by Ha Jin
He felt tired and had returned to his former placid state and read more novels and magazines when he had time. His eyes had grown more myopic, and he had to wear a pair of thicker glasses, which made him look gentler. In contrast, Manna had by now become fractious and often quarreled with others. When a few new nurses were assigned to her group, as their head nurse she ordered them around, even telling them to do an orderly’s work, such as feeding patients, changing sheets, mopping floors, cleaning bedpans. If an officer’s wife looked at her with meaningful eyes, Manna would glare back, as if ready to start a shouting match. When walking with Lin in the evening, if he stopped to talk with a friend or a colleague, she would move away, waiting and watching from a distance, as though she hadn’t known them. Behind her back, people called her “a typical old maid.” Lin noticed the changes in her, but he didn’t know how to help her except to try to get the divorce the next summer. And about that he was uncertain.
Now, his cousin’s letter pointed to a possible way for Manna to find a boyfriend. It had never occurred to Lin that unlike the army hospital staff here, civilians in other cities and towns might not regard Manna as his fiancée. So why shouldn’t she look for a man elsewhere, outside the army? In any event she must not wait for him passively. Heaven knew when he could succeed in divorcing his wife. In his heart he felt the divorce could easily drag on for five or six years. Probably it would never materialize at all.
Can you really let her go? he asked himself. The question like a pang constricted his chest a little. Though he no longer had the same romantic passion for Manna as he used to have, he was still very much attached to her and could see there was a slight possibility that they might get married someday. She was his woman, the only one he had ever had deep feelings for. Could he give her up? If she and his cousin were married, how would he feel if he ran into them in the future? Wouldn’t he hate himself for introducing her to him? If he lost Manna, where could he find another woman as good as she?
Those questions tormented him for several days. Then he made up his mind to mention his cousin to Manna, believing this was a good opportunity for her. She deserved a man who could offer her more than he could. It was a painful decision on his part, but it was necessary. If this static affair between them continued, both his and her careers would be affected or even ruined. In many people’s eyes the two of them had already become near-pariahs involved in something illegitimate. It would be too depressing to let the sinister shadows hang on them forever. He had best cut the entangled knot once and for all.
“Look,” he said to Manna as they strolled behind the Medical Ward, “I don’t mean to upset you, but there’s a good way you can find a boyfriend.”
Her face fell. “Don’t talk about that again. I know you’re tired of me.”
“Don’t be so grumpy. I’m not joking this time.”
“Like you didn’t mean business before.”
“Come on, you know how I feel about you, but we can’t get married.”
“So? I can wait.”
“We don’t know how long you may end up waiting.”
“I don’t care.”
“Please listen to me!”
She stopped and looked him in the face. A few gnats were flying around them. The last sunlight fell on the thick aspen leaves, which turned glossy, flickering and rustling in the breeze. A dog burst out barking and prancing behind the steel netting of the kennel, before which gathered a group of small boys and girls watching the animal struggling in vain to get out.
Lin went on, “A cousin of mine wrote me a letter recently. He asks me to find a girlfriend for him in our hospital. I don’t mean you should go with him. It just dawned on me that you might be able to find a boyfriend in another city, where nobody knows about us. The man doesn’t have to be an officer.” He stopped to catch his breath.
With her lips curled up she said, “I’ve thought about that a hundred times. It’s not so simple.”
“How come?” He was amazed by her words, thinking, So you did think about how to dump me.
“Even if I married a man in another city, how could I join him without being discharged? If I remained in the army, he and I would have to live separately. That situation is what I don’t want.”
“Can’t the man move to Muji?”
“Probably he could, but how about us? How would you feel about me marrying another man? Would you be comfortable running into me here every day? Wouldn’t the word about our relationship reach the man’s ears? Then what would happen to the marriage? Heavens, it gives me a headache to think about this. I feel hopeless.”
Her explanation surprised him, as he had never thoroughly understood the complexity of her situation. After a long pause he said, “You shouldn’t worry so much. Don’t take my feelings into account. Do whatever is good for yourself.”
“What could I do?”
“Start to look for a man in another city?”
“Where?”
“Anywhere. For instance, my cousin Liang Meng in Hegang is available. Start looking as soon as you can. Do it step by step, and don’t worry in advance. There’s always a way out of every situation.”
“Okay, tell me about your cousin.” She raised her head, and a sly smile curved her lips.
He began to talk about Liang Meng, who was thirty-eight, a middle school teacher, five feet ten, healthy, intelligent, and reliable, though he was a widower with three children.
Lin produced his cousin’s letter from his pants pocket and handed it to her, saying, “You should read this and think about what he says. Take your time to decide. If you want to meet him, I’ll be glad to help.” Then he added, pointing at the envelope, “His handwriting is very handsome, don’t you think?”
“Yes, it looks scholarly.”
“When you have thought this through, let me know what you’d like to do, all right?”
“I will.”
A week later Manna told him that she wouldn’t mind the size of Liang Meng’s family since she was fond of children, and that she was more interested in seeing what the man himself was like. Lin was ready to help, but he warned her not to raise her hopes too much in case she might find Liang Meng unsuitable.
Without delay he wrote to his cousin and described Manna as a wonderful match, a woman who was honest and good-hearted and had never been married, without any family ties. Besides, she had strong moral fiber, working hard and living plainly. In a word, she was definitely one in a hundred.
Liang Meng’s reply came two weeks later, saying that when school was over in Hegang in June he would come to Muji to attend a wood-engraving class, and that he would be delighted to meet Manna. He thanked Lin profusely for the matchmaking, saying he had been so moved that words almost failed him.
So Lin planned to introduce the two in June.
2
Liang Meng came to Muji as planned. The mail office called Lin and notified him of his cousin’s arrival. Lin sauntered to the front entrance to meet him. He and Liang Meng shook hands for a good ten seconds and then waved at the soldier in the sentry box; together they turned and went on into the hospital.
“Did you have a good trip?” Lin asked his cousin.
“Yes. But the train was so crowded I couldn’t find a seat.”
“Do you have a place to stay in town?”
“Yes, in the Fine Arts Institute.”
While walking they glanced at each other continually. Liang Meng’s smile reminded Lin of their adventures on the Songhua River twenty-five years before. His cousin had been an excellent swimmer, able to float on his back as if taking a nap, whereas Lin had not dared enter the main channel and had always dog-paddled in the shallows. Life had passed like a dream—twenty-five years were gone in a blink of an eye. Look at his cousin now—he resembled a typical middle-aged man.
“Elder brother, this is a gorgeous place,” Liang Meng said sincerely. “It’s so clean here, everything’s in order.”
Lin smiled, amazed by the comment. Yes, he thou
ght, if compared with a coal mine.
He led his cousin to the dormitory. To his surprise, his roommate Jin Tian was there with his fiancée, frying some walleye pollack on a kerosene stove. It was almost three o’clock, so he took Liang Meng directly to Manna, knowing she worked the second shift these days, slept in the morning, and must be up now. He felt bad for his cousin, who looked tired, but he couldn’t find a peaceful place where Liang Meng could rest awhile before meeting Manna. Another inconvenience was that if they met in the hospital, Lin had to accompany them like a chaperon; otherwise the intention of Manna’s being alone with a male stranger would have been construed by others.
They found Manna in her bedroom, but one of her roommates was still sleeping in there, so together the three of them went out to look for a place where they could talk a little. On their way Lin bought three sodas at a refreshment stand sheltered by a khaki sunshade in front of the grocery store.
Before the medical building they found an unoccupied granite table beneath a grape trellis. They sat down, each drinking a bottle of Tiger Spring soda. The air was intense with camphor, and bumblebees were droning and darting about. A fat larva, hanging from a long strand of silk spat by itself, was wriggling upward in a slanting sunbeam that filtered through the grape leaves. Doctors in white robes were passing by, with either a folded newspaper or a stethoscope in their baggy pockets. Two nurses were pushing a long wheeled oxygen cylinder like a torpedo, giggling, poking fun at each other, and shooting glances at Manna.
Liang Meng, looking troubled, told them he had to give up the wood-engraving class and return home within two days, because his daughter had been struck by inflammation of the brain and was just out of danger in the hospital. He had to phone home in the evening to check on her condition. Manna realized he had come all the way mainly to meet her.
She wondered whether he actually measured five feet ten as his letter claimed. He was a scrawny man and looked older than his age. His appearance was unusual. His hairline had receded almost to the center of his crown, making his shiny forehead bulbous. But his eyebrows were broad and thick, and reached the lids of his deep-socketed eyes. Under his hooked nose was a protruding mouth whose lower lip enfolded the upper. When he spoke, his head would tilt to the right as though there was a pain in his neck.
“What kind of grapes are these?” Liang Meng rose from his seat and plucked a green grape from the vine above his head.
“No idea,” Lin said tepidly.
Manna was rather surprised by his terse answer. Just now when they arrived at her dormitory, Lin had been happy. Why did he look rather sullen now? She said to the high-spirited guest, “I don’t know either.”
Liang Meng put the grape into his mouth and began chewing it. “Bah! it’s no good, too sour.” He spat its skin and pips to the ground. “We have lots of grapes in our yard.”
“Really?” she asked. “Are they good?”
“Of course. Sweet and big.”
Despite seeing Lin frown a little, she asked again, “What kind of grapes are they?”
“Mainly Fragrant Rose and Sheep Nipples. We have a bumper harvest this year. The trellises nearly collapsed, and I propped them up with wood stakes. What happened is that we buried some dead animals at the roots of the grapevines in the spring. God, that doubled the yield.”
“What animals did you bury?” she asked.
“Well, some dead chickens and ducks, and a mad dog, that was our neighbor’s. The dog bit a schoolgirl and was shot by the police.” He turned to Lin. “Elder brother, I meant to ask your professional opinion. Do you think it safe to eat grapes fattened up by a rabid dog?”
“I have no professional opinion,” Lin said curtly. Then he caught himself and added, “What a question! By common sense that should not be a problem.”
Manna was intrigued by Liang Meng’s talking of grapes. Evidently he was a family man; he even raised poultry, although he was a sort of intellectual. Perhaps she should find out more about him.
Since the hospital was an inconvenient place for more conversation, Lin suggested that the next day his cousin and Manna meet and talk by themselves somewhere in the city. They agreed to rendezvous at Victory Park. Perhaps the Songhua River was a more pleasant place, but there were always so many people on the bank that they might miss each other.
Victory Park lies at the southern end of the city. It was built in 1946, in memory of the Russian soldiers who had fallen while fighting Japanese troops in Manchuria toward the end of the Second World War. At the main entrance to the park, a stout statue of a fully equipped Russian soldier stood against an obelisk; his helmet and the barrel and round magazine of his submachine gun were missing, chopped off by the Red Guards at the outset of the Cultural Revolution. But currently the statue was under repair, surrounded by scaffolding. On the ground, in front of the monument, a slogan was still legible: “Down with Russian Chauvinism!” Those words had been scraped off, but the dark strokes remained distinguishable on the grayish concrete.
Manna arrived at ten o’clock. Inside the park, Victory Lake was greened by drooping willows. Two young men, apparently college students, were laughing heartily and paddling a dinghy, whose bow carried a line of words in red paint: “Long Live Chairman ——!” The word “Mao” had washed off. A few pairs of white ducks and wild geese were swimming near the bank. Manna leaned over the railing on a stone bridge and observed carps gliding in the water beneath, most of them about a foot long. She had on a yellow poplin shirt, which together with the army skirt made her look younger and more curvaceous. She was sweating a little because of the long walk, so she remained in the shade of a willow, which sheltered almost a third of the bridge. A sudden breeze blew a few candy wrappers into the air, and a brown plastic bag was flapping on the blossoms of a cherry tree. She remembered meeting her first love, Mai Dong, at this place. That had been eight years before. How time had passed. The park was different now, almost unrecognizable; it had become a zoo, noisy and crowded, with hundreds of animals kept in iron cages and deep concrete pits. On the opposite shore, behind rows of trees, stood several new buildings.
Her memory of Mai Dong feeding mallards with popped rice on this very bridge brought a slight contraction to her chest. Where is he now? she wondered. What a heartless man he was. Does he really love his cousin? What does he do for a living? Is he still in Shanghai? Does he often think of me?
Her thoughts were interrupted by a male voice speaking from behind her. “Hey, Comrade Manna Wu.” Liang Meng appeared, carrying a large manila envelope under his arm and waving at her.
She waved back, but didn’t move toward him.
Coming over, he smiled and shook hands with her. “How is your daughter?” asked Manna.
“She’s doing all right. She returned home yesterday afternoon. My sister-in-law is with her now. The doctor said there wouldn’t be any aftereffects.”
“That’s good news. Is she your oldest child?”
“No, she’s the youngest and she has two brothers. One is eleven and the other nine. She’s seven.”
They turned to go farther into the park. Before they stepped off the bridge, Liang Meng cleared his throat and spat into the water. Immediately a red carp, about two feet long, rushed over and swallowed the blob of phlegm. Manna made a mental note that Lin wouldn’t do that. They bore left, walking along the bank clockwise.
He told her that he had heard a great deal about her from Lin and was impressed by her work as a head nurse. Then, without a transition, he began talking about himself. He had graduated from Harbin Teachers School in 1965, specializing in the fine arts. The graduation year was significant, meaning that his education had not been disrupted by the Cultural Revolution. Unfortunately his wife had died two years ago; people used to call them “a pair of mandarin ducks,” meaning an affectionate couple. True, the two of them had spent some peaceful, loving years together and had never fought or quarreled. His children were well disciplined and sensible, the boys being model students at
school. Though approaching middle age, he was in good health and only had a cold sometimes in winter when the air in Hegang was heavy with coal dust. He earned seventy-two yuan a month; since they had no debt, the family managed fine.
Manna was afraid he would ask about her rank and salary. If he did, their relationship would end here, because she hated that kind of materialistic attitude. But he had the decency not to raise the question, and instead he switched to the topic of his teaching.
When they reached the opposite shore, the dome of a concrete building emerged on their left, partly blocked from view by poplar crowns. That was the city’s Children’s Palace. A row of sedans—Warsaws, Volgas, and Red Flags—were parked in a lot encircled by hawthorn hedges. Children’s singing, accompanied on the organ, could be heard.
Manna and Liang Meng sat down on a long bench facing the lake. The blue paint on the bench was flaky in places, and the wooden slats forming its back felt scaly. On their left a cartridge box sat on the ground, filled with snow crocuses. Liang Meng put the large envelope on his lap and pulled out a few small drawings. “These are my work. I hope you like them,” he said and handed them to her. She noticed he had stubby fingers.
She looked through the drawings. They were all illustrations of a battle in which the Vietcong wiped out the American invaders. In one of the pieces, two enemy men—a black soldier and a white officer—were impaled upon the bamboo stakes in a trap, yelling “Help!” Manna wasn’t interested in the illustrations. She had come here to see the man, not his work. She handed them back and said blandly, “Good pictures.”