by Greg Arritt
Sam stood in the shade of the first-floor overhang, trying to maintain an authoritarian presence while self-consciously fussing with his hair, not that it would make any difference in hiding his balding pate.
“Let’s get this over with,” Redding said, halfheartedly resigned to the task.
As they started down the walkway, Sam handed a book to Redding that was full of oversize print and color illustrations. It was an overly simplistic storybook that could have been read from cover to cover in mere minutes. They passed three classrooms before finally stopping at the door of the fourth one.
“Suppose something goes wrong?” Redding asked.
“Nothing is going to go wrong. Besides, their teacher will be in the classroom the whole time,” Sam said.
* * *
They stood just inside the classroom while they waited for the teacher to finish speaking to her students. It had been years since Redding had been in a classroom, and everything was familiar, yet strangely different. Everything seemed short and miniature in size. Even the children, with their animated expressions, seemed somewhat at odds with his memories of grade school. Somehow, they seemed just a little too young to be away from their families, yet all of them were keenly aware of the visitors in their classroom. Their little chairs had been loosely arranged into rows that faced forward and, at the front of the classroom, was one empty chair, standard in size.
“This is the kindergarten class,” Sam whispered to Redding.
“I thought you said I was reading to the first graders,” Redding whispered back, but Sam didn’t get a chance to respond.
The classroom suddenly erupted with children’s voices, staggered and barely discernible. “Good morning, Mr. Teska.”
Redding smiled nervously as he returned the greeting. Then, the teacher motioned him to come forward and sit in the chair that faced the children. He mustered the necessary confidence as he walked to the chair and sat down. Retrieving his reading glasses from his pocket, he positioned them on his face. He told himself to be calm and took a deep breath. Then, he looked around the classroom and into the faces of the children. They were all keenly focused on him and he could sense their anticipation.
The teacher moved off to the side, next to Lin Ming, but Sam slipped out the door the moment Redding sat down.
He opened the book and began to read. After the second page, he stopped and turned the book so all of the children could see. Then, he pointed to one of the pictures.
“Red… bike.” Redding said slowly and purposefully. “Red… bike.” He paused for a moment while he waited for a response.
The teacher said something to the children in Chinese and they individually tried to repeat his words, but their responses were fragmented and lacking in clarity. Again, Redding repeated the words. This time, their responses came in unison, but the pronunciation was still lacking. What he heard was, “Wed bike.”
Redding glanced in the direction of Lin Ming and she nodded her head in approval. He continued to read, stopping every so often to display the pictures. He would hold the book up with one hand, and then would identify a person or object in the picture by pointing with the index finger of his other hand. He would clearly pronounce the word in English that identified the object and then wait for a response. The students in turn would repeat the word, which invariably elicited smiles throughout the class.
Halfway through the book he noticed that some of the children began to move their chairs closer. One child came and stood next to him, staring into the book while he read, and another child came and squatted down in front of him. As he continued to read, the chairs and the children came closer.
An unexpected wave of emotion caught Redding off guard. Surrounded by the children he took a slow breath before wiping the moisture from his eyes. Then, he continued reading as if nothing had happened.
He had nearly finished the story when Sam returned. Sam only had to tap on his watch and Redding knew it was time to leave. Outside, they slowly walked back in the direction that they had come.
“So, how was it?” Sam asked.
“It went well enough, but I’m not sure how much of the story they really understood.”
“They understood,” Sam said as he stopped at the door of another classroom. “Their teacher read them the same book yesterday, in Chinese.”
Redding glance at Lin Ming, who confirmed Sam’s assertion with a nod.
“This won’t take a minute,” Sam said, as he opened the door and ushered Redding and Lin Ming inside.
* * *
This classroom was set up slightly differently from the kindergarten class. There were rows of tables, and a boy and girl sat at each one. They each wore a light-blue, button-up shirt with a school emblem above the left pocket and dark-blue shorts. They looked similar in age to the kindergarten class, except for the uniforms.
“This is the first-grade class,” Sam whispered.
“What are we doing here?” Redding said.
It was then that the children starting staring at him while the teacher was pointing to something on the blackboard. He turned his head and looked over his shoulder to see what was written. In bold letters on the blackboard was, “Mr. Teska.”
“Good morning, Mr. Teska,” the children said in well-practiced unison.
“Good morning,” Redding replied, breaking into a broad smile, and then he turned so only Sam could see the look in his eyes.
Sam didn’t respond other than to pass Redding another book. The question of whether he had already fulfilled his original commitment didn’t seem to matter. An opportunity had been provided and Sam intended to use for all it was worth.
In this class there wasn’t a waiting chair, only a lectern that the teacher had just relinquished. As Redding stepped forward to the lectern, a little girl in the front row clapped her hands. He hadn’t even opened the book yet and Sam was already out the door, leaving Lin Ming standing with the teacher on one side of the classroom.
Just like the kindergarteners, the first-grade children’s expressions and mannerisms were overly animated. With one class already behind him, Redding was a little more at ease. The wide-eyed stares of the young pupils were almost enough to make him laugh, but a measure of decorum was self imposed and a professional persona maintained.
At the conclusion of the reading, Redding said goodbye and then he and Lin Ming left the classroom. Sam was waiting outside.
“If you’re interested in a career change, I could set it up,” Sam said.
There was nothing surprising about the question. Sam’s recruitment tactics weren’t exactly subtle. As pleased as Redding was with the outcome of the readings, it hardly qualified him as a teacher. The readings had been an interesting disruption well outside his usual existence, but the real disruption was that it had in no way brought him closer to the painting.
“No, we’re finished here!” Redding insisted. “And there aren’t going be any more readings.”
“We should hurry,” Lin Ming said, but in Redding’s face she could see a lack of understanding. “Wuzhen! Have you forgotten?”
He winced at the sudden realization that it had completely slipped his mind. He had been so distracted worrying about the reading he had forgotten all about Wuzhen. Everything had already been arranged, and he couldn’t just dismiss Lin Ming, nor did he want to. He wanted to be with her, so close he could smell her fragrance, but every minute spent with her diminished his chances of finding the painting.
Chapter Eleven
Just as Lin Ming had said, a car and driver were waiting outside the school gate for the one-hour jaunt to Wuzhen. Redding adopted a relaxed position in the back seat while staring out the window. Lin Ming sat up front next to the driver and elaborated on local productivity. She had said something about an increase in commercial exports and a minor decrease in agricultural products. Redding heard everything she said, but he was only half paying attention. His thoughts vacillated between his reading at the school and his absence from
the old city.
He had posed some mundane question about Wuzhen, but he had little interest in the answer. The question was simply meant to shift the conversation. He had become bored with the whole subject of local commerce and he was still annoyed that he had allowed himself to get bogged down in the afternoon excursion.
Lin Ming transitioned from one subject to the other, but everything still came across as a well-rehearsed tour guide script. She recited a multitude of facts about the township, placing emphasis on its twelve-hundred-year-old history. Of the many towns that had been built on the old canal, Wuzhen was one of the few that had been classified as a protected asset of China. In spite of the influences of modern China, Wuzhen had supposedly retained its original culture.
Redding was no longer listening to the content, just to the sound of Lin Ming’s voice. Her clear, sweet tone was coupled with a slight accent, but only her usage of certain grammatical structures came across as foreign. With his head tilted onto the headrest, he closed his eyes and continued to listen only to the sound of her voice.
* * *
After having lunch at a restaurant on the edge of the township, Redding and Lin Ming walked into the heart of Wuzhen. On one side of the canal that ran through the center of the town was an elevated stone walkway with intermittently spaced canal ramps. As they walked along the canal, Redding saw everything, and at the same time he saw nothing, and somehow Lin Ming knew.
“You must let your thoughts come alive in the past, only then will you really see Wuzhen.”
For a thousand years, Wuzhen’s residents had utilized the canal as the primary means of transporting their wares. It had been a vital lifeline to the community, but that changed with the advent of modern transportation. Of the many communities that had relied on the canal, most had been replaced by modern cities and a few simply died away. The canal had been both Wuzhen’s downfall and its saving grace. Instead of being utilized for transporting goods, as in the past, the canal had become the domain of boats that lazily paced the waterway laden with tourists.
Although the quaint, picturesque quality of Wuzhen suggested a romantic notion of the past, the township had far more in common with the present. Redding didn’t have to look very far to find its underlying character. Running water was in place, although by means of outdated plumbing, and electric lines were inconspicuous, yet evident. Wuzhen may have been a simple canal town with an ancient history, but it had a well-preserved quality complete with tourists darting everywhere, photographing everything.
At first, Redding was upset that Lin Ming had dragged him all the way to Wuzhen. He couldn’t understand why she had insisted that he see something so touristy, but after having walked the canal, he began to see things differently.
In spite of modernization and commercial influence, Wuzhen had somehow maintained the rawness of its years. It was easy enough to spot the renovations, but taken as a whole Wuzhen had an almost tangible connection with its past. The most compelling element of the township was its adherence to the peasant lifestyle. Almost invisible, the townsfolk moved among the tourists, living their lives just as they had for years. They would have likely gone unnoticed, had Lin Ming not persuaded Redding to look beyond the obvious. Still, nothing about the town felt as if it were hundreds of years old, especially its structures, such as the stone bridges and canal houses. In all likelihood, they were exact replicas of the originals.
“I thought Wuzhen would answer your questions about China, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe our culture isn’t the answer,” Lin Ming said.
He didn’t like the idea that he was so transparent, but there wasn’t anything he could have said that would have made any sense, other than the truth.
They had been walking side by side, and he thought he might take hold of her hand, but when he tried it was as though she knew what he was thinking. Before he could reach for her hand, she pulled away and clasped her hands together in front of her. The attraction between them was clear enough, but there was something that stymied him. It was almost as if Lin Ming was purposely holding him at bay, unwilling to take the next step.
* * *
They selected a bench on the edge of the canal, not so much to rest, but to watch as the canal boats drifted by. On the other side of the canal, houses sat perched on foundations of cut stone pilings. Each house was joined to the next by a common wall. The unpainted row of wooden structures was well weathered and the peaked roofs were covered in decaying scalloped tiles. On the back porch balconies of some houses, red lanterns swayed in the breeze.
“Redding, may I ask you a question?”
“Of course!”
“Your wife, what was she like?”
As tour guide Lin Ming wasn’t reserved, but in personal matters, she usually shied away. Redding knew it was something more than curiosity that caused her to ask the question. He didn’t usually talk about the private side of his life and had it been anyone else, the question would have gone unanswered.
“She was my best friend. That’s the way it should be with married people.”
“I thought so, like Ching and Mei.”
He turned and looked at her in such a way that she knew he didn’t understand.
“My brother and his wife,” Lin Ming said. “It’s the same for them. They are best friends and they are bound to each other in an inexplicable way that exceeds marriage.”
“Well, that’s the part about sharing everything in your life,” Redding said. “What makes you laugh and cry, that kind of stuff.”
A canal boat had settled against the ramp and its few passengers were in the process of disembarking. A man was holding his young son as he stepped from the boat to the algae-covered ramp. The moment his foot landed on the wet, slippery surface, it gave way. He shifted his weight back onto the canal boat and flailed his free arm back and forth as he tried to regain his balance. In the process, he nearly dropped his young son into the narrow gap between the ramp and the boat. A gasp of fear and panic was heard from the others waiting to disembark. Redding sprang to his feet, but he was nowhere near close enough to be of assistance. The child was extended from one arm and the father flailed his other arm as he desperately tried to find secure footing. It seemed like an eternity, but it was over in moments. The man found his footing and his young son was spared injury.
Redding took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, and then he sat back down next to Lin Ming. He watched the man as he moved away from the ramp with both arms wrapped around his young son. Lin Ming tried to pull his attention from the near-accident.
“When you were married, what made you laugh?”
“Lots of things.” Redding said. “I remember one night, we had just sat down to eat, and I took my fork and knife and started cutting into a pork chop. Well, it wasn’t exactly a tender piece of meat and just as I finished cutting it, somehow my hand slipped and the meat flew off my fork and hit Victoria right on the nose. She didn’t say a word. She just picked up her napkin, wiped off her nose and smiled. Then, she got a spoon full of mashed potatoes and flung them right back at me. After that, food was flying everywhere and it turned into one hell of a mess, but we were laughing so hard, we didn’t care.”
“I don’t have any of those wonderful moments. Actually, I’m not sure Yang and I ever laughed at anything.”
They gave their seats on the bench to some weary-looking tourists and continued along the stone paved walkway that bordered the canal. Using one of the stone arched bridges they crossed over the canal to the narrow street that fronted the row of houses.
Along the row of houses, the doorways of several homes were wide open. Some houses had standard size doorways and others opened across the entire width of the dwelling. It was unlikely that the square footage of any of the houses exceed three hundred feet. Each house consisted of a front room with a doorway into a rear room. The front room was something of a living room, kitchen, and utility room, all in one. It was also the craftsman’s work area, where goods were made a
nd sold. Every family along the row specialized in some skilled trade, like cutting combs and brushes from oxen horns, or making cages and baskets from reeds. Another household may have woven yarn into fabric or even operated one of the canal boats, but every household had to interact with their neighbors in order to survive. Of the town’s inhabitants, many had resided in the same house for generations, passing down their skills to their offspring and thus continuing a way of life as it had been for hundreds of years.
The rear room was something of a bedroom. That room either had shutters that allowed light and fresh air into the house or a doorway that opened onto a small balcony that overhung the canal. Redding peered through each of the open doorways. It felt as if he was intruding into the residents’ private lives, still he couldn’t help but look.
The open doorway of another house provided a view of an ancient game of tiles. It wasn’t the game that held Redding’s attention. It was the four elderly people who sat around a table playing the game. They were well beyond their productive years and the canal township had probably been their whole lives.
Redding and Lin Ming stepped away from the doorway right into the path of a wooden pushcart. They stepped aside, allowing the pushcart to pass. An old woman with sparse strands of gray hair shoved the cart forward a few more feet. Her efforts to maneuver the pushcart through the street were continually repressed by the flow of tourists.
As Redding watched the old woman work the cart down the street, a single thought took hold. “Everybody here is old. There aren’t any children.”
Lin Ming nodded. “Please understand. The opportunities of the large cities have caused the younger people to move away. They wanted to improve their lives and they don’t want to live in the past anymore.”
Chapter Twelve