Hsin-mei said hesitantly, “It sounds very good, but what about the money the school wired to Chian?”
“That’s easy,” replied Li. “All we have to do is send a telegram to President Kao asking him to wire it to Shaokuan instead.”
Hung-chien said, “If we go to Shaokuan and then double back to Hunan, won’t that make the trip longer?”
Li replied hotly, “There’s a limit to my ability. I can only manage this much. If you have so much influence, maybe Major Hou will dispatch a special car to take you right up to the school.”
Ku hurriedly put in, “I’m sure Mr. Li couldn’t have made a mistake. We’ll send a telegram the first thing tomorrow morning, and at noon we can board the trucks and get the hell out of here. If I have to wait around this hideous place five more days, my hair will all turn grey.”
Still vexed, Li said, “I’ll take care of the money for the tea today at Wang Mei-yü’s myself.”
Controlling his anger, Hung-chien said, “Even if we don’t take the trucks, everyone ought to chip in for the social expenses. Those are two separate matters.”
Hsin-mei kicked Hung-chien under the table, while he babbled on about something else. In the end Li and Fang did not start a quarrel, and Miss Sun’s bulging eyes returned to their normal state.
Shortly after they returned to the inn, the waiter yelled from the foot of the ladder with his mouth full of food, “Major Hou is here!” and they all hurried downstairs.
Major Hou had a large orange-peel nose with a face appended to it. The face was complete in every detail and the space for the eyebrows and the nose had not been squeezed out. There were a few pimples on the tip of his nose which looked like unripe strawberries. He talked and laughed loudly. One could tell at a glance that he was a heroic type.
When Major Hou saw Li, he said with a smile, “What happened? When I came back to Little Wang’s you’d already run off. Where did you go?”
Li Mei-t’ing made some excuses and quickly introduced his three colleagues. Miss Sun had not yet come down.
“Our trucks can’t carry private passengers,” said Major Hou, launching into a long declamation. “Taking passengers is against military regulations. Understand? But it seems to me as teachers at a national university you are after all government employees, so I take a chance and try to accommodate you. Understand? I don’t want a cent of your money. You get by on little enough as it is. I’m not interested in those few extra dollars. Understand? But the drivers under me and the escort soldiers need a little cigarette money. And if it’s too little, you won’t want to bother taking it out. Understand? I don’t want any money. You don’t have much luggage, do you? You don’t have any contraband from Shanghai, do you? Ha, ha. You educated people sometimes go for petty advantages.”
When he laughed, his cheek muscles pulled his nostrils out even larger. They replied in unison that they had no contraband.
Li indicated his large metal trunk and said, “This is one piece. There’s more upstairs—”
Major Hou’s eyes suddenly grew nearsighted, and he stared at the trunk squint-eyed for a long time before he finally seemed to get it into focus. As though firing a machine gun he said, “The devil! Whose is that? What’s in it? I can’t take that—”
Suddenly he grew nearsighted again as he gazed wide-eyed at Miss Sun who had just come down the ladder.
“Is she traveling with you too? I can’t take her along either. I was called away just now before I had a chance to say more than a few words to you. I didn’t make it clear. Women can’t come along. If we could take women, I’d have taken Little Wang One, Two, and Three and set off long ago. Ha, ha.”
Miss Sun was so furious she uttered a shrill screech. Hung-chien waited until Major Hou had entered the door opposite before he let out a curse at his already vanished broad back, “You dirty bastard!”
Hsin-mei and Ku urged Miss Sun not to get upset, “Men like that never have anything nice to say.”
Miss Sun said, “I’m the only one preventing you from taking the truck—”
“Along with Mr. Li’s treasure chest,” put in Hung-chien. Mr. Li, you—”
Li Mei-t’ing apologized to Miss Sun, “I failed to handle things properly and subjected you to insults.”
With that said Hung-chien could no longer disparage him.
When the plan fell through, Li was the first to say, “Thank God,” adding, “It may be a blessing in disguise. People who carry guns don’t listen to reason anyway. With Miss Sun along, we have to be especially careful. Besides, going to Hunan via Shaokuan would have added too many extra miles and made the trip too costly. Mr. Fang was quite right.”
During the few days in Yingt’an, Li treated Hung-chien with new respect and was especially polite to him. Hung-chien, however, despised him all the more and behind Li’s back said laughingly to Hsin-mei, “He’s afraid I’ll dispute with him over those few dollars he spent on that woman. That’s how low he is. If I were him, I’d have paid it myself.”
At night when he couldn’t fall asleep, Hung-chien would feel sorry for himself, regretting more and more that he had come. Associating with people like Li Mei-t’ing and Ku Er-chien was such a shameful debasement. The last ten or fifteen days of travel had been wearing enough to sap his will.
One day, strolling with Hsin-mei, he heard a peanut vendor speaking in his native dialect. When he questioned the vendor, he found that the vendor was in fact a fellow villager who had ended up there as a refugee. The vendor simply stated on which street he lived in the county seat, neither complaining to him of the hardships he had suffered nor asking to borrow money to go home. Both relieved and moved, Hung-chien said, “He must have met with so many rebuffs from his fellow villagers that he’s stopped talking about it. I really don’t care to think how many setbacks I’ll have to go through before I become hardened into such a state of utter despair as that.”
Hsin-mei laughed at him for getting so downhearted and said, “If you can’t take a blow any better than that, you’ll never have a successful love affair.”
Hung-chien said, “Who’s willing to spend something like twenty years on Miss Su like you did?”
“I’ve been feeling depressed lately myself,” admitted Hsin-mei. “I woke up in the middle of the night last night and suddenly started wondering if Su Wen-wan ever thought of me.”
Reminded of himself and T’ang Hsiao-fu, Hung-chien’s heart suddenly flared up like a tongue of flame, and he asked, “Think about you or miss you? We must think about any number of people in one day—relatives, friends, enemies, and even people who have nothing to do with us that we’ve met before. To really miss someone, keep him constantly in mind, and wish to be close to him is pretty rare. Life keeps people too busy. It doesn’t allow us to focus our full attention and yearn for someone without interruption. The time we spend in a whole lifetime thinking about the person we love most probably wouldn’t add up to one whole hour. Beyond that our thoughts just brush past him. We’re only thinking about him.”
Smiling, Hsin-mei said, “Well, I hope you can spare me a few seconds of your time in the future. I’ll tell you one thing. After that first time I met you, I was always thinking about you and never stopped hating you for a moment. Too bad I never checked my watch and added up the time.”
“You see,” said Hung-chien, “love rivals think about each other more often than lovers do. Maybe Miss Su really was dreaming of you then, which is why you suddenly thought of her.”
“How does anyone have time to dream about lost lonely souls like us? Besides, she belongs to Ts’ao Yüan-lang now. If she’s dreaming of me, then she’s being unfaithful to her husband.”
Seeing how serious he was, Hung-chien doubled up with laughter. “You politician, you really are a tyrant! Whoever becomes your wife won’t even be free to dream. You’ll send secret agents out to spy on her unconscious.”
As usual, the bus to Nanch’eng three days later was so crowded that there was barely footroom. The
five of them stood in the pack of people, consoling one another, “We’ll be in Nanch’eng in half a day. It won’t matter if we have to stand up for a while.”
A greasy-faced fellow in a short jacket spread his knees out as in the fourth boxing position and settled into his seat as though he were a permanent fixture of the bus. In front of him he placed a smoothly rounded burlap sack, which was apparently filled with rice. The sack was about as high as a seat and was right next to Miss Sun. Hsin-mei said to her, “Why don’t you sit down? It’d be a lot more comfortable than a seat.”
Miss Sun was also getting tired of being jostled and tossed about while standing, and so, with a word of apology to the greasy-faced fellow, she prepared to sit down. Instead, the man immediately jumped to his feet and held out both hands to stop her.
“This is rice,” he bellowed, his eyes rolling. “Do you know that? Rice for eating!”
Miss Sun was too stunned to speak.
“So what if it is rice?” asked Hsin-mei glaring at him angrily. “If a girl like her sits down for a while, it won’t crush your rice.”
“You’re a man and don’t even understand that,” said the fellow. “Rice goes in the mouth to be eaten—”
Miss Sun indignantly stamped her foot and said, “I won’t sit! Mr. Chao, don’t pay any attention to him.”
Hsin-mei would not agree, and Fang, Li, and Ku all joined in the quarrel, berating the man for being so rude as to occupy a seat himself while obstructing others with his sack of rice. Since he wouldn’t let anyone sit on the rice sack, he should give up his own seat immediately. Outnumbered, he softened his manner and said, “If one of you men sits there, fine, but for the lady to sit down, that’s out of the question! This is rice. It goes in the mouth and is eaten.”15
Miss Sun declared for the second time that she wanted to stand up all the way to Nanch’eng.
Hsin-mei and the others said, “We don’t want to sit down. It’s the young lady who wants to. So what do you have to say to that?”
Without any other choice, the fellow sized Miss Sun up for a moment with his red eyes, then took out a small bag of clothes he had been sitting upon, picked out an old pair of cotton trousers, and covered the rice sack with them, providing as it were a gas mask for the rice. He then said gruffly, “Sit down, then!”
Miss Sun wouldn’t sit at first, but unable to take the jolting of the bus and at the insistence of her companions, she sat down. Sitting diagonally across from Miss Sun was a young, very fair-skinned woman dressed in mourning, but with lips and eyelids painted a bright red. She had delicate eyebrows, tiny eyes, and a small nose. Her facial features were so dull and colorless that it seemed they could have been wiped away with a hot towel. When she spoke she twisted her head around and exposed her decayed teeth. She had been watching the fracas and chose this moment to strike up a conversation with Miss Sun. She asked in her Soochow dialect if Miss Sun were from Shanghai and cursed the people of the interior, calling them a rude and impossible breed. She explained that her husband had been working as a clerk for the Chekiang provincial government and had fallen ill and died a short time ago. She was on her way to Kweilin to seek the protection of her brother-in-law. When she learned that Miss Sun had four traveling companions, she was filled with envy, wailing in self-pity, “I am alone and friendless with only one servant to accompany me. I don’t have your good fortune!” She also indicated that she would like to go with them to Hengyang, so as to have someone to look after her.
Their conversation was just getting lively when the bus stopped for a morning snack, and most passengers got off to eat breakfast. The widow, staying on the bus, opened her basket and pressed Miss Sun to have some of the rice cakes she had brought along. Afraid the widow would have trouble dividing up her cakes, Chao and Fang also got off the bus for a walk. Seeing them get off, Ku pulled out half a cigarette and puffed away in earnest.
Li glanced around, and noticing there were few people about, said to the widow, “You shouldn’t have said you were a widow traveling alone. There are many bad people on the road, and lots of eyes and ears on the bus. Your remarks may give people wrong ideas.”
The widow threw him a glance and, giving her mouth a tug at the corners, said, “You are such a good man.” Then to the man in his twenties sitting on her left, she said, “Ah Fu, let this gentleman sit down.”
With his slick, greasy hair and shiny face, Ah Fu looked like an oil-soaked loquat seed. As he was dressed in a blue cotton robe and was sitting next to the woman, one would not have guessed that he was a servant. Now that the woman had exposed his status, and he was made to give up his seat besides, he pressed his lips together and reluctantly stood up. After a show of politeness, Li squeezed his way into the seat. Sickened by what she saw, Miss Sun also got off the bus. By the time everyone had returned to the bus and it started off, Li was munching away on rice cakes and the widow and Ah Fu were smoking cigarettes. Hung-chien said to Hsin-mei in English, “Guess whose cigarettes those are.”
Hsin-mei said with a laugh, “As if I didn’t know! That guy is an expert liar. I really don’t believe those two cans of tobacco of his haven’t been used up by now.”
“His tobacco stinks,” said Hung-chien, “and now with three mouths puffing away at once, it’s really unbearable. I should have worn a face mask. Why don’t you smoke your pipe a little to dispel the stench of his tobacco?”
When they arrived in Nanch’eng, the widow and her servant put up in the same hotel as the five of them. According to Li, Miss Sun should share a room with the widow while Ah Fu slept in a room by himself. Miss Sun made it clear from her tone that she would not stay with the widow, despite the fact that Li repeatedly hinted that there was not much money left and they should save on the hotel expenses as much as possible. Without even asking Li’s permission, the widow went ahead and took one room for herself and her servant. They all noted this with surprise, but Li, overcome with indignation, muttered to himself, “There must be a separation of the sexes and distinctions by rank.”
Ku borrowed a current newspaper, and after reading no more than a few lines cried out, “Bad news. Mr. Chao, Mr. Li, bad news! Miss Sun.”
The Japanese had invaded Ch’angsha. The situation was critical. The five of them conferred for a while and decided that since the money they had would never be enough for them to return to Shanghai, they would just have to get to Chian as quickly as possible, pick up the remittance, and then see how matters stood before further plans were made. Li wasted no time telling the widow the urgent news about Ch’angsha, embellishing it with details and painting such a vivid picture of the action it seemed as if the Japanese War Ministry had briefed him with a special intelligence report. The woman was so terrified that she said over and over in a delicate voice, “Ai ya! Mr. Li, what should I do!”
Li Mei-t’ing said that superior people such as himself could always find a way and knew how to manage in a crisis and extricate themselves from desperate situations. “Servants are unreliable. They have no know-how—if they did they wouldn’t be servants! If you go with him, you’re sure to meet with disaster.”
Shortly after Li had left the widow, Ah Fu could be heard speaking gruffly in her room, “Chief P’an sent me to accompany you. Along the way you take up with everyone you set eyes on. Who knows what sort of man he is? How am I going to report to Chief P’an?”
“What right have you to be jealous?” asked the widow. “Did I ask you to interfere? I give you a little dignity and you turn around and act like a king! You don’t appreciate the honor, you ungrateful rotten egg!”
Ah Fu laughed scornfully and said, “Who made me a cuckold? It’s not enough for you to make your late husband a cuckold. Now you have to make me into one—Ai ya ya—” and he ran out the door.
The widow raged in her room, “I’ll give you a good smack and teach you to show respect to me. Impertinent wretch. Take that. Next time don’t think—”
Catching the insinuations behind their remarks, Li
’s heart turned as sour as the juice from a green plum. He wished he could have demanded clarification from the widow and given Ah Fu another good smack. He peered anxiously outside. Ah Fu was lurking in front of the widow’s room, rubbing his swollen red cheek with his left hand. Catching sight of Li, he muttered, “Why don’t you take a look at yourself in a piss-pot? You think you can sweet-talk your way in and take liberties—”
Losing his patience, Li burst from his room, demanding, “You swine, whom are you cursing?”
Ah Fu replied, “I’m cursing you, you swine.”
“The swine is cursing me,” said Li.
“I’m cursing the swine,” said Ah Fu.
Their “chicken produces the egg,” and “egg produces the chicken” sentence practice had no end to it, but in any case, whoever shouted the loudest spoke the truth. Afraid there’d be trouble, Ku pulled Li inside, saying, “What’s the use of picking a quarrel with a mean rascal like that?”
“Come out here if you have the guts!” shouted Ah Fu with exaggerated authority. “Don’t hide in a cave like a turtle. You think I’m afraid of you—”
Li was all set to burst out the door again, when Hsin-mei and Hung-chien, unable to put up with the quarrel any more, also came out and began shouting at Ah Fu, “He’s not paying any attention to you. What are you running your mouth off for?”
Somewhat unnerved, Ah Fu nevertheless kept on, “Rubbish! I’ll curse anyone I want to. What’s it to you?”
His pipe sticking up like a cannon on an old-fashioned battleship, Hsin-mei rubbed his palms together and clapped them crisply; then clenching his fists, he said, “What if I don’t like what I see?”
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