The Season of the Stranger Read online

  Mr Girard was quiet for a minute, putting out a cigarette. Then he said, “I do not think so.”

  “He is very rude,” the soldier said. “He was very rude to me.”

  Mr Girard looked up at him and smiled. “Sit down,” he said.

  The soldier sat down.

  “The cook follows my orders,” Mr Girard said, “and I find that he does it in a very satisfactory manner.”

  The soldier looked down at his shoes and then he scowled up at Wen-li. Wen-li bowed and went out.

  Standing at the kitchen door waiting for him was his old friend Kuo-fan, looking even smaller and more worried than usual. He was also the cook of a teacher.

  “How are you,” Wen-li said.

  “Terrible,” Kuo-fan said. Everyone else answered with another “How are you,” but Kuo-fan always said, “Terrible”. When he said it the lines in his face deepened and his eyes became sorrowful and even his hair seemed to turn greyer.

  “Come in,” Wen-li said. “Tell me about it.”

  Kuo-fan followed him in. Wen-li sat down and pointed to a chair for him. Kuo-fan sat down and shook his head. “I wish I were working for a foreigner,” he said.

  “You do not mean that,” Wen-li said.

  “Why?”

  “Did you see the man I just ushered into the house?”

  “No.”

  “A soldier.”

  Kuo-fan raised his head and his eyes shone. “A soldier? What for?”

  “Mr Girard and the soldiers have many dealings, all of them unfriendly.”

  “Ah,” Kuo-fan said.

  “So it is not all gold and free rice to work for a foreigner.” Kuo-fan looked happier. “And at your age it could well be fatal.”

  He slapped his thigh in disgust. “Will you not commence again about my age. I have told you often that there are thirty good years left to me.”

  “Of course,” Wen-li said. “I forget always.” But Kuo-fan was more animated now and would be better company.

  Kuo-fan gestured toward the house with his head. “What are his dealings with the soldiers?”

  Wen-li shrugged. “He disagrees with them.”

  Kuo-fan shrugged. “This is not unusual.”

  “No. But here it is complicated.”

  Kuo-fan nodded. “Why have you never mentioned it before?”

  “Three men cannot be in as much trouble as four men,” Wen-li said. “But now it makes little difference. I suppose in a month it will make no difference at all.”

  “You mean …?” Kuo-fan made the finger sign of the Communists.

  “Yes,” Wen-li said. “One hundred fifty li. Or such is the rumor. Even with a pause for restrengthening they could be here in a month.”

  “A month,” Kuo-fan said. “Planting time.”

  “I did not know you had become a farmer,” he said.

  Kuo-fan looked at him severely. “I was a farmer for the first forty years of my life.”

  “And the second forty?”

  Kuo-fan looked hurt. “The second forty began only a short time ago,” he said. “Please refrain.”

  Wen-li laughed. “All right. Would you like some wine?” Kuo-fan brightened. “Yes.”

  “Come into my room. We will heat it on the small stove.”

  He followed Kuo-fan out of the kitchen and opened the door to his own room. He told Kuo-fan to sit on the bed. He stirred up the fire and poured some wine from the bottle into the teapot and put it on the stove.

  “I would not like to work where soldiers came,” Kuo-fan said.

  “No,” he said. “It is not amusing.” They waited for the wine to boil.

  When it was boiling he brought out two cups and poured. Kuo-fan took his and nodded thanks. “Dry cup,” Wen-li said.

  “Dry cup,” Kuo-fan said. They drank them down and Wen-li poured another cup for each of them.

  “Soldiers will always come,” Kuo-fan said. “They always have.”

  “Probably,” he said.

  “Even when the City falls. What will you do then?”

  “Do? Why must I do anything?”

  “You work for a foreigner,” Kuo-fan said. “They,” he made the finger sign again, “do not like foreigners.”

  “Neither do those that we have now,” he said.

  “I know,” Kuo-fan said, “but those that we have now depend on foreigners, whether or not they like them.” He held his cup out again. Wen-li filled it and then his own.

  “I will worry about it when it comes,” he said.

  “I hear that they are unbelievably cruel,” Kuo-fan said.

  “Who?”

  Kuo-fan made the finger sign.

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Oh stories,” Kuo-fan said. “Stories go around.”

  “What kind of cruelty?”

  “Killing,” Kuo-fan said. “I have heard that they kill all the men over thirty and all the women over twentyfive.”

  “Where have you heard it?”

  “In the moving picture house,” Kuo-fan said. “A poster on the cloth screen.”

  “I do not believe it,” he said. “They,” he made the finger sign, “probably say the same thing about these here.”

  Kuo-fan shrugged again. “Perhaps.”

  “What will you do if it is true? I can tell them I am twentyeight, but you cannot. What will you do when they come?”

  “Perhaps I will flee,” Kuo-fan said.

  He laughed. “How? By plane? Or by train to Tientsin and then by ship? And where will the money come from?”

  Kuo-fan nodded sadly. “That is why I wanted to work for a foreigner.” He held his cup out again. Wen-li filled it.

  “You would do better to remain working,” Wen-li said. “There will be a need for working men, I suppose.”

  “Even at my age?”

  He nodded. “A moment ago you were telling me you had thirty good years left. But anyway I do not think this story is true. Do not believe every breeze. The breeze does not work, and therefore has time to carry falsehoods here and there.”

  Kuo-fan sighed. “Perhaps.”

  “Besides, I have news for you. A good moving picture will come soon to the auditorium. I may be able to find two tickets. If you would care to go …”

  He bobbed his head happily. “Yes, yes. I enjoy moving pictures.”

  “I am not sure of the tickets,” Wen-li said. “But I will try.”

  Kuo-fan raised his head. “Someone is outside.”

  Wen-li put his cup on the table and went to see. There was no one in the courtyard. He was turning to go back to his room when he heard a noise in the kitchen. He went in.

  The corporal was standing with his hands on his hips. He was standing in the middle of the room and looking around with great contempt. When he saw Wen-li he said, “A filthy kitchen.”

  “It is my kitchen,” Wen-li said. “Leave it.”

  “You are ordering me?” The corporal laughed.

  “Yes, I am ordering you. We have had lieutenants come here and converse politely with me. I do not have to listen to an ignorant corporal. Above all a corporal who has not shaved for many weeks. Leave my kitchen.”

  The way the corporal looked at him he thought perhaps he had gone too far. He had enjoyed talking that way and was sure that the corporal knew he had enjoyed it and now the corporal was looking at him very strangely. The corporal turned his head suddenly toward the clean pots arranged on the stove and before Wen-li could do anything the corporal had spit a great gob into one of them. Then he brushed past Wen-li and went out.

  Wen-li stood staring at the pot for a minute and then he went to the kitchen door. He put his head out the door and called to Kuo-fan in the next room. His hands hurt so he unclenched them. “We will have to continue in the kitchen,” he called. “There is a pot to be washed.”

  19

  A few days later Wen-li was in the village, where he did all the big shopping like meat and potatoes. He had a sackful of food. He was tired of walking
so he had gone down the narrow winding side-street to where the mill was and he was sitting on a rock watching them grind the grain. They all looked unhappy except the blind-folded donkey, who walked steadily and slowly in his circle, probably thinking that he was going somewhere and that they would take the blindfold off and there he would be in the west or in the south where it was warm. Above the blindfold the donkey’s forehead was smooth, but below it his nose was wrinkled like the nose of an old man who does not like what they have put before him to eat. He walked around, going where he was going and wishing the trip was over, seeming not to notice the board that connected him to the millstone. One of the women walked around just in front of the moving board and scooped the grain back into the center of the big rock, where the millstone would be sure to go over it. Once the millstone started slipping off the rock and she yelled, “Yüüüü,” and the donkey stopped. When he stopped the impatient look left his face. Then she fixed the millstone and slammed the donkey on his rump with a piece of wood, and he looked bothered again and commenced walking.

  The rest of the women sat and talked or just sat. After about fifteen minutes one of them came and took the place of the one in front of the moving board. When the grain was ground fine enough they scraped it off the rock and a third woman went and got a basketful of unground grain and emptied in onto the rock. All this time the donkey had been walking, even when there was nothing on the rock. After they had dumped the second basketful onto the rock Wen-li got tired of watching. He stood up and turned to go back through the sidestreet and there was Kuo-fan coming down it. He had a bag over his shoulder and when he got closer Wen-li saw that it was full.

  “I thought you would be here,” Kuo-fan said. “I saw you at the meat market and then could not find you.”

  “I am ready to go back, if you are,” Wen-li said.

  “Yes,” Kuo-fan said.

  They went back up the sidestreet and down the main road of the village and then out to the path across the field. From the path they could see the government flag hanging against the flagpole on the university gate. “Have any new breezes whispered to you?” he asked Kuo-fan.

  “No,” Kuo-fan said. “Or perhaps one. A breeze told me that the armies,” he made the finger sign, “arc grouping for a large onslaught. And that they are at one hundred fifty li from us. This last has been whispered by so many breezes that it must be true.”

  “Possibly,” he said.

  “And the government has denied it,” Kuo-fan said, “which is further confirmation.”

  Wen-li laughed. They did not talk then until they had passed inside the gate and reached the fork where Wen-li turned off. Then Kuo-fan said: “What of the moving picture?”

  “I am not sure,” he said. “Not yet. But I will know by seven o’clock.”

  “I will come at eight o’clock,” Kuo-fan said, “or a short time before. My wife will finish my work for me.”

  “Good,” he said. “If there are no tickets we will drink wine and talk.”

  “See you later.”

  “See you later.”

  When he reached the house there was no one in it. It was five o’clock, so he prepared the meat. Before he had finished, Mr Girard and the girl came home. He went to open the door for them and gave them fifteen or twenty minutes to get settled and then he went in and asked Mr Girard what time he wanted dinner.

  “There is a moving picture tonight,” Mr Girard said. “We will eat at six-thirty.”

  “Six-thirty,” he said. He went out. That was the answer, then. It was good that Kuo-fan was an interesting talker. They would have a long evening of conversation. Perhaps there would be more news from the breezes.

  He fixed the meat and chopped the vegetables and made the fire high and hot. At six-thirty he set the table and when he brought the rice in they were waiting for it with the sticks already in their hands. At seven o’clock they were almost finished. He put the wine in the teapot and set the teapot on the stove in his room. The wine would be hot when Kuo-fan arrived.

  He took the tea in to them and when he turned to go out with the ricebowls and meat platters Mr Girard said, “Wait a little while.” He stopped and looked at Mr Girard. Mr Girard pulled the moving picture tickets from his gown and put them on the table. “Do not forget these.”

  For a short time he did not understand. “I thought you were going to the moving picture,” he said.

  “I did not say that.” Mr Girard smiled. “We have eaten early so that you would not be rushed if you wanted to go.”

  He was still not sure. “Did you know that I wanted to go?”

  “Yes,” Mr Girard said. He looked at the tickets. “I spoke to Kuo-fan for a moment this morning.”

  “Ah,” he said. “He should not presume.”

  “There is no need to apologize,” Mr Girard said. “But it is not convenient for me to have to be waylaid by a garrulous old man in order to find out that you want tickets for the moving picture.”

  “I was embarrassed,” he said.

  Mr Girard smiled. “I know. But I might have thrown them away or forgotten about them. Then we would all have been embarrassed.”

  He smiled.

  “Take them,” Mr Girard said.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “I deserve your thanks,” Mr Girard said. “It requires great self-denial.”

  He shook his head and went out. He was sure that he would never understand foreigners. Once he had thought that perhaps there were no servants in Mr Girard’s country, but a student had told him that there were, so it could not have been ignorance that made Mr Girard act the way he did.

  Kuo-fan came to his room at a quarter to eight. Wen-li poured two cups of wine and showed him the tickets. Kuo-fan shook his head. “You have a generous employer, and one also blessed with intuition.”

  “Ya,” he said. “Intuition. Breezes.”

  Kuo-fan looked ashamed. “It was casual conversation,” he said. “I find him interesting.”

  “You are an old man who has lost his honor,” he said.

  Kuo-fan slapped the table with his hand. “I have yet thirty good years.”

  “You have spilled my wine, grandfather. Come to the auditorium.”

  He turned out the light and locked his room and the kitchen and they left. On the way to the auditorium Kuo-fan spoke only once. “It is true that I look upon you as I would upon a son,” he said, “but ‘grandfather’ is too cruel.”

  The auditorium was crowded. The audience was mostly students, with some teachers scattered here and there, and the balcony was full of children. The children were very noisy. Kuo-fan and he found seats half-way up from the screen and somewhat to the right. They sat down and the lights went out quickly and the noise of the children stopped, and all around the noise died slowly until the auditorium was in silence.

  The machine was in the center aisle, to their left, and it began to buzz and hum and then there was music and the name of the picture was thrown against the screen, very blurred. The name jumped up and down and then it was sharp and clear but it was not centered on the screen. It jerked again and then it was fine. He was not interested in who the photographer was and such so he watched Kuo-fan. Kuo-fan was leaning forward with his mouth open reading the people’s names as they came on the screen. He blinked his eyes three or four times. At his age it must have been difficult to make the sudden eye-change when a room became dark.

  Then the names were gone and the picture had started. It started with many people in a truck. They were fleeing from the Japanese and trying to get to K’unming. After some funny conversation by the people, twilight came, and the truck stopped in a town where there was a hotel. One of the men in the truck was a handsome soldier and there was an old man also with two daughters. The soldier had introduced himself to one of the daughters and they were talking on the hotel balcony when there was a snapping sound and then a ratatat like a machine gun and the screen went black.

  People moved and laughed and then the
machine buzzed and they were quiet again, but nothing happened. Then the lights went on. The man who was operating the machine had opened a door in it and was peering inside. He had an angry look on his face. Then he fixed something and waved to the back of the auditorium and the lights went off.

  He must have done something wrong because now it was the next morning and they were all in the truck again. Kuo-fan shook his head. He was already disgusted. The truck went rolling on and there was more funny conversation. There was one very fat man who did nothing but eat and talk and usually both at the same time. His talk was funny. He was in the middle of a joke when the handsome soldier raised his hand for silence and when they were quiet he listened carefully for something and then they could all hear it: the sound of a plane. The truck skidded and stopped and they were all out of it quickly and running off the road. Then Wen-li saw the planes, and then he saw one of them from very close up. The Japanese flyer had a mustache. He was coming closer to the truck and then he moved his hand. Then they could see the truck and the bullets coming up the road toward it and passing through it. Then there was another ratatat but longer and a flickering light on the screen and it was all black again.

  They groaned and the lights went on. People were blinking and looking to see who was sitting near them. Kuo-fan was shaking his head again. “This does not happen in the City,” he said.

  “In the City we pay,” Wen-li said.

  Then he heard someone call his name and he looked up. It was a man he had never seen before. He was standing on the aisle leaning toward them and calling his name. Then he went to the other side of the aisle and leaned the other way with his back to them and called his name again. Then he went down the aisle a little further and did it again. Wen-li stood up and went to the aisle and walked down to him.

  “I am Pao Wen-li,” he said. “What is it?”

  “Ah,” the man said. He pointed toward the back. “Someone wants to see you outside.”

  Mr Girard, he thought. Something has happened. “Thank you,” he said. He walked up toward the back. As he walked the lights went out and a cheer came from behind him.

  The door was part way open and the outside light came through the crack at the hinges. He looked through it as he started to push on the door and then he stopped pushing. From where he was he could see one soldier. He moved closer to the crack and then he could see six or seven. One of them was the corporal. It was good that he had looked through the crack. Now he was not exactly frightened but he did not want to go out. He stepped back and thought of going out another door and then home, but there might be soldiers at the other doors also. There was always trouble with soldiers. There was enough trouble without them but they were everywhere making trouble anyway. Now he was a little frightened. They might stay until the end of the picture. He hurried back to Kuo-fan.