Under the Hawthorn Tree (33 page)

After her father was sent home to be re-educated through labour they discussed divorce, mainly because they were worried about what effect his denunciation would have on the children. But Mother thought that Father was already so desperately poor and lonely that were they to divorce, he might not survive. She had sought the children's opinions, saying that they were only really considering a divorce for their sake, and that they would only go through with it if the children were worried about how their father's class status would impact on them.

They replied that she shouldn't do it. This was just how it was, even if she divorced him they would still be his children and people wouldn't necessarily regard them as innocent anyway. So her mother didn't divorce her father, but neither did they have much contact in person in case people criticised them for it.

Through all this, though, her parents continued to write to each other frequently. Her father sent his letters to a sister of his who had married a man with a good class status, and who in this way had avoided attack during the Cultural Revolution. Her mother would go regularly to their house to collect the letters, but she never let the children go in case people made the connection between them and their father.

Jingqiu was lost in her thoughts until she heard her mother ask, ‘Has Sun ever had a girlfriend?'

Jingqiu knew if she said that Old Third had previously had a fiancée it would give a bad impression, so she stuttered, ‘Not that I know of.'

‘Men always hide that kind of thing if they can. If you don't ask he definitely won't bring it up himself. But at his age, and as the son of a cadre, if he says you're the first I wouldn't quite believe it.' Her mother hesitated before asking, ‘Has he ever asked you back to his room on his own?'

‘No, he has lots of roommates.'

‘Is he normally . . . disciplined when he's with you? He hasn't . . . stroked or touched you, has he?'

The words ‘stroked' and ‘touched' nearly made Jingqiu vomit. How can Mother use such horrible words about Old Third? But she thought carefully. Had he been disciplined? Apart from the time when he had been too forward on the mountain, he had been very disciplined, and he had never ‘stroked' or ‘touched' her. He had held her, and had rested his head on her chest, but he had never stroked her chest, or anywhere else for that matter.

‘No,' she said firmly.

Her mother let out a long breath and explained, ‘A young girl should have backbone, there are some things that you should only do after you're married, and before that you should say no, firmly. It doesn't matter how nice he is to you, nor what promises he makes, you must say no. He can promise you the world, but as soon as you do it he won't respect you, he'll think you're nothing. When that happens the power is all his, if he wants you he can have you, but if he wants to dump you it'll be nearly impossible to find another boyfriend.'

Jingqiu really wanted her mother to explain more clearly what those things were that you couldn't do until you were married, but she couldn't find the words to ask, so instead she pretended not to be interested.

‘Ah,' her mother sighed. ‘I always thought you understood how things are, I never imagined you'd get involved in all this so soon. These days they are promoting a policy of later marriages and you're only eighteen, so even if you marry at twenty-three you've still got four or five years to wait. If he clings on so tightly then . . . things can easily happen between you two, and your reputation will be ruined.'

Her mother followed this with numerous examples of ‘ruined' girls: Little Wang who worked at No. 8 Middle School's factory had originally been part of the city song and dance ensemble, as had been his girlfriend of the time. They were not yet married but she got pregnant, and when their work unit found out Little Wang was demoted to factory work and the girl was sent to work in No. 3 Middle School's factory. Everyone knew about their bad behaviour, so now they scarcely dared show their faces around town.

Then there was Mrs Zhao, a teacher at the same school as Jingqiu's mother. She gave birth only seven months after she got married, and although she had not been punished, people had looked down on her since. Then there was . . . .

Jingqiu knew every one of these ‘ruined' girls, and they had all received various punishments for getting pregnant out of wedlock, or some other misdemeanour. Whenever anyone spoke of them they would curl their lips and speak in disparaging tones.

‘Lucky I found out before it was too late, otherwise who knows what might have happened. Don't have any more contact with him. Spoiled sons of officials like him are experts at playing with girls' feelings. He hasn't got his prize yet so he's chasing you with all he's got, but once he's got you he'll tire of you in a heartbeat. And even if he doesn't tire of you his family will never agree to it . . . And even if they agree, you're so young, and he's already . . . so mature. I think he'll struggle to get through the next four or five years. Something will happen sooner or later.'

The next day Jingqiu went to the paper factory to give in her notice. Hunchback Wan was, surprisingly, very polite. ‘I'll calculate your hours at once and you can take the note yourself to Director Li, that way you won't have to worry about it.' This was exactly what had been troubling Jingqiu. If it hadn't been for her concerns that hunchback Wan might not give her her hours, she wouldn't have come all the way to give in her notice. She took the form Mr Wan had written for her, said thank you, and left his office.

Jingqiu had also wanted to say thank you to Zhang Yi but he was working the day shift, as one of his roommates had informed her on the bus. As she was leaving she bumped into Mr Liu so she thanked him, and reminded him about her brother. Mr Liu promised he wouldn't forget.

Once back at home she took over preparations for the evening meal, letting her sister go out to play with Zhong Qin. She boiled the mung bean congee and then lay down on her bed to think. She was very worried about Old Third's cut. It must have been very deep, otherwise why would he need two stitches? She wasn't too worried about the fact that his blood wasn't clotting properly as the doctor was always saying the same about her mother, that she had ‘a reduced platelet count'. As soon as she bumped herself she would bruise, so she was often green and purple all over. Jingqiu hadn't inherited the problem, but neither did it seem very serious.

Yet, some fears lingered as she recalled the scene of Old Third slicing his hand; how could he have been so quick? She had seen him take out his knife, but before she could ask what he was doing he had cut himself. He was crazy, but she was willing to excuse it as a moment of desperation.

She had not dared tell her mother about the money Old Third left the previous evening because she already sensed that the more her mother knew about Old Third, the more things she found to criticise. If her mother knew that Old Third had given her money she would definitely say he was using it as bait.

Jingqiu stayed at home the whole day, and the next she accompanied her mother to the other side of the river to glue envelopes. Her mother had not agreed at first, saying that she needed to rest her feet a little longer, but for some reason suddenly changed her mind and took Jingqiu with her, showing her how to glue the envelopes. Jingqiu was a fast learner, working at great speed. The neighbourhood committee had rules about how much work they would assign, and as her mother had a pension they would only let her earn a small supplement based on the proportion of her earnings that she had lost. This meant that her mother could only take home around seventeen yuan a month.

Now that Jingqiu knew how to paste envelopes, and where to collect and return the goods, she told her mother to rest at home, and not go all the way to the neighbourhood committee to do the work. Secretly, she was hatching a plan: if her mother didn't come, when Old Third visited she could go swimming with him and tell her mother she had been at the neighbourhood committee, gluing envelopes. But her mother seemed to be able to read her mind and insisted upon coming, even bringing Jingqiu's little sister. Every day mother and her two daughters got up early and crossed the river while the sun was not yet too high. Then, once they had finished gluing the day's envelopes, the three of them would walk back home together.

Her mother didn't offer any more stern words of wisdom, but walked around with a serious expression on her face, as if about to oversee a defensive campaign. Even when Jingqiu and her sister went to the river to swim, her mother came along and sat on the bank, watching them. She was one step behind when they went to cool down in the evening breeze; the three of them would sit together by the river, their mother in the middle, a fan in her hand, swatting away the mosquitoes for her daughters. Sometimes Jingqiu would get a strange feeling, as if Old Third were like the naughty monkey Sun Wukong from
Journey to the West
, using his magical powers to change into a mosquito so that he could whisper in her ear. But her mother swatted and swatted him, until he flew off.

Twice Jingqiu thought she saw him; he seemed to be following them. But when she got the chance to turn around and look properly he was nowhere in sight. She had no idea if she had been seeing things, or if he had hidden, afraid that her mother might spot him.

One day the headmaster Mr Wang asked Jingqiu to go work at the cardboard factory; he had recommended her as soon as his son had mentioned that they were hiring workers. Jingqiu was immensely grateful, thinking that she could finally slip her mother's tight surveillance. But despite the fact that her mother would no longer be following her like a shadow, Jingqiu would still not be able to move freely as one of the teachers at No. 8 Middle School, Mrs Li, was sending her daugher Li Hong to work there too. She was a year younger than Jingqiu, and this was her first job, so Mrs Li had asked Jingqiu to take her to and from the factory every day. It was as if her mother had hit upon treasure, and she replied at once on Jingqiu's behalf that she would.

The two of them talked and chatted merrily all the way to the factory. But deep down, Jingqiu's mind kept drifting to thoughts of whether or not Old Third would come to Yichang, and if he saw her with Li Hong, would he dare come up to her? A few times she thought of shaking off Li Hong, but she couldn't think of an excuse. And now her mother was getting better at gluing envelopes, she managed to finish and get home before Jingqiu; by the time she got back her mother would often be standing by the ferry or at the school gate, waiting for her.

Gradually Jingqiu gave up hope, and instead she focused on the beginning of term again in September. The education bureau took another two weeks before they finalised arrangements for Jingqiu's new job in the school's kitchens. Her place of work was now only one step away from her front door, in the canteen opposite.

Apart from the fact that she couldn't see Old Third, life for Jingqiu was getting better, reaching higher, like sunflowers nourished by the sun. The first happy event was when she started to draw a salary. That day, the director of the general affairs department, Mr Zhao, came personally to tell Jingqiu her first paypacket was ready.

‘Jingqiu, you started after the fifteenth, so you'll only get half a month's wages for September,' he said with a smile. To Jingqiu he sounded almost apologetic, but this was already more than she had expected; it had nearly been the end of the month when she started and yet the school was giving her half a month's wages!

Mr Zhao gave her an envelope which contained nearly fifteen yuan as well as a small piece of paper half an inch wide by eight inches long: her wage slip. She took it out and read it over several times to check. It really did have her name on it. The thought that from now on she would collect a slip of paper like this every month made her so excited she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep that night.

She gave all her wages to her mother for the family to use, as well as to save for her brother Xin's wedding, or at the very least so that he would have money to buy Yamin's family a present at New Year. Until now, Yamin had always bought the present and given it to Xin to take to her family, but each year Yamin's father threw it out of the front door. Yamin reassured Xin that lots of girls' parents didn't agree to a match at first, but time usually wore them down.

Yamin's prediction soon came true, because at last Xin was called back to Yichang to work in a state-owned factory. Yamin was thrilled, and went out to buy a New Year present for him to take to her parents, despite the fact that it was a long time before New Year and Xin had yet to start his new job.

All Yamin's parents' objections melted away when they realised that he had been called back to the city, and to such a large factory at that. Not only did the present not get hurtled out the door, but Xin was even invited in to eat with them. Her brother had finally passed the first test for sons-in-law, and he was honoured with the new job of being Yamin's coolie. All the heavy work in the house, such as buying coal, rice and firewood, was left to him from then on. It had been a struggle for him to be entrusted with this heavy work, so he was happy to do it.

Sometimes, just as he had sat down to eat, Yamin would call, ‘Xin, Mum wants you to go and buy coal.' Without a word in protest he would put down his chopsticks and head out. Jingqiu's mother teased her son: ‘If I were to ask you to do anything you'd drag your feet all right, but as soon as Yamin's parents say anything, you jump up at once.'

‘What can I do?' he laughed in response. ‘That's the fashion these days. Jingqiu, why don't you hurry up and get someone to carry the family's coal.'

‘Don't make stupid jokes!' her mother snapped. ‘Jingqiu's job isn't yet permanent, don't go ruining her chances just so we can have someone carry the coal.'