After three rounds of poker, Yumi crawled under Yuyang’s mosquito net, where the younger girl was fast asleep. Nudging her awake, Yumi began counting out money under the oil lamp so Yuyang could see—five-yuan bills with consecutive numbers, so new they could slice cakes of tofu or slap someone in the face. It was not money she’d won at poker, but bills she’d brought back especially for Yuyang. She counted out ten of them, plus coupons for twenty-five jin of grain, which could be used anywhere in the country. It was a large sum of money, possibly enough to kill for. Thrusting the fifty yuan and grain coupons at her sister, Yumi ordered Yuyang in a gruff, but somehow tender manner, “Take this, little girl.”
“Just put it there,” Yuyang said sleepily.
“Open your eyes, sleepyhead, and tell me what you see.”
Still half asleep, Yuyang did not seem impressed.
“Let me sleep.”
She shut her eyes, and Yumi stared at the back of her sister’s head. She was surprised by the girl’s reaction. Not only had her foolish baby sister dismissed Yumi’s generosity, but she had already begun to talk like a city girl who knows the value of understatement in important matters. Without another word, Yumi stuffed the money and grain coupons under her sister’s pillow, blew out the light, and lay down next to Yuyang, whose back was to her. But she’d had too much to drink to fall asleep right away. Her thoughts were on her sister’s accomplishments. Relying only on the pen in her hand, Yuyang had made all the strokes necessary to get into town. That was no small feat; it was actually quite remarkable, something no one would have dared predict a few years earlier. A foolish girl can enjoy foolish good fortune, Yumi thought to herself. The timing was perfect for a little girl who was destined to make a name for herself.
The day after the track meet was a Sunday, when most girls stayed in bed late, even if they were fully awake. They wanted to lie there and think their own thoughts. Better to be lazy than to get up, even for breakfast. They lay in bed for the sake of lying in bed; not to do so would be wasting an opportunity. Imagine their shock that Sunday when they learned that a thief had taken things out of Pang Fenghua’s case. No one knew when it had happened, but sixteen yuan in cash and four yuan’s worth of meal coupons had turned up missing.
Fenghua had the commendable habit of counting her money and meal coupons when she took a tube of toothpaste out of her patent leather case each morning. On this morning, she discovered that the cash and coupons were gone. It was a considerable sum to lose, which made it a serious incident.
At 10:15 Beijing time that Sunday morning, every student in Section Three of the class of ’82 was called together before many of them had eaten breakfast. Yuyang did not even have time to brush her teeth and wash her face. The homeroom teacher was there, and so was Director Qian of student affairs, but not Pang Fenghua. She stayed behind in her room to give a statement to the police. Students who saw her on their way out of the dorm said she was sitting on the edge of her bed, hair hanging down, eyes puffy. She looked sad and drained of energy. The policeman poured her a glass of water. She didn’t touch it. This time her grief was genuine, unlike the day before out on the track. It was not a look she could easily fake.
When everyone was present in the classroom, the young homeroom teacher stood straight as a javelin at the blackboard looking unhappy. He was waiting for Director Qian to speak. But Qian just pursed his lips, which deepened the lines around his mouth. He hadn’t said a word from the moment he walked into the classroom, but finally he lit a cigarette, inhaled, and slowly blew the smoke out. Then he spoke.
“My name is Qian, you know, ‘money,’” he said. “Anyone who has the guts can step up and steal me.”
His comment elicited laughter that quickly died out—he did not look like he was joking. Then he went quiet for a long time, during which two rays of light shot out of his eyes like the searchlights in black-and-white movies. The lights sliced across the face of every student with an inaudible swish, and if one of them shied away from the searching look and lowered her head, he warned her, “Raise your head and look me in the eye. Don’t look away.”
Director Qian’s devotion to all aspects of student affairs—life, work, and thought—was famous among teacher-training schools, even at the provincial level. For two straight years he had been awarded the title of “Advanced Worker at the City and Provincial Levels.” The certificates hung proudly on his office wall. During the reign of the Gang of Four, he’d been imprisoned, and after his rehabilitation, his superiors had planned to “bring him up” to work in the bureau. But to their surprise, he had turned down the offer, insisting that he’d rather work “down below.”
He said he was passionate about school and passionate about education, so he stayed put and began his second spring at the school. He spared no effort on behalf of his students, working diligently to make up for lost time. In his own words, he was in charge of matters as important as someone’s death and as trivial as the disappearance of a needle. No one could “trick the mosquitoes into taking a nap” because he was a master at managing student affairs, all of which could be summarized by one word: “seize.” Seize the work, and seize the individual. He wrapped one hand around his wrist as he explained to all the homeroom teachers how to seize a person. You take the matter and, more important, the person, in hand and squeeze, forcing submission. That does it. Thanks to his graphic, vivid description, the homeroom teachers caught on immediately.
Frankly, every student at the school was afraid of Director Qian and tried to avoid him at all costs. But when they did encounter him, they realized that he wasn’t so scary after all. He’d call students over and ask nicely, “Would you say I’m a tiger?”
No, he was not a tiger; he was a hawk, a predator that could spot prey even when it didn’t see him. Once a problem arose somewhere, a special odor attracted him, and he cast his shadow on the ground, soundlessly circling above. At this particular moment, the hawk was perched on the Section Three classroom podium, eyes fixed on the students below. He was talking again, but not about the theft, not directly, and the confused students were properly intimidated, even shaken, by the righteousness in his voice.
“What kind of school did the principal and I decide to set up?”
He began with a serious and fundamental question.
“I want you to know that I was in complete agreement with our principal,” he continued, answering his own question, “when he said, ‘we must have steely discipline and steely character.’” He poked the podium with his index finger to remind the students of the meaning of “steely.” What is steel? Of course, “you’ve all seen it” so there was no need for Director Qian to repeat himself. Focusing on the common metal, he slowly worked his way up to the matter at hand.
“How can steel be so durable? Because it has been refined and is unalloyed. If there are impurities, it will fail and the building will collapse.” Then another question: “So what must we do? Very simply, we must identify the impurity and expunge it.” The classroom was so quiet that the girls could hear their own labored breathing. Some girls’ faces turned red from trying too hard to regulate their breathing. In conclusion, Director Qian said, “Now I’m giving you a word of caution: Honesty begets leniency; resistance begets harshness. Dismissed.”