Fortress Besieged

by Qian Zhongshu

  He wasn’t paying any attention and again put his arm around her waist. Suddenly the ship lurched sideways. He had not taken hold of the railing and nearly pulled her down with him. At the same time, in the shadows, the other women let out shrill cries. Miss Pao took advantage of the situation and slipped away, saying, “I feel cold. I think I will go on down. See you tomorrow”—leaving him alone on deck.

  Dark clouds had already formed in the sky, disclosing here and there a few stars. The storm sounded like a man greedily gulping his food; the broad open sea of the daytime had now been completely digested in the even vaster night. Against this background the tumult in a man’s heart shrinks to nothingness. Only a well of hope for the morrow, which has not yet descended into the vastness, illuminates itself like the speck of light from a firefly in the dark depths of boundless, roaring waves.

  From that day on, Fang often ate his meals in the third class. Miss Su’s attitude toward him visibly cooled, so he asked Miss Pao in private why Miss Su had been snubbing him lately. Miss Pao laughed at him for being such a simpleton, adding, “I can guess why, but I won’t tell you so you won’t get more stuck up.”

  He said she was imagining things, but after this, whenever he met Miss Su, he felt even more awkward and ill at ease.

  The ship passed Ceylon and Singapore and in a few days reached Saigon. This was the first colony since the start of the voyage that the French could boast of as their own. The French on board were like dogs at the sight of their master’s home—their chests suddenly filled out, their actions became more arrogant, and the pitch of their voices was raised. In the afternoon the ship docked and anchored for two nights. Miss Su’s relatives, who worked at the local Chinese consulate, sent a car to the wharf to pick her up for dinner, and so, with everyone watching enviously, she was the first one to get off the ship. The remaining students decided to eat at a Chinese restaurant. Fang Hung-chien wanted to eat somewhere else with Miss Pao, but feeling it would be too embarrassing to say this in front of the others, he just went along with them. After eating, the Suns left first to take their child back to the ship, while the others stopped at a coffee shop and Miss Pao suggested they go dancing. Though Fang had paid for a couple of dancing lessons in France, he was hardly a master at it. After one dance with Miss Pao, he retreated to the sidelines and watched her dance with others. After twelve o’clock everyone had had enough and was ready to return to the ship to sleep. When they got out of the rickshaws at the wharf, Fang and Miss Pao lingered behind. She said, “Miss Su won’t be coming back tonight.”

  “My Vietnamese cabinmate has gone ashore too. I heard his berth was taken by a Chinese businessman on his way to Hong Kong from Saigon.”

  “We’ll both be sleeping alone tonight,” she said almost carelessly.

  It was as though lightning had flashed through his mind and produced a sudden blinding glare. All the blood rushed to his face. He was about to speak, when someone up front turned around and shouted, “What are you two talking about so much? Walking slowly because you’re afraid we’ll eavesdrop, aren’t you?” Without another word, the two hurried onto the ship. Everyone said, “Good night,” and went his own way. Fang bathed and returned to his cabin, lay down, and then sat up again. Trying to dispel the thought, once it has lodged there, seems as agonizing as it is for a pregnant woman to have an abortion. Maybe Miss Pao had meant nothing by that remark. If he went to her, he might make a fool of himself. Since cargo was now being loaded on the deck and two watchmen were patrolling the corridors to prevent intruders from slipping in, there was no assurance he wouldn’t be spotted by them. He couldn’t make up his mind, yet he didn’t want to give up hope.

  Suddenly he heard light, brisk footsteps, seemingly from the direction of Miss Pao’s cabin. His heart leaped up, but was then pressed down by those footsteps, as if each step trod upon it. The footsteps halted. His heart likewise stood still, not daring to stir, as though someone stood upon it. A long moment passed and his heart was oppressed beyond endurance. Fortunately, the footsteps resumed with renewed speed, coming closer. He was no longer in doubt, his heart no longer restraining itself. Wanting to shout with joy, he hopped from his bed and without getting his slippers all the way on, opened the door curtain to a whiff of Miss Pao’s usual talcum powder.

  When he woke the next morning, sunlight filled the room. By his watch it was past nine. He reminisced how sweet the night’s sleep had been, too deep even for dreams. No wonder sleep was called the land of dark sweetness. He then thought of Miss Pao’s dark skin and sweet smile; later when he saw her he’d call her “Dark Sweetness,” making him think of dark, sweet chocolate. Too bad that French chocolate wasn’t any good and that the weather was too hot for eating it, for otherwise he would treat her to a box. Just as he was loafing in bed thinking of that nonsense, Miss Pao tapped on the outside of his cabin, called him “Lazybones,” and told him to hurry and get up so they could go ashore and have fun.

  When he finished combing his hair and washing up, he went to her cabin and waited outside a long while before she finally finished dressing. Breakfast had already been served in the dining room, so they ordered and paid for two extra servings. The waiter who served them, Ah Liu, was the one in charge of Fang’s cabin. When they had finished eating and were about to leave, Ah Liu, instead of clearing away the things on the table, smiled at them gleefully and stretched out his hand. In his palm were three hairpins. Mouthing Cantonese Mandarin,22 he said in a jumbled roundabout way, “Mr. Fang, I found these just now while making your bed.”

  Miss Pao flushed crimson and her big eyes seemed about to pop out of their sockets. Mortified, Fang cursed himself for being so stupid as not to have checked his bed when he got up. He pulled out three hundred francs from his pocket and said to Ah Liu, “Here! Now give me back those things.” Ah Liu thanked him, adding that he was most dependable and would certainly keep his mouth shut. Miss Pao looked elsewhere, pretending she knew nothing about it.

  After they left the dining room, Fang gave the hairpins back to Miss Pao, apologizing as he did so. She angrily flung them to the floor, saying, “Who wants them after they’ve been in the filthy hands of that wretch!”

  The incident ruined their luck for the whole day. Everything went wrong. The rickshaws took them to the wrong place; they paid the wrong amount of money when they went shopping; neither one had any good luck. Fang wanted to go eat lunch at the Chinese restaurant where they went the evening before, but Miss Pao was set on eating Western food, saying she didn’t want to meet anyone they knew from the ship. They then found a Western-type restaurant that looked respectable enough from the outside; but as it turned out, there wasn’t a single thing edible from the cold dishes to the coffee. The soup was cold, and the ice cream was warm. The fish was like the Marine Corps. It apparently had already been on land for several days; the meat was like submarine sailors, having been submerged in water for a long time. Besides the vinegar, the bread, the butter, and the red wine were all sour. They completely lost their appetites while eating and couldn’t hit it off in their conversation either. He tried to amuse her by calling her the affectionate nicknames “Dark Sweetie” and “Miss Chocolate.”

  “Am I so dark then?” she asked heatedly.

  Stubbornly trying to justify himself, he argued, “But I like your color. This year in Spain I saw a famous beauty dancing. Her skin was just a little lighter than a smoked ham.”

  “Maybe you like Miss Su’s dead-fish-belly white. You yourself are as black as a chimney sweep. Just take a look at yourself in the mirror,” she answered him none too logically. With that she flashed a triumphant smile.

  Having received a thorough blackening from Miss Pao, he could hardly go on. The waiter served the chicken. There on the plate was a piece of meat that seemed to have been donated by the iron weathercock on a church steeple. Try as she might, Miss Pao could not make a dent in it. She put down her knife and fork, saying, “I haven’t the teeth to bite into this thing. This restaur
ant is a total mess.”

  Fang attacked the chicken with a greater determination. “You wouldn’t listen to me,” he said through clenched teeth. “You wanted to eat Western food.”

  “I wanted to eat Western food, but I didn’t ask you to come to this miserable restaurant! After the mistake is made, you blame someone else. All you men are like that!” She talked as though she had tested the character of every man in the world.

  After a while she somehow managed to bring up Dr. Li, her fiancé, saying he was a devout Christian. Already piqued, Fang became disgusted upon hearing this. Since religious belief hadn’t had the slightest effect on her behavior, he’d just have to use Dr. Li to get in a few digs at her, he thought. “How can a Christian practice medicine?” he asked.

  Without any idea of what he was driving at, she looked at him wide-eyed.

  He added some rice-water “milk” to the scorched bean-husk “coffee” in front of her, and said, “One of the Ten Commandments of Christianity is ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ but what does a doctor do but professionalized killing?” Unamused, she shot back, “Don’t be ridiculous! Medicine saves lives.”

  Seeing how attractive she was when aroused, he decided to provoke her further. “No one who saves lives could be religious. Medicine wants people to live. It saves people’s bodies. Religion saves people’s souls and wants them not to fear death. So if a sick man is afraid of death, he’ll call a doctor and take medicine. If the doctor and the medicine prove ineffective and there’s no escape from death, then he’ll get a minister or a priest to prepare him for his end. To study medicine and be religious at the same time comes down to: ‘If I can’t help a sick man to live properly, at least I can still help him die properly. Either way he can’t go wrong by calling me in.’ It’s like a pharmacist running a coffin shop on the side. What a racket!”

  She was greatly incensed: “I suppose you won’t ever get sick and have to call a doctor. Your big mouth and glib tongue are spouting all kinds of nonsense. Well, I study medicine too. Why do you malign people for no reason?”

  Alarmed, he apologized. She complained of a headache and wanted to return to the ship to rest. All the way back he was very apologetic, but she remained in low spirits. After seeing her to her cabin, he slept for two hours himself. As soon as he got up he went to her cabin, tapped on the partition, and called her name, asking if she felt any better. To his surprise, the curtain opened and Miss Su came out saying Miss Pao was sick, had thrown up twice, and had just fallen asleep. He was at once chagrined and embarrassed; he said something lamely and beat a hasty retreat.

  During dinner everyone noticed Miss Pao’s absence and teased Fang, asking him where she was. He mumbled, “She’s tired. She isn’t feeling well.”

  Gloatingly, Miss Su said, “She ate with Mr. Fang and came back with an upset stomach. Now she can’t keep a thing down. I’m just afraid she’s contracted dysentery!”

  The callous men students laughed heartily and spouted all sorts of nonsense, asking, “Who told her to eat with Little Fang23 behind our backs?”

  “Little Fang is a real disgrace! Why can’t he pick a clean restaurant when he asks a girl out to eat?”

  “It couldn’t be the restaurant’s fault. Miss Pao was probably too happy and ate so much she couldn’t digest it all. Right, Little Fang?”

  “Little Fang, you didn’t get sick? Oh, I get it! Miss Pao’s beauty is such a feast to the eye,24 and you got your fill just looking at her and didn’t have to eat.”

  “I’m afraid what he feasted on wasn’t beauty but—” The speaker was going to say “cooked meat”; then suddenly thinking the words would be inelegant in front of Miss Su and might be passed on to Miss Pao, he picked up a piece of bread and stuffed it into his mouth.

  Fang actually hadn’t had enough to eat during lunch but now could no longer stand everyone’s teasing. Without waiting for all the dishes to be served, he took off, causing the others to laugh even harder. As he stood up and turned around, he saw the waiter, Ah Liu, standing behind him and giving him an understanding wink.

  Miss Pao stayed in bed for a day or two; then she finally got up. She still toyed with Fang but not as freely as before. Perhaps because they would be reaching Hong Kong in a few days, she had to cleanse her mind and body in preparation for meeting her fiancé.

  Three or four students and the Suns were going to disembark at Kowloon to take the Canton-Hankow train. With departure imminent they gambled away for all they were worth, only lamenting that lights were not permitted in the dining room after midnight. On the afternoon before arrival in Hong Kong, they exchanged home addresses and made repeated promises to see one another again, as if the shipboard friendship was never to be forgotten.

  Fang was about to go on deck to look for Miss Pao when Ah Liu furtively called him. Ever since the day he had given Ah Liu the three hundred francs, he felt uneasy whenever he saw Ah Liu. Hardening his expression, he asked Ah Liu what the matter was. Ah Liu said that among the cabins he took care of there was one vacant; he asked Fang if Fang wanted it for the evening, saying he would only ask six hundred francs for it. With a wave of the hand, Fang said, “What would 1 want with that?” and bounded up the steps two at a time, with Ah Liu laughing scornfully behind him. He suddenly realized what Ah Liu had had in mind and his face burned with shame. He went up to sputter out the incident to Miss Pao, cursing that scoundrel Ah Liu. She gave a snort, but as others were coming up, there was no chance to say anymore.

  During dinner, Mr. Sun said, “Today, to mark our parting, we should live it up and gamble through the whole night. Ah Liu has an empty cabin which I’ve reserved for two hundred francs.”

  Miss Pao threw Fang a contemptuous glance, then immediately stared at her plate and ate her soup.

  Mrs. Sun, feeding her child with a spoon, asked meekly, “We’ll be going ashore tomorrow. Aren’t you afraid of getting tired?”

  Mr. Sun said, “Tomorrow I’ll find a hotel and sleep for days and nights on end. The engines on the ship are so noisy, I’ve not been sleeping well.”

  Meanwhile, Fang’s self-esteem had deflated like a rubber tire under Miss Pao’s glance. After dinner Miss Pao and Miss Su were unusually intimate, going about arm in arm and never leaving each other’s company for an instant. He followed them lamely onto the deck. As he watched them talk and laugh without letting him squeeze a word in edgewise, he felt silly and humiliated; he was like a beggar who, after running after a rickshaw for some distance without getting a cent, finally has to stop but is reluctant to give up. Looking at her watch, Miss Pao said, “I’m going down to sleep. The ship will dock before dawn tomorrow so we won’t be able to sleep well in the morning. If I don’t go to bed early, I’ll be all tired out and will look a wreck when I go ashore tomorrow.”

  Miss Su said, “You’re so concerned about your looks. Are you afraid Mr. Li won’t love you? If you look a little weary, it’ll make him dote on you so much more!”

  Miss Pao said, “Is that the voice of experience? Just think. Tomorrow I’ll be home. I’m so excited I am afraid I won’t be able to fall asleep. Miss Su, let’s go on down. We can lie down in the cabin and talk more comfortably.”

  With a nod to Fang they went down. He burned with such rage inside that it seemed enough to set the end of his cigarette aglow. He could not understand why Miss Pao had suddenly changed her attitude. So was their relationship to end just like that? When he was at the University of Berlin, he had heard the lecture on Eros by Ed Spranger, a professor well known in Japan, and so he understood that love and sexual desire are twins which go together but are different. Sexual desire is not the basis for love, and love is not the sublimation of sexual desire. He had also read manuals on love and other such books and knew the difference between physical and spiritual love. With Miss Pao it wasn’t a matter of heart or soul. She hadn’t had any change of heart, since she didn’t have a heart. It was only a matter of flesh changing its flavor over time. At any rate, he hadn’t suffered any loss
and may even have had the better of it, so there should be no cause for complaint. He tried to console himself with these clever phrases and careful calculations, but disappointment, frustrated lust, and wounded pride all refused to settle down, like the doll which always rights itself when pushed over and even wobbles about more vigorously.

  At the crack of dawn the next day, the ship reduced its speed and the sound of its engines altered rhythm. Fang’s cabinmate had already packed his things, while Fang lay in bed, thinking that since he and Miss Pao would never meet again, he would see her off with due courtesy, no matter what. Ah Liu suddenly entered with a woeful look and asked for a tip.

  “Why do you want money now?” asked Fang angrily. “It’ll be several days before we reach Shanghai.”

  Ah Liu explained in a hoarse voice that Mr. Sun and the others playing mahjong had been too noisy and had been caught by the French who had raised cain. He had lost his job and in a little while would have to pack his bedding25 and get off the boat. Fang secretly rejoiced at this piece of good fortune, then sent Ah Liu off with a tip.

  During breakfast those disembarking were in low spirits. Mrs. Sun’s eyes were red and swollen and the corners seemed saturated with tears; they were like the dew on flower petals on a summer morning, and the slightest touch of the finger would cause them to drop. Miss Pao noticed there was a new waiter on duty and asked where Ah Liu had gone, but no one answered her.

  Fang asked Miss Pao, “You have a lot of luggage. Would you like me to help you off the ship?”

  In a distant tone of voice she answered, “Thank you. There’s no need for you to bother. Mr. Li is coming aboard to meet me.”

  Miss Su said, “You can introduce Mr. Fang to Mr. Li.”

  Fang wished he could have crushed every bone in Miss Su’s thin body to lime powder. Miss Pao ignored Miss Su and, after drinking a glass of milk, rose hurriedly, saying she still hadn’t finished packing. Heedless of everyone’s jesting remarks, Fang put down his glass and followed her. Miss Pao didn’t even glance around, and when he called her name, she said impatiently, “I’m busy. I don’t have time to talk with you.”