The Season of the Stranger (36 page)

“Then what is all that?” They listened to the mortars.

“I do not know,” Wu said. “Perhaps it is effective at midnight.”

“And perhaps it is not effective at all,” Girard said. “There has been nothing on the radio.”

“Who wants tea?” Cheng asked.

“I do,” Girard said.

“And I,” Wu said. The radio man and the telephone man nodded.

“Five,” Cheng said. He walked around the radio table and into the kitchen.

“Wait,” the radio man said. He brought up his hand and hunched forward listening. After a time he straightened and said, “They are attacking the western airfield.”

“How many?”

The radio man shook his head. “It did not say. The Nationalists have ordered three companies more to the airfield.”

The telephone man picked up the receiver.

“If you can hear this, the Communists must be able to,” Girard said.

The radio man nodded. The telephone man was talking.

“And the government can hear the Communists,” Girard said.

“You mean the Nationalists can hear the Communists,” he said, smiling. “Yes. It makes little difference.”

“Except that these orders may mean nothing. Each side falsifying, confusing the other.”

He nodded again. “I have thought of it,” he said, “but there is nothing I can do about it.” He swiveled in his chair and called over his shoulder, “A report that the western airfield is under attack. No details and no confirmation.”

The room quieted momentarily and then the talking went on louder. Girard saw Li-ling and she and the airport flowed together in his mind and tossed up an image: her father on the brown leather seat of an airliner, perhaps high over Nanking at this moment. She had not mentioned him; she must have known that he would go or was gone, and she had said nothing. Girard expelled smoke in a long sigh. That much was ended.

Cheng came back with a trayful of teacups. He distributed the cups and sat down.

“Yes,” he said, “I heard that the general in the City had agreed to surrender if the Communists would take his name from their list of war criminals.”

Wu looked up at him quickly. “That is not what I heard.”

“What did you hear?”

“I heard that he would surrender the City after a certain number of highranking people had been allowed to leave in safety. I heard that he would probably telephone the surrender order from the airfield and then leave immediately.”

“That is not what I heard,” Cheng said.

“It is more logical my way,” Wu said. “Nothing is left to faith.”

“It is not very logical at all if this report is true,” Girard said, motioning toward the radio set.

“You are right,” Wu said, “but the report is not necessarily true.”

“Perhaps,” Girard said.

“Perhaps we will have more news soon,” Cheng said. The mortars were still thudding.

“Perhaps,” Wu said.

“Perhaps,” Cheng said.

There were a hundred in the room at twelve-thirty, the smoke a blue mist, the noise rhythmic and piercing, when a man came in and pushed through to the radio table. His eyes were wide open and shining excitedly and he was rubbing his chin with one hand. “Is this true about the airfield?” He watched them expectantly.

“Is what true?”

“That it has fallen.”

They looked at one another. He saw the look and his face lost some of its glow.

“Where did you hear it?” the radio man asked him.

“Through the faculty,” he said. “They told us that the report came first from here.”

They exchanged looks again. The radio man grunted. “At eleventhirty we had a report that the Nationalists had sent three companies more to the airfield. We gave this report to the faculty. It seemed that the Communists were attacking. We told that too to the faculty. There has been no further news.”

The man was disappointed. The happy shine was gone. “I cannot understand,” he said. “The report was very definite.”

“Perhaps they had information from another quarter,” the telephone man said. “Although I do not see how.”

“There are soldiers here,” Girard said. “Perhaps it was they who heard.”

The radio man shook his head. “If they had heard, I would have overheard,” he said.

Some of the students had grouped around the table and were listening. The telephone man raised his voice. “A report that the airfield to the west has fallen. We think it is a distortion of the previous report that the airfield was being attacked. We have had no news here since the first report.”

Their voices thickened in speculation. Li-ling came through the crowd around the table and reached to the side for a stool and wedged it in next to Girard's. She sat there smiling up at him. “Exciting,” she said.

He grunted. “I hope it remains just exciting.” The cigarette smoke was burning his eyes.

The radio man was talking to the student who had brought the report. “Go back,” he said, “and when you meet people, tell them that we do not know. And tell them that if they distort what they hear, the truth will be lost in the distortions.”

“I will,” the man said. “But I cannot understand how it became so twisted.”

He stopped talking suddenly. They all looked sharply up, as though the heavy new booming were tangible and would be spilling through the doorways. For a moment there was nothing, and then there was another booming and a third and a fourth and the window glass rattled violently.

Then it was quiet again. No one moved. The cigarette smoke dipped and swelled.

“The big ones again,” the telephone man said. “It would be better to open the windows.”

At one-thirty the barrage stopped. They had been worrying about the railway line, hoping that it would go quickly and that they would be bypassed along the tracks. When the booming ended they quieted with it; they stopped whatever they were doing that might make noise, and they sat with blank eyes and tilted heads, as though the suddenly deep silence were a new sound and its identification of great importance. Then the mortars began again, light and slow after the artillery, and words and breath and a sneeze and the clink of teacups. An hour's breeze had cleared the smoke and Girard's eyes no longer hurt; the lights were brighter and the tea and cigarettes had a taste again. People moved; during the barrage no one had walked around the room, no one had left or arrived, and now it was as though they had come up from a region of heavy pressure.

There had been no new information. The radio man had heard commands and requests and acceptances and denials, but all three transmitters were still in operation and none of the unknown speakers had named a known place. The dean telephoned periodically and was told each time, “Nothing.” Girard did not want to talk about the railroad. Something in him needed quieting. He could feel the restlessness start at his fingers. He nudged Cheng and Wu and said, “What about a walk?”

Wu said, “If you like.”

Girard looked at Li-ling. She nodded. The four of them stood and Girard told the radio man that they would be back in half an hour. They went to the door. No one appeared to notice that they were leaving.

It was still strangely warm outside. Occasional lights looked out into the darkness. There were sounds around them, the sounds Girard had heard in the afternoon, and over them scattered voices carried. They walked north, toward the wall, listening. Passing the observatory they noticed lights and heard voices, and coming closer they saw soldiers. Through the window they watched an officer seated at a desk. His left hand held the telephone receiver to his ear and with a pencil in his right hand he scribbled rapidly. He looked nervous and angry.

They passed the observatory and continued to the wall. The darkness was complete. Still no one had spoken. They climbed a rockpile ramping to the top of the wall. They sat on the wall and watched the gunfire.

It came in flickers of light and bursting roars that raced rumbling to them out of the distance, a few seconds between the light and the roar and between the roar and the next flash. The shells were striking to the northeast, near Tsungchia-ts'un, and as they watched the shells came faster until the light of one flash faded into the light of another and the roar was uninterrupted. Girard looked at Li-ling and the two men. They were staring into the flashes, their mouths closed, their nostrils wide, their bodies motionless except for the heavy breathing.

Later he was not sure how much time they had spent on the wall. They were sitting in the same attitudes and their faces had not changed. Minutes, seconds, all intervals had been scattered by the flaring growl of the mortars. The flashes had moved southward. He wondered what they were doing, the people who lived in Tsungchia-ts'un, what was happening to their homes and their shops and their pigs and their children. Where would they be tomorrow, and what would they be. He watched the flashes. These men with the guns too. They have no control. They have no time for tomorrow. They are too busy trying to manage today, and failing, most of them. For how many of them is tomorrow an impossibility. It may be a fine day, with peace and sunshine. Tomorrow always is.

“What will happen now?” he said. He knew they would prefer not to talk but he was beginning to be tired of the dark silence and to feel a little strange.

There was a pause before they turned their faces from the north and looked at him.

“In what way?”

“The people,” he said. “The students.”

Cheng smiled in the flickering light and said, “We cannot be sure. But it will be better.”

Girard smiled back at him and said, “I have known for some time that you think it will be better. Now tell me how.”

Cheng rubbed his head. “I am not sure,” he said. “Food, for one thing. Its distribution.” He shrugged. “Why should you ask? You know what we have been saying for months.”

“I know,” Girard said. “But now the time is here, and the old questions come back.”

“None of this will happen tomorrow morning,” Wu said. “It will take a while.”

“It will. But what about the four of us, now? What happens to us?”

Cheng laughed. “We go on being students, but with a difference. We will have time for our work now.”

“You will not stop being political, though.”

“No,” he said.

Then Wu said, “No. For many of the students this is the end of the shouting. For Cheng and me it may not be. We are more interested in what is done than in who does it.”

“Then you will remain of the political opposition.”

“No,” he said, “or at least I hope not. I will not oppose improvement, and this will be an improvement. When it stops improving I will oppose it again.”

“Then you will not join them.”

“Yes. I will.” He was emphatic. “I will not promise them eternal devotion. But I will be with them.” He gestured. “It is not yet a matter of politics for us. It is a matter of improvement.”

“And you will work.”

“Of course. Many of us will work for the doctrines. But I will work for two things: a living standard, and order. When we have them both, there will be time to criticize and to worry about what people call freedom. Until we have them both, the country will remain helpless.”

“And the Russians?”

“I do not know,” he said. “I would not like to see them controlling the country. But they will not. There will be time later to worry about that. Look.” He pointed north. “We have time now only for that.” In his pause they listened again for the bursts. “When we have order and food we will have time to think of other things. After tomorrow we will all be working for order and food. So I will work and my people will work. And when they stop giving us the order and food that we earn, I will turn against them and my people will turn against them. And when we have enough order and food we will not need a political party. We will control the country ourselves, all of us.”

“He is right,” Cheng said quietly. “We will work. Many will work blindly and many will work alertly. But whatever the party calls itself, it cannot stop the people. The government that is dying is dying because it left the people and set itself up apart from them and had nothing further to do with them except to suppress them when they were in the way. The government that will be here tomorrow will be here because it is of the people and the people are of it. That is the difference, and that will continue to be the difference.”

Each of them thought his own thoughts for a moment, and then their faces swung back to the north again. Li-ling pressed his arm, and they watched the north in silence.

Later she touched his sleeve. “We will go back,” she said. They stood up and looked once more at the southward-moving lights, and then turned and climbed down the rockpile.

Li-ling and he walked slowly behind the others. When they passed the observatory he saw that she looked grave and calm. She knew that he was watching her; she turned her face to him and said, “I have been thinking about my father.”

He nodded. “I thought of him myself, when we heard about the airfield.”

“I suppose he is gone,” she said.

“I suppose he is.”

“Although he may have waited, hoping.” She pressed his arm again as they walked on. She said, “He was not one of us. I am not sorry that he has gone.”

“That night,” he said. “That night when we quarreled. You were right in a way. I did not know then. I think I am beginning to see it now.”

“Good,” she said. “But I am still not sorry that he has gone.”

They stopped and he took her face in his hands. “Are you really not sorry?” The breeze stirred her hair.

“Really,” she said. “I will live without him.” She waited and glanced away and said, “Something has happened to me because of you, and it has happened too well and too completely.” She looked again at him. “I can live without him. I do not need him. I am of myself, now, and strong. And I do not want you to go from me, ever, but I know that I could live even without you.” She looked bitter and happy. “You have done this to me.”