Mr Ma and Son (2 page)

Lao She’s life and death share the melancholy ambivalence of
Mr Ma and Son
. Despite the titles and honours that the Communist government showered upon him – People’s Artist, Vice-Chairman of the Writers’ Union – and despite his professions of loyalty to the regime (it was rumoured that a copy of Mao’s writings in the chairman’s own calligraphy was found on Lao She’s corpse), Lao She was incapable of allying himself simplistically with any single cause. But Mao’s China was not a place in which a Chinese citizen could harbour doubts. Perhaps it was the realisation that his country would not tolerate his non-alignment – expressed some four decades earlier in
Mr Ma and Son
– that guided his final steps to the Lake of Great Peace.

–
JULIA LOVELL

H
EAD BOWED
low, Ma Wei made towards Marble Arch. After a few paces, he found himself coming to a halt and standing dazedly, glancing from side to side. What at? Nothing. He was looking at nothing, and nothing was what he saw. Like runny fish-glue, his thoughts had gummed up his mind completely, leaving not even a crack for matters of the outside world to creep in, and depriving him of all mental control over his physical movements. His glance shot out and came straight back in, bringing nothing with it. He’d long since forgotten the world, and fiercely wished for it to be destroyed, and himself along with it. Right now! So why bother looking at anything any more?

He stood rooted there. It was a good two or three minutes before the scenes in front of him registered. ‘Oh, yes,’ he murmured to himself, ‘it’s Sunday today.’

On Sunday afternoons, there’s always a bustle and stir around Marble Arch. All over the green lawns and gravel paths stand bunches of people. Workmen with red flags crane their necks, wave their big, rough, brown, hairy hands, and bellow at the top of their voices, like minor bursts of thunder, ‘Down with the capitalists!’, blaming the latter for all the ills of the world. Even last night’s bad sleep was the capitalists’ fault.

Right next to the red flag stands the Conservative Party with a Union Jack. The men there hold their heads very high, because they’re wearing two-inch stiff collars and their necks have no chance whatsoever of slumping, and as they wave their big, fine, lily-white, hairy hands, they’re shouting with might and main, ‘Down with the socialists!’, ‘Down with the unpatriotic traitors!’, heaping blame for all the world’s wickednesses on the heads of the workers. Even the fact that it rained this morning, and that the egg boiled for breakfast turned out to be a bad one, was all a consequence of the workers’ troublemaking.

Right next to that group stands the Salvation Army flying a blue and red flag, bashing tambourines, blowing little pipes and singing hymns nonstop. The more ecstatically they praise the Lord, the more powerful grow the bellows of the workmen beneath the red flag. Sometimes, however, when they’re filled with the Holy Spirit, they shudder all heaven and earth so much with their singing that our red-flag friends yonder are forced to resort to swearing, with words not found in any dictionary. Just next to the Salvation Army is a Catholic preacher, and, beyond him, any number of other groups with various causes to promote: independence for India, rapid elimination of China, the
revival of the Liberal Party
 . . . and some groups not really promoting anything at all – just a crowd surrounding a wizened old man with a red beard, looking at one another and laughing.

Almost without exception, the men standing under the red flag have small clay pipes dangling from their mouths, and their hands stuck in their pockets, and they nod their heads in approval of whatever is uttered by their leader. The listeners who stand beneath the Union Jack mostly wear little black bowler hats. They nod their heads, smack their lips appreciatively and murmur, ‘Hear, hear!’, ‘Absolutely!’ Sometimes, when two of them simultaneously come out with the words ‘Hear, hear!’, they give each other a wink, and squeeze a tenth of a grin from one side of their mouths.

The smaller gatherings aren’t as well ordered and spiritually united as these big ones. For the most part their primary raison d’être is discussion and disputation. Heads press together, like those of huddled sheep, as principles are bandied to and fro in subdued tones. In addition, there’s a flock of fierce-browed fiery-eyed youths, caps rakishly askew, who circle round these little groups, cracking clever jokes and scattering quips, all for no other motive than to make everyone laugh and to show off their own smartness. Round the outside of the groups there are bands of three or four policemen, uniformly tall and each with the same big hands and feet, as if London policemen were all brothers.

Among these crowds of people, none stand out as much or excite as much admiration as the guardsmen in their red uniforms. Their backs are straighter than a drawing board, and the creases of their trousers are as stiff and straight as if held in place by a rod of iron. Every man jack of them is spick and span, with a perpetual smile on his face to display his snow-white incisors, and with his hair cut close to reveal a blue scalp. None are listening to anything – they’re just standing outside the groups, placing themselves where they attract the most attention, and letting their gazes rove all around. After one’s been standing there a few minutes, suddenly some girl’s pale wrist will curl around his arm, and the pair will spin sharply on their heels and go off onto the grass for a cosy private chat together.

On the lawns, the various couples sit tête-à-tête, while others are lying with their arms around one another’s necks. Beside them are isolated men, sitting with an evening paper in their hands. These men’s eyes are not on the newspapers but on the girls’ legs. Masses of fat dogs are gallivanting about in wild ecstasy for no apparent reason. The little children present, some clad in suits of white velvet and others dressed from chin to toe in red-velvet rompers, are haring to and fro over the grass, their chubby legs waddling and tottering about. Their nurses, sporting white bonnets, chase after these little gods, grumbling and complaining all the while.

Ma Wei stood there for an age. He lacked any enthusiasm for listening to the speeches, but couldn’t think where else to go. He was twenty-one or twenty-two years old, fairly tall but very thin, with a sallow complexion and a narrow face that showed a resolute willpower. His long eyebrows swept slightly upwards, and the corners of his eyes turned up a bit too. These eyes were extraordinarily black and extraordinarily bright, and that combination rendered the whites of his eyeballs paler by contrast, so that his eyes avoided the dull, lifeless-looking monochrome that paper dolls in funerary shops have. Apart from these eyes, with their constant hint of a smile, his face would have looked quite fearsome. His nose wasn’t very prominent, but it seemed to stick out just the right distance because his cheeks weren’t plump. And his lips curled upwards a bit, serving in conjunction with his twinkly, smiling eyes to create an overall geniality.

He wore a grey woollen suit under his black woollen overcoat. The suit was very elegantly tailored, but it had, like his face, become drab, lost a lot of its original glow. From his looks and from his age, you’d imagine he oughtn’t really to be so miserable. But with his forehead screwed up in a frown and his back slightly bent, he was missing much of youth’s sprightliness. Compare him with those red-uniformed young men arm in arm with the girls, and he’d certainly seem to come off rather the worse.

He absent-mindedly fished out a handkerchief and wiped it across his face. Then he stood there in a dumb blur, just as before.

The sun was setting. Red clouds turned the green-flannel grass a purplish colour. The workmen’s red flag slowly transformed into a patch of congealed scarlet blood. And each minute the speakers’ audiences grew smaller.

Ma Wei buried his hands in his overcoat pockets, walked on a few steps then came to a stop, leaning against the iron railing that bordered the grass. The red clouds to the west slowly dispelled the last lingering light of the sun. In the dying rays, the sky was covered layer by layer in a pale grape colour, like the frost-blue under the grey of a wood pigeon’s plumage. The grey steadily deepened and imperceptibly merged with the wisps of ground mist, and swallowed all the colours into the dark. The workmen’s flag, too, became a patch of black. And the trees in the distance quietly embraced the dusky shadows and slipped off into the night with them.

The people departed in ones and twos, until they’d almost all dispersed. The gas lamps all around were lit. Big red and green buses going round Marble Arch flashed past one after the other, looking like some long, moving rainbow. There was no one on the grass now. Only one black shadow leaning by the iron railing. Li Tzu-jung had wriggled down into his bedclothes. As he stretched out a leg to the left, and shifted an arm to the right, in the half-asleep stage, he was dimly conscious of the doorbell ringing. His eyes got to the verge of opening, but then, in spite of himself, he let his head slip back onto the pillow. He could still recall hazily that something had been making a noise just now, but . . .

DRRRRR!

The doorbell rang again. He cracked open his only just-closed eyes, then once more lowered his ear back onto the pillow.

DRRRRRR!

‘Who the hell can it be, calling here at midnight! Who is it?’

He propped himself up with one arm into a sitting position, and with the other hand pulled open the curtain a bit to look outside. Although there was a gas lamp in the street, the mist hung very thick, and it was so dark he couldn’t see a thing.

DRRRRRRRRRR!

This time the bell rang a little longer and louder than the previous rings. Li Tzu-jung got up, felt around for his shoes and groped them on in the gloom. The ice-cold innersoles gave him a shock as they met the hot perspiration of his feet. He felt goosepimples all over. It was April, but the nights were still chilly. He fingered for the light and switched it on. Then, wrapping his overcoat around him, and holding his breath so as to make no sound, he tiptoed downstairs. The old lady on the ground floor had gone to bed, and if he was careless enough to wake her, he could bank on a good telling-off. He gently eased open the front door.

‘Who is it?’ he asked. His voice was as quiet as if he were frightened of scaring off the thick mist.

‘Me.’

‘Ma, old chap! What were you doing, banging away at the doorbell like that?’

Without a word, Ma Wei walked in and went upstairs. Li Tzu-jung softly pushed the front door to, and silently followed Ma Wei upstairs. Nearly at his room, he came to a halt and listened. There was no sound from downstairs.

That’s all right, anyhow,
he mused to himself.
The old lady hasn’t woken up. Else I’d be getting a mixture of toast and curses for breakfast tomorrow
.

The two of them went into Li’s room. Ma Wei pulled off his overcoat, and laid it over the back of a chair. He still hadn’t uttered a word.

‘What’s up, Ma, old lad?’ asked Li Tzu-jung. ‘Been having a row with the old man again?’

Ma Wei shook his head. In the light, his face looked more sombre and sallow than ever, and his brow was knit so tightly that it looked as if he were trying to squeeze drops of water from it. There was a faint blue round the rims of his eyes, and beads of sweat hung from the tip of his nose.

‘What’s up?’ Li Tzu-jung asked again.

After what seemed an endless pause, Ma Wei gave a sigh. Then he licked his lips, and at last spoke. ‘I’m done in, old Li. Can I stay here for the night?’

‘Only one bed here, though,’ said Li Tzu-jung with a grin, pointing at it.

‘This settee’ll do me,’ said Ma Wei. ‘Just so I can get through the night. I’ll be fit to sort things out for tomorrow then.’

‘What’s happening tomorrow?’ asked Li Tzu-jung.

Ma Wei shook his head again. Li Tzu-jung knew old Ma’s nature – if he wasn’t of a mind to tell you something, there was nothing to be gained by asking him.

‘Right then,’ said Li Tzu-jung, scratching his head, still smiling. ‘You go off to sleep in the bed, and I’ll take care of this settee.’ With these words, he spread a blanket over the seat. ‘There’s one thing, though,’ he added. ‘You’ll have to clear out at the crack of dawn, so the old lady downstairs doesn’t catch sight of you. Right then, off to sleep!’

‘No, you sleep in the bed, Li, old chap. I’ll stick it out on the settee for a while. That’ll do me fine.’ There was a speck of a smile on Ma Wei’s face. ‘I’ll be off at dawn. Don’t you worry.’

‘Where will you be going?’ Noticing Ma Wei’s smile, Li Tzu-jung tried again to get him to speak. ‘Tell me. Otherwise you can forget any hopes you’ve got of a good night’s sleep. You’ve had a row with the old man, haven’t you?’

‘Need you ask?’ Ma Wei yawned. ‘I didn’t mean to come around knocking; I’d intended to leave this evening but didn’t, so I had to come and bother you.’

‘Where is it you’re going?’ Seeing that Ma Wei was determined not to sleep in the bed, Li Tzu-jung was considerately wrapping both his own overcoat and his blanket round Ma Wei as he spoke. Then he switched off the light, and climbed back into bed.

‘Germany, France . . . Can’t say for sure.’

‘On business for the old man?’

‘My father’s finished with me now.’

‘Oh,’ said Li Tzu-jung, and left it at that.

Neither of them said any more. It was extremely quiet out in the town, with nothing but the sound of trains and steamers whistling and hooting occasionally. The clock of the church in the next street chimed two o’clock.

‘You’re not cold, are you?’

‘No, I’m not cold . . .’

As Li Tzu-jung drifted off to sleep, he was making resolutions:
Get up very early so as not to let Ma just run off. Get up, wash your face in cold water, and write a note telling the old lady downstairs you’ve got some urgent business, and won’t be around for breakfast. Then go out with him. See him back home. That’s what I’ll do. Be best to go round to their shop, though. If he meets his father there, the two of them won’t have a dust-up – too embarrassing in public. Common enough, rows between a father and son . . . He’s a youngster, old Ma . . . Takes things too seriously . . .

He went rambling on and on in his dreams with thoughts like these. The rumble-trundle of the little milk carts started up, and there was a growing noise of cars on the main road. Li Tzu-jung opened his eyes with a start. The sun was already beaming a thread of gold silk into the room through a crack in the curtain.

‘Ma, old chap!’

Li’s blanket and overcoat were both draped over the back of the settee. There was no sign of Ma Wei.

Li got up, opened the curtain, threw on his overcoat and stood vacantly by the window. Through it he could see the River Thames. There was nobody walking along the banks of the river yet, but all the small riverboats were astir. The saplings on the banks had newly popped their light-green leaves, and an airy mist hung around the treetops. Through the thinner patches of mist, the sun’s rays shone on the tender leaves, making them sparkle faintly, like little pale-green pearls freshly fished from the water. Only a few of the smaller boats on the river had hoisted their sails, which fluttered like large butterflies in quest of flowers to settle on.