Part Two
We all called the girl who had shared the desk with me “Two Bars” – she was a captain of Youth Pioneer League for which she had a plastic patch pinned on her left arm with two bright red bars on it. She was not pretty, but that was not the reason why most boys tried to keep a distance from her - understandably, having a nagging mother at home was already miserable enough for them, having another one at school would surely drive them crazy.
She, bright, diligent and helpful, was a teachers’ eye-candy; I, reckless, procrastinating and sarcastic, stood for trouble. The mere sight of us being seated side by side was enough to prompt a good laugh.
When the news that Two Bars was asked to help me with my English became known in the class, I had been jested for weeks. I felt my dignity and ego was brutally bruised and needed an immediate repair. There was no way for me to subject myself to this kind of humiliation - whenever it was time for her to help me with my English, I acted up, blatantly showing my absent-mindedness, making faces or simply playing dumb.
One day, after several failed attempts in engaging me in English study, probably having enough with my stupidity, she stared at the desk in front of her and tears started rolling down on her cheeks. I was dumbfounded, and, then, I relented. Having never been put in that kind of situation before, I did not know what to do, although a number of things did come across my mind. But I did nothing helpful, only mentally debated, squirmed in my seat and smiled awkwardly to the rest of the class. Abruptly, she got up and went out of the door, leaving me desperately wanting to burrow a hole on the floor and hide.
Next day, she acted like nothing had happened. Inexplicably, I found I was attracted to her.
It started from shear tenderness in my heart to protect her from anything that could possibly make her unhappy, uncomfortable and uneasy, and, gradually, it evolved into a feeling that a mere sight of her would make my day meaningful, and not seeing her would brew an emptiness in my heart so unbearable at end of the day that a typical day would appear ridiculously long.
She grew in me.
On a Sunday, I went to a book store with my father. Once inside the book store, he habitually started browsing some mechanic books while leaving me roaming freely. I stumbled upon a big sketch book. My eyes instantly stayed on one page on which there was a sketch of naked woman. I swore I could hear my heart pounding, my hands clammy, suspecting all people in the book store were watching me. But I could not move my eyes until someone yanked the book out of my hands, startling me out of my trance. It was my dad. But I made a mental note right there and then, that I would come back – alone.
Oddly, I kept imagining Two Bars in one of those sketches since then. I began fantasizing about her and involuntarily watched her every move, during recesses, on the playground and on her way home. Sometimes, in order not look too obvious, I glanced at her through the corner of my eye until my vision blurred because of excessive strain. I particularly liked the moment when she was meditating and was deeply engrossed in her reading, one hand holding the book, the other fiddling her big plait, afternoon sunlight slanting through window enveloping her in a bright aura and warm breeze gently caressing her forehead hair. This scene was forever etched in my memory.
My English had not improved, but the scheduled self-study with Two Bars had become something I was looking forward to.
My Chinese essays were good. I found it much easier to write Chinese essays than to compose an English sentence. You only need to know how to beat the system. Most students were quite unimaginative, keeping writing platitudes, such as picking up a coin at a roadside and sending it to a policeman, or helping a senile neighbour clean her house because her son was in the army etc. I quickly found out the rigid Chinese writing format and became pretty good at it. There wasn’t any analysis, reasoning, deducing and inducing, critical thinking needed, all it took was opulent sentiment on extolling something, condemning something, or most of time both. For instance, I could easily spin on a rusty nail that our socialist future needed us study harder to prevent from rusting; or you saw a half brick, which could mean you needed to contribute your effort one step at time because our glorious socialist country were figuratively built with numerous bricks.... Once I knew how to write Chinese essays, the rest was simple: the subjects were virtually endless - a broken broom, half paper, a three-legged chair etc. I felt particularly good when Two Bars borrowed my essays which were used as examples and read before the whole class. I shared with her my writing secrets unreservedly; as matter of fact, I was willing to do anything for her.
Someone in my school had designed a rather sadistic way to rank students: at the end of the each term, all the scores of different subjects would be tallied, averaged and ranked accordingly. The rankings along with student names were handwritten in black with a big paintbrush against red background on a huge poster. The poster was usually glued beside the blackboard in front of the class and would be displayed as such for weeks. It dramatically amplified the glories of the students whose rankings were high and also exacerbated the miseries of students whose rankings were low. My ranking was low, very low.
The true Judgement Day was the day after a meeting between the teacher and the parents. Those parents whose children were ranked low had to talk to the teacher individually in her office where they were basically reprimanded and humiliated, and as a result of which they would normally beat the shit out of their children when they went back home.
Despite my poor academic performances, my parents never beat me. But the sadness on their faces made my misery no less painful. A girl, who was my neighbour, also happened to be in my class. She never spoke to anyone and always buried her face in books studying something. Her clothes rarely matched her figure. She was almost invisible to the rest of the class as if her existence were a sorry mistake. Despite all her efforts, her scores were terrible. If she were in Canada today, I think she could be identified as having autism or something and be given special attention. After every Judgement Day, her father beat her up pretty badly. His yelling mingled with her wailing made the whole building like a Guo Ming Tang torture dungeon in the movies.
The rumour had it that her father wanted a son.
Usually, my parents rushed out and knocked on her door fervently trying to stop the beating. Her misfortune somehow took a lot pressure off me. Therefore I secretly call her my Guardian Angel.
One day in my 5th grade, my Gardian Angel was found drowned in a small pond. No one knew what happened. I was completely traumatised. For the first time in my life, I was this close to death. All of sudden, death was no longer as romantic as something you could visualize in a movie when our never-die People’s Liberation Army heroes meowed down layers of clumsy Guo Ming Tang reactionary or American soldiers with machine guns and grenades; instead, it was a concrete and tragic ending of a human life! However, secretly, I thought maybe it wasn’t that bad for her after all. What was there for her in this life anyway?
The good news for 5 graders was there were no final exams; the bad news was we were required to take Middle School Entrance Exams.
Two Bars and I ended up in different junior high schools – she was accepted by one of the best schools and me by the worst school in the city based on our respective results of entrance exams. The school I went to had managed to send only two students to universities over the school’s history; rest of students ended up in various professions like cook, bus ticket collector, janitor, factory worker, prisoner etc. My family was so disappointed in me that they had readjusted their expectations from keeping me out of trouble to keeping me out of prison. To me, for better or for worse, it was a new start and I was looking forward to leaving my sorrowful past behind.
