Years of Red Dust Page 9

  The next morning, when he woke up, his first thoughts were about the cap. It was overcast outside. He wondered if it was feasible to wear it on campus. Considering the price he had paid for it, it would be a waste, he concluded, not to do so.

  When he arrived on campus, he became aware that people were taking an extra look at him—or at the cap, which must have seemed out of character for the middle-aged, low-profile intellectual. No one could say, however, there was anything improper or wrong about it.

  “You look like a person of authority,” one of his female colleagues said, flashing him an ambiguous smile, “with such a cap on your head.”

  “Well, he is a person of authority,” another colleague said as he arrived at Fu’s side. “No question about it.”

  That was what the two Western scholars had said about him, Fu remembered, when they recommended the cap to him: they called him an authority in the field. After all, he had published more academic papers in international journals than most of his colleagues.

  Anyway, it was a good, comfortable cap, providing a sort of warmth he had not experienced before. Soon, people got used to the sight of an oriental scholar on comparative linguistics walking around wearing an occidental cap. It was a cap that became him, a conclusion reached not only by his colleagues but by his neighbors in the lane too.

  The following month, he spent a considerable sum for a pair of gold-rimmed glasses—to go with the cap.

  And then, a new wool suit.

  For all those years, he had spent little and saved enough that he could afford to go on a small-scale shopping spree.

  Eventually, he became aware of the difference in himself—with the cap atop his head.

  Spring came a couple of months later, and with it, the academic position discussion in the department at the university. Wearing the cap at the department office, he made a short yet surprising speech.

  “In the last three years, I have published twenty-two papers in international journals. Among them, six have been quoted and mentioned by other scholars. If anyone in our department has published more in the field, he or she should be advanced to the full professorship. But if not, I should be the one,” he concluded emphatically. “Several universities have contacted me.”

  The department heads gave serious thought to his statement. In the university ranking system recently introduced in China, the number of papers published abroad was one of the important considerations. Not only was he unmatched in publications, Fu was a good and hardworking teacher. Also, they were impressed by the unprecedented assertive tone in his speech, and they had to consider the possibility of his going to another university. They agreed unanimously to grant him full professorship.

  Following this came the discussion of his housing assignment. As a full professor, Fu was qualified for better housing, so he was put at the top of the waiting list, even though it wasn’t certain that an apartment key would be delivered to him anytime soon.

  As a celebrated professor, he secured a prestigious state grant for his research project, which brought credit to the university as well. The grant was not exactly his money, but with it, he could carry out his work like never before, spending handsomely in the name of his research. Instead of squeezing into an overcrowded bus to the library, carrying a cold lunch box, he came and went by cab. Soon, he also had a young research assistant, who appeared in the lane from time to time. One evening, as they stepped into a taxi waiting for them at the front of the lane, she was seen grasping his hand.

  “Remember that tall white paper hat his father wore during the Cultural Revolution? That was the worst luck imaginable, casting a shadow onto Fu as well,” Old Root commented during the evening talk of Red Dust Lane. “He had to have something to cap it. Now look at that British cap. Brownish, almost purple—the purple qi. The purple luck from the West. That really caps it.”

  Housing Assignment

  (1988)

  This is the last issue of Red Dust Lane Blackboard Newsletter for the year 1988.

  In March, the National People’s Congress discussed and approved the major tasks for the next five years for our country and elected new state leaders. In June and July, inflation hit double digits and prices soared. Shanghai, like some other large cities, experienced a wave of panic buying. The Party government decided to allow most commodity prices to be regulated by the markets, proposed various measures for improving the economic environment, and adopted the initial price and wage reform plan. This year also witnessed the beginning of the normalization of Sino-Soviet relations.

  In the thirties, when the modern Chinese novelist Lao She wrote his well-known saga, Four Generations under the Same Roof, such a large family was considered a blessing. It was in line with the time-honored tradition of Chinese civilization, as Liang Longhua argued, in which the old and young take care of each other in a family-based social structure.

  But there was a fundamental difference during the eighties in China. The four generations in the novel lived in a large house, but Liang’s family in Red Dust Lane lived under the ceiling of an all-purpose room of fourteen square meters in a shikumen house. The family members had to use curtain partitions to divide the room, which contained a bed for his grandfather; a bed for his parents; a bunk bed for his elder brother, his brother’s wife, and their newborn baby; a foldable canvas bed for Liang himself; an all-purpose table serving as a dining table, desk, tea table, and ironing board; and, in a corner of the room, a chamber pot behind a plastic curtain. As in a Chinese proverb, people have to perform a Taoist mass in a snail shell.

  The situation got even worse when, upon graduation from college, Liang was assigned a job at Shanghai Institute of Literature Studies. He desperately needed a room of his own, where he could concentrate on studying and researching. His family tried to behave as considerately as possible. The moment the dinner was over, they would clear the table and move out into the lane, so that he could write in peace and quiet. But even in the summer, it worked only for an hour or so. His grandfather had to listen to the radio, his parents to watch TV, and his elder brother and his wife to talk—not to mention the baby, whose diaper had to be changed.

  Soon, Liang had to face another problem. He didn’t have a girlfriend, even though he was reaching his thirties. It was no wonder, as it was out of the question for him to bring one home. He had tried only once, one winter evening. His family had evacuated long before the girl’s arrival, and she seemed not to take immediate stock of the crammed room. They started talking about Dickens and Balzac while outside it drizzled. Time dripped away, like water from a broken gutter, as if lost in the nineteenth century. But there was no keeping his family out for too long. His grandfather, with a terrible cough, found himself outstaying his welcome in his neighbor’s home. Then his elder brother, having finished half a pack of cigarettes outside in the midst of his wife’s complaining, decided to bang on the door, albeit apologetically.

  The girl did not come again, in spite of their common interests. After all, what’s the point of dating and marrying a man without a room?

  An old proverb says, no matter how clever and capable a woman, she cannot make dinner without rice. The same goes for a man. It was not Liang’s fault, people in the lane agreed, that he still had no girlfriend.

  At the beginning of the year, Liang learned that the institute would get an increased housing quota from the city government. It was what he had been long waiting for. Before 1949, there were always rooms or apartments available for rent and sale to people who could afford them, but for many years after 1949, a government housing assignment system was in effect. In the name of socialist revolution, the system functioned through people’s “work units”—factories, companies, hospitals, or institutes. Each work unit got its housing quota directly from the city authorities, and the ever-worsening city housing shortage created a burning issue for the work units, which were in charge of deciding which of their employees would get a room.

  Housing was a crucial matter to
Liang and his colleagues at the institute, which had a committee formed for the purpose. In the city of Shanghai, each and every person on the housing committee’s waiting list had reasons why he or she deserved a room. It involved a lot of fact-checking and number-calculating for the committee to reach a decision. Liang put himself in the category of an “aged youth” on the application form to the housing committee: in the mid-eighties, an “aged youth” was a practical term used by the housing committee for those who remained single in their thirties. Liang argued that a room was the absolute precondition for marriage.

  “Comrade Liang, there are three married couples waiting on the list. They still live together with their parents,” the head of the housing committee said, implying Liang’s case was not that urgent.

  “But their housing conditions are not bad. Not bad at all. Two couples have rooms for themselves, and the other one also has an attic. True, they still live with their parents, but that’s not a problem.” Liang argued passionately. “My case is totally different, with four generations under the ceiling of one single room.”

  “That’s why you’ve also been pushed to the front of the waiting list, we all understand and we’ll surely try our best for you, Comrade Liang.”

  But the competition became fiercer. Others on the waiting list also went running to the committee. It was true, as one argued, that Liang was still single, but it did not necessarily mean he already had a girlfriend, waiting to get married. In other words, his situation was not desperate, and he could still wait.

  Out of frustration, Liang talked to others about the snag in the housing assignments. One of his sympathetic listeners was his friend Pingping, a bookseller. She was not a girlfriend; he had never thought of her that way. A fairly attractive girl, tall and slender, with almond-shaped eyes and cherry lips, Pingping was about his age.

  “It’s a catch-22. If you don’t have a girlfriend, you won’t get a room, but if you don’t have a room, you can’t get a girlfriend.”

  “Do you think you stand a good chance at your institute if you have a girlfriend?” she said.

  “Yes, a very good chance, I think.”

  “Then go ahead and tell them I am your girlfriend.”

  “Oh,” he said, surprised. He had never thought about it, though he had heard stories about just such a “temporary girlfriend.” He was touched by her generous offer. After all, the story of her dating him could easily get around, since his colleagues came to the bookstore a lot.

  “Don’t worry about it. People do these kind of things,” she said emphatically, “a lot.”

  So he talked to the housing committee again, emphasizing the existence of his girlfriend.

  “Come on, Liang. Now there is a girlfriend out of the blue? You’ve never talked about her before.”

  “But it’s true. Her name is Pingping, she’s a bookseller in the Xinhua bookstore on Nanjing Road. A lot of people at our institute go there regularly. That’s why I have not talked to others about her. You may have already met her there too. We’ve known each other a long while.”

  “Pingping?” The head of the housing committee seemed incredulous. “Well, I can’t simply take your word for it, can I? As people all say, to see is to believe.”

  Liang had no choice but to invite her to his office. She came, sat at his desk, and talked to him intimately for more than an hour. Afterward, they left together, hand in hand, telling people that they were going to dinner in Deda.

  So they did. He felt obliged to, and the two sat at a table overlooking Nanjing Road, gradually lost in the ever-changing neon lights. The candlelight on the white, cloth-covered table lent a romantic atmosphere to the evening.

  But the housing committee remained skeptical, and there was a new response at Liang’s next visit. “Her showing up at your office doesn’t really prove anything. There are stories about girlfriends of convenience, you know. If you’re ready to marry, Liang, you’d better have a marriage certificate. Something that shows proof of commitment. Otherwise, people will say you brought her here simply to show her off.”

  Liang hesitated to break it to Pingping. What she had done for him was incredibly generous and selfless, and it would really be too much to ask her to make a marriage commitment. A couple of days later, however, it was she who raised the question at a café near the bookstore.

  “How did it go at your housing committee?”

  “They are suspicious. They think your visit does not really prove anything.”

  “Really?” she said, looking him in the face.

  He smiled an embarrassed smile without making any further comment.

  “I see. What would prove it?” she said with her head low. “A marriage certificate, right? So show them the certificate. It’s just for the sake of the room. There would be no obligation, I mean, for you.”

  He stared at her, speechless. It might be not correct to say that he liked her, but he surely did not dislike her. She seemed able to constantly surprise him. At times, she appeared to be innocent, almost childlike, but at other times, sophisticated, even calculating. She looked up at him, her face radiant with a secret beauty flashing out from within.

  “In for a penny,” she said, “in for a pound.”

  In the dim light of the café, the choice seemed inevitable, her hand in his. The story about her being ready to marry him might have already started to spread anyway.

  Later that afternoon, they went to the city civil administration office to get the marriage certificate.

  Afterward, he went to the housing committee, holding the certificate, which had a red cover with the Chinese character of Double Happiness printed in gold on it.

  “We believe you, Liang,” the head of the committee said, pushing the certificate across the desk back to him, “but the others on the list have been married for years. One is expecting a baby late this year.”

  That evening, Pingping was waiting for him outside the institute, like a devoted new wife.

  “So you have to play the last card,” Pingping said after a pause in the gathering dusk, looking up at his office building, her head leaning on his shoulder. There was a black bat hovering around a half-open window, which he had forgotten to close after work. It was no big deal, since it was not his office alone.

  “What last card?” he said in confusion, aware that the subtle perfume from her earlobe was making his mind wander.

  “I’ve heard stories of a couple sleeping in the office—as an effective way of putting pressure on the housing committee.”

  “But how can I ask you to do that, Pingping?”

  “There is a long sofa in your office, and I can sleep on that, I think. You’ll take the desk with a bamboo mat spread out on it. That should work for the summer.” She added thoughtfully, “We’ll put a thermos bottle in the corner, and a basin too. Besides, there’s the canteen on the first floor of your office building. We don’t have anything to worry about.”

  He was flabbergasted by her observation. She had been to his office only once. It was too late, however, for him to say no. It would be too much a loss of face for him to back out at this stage. He hemmed and hawed, still hoping that she might not have really meant it. After all, it could also be too much a loss of face for her.

  But true to her word, she came to his office the following afternoon with a traveling cart that carried thermos bottles, a washbasin, a spittoon, cups, a small alcohol stove, and, needless to say, new pillows and blankets and towels, which she must have just purchased.

  His colleagues were too astonished to say anything, looking at one another like stupefied chickens. Embarrassed, they stood up in a hurry to get out of the office.

  “No, you don’t have to leave. I’m just leaving things here. And I won’t come to join Liang until after your office hours in the evening. Sorry, we don’t have any choice; for a married couple, you know, we have to have a room for ourselves.”

  She went on to pass small red envelopes of marriage candy to his colleagues, who all
murmured congratulations. Liang actually got a red envelope too, which bore a large character of double happiness in shining gold, like the marriage certificate.

  The candy he had picked out tasted as hard as a pebble, and it rolled around on his tongue for a long while without melting. Looking up, he noticed a black bat flickering about outside the window. Was it the same one he saw earlier when Pingping had told him about playing the last card?

  When the evening fell, they were left alone in the office room.

  It was a warm summer night. They found it hard to fall asleep, keenly aware that they were now married. The sofa was not long enough. She had to rest her bare feet on the sofa arm. The old desk was far more uncomfortable and groaned under his weight. They couldn’t help gazing at each other in the dark. The occasional footsteps in the building had long since died out. It was getting hot in the office room with the windows closed and the door locked. She moved over to his desk, sat on the edge of it, and, without a word unbuttoned her blouse.

  Waves of the moonlight fading,

  A jade handle of the Dipper lowering,

  We calculate with our fingers

  When the west wind will come,

  Unaware of time flowing away like a river in the dark.

  Afterward, they lay in silence with their legs entangled, pools of sweat on the hard desk on which he had worked since his first day as a research assistant at the institute. It was almost like a challenge to the system—a call to arms, he thought, remembering the title of a short story collection by Lu Xun, before losing himself in a dreamless blackness.

  Early in the morning light, he opened his eyes to see Pingping moving about in her pajamas, pattering barefoot in and out, carrying back a thermos bottle of hot water. Before he could wash himself with the new towel she handed to him, she was opening the door to greet his colleagues like a hostess, her laugh reverberating along the corridor like a silver bell.