The Season of the Stranger Read online

  She opened her eyes and stood up. Andrew would say that way madness lies. A good blunt phrase, even in English. She could not remember the English. But he would say it. How many li, she wondered. How many miles. How many kilometers. It depends. But we are all of us on the way.

  Now the gown, she thought, and then the shoes, and then the dormitory. They will ask me where I have been and I will not tell them. They will ask me where I am going and I will lie. To the garden, I will say. That way the garden lies. That way I lie. Here lies Ma Chi-wei and there lies my father and I lie with Andrew and Andrew lies with me.

  The heatless brilliant sun stopped her for a moment in the doorway. Squinting, she closed the door. Wen-li was not in sight. She walked toward the dormitory, saying to herself, I am invisible. The library cannot see me and the trees cannot see me. And those wandering people, still searching, cannot see me. She stretched her sleeping muscles and fluffed her hair. The cold reached her and she was awake then and seeing clearly.

  The dormitory is alive, too, she thought. She could see it in the distance. It has had us in it for many years and now it has come alive. It sits like an embroidering matron. And when I pass through the door I will feel the warmth of it; not created by stoves, this warmth; created by the life of the building; a restless welcoming odor of habitation.

  It was there. She felt and smelled it as she crossed the doorsill. Wherever people were, there it was. On her right it was stronger. She followed it. It came from the common room. In the common room were three women and a stove, a motionless black ugly stove, like Andrew’s, the four figures in astonished frozen tableau; then two of the girls came running toward her. They were squealing. The third girl sat watching her.

  “Where have you been?” They screeched it at her, the two of them. The voices scratched across her brain. She blinked and remembered them, and where she was, and why she had come. “What happened to you?”

  She laughed and walked to the stove with them. “What do you mean, what happened to me?” Her voice sounded piping and childlike.

  “After the demonstration.”

  She was saying hello to the third girl. It was not ceremonious. She looked at her and let her look back and then without a word they had said hello.

  “After the demonstration?” She took time to think. “I went home,” she said, “and my father thought that I should stay there for a few days.” She giggled. “So I sat in the garden.”

  Han-li spoke. She had hardly moved and she had said nothing before this. “I do not blame him,” she said. “The dean told us not to leave the university grounds if we could help it.”

  “Not many of us have,” Wen-chen said. “But we worried about you.”

  “Why?”

  “We did not know where you were. No one had seen you. And even now no one knows exactly who died at the demonstration. You might have been hurt or killed.”

  She laughed. “I was with my father.”

  Yün-chün asked, “Did you have any trouble getting out here today?”

  “No. None at all.”

  “I hope you do not have any trouble getting back to the City,” she said.

  “I hope not,” Li-ling said. Then she remembered to ask: “Has there been any trouble here since the demonstration?” Wen-chen said, “No.” She and Yün-chün looked mournful. “The demonstration was enough by itself.”

  “It was,” she said. “What were you talking about when I came in?”

  “Examinations.”

  “I thought no one was worried about examinations.”

  “We were not. But then we decided that even if the City fell the new administration would have to find some way to grade us. Therefore they will not destroy the records. You know the respect they have for education.”

  “I have heard,” she said. “I suppose they will recognize even my diploma.”

  Han-li smiled. “They may even put you to work.”

  “I would like that.”

  “Bored?”

  “A little.”

  “That will end, too, when the City falls.” Han-li was wearing grey slacks. They went very well with her figure, Li-ling thought. “Just for me,” she said, “the City will fall.”

  Wen-Chen asked her, “Then you will not leave when the war comes?”

  “No.”

  “We thought perhaps because of your father,” she said. “He will not stay, will he?”

  She laughed again. “No. He will not stay. But I will. I do not know anyone anywhere else in China.”

  “And if he tells you to go with him?”

  “He could force me to go,” she said, “but I do not think he will. If he does, I will have to go.” Another lie. She was saying things very easily.

  “What will Mr Girard do?” They laughed.

  She was blushing. She was sure that they did not know. The blush was helpful. She had to remember that they could not know. They could not know. Yes.

  “He will stay,” she said. They laughed again.

  “Remarkable,” Wen-chen said. “An unusual boy.”

  Yün-chün giggled. “I am sure he is more than a boy.”

  Han-li said slowly with her eyes half-closed, “Is he more than a boy, Li-ling?” They were having a wonderful time. Now she was not blushing. Now she wanted to blush and she was not blushing. Instead Andrew was in her mind and she was sitting stiffly and thinking that he was more than a boy.

  Han-li said, “Have you seen him today?”

  She shook her head.

  “We have been hearing a story about him and the demonstration,” Han-li said. “Something strange. But no one seems to know.”

  The room was suddenly cold.

  “Something about him and Ma Chi-wei,” Wen-chen said.

  “Yes,” Han-li said. She did not know, then. That was better. The room was all right now. They were looking at her, waiting for her to tell them the story.

  “I saw it,” she said, “but it is his own story. It is not for me to tell.”

  “Ask him about it,” Yün-chün said. “Ask him if he will let you tell us.”

  “Do that,” Han-li said. “And come back after lunch and tell us.” They laughed again and this time she laughed with them.

  “I hate you,” she said. She was blushing again. That was fine. “But I will ask him.”

  “He must be lonesome at times,” Yün-chün said.

  “Why?”

  “To speak his own language, or to talk about his home.”

  “He does not seem to care.”

  “Or to see a blonde woman,” Han-li said.

  “He does not seem to care about that either,” she said. She looked smug for Han-li.

  “What does he care about?”

  That made her pause. He cared about her. But that was the answer they expected and it was the answer of no value. What else? What was he doing. Why was he here.

  She started slowly, serious now. “I am not sure. I know he cares about people. But I do not know what else.”

  “All people?”

  “All people. Even those he does not like.”

  “I did not know there was anyone he disliked,” Han-li said.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. Oh yes indeed. At least one.

  Wen-chen leaned forward. She was stubby and thick and when she leaned forward in the gown she looked like a blue rock about to roll downhill. Her face was earnest. Li-ling had always wanted to laugh when she became serious. “Maybe he cares about what men need to keep them human,” Wen-chen said.

  Li-ling was surprised.

  Han-li raised her eyebrows. “Reasonably good,” she said. “Now define human.”

  “Your everpresent definitions,” Wen-chen said.

  “I am in the department of sociology,” Han-li said.

  “I know,” Wen-chen said. “I wish you had chosen physical education or some less disputative field.”

  Li-ling almost laughed. She could not look at Han-li and she knew that Han-li could not look at her. Physical education had
been very important to Han-li the year before. She had bounced around the room watching her breasts shiver and she had asked Li-ling if she thought that men would like her. She had asked often and each time that Li-ling said yes she had smiled complacently. She was very beautiful. Now Li-ling looked at her and away quickly. Han-li was watching her again.

  “Still,” Yün-chün said, “you must define.”

  “Say it this way, then,” Wen-chen said. “A man is a being that needs food, good food, shelter with some degree of comfort, and warm clothes. Mr Girard wants all men to have that.”

  Li-ling said, “A turtle needs food and carries his clothing and shelter with him. Therefore all men are turtles.”

  “Not very wrong,” Han-li said, “if you will remember.” The others smiled and looked at Li-ling. She had not for a long time known why everyone laughed about turtles and finally Han-li had told her. Han-li had enjoyed telling her. Li-ling had sat on the bed. Han-li, dropping her pencil and swiveling in the desk chair, had stared gravely and sympathetically at her. In a low professional voice she had told her. A turtle, she had said, is supposed incapable of the sexual act. Because of his unusual structure. It is therefore assumed that it is necessary to have a snake, capable of penetrating between the body and the shell, substitute for the male turtle. Do you see? If you call a man a turtle it means he is a cuckold. If you call him the son of a turtle it means he is a bastard. A very pleasant little story. I have enjoyed telling it to you, she had said. And as you are studying English let me recommend the western story of Adam and Eve as related reading. Also the Mongol story of the seven-headed speckled snake. If there are any other perplexing problems, you may bring them to me. Then she had swung herself around to the desk and taken up her pencil, but before beginning to work she had looked back over her shoulder and let her murky brown eyes look unhappily into Li-ling’s and said, I will tell you all that I know, but it will be hearsay.

  Now Li-ling thought of all this and said, “I remember.”

  Han-li continued, raising her hand in warning. “You have neglected the spiritual side of man,” she said.

  Li-ling stared at her and then she was laughing all alone, laughing with tears on her face. When she could see she looked at Wen-chen and Yün-chün. They were puzzled. Han-li looked furious.

  She said, “Are you laughing because Mr Girard has no spiritual side?”

  “No,” Li-ling said, “I am not laughing because of that.” She wiped her eyes.

  “Most foreigners do not seem to,” Wen-chen said.

  “How many do you know?”

  “Not many.” She smiled. “I should not have said what I did.”

  Li-ling shrugged. “It does not hurt me. I did not mean that you were insulting me, or Mr Girard. But it is a bad habit, to generalize in that way.”

  “I am not so sure,” Yün-chün said. “You can say some things that are almost always true of foreigners.”

  “Such as?”

  “They are crude. Blunt. Unintelligent. They drink much. They know nothing of Chinese culture and do not care.”

  “That is almost too silly,” Li-ling said. “To them most of us may appear crude and blunt and unintelligent. And all foreigners do not drink. Many of the missionaries certainly do not. And how much do you know of foreign culture?”

  “There is a difference,” she said. “They are here. If I were in their countries I would try to learn.”

  “What about Mr Girard. Is he so ignorant of Chinese culture?”

  “I do not know,” Yün-chün said. “I do not know him well enough.”

  “He is not,” she said. “You may believe me.”

  “And the others?”

  “There is no need to speak of the others. With one exception the generality is punctured. By admitting one exception you admit the possibility of more.”

  “You may be right,” she said.

  “This is sudden zeal,” Han-li said. “You formerly did not care.”

  “True love,” Wen-chen said.

  Yün-chün was still thinking.

  “Not quite,” Li-ling smiled. “But knowing him has helped. I worry about things now.”

  “Why?”

  “I am still not sure,” she said. “But I have an idea. I thought of it yesterday. Do you remember last year what we heard about the Japanese? The man who came to talk, and the posters said he was American, and when we saw him he was Japanese? He lived in the United States. Do you remember what he said happened to him during the war?” Now her mind was working rapidly and clearly. She was glad that she had thought of that.

  “I remember,” Yün-chün said. “They moved him.”

  She nodded. “And they did other things to him, and to his family. Because to them all Japanese were the same. And now you begin to think that all foreigners are the same.”

  “You may be right,” she said again.

  “And if foreigners were all the same then tell me why we did not join with the Japanese to rid ourselves of the foreigners.”

  “Japanese are foreigners too,” Yün-chün said. “But we almost did.”

  “And the reason we did not was that this one time the people would not let the government have its will. The people would not allow themselves to be sold.”

  Han-li said, “What have you been reading?”

  Yün-chün said, “She has become a missionary.”

  Wen-chen said, “She is right,” meaning Li-ling, and then, “Anyway brother Andrew is different.” She bowed her head toward Li-ling and touched her forehead with one hand. “If I may call him brother Andrew. He has always been as a brother to me.”

  They laughed. Yün-chün and Li-ling smiled at each other. Han-li asked, “How is he different?”

  “He knows more,” Yün-chün said.

  She has never known how to be sarcastic, Li-ling thought. “That is the answer,” she said, “and it is the only real difference.”

  “You mean that he is a boy with the mind of a man,” Han-li said.

  “Yes.” She smiled.

  “How old is he?”

  “That too is his own story,” she said. “He told me that the younger we thought he was, the better he would get along with the students; and the older they thought he was, the better he would feel among the teachers. He said he would let everyone decide for himself and that way we would all be happy.”

  “If he were Chinese I could guess easily,” Wen-chen said, “but I cannot tell with foreigners.”

  “It is difficult,” Li-ling said. “They are all the same.”

  Yün-chün laughed and looked embarrassed. “Ask him to show you his passport, Wen-chen,” she said. “It will be written there.”

  Wen-chen said, “I think Li-ling ought to ask his permission to tell us.”

  Han-li said, “Of course. He cannot refuse her anything.”

  “What does he call you,” Yün-chün asked, “Miss Hsieh or Li-ling?”

  “Delicate Daughter of the Midsummer Lotus,” Han-li said.

  “Shut up,” Li-ling said to her, and then to Yün-chün, “He calls me Li-ling.”

  “Does he kiss your hand when he sees you?” Wen-chen asked. “They say he once lived in Europe.”

  Li-ling sighed. “And all Europeans kiss the hand?”

  “No,” she said. “I wanted only to know about him.” She was very serious again.

  Li-ling said, “No. Sometimes he kisses the back of my neck, the way they do in America.”

  “Truthfully?” Wen-chen was dazed. Han-li had her hands over her face. Wen-chen looked at her and then at Li-ling and said, “I was serious.”

  Yün-chün stood up and said, “It is eleven o’clock. I have a class.”

  “Eleven?” Wen-chen got up too. “I must go to the infirmary.”

  “What for?”

  “I do not know. A note came. Perhaps I missed an injection in the fall.”

  “I will walk to the door with you,” Li-ling said.

  At the door they said goodbye and Li-ling said th
at she would come again soon. Yün-chün told her not to think that there was anything personal in what she had said about foreigners; that in a way it was a kind of envy. “I did not take it personally,” Li-ling said. She smiled. “Yün-chün smiled. Neither smile held any meaning. Then Yün-chün and Wen-chen left.

  When Li-ling got back to the common room Han-li was grinning at her from the same chair. “You are a victim of verbal assault.”

  “I did not mind,” Li-ling said. “They meant nothing by it.”

  “I did not mind either,” Han-li said. “I enjoyed it. But I do not believe that they meant nothing by it.”

  Li-ling looked away. “Neither do I,” she said.

  “Come upstairs,” Han-li said. “We can make tea. And try to smile, will you?”

  “I am trying,” Li-ling said.

  Han-li had a small kerosene stove hidden under her bed. She dragged it out and took a pan from a shelf and went to get water. Her room looked the way it had looked when it was also Li-ling’s room: neat, the books arranged, the floor clean, only Han-li’s bed rumpled. Li-ling sat on the new roommate’s bed. When Han-li came back Li-ling asked:

  “Where is your roommate?”

  “At class, I imagine.”

  “Do you know any more about her?” Her roommate’s name was Ting Ch’üan-tzu and she was untalkative about herself.

  “Oh, yes,” Han-li said. “A great deal more. Her personality becomes clearer and fuller.” She lit the stove. “She has taught me to smoke. Of the hundreds of vices in the world to which I would not mind being initiated, she has chosen the least exciting. She has also taught many of the girls to play games for money. For a time I thought she had a weakness of the mind. Then she suddenly became stupid and began losing to them. In that way she supports four girls in the dormitory who have not another thing to depend on.”