Go to Chaper 1
Chapter 17
Next morning they got up at 8 o’clock, and after doing a bit of brushing and washing, collected the luggage and went to the counter to check out. A different girl was on duty but she wore the same dull expression.
The way to the station was noisier, for a lot more people seemed to come out in the morning. The air, in its late Autumn, was crisp and cool. The sun didn’t show from the sky, but the light was enough to claim it as a day, a day special and important to Bing who, for the first time in his life, would take a train, and he was going to no small cities but Shanghai!
Suddenly very excited at the thought of the great journey, he took, decisively, the bigger case from his dad who had shown dragging with its weight, and carried the luggage all by himself. Then, seeing a food stall, they stopped to take their breakfast, the white bread and porridge, both steaming, at a cost of fifty cents per person.
The waiting hall in the station was crowded with passengers. Never before had Bing seen so many people congregated in such a density, on such a disorderly display. Like bees in a hive, they, constantly humming, took every place on the bench, on the floor, and around the corner. For a moment, his eyes seemed to swarm with all types of objects, the heads, the legs, the bags, the rags, the sacks, the baskets and the bamboo poles. The dispositions and gestures were just phenomenal. A baby, snivelling with running tears and phlegm, was stored in the basket attached to the carers’ back. A pregnant woman was treading in the crowd with respectable effort. Only the uniformed personnel, one or two holding a megaphone, were able to maintain their distinguished graceful stance in the place.
‘Where to sit, we still have some time to wait,’ said his father, who, though as short as most passengers, was better adorned by his shirt known as Di Que Liang - Truly Cool, one of those light clothes made of artificial fibres, and his pen that clipped nicely in the breast pocket, and his watch, clinging elegantly to his wrist.
Bing looked around and said: ‘Let’s go to the other side.’
They pushed their way through the throng, and got to a bench with lesser occupation. There was indeed a narrow crack of vacancy, and Bing asked his father to take it. One neighbour was a man, middle-aged, a pure farmer’s face; another, a young man, with a cap and a pair of dark glasses hiding his eyes, had a face relatively free of ‘soil’. Seeing the intrusion to their territory, they both moved a little to give room. His father sat in, at first, only on the very edge, then slowly, he manoeuvred and penetrated into the depth of the seat.
Half an hour later the people stirred to commotion. It was time for boarding. However, crammed in the aisles, the mass stood confused for a long time before moving slowly like snails towards the ‘floodgates’. Looking around, all faces seethed with eagerness and anxiety. Bing clutched the bags and inched forward, followed seamlessly by his father. It was very warm and stuffy. The smell was strange but tolerable.
Finally he reached the gate. Two ticket-inspectors guarded both sides, in their hands the clippers swiftly clicking. The inspector didn’t look at him, only snatched the ticket from his hand, and without as if checking it, punched it with the sort of gesture like a man flicking a cigarette lighter.
On the platform were all running people. The train, now popping into his eyes, was like a tremendous serpent, its body very long without ending. Painted green, it crouched there quietly, exuding a silent power that awed him so much that he paused for a second or two to digest the view.
Then suddenly the train uttered a short and heart-piercing shriek, shocking the runners on the platform in the way like chickens by a thunder. Bing had a real fear the train was leaving without him. Then recovering his sense, he realised that it was just a false alarm. The sound was not unfamiliar to him since he arrived in Mianyang, but catching it at this vicinity had really stemmed several of his heartbeats.
‘Number nine carriage,’ his father voiced aloud behind him.
Bing searched the number plate on the train, the first number he spotted was four, then he moved one way farther, finding the number to be three. So calculating quickly, he trotted back, checking every number that was one plus, Four, and then Five, and then Six…In the middle of each carriage there was an outstanding display: Chengdu – Shanghai- General Speed. And each entrance was clogged, almost standstill, with people and their accessories. Passengers trying to get down were fiercely resisted by those anxious to get on. And curiously, the lady in uniform who stood aside, was very cool in her grace and elegance, not appearing to be bothered by the people’s struggle. When Bing finally arrived at the car with the number Nine, the situation was slightly better, as the first flood of passengers seemed to have already subsided.
Inside the carriage, contrary to what Bing had imagined, was not crowded as much. Only ten or twenty stood in the way; a number of them busily arranging the luggage. First things first, Bing needed to put up the sizable case onto the overhead rack. And then, with a ticket of No Seat, he had to find a seat along the journey when others got off the train. However, checking the rack, there was no space that could be used. So they stayed closely in the aisle, bewildered as one who has just stepped into a wilderness. All the anxieties in the world seemed to mount their faces, one young with acnes, the other middle-aged, swarthy and humble though not sufficiently like a peasant’s.
Then a sudden train movement startled him. It was a quick shift before it stopped still, but it scared him nonetheless.
‘Dad, you get off the train, in case it leaves,’ Bing said anxiously to his father.
‘But how about your baggage?’ his father replied. ‘We need find a place to lodge it.’
‘Don’t worry, I will handle it myself. There must be some space at next station.’
At this moment, a seated man at their side, in his forties, got up and said to them, ‘Let me see if we can find enough room for your case.’
For a moment Bing stared at him, speechless. The good man quickly set his hands about the items on the rack, moving or stacking or laying them down to the aisle to avail his task. Other passengers who were very much concerned with their belongings being such jumbled about, murmuring their protests. But he disregarded them all, and after lifting Bing’s biggest case up to the bottom of the rack, he replaced those bags on its top, plus Bing’s other smaller items.
When everything looked fit and tight, he sat back on his seat.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you …’ a serious of thanks were given by both the father and the son. The gratitude stirred so much in Bing’s heart that he felt, if he had anything worthy to give, he would give it to this man.
Now that the big issue was cleared, his dad was ready to leave. ‘I’d better go, you take care,’ he said.
‘En.’
But before he got off the train, he moved closer, bent and talked to the good man. ‘Thank you, comrade, my child is to Shanghai, first time leaving home, hope you take a bit care of him if you can.’
At his father’s confidence, Bing was made uneasy, for it would certainly draw many eyes towards him.
‘Shanghai? Oh, no wonder, I just thought your child must have got into a university,’ he smiled, and very proudly he added, ‘my daughter went to Tianjin last year, Tianjin University.’
‘Did she?’
‘Yes,’ admitted the man. ‘Don’t worry, I go to Lueyang this trip and will look after him as I can.’
His father left and on the threshold, turned and threw him a glance of lingering concern. Bing was fairly affected, but curiously, more by the feeling of being alone than by the affection expressed by his father. A relief, a fresh liberty, a sweet flutter for being first time independent, seemed to exalt him in the way as a bird with its own fledged wings about to fly away from the nest.
Scanning the compartments, he saw no eyes showing any more interest at him, which helped him settle the bashfulness that had troubled him since he got on board. Leaning against the edge of the backrest of the three-hard-seated bench, he allowed himself to muse over the waiting quietness prior to the train’s departure. In a minute or two, he heard his name called, trice before he could react to it, and it was from his father.
Despite his reluctance to disturb the seated passengers, he moved into the space between the seats, and bent himself over the small desk, careful lest he disturb the jugs and bags and elbows strewing over it.
‘Bing, I forgot to give you my watch,’ said his father, his hand holding up the watch through the window.
‘Oh, but how about yourself?’
‘Take it, I can get another from the shop.’
Bing took it and retreated from the window, moved back to his standing spot; he fingered the watch a while and not intending to wear it immediately, he saved it in his pant pocket.
Still not moving, the train seemed to stay much longer than expected. The good man was now at rest, his eyes closed. Most of the passengers on board were gazing listlessly out of the window.
In another minute, a sudden shift, followed immediately by a shriek, so sharp and menacing, signalled the real pulling out, for the train didn’t stop its sliding like last time. The eyes of the good man opened with a keen alert; the little society in the train seemed to shake with a new wave of excitement.
The vehicle began to gather its pace, rattling with its gasping breath. Then upon an impulse, Bing went close to the window again, poking his head out, checking for his father’s figure. He saw him, standing there still, without waving his hand, only looking wonderingly in his direction. He must have lost the whereabouts of his carriage. Instantly Bing waved his hand, but his father, standing all the same, didn’t wave back, his size shrinking smaller and smaller
Bing was confused, but for only a little while, before he realized his father couldn’t possibly distinguish his hand from many other waving hands along the line of windows.
Back in his place, Bing was vaguely emotional. The train announcement, accompanied by the music, was very loud and cheerful, as if they were heading somewhere for a great, glorious and righteous cause called by Chairman Mao.
The train was now at its steady speed; the skipping, rhythmic sound of the wheels upon the rails was as if matching his heartbeat. And its roaring cry, given out intermittently, didn’t bore him in the least, even if he had by now heard it for many times. It was a fine day; the fields, as well as the people passing rapidly within the window panes, were as ancient as his memory could recall.
In half an hour, the passengers, mainly those with seats, began to stir. Some stood up to stretch their limbs, and sat down again in the lazy manner of a relaxing cat. Some got out of the seat and with their important tea jug went to fetch the hot water. Some arose, tilting their body, exposing part of their belly, fumbling inside the luggage on the rack, pulling out one or two bags of food and beginning to eat. To the contrast, the standing passengers, like Bing, would stay where they were, except for their little gestures to relieve the growing strain of their feet and shoulders. Literally in the train society, they had become the second class, whose pleasure and freedom were deprived altogether due to the lack of seats. Indeed, all of them had an unfinished business in their mind, that was to secure a seat as early as they could, so as to edge up to become one of those first class passengers, who could show off their superiority by putting on a sort of silly satisfaction on their faces and in their gestures. Oh, what a seat! What a discriminative factor on a train!
And before long, as Bing noticed, the seat-securing manoeuvre was beginning. Some standing passengers bent their heads, asking timidly those with seats what station they would get off, so as to calculate their chance of taking the due vacancy. The humility in their voice, and the eagerness and desire in their eyes, were too much not to cause in Bing a mild repulsion. Quite a few seated ones simply threw a quick answer of ‘Shanghai’, with an obvious intention to discourage the inquisitors to stick to their sides.
Not believing he had a face-skin thick enough for the type of enquiry, Bing remained in place modestly. At far back of the carriage, there sat two young girls, both in beautiful skirts, chatting with cheery voices. In his regard, they were remote and superior, angelic and sacred. After all, he was still a near farmer, his feet still stained with the soil even if they had officially pulled off from the muddy fields.
The thread of his straying thoughts brought him a sudden shade of sadness.
Then the speaker announced, ‘Dear passengers, Jiangyou station is coming, those who need to get off at Jiangyou station, please collect your luggage, and prepare to get off the train.’
It was then repeated again and again, and again.
Only two seated passengers stood up hastily, and even hastier were those standing ones besides them, who had already poised to thrust into the two seats now turned available.
The train was slowing down, and through the window, Bing saw many clusters of people occupying the platform, and, as the train shushed to stop, they, again, like chickens without heads, flocking here and there with who knows what a spirit driving their legs.
Now with more passengers rushing in than out, Bing felt the bodies and the bags jostling harshly against his back and flank. In two or three minutes, the whole aisle was crammed with dozens more sweatily excited faces, reducing the free space to zero if not negative.
More enquiries, pathetic as if by the begging dogs, were made to pre-book the seats; more impatience and resentment were expressed out of the grunting mouths of the earlier settlers; and more concerns and piques were displayed in the vigilant eyes whenever the stacks on the rack were touched by the freshly boarded passengers.
There, a peddler, a woman actually, was squeezing through the aisle, selling drumsticks in a basket held high above human heads, repeating her low cry of ‘Drumsticks, one for one Yuan’, at each interval of two seconds, until she was pushed and elbowed out into the next carriage.
Yet only a little time was needed for the train society to relapse into its relative quietness, except more people were installed into the space, penetrating deeper into the compartments.
The train moved on, passing a number of more stations in the same frantic manner, with the number of passengers increasing infinitely. Unlike the water in a container, that would overflow when full, the train seemed to have the capacity to integrate and condense its mass without altering its shape and structure. And even more amazing, a food cart, driven by a sweating train attendant, was still able to pass through the aisle. Its dogged penetration was excruciatingly unthinkable.
Feeling hungry, Bing fumbled in his pocket for the money and bought from the cart a box of rice with some fatty pig-meat. He managed to eat it, with the support of the backrest-edge he had taken so much pain to stick to during the first two or three hours of his train experience. The good man offered once to let him sit in his seat, but Bing declined politely and thanked him heartily for his offer. There were some other standing passengers who were also eating their boxes of food, so he didn’t feel very shy of eating in such a public. The hunger was a strange thing that could overcome many unnecessary sentiments.
After the food, Bing, who had now become less self-conscious in the crowd, squeezed his way to the junction to dispose of the box into the bin near the toilet. He noticed some people just throwing the box out of the window.
Before coming back, he thought of going to the toilet, but its red sign indicating its occupation. A number of men were squatting in front of its door. Bing checked their blank faces, but could not make out whether they were also waiting for the toilet or not.
When the door finally opened, a man sidled out, wearing a peculiar expression as if he had just done something sordid. And lucky, those men didn’t stand up to compete for the usage. Bing let himself in and closed the door. It was, of course, an appalling sight and smell, but for a moment, the little room seemed to be quite a refuge for him. Indeed, after hours of standing like a sardine, he finally got a space belonging exclusively to him, with certain free air that, unfortunately, came up directly from the dirty hole. The newspapers and other unknown stuff stuffed filthily the otherwise whitish porcelain surface. Water was available if only you pressed the tap hard enough, however it was never enough to wash it clean.
Having relieved himself just the same, the little room soon lost its initial comfort. Its ugliness and stench that had successfully disclosed the dirty side of human species manifested its power to urge his escape.
He came out; the look in the eyes of those men was strange, dull yet evasive, mixed also with the kind of curiosity of a cow in her gazing at an approaching man.
Bing made a great effort to get back to his earlier standing spot, but about halfway he failed to break through the wall of body. The surrounding faces who had expected him to go away as if it would free much of the room for them, looked at him with a constrained chagrin. But Bing didn’t care. He was taller than most of them; and somehow from within his chest came up a type of ill emotion such as anger or defiance, boosting his resolution to ignore those resentful expressions.
At each station where the train stopped to shed and fill the people, Bing longed to get off the train for a walk on the platform, but he had a dread that he wouldn’t be able to get back onto the train. He had the least concern about his luggage, thanking the good man who had placed it safely on the bottom of the rack. So he lived his life in such a packed manner for a timeless period, until it went into the depth of the night, when all the struggling souls in the carriage were tired out into various ways of rest and slumber.
He obtained his sleep while standing, his eyes opening and closing like those of a sick hen. When his feet got unbearably tired, he squatted down amidst the crowd of flesh and odour, hiding his face on his hands crossed over his knees.
But he didn’t get any valid sleep, nor did he feel very sleepy. Now and then he opened his eyes, sensing the remarkable serenity in the massive human congestion. The rumbling of the train and the snoring of the men were the only sounds to his ears. And the body arrangements of the sleepers were very diverse: standing or squatting like himself, sitting directly on the floor with their faces in their hands, sitting on the seat with their large gaping and puffing mouths, lying coiled under the seat…There was even a man lying flat on the overhead luggage rack, which was supposed to be the most comfortable one could relish among all the sleeping variations. Bing wondered how he could manage it and how the bags could be vacated for him. Maybe he was one of a group who could permit the type of luxury.
Half dazed, half awaken, he felt he was in a journey lulled by the train to eternity. It was not until the speaker announced the name of Lueyang station did his muffled mind begin to think of its real meaning. Out of aroused urgency he split his way back to where the good man was seated.
The man saw him. ‘Why, I have been wondering where you had gone.’
‘Hehe.’
‘OK, now, I am about to get off, you take my seat,’ he said, standing up, and beckoned him to come over. There was another man, standing beside him, looked very disappointed, while Bing stepped in to claim it. Indeed, after standing more than fifteen hours on the train, his bottom was finally welcome by a flat surface sacredly named as a seat.
With ‘good bye’ and ‘take care’ and ‘thank you’, the good man left. The quiet order of the train was presently broken. People looking for the seats were becoming increasingly fretful lest the desired vacancy be taken by other stronger, more aggressive passengers. The smart ones would have tried all the ingratiating means, such as initiating a talk, sharing cigarettes and food and drinks, in order to establish a rapport with the seated passengers in advanced, until a sort of union was bonded for the security. The final decision as to who was to take the seat usually laid in the hands of the previous occupants. Considering a ticket was to expire at certain destination, and therefore a ticket holder should not have more right of dictating who could take it for the rest of trip, this practice was rather unjustified. However, when there was no better way to settle the issue, the person could decide on the time of vacating his seat in favour of a chosen person, banishing the attempt of others. In fighting for a seat on the train, human politics was indeed in full play.
Bing was a novice in the train-boarding experience. For a reason, he held a strange pride that seemed to shame him in seeking the seat in the humble manner as many others did, otherwise he should have long before secured one. After all, many stations had already passed, and many batches of passengers had been depleted and replenished, providing a lot of opportunities for him to grasp.
But his face-skin was not thick enough; without the good man, Bing would certainly have stood his way through all three days to Shanghai, unless the train suddenly became less crowded, and the seats became available for everyone, which, in the most populous country on the earth, was sounding more like a distant dream than a near possibility.
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