Spider Eaters: A Memoir

by R Yang

  As if to prove his point, he told me a story. It was about his first love. Later the story kept me wondering: if its outcome had been different, someone else would have been born in my place. What would she (or he) have been like? Would Father have liked that child better than me?

  In 1942, when Father was a student at Furen University, he fell head over heels in love with a young woman whose name at first he did not want to reveal. Later I found it out anyway. (I will call her Lilac, which is not her real name.) At that time she was a college student too. Her father was a bank manager.

  Their love met with disapproval from Father's grandfather, who thought Lilac's family was not wealthy enough. But the young lovers paid no attention to him. Soon they left Beijing. A few months later, they were together again at Jinchaji, a Communist base for guerrilla war against the Japanese invasion.

  There they studied together at Huabei Lianda. They got engaged. The leaders and their fellow students congratulated them. When their wedding date drew near, however, Father was transferred to Yan'an and Lilac back to Beijing to do underground work. After that, the lovers lost touch. For three years, Father knew nothing about his fiancee's whereabouts. But the decision of the Party and the requirements of revolutionary work came before personal concerns, and so Father asked no questions.

  At last in 1946 Father had a chance to go back to Beijing as a member of the Communist delegation to a peace talk. Soon he met an old friend who told him that she had attended a wedding where the bride's behavior was weird. At one moment she was laughing, and the next, crying. Throughout the entire ceremony, she was like that. The guests were made so uncomfortable that they left. The friend thought the bride was probably mentally ill.

  By and by, Father realized that this weird bride was none other than Lilac, his fiancee. Agony filled his heart. Questions bombarded his mind. For days he could neither eat nor sleep. At last, he decided that he must see her, even though this meant he had to violate some rules for underground work.

  And soon they met. Lilac told Father that the man she married was a high-ranking underground leader. At first she worked as his assistant. Then she was assigned the task of taking care of him as well. Eventually she was persuaded to marry him. The arguments the leaders used on her stressed the requirements of revolutionary work and the hope of the Party organization. As a Party member she should place the Party's cause above personal feelings. So after a while, she gave in. But afterwards no matter how hard she tried, she just could not make herself love her husband, who was a much older and rougher man. So she had been miserable ever since and her husband had no peace of mind, knowing that Lilac was unable to forget Father. Finally Lilac asked Father to forgive her and he did. After that, he never saw her again, even though later they lived in the same city and he knew exactly where she was.

  "So you knew how false and selfish some of the leaders were! You knew it even in the forties, Father! Yet you kept telling me the Party was always right and I must do whatever it asked me to do! Why? Why didn't you tell me what you knew? Instead you let me grope in the dark, bump into walls, be scared to death, and make terrible, terrible mistakes!"

  "Because I did not want you to get into trouble! Do you know what the famous artist Zheng Banqiao once said? `It is a blessing to be dullwitted.' This is especially true today! On the other hand, of course, I did not want you to get me into trouble either. If I had told you I was disillusioned about this revolution a long time ago, and I thought with all our good intentions, relentless efforts, and tremendous sacrifice we only managed to build a gigantic prison as strong as cast-iron, and also I felt maybe I made a mistake by joining the revolution, because the proletarian dictatorship was worse than the corrupt rule of the Nationalist government ... If I had said all this to you back in the sixties when you were a fanatic Red Guard, how would you have responded? Would you have reported me and condemned me? Or if you didn't, on the other hand, how would you have felt? I did not want to put you into such a dilemma!"

  He was right. I had to admit it. In 1967, without his confession, my mind was already in a turmoil. If he had told me all this, I might have become another Zhang Heihei. In fact, even in 1973 there were things Father and I could talk about, but we would not discuss them in front of Mother. Mother belonged to a generation that came of age in the fifties. For many of them, the Nationalist Party was corrupt to the core and the Communist Party was the savior of China. Many of them were the so-called Three-Door Cadres-they went from home door to school door, then to the doors of government organizations. Thanks to their privileged positions and limited scope, the harsh reality in China did not seem to strike them as hard. Or maybe they thought and felt that way because of fear, which had been driven home by the anti-Rightist campaign and the Cultural Revolution. Thus they not only obeyed authority, they identified themselves with it. There was a big generation gap between them and us.

  Between Father and me, for some reason, there was no generation gap. So we could talk rather freely. Sometimes the subjects grew quite personal. Once I was shocked to hear Father say that marrying Mother was a big mistake he made. He realized this soon after he made the proposal. His personality and Mother's were incompatible. But he married her anyway, out of a sense of honor and despair, thinking he'd never be able to find the woman of his dreams. Afterwards, he said, he was quite unhappy and wanted to have a divorce. But he decided against it, mainly for the sake of us. It was also for Mother, he said, for he knew she loved him still and did not want a divorce. In China, divorce always did more harm to women than men.

  Though shocked at first, I knew what Father said was true. I could see the huge differences between him and Mother. Father's talk reminded me of the stormy years, when I was a little girl. The frightful, loud quarrels that erupted in the middle of the night. I woke up. I heard them yell in the next room.

  "I can't stand this anymore! Let's have a divorce!"

  "All right! Divorce! Divorce! Go ahead! I can't stand this either!"

  So I was the result of a mistake Father had made many years ago. Then I became the shackle that held him in a loveless marriage. No wonder he used to get mad at me, beat me with a ruler on the palm, say I was a bad girl ... After thirteen years, he finally apologized and I forgave him. My childhood wasn't so bad after all. Whether my parents loved each other or not, they both loved us. Then there was my dear old Aunty! She was my safe haven when a storm hit home. And there was Nainai too. What else could I ask?

  So after I came back from the Great Northern Wilderness, I discovered that Father was quite different from what I had imagined. Our relationship changed. In the past five years I had grown up and Father realized this. So he began to treat me as an adult who was his equal. We became good friends. This was very rare in China. I enjoyed our talk in the evenings, on that dilapidated city wall. Watching the setting sun, I could feel his unspeakable loneliness in my own heart. I realized that he too was vulnerable, while in the past his prestige and authority had oppressed me.

  My relation with Mother, on the other hand, was still stuck in difficulties, despite the excellent new start. This distressed me, for now I knew for sure Mother loved me. She was not the evil stepmother I had imagined. In fact, she'd do anything she could to help me succeed. Then why did we quarrel so frequently? Over such trifles as a mispronounced word or a wrong preposition, a dish that was too salty or a chicken I bought that was a bad bargain ... Anything could trigger a row. Mother was a keg of gunpowder; I was a land mine. Neither of us seemed to have much control over our explosive temper.

  Over the years I have been trying to figure this out. I know why I was so irritable, but I am not sure about Mother. For one thing, she was in poor health: menopause, high blood pressure, brittle bones, weak ankles, sleepless nights ... Mother never complained about these. She endured the pain, and we did not know exactly what illnesses she had. The county seat of Ji did not have a real hospital. It only had a clinic. Two or three brick bungalows. Empty rooms. No lab, no X-ray or any
other modern equipment.

  Aside from poor health, Mother was in a bad mood. Unlike Father, Mother was ambitious and competitive. In the past, because of Father's glorious history as well as her own Party membership, superb education, and hard work, she was considered successful. Moreover, in the sixties, I was at ioi and Lian did well in elementary school, and she had been envied by other parents. But look at our family now: Mother and Father were stuck at cadre school. Their three children all faced uncertain futures. Among us, none was in the army; none could get into college. Failing that, we could not even find a job in a factory. If my brothers were still young, I certainly had failed her and vice versa, for in the seventies parents were supposed to help their children find back doors to those sought-after places. Mother was worried and ashamed, while Father was quite indifferent to what others might say about us.

  As for me, I was equally worried and ashamed. In the past, I was a good student at roi, but that was seven years ago. Now I found it hard to concentrate on my studies, even though I wanted desperately to excel so as to prove to the world that I was no inferior, actually I was better, than those who had a chance to go to college.

  Among the many distractions, the biggest one was probably the fact that I was still in love with Zhou. Even though I recognized that as long as the situation in China did not change, our love was hopeless. We would never be able to marry and live together. So what I should do was uproot my love for him, but the mere thought of it sent pangs through my body. I would burst into tears and lose sleep.

  At night, I kept dreaming of him. It was strange that those dreams were so colorful, and they were filled with joy. No wonder people say that dreams are the exact opposite of reality. Under a violet sky, millions of gold flowers stretched to as far as the eye could see. Zhou and I were running and laughing, hand in hand. We were out of breath. But we did not want to stop. The wind began to blow. It gave us wings. We flew up. The world receded from us. Millions of stars revolved around us. The moon was round. It began to shine. I was so happy, I felt dizzy ...

  When I woke up, it was to darkness and I was alone. Zhou's caressing touches and warmth were a thousand miles away. The world around me was so empty, so cold. But the world around him was even colder. Though in his letters he never mentioned the difficulties he faced, how could I fail to see them? It was all my fault that he was having such a hard time.

  Hukou was another thought that oppressed me day and night. Without it, I was an illegal resident in my native country. I had no right to work or go to school. No right to eat, wear clothes, or live at any place, even just as a visitor. So sometimes I really doubted the use of learning English at home, while my hukou was lost in the Great Northern Wilderness.

  The children of others at this cadre school were probably thinking along the same line. So out of the twenty-odd young people who came back from the countryside to study foreign languages with their parents in the wake of Nixon's visit and China's restored membership in the United Nations, only two kept it up a few months later. I was one. The other was a man. After four years' study at home college, his English was excellent.

  Mother was worried about my hukou too, because she was more practical than Father. At first, the two of us tried to persuade Father he should do something to get my hukou back. But each time we told him that, he would frown, shake his head, and say he had no idea how he might be able to do so. Besides, he would say, he believed the situation would change or else the country would perish; sooner or later a person who had proficiency in a particular field would find employment and be valued ... It sounded fantastic, like a tale out of the Arabian Nights. But we'd better not count on it.

  So after a while Mother and I gave up on him. We decided to take things into our own hands. But we did not know how to proceed either. One thing seemed clear though: we needed to find a back door. We had to find a person who was willing to help us. In addition, he must have the power to do so. We began to make inquiries. Meanwhile we made sure that our neighbors did not know what we were up to, fearing their efforts to "sabotage" our project.

  A few months later we got a clue. Third Aunt said that she had a colleague who was from this area. His father was a retired county magistrate. This old man was not a Communist, however, or a Nationalist. He was a so-called Democratic Personage. At first, this did not sound very promising. But Mother said she'd give it a try anyway. "Doctor a dead horse as if it were still alive." So she prepared gifts, took the bus, and visited the old man at home.

  At dusk, she came back utterly exhausted yet exuberant. Dropping into an armchair to massage her swollen legs, she told us that the old man was exactly the one we'd been looking for. He knew almost everybody in the local government, through work as well as family ties. Relatives, friends, old superiors and subordinates up and down and all over. As a "local snake," he had more power here than a fierce dragon from above.

  A local snake? Later I visited the old man and found that he was actually very kind. It was not for our gifts that he helped us. He was sympathetic to us. But others were less decent, officials who had to stamp my return documents with the many seals they controlled. Even with the old man's help, Mother had to grease their palms and beg them for mercy. When her health deteriorated, I took over and Mother became my adviser.

  Thus during the two years when I studied at home college, I actually had a double major. I took courses on dealing with officials and also studied English. By the time I got all the seals fixed on my documents, I had become a pretty good backdoor dealer.

  Now I faced the ultimate test. I had to go back to Cold Spring to get my hukou back from Yan, who had been threatening all kinds of punishment since I failed to report back. I was confident that I could han dle him. Instead of fear and anger, now I had knowledge that led to power. My knowledge boiled down to a few points.

  To deal with officials, one must be patient and observant. In addition, one must be diplomatic and persuasive. But the most important thing is to remember that these officials are human beings, not gods. They may look intimidating, but they all have their soft spots and weaknesses. So one must deal with each of them accordingly. Use reason and appeal to move the honest ones. Back it up with connections, for even the honest officials did not want to offend their superiors and colleagues. As for the dishonest ones, bombard them with cannons and hand grenades. They would surrender. (In the seventies, people in China called cigarettes cannons and bottles of baijiu hand grenades. These were the most common gifts used to bribe officials.)

  Thus I set off with the best quality "weapons" available to me at the time: Big China brand cigarettes and Maotai brand baijiu. I got them from a relative who had recently been released from Qincheng Prison. Though not formally rehabilitated, he got back some of the privileges, including the one to shop at some exclusive stores in Beijing.

  When I arrived at the village, I decided that I had to treat Yan as a dishonest official. Otherwise he'd put on airs, give me lectures, and my mission was bound to fail. To put my best foot forward, I would give him the cigarettes. The brand was well known in China. In fact, it was a status symbol at the time, for only a small group of very high-level officials had access to it. I was quite sure that Yan had never tried such cigarettes before. So how could he resist the temptation? He could enjoy them or use them to impress others. If it was necessary, he could use them as gifts too.

  That evening, I visited Yan at home. After some greetings, I took out two cartons of Big China cigarettes and put them on the kang. "These are some little gifts from my native place. Please accept them." With a smile, I pushed them toward him.

  For a split second, he hesitated. I could see it. Then he put on his usual stern expression of a number-one leader and spoke.

  "What are you doing? I can't accept these. Take them back!"

  Of course, I couldn't take them back. Yet I couldn't insist that he accept them either. It was a very awkward moment. I tried to relax the atmosphere by giving the kids some candy, which was all ri
ght.

  Just then, I heard someone knocking on the outer door. It turned out to be a group of educated youths. I was flustered. I felt like a thief who was seized with my hand in someone's pocket. I broke into a sweat and felt my cheeks burning. My mind went blank.

  The educated youths came in and sat down. Yan smiled and exchanged greetings with them, as if nothing had happened. I managed some greetings too. Then I stole a glance down at the cigarettes, my worst nightmare. They were gone! Covered up by Yan with a quilt. Thank heaven! Thank earth! I'm saved! Soon I stood up, smiled, and bade them good night.

  After that, everything was smooth sailing. Yan not only gave me all the green lights I needed for the return of my hukou, he even reimbursed me for the train tickets, including the ones I bought two years before. I was elated. I was triumphant. I knew that my hukou would go to Shijiazhuang, the capital city of Hebei province, as soon as I returned. For my parents were finally given jobs there. Next, we would fight our way back to Beijing, with cannons and hand grenades or whatever. With Father's guanxi and Mother's advice, with my own diligence and newly acquired insight, I could deal with officials big and small, up and down. A master key was in my mind. Henceforth anywhere I wanted to go, I could find a back door, open it, and get in. I would be fish in water in Chinese society.

  Then I remembered Yuan, whom I had despised. Now am I any better than her? Look at me! In order to achieve my goal, I am willing to do all sorts of despicable things: cry, smile, pretend to be naive or frank or angry or delighted, give honeyed words, use bribery ... If I had known that someday I could become as base as this, I might as well have done what Yuan did and go straight back to Beijing. When I acquired this cursed knowledge about officials and congratulated myself, did I know what I lost? I lost my purity and the zhigi Aunty taught me. Moral principles and dignity, I have given them all up. I'm changed beyond recognition. Once I reach this point, I can never go back. If this is the price I have to pay for getting on in the world, maybe it's not worth it. Yet if the society is a huge dye vat, can I or anybody come out of it as a piece of white cloth?