Because of delivering the letter, he was one hour late for work that morning. But who cared? He felt he had done something more meaningful than maintaining machines.
Three
AFTER TWENTY-FOUR FAMILIES moved in, Workers’ Park became livelier than before. A hot-water room was built near the entrance, and the two old guards were told to take care of the boiler. Hundreds of sycamore saplings were planted around the houses, to “green the park,” as the leaders declared. For the children, a small soccer field was flattened out at the foot of the slope, near the bend of the Blue Brook. From now on, at seven in the morning, a truck would take the teenagers to the Fourth Middle School, which was three miles northeast of Dismount Fort, and it would bring them back at five in the afternoon. A few housewives proposed to open a grocery store in the compound; it was a good idea, supported by the workers and leaders. Things began to be systemized in the park, while those who lived outside grew more jealous.
The leaders promised that everybody would eventually move into the compound. There was enough land, and what prevented them from having more houses built was the lack of funds. They urged the workers to be patient.
On Wednesday afternoon Bin went to Finance, which was in the basement of the office building, to pick up his wages. Nina was in a bad mood, because Director Ma had just told her to take charge of selling the tickets for hot water. From now on, the families living in Workers’ Park would come to her to buy water tickets. It wasn’t a lot of work, but to her mind, she shouldn’t have to handle such a trifle, unrelated to accountancy. The old guards at the park could easily take care of the business. But she didn’t complain in front of Ma; for the time being, she knew she ought to appear grateful to the leaders for giving her a new apartment.
At the sight of Bin, she asked, “Your pay?”
“Yes, please.”
She pulled out a drawer, picked up a small envelope, and handed it to him. Bin noticed two dark bruises on her forearm; he had heard that her fiancé often beat her.
He wet his thumb and forefinger on his tongue and began counting the wages, while Nina resumed reading the magazine Chinese Women. To his surprise, there was only forty-two yuan, fifty fen less than his monthly pay; this meant he lost two pounds of beer or a dish of stewed pork. “Why did you give me half a yuan less after you took away my bonus?”
“I docked your bonus? You lost it yourself,” she said with sudden passion, her curved eyebrows going straight. “That half yuan was the haircut fee. Director Ma told me not to give you that.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know why. I was told to do so.” She flicked her fingers at him, annoyed.
“If you don’t know why, why did you do it?”
“Give me a break, all right?” She stared him in the face and put the magazine on her lap. “I’m busy, no time to listen to you talking like this. Go ask Director Ma yourself.”
Feeling it useless to argue, Bin made for the door.
“Lunatic,” Nina said under her breath.
“What did you say?” He turned back.
“Lunatic, lu-na-tic!” she cried out, stressing every syllable, then pursed her lips, glaring at him.
“You know, girl, you have a filthy mouth, but I don’t want to clean it out for you. Don’t want to dirty my hands.”
“Go to hell. Only because you didn’t get an apartment, you act like everybody owes you a thousand. Get out of here, lunatic.”
“Bitch!”
“What did you call me?”
“I call you whore, a whore who’s stripped in every office.” He moved to the door.
“Stop! Get your ass back here.”
Ignoring her, Bin went straight to the director’s office on the second floor. Ma and Liu were in a meeting with two other men, the chairman of the union, Hong Bao, and the secretary of the Communist Youth League, Huang Dongfang. At the sight of Bin’s dark face, Liu and Ma stood up simultaneously.
Bin asked loudly why Ma had had his haircut fee deducted. Ma answered, “You were one hour late for work last Thursday, weren’t you? It’s our policy to be strict and fair in meting out rewards and punishments. This is our way of keeping discipline in the plant. You should look to yourself for an explanation before coming to me.”
Bin realized he couldn’t get the money back, so he changed his topic, reporting to the leaders that Accountant Hou Nina had called him a lunatic just now, in her office.
“You are a lunatic,” Liu said matter-of-factly. “I believe so too.”
“What?”
“Yes, we all think you have a mental disorder or something,” Ma said, wiggling his forefinger at his temple. “You’d better go to the hospital and have your brain checked.”
“What? You two are leaders. You must not insult me like this.”
“Who insulted you?” Ma asked with a surprised look, then poked Bin in the chest with his fist.
“Why use your hand? I came to you for help, but instead of listening to me, you call me names and beat me.”
“Who beat you?” Ma gave him a slap on the face.
“You, you’re doing it now!”
Liu stepped forward and cuffed him on the neck, then asked with a smile, “Who beat you? Can you prove it? Who is your witness?” He clasped his hands behind him.
Bin, rubbing his neck, looked at Bao and Dongfang. They were sitting there quietly, their eyes fixed on the glass top of the table.
Ma pushed Bin to the door, shouting, “Get out of here, lunatic.” He kicked him in the butt.
The door slammed shut and almost touched the tip of Bin’s nose.
Bin heard Liu curse inside the office, “Such an idiot.” He wanted to burst in, spring on the two leaders, and choke the breath out of them, but he was no match for them, especially Ma, who was tall and burly and had once been on a divisional basketball team in the People’s Army. Besides, Liu wore new bluchers, which looked lethal.
Yet the rage was too much for Bin to hold down, so he yelled out, “I screw your ancestors! I screw them pair by pair!” He kicked the door and then hurried away.
He remembered that his father had once wanted him to learn kung fu from an old man in their home village and offered to pay the tuition for him. But Bin hadn’t been interested and had spent his free time with the art teacher at the elementary school, learning how to paint. Now, how he regretted that he hadn’t followed his father’s advice! Had he done that, he could have burst into the office and felled the two rabbits to the floor with the Eagle Palm.
Bin didn’t want to have dinner that evening. Meilan worried and tried hard to persuade him to eat something; she even peeled two preserved eggs for him. Still he refused to touch the chopsticks, sitting by his desk, smoking and sighing; the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes had grown deeper and thicker. His dark face reminded her of a woodcut portrait of an old peasant kept in one of his albums.
Finally it was Shanshan who brought him around. Following her mother’s instruction, she said to him, “Daddy, you’re a good boy. I follow you. If you not eat, I not eat myself.”
He gave the baby a smile and let out a long sigh; then he moved to the dining table and began to drink the corn-flour porridge. He noticed a cooked weevil floating in his bowl. With a pair of chopsticks he fished it out and dropped it to the floor.
Meilan wanted to tell him to stop confronting the leaders, at least for the moment. “A sparrow shouldn’t match itself against a raven” — she wanted to remind him of the saying, but she remained silent, waiting for his anger to subside.
* * *
The next afternoon the workers and staff of the plant again gathered in the dining hall, listening to Secretary Liu’s preliminary report on the annual achievements. Liu announced: the plant had produced 940 tons of fertilizer this production year, which surpassed the annual target by 8 percent; twenty-four families had received new housing; nine babies had been born, only one of them having violated the one-child policy; 134 workers and staff had got raises; and sixteen people had been promoted to new “fighting posts.” He concluded by declaring, “This is a victorious year. The victory is due to the solidarity and united effort of the workers and cadres of our plant.”