Colors of the Mountain

by Da Chen

  The news about the college examinations worried my parents a great deal. It meant that I would give up my science courses. Was it premature? The government was changeable on policies like that. You were talking about a country that had changed the constitution more often than its meals. There was intense conversation between them. I felt it necessary to drop in the key words.

  “With this policy, I might be able to apply to study English in a college in Beijing.”

  It was a showstopper. They were silenced. They looked at me with doubt. But Dad thought about it for a second, then nodded with approval. “I like the sound of it.” He was the man who had made me the first violin player in the history of Yellow Stone, however bad I was, and he was ready for me to major in English and send me off to Beijing. He would share every bit of my progress over tea with his many friends for the rest of his life.

  Dad was the dreamer. Mom was the practical enforcer who knocked on the door at five every morning to wake me and shake the mosquito net, making sure I didn’t take too long a nap in between studies, or waste time daydreaming.

  “Wouldn’t that be a little too fancy and exotic for us?” Mom asked. You bet it would. Think mud, think manure, think digging the hills, that would be more appropriate for us, but I wanted to be special.

  Dad shook his head, always a step ahead of me, now more sure than I was.

  “Why not?” he said. “Maybe someday he will be an English-speaking diplomat or our country’s representative to the UN.”

  Dad was always somewhat too ambitious and loved his young son for being like him. There was such certainty and conviction in his voice that it scared me.

  “Are you sure you want to study English somewhere in Beijing?” Dad turned around, asking the question to which he already knew the answer.

  Nothing sounded better than that to a farm boy, crippled by political mumbo jumbo, a kid who was facing the prospect of shoveling mud for life and living way below the international poverty line. Are you kidding? It would be my dream, something to die for.

  I managed a nervous nod, unsure of the honor the question had bestowed upon me. It was like being asked, “Would you like to be ruler of an empire?”

  The answer was a definite, nervous, “Yes. Please show me the throne.”

  COUSIN TAN LOCKED himself up again in the attic on the day the results of the examinations came out. The pressure was so great that he hadn’t eaten for days, and he had been suffering a mild depression since taking the test. He had tried alcohol. It didn’t help. Then he had slept and slept, with the team leader laughing outside his window, calling him crazy. We were all worried. Then one day Tan had emerged suddenly, throwing himself into farm work. He kept silent about the test, and shut his mouth whenever anyone talked about college. He was an angry mute, immersed in his own world. He had lost weight and looked forty, even though he was only in his early thirties.

  His excellent scores sent shock waves through Yellow Stone. Tan cried as the results were slipped under the door of his hideout. He at first refused to open the envelope. When he eventually did, he let out a piercing scream and danced downstairs to meet his beaming family. He was the sort of guy born for college life. Nerdy, wearing thick glasses, he read everything, including the microscopic directions on the backs of chemical fertilizer bags. He wrote poetry and dabbled in fiction in his spare time. He was dreamy and romantic. Way beyond the marrying age, he had refused many matchmaking sessions with sorry-looking countryside girls. His vision of a wife existed only in books. Considering he came from a landlord’s family with no prospects whatsoever, he was lucky anyone would even consider him. The situation didn’t trouble him a bit. He had made peace with himself. Why bother with marriage? Wait until you could afford it, he used to say, which frustrated the heck out of my uncle, who believed that by now he should have been surrounded by demonic grandkids.

  Two days after the results came out, Tan fell into another bout of depression. He said the high scores would only worsen his disappointment in the end. The scores were nothing but a cover-up. One’s political background would take precedence. Such a drop from a staggering height would crush his soul. There were again rumors that candidates from the wrong families, despite high scores, would be placed at the end of the admission line. When all the slots were filled, they would be left holding an empty bag, just another way of finishing off the Black families. Tan retreated into his attic and stared out the window all day long.

  At the end of the summer, Tan became the first college student in Yellow Stone after the Cultural Revolution. Amoy University, finance major. When the certified admission letter arrived bearing his name, the whole town was stunned. Amoy University, located on the beautiful subtropical island of Amoy, was the best in Fujiang. It trained the cadres for the province. It was an old boy’s club. Tan would fit in beautifully.

  This time, the whole family was teary-eyed. Many years of suffering had suddenly come to an end. The sun had risen and that night the stars would shine. Tan was now the happiest of men, giving Flying Horses away as if he were getting married. I eyed his slightly bent back and tired eyes. It wouldn’t surprise me if some professors were younger than he. Maybe he, too, would become a professor and marry one of his female students. I was so happy for him.

  From that point on, his fate changed dramatically. Tan received three wedding proposals in the next three days from the most eligible girls in town. They came from good families and had solid bodies that could plow the fields like oxen. Their families even agreed to forgo the standard marriage fees. One of the fathers promised to throw in two farming cows as part of the dowry. Not a bad deal, we joked. Cousin Tan laughed at them all and rejected their offers. He was our hope. We celebrated with him at a big banquet before he left. He encouraged my brother to take the plunge and cautioned me to concentrate on my major, make a reasonable study schedule, and persevere.

  That night I sat in my room facing a tall stack of books; I assigned a time slot for each subject. In order to cram everything into a single day, every day, I had to get up at five and go to bed at ten-thirty, allowing only short breaks for lunch and dinner. No entertainment, no goofing off with friends, no daydreaming, only hard-core studying. My heart beat with the excitement of the challenge; I couldn’t close my eyes. I tried to imagine what a college classroom looked like, occupied by sharp professors and leggy city girls wearing sexy skirts. The stars blinked from a clear sky and the moon shone through my window. I made up my mind. College was the only thing for me. I’d get out of this small-town hellhole. If Tan could swing it, so could I.

  Beijing. The word split into four parts that split again, winking at me like stars as I fell asleep.

  SUDDENLY, SCHOOL HAD a purpose. College was the goal, and ancient teachers like Mr. Du and the Peking Man paraded the street of Yellow Stone attracting many admiring looks and greetings. Only a few years before, shamed, they had walked the same street, wearing tall hats and with thick plaques hung around their necks on which their names were smudgily written in red ink. Their heads had been shaved and their hands tied behind their backs. Kids had thrown bricks at them and adults had spit in their faces. They were stinking intellectuals. Society had had no place for them then.

  Mr. Du’s former wife, who had left him a few years before, now begged to come back to him. Du didn’t want her. He married a young teacher who fell under the magic of his mighty mathematical talents. Genius and youthful beauty: the people of Yellow Stone could live with that. There were serious debates as to whether he would live longer or die sooner, given his new, energy-consuming marriage. Different schools of thought came to different conclusions. In the end he was the superstar teacher who had guessed correctly the answers to two big questions that had been on the national mathematics exam. He deserved to enjoy his new wife.

  Peking Man didn’t have any problems with his Peking woman, but luck also came his way. He was honored with Communist party membership. He called himself a fossil newly unearthed by the party. It
was a mixed blessing he had difficulty accepting or rejecting. A cynical historian, he had his doubts about the party. But he also knew enough not to refuse such an offer. The Cultural Revolution could come back anytime and then he, the Peking Man, would be the one who had rejected party membership, thereby rejecting the party itself, maybe even rejecting the country. Then he would have to change his nationality or they might lock him away in some cage like they had the real Peking man. They said he shed tears at the swearing ceremony. Many suspected they were tears of pain and suffering, not joy. Poor guy. As for my goldfish-eyed, wheezing English teacher, he retired after his wife became bedridden and incontinent. With him gone, the school didn’t lose much. I could attest to that.

  The finals for the fall semester loomed before us, and hardworking students were found lurking behind closed doors, hitting the books late into the night. And the students who boarded at school clutched their books and went off to find a quiet spot in which to study.

  Rotten students like my friend Dia dragged around like lost souls searching for meaning in life. Although still smoking his thick rolls, nowadays Dia was motivated enough to discuss college and the good life beyond it, but not enough to whip his skinny ass into action. He was sarcastic about my efforts and bitter at those students who weren’t his friends. He came to my house every day as usual, sitting on our back doorstep, listening to me read English or quietly smoking while I studied other subjects. I tried to involve him in studying, but it wasn’t as easy as getting him to roll a big one for me.

  “What do you want to do with your life?” I asked him. He leaned back and yawned.

  “No idea.”

  “Why don’t you study with me?”

  “I can’t. I ain’t cut out for that sorta stuff. Looks like I’m stuck here.” There was a sadness he wouldn’t admit. He avoided my eyes. “Son of a whore, a few years ago, even my fucking dad would tell me books were bad and ask me to tear out pages so that he could roll his tobacco in them. He would tell me to go be a carpenter, blacksmith, or something, or just hang out. The teachers didn’t care. Fucking Chairman Mao told everyone to screw your teachers, burn the schools, and just kick ass. College was bad and all that shit. Now all of a sudden, they changed their minds on us who’d followed their great, stupid teachings.”

  He looked helpless, then sort of let it go and started humming his favorite revolutionary song, the one that was called “Our Hope Is in the Green Fields.” The roll dangled from his lip and the notes emerged a little out of tune. He was pathetic and hurt, and unknowingly represented the bitter class that had obviously enjoyed the Cultural Revolution and detested its abrupt ending. The changed world was a little too much, and too soon in coming.

  The school announced that teachers would use the results of the fall semester finals to help determine which majors the graduating students should concentrate on. I abandoned the leaking compartments of my ship, the science courses, and steered the good parts along the misty coast.

  The teachers noticed I’d stopped going to science classes, but didn’t express concern. They took it as a sign of my total surrender. Dia still hung around those classes, not sure which major to take. Every day he would pass on to me statements made by the geeky science teachers. Science was the future; liberal arts students were doomed, because the enrollment was much smaller. The whole science class had a kind of cult following. Students came out of the classes red-faced, excited, and excitable. They thought they could conquer the world with the little they knew. They were the cool bunch, the talented, and we, the liberal arts students, were the leftovers who couldn’t crack it in the big league. I hated them all, especially the Head, who was now the ace of the graduating class, only a small percentage of which defected to liberal arts. Dia followed me without much conviction.

  The phenomenon only pleased me. Fewer heads meant less competition. I had done some research. Most of the science students would end up being lab workers, agricultural researchers, industrial engineers, or worse, geologists digging for oil in the remote desert at the edge of China’s sprawling landscape. But liberal arts majors had a future in management on college campuses and in government offices. I figured that at worst I would lead them and they would work for me, and if I was successful as an English major, someday I might even be a star in the hall of international diplomacy, where champagne, cigars, limousines, hotels, and exotically beautiful women abounded. The dream was dizzying.

  I stopped going to Professor Wei’s for two weeks and reviewed the subjects within the liberal arts field. I was up at five in the morning, my hurting body to bed at eleven. Teachers held review sessions for every subject. I skipped all the sessions, sequestering myself in my private spot in the wheat field outside the school’s low wall, where I banged away at my books on my own.

  Lunch was dried yams; I would take breaks by spreading a small blanket on the soft grass and sharing a nap with Dia under the soothing sun. The school wall blocked the sea breeze, and the ripening wheat danced in the wind, singing a busy song. Dia hogged the entire blanket. When I’d wake up half an hour later, he would still be snoring away. I reopened my books and attacked each of the untouched chapters before me.

  I loved the endless wheat fields, which were turning golden as the new year approached. There was calm here. I sat with my legs crossed like a monk and spread my books on the ground. There were chapters of history so beautiful that I couldn’t help reading them out loud again and again. This was another time, with totally different people. There was so much I didn’t know about my own country, my own race. Geography had its own charm. It gave my imagination wings. The world appeared on those pages. The Amazon, the Nile, the Himalayas, and the thirteen colonies of America. The red leaves of New England. I sat on a small piece of Yellow Stone, but the world was within me.

  This new knowledge filled me with joy. I read and read until the sun quietly fell below the horizon and daylight gave way to gray darkness. I jostled my faithful friend, who had ignored me the whole afternoon. He rubbed his eyes and followed me home like a man who had lost three days’ sleep. He groused about how I should have awakened him. Now he had lost another afternoon of precious time.

  I feigned anger, turned around and caught his thin neck in a grip and pinned him to the dirt road. He grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it at me. I let him go and he jumped on me and started tickling me. To please him, I played along. He was a dear friend who needed a push. I felt bad about not having spent time playing with him. Then I threw him over, picked him up, and threatened to throw him into the nearby Dong Jing. He begged and begged, I put him down, and we laughed all the way home. It never took much to please my best friend.

  The finals for the fall semester took three full days. At each test, I swaggered into the classroom empty-handed and chose a seat apart from everyone else. It was just me and the paper. I wanted the teachers to know that there was no possibility of cheating for this born-again student. My message was loud and clear; the teachers looked at me suspiciously. I scribbled quickly and answered all the questions in my best handwriting. Good presentation counted for a third of your score, Dad had cautioned me. I did the best I could. This was a defining moment: I was declaring my intention to join the race for college and if anyone had any problems with it, I couldn’t care less. I had been at the bottom before, crawling on my knees. Now I was limping along. Soon I would be running. I wanted the world to know that I wasn’t born in order for someone to step on me.

  I handed in the papers early. The teachers kept calm, their curiosity at bay, pretending not to look at me. As I left each classroom, I could feel their hands grabbing my papers and checking the answers. I knew they would be shaking their heads in amazement. It wasn’t just my imagination, for my faithful Dia was never far behind with his on-the-spot reporting of what happened after I left each test.

  “The teacher grabbed your paper and did this.” He rolled his large eyes and froze them in comic astonishment. “I think you’re real cool.”

&
nbsp; “I hope so.”

  “I’m sure so, pal.” Dia ran in front of me, blocked my way, and said with two thumbs up, “I’m damned fucking proud of you. You’re so cocky, but I love it.”

  The results of the finals were significant, because the college entrance examinations were only seven months away. If you didn’t make this one, you might as well go home, sharpen the farm tools, and register as a proud farmer for life, just in time for spring harvest.

  The howling wind would give you a hell of a welcome as your shoeless feet sank into the freezing mud. The memory of digging the hard, cold soil with a blunt hoe was still fresh in my mind. The harvested wheat and fava fields had to be softened so that rice could be planted before it was too late in the season. The cold, piercing wind had slapped my face so that I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and had left bloody cracks on my face and hands. My feet had sunk into the wet furrows and the cold water had shot up my ankles, stinging like an attack of pins and needles. No one in the entire town of Yellow Stone wore shoes to the fields. Barefoot was the norm, summer or winter. The farmers were proud of their big, callused freezable feet. They had worked this way for generations. Why change?

  Admiration was an understatement. I feared their heroism. After three days in the cold field, I swore I’d rather be a monk, with nothing better to do than dream about nuns in the next monastery than be an unwrapped frozen chicken like the farmers of Yellow fucking Stone.

  I sweated through the semester finals and the results blew me away.

  On the public announcement wall on campus, my name hovered at the top in every liberal arts subject. My proudest achievement was English. I scored 91 percent, putting me head to head with a guy they called the English Wizard, Cing, an apple-headed rival of mine since first grade.

  Silently I thanked Professor Wei, my secret weapon.

  Dia was busy trumpeting my victory like a pimp. He hung around the wall, smoking his thick one, shouting to anybody passing to look at the results, particularly mine. When the Head came by, Dia showed him my glories. The snobby science major sneered, and told Dia that no one in the history of this lowly high school had ever dared dream of majoring in English. It was a major for the privileged city boys, not farm boys like us, who smelled like manure. It was an elegant major for high-class people: it had to do with the mysterious western culture and capitalism; it had to do with America. The Head knew how to hurt a fragile soul. Dia spit at his feet, cursed like a sailor, and walked back to me like a loser.