by Xu Xu
I took a few quick steps toward the fence and, slightly bowing toward her, said, “Good morning.”
She abruptly turned around to run away, but then, as if she wanted to look me over, halted for a moment. And so I said, “You don’t need to be afraid, I live here. You know me, don’t you?”
She was relatively composed now, and looked at me again. All of a sudden she giggled, turned around, and ran away. “I’ll wait for you tomorrow morning,” I shouted. “We’ll listen to the birds together.”
IV
Who was she? In the afternoon, while grandma was shelling dried beans, I sat down beside her and began to ask about the girl.
“She’s that dimwit,” grandma said. “Poor soul.”
“You mean she’s the one who called me for breakfast the other day?” I asked. “How come I never saw her afterward?”
“She doesn’t like to mix with people, and doesn’t really have anyone looking after her. There isn’t much her elder brother can do, either.”
“Who is her brother?”
“It’s Bingyang, the fellow who often plays chess with you.”
“What about their parents?”
“They are both dead,” grandma said.
“So there is only the two of them?”
“Bingyang got married two years ago,” grandma said. “You have seen his wife, haven’t you? She’s pretty and quite capable. They also have a child.”
“What’s the girl’s name? And does she live with her brother and his wife?”
Living under one roof with a pretty and astute sister-in-law surely cannot be easy, I immediately thought.
“She is named Yunqian.”
My grandma was an extremely perceptive and wise old lady, and she right away could sense that I had taken pity on Yunqian. She smiled at me kindly and said, “Her sister-in-law treats her very well.”
“How come they don’t send her to school? What’s their financial situation?”
“Bingyang has two shops in town,” grandma said. “But Yunqian is just too dumb. She struggled all throughout primary school and only graduated last year. That’s why Bingyang no longer sends her to school.“
“Dumb?” I said incredulously. “You wouldn’t guess that from her face.”
“She is an embroidered pillow!” grandma said. “Look, she is seventeen this year and can barely read. She is incapable of doing needlework and doesn’t understand a thing. You have to poke her if you want her to do anything, just like a child of six or seven. What’s more, she doesn’t like to talk and cannot express herself clearly. When her mother was still alive, she didn’t know what to do with her.”
“She seems to like birds,” I said.
“That’s true. She has liked birds since she was a child. The moment she’d see a sparrow or a magpie or a swallow, she’d make some foolish chirping sounds at them. Now she is seventeen and she is still like that. She is acting a little more normal now, but only because everyone laughs at her. In secret she still sneaks out to look at birds.”
Auntie Wang who lived next door and who had seen that grandma was shelling beans came over to give us a hand. She sat down and said, “You’re talking about the dimwit, aren’t you?”
“Why do you call her that?” I felt rather uneasy.
“Everyone here calls her that,” grandma said.
“A couple of days ago,” auntie Wang continued, “they asked someone to act as a go-between. I hear the boy was from a good family, but once they realized she was a dimwit that was the end of it.”
“She herself probably doesn’t want to get married,” grandma said. “I mean, a seventeen year old who acts as if she is thirteen or fourteen …”
“She’ll still be this way when she’s sixty. A dimwit like her simply won’t grow up,” auntie Wang said.
“And even if she got married, it wouldn’t be easy for her either,” grandma said. “Poor soul!”
“But what will she do if she doesn’t get married? Surely she can’t rely on her brother all her life,” auntie Wang exclaimed.
Hearing them talk like this made me extremely uncomfortable, and so I quietly left.
V
The fence around the garden was dilapidated, but it was still standing. There was a single-leaf gate at the southern corner of the fence with a coarse iron lock, the kind they use in the countryside. The key hung on the back wall of my pavilion. The next day, I rose early again and went to unlock the gate. Then I waited next to the gate for Yunqian. The place was quite a distance from where I had waited for her the previous day. The weather that day was marvelous. There was no morning haze, and white clouds drifted in the dark-blue sky. The faint contours of the moon were still visible and, in the east, the sun began to rise, slowly jolting upward like a big red ball. Before long, Yunqian arrived. Like the previous day, she stood on the other side of the fence, gazing at the birds inside the garden. She neither seemed aware of my presence nor did she seem to remember that I was awaiting her, and I did not step forward to greet her. The birds were already singing, but Yunqian did not make a sound; she just stood there. Her face was radiating happiness. After a while, she started to trill in a low voice and two birds flew over to her. She squatted down and chirped away with them for a while. Then those two birds flew away and two more flew over. More and more birds began to chirp until eventually flock after flock took off and flew away. I tiptoed toward the fence and saw her waving at the parting birds. From across the fence, I softly called out to her:
“Yunqian.”
She turned around. It seemed as if she suddenly remembered what I had said the previous day and a shy, intelligent smile appeared on her face.
“Yunqian,” I said, “I think I understand you, just like you understand those birds.”
She did not pay any attention to me. I thought she was going to run away again, but somehow her curiosity seemed to pull her back. “Don’t run,” I said. “I wish you’d think of me as just another bird and talk to me just like you do to them. You know that I am staying with my grandmother to get over an illness, don’t you?”
She did not run away, but she did not say anything either. The smile on her face was no longer shy, but now showed astonishment. She knit her brows, and I saw an unusual beauty and nobility in her face.
“Why don’t you come into the garden? There are a lot of things I want to tell you.”
She did not move, and I said, “Well, then I’ll come out.”
She suddenly smiled, and, with the same artlessness with which she had been conversing with the birds, said, “Why don’t we just talk like this?”
“I just want you to think of me as a bird, not a human,” I said. “My heart is that of a bird.” She nodded her head and smiled cheerfully.
“You can understand bird talk,” I said. “I hope you can teach me.”
“How do you know?” she asked. “No one here believes me.”
“I know they don’t, but I do,” I said, “because my heart is that of a bird.”
“But you don’t understand them.”
“No, I don’t understand them, but that’s because I am too stupid.”
“No,” she suddenly said, as if pitying me. “You are definitely not stupid. You know that I am a dimwit, don’t you?”
“You shouldn’t listen to what people say,” I said to her. “Everything other people can do you can easily learn, but what you know, no one else can learn.”
“But I can’t read, I can’t get things done, and they say I can’t express myself clearly.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “If you want to read, I can teach you. You’ll see that it’s not hard at all. All it takes is following some rules and being diligent.”
“You will teach me?” she asked excitedly.
“Of course,” I said. “I don’t have anything to do. Look, if you like, I can talk to your brother tomorrow. I’ll teach you how to read, and you teach me bird talk.”
But then she suddenly said with a nervous tone, “I
honestly don’t know how to teach you bird talk.”
“No need to worry,” I said. “I am not saying you have to teach me. Even if you can’t teach me, I can still teach you how to read, right? I don’t have anything else to do.”
“Really? Then I will ask my brother later.” But then she looked dejected again and said, “I am sure you’ll think I am too stupid.”
“Nonsense!” I said. “And even if you are stupid, what of it? Don’t you know that I am all the more stupid?”
“Do you know that all my primary school teachers hated me?”
“But those birds that just left, do they hate you?” I asked her.
“No.”
“And you still don’t believe that my heart is that of a bird?”
Her smile returned, and she softly said, “I will talk to my brother later. I am leaving now.”
I gazed at her beautiful silhouette disappearing in the distance. Once or twice, she turned around to look at me. I waved at her, just as she had waved at those departing birds before.
VI
I thought that Bingyang would come and see me, but when the sun descended in the west and dusk began to fall, he still had not shown up.
Over dinner, my grandma suddenly said, “That Bingyang is an odd fellow. What made him think you’d want to teach his sister how to read?”
“What? He talked to you?” I asked.
“Yes, he specially came over to talk to me. I said you have come here to convalesce and that you wouldn’t be interested. That dimwit, there is no use in teaching her anyway,” grandma said flatly.
“But I’d be more than happy to teach her.“ I said.
“Your mother told you to come here to recuperate. You should relax, get plenty of sleep, and eat well. Isn’t that also what the doctor told you to do?”
“But teaching her how to read won’t be much of an effort. Those couple of hours each day will distract me a little. I don’t have anything else to do and I am getting a little bored.”
“Well, if it makes you happy, I will tell them tomorrow.”
“How about you go tonight,” I said, “I can start teaching her tomorrow morning at ten. Every day from ten till noon, what do you think?”
“You might as well, I guess,” grandma replied. “And you can of course stop anytime if you no longer feel like teaching her.”
After dinner, grandma sent someone over to inform Bingyang that she had discussed everything with me and that it was decided that we would start tomorrow morning. I would teach Yunqian every day from ten till noon.
Early the next morning, I again went to meet Yunqian in the back of the garden. Just like the day before, I waited until the birds had left the bamboo thicket before I spoke to her. I asked her to come inside the garden, but she didn’t want to. I then asked whether she was coming back at ten to study with me, but she abruptly said, “My brother said that your grandma told him that you are here to convalesce. He feels bad about disturbing you.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “Teaching you for a couple of hours a day would be a welcome distraction for me. Promise me that you will talk to your brother. I am really happy to teach you.”
“But I haven’t told him that we have been meeting here in the mornings,” she said.
I thought about it for a moment, then replied, “That’s all right. How about you tell your brother that I want to play a game of chess with him? Tell him I am waiting for him in the afternoon.”
She nodded.
“When he comes, I will talk to him myself.”
“But please don’t tell him anything about what we discussed here.”
“Don’t worry,” I said.
She fell silent and faintly smiled at me. Her face shone with the same happy expression as before, when she had been with the birds. Her eyes avoided my gaze, but their radiance possessed an unfathomable mystery that penetrated my heart and soul. Her lips trembled a little and she bit them with her white, pearl-like teeth, as if there were things she wanted to tell me but could not find the right words. I felt a strange urge to learn more about her. I wanted to ask her about her brother and whether she got along with her sister-in-law, but I did not know how to start. After a while I said, “Why don’t we sit in the garden for a while?”
“No,” she said. “I have to go back. They’ll be looking for me soon.” And so she hurried away.
VII
Over our many games of chess, I had learned from Bingyang that he had attended college for a year, but when his father died he had returned to his village to take care of the shops that his father had left him. He also kept bees and grew fruit. He seemed content with his situation and no longer held lofty ambitions. He was intelligent, levelheaded, and people trusted him with all sorts of matters, but it was also said that he feared his wife. I had seen Bingyang’s wife several times. She was a good-looking woman who talked a lot and who acted friendly to everyone, but you could tell right away that it was not sincere. I had never paid much attention to her, but after I had learned that she was Yunqian’s sister-in-law, I would exchange a few sentences with her whenever I saw her. She appeared generous on the outside and was certainly very capable, but I felt she was petty, narrow-minded, and a little vulgar. Yunqian could not possibly be happy living under one roof with her, I thought, and Bingyang was probably not very happy, either. Despite our many chats over chess, Bingyang never spoke to me about his wife or his family life. He also never mentioned his younger sister to me. That day, after we had played two games of chess, I casually brought up the topic of teaching Yunqian.
“Didn’t you discuss with my grandmother that I was going to tutor your sister a little?”
“I wanted to talk to your grandmother now,” he said. “I am afraid it’s going to be exhausting for you, why don’t we …”
“Come on, what’s exhausting about it?” I brushed him off. “My grandmother means well, but I am not that ill, and being on my own all day is actually pretty boring.”
“Let me be honest with you,” he said. “My sister really is a little dumb.”
“I don’t believe that the sister of someone like you can possibly be dumb,” I said.
“I find it strange myself,” he said with a sigh. “There was nothing wrong with my parents. How could she turn out this way? You know, in primary school she was never able to advance to the next grade. Her teachers all said there was nothing anyone could do.”
“But she is diligent, is she not?” I asked.
“Extremely diligent! But somehow she …”
“Don’t think of her in this way,” I said. “Everyone’s different. Maybe she just never learned how to stay focused. I think maybe … anyway, let me give it a try. I really would love to find out what is really going on with her. I’ve seen her a couple of times now, and I am quite sure she isn’t the kind of dimwit other people make her to be.”
“I sometimes think that, too,” Bingyang said. “It’s just that she seems incapable of doing anything, even the easiest of household chores.”
“I think her present environment might have shattered all her confidence,” I said. “Once a person has lost confidence, things go from bad to worse. You know, I myself have had that kind of experience.”
“Maybe.” His tone suddenly changed. “You know, when my mother was still around she doted on Yunqian. I also wanted to send her to a school in the city, so that she could broaden her horizons, but somehow Yunqian doesn’t want to leave here.”
“You mean she doesn’t want to go the city on her own for school?” I asked.
“Truth is, her experience at primary school terrified her,” Bingyang replied. “I simply can’t see her studying together with other students anymore.”
“That’s odd,” I said. “How does your wife feel about all this?”
“She feels like any other woman would. Yunqian just hangs around at home and cannot help at all. Now that she is an adult, my wife naturally hopes that she’ll get married soon. But I feel uneasy about marrying he
r off into another family. I know she’d suffer. Even though she looks like a grown woman, her character and temper are those of a child.”
“Then let her study with me,” I said. “And I can slowly persuade her to go to the city for more schooling. Here in the countryside, everyone calls her a dimwit, and you and your wife are in no position to help her.”
“But it’s too much trouble for you,” Bingyang insisted.
“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “I have only seen her a couple of times, but I know that we’ll get along.”
“Even though she is a little slow, she is really a very fine and honest child,” Bingyang suddenly said. “She is eager to help me with anything, but because she is so slow and clumsy, my wife doesn’t want her to. When I catch a cold, she’ll sit by the side of my bed and won’t move an inch, but my wife hates her behaving like this. Says she’s putting on a show. Anyway, a lot of women are like that.…”
I had thought it somewhat odd that a man of Bingyang’s age could at times appear so listless and passive, but now I realized that my initial guess had been right: He certainly wasn’t happy, and Yunqian was probably even more troubled. Bingyang loved his younger sister, but he could no longer protect her. Even though he said he wanted Yunqian to go on studying and that it was Yunqian who did not want to leave, who knew whether it wasn’t his wife who was making things difficult? His wife naturally wanted Yunqian to marry as soon as possible. Schooling would require tuition and she probably worried about the cost. I left it at that, and we agreed that Yunqian would come over for her first class the next day at ten. Our long conversation had put Bingyang into a gloomy mood, and so we played another round of chess. When he got up to leave, I asked what textbooks Yunqian had used. He said they had some old textbooks at home and that he would ask Yunqian to bring them along tomorrow.
VIII
And that was how I began to teach Yunqian. I had once studied a little pedagogy and child psychology, and I had also taught for several years at a middle school, but Yunqian certainly proved to be a strangely difficult case. I soon was at my wits’ end. Whether it was Chinese, arithmetic, natural science, history, or geography, no matter how carefully I explained, she just would not understand any of it. Her expression never assumed that radiance that I had seen when she was listening to birds. She just gazed at me in a stupor. At times I almost thought she was not listening to me. I would ask her to explain to me in her own words what we had studied, one sentence at a time. The parts she was not able to reproduce, I would explain again, but even if she was able to repeat to me what I had explained to her, she still did not understand the meaning of what she said. More than once I almost lost my temper, but I immediately checked myself and did my utmost to encourage her and to keep my own confidence in her. She definitely was not the dimwit everybody made her out to be. There clearly was something special about her; I just had not yet discovered it.