The Yellow Papers (42 page)

‘Come on, Ho, let's go.'

Ward 6 smelt of antiseptic. He sat with his escorts either side of him on one of the chairs lining the walls. The nurses talked, the other patients sat and stared. Across from him a woman with greying hair hanging loose around her face hugged her belly and rocked back and forth. Occasionally she would stop and look at her nurse and say
I don't want ECT
, but the nurse ignored her and she would rock some more.
I don't want ECT
. Ignored once more she stood, and the nurse pulled her back down.
Sit down, Janice. Won't be long
.

They took him into the next room. A woman on a barouche was being wheeled out. She was unconscious and had a rubber mouth guard half out of her mouth. A nurse came in wheeling a new barouche. For the first time Huang Ho felt afraid.

‘Morning Huang Ho. Let's take this off, shall we?' and the nurse began untying the knot of his dressing gown cord. He brushed her hands away. ‘You want to do it, do you? Okay, take it off and hop on here.' She indicated the barouche.

He looked around the room. A doctor busy at a trolley covered with a cloth, on top of which lay syringes and stainless steel dishes. A nurse checking a machine with dials, plugged into a wall socket.

‘Come on Huang Ho, get on with it.' The male nurse that had brought him here undid his dressing gown, pulled it off his arms. ‘Shoes off.' The floor was cold. He was cold. He shivered. ‘On the bed, come on.'

Two male nurses held him – one with hands on his shoulders, the other's hands on his knees – not hard, just hands resting casually on him, but enough to let him know they were there. The doctor put a blood pressure cuff around his arm, inflated it. Inserted a needle into his vein.
This won't hurt a bit
. It hurt. His mouth felt suddenly dry. His muscles weakened by the second. The voices around him faded.

He was a caterpillar, curled in a cocoon. Warm and safe. Soft pearly light permeated the cocoon's walls. He could see the lacy figure-of-eight loops of the silk floss crisscrossing, causing the light to fragment. He tried to stretch his legs but his womb-like enclosure restricted him. He kicked out. Warm liquid spread to his groin, over his belly and thighs. He was swimming under water now – thick indigo. He knew he had to reach the surface, but his movements were slow. He kicked harder.

He opened his eyes. Saw a row of empty beds. Why was he in bed? Was he ill? His mouth tasted foul, metallic. So dry! His jaw hurt – felt as if he'd been punched. His head pounded, his muscles ached. Where was he? Was he awake? A man was sitting beside his bed. Greying hair, moustache, business suit. Who was he? Did he know this man? He closed his eyes again.

‘Doctor can see you now, Mr Billings.'

‘Thank you. How many more of these does he have to have?'

‘Six, all up. Sometimes more. Two a week. But the doctor can explain it all to you.'

‘I think he's wet himself.'

‘I'll take care of it. Come.'

Huang Ho opened his eyes. Watched the man follow the nurse out of the ward. From the television in the dayroom further along the corridor, the voice of a news anchorman announced the Government was trebling the size of Australian forces in Vietnam. Huang Ho closed his eyes and slept.

At first Huang Ho spent the time between treatments as if on the ragged edge of sleep. He ate, sat in at ward meetings, and stared at the television in a grey fog-like state. Simple actions took momentous effort. Often, the first thing that seeped into his mind, those first few minutes after coming out of the anaesthetic, were thoughts of his grandmother, and he would think of her fondly, grateful that she had taken him in. Grateful for her kindness and generosity. But then as each hour passed he would remember more and more that these memories were merely an example of her poisonous influence, and that he must never forget to watch himself, even when alone.

As the days passed he found he could fight his way out of the fog, so that he no longer thought of his grandmother unless it was to curse her for having put him in this situation. He learned to participate in ward meetings. Learned to tell the doctors what they wanted to hear, to smile at the nurses. It was easy to fool them. The treatments stopped.

He kept up the pretence until they told him he was being discharged and sent back to Hong Kong. He had won.

33

Ming Li watched her grandson sitting at her table, wolfing down the bowl of noodles she'd offered him when he first appeared at her door. She knew now that she'd lost him. He'd been back in Hong Kong for three months, and until today she'd neither seen nor heard from him, apart from the day she'd picked him up at the airport.

He'd fallen on his bed and slept right through that day and night and most of the next day, and when he'd woken he'd demanded his money and her official statement severing their relationship. She'd argued, but it had been of no use. He'd become angry, yelling at her that the freedom she imagined was nothing but an illusion, and his anger had been so great that she'd been afraid. In the end, she'd thrown the money and signed statement on the table, and as he pocketed both he'd called her a filthy capitalist whore then disappeared into the night.

And now he'd come back to gloat. She should have realised he wouldn't be here for any other reason. Dressed in a faded army uniform on which he'd pinned Mao badges and buttons, a broad leather belt and a military cap, he bragged about how the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was changing China forever. The Red Guards were beating down bad elements, beating down imperialism and counter-revolutionaries. Mao had spoken to them, told them that the world was theirs, and he, Huang Ho, was going to be part of it. Tomorrow he was crossing the border back into China. She would never see him again.

He'd studied revolutionary theory and the thoughts of the Great Leader, he told her, pulling out a small book with its red plastic cover from his pocket. He'd even learned the Revolution song.

‘We are Chairman Mao's Red Guards,' he sang, ‘we steel our red hearts in great winds and waves.'

‘You're not a Red Guard yet.'

Huang Ho rose so quickly he tipped over the chair he'd seen sitting on. ‘But I will be soon,' he said, fists clenched, in a voice so quiet and controlled she shivered. ‘I'll do what I need to, say what I need to. But I
will
be a Red Guard.'

He paced the room, picking up objects, putting them down again. He came to her bookshelf. Looked at the books. ‘Decadent bourgeois ideas,' and in one sweep crashed them to the floor. He picked up the apple-green jade brush-rest.

‘Don't! Put that back.'

He froze, then slowly turned towards her.

‘Put it back!' She ran to him and made to snatch the brush-rest but he easily held her back. ‘Give it to me, Ho! It's a gift from a friend. It means a—'

‘Gifts are nothing but petty bourgeois sensibilities,' and he dropped the delicate brush-rest to the floor. Still holding her back with one hand, he placed the heel of his boot on it and shifted his weight.

She heard a sharp crack.

She ran to the kitchen cupboard. Threw open a drawer. Came back clutching a kitchen knife.

‘Get out. Right now! Get out of my apartment or I swear I'll kill you.'

Huang Ho laughed, but there was hesitancy in that laugh. ‘You're nothing but a cow-demon! We will sweep away all you monsters! Wait and see – even in Hong Kong we'll find you. You won't be able to hide.' He picked up his red covered book from the table and stalked out.

Ming Li sat on a chair, clutching the knife in one hand, the pieces of the apple green brush-rest in the other, and it was a long time before her trembling stopped.

‘Tell me about Adelaide,' Ming Li asked Edward.

It was now six months since Huang Ho had told her he was going back to China, and for a long time she'd grieved as if he'd died. But now Edward was back – another academic break – and she had missed him so much …

‘It's quiet. Peaceful. Nice place for oldies like us.'

‘Are you calling me old, Mr Billings? I'm not old – not a grey hair on my head. Unlike you …'

Edward laughed, pleased that she was teasing him again. Her grief over Huang Ho had troubled him, and if he thought that Ming Li was better off without her grandson, he wasn't so cruel as to voice that opinion. But he had another reason to be pleased. In March last year the Australian government had further eased restrictions on the immigration of non-Europeans. The criterion of ‘distinguished and highly qualified' had been replaced by the criterion of ‘well qualified', and with it the number of non-Europeans allowed into the country had been increased. He'd made enquiries, and there was an excellent chance Ming Li would be allowed to immigrate.

‘My grey hairs are a sign of wisdom, Madam – I'll have you know that I'm a highly respected academic, back home.'

‘Hmm, if they only knew … But get back to Adelaide.'

‘Well, like I said, it's quiet. You've got the protest demonstrations against Vietnam now and again, but apart from that it's good.'