Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in Chaos (39 page)

It had taken us two hours to walk to the site. My students were exhausted. Some of them sat down during the tedious ceremony. I didn’t want to be charged with teaching disrespectful or disloyal students, so I went among them, pulling them to their feet and turning them to the portrait. When the ceremony ended and the groups began to break up and go their separate ways, I caught a glimpse of Yiping. He was busy with his students not far away, and he hadn’t noticed me. I felt my heart pounding and my face growing warm, and I wasn’t sure what to do. Several hundred grieving people stood between us. As the crowd began to break up, some were pushed in one direction, the rest in another. Yiping and I were carried in opposite directions. Students on either side of me held my hands and arms. I began to cry when I saw Yiping turn and start down a path in the midst of his students. I tried to call his name but no sound came out. Several adults sought to comfort me, assuming I was weeping for Chairman Mao. But I wasn’t. I wept for Yiping.

————

Despite our expectations of a sudden change in our lives, day followed tedious day and nothing seemed to happen. But Dongmei and I did
not give up. We embraced new hope tightly. Word at last came from Beijing that a new policy was about to be instituted. University entrance examinations would be administered throughout the country. The rules assured that students would be admitted to the universities partly on test scores rather than solely on family backgrounds. Because of the massive number of high school graduates from the previous decade who had not been allowed to continue their education, only the top 2 percent of those taking the examination could be admitted to a college or university.

Educated youths throughout the nation began to cram tirelessly during the next weeks, brushing up on their studies. Each knew that his or her life hung in the balance, that a top score on the exam really would dramatically alter the future. Because few reference books were available, highly prized hand-copied editions and commentaries were passed from hand to hand in the mountains. Almost miraculously, Dongmei’s parents in Shanghai mailed her three old textbooks they’d salvaged from somewhere. The mathematics, physics and chemistry texts were valued by us more than copies of Mao’s Little Red Book had been by the Red Guards. After teaching each day we spent hours together in our room studying. Some nights we went without sleep. As dawn was breaking we quizzed each other on our studies. Both of us coached and encouraged the other.

More than three hundred educated youths in the commune took the two-day examination in early December at the county high school. Each of us was seated at a desk, a pink test participation slip on the right corner of the desk. Before I began writing I asked God to help me. Then I asked Him again. I reminded Him that I was a Christian. I decided to take no chances. I closed my eyes and asked Buddha, my ancestors, the Earth Father, the Earth Mother and Chairman Mao to help me. And to be sure I did not insult God, I asked Him a third time for help. When I was finished praying to every known deity, I picked up my pen, opened my examination and began writing.

On the way back to our quarters after the exam, Dongmei bubbled over with enthusiasm. But I was somber. “I know I did well.” She
laughed. “I could tell. Now all I have to think about is which university I’ll attend. I want to go back to Shanghai. Fudan University is my first choice. My parents are going to be so happy.”

I wasn’t as optimistic. The exam had been very difficult. “Well, Fudan is a good choice,” I said. “But I’m not sure I’m going anyplace.”

“Cheer up!” Dongmei said. “We studied together. I know you did well, Yimao. I’m sure you’ll get your first choice of schools, too.”

We had not yet received notice of our scores when school was dismissed for the Spring Festival in January. In the more relaxed atmosphere of post-Mao China, educated youths were given longer leaves to go home for the holiday. While I was celebrating the arrival of the New Year with my family, a letter arrived from the commune notifying me that I had scored high enough on the examination to be admitted to Anhui Teachers University in Wuhu, where my parents taught. It was my third choice of schools. My brother Yiding was notified that his score had qualified him for admission to the same school. Not only were we leaving the countryside, we were coming home.

Because of the good news, I lingered for two extra days in Wuhu before returning to Tongxin. On the way back I stopped at the commune headquarters and met half a dozen other educated youths who were returning from their holiday and picking up supplies. There was little joy among them. I learned that I was the only educated youth in the commune who had been admitted to a university. I realized this meant that Yiping and Dongmei hadn’t passed. I suddenly had mixed feelings about my good fortune.

None of the others congratulated me. They cut short our conversations and commiserated only with one another. I pulled aside a young woman from a neighboring village and asked her, “Why is everyone avoiding me? I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“You remind us of our broken dreams,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. And then, “I’m worried about Dongmei. I need to get back to our school.”

“Dongmei’s not there,” she said.

“Where is she?”

“Yimao, after learning of her score yesterday, Dongmei jumped from the ledge at the top of the mountain. Several villagers in the valley saw her fall.”

My legs weakened, and I collapsed onto a bench. “Oh, Dongmei, Dongmei, Dongmei … no … no,” I wept. “Dongmei! Why did you do this? Why wasn’t I here to save you?” The girl comforted me but the other educated youths merely watched from a distance.

After I’d recovered somewhat from the shock of this news, I climbed up the steep path to the school one last time. I crossed the bridge deftly and went inside the school. I expected to be greeted by Dongmei—I simply refused to believe that she was gone. Her clothing was laid out neatly on her bed. The textbooks we’d studied together were stacked in the corner.

I sat on my bed once more and called out her name, as if I might summon her from wherever she had gone. As I lay down to rest, my face touched a sheet of paper on my pillow. It was a page from one of the notebooks we’d used when we prepared for our examinations. My name was scribbled across it in Dongmei’s handwriting.

Yimao
, it read.

When I finished reading her words, I felt as if I were suffocating. I went outside to breathe. I paced back and forth from the bridge to the school, weeping. Every few minutes I looked up the path leading to the top of the mountain and called her name. Only the mournful echo of my own voice came back. Classes resumed the next day. I gathered the students in one room and told them I was the only teacher. I did not know if they had been told about Dongmei. I said, “Teacher Xiang asked me to tell you all to study very hard. And she thinks about you every day.” My words were met by silence and tears.

An official from the brigade headquarters came by that afternoon and told me that a new teacher would be arriving in two days. “I know you are leaving us,” he said. “But I’d like you to stay until he gets here.”

I agreed. “I have a request,” I said. “Can I see Dongmei before I go?”

He gave me an uneasy look. “I’m afraid not,” he said. “They never found her. Some villagers saw her jump. But the valley is deep there. It is impossible to find her.”

I broke down again at his words.

Two days later I left Tongxin School. On the way down the mountain, I decided to take a detour and find Yiping. As I neared his village I passed around the settlement where the captured tiger had once been caged. I wondered what had happened to him. I noticed that the stack
of stout beams that had been his cage were piled outside the shabby hut of the hunter. I recalled the wide-eyed peasants gaping at the trapped animal, his deep growl like distant thunder, and his ominous persistent scratching. How I pitied him. I wondered if he’d escaped and if he was free again in the mountains. I hoped he was.

At the last moment I changed my mind about visiting Yiping. What was the point, after all? He wasn’t leaving the mountains, and I was. Meeting him would shatter us both and remind us of the tragedy of our forced separation. It was far better, I felt, to carry Yiping in my heart, to remember him as he was when we recited poetry and climbed through the clouds hand in hand. I turned around and walked slowly back past the dismantled tiger cage and descended to the valley floor.

As I neared the base of the mountain, I sensed an unseen burden being lifted slowly from my shoulders. My steps quickened and became lighter. A fresh morning breeze caressed and cooled my face. I felt like a feather falling from the sky, fluttering peacefully to the earth. I arrived at the bus stop and sat on my bag and waited. When I heard the engine of the bus laboring in the distance, even before I could see it, I rose. When it choked to a stop a few feet from me, I climbed aboard and found a seat.

I watched out the window as we pulled away. Despite the joy of this moment, which I had dreamed about for so many years, my heart ached for those I was leaving behind. I looked up for the last time at the green peaks and the terraced rice paddies, the tea bushes, the drab huts, the huge heavy clouds hugging the mountain and the rich blue patches of sky. I whispered goodbye to the children, to the peasants, to all the educated youths who remained behind. I whispered goodbye to Dongmei and Yiping.

Then I lowered my eyes, leaned forward, cradled my head in my hands and wept. My tears fell like raindrops on my bare feet and began to wash away the hard mountain soil.

My father (leaning, far left) with school friends in a posed studio shot, Yangzhou, 1932.

In Tianjin, 1956: my mother standing, center, flanked on the left by my maternal great aunt and, right, my maternal grandmother. Seated, center, is my maternal great-grandmother at 102, holding my older brother, Yiding, with my cousin on the left. Note the bound feet.

Mama holding me, flanked, left, by Grandma (maternal) and by Grandmother Jiang Zhongjie (paternal) in a Beijing studio shot, 1958. This photograph was taken to be sent to my father in prison.