Yu Hua: Cries in the Drizzle

Guoqing looked ill at ease. His face reddening, he said, “You did something wrong, so we have to draw a clear line between us and you.”

For his part, Liu Xiaoqing said smugly, “I'll tell you what happened: the teacher sent us to monitor what you said.”

It had taken no time at all for adult authority to reduce to ruins what had been a beautiful young friendship. For many weeks following I did not say another word to them. Only when I was about to go back to Southgate and turned to Guoqing for help did he and I recover our closeness, but that was also the moment when we said good-bye. I never saw him again after that.

At the end of lunch break I was so silly as to sit down in the classroom in preparation for the afternoon's lessons. As soon as Zhang Qinghai came in, notes in hand, he saw me and asked me with a look of astonishment, “What are you doing here?”

What was I doing there? I was there to attend class, of course, but now that he had posed the question in this way I was no longer so sure. “Stand up,” he said.

I stood up, flustered. He told me to leave, so I went out, all the way to the middle of the playground, where I looked around, uncertain where he wanted me to go. After some hesitation I plucked up the courage to go back to the classroom, where I nervously asked Zhang Qinghai, “Sir, where do you want me to go?”

He turned and asked me in his gentle voice, “Where were you this morning?”

I looked back at the little room on the other side of the playground, and now I understood. “I need to go to that little room?” I asked.

He nodded approvingly.

So that afternoon I continued to be shut up in the little room, and my stubborn refusal to confess made them angry. The result was a visit to the school by Wang Liqiang. Dressed in his uniform, he listened attentively to their accusations, glancing at me several times with a reproachful look on his face. I was hoping that he would listen just as seriously to my side of the story, but after hearing the teachers out he showed not the slightest interest in learning what I had to say. He reminded them in an apologetic tone that I was adopted, and already six when I came under his charge. He said to them, “As you know, once a child reaches that age, it's hard to change his character.”

This was not at all what I wanted to hear. On the other hand, he did not press me to confess, as the teachers had done; in fact he said nothing along those lines whatsoever. Soon he stood up and said he had something to do and left, perhaps as a way to avoid causing me more distress. If he had stayed longer he would have found it difficult not to toe the teachers’ line, and now he could get clear of this embarrassing situation. Still, I was seething with indignation, for he had listened so earnestly to the teachers and never once asked me whether there was any truth to their allegations.

Were it not for Li Xiuying's expression of confidence in me later, I really don't know what I would have done. At this point, after being so misunderstood, I had sunk into deep despair, a sensation that left me constantly struggling for breath. Nobody believed me; everyone in the school was convinced that I was the author of the slogan. I had become a mendacious child simply because I had refused to confess.

When I got out of school that afternoon, I felt doubly tormented. Already I was oppressed by the feeling that my words had been twisted against me, and now I had to brace myself for another ordeal once I got home, for Wang Liqiang would surely have informed Li Xiuying. I had no idea how they would punish me and walked back to the house in hopeless gloom. As soon as she heard my footsteps, Li Xiuying called me over to her bed and asked me in a severe tone, “Did you write that slogan or not? Be truthful.”

The whole day through I had been peppered with questions, but not one had been couched in these terms. Tears rolled from my eyes, and I said, “No, I didn't write it.”

Li Xiuying sat up in bed. She called shrilly to Wang Liqiang, “There is no way that he wrote it, I can vouch for that. When he first arrived here I left fifty cents on the windowsill, and he handed it over to me like an honest lad.” Then she turned to me and said, “I believe you.”

From the next room, Wang Liqiang expressed some displeasure with the teachers, saying, “It was a dumb thing to do, but they shouldn't make such a big deal out of just scrawling some graffiti.”

Li Xiuying was irked by this remark and reproached Wang Liqiang. “How can you say that? That's tantamount to saying you believe he did it.”

However pallid her face, however eccentric her behavior, Li Xiuying at that moment touched me so deeply that my tears would not stop flowing. Perhaps because she had been shouting so vigorously, she fell back onto the bed in exhaustion, saying to me gently, “Don't cry, don't cry. How about… you clean the window now?”

I may have gained support at home, but this did nothing to alleviate my predicament at school. I spent another whole day in that dim room. Isolation exacerbated my fears. Although I came to school just like my classmates and went home just like them too, in between times I was here in this little cubicle, questioned in turn by two grown-ups who held a position of total superiority. How could I withstand such pressure indefinitely?

In the end they described for me an absorbing scenario. In tones of great admiration they told me about a child my age, just as smart as me (an unexpected compliment, this), who committed a misdeed. Angry no longer, they began to tell me his story, and I listened with rapt attention. This boy my age had stolen something from a neighbor, so he was reproached by his conscience, for he knew he had done wrong. Finally, after a series of mental struggles, he returned the item to the neighbor and confessed to the errors of his ways.

Teacher Lin asked me warmly, “Now guess whether he was criticized.”

I nodded.

“No,” she said. “On the contrary, he was commended, because he had already recognized his crime.”

That is how they worked on me, inducing me gradually to come around to the idea that to admit error after committing error is more praiseworthy than not to have erred at all. Having been made the target of such extreme criticism, I was all too eager for approval. Now fired with zeal and hope, I at last confessed to something that had nothing to do with me.

Having achieved their goal, the two grown-ups could finally relax. They leaned back in their chairs wearily and gave me an odd look, neither praising me nor scolding me. In the end Zhang Quagliai said, “You can go to class now.”

I left the little room, crossed the sun-baked playground, and walked toward the classroom, my heart drained and empty. When I got there many of my classmates turned their heads to stare at me, and I felt my face getting red.

Some three days later I went to school a little earlier than usual. I got a fright when I entered the classroom because I found Zhang Qinghai sitting by himself on the dais, with his lecture notes spread out in front of him. He beckoned me, and when I went over he asked me in a low voice, “You know Teacher Lin?”

How could I not? Her sweet voice had cursed me and intimidated me in that claustrophobic room, and she had told me I was smart too. I nodded.

A little smile played on Zhang Qinghai's face. In a conspiratorial tone he said to me, “She's been locked up. She's from a land-lord family, but she always kept this hidden. They sent someone to conduct an investigation, and the truth came out.”

I was stunned. Teacher Lin locked up? Just a few days before she had joined Zhang Qinghai in interrogating me. How stern and righteous, how forceful and eloquent she had been! And now she was behind bars.