Country Driving [77]
BOYORGIRL
LETITBE
WE PARKED AT THE back gate of the Xingying Elementary School. A teacher greeted us and led us inside; Wei Jia’s face was expressionless. He walked into the classroom, stopped dead beside the blackboard, and announced loudly, “This place is no good!”
The boy’s parents tried to grab him but he squirmed free and ran out the door. He was crying now, rushing back toward the car. “I’m going home!” he yelled. “I want to go home! I don’t want to be here!”
His mother followed, while the rest of us lingered in the classroom. I had to admit that Wei Jia had a point—these were by far the worst conditions I had ever seen in a school in the Beijing region. There was a gaping hole in the ceiling, and the classroom was filthy; metal bars covered the windows. The blackboard was chipped and scarred. On the walls, the only decorations consisted of a half-dozen Styrofoam cutouts of animals. They had been so hastily made that the figures were barely recognizable: a warped elephant, a twisted monkey, a clumsy-looking mouse.
The other children had already arrived, and they sat quietly behind tiny desks, playing with Lego-like blocks. There were twenty total, only three of whom were girls. One was a strikingly pretty five-year-old with pigtails, and another had her hair cut short like a boy. The third girl was undersized, with enormous black eyes, and the teacher told us immediately that she was a ruozhi. It’s another term for somebody who is disabled: literally it means “weak wit.” The girl looked up when the teacher said it—obviously she was accustomed to people uttering this word in her presence.
Outside, Wei Jia stood in the dust beside the car. He was crying harder now, and he struggled against anybody who tried to lead him back to the classroom. First his mother spoke to him, and then his father. Usually Wei Ziqi was strict with his son, but he seemed to sympathize with this particular fear. “Everybody goes to school,” Wei Ziqi said gently. “I went to school, and so did your mother. Aunt Mimi went to school, and so did Uncle Monster.”
The fact that Uncle Monster was educated didn’t soothe the boy in the least. In the schoolyard, the daily flag-raising began: loudspeakers crackled, the national anthem played, and children marched out wearing the red kerchiefs of the Communist Party Young Pioneers. Wei Jia’s face was creased with panic; he had never seen so many children together in one place. By now he was mute—he simply lunged at the car whenever somebody tried to pull him away.
It took nearly forty-five minutes to calm the boy. Finally his father carried him into the classroom; his mother seated him behind a desk. Other kids turned to stare—the girl known as the ruozhi spun around in her chair, eyes blazing. Wei Jia’s chest was heaving; his cheeks shone with tears. After ten minutes, he made another attempt for the door, but this time they caught him. He cried again, a final hard burst, and then he calmed down, exhausted. Lines of resignation crept across his forehead, like the furrows of an old man’s brow.
We left as quietly as we could. I asked Wei Ziqi where the bathroom was, and he told me to use the schoolyard fence on the way out. I could hear children’s voices—talking, laughing, reciting lessons—while I pissed in the weeds. On the way home the car seemed empty without the boy and the Idiot.
THAT DAY THE IDIOT escaped twice from the government office. The first time, the cadres caught him just outside the gate. The second time, he made it into Bohai Township, and it took a while for them to track him down.
The officials telephoned Wei Ziqi and told him to pick up his brother; Wei Ziqi demanded the subsidy. Neither side would budge, and finally, late in the day, the cadres put the Idiot in a car and drove into the mountains. They dropped him off two miles outside of Sancha. The Idiot had never been alone so far from home, but he found his way back—some instinct must