Part 7 (2/2)

He led his cousin to the dormitory. To his surprise, his roommate Jin Tian was there with his fiancee, frying some walleye pollack on a kerosene stove. It was almost three o'clock, so he took Liang Meng directly to Manna, knowing she worked the second s.h.i.+ft these days, slept in the morning, and must be up now. He felt bad for his cousin, who looked tired, but he couldn't find a peaceful place where Liang Meng could rest awhile before meeting Manna. Another inconvenience was that if they met in the hospital, Lin had to accompany them like a chaperon; otherwise the intention of Manna's being alone with a male stranger would have been construed by others.

They found Manna in her bedroom, but one of her roommates was still sleeping in there, so together the three of them went out to look for a place where they could talk a little. On their way Lin bought three sodas at a refreshment stand sheltered by a khaki sunshade in front of the grocery store.

Before the medical building they found an unoccupied granite table beneath a grape trellis. They sat down, each drinking a bottle of Tiger Spring soda. The air was intense with camphor, and b.u.mblebees were droning and darting about. A fat larva, hanging from a long strand of silk spat by itself, was wriggling upward in a slanting sunbeam that filtered through the grape leaves. Doctors in white robes were pa.s.sing by, with either a folded newspaper or a stethoscope in their baggy pockets. Two nurses were pus.h.i.+ng a long wheeled oxygen cylinder like a torpedo, giggling, poking fun at each other, and shooting glances at Manna.

Liang Meng, looking troubled, told them he had to give up the wood-engraving cla.s.s and return home within two days, because his daughter had been struck by inflammation of the brain and was just out of danger in the hospital. He had to phone home in the evening to check on her condition. Manna realized he had come all the way mainly to meet her.

She wondered whether he actually measured five feet ten as his letter claimed. He was a scrawny man and looked older than his age. His appearance was unusual. His hairline had receded almost to the center of his crown, making his s.h.i.+ny forehead bulbous. But his eyebrows were broad and thick, and reached the lids of his deep-socketed eyes. Under his hooked nose was a protruding mouth whose lower lip enfolded the upper. When he spoke, his head would tilt to the right as though there was a pain in his neck.

”What kind of grapes are these?” Liang Meng rose from his seat and plucked a green grape from the vine above his head.

”No idea,” Lin said tepidly.

Manna was rather surprised by his terse answer. Just now when they arrived at her dormitory, Lin had been happy. Why did he look rather sullen now? She said to the high-spirited guest, ”I don't know either.”

Liang Meng put the grape into his mouth and began chewing it. ”Bah! it's no good, too sour.” He spat its skin and pips to the ground. ”We have lots of grapes in our yard.”

”Really?” she asked. ”Are they good?”

”Of course. Sweet and big.”

Despite seeing Lin frown a little, she asked again, ”What kind of grapes are they?”

”Mainly Fragrant Rose and Sheep Nipples. We have a b.u.mper harvest this year. The trellises nearly collapsed, and I propped them up with wood stakes. What happened is that we buried some dead animals at the roots of the grapevines in the spring. G.o.d, that doubled the yield.”

”What animals did you bury?” she asked.

”Well, some dead chickens and ducks, and a mad dog, that was our neighbor's. The dog bit a schoolgirl and was shot by the police.” He turned to Lin. ”Elder brother, I meant to ask your professional opinion. Do you think it safe to eat grapes fattened up by a rabid dog?”

”I have no professional opinion,” Lin said curtly. Then he caught himself and added, ”What a question! By common sense that should not be a problem.”

Manna was intrigued by Liang Meng's talking of grapes. Evidently he was a family man; he even raised poultry, although he was a sort of intellectual. Perhaps she should find out more about him.

Since the hospital was an inconvenient place for more conversation, Lin suggested that the next day his cousin and Manna meet and talk by themselves somewhere in the city. They agreed to rendezvous at Victory Park. Perhaps the Songhua River was a more pleasant place, but there were always so many people on the bank that they might miss each other.

Victory Park lies at the southern end of the city. It was built in 1946, in memory of the Russian soldiers who had fallen while fighting j.a.panese troops in Manchuria toward the end of the Second World War. At the main entrance to the park, a stout statue of a fully equipped Russian soldier stood against an obelisk; his helmet and the barrel and round magazine of his submachine gun were missing, chopped off by the Red Guards at the outset of the Cultural Revolution. But currently the statue was under repair, surrounded by scaffolding. On the ground, in front of the monument, a slogan was still legible: ”Down with Russian Chauvinism!” Those words had been sc.r.a.ped off, but the dark strokes remained distinguishable on the grayish concrete.

Manna arrived at ten o'clock. Inside the park, Victory Lake was greened by drooping willows. Two young men, apparently college students, were laughing heartily and paddling a dinghy, whose bow carried a line of words in red paint: ”Long Live Chairman --!” The word ”Mao” had washed off. A few pairs of white ducks and wild geese were swimming near the bank. Manna leaned over the railing on a stone bridge and observed carps gliding in the water beneath, most of them about a foot long. She had on a yellow poplin s.h.i.+rt, which together with the army skirt made her look younger and more curvaceous. She was sweating a little because of the long walk, so she remained in the shade of a willow, which sheltered almost a third of the bridge. A sudden breeze blew a few candy wrappers into the air, and a brown plastic bag was flapping on the blossoms of a cherry tree. She remembered meeting her first love, Mai Dong, at this place. That had been eight years before. How time had pa.s.sed. The park was different now, almost unrecognizable; it had become a zoo, noisy and crowded, with hundreds of animals kept in iron cages and deep concrete pits. On the opposite sh.o.r.e, behind rows of trees, stood several new buildings.

Her memory of Mai Dong feeding mallards with popped rice on this very bridge brought a slight contraction to her chest. Where is he now? she wondered. What a heartless man he was. Does he really love his cousin? What does he do for a living? Is he still in Shanghai? Does he often think of me?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a male voice speaking from behind her. ”Hey, Comrade Manna Wu.” Liang Meng appeared, carrying a large manila envelope under his arm and waving at her.

She waved back, but didn't move toward him.

Coming over, he smiled and shook hands with her. ”How is your daughter?” asked Manna.

”She's doing all right. She returned home yesterday afternoon. My sister-in-law is with her now. The doctor said there wouldn't be any aftereffects.”

”That's good news. Is she your oldest child?”

”No, she's the youngest and she has two brothers. One is eleven and the other nine. She's seven.”

They turned to go farther into the park. Before they stepped off the bridge, Liang Meng cleared his throat and spat into the water. Immediately a red carp, about two feet long, rushed over and swallowed the blob of phlegm. Manna made a mental note that Lin wouldn't do that. They bore left, walking along the bank clockwise.

He told her that he had heard a great deal about her from Lin and was impressed by her work as a head nurse. Then, without a transition, he began talking about himself. He had graduated from Harbin Teachers School in 1965, specializing in the fine arts. The graduation year was significant, meaning that his education had not been disrupted by the Cultural Revolution. Unfortunately his wife had died two years ago; people used to call them ”a pair of mandarin ducks,” meaning an affectionate couple. True, the two of them had spent some peaceful, loving years together and had never fought or quarreled. His children were well disciplined and sensible, the boys being model students at school. Though approaching middle age, he was in good health and only had a cold sometimes in winter when the air in Hegang was heavy with coal dust. He earned seventy-two yuan a month; since they had no debt, the family managed fine.

Manna was afraid he would ask about her rank and salary. If he did, their relations.h.i.+p would end here, because she hated that kind of materialistic att.i.tude. But he had the decency not to raise the question, and instead he switched to the topic of his teaching.

When they reached the opposite sh.o.r.e, the dome of a concrete building emerged on their left, partly blocked from view by poplar crowns. That was the city's Children's Palace. A row of sedans-Warsaws, Volgas, and Red Flags-were parked in a lot encircled by hawthorn hedges. Children's singing, accompanied on the organ, could be heard.

Manna and Liang Meng sat down on a long bench facing the lake. The blue paint on the bench was flaky in places, and the wooden slats forming its back felt scaly. On their left a cartridge box sat on the ground, filled with snow crocuses. Liang Meng put the large envelope on his lap and pulled out a few small drawings. ”These are my work. I hope you like them,” he said and handed them to her. She noticed he had stubby fingers.

She looked through the drawings. They were all ill.u.s.trations of a battle in which the Vietcong wiped out the American invaders. In one of the pieces, two enemy men-a black soldier and a white officer-were impaled upon the bamboo stakes in a trap, yelling ”Help!” Manna wasn't interested in the ill.u.s.trations. She had come here to see the man, not his work. She handed them back and said blandly, ”Good pictures.”

”They are for a children's book. You like them?”

”Yes. When will the book come out?”

He knit his brows and muttered, ”It was supposed to be out this year, but the publis.h.i.+ng house wants to wait.”

”How's that?”

”There're too many books of this kind on the market. I'm told that the United States is no longer our chief enemy. So they don't want to publish the book now.”

”What are they publis.h.i.+ng?”

”Anything related to criticizing Confucius.”

”Then why not draw something they want?”

”It's so hard to predict the wind. If I take up a project now, by the time I'm done with it, it will probably be out of fas.h.i.+on.”

”I'm sorry.” She truly felt for him.

He put the drawings back into the envelope. ”It's all right. I just did these pieces as an exercise. But G.o.d knows how hard I worked on them.”

”I can tell you did.”

A pause set in, and Manna looked across the lake for a view of the other sh.o.r.e. She was struck by the sight of the ma.s.sive mountain in the southeast. It suddenly brightened as sunlight penetrated the clouds and fell on its craggy shoulders. She said to Liang Meng, ”Wow, look at that mountain!”

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