The Secret Listener by Yuan-tsung Chen

Author:Yuan-tsung Chen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2021-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Part III

Leaping Forward into the Abyss

11

From the Magic Circle into the Great Famine

It was now well into autumn. The leaves were falling; the sky was still gloriously blue, the air crisp. It was reassuring to see the familiar scene before me: the stretch of sparkling water, the boats, the white bottle-shaped Dagoba tower on its island in the middle of the Beihai lake. With Beijing seething all around me, it was pleasant to hear Jack inviting me to take a row with him.

He did the rowing. I basked in the sunlight.

“Let me tell you—” I began.

“Just one minute,” he stopped me. Jack rowed toward the center of the lake, keeping well away from other boats. “Now nobody is within earshot,” he said.

As rapidly as I could, I told him about Hu Hu’s charge that I was complicit in Director Wang’s supposed counterrevolutionary plot.

“I won’t let them take you away on a false charge,” Jack said, biting back his anger.

“I wanted to talk to you. I didn’t know where you were.” I could hear the plaintive tinge to my voice.

“I tried to tell you I was going to Xinjiang. I called a few times and there was no answer. My office wanted to hurry me away and left me very little time even to buy the things I needed.” Jack looked away momentarily, at a loss for words. “Perhaps I didn’t try hard enough. I was hurt more deeply than I realized when you called it quits.”

I thought I understood what had happened, why Jack had been pressed to leave so quickly. “Someone, probably Premier Zhou himself, told your office to keep you at a safe distance from the purge,” I said.

“Yes. Everybody in my office criticized our Party secretary for his incompetence. The man was supposed to be running an English-language weekly even though he didn’t know one word of English. It boggles the mind. When the Anti-Rightist Campaign started, everybody who criticized him came under attack, except for me. Some more vociferous ones disappeared.” Jack put down the oars and let the boat float. He sank into gloomy reflection.

We rowed back to the landing stage together. Our hands touched.

When we parted at the gate of the park five minutes later, Jack was in a state of exhilaration. Was the sky really bluer than usual? Did light really shine not only around him but also inside him?

“I shall ask you to come to my new apartment,” he said. “I hope you won’t refuse. I have a question for you: Will you marry me?”

I said yes, and in the spring of 1958 Jack and I got married. It was a very quiet and frugal affair as befitted the time of the Great Leap Forward. Everything was in short supply; everything was rationed. We went together to the marriage registration office, filled in the necessary forms, and since we were both of marriageable age, single, and on our own, there was a minimum of formality. After that we went back to Jack’s new apartment in what was called the Experts’ Building in his office compound.

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