The Crazed

17

Meimei’s letter arrived, and I couldn’t wait to read it.

May 6, 1989

Dear Jian,

I hope my father is getting better. Tell him that I’ll be back as soon as I’m done with the exams. Actually at this moment it’s unclear whether the exams will be given on time. Things are in chaos here. Hundreds of students from my school have gone to Tiananmen Square a few days in a row to join the students of other colleges already there. Together they demand a dialogue with the premier. I just heard that the exams might be postponed. If so, I’ll come home sooner.

But you shouldn’t be disconcerted by this information. Keep working on your Japanese and reviewing the textbooks. All we can do is get prepared.

I have just heard from my mother that she will be on her way home soon. She thanks you for looking after my father.

These days I’m so busy that time passes almost unnoticed. Quite a few friends here have tried to drag me out of my room, but at this point of my life I have to sacrifice fun and excitement, so that eventually I can become a pediatrician in Beijing. I miss you, Jian. In my last letter I mentioned that I liked something very much about you. Have you guessed what? Why didn’t you ask me when I was back ten days ago?

Well, I don’t want to keep you guessing. To save your brain for your work, let me spill it out: I love your voice most. If only I could hear you talk to me every day.

All right, enough of this girlish stuff. I have to return to anatomy. Please be considerate to my father and keep him clean.

Good luck with your preparation.

Yours,

Meimei

My fiancée’s letter bothered me to some extent, particularly her mentioning “quite a few friends” of hers. I knew there were always some young men running after her in Beijing, and they’d find ways to get her attention and spend time with her. Mrs. Yang had once told me, not without pride, that her daughter was a top beauty in her college — one of the so-called “school flowers.” Even if Meimei was fond of my voice, my physical absence from her life might provide an opportunity for those men to step in.

What should I do? The question cropped up in my mind again, but it wasn’t about Meimei only. For several days I had wondered whether I should take the exams, bedeviled by my doubts about the meaning of pursuing a Ph.D. The former vision of myself as one who must study hard to become an eminent literary scholar had vanished, replaced by the image of a feckless clerk who was already senile but wouldn’t quit scribbling. Now I felt unable to work toward a doctorate just for the practical reason of settling down in Beijing eventually. But if I withdrew my application, I’d waste a whole year’s work. More worrisome, if I changed my mind, Meimei would be so angry that she might break up with me. Since I loved her, shouldn’t I just take the exams for her sake? Rationally I should do that, yet somehow my heart couldn’t help revolting against such a concession.

In the evening I went to see Banping in hopes that he could help me straighten out my thoughts. His wife hadn’t returned from her textile mill yet, so we two alone talked over chrysanthemum tea. Between our squat cups sat a clay teapot like a small turtle. Banping was always proud of his tea set, which he claimed was of a classic model. While we were chatting, he now and then got up and went to check a pan of eggplant cooking on his electric stove in a corner. Apparently these days the school officials were too occupied with the student movement to bother about “electricity thieves.”

I described my predicament to Banping, whose hair had just been cut, cropped to his scalp. He saw my point and even said that at last I had begun to think like a man. He asked me, “If not Beijing, where would you like to go? Stay here?”

“Honestly I don’t know.”

“How about joining me at the Provincial Administration?”

To be a real clerk? I responded mentally.

He went on, “They still need somebody for the Policy Office. Man, you would be an ideal candidate for that position. You’re smart, trustworthy, and easygoing. If you get into that office, don’t forget me. I’m sure you’ll become a powerful figure in a couple of years.”

“Don’t they want a Party member for that job?”

“I don’t think so, or I wouldn’t have seriously considered it before I decided to go to the Commerce Department.”

Indeed Banping wasn’t in the Party, though he had applied for membership. I said, “But I’m not cut out for an official.”

“Who is? You can always learn to be one. For a man of your caliber nothing’s easier than holding a job like that.”

“Banping, the crux of my trouble is that if I don’t go to Beijing, Meimei may split up with me. You know how much I love her.”

“You shouldn’t worry too much about that. Is there any future in doing a Ph.D.? Look at our teacher — he collapsed out of the blue and can’t stop babbling like a moron. To be honest, he often reminds me of the human insect in Kaf ka’s Metamorphosis who can’t communicate with others anymore. If you remain in academia, you may end up either like Mr. Yang or like one of the four middle-aged teachers in our school who died of exhaustion and cirrhosis last year.”

“Come on, don’t try to scare me. Just tell me your opinion. What should I do?”

“All right, let me be forthright. A real man should put his career before his woman. If you get the job at the Policy Office, Meimei may not cancel your engagement at all. Even if she does, you can always find a better girl.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Believe me, lots of good girls will want a man like you if you hold that position. Women by instinct always look for a good provider in a man, because they think of raising kids. There’s nothing wrong in this, just biological — human nature. Before I became a college student, no girls in my hometown would look at me. But after I entered college, several of them wrote to me. Imagine, a nondescript man like myself received a dozen love letters in a year, all packed with sweet words and honeyed phrases. . Brother, I’ve known you for almost three years and can see a weakness in your character.”

“Which is?”

“You have a broad romantic streak and tend to take a woman to be a goddess. You’re so impressionable that anyone who dangles a skirt looks pretty to you.”

“You imply I’m a sensualist?”

“No, you’re a woman worshiper. You adore women so much that when dealing with a real woman, you don’t know your own worth anymore.”

“Truth be told, I do like women, a lot.”

“All right, but you shouldn’t worry too much about Meimei. Remember what Frosted Flute said about love?”

“What did he say?” Frosted Flute was a well-known local poet, though he hadn’t published his first book yet.

“He said: I won’t pick lilies and keep them, because along my way flowers will bloom one after another. I can’t recall the lines word for word. Anyway he said something like that.”

I wanted to laugh, because the quotation was altogether out of context. In his poem Frosted Flute didn’t talk about love but about the gains and losses in one’s life. Besides, women are not flowers that you can dump without qualms when you no longer need them. I said to him, “The fact is I don’t see any meaning in becoming an official either.”

“Jian, you’ve read too much and your brain has ossified. Why should we hold a powerful official position? My answer is, pure and simple, the pursuit of happiness. Once you have power, you’ll have more comfort and pleasure. We must suck all the juice out of this life!” He said the last sentence almost ferociously.

I was amazed by the earnest look on his face, which was still weather-beaten and bronze-colored. We seemed to be talking at cross-purposes. He couldn’t see that what I sought was not material gain but something significant to my being, something that could make me feel my life was properly used and fulfilled. He couldn’t understand our teacher’s cry—“I must save my soul!” He was only concerned with the flesh.

The door opened. In came the rear of a brand-new Flying Pigeon bicycle, gingerly pushed backward by Anling, her right hand holding the leather seat and her left the handlebar. She stood the bicycle alongside the wall. “Welcome. What wind brought you here?” she said to me pleasantly. She had on a pink dress with a cloth waistband fastened by a gray plastic buckle. The fashionable dress didn’t become her and made her appear rather countrified. She looked tired despite her apparently high spirits.

“I just dropped by to see how you’re doing,” I said to her.

“Any news from Meimei?”

“Yes, she’s well.”

“Good. You and Banping go on chatting. Don’t stop because of me.” She went over to the washstand behind the door and began washing her face with the water her husband had prepared for her in a basin.

Banping and I talked for a few more minutes about Mr. Yang’s condition and some undergraduates’ planning to go to Beijing. When Anling had laid on the table the stewed eggplant, corn porridge, and some steamed flower buns, I took my leave in spite of their urging me to stay for dinner. I was a bit disappointed, as I realized I shouldn’t have come to seek Banping’s advice. Granted that he treated me as a friend, speaking with complete candor, he and I by nature were different kinds of people: I was too sensitive, too introverted, and maybe too idealistic, whereas he was a paragon of peasant cunning and pragmatism. However filthy and ugly this world is, a man like him can always manage to be at home in it. People of his type have few nerves, are full of vitality, and are more likely to endure, survive, and prevail.

Unable to decide what to do, I wrote to Meimei that evening to sound her out.

May 10, 1989

Dear Meimei,

Your father is recuperating, though slowly. Don’t worry about him; he is in good hands now.

Recently I have been going through a crisis. I can no longer see any point in earning a Ph.D. I love you, Meimei. Rationally, I am supposed to take the exams, so that I can join you in Beijing and we can build our nest there. Yet deep down, I cannot help but question the meaning of such an endeavor. By “meaning” I mean how this effort is significant to my existence as a human being. I know the capital can offer me better living conditions and more opportunities, but I cannot see any meaning in the material benefits. To be honest, I don’t care much about creature comforts.

At the bottom of my crisis lies this question: What is the good of becoming a scholar who serves as no more than a clerk in the workshop of the revolution? I cannot answer this question, which your father thrust on me. At times he is delirious, but at last he speaks from his heart.

For a week or so, I haven’t been able to study for the exams. Now I feel reluctant to attempt them; probably I will withdraw my application. Don’t be angry with me, Meimei. I will explain more when you are back. Please write to me, my love.

Yours always,

Jian

PS: Your father once suggested that I apply to graduate programs at American universities. This is infeasible now. Even if I passed TOEFL and got a scholarship from abroad, my school here would not allow me to leave. A faculty member in the Foreign Languages Department got a research fellowship from the University of Pennsylvania, but she could not obtain a passport, which is contingent on the official permission from our school, so she had to forfeit the fellowship. You may know her. Her name is Kailing Wang — she collaborated with your father in translating Brecht. I just heard that outraged, she has joined the student movement. In fact, I saw her demonstrating on the streets four days ago. She claims that her human rights have been violated.

In my crisis another question is also overwhelming, namely, what can I do?