Naked Earth (17 page)

Liu wished she wouldn’t address these remarks to him. Comrade Ho was standing there smiling awkwardly, pulling the brim of his cap down hard, as if to make it sit more firmly on his head. He was probably used to Ya-mei’s nagging but Liu knew he would resent strongly anything Liu might say and would also resent it if he should smile and say nothing.

“I didn’t know the people around here are so fond of pigs’ feet,” Liu said carefully.

“Well, they know these are good pigs, that’s why,” Ya-mei said. “Pigs killed and sent north across the border. Of course people up there don’t eat the feet like we do. That’s why there are all those feet left. The very best pigs. Thin-skinned, really paper-thin, I hear.”

“I wonder how everybody got to know about it, that they’re the feet of export pigs,” Liu said.

“There’s no keeping things from these people when it has to do with something tasty. They always smell it out.”

Comrade Ho had turned to go, thinking Ya-mei had finished with him.

“You better start in right now to learn to read and write, Old Ho,” she said. “Instead of sitting around all day and just
la, la; la, la
, like an old woman.”

“Oh, in the army everybody was supposed to learn Culture,” Ho said lightly, to show it was nothing new to him. “But I never got round to it. No joke, marching sixty, seventy miles a day carrying three big pots on your back. The Comrade Instructor always said to me, ‘Now you’re the Culinary Officer. Take care of those pots as you would your own eyes—’”

“That’s enough! Don’t try this on me,” Ya-mei said. “All this self-glorification! You’ve got a bad case of Deserving Official-ism, Old Ho. No longer willing to learn. And when you’ve made a mistake you won’t even accept criticism.”

He smiled, holding on to the brim of his cap. He had pulled the cap far down in front in order to leave plenty of exposed space at the back of his head for him to scratch.

For a while the bristly noise of scratching was his only way of answering.

“You teach him to read and write, Comrade Liu,” Ya-mei said. “Go at him whenever you have a moment to spare. Your Standard of Culture is high. You ought to help him.”

Liu wished she would stop. The smile had left Comrade Ho’s face. Looking blank and unconcerned, he had half turned toward the door, shoving his opened jacket back with both hands to get a little breeze.

“He’s getting on in years, so his memory is no good. You’ll have to be patient with him. But you help him to make Progress, and I’ll help you to make Progress—all right?” She gave Liu a big, warm Party smile.

“Certainly,” Liu answered rather formally. “Whenever there’s a chance I’ll avail myself of your instructions.”

“How are you getting on?” she asked. “How do you find the work? Not homesick, are you?” She always said the same things but she had a heartwarming way of saying them. In a moment she would be saying that they were all one big family. As a matter of fact it was true, Liu thought as he watched Comrade Ho go out the door. They were like a typical big family where it was difficult to avoid stepping on people’s toes, whichever way you turned; where you often get caught between two persons and get yourself bruised for nothing.

“We really ought to have a nice long talk some time, so I can get to understand your State of Thought,” Ya-mei said. “Only Comrade Ts’ui and I have been so rushed lately. But don’t hesitate to come to us any time if you have any problems or anything. Don’t stand on ceremony!” she said reproachfully, smiling with a light frown, giving him several impatient little slaps on the shoulder. “You’re in the
ko-ming ta chia t’ing
, Big Family of the Revolution!”

She was pointedly fussing over him and ignoring Chang. It was a bad day for Chang. Again Liu thought how lucky he was to have been in the meeting room during the exchange of the desks.

Going into the adjoining office she turned round at the door. “Oh, have you got that speech ready? I don’t want anything long. Just a little talk.”

“I thought you wouldn’t want it till Thursday,” Liu answered.

“I’d like to go over it first, just to see that the Standpoint is correct.”

“All right, It’ll be ready in a minute. I’ve got most of it down.”

While he was putting finishing touches to the speech Ya-mei was to give to the Women’s Association of Hsüchiahui, Chang whispered jokingly, “Can’t do without you for a minute. Be careful. The boss might get jealous.”

“My colleagues might—before my boss does,” Liu thought. He was going to say something deprecatory about his being just an errand boy, but any such remark was almost certain to get repeated to Ya-mei. He just smiled bleakly in answer and let Chang think that he was well-pleased with himself.

LIU WENT
into the next room with the script of the speech. The Ts’uis’ combination bedroom and office was a large, confusing place, with a jumble of worn red leather armchairs, dark oak desks, swivel chairs and filing cabinets. A washline stretched slanting down from the steam pipes to the handle of the unused ice-box, a Westinghouse, that stood beside the double bed.

Ya-mei was over at her desk telephoning. Ts’ui was lying on the sofa reading the evening newspaper with one leg swung up, stepping barefoot on the cool plastered wall. A woman Service Officer, an amah in her Liberation Suit, was holding the two-year old boy, poising his little bottom in the air, above the white enamel chamber pot. Another woman Service Officer squatted before a little charcoal stove, fanning the tiny fire with a newspaper. Something was cooking in a red-flowered enamel basin covered with another wash basin turned upside down over it. This family had an air of camping out and making the best of things with veteran resourcefulness. There was also a kettle of water sitting on a hot plate, its wire trailing across an expanse of empty floor. The dusk was growing outside the window and the light was on. The scene looked quite unreal in the golden gloom of the lamplight.

After Ya-mei finished telephoning she took the paper from Liu and pored over the speech, her forehead knotted in an automatic frown. She tended to be difficult on such occasions.

“Can’t you put in some figures?” she asked. “I thought the papers are full of them. We want more facts here and less theory.”

The last time he had put in statistics she had had difficulty in translating the number of digits into ten thousands, hundred thousands and millions and had resented being straightened out. Now she would cut him short by suddenly discovering some “serious political error” somewhere.

“Not so many difficult words,” she said. “You must remember these women I’m addressing are mostly factory girls and housewives. Their Standard of Culture is very low. Very low.”

Liu rather suspected that she could not pronounce such words herself. He had tried once before to put it all down in plain colloquial language. But she had pointed out that over-simplification could be a form of distortion and might cause misunderstanding among the simple-minded. Still, she had delivered that speech just as it was.

Fortunately for Liu, she now started to talk about the women who would be in the audience. The suburbs being more backward than Shanghai proper, the women there were extremely ignorant and oppressed, she said. But the Association was doing great work among them.

“I’ve been telling A Ching here to go to the Women’s Association in her alley,” she said, pointing to the young amah fanning the stove. “Her husband ill-treats her and takes away every cent she earns. And her mother-in-law is always trying to get them to quarrel.” She launched on the woman’s life story. She spent interminable hours talking to each new amah, cross-questioning them about their birth place, their father’s occupation, how many people in the family, how they got married, and all about their husbands and in-laws. All the amahs were screened before they were taken on. Ya-mei was merely idly probing around as a matter of interest—just
la, la
.

“A Ching, don’t be afraid to expose your husband,” she paused to admonish the woman. “Nowadays the poor have Turned Over and the women have Stood Up! Don’t be afraid, the Masses are right behind you! The Women’s Association will give him a good talking-to. They’ll win him over, don’t worry. And if he’s going to be a Fort of Bigotry you can always get a divorce.”

A Ching listened politely, her mouth hanging open in what was meant to be a smile. Her pale, heavy face seemed impregnable. But then they always looked dubious, Liu thought, even if they were quite ready to act on your advice. You never could tell. The thing was just to ignore them and say your say, loudly and over and over again, as Ya-mei was doing. He supposed it would never do for a propagandist to be too sensitive.

“Her husband keeps telling her she’s sold to his family,” Ya-mei told Liu. “Just because her family got thirty dollars from them as a betrothal gift.—It won’t do now to have such feudal ideas! Not after the Liberation! The women have Stood Up now!”

She went over the story several times, returning to every forgotten detail, and interrupting it with endless exhortations and explanation, partly for Liu’s benefit, it seemed. He had the feeling that she thought she was helping him to make Progress as she had promised. She was holding a little glass with her back to the tall window. All the lights of the city had blinked on in the diluted purple-gray twilight, the color of grape juice stain. Traffic noises floated up softly. The small clear jangle of a tram bell came through the partly open window. Liu wondered how he had ever got up here, in this gray disordered room in a skyscraper. The hum and stir of the city down below filled him with an impatience close to fear. Time seemed to go faster in the world below and would not wait for him.

Ts’ui had not said a word or paid the least attention to him all the time he was in the room. He had just lain there reading the evening paper. Could it be, as Chang had said a while back, Ts’ui was getting jealous? It was ridiculous, but it was just possible Ts’ui did not like to have him around so much. Liu was determined to get away at the first lull in Ya-mei’s story-telling, and he did.

There was to be a meeting after office hours. Liu’s unit was supposed to get together with another unit for the Cross-Flow of Experience. But as usual nobody was on time. After waiting around for a while in the meeting room, watching the clock, Liu slipped back to his office to work on the photos. The next day was the deadline for the
China Pictorial
to go to press.

He was alone in the front office. It was so quiet it gave him a slight turn when he heard Ya-mei speaking in the next room. The doors were never shut tight. She was speaking to Ts’ui and there was a quietness in her voice which showed that they were alone.

“You’re worried again,” she said. “I can see you’re worried.”

When he did not answer she said, “Well, don’t mope. Let’s practice again.”

“All right,” Ts’ui said gloomily.

Liu was astounded to hear rapid kissing noises. He supposed that they must have taken for granted that there was nobody in the room outside, as it was after hours. He ought to get away at once before he was discovered. But for a moment the shock pinned him to his seat. As they do to all romantic young men, most married people looked humdrum to him and not the least bit in love with each other. Certainly the Ts’uis had never struck him as a particularly amorous couple.

“Let’s begin at the beginning,” Ya-mei said, giggling a little.

There was the sound of footsteps, which broke into a run as they approached each other. Promptly the staccato kissing sounds began again, in pairs. Then Ya-mei gave a half-playful little shriek of pain.

“If you’d been wearing glasses they would have been knocked off,” Ts’ui said dispiritedly.

“You always think of the most awful things.”

“A lot of them do wear glasses,” Ts’ui said. “I’ve seen pictures of them taken in Peking.”

It dawned on Liu that Ts’ui was practicing for the party to be given for the World Youth Delegates. Liu had heard that all the delegates had been greeting everybody with spontaneous bear-hugs and lightening kisses on both cheeks, Russian style.

“The important thing is to smile,” Ya-mei said. “Don’t look so grim. Smile!”

“And get my teeth knocked off? And somebody’ll get bitten on the face.”

“Ai, those foreigners!” Ya-mei sighed. “Must be worse for them than for us. So much more nose to bump into. It’s just that they’re used to it, I suppose.”

“What gets me is this swinging your head right and left, right and left, you get so dizzy,” Ts’ui said. “A few times is all right, but with fifty people grabbing at you, one after the other—I guess I’m too old for this sort of thing.”

“If you were old the Organization wouldn’t have you at a meeting of World Youths,” she answered. “The Organization ought to know.”

Her reasoning must have reassured Ts’ui, though he still sounded gruff when he said, “Well, let’s have another go at it.”

But this time the hurried smacks had scarcely begun when Ya-mei screamed. For a while neither of them spoke.

Then she said, “I’m never going to practice with you again.” She seemed to be crying.

“All right. Never mind,” Ts’ui said.

“And you’re not going to practice with anybody else either.”

“But—with men,” Ts’ui said patiently. “With men.”

Liu did not stay to hear the rest of it. As it was he was very lucky that nobody had seen him in the front office. If the Ts’uis got word of it, they would think he was eavesdropping.

The meeting had been scheduled for half past six. It was past seven now. Only two people turned up from the other unit. Chang was napping, bending over the table. To avoid talking, Liu also pretended to doze off in his chair.

He knew it was no laughing matter, Ts’ui’s practicing. If he was clumsy or seemed lukewarm in the mob kissing scene he would have lost face for his country and his Party in front of international friends. His career would suffer for it in spite of his long Revolutionary History. Liu felt a little sorry for him.

After ten or twenty years of roughing it and deliberately dropping all his manners, he was now required to turn suave overnight. Then Liu could not help thinking: since it was so difficult for men like Ts’ui to adapt themselves, why not skip the intermediate phase of rustication and let young men like himself come out front and face the world?