“My score was three hundred and eighty.” All his cronies stood up.
“What did you say?” Tan didn't believe his ears.
“Three hundred and eighty,” I repeated.
Silence.
“You've got to be kidding,” Tan said absentmindedly, making a readjustment in his mind. “I'm sure AU would consider you for their famous English department.”
“Give me a break, Tan,” one of his classmates said. “This fellow doesn't want to go to a college isolated on a little island in the corner of China. It's okay for a bunch of older guys to study finance there, but for English, he should and could go to big cities like Beijing or Shanghai.”
“I'll think about all the options,” I said diplomatically. “I'm sure AU would be an excellent choice also.” I didn't want to hurt Tan's pride.
After all, I still loved and respected my cousin. He had paved the road for Jin and me and had given us hope when we were just another landlord's family, waiting to be wasted by Communism.
I said good-bye to them and told them I wanted to go take a long nap.
They laughed and saw me to the door, slapping my shoulder in congratulation. Cousin Tan affectionately pinched the back of my neck.
Coming from a bunch of college men, I considered that the red-carpet treatment. I was one of the boys now. In a single moment, I had arrived.
I took the same route back home to avoid being stared at in the street. By now, Yellow Stone would be like dry hay aflame with the breaking news about the Chen brothers. Having one child in a family going to college was an eyeopener, but two at the same time? The town wouldn't be able to sleep for a long while. The shock would be reverberating through the people by now.
Some people in Yellow Stone wouldn't be able to take such an insulting assault on their turf. Two landlord's children, hitting the jackpot at the same time? No way. There would be hostile letters of protest, ghostwritten and sent anonymously to the Board of Education, filled with big fat lies, aiming to try to stop us. There would be people gritting their teeth at this very moment, swearing to poke a hole in our balloon and let our dream be just another dream. I knew it was coming and that we should appear modest and undeserving in public.
Mom shut the front door early and prepared a simple dinner. We moved our dining table to the backyard. Everyone was whispering as we set the table and prepared the food. My sisters had left work early.
The young rice plants could wait, but the celebration could not.
We sat close together around the round table, all seven of us. It was a little crowded, and we kicked each other under the table and fought with our chopsticks for the last bite as we had when we were children.
We whispered and laughed quietly, lest there were ears listening outside the walls. It was okay to let people know when you were suffering, but not when you were celebrating. They turned jealous, and evil things were bred from the seeds of jealousy.
Dad smiled like a carefree lion, smoking his pipe, while my mom still sniffled over the shock of the news. It had shaken her up in a very pleasant way. They both confessed that it was the best day of their lives. They were so happy and proud. It made their decades of suffering worthwhile. Our sisters poked us with challenging questions, like which pretty girls we would consider as brides. We went through a list with mock interest: none of them seemed perfect. The appealing ones didn't have the cows necessary for a dowry, while the ugly ones had plenty.
Our sisters giggled and giggled over our silly discussion.
We dreamed and sat there, just staring at a perfect Yellow Stone sunset.
We were given an application form to fill out, along with a list of slots open to Fujian students at all the colleges. The slots for English majors were pathetically few. From the top down, there was only one at Beijing First Foreign Language Institute and two at Beijing Second Foreign Language Institute. There was one opening at Shanghai Foreign Language Institute, a few more at other cities like Nanjing and Fuzhou, and twenty at Amoy University. There were other tempting slots in foreign trade and international journalism, both of which required a strong English performance.
The school counselor advised me that my score put me in the top two percent of all applicants. Any college I picked could be mine. My brother's score also qualified him for a leading university. He had his mind set on finance, and his university choices were all near home. He wanted to be close to the family. But they fully supported my choice, Beijing First Foreign Language Institute, the top spot on that year's roster. I was the bird that had to fly far and high, and they wanted me to reach for the sky because I thought I could. And now they, too, were beginning to think that I could.
I turned in my application at the commune headquarters, an office near the commune jail in which the principal of my elementary school had once wanted to put me.
The lady clerk smiled at me when she saw my name and choice.
“You're the star they have been talking about. I have heard your story. I want my son to do just as well as you did. Would you mind meeting him?” she asked.
“Sure.” She stood up, went to the back room, and brought out a two-year-old toddler.
“Shake hands with him, son.” She grabbed her son's chubby, sticky hand, and I shook it. The kid was a little shy. I pinched his rosy cheek.
“Thank you. I hope he remembers meeting you.” I felt flattered. Overnight, I had become the model son to all moms.
As I headed out, she stopped me. “Here, I've got something for you. Take these and burn them.” There were a dozen badly written, lying letters of protest against Jin and me.
I ran behind the headquarters building and found a seat beneath a tree. I went through all the letters quickly. The most ridiculous accusation was a claim that Jin and I had cheated by swapping answers in the public toilets during the exam. Yeah, right. Jin and I had taken the tests forty miles apart. Others claimed we were from a landlord's family an didn't deserve to be in college—old clichés and other garbage. One letter said that my brother had poor eyesight and that I hung out with bad company. That was true, but did it matter?
Two days later, we got a notice from the county that said we had to have a complete physical examination. I didn't eat or sleep too well that night. Maybe my eyes would be too weak or my legs too short. I had no muscles and was all bones. My belly button was too deep, my nipples too far apart, and my ribs heaved like an accordion. Why would our country want to invest four years of college in such a shaky person?
We went on the commune's muddy tractor. There were no showy flowers pinned on our chests or anything like that. We arrived at Putien County Hospital a little late because we had had to fill the gas tank, and the driver had stopped to push a fallen tree to the side of the narrow road, then had brawled for a good ten minutes with the farmer who owned the tree.
The nurse rushed us through a minor check, then asked us to take off all our clothes.
“Our clothes?”
“Yeah, now.” My brother and I squirmed uncomfortably. We finally stood there in our underwear, the last shred of our male dignity hanging loose.
“What's the matter? Come on, drop it, I don't have all day. There's a hundred female applicants waiting for me.” That sent us flying. We faced the wall and dropped our protection.
We stared at each other with goose bumps crawling over our bodies like ants. It was the first time we had seen each other naked. The nurse's cold hands ran over a few things. Then she took off her plastic gloves with a disgusted look, tossed them into a garbage can, and washed her hands.
We had passed.
“I guess nothing's missing,” Jin said, pulling up his shorts. “I guess so. Mom and Dad made us right and whole.” We laughed and were out of the exam room in a second.
Not surprisingly, Jin got some generous proposals of marriage from the beauties of Yellow Stone and beyond. There were nurses, teachers, salesclerks, secretaries, and actresses. Jin showed no interest. He wanted to consider marriage only after coll
ege. But Mom, Dad, and our sisters were having a terrific time going through the list, studying them as if for real. They even broke into serious arguments over the merits of their personal choices. Some of the girls on the list shied away whenever they passed our house, acutely aware that they were being scrutinized.
One night a pretty little girl no more than seven or eight ran to our house and said that her dad was inviting me to her house to watch television. There was a special program on that night. The invitation came out of the blue. The girl turned out to be the youngest daughter of the party secretary of our commune. He was the only person in Yellow Stone to have a TV, a nine-inch black-and-white one, which he proudly placed on top of a table in the front yard. In the evenings, he would invite the town's small group of dignitaries to watch the nightly programs, starting at seven and ending at eleven. Receiving an invitation from him to witness the magic of his nine-incher was like being given his personal seal of approval. The next day the whole town would know who was there and why.
Mom was obviously flattered by the invitation and asked me to take a long bath and put on my best white shirt and a new pair of sandals. I had dinner early, then strolled over the bridge to his walled estate. There were about fifty people sitting, standing, and squatting outside the gate.
They were there in the hope that the party secretary might be in a generous mood and let them in. If not, they would be perfectly content sitting outside the wall all night long, listening to the TV as though it were a radio.
The crowd parted as I strolled through the throng. The party secretary stood at the door, fanning away flies with a dried coconut leaf. His potbelly was barely covered by his shorts. He welcomed me enthusiastically.
“There is a drama at nine tonight that I thought you might want to see,” he said.
“Thank you for the invitation. I love drama.”
“I thought you would.” I entered the door; inside was another world. There were flowers in pots, a tea table, and lush sofas scattered around a stand where the TV proudly sat, precious modern magic. It was the first time I had ever seen a television.
The party secretary showed me to a prominent seat as all present stood up to meet me. I bowed to them like a spineless sucker. The party vice secretary, the head of the commune's women's group, the head of the Young Leaguers, and a few good-looking ladies were there. I was embarrassed by the attention. These guys had hung my dad up by his thumbs a few years ago, had locked my sister up for selling our clothing ration coupons, had shortened my grandfather's life and made his last days in this world a living hell. Now they all smiled and shook hands with me, praising me for the high scores. It felt strange, but extraordinarily good.
I sat down. A pretty girl, the eldest daughter of the host, carried over a cup of steaming tea on an elegant tray and served me with a sweet smile. I took the tea with a humble heart, outwardly trying to be nonchalant. She sat beside me and explained the high technology of the nine-inch black box. I felt uneasy chatting with her. It was a challenge to conduct a civil conversation without spilling my tea.
The TV blinked all night, the reception was spotty, and when thick clouds passed overhead, blurring it even more, the audience had to guess at what was happening on the screen. It was a milestone in my book, nonetheless. The daughter kept pouring me tea, and I kept running to their bathroom. I left with the rest of the crowd when the TV screen turned white with busy little dots. At home, Mom had waited up to question me about how I had been received. She wanted all the details.
I gave her a full and complete report, and she smiled with satisfaction.
TWENTY-FIVE
I went to the post office every morning and sorted the mail with the clerk. This chubby lady was a one-woman show: she was the phone operator, mail deliverer, telegram person, and counter clerk, who sold stamps and sealed packages. She was also the mother of the two kids who played on the dirt floor and watched the door for her. Whenever the truck arrived, the eldest kid would shout that the mail was in from Putien. His mom would come out, and I would help her carry it in. When she was out on her bike delivering the mail, her mother-in-law took over watching the children and the switchboard. No matter how shabby, the post office was a crucial message center: it held my hopes and dreams.
I sat on the doorstep, played with the kids, and looked for the green post office truck from Putien each morning. Whenever it came, my heart would race and my head would begin to throb with anticipation.
One fine autumn day, the kid yelled as usual, and his mom and I carried in an unusually large load. She threw me the stack of mail, the sorting of which had become my routine, and I clawed through it carefully and quickly.
A large registered envelope dropped out of the stack. The return address looked familiar.
Beijing First Foreign Language Institute.
It was addressed to Comrade Chen Da.
I jumped up and screamed at the clerk. She handed me a pair of scissors and I slit open the envelope.
In one simple sentence, the letter informed me that I had been admitted into Beijing Language Institute's English department, and that I was expected to report on campus within a month.
I ran home as fast as I could.
Mom, Dad, and the whole family were on hand to congratulate me.
We studied the letter and the information they had sent about the department and the college. The picture of the college was a treasure.
My dream had come true. I would be off to Beijing to study English.
I would be the first one in the history of Yellow Stone High to do so.
Now I had a future, a bright one. In a few years, I would be fluent in English, could go to work for the Foreign Ministry and would converse in that fine language with fine people in an elegant international setting. Other things would follow, and I would be able to take care of my wonderful family and give them all that had been denied them.
Though I had never set foot outside my county and Putien was the largest city I had ever been to, my mind had wings, and it had traveled far away.
I made a list of people to visit before I left. Professor Wei was at the top. She had been away traveling with her sister since I took the test, but now she was back.
I took two ducks and visited her one afternoon. She opened the door and made me tell her what had happened. I said we should talk inside. She said she couldn't wait another second.
Beijing First Foreign Language Institute, I said.
She said she couldn't believe it.
She jumped up and down like a small child and said she was so glad, she wanted to hug me and thank me for being such a good student.
We hugged and she rested her head on my shoulder. I felt her tears on my white shirt. She was having a good time.
I promised to write and report all my progress to her. She looked at me and shook her head slowly, still incredulous. Her hands cupped her delicate face as she stood in her doorway waiting until I disappeared into the woods.
Of course, her mean dog was still angry at me. He seemed to be saying, I'm the only one in town to see through you. You are nothing but a country boy and will always be a country boy. I made peace with myself and agreed with the dog for the first time. I would always be a country boy, no more, no less.
Dad gave me another list of people to visit, the older generation, his friends and those relatives with whom we had lost contact during the tough times. I visited them all and was received warmly and with respect.
My four buddies reappeared from nowhere one day and had two bikes on hand. They took me to a fancy restaurant in Putien, one that we used to look at from a distance as we smelled the fine aromas wafting from the ventilation window, trying to guess the price of each smell.
We boasted and talked about the old days. Mo Gong took off his old leather shoes and said I would need them in a cold city like Beijing. We went to a photo studio and froze our memory into a black-and-white picture.
Meanwhile, at home we were getting worried about Jin's a
dmission. He was a little older than the usual college student, and we suspected that someone might have been making trouble for him. With his score, he should have received letters from the colleges by now. The whole family was caught between us two. I was in the celebrating mood, while he still waited in agony. There had been cases where applicants with high scores had been left out by clerical error. He began to go to the post office just as I had, waiting every day. He, too, played with the kids and helped the lady clerk with her routine.
Finally, two days before I was about to leave, his letter came.
It was a moment of great happiness for all of us. Mom and Dad, who were hardened by many years of suffering and deprivation, rarely revealed their emotions, but now I saw Dad collapse into a chair, bury his face in his shaking hands, and weep. Mom sat down also and let loose a torrent. Everyone was sniffling.
Thirty years of humiliation had suddenly come to an end. Two sons had been accepted into leading universities within the same year. Mom and Dad had never dreamed of such a day. They had thought we were finished. Kicked around in school, I had almost dropped out many times. Jin had been forced to quit school at the age of twelve to become a farmer with nothing to look forward to but blisters on his tender hands, being spat upon by the older farmers, and doing backbreaking work that had taken away ten prime years of his life. There had been years of no hope, no dreams, only tears, hunger, shame, and darkness.
I held my brother's shoulders as he sobbed. But it was soon over. He was the first to wipe his eyes and smile broadly at everyone. All the tears were ended.
During the next two days, Jin threw himself into packing for me as I went around bowing and thanking everyone in the neighborhood.
My heart was full of gratitude to even the meanest people on the street who used to slight us. I bade good-bye to them all. They were touched and shook my hand firmly. They said they would try to take care of my parents while Jin and I were gone. I thanked them again.
On the day of my departure, we got up early. Mom prepared all the cows and pigs I had promised the gods and Buddha. She made them with flour and water and painted them red. I kowtowed a thousand times and thanked the gods for making my dream come true.