Fortress Besieged

by Qian Zhongshu

  By the time Hsin-mei returned from taking his mother to Tientsin, it was already the beginning of September and time to set off, as San Lü University was scheduled to open at the beginning of October. Hsin-mei wanted to call everyone together for dinner again to decide on the departure date. A man who loved eating at restaurants, he was always finding some excuse to invite people out. If a friend had a favor to ask of him, he would have to discuss it with him at the dinner table. It was as though he had remembered only two sentences from his study of politics and diplomacy while abroad: Napoleon’s instructions to diplomats, “When having company always serve good food” (Toujours une bonne table), and Lord Stowell’s principle for handling business, “A dinner lubricates business.”

  But this time Hung-chien protested, saying that this was a matter concerning everyone, and they shouldn’t always let Hsin-mei pick up the tab. It was thus changed to a dinner gathering. During dinner it was decided that they would take an Italian ship to Ningpo on the twentieth of September. Hsin-mei said he would buy five first-class tickets and they could pay him later. Li and Ku said nothing to this. When the waiter brought the bill after the meal, Ku grabbed it and insisted on paying it himself, adding that he had always wanted to treat his colleagues and there could be no better time than today. After one look at the bill Ku insisted no more, merely saying, “Such a trifle, why divide it up? You really ought to let me be the host.”

  Hsin-mei paid the bill, and while he was waiting at the counter for his change, Ku went to the lavatory, followed by Li. When they said their goodbyes outside the restaurant, Li asked Hsin-mei if he had any friends at the steamship company to help buy the tickets. Hsin-mei replied that he would ask the China Travel Agency to take care of the tickets.

  Li said, “I have a friend who works at the steamship company. Would you like me to ask him to buy them? We’ve already put you to so much trouble. This is something I can help with.”

  “Well, that would be fine,” said Hsin-mei. “Please get five first-class tickets.”

  That afternoon Hung-chien took Hsin-mei and Hsieh-ch’üan to a coffee shop and talked about their three traveling companions. “If you ask me, that obnoxious little Li Mei-t’ing doesn’t amount to anything. How can he be chairman of the Chinese Literature Department? You should have recommended Hsieh-ch’üan.”

  “Hsieh-ch’üan?” sputtered Hsin-mei. “You think he’d want to go? If you don’t believe me, ask him yourself. Nobody but a pair of jilted rejects like us would be willing to go there. Hsieh-ch’üan has a beautiful young wife at home.”

  Don’t be silly,” said Hsieh-ch’üan with a smile. “I’ve no interest in teaching. As they say, ‘If I had three hundred moti25 of paddy fields, I wouldn’t be a monkey king [i.e., teacher] next year.’ Why don’t you both go to Hong Kong with me and look for something there?”

  Hung-chien said, “That’s right. Coming back home has meant unemployment, so I don’t mind teaching. But Hsin-mei has several options open to him. He can either work for the government or run a newspaper, but instead he’s going to go sit on a cold bench.26 I feel sorry for him.”

  “Running a newspaper is a way to enlighten the people,” said Hsin-mei, “and teaching is, too. Both are ‘spiritual mobilization,’ the one just as much as the other. In terms of influence a newspaper is broadest, but in terms of the degree of influence teaching goes deepest. I’m gaining experience through this trip.”

  “Such high-flown talk,” said Hsieh-ch’üan with a smile, “should be saved for your editorials to dupe your readers.”

  “I’m not trying to deceive anyone with big talk,” said Hsin-mei impatiently. “I really believe it.”

  Hung-chien said, “You’re so used to duping people with big talk that you’ve even duped yourself into believing it—a very common psychological occurrence.”

  “You don’t understand,” said Hsin-mei. “One can engage in politics through teaching, too. Look at the great Chinese statesmen at present. They all started their careers as professors. It’s the same in Europe, like the first president of Czechoslovakia or the present prime minister of France. Politicians who begin by teaching can first of all get a firm grasp of the minds of the young, and second, they can train their own cadres. It’s the same as a newspaper creating public opinion.”

  Hung-chien said, “That’s not a great professor engaging in politics. It’s a petty politician running education. The former policy of keeping the masses ignorant prevented the people from getting an education. The current policy of keeping the masses ignorant only allows the people to get a certain kind of education. The uneducated are fooled by others because they’re illiterate. The educated are taken in by printed matter like your newspaper propaganda and lecture notes on training cadres because they are literate.”

  Hsin-mei remarked sarcastically, “Listen, everyone. Mr. Fang Hung-chien’s views are so penetrating! He’s only twenty-eight and has just had an unhappy love affair, yet he sees through education, he sees through politics, he sees through everything. Humph! Well, I see through you! All because of a downy-haired lassie, you turn into such a cynic. What a lot of fuss over nothing.”

  Hung-chien banged down his glass. “Who are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about T’ang Hsiao-fu, your beloved. She isn’t a downy-haired lassie?”

  White with rage, Hung-chien called Su Wen-wan Old Lady Hsü.27

  Hsin-mei said, “Whether she’s Old Lady Hsü or not is all the same to me. I don’t go defending her the way you do T’ang Hsiao-fu. If she knew you were still so hung up on her, she’d probably try to put back the pieces. Right, Hsieh-ch’üan? So spineless! Would you like me to send her a message?”

  Hung-chien was speechless. He stood up, but Hsieh-ch’üan pulled him back down to his seat, saying, “Calm down, calm down. People are watching. I’m embarrassed for you. In any case you’re both in the same boat. It seems Hung-chien hasn’t been himself lately. How could anyone who calls himself a man get so upset over a girl—”

  In a rage Hung-chien stalked out of the coffee shop without listening to his friend. He returned home and was just sitting down in a huff when the telephone rang. It was Hsieh-ch’üan, who said, “Why get so angry?”

  Hung-chien was about to reply when Hsin-mei came on the line and said, “Hey, old chap, I can apologize all right, but you mustn’t put on a show of anger and take off! Today you, the host, ran away without paying the bill, and we guests didn’t bring any money with us. Now we’re held in custody here in the coffee shop until you come rescue us! SOS. Hurry up! Tonight I’ll treat everyone to a round of drinks to apologize.”

  Hung-chien couldn’t help laughing and said, “I’ll be right over.”

  On the afternoon of the nineteenth, Hsin-mei gave Hung-chien the ticket that Li Mei-t’ing had bought for him, and informed him that the ship company had postponed the departure date to the twenty-second. Everyone was to be on board by six-thirty P.M.

  In the West in ancient times, whenever someone disappeared, people would say, “He’s either died or he’s gone to teach” (Aut mortuus est aut docet litteras). While Hung-chien did not fear teaching as much as he did death itself, he did feel this teaching job was all a part of his bad luck and was dispirited and out of sorts for days on end, feeling an inexpressible dread at the thought of the long journey. The longer he could put the trip off the better. But when the ship company really did postpone it for two days, he wished it hadn’t happened. He would have preferred to go ahead with it as soon as possible. He was taking three pieces of luggage: one large trunk, one bedroll, and one piece of hand luggage.

  Mrs. Fang helped get his clothes and bedding ready for him, saying, “Once you’re married you won’t need me to take care of these things.”

  Fang Tun-weng said, “I’m afraid he’ll still have to trouble you. Women students these days only like to have things done for them. They don’t know how to do anything for themselves.”

  Mrs. Fang thought the early fall
weather very unpredictable; so to prevent her son from catching cold on the way she wanted him to take a small bedroll in which he could wrap up the thin cotton quilt and clothes he used at night and wouldn’t have to open up his large bedroll every day. Hung-chien was worried that too much luggage would be burdensome and pointed out that Kao Sung-nien had said in his letter that they’d certainly get there within a week at the earliest or within ten days at the most. The weather would not be turning cold yet. If he put a thin wool blanket in his carrying case, that would be enough.

  Fang Tun-weng had several parting words of advice, which he instructed his son to remember, all arranged in catchy parallel couplets, such as: “Clench your jaws tight and stand firmly on your heels,” or “One can miss home for a long time, but one must not be tied to home for an instant,” and so on. Hung-chien knew that while these remarks were said to him, they were intended primarily to be recorded in a diary or in memoirs, so later generations could see how well Fang Tun-weng had brought up his son in accordance with truth and righteousness. Having so much leisure time of late, Tun-weng had suddenly discovered himself, like a child who is fascinated with his image in the mirror as he moves his head from side to side, and gazes at himself from the corner of his eye. This spiritual narcissism had prompted him to write an autobiography and keep a diary. It was like a woman who puts on Chinese and Western dresses of all seasons and all colors, strikes every kind of pose, walking, standing, sitting, lying, supporting chin in hand and twisting the neck, and has a picture taken of each to give her friends as a memento. These records were to prove from every angle and with every kind of fact Fang Tun-weng’s noble character. Now whenever he said or did something, he was thinking at the same time how to record it in his diary or his record of deeds and sayings. The records weren’t completely concocted out of thin air and were like a water bubble, which leaves a tiny drop of water when it bursts. Students of the psychology of language will recognize this at once as a case of verbalmania: People with a desire to lead, no matter whether in the literary, military, commercial, or governmental field, all reveal this symptom.

  When friends came, Tun-weng always showed them his diary. Thus their neighbor, the quack doctor, learned that prior to the Dragon Boat Festival the Fangs’ eldest son had fallen in with bad women, but after being reprimanded by Tun-weng had “awakened in terror and been filled with shame and remorse because of it.” The entry in Tun-weng’s diary of the day before yesterday stated how Tun-weng had asked Hung-chien to go to the Chous to say goodbye and how when Hung-chien refused and cursed Mrs. Chou, calling her a stingy snob, he had admonished his son, “A gentleman is severe with himself while being indulgent toward others, and so he does not lose relations or friends.” As a result, his son had submissively “fallen silent.”

  Actually Hung-chien had never cursed Mrs. Chou. It was Tun-weng himself who was dissatisfied with her and who had thus resorted to this veiled manner to disparage her. At first Hung-chien had in fact refused to go say goodbye, but had finally gone in the end; when he found no one at home, he felt as though he’d been granted a pardon. A day later, the Chous sent over four varieties of food as going-away gifts. But the unreasonable Hung-chien became quite angry when he learned of it and wouldn’t allow his mother to accept them. Mrs. Fang told her son to go down himself and speak with the person delivering the gifts, but he did not care to see the Chous’ chauffeur either. In the end the chauffeur, after getting nothing but refusals at every turn, flung the food down and took off. In his obstinacy Hung-chien refused to eat anything the Chous had sent. Fang Tun-weng added an entry to his diary poking fun at his son for trying to imitate the Chou dynasty recluses Po Yi and Shu Ch’i by “not eating the grain of Chou.”28

  5

  HUNG-CHIEN was to call a cab to take him to the docks, but the shrewd P’eng-t’u said that since the cab fare had doubled several times recently and since Hung-chien was in no hurry and had only a few pieces of luggage, it would be better for him to hire two rickshaws. In any case, their brother Feng-i would be seeing Hung-chien off.

  On the twenty-second, around five o’clock, Hung-chien and Feng-i left their house. When the rickshaws came to the French Concession, a French policeman, with two Vietnamese policemen in tow, was rigorously searching passersby, while letting the cars get through easily. Hung-chien noticed immediately that the French policeman was the one who had been on the same ship coming to Shanghai with him. They had spoken a few times on the ship, and the Frenchman still seemed to recognize Hung-chien, for he waved Hung-chien’s rickshaw through. Hung-chien thought to himself that those policemen on the boat were all from the French countryside and were leaving home for the first time, and every one of them was pitifully poor. But, in no time at all, this one had become colossal and colorful. His once anemic complexion was now as red as raw beef; his eyes were completely woven over with red silk threads, and his stomach protruded like a puffed-up frog. The French are known as “frogs” internationally and it is most appropriate. What was so frightening was that the French policeman had now taken on a vicious, beastly look. Shanghai is like the Island of Circe in Greek mythology. It can turn a perfectly decent fellow immediately into an animal.

  The Vietnamese policemen looked even more ridiculous. There are no Orientals as puny and ill-suited to wearing a uniform as the Vietnamese. In the case of the Japanese, it’s merely that their legs are too short for carrying sabers. The gaunt, emaciated Vietnamese, on the other hand, with their parched skin and black teeth looked like born opium addicts, and the policemen’s sticks in their hands even resembled opium pipes. One of the Vietnamese policemen seemed to read Hung-chien’s thoughts; he stopped Feng-i’s rickshaw, which had fallen behind, and spitefully searched Feng-i from top to bottom, cutting open the cracker box and the fried pork can, and even stealthily stuck out his hand to demand three dollars. The bedroll at least remained intact. Along the way, Hung-chien, busy looking after the large and small trunks, couldn’t easily turn his head; when he alighted from the rickshaw at the dock and did not see Feng-i, he spent several anxious moments waiting.

  Hung-chien and Hsin-mei shared a cabin. They found Miss Sun, but neither Ku nor Li. When the ship sailed off with still no sign of them, Hsin-mei’s whole face broke out in a nervous sweat. Hung-chien and Miss Sun shared his alarm. Just when they were getting anxious, an attendant ran up to say that a passenger in the third class wished to speak to Hsin-mei. Since the passenger could not go up to the first class, the passenger had to ask Hsin-mei to come down. Hung-chien went with Hsin-mei and there they saw Ku, who was waving his arms and stamping his feet to call them down.

  “What about Mr. Li?” they both asked quickly.

  Ku said, “He shares a cabin with me and he’s washing his face. Mr. Li’s friend could get only three first-class tickets, so Mr. Li and I gave them to you and we took a berth.”

  They were both quite dismayed by what they heard.

  Ku said, “The berth is comfortable enough. I’ll show you around.”

  They followed him into the cabin, which was filled with suitcases. Li was there washing his feet. Hsin-mei and Hung-chien formally thanked Ku and Li for the cabins.

  Ku cut in, “At first only two first-class tickets were available, but Mr. Li asked his friend over and over and finally was able to get three.”

  Hsin-mei said, “Actually those two tickets should go to you older gentlemen. We young people should put up with a little discomfort.”

  Li replied, “It’s only twelve hours at the most. That isn’t much. I have gone first class before; it is not that much more comfortable than cabin.”

  After dinner the ship was pitching slightly. Hung-chien and Hsin-mei sat in the lounge chairs, which were nailed to the deck. As Hung-chien listened to the sounds of the wind and water and gazed out at the dark expanse of the sea and the sky, he recalled many scenes from last year’s trip home. Since they seemed almost identical with those of this evening, he was filled with sentimental thoughts. Hsin-mei, who w
as smoking a large pipe, a gift from Hung-chien, suddenly remarked, “Hung-chien, I have a suspicion and it’s really low. If I’m wrong, then it’ll prove that I’m petty and see others with a small mind.”

  “Go ahead and say it, as long as I am not the one you’re suspicious of.”

  “I’ve a feeling that Li and Ku were both lying. They certainly could have gotten five first-class tickets. They wanted to save money, so they made up the whole story out of thin air. Look, that day Li Mei-t’ing insisted on taking care of the tickets, but before we came on board, he didn’t say a word about having any trouble getting them. If he had, I could have sent someone over to take care of it. There’s definitely something funny about this whole matter. What gets me is that after having pulled this, they still expect us to be grateful.”