Then the term started and with it, the analysis of the play The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. To Huang Ho it seemed that this was written in a foreign language. He looked down at the text in front of him:
And I, that have with subtle syllogisms
Gravell’d the pastors of the German church,
And made the flowering pride of Wittenberg
Swarm to my problems, as th’ infernal spirits …
He could tell it was English because he recognised some of the words, but the meaning of these verses was beyond him. He ignored the book and stared instead at Suzie Mitchell’s hair. He always sat behind Suzie Mitchell – she had hair such as he’d never seen, long and thick, falling halfway down her back, and so blonde it was almost white, like the soft silk of corn. She always wore it down, parted in the middle, with a long fringe that brushed her eyebrows. He had, of course, seen blonde hair before, and he’d seen long hair as well, but never had he seen hair like this.
‘Of course, the betrayal of ideals is obvious. But once Faustus has signed the pact, can human standards be considered relevant? Mr O’Neil?’
‘No, Sir.’
‘No, they can’t. And why is that? Mr Huang?’
Huang Ho glanced at the lecturer, then averted his gaze – he had no idea what the man was talking about. Suzie Mitchell turned and looked at him expectantly, and he wished he could give an answer that would impress her, so as not to lose face, but all he could do was shake his head.
‘Miss Mitchell? Do you know?’
‘Well, when Doctor Faustus signed the pact, what he was doing was rejecting things like logic and the law and religion and all that, you know? So the fact that he did that meant that he no longer …’
Huang Ho clenched his fists under the desk, feeling shamed. Once more he cursed his grandmother for sending him here. When she’d told him that she wanted him to spend time in Australia he’d laughed, so absurd was her idea, and he’d refused, insisting he would soon be back in China. But the woman was clever, and she’d argued that if he spent one term in Australia – one term only – then she would not only not hinder his move back to China, but would give him enough money to live on comfortably for a year. Still he’d refused. So she’d argued that he could study the sciences and bring back that knowledge to China, and that argument had nearly convinced him, but not quite.
‘Are you so unsure, then, of your political ideals that you fear being exposed to capitalist ideas? Are you really so weak in your beliefs?’
He’d become angry then, and would have struck her as she stood there, so much smaller than him but standing so straight and rigid staring him down, but he realised to do so would be a sign that she’d hit a nerve, and so he’d controlled his temper and agreed to go for one term only and not a day more.
In return, he’d informed her, he would take her money, not, as she’d assume, to live comfortably, but to support what Chairman Mao was doing – to help the people. As well, he also demanded that she write an official statement severing her relationship with him. He, in turn, would publically denounce her on his return. He didn’t want having a grandmother – one who was a bad element and a landlord as well – giving him a bourgeois antecedence when he applied to join the Communist Youth League on his return to China.
He wished, not for the first time, that his parents had been poor peasants. But his mother had died building China’s great waterways – surely that would be looked on favourably. Bringing back some Western scientific knowledge would also increase his chances – hadn’t Chairman Mao himself said everyone should be animated by five loves: love of Country, love of People, love of Labour, love of Science, and love of Common Property?
But though he did study physics, the university also insisted he study English …
Suzie Mitchell turned back towards him, looked him in the eye and smiled, then turned back towards the front of the class and whispered to the girl sitting beside her. They giggled, and Huang Ho knew they must be laughing at him. How dare she! She may know something about this Doctor Faustus, but what did she know of class struggles, she who sat there every week with skirts showing more leg than he’d ever seen on girls in Hong Kong, and bracelets jangling every time she moved her arm? She wouldn’t last one week on an irrigation project. He picked up his books and left the lecture theatre.
Edward was crossing the University Footbridge on his way home when he noticed Huang Ho walking along the banks of the River Torrens. He stopped for a moment and watched him pick up something off the grass, then throw it in the river. The young man looked lonely and Edward wished he could go and talk to him, but to do so would break the promise he’d made Ming Li.
‘He’s not stupid, Edward, far from it. If you should befriend him, then he were to see you with me later in Hong Kong, he’d guess straight away what was going on. Keep an eye on him, yes – I’d feel so much better knowing that – but please do it from a distance.’
So he regularly checked on Huang Ho’s progress, and spoke with his lecturers and tutors, but he never approached Huang Ho directly. He thought of his phone conversation with Ming Li the previous night, and of her disappointment that her grandson was not doing as well as she’d hoped. It was not his marks that disappointed her most, but the fact that Huang Ho kept pretty much to himself, and appeared to have made no friends.
Ming Li had hoped that once here he’d compare life in Australia to life in China, and even Hong Kong, with an objective eye. She’d hoped he would learn to appreciate a life where everyone was free to think and say what they wanted, and where there were no shortages or restrictions, and even if he didn’t embrace it, at least it would open his mind a little. She’d even hoped he’d want to stay longer than a term. But if Huang Ho continued to fail English he wouldn’t be allowed to stay.
Edward sighed and continued on his way home. He’d never say so to Ming Li, but maybe it was better this way – once she accepted there was nothing more she could do, that Huang Ho was meant to live a different life, then maybe she’d start thinking about them. Here or in Hong Kong, it didn’t matter anymore, as long as they were together.
Huang Ho lay on his bed, frustrated by the fact that he was missing out on the events in China. He’d received letters from his friend Zha You who, together with Leo Xin, was now back on the Mainland. Zha You told of the developments they were involved in. Apparently only a few weeks ago a young woman at Peking University had written a dazibao, or big-character poster, denouncing professors at the university as ‘black anti-party gangsters’. Chairman Mao had been so impressed with her actions that he’d ordered the text of the poster to be broadcast across the nation, and he told the youth of the country that to rebel is justified. Now high school and university students everywhere were calling themselves Red Guards and writing their own big-character posters against their universities, against their professors, their fellow students and even their families, determined to purge China of intellectual elitism and political enemies. And Huang Ho was missing all of this.
It would soon be the end of term and he’d be going back, but the waiting was becoming unbearable. He missed his friends, and he knew this was all a waste of time. No, that wasn’t quite true – if anything, his time in Adelaide had simply reinforced the wisdom of Chairman Mao’s teachings. Nothing here convinced him that capitalism was good for the people. Knowing how easy it was to show only the positive, he’d decided to see for himself, and so had walked the streets on his own at night, and he’d seen the homeless sleeping in parks and in doorways, the drunks staggering down streets, the poor scavenging rubbish bins. How much better was the Great Leader’s idea of sharing everything, so that none had more than his brother?
They had tried, his lecturers and tutors, to change his ideas, but he hadn’t been fooled. They’d tried – not overtly of course, they were too clever for that – but he’d seen through their clever talk. Their meetings with him were not, as they pretended, an attempt to help him improve hi
s marks, but simply a thinly veiled stab at his position. They knew he didn’t have a scholarship, and they obviously wanted him gone. They believed in the bourgeois theory of ivory tower education, which favoured the elite of this country, or if not, then the brilliant. They didn’t want someone like him in their university.
Aakesh came into the room and threw his satchel on his bed. In the time Huang Ho had been here, he had become the closest thing to a friend.
‘Hey, Huang Ho, come down to the common room. We’re having farewell drinks for Chanarong.’ Chanarong was a Thai student who’d started at the same time as Huang Ho, and was in many of his classes.
‘He’s leaving?’
‘Yes, his father’s ill. He’s going home, but he’ll be back. Don’t know when though.’
Huang Ho liked Chanarong, even though he had a scholarship. When he’d stormed out of the lecture room last month, after thinking Suzie Mitchell was laughing at him, Chanarong had sought him out; he’d noticed the girls giggling, and guessed Huang Ho’s interpretation.
‘You’re wrong, you know,’ he’d told Huang Ho. ‘I think she likes you. My sisters always whisper and giggle like that when they like someone. Trust me, I know – they drive me crazy with it! That girl must like you.’
Huang Ho had never thought a girl might like him. In China where love was denounced as bourgeois decadence, and permission had to be obtained from local officials before even thinking of starting a relationship, sexual attraction was not a thing he remembered experiencing. Since the Communist takeover it hadn’t been patriotic to dress in fashionable clothes, and expensive fabrics, jewellery and cosmetics had disappeared, to be replaced by drab unisex clothing. But even if this hadn’t been enough to dull any attraction, sex was not a priority when everyone worked every single day to the point of exhaustion. In Hong Kong he’d noticed the girls, of course, with their colourful clothes and makeup, but he’d subjugated any feelings they may have aroused with intense political study, self-criticism and scorn at those who flaunted their sexuality.
Only in Adelaide, where the pace was so much slower and he’d had time to think, and where there were no political sessions to occupy his mind, did he experience sexual arousal. He fought these feelings constantly, reminding himself that sex and love shifted focus from working for the collective good, that it encouraged an exclusive world of decadence where personal happiness mattered more than the political life of the community. He’d even tried joining the others from the rooming house in the back garden, where they often gathered in the evening to drink beer and relax, hoping the alcohol, jokes and roughhousing in exclusively male company would dampen any such sensation, but though he tried hard to conquer himself still there were nights when he couldn’t sleep, and he’d toss and turn in frustration until at last his hand would reach between his legs and he’d masturbate, all the time hating himself for being so weak. And now Chanarong thought Suzie Mitchell liked him; it was an idea he would never have contemplated. An idea he didn’t know what to do with.
He rose from his bed and washed his face, then went down to wish Chanarong farewell.
By the time the sun set Huang Ho had drunk more than usual and didn’t feel like returning to his room, so that when Aakesh suggested they all move on to a party he knew about in Glenelg, right by the beach, Huang Ho agreed to join them.
The Beatles LP finished on ‘Nowhere Man’ and someone put on The Atlantics’ ‘Bombora’. As the sound of reverb-drenched guitars vibrated around the room, Huang Ho lounged back on a stack of cushions on the floor and watched Suzie Mitchell dance.
This was her and her flatmates’ party and he wouldn’t have come had he known, but he’d only found out once there and Suzie had seemed pleased to see him, so he’d decided to stay. He’d never been to a party before.
He looked around at the room. It was sparsely furnished – an old couch covered by a blanket pushed against a wall, piles of cushions on the floor, a bright yellow plastic coffee table in front of the cushions. Young men with either Beatles’ haircuts or hair touching their collars, girls with long loose hair or short geometric cuts, bright coloured clothes, plastic jewellery, heavily made-up eyes and pale lips. The room was crowded. Noisy. The air thick with perfume and smoke.
Huang Ho stood up, a little unsteady on his feet. He detoured via the kitchen to get another beer then went to examine the posters covering the walls. A red cow on a yellow background, and beneath it ‘Andy Warhol - 1965’. A black-and-white poster of soldiers in battledress, the one at the front wearing a beret, sunglasses and a row of medals. Below, in blood red, the title The Battle of Algiers, and beneath that ‘One of the most gripping films ever made.’ Next to that, cut out of a newspaper, a photograph of a couple. The woman, long haired and smiling, sat on the arm of a park bench. The man sat on top of the bench back and smoked a cigarette. Beneath the photo, the words ‘Bob Dylan and Joan Baez in London.’
He moved on to the next wall, tripping over someone’s legs. There, a huge poster advertised last year’s Beatles’ tour, and attached to the poster with a drawing pin were two tickets stubs from the Festival Hall in Melbourne for Monday, 15th of June 1965, seats F57 and F58.
‘Come on, Ho. Dance with me!’ Suzie took his beer from his hand and put it on the floor, then grabbed his hand and pulled him to centre of the room. Huang Ho wanted to refuse – he didn’t know how to dance. The music changed to Barry McGuire’s ‘Eve of Destruction’ and before he could protest Suzie put her arms around his neck and, close against him, swayed to the music. Huang Ho stood still, not knowing what to do next, but Suzie put his hands on her hips and smiled up at him, then she rested her head on his shoulder.
Huang Ho held his breath. He’d never held a woman. He could feel her swaying against him. Feel her breasts pushing against his chest. The soft material of her dress. ‘Just move your feet to the music,’ she said quietly, and he slowly shuffled his feet. He was sure others must be laughing at his inability to dance, but when he glanced around no one was looking at them. He relaxed a little then, and breathed in the clean smell of her hair. He moved his arms to circle her waist and when she didn’t protest he pulled her closer still and still she didn’t object. He closed his eyes and nuzzled her hair and swayed to the music, and he felt himself swell but if Suzie felt his erection she pretended not to notice. The music stopped but still they stood, gently swaying to the echoes of the song.
‘My Boy Lollipop’ broke the spell. Suzie pulled away and danced around him, hands behind her back, laughing and teasing him as he stood there, dazed and once more inept. He felt embarrassed, sure everyone would notice his erection. He reached for her hand but she pulled it away, shaking her head as she smiled, stepping further away, swinging her hips. He turned then, angry and frustrated, and got himself another beer.
For the rest of the night he stayed on his cushions, watching her, drinking. It seemed she danced with every man in the room, and when the music slowed she danced with her arms around her partners’ necks as she had done with him, and he saw that it meant little to her, though he wanted to believe it had been different for her when with him.
By around 2 a.m. the party dwindled. Many had already left. The record player played Simon and Garfunkel. Huang Ho looked around for Aakesh and saw him on the couch, his arm across a girl’s shoulder. She whispered in his ear and Aakesh laughed and kissed her and she didn’t object. Suzie came back into the room, dancing and twirling on her own.
‘Who wants to come to the beach?’ she asked. Most ignored her, though one or two shook their heads. ‘Come on! I want to go for a walk down the beach.’ Still no one volunteered. ‘Ho, you’ll come with me, won’t you?’ and she pulled him up from the cushions.
They walked to the end of Nile Street, turned right onto Jetty Road and within minutes were on the beach. Suzie took off her shoes and ran to the water. Huang Ho followed her, keeping to the hard sand and she laughed and splashed him. He took off his shoes and socks then, and ran after her and she squeale
d and ran further into the water. He turned back towards the beach and she ran up behind him, and when he felt her close he spun around and grabbed her by both arms and tried to kiss her.
‘Let go!’ and she freed her arms and pushed him and ran on. He stumbled backward and fell, and Suzie turned and laughed, walking backward. When she saw he didn’t get up she came back, concerned. ‘Are you all right?’
He grabbed her then and pulled her down to the sand and was on top of her, kissing her, his hands reaching beneath her dress but she fought him off, no longer laughing.
‘Get off me!’ but through the alcohol haze, the blood throbbing in his ears, he didn’t hear. ‘Get off me you filthy slant-eyed bastard!’ and this time her words registered. He hit her then, a hard slap across the face, then sought her mouth again and reached under her dress once more. His hand met satin pants and their softness excited him further, and he worked his way to the waistline and pulled, trying to lower them but his weight prevented it so that he pulled harder and heard a rip.
‘Oi! Get off her!’ The beam of two flashlights running towards them. He panicked and he was stumbling along the sand, only the beam of a single flashlight following now. The soft sand slowed his progress and broken glass cut his foot but still he ran. Faster. Reached Jetty Road. Saw a taxi cruising the street.
He lay on his bed fully clothed, his eyes closed, but still he felt the room swaying. Vomit rose in his throat and he just had time to lean over the side of his bed. He threw up but he didn’t care. His head throbbed and the room stank. He lay back down. Heard a knock on his door. Ignored it. Heard the knock one more time.
‘Open up, son. We know you’re there.’
He rolled off the bed. Pulled himself up and opened the door.
One of the policemen had Huang Ho’s shoes dangling from two of his fingers.
The Yellow Papers Page 25