Under the Hawthorn Tree (4 page)

He was still wearing the half-length cotton coat, but on his feet he wore a pair of long rubber boots, slathered in mud. She was diffident; it's raining so hard today, and here I am washing my sheets, he must be able to guess what's happened. She feared he might ask, so she turned the thoughts over madly in her head, desperately drafting a lie.

But he didn't ask her anything, just said, ‘Let me, I'm wearing rubber boots, I can wade into deeper water.'

Jingqiu refused, but he had already removed his cotton coat, put it into her hands and grabbed the sheet. She cuddled his jacket close and stood by the bank, watching him push his sleeves up and stride into the deep water. First he used one hand to clean the mud off his boots, then started to pound the sheets.

After a while he took the sheet into his hands and, as if casting a net, spread it out on the water. The red stain bobbed on the surface. He let go and waited until the sheet was nearly swept away by the current, and Jingqiu became frightened, and called out. He reached into the water and pulled up the sheet. He played with the sheet like this a few times until Jingqiu was no longer disturbed by the prospect of the sheet floating away, and instead looked on in silence.

This time he didn't grab the sheet, and it was snatched by the current. She watched it float further and further away until finally, as Old Third still hadn't reached out to grab it, she couldn't hold back any longer. She bellowed, making him laugh, and he ran through the choppy water to fetch it back.

Standing in the water, he turned back to look at her and said, ‘Are you cold? If you are, wear my coat.'

‘I'm not cold.'

He jumped up on to the bank and draped his coat over her shoulders, looked her up and down, and then shook with laughter.

‘What? What is it?' she asked. ‘Does it look that bad?'

‘No, it's just too big, that's all. With it draped across you like that, you look like a mushroom.'

Seeing his hands were red with cold she asked, ‘Aren't you cold?'

‘I'd be lying if I said I wasn't,' he laughed, ‘but I'll be all right in a minute.'

He went back into the water to continue washing the sheet, then after wringing it out, climbed back on to the bank. She passed him his coat and he picked up the wash basin with the sheet in it.

Jingqiu tried to wrestle the basin from him saying, ‘You get to work, I'll take this back, thank you, very much.'

He wouldn't give it to her. ‘It's lunchtime. I'm working near here now, so I'm off to take my break at Auntie's.'

Back at home, he showed her the bamboo pole used for drying clothes that was situated under the eaves at the back of the house, found a cloth to wipe the pole clean, and then helped her hang and peg the sheet to let it dry in the sun.

It all came so naturally to him. ‘How come you're so good at housework?'

‘I've lived away from home for a long time, I do everything myself.'

Auntie heard this and teased him. ‘What a boaster! My Fen washes your quilt and your sheets.'

Fen must like him, Jingqiu thought, otherwise why would she wash his sheets?

During those weeks, Old Third came to Auntie's house almost every day at lunchtime. Sometimes he'd take a nap, sometimes he'd stop to say a few words to Jingqiu, and sometimes he would bring some eggs and meat so that Auntie could cook them for everyone. No one knew where he got them from as these things were rationed. On occasion he would even bring fruit, which was a rare treat indeed, so his visits made everyone happy.

Once he asked Jingqiu to let him see what she had written, saying, ‘Comrade, I know a good craftsman doesn't show his uncut jade, but your writing is not rough, it's the history of the village, won't you let me see what you've written?'

Jingqiu was unable to dissuade him, so she let him read her work. He read it carefully, and then returned it to her. ‘You've certainly got talent, but making you write this stuff, well, it's a waste.'

‘Why?'

‘These are all incidental essays, each one unconnected. They're not very interesting.'

His words shocked Jingqiu, he sounded so reactionary. Deep down she didn't like writing these essays either, but she didn't have any choice.

He could see that she put a lot of effort into her writing, so comforted her, ‘Just write whatever, it'll be fine. Don't put so much energy into writing this stuff.'

She checked there was no one else around, and asked him, ‘You say “don't put so much energy into writing this stuff”. Well, what should I spend my energy on?'

‘What you want to write. Have you ever written any stories, or poems?'

‘No. How could someone like me write a story?'

He was amused. ‘What kind of person do you think writes stories? I think you have the makings of a writer, you have a good style, and more importantly, you have a pair of poetic eyes, you can see the poetry in life.'

Jingqiu thought he was being ‘aerodite' again, so said, ‘You're always talking about being “poetic”, everything's “poetic”. What exactly do you mean by “poetic”?'

‘In the past, I would have meant just that, “poetic”. Nowadays, of course, I'm referring to “revolutionary romanticism”.'

‘You seem to know what you're talking about, why don't you write a story?'

‘I want to write, but they're the kinds of things that no one would dare publish. The kinds of things that can be published, I don't want to write,' he laughed. ‘The Cultural Revolution must have started just as you started school, but I was at senior high school at the time, I've been more deeply influenced by the capitalist period than you. I always wanted to go to university, Beijing University or Qinghua, but I was born too late.'

‘Workers, farmers, and soldiers can study, why don't you do that?'

‘What's the point? You don't learn anything at university now,' he said, shaking his head. ‘What are you going to do once you finish school?'

‘Work in the fields.'

‘And after that?'

Jingqiu was upset – she didn't see that she had an ‘after that'. Like all the other youths from the city, her brother had been sent down to the countryside a few years ago and had no way of returning. He was very good at the violin, and both the county performance troupe and the Army and Navy Political Song and Dance Ensemble had invited him to join them, but each time he came up for political review, the invitation was withdrawn. Hurt, she said, ‘There is no “and after that”. After I get sent to the countryside there's no way I'll get to come back, because my family's class status is bad.'

He reassured her. ‘That's not true, of course you'll be able to come back, it'll only be a matter of when. Don't think too much about it or that far into the future. The world is changing every day. Who knows, by the time you finish school the policy might have been revoked, and you might not get sent at all.'

Jingqiu felt she had nothing else to say to him – he was the son of an official, and despite having suffered a little as well, everything was fine for him now. He'd never been sent down to learn from the peasants, but had been assigned to the geological unit straight away. People like him can't understand people like me, she thought, can't understand why I worry.

‘I want to get back to writing,' she said, picking up her pen and pretending to start. He didn't say anything else, but left to take a nap and play with Huan Huan until he had to go back to work.

One day, he gave her a thick book,
Jean-Christophe
by Romain Rolland. ‘Have you read it?'

‘No, how did you get it?' Jingqiu asked him.

‘My mum bought it. My dad is an official, but my mum isn't. You probably already know this, but just after Liberation, in the early 1950s, a new marriage law was passed. Lots of cadres abandoned their wives in the countryside and took new, pretty, educated city girls as wives. My mum was one of those young girls, the daughter of a capitalist family. Maybe she married my dad in order to change her class status, who knows? But she thought my dad didn't understand her so she was bitter and depressed, and lived most of her life through books. She loved reading and had lots of books, but when the Cultural Revolution started she was a coward and burnt most of them. My younger brother and I saved a few. Are you interested?'

Jingqiu said, ‘It's capitalist, but I suppose we could absorb it critically?'

Again, he looked at her as if she were a child. ‘They're all world-famous books. It's just that . . . right now in China, well, it's an unfortunate time. But famous works are famous for a reason, and don't become rubbish just because of some temporary changes. I have more if you're interested, but you can't read too many, otherwise it'll show in your writing. Or I could help you with your writing.'

There and then he sat down to help her with some paragraphs. ‘I know a lot about the history of West Village. I'll write a bit and you can take it to your teachers and friends and see if they notice. If they don't, I'll carry on helping you.'

When she took her work to the group it seemed that no one could tell she had not written it herself. So, he became her ‘hired hand'. He came every day at lunchtime to help her write her textbook, and she spent the time reading novels.

One day the Educational Reform Association went to the eastern end of the village to visit a mountain cave, Heiwu Cliff, which was said to have been a hiding place during the war against Japan. A traitor had revealed its location to the Japanese who then surrounded the cave, trapping twenty or so villagers sheltering inside, and set it alight; those who ran out were shot, those who didn't were burned alive. You could still see the scorch marks on its dank walls.

This was the grisliest page in the history of West Village, and as the group listened their eyes filled with tears. After their visit they were supposed to have some food, but no one felt like eating, agreeing we're only alive today because these revolutionary martyrs spilt their blood and sacrificed their lives; surely we can eat a bit later? They started to discuss how to write up the events as a chapter of the textbook, talking without a break until two in the afternoon.

Jingqiu returned to Auntie's house but couldn't see Old Third. He must have come round, and then gone back to work. She wolfed down some leftovers, and hurried to her room to write up all she had heard that morning. The next day Old Third didn't come, leaving Jingqiu apprehensive. Did he come yesterday and get angry because I wasn't here? Won't he come back? This was impossible; since when was I so important as to arouse such feelings in Old Third?

For days Old Third didn't come. Jingqiu felt dispirited and tried to work out what she had done wrong. She couldn't write, couldn't eat, but could only think over and over, why isn't Old Third coming? She thought of asking Auntie and the family if they knew where he had gone, but she didn't dare in case people thought there was something between them.

In the evening, using Huan Huan as a cover, she took him to the geological unit's camp to find Old Third. When they drew close Jingqiu couldn't hear his accordion. She lingered a long time, but she didn't have the courage to enter the long building to ask after him, so they hurried back. Eventually she could bear it no longer and, attempting to be subtle, asked Auntie, ‘Huan Huan was just asking, why hasn't Old Third come round for the last few days?'

‘I was also wondering why. Maybe he's home visiting his family.'

Jingqiu went cold. Home visiting his family? Is he already married? She'd never asked him if he was married, and he had never mentioned it. Neither had Fang, but then, she had never said that he wasn't married either. Old Third said he was a senior high school student when the Cultural Revolution started, so that means he must be seven or eight years older than me, she thought, as I was in primary two at the time. If he hadn't followed the Party's appeal for later marriages, he could well be married. The thought of it pained her, made her feel cheated. But she thought through every moment they'd spent together and realised he hadn't cheated her, not really. They'd talked, he'd helped her with her writing, nothing else, he'd neither said nor done anything improper.

There was a picture of him under the glass plate in her room, a very small one, about one inch across, which must have been taken for some kind of official document. Often, when no one was around, Jingqiu lost herself looking at this photograph. Since meeting him she no longer took pleasure in the proletarian aesthetic, she only liked looking at his kind of face, his kind of outline, listening to his words, thinking about his sort of smile. Blackish-red faces, iron-like bodies, they could all go to hell. But he doesn't come here any more, maybe he can sense how I feel and is hiding from me? She'd be leaving West Village soon, and might never see him again. If she was this upset by not seeing him for a few days, how would she cope with never seeing him again?

It often happens that a person doesn't realise they are in love until they are suddenly separated from the object of their affection. Only then do they realise how deep their feelings run. Jingqiu had never before experienced this kind of longing. She felt that she had unconsciously given him her heart to take away, and now he had it with him, wherever he was. If he wanted to hurt her, all he had to do was give it a pinch; if he wanted to make her happy, all he had to do was smile upon it. She didn't know how she could have been so careless. They were from two different worlds, how could she have let herself fall in love with him?

There was nothing about her worthy of Old Third's affection, and he only came to Auntie's house because he had nothing else to do and wanted to rest. Maybe he was one of those flirts you read about in books who has his tricks for making girls fall into his arms. Old Third must have tricked her because now she couldn't give him up, and he knew that. This must be what her mother meant by ‘one slip'. She recalled a scene from
Jane Eyre
in which, in order to let go of her love for Rochester, Jane looks in the mirror and says something like, You're a plain girl, you're not worthy of his love, never forget that.