Old Town (38 page)

When Baolan shouted out, “Ninth Aunt,” it took awhile for Second Sister to recognize her. “Baolan, are you a communist too?” Then she rushed over to Baosheng. “Your third uncle’s family has only this one daughter, Baolan. If…”

Baosheng laughed. “Ma, there’s no need for ‘if.’ This is Liberation now!”

“Liberation” was a new term. Second Sister pondered long and hard over what it might imply.

Ninth Brother couldn’t keep from bursting out laughing. “Look at you! Sleeping like that right from one dynasty to the next!”

She vaguely recalled—was it yesterday? Or the day before?—her drunk of a brother arriving to say that the communists had taken over Old Town’s government.

Baoqing guided his mother to a place where she could sit down. “Ma, good times, peaceful times, have begun. From now on you’ll never have to worry again.”

Baolan told her ninth aunt all about what happened the night before last out in the bay. “If Baoqing had not dropped out of the skies like that, I don’t know when I would ever have been able to see Ninth Uncle and Ninth Aunt again.”

Second Sister gave a stunned look at Baoqing. “What were you doing going out to sea? Heavens! If that boat had been unwilling to turn back…

Reaching beneath the table, Baoqing gave a few tugs on the end of Baolan’s jacket as he interrupted his mother. “Aren’t I all right now, sitting here right beside you, without having lost a single hair on my head?”

The children went on talking all about the new “dynasty.” She couldn’t understand what they were saying. After a while she felt sleepy again and started yawning. Ninth Brother led her to the bedroom to go to sleep.

All during that period, my grandmother suffered from what medical science calls “hypnopathia.” Day and night, she was overcome by an extreme lethargy. It was as if a machine that had been overloaded for a whole year long just fell apart the moment it stopped operating. When the doctor, my grandpa, was at wits end on how to deal with this, he just quietly took up doing the housework. He began by going into the kitchen to learn how to light up the oven. Later on, the breakfast we ate at home was always done by him, right up until that time of his life when he could no longer get out of bed. On the occasions when he had nothing in particular to do, he would sit by the bed gazing at his wife in her deep slumber. Scene after scene from the silent movies played before his eyes: Second Sister anxiously watching for that fat postman, Second Sister bearing up the young and the old of her family in their wartime flight, Second Sister standing on the ruins of the Lin ancestral residence, now destroyed by Japanese bombs. All this was another kind of exchange between him and his wife. His heart overflowed with love and gratitude.
Such a good woman…such a good wife. Thanks be for this favor from on high
. He began to think about which of them might leave this world first, and more than once with tears in his eyes did he say to his Heavenly Father, “If we can’t return to the Kingdom Come together as man and wife, then just let me go first.” A life without Second Sister was simply inconceivable for him. He begged his Heavenly Father to forgive his weakness and selfishness.

Grandma’s hypnopathia lasted until that year’s Mid-Autumn Festival. From the middle part of August when Old Town had been peacefully liberated, she was in her state of hibernation for more than two whole months. During this period, Dr. Lin reregistered his clinic business, Baosheng began work in the regional government as a political cadre, and Baohua passed her entrance exam at the teachers’ training college. Baoqing, who just kept on skipping grades, entered the commercial college—becoming the youngest student there in its entire history. The weather was favorable and crops were abundant. The beautiful peace of every aspect of Lin household life was more than they had imagined possible. Every day my grandmother and grandfather expressed their gratitude and blessings for the new society.

3.

O
N THE
MORNING
of the Mid-Autumn Festival, my mother, Baohua, her book bag on her back, passed the West Gate church on her way to school. As she had the habit of doing, she slowed her steps. Every day at this time the pastor’s wife would be in the yard clipping the flowers and plants in her garden and Baohua would always stand on the other side of the fence to greet Mrs. Chen.

“Good morning, Auntie!”

“Good morning to you, Baohua!” Mrs. Chen cut several gorgeous red roses and passed these across the fence to Baohua. “It’s Mid-Autumn Festival today. Here are some flowers for you to give to your teachers.”

Baohua brought the roses to her nose to smell their fragrance and as she looked up to thank her, suddenly her expression totally changed. She saw Huang Shuyi. Huang Shuyi was sitting on the steps of the church lost in thought. And right then Baohua also saw through the church window the form of Enchun quickly passing by.

So Enchun really had brought a daughter-in-law back home!
Baohua wanted to go in to confront and embarrass him, but she turned around and ran off.

“Oh, Baohua, your big brother Enchun is back. Come over this evening for a reunion dinner at Auntie’s house.”

The pastor’s wife had her head buried in the plants and flowers and she went on speaking for quite a bit before she realized that Baohua was nowhere to be seen. She stood up and gazed far off into the distance, then turned around and looked Huang Shuyi up and down.
The girl’s face has distress written all over it. Is she going to go on being so distressed and anxious?

The night before, Enchun had brought Huang Shuyi home with him and explained to his parents that the two of them were “comrades in the Revolution.” And as Huang Shuyi now had no home in Old Town, he asked if they could spare some small corner as a place where she might stay. In the middle of the night, Mrs. Chen heard the girl sobbing in the guest room. Carrying an oil lamp, the woman went to her son’s bedside. “Enchun, you and the girl Huang have been together in the Revolution for two or three years now. I know you have been together day and night. If you are guilty of any transgression, neither I nor your father will blame you for it. Only, you are going to have to take responsibility for your own actions. You have to be responsible for the girl Huang.” After a long pause, Enchun, his arms wrapped around his knees, replied, “Ma, I have committed no transgression, but my conscience tells me to reach out and help her. She is all alone in the world now. A year ago, the brother she most looked up to and loved died unjustly.”

“How are you thinking of helping her?” asked Mrs. Chen. “Will you marry her?”

Enchun gravely nodded his head. His mother left her son’s room and roused the pastor from his slumbers. Then the two of them prayed for Enchun.

They didn’t know all the ins and outs of what had happened, only that their hearts were filled with doubt and misgivings. From the very beginning these two children had risked their lives in joining the Communist Party. Now, to general acclaim, the Communist Party was in control of all under heaven. So why did these two now seem so care-ridden?

The whole West Gate neighborhood said that Enchun had done great things for the Communist Party. The pastor and his wife had not hoped their son would return to his home a high official and with all that went with it, only that he would be happy and at peace. But when they looked at his face they saw neither peace nor happiness.

Mrs. Chen had cut a few exuberant chrysanthemums and was going to call Enchun to go with them to pay a call on the doctor, when glancing around she saw Huang Shuyi wiping tears from her eyes.

“Shuyi, are you thinking of your family?”

Huang Shuyi looked blankly at her for a moment and then hastily wiping her tears with a handkerchief, said, “Oh. No.”

“From now on, Enchun’s home is your home too. His father and I will consider you our own daughter.”

Mrs. Chen put down the flowers and the clippers and was going to take the girl into a warm embrace, but to her surprise Huang Shuyi stood up with a cold and forbidding expression on her face. “Auntie, my parents belonged to the exploiting class. I and my older brother broke off completely from them several years ago. If they were still living in Old Town I would deliver them myself to the judgment of the people’s court.”

A shiver coursed through Mrs. Chen’s heart. She had by now realized that the new society talked about class struggle and she and the pastor were trying hard to understand this principle of the Communist Party. However, whenever they met with a specific example affecting someone or something, she still could not accept it. Now worry for her son began to grow in her. If he married this cold and rigid girl, what would his future be like?

The pastor’s wife did not pick up the chrysanthemums she had placed on the church steps but with a heavy heart just walked over to the doctor’s house. She forgot that she was a messenger of God. At this moment she was only an ordinary mother, a mother who saw the dangers latent in her son’s fate. A sense of wanting to help but being unable to do so bore down heavily on her.

The doctor’s clinic was very busy. Patients filled all the available space on the benches. Mrs. Lin had just gotten up and eaten breakfast and was beginning to feel tired all over again. The pastor’s wife sat at the Lins’ Eight Immortals table for a while. She mentioned Enchun’s return rather flatly and invited all the Lins to join in the reunion dinner and to enjoy the Mid-Autumn moonlight that evening in the churchyard. Mrs. Lin accepted enthusiastically. She didn’t see the worry or anxiety on Mrs. Chen’s face. How could there be anything to be worried about in these peaceful and prosperous times?

That day, Baohua skipped classes and just scuffled aimlessly along the streets, her book bag on her back. A thought grew in her mind, joint by joint, like spring bamboo shoots after rain, and was almost about to burst through her skull.
I’m going to leave West Gate, and I’m going to leave Old Town!

She went to the army recruiting office, right by the main gate of the city government at Drum Tower. Behind several long tables sat some soldiers. In front of each table stood a little card on which was written the name of a particular military region. She mingled with the bustling crowd of people there and lingered around the various tables: Nanjing Military Region, Changchun Military Region, Lanzhou Military Region…She had studied geography and she knew where these places were located within the territorial domain of China. The Xinjiang Military Region table had the fewest people of all standing beside it. Baohua stopped right there, quickly locating Xinjiang on the map spread out in her brain. Old Town was on the southeast coast, Xinjiang was on the northwest frontier. There was nowhere farther away than Xinjiang.

A worker in a military uniform said to Baohua, “Little girl, what grade are you in at school? How come you’re not there studying now?”

Baohua squinted angrily at him and kept on staring at the card on which was written “Xinjiang Military Region.” An irresistible mystique and allure caused a burning feeling in her chest. She imagined returning to West Gate in uniform and announcing to everyone that she was going with a great military force to Xinjiang! She saw Enchun’s glasses falling to the ground and one after another of the funny, wide-eyed and tongue-tied faces. This was the effect she craved, even in her sleep.

“I want to enlist,” Baohua said, enunciating each word clearly and distinctly.

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“Little girl, your revolutionary enthusiasm is extremely praiseworthy. But you’re too young. Study for two years more and when you’ve reached lower high school, then come back and talk about enlisting.”

Baohua said with great seriousness, “I am a student at the Teachers’ Training College and I want to be a soldier and go to Xinjiang!”

The three military people sitting on the other side of the table glanced at each other, and one of them, looking rather incredulous, slid a form over to Baohua.

Late in the evening, it was already very merry and lively in the churchyard. Dr. and Mrs. Lin had arrived neatly attired. Mrs. Chen had also invited some of the lonely old people of the neighborhood, including the rice shop boss and his wife. Baosheng and Baoqing had rushed over much earlier to see Enchun. Baohua’s absence went unnoticed.

The well-intentioned doctor was earnestly comforting the couple from the rice shop. He said the communists had come down to Old Town from the north for only a little more than a year. Now with the recovery of Taiwan clearly imminent, surely next year at this time their sons would be back home. Tears streamed down the face of the rice shop “boss-lady.” From the beginning she had been so afraid that the two sons would be beheaded for joining the Communist Party that day and night she never took her eyes off them. Who could have imagined that they would disappear overnight to Taiwan? My grandmother drank tea endlessly. She had to resist with all her might the urge to drop off to sleep. Baosheng and Baoqing crowded around Enchun for great long palavers. Neither of the two brothers realized that Enchun had just suffered a setback that would have been unbearable for any ordinary person.

Huang Shuyi shut herself up in the small room writing out the documents of her appeal. Earlier that day, she and Enchun had gone to the provincial government to find the local head of the Organization Department.
⁴⁴
Teacher Zhao, who had led them in their underground work, had given up his life in the cause of the Revolution, and now there was no one who could vouch for their earlier entry into the party. When Huang Shuyi mentioned her brother Huang Jian, the department head sternly admonished her to have faith in the party. He also said she would not be allowed to undertake the overturning of a verdict of a traitor. Huang Shuyi was not intimidated and when she caused a fierce emotional scene, he called in the soldiers on duty to escort her off the premises. Enchun urged her to see that the Revolution had succeeded. “Whether or not our own merits and achievements are recognized is not important. Compared to all those fallen martyrs we are already very fortunate.” Gnashing and grinding her teeth, Huang Shuyi stood by the side of the street and vowed that as long as she still had a single breath she would seek to rehabilitate her brother’s good name. At the time, she certainly had no idea that this litigation would become her lifelong work and that only after a full thirty-five years would Huang Jian’s name be engraved on the Remembrance Tablet at the Martyrs’ Cemetery.

Pastor Chen’s family still kept the traditions of old Beijing. Anytime there was a festival they wrapped dumplings. The steaming hot dumplings were now brought to the table and their open-air banquet commenced. In the moonlight, the little church courtyard immediately became still and quiet as Pastor Chen stood up by the dining table and said the blessing: “Dear Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for granting us this good life we have. And we thank you for this sumptuous feast…”