The Pearl Jacket and Other Stories Page 10

  The old lady rubbed her eyes and said in a quivering voice, “Okay, let me help the old man out.”

  When the old lady stepped out again, all eyes were on her, and on the black box in her hands: “The old man died five days ago. Here’s his letter to you.”

  Trembling, Chief Zhao took the letter with both hands and began to read aloud: “Please accept my hearty congratulations as an old friend of River Island! Please allow my ashes to be buried underneath the bridge so I will have the honor of being one of its pillars, too. . . . ”

  Then folks lined up to bow and pay their final respects in front of the ash box.

  (1994)

  Higher Education

  Si Yusheng

  Having failed in the college entrance exams, Qiang, along with an elder cousin of his, went to a seaport city to find work.

  Once there Qiang’s eyes were dazzled by the beautiful sights. The elder cousin said: Not bad, right? Qiang said: Not bad, not bad. The cousin said: Not bad at all, but it has nothing to do with us. Everybody will look down upon us. Qiang said: Nobody will if we don’t look down upon ourselves.

  Qiang and the cousin found work at a warehouse repairing canvas covers. Qiang put his heart to his work and would even pick up loose rags on the ground in case they could be used.

  One night a thunderstorm hit the seaport. Qiang rolled out of bed and rushed into the pouring rain outside. His cousin tried to stop him but couldn’t. What an idiot! The cousin cussed.

  Qiang checked one big pile of goods after another and tightened canvas covers that had been blown loose by gusts of wind. When the owner came in his car, Qiang was already drenched from head to toe. But all the goods on the storage ground remained intact. The owner wanted to give him a raise right there. Qiang said: It’s no big deal, really. I was only checking to see if the canvas covers I repaired were sturdy enough.

  The owner valued Qiang’s honesty and wanted him to run another company of his as a manager. Qiang said: I am not up to the job. Why don’t you hire someone with better education? The owner said: I think you’re the man—you have something in you that’s more valuable than any education!

  So Qiang became the manager.

  The company was still new and needed to hire a few college-educated young people as clerks. So it placed an ad in the paper. At the news Qiang’s elder cousin rushed over right away and said: Give me a job, a good job. Qiang said: you are not good enough. The cousin said: Not even good enough to be the gatekeeper? Qiang said: Won’t do. You wouldn’t take care of the company as your own. The cousin’s face reddened with anger: You have no conscience at all. Qiang said: My conscience lies in giving my best to whatever I do.

  With the addition of the college-educated young men the business of the company flourished. As time passed, those young men got to know Qiang’s level of education and began to complain: With our degrees and diplomas, how can we work for him? When Qiang heard this, he was not upset. He said to them: Since we’re a team, let’s give our very best to our work. As to this title of the company’s manager, it doesn’t really matter who wears it on his head. What really matters is not the title, but. . . .

  Those college-educated clerks looked at each other and didn’t complain any more.

  A foreign company saw the potential of Qiang’s company and wanted to talk about setting up a joint venture. Qiang’s assistant said: I know they’re a big fish. We should wine and dine them really well. Qiang said: Right.

  The foreign company’s CEO turned out to be an overseas Chinese accompanied by an interpreter and an assistant.

  Qiang asked in English: Do you speak Chinese, sir?

  Surprised, the CEO said: Oh yes.

  Qiang said: Then, why don’t we talk in our mother tongue?

  The CEO said: Okay. At the end of the negotiation session, Qiang said: How about we have dinner together? The CEO hesitated but then nodded his head.

  The dinner was quite simple, but each dish had a special flavor. All of the dishes had been finished, except for two steamed dumplings left on one platter. Qiang said to the waitress, offhandedly: Can you put these two in a bag for me? This request worried Qiang’s assistant, who stole an uneasy glance at the CEO. The CEO stood up, grasped Qiang’s hand, and said: Okay, we’ll sign the deal tomorrow!

  The following day, Qiang’s boss treated the foreign CEO to dinner. Qiang and his assistant were at the table, too.

  During dinner the CEO asked Qiang: I’m so impressed with your work. Which college did you go to, if I may ask?

  Qiang said: I grew up in a poor family with illiterate parents. But they started my education rather early from simplest things, such as a grain of rice or a thread. After my father passed away, it was my mother who struggled alone to support me, food and schooling and all. She said: I don’t care what you’ll do when you grow up, but I’ll be happy if you do a good job at it.

  At this Qiang’s boss became teary-eyed. He stood up and raised his glass: Let’s drink to the health of your dear mother, who has given you the best education in the world! I wish she could join us today!

  (1996)

  Yellow Scarf

  Xue Tao

  The girl had to pass this small clothing shop on her way home from school.

  She saw a yellow scarf which she liked very much.

  She stopped and gazed at it long.

  “You want it, child?” The middle-aged merchant asked. “This is the last one. You can have it for only ten yuan.”

  The girl shook her head. Money? She didn’t have any.

  “You can ask your parents for money. I’ll save it for you. I can see you like it a lot.”

  Reluctantly the girl left.

  The whole evening the girl tried to gather enough courage to ask for money.

  In the end, though, she never said one word about the yellow scarf. She vowed she would never even bring it up.

  Her family was not well-to-do. This the girl knew.

  When the girl passed the small clothing shop again, she could see, from some distance, the yellow scarf flapping in the wind like a butterfly. She paused and gazed at it for a while before walking near it.

  “Have you brought money with you?”

  The girl shook her head.

  The middle-aged merchant felt the yellow scarf in hand, looked at the girl again, pictured how perfect it would look on the girl, and felt sorry for her.

  “You really like it, don’t you?”

  “Mmm,” the girl nodded seriously.

  The girl started to leave. Since she could not afford it, it wouldn’t make sense for her to linger any longer.

  Before she had gone far the middle-aged merchant took down the yellow scarf and ran and caught up with her.

  “Child, you can have it free. Take it. It’ll look good on you.”

  The girl was at a loss.

  “No, I can’t take things from people without paying.” The girl said firmly.

  “Take it. I want you to have it. I mean it.”

  “I can’t! I would feel even worse than not having it at all.”

  The girl broke into a run.

  As she ran, she turned her head and said, “I can see it from the school building. That’s just as good. That’s good enough for me.”

  The middle-aged merchant stood there, speechless.

  From that day on the girl never passed the shop again. Since she couldn’t buy the scarf, she might as well avoid the market altogether. Whenever she felt a bit tired doing her school work, she would look outside the window and gaze at the yellow scarf flapping in the wind.

  Many days later that yellow scarf was still hanging from the merchant’s stand. Why hadn’t anyone bought the yellow scarf, the dream of the young girl?

  For a simple reason: the merchant had a label next to the yellow scarf. On the label were written these words:

  Not For Sale.

  (1996)

  Auntie Fei

  Xu Huifeng

  Auntie Fei is a neighbor of my maternal
aunt, quite unique among women of her generation. The exceptional generosity, intelligence, and humor she showed at important moments in her life made her a legendary figure in my eyes.

  The legend of Auntie Fei began with her marriage.

  Auntie Fei is very charming although she is not considered pretty. Her pair of large eyes can speak and her nose is well-shaped. What’s not pretty about her face is the half below the nose. She had a fall when she was a child and hurt her chin. It never completely healed. So her chin, along with her mouth, is somewhat pulled down on one side.

  By the time of marrying age, her family, friends, and relatives were all worried. Auntie Fei said: I am not worried. So, why should you? She could write, paint, play the piano, and naturally, have high standards when choosing her mate. People dropped her hints that as an imperfect girl—her imperfection being quite noticeable—she should be realistic and settle for someone equally imperfect.

  Auntie Fei didn’t budge in her search for her Prince Charming. She liked a worker poet whose poems appeared in the newspapers quite often. So she sent him a letter with a picture of herself enclosed. The letter was passionate and serious. The picture was a beautiful one: a young woman holding a rose next to her mouth, her eyes glinting warmly at the viewer with a tint of shyness.

  A few letters back and forth later, the poet couldn’t wait to come and see Auntie Fei. He was so shocked by what he saw, however, that he invented a lie and left right away.

  Auntie Fei knew the reason why the poet had left. She wrote him another letter saying he had forgotten something and should come and get it in person.

  The poet came to visit again, skeptically. Auntie Fei got to the point right away: You were thrilled with me in the picture and disheartened with me in person. But you shouldn’t look at a person’s appearance only. Last time you looked at me with one pair of eyes. As a poet, you have to have another pair of eyes. Now what I want you to reclaim is that pair of eyes.

  With that she took out her paintings, embroideries, and artwork she had made: little ornamental bells which rang musically, an earthen-ware pig biting into a watermelon greedily. The poet was delighted.

  Then, Auntie Fei sat down at the piano and said, “Since you’re leaving, let me sing you a song for memory’s sake.” As her fingers danced upon the keys, a beautiful song emerged from her lips. The song she sang was entitled “The Deep, Deep Blue Sea,” a Yugoslavian love song popular in the 1950s. When the song ended, its last note still lingering in the air, the poet was so thrilled, his eyes shined with joy.

  That’s how Auntie Fei gave the poet another pair of eyes. They married happily, oblivious to the puzzled look from others.

  And the poet did get a pair of good eyes. In 1957 the poet was condemned as a “Rightist” and was sent to the wild Northwest to be reformed. Concerned his wife would be implicated, the poet suggested they divorce. Auntie Fei held her husband’s hand and sang the popular folk song “In That Faraway Place,” with changed lyrics: “In that faraway place there is a Rightist man; I’d love to be his Rightist woman, following him to that faraway place. . . . ” At this, her much-troubled husband smiled with tears in his eyes.

  In 1966 her husband, long unemployed, got into trouble again, the biggest trouble ever. When he came home from the first denunciation rally, his face ashen, Auntie Fei didn’t say much. She went and borrowed a pair of clippers and cut all of her husband’s grayed hair. Then she spent the whole evening making him a tall hat with two buffalo horns growing out from either side. Then she painted a fiendish demon on the hat and wrote on it these words: Down With All Fiendish Ghosts and Gods!

  At the denunciation rally the next day, her husband put the tall hat on himself. At this, the Red Guards couldn’t help but laugh. The tall hat looked so funny. It meant this bad egg was truly repentant. Even her husband found the whole thing laughable. The hat was light and warm and shielded his head from the cold wind. Now that not a single hair was left on his head, there was nothing for the rebels to grasp.

  So, from the 50s all the way to the 80s, when China opened its doors again, Auntie Fei sang those songs for her husband over and over. Together they had journeyed for over 30 years until he passed away. Then her two grown-up children left to live and study abroad. At age 66, Auntie Fei felt somewhat lonely.

  She went to the park to exercise every day. Since she could sing, dance, and was talented in so many other ways, and had a good sense of humor, she drew a lot of attention among the retired folks. Perhaps looks are not that important when you are old, two widowers, one a retired engineer, and the other a retired teacher, soon began to compete with each other for her affection. Auntie Fei was equally warm and attentive to both, so both felt they were the chosen one.

  That’s why the two cultured men were even more than puzzled when they found out that the real chosen one was a crippled gardener.

  Once when I ran into Auntie Fei, I told her about their puzzlement. Auntie Fei thought for a second and then said: “I thought those two were not cultured enough.” The engineer and the teacher not cultured enough? I asked. How? She explained, lowering her voice to a whisper: During a retiree fishing trip organized by the park, she played a little trick and found out that the two more-educated men are actually less-cultured than the one who has received less-formal education. I couldn’t help but laugh. Auntie Fei said: “I’ll tell you more details later . . . something for your next novel.

  I’m still puzzled. But I know that if Auntie Fei had made the conventional, reasonable choice, she wouldn’t have been this charming. Auntie Fei is one of a kind.

  (1998)

  Time Travel

  Cai Nan

  A dead leaf arose from the ground and grew back on the bare twig; the twig turned green and the leaf alive with dewy hope; after a night of gentle spring rain a tender bud appeared on the twig. As you can see, this is a story of traveling back in time.

  A life had just been pierced through by a bullet and withered on the execution ground. Then we see Du Jun’s life, like that dead leaf, arise from the ground, his blood, already seeped into the earth and frozen there, come alive again and fly back into his body, and the hole in his body heal; Du Jun sits up, stands on his feet, and retraces his footsteps.

  Du Jun breaks away from the two police officers holding him, leaves the public sentencing rally, and returns to his jail cell, which is lit by the faint light slanting through the tiny window high on the wall. Each day he has only two meals. For each meal he has only two dry buns which are hard to chew and swallow. As he chews, Du Jun thinks of the famous song by Chi Zhiqiang: “Holding the dry bun in my quivering hand, tears gushing down like flooded bank.” And tears indeed begin to gush down his cheeks.

  “What’s the use of your tears now?” The County Party Chief has said during the trial, angrily: “You’re still so young!”

  Indeed, Du Jun is young. When he was appointed deputy director of the county’s Agricultural Bank in charge of daily operations, he was only 31 years old, glowing with youthful energy. He did mean to do something with his life. Yet, there are too many temptations in this world. When you are still living a simple, spartan life while trying to do good things, it takes extraordinary self-control and discipline. Du Jun became disoriented when money, sex, extravagant cars and houses were dangled in front of his eyes.

  It all started when the bank was building a new office complex. A construction company contractor came to visit and gave him a really nice wall calendar. Wrapped inside the roll of nice pictures was something even nicer: 50,000 yuan. Du Jun, who was supervising the construction of the office complex, couldn’t sleep that night as two Du Juns fought till dawn. One wanted to return the money to the contractor whereas the other said: “Over my dead body!” In the end Du Jun found the middle way to resolve this: He deposited the money in another bank under his wife’s name. Soon after, the construction work went to this particular contractor.

  Whatever came after that was all easy. He didn’t need to lose sleep ove
r it any more. Once a company treated Du Jun to a fancy dinner first, then took him to a sauna house, and then, when the guest of honor had been massaged and made comfortable, stuffed two cartons of cigarettes into his hand. Once home, Du Jun found that each cigarette was actually a rolled up 100-yuan bill. The next day, without any hesitation Du Jun put his name on the company’s application for a 3-million yuan loan.

  After that, a Hong Kong businessman came to see him. The merchant wanted to strike a big steel deal with Bank Director Du. He took Du to Hong Kong. After five days of sightseeing, the businessman tossed the key to a nice villa into Du Jun’s hand. To show his appreciation of the businessman’s generosity, Du Jun embezzled 8 million yuan from the savings accounts of the bank’s customers. No sooner had the new office complex been constructed, it collapsed and buried three of the bank’s employees underneath it. The loan he had signed couldn’t be recalled; the embezzled money had disappeared into thin air. Then? Word got out. The Disciplinary Commission investigated. The Prosecutorial Office took over the case. Dun Jun was sent to jail.

  The first one to come and visit him in jail was the home room teacher from middle school. The gray-haired teacher didn’t say a word. Quivering with emotion, he handed Du Jun a sheet of yellowed paper. Du Jun opened it. It was his application for the Youth League membership; still clear at the right-hand corner was his name in deep blood red.

  Du Jun returns to his beautiful alma mater and becomes a middle school student again. He is a diligent student and sends in his application for the Youth League membership. When he doesn’t see his name on the list of the first batch of students accepted by the league, he writes another application, bites his index finger, and signs the application with blood before handing it to the Youth League secretary. He is ecstatic when he finally puts the league badge on his chest. He wins a top honor during a Beautifying Our Society and Ourselves campaign. He returns the 100 yuan he found to its owner.