“What books?” I was bewildered, as he hadn’t asked me to bring him anything.
“All those on my bookshelf.”
“Which shelf are you talking about?”
“The one next to my desk.”
“I don’t have the books here.” He was crazy! There were at least a hundred volumes on that shelf in his office.
“Why?” he asked peevishly. “You’re reading, but what am I supposed to do? Sit here idle like a turnip? Go fetch them, please.”
For a moment I didn’t know how to deal with this madness. Dr. Wu, a graying fat-faced man, had instructed Banping and me, “Absolutely no reading material for your teacher.” Even if Mr. Yang were allowed to read, how could I have gone back to get his books while I was on duty here?
“Do you hear me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“For goodness’ sake, go pronto!”
I made no reply, then hit on an idea. “You’re too tired, Mr. Yang. Let me read to you, okay?” I thought I could use some paragraphs from my notes to beguile him.
“No, I want to study my books by myself. A good scholar mustn’t be a sluggard, letting others read to him, just as you can’t ask others to eat for you. Do you un-der-stand?” He stressed every syllable of the last word.
“I do, but I don’t have any of your books here,” I blurted out.
“What!” he cried with a vacant look on his face. “You mean you’ve lost them? Oh heavens, what can I do without my books?” He broke into tears, genuinely aggrieved.
“Professor Yang, please listen—”
“Oh, how can I live without books! I’m utterly bereft. Why, why did you do this to me?” He started sobbing.
How could I pacify him? Even if I found him a book, he might be too addled to make sense of it. I had only a spiral notebook in hand. Why not appease him with this? I thought. No, he could tell it’s a hoax.
Then I saw the copy of Brecht’s Good Woman of Szechwan lying on the windowsill. I went to pick it up and put it on his palm. “Here’s your book. See now, I haven’t lost any of them. There’s no reason for you to blow up like this.”
He held the book with both hands, his fingers reddish and swollen, with fungus-infested cuticles. Clumsily he opened the soft cover and narrowed his eyes to look at the frontispiece, a photo of the play being staged by a Beijing troupe. Slowly he turned two pages to the foreword written by himself. “Yes, this is my new book,” he said. “The ink smells so fresh it must have just come from the printer. I like the peculiar fragrance of this book.” He paused to look at the page again, as if trying to locate a passage.
Fearful that he might demand another book and throw another tantrum, I sat stock-still. To my astonishment, he lifted his head and began to speak professorially. “Comrades, today we continue our discussion of high Tang poetry. First, let me read you a representative poem by Bo Wang.” He flipped a page and then chanted:
Serrate walls abut the imperial land.
In smoky wind we watch the ferry crossings.
This parting, my friend, strings us
Together despite our separate roads.
You may reach any end of the earth,
Yet I shall keep you close like a neighbor.
Please don’t stand at this fork
Wetting your kerchief with our children.
“A sad poem, isn’t it?” he asked and let out a sigh. I didn’t answer, wondering why he had picked this piece to begin his lecture with. In fact Bo Wang belongs to the early Tang period; Mr. Yang was mistaken about the date. To me, the poem wasn’t really sad.
“The theme here is friendship,” he announced. “Two scholar-officials appointed to posts in different provinces bid each other farewell outside the ancient city of Chang An. The parting, the spatial separation, can only tie them closer at heart. You see, people in ancient times had more amiable feelings, much more humane than we are. They cherished friendship, brotherhood, and loyalty. They wouldn’t fly at each other’s throats as we do nowadays. .”
Cheap nostalgia, I thought. Yesterday is always better than today, but who in their right minds can buy this kind of sentimental stuff? If he had been in his senses, Mr. Yang would have commented on the poem in more analytical language. Clearly his mind could no longer engage the text penetratingly, and his critical discourse had partly collapsed.
“On the other hand,” he resumed, “the poem isn’t maudlin at all. The lines are robust and simple, just as the emotion is dignified with restraint. Please note that the language has a fine balance between fluidity and poise. The poem differs remarkably from most of the farewell poems written in the high Tang period. .”
I wondered why he was interested in this poem. He must have been obsessed with the traditional ideal — the union of the official life and the scholarly life. In other words, he might still hanker for the role of a scholar-official. Then it dawned on me that about twenty-five years ago Chairman Mao, in one of his letters to the Secretary of the Albanian Communist Party, Enver Hoxha, had quoted two lines from this very poem—“You may reach any end of the earth, / Yet I shall keep you close like a neighbor.” At that time, Albania was the only socialist country that supported the Chinese Communist Party’s opposition to Nikita Khrushchev’s condemnation of Stalin. It was China’s only ally in the camp of socialist countries. Chairman Mao cited the ancient lines to praise the friendship between the two Communist parties. His quotation made the poem immensely popular among the revolutionary masses for over a decade. It was even set to music.
“Comrades, you all know Chairman Mao is very fond of this poem,” Mr. Yang declared. “It’s a real gem. If Chairman Mao likes it, we all must love it. We must study it, praise it, memorize it, and use it as our moral compass, because Chairman Mao’s words are the touchstone of truth. Any one of his sentences is worth ten thousand sentences we speak.”
I was sick of him! Why did he suddenly talk like a political parrot? He had lost his sense of poetic judgment and again revealed his sycophantic nature. Many people want the power to rule others; Mr. Yang was no exception. The fact that he was a scholar must have made him all the more eager to become an important official, so that he might utilize his learning, put his ideas into practice, and participate in policy making so as to realize his ambition and ideal; otherwise, all his knowledge would serve no purpose and would just rot away in his head. To some degree, he must still have a feudalistic mind-set.
“Next,” he announced, then broke off with a blank face. He fumbled, “What’s next?” He riffled some pages and shut his eyes, as if making an effort to recall a prepared lecture. “Ah yes, here’s the next poem we should discuss today.” He read from an interleaf:
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You, who come from heaven
To soothe all sorrow and pain
And fill the doubly wretched
With double consolation.
Oh, I am tired of this pursuit!
What for all the pain and joy?
Come, Sweet Peace,
Oh come into my breast!
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