Under the Hawthorn Tree (18 page)

But who was to know that, perhaps because of a nearly absolute lack of expectation on the part of those around her, Jingqiu really did go for it. She thwacked from left and from right. Perhaps her fearless way of attacking had shocked her opponent. Or perhaps because her methods weren't particularly ‘operatic' the girl hadn't known how to respond. Smashing this way, crashing that way, Jingqiu eventually knocked out the girl from the sports academy.

Mr Wang was jubilant but the rest of the competitors panicked. The girls who competed against her in the following rounds were beaten calmly and Jingqiu progressed through the competition. Shiqiao happened to have a lucky competition too, and so, in the semifinals, the two girls met.

After they had tossed for who was to play on what side and who was to start, Mr Wang walked over to Jingqiu and rasped under his breath, ‘Let her win, d'you hear me?'

Jingqiu was given no explanation as to why she was supposed to let Shiqiao win, but she thought that maybe it was the coach's special tactic, that he was thinking of the glory of the whole school. Every ping-pong player at the time knew that the Chinese national team had the tradition that for the country to come on top individuals had to let their team members win sometimes. So, with a heavy heart, Jingqiu let Shiqiao win a game, only to have the same instructions repeated. Jingqiu put her doubts out of her mind and returned the ball sloppily, letting Shiqiao win the match.

Only afterwards did Jingqiu ask the coach, ‘Why did I have to let her win? What tactic was that?'

‘The people who get into the finals are invited to train with the provincial sports academy,' Mr Wang replied, ‘but your class background is bad, they'd reject you as soon as you got there. You'd feel terrible.'

Jingqiu was so furious she had to fight back her tears. So the sports school would reject me, but I could've still come first, or second, in the city, so why make me throw the contest? Isn't that worse that being rejected by the school?

Later Jingqiu's mother got to hear of it and being equally upset she went to see the coach, brandishing the logic ‘you can't choose your class background, but you can choose your future' to clarify the error of his actions.

Mr Wang repeated his explanation; he had done it out of concern for Jingqiu's feelings, but despite his good intentions he did regret his decision. If he'd let Jingqiu play the school might have won the Yichang title, Shiqiao only came second. Jingqiu told her mother to forget it. It's done now, there's no point. She left the ping-pong team and joined the volleyball team instead.

But Mr Wang wanted to remedy the wrong he had done to Jingqiu, and in reality, he hadn't found anyone in the whole school better at ping-pong than Jingqiu, so he negotiated with the volleyball coach to let her continue with ping-pong so that she could compete in the next city-wide competition. The volleyball team were also in training for a competition, and along with school work, every spare moment seemed to be given over to training for the two teams.

One Thursday afternoon, when Jingqiu was practising ping-pong, Mr Wang came in and said to her, ‘I just saw someone outside the canteen carrying a big bag looking for Teacher Jingqiu, maybe he's looking for your mother. I took him to your house but your mother wasn't in, no one was. Today the teachers are visiting parents so perhaps that's where your mother is. I told him to wait in the entrance to the canteen, why don't you go see what it's about?'

Jingqiu rushed over to the canteen and saw Lin crouching, as stiff and dignified as a stone lion, in the doorway. The crowds streaming in and out were giving him curious looks. Jingqiu ran over and called out. As soon as he saw her, he stood up and pointed to the bag beside him. ‘Some walnuts for your mother.' Then he pointed a bit further away and said, ‘Some kindling for you. I'm going.'

Jingqiu watched as Lin walked away, her heart pounding. She wanted to make him come back but she was too timid to grab him. She called out, ‘Hey, hey, don't go, won't you at least help me carry it all to my house?'

As if jolted awake Lin turned back. ‘Oh, they're too heavy? Let me do it.' He swung the bag on to his back, picked up the basket, and followed Jingqiu to her house.

‘Have you eaten?' Jingqiu asked as she started scraping out the oven to make food.

‘Yes, in a restaurant,' Lin answered proudly.

Jingqiu thought it odd that Lin would have eaten in one of Yichang's restaurants. She poured him a cup of boiled water and asked him to rest while she looked for something into which she could transfer the walnuts so that he could take his bag back with him. ‘Did you go to Yumin's home town? Is her family well?' Jingqiu asked.

‘Her family?' Lin looked confused. Jingqiu thought it possible that he had gone all the way there, picked the walnuts and left without saying a word to Yumin's family.

Jingqiu remembered Auntie saying Lin had been quite incapable of lying ever since he was small. His eyelids would flutter non-stop if he told a fib, making it easy for Auntie to suss him out. Jingqiu looked at his eyes and saw he was blinking a little, but the evidence was inconclusive. Inside the bag was another smaller bag with rock sugar in it. ‘Did you buy the sugar?'

‘My big brother bought it.'

So, even Sen had been implicated. ‘You can only buy rock sugar with a doctor's prescription, where did Eldest Brother get one?' she asked, while sneaking twenty yuan of the summer's earnings into Lin's bag. She rolled the bag up and tied it with a piece of string, guessing that it would be unlikely that Lin would find the money before he got home. But if he didn't find it once he got there, Auntie or Yumin might wash the bag and the twenty yuan would be ruined. She decided to take him to the bus station, and only once the bus had started moving would she tell him about what she had put in his bag.

‘Big Brother knows a doctor and he made up the prescription.'

Lin's answer sounded too prepared, nor was it like his normal way of speaking. His eyes were blinking rapidly. She decided to trick him, to find out if he'd come on his own or with someone else. ‘The ticket has gone up ten per cent, it's expensive now, isn't it?'

Lin blushed, then started counting on his fingers. ‘Gone up? Up to twenty yuan and eighty cents? Damn it, it's exploitation, that's what it is.'

Jingqiu now knew for certain that he hadn't come on his own. He didn't know the price of a ticket, and had calculated ten per cent to be ten yuan. Most probably he came with Old Third who must be hiding somewhere. She let Lin sit a while longer. That way Old Third would wait until, thinking Lin had lost his way, he had to come looking for him.

But Lin couldn't be forced to stay and was adamant that he should go. He had to hurry to catch the bus. Jingqiu had no option but to take him to the station. Once they reached the campus gate, however, Lin wouldn't let her go any further. He was obstinate, and looked as if he might use force to hold her back, should it be necessary.

Jingqiu had to give up. She didn't leave, however, but stood behind the window of the campus reception and watched Lin. Lin waited by the river looking around him before walking over the bank down to the river. He reappeared moments later with another person. Jingqiu could see it was Old Third. Despite his faded army uniform, he looked keen and spritely. The two of them stood by the river talking, as Lin pointed frequently in the direction of the campus gate, and the two jabbed and punched each other, laughing. Lin must have been recounting his near miss. Then Old Third turned to look in the direction of the gate. Frightened, Jingqiu ducked out of his line of sight. He must have seen me, she thought. But he hadn't. He stood looking, until eventually he followed Lin towards the river crossing.

She followed them, keeping her distance. Old Third was acting like a child, tottering along the small mud wall that had been built up along the edge of the river, rather than walking on the road. It was only just over four inches wide, and Old Third nearly lost his balance a few times, frightening her until she almost called out. He could have rolled down the bank and into the water. But he put his arms out and swayed a bit before finding his balance again, and then, picking up speed, ran as if along a balance beam.

She really wanted to call out to them, but if Old Third had been hiding from her then it would be too embarrassing to do that. He really was as Fang had described him, a soft-hearted man who couldn't bear to see people suffer. He had helped Daxiu, he had helped her, and now he was helping Lin. He must have bought the bus tickets that day, and knowing that Lin wouldn't know the way, taken him all the way to the campus gate.

Old Third must be making way for Lin, she thought, or else he never really liked me. But she couldn't believe that, hadn't his lips been up for the fight? Men always had their women before casting them aside; at least, that's what it said in the books. So did he ‘have' me? She hated how ambiguous books could be, they would only hint at things, like ‘he let loose his brutish behaviour, and ravished her'. What exactly did it mean, to be ‘ravished'? Probably, women got pregnant after being ‘ravished'. It's been six months since Old Third held me, she thought, and my ‘old friend' has been making regular visits all that time, so I can't be pregnant, surely? In which case, he didn't ‘have' me then, did he?

Jingqiu was also worrying about the money she had put into Lin's bag. Maybe he'd lose it, or his mother would wash it. So she followed them to the river crossing. Only once the boat had left the bank did she shout out, ‘Lin, I put twenty yuan in your bag, don't let your mother wash it.'

She called out twice, then guessed Lin had heard her as he was untying the string around his bag. She saw Old Third turn to talk to the ferryman, and then suddenly he stood up, and grabbing the bag from Lin's hand he walked to the front of the boat, making it sway violently. Afraid that Old Third was going to try to give the money back, she turned and ran. After a while it occurred to her that he was on a boat, what could he possibly do? She slowed and looked back. As she turned, she saw Old Third running towards her. His army trousers were drenched all the way up to his thighs and the fabric clung to his legs. She was dumbstruck. It's October, isn't he cold?

In a few bounds he was with her, and stuffed the twenty yuan into her hands. ‘Take the money, the sugar is a present, you don't need to pay. Use this money to buy your team uniforms, don't you have a competition?'

She stiffened; how did he know she needed kit for her competition? ‘Lin is still on the boat,' he rushed, ‘he's probably in a state of shock, he doesn't know the way. I'll be off, or we won't make the bus.' With that, he turned and ran towards the jetty.

She wanted to call after him but her throat wouldn't make a sound. It was just like in her dreams, unable to speak, unable to move, all she could do was look at him as he receded into the distance.

That day, when she got back to school, she wasn't in the mood for volleyball. Instead, she was occupied with thoughts of Old Third's wet trousers; it would be hours before he got home and could change them. Would he catch a cold? How could he be so stupid and jump into the water like that? Did he wait for the boat to come back and pick him up? Days later, she still couldn't forget the image of him running towards her in wet trousers.

What she couldn't understand, no matter how she puzzled over it, was how he had known she needed a new team uniform for her competition. Last year, the volleyball team had played in matches without proper team uniforms because of lack of money, getting them into trouble with the referee and seriously affecting their performance.

Their coach, Mr Quan, was furious. He was not the sort to let even death defeat him, and he declared that had it not been for the unhappy business of their lack of a uniform, No. 8 Middle School would have come in the top six in the city-wide championships. After the competition he forced everyone to buy one. He collected the money and their sizes and went to get them himself to ensure that they didn't all go out and buy whichever colour took their fancy, and so that the team could never again be referred to as ‘a motley crew'.

This time Mr Quan was resolute. ‘If you don't buy a uniform, you can't play volleyball.' The team panicked and handed over the money. But Jingqiu didn't have any to spare, and the ping-pong team also wanted her to buy one. She decided to try to convince the two coaches to buy the same colour and style, that way she could wear the same outfit for both.

But the coaches demanded that they be different. Volleyball was played outdoors and during the last competition it had been cold. Mr Quan demanded that they buy long-sleeved tops which could hold the warmth and protect their arms and shoulders from aches and pains. Ping-pong competitions, however, were held indoors, so Mr Wang wanted them to have short-sleeved tops; how can you play ping-pong with long, ‘droopy' sleeves?

She didn't know how Old Third knew about all this. Did he know the volleyball coach or one of her teammates? Or did he stand somewhere watching her play? But she had never seen him at any of the matches. Perhaps he was a born reconnaissance soldier? Was he checking up on her without her knowledge? She decided to take some money from this twenty yuan to buy a new strip, but only because Old Third had risked the freezing cold to give it back to her for that purpose. She would buy it to please Old Third; if he came and saw her wearing her new strip it would be sure to make him happy.

As luck would have it, apart from the length of the sleeves, the colour and style of the strips were the same. Perhaps there weren't that many to choose from in those days. She bought a long-sleeved top and a pair of shorts so that she could wear the long sleeves when playing volleyball, and before her ping-pong competitions she could cut the sleeves short. Her needlework being what it was, she would then sew back the sleeves for volleyball and no one would be any the wiser.