The Bridegroom: Stories

Flame

A letter was lying on Nimei’s desk. She was puzzled because the envelope did not give a return address. The postmark showed the letter came from Harbin, but she knew nobody in that city. She opened the envelope, and the squarish handwriting looked familiar to her. She turned to the end of the letter to see who the sender was. As she saw the name Hsu Peng, her heart began palpitating, and a surge of emotion overcame her. She had not heard from him for seventeen years.

He wrote that through an acquaintance of his he had learned that Nimei worked at the Central Hospital. How glad he was that he had at last found her. He was going to attend a conference at the headquarters of Muji Military Sub-Command at the end of September. “For old time’s sake,” he said, “I hope you will allow me to visit you and your family.” Without mentioning his wife, he told Nimei that he had three children now — two girls and one boy — and that he was the commissar of an armored division garrisoned in the suburbs of Harbin. In the bottom left-hand corner of the second page, he gave her the address of his office.

Nimei locked the letter away in the middle drawer of her desk. She glanced across the office and saw nobody, so she stretched up her arms. Again a pain tightened the small of her back, and she let out a moan.

It was already early September. If she would like to meet Hsu Peng, she should write him back soon, but she was unsure why he wanted to see her.

The door opened and Wanyan, a young nurse, came in. “Nimei,” she said, “the patient in Room 3 wants to see you.”

“What happened?” she asked in alarm.

“I’ve no idea. He only wants to see the head nurse.”

The patient in Room 3 was the director of the Cadre Department at the Prefecture Administration; he had been operated on for gastric perforation two weeks ago. Although he no longer needed special care, he had to remain on a liquid diet for at least another week. Nimei got up and walked to the door while slipping on her white robe. She stopped to pat her bobbed hair, then went out.

When she arrived at Room 3, the patient was sitting in bed, his shoulders hunched over a magazine, a marking pencil between his fingers. “Director Liao, how are you today?” Nimei asked pleasantly.

“Fine.” He put the magazine and the pencil on the bedside cabinet, on which stood two scarlet thermoses and four white teacups with landscapes painted on their sides.

“Did you have a good nap?” she asked, resting her hand on the brass knob of a bedpost.

“Yes, I slept two hours after lunch.”

“How is your appetite?”

“My appetite is all right, but I’m tired of the liquid stuff.”

She smiled. “Rice porridge and egg-drop soup don’t taste very good.”

“They’re not bad, but it’s hard to eat them every day. Can I have something else for a change?”

“What would you like?”

“Fish — a soup or a stew.”

Nimei looked at her wristwatch. “It’s almost four. It may be too late for today, but I’ll go and tell the kitchen manager.”

Director Liao thanked her, though he didn’t look happy, his thick-lidded eyes glinting as the muscle of his face suddenly hardened. Nimei noticed it, but she pretended she had seen nothing. Although one of the hospital leaders had informed her that the nurses should show special attention to Liao, she didn’t bother too much about him. There were too many other patients here. From the sickroom she went directly downstairs to the kitchen and told the manager to have a fish stew made for the patient the next day. Meanwhile, her mind couldn’t help thinking of Hsu Peng’s letter. She returned to the office, took it out of the drawer, and read it again before she left for home.

Walking along Peace Avenue, she was thinking of Hsu Peng. On the street, dozens of trucks and tractors traveled north or south, transporting lumber, cement, pupils, tomatoes, pumpkins. Even the vehicles’ blasting horns and the explosive snarls of their exhaust pipes couldn’t interrupt Nimei’s thoughts. Her mind had slipped into the quagmire of the past. She and Hsu Peng had been in love once. That was seventeen years ago, in her home village. After her father had died of tetanus, contracted in an accident at the village quarry, many matchmakers came to see her mother, intending to persuade her to marry off Nimei inexpensively. The widow, however, declined their offers, declaring that her daughter had already given her heart to a man. Most people believed her, because they often saw Jiang Bing, a young mess officer from the nearby barracks, visit her house on weekends. Each time, he’d arrive with a parcel under his arm, which the villagers knew must contain tasty stuff from the army’s kitchen. Behind dusty windowpanes numerous eyes would observe this small man appear at dusk, as though he were a deity of sorts, knowing the secret of abundance and harvest.

The villagers were hungry. Two years in a row, floods had drowned most of their crops. Dozens of people had died of dropsy in the village, where wails often burst out like cock-a-doodle-doos in broad daylight. So people thought Nimei a lucky girl, as she was going to marry an officer with infinite access to food.

Indeed, Nimei had lost her heart to a man, but he was not the mess officer. In secret she had been meeting Hsu Peng on the bank of Snake Mouth Reservoir on Tuesday afternoons, when she was off work from the commune’s clinic. He was a platoon leader and had graduated from high school — much better educated than most of the army men. Later, when her mother urged her to marry Jiang Bing, Nimei opposed her wish, saying she hardly knew him. She revealed to her that she loved another man, also an officer, but her mother was adamant and gruffed, “What’s love? You’ll learn how to love your man after you marry him. I never even met your father before our wedding.”

Nimei showed her mother a photograph of Hsu Peng and begged her to meet the platoon leader in person, hoping his good manners and manly looks might help dissuade her, but her mother refused. Meanwhile, the small mess officer came at least twice a week, as though he had become a part of the family. Every Saturday evening the widow expected to see him and find out what he had brought. Sometimes his parcel contained a braised pig’s foot, sometimes a bunch of dried mushrooms, sometimes a string of raw peanuts, sometimes two or three pounds of millet or sorghum. While most cauldrons in the village had rusted because there was little to cook, and while hundreds of people had faces bloated like white lanterns because they had eaten too many locust blossoms, Nimei and her mother never went without. Their chimney puffed out smoke on Sunday mornings, the fragrance of food drifting away from their yard, and children would gather along the high fence to sniff the delicious air.

Fully content, the widow was determined to give her daughter to Jiang Bing. One evening she wept, begging Nimei, “You must marry this man who can save us!” Out of pity and filial duty, the daughter finally yielded.

When she told Hsu Peng that she could not disobey her mother and had to marry the other man, he spat a willow leaf to the ground and said with a ferocious light in his eyes, “I hate you! I’ll get my revenge.”

She turned and ran away, tears stinging her cheeks in the autumn wind. Those were his last words for her.

Nimei had been married to Jiang Bing for sixteen years, and had left the countryside when he was demobilized, but she had never forgotten Hsu Peng’s angry words and his maddened, lozenged eyes. At night, awake and lonesome, she’d wonder where Hsu Peng was and what he was like. Was his wife kind-hearted and pretty? Did he still serve in the army? Had he forgotten her?

Despite thinking of him often, she had dreamed of him only twice. Once he appeared in her dream as a farmer raising hundreds of white rabbits; he looked robust and owned a five-room house with a red tiled roof. In her other dream he was gray-mustached and bald, teaching geography in an elementary school, spinning a huge globe. Afterward she was a little saddened by his aged appearance. But who wouldn’t change in seventeen years? Her own body was thick and roundish now, the shape of a giant date stone. There was no trace of her slender waist, admired so much by the girls in her home village. Her chin had grown almost double, and she wore glasses. What hadn’t changed was her sighing and murmuring in the small hours when her husband wheezed softly on the other bed in their room. What remained with her were Hsu Peng’s last words, which had somehow grown more resonant in her mind each year.

“Want some tea?” Jiang Bing asked Nimei.

“Yes.” She was lying on her bed with both hands under her neck. The room still smelled musty, though the windows had been open since she came home two hours ago.

“Here you are.” He put a cup of tea on the glass tabletop and walked out with a stoop. He went back to their daughter’s room to help her prepare for language and chemistry exams. The girl had not passed the admission test for business school the previous year, so this fall she would take exams for nursing school. In the living room, Nimei’s mother and her eleven-year-old son, Songshan, were watching TV, which was showing a kung fu movie made in Hong Kong. Their hearty laughter and the bleating music echoed through the house. Outside, a pair of caged grasshoppers were chirping languidly under the eaves, and the night air smelled of boiled corn and potato.

Why does Hsu Peng want to see me? Nimei wondered. Didn’t he hate me? Even if he no longer hates me, surely he must hate my mother and Jiang Bing. It’s good that they have never met. Why is he eager to visit me and my family after so many years? Does this mean he still has feelings for me? Eager to fan the old flame? If he knew what I look like now. .

She turned from side to side, wondering about Hsu Peng’s motivation but unable to guess. Then a thought, which had lurked at the back of her mind, came to the fore. Hadn’t he said he was a divisional commissar? He must be a general, a VIP. Did this mean he was going to flaunt his high rank in her face? Always so imposing, he hadn’t changed.

The image of such an important officer’s presence in her shabby house troubled her. In her mind’s eye she saw a brand-new jeep parked by their front gate. While the commissar sat inside the house, his chauffeur and bodyguards chatted noisily with the men and children from the neighborhood who gathered around the vehicle. This was awful, too shameful for her to stand. Her own husband was merely a senior clerk in the General Service Section of the hospital, his civilian rank equal at most to a battalion commander’s. If only Jiang Bing had held a position one or two ranks higher. Such a useless man.

On the other hand, Hsu Peng’s presence in her house could produce a positive effect. After he left, she would reveal to her mother who this general was. His visit would impress the old woman and make her understand what an unforgivable mistake she had made in forcing Nimei to marry Jiang Bing. It was time to teach the crone a lesson, so as to restrain her from nagging incessantly.

Without telling anybody, Nimei wrote Hsu Peng back the next day, saying she and her family would be glad to receive him. She gave him her home address, including the directions, and proposed a tentative date. She even wrote, “For old time’s sake, please come to see me. I miss you.” On the lavender envelope she pasted a special stamp, issued to celebrate Youth Day, on which a young man tapped a tambourine and kicked the heels of his boots while a girl whirled around, her head thrown back, her numerous braids flying.

At noon, Nimei observed her face in the bathroom mirror on the third floor of the medical building. Gazing at her dim, myopic eyes, she sighed, wiping her glasses with a piece of tissue. Somebody flushed a toilet in a stall, the throaty noise drowning out the mechanic hum of the ventilators. You have to do something about yourself, she thought. Remember to dye your hair. Also, you must lose some weight. You look puffy.

The young nurse, Wanyan, reported that the patient in Room 3 had complained about the fish stew at lunch. She said with a pout, “He’s so hard to please. I wonder why his family doesn’t come to see him.”

“His family’s not in town,” said Nimei. “I guess his wife must be too busy to care for him. She’s an official in Tianjin.”

“What should I say if he grumbles at me again?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll talk with him and see what I can do. By the way, Wanyan, may I ask you a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Can you help me buy five hundred bricks from your brother’s brickyard?”

“Are you going to build a coal bunker or something?”

“No. My yard always turns muddy when it rains. I want to have it paved before National Day.”

“All right, I’ll talk to my brother.”

“Could you ask him to give me a discount?”

“You can probably use some half-baked bricks. Much cheaper, you know — just four fen apiece.”

“Wonderful. Ask him to get me five hundred of those.”

Nimei went to Room 3. At the sight of her, Director Liao blew his nose into a crumpled handkerchief and began complaining about the mackerel stew, which he hadn’t been able to eat. He disliked saltwater fish except for shrimp and crab. Nimei explained that the kitchen manager said that only mackerel and yellow croaker were available. But she assured Director Liao that she’d try her best to find freshwater fish for him.

Shaking his balding head, the patient snorted, “I can’t believe this. Muji City is right on the Songhua River and there are no freshwater fish here.”

“I promise I’ll find fish for you, Director Liao,” Nimei told him.

“Well, I don’t mean to claim any special privilege.”

“I understand.”

That evening Nimei talked with her husband about the patient in Room 3. She wanted him to go to the riverside the next morning and buy a carp, not too big, just a three- or four-pounder. Jiang Bing felt uneasy about her suggestion because carp were expensive these days and few people could afford them. A four-pounder would cost a fifth of his monthly salary. But Nimei said that he shouldn’t worry about the money, and that whatever he spent for the fish would come back to him eventually.

“Trust me,” she told him. “Go buy a carp. Stew it tomorrow afternoon and take it to my office. It’s for yourself, not for me.”

He dared not argue more, remembering that she had once burned three ten-yuan notes because he was going to buy her mother an expensive fur coat. He’d had to wrestle with her to rescue the rest of the money. So he promised to get the fish.

The next morning Nimei got up early and went jogging on the playground at the middle school nearby. For the first time she put on the rubber sneakers her husband had bought her three years ago. Jiang Bing was pleased to see that at last she began to take care of her health. Time and again he had advised her to join him in practicing tai chi on the riverbank in the morning with a group of old people, but she disliked “the shadowboxing,” which looked silly to her, like catching fish in the air. That morning Jiang Bing went to the riverside with an enamel basin, and he stayed there for almost an hour exercising and chatting with friends, but he didn’t find any carp for sale. Instead, he bought a three-pound whitefish, which he carried home and kept alive in a vat of rainwater. Songshan fed the fish a piece of pancake before setting out for school.

Jiang Bing didn’t take a break at noon. After lunch he returned to his office immediately and resumed working at account books. He left work an hour and a half early. The moment he reached home, he put on his purple apron and began cooking the fish. He scooped it out of the vat and laid it on the chopping board. It writhed, its tail slapping the board noisily, its mouth wide open, as though it were trying to disgorge its innards. He struck it three times with the side of a cleaver. The fish stopped wiggling.

Having scaled and gutted it, he rinsed it twice with clean water. He heated half a wok of vegetable oil on a kerosene stove and put in the fish to fry for a few minutes. Meanwhile, he chopped its gills and innards to bits for the chickens and then washed clean the knife and the board.

The deep-frying had gotten rid of the fish’s earthy smell. Next he boiled it in plain water. As the pot was bubbling, he sliced a chunk of peeled ginger, diced a thick scallion, crushed four large cloves of garlic, poured half a cup of cooking wine, and took out the sugar jar and the sesame oil bottle. He used a scrap of newspaper to get a fire from the stove and lit a cigarette. Sitting on a bench and waving a bamboo fan, he gave a toothy smile to his mother-in-law, who had been watching the boiling pot with bulging eyes. Not until the broth turned milky did he put in the spices and the vegetables, all at once. After adding a touch of salt and a spoon of sesame oil, he turned off the fire, ladled up a bit of the soup, and tasted it. “Yummy,” he said and smacked his thin lips.

The old woman asked, “It’s not a holiday today, why cook the fish in such a fancy way?”

“My job, Mother. I’m helping Nimei.”

“She’s forgotten who she is, totally spoiled. She has a princess’s heart but a maid’s fortune.”

At five-thirty Jiang Bing arrived at Nimei’s office with a dinner pail. Together the couple went to Room 3. The patient gave them a lukewarm greeting, but at the sight of the fish soup, his eyes brightened. Having tried two spoonfuls, he exclaimed, “I’ll be damned, who made this? What a beautiful job!”

“He did.” Nimei pointed at her husband. “He used to be a mess officer in the army, so he knows how to cook fish. I’m so glad you like the soup.”

“Thank you, Young Jiang.” The patient stretched out his right hand while chewing noisily. Gingerly Jiang Bing held Liao’s thick thumb and gave it a shake.

Nimei said, “Be careful, Director Liao. Don’t eat the head or suck the bones, and don’t eat too much for the time being. Your stomach needs time to recover.”

“I know — or this wouldn’t be enough.” The patient gave a belly laugh.

Every morning from then on, Jiang Bing got up early and went to the riverside to buy fish. Sometimes he bought a silver carp, sometimes a pike, sometimes a catfish; once he got a two-pound crucian, which he smoked. Each day he cooked the fish in a different way, and his dishes pleased the director greatly. Soon Jiang Bing ran out of money. When he told Nimei he had spent all their wages, she suggested he withdraw two hundred yuan from their savings account. He did, and day after day he continued to make the fancy dishes. In the meantime, Nimei kept jogging for half an hour every morning. She even borrowed from the hospital’s gym (its supervisor was a friend of hers) a pair of small dumbbells, which she exercised with at home. Although she had lost little weight, ten days later her muscles were firmer and her face less flabby. Her jaw had begun to show a fine contour. She said to herself, You should’ve started to exercise long ago. That would’ve kept you tighter and smaller. A healthy body surely makes the heart feel younger.

A few times Director Liao wanted to pay Nimei for the fish, but she refused to accept any money from him, saying, “It’s my job to take care of my patients.”

Gradually the director and Jiang Bing got to know each other. Every day after Liao finished dinner, Jiang would stay an hour or two, chatting with the leader, who unfailingly turned talkative after a good meal. The nurses were amazed that the patient in Room 3 had mellowed so much. When they asked Nimei why her husband came at dinnertime every day, she said that Liao and Jiang Bing knew each other from before. Of course nobody believed her, but the nurses were glad that at last the patient’s manners and attitude became wholesome, and even avuncular. Nimei claimed Director Liao paid for the fish he ate.

The bricks arrived, a cartful of them, drawn over by three Mongolian ponies. Nimei paid for them promptly and gave the driver two packs of Great Production cigarettes.

For an entire weekend the couple leveled the ground and laid the bricks. Nimei wanted the yard to be paved neatly, so Jiang Bing hammered wooden stakes into the dirt and tied white threads to them to make sure the bricks would be set in straight lines. It was an unusually hot day for the fall, and the couple were soaked with sweat. Nimei’s mother cooked a large pot of mung bean soup for them, to relieve their inner heat and prevent sunstroke. She put white sugar into the soup and ladled it into five bowls, which were placed on a long bench to cool.

The work was done and Nimei was pleased, despite her painful back. But her mother tottered around with her bound feet, muttering, “What a waste of money! We’ve never used such good bricks for a house.”

Nimei ignored her, too exhausted to talk, while Jiang Bing was sipping a bowl of soup, his bony shoulders stooping more than before. A lock of hair, sweaty and gray, stuck to his flat forehead. The sweat-stained back of his shirt looked like an old map. A few maple seeds swirled in the air like helicopter blades while a pair of magpies clamored atop the ridge of the gable roof. Nimei’s mother kept saying, “We’ll have to spend a lot of money for winter vegetables, and we ought to save for the Spring Festival.”

Save your breath, old hag! thought Nimei.

The next day she bought two large pots of wild roses and had them placed on both sides of the front gate. She assigned her daughter to water the flowers every morning.

Director Liao was going to leave the hospital in two days. He was grateful to the couple and even said they had treated him better than his family.

On Tuesday afternoon he had the head nurse called in. He said, “Nimei, I can’t thank you enough!”

“It’s my job. Please don’t mention it.”

“I’ve told the hospital’s leaders that they should elect you a model nurse this year. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“No, I don’t need anything,” she said. “Jiang Bing and I are very happy that you’ve recovered so soon.”

“Ah yes, how about Young Jiang? Can I do something for him?”

She pretended to think for a minute. “Well, maybe. He’s worked in the same office for almost ten years. He may want a change. But don’t tell him I said this or he’ll be mad at me.”

“I won’t say a word. Do you think he wants to leave the hospital?”

“No, he likes it here. Just moving him to another office would be enough.”

“Is there a position open?”

“Yes, there are two — the Personnel and the Security sections haven’t had directors for months.”

“Good. I’m going to write a note to the hospital leaders. They’ll take my suggestion seriously. Tell Young Jiang I’ll miss his fish.”

They both laughed.

Everything seemed to be going as Nimei had planned. Hsu Peng had written back and said he would be happy to come to her house for tea. She was certain Jiang Bing’s promotion would work out, because none of the hospital leaders would dare disobey Director Liao, whose department decided their promotions and demotions. If Jiang Bing became the chief of a section, he’d hold a rank equal to a vice regimental commander’s, which, although still several ranks lower than Hsu Peng’s, shouldn’t be too unpresentable. True, the promotion hadn’t materialized yet, but she could be confident it was already in the works. In addition, her daughter had just been notified that a nursing school in Jilin City had admitted her. Nimei felt she could finally meet Hsu Peng without embarrassment.

On the evening of September 29, a Beijing jeep pulled up at the Jiangs’ gate. At the sound of the motor, Nimei got up, patting her permed hair, and went out to receive the guest. To her surprise, two soldiers walked in, one shouldering a kraft-paper parcel and the other holding a large, green plastic gasoline can. “Is this Head Nurse Nimei’s home?” one of them asked.

“Yes,” she said eagerly, her left hand fingering the belt of her chemise, which was flowered and brand-new. Her husband came out and joined her.

The taller soldier declared, “Our commissar cannot come this evening. He’s very sorry. He has to accompany Commander Chen of Shenyang Military Region to a party.”

“Oh.” Nimei was too flustered to say another word.

The man went on, “Commissar Hsu ordered us to deliver the fish and the soy oil to you for National Day.” With two thuds they dropped the parcel and the can on a low table in the yard.

“Will he be coming to see us?” she asked.

“No. We’re leaving for Harbin on the earliest train tomorrow morning.”

“Who’s this commissar?” Jiang Bing asked his wife.

“A former patient of mine, as I told you,” she managed to reply. She turned to the soldiers. “Tell your leader we thank him.”

“How much?” Jiang Bing asked them, still puzzled.

“Our commissar said not to take any money.”

The young men turned and went out. Then came a long honk and children’s cries — the jeep was drawing away.

The parcel was unwrapped and four salmon appeared, each weighing at least fifteen pounds. One of them still had a three-inch hook stuck through its nostril, with a short piece of fishing line attached to the hook’s eye. “Oh my, what sort of fish are these?” asked Nimei’s mother, mouthing a long pipe and smiling broadly. The boy and the girl gathered at the table, watching their father spreading the gills to see the scarlet color inside.

“These are salmon, Mother,” said Jiang Bing. Then he announced with a thrill in his voice, “They’re as fresh as if they were alive! Too bad Director Liao has left the hospital. These are the best fish, but he doesn’t have the luck.” He asked his wife, “How come I’ve never met this commissar?”

“He commands an armored division somewhere in Harbin. The fish and the oil probably didn’t cost him anything, I guess.” She felt like weeping.

“Of course not. If you have power, you can always get the best stuff free.” He flicked a bluebottle away with his fingers. “Songshan, get me the largest basin, quick.”

The boy turned, a half-eaten peach in his hand, and ran toward their shack to fetch the washbasin.

Nimei couldn’t suppress her tears anymore. She hurried into the house and threw herself on her bed. She broke out sobbing, unsure whether Hsu Peng had ever intended to visit her.