Remembering 1942

by Liu Zhenyun

  Mao put down the phone and refilled Jin’s glass.

  “I have something to tell you, Secretary. Jin.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’ve heard, Secretary Jin, that you’ll be leaving Chungong County soon. I’ve been working under you for three years, and, to tell you the truth, I’ve learned a lot from you. But as I was too young and too inexperienced, I was out of line in many instances after first taking up my position here. I wasn’t aware of how badly I behaved until a couple of days ago, when I heard about your imminent departure, and then it hit me. I’m young, so please forgive my transgressions, Secretary Jin.”

  The young man’s words were heartwarming, and Jin was moved, for Mao had never said anything quite like that before. Jin was so touched, his mood lightened and he felt magnanimous. There was no need to be petty with Mao, now that he would soon be an assistant commissioner. It was only normal for a young man to be arrogant when he first got the job; Jin felt partially responsible for not being a mentor to him. He was reminded of Xiong, a generous man who recalled a casual acquaintance from ten years before, and reproached himself for bearing grudges.

  “Don’t talk like that, Chief Mao,” Jin said after downing another glass. “We worked well together.”

  “Please call me Xiao Mao.”

  “All right, Xiao Mao,” Jin said with a laugh. “If we had some issues, it was my fault, since I’m older.”

  “No, it was my fault,” Mao said with an earnest nod, before picking up the phone and handing it to Jin. “Please call your office.”

  Jin had no choice but to have the operator connect him to his office. “Notify the townships that we’ll have a party secretary meeting the day after tomorrow,” he said to the office manager.

  “Perfect!” Mao laughed heartily. “That’s great. You’ll be the main speaker, and I’ll lend moral support.”

  “We’ll both speak.”

  Mao presided over the joint meetings two days later. He tapped the microphone on the speakers’ table to get everyone’s attention.

  “We have two tasks today, comrades. One, Secretary Jin will pass on what he learned at the provincial party secretary meeting, and two, we’ll have a farewell party for Secretary Jin, who will be leaving Chungong County in a few days. Commissioner Jin has been here for more than a decade and has made tremendous contributions to our county. I’m sure he feels an emotional attachment to this place, and we hope he will make frequent visits to a place where he lived and worked. The eight hundred thousand residents of Chungong County will always welcome him. Now, I’d like to invite Secretary Jin to speak.”

  Thunderous applause erupted in the hall.

  Touched by Mao’s words and the applause, Jin stood up and bowed emotionally, prompting another round of applause. He waited until it was quiet again before relaying what Secretary Xiong had said at the meeting.

  The warm feeling lingered as he was driven home after the meeting. He said to his office manager, who was sitting next to the driver, that the cadres in their county were not bad, adding that he felt strongly about them, including those he had criticized before.

  “Xiao Mao isn’t bad, either.”

  “I want to tell you something, Secretary Jin, and please don’t be upset,” the officer manager said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “The comrades at the county party committee are all saying you must not be deceived by Little Mao. You know what he’s been like. He’s showering you with respect now purely for personal reasons. You’ll be the deputy commissioner soon, which will affect him directly. Besides, he wants your job. Do you think he’d be so respectful if you were demoted, instead of being promoted?”

  Jin felt a chill on his back. What his office manager said probably wasn’t wide of the mark. The ceremonious scene at the meeting lost its some of its luster, but, feeling disheartened, he glared at the office manager.

  “What sort of nonsense is that, making Chief Mao look bad? I don’t believe a word of it. We’re all party members and we must treat each other with respect. We must not be petty. As a standing member of the county party committee, how can you say something like that?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” the office manager said, clearly stung by the unfair rebuke.

  3

  Jin Quanli had been in office a month.

  He arrived at the commission with enthusiasm; the promotion delighted his family. In fact, his wife had a toothache the day of the announcement, and the good news drove away the pain. He had strong ties with party cadres and ordinary residents of Chungong County, most of whom were decent people; he wasn’t quite sure if Chief Mao was scheming or not. On the day he left for the new job, many people showed up at the county building to see him off, surrounding his car and delaying his departure; some female comrades even wept. So as he was being driven away, he vowed not to disappoint them and do a good job as the deputy commissioner. But he was barely a month into the new job before he began to realize that it would be a challenge.

  For one thing, his approach to work needed some adjustment. As county party secretary, he loved driving around the county to check things out, something he could not do in his new position. He spent all his time in the administrative office building, pushing paper. Once when Lu Hongwu showed up at his office and asked, “How’s it going, Lao Jin? Gotten used to everything here?”

  “Not yet, Secretary Lu.” He decided to be frank. “I feel so constrained.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Lu said with a laugh.

  Then there was the change in status. He’d been the man at the top in the county, where everyone did what he wanted, but now all that changed. Being a deputy commissioner meant he had to seek instructions from his immediate superior, the commissioner, and the district party secretary. It had been a long time since he’d had to ask for instructions, so he had to learn that all over. Luckily, Secretary Lu was an old friend and Commissioner Wu was easy to get along with. Still, it annoyed him that he couldn’t make a single decision on his own and must run everything by his superiors, which led him to grumble in private that the promotion wasn’t worth it. It was a demotion in disguise.

  In his daily life, he also encountered problems. For instance, he loved a hot bath whenever possible. Back at the county office, he simply headed to the guesthouse and told the staff to run some hot water. It wasn’t that easy at the new place. Sure, there was a guesthouse, and it was better appointed than the county one, but in today’s China a damned deputy anything was a nobody. In fact, there were dozens of deputy district cadres, including retirees, and the guesthouse could not handle them all at the same time. Once, when he went for a bath and told the staff to run hot water, as he had used to do, one of them said,

  “There’s no hot water.”

  “How come?” He was surprised.

  “Where am I supposed to get hot water when they stop working in the boiler room?”

  The nonchalant attitude infuriated Jin.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  For that question, Jin got a sideways glance. “Aren’t you Mr. Jin, the deputy commissioner? We wouldn’t have hot water even if Commissioner Wu himself showed up.”

  If that had happened back at the county, Jin would have barked:

  “Where’s the manager? I want this man fired, and tell the boiler room to get hot water ready.”

  But he couldn’t say that here. It might not work in the first place, and would make him look bad. So he had to swallow his pride and, with a sigh, go for a soak at a public bathhouse.

  Meals were another problem. With frequent visitors to the county, he had been able to eat anything anywhere, but now, with his wife still back at the old place, he had to line up in the dining hall to buy food, which reminded him of the meeting at the provincial capital. He was rarely asked to join the district secretary or commissioner when they hosted a visitor from the provincial office. His palate needed something better after a month, so he went to a restaurant one day and treated himse
lf to some good food and drink. The next time he had something decent to eat was when he visited Zhu County, where he enjoyed Lao Cong’s hospitality. Cong, a dependable hard worker, came to report on work progress the moment he arrived. After the report, Cong asked, “What would you like for lunch, Mr. Commissioner?”

  “I’ll have whatever is good. I haven’t had a good meal in a month.”

  Then there was the matter of transportation, another inconvenience. He’d had a car and driver in the county, which meant he could go anywhere any time he wanted. At the district office, only the party secretary and commissioner had their own cars; deputies had to request the use of a car when they needed one.

  He could always get a car when he wanted, but he hated having to ask, and he never got the same one. It didn’t feel quite right to keep switching from Bluebird, to Volga, to Shanghai, to a tiny Lada. In the past, he could stop on a whim; now he had to watch what he said to the driver.

  But all these unpleasant changes paled in comparison with the nature of his work. Before he started, Lu and Wu had wanted to place him in charge of rural and small town enterprises as well as urban construction, areas familiar to him, and that pleased him. Then another deputy commissioner, Chen Erdai, started giving him a hard time. A stumpy man with an upturned nose, Chen had little regard for his peers because he had once worked in the organization section of the provincial party committee. He was a bully through and through. For instance, he managed to monopolize a Toyota Crown, even though none of the district deputies had a private car and driver; behind his back everyone else called him “Two-fifty,” slang for an idiot, from the last three digits of the license plate. Two-fifty was contemptuous of Jin, who had just been promoted from the county level. Originally in charge of disciplinary investigation and family planning, he declared he didn’t want to do that anymore the day after Jin’s arrival, even though it was his kind of work; instead, he wanted Jin’s job. A perennial bully, he had cowed Lu and Wu into asking Jin to switch with Chen. He was pissed. He liked rural and small town enterprises and urban construction, which could be seen by everyone and easily showed results. In contrast, disciplinary investigation and family planning was a thankless portfolio that antagonized people. Chen was clearly bullying Jin, the newcomer.

  “I don’t want disciplinary investigation and family planning, Secretary Lu,” Jin said. “I want to work on what I know best.”

  “Let it go, Lao Jin. What difference does it make what you do? That’s the way he is, so don’t mind him.”

  “I’ll do what you ask, but he shouldn’t push me around like that. If that’s how things work here I’d rather go back to the county office.”

  “Don’t say that. Couldn’t you just take on the job for my sake?”

  Which was how Jin came to be in charge of discipline investigation and family planning.

  After stumbling along for a month, he slowly made adjustments and, once he knew more about what it entailed, the work became easier. Sitting behind a desk was no longer a problem and, in fact, he started to see how exhausting it had been to run around all the time. Now he could even go to a movie in the evening if he was free. Transportation was no longer an issue, for it made no difference to him what kind of car it was, as long as it ran well. He would treat himself to a good meal at a restaurant or visit a neighboring county if he was bored with the dining hall food. The bathing problem was also solved. The tourist board had a guesthouse on Zhengfu Street; the manager, who was originally from Chungong County, showed Jin the respect he deserved and let him have a bath any time he wanted. He even managed to earn admiration from Two-fifty, who was impressed when he displayed no sign of displeasure in their interactions, after he had wrestled the portfolio from Jin. He began to treat him with deference after learning that Xiong Qingquan was an old friend of Jin’s, and asked Jin to join him at a banquet for the director of the provincial planning committee.

  Once he became familiar with the place and the people, Jin had room to maneuver, which improved his mood and in turn convinced him that his current position was better than his former one. He was addressed as “Commissioner,” not “Secretary,” and he outranked his former peers when he visited their counties, giving him a sense of superiority. Xiao Mao made a point of paying him a visit when he came to a meeting at the district office, bringing along a basket of apples for his pleasure. As he bit into an apple, Jin was pleased with himself, so much so that he forgave Mao for all his faults. As a result, he did not object when Lu Hongwu recommended Mao as Jin’s successor. Everyone else at the meeting with the district party secretary and Commissioner Lu raised their hands in support, and Mao became the new party secretary of Chungong County. Jin Quanli raised no objection.

  4

  A call came from the provincial party committee to say that the general secretary, Xiong Qingquan, would be visiting their district on an inspection tour in two days. This was the new general secretary’s first visit, which put Lu and Wu on edge, for neither of them knew the man. Feeling the pressure, everyone shifted into high gear, preparing presentation material for their bosses.

  Jin heard the news the day after the call. Excited at the prospect of seeing an old friend after ten years, he quickly went to the guesthouse for a bath and a shave and did his laundry. As he scrubbed his clothes, his excitement turned into anxiety when he recalled how his old friend, now the general secretary, talked. Ignoring his laundry, he returned to his office to write out answers to questions Xiong might ask. Then Jin had second thoughts; Lu and Wu would surely accompany Xiong, while the deputies might not get a chance to meet him. Wouldn’t he be wasting his time and energy preparing notes if none of the deputies was included in the retinue? He was laughing at his earlier jitters when Lu opened his office door and walked in.

  “Comrade Xiong will be here tomorrow, Lao Jin. You’re an old friend of his, so come along with us.”

  Jin was pleased to be asked along, but he had to show humility:

  “With the two of you accompanying him, I’ll stay behind.”

  “No, you have to come with us,” Lu insisted. “He’s an old friend of yours, so you have to meet him. Besides, I don’t know much about him, and we’ll feel better with you around.”

  Jin had to suppress his self-satisfaction before saying, “Comrade Xiong is actually quite approachable.”

  “Is that so? He looked so serious when he gave a report at the provincial committee.”

  “Of course he had to look serious on that occasion.”

  “You’re right. That was a different occasion.” Lu nodded. “I wonder what kind of questions he’ll ask,” he continued.

  “Most likely about agriculture, industries, and rural and small enterprises, and maybe with cultural and ideological progress thrown in. What else could he want to know?”

  “We’re prepared for those. We’re just worried he might ask some unusual questions, and it will be awkward if we don’t know what to say.”

  “I doubt he’ll do that. He’s new, so I don’t think he wants to make things hard on us.”

  “You’re right, but I do want to work on it some more. I’m going to have some numbers verified at the statistics section.” He hurried off.

  After Lu left, Jin continued with his own notes. In addition to questions from Lu, he also worked on questions he might be asked, just in case.

  A contingent of people from the district and administrative offices went to greet Xiong at the guesthouse the following morning. A call was placed to the provincial secretary’s office to see if Xiong had left. They were told he’d left at eight that morning, right on time; everyone’s nerves were on edge at half past nine, since the drive normally took two hours.

  Lu sought out Jin.

  “Tell me what Comrade Qingquan is like, Lao Jin.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For instance, does he like to drink? Is he picky about what he eats? Should we have the kitchen make him something special or will simple fare be better?”

&n
bsp; “He used to love to drink,” Jin said based on what he knew. “But I have no idea if that has changed.”

  “That makes it tough,” Lu said with a sigh. “It’s already nine thirty. What shall I tell the kitchen?”

  Seeing that Lu was in a jam, Jin felt sorry for him.

  “He’s not a difficult man and he’s not picky.”

  “It’s just that this is the first time for us. How’s this? Since you’re an old friend of his, why don’t you ask him in private what he likes. We could offer something fancy if it suits his taste and of course we’ll do what he wants if he insists on simple fare. You couldn’t know, but when Governor Ma visited the Quyang area, the district office put on a feast for him. The old man loves to eat, but he decided to be righteous that day and gave them hell. He pointed at the table and demanded something simple, making the comrades at the district office look really bad.”

  “Sure. I’ll ask him.”

  “Great. I’ll have the kitchen prepare two meals and we’ll bring out whatever he likes.” Lu raced over to the dining hall.

  Jin was besieged by uneasiness after Lu left, feeling the weight of the onerous burden. He felt like kicking himself for talking big. He hadn’t seen Xiong for ten years and really had no idea whether he should ask him or not.

  Everyone crowded around the guesthouse entrance at ten to welcome Xiong’s motorcade, but by ten thirty, there was still no sign of him.

  They were getting anxious, which worsened when Xiong still had not shown at eleven.

  “Could he have taken a turn and stopped along the way?” Wu asked Lu. “Should we have everyone go back to work?”

  “Let’s wait in the conference room,” Lu said before turning to the director of the district office. “You wait here and let us know when you see his car.”

  They went into the conference room, where some shared their comments while others smoked. Before long, the office director ran in.

  “They’re here!” He was breathless. “They’ve arrived.”