Iron and Silk (13 page)

After a few months had passed, Zheng invited me to join him on a day trip to a small city south of Changsha. He had a good friend there, he said, whom he wanted me to meet.

“My friend is a sculptor, an artist. In his spare time he makes swords. He is my best friend, and as he is feeling lonely
these days, he wants me to visit. I think if you come, it will cheer him up. If he likes you, he might even make a sword for you.” That Sunday Zheng, three of his students and I got on a crowded bus that followed a dusty road through the countryside for three hours, stopping finally in a city that looked even more depressing than Changsha. On our way to catch a local bus, Zheng stopped at a peddlar’s cart and bought something wrapped in pieces of newspaper. He unfolded the newspapers and distributed some dark, shiny objects that looked like walnut shells among his students, then offered me one.

“Binglang,” he said, popping one into his mouth. “It’s a local specialty.”

Not wanting to be rude I put the binglang into my mouth. It seemed to be a kind of nutshell steeped in a strong cinnamon extract that slowly became pliable and fibrous as I chewed. I like cinnamon very much, so I chewed the object until it had no more flavor, then swallowed it with difficulty.

“Do you want another one?” Zheng asked.

“Yes, thank you It is very good.”

Zheng and the other students looked pleased that I enjoyed this little treat, so at the next binglang cart they argued over who would have the honor of treating me to more of them. Altogether I ate seven or eight of them, thinking this might be our only lunch. On the bus, Zheng asked me if I wanted any more binglang, and I answered that I was full enough for the time being. His eyes opened wide and he asked me if I had swallowed them.

“Yes—wasn’t I supposed to?”

“Aiya …” he gasped, then told the others what I had done. They all looked at me in amazement and I suddenly became very nervous. My heart started beating wildly, and I asked if I had eaten something poisonous. They all laughed at this;
Zheng said that the binglang was not poisonous, but was meant to be chewed, not swallowed. “Binglang is like wine,” he said, “it makes you feel a little drunk. We thought you were used to it, and that was why you chewed so many. Just one or two of them makes us feel dizzy!” The jolt of adrenaline I had just experienced must have quickened the effect of the drug, which is known as betel nut in the West, for my legs began to feel long and rubbery, a buzzing filled my ears, and the bus ride, which lasted only fifteen minutes or so, seemed to go on for over an hour

We got off in the middle of a community of cement apartment buildings laid out in rows that went on in all directions as far as the eye could see. We walked north for eight or nine blocks and at last approached one of the dark entryways. Zheng called out a name, someone shouted back in response, and a minute later a short man with a bouncing, agitated gait ran out to meet us. After shaking hands and exchanging loud, emotional greetings with Zheng, Lin stood in front of me and looked me over. “So you are the man my friend has told me about—welcome to my home!” He shook my hand vigorously, almost violently, taking my arm into his other hand and grasping it tightly, winking at me as if something of great significance were taking place that need not be put into words; he seemed to be on the verge of tears. I was still disoriented from the betel nut and was unable to tell if the man’s behavior was really strange or if I was imagining things. This filled me with confusion, and once again my heart raced and adrenaline rushed through me. I felt slightly nauseous and asked to sit down, afraid that I might pass out or throw up at any moment. Once we got inside the apartment, Zheng and his friend disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Zheng’s three students and me in the dining room to relax and have tea. I asked them if Lin seemed a little excited to them. They
smiled and assured me that he was always “a little crazy,” but that I should not worry—he had a good heart, and a more loyal friend could not be found. This came as a great relief to me, and almost immediately I felt my head beginning to clear.

A few other friends from the neighborhood trickled in, moving back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room as they helped to cook and to set the table. At about one o’clock the feast began, with fifteen of us sitting at a big, round table carried over from a nearby factory. Lin sat next to me and kept my bowl full the whole time, encouraging me to eat with hearty slaps on the back. Every five minutes or so he lifted up his wine glass to toast someone, so that after an hour had passed, everyone was very red in the face. The more Lin drank the more excited he became, talking in dialect too quickly for me to understand, but with emotions that were easy to read. He alternated between slamming the table and cursing with rage, murmuring softly in a trembling voice, as if terribly depressed, then turning to me and declaring with a shout that friendship was everything, it was all that mattered. This cycle of emotions became more exaggerated as time went on and more wine was consumed. Everyone else at the table seemed to be there to listen to him, agree with him, console him or support him as his mood required. At one point when he looked depressed, Zheng suggested that he show me some of his artwork. Lin jumped up and ran into an adjacent room, from which he emerged with a tiny clay sculpture of a naked man, hunched over in despair. It was a haunting sculpture, and I asked if he had any others to show me.

“No,” he sighed, “I’ve given away everything else. I give away all of my work. But there is one thing I have that I will never give away—it is my treasure, my most precious thing.
Do you want to see it?” I said that I would like to, and he produced from a desk drawer a single postcard with a photograph of Michelangelo’s David on its face. It was yellowed and badly worn from many years of handling.

“Michelangelo is my teacher,” he said, “and this is my lesson book. It is all I have to work from. This sculpture, the David, is perfect, and I dream of it all the time. If I could see this sculpture with my own eyes and touch it with my fingers, I think I would die from happiness!” He carefully returned the postcard to the drawer, then burst into another angry monologue that I could not understand. By this time he was very drunk. He stood up, picked up an elaborate letter opener, pointed to it emphatically and rushed toward the door. He pretended to have trouble opening it, giving his friends time to catch him and take the letter opener away from him. He made a show of protest, struggling weakly to break free, but it was clearly for form’s sake, and no one except me seemed particularly alarmed. While Lin’s friends calmed him down, Zheng took me outside for a walk.

“I’m sorry about this,” he said. “I’m very sorry that your day has been unpleasant.” I said that there was no need to apologize, but perhaps he could explain what was going on, since I was beginning to fear that I was the cause of the trouble.

“No, no—not at all! Lin likes you very much! I think you have cheered him up by coming. I’ll tell you what is wrong. Lin is a very emotional man, an unusual man. He is very talented and smart, and he is my best friend. If you are his friend, I tell you that he would die for you, his loyalty is so great. During a period of hard times, he once saved my life. But sometimes he cannot control his emotions. He was married for a long time to a mean woman. After years and years of trouble, they were finally granted a divorce. Divorce, you
know, is extremely rare in China. But Lin, even though he hates her, still loves her, too. That sounds impossible, but it is true. Anyway, she is getting remarried to someone else, and Lin is very upset. He promised he would not interfere, but not long ago he heard that the woman is having the wedding party only four blocks down the road—that building right there! Well, today is the wedding—they are over there right now. So we have come to cheer Lin up and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. Lin doesn’t want to make trouble—he asked us to come—but you see, being the way he is, I guess he can’t help getting worked up about it. I assure you, though, he is not a bad or a violent man. He is gentle, but today he is very upset. I’m sorry if this has frightened you.”

When we went back inside, Lin once again sat at the head of the table, looking much better, and gestured for me to sit next to him. “I’m sorry for making so much noise,” he said. “The important thing is, I have all my good friends with me, and now I have a new friend, an American friend. Tell me about sculpture in America—what does it look like?” I was tempted to say “ridiculous,” but instead I confessed that I did not know enough about the subject to give him a proper answer. “If you like, though, I could ask my family to send an illustrated book about it.” Lin nodded appreciatively, then froze as if he had just seen an apparition. “Do you mean,” he asked in a whisper, “that it would be possible … to send a book of photographs here from your country? It would pass through customs?”

“Certainly, if it were addressed to me. Then I could have Master Zheng take it to you, in case I don’t see you again.”

He held my arm tight and looked closely at me, his eyes wild with hope.

“Are there books like that … about Michelangelo?”

“Yes, there are, and I will get one for you.”

I thought he would surely cry with joy, but instead he drew himself up straight, nodded as if casually interested, and busied himself pouring wine for his friends.

“Good—good. Yes, that would be very good if you could do that, but if it is too much trouble, of course …”

“No, it would not be too much trouble at all.”

“I don’t want to trouble you. You needn’t be polite.”

“Not at all. It will be easy to arrange.”

“Ah, well.… But if you can’t get the book, don’t worry about it. Sometimes, you know, a thing can seem easy one day and impossible the next.”

Two months later I had a beautiful, soft-cover
Michelangelo
in my hands, but there was a problem. Not long after my visit to the sculptor’s home, I heard a rumor that Zheng’s students resented the special attention Zheng gave me, and felt that the content of their lessons had been rearranged to focus on my needs. There was no way of knowing if the rumor was true, but to be safe I asked Zheng if I might continue at a less feverish pace, and cut my lessons down to once or twice a week. He reacted strangely; he asked if I fully appreciated the risks he was taking by accepting me as a student, and said that if I was dissatisfied with the effort he was making to teach me I should just say so. I decided not to press the matter and continued seeing him three times a week, but after that he paid increasingly close attention to me during the lessons, and almost completely ignored his other students.

One night none of the other students showed up. I asked after them and Zheng said that he had told them not to come so often, that they would be around forever but I would not, and he wanted to make sure I felt satisfied with his instruction. When I heard this I felt sick with regret, and told him right away that under those circumstances I could not possibly
feel comfortable being his student. An expression somewhere between anger and fear passed over his face, and he blurted out that obviously I did not understand how important this arrangement was to him, and that I should not think only of myself.

When he said this I felt bad, and I apologized for seeming ungrateful. Afterwards, though, this incident went through my mind again and again, and the more I tried to sort it out, the more confusing it became. At last I spoke to Hai Bin about it. He listened carefully, then told me that I should not feel angry or guilty, that it was no one’s fault, but that in this case, my being a foreigner was simply “too inconvenient.” He helped me draft a polite letter thanking Zheng for his generosity and kindness, then stating that unfortunately, due to an increase in my responsibilities at the college, I could no longer continue my lessons.

I found Little Guo and showed him the
Michelangelo
book, asking if he could take it to Zheng to pass on to his friend Lin.

Little Guo shook his head. “Under these conditions, it would be impossible. Lin, as a matter of face, would not accept it, because you have insulted Zheng by discontinuing your lessons. You will have to give it to someone else. How sad!”

“Isn’t there some way we could get the book to him without involving Zheng?” I asked, unable to believe that the book, having traveled twelve thousand miles, could not find its way a hundred miles more.

“Mei banfa”—there is no way—he answered. “Just as Lin said, easy things become impossible. Most things are like that.” Suddenly Little Guo smiled, then laughed out loud. “And impossible things become easy! I never imagined that
the mice in my lab would jump! Do you remember how we chased them for almost two hours?”

I was too upset to laugh with him. He sensed my mood and patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Do you know the story of the old man and the horse? It’s a famous Chinese story, we all learn it when we are children. An old man’s horse runs away one day. His friends all say they are sorry to hear about the horse, but the old man says, ‘I’m not worried about it. You never know what happens.’ Sure enough, a few days later the horse returns, leading a whole herd of wild horses back with it. Everyone congratulates the old man on his good fortune, but the old man just says, ‘You never know what happens,’ and doesn’t make a big deal out of it. And sure enough, his only son becomes crippled in an accident while training one of the horses. Everyone says how sorry they are to hear the sad news, but the old man says, ‘You never know what happens.’ And not long afterward government troops pass through the village looking for healthy young men to recruit for a border campaign. Of course, the old man’s son is passed over because of his injuries. This is the Chinese way of thinking. Speaking honestly, it seems to me that you foreigners get terribly sentimental about little things.”

I
had walked along the river many times since meeting the fisherman that day in winter, but I did not see him again until spring. It was late afternoon, and I had bicycled to a point along the river about a mile downstream from where we had met, hoping to find a deserted spot to draw a picture. I found a niche in the sloping floodwall and started drawing a junk moored not far from me. Half an hour passed, and just as I finished the drawing, I heard someone calling my Chinese name. I looked down to see Old Ding scrambling up the floodwall, his boat anchored behind him. I noticed that he limped badly, and when he got up close I could see that one of his legs was shorter than the other and set at an odd angle. Such was his balance and skill in the boats that I only saw his deformity when he came ashore. He squatted down beside me and explained that he had just returned from a long fishing trip on Dong Ting, a sprawling lake in North Hunan. “Big fish up there,” he said, gesturing with his arms. Then he asked me what I was doing. I showed him the drawing, and his face lit up. “Just like it! Just like the boat!” He cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled something in the direction of the junk, and right away a family appeared on deck. “Let’s show it to them!” he said, and dragged me down to the water. He exchanged a few words with the family, and they leapt into action, the women going into the sheltered part of the junk to prepare food and the men rowing out to meet us in one of two tiny boats lashed to the side. We got in the little boat and returned with them to the junk. We ate a few snacks of different kinds of salted fish, had tea, and then I showed them the
drawing. They seemed delighted by it, so I tore the sheet out of my block. I handed it to the oldest member of the family, a man in his sixties, who opened his eyes wide with surprise and would not take it, saying, “How can I take this? It is a work of art; what do I have to offer you in return?” I laughed, saying that it was only a drawing, and I would be happy if he would take it just for fun. But he was serious; when at last he accepted it, putting it down carefully on the bed, he began negotiating with Old Ding to choose an appropriate gift for me.