by Yiyun Li
They could go early, before they went out to the burial, Mrs. Hua said. Bashi had come earlier in the evening and said that he had a bad cold, and asked the couple to bury his grandmother themselves. Neither Old Hua nor Mrs. Hua had pointed out the lie to the boy's face; he had paid them generously.
Old Hua nodded. So they would go, he said, as she had known that he would.
NINE
Teacher Gu pretended to be asleep while his wife moved quietly in and out of the bedroom on the morning of Ching Ming. He ignored the small noises and tried to focus his memory on another morning, the distant day of his first honeymoon, when his wife had slipped away from the wedding bed and made tea for him. He had willed himself not to hear the small clicking of teacups and saucers, but when he had opened his eyes with feigned surprise at the tea, she had smiled and scolded him lovingly for his playacting. Didn't he know his quivering eyelashes had betrayed him, she said, and he said that he did not, because he had never had to feign sleep for anyone before.
“I'm going out for a few hours,” Mrs. Gu said to him, by the bedside. “Here's your breakfast, in the thermos. I'll be back soon.”
Teacher Gu did not answer. He willed her to disappear so he could go back to that other morning.
“If you need to use the chamber pot, I've put it here behind the chair.”
Teacher Gu thought about the things that he had not known on that newlywed morning, of the intimacies one would never wish to share with anyone but oneself, the vulnerability one was forced into in old age. He thought about secrets too, of sleeping in the same bed with one woman and dreaming about the other, of his wife hiding a social life from a sick husband half dying in the hospital. Such deceptions must take place under every roof, some more hurtful than others. His first wife must often have thought about other men during their honeymoon, thoughts without romantic desire but nameless strangers occupying her mind nonetheless; she had arranged the honeymoon in that specific sea resort so that, with a husband who served at the National Congress as a cover, she could work as a secret messenger for the underground Communist Party. These stories, hidden from him for the duration of their marriage, had been revealed after they signed their divorce papers. He had not doubted her love then, even after she showed him the divorce application, but now, thirty years and the death of a daughter later, he wondered if he had been too naïve to see the truth. Perhaps his first marriage had been based, from the very beginning, on the merit of his serving the government that she and her comrades were fighting to overthrow. He provided cover for her, and brought home government papers not meant for her to peruse; had she ever considered him an exit plan, in case her side failed to win?
Teacher Gu struggled out of bed. Mrs. Gu entered the bedroom, already dressed up to venture into the early April morning, a black mourning band on her arm. “Do you need something?” she said, coming over and helping him into his shoes. “I didn't hear what you said.”
“I said nothing,” he said. “You were hallucinating.”
“Are you all right? Do you need me to find someone to sit with you while I'm away?”
“What's the good in sitting with a half-dead man?”
“Let's not argue.”
“Listen, woman, I'm not arguing with you, or anyone. You have your business, and I have mine.” He pushed her hand away and limped into the front room. By the door he saw a photo of Shan, enlarged to the size of a poster and framed with black paper and white silk ribbon. “I see your comrades and you are making her into a puppet ,” Teacher Gu said. Before his wife answered, he shuffled to the old desk in the kitchen and sat down. He pushed away two glasses and a plate of leftover food.
“She is a martyr,” Mrs. Gu said.
“A martyr serves a cause as a puppet serves a show. If you look at history, as no one in this country does anymore, a martyr has always served the purpose of deception on a grand scale, be it a religion or an ideology,” Teacher Gu said, surprised by his own eloquent and patient voice. He had been conducting these dialogues in various imagined conversations with his first wife in the past few days. Mrs. Gu said something, but Teacher Gu did not catch her words. Already his mind was floating on to the other woman, who had—or had not, if he still had some remaining luck from a luckless life—intentionally deceived him for three years. He wanted to write a letter to her and request the truth.
Mrs. Gu left with the picture without a farewell. Teacher Gu thought for a moment and remembered he had been looking for his fountain pen. He tried the two drawers by the table, in which he was horrified to find all kinds of odds and ends, as if he had forgotten they had been there for years. After some fumbling, he realized that his wife must have moved his decades-old Parker pen someplace for safekeeping after he had fallen ill. Had she been expecting him to die, so that she would burn the pen with him? Or had she already sold the pen to the secondhand store for a few chickens? This new fear left Teacher Gu in a cold sweat. The pen had been a present from his college professor when Teacher Gu had established the first boys’ school in what was then one of the least educated provinces in the nation; the gold tip had worn out and been replaced twice, but the body of the pen—smooth, dark blue, and polished by years of gentle care—retained its aristocratic feel. Even Shan, in her most fervent years as a young revolutionary, denouncing anything Western as capitalist, had spared Teacher Gu the pen by pretending not to know its hiding place, sewn into the middle of a quilt by his wife.
Teacher Gu pushed himself against the table and stood up. There were not many places in the house for safekeeping, and he located the pen in the bedroom in a wooden box, where his wife kept a few of her jewels that had survived the Cultural Revolution as well as a snapshot of all three of them from when Shan had been a toddler. Teacher Gu squinted at the picture, taken by a friend who had come to visit them in the spring of 1954; Shan was staring at the camera while her parents were both watching her. The camera had been a novelty in Muddy River back then, and a group of children and a few adults had gathered and watched the black box hanging from their friend's neck. He snapped shots generously, of Teacher Gu's family as well as of the onlooking children, but this picture was the only one his friend mailed. Teacher Gu wondered what had happened to the other pictures; another letter he needed to write, he thought, before remembering that the friend had taken his own life, in 1957, as an anti-Communist intellectual.
Teacher Gu shuffled back to the front room. He took the pen out of the velvet box, unscrewed the cap carefully, and wiped off the dried ink on the gold tip with a small piece of silk he kept in the box for that purpose.
Greatly respected Comrade Cheng, he started the letter, and then thought the opening ridiculous with its revolutionary ugliness, even though he had addressed her with this formality in his letters, once or twice a year, for the past thirty years. He ripped the page off the notebook and started again. My once closest friend, colleague, and beloved wife, he wrote with great effort. “My once closest friend, colleague, and beloved wife,” he read it out loud, and decided that it suited his mood.
Remember the umbrella that my father lent my mother at a street corner in Paris that started their lifelong love story? It was in the autumn of 1916, if you still remember. You said what a romance when I first told you the story; I am writing to let you know that the emblem of this great love no longer exists. The umbrella did not survive my daughter's death because her mother, my current wife, thought the daughter needed an umbrella in heaven. Were there a heaven above, I wonder if my parents are fighting with my daughter for possession of the umbrella. The grandparents had not met the granddaughter in life; in death I hope they do not have to spend a long time in the company of the girl. My parents, as you may remember, possessed the elegance and wisdom of the intellectuals of their generation; my daughter, however, was more a product of this revolutionary age than of her grandparents’ noble Manchu blood. She died of a poison that she had herself helped to concoct. Despite art and philosophy and your beloved mathematics and m
y faith in enlightenment, in the end, what marks our era—perhaps we could take the liberty to believe, for all we know, that this era may last for the next hundred years?—is the moaning of our bones crushed beneath the weight of empty words. There is no beauty in this crushing, and there is, alas, no escape for us now, or ever.
Teacher Gu stopped writing and read the letter. His handwriting was a shaky old man's but there was no point in being ashamed at the loss of his capacity as a calligrapher. He folded the letter in the special way that young lovers had folded love notes forty years earlier and put it in an envelope. Only then did he realize he had forgotten to ask the question. He had wasted time and space in a uselessly moody letter. He opened his notebook.
Highly respected Comrade Cheng: Please tell me, in all honesty, if you were assigned to marry me by your party leaders for your Communist cause. I am getting closer to death each day and I prefer not to leave this world a deceived man.
Teacher Gu signed his name carefully and sealed the letter along with the first one without rereading either of them. He put the envelope into his pocket, pulled himself across the room, and stumbled into an old armchair. The writing had exhausted him; he closed his eyes, and returned to the argument he had carried on all night with his first wife, about whether Marxism was a form of spiritual opium, as Marx had once described other religions.
“Greatly respected citizens of Muddy River,” the voice from the loudspeaker said, interrupting Teacher Gu's eloquent argument. He recognized the voice as the star announcer, and thought that the woman sounded falsely grave for a holiday of ghosts. “Good morning, all comrades. This is a special broadcast on the current events in Muddy River,” the voice said. “As you may not know, there is great historical change happening in our nation's capital, where a stretch of wall, called the democratic wall, has been set up for people to express their ideas on where our country is going. It is a critical moment for our nation, yet news about the democratic wall did not reach us. We've been taught for years that in our Communist state we are the masters of our own country, and of our own fates. But is this ever true? Not long ago, Gu Shan, a daughter of Muddy River, was wrongfully sentenced to death. She was not a criminal; she was a woman who felt immense responsibility for our nation's future, who spoke out against a corrupt system with courage and insight, but what became of this heroine who acted ahead of her time?”
Teacher Gu's hands trembled as he tried to pull himself out of the armchair. The woman continued to talk, but he could no longer hear her. He struggled to open the notebook, his hand shaking so much that he tore several pages before finding an intact one. “I will beg you only for this one thing now,” wrote Teacher Gu to his first wife.
May I entrust myself to you when I can no longer trust my wife of thirty years? Only in our culture can a body be dug from its grave and put on display for other people's political ambitions. Could you please agree to oversee my cremation? Do not allow traces of me to be left to my current wife, or anyone, for that matter.
“Comrades with conscience!” the woman continued to speak over the loudspeaker. “Please come to the city square and speak up against our corrupt system. Please come to meet and support a heroic mother who is perpetuating the legend of her daughter.”
Stupid women, Teacher Gu said aloud. He put on a coat on top of his pajamas and got ready to go and post the letters.
THE YARD WAS QUIET in an eerie way when Tong woke up before daybreak. He opened the gate, hoping to see an eager Ear waiting for him outside, but apart from a few early-rising men loading their bicycles with bamboo boxes of offerings for their outings, the alley was empty. Tong asked the men about Ear, but none of them had seen the dog.
Tong left the alley, and at the crossroad of two major streets, he caught the first sight of people walking toward the city square. They were silent, men with hats pulled low over their eyebrows, women with half of their faces wrapped in shawls. Tong stood by the roadside and watched the people pass, sometimes in twos but mostly single file, each keeping a distance from the person ahead of him. Tong recognized an uncle from his father's work unit and greeted him, but the man only nodded briefly and then walked faster, as though eager to get rid of Tong. The shops on the main street would be closed for the day, and there was nothing but the public event to attract people to the town center. Perhaps Ear, a gregarious dog that always enjoyed boisterous events, would be found there. Tong waited for a gap to join the procession.
The eastern sky lit up; another cloudless spring day. The main street was quiet in spite of the growing number of people coming in from side streets and alleys. No one talked, and crows and magpies croaked in the pale light, louder than usual. People nodded when they saw acquaintances, but most of the time they focused on the stretch of road in front of them. A few men loitered in front of the shop doors that lined both sides of the main street, their faces too covered by hats or high collars.
“Are you still looking for that dog of yours?” someone said, with a tap on Tong's shoulder. He looked up and saw the young man from the previous day, grinning and showing his yellowed teeth.
“How did you know?” Tong said.
“Because he'd be here with you otherwise,” Bashi said. “Listen, I'm a detective, so nothing escapes my eyes.”
“Have you seen my dog?”
“Do I look like someone who wouldn't tell you if I'd seen him? But I do have a tip for you. You've come to the wrong place. Nobody here and nobody there”—Bashi pointed in the direction of the city square—”cares about your lost dog.”
Tong knew that the man was right. How could he ask people about a small dog when they had more important things to think about? He thanked Bashi nonetheless and moved toward the city square, wishing that the man would stop following him.
“I know you're not listening to me,” Bashi scolded. He pulled Tong out of the procession. “You can't go there alone.”
“Why?”
“How would you get into the city square by yourself? Do you have an admission ticket? They won't let you in without a ticket.”
Tong decided that Bashi was lying, and turned to leave, but Bashi grabbed his shoulder. “You don't believe me?” he said, and brought out something from his sleeve. “See, here's the ticket I'm talking about. Do you have one?”
Tong saw a white paper flower, half-hidden inside Bashi's sleeve.
“Look at these people. They all have a white flower in their sleeves or under their coats. If you don't have one, they won't let you in, because they have to make sure you're not spying for their enemies. Did you see those men in front of the shops? Look there. Why aren't they going to the square?” Bashi paused and savored Tong's questioning look. “Let me tell you—they look like secret police to me. How can you prove that you are not working for the police? Of course you're too young for that, you could say but you're too young to go to a rally also. Unless you're with someone older.”
Tong thought about Bashi's words. They did not quite make sense but he found it hard to argue. “Are you going there?” Tong asked.
“See, that's a question a smart boy asks. Yes, and no. I'm going there, for a different reason than these people are, but if you're looking for someone to tag along with, you've found the right person. But here's one thing you have to promise me—you need to listen to me. I don't want you to get lost or trampled by the crowd.”
Just then the woman announcer's voice came from the loudspeakers. Both Tong and Bashi stopped to listen. When she finished, Bashi said, “I didn't know that Sweet Pea was behind this. So it must mean the government is behind the rally now. Bad news, huh?”
“What's bad news?”
“Nothing. So, do you want to come with me?”
Tong thought about it and agreed.
“I'm old enough to be your uncle already,” Bashi said. “But I'll give you a discount this time, and you can call me Big Brother.”
Tong did not reply but walked with Bashi. When they reached the city square, Tong realized that
Bashi had been lying—there was no one asking for the white flower as a token for admission, nor was there a confused stampede. The line ran from the center to the southwest corner of the square, and then turned east until it reached the southeast corner, where more people were joining it. Tong stepped behind the last man, but Bashi tugged at him and whispered that there was much more to see elsewhere. Tong hesitated but followed Bashi out of curiosity. A smart and sensible boy, Bashi praised Tong, as they walked to the east side of Chairman Mao's statue, where there was less of a crowd. A few wreaths of white flowers had been placed along the edge of the pedestal; in front of the wreaths was an enlarged photo held up by a makeshift stand of bamboo sticks; the young girl in the picture, a teenager, tipped her head slightly backward, her smile wide, as if the photographer had just made a joke.
Bashi clicked his tongue. “Is that the woman?”
“Who?”
“The counterrevolutionary.”
Tong looked at the picture. Hard as he tried, he could not connect the girl, young, confident, and beautiful, to the woman he had seen on the day of the execution, her face an ashen color and her neck wrapped in bloodstained surgical tape.
“Hey, hey, did you lose your soul over a beautiful face?” Bashi said to Tong. “Look there.”
Tong breathed hard and stood on tiptoe. Wreaths as tall as a man's height had formed a circle, and the line of people going in and then leaving, through a gap on the other side of the circle, blocked his view.
Bashi looked for a long moment. “Very interesting. Aha, that's her. And he's there too.”
Tong did not want to admit that he was too short to see anything. Bashi looked at him and sighed. “Well, I've brought you here so I am responsible for entertaining you, no?” He squatted down and told Tong to hop onto his shoulders. Tong hesitated, but when Bashi told him to stop being a sissy, he climbed up. “Hold on to my head,” Bashi said, and stood up. “Ugh. You look like a cabbage but weigh like a stone Buddha,” Bashi complained, but Tong did not reply, his attention drawn inside the circle. In the middle a woman was carefully placing a white flower into a huge basket with a diameter of more than two arms. Next to the basket was a table, on which lay a piece of white fabric. A man behind the table pointed to the white fabric and said something to the woman, and she shook her head apologetically and left without looking up at him. Tong recognized the man as a teacher from his school.