Under the Red Flag (17 page)

Unable to choose, on the third day the mother and the daughter resorted to drawing lots. Mrs. Chen wrote “Feng” and “Pang” separately on two scraps of paper and rolled them into two tiny balls. She put them into a teacup. Covering the mouth of the cup with her palm, she shook it and dropped the paper balls on the glossy brick bed. “Now you pick one, Hong. Be careful, the one you choose will be your husband.”

Hong shut her eyes and twisted the paper balls with her slim fingers, her face pale and her lips curled. “All right, I take this one.” She handed it to her mother.

Mrs. Chen unrolled it. “No, you picked the wrong one!” On the paper the character “Pang” stood proudly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hong said. “I’m going to marry him.”

“Oh, my gut feeling is that Pang Hai is not going to be the chairman.”

“It’s too early to tell, Mom.” Hong thought Lilian would be pleased by this choice.

On the same day the Chens’ decision was known to most households in town. Pang Hai was elated. For him this was a good beginning. He felt his spine sturdier than before and even his heels seemed full of power when he walked. Of course he didn’t know how the Chens had reached the decision. He had always kept an amorous eye on Hong since he came to know that she wasn’t a bad girl at all and that the roll of bloody gauze only proved she was healthy and normal. As for the next step—the engagement, he hadn’t lost his head over the initial victory and was inclined to make everything as simple as possible. At this critical juncture of his official career, he kept firmly in mind Chairman Mao’s instruction: “We must always be modest and prudent and must, so to speak, tuck our tails between our legs.”

He sent his matchmaker, Aunt Zheng, to the Chens to seek understanding: the engagement ceremony would be plain and quiet, whereas the wedding would be customary and colorful. The Chens didn’t think it unreasonable, so it was settled.

The engagement dinner was held at the Pangs’ on August 1, Army Day. Only a few guests were present. Besides the members of the two families, there were the secretary and the director of the Harvest Fertilizer Plant, where Pang Hai’s father worked as a bulldozer driver. Aunt Zheng had also been invited, in addition to being presented a yard of woolen cloth by the
Pangs as “a little keepsake.” The old woman wouldn’t take money from such a good family and meant to do Hai a free service. Unfortunately she was sick on the engagement day, unable to come and eat.

At the dinner Hai couldn’t help smiling at Hong, who would glare back. His eyes were so large they reminded her of an ox’s. When he placed a chicken leg in her plate, the chopsticks slipped off his hand, which was huge and veined.

In the beginning the two tables were quiet, and the only words that could be heard were “Eat, try this,” or “Fresh and crispy,” or “Good fish, so fat.” But after several rounds of sorghum liquor the men grew louder. The leaders of the fertilizer plant began talking of the housing program for their cadres and workers. Director Ma, a tall husky man, kept burping while drawing floor plans on the table with his fingers wet with alcohol. Liu, the stocky secretary, claimed he was so happy for the children that he must drink to his heart’s content. Then he clapped his palm on his fat lips, remembering this was not the wedding. It didn’t matter, however, because he would do that on October 1 when the young couple were scheduled to enter the bridechamber.

The older generation shook their heads again and again, sighing over how time was flying. It was as if yesterday when Hai and Hong had been small pupils in the Central Elementary School, but in the twinkling of an eye they became man and woman, ready to have their own children.

Mrs. Chen never liked the Pangs. Now and then she glanced at Mr. Pang and her son-in-law-to-be. They drank hard liquor with mugs and spat into an ashtray that sat right on the dining table. Mrs. Pang even sucked a mullet’s head before their guests.
Hai’s siblings, a younger brother and an elder sister, who had a baby girl and a husband working in Sand County, were drinking Gold Star beer with the noise of an exuberant creek. Meanwhile, Hong was sipping apple wine and her face was pink and shimmering, which made her resemble a young bride. She liked the sautéed tree ears, so her chopsticks kept transporting them into her small mouth.

“Ah,” Director Ma cried and stood up. Before he could move a step he threw up—a yellowish shaft of liquid food splashed on the edge of the brick bed and the dirt floor. Immediately Mrs. Pang ran to the kitchen to get a bowl of vinegar to sober him up. Hong took a broom and a dustpan to remove the vomit. Hai’s sister was helping too.

“Old Pang,” Secretary Liu said, patting the bulldozer driver on the shoulder, “What a good daughter-in-law you have. See, she’s begun to work. Hai is a lucky young man, to have such a nice girl.” Then, giggling, he turned to Director Ma. “Old Ma, you’re no good. One mug can throw you down like a corpse.”

“Come, let’s drink!” Ma’s face was carmine, and he lifted Mrs. Chen’s mug, which still had some soda in it.

Immediately Hai poured in some cold water. Ma clinked mugs with Liu and they drank up. “Good liquor,” Ma said.

Then both mugs were refilled, though with different stuff, and together they emptied four mugs in a row.

Three minutes later Ma, filled with cold water, said he wanted to go out to pee. Liu stood up and said that he was going with Ma to the public latrine across the street, and that he didn’t want to litter the outhouse in the Pangs’ backyard. Obviously he was going to vomit. Hai held out a hand to support him. “Take care of your bride, young chairman,” Liu said and stopped Hai’s hand,
“or you’ll lose her. Ha ha—” He followed Ma out, staggering toward the front gate.

Mrs. Chen said Liu had no sense of propriety, and she reminded the others that he had once vomited on the county magistrate’s leather shoes at a dinner. Mr. Pang, touching his right ear cropped by a piece of American shrapnel in the Korean War, agreed that the two leaders always liked to have a drop too many. Hong felt short of breath; the sour smell of the half-digested food scattered by Ma irritated her nostrils. She began to wonder how she could share the same roof with these savages. A sadness was rising in her chest. She wanted to weep. How she regretted having picked the paper ball. Why did she have to take a husband? She didn’t need a man like Hai. Better to be an old maid than live with him and this family.

The more she thought about the engagement, the more heartbroken she became. Soon she was stuffing herself with the large pieces of chicken breast that had been put aside for the leaders. Then she pulled the platter of stewed mullet closer and munched one chunk after another, regardless of her mother’s stepping on her foot and Mrs. Pang’s squinting at her. She wanted to eat and eat and eat. If possible, she would have eaten up everything the Pangs owned. If they didn’t like her, they had better break the engagement now.

Once in a while she glared at Hai, but to him her angry eyes were simply more charming, like blooming lilies. He was apparently tipsy and kept grinning at her boldly.

Then Director Ma burst in, gasping. “Come, help me stop Secretary Liu. He’s walking in the street and shaking hands with everyone, even called a donkey ‘my comrade.’”

Both Hai and his father lurched to their feet and rushed to the door, but before he could get out, Hai vomited on the threshold. His legs were shaky as he was running to the front gate, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

“Swine!” Hong said under her breath. Her mother pinched her on the thigh under the table.

Aunt Zheng came to the Chens’ twice the next week and asked for a list of gifts that the bride wanted from the Pangs. Because the wedding was scheduled for October 1, only seven weeks left, they should provide the list as soon as possible. Mrs. Chen said that she wasn’t sure of what to ask for and must discuss it with Hong, who had been very busy recently, working a few extra evenings a week at the department store, doing a rush job of selling cotton cloth. The old matchmaker knew the Chens were waiting to see whether Hai would become the vice-chairman. If the promotion ended in his favor, they might want nothing, since nowadays power was more valuable than money and property.

The County Party Committee’s decision on the promotion arrived at the Commune Administration the next Saturday. On hearing that Feng Ping was the lucky one, both Mrs. Chen and her daughter burst out crying. Hong wailed so loudly that even passersby on the front street could hear her. A number of children gathered at the window ledge and watched the big girl blowing her nose and wiping her tears and squirming on the brick bed. Her face seemed bloated with pain, her bangs stuck to her pale forehead. The children couldn’t figure out what calamity had fallen on this household.

“She must’ve a stomachache, worms in her insides,” said a boy.

“No, she lost her wristwatch.”

“Why not report it to the police?”

In fact, Hong couldn’t help missing another man, the only one she had ever liked. Three years ago, she had seen him playing volleyball against the Harvest Fertilizer Plant’s team. She didn’t know his name, though she heard that his team was from Tile County. While watching him play, she was longing to touch his square face and her heart was leaping. He wasn’t handsome but looked so sweet and innocent. Afterwards she never tried to find out who he was, nor did she tell anybody how she felt. She thought herself silly and impractical, trying hard to forget him. For some reason, now all at once that young face came back to her, wrenching her heart.

Mrs. Chen came out and drove the children away. Though she couldn’t stop her own tears, she didn’t blame her daughter for not listening to her. Too late now. Damn the Pangs, she wished they had never existed.

Lilian came that evening. The two friends talked about the promotion. Although she understood how Hong felt—it must have been as if all your property was gone—Lilian still thought Pang Hai might be the better choice. This notion aroused Hong’s interest. “Do you mean Pang Hai may have a good position in the future?” Hong said.

“No way.” Lilian shook her head. “To tell you the truth, his official career may be over, because Feng Ping is above him now and can always step on him. He must hate Hai to the bones. A man can forgive everything except for murdering his father or stealing his wife.”

“Then why did you say Hai was better?”

“Look at Feng, he’s a monkey. At least Hai is like a man in appearance.”

“For me they’re the same. Hai is a gorilla.” Hong smirked and rubbed her chest as though hit by her own words.

Now the list of gifts had grown. In addition to eight dresses, six satin quilts, a TV set, a Phoenix bicycle, a Shanghai wrist-watch, and other expensive items, Hong insisted on a large banquet, fifty tables at least. She was not a girl who could be bought so cheap. Her mother felt uneasy about the banquet. “You know, dear,” she said, “you shouldn’t ask for such a thing, too costly. The wool comes from the sheep’s own skin—you and Hai will be buried in debt.”

“I don’t care. If I can’t live with him, I’ll kill myself.”

The Pangs agreed to every item on the list except for the banquet, not because they had to borrow the money (they might end up making a little profit, since by custom every guest would leave a good sum after he regaled himself), but because nowadays it was illegal to hold an extravagant wedding banquet. True, the peasants in the villages still squandered money away on food and liquor at weddings, but they were far away from the authority and could get away with it, whereas Pang Hai, a revolutionary cadre of the twenty-third rank, wouldn’t take the risk.

But the bride was absolutely adamant, saying this was a once-in-a-lifetime event and had to be joyful and lavish. After Aunt Zheng traveled back and forth three more times, the Pangs finally yielded.

On the morning of October 1, National Day, Hong in a red flowered dress left home for the Pangs. She rode the new Phoenix
bicycle and was accompanied by two bridesmaids, Lilian and Mingming, a salesgirl in the department store. On the backs of their bicycles they carried the bride’s belongings, mainly clothes. The big pieces, like a cupboard and a pair of chests, had been shipped to the groom’s house several days before. Mrs. Chen would come in an hour. The wedding was to take place in the Pangs’ backyard, just a few blocks away.

It was a fine day. The sky was cloudless and a cool breeze was blowing gently. A few orioles were fluttering and twittering in the willows. On their way the bride and her maids were greeted by several cart drivers who whooped and cracked their long whips, and also by a group of little boys who made obscene gestures and chanted, “Slow down, my bride, you’ll have a baby boy tomorrow night.”

“That boy is your grandpa,” Lilian shouted. Hong and Mingming kept pedaling quietly.

The banquet would start at two-thirty in the afternoon, because many guests came from villages over fifteen kilometers away; they would have to leave early, relinquishing the most delightful part of the wedding—busting the bridechamber, which would take place at night. The wedding ceremony was presided over by Secretary Liu, who wore a red paper flower in the buttonhole of his breast pocket, as though he were the bridegroom. He delivered a short speech, wishing the young couple longevity, a lifelong happy union, and a houseful of children and grandchildren.

Then together the bride and the groom sang two songs, “The East Is Red, the Sun Is Rising” and “Happy, We Must Not Forget the Communist Party.” A few firecrackers exploded as candies and roasted peanuts were thrown in the air for the children,
who rushed around and pushed each other like a flock of chickens pecking at grain. Some people wanted the couple to eat an apple, which would be held in the air by a thread so that the bride and the groom had to press their lips together to take a bite. But Director Ma told them, “Let’s skip that part for the moment, and they’ll do it after the feast.” He also reminded them that there would be a lot of performance in the evening. The guests from distant villages were rather disappointed, but they were consoled by the fragrance of the dishes being cooked at the two brick ranges constructed specially for the wedding. They couldn’t help turning their eyes to the four cooks in white hats. Two headless pigs, skinned and gutted, hung upside down beyond the kitchen shed.