Su Tong: The Boat to Redemption

I no more knew how to forgive than how to punish him. So I followed him down the stairs, watching as he stepped cautiously, still bent at the waist, like a doddering old man. After living in the attic, with its low ceiling, for two months, he’d become used to standing in a semi-crouch. ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘you’re out of the attic now. Why are you still bent over like that?’

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I am out of the attic. Am I bent over?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘like a shrimp.’

Suddenly aware of his posture, there, on the third-floor stairs of the Spring Breeze Hotel, he raised his head anxiously and jerked his body straight, which induced a painful scream. He dropped the bag as if his body had snapped in two. Then he dropped the chess set and braced himself with his hand on the small of his back. His face was a study in suffering. ‘That really hurt!’ he said as he stared fearfully at Mother.

Mother bent down to pick up the bag, as if she hadn’t heard his scream. ‘What’s in here?’ she asked. ‘What’s that jingling sound? Why not throw it away? Why take it home?’

I went to give him a hand. He looked at Mother, expecting her to help as well. But she stayed put, bag in hand, and looked away without moving a muscle. So Father composed himself and pushed me away. ‘Pick up those chess pieces,’ he said. As I did, I watched him bend, little by little, and start downstairs. ‘It’s all right,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll walk like this. It doesn’t hurt as much.’

The investigation was brought to an end, at least for the time being. The team had got half of what they were after. My father refused to admit that he’d created a false identity or that he’d misled the Party, and insisted he was the son of the martyr Deng Shaoxiang. But they’d had more success in another area than they’d expected. After only a few sessions, during which he’d put up strong resistance and argued in his own defence, Father eventually confessed that there were problems with his lifestyle, either because he was being too honest or because he was trying to evade a more serious issue.

There were problems with his lifestyle.

And those problems, I heard, were serious.

PROBLEMS WITH lifestyle meant sex, everyone knew that. Women were always involved when a man was accused of having lifestyle problems. This was serious, and the more women were involved, the more serious the problem. I was fifteen at the time, still some way from sexual maturity, but I knew that my father — a man, after all — had sex outside of marriage. I didn’t know how many women he’d slept with, and had to wonder what was so great about sleeping with lots of women. Since it wasn’t something I could talk about, I pondered it silently, stopping only when I got an erection. That was something my mother would not tolerate, calling it a shameful sign of degradation. One morning she awoke me by slapping me with a plastic sandal. Glaring at the little tent I’d made in my underwear, she drove me out of bed with more slaps. ‘I’ll teach you not to learn such things from him! It’s shameful! Degrading!’

My mother made a clean break with my father, but stopped short of going her separate way. I later learned that this was not an act of mercy, but a way to settle scores. She did not intend to come to his rescue. In her eyes, he was little more than a pile of dog shit, and in no need of being rescued. What she wanted was enough time to do something. What, exactly? Punish him. Unwilling to give up the advantage she held, she wanted to make him suffer. At first she concentrated on his mental state, and the unexpected occurred when Father’s spirit, like his bent back, was irreparably broken. When there was nothing more she could do to his spirit, all that was left was whatever punishment she could inflict on his body.

Early the next morning, Father pushed Mother’s bicycle outside. ‘Be careful out there,’ he said, ‘and take it slowly.’

‘It’s none of your business how fast or slow I ride,’ she said, ‘and keep your filthy hands off my bike. Maybe a tractor will come along and put me out of my misery.’

Wisely, Father stepped back, but then said, ‘Read the news slowly during the broadcast and don’t make any mistakes. With everyone pushing against the wall, it’s ready to topple. You don’t want to give people any excuse to capitalize on a mistake.’

Mother just sneered. ‘At a time like this, how can you pretend to be so caring? With all these daggers in my back, what makes you think they’ll let me anywhere near a microphone? Know what I do at the studio? I clip stories from the papers for Zhang Xiaohong.’ The mere mention of how she had to serve a co-worker incensed Mother, and she was on the verge of hysteria. Finally, she pointed to the ground. ‘Ku Wenxuan, even death would be too good for you! Get down on your knees, you owe me that!’

Hesitant for a moment, Father might have been reflecting on all the terrible things he’d done, and wondering if death would truly be too good for him. He glanced up at the window to my room before he fell to his knees in the gateway and looked up at Mother with a tight smile. ‘If death is too good for me, then kneeling is what I deserve.’

‘Oh?’ she said. ‘Then tell me, why do you have to do that here? You want our neighbours to see, is that it? They open their doors, and there you are, on your knees. Maybe you don’t care about losing face, but I do.’

Father stood up and muttered, ‘Worried about what people might think, that’s good. Where would you like me to kneel?’ He glanced around, looking for a good spot, and settled on a stone barbell lying under the date tree. He shuffled over and eased himself down on the stone, gazing helplessly at Mother and hoping for her approval.

She merely snorted and pushed her bike through the gate, crestfallen over the docility of her husband. But then she turned and pointed at him. ‘You’re kneeling there only because I told you to,’ she said contemptuously. ‘I tell you, Ku Wenxuan, a man should not kneel too easily; there might be gold under his knees. Know what I mean? We’ll see if anyone anywhere will look up to you from now on.’

As he knelt there I spied on him and detected a slight movement. One of his knees rose from the stone, the other one stayed put. He waited for Mother to leave before getting slowly to his feet, and when he spotted me, an embarrassed look flashed briefly on to his face as he brushed the dirt from his knees. ‘Just this once,’ he said as casually as possible. ‘It won’t happen again. All in fun. But tell me, Dongliang, why haven’t you been lifting the barbell lately?’

‘Because it’s a waste of time, it doesn’t do any good. Lifting things doesn’t do any good.’

‘What do you mean, it doesn’t do any good? It makes you stronger.’ He scowled before standing up beneath the date tree, bent at the waist, deep in thought. After a moment he laughed a brief bitter laugh and said, ‘Truth is, it won’t make any difference. This family is doomed to split up. Sooner or later your mother will leave us.’

I didn’t say anything. What could I say? Immaturity and confusion had me swaying from one parent to the other. There were moments when my sympathies lay with my mother, but most of the time I felt sorry for my father. I stared at the smudges on his knees and then let my gaze drift cautiously upward, until I noticed a bulge in the front of his trousers that was sliding disconsolately downward, like a broken farm tool hanging uselessly from a scrawny tree. I didn’t know what Father looked like with an erection, nor did I know how many women he’d slept with, or the times, the places, the details, and the sorts of women they were. Deep and complex emotions rose irrepressibly inside me, and the look on my face surprised him. He gazed down at his crotch. ‘What are you looking at?’ he barked.