Old Town (43 page)

“I never expected your grandfather to go before me. His fate was an extremely hard one.”

I had returned on vacation and Grandma was poaching a bowlful of eggs for my welcome home. As she sat down she muttered to herself and I knew she was plunged into memories. Even though she saw me and was poaching eggs for me, her memories went on uninterrupted.

“Back then, small as he was, he got very sick and they threw him out into the street. Even a dog couldn’t have endured it, but he survived. The Japanese killed so many people. He was shoved against the mouth of a rifle but didn’t die.

“That’s right! And during ‘Eliminate Counterrevolutionaries’ he almost…” But then I remembered Great-Auntie bringing her finger up to her withered lips and commanding me never, ever to tell anyone, and above all not to ask Grandma, for this had been her greatest heartbreak and caused her greatest loss of face.

Grandma brought over her sewing basket, put on her old-age glasses, and not without some self-satisfaction said, “He was a good man. Unless Jesus himself came to take him, nothing could harm him in this life. It’s just that Jesus has forgotten
me
. I’ve waited year after year, but there’s been no news. When the time comes, I don’t know if your grandfather would still remember that we had been husband and wife here on earth.”

The layered jacket in her hand was being sewn for Ah Chang. Ever since that rotten egg of a brother-in-law had died, Great-Auntie depended on her daughter to support her and she didn’t have any money to buy clothes for Ah Chang. Now every year my grandmother made several sets of clothes for him. Ah Chang was still in the insane asylum and he continued to burrow under the cot to write letters reporting that the Lins were special agents.

5.

I
HAVE SET
out with utter confidence on my trip across space and time. I consider myself able to describe those times I never lived through. I clearly see Ninth Brother’s sad childhood. I see tiny Ninth Brother, his whole body covered with scabies, thrown out at the foot of the courtyard wall by the Lins’ back door. I see his body writhing in pain, a long-untended braid spread out on the slippery stone paving. I see Mr. Qiao approaching with his lamp pole, that gentle glow of light moving back and forth…

Coming closer and closer, as I approach periods of time less distant, the film projector in my head seems to malfunction and the faces of those people who once lived and those who are still alive are all becoming blurry. Or it’s like a computer attacked by a virus and the screen showing nothing but gibberish. I can’t make out clearly right from wrong, blessing from calamity. My thinking is devoid of all logic.

You’re staring at me with a thirst to know that shines evermore from that pair of blue eyes
.

When Great-Auntie told her stories she loved to whip them up in mist and mystery, and then always stop just at the most important point. I would tug at her blouse and eagerly ask, “And then what?” And then she would use her imagination to continue making it all up and breathe life into whatever she was saying and make it more real than real. For example, she firmly believed that her husband had been reincarnated as a black cat. That cat had run to her place and she could do nothing to chase it away. So she kept it and called it “Blackie.” Blackie had the very worst temper you could imagine. Any day it didn’t get fed fish, it would claw its mistress. Great-Auntie uncovered all the scars on her arms. “You see, you see! He was condemned to be an animal but still hasn’t let go of me! I told him, ‘You probably can’t even become a cat in your next life! I’m sure your soul is like a saw jammed in a block of wood. It can’t go forward and it can’t move back. That’s the way you are, helpless and stuck.’”

I don’t have the unbridled and soaring talents of Great-Auntie who, in spite of her limited cognitive powers, can endlessly create marvelous stories. I discovered that when I tried to solve the riddles of Old Town objectively, with accuracy and depth, though I wanted to with all my heart, I simply didn’t have the strength. Now, as far as you’re concerned, that would be an unfathomable “book from heaven.” And how much more so could it be said for me?

“And then what?” (
You finally can’t hold back anymore.
)

I give a wry grin. “And then, Grandma lived to be ninety-five years old. One day she told her nursemaid that she needn’t cook for her anymore. She just went that calmly. Great-Auntie at 103 is still in the old folks’ home, energetically wielding her pen for her Guo family who were without anyone to carry on the family line.

“Is that all?”

“If you still want to hear, say a prayer to your god to give me inspiration.”

This was said rather mockingly. Such a cynical tone reminded me of Chaofan. He always cared about nothing and ridiculed everything. I also thought of that Guomindang army rabble saying to my grandfather, “Have your god make me a woman.” Then I felt guilty.

You still show such sincerity as you reflect
. “I am extremely moved and give thanks to God for letting me hear such a beautiful story.”

Outside the window in the drizzly rain stretches the watery countryside of China south of the Yangzi. Perhaps back then Grandpa went along that little road where the mountains and rivers are changeless and where generation after generation of people hurried by.

“God had an extraordinary love for your grandfather and grandmother.”

“Is this your opportunity to preach to me? Let me tell you something. I’m an atheist
and
a pantheist. I wouldn’t favor any single religion.”

I vigilantly erect my defense works.

“Every person believes in God and it’s all because he or she is touched by God.”

“So I guess I’ll just wait for God himself to touch me.”

I pick up the phone that is lying on the dining car table. The sixteen unanswered calls are all from Chrysanthemum. She definitely has come up again with some new move to prove her charm, or else, while bored out of her mind from stirring her coffee, has hit on something that’s perked her up. This bad lady is on record for having spent the night with total strangers. I’ve warned her, “If you go missing, I’m not going to report it to Public Security, and no one will know that there’s one less Chrysanthemum in this world.” Chrysanthemum crinkled up her nose and wailed mournfully, “Am I so pathetic?” This joke was a little cruel but has a lot of truth to it. This is why we long to find husbands. Who doesn’t fear being alone?

I am just about ready to return her calls. This character who never plays her cards in turn always provokes, but also satisfies, my curiosity. The phone in my hand suddenly rings. A “long-time-no-see!” telephone number pops up on the screen like some specter. I grasp the phone as if it were a burning charcoal and, panic-stricken, I want to hurl it out the window. For the past two years I have been changing my telephone number and every time I terminated it is because of this one’s appearance. I deleted all the contact details related to this person from my address list. But the terror etched into my heart hasn’t faded in the slightest. Even to Chrysanthemum have I never told the plain truth about this period of history. I preferred her laughing at me for being so old-fashioned and moronic, and concealed my broken heart and shame as if this were a top-secret plot.

I had thought at one time this was true love. The moment this man appeared, life was snapped off right at midpoint. The previous first love of two little innocents, a love marriage linked by flesh and blood and torn up by the roots, together with its broken history, had long turned to ashes. I returned to the time when love is first awakened. Blissful and scorched, I awaited his telephone call, awaited the sound of his footsteps, awaited his passionate embrace and kisses. That passion more ardent than flames would have been enough to melt a thousand-year-old glacier. He has a wife and child and on his hand he wears a diamond ring that he said she bought for him on their tenth wedding anniversary. This love which arrived so abruptly was like a tornado and a tidal wave that swept away every last bit of judgment I possessed. No ethics or morality could restrain such a “Great Love.” I had no doubt whatsoever that the day would come when he would remove this ring and put on another one for me.

I don’t have it in me to relate that extended process of evolution. All the memories that remain about that married man relate to my initial passion and final madness.

Arguing—endless, ceaseless arguing: over his marriage, over a telephone conversation with a man about work, over a day when my every movement wasn’t in the palm of his hand. “Great Love” is a demon camouflaged as a beautiful woman that reveals its hideous face. What is called “passion” is actually insane possessiveness. In his case human possessiveness led to extremes in taking possession of money, wealth, and women. He checked the addresses listed in my phone and the e-mail box of my computer. He lay in wait for me at the hotels and guesthouses where I had business meetings to see if I was being “immoral” with other men. A man picking up a silk scarf of mine that had fallen on the ground and helping me wrap it around my neck—such insignificant trifles became indelible evidence of guilt. That evening, when everything in the house that could be broken was broken, filled with pain and grief I ran for my very life.

Every bit of information connected with that history is like a devil from Pandora’s box that can arrive at any time to torment me. Sometimes when I am feeling humble I reflect on the bad things I did, and can do nothing but accept my punishment. If there really were a god that could pardon sins, I would kneel down before him.

1.

A
FTER MY GRANDFATHER
got back from Shanghai during the War of Resistance, he went more than once to Li Village in Tongpan District in the eastern outskirts in search of Young Li’s family. Young Li’s widowed mother had passed away during the war. The old people in the village only knew his young friend was in the Guomindang Army. After Liberation, Grandpa again went to Li Village where everybody supposed that Young Li was now in Taiwan.

The medical orderly and the doctor had gone through thick and thin together in the flames of the War of Resistance. Many times each had offered to the other the chance to survive in the face of death. The closeness of this kind of friendship surpassed even blood kinship. I imagine Department Head Li could hardly wait to go to West Gate to pay a visit to Dr. Lin—just like those stirring, emotional scenes in the movies, when two people meet again after a long separation and shed tears of sorrow and joy at having both survived some disaster.

One morning, Second Sister was on her way out the gate to greet the postman as always. She had reached the sky well when she saw a man wearing a hat and a surgical mask looking in. She approached him and asked, “May I ask who you are looking for, comrade?”

“I’ve heard that Dr. Lin’s medical skills are very great, and so, attracted by his fame, I have come to be treated.”

“Dr. Lin has gone out on a call. Please sit down for a while in the clinic.”

“Are you Mrs. Lin?”

“Yes.”

He looked at the red paper with its black characters pasted on the gate. “Glorious Military Dependent.”

“Your son is in the Liberation Army?”

“Both Second Son and the daughter are in the Liberation Army. Eldest Son is a revolutionary cadre who is currently away participating in land reform,” Second Sister proudly replied.

“Very good! Very good!”

Second Sister beckoned the patient to sit down in the clinic and when she went out to get the newspaper she discovered him standing in the front hall, lost in thought as he gazed at the picture on the wall, that “Happy Family Portrait” taken in 1937.

“This is the only family portrait we have. I don’t know when the whole family will ever again be able to go together to the photo studio.”

“Time is passing by very quickly.”

“Oh, yes, time is passing by very quickly.”

The fellow paused for quite a bit and then asked, “Dr. Lin is in good health, then?”

Second Sister kept looking at the pair of eyes above the surgical mask. She felt this patient was a bit strange.
Don’t tell me, when you come to be treated, you also ask about his health?

“He looks thin and frail. Lately after coming back from a trip, he’s gotten even thinner. But he’s not sick or anything.”

“The clinic’s revenue is all right?”

Second Sister didn’t answer right away and again kept looking at that pair of eyes above the surgical mask. Everybody who came here to be treated was from nearby neighborhoods. Very rarely were there any strange faces among them. In taking care of them, Dr. Lin was often “paying rather than being paid.” She had her own thoughts on this point, but had never revealed them to anyone. Here was a stranger, but precisely because of that she had a sense of security. She laughed in a slightly mocking way.

“What revenue?”

“Business is no good?”

“He doesn’t see treating sick people as a business. There’s nothing to be done about that. Luckily our children are all filial. Every month they send us money.”

“Oh.”

This stranger was Young Li. He didn’t say anything more. He understood Dr. Lin and he understood Mrs. Lin sitting before him. Back then, he and the doctor had shared the same
kang
to sleep on and he had heard a lot of stories about Second Sister. He even knew that Third Sister had been the one the doctor liked most at first.

He lowered his head and considered whether or not to wait until the doctor returned home. Or whether or not he would identify himself to the doctor. This was a big question and one that he had not settled right up to the moment he stood in the Lin family gateway.

After Young Li had parted with the doctor on the Yangzi River, the fisherman assumed he was a communist and sent him north. And so in this way Young Li became a fighter in the communist-led New Fourth Army. At the time he was not yet fully eighteen years old. His courage and natural martial qualities came repeatedly to the attention of his superiors and when the Liberation Army crossed the Yangzi he was now a battalion commander. No one had asked him about his history before his eighteenth birthday and he himself felt strongly that period wasn’t worth mentioning at all. So, with the growth of experience, that history gradually became a millstone around his neck. He was a revolutionary cadre who had not only been in the Guomindang Army, but had moreover hidden his past. If such treachery ever came to light, he would never be able to wash himself clean of this, even if he jumped into the Yellow River. He had seen with his own eyes many comrades-in-arms who had fallen from the saddle due to “historical problems,” and he shuddered each time it happened. He had seen Dr. Lin’s file. In the résumé completed by the doctor, the section on the period of his army service during the War of Resistance cited two persons as references, Division Commander Zhang and Orderly Li. Zhang had died on the battlefield and Li’s whereabouts were unknown. The doctor knew Li’s family home but barely mentioned it. Young Li sensed that the doctor had protected him and gratitude filled his heart.

He thought about telling Dr. Lin that “Whereabouts Unknown” Young Li now was a top-level Communist Party cadre. He also thought about inviting the doctor to his own home to meet his own beautiful and gentle wife and two adorable children, but that was a history that could never, ever be touched.

Second Sister saw the patient’s downcast expression and thought that he was feeling the pain of his illness. “Comrade, just bear with it a bit. I am going to call Dr. Lin.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Lin, but I think it would be better if I don’t bother him.”

“How could a patient in need of a doctor be a bother to him?” And as she spoke, Second Sister stepped out the room. By the time she and the doctor had hurried back, he was gone. They asked the girl selling firewood by their gate and were told that he had hailed a pedicab and left. The doctor thought he must have gone for treatment at the hospital. From Second Sister’s description of him, such a decision had been the right one, for he needed a chest fluoroscopy.

A few days later, the postman handed Second Sister an official letter from the district health bureau. The doctor’s name was written on the envelope.

Ninth Brother tore open the letter and after giving it a scan, laughed, “This is someone’s joke, I suppose?”

It was an offer of employment. The health bureau was offering Dr. Lin the job of head of internal medicine at the district’s People’s Hospital, with the remuneration of a state cadre.

In the early Liberation period, for some doctors, running a private clinic was the only option. Such doctors either had “historical problems,” or else had not received a standard education and were viewed as quacks, what was called “Mongol doctors.”

Dr. Lin had once taken the competitive test to qualify for employment at the People’s Hospital. Because of his age he came in “after scholar Sun Shan,” or in other words, he failed to place. Now he was over fifty years of age. If he enjoyed the remuneration of a state cadre, in a few more years he could take his pension and retire in his old age. Was such a good thing really possible?

This was all rather queer. Second Sister came around behind her husband and saw the big red stamp of the health bureau employment letter. After some thought she burst out laughing. “You have me and our children to thank for this. Because we have been positive in seeking ideological progress, the government now sees a backward element like you differently.”

“Oh, so the backward element now basks in the glory of the positive ones. Thank you all very much!”

But he thought, “What Second Sister said was true. The Communist Party really is very magnanimous in granting me such a big favor.”

He pulled Second Sister by the hand to pray together. They gave thanks to the Communist Party and to the Lord Jesus.

The doctor didn’t know that in Old Town there was a department head named Li. He was even less aware that this piece of stuffed pastry that seemed to have fallen from heaven was the gift sent by Department Head Li. Afterward, when even odder things happened, he still remained in the dark.