Waiting

Since the hospital was an inconvenient place for more conversation, Lin suggested that the next day his cousin and Ma

Victory Park lies at the southern end of the city. It was built in 1946, in memory of the Russian soldiers who had fallen while fighting Japanese troops in Manchuria toward the end of the Second World War. At the main entrance to the park, a stout statue of a fully equipped Russian soldier stood against an obelisk; his helmet and the barrel and round magazine of his submachine gun were missing, chopped off by the Red Guards at the outset of the Cultural Revolution. But currently the statue was under repair, surrounded by scaffolding. On the ground, in front of the monument, a slogan was still legible: "Down with Russian Chauvinism!" Those words had been scraped off, but the dark strokes remained distinguishable on the grayish concrete.

Ma

Her memory of Mai Dong feeding mallards with popped rice on this very bridge brought a slight contraction to her chest. Where is he now? she wondered. What a heartless man he was. Does he really love his cousin? What does he do for a living? Is he still in Shanghai? Does he often think of me?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a male voice speaking from behind her. "Hey, Comrade Ma

She waved back, but didn't move toward him.

Coming over, he smiled and shook hands with her. "How is your daughter?" asked Ma

"She's doing all right. She returned home yesterday afternoon. My sister-in-law is with her now. The doctor said there wouldn't be any aftereffects. "

"That's good news. Is she your oldest child?"

"No, she's the youngest and she has two brothers. One is eleven and the other nine. She's seven."

They turned to go farther into the park. Before they stepped off the bridge, Liang Meng cleared his throat and spat into the water. Immediately a red carp, about two feet long, rushed over and swallowed the blob of phlegm. Ma

He told her that he had heard a great deal about her from Lin and was impressed by her work as a head nurse. Then, without a transition, he began talking about himself. He had graduated from Harbin Teachers School in i96j, specializing in the fine arts. The graduation year was significant, meaning that his education had not been disrupted by the Cultural Revolution. Unfortunately his wife had died two years ago; people used to call them "a pair of mandarin ducks," meaning an affectionate couple. True, the two of them had spent some peaceful, loving years together and had never fought or quarreled. His children were well disciplined and sensible, the boys being model students at school. Though approaching middle age, he was in good health and only had a cold sometimes in winter when the air in Hegang was heavy with coal dust. He earned seventy-two yuan a month; since they had no debt, the family managed fine.

Ma

When they reached the opposite shore, the dome of a concrete building emerged on their left, partly blocked from view by poplar crowns. That was the city's Children's Palace. A row of sedans – Warsaws, Volgas, and Red Flags – were parked in a lot encircled by hawthorn hedges. Children's singing, accompanied on the organ, could be heard.

Ma

She looked through the drawings. They were all illustrations of a battle in which the Vietcong wiped out the American invaders. In one of the pieces, two enemy men – a black soldier and a white officer – were impaled upon the bamboo stakes in a trap, yelling " Help!" Ma

"They are for a children's book. You like them?"

"Yes. When will the book come out?"

He knit his brows and muttered, "It was supposed to be out this year, but the publishing house wants to wait."

"How's that?"

"There're too many books of this kind on the market. I'm told that the United States is no longer our chief enemy. So they don't want to publish the book now."

"What are they publishing?"

"Anything related to criticizing Confucius."

"Then why not draw something they want?"

"It's so hard to predict the wind. If I take up a project now, by the time I'm done with it, it will probably be out of fashion."

"I'm sorry. " She truly felt for him.

He put the drawings back into the envelope. "It's all right. I just did these pieces as an exercise. But God knows how hard I worked on them. "

"I can tell you did."

A pause set in, and Ma

"It's really pretty," he echoed.

In the distance, beyond the train station where locomotives were chugging past and puffing dark smoke, the immense mountain rose, tall, rugged, indigo. The jagged rocks on its ridges pierced the mist surrounding it; a footpath could be seen winding up the precipitous slope and disappearing in the clouds. A few birds were soaring almost motionlessly along the middle of a cliff; an air-raid cave beside the path was visible owing to the yellowish fresh earth dumped at its mouth, which formed a gigantic triangle spreading down the slope. The sun cast a few colorful streaks of light above the pine woods that stretched on the western shoulder of the mountain. Suddenly a dusty cloud arose from a ridge; the birds swerved in the air, soaring higher. A few seconds later came the sound of an explosion. Apparently people were quarrying rocks up there.