Under the Hawthorn Tree (23 page)

Dr Cheng didn't look very Chinese: his nose protruded and his eyes were deep-set, earning him particular fame on the island, the nickname ‘foreigner', and the islanders' curious looks. Some of the young children boldly called ‘foreigner' after him as he walked by, but as he was a good-tempered man he would only turn around, laugh and wave. Dr Cheng explained his ‘foreign' looks by claiming to have Kazakh blood in his veins, but as no one had met either of his supposedly Kazakh parents people preferred to believe that he was a special agent or the product of an illicit relationship.

For some reason Old Third had always reminded her of Dr Cheng, and although Old Third's nose was not as big nor were his eyes as deep-set, and people would never gather around him, curious, like they did with Dr Cheng, she still thought there was a resemblance. She wasn't sure if she had been so attracted to Old Third at first sight because she liked Dr Cheng's looks, or whether it was the other way round, but the two were firmly connected in her imagination.

Dr Cheng had reassured her that it was unlikely that Old Third had frozen to death, but only a letter would truly put her mind at ease. That day Jingqiu's mother brought her a letter sent by someone from West Village. She nearly fainted; Old Third must have gone crazy from the cold, otherwise why else would he send a letter directly to her mother's school? She had told him that very first day when they met in West Village that he shouldn't send letters to her there because students didn't receive letters, and if they did they could only contain wicked secrets. The receptionist would be sure to give any letter to her mother even if it was addressed to her.

Her mother had not opened it, however. This was probably the first letter that she had ever received through the post. It stated clearly that the sender was Fang and the handwriting looked right, so she opened it in front of her mother. The letter was straightforward, informing Jingqiu that her studies had been going well and her family was fine. It went on to invite Jingqiu to come back to visit them in West Village, and she hoped that Jingqiu's family was well.

Jingqiu could tell, however, that the real sender of the letter was Old Third, and she couldn't help but laugh inside: how sneaky, he's brave enough to try to fool my mother. So he was fine. She burned the last letter that she had sewn into her coat as the pocket had started to bulge with all the letters she had stuffed in there and she feared her mother would find her hiding place. She kept his first letter, however, because in that one he had not written anything using the pronoun ‘we'.

As her graduation drew closer Jingqiu felt more and more torn. She was aching for the day to arrive so that she could see Old Third again, but she was also scared because soon afterwards she would be sent down to the countryside. Once permanently registered in her new rural home she would no longer be a citizen of the city, and thus would no longer be allowed to take on odd jobs in the summer. She would have to do the same as her brother and borrow money to supplement her rations. There was no way she could let her twelve-year-old sister go out to work.

Policy had recently changed and the students from Yichang were no longer sent to random production units but instead went to special teams for sent-down youths, grouped according to their parents' work units. Children of Yichang's education and culture workers were sent to a remote mountain area where they worked in the forest. It was an extremely tough place where it was next to impossible for them to earn any money. They were there to forge ‘red hearts', to be loyal to the revolution. The students relied on their parents to provide the money for their rations, and all parents asked for was that their children endure a few years of hardship before seeking to be transferred back to the city.

Every July a new batch of students was sent away. That year, however, the authorities had decided to start providing extra classes to the teenagers about to be sent down. Every day they were told that ‘a loyal heart requires two types of preparation'. The bureau of education organised a few large meetings, inviting students who had already been sent down – and especially those who had settled fully in their new homes – to describe to that year's students how they had integrated with the poor and lower peasants. Some of the model youths had married, or as they called it, had ‘put down roots in the name of the revolution'.

Jingqiu listened to them describe these glorious deeds, but she couldn't say whether they really loved their peasant husbands and wives. One thing she did know: as soon as you marry a local there is no way you can get back to the city. Wei Ling was a few years older than Jingqiu and had already been sent down. Whenever she came back home she would tell Jingqiu about how hard it was in the countryside. The work was exhausting and their daily life boring; all she longed for was the day when she would be called back to the city to bring an end to her suffering. She sang some of the songs popular among the students for Jingqiu:

My waistband's loose from slaving all day,

someone's cooking sweet-smelling rice

Jingqiu was in the same year as Wei Ling's sister Wei Hong. Wei Hong and Jingqiu had decided to share a room once in the countryside so together they started to prepare their belongings. Wei Hong's family had a bit more money than Jingqiu's as her parents were both teachers at No. 8 Middle School. With two salaries, raising three children presented them with no great difficulties. This meant that Jingqiu couldn't afford to buy the same things as Wei Hong. The only thing that they both purchased was material to make pillowcases, on which they embroidered ‘sweeping lands, vast potential'.

Animated, they busied themselves with their preparations until one day Jingqiu received an unexpected visit from Fang. The only moment they had alone together was just as Jingqiu was seeing her off home on the bus, and Fang pushed a letter into Jingqiu's hands. ‘It's from Old Third.' Jingqiu waited for Fang's bus to draw out of the station before she sat down to open it. Perhaps out of consideration to his courier Old Third had not put the letter in an envelope, but in it he expressed his feelings without reservation. Jingqiu blushed, and her heart pounded. Wasn't he afraid that Fang might read it?

In the letter Old Third told her that there was a new policy which allowed children to replace their parents after retirement. The policy had not been made public yet, and final decisions were to be made by the individual work units concerned. Old Third urged her mother to make enquiries at her school or the bureau of education. Perhaps Jingqiu could replace her mother, and that way she wouldn't be sent down. You would be perfect for the job, he said, you'd make an outstanding teacher.

Jingqiu read the letter a few more times in disbelief. She hoped with all her heart that her brother Xin, rather than her, might be able to replace their mother because he was in such a wretched situation. Since their father had been persecuted just as her brother was finishing junior middle school, Xin had been sent straight to the countryside rather than being allowed to attend the last years of high school. He had been there for so many years and still he had not been called back.

Yamin often came to Jingqiu's house to collect letters from Xin as he wouldn't send them to her house. Every time she came she would sit with Jingqiu and tell her the story of how they had met: how they had been in the same class, how Xin had told someone to go to her house to ask her to come and see him, and how there had been another very pretty girl in his class who had liked Xin, but how he only had eyes for her. But the thing she talked about most was how to get Xin called back to the city, as once he was back in the city her mother would no longer oppose the match so vehemently. Jingqiu hoped desperately that her brother might be called back so that the distance would no longer threaten to extinguish the love between them.

Overjoyed about this new employment policy, Jingqiu sped off at once to tell her mother. She would not say it was Old Third who had told her, but rather that she had heard someone at school talking about it. Her mother was not instantly convinced considering that the news came from someone at school, but said it would not hurt to ask as long as no one got their hopes up. She went to ask Mr Zhong, the secretary, but he said he had not heard anything about it. His daughter had long since graduated but was still in the city, a situation about which everyone had an opinion. Mr Zhong was therefore very interested in this new policy and went directly to the bureau of education to have it confirmed or otherwise. He made straight for their house on his return. This policy had indeed been introduced, but as there was no directive on how to implement it, it was up to each work unit to take care of it.

‘Mrs Zhang, thank you for telling me about this,' he said. ‘I am still not of retirement age but my wife soon will be. Her health is not so good so she can get early retirement on those grounds, and that way my daughter can replace her. Why don't you do the same and let Jingqiu stay in the city? It is always a worry to let the young girls be sent down.'

Jingqiu's mother had not expected someone as important as Mr Zhong to worry himself about her daughter being sent to the countryside, to take pity on a normal parent's suffering. But she understood from the tone of his voice that if she were to seek retirement on the grounds of ill health then the school would let Jingqiu replace her. Excited, she thanked him profusely before sending him off.

She told Jingqiu the good news, that after years of worry a huge weight could be taken off her shoulders. ‘I'll apply to retire and you can replace me, that way you won't be sent down. Sorting it out will put my mind at rest.'

‘We should let Xin replace you, he's been away for so many years and has suffered so much. And Yamin's family only oppose the marriage because he's in the countryside. If he can come back everything will be fine.'

Jingqiu told Yamin and she was ecstatic. ‘We can finally be together and my family won't be able to stop us.' Yamin went to write a letter to tell Xin the news. But he would not agree to the arrangement. He had been away for so long that it was only a matter of time before he would be called back. He said he'd only be using up someone else's opportunity, Jingqiu should do it, that way she wouldn't be sent down at all.

Jingqiu's mother too was determined that she was not to be sent down. She frequently had nightmares in which Jingqiu had had some terrible accident and she would go to her, only to find her daughter lying on a pile of rice straw, her hair matted and dishevelled and her eyes glazed over. ‘I won't let you go,' her mother said. ‘You're still young and you don't know the kinds of dangers young girls face in the countryside. Since ancient times beautiful girls have suffered bad fates. Here at school you have so many boys taking a fancy to you, causing you trouble, would it be any different there?'

Despite her mother's feelings Jingqiu persuaded her to go to the school to suggest that Xin should replace her. They responded, however, that as he had only finished junior middle school he was not a suitable candidate. Jingqiu, on the other hand, was; not only was she a senior student, but she was intelligent, morally upstanding, and physically strong. She would make a good teacher, and they agreed to the arrangement.

With no other option available to her Jingqiu agreed too. They couldn't waste such an opportunity, after all. But she was upset about her poor brother, and she vowed with all her heart to find some other way for him to return.

She was extremely grateful to Old Third that he had told her about the policy, and just in time, for there was no other way that her mother would have found out about it. She wanted him to know but she didn't know how best to tell him. She had no telephone and she couldn't write a letter, much less go to West Village herself. She would just have to wait until he came to see her. He, however, was taking his promise not to come as seriously as if it had been made to the Party.

She was sick with longing, just as he had described it in his letters. All she wanted was to see him. Everything that had even the smallest connection to him made her feel close to him. Her heart would thump whenever anyone said the words ‘third', ‘geological unit', or ‘army district', as if they were making secret references to him. She had never dared to call him by his real name, not even to herself, but now when she saw someone with the last name ‘Sun' or the first name ‘Jianxin', her heart melted.

Nearly every day she made her way to Dr Cheng's house to practise the accordion with his wife, Mrs Jiang, or to cuddle their little baby. When Dr Cheng was away she grew restless, and only when he came home and she heard the sound of his voice did she feel that her task for the day was complete and she could return home contented. She didn't have to speak to him, nor see his face; as long as she heard the sound of his voice she felt at ease. He spoke Mandarin just like Old Third. Most people in Yichang didn't speak Mandarin, so she rarely heard it being spoken. If Dr Cheng was speaking in the next room she would stop what she was doing and listen quietly. Often she imagined that it was Old Third next door, that she was sitting in Old Third's home, one of the family. Her exact relationship with him was left unspecified. It didn't matter. If only I could hear his voice every day, it wouldn't matter.

Mrs Jiang wanted Jingqiu to knit her son a woollen jumper. Once she had finished, Mrs Jiang gave Jingqiu money as the pattern had been complicated and it had taken a long time, but Jingqiu refused it. ‘I don't take money for helping someone with their knitting.'

Mrs Jiang thought of another method to repay Jingqiu. Mrs Jiang only ever made the odd thing like a pair of shorts on her sewing machine, whereas Jingqiu had to do her sewing by hand. ‘My machine sits here unused and gathering dust. I don't have time to use it, why don't you come and use it, else it'll rust.'