Ha Jin - The Crazed

The students seemed aware of the odds against them, so they behaved guardedly, marching in good order. Now and then they shouted “Salute to the workers!” as a way to appease the hirelings from the steel plant. Slowly they headed toward the City Hall, which was a few blocks away in the northeast. Once I had threaded my way through the square, I leaped on my bicycle and pedaled away to the hospital at full speed.

Professor Song came to see Mr. Yang the next afternoon. As soon as he stepped into the room, I retreated to the window and sat on the sill. Seated in the wicker chair, he took his jujube-wood pipe out of a chamois pouch and absently tamped down tobacco into its bowl. He looked haggard, with dark patches under his lower lids, and his breath smelled of alcohol. Although he was given to drink, I have to admit that I had never seen him drunk. He bicycled around all the time, but somehow always eluded accidents.

“Shenmin, how are you doing these days?” he asked Mr. Yang in a hearty voice, addressing him by his first name.

My teacher raised his eyes. “I’m doing poorly, going to die in a couple of weeks.”

“Come, I still need you to quarrel with me. Our graduate program depends on your guidance. You can’t leave us so soon.”

“No more bickering, I forgive you,” mumbled Mr. Yang.

“I miss sparring with you. To tell the truth, I miss your gibes.”

“It’s all over between us.”

A lull set in. Professor Song glanced at me, then asked Mr. Yang, “How’s your appetite?”

“I still eat something.”

“Try to eat more.”

“I’m neither a glutton nor a gourmet.”

Professor Song put the stout pipe between his teeth, about to thumb his lighter, but he paused to look at me inquiringly. Before I could say go ahead, he removed the pipe from his mouth, unloaded the tobacco into the pouch, tied the kit up, and stuffed it back into his pocket. He said again, “Shenmin, don’t worry about anything and just concentrate on your recuperation, okay?” He sounded quite sincere.

“I have thought of nothing these days but how to save my soul.”

“All right, don’t worry about your classes and the journal. I’ve made arrangements, and you’re still the editor in chief. I assigned a few young hands to help you with the editorial work. Everything’s fine.”

“You can suit yourself. I’m not interested in that sort of clerical work anymore. From this day on I shall think only my own original thoughts and shall write for nobody but posterity.”

A shock crossed Mr. Song’s face, but he managed to reply, “Okay, you should write like that. I also mean to tell you that our department has submitted your name for a full professorship. I’m sure there will be no problem this time. You deserve a promotion, it’s long overdue.”

“Give it to anyone you want. I have no need for that.”

“Why?” Professor Song looked puzzled.

“I don’t want to be a clerk anymore. I have quit.”

“What are you talking about? Are you not our best scholar?”

“No, I’ve been a clerk all my life, so have you. We’re all chattels of the state.”

Professor Song looked at him in alarm. He said, “I don’t understand this, Shenmin. Why should we look down on ourselves so? We’re both intellectuals, aren’t we?”

“No, we’re not. Who is an intellectual in China? Ridiculous, anyone with a college education is called an intellectual. The truth is that all people in the humanities are clerks and all people in the sciences are technicians. Tell me, who is a really independent intellectual, has original ideas and speaks the truth? None that I know of. We’re all dumb laborers kept by the state — a retrograde species.”

“So you’re not a scholar?”

“I told you, I’m just a clerk, a screw in the machine of the revolution. You’re the same, neither worse nor better. We are of the same ilk and have the same fate, all having relapsed into savagery and cowardice. Now this screw is worn out and has to be replaced, so write me off as a loss.”

Mr. Song bowed his head. The room was so quiet that you could hear sparrows twittering outside, one of them drumming its wings.

A moment later Professor Song said rather timidly to Mr. Yang, “Don’t be so pessimistic. There’s still hope.”

“What hope?”

“For instance, the new generation of scholars, like Jian, will make improvements. Indeed, our lives were mostly wasted, but they’ll learn from our mistakes and losses and will live a better life than ours.”

“False. At most he’ll become a senior clerk.”

Professor Song looked at me as my heart tightened. He said again, “Shenmin, don’t be so harsh on young people. You’re not yourself today. I know you love them, or you wouldn’t want Jian to go to Beijing University.”

“Yes, I want him to do that. What else can I expect of him? He flunked TOEFL, so he blew the opportunity to study comparative literature at the University of Wisconsin. He let me down.” Mr. Yang exhaled a sigh and resumed: “He’d better leave this iron house soon so that he won’t end up a mere scribe here. In our country no scholars can live a life different from a clerk’s. We’re all automatons without a soul. You too should go before it’s too late. Don’t get trapped here.”

“Shenmin, maybe we shouldn’t continue like this — you’re talking in circles. In any case, take it easy and get well soon. We all want you back in the department.”

“Nobody can use me anymore.”

Professor Song gave me a nod that indicated it was time for him to leave. He rose to his feet and said good-bye to my teacher. I went out of the room with him. In the hall I begged him, “Please don’t take to heart what Mr. Yang said. He’s not himself today.”

“I know. Actually I liked our talk and will think about what he said. Your teacher has suffered a lot. Don’t distress yourself about his opinion of you. He didn’t mean it.”

“I don’t mind that.” I grimaced.

As he walked away with measured steps, he fished out his tobacco pouch and began loading his pipe again.

I felt relieved that he wasn’t offended. Although Mr. Yang’s drivel often sickened me, there was one virtue in it which I did like, namely that he spoke his mind now. Never had I imagined that he didn’t see any meaning in my effort to enter the Ph.D. program. He had obviously been disappointed by my low TOEFL score. Without question he wanted me to go abroad so that I wouldn’t end up a clerk here and his daughter could avoid the fate of a technician.

I didn’t return to the sickroom immediately, and instead sat on a bench in the corridor for a while. Nurse Chen came along the hall, holding an empty cream-colored pail. She stopped in front of me and smiled, saying she had just been assigned to attend Mr. Yang at night, from 6:00 P.M. to 1:00 A.M. After her shift, Nurse Jiang would take over until morning. “So we’re on the same team now,” Mali Chen said. “He’s a well-learned man, I mean your teacher. Sometimes I like listening to him.” She smiled again, fluttering her eyes.

I said, “Well, we count on your help.”

“Don’t say that. We help each other. By the way, did you read the book Mr. Yang translated?”

“Which one?”

“The Good Woman of Szechwan.”

“Oh yes, I read it a while ago.”

“Why are all the people so nasty and so greedy in the play except Shen Te?”

“You mean the prostitute?”

“Yes. What a bizarre world the play shows.”

“Not like ours?”

“Of course not. Doesn’t the foreign playwright understand China at all?”

“He didn’t mean to present China. He wanted to express his understanding of the world.”