Dr. Bethune's Children Read online

  The woman did not come after us. She just kept giggling, then shouted again, “You’re a singer, not a sprinter.”

  We ran all the way home and, out of breath, I told my aunt what had happened. “You must have met the martyr’s bride,” she said calmly. “You must remember her. You sang at her wedding ceremony.”

  I was shocked. I couldn’t connect that scruffy woman by the river with my mother’s prettiest colleague. “How could she end up the way she looks now?” I asked. Just three years ago, she had lived next door. And she was the first woman that had ever left me feeling sexually excited.

  My aunt nodded and sighed. “That poor woman,” she mumbled.

  That evening, lying in bed, I told Yangyang how I became a singer. That woman had lived in the same row of houses as us, behind the building in which my mother worked. One day, she came to our room in a brand-new Lenin suit and told my mother she was getting married. The groom was a platoon leader in an army unit garrisoned on the border of China and the Soviet Union in Heilongjiang province. I particularly remember he was a decorated war hero, a man of many victories. Like all kids at the time, I was familiar with all the battles he had fought in as I had a lot of lianhuanhua—picture books—of those battles. I was familiar with how our brave People’s Liberation Army had repulsed the armed provocations of the Soviet Revisionists. And our war heroes filled me with reverence. So I wasn’t jealous of him for stealing away the first woman I had ever longed for. When I glanced at our beautiful neighbour, I even felt that the news that she was getting married made her all the prettier.

  Our neighbour told my mother that this woman had been introduced to the war hero at the previous Spring Festival by her uncle’s widow. Chaperoned by their parents, they had had their first meeting at her uncle’s widow’s house, and each made a good impression on the other. They made a date to meet in the park a week later to go rowing. Then they went to see the movie The Legend of the Red Lantern, which was adapted from the “Eight model plays”—the only works permitted to be performed during the Cultural Revolution—and tells the saga of a revolutionary family. But the night before their second meeting, the war hero got an express telegram telling him to come back early, so their relationship could only continue through letters. Every week, each would write the other two letters. A year had passed, and they were so satisfied with the progress of their relationship that they arranged to get married during the following Spring Festival, when the war hero would have a ten-day holiday. Subtracting the days he would have to spend travelling, he would only be able to spend about a week with his bride.

  “A war hero and a beautiful woman,” my mother said, when she heard the neighbour’s account. “What a perfect match!”

  Our pretty neighbour blushed, and I trembled happily.

  Our neighbour invited us to her wedding. She would decorate her room as the bridal chamber, she said. It would have to serve for the wedding ceremony, too. It would be a revolutionary wedding, with an atmosphere of unity, anxiety, gravity, and energy, qualities your great friend thought should characterize any solemn occasion. The newlyweds would host the guests with candies, cookies, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, and other snacks, and entertain them with speeches and performances.

  Then our neighbour turned toward me. She said she often heard me singing and liked my bright boyish voice very much. She asked if I would like to sing a revolutionary song at the wedding. My mother said of course I would before I had the chance to reply. Our neighbour was delighted. She said that would be the most illustrious event next to the speech by the leader of her work unit. Her fiancé knew all about the plans, she told my mother, from “the last letter I wrote to him.” I still remember the way she pronounced the word “him.” She looked so shy and so proud, which added to my reverence for the war hero.

  I was so excited to be able to sing for this match made in heaven, and I racked my brains trying to think of what song to sing. My choice should show my voice to best effect and should inspire the people at the wedding, especially the bride and groom. In the end, I decided to sing a song from The Legend of the Red Lantern, “The Wine Fills Me with Courage and Strength,” sung by the protagonist, Li Yuhe, a revolutionary martyr. This choice would meet both requirements.

  But what if people wanted an encore? I should prepare a second song. I thought it over and in the end was torn between “Five-Star Red Flags Fluttering in the Wind”—then a substitute for the national anthem which was abandoned when the lyricist was convicted as a counter-revolutionary—and “Follow Lei Feng’s Good Example”—a song about a People’s Liberation Army soldier and another role model for the children of Dr. Bethune. I was still undecided when I walked into the bridal chamber.

  The wedding was held on a Saturday night and lasted almost five hours. It was hosted by the director of the Revolutionary Committee at my mother’s work unit. In his opening remarks, he said that this wedding was a great honour for their work unit, because the groom was a war hero who protected our great fatherland. He quoted your great friend’s words by describing the groom as both politically red and professionally able, and praised him for not only repulsing the advances of the enemy but also for conquering the tender heart of one of our female comrades. He was a hero in every way, a role model for everyone. The director’s sincere, warm-hearted remarks were interrupted by applause several times.

  After the director had made his remarks, the guests clamoured for the bride and groom to recount the history of their love. The groom’s account did not leave the guests satisfied, and they demanded that the bride fill in some significant details. But lowering her head and twisting her body, the bride said nothing.

  Then the guests started to ask questions of the bride and groom at the same time. Most of the questions filled the room with happy laughter, though I didn’t understand many of them. The two questions I did understand had to do with their correspondence. One was how they referred to each other in their letters. The hero did not have to think about his answer. He said that they addressed one another as “Revolutionary Comrade.” The bride glanced at the groom and nodded her agreement, smiling. The other question I understood was whether they had discussed having children, and whether they were hoping to have a boy or a girl. Neither the groom nor the bride replied to this question. They looked at one another, both blushing, then looked shyly down in unison.

  So, the wedding proceeded. Just when everybody was feeling a little bit tired, the bride turned everyone’s attention towards me. She introduced me as a member of my school’s Propaganda Team of Mao Zedong Thought, a nationwide grass-roots unit to spread your great friend’s words through artistic performances. She also said that I had a golden voice and that I was going to sing a revolutionary song to celebrate their revolutionary marriage.

  The guests started clapping happily. I was pushed into the middle of the room, where the bride and groom had been standing awkwardly a little earlier. As planned, I sang the song from The Legend of the Red Lantern, staring at the ceiling the whole time out of nervousness. I gave it my all, though I had the distinct impression that nobody, not even the bride and groom, was listening. I could hear the sound of chirping whispers and popping pumpkin seeds. This hurt my feelings.

  When I finished, the director led the applause, and the other guests followed along, but no one called for an encore, as I had imagined so many times in my dreams. I was disappointed.

  Then the director stood up clapping and walked to the centre of the room. Gesturing for everyone to quiet down, he reminded everyone that the wedding should not go on too long, because tomorrow, which was to say Sunday, they were going to take part in a big parade organized by the County Revolutionary Committee, starting in the morning. The parade was to show the staunch support of all the people in the county for the continued revolution during the historical stage of the proletarian dictatorship, a great theory your great friend had just put forward, Dr. Bethune. “Everyone has to take
part in the parade,” the director emphasized. “This is our political obligation.” Then he turned towards the groom and the bride. “Of course our beautiful bride does not have to be there, because she has an even more important political duty to fulfill,” he said. “She has to attend to our war hero, a glorious revolutionary duty.” All the guests burst out laughing at his remark.

  But the next day, when my mother was preparing to leave, the bride appeared in our doorway. She said she had to go to participate in the parade with my mother.

  My mother looked her over. “You don’t have to go,” she reminded her.

  “But I don’t want to miss it,” the bride said. “It’s a revolutionary duty.”

  “But the director said that attending to the war hero was also a revolutionary duty,” my mother reminded her.

  “A hero doesn’t need attending to,” the bride said.

  Her cold way of referring to the war hero surprised my mother.

  “You seem a little bit tired. You should stay at home and rest,” my mother insisted.

  “I can’t get any rest at home,” the bride said.

  “What you mean?” my mother asked in disbelief.

  The bride hesitated then said angrily, “I didn’t get any sleep last night.”

  Again, my mother looked her over. “How lucky you are,” she said. “Not getting any sleep the whole night long!”

  The bride did not seem to hear. Her expression was full of confusion and sadness. Again she insisted on attending the parade.

  Dear Dr. Bethune, the story I told Yangyang wasn’t as complete as the one you have just heard. But it was enough to enchant my great saviour and friend. He liked the story so much that when I went outside to go to the bathroom, he followed me so I could keep telling him what happened next.

  The evening after the parade, I was woken up by a loud noise. It was the bride knocking on our window. Her low and impulsive voice was calling for us to save her. My mother leapt out of bed and opened the door. I opened my eyes a little and saw our neighbour shivering in the doorway, wearing only a flimsy nightgown. That was the first time I had ever seen her wear so little clothing. I felt a kind of happy agitation when my mother let the bride in and wrapped her up in a towel. “What happened?” she asked.

  The bride looked at my mother hopelessly and started crying.

  My mother patted her lightly on the back. “Tell me what happened,” she said.

  “He,” the bride said, in a wounded voice. “He tried to rape me.” Then she cried even more brokenheartedly.

  What the bride said flabbergasted my mother. Then she started laughing. She couldn’t stop laughing until she suddenly remembered I was there. She covered up her mouth and tiptoed to the side of my bed. She bent down and checked to see whether I was sleeping or not. I pretended to be sleeping soundly and breathing evenly. She returned to the bride and kept patting her on the back. “But,” she asked curiously, “didn’t you say yesterday that you didn’t get any sleep that night?”

  “Yes, I kept my eyes open the whole night,” the bride said. “I repulsed innumerable enemy advances.”

  “It sounds like you, too, are a war hero,” my mother said, laughing.

  “But tonight he is fiercer,” the bride said. “I can barely resist.”

  “He is your husband now, and you are his wife,” my mother said. “When a husband is with his wife they can do anything together. You should not resist him. He is not your enemy. You should open up the gate and let him in, like you are welcoming a comrade.”

  “But he’s completely changed,” the bride said. “I’m scared of him.”

  I did not understand what she meant at the time, but my mother obviously understood completely. “That’s normal,” she said with certainty. And she again patted the bride on the back.

  “It’s not normal at all,” the bride retorted. Then, gesturing, she said, “That’s how big it is, and how long, and it’s extremely . . . You don’t know how hard it is. It’s as hard as a rolling pin.”

  “Of course I don’t know how hard it is,” my mother said impatiently. “But I do know it’s totally normal.”

  “It’s not normal at all,” the bride insisted. “It’s frightening.”

  My mother was growing weary of their conversation, and she advised the bride to go back to her bridal chamber. The bride stood there unmoving. “It wants to hurt me,” she kept repeating. “I don’t want to let it succeed.”

  “Quite the opposite, it wants to make you happy,” my mother said, wanting to move the bride a few steps towards the door. You will get used to it. And you will want to ride it,” she continued.

  The bride refused to budge. “It really wants to hurt me,” she repeated. “I can’t let it succeed.” Then she begged my mother to permit her to spend the night at our house. “Tonight I can only fight a guerrilla battle against it,” she said in earnest.

  My mother hesitated before agreeing to the bride’s request. She walked to the side of my bed, took me in her arms to her bed, and directed the bride to lie down in my bed. “This bed is quite small,” she said sarcastically. “I’m sure it won’t hurt you.”

  I was so flustered about the pretty bride curled up in my little bed the whole night that I couldn’t get any sleep.

  The next evening, I heard the groom and the bride in a heated argument. Soon the bride came over and knocked on our window. She begged my mother to save her life. My mother didn’t respond as quickly as she had the previous night, but she did open the door. This time the bride did not wait for my mother to agree to let her in. She rushed in and hid behind my mother. She was wearing just as little as the night before. She stood there shivering, staring at the open door. A while later, the war hero appeared. He was wearing even less, only a pair of military green underpants. He pointed at his bride and shouted like he was giving in order. “Come out right this instant!” he roared.

  My mother indicated that the groom should restrain himself. Then she tried to persuade the bride to go back with the groom. But the bride started crying again. She told her that the war hero had just hit her in the face. “He was just yelling that he wanted to go in, and now he’s shouting that he wants me to come out,” the bride said brokenheartedly. “Now in, now out. Is there something wrong with him?”

  My mother finally lost her temper. She put on a robe and said all she could do was go find the director and let him handle the dispute. She persuaded the groom to go back to his room and wait. “It’s too cold outside,” she reminded him.

  The groom kept standing there. He said he wouldn’t give up that easily. “I guarded a sentry post at forty below. You call this cold?” he said disdainfully.

  “If that’s how you’re going to be, our doorway will be a Demilitarized Zone—the 38th parallel,” Mom said, pointing to the groom and bride in turn. “You two have to restrain yourselves.” Then she went to find the director, who lived at the end of the compound. Just to be safe, she locked our door, keeping the bride in and the groom out.

  My mother soon came back with the director. She must have told the director what had happened, because he didn’t ask any questions, just criticized the bride for lacking common sense and the groom for lacking patience. “Patience is essential,” he said in an even tone of voice. “Of course, flexible and responsive tactics are also decisive.” Then he accompanied the groom home to the bridal chamber.

  Coming back to talk to his subordinate, the director’s tone of voice was totally different. He not only repeated his criticism but also ordered her to go back unconditionally to the bridal chamber. “To you, the bridal chamber is the front line,” he said with the force of justice. “Didn’t you submit an application to join the Party? This is a moment of truth for you. A qualified Party member would never go AWOL, no matter what.”

  “Hurry back to the front line,” my mother advised in response. With her hand of the b
ride’s shoulder, my mother helped her walk out the door with heavy steps.

  “You face a proud revolutionary duty,” the director said behind them with a stern tone. “No matter how hard, you have to accept this duty courageously and complete it with flying colours.”

  Over the next three days, we heard no argument from the bride and groom. And nobody saw them come out from the room. “The door hasn’t opened in three days,” my mother reported when the director came to say goodbye to the groom.

  “It just goes to demonstrate that from practice comes genuine knowledge,” the director said.

  “And that combat shows true talent,” my mother chimed in.

  Once again, they both were making vital use of your great friend’s famous lines. My mother’s response delighted the director. He nodded and said he could not bother the newlyweds, who were on their final sprint. He entrusted my mother with the task of seeing off the groom and sending his regards.

  At dusk, the bride and groom appeared in our doorway. They’d come to say goodbye. The bride’s bruise, located over her left eye, had not totally disappeared, the result of the fight with the groom three days before. The groom patted my head and said, “Next time I come back I want to hear you sing the majestic song again.” The bride stared at him, infinite love flashing in her eyes. “I’m going to the train station right away to send him off,” the bride told my mother. When she said “him” there was only pride in her voice, no shyness or shame. She leaned over to my mother’s ear, mumbling a few sentences. My mother pushed her away jokingly when she was done.

  Watching them walking away, I asked my mother what the bride had just said. “She said he is a true hero,” my mother said without thinking. Then I asked her a question that had puzzled me for a few days in a low voice, “What does rape mean?”

  My mother looked at me with a fearsome expression. She didn’t ask me where I’d heard the word. She made as if to slap me as a warning and said, “You’re not allowed to use that dirty word again.”