第一章 (Chapter One)

Ma Bole had been quite timid even before the War of Resistance against Japan.

His health was not particularly robust, yet he suffered from no specific ailment. In appearance, he was very thin. But he went through the entire year without taking any medicine. If he caught an occasional chill, he would just smoke a few extra cigarettes and be done with it. Cigarettes could not cure a cold, but after mulling it over, he ultimately found it more economical. Taking medicine would be just a waste, wouldn't it? A cold wouldn't kill a person.

This was how he dealt with it whenever he caught a cold himself.

If one of his children caught a chill or had a fever, he would buy them biscuits to eat. He would say, "Go ahead, eat. If you don't, it's a waste. Consider it as consuming the medicine money."

When a child was feverish, with hands and feet burning hot, he would take a towel soaked in cold water and keep winding it around the child's head. He would sit attentively by the child's side. The moment he saw the child open its eyes, he would hurriedly open the biscuit tin. "Would you like a bite? Daddy will get it for you."

The child would immediately close its eyes again, its little chest heaving incessantly.

After a while, the child would open its eyes asking for water. He would quickly bring the biscuit tin over again. The child would gulp down the water, paying no heed whatsoever to the biscuits.

He fetched a cup. After much thought, he came up with this idea: soak the biscuits in the cup, so when the child drank the water, wouldn't it swallow them together?

He poured some hot water from the thermos flask. Using a small spoon, he clattered it about, stirring until the mixture was neither hot nor cold. He tasted it himself. Finding it edible, he stood by the bedside holding the cup, as if putting it down would make it too late when needed. After waiting a long while and the child did not wake, he grew impatient and roused the child. He asked, "Do you want some water?"

"No, I need to pee."

"Drink some water first, then pee. Drink a little..." He stirred the thin, soupy mess in the cup with the spoon and poured it towards the child's mouth, smearing paste all over its nose. The child clawed frantically at its nose, getting its hands full of the paste, crying while also wetting the bed.

"That's that," Ma Bole cursed, and went to fetch the child's mother.

Before leaving, he picked up the pasty cup and gulped its contents down himself. The stuff in his throat felt as if it would block his windpipe. He hurriedly stretched his neck long and massaged it for a moment before finally managing to swallow it all.

When the children were not ill, he seldom bought them anything to eat. Even when he did, he would place it somewhere very high, usually hanging it on top of the clothes chest. Driven by craving, the children would move stools, climb onto tables, and try every means to clamber up to the chest.

Consequently, most of the teacups in Ma Bole's room had broken handles, knocked off when the children scrambled to climb the clothes chest and dropped them to the floor.

Ma Bole's youngest daughter, Yage, was truly adorable, with deep, dark eyes and delightfully plump little arms. One day when her mother was not home, she followed her brothers in climbing up to the clothes chest. It turned out three large white pears were resting on top.

Just as they had all reached the summit, Ma Bole came down the corridor. Through the glass window, he shouted, "Nice haul, you little wolf cubs!"

His voice was a little too loud. Startled, Yage trembled and tumbled down from the height, landing on the spittoon.

From then on, the pretty Yage was left with a large scar on her right eye.

Ma Bole was very timid, yet exceptionally alert and clever. The moment he saw trouble brewing, he would pack his boxes and run. He said, "In all matters, one must always leave oneself an escape."

What he called an "escape" was precisely "escape" or "flight." For any situation, if he felt the slightest pessimism, he would flee first. To where? He often did not know himself, but he was brave. He disregarded everything, as if floods and savage beasts were at his heels, making him flee faster than anything.

One year, he went to Shanghai precisely by fleeing. He told his father he wanted to study at XX University in Shanghai. Seeing that his father did not reply, he asked again the next day. His father grew angry at this repeated questioning, took off his glasses, and shot him a fierce glare.

He knew it was bad. This must be Mrs. Ma's mischief. And at that time, he happened to be involved with a young woman, a matter over which Mrs. Ma had quarreled with him several times. Had Mrs. Ma gone to his father and lodged a complaint? Saying he was chasing after that woman and wanted to go to Shanghai? If he stayed at home any longer, real trouble would surely erupt.

Taking advantage of these two days when Mrs. Ma had returned to her parents' home, he asked his father once more about his wish to study in Shanghai, to see whether his father would consent or not. His father indeed delivered a final verdict: "You cannot go. You cannot go."

That very night, he packed his bag. He knew he had no choice but to flee.

The bag contained everything, toothbrush and tooth powder. Take the toothbrushes, for example. He opened Mrs. Ma's pigskin suitcase and saw over a dozen. He thought: I'll take them all. If I don't, it's just a waste. In the future, I won't have this chance again. Then he saw the towels and soap-"Lux" brand. This soap was excellent. Wherever I go, I'll still need to wash my face! And face-washing requires soap. He also saw Mrs. Ma's patterned handkerchiefs, more than a dozen in all, of various kinds-gauze, linen, silk. Among them were several quite elegant ones which Mrs. Ma had frugally saved and not yet dared to use, now taken by him. He was exceedingly pleased. He said to himself, "You miser! If you don't use them, whom are you saving them for?"

Ma Bole smiled sweetly to himself. The more he looked at those little handkerchiefs, the lovelier they seemed.

"How wonderful it would be to give these to... her!" ("Her" referred to his beloved.)

Ma Bole was utterly delighted. After closing this suitcase, he went to open the second. In short, by the time he was about to leave, he had looted and filled three large suitcases and two small ones.

He took along over twenty neckties, new and old combined. In fact, he took every single necktie he owned. As for socks, new and old together amounted to over twenty pairs-some so worn they were practically unusable, some soiled and unwashed. Having no extra time to inspect them, he stuffed them all into the suitcases together.

What he could not take, he dumped all over the floor, leaving the room in complete disarray. Mrs. Ma's talcum powder was sprinkled across the bed. Worn-out shoes, torn socks, even some of the children's belongings were thrown everywhere. After all, he had no intention of returning.

He detested this family to the extreme-mediocre, stagnant, lifeless...

A young person living long in such a home would be ruined, would rot, would grow moss all over, would, like a lively modern youth in the rainy season, become covered in a sort of fuzz, just like those submarine plants. When bathing in the sea, stepping on those seaweeds, that slippery, viscous feeling-how utterly unpleasant! Gradually, a youth in this family would become like that, would become like submarine flora. In short, this home was not to be stayed in; it induced senility and decay. Just look at his father. Every morning upon rising, he prayed to God for over half an hour. His father knelt, removed his glasses, and muttered in a voice like a large bee buzzing around one's ears, indistinct, impossible to tell what he was droning on about. Sometimes he would cup his hands over his face, motionless as a stone carving. After praying, he would put on his glasses and sit at the ironwood long table in the traditional Chinese style in the living room, reading the gold-leafed the Bible that Pastor Jianying had given him. That the Bible was so luxuriously bound that only his father was permitted to handle it; even his mother was forbidden to touch it, let alone the rest of the family. It was treated with more reverence than the Ma family genealogy. Since his father had embraced Christianity, he had actually stored away the family register, only taking it out for display during the New Year, unlike this the Bible which sat untouched throughout the entire year.

Old Master Ma, originally a pure Chinese old man, wore a traditional Chinese long gown of antique bronze color with large floral patterns, and ceremonial cloth shoes with layered soles, his fingernails grown half an inch long. But he had also learned to speak a few words of English. When the foreign friends from the local church visited his home, the old man would call the servant "Boy," shouting for them to bring beer: "Beer! Beer!"

When the beer was poured into the glass, foaming, he would say to the foreign friends, "Please!"

Everything foreign was superior. Foreign children were plump, foreign women were capable, foreign glassware was sturdy, foreign woolens were of the finest quality.

Because of his excessive admiration for foreigners, his father often preached to his sons, urging them to learn English and encouraging them to wear Western suits.

This aspiration was nearly fulfilled even by the little grandchildren. The little grandchildren all wore short pants like those worn by Western children, with shoulder straps. Upon waking in the morning, they would uniformly say, "Good morning!" (1)

Once the sun was high, they would say, "Good day!" (2)

Upon seeing foreigners, they would say, "Hello, how do you do?" (3)

The grandfather did not stop at merely teaching the grandchildren this. He also taught them to read the Bible. Sometimes he would summon all the grandchildren, have them stand respectfully before the table, and teach them to read a passage from the Bible.

To the children's ears, what they read was merely, "I, Lord Jesus, say...", "God commands us not to do thus...", "David rent his garments...", "the shepherds of Bethlehem...", "the lying Pharisees..." As they listened, some of the children would begin to doze off, mixing up the fragmented phrases from the Bible they normally remembered from church. Standing there picking their noses, biting their nails, in a daze all day long, their eyeballs unmoving, they would start to nod off.

At this point, the grandfather would give the order, and they would be dismissed. After scattering to the hallway outside, for a good while those children would make no noise, for some were rubbing their eyes, others yawning.

Then there were the days of observing the Sabbath, from morning till night, when buying was forbidden-neither vegetables nor fruit. In summer, when vendors passed by carrying pole-loads of big watermelons, they were not allowed to buy. If they wanted to eat any, they had to buy and store them the day before, for consumption the next day. If they forgot the day before, or bought watermelons but not muskmelons, or when apricots were in season, plums also ripened, buying one thing inevitably meant forgetting another. Besides, there were far too many things to buy in the market; it was always impossible to get everything. Therefore, when the children cried and made too much fuss on such a day, their mother had to secretly buy something for them to eat. If the old master found out, although on this Sabbath day he would say nothing, the next day, if someone committed a fault and he learned of it, he would summon that person, again to that long table, open the gold-leafed the Bible, and read them a passage.

The Ma family tradition was the Bible and the English language.

Once, just after returning from worship, Old Master Ma was holding the hand of Yage's eight-year-old brother. As soon as they stepped out of the church door, the child saw someone dressed entirely in Western attire. Thinking it was a foreigner, he turned and said to the person, "How do you do?"

That person patted the child on the head and said, "You speak English well, little fellow!"

Hearing it was a Chinese, the child was most displeased. Pulling at his grandfather, he laughed loudly, "Grandpa, that Chinese man, he can't speak a word of English!"

That day, Ma Bole had also attended the service. Witnessing this scene, he felt infinite disgust well up in his heart. "Is this acceptable? What use will children like this be when they grow up! The Chinese nation sinks deeper into the abyss with each passing day! If every family in China is like this, teaching their children from a tender age to light up at the sight of foreigners as if beholding silver dollars... Foreigners aren't here to hand you silver dollars! Damn it, they've sucked the people dry of their lifeblood, and yet you still damn well respect them."