In the Pond (13 page)

In Maintenance, Liu and Ma, having waited for twenty minutes, were cursing Bin loudly. “Next time,” Liu said, “we’ll tie him to a bench when we question him. Even if he messes his pants we won’t let him go.”

Ever since the article was published, the telephone in the editorial office of
Environment
had been ringing continually. Many people called to relate similar stories of their own and begged the editors to report them; at the same time, some officials called and claimed that the article was full of distortions and that the editors must be answerable for the consequences. The Bureau of Environmental Protection of Gold County, which sponsored the newspaper, dispatched two cadres, with a policeman, to the editorial office to investigate the case. In addition, the
leaders summoned Jiang Ping to the bureau and rebuked him. They reminded him that the newspaper was a public mouthpiece, not a means for venting private malice and causing social disturbances. Jiang, however, was too stubborn to admit he had done anything wrong and insisted that reporting evil winds didn’t contradict the aim of the newspaper, because the title
Environment
ought to include both the natural and the social. Nonetheless, his superiors ordered him to write out a self-criticism and make a detailed report on the process of the article’s publication.

The pressure from higher authorities was too much for the bureau to bear. The County Party Committee, the People’s Congress, and the Administration all had demanded that the bureau investigate the case and criticize the editor in chief for distorting the facts and for the damage the article had done to the image of the Party leaders in the countryside.

Within a week the bureau issued a document, taking these measures:

Still, Jiang believed that what he had done was within the power of his position and that there was no violation of any rule, so he refused to write a self-criticism. He asserted to the bureau’s leaders that to voice the grievance of an underdog was a common practice in journalism. Every one of the Party’s newspapers had done this again and again; why couldn’t
Environment
do the same?

He was not frightened by the petty bureaucrats, because he had relatives in Beijing. If necessary, they could help him lodge a complaint with the State Council.

After questioning Yen and Song, the investigating team took “Execute the Devils” off the wall of the editorial office, saying they would keep it as evidence of Bin’s bribing the staff. Jiang argued that he had paid twenty yuan for having the painting mounted and owned a part of it now. They then agreed to “borrow” it for a few weeks.

On the same day the team went to Dismount Fort by jeep to talk with the slandered cadres. Secretary Yang received them with a wry face, as though he had a pain in his chest. He denied knowing anything about Shao Bin and insisted that he had been sniped at for an unknown reason. He implored the team to discover the man behind Bin, because it was unlikely that an obscure worker alone would be so bold and so determined to get at him, as if there were a long-standing feud between their clans. Yang suspected that his enemy Ding Liang, the commune’s chairman, had masterminded both the scurrilous
article and the disruption of the election. Yang felt Bin was nothing but a gun loaded by Ding. He had told his assistant, Dong Cai, to ferret out the connection between Bin and the Ding faction, but so far Dong hadn’t come up With any concrete evidence.

The investigating team assured Yang that they would look into the matter in a professional way. Then they went to the Harvest Fertilizer Plant and met with Liu and Ma. The two leaders asserted that Bin was a lunatic and had done everything out of malice and selfish motives. They showed the investigators the photographs of Liu’s bitten bottom and of the apples; they emphasized that the only reason the plant hadn’t fired Bin was that he suffered from mental trouble and might do something desperate if provoked. Also, they had always pitied him. Without much effort they convinced the team that the article was full of fiction. So the investigators concluded that at most the article was a one-sided story; they presented this conclusion to the bureau.

Two days later, the bureau issued another document, ordering Jiang Ping to leave his position. Since the leaders neither appointed a new editor in chief nor specified how the newspaper should be run in the future, it was obvious the paper was banned and its staff was laid off for the time being. Though still on the bureau’s payroll, Jiang, Yen, and Song couldn’t believe they had become idle
men so suddenly. This idleness was simply beyond their endurance. They wanted to work. Nobody had the right to prevent them from serving the people and the socialist motherland.

The catastrophe, however, created unprecedented solidarity among the editorial staff. For a week they met at Yen’s in the evening, discussing how to make their superiors reinstate the newspaper without taking any of them off the board. Yen’s mother-in-law was ill, and his wife had gone to her mother’s and left the house to him, so Yen’s home became the editorial staff’s secret office, comfortable and unwatched. After two meetings, they concluded that the most important thing to do now was make the case known to the masses, to exert public pressure on their superiors. They all agreed Bin had to play a key role in publicizing the wrongs, since he was the initial victim and the immediate cause of Jiang’s dismissal. Obviously, unless Bin’s case was redressed, it would be impossible for them to get rehabilitated. So Yen sent Bin a letter informing him of what had happened and asking him to come to Gold County as soon as possible. “We have to find effective countermeasures,” he wrote. “Please come to my house directly after you get off the train.”

Reading Yen’s letter on his way to the candy shop on Market Street, Bin almost blacked out, and for a good
three minutes he held a concrete pole to keep himself from collapsing. The passersby on bicycles looked back at him with wondering eyes while he motioned again and again, assuring them that he was all right and didn’t need help. Instead of going to the shop, he turned back and hurried home. Now the whole fleet is sunk, he said to himself; because of me they have all lost their jobs, and the newspaper is gone too. Damn! it’s not worth it, the price is too high. They are all ruined.

By instinct he knew it was too late to retreat for self-protection. Besides, if he deserted them now, everyone would curse him, and in the townspeople’s eyes he would become a pile of dog feces stinking for decades. There was no way out, so he had to join forces with them. He felt sick and tired as he showed Meilan the letter, telling her of the new development. How he was longing to take a short vacation, to go somewhere away from this mess and turmoil.

To his amazement, Meilan calmly took a ten-yuan note out of her purse and handed it to him, saying, “You must go help your friends.” She sounded as though, in addition to his artistic talent, he was also a sort of strategist, capable of turning the tide. He took the money and caught the next train to Gold County.

Without difficulty Bin found Yen’s. He lifted the large iron ring on the gate and clapped it, but no sound came from inside. He knocked again; still there was no response.
After waiting a few moments, he pushed the gate open and entered the yard. Two oval flower beds, edged with serrated bricks, spread beneath the granite wall and were filled with tulips, white and yellow. An aquarium with a steel frame sat on a stone table in the middle of the yard, with some tropical fish swimming in it like flying swallows and strings of bubbles rising from the bottom covered with pebbles. To the left was a tiny vegetable garden fenced with twigs, in which cucumbers and kidney beans were hanging on trellises. At the end of the garden, in front of the dark brick house, two peach trees were laden with fruit, and between the trees a hand pump craned over a well.

Seeing the black ceramic tiles on the roof, Bin couldn’t help but envy Yen his residence, which had apparently belonged to a rich family in the old China. Yen lives like a landlord, Bin thought.

As he entered the outer room, Bin heard voices talking. A meeting was in full swing, with Song and Yen arguing loudly.

They stopped to greet Bin, then told him that a lengthy letter of complaint had just been composed and that they had been discussing where to send it. Jiang had an aunt in Beijing who was an editor at the journal
Law and Democracy
, so he thought she must know somebody in the State Council and could help them present the letter directly to the Civil Inquiry Department.

Yen disagreed, saying, “China is a huge country, and
that department must receive thousands of letters a day. Ours can’t be special by any means. Who knows in what year they will handle our case if we follow the common procedure?”

“That’s true,” Bin said. “I wrote them half a year ago. So far I haven’t heard a word from them.”

Jiang batted his round eyes; he was unhappy about what they had said, but on second thought he felt they might be right. Time was crucial here; they couldn’t afford to delay even for a month, to say nothing of a few years. What move should they take then? Everybody was racking his brain for an answer.

Bin slapped his knee and said loudly, “Well, why look for the donkey while you’re riding him?” He turned to Jiang. “Why not ask your aunt to have it published in
Law and Democracy?
That’s an authoritative journal. They published one of my seal prints two years ago. I’m sure any words from Beijing will make the leaders incontinent.”

They all laughed and agreed it was a good idea. Song said, “I think we should send somebody to Beijing, to make sure they help us without delay. It will save a lot of time.”

“Yes, we must do it immediately,” Yen added.

Since none of the editorial staff could leave without arousing their superiors’ suspicion, Bin became the only candidate for the trip. In addition, he was the main victim
and had to have his own case rectified too, so everybody wanted him to leave for Beijing the next morning, taking the four o’clock train directly from the county town.

“What’s the rush?” Bin asked.

They said it was already Tuesday, and the letter of complaint must reach the editorial board of the journal within the week.

Bin didn’t mind visiting the capital, but the opportunity had turned up so suddenly he wasn’t prepared. So he began explaining the inconvenience. Yet, they all begged him to consider the dismal situation, the improvement of which depended solely on the success of this trip. How could he eat and sleep well while his friends were all in deep water and scorching fire? He was obligated to go. Please, no more dillydallying.

After only ten minutes’ persuasion, Bin agreed.

A few problems, however, had to be solved before his departure. First, he couldn’t wear his canvas pants, which were work clothes, and plastic sandals to the capital. Look at them, there were a few oil stains on the trouser legs, and one of the sandals had lost its buckle, the lacing belt was stuck between his toes. Second, he had no national grain coupon with him and no money for the train fare. Third, he had to have an official letter, or no place would let him stay overnight and he might be arrested. Fourth, his wife had to learn about this trip as soon as possible; otherwise she might think he had been
kidnapped and go to the plant, demanding that the leaders return him to her. Fifth, he had to cover up this trip medically, or else the leaders would know of it and take countermeasures. Sixth, and most important of all, he ought to take a painting or a piece of calligraphy with him as a gift for Jiang’s uncle, his aunt’s husband, who was a literary scholar. This wasn’t a bribe. Every educated Chinese understood that a work of art could be neither eaten nor worn — it had no practical value at all and only showed the artist’s cultivation and personality. Presenting someone with a painting was something like a spiritual exchange and was absolutely appropriate and necessary for this occasion. Those cadres on the investigating team were benighted country boors: they took “Execute the Devils” as a bribe only because they were ignorant of the literati’s convention.

Jiang said he would go home and get some grain coupons and a hundred yuan for Bin. Because his uncle was a physician in charge at the Country Central Hospital, Song was going to ask the old man to make out a sick-leave certificate for Bin, which Yen would personally take to Dismount Fort the next morning, so that before noon Meilan could have it passed on to Hsiao Peng, the director of Maintenance. As long as she kept people from entering their home, no one would discover Bin wasn’t ill. Of course Shanshan had to be careful too, not to let out the secret that her dad wasn’t home. As for the official
letter, Yen happened to have a blank piece of stationery at home, with their editorial seal on it, so he could fill it out for Bin.

Though Yen found a pair of leather loafers that were Bin’s size, no suitable pants were available. The other men were either too bulky or too tall for Bin to wear their clothes. What should they do? Then the thought came to Yen that Bin wasn’t much taller than his wife. He went into the inner room, opened the wardrobe, and took out a pair of black slacks for Bin to try on. Bin put them on, the fine silk giving his legs a caressing tingle. Amazingly, they suited him well. “You look like a kung-fu master,” Song said. They all laughed.

Indeed, combined with the white, V-necked T-shirt and the loafers whose thick soles added two inches to Bin’s height, the slacks made him look natural and rather elegant.

The work of art, however, was difficult. It’s common sense that artistic inspiration cannot be summoned. Even though Bin was able to make a piece of calligraphy under the pressure of the moment, it would be impossible to mount it overnight. Yen had quite a few paintings done by himself, but none of them looked good enough for this occasion. Finally, again it was Yen who came up with a solution. Since Bin was a sort of stone epigraphist, why couldn’t he carve a seal for Jiang’s uncle? One didn’t need inspiration for carving a few words on a stone.
What one needed were skills, strength, and artistic cultivation. Yen told them he had several jade stones at home.