‘But it’s Ku Wenxuan’s son,’ the employee said. ‘He’s just a boy.’
The official scrutinized my face. ‘A boy, you say? He’s got the start of a beard already. He’s unauthorized and is not allowed in!’
During the two months Father spent in the hotel attic, people reported that he began to behave bizarrely. He stubbornly dropped his trousers once a day, regardless of time or occasion, to let the team examine the fish-shaped birthmark on his backside. For humanitarian reasons, they decided to end the solitary confinement early and notified us to come and get him.
So Mother and I waited in the third-floor hallway for the green metal door to swing open. When it did, Father emerged, bent at the waist, carrying a bag in one hand and a chess set in the other. Deprived of sunlight for so long, his face was wan and slightly puffy. At first glance, he seemed relatively healthy, but on closer examination, it was obvious that he bore the look of fatigue. He cast Mother a fervent glance, but when she turned away, fear replaced the fervour in his eyes as his timid gaze fell on me. That gave me goose bumps — he was so humble, so helpless. It was as if I were the father and he the son. Having committed serious errors, he was now trying to ingratiate himself, begging for my forgiveness.
I no more knew how to forgive than how to punish him. So I followed him down the stairs, watching as he stepped cautiously, still bent at the waist, like a doddering old man. After living in the attic, with its low ceiling, for two months, he’d become used to standing in a semi-crouch. ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘you’re out of the attic now. Why are you still bent over like that?’
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I am out of the attic. Am I bent over?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘like a shrimp.’
Suddenly aware of his posture, there, on the third-floor stairs of the Spring Breeze Hotel, he raised his head anxiously and jerked his body straight, which induced a painful scream. He dropped the bag as if his body had snapped in two. Then he dropped the chess set and braced himself with his hand on the small of his back. His face was a study in suffering. ‘That really hurt!’ he said as he stared fearfully at Mother.
Mother bent down to pick up the bag, as if she hadn’t heard his scream. ‘What’s in here?’ she asked. ‘What’s that jingling sound? Why not throw it away? Why take it home?’
I went to give him a hand. He looked at Mother, expecting her to help as well. But she stayed put, bag in hand, and looked away without moving a muscle. So Father composed himself and pushed me away. ‘Pick up those chess pieces,’ he said. As I did, I watched him bend, little by little, and start downstairs. ‘It’s all right,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll walk like this. It doesn’t hurt as much.’
The investigation was brought to an end, at least for the time being. The team had got half of what they were after. My father refused to admit that he’d created a false identity or that he’d misled the Party, and insisted he was the son of the martyr Deng Shaoxiang. But they’d had more success in another area than they’d expected. After only a few sessions, during which he’d put up strong resistance and argued in his own defence, Father eventually confessed that there were problems with his lifestyle, either because he was being too honest or because he was trying to evade a more serious issue.
There were problems with his lifestyle.
And those problems, I heard, were serious.
Lifestyle
PROBLEMS WITH lifestyle meant sex, everyone knew that. Women were always involved when a man was accused of having lifestyle problems. This was serious, and the more women were involved, the more serious the problem. I was fifteen at the time, still some way from sexual maturity, but I knew that my father — a man, after all — had sex outside of marriage. I didn’t know how many women he’d slept with, and had to wonder what was so great about sleeping with lots of women. Since it wasn’t something I could talk about, I pondered it silently, stopping only when I got an erection. That was something my mother would not tolerate, calling it a shameful sign of degradation. One morning she awoke me by slapping me with a plastic sandal. Glaring at the little tent I’d made in my underwear, she drove me out of bed with more slaps. ‘I’ll teach you not to learn such things from him! It’s shameful! Degrading!’
My mother made a clean break with my father, but stopped short of going her separate way. I later learned that this was not an act of mercy, but a way to settle scores. She did not intend to come to his rescue. In her eyes, he was little more than a pile of dog shit, and in no need of being rescued. What she wanted was enough time to do something. What, exactly? Punish him. Unwilling to give up the advantage she held, she wanted to make him suffer. At first she concentrated on his mental state, and the unexpected occurred when Father’s spirit, like his bent back, was irreparably broken. When there was nothing more she could do to his spirit, all that was left was whatever punishment she could inflict on his body.
Early the next morning, Father pushed Mother’s bicycle outside. ‘Be careful out there,’ he said, ‘and take it slowly.’
‘It’s none of your business how fast or slow I ride,’ she said, ‘and keep your filthy hands off my bike. Maybe a tractor will come along and put me out of my misery.’
Wisely, Father stepped back, but then said, ‘Read the news slowly during the broadcast and don’t make any mistakes. With everyone pushing against the wall, it’s ready to topple. You don’t want to give people any excuse to capitalize on a mistake.’
Mother just sneered. ‘At a time like this, how can you pretend to be so caring? With all these daggers in my back, what makes you think they’ll let me anywhere near a microphone? Know what I do at the studio? I clip stories from the papers for Zhang Xiaohong.’ The mere mention of how she had to serve a co-worker incensed Mother, and she was on the verge of hysteria. Finally, she pointed to the ground. ‘Ku Wenxuan, even death would be too good for you! Get down on your knees, you owe me that!’
Hesitant for a moment, Father might have been reflecting on all the terrible things he’d done, and wondering if death would truly be too good for him. He glanced up at the window to my room before he fell to his knees in the gateway and looked up at Mother with a tight smile. ‘If death is too good for me, then kneeling is what I deserve.’
‘Oh?’ she said. ‘Then tell me, why do you have to do that here? You want our neighbours to see, is that it? They open their doors, and there you are, on your knees. Maybe you don’t care about losing face, but I do.’
Father stood up and muttered, ‘Worried about what people might think, that’s good. Where would you like me to kneel?’ He glanced around, looking for a good spot, and settled on a stone barbell lying under the date tree. He shuffled over and eased himself down on the stone, gazing helplessly at Mother and hoping for her approval.
She merely snorted and pushed her bike through the gate, crestfallen over the docility of her husband. But then she turned and pointed at him. ‘You’re kneeling there only because I told you to,’ she said contemptuously. ‘I tell you, Ku Wenxuan, a man should not kneel too easily; there might be gold under his knees. Know what I mean? We’ll see if anyone anywhere will look up to you from now on.’
As he knelt there I spied on him and detected a slight movement. One of his knees rose from the stone, the other one stayed put. He waited for Mother to leave before getting slowly to his feet, and when he spotted me, an embarrassed look flashed briefly on to his face as he brushed the dirt from his knees. ‘Just this once,’ he said as casually as possible. ‘It won’t happen again. All in fun. But tell me, Dongliang, why haven’t you been lifting the barbell lately?’