"I ' m not hungry. "
"Please eat."
"All right, if you say so." He tried to smile, but the effort distorted his face, which he turned aside to avoid being noticed. He got up and went to the kitchen.
12
Why don't you escape?" That question came to Lin's mind now and then.
He couldn't help forming imaginary plans – withdrawing all the 900 yuan from his savings account, sneaking away at night to the train station, using an alias from now on, restarting his life in a remote town where no one knew him. Ideally he'd like to work as a librarian. But in the depths of his heart he knew he would have been weighed down with remorse if he had abandoned his family to seek his own happiness. Wherever he had gone, the hound of his conscience would have hunted him down.
When the Spring Festival was at hand, Manna said to him, "Why don't you take something to Shuyu before the holiday? Just to see how she's doing."
"Why do you want me to do that?" He was surprised.
"She must be lonely, no family around except Hua. Besides, don't you miss them?"
"All right, I'll go see them."
At first he thought perhaps Manna had suggested the visit because her illness had softened her feelings, or because she knew that the twins might depend on Hua and Shuyu's help in the future. Then he wondered, Isn't Manna a lonely woman herself? Did she imply that she didn't feel as lonely as Shuyu because she had a family intact? Can my role as a husband make such a difference? Do most married women feel the same way?
To some extent, he was eager to see how Shuyu was getting on, though he had heard from Hua that she was well. Her sciatica was greatly alleviated by hot baths she often took in the match plant. But his daughter had also told him that sometimes her mother missed their home village. Shuyu would say, "I'm like an old tree that can't be moved to another place." She made Hua promise that next April the two of them would go back to Goose Village to sweep the graves of Lin's parents. Despite complaining, she enjoyed her life in the city.
Two days before the Spring Festival, Lin put into a duffel bag four frozen mackerel and a bundle of garlic stems, both of which had been allocated to their family by the hospital for the holiday, and he was ready to set off for the Splendor Match Plant. As he was leaving, Manna got up from the bed and gazed at him. He had on his fur hat, with its earflaps tied around his chin, and his hands in leather gloves were holding the handlebars of their Peacock bicycle, which was an economical brand, the only one that didn't require a coupon at the time. Manna's eyes were glowing and wide open as though unable to close. She bent down and kissed the elder baby River, who was sleeping with his brother Lake in the suspended crib.
"Be careful, " she said to Lin.
"I will."
"Come back early. I'll wait for you."
"Sure, I'll be home for dinner."
It was half past four in the afternoon and traffic was surging in the city. The sky was overcast with gray clouds and smog. One after another lights flickered on in the two- and three-story buildings on Spring Street, along which Lin bicycled. He was going to the city's west end. The tops of the houses, covered with red pantiles and ice, turned murky in the dusk, and the road was slippery with the snow pressed hard by carts and automobiles. He told himself not to pedal fast. A week ago a girl had been killed by a truck while bicycling on this very street.
When he arrived at the plant, it was already dark; all the houses had their lights on. Without difficulty he found Unit 12, which had been assigned to Hua recently and was in the middle of a dormitory house. Hearing his daughter singing from inside, he didn't knock on the door. He couldn't make out what she was singing, perhaps a dance song.
It had begun to snow lightly. From a tall smokestack in the south, a loudspeaker was announcing the evening news after the music of "The East Is Red, the Sun Is Rising." Outside the plant a few firecrackers exploded on the balconies of some residential buildings.
Uncertain whether he should go in, he remained at the window, whose panes had almost frosted over. He bent forward and looked in with one eye through an uncovered spot. Inside, Shuyu, in a white apron and a green cotton-padded jacket, looked healthy and happy. Mother and daughter were making pies together. A round bamboo grid on a kneading bowl held three rows of pies. Hua was rolling out the dough with a wooden pin, while her mother was using a spoon to stuff the pies with sugared red-bean paste. Shuyu looked younger now, somewhat urbanized; she reminded Lin of a professional cook. For some reason he was overwhelmed by the peaceful scene, and his throat tightened. He straightened up, looked around, and saw a few white cloth sacks, which must have been filled with frozen dumplings and pies, hanging outside some windows of another dormitory house. He remembered that back in their home village each family would make thousands of pies and dumplings at the end of the year and have them frozen in the storehouse, so that they wouldn't have to spend a lot of time preparing meals during the holiday season. Winter was the time to relax and enjoy themselves, and many men would gamble and get drunk every day.
Should he go in? He remembered that a few months ago a retired official had died of a stroke while getting together with his former family. The old man had left his home village with the Communist army in the fall of 1943 and later divorced his wife when he became a middle-ranking official in Harbin. Forty years later, when he retired and went back to visit his home village, he found his former wife still waiting for him and their four children already raising their own families. Overwhelmed by the family gathering, which consisted of sixteen members of three generations, the old man had a stroke at the dinner table and died two days later.
Now, standing outside the apartment, Lin was afraid he might not be able to control his emotions if he went in. So he left the duffel bag on the briquets piled beside the door. But before he could move away, the bag fell to the ground, together with a thick bunch of frozen scallions that had hung above the coal.
"Who is it?" Hua cried from inside.
The door opened. "Dad! Come in." She turned around and shouted, "Mom, my dad is here."
Shuyu came out, rubbing her floury hands. "Don't stand in the snow. Come on in," she said with a broad smile, as though he had returned from a long trip.
Lin locked the bicycle and went in. The room was so warm he took off his hat and glasses, which misted up instantly. He kept wiping the lenses with his thumb and forefinger.
Both Shuyu and Hua urged him to get on the brick bed, which was shiny and well heated, so he unlaced his boots and climbed on it. He crossed his legs, covered them with a small quilt, then removed his jacket. In no time Shuyu placed a large mug of black tea on the low table before him. She said, "Drink this to warm yourself up. It's so cold outside."
Sitting on the brick bed made him feel cozy. How he would like to lie down and warm his back for a while. He was tired, and the feeling of being at home moved him as he sipped the tea and listened to his wife and daughter talking in the kitchen and cooking dinner.
His heart was full, and he was breathing heavily. He looked around and saw four Spring Festival pictures on the walls, similar to those in their village home and each having at least one fat baby and a pair of giant peaches in it. The thought came to him that Shuyu and Hua could live quite well without him. This realization saddened him and made him feel like a good-for-nothing. "I'm a superfluous man," he muttered. That was a phrase he had read in a Russian novel long ago. The author's name escaped him.
He tried to recall the holidays in recent years and found himself at a loss – not a single one of them was distinguishable from the rest. He couldn't say that he had ever had a happy Spring Festival since he left Goose Village. His mind shifted from holidays to love, which perplexed him more because he had never spent a day with a woman he loved wholeheartedly – no, there had not been such a woman in his life and that emotion had been alien to him. Yet one thing he was certain about now: between love and peace of mind he would choose the latter. He would prefer a peaceful home. What was better than a place where you could sit down comfortably, read a book, and have a good meal and an unbroken sleep? Deep in his heart he knew this was merely wishful thinking, because soon he would have to return to Manna and their babies in the other home. He closed his eyes. What a mess he had made of his life and the lives of others!