The Crazed

3

I didn’t expect that Banping and his wife, Anling, would make flounder dumplings. This was the first time I had eaten this dish, which my host told me was a delicacy in some coastal areas for celebrating spring. The stuffing was juicy and toothsome, tasting like prawn. It made me miss the fat catfish, long pike, and stout carp from the lower reaches of the Songhua River in the Northeast, where my parents lived.

While we were eating, Banping bragged about his cookery. He had prepared the filling, seasoned with leeks and crushed sesame seeds. He even described to us how to debone the large flounder, how to peel its skin, and how to get rid of its blood so as to reduce the fishy taste, but Anling accused him of “cooking only with his mouth.”

“Come on, don’t be so mean,” Banping said to her. “Didn’t I work the whole afternoon?”

“You help only when we have good stuff to cook.”

“That’s because I’m like a chef.”

“So I’m just a kitchen maid who only chops vegetables and does dishes in this home?”

“Uh-oh,” I stepped in, “you’re both chefs, of the first rank, all right?”

We all laughed.

“Don’t you have other music? This is too loud,” Weiya said to Banping, referring to the Beethoven that his cassette recorder was playing. I too felt uncomfortable; the symphony was so overpowering it seemed to be urging us to compete in wolfing down the food. Banping worshiped Beethoven and regarded Romain Roland’s Jean-Christophe as his bible. Inspired by the biographical novel, he often talked about the joy of life. To my thinking he was too optimistic.

He got up and put a tape of popular songs into the player. Things eased up immediately.

I noticed that under the washstand, welded of iron bars, sat a new electric stove, at least 1,500 watts strong, which was strictly prohibited in the dorms because of the drain on the electricity. In fact, a top school official, Vice Principal Huang, was in charge of catching users of electric stoves, teapots, immersion heaters, and cookers. He would personally spot-check dormitory houses and buildings, especially in the late afternoons.

“Boy, you want to appear on the honor roll again,” I said to Banping, alluding to the list of “electricity thieves” often posted on the bulletin board at the front entrance to campus.

“I told him to be more careful,” Anling picked up.

“As long as they don’t fine me, I won’t mind,” Banping said, exhaling smoke.

“My roommate was caught last Friday,” put in Weiya.

“Was she fined?” I asked.

“No, she’s a first-time offender.”

In reality, Banping was afraid of being caught. On the back of his right foot was a burn scar in the shape of a tangerine segment, caused by a splash of boiling broth. One afternoon the previous fall, as he was stewing chicken and taros on an electric stove, suddenly somebody had pounded on the door. “Open it!” came Vice Principal Huang’s raucous voice. Hurriedly Banping hid away the stove under his bed, pushed the window open, then went to answer the door. The leader stepped in, sniffing the meaty air. At the sight of the wire and plug on the floor, he bent down and pulled the whole thing out from under the bed. The pot overturned. “Ouch!” Banping yelled, hopping on one leg; some broth had spattered on his foot. Chunks of chicken and taros were scattered on the concrete floor, and the room at once became steamy. Though the “electricity thief” was in pain, the vice principal dressed him down and confiscated his stove. Later Secretary Peng interceded for Banping with Huang’s office, saying his scalded foot was already an indelible lesson to him; otherwise, by rule, he’d have been fined fifty yuan.

Weiya sat opposite me at the square table and looked pensive. Throughout dinner she seldom smiled; her mouth closed without showing her eyeteeth as she would do when she was happy. Her luxuriant hair, held by two orange barrettes, was slightly tousled. Her egg-shaped face had lost its usual pink, though she was wearing a cherry-red shirt that should have given her cheeks more color. I had never seen her eyes so lazy. She had a high nose and almond-shaped eyes, which usually were vivid and bright but today were bleary with sadness. Even her voice sounded cheerless and rather whispery. Our teacher’s stroke must have affected her deeply. Although already thirty-one, she looked to be in her early twenties; some people in the Literature Department often referred to her as an old maid; I often wondered why she didn’t have a boyfriend and why she never seemed in a hurry to look for one. With her looks and intelligence, she should have had no difficulty in finding a suitable man.

Upset as we all were, we felt lucky in a way, because we were going to graduate soon; if not, with Mr. Yang hospitalized, the three of us would have been transferred into other professors’ hands as “foster children.” We also talked about the prognosis in Mr. Yang’s case. Banping said that normally it would take a whole year for a patient with cerebral thrombosis to convalesce, that most stroke victims couldn’t recover completely, and that some had to move around with the aid of a crutch for the rest of their lives.

After we were done with the dumplings and cleared the table, Banping brewed a pot of jasmine tea. We started talking about the possible causes of Mr. Yang’s stroke. We believed that apart from his pathological condition, something else might have set off his collapse. We all offered our guesses. Weiya suggested something I hadn’t thought of before. She told us that Secretary Peng had pestered Mr. Yang continually ever since he had returned from Canada. “I’ve heard that the school demands he pay the money back,” she said rather mysteriously.

“What money?” I asked.

“The dollars he spent for his Canadian trip last winter.”

I was surprised. As his prospective son-in-law, why hadn’t I gotten wind of this? Before I could say anything, Anling piped in, “How much did he spend?”

“About eighteen hundred dollars,” said Weiya.

“Goodness, who can pay off such an amount!” Anling turned to me and went on, “How much does he make a month?” At last her hands stopped folding a toffee wrapper into a crane.

“One hundred and ninety yuan,” I answered.

“That translates into how many dollars?”

“About thirty,” Weiya told her.

With his chin propped on his hand, Banping said, “But I heard that Secretary Peng tried to persuade the school not to make him pay it back. She said she had helped Mr. Yang out.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” Weiya brought out.

“Neither do I,” I agreed.

Five months ago Mr. Yang had gone to Canada for a conference on comparative literature. He had arrived at Vancouver too late to give his talk; yet seizing the opportunity, he visited San Francisco on his way back. Indeed, such a “sight-seeing trip” was inappropriate, yet making him pay for the fare and the hotel would ruin his family financially. Many leaders of our university had visited North America, Japan, Hong Kong, Africa, and Europe without accomplishing a thing, but they had never bothered about the expenses. And they often reminded us of how much the country spent for our education, saying it took at least seven workers or twenty-four peasants to support one college student.

Banping sighed and said, “Anyway, it’s so hard to live a scholar’s life nowadays — you always have too much to accomplish and too little to live on.” He lifted his cup and sipped the piping hot tea. “Worst of all, as a poor scholar your fate is never in your own hands. That’s why I don’t want to stay here.” He looked me in the face and sighed again.

I well understood his gaze. Unlike him, I would stay in academia. If I couldn’t get into the Ph.D. program at Beijing University, I’d soon begin teaching here. Truth be told, I didn’t mind what he said. He only meant to justify his decision to pursue an official career; also, he couldn’t help but lament our teacher’s collapse.

Banping had decided to serve as a junior clerk in the Provincial Commerce Department after graduation. The position could be lucrative, but I felt he had made a mistake, because he, gauche and slightly dense, might have a tough time surviving in official circles and might never rise to a high post. Our graduate program had admitted him mainly because he had memorized some classics and excelled in the political exam that required no thoughts of one’s own. Some people considered him a complete blockhead. He really ought to remain at the university, where he could at least hold a secure job. I asked him half jokingly, “Did you get Anling’s permission to enter government service?”

“You bet I did. If I weren’t going to the Commerce Department, she’d divorce me for sure.”

Both his wife and he laughed. “Get out of here,” she said, raising her small fist to shove his shoulder. Her smile revealed her lopsided teeth and made her eyes almost disappear.

“Why would you go to the Commerce Department?” I asked Banping. “You’ll have to grow another pair of eyes on the back of your head if you want to survive there.”

“I have my reasons.”

“What are they?” I asked.

“Yes, tell us,” Weiya urged.

“All right, number one, the Commerce Department has housing. They’ve promised me a three-bedroom apartment with a big balcony, all together more than a hundred square yards, which none of the young faculty here can even dream of. Number two, that department controls most of the merchandise produced in this province, so it’s a temple where companies and factories have to pay tribute — I’ll have lots of stuff to eat and drink. Are these two reasons not enough?”

“More than enough,” I said, nodding while thinking, He’s so materialistic. He shouldn’t have studied literature and written a thesis on ancient ballads.

“How big is the balcony?” I asked him.

“About the size of this room.”

“Wow, you can grow a kitchen garden on it.”

“Exactly.”

“We plan to do that,” added Anling.

“Yes, we’ll get some earthen pots,” Banping said.

“And a few sacks of fertilizer too,” I echoed.

Weiya tittered, then asked him, “Why don’t you go to the Policy Office? Doesn’t it want a graduate student from our school too?”

“It must have more advantages,” I said.

“That office is a bigger temple,” he explained. “In fact, it has some kind of control over all the departments at the Provincial Administration. Every clerk in that office is powerful because he works directly for the top leaders, who are lazy and depend on the clerks to think for them.” He pointed his thumb at me as if I were to become such a clerk. “You write their speeches, suggest ideas, and even handle small matters on their behalf. So you rub elbows with those big shots every day. If one of them is pleased with your work or just takes a shine to you, within a couple of years you’ll be an official of considerable stature. On top of that, you’ll learn about the workings of the government and gradually you’ll know how to run the province.”

“Well”—I snapped my fingers—“brother, if I were you I’d snatch the opportunity, to become an expert in governance.”

Without catching my mockery, he replied, “I don’t want to work there, though. So far I’ve only talked about the bright side of the picture. Let me tell you about the downside. If a leader happens to dislike you, or if any of your colleagues informs your superiors against you, or if you get involved in one of the factions, which is unavoidable, then you’re done for. Sooner or later they’ll kick you out of the office and banish you to a godforsaken region. They may even stick a criminal name on you and slam you into jail. Ah, it’s hard to protect your ass at a place like that.”

“How come you know so much about this?” I asked, quite impressed.

“A fellow townsman of mine told me about it. He works at the Provincial Administration.”

Weiya picked up, “If the Policy Office wanted a woman, I’d definitely go.”

Her serious tone surprised me. She looked at me with a straight face. I couldn’t tell whether she was expressing her genuine wish or just trying to enliven the conversation.

“That’s not a place for me, though,” Banping continued. “I don’t have the ambition or the charming personality, and my mind is too slow. I wouldn’t survive in the Policy Office. My goal isn’t high — all I want is a stable, comfortable life, which the Commerce Department can give me.”

I was amazed by his self-estimation. Obviously he was not as dense as I’d thought. I had sensed he possessed some kind of peasant cunning, but never had I expected he knew so clearly his place, needs, objects, and limitations. I bantered, “Come on, of course you have a great personality, or how could Anling have chosen you as her groom?”

“He tricked me!” his wife exclaimed. “You don’t know what a big liar he was. He made all sorts of promises. He said he’d take me to Golden Elephant Park every month after we got married. But he’s done that only once in a whole year.”

“She’s not very smart either,” her husband said flatly.

We all laughed, including Anling. She pinched the leathery back of his hand.

Having taken leave of Banping and Anling, I walked Weiya back to her dormitory. We didn’t talk much on the way; we were both deep in thought. The traffic was still throbbing in the west; now and then an automobile honked. The sidewalk was almost covered by broad sycamore leaves. Here and there moonlight filtered through the trees, casting dappled patches on the asphalt. Scabby-barked poplar trunks shimmered in the damp air while insects chirred. As we reached the eastern part of the campus, our shadows, mine almost twice as large as hers, collided time and again on the ground.

I glanced at her. She looked pale in the moonlight, but her face glowed with a soft shine. Her footsteps were springy and vigorous. For some reason I was suddenly gripped by the desire to touch her, my right hand, so close to her waist, trembling a little. I thrust it into my pants pocket and focused on watching our shadows mingling on the ground. Probably it was the grief and madness jammed into my chest during the afternoon that drew me closer to her. Walking with her made me feel less lonely. To me, she was quite attractive, but I liked her also because she was reliable and well read and had her own opinions. She could paint almost like a professional, and was especially good at portraiture. I was glad she would remain in the department as an instructor in classical fiction.

We said good night at the ilex bushes about fifty yards away from her dormitory building. I turned back without waiting for her to disappear from the dimly lighted doorway as most men would do for their female friends. It was safe on campus.