The Bridegroom (4 page)

From the first day, Mo regarded Guhan as his uncle, but he called Shan mother. At night, he’d sleep with her, with his only toy, a MIG-15 jet fighter, placed beside his pillow. He had dark skin, his fat cheeks chapped. His hands and toes and heels were swollen with chilblains. Every night, Shan would wash and rub his hands and feet in warm chili water. The boy would whine with pain, but he allowed her to work on them. Soon scabs formed over Mo’s sores, and Shan kept telling him not to pick them so that they could heal quickly. By the official record, Mo’s father had been a truck driver and his mother a spinner; both had worked in a textile mill.

At a good meal, the boy could eat almost as much as Guhan could. Naturally their grain rations were not enough, and they had to buy some corn flour, rice, and sorghum at tripled prices on the open market. Yet Shan always let Mo eat as much as he wanted. She was a good cook and could make four dishes with half a pound of pork; she was also skillful with needles, her hands often busy knitting something—a sock or a hat or a glove. As Guhan had expected, she turned out to be a dutiful wife and never complained about housework. He felt lucky to have married her, though he was unsure whether he loved her; sometimes he preferred to stay a little longer at the waterworks at the end of the day. Unlike other couples, who would quarrel and fight during their adapting period, Shan and Guhan were very compatible and had none of those problems that many of the newlyweds accused their spouses of having, such as shrieking and kicking in their dreams, abusing children or parents, grinding their teeth at night, sleepwalking, having a bloody nose, or a gluttonous appetite, or bad breath, or underarm odor. Guhan smoked and liked to drink a mug of wine or beer at dinner, but that was normal, as other men did the same.

As it got colder, the three of them would crowd into the brick bed, which they didn’t have enough coal to heat. Every night they’d shiver together for an hour or two before falling asleep. Their only hot-water bottle was tucked under Mo’s feet.

Guhan liked the boy a lot, but he soon thought of having his own baby. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: every new couple were allowed to have one child of their own. Evidently there would be a baby boom in the city the next summer, since so many women were already pregnant. To Guhan’s dismay, Shan refused to go to the hospital and have the contraceptive ring taken out of her womb. She had just begun to feel comfortable in lovemaking, but she insisted she wasn’t ready for a baby yet. “Be patient, sweetheart,” she said to him one evening. “I’m still very weak. Next year we’ll try.”

“Next year I’ll be an octogenarian,” he replied peevishly.

“Come on, Apple, I still can’t stop thinking of my kids.” Her eyes turned red.

“All right, all right, don’t think of them anymore. We have this baby with us, don’t we?” He grabbed Mo and set him on his lap. The boy seemed to understand what they were talking about; he embraced Guhan’s neck tightly. Outside, an icicle fell to the ground, and the wind was screaming.

Though Guhan didn’t know his age exactly, he felt old, eager to prove he was still fertile. After a few fruitless attempts to persuade Shan to have the ring removed, he gave up, only hoping the policy on new babies wouldn’t change soon. This frustration made him treat Mo more like a son. He would buy him spiced beans, hawthorn flakes, baked sweet potatoes, ice cream bricks, and walnuts. The boy enjoyed riding on his neck to stores and open-air theaters; at dinner the two often shared a mug of wine. At long last, in mid-December, when Guhan bought Mo a wind-up torpedo boat, the boy began to call him dad. Guhan was so happy that he promised to buy Mo a pile of firecrackers at the Spring Festival.

On the whole, they led a peaceful life. The temporary Street Committee voted them a model family in January.

A week before the Spring Festival, the city was decorated with colorful lanterns, scrolls, bunting, and red flags, though a lot of rubble remained uncleared. These days, train after train of relief goods poured into Taifu; as a result, the citizens were allocated more meat, fish, fruit, eggs, and branded cigarettes for the festival than in other years. There were even some fresh vegetables on the market, like cabbages, turnips, spinach, bamboo shoots, cucumbers, garlic stems. Every family was given a coupon for one bottle of wheat liquor, but there was no limit on draft beer and wine. The supply of hard candies and pastry was abundant, too.

On his way home one evening, Guhan caught a whiff of fragrance in the air—something very familiar, like that of leek dumplings. It was an unusual smell for late winter, when leeks were hard to come by. As the aroma entered his lungs, a domestic scene suddenly opened in his mind. He saw a cheerful family making dumplings at a table—a slender girl in a pink apron was grinding a chunk of dough with a rolling pin, a young man was kneading together the edges of a wrapper with his fingertips, and a middle-aged woman stirred the stuffing in a porcelain bowl with a pair of chopsticks. A dizzy feeling surged in him, and he got off his bicycle and squatted down on the snow-covered sidewalk. As he sniffed the fragrant air some more, the domestic picture grew clearer. He lit a cigarette and focused his mind on the scene. Gradually their talk became audible. A male voice, somewhat like his own, said, “It’s time to heat water to boil the dumplings.”

That voice shocked him, though he couldn’t see himself in the scene. “No rush, Dad,” the girl said, clapping her floury hands.

Again he was surprised. Did she talk to me? he asked himself. Yes, it seemed so. Why did she call me dad? Was I her father? Who were they? Why did the young man look like me? Who was the middle-aged woman? Were they my family? Did I really have a family? Where did this gathering take place? And how long ago?

By instinct he followed the leek scent, which came from a hut about a hundred yards to the east. As he was walking, a sign emerged above the door of the restaurant: tasty dumplings. He hastened his steps toward the hut while his mind’s eye still observed the family scene. “Dad, you should put these in neat rows,” the young man said, lining up the dumplings. Those words shook Guhan and made him realize that the girl and the young man must have been his children. He froze, then turned a little, gripping the handlebars of his bicycle with both hands while his left shoulder leaned against the bole of a dried mulberry tree killed by the earthquake. A gust of cold wind passed by and made him sneeze and cough. As though the coughing had been meant to precipitate his recollection, picture after picture of his family came back to him—Yaning’s tic fits, the garlic eggplant Jian had pickled, the handsome shoes she had made out of pasted rags stitched together with jute threads, Liya’s sweet voice and thin braids, the tropical fish he had kept, as large as bats. He tried hard to control his emotions as he raised the door curtain and went into the restaurant.

He sat down in a corner and ordered half a pound of dumplings, which came in a white bowl with a blue rim. While he was eating, his memory was further revived and sharpened by the familiar taste of the stuffing, made of pork, leeks, cabbage, dried shrimp, ginger, sesame oil. Every bit of the memory became unmistakable now. He recalled that the family gathering had taken place on the Spring Festival’s eve two years ago, when his daughter had returned from the chicken farm and spent the holiday season in Muji. Leeks hadn’t been available in stores at the time, but he had obtained two pounds through the back door. He had done that mainly for Liya, because she, after a year in the countryside, had lost her appetite, grown emaciated, and suffered from low blood pressure. At his daughter’s name—Liya—he was suddenly overcome with self-pity and began weeping and sniffling, his tears dribbling into the tiny vinegar plate. None of the diners or waitresses took the trouble to console him. They were used to such an occurrence; every day there were a few customers who wept in here, especially those who ate alone.

From the family his mind moved to the cannery. He remembered that he had been a section leader in the factory and that people had called him Old Tong. His name was Guhan, not Sweet Apple. He had held a respectable position, giving orders to forty-eight people, unlike at his current job, where he merely copied names and statistics. What’s more, he had been liked by his workers, who had elected him an outstanding cadre every year. Oh, how he missed his wife and children. How warm and clean his home had been. How pretty those flowers he had grown in his yard. How he wanted to return to Muji and work in the cannery again.

When he finished eating, it became clear to him how he had been trapped in Taifu. What was to be done now? The question baffled him. He didn’t love Shan very much, but he had grown quite attached to Mo, whom he often carried in his lap when he bicycled around. He thought of secretly taking Mo with him back to Muji, but on second thought he realized the police could easily track him down if he had the boy with him. Besides, Mo had almost become Shan’s flesh and blood now; he shouldn’t rob her of this sole solace. Should he tell Shan everything? Would she believe him? Or should he inform the authorities of his real name and identity? Would they allow him to leave without a thorough investigation? No, they wouldn’t. They might demand that he be responsible and stay with Shan and Mo, at least for some months.

He walked all the way home, pushing the bicycle with one hand. As he was getting close to his shack, a miserable feeling again overwhelmed him. He crouched down and wiped his tear-stained face with handfuls of snow. He made up his mind to leave this hopeless place as soon as possible.

“Ah, there you are. How we were worried!” Shan said at the sight of him and rose to her feet.

“Daddy, I miss you,” Mo cried, placing his plump hand on his chest, and expected to be carried up.

Guhan bent down, kissed the boy on the cheek, and turned to Shan. “I don’t feel well,” he said, then went to bed.

“Don’t you want to eat dinner?” she asked. “I made twisted rolls, still warm on the stove.”

“I ate already.”

“Are you sick?” She came over and touched his forehead.

“I’m all right, just tired.” He avoided looking at her. “I’ll be fine tomorrow morning.” He felt like weeping, but he contained himself.

Together she and Mo resumed reading a story about how a pair of young bunnies outsmarted a gray wolf. Guhan had just subscribed to the children’s magazine
Tell Me a Story
for Mo. Two weeks ago Shan had begun teaching the boy how to read and do addition.

After midnight, when he was certain that Shan and Mo were fast asleep, Guhan got out of bed, left on the table the key to the bicycle and three ten-yuan notes—half his savings—and stuck into Mo’s pocket a thick pack of firecrackers that he had forgotten to give the boy. He put on his army overcoat and sneaked out. In the howling wind he set off for the train station.

Crowds of passengers were waiting for buses in front of Muji Train Station. Many of them wore fur coats. Soon Guhan began shivering, his cotton-padded overcoat unable to keep out the cold. Fortunately, after just an hour’s wait, he got on a bus bound for Victory District, where his home was. The bus was so packed that soon he felt warm.

When he arrived at his apartment, he was surprised to see that at the center of the door was a New Year picture, in which a fat baby boy was sleeping in a bean pod floating on a river. He stopped for a minute, wondering whether his family still lived in there.

Where else could they be? he thought. This is my home.

With a throbbing heart he knocked on the door. A moment later his son stepped out, rubbing his sleepy eyes. “Who are you looking for?” asked the young man, his left cheek twitching.

“Yaning, I—I’m your father!” Guhan moaned.

His son was taken aback, then looked at him closely. “Are you really my dad? He’s very thin.”

“Look at me!” He took off his felt hat; the morning sun flooded in through a window, glistening on his sweaty balding head, which sent up coils of steam. He said, “I gained some weight because I was sick after the earthquake and lost my memory for a while.”

Yaning recognized him and rushed over; father and son embraced, sobbing. Meili, his daughter-in-law, came out, wearing dark-blue maternity trousers, and she joined them in weeping. His family had thought he was dead. The memorial service had been held five months before, after the cannery notified the Tongs that he had vanished in the earthquake.

“Where’s your mother?” asked Guhan.

“She’s at Uncle’s,” his son answered, then turned to Meili. “Go tell her Dad is back.”

Meili put on a fur overcoat, then waddled away with her protruding belly to Gorki Street, where the uncle’s family lived.

Because the Tongs had believed Guhan was dead and they had been afraid the cannery would take back their housing, Yaning and Meili had gotten married a week after the memorial meeting and moved into the apartment. At the same time, Jian—the “widow”—went to stay at her brother’s, since she refused to sleep in the kitchen. Exhorted time and again by her friends and relatives, she had just begun looking for a man, a husband-to-be, so that she would again be able to live under her own roof someday.

The Tongs had made another decision that was sensible under such circumstances. Instead of going to the agricultural school, Liya had returned to Muji City; the cannery hired her, filling the quota left by her father; now she worked as a quality inspector in the lab.

Hearing Guhan had come back alive, his wife almost passed out. She cried, stretching up her bony hand, “Lord of Heaven, why are you so cruel to us? Why didn’t you let me know my old man was still alive? Or why didn’t you kill me instead? Where can I hide my face?”

Initially, on leaving Taifu, Guhan had planned to give his family a joyful surprise, but their joy was mixed with confusion, shame, and sadness. At dinner that evening, Liya kept blaming herself for returning to the city, while Yaning was crestfallen, having no idea how to accommodate his parents now. However, Guhan had a large heart and assured his children that everything would be all right and that the cannery might provide him with new housing, because this mess had been caused by nature and nobody should be responsible for it. He told his family, “I’ve worked for them for over twenty years, so I belong to the cannery. When I’m alive, I am their man; when I’m dead, I am their ghost. They have to take me. Don’t worry so much. It’s good just to be alive.”