The Crazed

10

I didn’t sleep well that night and felt out of sorts in the morning. My temples were numb as though squeezed by a vise. Mr. Yang’s ravings had distressed me palpably — my roommates complained that these days I was too irascible. Mantao once said, “Jian, you must have been stuffed with gunpowder. Any sparks can start an explosion.” Indeed, my temper often flared. Aside from worrying about my teacher, I was unsure whether I could tackle the exams without thorough preparation.

It was a cool, sunny morning. Raindrops from a shower the night before still flickered on the tops of the elms and willows on campus. On the playing field a tall man in a red gym suit blew a brass whistle and stretched his limbs. Following him, a group of middle-aged men and women were doing calisthenics. Some undergraduates, books in their hands, strolled about among the lilac and cypress bushes, reviewing lessons and reciting texts in foreign languages. Their voices hummed in the air, which throbbed with the sonorous cry of a cuckoo, whose two-note calls stopped each time just long enough to let the foliage absorb the vibration. Beyond the depths of a distant poplar wood, where the bird was, mist spread billowing like a body of water.

On my way to the dining hall I ran into Professor Song. He pulled his pipe from his teeth and waved it to stop me, his other hand holding a black canvas bag on which a pair of sea-gulls was in flight. Apparently he had just jogged to school, his gaunt face covered with pinkish patches, a film of sweat oozing from his forehead. Mr. Yang’s stroke had intensified the concern for health among the older faculty in the department, most of whom had begun exercising seriously. Some went swimming in the afternoon; some often played table tennis in the lobby of the classroom building. They would remind one another that health was their main asset and that as long as they lived long enough, eventually they could get promoted to professorship, so there was no need to work hard.

Mr. Song wore a pair of blue sneakers and a gray jacket, which was shoulderless and barrellike — a standard garment for middle-aged male college teachers at the time. I was amused to see him in such a jacket even when he was jogging.

“How’s Mr. Yang?” he asked me.

“Not very well.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He paused for a moment, then went on, “Can you tell him that I’ll come to see him when I have time?”

He seemed to treat me as a family member of the Yangs, sounding me out on whether his visit would be welcome. I told him he could go to the hospital anytime.

Then he switched the topic. “How well are you prepared for the exams, Jian?”

“I can’t do much these days. I have to spend a lot of time in the hospital.”

“Maybe our department should hire somebody to replace you. Do you know if Mr. Yang has some relatives in town?”

“I don’t think he has any here.”

“How about in the countryside?”

“I have no idea.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll see to this. Our department still has some money left for this year. I’m going to talk to Secretary Peng about it. Meantime, concentrate on the exams, Jian. If the Beijing University program accepts you, that will be a great honor to our department, and Mr. Yang will be pleased too. Also, you’ll grow faster as a scholar there.” He cleared his throat and spat into a puddle of rainwater on the roadside.

“I’ll do my best,” I said, glancing at the blob of phlegm floating on the rust-red water.

“Good. If you need any help, let me know.”

“I will.”

As he walked away, a muffled jangle came from his flank. He always carried a large set of keys on his belt. He left behind a tang of alcohol, sweetishly sour. It was said that he would start his day with a cup of liquor. He was so fond of drink people joked that a bottle was a must if you went to him for help. It was rumored that a graduating senior had once gotten a good job assignment because he had presented Chairman Song with an expensive-looking bottle of French brandy that later turned out to be cheap champagne (another version of the story claimed it was plain water). But I don’t think any student would dare to trick him that way.

I was unsure whether Professor Song’s concern for Mr. Yang and me was genuine. For over a year, whenever possible, he had kicked me around; since he couldn’t always lay his hands on Mr. Yang, he’d take out his anger and frustration on me. A couple of times he criticized me for listening to foreign English broadcasts. The previous summer he assigned me to join a team of faculty members in grading the college entrance exams, so that I had to stay at school two extra weeks after the summer break started. Owing to his opposition, the department had almost refused to hire me as an instructor if I couldn’t get into the Ph.D. program at Beijing University. Eventually it agreed to keep me, mainly because I had just published a lengthy paper in Poetic Inquiry, which stirred up a debate, and because a few senior faculty argued that I was quite promising in the field. Yet despite my suspicion of Professor Song, I did have some positive feelings about him today. Perhaps he at last meant to make reconciliatory overtures to Mr. Yang.

I went on to the dining hall, which was full of people eating breakfast. There wasn’t a single stool in the room, so they were all standing around a dozen tables, whose tops were covered with grease, dust, and dead flies. Most students and staff would go to a much larger dining hall at the southern end of the campus, which was cleaner and had hundreds of stools in it, but this smaller place was closer to my dormitory, so I preferred to eat here. I bought a bowl of millet porridge, a twisted roll, and two salted eggs. Holding my breakfast, I walked across to a corner and began eating.

At the door, Little Owl was delivering a speech again. I call him that because I don’t know his name and because his small body, round face, yellow eyes, tufty hair, and aquiline nose always reminded me of an owl. He was known as a madman who had been a lecturer in the Chemistry Department three decades before. In the late 1950s he was branded a rightist, arrested, and sent away to a prison camp near Siberia. When he saw that the convicts were beaten every day and heard that some of them, unable to endure the torture and hard labor, had committed suicide, he started to feign madness. He shouted slogans, chanted songs, imitated animals’ cries, talked nonsense, and smeared mud and human feces on himself so as to avoid beating, interrogation, and backbreaking work. He played the idiot for more than twenty years, which helped him outlive most of the convicts. But somehow this faked insanity had grown into his nature — when he was finally released, he could no longer control himself and had to continue to rave and curse every day, suffering from “mental incontinence,” as some people put it. He often laughed or wept or blustered randomly; the more attention you paid to him, the more excited he would get. The dining hall was his favorite place for giving speeches.

“Comrades, George Bush is the number-one Current Counterrevolutionary,” he announced, still using the outdated language. “Bush has the blackest heart and guts. We must overthrow him, beat him to the ground, and trample on him, so that he will never stand up again!” The ferocity in his voice could hardly arouse any interest from the breakfasters. This was a daily show, of which people had wearied.

Having sensed he didn’t have a responsive audience today, Little Owl tried something different. He burst out singing:

The east wind blows

While the battle drums roll.

Who fear whom on the globe?

People are not afraid

Of the American imperialists,

Who actually fear people. .

He sang hysterically, beating time with his tiny fists, one of which had a battered knuckle. Nobody listened to the song, which had been long out of fashion. But today his crazed voice grated on my nerves, so I cried, “Shut up!”

All eyes turned to me as if I were a madman too. Little Owl yelled ecstatically, “Look, comrades, he’s on the side of American imperialism!”

Several girls giggled, looking my way. One of them had a carmine dot on her forehead like an Indian woman. I picked up my bowl and started for the door. To my surprise, Little Owl followed me, brandishing his fists and shouting, “Down with this imperialistic lackey! Down with him! Down with this American running dog!” It was as if I were being paraded on the street. I could do nothing but ignore him.

I placed my bowl on the ground under a large elm tree, squatted down on my heels, and resumed eating. I peeled an egg, but no sooner had I taken a bite of it than a hand was thrust before my face. It was Little Owl’s dirty, scabbed paw. He wanted to share my breakfast.

“Get lost!” I said.

He declared vociferously, “Chairman Mao has instructed us: ‘We come from all corners of the country and have joined together for a common revolutionary cause. So our cadres must show concern for every soldier, and all people in the revolutionary ranks must care for each other, must love and help each other.’ Now, you must give me some grub, I’m your soldier. You cannot discard me like a cracked pot just because you’re a big shot now.”

“Give me a break!” I snapped. Meanwhile, more than twenty people were gathering around to watch.

He wouldn’t leave me alone and went on quoting instructions from Chairman Mao, as if the Great Leader were still alive. Too embarrassed to remain the target of his harangue, I put my uncracked egg in his palm. He grabbed it, whisked around, and scampered away to the hot-water room, holding the egg above his head and shouting, “Long live Chairman Mao! Long live the Communist Party!” That was an old way of expressing one’s joy, but now the shibboleth sounded farcical.

Despite his pitiable condition, Little Owl ate better food than most of us. Usually people were generous to him, and he could eat his fill in the kitchen. My roommate Mantao often quipped that China was a paradise for idiots, who were well treated because they incurred no jealousy, posed no threat to anyone, and made no trouble for the authorities — they were model citizens through and through. Indeed, most of the retarded and the demented were taken care of by the state. Mantao went so far as to claim that this “pseudo-philanthropy,” a word he actually used, had caused China to degenerate intellectually as a nation.

After breakfast I was so distressed that I didn’t go to Mr. Yang’s office to review my notes on ancient prosody as I had planned. Instead, I went to the library and spent two hours browsing through some journals and magazines. Afterward I decided to take a break for the rest of the morning to get myself ready for the afternoon. It was depressing to sit with Mr. Yang, and I’d better unwind a little.

In town there was an exhibition of artwork by some painters from the Southern coastal provinces, mainly from Fujian and Guangdong. I had seen an advertisement for it on the side wall of the White Crane Hotel. To see the paintings might ease my mind, so I decided to go. The gallery was not far from my school, just fifteen minutes by bicycle. In a way I wished it were farther away, because I wanted to pedal longer on a breezy morning like this one.

On the way I noticed there were more police in town today. Their green vans and motorcycles with sidecars perched at the mouths of alleys and at street corners. One man held a walkie-talkie, though none of them seemed armed. The word was that some students at Shanning Teachers College planned to demonstrate downtown, so the police were stepping up security.

The exhibition differed from what I had expected. The hall couldn’t serve properly as a gallery, not providing enough wall space for all the paintings. And dozens of screens were set up in the middle of the hall for some smaller pieces, which, hung on the green or sky-blue silk, looked strange, even sloppy — the colors of the backdrop interfered with those in the paintings. Though three of the artists in this group were famous as master painters of animals, there were fewer visitors than working staff members at the show.

Facing the entrance was a piece over thirty feet long horizontally, entitled A Thousand Chickens, which presented a scene on a poultry farm. Hundreds of chicks with yellow, fluffy down had been arranged to welcome visitors. I was not impressed by it because all the chickens looked identical, as if printed with the same mold. Moving counterclockwise, I went through paintings of country life: peasants, animals, vegetables, tractors, plows drawn by buffaloes, fields of crops, waterwheels, a pond of ducks, boats laden with splashing bass, even peacocks and peahens. Then came landscapes and seascapes, some of which were so coated with indigo and brown that they appeared muddy.

I was more interested in people than in scenery and animals, so I stayed longer in front of the human figures. I stood for a good while before a painting of a Uigur girl, who couldn’t have lived in the South. The artist must have done this piece on a copying-from-life trip to the Northwest. In it the girl in a tight vest danced wildly with her numerous braids flying. Her movement and her supple limbs were well unified, pivoting from her slender but sturdy waist, below which a saffron skirt was swirling into a canopy. One of her heels kicked backward knee-high. Her lovely calves were slightly pink, gleaming with a soft sheen. I liked her long lashes best, which almost shaded her naughty eyes. There was a kind of fervent loveliness that illuminated this girl, who made me think of my fiancée. Meimei usually seemed carefree, and her insouciance gave her a peculiar charm; yet beneath her casual appearance was the fire fueled by her determination to achieve. What’s more, she always liked to have things her way, right or wrong, but that was all right with me. Ever since we got engaged, whenever I saw a pretty woman, I couldn’t help comparing her with my fiancée. The habit was weird, but too ingrained for me to outgrow.

I lingered in front of the Uigur girl for ten minutes solid, until I stepped closer and murmured with my nose almost touching her knee, “I love you.”

“Don’t touch it!” shouted a sharp female voice. I spun around and saw a fiftyish woman, her fat rump resting against a metal-legged desk, pointing her forefinger at my face. Several people paused to look at me.

I grasped the front of my shirt and gasped, “Goodness, what a fright you gave me!”

“You want to pay a fine?”

“No, no, I didn’t touch anything, just wanted to study it closely.” Hot-faced, I raised both hands with the palms toward her and backed away.

Absently I passed through the next three sections. Then in the corner of two screens I came on a piece called A Poet, with the subtitle No, Not in the Presence of Others. This painting fazed me. Viewed from a distance of ten feet, the human figure in it resembled a scarlet rooster. If the title had not been given, I could hardly have made out what this was about. The piece was vertically long and presented a tall, emaciated man in a tattered cloak, the end of which flapped in the breeze. Beyond him snaked a brook, along which a few people were sauntering, fishing, practicing tai chi, or blowing bamboo flutes, and two women were scrubbing laundry on flat stones. With his neck stretched, the poet seemed to be yearning to chant something, but unable to bring it out. A huge earring hung from his earlobe, casting on his throat an elongated shadow, which reminded me of a noose. A half-transparent mask almost shielded his nose and mouth. His shifty eyes and hollowed cheeks suggested a fearful ghost rather than a man. This painting made me wonder whether there had been an oversight on the part of the authorities that had allowed it to be included. Quickly I turned away.

When I reached the end of the exhibition, ready to head for the door, I came across a broad piece entitled A Hundred Donkeys, which served as the finale. In it many donkeys, large and small, stood on grassland. They were in various postures: some were grazing, some touched each other’s necks and

muzzles, and a few still carried wicker baskets. Several mother donkeys held their bodies still to suckle the young; their teats were wizened, almost invisible. The grown-up donkeys all kept their heads low, including those that were not browsing. Many of them had downcast eyes, which darkened with shyness and modesty. Their legs looked vigorous but fragile. In the right upper corner of the piece there were a few lines of verse serving as a caption. I stepped sideways and recognized the meaning of the poem. It read:

They endure humiliation

And bear the heaviest loads.

Unafraid of long trips

They tread the roughest roads.

At first I was touched by these words, which seemed to provide an allegorical focus for the painting. They emphasized the virtue of endurance and silent self-sacrifice, a virtue deemed to be a noble quality of the Chinese character. Throughout thousands of years the donkey and the ox had been eulogized as obedient, industrious, cheap to keep, mute, and enduring.

For some reason Mr. Yang’s Genesis story came to mind. How these donkeys differed from that one who begged God to abridge his life span so as to reduce his suffering! Then I remembered that when I turned seven, one summer night, a starving donkey had broken into the tofu mill on the tree farm where my parents worked. A militiaman on patrol heard the noise inside the shed and shouted, “Who’s there? Password!” The dumb animal, frightened, dashed out and ran away. Believing it was a thief and unable to stop it with his command, the man fired his rifle and a bullet struck the donkey down. It bled to death an hour later. The next morning my father helped the kitchen skin the carcass, so the cooks gave him a chunk of the boiled meat to bring home in the evening. That was the first time I had tasted donkey meat, which was delicious. My mother cut it into small cubes and seasoned it with mashed garlic, soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oil.

Now, standing before the painting and thinking about the caption, I realized how people had humanized animals and animalized human beings. These creatures represented an abnormal species created purely for human needs. If man hadn’t imposed his will on animals or abused his power and intelligence over them, no donkey would ever have kept its head close to the ground, not to mention have worn a humble look like these creatures in the painting. Without human subjugation, donkeys would have eaten grapes, cucumbers, melons, tomatoes, and would have borne nothing on their backs; they wouldn’t have given a damn about the quality of roads. Without the iron shoes, they’d have had soft hooves, too lazy to take any trip. In short, they would have been donkeys as donkeys.

I grew dubious and angry, feeling the painting must be either false or satirical. To some extent I was perturbed by my response to it. This kind of artwork used to touch me easily, but now it had lost its impact because I had begun to look at things with doubtful eyes.

When I came out of the exhibition, it was already past twelve o’clock. The sky was grayish with smog, and the air thick with automobile exhaust and frying oil. With less than an hour before my shift started, I had to find a place to eat lunch without delay. I mustn’t be late again.