Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [249]
“I can’t possibly care about everyone in this world,” said Kam Sau. “It’s Wai Kwok.…” and her eyes filled with tears before she could finish the sentence. She swallowed hard. “I know what you’re saying,” she went on with an effort, “but I’m no soldier or gatekeeper, I’m just an ordinary teacher, and I’m no use to anyone.”
Mr. Auyung rapped on the table with his knuckles. “Who said you’re no use?” he demanded. “The students you’re teaching are the gatekeepers of tomorrow, Kam Sau. When our generation is finished, China must put its hopes in the next generation. Pull yourself together and make the best job you can of your teaching. The best tribute you can pay to Wai Kwok is to turn your pupils into heroes.”
Kam Sau said nothing but the flush on her cheeks gradually subsided.
Six Fingers brought Mr. Auyung a bowl of iced sweetened lotus-seed soup. He drank it with relish: “I don’t know when I’ll get soup as good as this again.” “Are you leaving the country?” asked Ah-Yuen in surprise. “This visit is really to say goodbye to you,” the teacher said. “Where are you going?” asked Ah-Yuen. Mr. Auyung did not answer, just put down the bundle he had been carrying with him. “I’ve finished with these books,” he said. “They’re quite interesting. They’re for you. I’ll be in touch again as soon as things have settled down.”
Ah-Yuen hesitated, then posed another question: “At teacher-training college, someone said you were a member of the Communist Party, Mr. Auyung. Are you going to join the Communists now?”
Mr. Auyung looked at him. “Whether I am or not isn’t important. What matters is what you think the Communist Party stands for.”
“I’ve read all of the Communist Manifesto,” said Ah-Yuen. “But surely its tenets apply to Europe. Does it have any relevance to Asia?”
Mr. Auyung smiled. “Fine ideals know no frontiers,” he said, “just as evil doesn’t either. We can’t just sit and wait for others to make a better future. Some of us have to make real sacrifices in order to realize those ideals.”
Ah-Yuen accompanied Mr. Auyung out of the house and down the road. He realized that his old teacher had grown much thinner since he last saw him. Against the darkening skies, his eyes blazed from deeply sunken sockets. His hair was unkempt and locks of it bounced up and down as he talked. He had the sour breath of a man who had not slept for many nights. The hem of his blue gown flapped in the wind.
“Mr. Auyung.…” he began, and then his voice cracked.
It was not just from sadness at parting with his teacher. There was something he had been mulling over for a long time but could not make up his mind to say.
It was “Take me with you.”
He did not say it. He thought of Kam Sau and Wai Heung, and the baby in Kam Sau’s belly. He felt torn between his family and his country. Whichever he let go, it would hurt unbearably.
There was little news of Mr. Auyung after that. When Ah-Yuen next set eyes on him, more than a dozen years had passed. Ah-Yuen was taking a group of pupils on a visit to the Guangdong Revolutionary Martyrs Museum and discovered a portrait of Mr. Auyung on horseback in full military attire.
If he had thrown in his lot with Mr. Auyung that spring night in 1941, what course would his life have taken? That was the question Ah-Yuen repeatedly asked himself over the years. So many possibilities had presented themselves to him then. But where would they have taken him? If he had chosen differently, might his family have been spared the calamity which ultimately claimed all their lives?
He did not know.
Kam Sau was busy teaching handcrafts to the younger girls when she heard a knock at the door.
The children were making decorative lanterns for different festive occasions.
Their