Remembering 1942

by Liu Zhenyun

  “Is a bit of spoiled tofu such a big deal that we won’t buy any more from now on? I’ll put it in the fridge and that will be the end of it. How long do you expect to go on about it?”

  “I wasn’t going to talk to you about tofu.” She waved him off. “I did some thinking last night and have decided I’ve had it with that office. I’m thinking of quitting my job, and I’d like you to be on my side for a change. That’s what I want to talk to you about.”

  Though Lin was relieved to hear that it wasn’t about the tofu, the subject of changing jobs was even more annoying and more complicated. For a college graduate, she had a pretty good job, summarizing official documents and writing work reports, with enough free time to read the paper and enjoy a cup of tea. The problem was a lack of tact, which had led to problems in her personal relationships, very much like Lin himself when he started out. She’d learned her lesson and changed her ways, but scars from the previous encounters hadn’t gone away, and friction was unavoidable. Whenever she had a bad day at the office, she came home and complained to him, threatening to look for another job. Then he’d counter with his own experience, saying that things would get better over time, once she abandoned her juvenile attitude and naiveté. What did she have in mind? All offices are the same, he’d say. Besides, did she think that finding a new job was going to be easy?

  “Neither of us has power or status, and we don’t know a thing about the job market, so how do you expect to find an office that’ll take you?”

  “You really are worthless,” she’d complain. “Here your own wife is suffering, and you can’t do a thing to help her out.”

  “I can’t help you with a new job, but I can still be helpful. I try to explain things to you; doesn’t that count as help?” That would calm her down, and after venting her frustration, she’d drop the subject and go back to work the next day. If that could have continued over time, she would have adapted to the office environment and he would not have had to deal with the headache of her desire to find a new job. But each time they moved, they lived farther and farther from her workplace. In their first place together in Beijing, she’d been happy about their improved living conditions. She’d thrown herself into decorating the place, from window coverings to furniture arrangement, even the placement of the refrigerator and TV. She’d focused on all the things they’d need to complete their apartment. But once everything was pretty much set, her happiness was compromised by the distance she had to travel to work. The office bus did not stop in their area, which forced her to spend three or four hours each way on crowded public buses. She got up at six a.m. and wasn’t back home until seven or eight at night, leaving while stars still sparkled in the sky and returning after the moon was up. Over time, she set her heart on a job change. From her exhausted look when she came home, he knew this was different from problems at work, which could be tolerated. But no human effort could shorten the distance between home and work; that could only be accomplished by finding an office closer to home. They had no idea how difficult it would be until they decided to try. Like a blind cat trying to catch a dead mouse, they inquired at several offices, and each time they were turned down outright, with no room for further discussion. Naturally they were deflated.

  “Forget it,” he said. “It’s hopeless. Why keep trying? You’ll just have to put up with the way things are. There are people in Beijing with a longer commute than yours. And don’t just focus on the distance. Think about all those women in textile mills. They’re on their feet all day, while you get to read the paper and drink tea. You should be happy with what you have.”

  “You want me to put up with it because you can’t do a damned thing. You get to ride the office bus, so what do you know about how I feel on a crowded public bus four hours a day? If I can’t find another job, I’ll quit outright tomorrow. Then you can support us all by yourself.”

  And she did stay home the next day, which threw him into a panic. It worked. He put his brain to work and eventually came up with an idea. He heard that the head of an office on Qiansanmen Street had gone to school with Deputy Bureau Chief Zhang at Lin’s office. He had worked hard helping Zhang move to a new apartment, which had left a very good impression. Later, after Zhang had a lifestyle issue with a woman named Qiao, he began showing concern for those who worked for him; he was always happy to lend a helping hand, rarely refusing any request for help. So Lin figured that Zhang would not say no if he went to see him regarding his wife’s job hunt. With Zhang’s connections, she stood a chance of finding a position in the Qiansanmen office. Admittedly, it was still quite a distance. But it was on the subway line, making it a forty-minute commute; besides, the subway was never as crowded as a bus and there were sometimes open seats. She was pleased to hear his idea and agreed to the transfer. He went to see Zhang and laid out the difficulties his wife faced before mentioning the Qiansanmen office.

  “I’ve heard that our esteemed boss knows someone there, and I’m wondering if you could help us out.”

  “No problem.” Zhang said unhesitatingly, as expected. “With such a long commute, she really should get a different job. I don’t know much about that office,” he continued, “but the man in charge of personnel matters is an old school pal. I’ll write to him. Then you can go see what he can do for you.”

  “Perhaps our esteemed boss could phone him first.” Lin knew he was pushing it a bit.

  Rubbing his big head, Zhang laughed heartily and tapped Lin on the head.

  “You young people these days are much smarter than we were. Very well, I’ll phone him.”

  Zhang made the call and wrote a letter for Lin to take with him. That letter was like an imperial edict to Lin and to his wife, who was delighted to see it. It worked wonders. When the head of personnel read it, he said:

  “Yes, Zhang and I were schoolmates. In college, we were on the track-and-field team.”

  Lin, who was sitting on the edge of his chair across from the desk, quickly picked up the thread of the conversation:

  “I can see that. He still loves to exercise.”

  After a quick glance, the man changed the subject and asked about the scandal. He wanted details, which put Lin in an awkward spot. Knowing he had to tell the man something, he focused on the important parts. Zhang and the woman, Qiao, he said, had just sat alone in his office and hadn’t really done anything. Everything beyond that was strictly rumor. The man laughed.

  “That old Zhang is still quite the character,” he said.

  Finally it was time to bring up the transfer. The man was in a good mood.

  “Sure,” he said, “can do. Zhang has asked me to help, so leave it to me. I’ll check to see where there’s a vacancy.”

  That sounded like a promise to Lin, who went home and said so to his wife. She was so overjoyed she put her arms around him and planted kissed all over his face. They had a pleasant evening.

  She would have gotten the job and could have started riding the subway to Qiansanmen if only they’d left it at that. But they were too clever for their own good and ended up ruining her chances. The head of personnel was already working on their behalf, but that somehow didn’t seem enough for Lin and his wife. So she asked around and learned that the husband of a close friend worked at that office, and was a section head, no less. Relying solely on the head of personnel office might not be enough to get the job done, she told her husband. Maybe they ought to go see the section head too. Without thinking it through, Lin agreed that one more person meant more clout, so he went to talk to the section head. The head of personnel stopped working for them as soon as he heard about Lin’s visit to the section head. The next time Lin went to see him, he was decidedly cooler.

  “Didn’t you go see so-and-so? Why not wait to see what he can do?”

  Lin was alarmed, realizing he’d made a strategic error. Asking someone for a favor was not all that different from succeeding in an office environment; you can only have one patron. Seek out too many people, and none of them wil
l go out of their way to help. Besides, seeking help from multiple persons implies that you know lots of people, which in turn shows you are well connected. Why do you need my help, they wonder, if you already have someone in your corner? You can count yourself lucky if they merely decide to stand aside; they could be so offended they’ll try to undercut your plan to show that they were the one you should have stuck with.

  It was too late by the time Lin and his wife understood how it had all played out. After first blaming each other, they put their heads together to find a way to repair the damage. But what could they do? All he could come up with was to go see Zhang and ask him to call his friend again. On the other hand, he couldn’t keep running to a deputy bureau chief. Lin and his wife had to put aside her job hunt for now, and he forgot all about it as time passed and got busy with other things. But she did not forget, in fact thought about it a great deal of the time. And that was exactly what she had been doing the night before, after the spoiled tofu incident, when she sat on the edge of the bed without washing her feet, deep in thought. She brought the subject up with Lin that morning as soon as she woke up. Convinced she wanted him to talk to Zhang again, which he dreaded, he said:

  “We’ve already torpedoed our chances, so what’s the point of going to see him?”

  “Go talk to the head of personnel again instead.”

  He dreaded that even more.

  “He was cool with me after you talked to your friend’s husband. I don’t have the guts to go see him again. Besides, it won’t work anyway.”

  “And what makes you think it won’t work? I’ve given it some more thought. You don’t need to blame me for seeing my friend’s husband, because that’s not the key. The key is we haven’t done enough. These days, when you want something done, talk is useless. I think we have to offer him something. A fly has to see blood before it makes a move. He won’t be serious until he sees blood. So blood is what he’ll get!”

  “I’ve barely met him. I don’t even know where he lives, so how are we going to send him the gift?”

  “Just listen to you! I know you don’t care a whit about me.” She blew up. “What did you give Qiao that time you wanted to join the party? We were barely making it back then and could hardly afford milk for the baby, but did I say no when you wanted to buy her a gift? Why all these excuses when it’s my turn? What’s going on in that head of yours?”

  Her face had turned white with anger, prompting a quick capitulation.

  “All right. We’ll give him something. Don’t worry. We’ll send a gift and see what happens.”

  That marked the end of their discussion. They went to work. When they returned in the evening, they had a quick dinner and told the nanny to take care of the child before heading out to buy a gift. But what? After wandering through a store for half an hour they still hadn’t decided. Something cheap wouldn’t do, but they couldn’t bring themselves to spend too much either. In the end she found a handicraft item that fit the bill: a glass case etched with flowers, birds, and fish. It was attractive, presentable, and, under forty Yuan, affordable. But after talking it over, they decided against it. Would a head of personnel be partial to flowers and birds? If the man thought they were trying buy his help with a cheap curio, that could work against them. So they went back to browsing; his eyes lit up when they reached the soft drink counter.

  “I’ve got it.”

  “What have you got?”

  He pointed to a sign above cases of Coca-Cola. “Big Sale: 1.9 Yuan a can.” A case of Coke normally cost three fifty. A highly desirable gift and, at 1.9 a can, a twenty-four-can case would cost them less than fifty. A famous-brand soft drink with enough bulk, it would be practical and smart looking; the man had to like it. But why was it on sale?

  “What if it’s passed the expiration date? That would be even worse.”

  But no, it hadn’t, the shop clerk told them. How strange; it was as if it had gone on sale that day just so they could buy a gift.

  “Well, it looks like we’re in luck today, and that spells success.”

  Her spirits lifted, she took out her purse and bought a case. Then with Lin carrying it over his shoulder, they crowded onto a bus for their gift-delivery trip. It was eight thirty, an ideal time, when they reached the man’s building in high spirits. They had just reached the bottom of the staircase as a man was coming down the stairs. It was none other than the head of personnel. Lin’s greeting took the man by surprise. When he saw who it was, he was friendlier than he’d been back in his office.

  “Ah, it’s you,” he stopped and said with a smile.

  “This is my wife, Uncle Wang. Chief Zhang told us to come see you again about her job request.”

  “I know. No problem on my end. The hang-up is in the receiving office. If you can find an office that will take her on, have them contact me. I need to go out on business and the car is waiting, so excuse me for not asking you in.”

  Their hearts sank. It was an out-and-out refusal that made Lin forget all about the Coke until the man was already outside the building.

  “Oh, I brought you a case of soft drinks, Uncle Wang.”

  “That’s one thing we’re not short of,” the man replied with a laugh. “Take it home and enjoy it yourselves.”

  Then the car started and drove off. They froze in the hallway, embarrassed and feeling awkward for a long moment before finally snapping out of it. Lin threw the case onto the stairs.

  “That fuck-head didn’t even want our gift.”

  Then he turned to his wife. “Didn’t I say no gift? But you wouldn’t listen, so now see what happened? It’s humiliating.”

  “What a terrible man,” his wife said. “So petty.”

  They carried the case home, having failed to give it away, and feeling foolish about paying so much—forty Yuan—for something they’d end up keeping. Needless to say, their hearts ached over the expenditure. What were they going to do with a whole case of Coke? Anything edible was not returnable, so they’d have to drink it. But they couldn’t just shut the door and drink a Coke anytime they felt like it. It took them two days to solve the problem; his clever wife opened the case and gave a can to their child every now and then for her to drink out in the yard. They had gained a reputation for being dirt poor, since they’d never before bought soft drinks or ribbonfish, and their child was practically in rags. They did buy a ribbonfish once, but it was on sale and hadn’t smelled so good. The stink had spread into the hallway, which gave the Indian wannabe something more to talk about. Now giving their daughter a can of Coke to walk around with would improve their reputation, and they wouldn’t have spent the money for nothing. Her job transfer, however, remained a nettlesome issue.

  3

  They had houseguests. He knew that the moment he walked into the hallway that evening after work. The sound of two men coughing issued from their open apartment door. People from his hometown. He was right. Two men with sunbaked skin and blue veins on their heads were sitting on the edge of their bed. Canvas bags that were popular in the seventies, with quotations from Chairman Mao stamped on the sides, were on the floor by their feet. They were puffing on cigarettes and coughing, spitting and flicking ashes on the floor. Pungent clouds made his little girl cough as she ran through the thick smoke.

  He’d come home in a good mood. Guan, the new section head, still walked around with a stern expression, but he didn’t have a bone to pick with the people who worked for him. For the quarterly evaluation, he gave Lin a top rating, which meant a bonus of fifty Yuan. While that wasn’t much, fifty Yuan more was a lot better than fifty Yuan less, and it would surely make his wife happy. The arrival of the two visitors was a damper on what would have been a triumphant return. His wife wasn’t home yet. As if hit with a bucket of cold water, he felt his high spirits vanish into thin air. The arrival of hometown visitors should have been something to celebrate, an opportunity to recall the past with people he hadn’t seen for years. The problem was, they took all the joy out of i
t by dropping by so often; it had, in fact, become a burden. The guests had to be fed, which cost at least fifty Yuan each time, and the frequency made it a serious drain on family finances. These hometown guests were different from old friends or schoolmates. They might be sunburnt peasants with blue veins, but they cared much more about conventions. Old friends and schoolmates would forgive him if he didn’t treat them like royalty, but not those from the countryside. They would be upset and complain about him back home, assuming that they were entitled to a grand reception, since he lived in Beijing. They had no idea that he fell into the lowest social stratum in Beijing and that he had to get up early to line up for tofu. Two additional dishes were added at the meal purely for their sake. Sometimes he had to laugh at their arrogant airs, even though he was unhappy with them. What do you eat back home, anyway?

  It wouldn’t have been so bad if they could have been sent off after a meal, but no such luck. Oftentimes after they ate their fill, they gave him a long list of tasks they needed done—getting supplies or chemical fertilizer, buying a car, or filing a lawsuit. And he had to shell out for their train tickets when they finally left. What made them think he was capable of accomplishing all those tasks, when he couldn’t even manage to get his wife a new job? Hell, he even failed at giving a man a gift! How was he going to sue someone or buy a car? As for the train tickets, he had to queue up at the train station to do that.

  At first, concerned about face, he tried accommodating them, since they’d have looked down him if he’d told them there was nothing he could do. But his efforts were usually wasted. He did have college friends assigned to various government offices, but they were too new to the job to enjoy any authority or power. Coming home to face his hometown guests was the height of embarrassment. Over time he smartened up and learned to say, “No, I don’t think I can help you with that.” Sure, they looked down on him, but they would have sooner or later anyway. Better to get that over with early—saves trouble. Yet they kept showing up and each visit at minimum cost him a meal. What complicated matters was the fact that his wife was from the city, with much simpler interpersonal relationships, and rarely had visitors. Her people seldom visited; his never stopped visiting, and they had to be fed. On top of that, the country folk were always carelessly dropping cigarette ashes or spitting wherever they felt like it, which embarrassed him. His wife had started out being okay about that, and said nothing, but that changed when the visits turned into a constant chore. She frowned when they arrived, refused to go grocery shopping, and stayed clear of the kitchen. Lin was unhappy that she made him look bad, but he had to admit that she was right to be upset, and it didn’t take long for him to join her in that. Besides complaining about his wife, he found fault with the country folk, who let him down and showed him in a bad light. His hometown was like a bushy tail that would, from time to time, rear up to show his private parts, reminding everyone that he came from the countryside. As the fake Indian woman once said, his family was too coarse to look urban, a comment that made his wife cross. Which was why he was often on edge when the workday ended, worried that someone from his hometown might choose that day to pop in for a visit. He jumped whenever he heard someone speaking with an out-of-town accent in the yard and ran over to the balcony to see if that accent was walking into his building. Only after watching the person move on was he able to relax. Though he never looked forward to visitors from his hometown, he was always eager to entertain guests from his wife’s side. When that happened, he welcomed them enthusiastically to make it up to his wife by balancing out the visits from his side. But they seldom came, which meant he was constantly plagued by guilty feelings. Oblivious of those feelings, his parents liked to brag about their son who lived in Beijing and often said to the neighbors, “My son’s in Beijing. Go look him up.” After a while he realized that his hospitality only invited more houseguests. That taught him a lesson, and hometown visitors began to receive a chilly reception, which naturally upset them. They would return home and tell everyone that he had forgotten his roots. Well, let them talk! What’s there to remember about roots? He even wrote his parents to say stop the flow.