“I would fail this kid. Resolutely, thoroughly, totally? Is she writing a thesaurus? But instead of this student being sent to remedial composition, the President of the University gets beaten up. I mean, he’s an old guy and these kids really wipe the floor with him. Now the whole university is under the boot of the Red Guards, and this manifesto is the Voice of the Revolution.”
“No need to read it aloud,” the Old Cat said. “We can hear it anytime we wish on the loudspeakers.”
“And now the Conservatory students are going around smashing violins.” San Li laughed. “What kind of person breaks a violin?”
“The young aren’t wrong,” Kai said. There was an aggressive and unfamiliar despair in his eyes. “They say we need to change, remove obstacles and purge ourselves. Land reform brought equality but ten years later, it’s already slipping away. It’s obvious things aren’t well in society.”
“Purge ourselves of what?” the Professor asked.
“Individualism, privilege. The greed that is corrupting our Revolution.”
“The Politburo leaders haven’t managed to become socialists,” San Li said. “Why should we?”
There was a murmur of nervous laughter which seemed, to Sparrow, to rise from the books themselves.
Kai blushed and stood up. “Comrade,” he said to the Old Cat, “thank you for your hospitality. I can no longer listen to this conversation. Please excuse me.”
The Old Cat and Ling had been talking to one another, and now paused, confused. The Professor stared, amazed. “Kai, my boy! Sit down, sit down. What’s got into you? San Li, didn’t I tell you to hold your tongue?”
“I say what’s on my mind.”
Kai’s voice was calm. “You’ve never fought for anything, San Li. You have no idea what life is like outside Shanghai, and yet you dare to lecture us.”
“In the Conservatory, you know better?”
Ling interrupted. “Be quiet, San Li. Kai, Sit down. There’s no need to take all this to heart. After all, we only come together to think differently, don’t we? You’re a brother to me, I know you’re upset but come—”
But Kai had already turned on the Professor. “You’ve already ruined me, and now you’re endangering everyone in this room. For you, political struggle is just a game. It’s taken me years to see you clearly.”
The room was silent.
The Professor finally spoke. “Since when did the desire to know oneself, to better oneself, become a traitorous act in this country? Should this not frighten you, Kai? My son, you forget that I, too, lost my entire family in the Revolution.”
Kai flushed. He swung his bag over shoulder and walked out of the room.
“Sparrow,” the Professor said. “Go with him. He’s very disappointed. He doesn’t mean what he says….”
Sparrow didn’t move.
“I’ll take Zhuli home,” Ling said. “You live near Beijing Road, don’t you? So do I.”
How calm Zhuli appeared, Sparrow thought, as if it were she who had brought him here. Had she? What had they done?
“Can’t you hurry up?” Ling said. There was a tremor of fear in her voice.
Sparrow got up, wished everyone well and left.
—
The Professor and San Li exited together, mumbling apologies, and so it was only Zhuli, the Old Cat and Ling who remained. Nobody mentioned Kai or what had happened; it was as if the argument had dissolved, having never been. So the educated class is not so different after all, Zhuli thought. In these times, we all rely on silence.
Ling told Zhuli that she was a student at Jiaotong University. “In fact,” she said, “I study utilitarianism, Mencius and the art of couplets, so I qualify as one of San Li’s ‘slop bucket’ philosophy students.”
The Old Cat was reorganizing the books around her. “Maybe you need a copy of this,” she said, tossing a thin book to Zhuli. “Fou Lei’s translation of Jean-Christophe. You know it of course?”
“I’m embarrassed to say that I haven’t read it yet.”
“Ha, why apologize?” The Old Cat lifted her soft shoulders and then, from this great height, let them fall like a landslide. “I only suggest it because they say Rolland modelled his Jean-Christophe on Beethoven. A Beethoven for the times we live in. However, not every page is exciting. There you go. And this, Hu Shih’s essay on Wu Dao-zi. A book outlawed, reviled by the government and, consequently, very popular.” When the Old Cat sat beside her, Zhuli could smell crumbling paper, ink stone and a whiff of sugarcane.
“Miss Zhuli,” Ling said, “do you carry your violin with you everywhere you go?”
The case in her lap was as cool as stone on an autumn night. Zhuli nodded.
“A bit strange, don’t you think?” Ling said.
The Old Cat sniffed. “As strange as you carrying paper and pen in your pocket! You’re a student after all, and she’s a violinist.”
“Then San Li might as well carry a sabre. It seems he majors in provocation.”
“If you told him to stop carrying on, he might listen,” the Old Cat said.
“Please! San Li would never perform for an audience of one.”
Zhuli wanted to ask them about Kai. Instead she opened the Hu Shih essay and began to read the first lines. She flipped forward, read further. The text had been copied out by hand, in a square yet beautifully bold script. She turned more pages. This was the same hand that had copied the Book of Records. This was her own father’s handwriting and she would know it anywhere.
The Old Cat peered at her. “Quite a clever essay, isn’t it?” she said.
Was it Zhuli’s imagination, or was there a question folded attentively inside this question? “I’m sure it must be, but I find myself interested in the calligrapher.” To throw the Old Cat off the scent, she said, “Did you make this copy yourself?”
“Ai!” The Old Cat slapped her round knees with her round hands. “I’ve an enviable gift but not so divine as that. No, the calligrapher is a scholar from Shanghai, a poet in fact. But alas, he is not a poet anymore. He fell under the wheels of the Party and they sent him for re-education. I haven’t seen him for years, he disappeared. For a musician, you have a good eye for calligraphy.”
“It’s because my own handwriting is so poor,” Zhuli said. When my mother comes home, she thought, the first thing I’ll do is bring her here. That is the proper way to do things.
“On that note, I have something for you to decipher.” The Old Cat creaked herself upright, swayed past Ling and stopped at a desk. Zhuli had not even realized the desk was there, so camouflaged was it by papers. The Old Cat shuffled through a stack of folders before plucking out a single sheet. She handed it to Zhuli.
“Well, grandmother!” Zhuli said, after a moment. In her hand was the aria of the Goldberg Variations, transcribed into the numbers, dots and lines of jianpu notation. “You’ve gone and dropped a bag of books on me! I had no idea you studied Western classical music.”
“I don’t. Someone left this at my door, when, a month ago?” She looked to Ling, who nodded in confirmation. “Sure I can read jianpu but I have no clue what this music is.”
Zhuli told her it was Bach.
“Oh, him.” The Old Cat sounded disappointed. “I was hoping it might be that handsome firecracker, Old Bei. My niece and I have been inserting this piece of music into traditional song books.” Ling smiled mischievously. Aunt and niece, Zhuli thought, so this is why I felt so comfortable with them. “We throw it in at random just to cause a little frisson. I added the words of Chairman Mao as a libretto: ‘On a blank sheet of paper free from any mark, the freshest and most beautiful pictures can be painted.’ ”