“Ah,” he yawned to the whitewashed ceiling. “ ‘With ten thousand books stored in my mind, / Why should I grovel in the wilds?’ ” He was quoting the couplet from an ancient poem. I watched him silently.
He seemed to be listening to something, then cried out, “Fakes, fakes, all are fakes! You must write a book to expose those fakes! Kick their butts in their own game!”
“But I’ve burned the books, burned them all. How could I write such a thing?” I said offhandedly.
“What? Save them! Save the books! They’re not bourgeois poisonous weeds. You shouldn’t take them away from me and feed them to the fire like dried leaves. Please don’t confiscate my books, don’t burn them. I’m kneeling down to you, little brothers and sisters. Oh, please have mercy! I beg you, comrades, please!”
I didn’t expect my words would cause such an outburst. He must have remembered the scene of his home being ransacked by the Red Guards more than twenty years before. It was a well-known anecdote that he had knelt down at some Red Guards’ feet, clasping his hands and imploring them not to seize his books and throw them into a bonfire in the playing field. They ignored him, of course.
“Water, water! Put out the fire!” he yelled, twisting as though surrounded by flames.
How I regretted having blurted out those spiteful words. Books were his life, and without them he would have been incapacitated. If he had been sane, the instruction “burn all your books” would never have come from him.
“Water, water! They’re burning my soul,” he groaned, still squirming.
I went over to see what was bothering him. “What’s hurting?” I asked.
“Water, I want to pass water,” he moaned.
My goodness, he was wobbling like this because of a full bladder. What an imaginative response to the visionary flames swallowing his books. I removed the blanket, raised the upper part of his body to make him sit up, and separated his legs. From under the bed I took out the flat enamel chamber pot and placed it between his thighs. Then I untied his pajamas, but he couldn’t urinate in such a posture. Aware of the problem, slowly he moved forward into a more prostrate position with his elbows supporting his upper body. Having pulled down his pajamas, I helped him spread his legs so that a little cave was made under his abdomen. Thank heaven, he wasn’t too fat; a larger belly would have left no room for the chamber pot. I moved the mouth of the pot under his penis, which had shrunk almost to nothing, a mere tiny knot with a ring of foreskin. Then slowly came out a line of yellowish urine, falling into the pot with a dull gurgle.
I had helped him relieve himself before, which hadn’t bothered me much, but today somehow it revolted me. I felt giddy and like vomiting. Look at this mountain of anomalous flesh! Look at this ugly, impotent body! What a hideous fruit of the futile “clerical” life, disfigured by the times and misfortunes. He reminded me of a giant larva, boneless and lethargic. Though desperately I wanted to run away, I had to stay until he was done. The foul odor was scratching my nostrils, stifling me, and I tried not to breathe. Yet despite my revulsion, my horrified eyes never left him.
When he was finally finished, I removed the chamber pot and put it under the bed. I brushed a V-shaped pubic hair off the sheet and with gritted teeth helped him lie down on his back. Then I rushed out of the room. The second I got into the corridor, I began vomiting. The spinach and rice inside me churned and gushed out, splashing on the floor again and again until my stomach was empty and started aching. My legs buckled, and I put out my hand on the wall for support to get out of the building for some fresh air.
The breeze cooled me down a little, though my face still felt bloated and a buzzing went on in my ears. Something continued tugging at my insides. About fifty yards away, near the cypress hedge, a man in green rubber boots and a yellow jersey with the sleeves rolled up was hosing down an ambulance, the water dancing iridescently on the white hood. At the front entrance to the hospital a pair of red flags waved languidly. I had clenched my jaws so hard that my temples hurt.
26
Mrs. Yang came back from Tibet, but she could attend her husband only in the evening. During the day she had to go to work at her agricultural school in an eastern suburb. On the day after she returned, a distant cousin of Mr. Yang’s, hired by our department, arrived from their hometown in Henan Province. This man, with gapped teeth and thinning hair, would take care of Mr. Yang in the daytime from now on, so Banping and I were relieved. However, I still went to see our teacher every day, usually after dinner in the evening, staying there about half an hour. Apart from seeing how he was doing, I was eager to seek information about Meimei, of which her mother could hardly give me any.
On Wednesday evening I arrived at the hospital later than usual. Mrs. Yang, needle in hand, was darning a calico shirt for her husband; on her middle finger was a gilt thimble like a broad ring. For the first time I saw her in reading glasses. Though the spectacles made her appear older, they brought out a kind of equanimity in her bearing that I hadn’t noticed before. Her features were gentle and amiable, as if she were at their home — she looked like a devoted wife. Mr. Yang, sitting on the bed with his head drooping aside, was humming something, perhaps the tune of a folk song. I remained quiet with both hands in my pants pockets, my back leaning against the jamb of the window. Mrs. Yang lifted her half-gray head and gave me a smile, her face pallid and slightly bloated as though she were suffering from dropsy. She must have been very exhausted. On the windowsill sat a large cassette player; beside it were two tapes piled together. I recognized the contents of the top tape—20 Most Popular Songs, most of which had mellow tunes. Mrs. Yang must have played them to her husband to prevent him from chanting those belligerent songs.
Out of the blue Mr. Yang yelled, “Dance for me! Sway your hips!”
“What do you want, dear?” his wife asked with a start.
“I want you to dance for me.”
“You know I can’t dance.”
“Of course you can, you do it for every man.”
“Wh — why do you say that?”
“You did it when I was away, didn’t you?”
“Did what?”
“You slept with him.”
She lowered her head, her face livid though her hands kept stitching the collar of his shirt. I was too taken aback to say anything.
He began crooning an old song, which was on the tape. He sang in a feminine voice:
I lift the saucers clinking them.
Ditties are easy to sing
But my mouth is hard to open.
Line by line I cannot lament enough
Human suffering, yet my songs
Please the rich and powerful.
The hook of a crescent shines
On high mansions, every one
Of which was built by poor men.
But in the teeth of winter
The wealthy smile gleefully
While the needy freeze in grief.
My head went numb as a shiver ran down my spine. I regretted having come to see him this evening, to be caught in such a flash of domestic madness. Noiselessly I tiptoed over to Mrs. Yang and whispered, “We can ask the nurse to calm him down. Do you want me to do that?”
“No need.” She shook her head in despair. “Let him get his anger out. It’ll make him feel better.” Her tone of voice revealed that she was already familiar with this kind of rage and abuse. Although she sounded very rational, her eyes were wet. She looked mortified as she raised the shirt to her mouth to nip off the mending thread.