At the major hospital where Lin Sha’s mother worked, the two of them were heatedly discussing something outside a room with a large red sign over the door reading AUTOPSY.
“I can’t stand that smell,” Lin Sha said, screwing up her eyebrows.
“It’s formalin, a kind of preservative. For soaking the bodies used in dissection.”
“I’m not going to watch a body get dissected, Mom. I’ve seen so many livers and lungs and stuff already.”
“But you’ve got to learn where the organs are situated in the body.”
“When I’m a doctor, can’t I just give the patients whatever medicine they’re supposed to get for whatever illness they have?”
“You’re a surgeon, Shasha. You’ve got to perform surgery.”
“Let the boys be surgeons.”
“Cut that out. Your mom’s a surgeon. There are lots of excellent women surgeons.”
Now clear about the situation, Zheng Chen said she would go into the room with Lin Sha, who then grudgingly agreed to the autopsy lesson. The girl’s hand, tightly clasping hers, trembled noticeably as they walked through the door, and Zheng Chen wasn’t doing much better herself, although she fought to keep her fear from showing. She felt a chill wind across her face. The walls and floors were white, and the fluorescent lights overhead cast a pale glow on the autopsy table ringed by a group of children and two adults all dressed in white lab coats; the only bit of color in this world of gloomy white was the dark red object on the table.
Lin Sha’s mother led her daughter by the hand to the autopsy table, and pointing at the object, said, “For the convenience of our autopsy, the body needs to be pretreated by removing a layer of skin.”
Lin Sha tore out of the autopsy room and began to retch, Zheng Chen close on her heels. She clapped her on the back, keeping a lid on her own nausea, but grateful for the excuse to leave the room and for the sunlight outside.
Lin Sha’s mother followed them, and bent down to tell her daughter, “Stop it, Shasha. Observing an autopsy is a valuable opportunity for an intern. You’ll get used to it over time. Think of the body as a stopped machine, where you can look at its parts. You’ll feel better that way.”
“You’re a machine too, Mom! A machine I hate!” she shouted, and turned to run off. But Zheng Chen held her back.
“Listen to me, Lin Sha. All jobs, not just being a doctor, require bravery. Some might be even tougher. You’ve got to grow up.”
It took some doing but eventually they convinced Lin Sha to return to the autopsy. Zheng Chen stood with her and they watched the sharp lancet separate soft tissue with a low scratching sound, and white ribs pushed aside to expose mulberry organs…. Afterward, she wondered what it was that had supported her through it, not to mention what had supported the girl who used to be afraid of bugs.
Zheng Chen spent all of the next day with Li Zhiping, a boy whose father was a letter carrier. Over and over, father and son traced the route he had walked for more than a decade, and then as evening fell, the boy walked it by himself for the first time. Before setting out, Li Zhiping tried to attach the huge mailbag onto his beloved mountain bike, but it didn’t fit, and so he had to return it to his father’s trusty old Flying Pigeon and drop the saddle to its lowest position before riding it out into the lanes and alleys of the city. Though the boy had committed all the roads and delivery points to memory, his father was still uneasy, and so he and Zheng Chen biked after him at a distance. When the boy reached the final stop on the road, the gate to a government building, his father caught up with him and clapped him on the shoulder.
“That’s good, son. It’s not that tough. I’ve done it for more than ten years, and I was set to do it my entire life. Now it’s in your hands. Dad’s got just one thing to tell you: I’ve never misdelivered a single letter the whole time. It might not be a big deal for other people, but it’s something I’m secretly proud of. Remember, son, no matter how ordinary the job, you’ll do well if you put your heart into it.”
The third day Zheng Chen visited three students, Chang Huidong, Zhang Xiaole, and Wang Ran. Like Li Zhiping, the first two were from ordinary families, but Wang Ran’s father was a well-known go player.
Chang Huidong’s parents ran their own barbershop. When Zheng Chen arrived, he was giving his third haircut of the day. It was even worse than the first two, but the customer merely laughed at the patchy result he saw in the mirror and said it was fine. Chang Huidong’s father apologized and refused payment, but the customer insisted. The fourth customer demanded a haircut from the boy, too, and when Chang Huidong draped a sheet over him, he said, “Practice your heart out on me, kiddo. I only have a few haircuts left, but you young people need barbers. They can’t all turn into long-haired wild children.”
Zheng Chen let him cut her hair, too, turning it into a tangled mess that his mother had to trim into a short cut that ended up looking not bad at all. When she left the shop, she felt much younger. It was a feeling she’d had since the supernova. On the brink of a strange new world, people reacted in two opposite ways: they grew younger or got older, and she fortunately fell into the former camp.
Zhang Xiaole’s father was a cook at a work unit cafeteria. When Zheng Chen saw her student, he and his companions were, under the adults’ direction, almost finished preparing rice and a large cauldron of food. For a few nervous minutes, several children stood shaking in front of the canteen window watching their efforts sell out bit by bit to a main dining hall packed with people, but it looked like nothing was amiss. Then Zhang Xiaole’s father rapped a ladle against the window frame and announced, “Listen up. Today’s meal was prepared by our children.”
After a few seconds of silence, the hall erupted into applause.
But it was Wang Ran and his father who most impressed Zheng Chen. The boy was about to head off to driving class when she got to their house, and his father walked with him a fair distance to see him off. He said to Zheng Chen with a sigh, “I’m useless. At my age, I can’t even teach my son any actual skill.”
Wang Ran reassured his father that he would learn how to drive and then become a good chauffeur.
His father handed him a small bag. “Carry this with you. Read and practice when you’ve got spare time. Just don’t throw it away, since it’ll come in useful some day.”
He didn’t open the bag until he and Zheng Chen had walked for a while. It held a container of go pieces and a few manuals. He looked back at his father, the ninth-dan go master, still there watching after him.
As it did for many children, a dramatic change lay in the future for Wang Ran. When Zheng Chen visited him again a month later, his plan to become a chauffeur had somehow landed him in a bulldozer, where he proved a quick study. She found him at a large building site in the inner suburbs, where he was working on his own in the huge machine. He was visibly pleased to see his teacher, and invited her into the cabin to watch him work. As he piloted the bulldozer back and forth to flatten the ground, she noticed two men watching them closely from not far off. To her surprise, they were soldiers. Three bulldozers were at work, all driven by children, but the two soldiers paid particular attention to Wang Ran’s, and occasionally pointed in his direction. At last they waved for him to stop, and a lieutenant colonel looked up at the cabin and called to him, “You’re not a bad driver, kid. Want to come with us and drive something even more fun?”
“A bigger bulldozer?” he asked, poking his head out of the cabin.