The Yellow Papers

by Dominique Wilson

  ‘These belong to you, son?’

  Huang Ho just stared.

  ‘Come on. Come with us,’ and the grip on his arm allowed no argument.

  When he woke he wasn’t sure if it was day or night. He was in a cell, a bucket of vomit by his bunk. The corridor outside his cell was dimly lit, though his cell was not. He could see more cells across from him. Heard snoring.

  He sat up and the pain in his head worsened. He was on a bare mattress. A canvas blanket had covered him, now on the floor. Along one wall was a metal toilet, beside it a metal hand basin with a cake of soap. No windows. A wall of bars. By the toilet his shoes, laces removed. He checked his clothing – his belt was also gone, as was everything in his pockets. His mouth was dry and tasted foul, and his bladder felt as if it would burst. Slowly he rose, went to the toilet and relieved himself. At the hand basin he rinsed his mouth and drank water. Returned to sit on his bed.

  Now what? How long were they going to keep him here? He thought of Suzie Mitchell. She’d certainly acted as if she liked him, smiling and holding him close. So why hadn’t she let him kiss her? He knew he shouldn’t have lost his temper. His control. But she called him a slant-eyed bastard. She’d insulted him. So why was he the one in jail? What would happen to him now? The university would certainly expel him – they’d threatened to do so already, and now they wouldn’t have to use his marks as an excuse. But were they going to keep him locked up? For how long? What would they charge him with?

  Rape. He remembered the police saying something about rape. Where did they get that idea from? He hadn’t raped Suzie. Was she saying he had? If she was, then he didn’t stand a chance – a Chinese man’s word against an Australian girl’s. They could keep him here for years. He stood up and paced the cell.

  He wanted to go back to China. Now. But would China take him back if he was a criminal? Had he lost the face of that Great Nation? Of course he had – he was worse than a running dog. Not because he was in jail, but because he’d forgotten everything the Great Leader had taught, all for the sake of a girl. He was weak – so weak! Even his grandmother would turn her face from him now …

  Maybe he’d be better off killing himself right here and now. It would be an honourable thing to do – many in China committed suicide rather than lose face. Though he’d only been a small boy during the Five-Antis, he still remembered that some preferred suicide to the shame of not being able to pay their taxes. And his situation was much worse. But would they take his suicide as an admission of guilt? Was he guilty? Of losing his temper, yes. But no man should be imprisoned for losing his temper. If he killed himself now, before a trial, they would understand it was false imprisonment he’d rejected.

  He paced the cell once more, looking for ways of killing himself. In China, it would have been easy – many simply used rat poison. He could tear up his shirt and hang himself, but from where? What could he use here? He checked the toilet, the hand basin. Curved edges everywhere, nothing he could use as a knife. Checked his bunk. It was high off the ground, at hip level. Not a bunk as such but a slab of concrete coming straight out of the wall, topped with a mattress covered in thick vinyl. He pulled the mattress to the floor and ran his hands along the bunk. Thick and solid. It would take a jack hammer to move that. But though the edges were rounded, he was sure he could break his skull on those. Hit his head hard enough that the bone would split. It would be quick. It would be honourable.

  He came to strapped to an ambulance stretcher, one of his wrists handcuffed to the metal safety rail. A young policeman stood watching, an ambulance officer was checking his pupils. He groaned at the bright penlight shining in his eyes and turned his face away. Realised his head was bandaged.

  ‘He’ll be right. Not too much damage, I think.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Pretty sure. We’ll detour via the Royal Adelaide. Casualty’ll X-ray him to make sure he didn’t crack anything.’

  ‘Scared me shitless. Blood everywhere.’

  ‘Yeah, head wounds do that. Lucky he knocked himself out.’

  ‘Yeah, lucky.’

  ‘You got the admission papers for Hillcrest? Okay, we’re ready to go.’ The ambulance officer tapped Huang Ho on the cheek. ‘You’re with us, Sunshine? How’s the head?’

  Huang Ho glared at the man but didn’t answer.

  ‘Cat got your tongue, hey? That’s okay. You take it easy – we’re just going for a ride.’

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘Got your tongue back, have you? Royal Adelaide first, then Hillcrest Psychiatric Hospital. The sarge thought you could do with a bit of help.’

  Huang Ho closed his eyes. They were taking him to hospital. At least it wasn’t prison.

  31

  Edward held Ming Li close, letting her cry. It was tearing him apart and he wished he could do something to ease her pain, but he knew there was nothing. He hated the fact that he was only in Hong Kong for a couple of days, but it was the only time he could spare; to have taken more would have provoked serious questions from the university. He could not, however, have broken the news of Huang Ho’s certification to a psychiatric hospital, and the events leading up to it, over the phone. As it was, he was glad to have returned, not just for Ming Li but because he now had a better idea of the situation in Hong Kong and China. Much had changed these past few months.

  From the latest refugees word spread that chaos now ruled China. Red Guards had taken over the country, systematically ridding it of the Old Fours - Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas. Schools and Government bureaus were closed. Their staff were being made to endure ‘struggle’ sessions where they were abused and accused, their hair shaved, and they were made to wear dunce-caps six feet tall and paraded through towns or villages, heads bowed, arms tied behind their backs. Large placards hung around their necks accusing them of counter-revolutionary behaviour. Many were shot. Others, unable to live in such conditions, committed suicide.

  Mao had told the Red Guards it was their right to rebel, and rebel they did. They objected to everything – jewellery, perfume, foods they considered bourgeois delicacies. Even nicknames and films showing credits at the end – all suffered the Red Guards’ scorn because they indicated individualism. Big-character posters were everywhere, and language was becoming more and more obscene as thousands of years of filial loyalty and respect for elders were rejected. And some of that fever was spreading to Hong Kong.

  ‘Come, dry your eyes,’ Edward said, giving her his handkerchief. ‘Have you eaten anything today?’

  ‘I couldn’t. I’m really not hungry.’

  ‘But you must. Let me make you something – some soup maybe.’

  ‘No, not soup.’ She hadn’t eaten soup for a very long time. ‘A little rice would be good.’

  Edward half-filled a saucepan with water from the bucket by the sink and set it on the stove – they had cut the water supply again. This seemed to be happening more and more because Hong Kong got most of its water from China. This whole situation was beginning to feel a lot like Shanghai when the Japanese had first invaded. He felt uneasy. He’d seen the anti-government and pro-Communist slogans painted in red on walls here in Hong Kong, the buses with wire guards around drivers’ cabins to protect them from assault. They only travelled in convoys now, and stopped running after nine o’clock at night, so frequent were these attacks by the Communist element.

  Once more he wished Ming Li would agree to move somewhere safer. Only recently Australia had significantly reformed its immigration policy to allow non-European migrants into the country, and though still limiting, Edward felt it wouldn’t be long before Ming Li would be able to join him in Australia. But she refused to leave Hong Kong because of Huang Ho, and with what he’d seen and heard these couple of days, he was worried sick. He could only pray she’d be safe until his next return. The water on the stove boiled and he added a measure of rice. Ming Li came into the kitchen.

  ‘You okay?�
� he asked, putting an arm across her shoulder and pulling her closer.

  ‘I’m okay. Edward, please look after him when you get back. Get him out of there. Bring him back home. Please Edward? Do this for me?’

  32

  Huang Ho heard the keys of the dayshift turn in the ward’s metal gate. It was barely light, but he knew they would soon be in the dormitory, waking everyone up, making sure they dressed before breakfast. In a few moments the whole of 1B would be a confusion of activity and noise. He knew now what sort of hospital this was, what sort of doctors – quacks that tried to get into his brain, manipulate his thinking. But he was no fool. He refused to speak to them – to any of them, and when they gave him pills he only pretended to take them. Every day he sat in a corner of the room, watching, never participating, never speaking. Just watching. And when the doctors tried to get him to talk, he wouldn’t even look at them.

  He’d overheard the staff discussing him, interpreting his silence as severe depression. Fools! He’d become a liang mian pai – a double-faced person – each day never giving the staff any trouble, always appearing calm and quiet on the surface, whilst deep inside his hate for them grew and he spent hours imagining horrific deaths for each and every one of them.

  ‘Morning gentlemen! Wakey wakey!’ The fluorescent lights flickered on. The male nurse walked from bed to bed, pulling off bedclothes. ‘Come on Jimmy, get up! Ted, get your hand out of your pants. Come on gentlemen, breakfast!’

  Huang Ho sat up and reached for his clothes; he knew delay would result in being forcibly dressed.

  ‘Not you, Huang Ho. You’ve got treatment today. No breakfast. Just wait here for now.’

  Huang Ho hesitated. What treatment? What were they planning now? But whatever it was, he knew he could outsmart them. He would pretend to go along with it, as he’d done with the tablets. He could easily outfox these capitalist dogs.

  They gave him a hospital gown to change into, a dressing gown, his shoes. Took him through the metal gate separating the bedrooms from the rest of the ward, down the caged-in stairs, through the ward’s front door. The sudden impact of crisp early morning air almost hurt his lungs. While they waited for one of the two male nurses escorting him to relock the door, Huang Ho closed his eyes and lifted his face to the sky. He could hear magpies warbling, the rustle of leaves in the breeze. He hadn’t been outside the ward in three weeks. He breathed deep.

  ‘Come on, Ho, let’s go.’

  Ward 6 smelt of antiseptic. He sat with his escorts either side of him on one of the chairs lining the walls. The nurses talked, the other patients sat and stared. Across from him a woman with greying hair hanging loose around her face hugged her belly and rocked back and forth. Occasionally she would stop and look at her nurse and say I don’t want ECT, but the nurse ignored her and she would rock some more. I don’t want ECT. Ignored once more she stood, and the nurse pulled her back down. Sit down, Janice. Won’t be long.

  They took him into the next room. A woman on a barouche was being wheeled out. She was unconscious and had a rubber mouth guard half out of her mouth. A nurse came in wheeling a new barouche. For the first time Huang Ho felt afraid.

  ‘Morning Huang Ho. Let’s take this off, shall we?’ and the nurse began untying the knot of his dressing gown cord. He brushed her hands away. ‘You want to do it, do you? Okay, take it off and hop on here.’ She indicated the barouche.

  He looked around the room. A doctor busy at a trolley covered with a cloth, on top of which lay syringes and stainless steel dishes. A nurse checking a machine with dials, plugged into a wall socket.

  ‘Come on Huang Ho, get on with it.’ The male nurse that had brought him here undid his dressing gown, pulled it off his arms. ‘Shoes off.’ The floor was cold. He was cold. He shivered. ‘On the bed, come on.’

  Two male nurses held him – one with hands on his shoulders, the other’s hands on his knees – not hard, just hands resting casually on him, but enough to let him know they were there. The doctor put a blood pressure cuff around his arm, inflated it. Inserted a needle into his vein. This won’t hurt a bit. It hurt. His mouth felt suddenly dry. His muscles weakened by the second. The voices around him faded.

  He was a caterpillar, curled in a cocoon. Warm and safe. Soft pearly light permeated the cocoon’s walls. He could see the lacy figure-of-eight loops of the silk floss crisscrossing, causing the light to fragment. He tried to stretch his legs but his womb-like enclosure restricted him. He kicked out. Warm liquid spread to his groin, over his belly and thighs. He was swimming under water now – thick indigo. He knew he had to reach the surface, but his movements were slow. He kicked harder.

  He opened his eyes. Saw a row of empty beds. Why was he in bed? Was he ill? His mouth tasted foul, metallic. So dry! His jaw hurt – felt as if he’d been punched. His head pounded, his muscles ached. Where was he? Was he awake? A man was sitting beside his bed. Greying hair, moustache, business suit. Who was he? Did he know this man? He closed his eyes again.

  ‘Doctor can see you now, Mr Billings.’

  ‘Thank you. How many more of these does he have to have?’

  ‘Six, all up. Sometimes more. Two a week. But the doctor can explain it all to you.’

  ‘I think he’s wet himself.’

  ‘I’ll take care of it. Come.’

  Huang Ho opened his eyes. Watched the man follow the nurse out of the ward. From the television in the dayroom further along the corridor, the voice of a news anchorman announced the Government was trebling the size of Australian forces in Vietnam. Huang Ho closed his eyes and slept.

  At first Huang Ho spent the time between treatments as if on the ragged edge of sleep. He ate, sat in at ward meetings, and stared at the television in a grey fog-like state. Simple actions took momentous effort. Often, the first thing that seeped into his mind, those first few minutes after coming out of the anaesthetic, were thoughts of his grandmother, and he would think of her fondly, grateful that she had taken him in. Grateful for her kindness and generosity. But then as each hour passed he would remember more and more that these memories were merely an example of her poisonous influence, and that he must never forget to watch himself, even when alone.

  As the days passed he found he could fight his way out of the fog, so that he no longer thought of his grandmother unless it was to curse her for having put him in this situation. He learned to participate in ward meetings. Learned to tell the doctors what they wanted to hear, to smile at the nurses. It was easy to fool them. The treatments stopped.

  He kept up the pretence until they told him he was being discharged and sent back to Hong Kong. He had won.

  33

  Ming Li watched her grandson sitting at her table, wolfing down the bowl of noodles she’d offered him when he first appeared at her door. She knew now that she’d lost him. He’d been back in Hong Kong for three months, and until today she’d neither seen nor heard from him, apart from the day she’d picked him up at the airport.

  He’d fallen on his bed and slept right through that day and night and most of the next day, and when he’d woken he’d demanded his money and her official statement severing their relationship. She’d argued, but it had been of no use. He’d become angry, yelling at her that the freedom she imagined was nothing but an illusion, and his anger had been so great that she’d been afraid. In the end, she’d thrown the money and signed statement on the table, and as he pocketed both he’d called her a filthy capitalist whore then disappeared into the night.

  And now he’d come back to gloat. She should have realised he wouldn’t be here for any other reason. Dressed in a faded army uniform on which he’d pinned Mao badges and buttons, a broad leather belt and a military cap, he bragged about how the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was changing China forever. The Red Guards were beating down bad elements, beating down imperialism and counter-revolutionaries. Mao had spoken to them, told them that the world was theirs, and he, Huang Ho, was going to be part of it. Tomorrow he was crossing t
he border back into China. She would never see him again.

  He’d studied revolutionary theory and the thoughts of the Great Leader, he told her, pulling out a small book with its red plastic cover from his pocket. He’d even learned the Revolution song.

  ‘We are Chairman Mao’s Red Guards,’ he sang, ‘we steel our red hearts in great winds and waves.’

  ‘You’re not a Red Guard yet.’

  Huang Ho rose so quickly he tipped over the chair he’d seen sitting on. ‘But I will be soon,’ he said, fists clenched, in a voice so quiet and controlled she shivered. ‘I’ll do what I need to, say what I need to. But I will be a Red Guard.’

  He paced the room, picking up objects, putting them down again. He came to her bookshelf. Looked at the books. ‘Decadent bourgeois ideas,’ and in one sweep crashed them to the floor. He picked up the apple-green jade brush-rest.

  ‘Don’t! Put that back.’

  He froze, then slowly turned towards her.

  ‘Put it back!’ She ran to him and made to snatch the brush-rest but he easily held her back. ‘Give it to me, Ho! It’s a gift from a friend. It means a—’

  ‘Gifts are nothing but petty bourgeois sensibilities,’ and he dropped the delicate brush-rest to the floor. Still holding her back with one hand, he placed the heel of his boot on it and shifted his weight.

  She heard a sharp crack.

  She ran to the kitchen cupboard. Threw open a drawer. Came back clutching a kitchen knife.

  ‘Get out. Right now! Get out of my apartment or I swear I’ll kill you.’

  Huang Ho laughed, but there was hesitancy in that laugh. ‘You’re nothing but a cow-demon! We will sweep away all you monsters! Wait and see – even in Hong Kong we’ll find you. You won’t be able to hide.’ He picked up his red covered book from the table and stalked out.