The Crazed

2

Once again I bicycled to the hospital to relieve Banping Fang. Thanks to the scalding sun, the asphalt street had turned doughy; automobile tires had left tracks on its cambered surface, from which a bluish vapor rose, flickering like smoke. I felt drowsy, not having slept well the night before. I pedaled listlessly. If only I could’ve taken a nap at noon as I used to do every day.

On arrival, I heard somebody speaking loudly inside the sickroom. I stopped at the door to listen. It was Mr. Yang’s voice, but I couldn’t make out his words. He sounded strident, panting and shrieking by turns, as if he were arguing with someone. I opened the door and went in noiselessly. Seeing me, Banping nodded and put his forefinger to his lips, his other hand supporting our teacher’s back. It looked like he had just helped him sit up.

“Kill them! Kill all those bastards!” Professor Yang shouted.

Banping’s mouth moved close to his ear, and he whispered, “Calm down, please!”

Mr. Yang’s head hung so low that his chin rested on his chest. “Why did you interrupt me?” he asked with his eyes still closed. “Hear me out, will you? When I’m finished you can raise questions.” He sounded as if he were teaching a class. But whom had he yelled at just now? And who were the people he wanted to wipe out? Why did he hate them so much?

Banping smiled at me with some embarrassment and shook his head. I sensed the meaning of his smile, which showed sympathy for me probably because of my relationship with the Yangs. He gestured me to sit down on the wicker chair and then turned to make our teacher lean back against the headboard.

The moment I sat down, Professor Yang broke into speech. “All the time he has been thinking how to end everything, to be done with his clerical work, done with his senile, exacting parents, done with his nagging wife and spoiled children, done with his mistress Chilla, who is no longer a ‘little swallow’ with a slender waist but is obsessed with how to lose weight and reduce the size of her massive backside, done with the endless worry and misery of everyday life, done with the nightmares in broad daylight — in short, to terminate himself so that he can quit this world.”

I was shocked. Banping smiled again and seemed to relish the surprise on my face. Mr. Yang continued, “But he lives in a room without a door or a window and without any furniture inside. Confined in such a cell, he faces the insurmountable difficulty of how to end his life. On the rubber floor spreads a thick pallet, beside which sits an incomplete dinner set. The walls are covered with green rubber too. He cannot smash his head on any spot in this room. He wears a leather belt, which he sometimes takes off, thinking how to garrote himself with it. Some people he knew committed suicide in that way twenty years ago, because they couldn’t endure the torture inflicted by the revolutionary masses anymore. They looped a belt around their necks, secured its loose end to a hook or a nail on a window ledge, then forcefully they sat down on the floor. But in this room there’s not a single fixed object, so his belt cannot serve that purpose. Sometimes he lets it lie across his lap and observes it absentmindedly. The belt looks like a dead snake in the greenish light. What’s worse, he cannot figure out where the room is, whether it’s in a city or in the countryside, and whether it’s in a house or underground. In such a condition he is preserved to live.”

I couldn’t tell where he had gotten this episode. When did it happen? And where? Was it from a novel, or was it his own fantasy? Since the man’s mistress had a rather Westernized name, Chilla, the story might be set in a city. That was all I could guess. Professor Yang was so well read that I could never surmise the full extent of his knowledge of literature. Maybe he had made up the whole thing himself; otherwise he couldn’t have poured it out with such abandon.

He interrupted my thoughts, speaking again. “All the time he imagines how to stop this kind of meaningless existence. Mark this, ‘all the time.’ He can no longer tell time because there’s no distinction between day and night in this room. He has noticed some kind of light shimmering overhead, but cannot locate its source. He used to believe that if he could find the source, he could probably get out of his predicament by unscrewing the lightbulb and poking his finger into the socket. But by now he has given up that notion, having realized that even if he identified the source, the light might not be electric at all. He’s thus doomed to live on, caged in an indestructible cocoon like a worm.” Mr. Yang paused for breath, then resumed: “The only hard objects in the room are the plastic dinner set — a bowl, a dish, a spoon, and a knife. There’s no fork. He’s deprived of the privilege of piercing his windpipe with a fork. Time and again he picks up the knife, which is toothless and brittle. Stropping it on his forefinger, he grunts, ‘Damn it, I can’t even cut my penis with this! ’ ”

Banping chuckled, but stopped right away, his buckteeth on his lower lip. He straightened up and put his notebook and fountain pen into his breast pocket.

I didn’t find anything funny in Mr. Yang’s story, which actually saddened me. My throat was constricting as I avoided looking at Banping.

On leaving, he whispered almost in my ear, “Come over for dinner tonight, will you? We’ll make dumplings. Weiya’s coming too.”

I nodded to agree. He and I were classmates and friends of sorts, and his one-room home in a dormitory house near the campus was a place where we often got together. Weiya Su was the other graduate student who had Professor Yang as her adviser. This year our teacher directed only the three of us in our graduate work, though he was on almost every master’s thesis committee in the department.

In his delirium Mr. Yang continued making noise. He was unusually agitated today. His head jerked as he went on groaning and gnashing his gums. In addition, the rhythm of his respiration changed drastically — one moment he breathed evenly, and another moment he panted as though running a race. What’s more, he seemed frightened by something or somebody, whining piteously every now and again. He mouthed some unintelligible words, which sounded like complaints or curses. His right hand kept rubbing his thigh, and his motion made the bed shake a little.

He might hurt his brain if he continued like this, so I decided to put him into bed, hoping he could fall asleep after he lay down. I went over and inserted my left arm under his legs, wrapped my right arm around his thick waist, and slowly moved him down. He didn’t seem to feel the downward movement and never stopped muttering and squirming.

It took me about five minutes to slide him back into bed. Sitting on the chair again, with my right leg over its arm, I began to review Japanese vocabulary. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t concentrate on the flash cards, distracted by Mr. Yang, who seemed to be quarreling with someone now. He sounded bellicose and from time to time gritted his teeth, which I knew indicated he was holding back his temper.

Despite my effort to focus on my work, I couldn’t help but observe his sweat-streaked face. Half an hour later, out of the blue, he burst into song. His singing baffled me, because to my mind he was born to teach seminars and deliver lectures. Who could’ve expected that Professor Yang would be singing this particular nursery rhyme?

To wear a flower

You pick a big red one,

To ride a horse

You mount a sturdy steed,

To sing a song

You praise great deeds,

To obey orders

You listen to the Party.

The song jolted me, and I felt the hair on the back of my head bristling. I hadn’t heard it for a long time. In spite of his gusto, Mr. Yang was no singer and sounded more like he was crowing.

No sooner had he finished singing than he added a shrill operatic chant, imitating drums, gongs, and cymbals: “Dong— chang, dong — chang, dong — dong — chang, chang — chang— chang, dong — dong — chang. .” He then let out a resounding belch, and his stomach growled as he clacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He seemed to be enacting a snatch from a Beijing opera, which had no bearing on the nursery rhyme.

I was actually more disturbed than baffled, as I remembered singing the rhyme with other children in the kindergarten over twenty years before. At that time it had been commonplace for us to chant such a song in raptures, but Mr. Yang’s singing now was so anachronistic and so out of context that it sounded ludicrous. Luckily for him, nobody but I had heard it.

Then, as if mocking my discomfort, he hit on another song. Eyes ablaze, he boomed:

The Proletarian Cultural Revolution

Is good, is good, is good, is good!

Workers are masters again.

Landowners, rich peasants,

Reactionaries, evildoers, rightists

Have no place to hide—

All will be swept away.

He bellowed the whole thing out as if he were under some kind of spell. His ferocious voice seemed to belong to someone else. I couldn’t imagine that an equable scholar like him would have anything to do with such a silly song. His singing made my scalp itch as I remembered hearing Red Guards chant it in my hometown. By so doing, those big boys and girls had contributed their little share to the revolution; but that had been two decades before, and now the song was no more than an embarrassing joke.

How had Mr. Yang learned this piece? I had been told that when the Cultural Revolution broke out, he was turned into a Demon-Monster, a target of the struggle, who would not have been entitled to sing such a progressive song together with the masses. Perhaps he had learned it on the sly, or he had heard others chant it so many times that it stuck in his mind.

Eyes shut, he resumed crooning the tune of the song, though its words were now disjointed and garbled. His singing sickened me. I put the flash cards on top of my bag that leaned against the leg of the chair, wondering how to stop him. He gave me the creeps. I looked at my watch— it was just past two o’clock. This was going to be a long afternoon.

“My heart is still good, pure and warm!” declared Mr. Yang. Without a pause he started another song. This time he not only was caroling but also seemed to be dancing around. His body wriggled a little as he mimicked a feminine voice:

There’s a golden sun in Beijing.

It brightens whatever it shines upon.

Ah, the light does not come

From the sky but from

Our Great Leader Chairman Mao!

While singing he flexed his toes, heaved his belly a little, and twisted his lips into a puerile smile. The instant he was done, he cried cheerfully, “See, I can sing it as well as any one of you. I can dance to it too. Let me show you.”

I went to him and placed my palm on his forehead, which was sweaty and burning hot. I patted his shoulder, but he turned his head aside and shouted ecstatically, “Don’t get in my way! Look, I can do it!” His right leg kicked, though he couldn’t raise it.

Should I wake him up? Though ridiculous, he seemed happy, grinning like a half-wit and licking his parched lips to wipe away the foam.

I decided to let him enjoy his hallucination for a while and returned to the wicker chair. By now he had calmed down a little, but he went on humming the tune of the song through his pink swollen nose. I remembered that about twenty years ago some kids, who were Small Red Guards and five or six years older than myself, had often performed the Loyalty Dance to this very song at restaurants, bus stops, inns, department stores, and the train station in my hometown in the Northeast. Chanting those words, they capered and sidled about, waving their hands above their heads; they kicked their heels, swung their legs, and bent their waists. Too young to participate, I watched them enviously. In hindsight they looked like crazed frogs wearing red armbands; yet at that time some of the kids were so sincere that, if asked, they would have sacrificed their lives for Chairman Mao without second thoughts. But Mr. Yang was a reactionary intellectual then and must have been forbidden to join the revolutionary masses in any celebration and propaganda activities. Could he really know such a dance? I didn’t think so.

“Ah, who can tell I always have a loyal heart!” he said and smacked his lips. “Come, just watch me.” He started the tune again, his legs kicking slowly and his arms jerking on the crumpled sheet. Not only the bed but also the floor, whose boards buckled in places, creaked now. He wiggled more and more rhythmically while a radiant smile broke on his face. He seemed beside himself with joy.

“Yes, I can raise my legs higher than that, no problem,” he said with a wide grin. “I always love Chairman Mao. For him I dare to climb a mountain of swords and walk through a sea of fire. Why don’t you believe me? Why?” His head rocked from side to side.

I was puzzled by his assertion of loyalty to the Great Leader. When he was in his right mind, Mr. Yang had never expressed any deep feelings for Chairman Mao in front of me. Did he really love him? Was this a subconscious emotion that had at last surfaced once his mind failed? Chairman Mao had died twelve years ago; why was Mr. Yang still obsessed with him? Did he really worship him in his heart?

Whatever the truth was, I thought I’d better stop him from hallucinating. He might damage his brain. I shouted, “Hey, Professor Yang, wake up. We’re in the hospital now.”

He made no response and kept singing and “dancing.” I went over, held his wrists, and clapped his hands a couple of times, hoping this might wake him. But it didn’t. He paused, then yelled, “Long live the Communist Party! Down with warlords! Long live the New China!” My mind boggled and I let go of his hands. He must have been imagining himself as a revolutionary martyr being dragged to an execution ground by the police like a hero in a propaganda movie. He was hopelessly crazy.

I hurried out, heading downstairs to the nurses’ station. I knew Dr. Wu often prescribed sedative-hypnotic drugs for Mr. Yang.

I expected to find Hong Jiang in the office, but the small woman wasn’t there. A nurse in her mid-twenties sat on a broad windowsill, her unbuttoned robe revealing her sea-green dress. Her hands were busy embroidering a butterfly on a white tablecloth. On her right, toward the corner and against the baseboard, stood a line of scarlet thermoses containing boiled water, their mouths emitting tiny hisses. She recognized me but didn’t budge, as if I were one of the nurse’s aides hired to do cleaning. Her large eyes were fixed on the needle-work in her long, rosy fingers; the butterfly, as large as a palm, was still missing a wing. Ignoring her slight, I walked up to her and asked if she was in charge of Mr. Yang’s medication.

“Uh-huh,” she said without lifting her eyelids. Overhead a fluorescent tube was blinking with a faint ping-ping-ping sound.

“My teacher has gone berserk today,” I told her. “He’s been singing and raving like a madman. Can you sedate him?”

She only half listened and didn’t respond, so I repeated my request. After a few more stitches, she placed the tablecloth on the sill. She yawned but immediately clapped her narrow hand on her mouth. “I’m so tired,” she said, smiling feebly. “You know what? We tried to give him a sedative pill this morning. I mean your classmate Comrade Fang and I tried, but your teacher thought we were going to poison him and yelled for all he was worth. We couldn’t force him to take the medicine, you know. That would’ve agitated him more.”

“Can you give him another tablet now?” I asked.

“Well, I have no right to give him anything.”

“But Dr. Wu often prescribes drugs for him, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, but he’s not here.”

“Please help me calm him down, I beg you. I’m afraid he’ll hurt his brain if he goes on like this.”

“Well, maybe we can put a pill into his porridge at dinner.”

She squinted her left eye, then winked at me, as if asking, Isn’t this a smart idea?

“But he’s running wild now,” I said. “Dinner’s still three hours away. Can’t you give him an injection or something? Help him, please!”

“You’re a pretty good student,” she said dryly. She came down from the windowsill and went over to the long desk, on which sat a few shiny metal cases and a row of amber bottles containing drugs, all with glass stoppers in their mouths. She picked up the phone and called the doctor.

I felt relieved to see her jotting down a prescription. She hung up, selected two ampules of medicine, and wrapped up an injection kit. Together we headed out. On our way upstairs, she told me that her name was Mali Chen and that she had just graduated from a nursing school in Shanghai. A metropolitan girl, I thought, no wonder she looks frail and anemic.

Opening the door of the sickroom, I was surprised to see Mr. Yang sitting on the bed with one foot tucked under him. Strands of gray hair stuck out above his temples, making his face appear broader. How could he sit up by himself? Had somebody slipped in when I was away? Impossible. He must have done this on his own.

Mr. Yang was still humming something that I couldn’t make out at first. Then lifting his voice, he chanted in gasps, “How powerful the tall cranes are! They can pick up tons of steel easily. .”

I realized he was impersonating the retired stevedore in an aria from the revolutionary opera The Harbor, praising the brawn of some newly installed cranes, but his voice was too smooth and too thin to express the proletarian mettle. I hadn’t known he could sing Beijing opera. He had seldom gone to the theater and must have learned the snatch from the radio.

“See, the pill is still here,” Nurse Chen said to me and pointed to a small cup on the bedside cabinet. It contained a large yellowish tablet, probably barbiturate.

While she was preparing the injection, I removed the quilt from Mr. Yang’s legs and got hold of the string of his pajamas, which was a long shoelace. He stopped short. Before I could untie his pants, he opened his eyes — only to see the syringe spurting a white thread of liquid. His face turned horror-stricken, though Nurse Chen forced a smile and said enticingly, “Well, Professor Yang, it’s time to have some—”

“Help! Help! Mur-der! They want to poison me!” he screamed, his eyes glinting. He kicked his right leg but was unable to raise his arms. He was gasping, agape like a spent fish.

The nurse looked scared, her eyebrows pinched together. She turned to me and asked, “Do you think we can still make him take the needle?”

I didn’t answer. Mr. Yang kept howling, “Save me! They’re assassinating me!”

“Stop this, please!” I begged him in an undertone.

“Help me!”

“You’re making a spectacle of yourself.”

“Don’t kill me!”

Nurse Chen took apart the syringe, dropped the needle back into the oval metal case, emptied the medicine into the spittoon, and wrapped everything up. “I think we’d better leave him alone,” she said with a toss of her head. “Let him cool off by himself. Every time we try to put him to sleep, we only upset him more.”

I said nothing. Anger was surging in my chest, but I checked my impulse to yell at him.

“Well now, I must be going,” she continued. “Don’t disturb him. It’ll take a while for this one to become himself again.” She put the injection kit under her arm and said to me casually, “Bye-bye now.” She left, her heels clicking away toward the stairwell.

Professor Yang started sobbing; tears leaked out of his closed lids, trickling down his cheeks and stubbly chin. He whimpered something incoherently. I listened for a moment and felt he seemed to be begging mercy from someone, who might be an imagined murderer. He went on wagging his head and grunting like a piglet; his words had turned to gibberish.

This mustn’t continue. I decided to give him the sedative pill no matter how hard he resisted. With a spoon I set about grinding the tablet in the porcelain cup until it became powder. On the cabinet stood an opened bottle of orangeade. I poured some of it into the cup and stirred the concoction for a minute, then sat down beside him. “Mr. Yang, drink this please,” I pleaded and raised the cup to his lips.

He opened his eyes and saw the juice. He said, “You want to poison me, I know. I refuse to take it.”

“Come on, it’s just orangeade. See, I also drink some myself.” I lifted the spoon to my mouth and made a gurgling sound as a parent would do to convince a child. “Ah, it’s so delicious. Please try it, just a small cup.”

He said, “You slipped ratsbane into it, didn’t you? I know your dark fat heart.”

“No, you’re wrong. Please have some!”

“I won’t.”

Hesitantly I used the spoon to pry his mouth open, but his teeth were clenched, and the steel scraped them noisily. I was afraid this might hurt his gums, so I stopped, wondering what to do. He jabbed his elbow at the cup in my hand, and a splash of the drink fell on the sheet and left a yellow stain. His mouth was sealed up like a startled clam.

I wouldn’t give up and raised half a spoonful of the orangeade to his lips again, begging him, “Please try this. It will do you good. I just want to feed you and won’t hurt you.”

“No, I won’t. You cannot cajole me anymore.”

“Please, just a sip.”

“No, that will be lethal.”

Out of patience, I shouted, “Look at me! You don’t recognize me? Do I look like a murderer? I’m Jian, your future son-in-law.” I said the last word diffidently, but thrust my face in front him. His eyes opened a crack, then fully.

“Oh,” he muttered, “I didn’t know I had a son.”

“This is Jian Wan, remember me?”

“I didn’t know it was you. What is it that you want?”

“I’d like to feed you. Here’s a small cup of orangeade, please open your mouth.”

Miraculously, he obeyed me like a well-behaved child. I carefully put the spoon into his mouth and turned it over. Slowly he swallowed the juice, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“I like the tangy flavor. It tastes excellent,” he said.

“Sure it does,” I agreed.

“What did you put in it?”

“Nothing.”

With less than ten spoonfuls I emptied the cup. I told him, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here with you and won’t let anyone hurt you. Now you should have some sleep.”

Shamefacedly he watched me as I tried to move his half-paralyzed body; he even tried to shift his hips a little to facilitate my effort. Still, I had to exert myself hard. When I had finally put him back into bed, I was huffing and puffing.

A few minutes later he went to sleep.