at the time a small, undeveloped town, perfect for his exile. The blanket, with its gaudy colors and patterns, was an insult to his aesthetics, and he remembered throwing it back to the woman who had decided to stop being his wife. She had picked it up and repacked it in his suitcase. It was time for them to believe in something less intellectual, she had said; it was an error for them to remain blind in their intellectualism.
Go to court your illiterate proletariat master, was his reply, hurled at her out of rage and self-pity. But later, when he calmed down, he puzzled over his first wife's words. She was always the wise one, choosing the winning side even before the civil war had tipped one way or the other. He, however, was a thorough dreamer, living in his ivory tower until an eviction order was slapped in his face.
It was time to leave their intellectualism behind. When Teacher Gu settled down in Muddy River he recalled her words and decided to teach night classes to illiterate women. In their progress he saw his merit, not as an intellectual but as a worker ant, moving the smallest grains of sand away from a mountain that lay between his people and an enlightened, civilized society. On the night of his wedding to his second wife, he brought out the blanket; a present from an old friend, he told his young bride. An expensive present it was, as a woolen blanket was still a rarity in provincial towns. His wife fell in love with it, and for the first few years, she treasured it and used it only on special occasions, holidays and anniversaries, and the first month of each new year. But like everything else cherished in a new marriage, over the years the blanket lost its original importance and was used now for practical reasons—it was a blanket of top quality, good for the severe six-month-long winter of Muddy River.
When they reached the alley, the pedicab stopped, too wide to pass through to the Gus’ door. Teacher Gu limped slowly toward home while his wife counted out the bills for the driver. A few chickens jumped aside and watched Teacher Gu, and he recognized his two hens among the group. He pushed the gate open and saw a pile of wood, cut and stacked neatly. A young woman heard his steps and came out of the house. They were back just in time for lunch, she said.
Teacher Gu studied the woman. She was in her late twenties, her medium-length straight hair covering the nape of her neck, parted to one side with a barrette; she wore a gray Mao jacket and a pair of pants in a darker gray. At first glance, she had the standard appearance of a young married woman, neutral-looking, as a wife was expected to no longer reveal any of her femininity and beauty to strangers. Yet a corner of her gauzy, peach-colored scarf spilled over the collar of the Mao jacket, perhaps with deliberate intent. Teacher Gu squinted at the scarf; on their wedding night his first wife had worn a silk robe of the same hue, peach being her favorite color.
The woman smiled, her teeth very white and even. “How are you feeling, Teacher Gu?”
He did not reply. He realized that the woman was prettier than she intended to appear. “Who are you?” he asked, his tone unfriendly.
“This is Kai,” said Mrs. Gu, coming through the gate. “She reads the news.”
“Ah, of course it's you,” Teacher Gu said. It was impossible to forget her voice, which could easily be compared to a sunny autumn sky, a clear creek in the springtime, or any other empty similes that could be used to describe other female announcers, from the central radio stations to the provincial stations, all well chosen because of the lack of individual features in their voices. What a sad thing it was, to be someone who could so easily be replaced by another perfect, almost identical voice, Teacher Gu thought. What a tedious job it must be, to speak day in and day out words that were not one's own. But then what right did he have to despise her? For all he knew she might enjoy the fame this job brought her. “You have a nice voice,” Teacher Gu said. “Great for being the
There was a small pause before Kai nodded hesitantly. Mrs. Gu studied both of them nervously and put a hand on Teacher Gu's arm. “You must be tired now. Why don't you have some lunch and take a nap?” She half supported and half pulled him into the house. He wiggled his arm, with more force than he had intended, to free himself.
Kai carried a pot of chicken stew to the table and asked Teacher Gu how the trip home had been for him. He did not answer. There was no space in his heart for small talk, neither with his wife nor with a stranger. While he had been lying in the hospital for two weeks, he had conducted many conversations with his first wife, sometimes arguing, other times agreeing with her; he wanted no one to interrupt them.
Mrs. Gu apologized to Kai in a low voice, saying the trip might have worn him out. Kai said it was not a problem at all, and in any case, she should be leaving to take care of a few things. Teacher Gu tried to return to his preoccupation, yet the young woman distracted him. He looked up and studied her face. “You were my student, weren't you?” he said all of a sudden, taking both Kai and Mrs. Gu by surprise.
“Kai did not grow up in Muddy River,” Mrs. Gu said, and explained that Kai had become an announcer after she left the theater troupe in the provincial capital.
Teacher Gu stared at Kai. She would make the bed in case he wanted a rest before lunch, Mrs. Gu said.
He had taught hundreds of students in the past thirty years; only lately had he begun to mix up their names and faces, yet, like any older person, the more forgetful he was in his recent life, the sharper his earlier memories became. “You were my student,” Teacher Gu said again.
Kai looked uneasy. “I was in your first-grade class for two months before I moved away,” Kai said.
“When was that?”
“Nineteen sixty.”
Teacher Gu squinted and calculated. “No, it was in 1959. You were in the same class as Shan.”
Mrs. Gu turned to Kai, who looked stricken, and for a moment no one spoke. Teacher Gu tried hard to recollect more about Kai, but all he saw was Shan, in his first-grade class in 1959, a skinny girl with two thin pigtails, the ends yellowed like scorched weeds, a malnourished child among the starved children in the famine that would last three years before losing its grip on the nation.
Mrs. Gu was the first to recover. She ladled stew into a bowl. “Kai brought the chicken and the chestnuts,” she said.
“Why did you change schools?” Teacher Gu asked.
“I was chosen and sent to the Children's Theater School,” Kai said.
Teacher Gu snorted. “I imagine you were well fed as a selected star, then,” he said. Something about this young woman annoyed him, her voice, her being the same age as Shan but with a secure job and an easy life, her intrusion into his home, her lying to his wife about not having met Shan. His own daughter, seven years old back then, had looked up at him with pleading eyes when he divided the meager food he had saved from his own ration for the children who came from bigger families and were hungrier than his daughter. Those children grew up to be the most dangerous youths, their minds as empty and eagerly receptive as their mouths, and they devoured anything fed to them, good and bad and evil. “Have you ever known hunger?” Teacher Gu said to Kai now, not
