Ha Jin - The Bridegroom - Stories

A truck blew its horn on the street and made my heart twinge. If Baowen went to prison, Beina would live like a widow, unless she divorced him. Why had he married her to begin with? Why did he ruin her this way?

What had happened was that a group of men, mostly clerks, artists, and schoolteachers, had formed a club called Men’s World, a salon of sorts. Every Thursday evening they’d meet in a large room on the third floor of the office building of the Forestry Institute. Since the club admitted only men, the police suspected that it might be a secret association with a leaning toward violence, so they assigned two detectives to mix with the group. True, some of the men appeared to be intimate with one another in the club, but most of the time they talked about movies, books, and current events. Occasionally music was played, and they danced together. According to the detectives’ account, it was a bizarre, emotional scene. A few men appeared in pairs, unashamed of necking and cuddling in the presence of others, and some would say with tears, “At last we men have a place for ourselves.” A middle-aged painter wearing earrings exclaimed, “Now I feel alive! Only in here can I stop living in hypocrisy.” Every week, two or three new faces would show up. When the club grew close to thirty men, the police took action and arrested them all.

After Chief Miao’s briefing, we were allowed to meet with the criminals for fifteen minutes. A policeman led me into a small room in the basement and let me read Baowen’s confession while he went to fetch him. I glanced through the four pages of interrogation notes, which stated that Baowen had been new to the club, and that he’d joined them only twice, mainly because he was interested in their talks. Yet he didn’t deny he was a homosexual.

As it was next to a bathroom, the room smelled of urine. The policeman brought Baowen in and ordered him to sit opposite me at the table. Baowen, in handcuffs, avoided looking at me. His face was bloated, covered with bruises. A broad welt left by a baton, about four inches long, slanted across his forehead. The collar of his jacket was torn open. Yet he didn’t appear frightened. His calm manner angered me, though I felt sorry for him.

I kept a hard face and said, “Baowen, do you know you committed a crime?”

“I didn’t do anything. I just went there to listen to them talk.”

“You mean you didn’t do that thing with any man?” I wanted to make sure, so that I could help him.

He looked at me, then lowered his eyes, saying, “I’d thought about doing something, but, to be honest, I didn’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I–I liked a man in the club, a lot. If he’d asked me, I might’ve agreed.” His lips curled upward as if he prided himself on what he had said.

“You’re sick!” I struck the table with my knuckles.

To my surprise, he said, “So? I’m a sick man. You think I don’t know that?”

I was bewildered. He went on, “Years ago I tried everything to cure myself. I took a lot of herbs and boluses, and even ate baked scorpions, lizards, and toads. Nothing helped me. Still I’m fond of men. I don’t know why I’m not interested in women. Whenever I’m with a woman my heart is as calm as a stone.”

Outraged by his confession, I asked, “Then why did you marry my Beina? To make fun of her, eh? To throw mud in my face?”

“How could I be that mean? Before we got married, I told her I didn’t like women and might not give her a baby.”

“She believed you?”

“Yes. She said she wouldn’t mind. She just wanted a husband, a home.”

“She’s an idiot!” I unfolded my hanky and blew my clogged nose into it, then asked, “Why did you choose her if you had no feelings for her at all?”

“What was the difference? For me she was similar to other women.”

“You’re a scoundrel!”

“If I didn’t marry her, who would? The marriage helped us both, covering me and saving face for her. Besides, we could have a good apartment — a home. You see, I tried living like a normal man. I’ve never been mean to Beina.”

“But the marriage is a fake! You lied to your mother too, didn’t you?”

“She wanted me to marry.”

The policeman signaled that our meeting was over. In spite of my anger, I told Baowen that I’d see what I could do, and that he’d better cooperate with the police and show a sincere attitude.

What should I do? I was sick of him, but he belonged to my family, at least in name, and I was obligated to help him.

On the way home I pedaled slowly, my mind heavy with thoughts. Gradually I realized that I might be able to do something to prevent him from going to jail. There were two steps I must take: first, I would maintain that he had done nothing in the club, so as to isolate him from the real criminals; second, I would present him as a sick man, so that he might receive medical treatment instead of a prison term. Once he became a criminal, he’d be marked forever as an enemy of society, no longer redeemable. Even his children would suffer. I ought to save him.

Fortunately both the Party secretary and the director of our factory were willing to accept Baowen as a sick man, particularly Secretary Zhu, who liked Baowen’s kung fu style and had once let him teach his youngest son how to use a three-section cudgel. Zhu suggested we make an effort to rescue Baowen from the police. In the men’s room inside our office building, he said to me, “Old Cheng, we must not let Baowen end up in prison.” I was grateful for his words.

All of a sudden homosexuality became a popular topic in the factory. A few old workers said that some actors of the Beijing Opera had slept together as lovers in the old days, because no women were allowed to perform in any troupe and the actors could associate only with other men. Secretary Zhu, who was well read, said that some emperors in the Han Dynasty had kept male lovers in addition to their large harems. Director Liu had heard that the last emperor, Puyi, had often ordered his eunuchs to suck his penis and caress his testicles. Someone even claimed that homosexuality was an upper-class thing, not something for ordinary people. All this talk sickened me. I felt ashamed of my so-called son-in-law. I wouldn’t join them in talking, and just listened, pretending I wasn’t bothered.

As I expected, rumors ran wild in the factory, especially in the foundry shop. Some people said Baowen was impotent. Some believed he was a hermaphrodite, otherwise his wife would’ve been pregnant long ago.

To console Beina, I went to see her one evening. She had a pleasant home, in which everything was in order. Two bookcases, filled with industrial manuals, biographies, novels, and medical books, stood against the whitewashed wall, on each side of the window. In one corner of the living room was a coat tree on which hung the red down parka Baowen had bought her before their wedding, and in another corner sat a floor lamp. At the opposite end of the room two pots of blooming flowers, one of cyclamens and the other of Bengal roses, were placed on a pair of low stools kept at an equal distance from each other and from the walls on both sides. Near the inner wall was a large sofa upholstered in orange imitation leather, and next to it, a yellow enamel spittoon. A black-and-white TV perched on an oak chest against the outer wall.

I was impressed, especially by the floor, inlaid with bricks and coated with bright red paint. Even my wife didn’t keep a home so neat. No doubt it was Baowen’s work, because Beina couldn’t be so tidy. Already the room showed the trace of her sloppy habits — in a corner were scattered an empty flour sack and a pile of soiled laundry. Sipping the tea she had poured me, I said, “Beina, I’m sorry about Baowen. I didn’t know he was so bad.”