person. She decided to creep out this evening and wait by the church door for him to return. Even if she waited until dawn, she had to find out the answer.

Holding an oil lamp, Daddy knocked softly on the door. “Good little Baohua, go to sleep. Good night.”

The house was absolutely quiet. Baohua slipped out on tiptoes. She crossed the street, entered the churchyard and sat down on the steps. Now that her nervous tension and excitement had passed, the sluice gates of her tears opened up yet again. When she was small, Ma had often said that Enchun was the Lin family’s “half son,” though Baohua didn’t know what “half son” meant. Baosheng said, “This means that you and Big Brother Enchun are going to marry.” She thought that the marriage between her and Big Brother Enchun would be arranged by the parents. There was nothing wrong with arranged marriages and she was willing to live a lifetime with Enchun.

Around midnight, Baohua, dozing on and off, heard Enchun’s footsteps. She was as familiar with their sound as she was of those of everyone in her own family. It was a cloudy night, so dark that your five fingers stretched out in front of you would have been invisible. She jumped up and walked over toward this sound and by the side of the well she collided against Enchun’s chest.

Enchun grabbed hold of Baohua. “What are you doing out on the street this late at night?”

“I was waiting for you.”

“So, you couldn’t work out the math homework?”

“Mmmh.”

“This late do you still want to do homework?”

“There’s something else I wanted to ask you.”

“Which is…?”

“Why are you coming home so late every night?”

“I’m also tutoring math.”

“Don’t trick me!”

The tears that Baohua had been holding back coursed down again.

Enchun led her to the railing around the well and they sat down. He laughed. “You’ve got more tears than this well has water. You’re going to have to stop being Lin Daiyu. Society will now no longer welcome girls like Lin Daiyu.”

“I know
you
don’t welcome me.”

Enchun heard this and realized she meant something quite different and so, very cautiously, he asked her, “Are you angry with me?”

Baohua covered her face and said nothing. The scarf she gripped in her hand fell down.

Enchun picked up the scarf and put it over Baohua’s shoulders. “Good Baohua, go home and go to sleep. I no longer have much time to do your homework with you. I am going to be doing things many times more important than mathematics, but I still care for you and like you. From the time we were both small we’ve been the very best of friends, right?”

Baohua pulled the scarf from off her shoulders. “I knitted this for you for your birthday. Every day I have brought it with me looking for you, but I couldn’t find you.”

Enchun accepted the scarf. “Thank you. Now I won’t get cold coming home at night.”

“I didn’t knit this to keep you from getting cold!” Baohua said angrily.

Enchun felt quite alarmed. He was aware that Baohua had grown up. When he had been small, children could say whatever they wanted and no one would take it seriously. He had told his mother, “When I grow up, Baohua and I will be married.” He had even told Baohua, “When you grow up, do you want to marry me?” If Baohua was in a good mood at the time, the answer was “Yes.” If not, then “No.” Now she was grown up, but he had already changed into another, totally different, person. Revolutionary ideals and fervor completely possessed him, body and soul. He was prepared to spill his blood and lose his head for the sake of the birth of the New China.

He took a closer look at Baohua, wondering whether or not he could impart revolutionary truths to her, but immediately he stopped this thought. She was a pampered and willful little miss, like a piece of fine porcelain that always had to be handled delicately. He discovered that his own feelings toward her had changed. His tender and protective feelings had changed to worry and anxiety. The dawn of the New China was already appearing on the horizon. When the thunder of the revolutionary age sounded, would Baohua be weeded out and rejected? He felt more in common with the new woman who opposed feudalism and sought progress. In his reading group there was just this new kind of woman. She was healthy and enlightened, her cheeks were always rosy, and her eyes burned with ardor. She and he both could selflessly go to their deaths for the sake of the New China. Ever since accepting revolutionary thought, Enchun was often subtly aware of his own changes. At this moment he once again marveled at these changes. His thinking had changed. His vision of everything had changed. Indeed, he had become quite a different person.

“Good Baohua, this world is going to experience gigantic change and you will have to keep up with these new times. Don’t be a shrinking violet. You’ve got to be the weeds and thorns by the roadside. Wildfires can’t destroy you and when the spring winds blow then you’ll come to life again. All right?”

Baohua said, “I don’t understand what you’re saying. You’ve changed. You’re no longer the way you used to be.”

“‘Changed’ is right; and perhaps someday you also will change into a new person.”

“Do you practice free love?”

Enchun laughed. “Baohua, what are you thinking of?”

Baohua was sensitive. She felt how Big Brother Enchun with whom she had grown up had become a stranger to her. She could no longer demand him to do this and that just as she pleased. Her tears changed from an intermittent misty drizzle into a cloudburst. She suddenly ran off crying and dragging the scarf behind her.

Enchun sat by the side of the well. He thought about chasing after her and taking her by the hand and kidding her until she stopped crying and started laughing. From when they were small, he used to kid her like that, but now he hardened his heart and just sat there. The revolution was cruel. Every day, at any moment, someone could be mounting the chopping block. In order not to hurt Baohua, he had to control himself.

Baohua ran home and at the gateway turned around to look. A heart more fragile than porcelain had been shattered.

1.

“W
HEN YOUR
G
REAT
-G
RANDFATHER
Lin was an official during the Qing dynasty,” Grandma told me, “he would have to take a washbasin to hold all the silver dollars he’d receive on his monthly payday. And one washbasin of silver dollars could buy a very nice house.” She also said, “On the day that Grandpa went to collect
his
salary, he had to hire a rickshaw to haul it all back, and a rickshaw fully loaded with paper money was still not enough to buy a sack of hulled rice.”

It was only after finishing university and reading a history of modern China did I learn that these were not just
Tales from the Arabian Nights
. One thing I learned: in 1937 one hundred
yuan
in paper currency could buy two cows, but by 1947, that same amount could only buy one coal briquette. One year later, one hundred
yuan
couldn’t even get you one grain of rice!

Today, Dr. Lin received his final salary and piled a rickshaw high with the paper money. Pulling this rickshaw for him was Shuiguan, who lived beside the city moat. More and more refugees had crammed together along the two sides of the moat. All of them had come to Old Town with their children and old folks to escape famine, and they supposed they could beg for their meals in such a prosperous town. They would pick up a few pieces of wood planking along the way and build little shacks all cheek-by-jowl, like so many pigeon coops, just for something their lives could perch on. Shuiguan was one of these people. Half a year before, he had started earning money by moving things for Dr. Lin. When this particular day arrived, he went to the door of the public hospital to meet Dr. Lin. The doctor put the paper money in the rickshaw and chatted with Shuiguan as they walked back home. Whenever they came to an uphill part of the way Dr. Lin always wanted to help push.

Shuiguan said, “Next month we may have to make two trips.” Dr. Lin laughed bitterly. “Next month we’ll be drinking the northwest wind.”

Shuiguan didn’t pay any attention to this comment but just continued his bantering. “In the rice shops it’s one price when the rice goes on the scale and then another when it comes off. This is how they are going bankrupt, one by one.”

His shoulders sagging, the doctor walked alongside Shuiguan without hearing a word the fellow was saying. He had been fired today, the third time this had happened since coming back to Old Town after the war. Old Town had only three hospitals, so he wouldn’t be finding work anymore. This afternoon a critically sick person came to the hospital with family members, none of whom had any money. The three children knelt in the hospital courtyard desperately knocking their heads on the ground. Without proper authority he did what had to be done to save this patient. The patient survived but his own job didn’t. On the two previous occasions, he had lost his job because his sense of sympathy had displeased his superiors. But he had no regrets. If to keep his rice bowl filled he had to watch a life pass away before his eyes, he would never be at peace again. The only solution was for him to open his own clinic. But that would require an investment in medicines and equipment. All the family’s money was in Shuiguan’s rickshaw and he still had to get to the rice shop at West Gate as quickly as he could to change it into rice.

What was the world coming to? The doctor looked up at the dark and overcast sky, and spoke to his God.
Heavenly Father, is this your will? Is this your way of telling us that you are unhappy with the Guomindang government? That you want the common folk to rise up in support of the communists?

The shop at West Gate was closed. Many people carrying baskets of paper currency suspended from shoulder poles were loudly and angrily wishing the owner an unpleasant death. Shuiguan pulled the rickshaw to a halt and looked questioningly at the doctor. Dr. Lin heaved a big sigh. “Let’s go. It’s not easy being the boss of a rice shop.”

Second Sister had the three children with her as she waited at the gate. When they saw their daddy coming home—escorting a load of paper money—they rushed forward to greet him, whooping with joy. The doctor’s gloom immediately vanished like mist and smoke.

Why should I get so worried? Our Heavenly Father brought me back alive from the war. Through all those perilous rivers and mountains beyond counting how many miracles did I bear witness to with God at my side? God is too kind and good to let our family die of starvation
.

He didn’t tell Second Sister about losing his job. As always on paydays, they invited Pastor and Mrs. Chen over for dinner. In the kitchen were two eggs that had been kept for a month now. Second Sister beat these together with the pulp of a gourd and fried a large, golden-yellow omelet. She also cooked some bean curd soup into which she mixed sweet potato starch, giving it a very thick and hearty look. They had no more rice wine so they made do with tea.

The Bible teaches that all things work together and always bring good to those who love God. All their sufferings and hardships could be the source of instructive discussion whenever they gathered to eat together. The pastor’s wife said that over the past few months, whenever there were days when they had nothing to cook, God would send someone over with rice and other food. He had already sent over Baohua, the boss of the rice shop, and many others whose names they didn’t know. Even if they didn’t manage to eat a tasty or filling meal, they never went longer than a day with nothing at all.

The adults of the two families didn’t realize that Baohua’s disposition had turned peculiar. She suddenly interrupted the talk by saying, “God has never cared about us.”

Traditionally, at the Lin home children weren’t allowed to speak at mealtime, but the upheaval of the war had done away with family rules. Dr. Lin’s love for his three children had reached the stage where he would wink at this sort of thing, and so he said with a smile, “If God isn’t helping you do your math assignments it means that in the future you won’t need mathematics in order to eat. You can teach Chinese language and literature in primary school, or even become a nurse. Then, when you get married, you can help your husband teach your children.”

Pursing her lips, Baohua put down her rice bowl. “I’m not getting married!”

With that, she left to shut herself in her chamber and cry in the darkness.

Dr. Lin rushed cheerily in there after her but spoke about other things.

These were extraordinary times. The parents of the two families knew that Enchun’s position was special. Without needing to say anything to each other, they had kept the plan of marriage between him and Baohua a deep secret. Pastor and Mrs. Chen were still heartsick about their son’s rejection of eternal life and they prayed for this with great earnestness and urgency.

A prayer at the end of their gatherings was essential. They prayed for Enchun’s salvation, and Mrs. Chen tearfully said, “Heavenly Father, we beseech you to take pity on and forgive our young son Enchun’s error. Please lead this lost sheep back to the fold.”

As long as they sought Enchun’s entry through Jesus’ gate of eternal life, even if tomorrow gunshots outside West Gate signaled the moment of his death, their hopes would not be shattered, for they would know that their son had gone to heaven.

As Mrs. Chen was calling out “Heavenly Father…Heavenly Father,” suddenly the sound of a wildly driven automobile interrupted their prayers. You could count the number of autos in Old Town on your two hands. Plowing heedlessly through the crowded streets were mostly police vehicles grabbing people: communists, unauthorized holders of gold and silver dollars, small-scale merchants and peddlers hoarding rice, spreaders of discontented views…Any ordinary citizen might offend the government and land in prison in shackles and chains.

The sound of the motor cut off abruptly. It seemed to be just outside their door. Mrs. Chen took hold of her husband’s hand, and with both their hands trembling, the pastor said, “O Lord, we don’t know why the automobile is there at the door, but you know, and we place Enchun into your hands.”

Mrs. Chen stood up and the pastor gently pressed her back down. “What should or should not happen is with the permission of the Heavenly Father. The only thing we can do is to pray.”

The doctor said, “I think Enchun’s situation may be dangerous, but also that nothing’s happened to him yet. If it had, they wouldn’t have come to West Gate. Our child is under God’s protection. Don’t be too worried.”

Would Enchun return home at this very moment and walk right into the mouths of guns?
Dr. Lin quickly called Baosheng and Baoqing to take off their shoes, muss up their hair, and unbutton their shirt collars. “One of you go to the Drum Tower and the other to Little West Lake to look for Enchun. When you find him, have him go around beyond West Gate and hide at Shuiguan’s house by the river.”

Baosheng and Baoqing realized that they were getting involved in a thrilling game, and went running off, both nervous and excited.

After the two youths had left, the others joined hands and continued to pray for Enchun and for the two Lin brothers.

Baoqing was the first to return, at dawn. He had gone from the East Street corner of Drum Tower to South Gate and then returned, feeling bad about his lack of success. Baosheng followed right behind. From the way he wiped his sweat with his sleeve it was clear that he had accomplished the mission his father had assigned to him. And Daddy rewarded him with a roll of paper money to buy some deep-fried dough sticks.

Next, the two families saw that in both the ground and upper floors of the church, there wasn’t a single thing that was still in its original place, from the bowls and chopsticks of the kitchen to the flower garden in the courtyard. It was as if a cyclone had passed close by. Before setting about to put everything back in place, they said a prayer of thanksgiving. The shocking scene before them seemed to tell them, “An enormous disaster has brushed by you here.” How could they not shed tears of gratitude?