When we had returned to China, he was reprimanded by our college’s Party Committee, which ordered him to turn in a thorough self-criticism. He did that. Then the Provincial Writers’ Association revoked his membership. He became persona non grata again. Narrative Techniques was taken out of his hands, this time for good. He was returned to teaching as a regular faculty member and has been barred from attending conferences and giving talks.
Professor Pan, do not assume that this is his end. No, he is very much alive. There is one most remarkable quality in this man, namely that he is simply insuppressible, full of energy and resilience. Recently he has finished translating into English the autobiography of the late Marshal Fu; the book will be published by the International Friendship Press. He has made a tidy sum of money from the work. Rumor has it that he claims he is the best translator of Chinese into English in our country. Maybe that is true, especially after those master translators in Beijing and Shanghai either have passed away or are too old to embark on a large project. It seems Mr. Fang is rising again and will soon tip over. These days he brags that he has numerous connections in the capital, that he is going to teach translation and modern British fiction in your department next year, and that he will edit an English journal for your university.
Professor Pan, please forgive me for this long-winded reply. To be honest, I did not expect to write with such abandon. Actually this is the first time I am composing on a computer. It’s quite an experience. The machine has undoubtedly enhanced my eloquence, and perhaps some grandiloquence; I feel as if it could form sentences by itself. Now, I must not digress anymore. Let me conclude by summarizing my opinion of Mr. Fang, though I will withhold my moral judgment: he is a man of vitality, learning, and stratagems; although already in his late fifties, he is still vigorous and may have many years left; as long as you have a way to contain him, he can be very useful and may contribute a great deal to your department. In other words, he can be used but should never be trusted, not unlike the majority of intellectuals, who are no more than petty scoundrels.
My respectful salute!
Zhao Ningshen, Chairman
Department of Foreign Languages
Muji Teachers College
March 29
The Woman from New York
Nobody in our neighborhood expected Chen Jinli would come back. When she was planning to go to America four years ago, many people had tried to dissuade her. What else did she want? She taught math at our city’s Teachers College; she had a considerate husband and a lovely daughter, who was about to attend kindergarten; her family had just been allotted a three-bedroom apartment on the ground floor of a new building. We couldn’t understand why she was so determined to go abroad. A few people said she wanted to make money. Most of us didn’t think so. Although it was rumored that in America banknotes were as abundant as tree leaves, who would believe that? If she were a young girl, we could have guessed her motive, either entering college there or marrying a foreigner — an overseas Chinese or a white man. But she was already in her early thirties and had her family here. In spite of others’ admonition, she left early that summer. Soon afterwards, her parents-in-law, both being high-ranking officials in Muji City Administration, told their colleagues and friends that Jinli wouldn’t come back anymore. Old people would say, “What a heartless woman. How could she abandon her family like that? What’s so good in America?”
Now she was back. She looked like a different woman, wearing a gold necklace, her lips rouged, her eyelashes blackened with ink, and even her toenails dyed red. We wondered why her shoes’ heels needed to be four inches high. She could hardly walk on those stilts and often held out her hand for support when walking with others. In a way, her makeup and manners verified the hearsay that she had become the fifteenth concubine of a wealthy Chinese man in New York City.
During the first few months after she left, her husband, Chigan, had told us that she was studying English at a language school there, to get herself ready for a graduate program in math. Then we heard she was ill, unable to move about. A year later, word came that she was running a jewelry store in New York’s Chinatown. Some people believed her business must be a gift from the rich old man.
Her last letter to Chigan said she decided to come back and stay with him and their child forever. By her appearance, we doubted that. Yet whenever asked whether she was going back to New York, she’d say, “No, I’ve lost my job there. The jewelry store was closed.” A few relatives of hers were curious about how much money she had made, but she always told them, “I’ve no money. How could you make lots of money by waiting tables? In America half your income goes to taxes. You earn more, but you spend more, too.”
Young people, eager to know of “the Beautiful Land,” wanted her to talk about New York, but she would shake her head and say, “It’s a nice place for rich people.”
“Come on, Jinli, aren’t most New Yorkers millionaires?”
“No. There’re a few millionaires, but most people work harder than us. Some are homeless, sleeping on the streets.”
What disappointment her words gave those credulous young ones, who believed Wall Street was paved with gold bricks.
She came back at a bad time. It was midsummer, the best season in the Northeast when the weather is congenial and fresh vegetables and fruits appear on the market, but her daughter, Dandan, had no school and could stay with Chigan’s parents day and night. A week before Jinli’s return, Dandan had been moved out so as to avoid her. In fact, the child had almost forgotten her mother. Whenever we asked her if she missed her, she would say, “No.”
Jinli was disappointed not to see her daughter and got mad at Chigan. He tried to calm her by assuring her that Dandan would be back in a few days.
For a week Jinli was busy cleaning their home, which had been littered by Chigan. He was a clumsy man, though in his work he maintained machines at the Boat Designing Institute. Spoiled in his childhood, he didn’t know how to keep things tidy and clean. Jinli found eggshells under the beds and dust cloaking the organ, the chests, and the wardrobe. Cobwebs hung in every corner of the ceilings; the rooms smelled musty, and she had to keep the windows open for days. All the quilts were shiny with grease, and a few had holes in them, burned by cigarettes. She was told that the washer she had sent home from America two years ago was kept at her parents-in-law’s. Worst of all, her jasmines and peonies were all dead, standing like skeletons in the flowerpots, and the soil beneath them was covered with cigarette butts and half-burned matches. Within three days, the once-familiar door-slamming and clatter of dishes and pans resounded through the apartment once more — the couple began quarreling again.
“Gather your dirty socks and underwear. Go to your parents’ house to wash them,” she ordered him.
Without a word he was putting them into a cardboard case. She went on complaining about the cigarette ash in the kitchen and the bathroom. “This is like inside a crematorium,” she kept saying.
He pushed up his wire-rimmed glasses with his fingertips and said finally, “If you don’t like this home, why did you bother to come back?”