The Bridegroom: Stories

Alive

Liya’s letter threw her parents into a quandary. She informed them that she had been admitted by Sunrise Agricultural School in Antu County, to specialize in veterinary medicine. They didn’t mind her pursuing that profession. What worried them was that with a diploma from such a school she might remain in the countryside for good, as an educated peasant.

For three days her father, Tong Guhan, didn’t know what to write back to her. He wished she could have returned to Muji City. If he could have found her a job here, he would tell her to forget about the agricultural school. On the other hand, the admission promised better employment and could take her away from the chicken farm where she had worked for three years. Should he tell her to go to the school? Or should he let her wait for an opportunity to come back home? He was torn by the dilemma.

“Dad, why don’t you apply for a new apartment?” his son, Yaning, asked at lunch.

“It’s not the right time yet,” said Guhan. “Don’t worry about that. If everything works out all right, we should have another apartment soon.”

“I can wait, but I don’t know how long Meili can wait.” Yaning dropped his bowl on the table with a thump, his face twitching. He and Meili couldn’t marry because there was no housing available, though they had been engaged for four years.

His mother, Jian, put in, “Yaning, be patient. Tell her to just wait a few months. When your father becomes the vice director, he’ll ask for a new apartment. They’ll give us one for sure.” She peeled a green leaf off a lettuce, dipped it into the fried soy paste, and put it into her broad mouth.

“I don’t know.” Guhan sighed, twisting his mustache with his fingers, and his close-set eyes squinted at Yaning.

He was sympathetic to his son, whose facial tic made it harder for him to keep a fiancée. If their one-room apartment were larger, he would have let the young couple marry and move in, but there was no extra space for them. An ideal solution would be for him to get another apartment, one of those built recently near East Cannery, where he led the Packing Section; then he could give this old apartment to Yaning, whose work unit, a bookstore, was too small to own any residential housing. What prevented Guhan from applying for an apartment now was that he might be promoted to vice director of the cannery, and any selfish act at this moment might cause animosity among the staff and workers and upset his promotion. His superiors had already assured him that he was the strongest candidate for the position because he had a college degree.

Tong Guhan was a simple man, not very interested in power. But recently he realized that if he were the vice director, he could have moved into a new apartment long ago and said to his son, “Prepare for the wedding!” and he could also have written to his daughter, “Forget veterinary medicine and come back home. I’ll get you a residence card and find you a good job here.” Obviously the solutions to both problems depended on whether his promotion would materialize in time. These days he became anxious. Every morning, when watering the violets, cannas, roses, and cyclamen in his tiny backyard, he’d pray in silence that today he’d be officially notified of the promotion.

It was a sunny day. Buildings, trees, electrical poles, and kiosks were still wet with rainwater; the night before, a thunder shower had poured on the city. The blue trolley-bus Guhan was taking to work was full of passengers, wobbling along River Boulevard like a boat sailing through a harbor. The sunlight slanted in through the trolley’s windows, shining on people’s faces and the backs of the imitation-leather seats. Guhan let both arms, thin and swarthy, remain basking in the sun. He hoped the previous night’s lightning had not damaged the ice-cabinets in his workshop.

On arrival at the cannery, he ran into Fei, a spindly young man who had recently joined the Party. “Good morning, Old Tong,” Fei greeted him pleasantly, his round head tilted to one side. “Did you have a good bus ride?”

“It was all right,” Guhan replied lukewarmly.

“Director Li wants to see you.”

“About what?”

“I’ve no idea.”

Guhan disliked Fei, who seemed too clever and oily. It was rumored that Fei would lead the Packing Section if Guhan left for his new position. The warmth Fei exuded made Guhan feel that the young man couldn’t wait to take over.

He went to Director Li’s office in the back of the factory building. At the sight of him, Li poured him a cup of green tea from a tall thermos bottle and said, “Old Tong, Secretary Liu and I want you to take a trip to Taifu City.”

“What for?”

“To get our money from the coal mine.” Li winked. His eyes were so big that some workers called him Director Ox-Eyes behind his back.

Guhan had heard of the debt. Knowing he had no choice, he said, “Of course I’ll go.”

“You’ll represent our factory as our vice director. I hope they’ll pay us this time, otherwise we won’t be able to operate next year. The apartment building has gobbled up most of our funds.”

“I’ll try my best, Director Li.” Guhan’s face brightened at the mention of his new title.

“I wish you luck, Old Tong. Be stubborn with them.” Li gave him a meaningful look and tapped his cigarette over the ashtray on the desk, revealing the stump of his third finger lost in the Korean War.

Guhan realized the trip was meant to test his ability as a factory leader. Two years ago the coal mine had bought twenty-four tons of canned food from East Cannery, but to date, though dunned every month, the mine hadn’t paid a fen. Despite knowing it was a difficult mission, Guhan dared not show any reluctance in front of Li. He told himself, If they don’t pay the debt this time, I won’t come back. He believed the trip might either finalize or cancel his promotion.

That evening, after dinner, his wife sewed into his underwear a secret pocket in which he could carry cash and national food coupons. Unlike other women in the neighborhood, Jian had always been a housewife ever since they married. Guhan had never cursed or beaten her; for that he was respected by their neighbors. Jian asked him repeatedly when he’d be back, saying she’d miss him, but he couldn’t give her a definite date. He said, “Don’t worry. I can take care of myself. I’ll come back soon.”

One morning in late July, after an eleven-hour train ride, Guhan arrived at Taifu. That very afternoon he went to the coal mine, but found only a few clerks in the office building. An accident, a cave-in, had occurred in a tunnel, and all the leaders had gone to the scene.

The next morning he again went to the office building, which was a two-story manor, constructed of black bricks and red tiles, its doors and windows painted sky blue. On both sides of the front entrance stood a few sunflowers, heavy-headed, soaked with dew, and facing southeast. Several bumblebees were humming among the yellow, toothed petals, darting about. Guhan nodded at the guard, who remembered him. He went up the iron stairs that led to the main office. Manager Ren, a stout man with a double chin, received him. He had heard of Guhan’s previous visit, and after an exchange of greetings, he said they’d wire the money to East Cannery soon.

“How soon?” Guhan asked, taking a puff of a Winter Jasmine cigarette while his other hand fingered his lighter.

“In a week or so.”

“Manager Ren, could you give me a written statement confirming that? Otherwise I won’t be able to go back.”

Ren shook his head and sighed. “We really don’t have a set date. Sorry, I cannot give you a written statement, Director Tong.”

“You see, we’ll go bankrupt if you don’t pay us soon. We owe a construction company thirty thousand yuan, but our coffers are empty. They’re going to sue us if we don’t pay them within a month.”

“Well, fact is I can’t decide this matter by myself. We’ll have a meeting to discuss it.”

“All right, in that case I’ll wait here, at the inn. When will you let me know your decision?”

“Why don’t you go back to Muji? We’ll send you an official letter in a couple of days.”

“I was instructed not to return without the money.”

Guhan was prepared for the difficulty, so he was not deterred by Ren’s equivocal responses. Before leaving, he told the manager that he would have to come back the next day. Ren grimaced, scratching the back of his ear.

The following afternoon Guhan went to the mine’s office building again, but Manager Ren was out visiting the injured workers at the hospital. He left Ren a note, begging him to cherish the friendship between the mine and the cannery and clear up the debt without further delay.

With heavy legs, he returned to Anti-Imperialism Inn. The inn was a pleasant place, compared with the drab surroundings — hillsides spotted with the dark mouths of tunnels, coal piles here and there accompanied by the skeletons of cranes and conveyers, and trains crawling about like giant caterpillars. It consisted of four brick houses that formed a large courtyard, in which there was a small well topped with a winch. A dozen apple trees stood on both sides of the path that divided the yard in half. A few small cages, made of cornstalks, containing grasshoppers and cicadas, hung under the eaves of the northern house. Two or three pieces of radish greens were stuck into each cage — food for the insects, which, when evening settled in, would start chirring. Their metallic chirrups would continue until midnight.

Guhan caught Manager Ren the next day. This time Ren told him frankly that the mine didn’t have the cash to square the account, so they decided to pay the cannery with coal instead. “The best anthracite, at a twenty-percent discount,” Ren said, fanning his face with a large clipboard, as if both parties had already agreed to the settlement.

This was absolutely unacceptable to Guhan. The cannery didn’t need so much anthracite. Besides, how could they transport the coal to Muji? Railroad wagons, rationed by the state, were unavailable. Even if they managed to ship the coal back, there would be no place in the cannery to store the six hundred tons. So, Guhan resolutely refused the offer. Frustrated, he threatened that his factory would sue the mine.

Manager Ren replied helplessly, “What else can I say? Even if you beat me to death, I can’t come up with any cash. You can’t squeeze any fat out of a skeleton. We just had a terrible accident, you know that, and all our savings have gone to the medical bills.”

Go bankrupt! Guhan said mentally.

That night he wrote to his daughter, telling her to accept the admission to the agricultural school. By now he had become uncertain whether he’d be promoted to vice director, since it was unlikely he could fulfill his mission. He should at least let Liya get off the chicken farm; as for her return to the city, there might be some opportunity in the future.

It was sultry that evening. A few drops of rain fell; stars were unusually bright, piercing the thin mist in the sky. Despite the heat, Guhan went to bed early, having drunk three cups of sweet-potato liquor at dinner. His two roommates were with other tenants in the courtyard, where they were watching the well, which had somehow begun spouting water. A narrow ditch had been dug to drain the yellowish stream out into the street. Before Guhan went to sleep, some startled horses broke into neighing outside the inn and galloped away toward the railroad in the south. Many tenants went out to have a look, but Guhan was too tired to get up. Soon he fell asleep.

At about four o’clock the next morning, suddenly the room started trembling and jolting. A male voice yelled in the corridor, “Earthquake!” Guhan opened his eyes and saw the beds colliding — one of his roommates was flung up, crashed into the wall, and dropped on the cement floor. Instantly the man ceased making noise. Guhan jumped up and rushed toward the window, but the floor was shifting back and forth like a sieve; his legs were twisting as though shocked by electricity, and he was thrown down. He managed to sit up, then the room began swaying like a boat caught in a storm. Things crashed against one another while the roof was crackling. The ceiling fan fell to the floor, and thermos bottles, lamps, coat trees, chairs, and tables were flying about. Unable to get up, he tried crawling to the window. A jolt from below shot him upward and tossed him out of the room. With a crash he landed in a puddle, covered with bits of glass. Meanwhile, a chimney tumbled down the roof and crashed to the ground; a large brick hit his left wrist and smashed his Seagull watch. “Ow!” he yelled, holding his broken wrist, and rolled toward one of the apple trees, which all seemed to be capering about, their branches sweeping the ground right and left like brooms. It was bright everywhere as if in daylight; colorful flashes streaked across the sky, which turned now red, now pink, now blue, now silver, now saffron, now green. A long orange ribbon blazed in the air as though a set of power lines had caught fire. Around him were dust, explosions, screams, the rumble of collapsing houses and buildings. A roar, like that made by a thousand old oxen together, was rising from underground.

When he finally managed to get to his feet by holding the trunk of an apple tree with his right arm, all the houses around were leveled. Streets disappeared, covered by rubble. The landscape had widened in every direction, and here and there more trees emerged. From beneath the ruins came muffled groans and cries. Somewhere a man yelled, “Help! Ah, help me!”

A little girl, who had also been thrown out of a house, shrieked, “Mom! Save my mom!” Her small hand was clawing toward the debris.

Apples dropped about Guhan, whose arm was still around the trunk of the tree. In the east, jets of muddy water were shooting into the air, about twenty feet high, and fireballs broke out like bombs in places. A gust of wind tossed over an intense smell of methane, as though the air itself were burning and exploding.

Guhan, wearing only his underwear, remained motionless, as in a trance; his upper body was so thin that all his ribs were visible. He tried to shout, but no sound came out of his mouth. The aftershocks shook the ground continually, so he dared not let go of the tree.

Soon he collapsed, feeling as though he were engulfed by darkness, sinking deep into the sea.

Toward midafternoon some soldiers arrived. They wrapped Guhan in a blanket and dragged him away. After a medic bandaged up his wrist and let him drink some water from a canteen, a young officer asked Guhan, “Can you help us distribute canned food?”

“Oh, help!” he screamed.

“Can you join us in the rescue?”

“Help! Save me!”

“He’s out of his mind. Take him away,” the officer said.

A soldier led Guhan to a crowd of children and lightly injured adults. Twenty minutes later they were put into three Nanjing trucks, which were going to a suburban area where help was available. On the way, all the adults were speechless, though time and again someone broke into sobs. A few children kept crying for their parents who had disappeared.

The sight of the destruction overwhelmed everyone. All the houses and buildings in view had collapsed; there was only a concrete smokestack standing upright like a gigantic gun pointing to the sky. An apartment building had fallen and rolled all the way down a slope and broken to pieces at the bank of a brook. Another building was cut in half, in one of its rooms a white sheet and a line of colorful washing still flapping lazily. Here and there were cracks on the ground, some of which were too broad for the trucks to cross, so the soldiers filled them up with rocks and wooden poles. Now and then they came on a flooded crater caused by a caved-in mine tunnel. At the roadside near a cemetery, a tractor, together with its trailer, was almost buried by earth and pebbles, as though a mouth had opened from underneath to eat it but was unable to swallow the whole thing. Beyond the tractor, more than half of the gravestones had toppled over in the graveyard.

When the trucks passed a column of green ambulances that were heading for the city and were loaded with soldiers gripping shovels, picks, and broad banners, two helicopters emerged in the sky. One of them went on announcing, “All citizens must abide by the law and help one another. Any looter caught will be executed on the spot.” Beyond the helicopters a plane was banking away and dropping boxes of food and bundles of blankets to the citizens, who were working in groups to rescue the survivors trapped in the ruins.

“What’s your name?” an army doctor asked Guhan two days later in a field hospital.

“Apple,” he answered.

“Where are you from?”

“Apple.”

“Where is your work unit?”

“Orchard.”

“What orchard?”

“Apple.”

“How old are you?”

“Apple.”

The doctor sighed, shaking his head, and said to a nurse, “Amnesia. Let’s hope he’ll get his memory back soon.”

A brief checkup showed that except for a broken wrist Guhan was physically well, though he had lost his mind, unable to remember anything before the earthquake. Because he had nothing but some cash and national food coupons on him — in his underwear — it was impossible to ascertain who he was. Among the refugees there was a small group of unidentifiables. One man remembered his name as Wenyao but couldn’t recall his surname or where he came from; several children had lost their parents and couldn’t tell where their homes had been.

Guhan was given a name, Sweet Apple, and was assigned to collect trash at the field hospital. Every morning he held a short shovel or a wicker basket and walked about the camp with Wenyao. Together they picked up scraps of paper, rags, broken bowls and bottles, animal and human feces. They then burned the garbage in a pit. Guhan didn’t enjoy the job, but he had no idea what else he could do. Everybody was too busy and too tense to complain. The medical staff worked around the clock, and the kitchen served free meals day and night. Group after group of injured people came and then left. Those who hadn’t been identified stayed, doing chores to earn their meals at the hospital, which remained the same — two dozen tents encircled by a barbed-wire fence.

Because of his carefree state and unlimited access to food, Guhan gained weight rapidly. A month later, when trees began shedding leaves and the millet fields nearby turned yellow waiting to be gathered in, he was no longer a skeletal man. Now he looked healthy and a little robust, his ribs covered with a thick layer of fat, and he wore the large-sized uniform. His wrist had healed. Still, he looked like a half-wit and would smile at every woman he met.

The hospital was ordered to return to Yingkou City before winter came. Guhan heard that bulldozers had finished dig-ging collective graves and burying corpses in Taifu, and that airplanes had sprayed enough insecticide over the city to wipe out the swarming flies and mosquitoes. Now construction workers moved in to replace the soldiers. Before the hospital withdrew, Guhan, along with the other unidentifiable ones, was handed over to the Administration of Taifu City.

There were too many homeless people for the city to take care of, especially the elderly and the orphans. As winter was coming, it became difficult for the citizens to continue to share tents and shacks. Most of them had been living in small groups, each of which consisted of several broken families. By October, many people had left Taifu to stay with relatives in other provinces; yet the quarter-million people who remained had to be accommodated properly. At the moment, most of the construction teams were busy building huts for schools, so that children would have temporary classrooms to study in during the winter. After that, more huts had to be set up for stores, restaurants, banks, inns, bathhouses, police stations. And although the residential housing did not take priority, it was crucial for the city’s stability. Therefore the newly formed City Administration encouraged people to work in teams to construct shacks for themselves for the winter, using the bricks, rocks, and wood left in the ruins, in addition to the building materials donated by other provinces. The Construction Bureau provided a few shacks as models, which were low-pitched and cozy inside and had roofs made of straw, reed mats, and tar paper. In mid-October forty thousand soldiers were sent in to help the civilians build residential shacks.

Meanwhile, another movement was also under way, which was called Form New Families. The authorities urged the thirty thousand people who had lost their spouses in the earthquake to marry again, as a way to promote social order and provide havens for homeless children and old people. The temporary orphanages and old-folks homes simply couldn’t take in so many of them. Soon a slogan began circulating among the survivors: “We must live on!” It not only silenced the voices against the family-forming movement but also helped bring around some of those who had made up their minds not to remarry. As soon as the residential shacks were built, branches of the Party, the Youth League, and the Union all set about matchmaking for the people who had lost their spouses. This undertaking proceeded nicely. Every weekend some group weddings would take place, at each of which more than a dozen new families were established — candies, dried dates and persimmons, roasted peanuts and sunflower seeds, and fresh fruits were supplied in washbasins. Every one of these families comprised at least three members, usually from three homes.

Since this was an emergency measure, love wasn’t always taken into account; so long as a couple didn’t dislike each other, a marriage certificate would be issued to them. People ought to help one another in such a situation. Also, these were men and women who were accustomed to family life and needed it badly; in their hearts there was the natural longing for such a union. We all know how miserable loneliness can be. Besides, there were two great incentives to an immediate marriage: the city promised to grant the newlyweds priority for housing when the apartment buildings were completed the next summer, and they would have an advantage over others for job assignments as well. Therefore thousands of people signed up for the family-forming movement. As long as you were healthy and normal, you were entitled to a spouse and a child or two, sometimes even to an old mother or father.

Already over fifty, Guhan no longer had strong sexual desires, but he was persuaded to help others and entered his name for a family. He looked like a normal man now, working as a clerk in the city’s waterworks, because his handwriting looked handsome and he could do sums. But it wasn’t a permanent job. Nobody knew who he was, and the authorities wouldn’t run the risk of employing a man with an unclear background. So he was on piecework, copying bills and numbers.

His bride-to-be, Liu Shan, was a small woman in her late thirties who had lost her husband and two daughters. When they met in an office in the Civil Bureau’s cottage, she didn’t ask Guhan any questions but just gave him a look. Her oval face was soft and smooth; her slight figure reminded him of a bullet, probably because she had sloping shoulders and wore quilted trousers.

“Do you agree to marry him?” an old woman cadre asked Liu Shan the next afternoon when the couple met in the office again. The bride-to-be nodded without a word.

Turning to Guhan, the official asked, “How about you?”

He gave her a big smile. She said, “You think you’re lucky, huh? Look how young and how pretty she is.”

He smiled again, and that settled it. With a flurry of writing she filled in a red glossy certificate for them. “Love and respect each other,” she said solemnly, revealing two broken teeth. “Com-rade Sweet Apple and Comrade Liu Shan, may you remain a devoted couple to the end of your lives.”

Compared with other men, Guhan wasn’t a bad choice; he looked gentle, strong, and well educated. To him, Shan was a fine woman. She worked as an accountant in a department store, so she must know how to manage money in a household; her voice was so quiet that she must have an even temper; her hands, small and slim, looked dexterous; her earlobes were thick, which was a sign of wealth. In a word, she seemed full of the makings of a good wife. The couple were assigned a new shack and a four-year-old boy named Mo, who would bring them an additional twenty-four yuan a month.

The wedding took place the next Saturday inside a large tent across the street from the Civil Bureau. Twenty-one couples, most of whom were middle-aged, became husbands and wives officially that evening. At the mouth of the tent two strings of firecrackers exploded; then the names of the brides and grooms were announced inside the tent. After a round of drums, pipes, gongs, and horns, together the couples sang “Even My Parents Are Not as Dear as the Party and Chairman Mao” and “Our Gratitude to the People’s Army.” Then a vice mayor, a spare man in steel-rimmed glasses, spoke briefly and gave them the city’s congratulations. After the speech, he presented to each couple the gift of a rice pot and a kettle.

However, the wedding wasn’t jolly and noisy, as weddings should be. Most of the brides looked rather somber; a few grooms stood motionless, their arms crossed before their chests, as though they were spectators. Some of them didn’t even touch the Great Gate cigarettes passed to them on plates. The air was hazy, humming a little; a dozen balloons were wavering languidly. Only a few children seemed in high spirits, seeing so many goodies on the folding tables.

“Happy marriage!” the mayor said loudly to Shan.

Shan’s hand trembled and she spilled her apple brandy. The wine stained the cuff of the mayor’s trouser leg and the head of his leather boot.

Guhan stepped forward and grasped her arm, saying with a smile, “Excuse us, Comrade Mayor. She has drunk too much.”

“I understand,” the leader replied unemotionally.

Hurriedly Guhan pulled his bride away. Among all the grooms he seemed the happiest. Some people shot sidelong glances at him.

Within just one hour, more than half of the couples had left. The band was packing up. An old man at the tea stand mumbled, “This is shorter than a breakfast. My seat isn’t warm yet.”

When Guhan and Shan returned to their shack, Mo had fallen asleep in Guhan’s arms. They took off the boy’s khaki jacket and pants and put him into the brick bed, which had been heated by an old woman from the Street Committee of the neighborhood.

Guhan sat down on their only chair and looked at Shan, who was washing her face over a yellow basin in a corner. Steam issued from her head, and her chest bulged a little in a red woolen sweater. Quietly he got up and went over. His palm touched the small of her back, caressing her while his stomach tightened.

She knocked off his hand with the wet towel and turned around, her eyes dim and a few tears on her cheeks. “Don’t touch me!” she cried.

“What happened?” he asked in surprise.

“I can’t do it tonight.”

“Do what?”

“You know.”

“Why?”

“I can’t.”

“Come on, I’ve been waiting for such a long time.” He grinned suggestively.

“I can’t do it.”

He kicked away the brand-new enamel chamber pot, which was a present from the Street Committee, and added, “Then why did you agree to get married?”

She turned to look at the sleeping boy, who didn’t stir. Lowering her head, she burst out sobbing. That frightened Guhan. He embraced her shoulders with one arm and asked rather gently, “What’s wrong, Shan? If you don’t want to, I can wait. Don’t be scared. I’m not a cruel man.” He kissed her cheek and noticed she had long eyelashes, which cast frail shadows on her lower lids.

“I’m not scared,” she moaned with her eyes shut. “I feel so sad, can’t shut my family out of my mind. I see him on your face. Even your voice reminds me of his. Oh, how I miss them! I don’t even have a photo of them.”

Guhan felt bad, but said, “There, now, don’t cry so hard. I’ll help you get over it.”

But her sobbing became unstoppable. She lay down on her stomach beside the boy and buried her face in a pillow. He wanted to console her some, but didn’t know what to say. Having sat in silence for a few minutes, he took off his clothes, climbed into his camp bed, and covered himself with a quilt.

She wept into the small hours.

Before the wedding, Shan had asked Guhan several questions, none of which he could answer. He couldn’t even tell her his exact age, just saying, “I’m around fifty,” or describe what his former family was like. “Probably he goes by an alias,” suggested Aunt Tian, who lived next door. Never had he shown any trace of grief over the loss of his family, whose other members, according to his words, had all vanished in the earthquake. More unusual, he always slept soundly, unlike other newlyweds who would weep or wail for hours during the first few nights. Maybe he hadn’t lost anything or anybody and was actually a gainer.

From the first day, Mo regarded Guhan as his uncle, but he called Shan mother. At night, he’d sleep with her, with his only toy, a MIG-15 jet fighter, placed beside his pillow. He had dark skin, his fat cheeks chapped. His hands and toes and heels were swollen with chilblains. Every night, Shan would wash and rub his hands and feet in warm chili water. The boy would whine with pain, but he allowed her to work on them. Soon scabs formed over Mo’s sores, and Shan kept telling him not to pick them so that they could heal quickly. By the official record, Mo’s father had been a truck driver and his mother a spinner; both had worked in a textile mill.

At a good meal, the boy could eat almost as much as Guhan could. Naturally their grain rations were not enough, and they had to buy some corn flour, rice, and sorghum at tripled prices on the open market. Yet Shan always let Mo eat as much as he wanted. She was a good cook and could make four dishes with half a pound of pork; she was also skillful with needles, her hands often busy knitting something — a sock or a hat or a glove. As Guhan had expected, she turned out to be a dutiful wife and never complained about housework. He felt lucky to have married her, though he was unsure whether he loved her; sometimes he preferred to stay a little longer at the waterworks at the end of the day. Unlike other couples, who would quarrel and fight during their adapting period, Shan and Guhan were very compatible and had none of those problems that many of the newlyweds accused their spouses of having, such as shrieking and kicking in their dreams, abusing children or parents, grinding their teeth at night, sleepwalking, having a bloody nose, or a gluttonous appetite, or bad breath, or underarm odor. Guhan smoked and liked to drink a mug of wine or beer at dinner, but that was normal, as other men did the same.

As it got colder, the three of them would crowd into the brick bed, which they didn’t have enough coal to heat. Every night they’d shiver together for an hour or two before falling asleep. Their only hot-water bottle was tucked under Mo’s feet.

Guhan liked the boy a lot, but he soon thought of having his own baby. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: every new couple were allowed to have one child of their own. Evidently there would be a baby boom in the city the next summer, since so many women were already pregnant. To Guhan’s dismay, Shan refused to go to the hospital and have the contraceptive ring taken out of her womb. She had just begun to feel comfortable in lovemaking, but she insisted she wasn’t ready for a baby yet. “Be patient, sweetheart,” she said to him one evening. “I’m still very weak. Next year we’ll try.”

“Next year I’ll be an octogenarian,” he replied peevishly.

“Come on, Apple, I still can’t stop thinking of my kids.” Her eyes turned red.

“All right, all right, don’t think of them anymore. We have this baby with us, don’t we?” He grabbed Mo and set him on his lap. The boy seemed to understand what they were talking about; he embraced Guhan’s neck tightly. Outside, an icicle fell to the ground, and the wind was screaming.

Though Guhan didn’t know his age exactly, he felt old, eager to prove he was still fertile. After a few fruitless attempts to persuade Shan to have the ring removed, he gave up, only hoping the policy on new babies wouldn’t change soon. This frustration made him treat Mo more like a son. He would buy him spiced beans, hawthorn flakes, baked sweet potatoes, ice cream bricks, and walnuts. The boy enjoyed riding on his neck to stores and open-air theaters; at dinner the two often shared a mug of wine. At long last, in mid-December, when Guhan bought Mo a wind-up torpedo boat, the boy began to call him dad. Guhan was so happy that he promised to buy Mo a pile of firecrackers at the Spring Festival.

On the whole, they led a peaceful life. The temporary Street Committee voted them a model family in January.

A week before the Spring Festival, the city was decorated with colorful lanterns, scrolls, bunting, and red flags, though a lot of rubble remained uncleared. These days, train after train of relief goods poured into Taifu; as a result, the citizens were allocated more meat, fish, fruit, eggs, and branded cigarettes for the festival than in other years. There were even some fresh vegetables on the market, like cabbages, turnips, spinach, bamboo shoots, cucumbers, garlic stems. Every family was given a coupon for one bottle of wheat liquor, but there was no limit on draft beer and wine. The supply of hard candies and pastry was abundant, too.

On his way home one evening, Guhan caught a whiff of fragrance in the air — something very familiar, like that of leek dumplings. It was an unusual smell for late winter, when leeks were hard to come by. As the aroma entered his lungs, a domestic scene suddenly opened in his mind. He saw a cheerful family making dumplings at a table — a slender girl in a pink apron was grinding a chunk of dough with a rolling pin, a young man was kneading together the edges of a wrapper with his fingertips, and a middle-aged woman stirred the stuffing in a porcelain bowl with a pair of chopsticks. A dizzy feeling surged in him, and he got off his bicycle and squatted down on the snow-covered sidewalk. As he sniffed the fragrant air some more, the domestic picture grew clearer. He lit a cigarette and focused his mind on the scene. Gradually their talk became audible. A male voice, somewhat like his own, said, “It’s time to heat water to boil the dumplings.”

That voice shocked him, though he couldn’t see himself in the scene. “No rush, Dad,” the girl said, clapping her floury hands.

Again he was surprised. Did she talk to me? he asked himself. Yes, it seemed so. Why did she call me dad? Was I her father? Who were they? Why did the young man look like me? Who was the middle-aged woman? Were they my family? Did I really have a family? Where did this gathering take place? And how long ago?

By instinct he followed the leek scent, which came from a hut about a hundred yards to the east. As he was walking, a sign emerged above the door of the restaurant: tasty dumplings. He hastened his steps toward the hut while his mind’s eye still observed the family scene. “Dad, you should put these in neat rows,” the young man said, lining up the dumplings. Those words shook Guhan and made him realize that the girl and the young man must have been his children. He froze, then turned a little, gripping the handlebars of his bicycle with both hands while his left shoulder leaned against the bole of a dried mulberry tree killed by the earthquake. A gust of cold wind passed by and made him sneeze and cough. As though the coughing had been meant to precipitate his recollection, picture after picture of his family came back to him — Yaning’s tic fits, the garlic eggplant Jian had pickled, the handsome shoes she had made out of pasted rags stitched together with jute threads, Liya’s sweet voice and thin braids, the tropical fish he had kept, as large as bats. He tried hard to control his emotions as he raised the door curtain and went into the restaurant.

He sat down in a corner and ordered half a pound of dumplings, which came in a white bowl with a blue rim. While he was eating, his memory was further revived and sharpened by the familiar taste of the stuffing, made of pork, leeks, cabbage, dried shrimp, ginger, sesame oil. Every bit of the memory became unmistakable now. He recalled that the family gathering had taken place on the Spring Festival’s eve two years ago, when his daughter had returned from the chicken farm and spent the holiday season in Muji. Leeks hadn’t been available in stores at the time, but he had obtained two pounds through the back door. He had done that mainly for Liya, because she, after a year in the countryside, had lost her appetite, grown emaciated, and suffered from low blood pressure. At his daughter’s name — Liya — he was suddenly overcome with self-pity and began weeping and sniffling, his tears dribbling into the tiny vinegar plate. None of the diners or waitresses took the trouble to console him. They were used to such an occurrence; every day there were a few customers who wept in here, especially those who ate alone.

From the family his mind moved to the cannery. He remembered that he had been a section leader in the factory and that people had called him Old Tong. His name was Guhan, not Sweet Apple. He had held a respectable position, giving orders to forty-eight people, unlike at his current job, where he merely copied names and statistics. What’s more, he had been liked by his workers, who had elected him an outstanding cadre every year. Oh, how he missed his wife and children. How warm and clean his home had been. How pretty those flowers he had grown in his yard. How he wanted to return to Muji and work in the cannery again.

When he finished eating, it became clear to him how he had been trapped in Taifu. What was to be done now? The question baffled him. He didn’t love Shan very much, but he had grown quite attached to Mo, whom he often carried in his lap when he bicycled around. He thought of secretly taking Mo with him back to Muji, but on second thought he realized the police could easily track him down if he had the boy with him. Besides, Mo had almost become Shan’s flesh and blood now; he shouldn’t rob her of this sole solace. Should he tell Shan everything? Would she believe him? Or should he inform the authorities of his real name and identity? Would they allow him to leave without a thorough investigation? No, they wouldn’t. They might demand that he be responsible and stay with Shan and Mo, at least for some months.

He walked all the way home, pushing the bicycle with one hand. As he was getting close to his shack, a miserable feeling again overwhelmed him. He crouched down and wiped his tear-stained face with handfuls of snow. He made up his mind to leave this hopeless place as soon as possible.

“Ah, there you are. How we were worried!” Shan said at the sight of him and rose to her feet.

“Daddy, I miss you,” Mo cried, placing his plump hand on his chest, and expected to be carried up.

Guhan bent down, kissed the boy on the cheek, and turned to Shan. “I don’t feel well,” he said, then went to bed.

“Don’t you want to eat dinner?” she asked. “I made twisted rolls, still warm on the stove.”

“I ate already.”

“Are you sick?” She came over and touched his forehead.

“I’m all right, just tired.” He avoided looking at her. “I’ll be fine tomorrow morning.” He felt like weeping, but he contained himself.

Together she and Mo resumed reading a story about how a pair of young bunnies outsmarted a gray wolf. Guhan had just subscribed to the children’s magazine Tell Me a Story for Mo. Two weeks ago Shan had begun teaching the boy how to read and do addition.

After midnight, when he was certain that Shan and Mo were fast asleep, Guhan got out of bed, left on the table the key to the bicycle and three ten-yuan notes — half his savings — and stuck into Mo’s pocket a thick pack of firecrackers that he had forgotten to give the boy. He put on his army overcoat and sneaked out. In the howling wind he set off for the train station.

Crowds of passengers were waiting for buses in front of Muji Train Station. Many of them wore fur coats. Soon Guhan began shivering, his cotton-padded overcoat unable to keep out the cold. Fortunately, after just an hour’s wait, he got on a bus bound for Victory District, where his home was. The bus was so packed that soon he felt warm.

When he arrived at his apartment, he was surprised to see that at the center of the door was a New Year picture, in which a fat baby boy was sleeping in a bean pod floating on a river. He stopped for a minute, wondering whether his family still lived in there.

Where else could they be? he thought. This is my home.

With a throbbing heart he knocked on the door. A moment later his son stepped out, rubbing his sleepy eyes. “Who are you looking for?” asked the young man, his left cheek twitching.

“Yaning, I–I’m your father!” Guhan moaned.

His son was taken aback, then looked at him closely. “Are you really my dad? He’s very thin.”

“Look at me!” He took off his felt hat; the morning sun flooded in through a window, glistening on his sweaty balding head, which sent up coils of steam. He said, “I gained some weight because I was sick after the earthquake and lost my memory for a while.”

Yaning recognized him and rushed over; father and son embraced, sobbing. Meili, his daughter-in-law, came out, wearing dark-blue maternity trousers, and she joined them in weeping. His family had thought he was dead. The memorial service had been held five months before, after the cannery notified the Tongs that he had vanished in the earthquake.

“Where’s your mother?” asked Guhan.

“She’s at Uncle’s,” his son answered, then turned to Meili. “Go tell her Dad is back.”

Meili put on a fur overcoat, then waddled away with her protruding belly to Gorki Street, where the uncle’s family lived.

Because the Tongs had believed Guhan was dead and they had been afraid the cannery would take back their housing, Yaning and Meili had gotten married a week after the memorial meeting and moved into the apartment. At the same time, Jian — the “widow”—went to stay at her brother’s, since she refused to sleep in the kitchen. Exhorted time and again by her friends and relatives, she had just begun looking for a man, a husband-to-be, so that she would again be able to live under her own roof someday.

The Tongs had made another decision that was sensible under such circumstances. Instead of going to the agricultural school, Liya had returned to Muji City; the cannery hired her, filling the quota left by her father; now she worked as a quality inspector in the lab.

Hearing Guhan had come back alive, his wife almost passed out. She cried, stretching up her bony hand, “Lord of Heaven, why are you so cruel to us? Why didn’t you let me know my old man was still alive? Or why didn’t you kill me instead? Where can I hide my face?”

Initially, on leaving Taifu, Guhan had planned to give his family a joyful surprise, but their joy was mixed with confusion, shame, and sadness. At dinner that evening, Liya kept blaming herself for returning to the city, while Yaning was crestfallen, having no idea how to accommodate his parents now. However, Guhan had a large heart and assured his children that everything would be all right and that the cannery might provide him with new housing, because this mess had been caused by nature and nobody should be responsible for it. He told his family, “I’ve worked for them for over twenty years, so I belong to the cannery. When I’m alive, I am their man; when I’m dead, I am their ghost. They have to take me. Don’t worry so much. It’s good just to be alive.”

But the next morning, when Guhan showed up at the cannery, he found his position already occupied by Fei, the young Party member; more surprising, there was a vice director now, who had been sent over by the city’s Light Industry Bureau. Obviously Guhan was no longer needed here. Heavens, in just six months he had become an unwanted man, as though he were truly dead, back as a mere ghost.

His reappearance shocked the workers and staff. Some of them gathered around him, listening to his story and telling him how heartbrokenly they had wept at the memorial service. They told him that twenty large wreaths had been placed on both sides of his portrait and that his wife had cried so hard her limbs had cramped. Now, who could imagine he was still alive! A few people went on asking, “Are you really Old Tong?” Two even touched his knees to make sure he was corporeal.

Both Director Li and Secretary Niu sympathized with Guhan, but they said the cannery couldn’t employ him anymore, for his daughter had taken the only quota available. They had managed to obtain the residence card for Liya mainly because they had named him a Revolutionary Martyr; otherwise the police would not have cooperated. As for additional housing now, it was out of the question. How could he think of such a thing when he no longer worked for the factory? If they had assigned him an apartment, how could they have appeased those employees in line for housing?

After a Party meeting, the leaders came up with a solution: they allowed Guhan to retire on a pension. He had no choice but to accept this offer. Since the Spring Festival was just two days away, his brother-in-law took him and his wife in. Yaning begged his parents to let him retain the apartment, saying they’d wreck his marriage if they drove his pregnant wife and himself out. So they allowed him to keep it; after the holiday, they’d have to search for housing for themselves.

Guhan became reticent and gloomy. He couldn’t resist wondering whether he should have stayed with Shan and Mo in Taifu and let people here believe he had left this crowded world for good.