Fortress Besieged

by Qian Zhongshu

  When Hsin-mei saw Hung-chien had gotten sweet potatoes, he lauded Hung-chien for his purchasing ability. After Hung-chien relayed what had just happened, Hsin-mei said, “I knew he hadn’t handed over all his money. The way he stuffed himself frantically on the sly, let’s just hope he didn’t choke to death. If a sweet potato is eaten too quickly, it’ll get stuck in the throat, and when it’s piping hot besides—I really have to give him credit for his appetite.”

  Miss Sun, Ku, and Li appeared, exclaiming, “Ai! Where did you get those? Wonderful!”

  Ku went along with them to the Bureau of Education, saying it would give a better impression to have an additional person along. Hung-chien wanted to go, but Hsin-mei, arguing that he hadn’t combed his hair or shaved his beard for more than ten days and that his face looked like a porcupine and his hair as though it was fit for a hen to roost on, wouldn’t let him.

  Around noon, Miss Sun said, “They’re not back yet. I wonder if there’s any hope?”

  Hung-chien said, “Since they’re not back by this time, I think it has probably been settled. If they’d received a flat refusal, they’d have been back by now. The Bureau of Education isn’t that far away.”

  When Hsin-mei returned to the hotel, he drank half a pitcher of water, gasped for breath, and cursed the Bureau Chief, calling him a stupid idiot. Li and Ku also declared it “outrageous.” The Bureau Chief had arrived at the office very late. Having taken his time to get there, he still would not see them right away, and when he did his mouth gave no information and was tighter than a tin can. Not only would he not act as guarantor, he even suspected them of being confidence men. Distastefully, he had taken Li Mei-t’ing’s card with three fingers as though it were a piece of trash off the ground, and glancing at the writing on it, said, “I’m an old Shanghai hand. I know every trick of the Shanghai waterfront. These kinds of journalism schools all put up phony signposts—don’t get me wrong, gentlemen, I’m speaking in general. National San Lü University? The name’s quite new to me! I’ve never heard of it. Just established? Then I should know about it.”

  Poor things. They didn’t dare eat much that day and what they did eat couldn’t keep them from feeling hungry. It only nourished and fostered their hunger, prolonging it indefinitely in their bodies so they never reached the point of starvation, which could have put an end to it.

  Hsin-mei remarked, “If we go on like this, we’ll all be dead by the time we get hold of the money and will just have enough to buy a coffin for the body.”

  Ku’s eyes suddenly lit up and he said, “Did either of you see the ‘Women’s Association’ along the way? I did. I think women are softhearted. If we ask Miss Sun to go over, maybe she’d have some influence. Of course, it’s only a last resort.”

  Miss Sun agreed immediately. “I’ll go right now.”

  With a look of dismay Hsin-mei turned to Miss Sun and said, “How can we have that? Your father entrusted you to me. If I can’t handle things properly, how can I bring you into it?”

  Miss Sun replied, “You’ve already looked after me all the way—”

  Not wishing to hear her thank him, Hsin-mei said quickly, “All right, you give it a try. I hope you’ll have better luck than we did.”

  Miss Sun found no one at the Women’s Association and said she would try again the next morning. Applying his knowledge of psychology, Hung-chien said, “There’s no use going to see anyone again. Women are very suspicious and petty by nature. If you ask one woman to appeal to another, she’s bound to get a refusal.”

  Since the hotel regulations specified that the bill was to be paid every third day, Hsin-mei began to worry that they would not be able to pay the bill the next day.

  Li said gallantly, “If by tomorrow we still haven’t found a way out, and the hotel demands payment, I’ll just sell the medicine.”

  The next day less than an hour after Miss Sun had departed, she returned with a woman comrade in a gray cotton army uniform. After they had chattered in her room for a while, Miss Sun came out and asked Hsin-mei and the others to come in. The woman was closely examining Miss Sun’s diploma (on which was a pretty photograph of Miss Sun in her mortarboard). Miss Sun introduced them one by one, and Li gave her his card. She was very impressed and said she had a friend working in the Bureau of Transportation who might be able to help a little. She would bring them word in the afternoon. They thanked her profusely but didn’t dare ask her for lunch. When they saw her respectfully to the door, Miss Sun went with her arm in arm, being especially affectionate. During lunch Miss Sun received so much praise from her traveling companions that her face shone like the sun rising in the eastern sky.

  By five o’clock in the afternoon there was still no sign of the woman. Hungry and anxious, everyone questioned Miss Sun several times, but could get no explanation from her. Hung-chien felt it was a bad omen. They’d never get the money, and it would drag on and on uncertainly, while they were helpless to do anything about it. It was like running into a revolving door and having nothing to push against.

  By eight o’clock that evening their hearts had all gone numb from waiting, and in a state of calm despair, they decided they might as well stop worrying and get ready for bed. At that moment the woman comrade and her boy friend, like the wonderful lines from the poem that go, “Search all day and never find him, then sometimes he comes on his own,” suddenly appeared. The five of them were as overjoyed as a person meeting a long-lost lover and as affectionate as a dog greeting its homecoming master. The man sat down very pompously. Whenever he asked a question, each one tried to outdo the others in answering him, which prompted him to hold up his hand and say, “One person answering is enough.” He asked Miss Sun for her diploma and carefully compared the photograph with Miss Sun herself. Miss Sun had a vague suspicion he wasn’t comparing her with a photograph but was looking her over and began to feel embarrassed. He then questioned Chao Hsin-mei for a moment and reproved them for not bringing any supporting documents along with them. His girl friend put in some kind words for them, and his manner at last softened. He said he didn’t suspect them and would like very much to become their friend, but he didn’t know if the Bureau of Transportation could act as a shop guarantor. He asked them to go find out at the bank first and let him know, then he’d affix his seal. So they stayed on another day to make another trip to the bank. That evening everyone felt hungry even in his sleep, as though hunger had declared its independence, taken on a form of its own, and separated from the body.

  Two days later they drew out the money. Their shoes had by this time become so familiar with the route from hotel to bank that the shoes could have made the trip by themselves. The bank also gave them a telegram, which had just arrived from Kao Sung-nien, telling them not to worry about getting to the school since there were no effects from the Ch’angsha incident.

  That evening in order to express their thanks and celebrate the occasion, they invited the woman comrade and her friend out to a restaurant for a grand meal. After downing three cups of wine, Ku opened his mouth and, with his gold teeth sparkling in a lavish smile and his face, which shone brightly from the wine, beaming all around the table like a searchlight, said, “When our Mr. Li here left Shanghai, he had his fortune told. It was said that some ‘noble person’ would come to his aid and turn bad luck to good fortune along the way. Sure enough, we met the two of you quite by accident and you acted as our guarantors. In the future both of you will surely be rich and important beyond all bounds. Mr. Chao, Mr. Li, let’s all five of us drink a toast to them. Miss Sun, you, you drink a swallow too.”

  Miss Sun, who had thought for sure that the “noble person” referred to herself, had lowered her head, blushing red. When subsequently she heard the remark had nothing to do with her, like breath puffed against a pane of glass on a warm day, the redness vanished before forming a mist. As citizens of a democratic republic the woman comrade and her friend knew the doctrine of “the people are noble,” but when they heard this feudalis
tic flattery, their wine-flushed faces beamed happily like crimson flowers in full bloom.

  Hsin-mei said mischievously, “If you’re going to talk about a ‘noble person,’ our Miss Sun is also a ‘noble person.’ If it hadn’t been for her—”

  Without waiting for him to finish, Li immediately drank a toast to Miss Sun.

  Hung-chien said, “I’m the biggest disgrace. I didn’t do a thing this time. I was just a ‘rice-bucket.’”

  “That’s right,” said Li Mei-t’ing. “Little Fang is the real noble one. He sat in the hotel without stirring, while we did all the running around for him. Hsin-mei, we didn’t get anywhere, but we sure ran our legs off, didn’t we?”

  That evening just before turning in, Hsin-mei said, “Today we can go to sleep in comfort. Hung-chien, did you notice how ugly that woman is? After she’d had some wine, she was ugly enough to frighten one to death.”

  Hung-chien replied, “I know she’s ugly, but since she’s our benefactress I couldn’t bear to take a close look at her. Taking a close look at someone ugly is a form of cruelty—unless it’s an evil person you want to punish.”

  The next morning they arrived at Chiehhualung, on the border between the provinces of Kianghsi and Hunan. The Kianghsi bus did not cross over, so they had to transfer to the Hunan bus, which departed at noon. Of all the buses they had taken on the way, none had arrived at a station as promptly as this one; so rather than quarrel about the short distance they felt that they’d come out a good half-day ahead and decided to take a night’s rest instead of catching the bus that day.

  It was a remote mountain region. There were seven or eight small inns backed by the mountains along the highway on either side of the bus station. In the inn where they stayed, the kitchen was set up at the entrance. The front room served as the guests’ dining room during the day and as the bed-chamber of the innkeeper and his wife at night. The back room was divided into two guest rooms which were shut off from the sunlight; exposed to the wind and rain, the rooms were hot in summer, cool in winter, and reflected the times and the changing seasons. All around the inn was the heavy stench of urine and excrement, as though the inn were a plant for which it was the guests’ duty to provide fertilizer and irrigation. The innkeeper was frying food on the street, which sent Hsin-mei and the others into sneezing fits in their rooms. Hung-chien thought he had caught a chill, while Li said, “Someone at home must be worrying about me!” Only later did they realize it was from the fumes given off by hot peppers in the food.

  After eating, the four men took an afternoon nap. Miss Sun, sharing a room with Hsin-mei and Hung-chien, said she wasn’t sleepy and went outside to sit on a bamboo reclining chair and read, but she too fell asleep. She awoke with a headache and chills and couldn’t eat anything at dinner. It was late autumn, and deep in the mountains the days were short. A ray of moonlight showed through the clouds like a squinting, nearsighted eye. After a moment the moon, too round and smooth for anything to stick to it and too light and nimble to be held down, floated out unencumbered from the mass of tousled, fluff-like clouds. One side was not yet full, like a face swollen up on one side from a slap. Since her stomach was bothering her, Miss Sun suggested they go for a moonlight stroll. They walked along the highway in an area of dried grass with no trees in sight and not even one respectable shadow. The moonlight had stripped away the night’s masks and covers, depriving it of any dignity.

  That night the cold mountain air froze and contracted the lodgers’ sleep but was not enough to wrap them up mind and body, so the five of them slept fitfully until daybreak. As usual Hsin-mei and Hung-chien slipped out early from the room, so Miss Sun could get dressed at her leisure. When they returned to the room to get their towels and toothbrushes, they found her still in bed, moaning and groaning with her head under the covers. When they quickly asked her what was the matter, she said she felt so dizzy that she didn’t dare shift her position or even open her eyes wide.

  Hsin-mei felt her forehead and said, “You don’t seem to have a fever. It must be you’re tired and have caught a slight chill. Relax and get a good day’s rest. The three of us will go tomorrow.”

  Saying that wouldn’t be necessary, Miss Sun tried to raise her head, then sank back down. She let out a long, drawn-out breath, then asked them to put a spittoon next to her bed. When Hung-chien asked the innkeeper for a spittoon, the innkeeper answered, “You mean you can’t find room enough to spit in a big place like this? What do you need a spittoon for?”

  After a long search, they finally found a broken wooden basin for washing feet. Miss Sun threw up again and again into the basin. When she was through, she lay back down. Hung-chien went out to get some drinking water. Hsin-mei said it was sunny outside and since the pillow of the reclining chair was high, it would be a little more comfortable to lie there. He told her to try getting dressed, while he spread a blanket over the chair for her. She wouldn’t let them help her. With her head down and her eyes closed, she felt her way along the wall to the reclining chair and collapsed into it. Hung-chien filled Hsin-mei’s rubber water bottle and gave it to her to warm her stomach, asking her if she’d care for some water to drink. She took a swallow, then threw it up. Both of them grew worried, and thinking there might be some Jen-tan18 pills among the medicine Li Mei-t’ing had brought, asked him for a packet through the door.

  Since the bus didn’t leave until noon, Li Mei-t’ing was lounging on his bed. He was actually bringing the medicine to the school so he could sell it at a high price. With the seals left intact, he was planning to sell his medicine at ten times the original price to the poor, remote school infirmary. Even if a packet were opened just to take a few pills, once the wrapper was torn, he couldn’t get anything for the rest of it, but then he couldn’t very well ask Miss Sun to pay him for it. While Jen-tan wasn’t worth more than a few dollars, he didn’t feel her manner toward him during the trip merited the friendship of one packet of Jen-tan. On the other hand, not to give her any medicine would just show how stingy he was. When they were in Chian and not eating three full meals every day, he had worried about getting some disease of malnutrition, and had secretly opened a bottle of Japanese cod liver oil. Every day after a meal he took three capsules as a dietary supplement. Cod liver oil capsules were of course more expensive than Jen-tan, but then an opened bottle was like a woman who’d been married before—its market value dropped. Li threw on some clothes and came out to ask about Miss Sun. When he learned that she had suffered a chill in her stomach, something which would get better by itself after she lay down for a while, he decided it wouldn’t make any difference if she took cod liver oil capsules, so he said, “You go ahead and have breakfast. I’ll see that Miss Sun gets the medicine.”

  Not wishing Li Mei-t’ing to accuse them of trying to steal his glory, Hung-chien and Hsin-mei did go eat breakfast to avoid suspicion. Li went back to his room to get a capsule and asked for a glass of drinking water. Miss Sun languidly opened her eyes and swallowed it as he directed. When Hung-chien went to see Miss Sun after he had eaten breakfast, he smelled a fishy odor. He was just about to ask her about it, when suddenly her cheeks turned completely wet. Some of the tears from the corners of her tightly shut eyes trickled past her ears and dampened the pillow. He was so stunned he didn’t know what to do. It was as though he had inadvertently come upon some secret he wasn’t supposed to know. Quickly he confided to Hsin-mei about it. Hsin-mei also thought this sort of crying was something that should be kept from strangers and did not dare question her closely about it. The two of them consulted their entire stock of learning on the subject of women for an explanation as to why she was crying. In the end, it was a case of “heroes seeing eye to eye.” Her crying, they both agreed, was mostly due to mental anguish. When a girl finds herself hundreds of miles from home, falls ill in mid-journey, and hasn’t a single relative to turn to, it’s only natural for her to cry. What especially aroused their pity was that she didn’t dare cry out loud. Both agreed they should be n
icer to her and quietly went to her bed. She seemed to have fallen asleep; the tearstains and dust on her face had congealed into several black streaks. Fortunately, a young girl’s tears aren’t yet like the raindrops of autumn or winter. They don’t bring destruction and ruin to the face, but are more like the steady rains of early April, which soak and swell the ground, making it muddier.

  The four or five days of their journey from Chiehhualung to Shaoyang were as smooth as satin. On their lips was the newly discovered truth: “Money is an absolute necessity.” As the way from Shaoyang to the school consisted entirely of mountain roads, they had to switch to sedan chairs. Tired of riding buses, they were delighted with the novelty of sedan chairs, but after riding for a while, they realized that these were harder to endure than a bus. Their toes ached from the cold, and they preferred getting down and walking a while. The whole way was rugged and winding over endless mountains and fields, as though time had already forgotten this route. After traveling more than seventy li, time seemed nonexistent. Mountain mists gradually rose, darkness turned to dusk, and dusk congealed into blackness.

  The thick, black clump was a hamlet where they were to stay that evening. When they got into the lodge, the sedan-chair bearers and rickshaw pullers lit a fire, and they gathered around to warm themselves while vegetables were fried and the rice was cooked. No lamps were lit at night in the lodge. Instead, a long piece of firewood was burned at one end and stuck in the pile. As the slender flames swayed and bobbed, the shadows of objects in the room also came alive. They all slept in an unpartitioned room. There were no beds, just five piles of straw. They preferred the rice straw to hotel beds, which sometimes felt like a relief map and sometimes like the chest of a tuberculosis patient.