The Yellow Papers (39 page)

‘All right, LiLi. If it means so much to you, I'll try. I know there were scholarships available under the Colombo plan, but I'm not sure if they're still going – I'll have to check. There's probably some other scholarship he could try for, but of course there's no guarantee he'd get one – they're pretty competitive. He might have a better chance coming in as a privately funded student, especially if he's only going to be there for a term or two. Let me look into it. I might have to pull a few strings, but I'll try.'

‘I'll pay. If I have to let out rooms again, I'll pay.'

‘No. This time you have to let me help – it's the only way I'll do this. No, don't look at me like that – can't you understand I want to look after you? Properly? I'll pay his fees. You can open an account for him – make deposits for his everyday expenses, if you want. He needn't ever know who paid what. But you have to let me do this, LiLi.'

She nodded then, and moved to sit on his lap. She curled up, her arms around his neck, content in the knowledge that if he said he would try, then Huang Ho would definitely be going to Australia.

From beneath the hotel window, a cacophony of Australian voices embarked on a raucous rendition
Waltzing Matilda
– boys on R & R from Vietnam. Edward thought of how he'd been alive through four wars. The first, he'd been just a boy. The second and third had separated him from the only woman he'd ever truly loved. When Australia began conscripting men for Vietnam last year, he'd been relieved that he was too old to be called up, and that this war could not interfere with his relationship with Ming Li.

But he hadn't counted on a kid wanting to join some revolution in China.

30

‘You could, in fact, say that Doctor Faustus is the personification of the clash between the values of the medieval world and the spirit of sixteenth-century Renaissance. With God at the centre of …'

The lecturer's voice droned on but Huang Ho wasn't interested – he'd given up. Though he'd done well in school in Hong Kong, here in Australia he was failing miserably – English 1A in particular, and there was nothing he could do about it. He had tried – genuinely – but the English they were expected to read was not the English he knew. He hated these lectures, hated being in this country, and yearned for the term to be over so that he could go back to China.

When he'd first arrived in Adelaide a week before the beginning of term – on a scorchingly hot February day – he'd been suspicious of the welcome offered to him, so that he'd refused the invitations the Rotary Club extended to all foreign students for trips to the wine regions or the beach, or to dinner, preferring instead to hide in his room at the students' lodging house. He was the only Chinese there – most being from India or Malaya – and though all spoke English, he saw no common bond between himself and his fellow boarders. And so, as soon as he'd gotten his bearings, he'd shut himself up in his room with the books he'd bought from the list provided by the university. He'd intended, then, to study before the start of term, so as not to lose face in front of his fellow students. And though he'd spent an enormous amount of money on a massive dictionary, still he couldn't understand most of these English texts.

Aakesh, a second-year student from India who shared his room, told him to start with
The History of Tom Jones, a foundling
. ‘It's sexy!' he'd laughed, telling him a little about the book, and Huang Ho thought that if the text was indeed ‘sexy', it was probably an example of decadent bourgeois ideas about love. But the idea that someone would abandon a
male
child, however, kindled his curiosity and so, confident that he wouldn't be polluted by its content, he'd attempted the book. He'd struggled on, page after page, but found the sentences difficult, and by the time he'd finished the first chapter of Book 1, had decided to temporarily abandon the book for the familiarity of his physics textbook.

Still intent on getting ahead before the term started, however, and aware that his weakest subject was likely to be English, he'd attempted
Dubliners
instead, and here, at least, he'd understood the writing. And though he hadn't understood every expression, still he could empathise with the characters' frustration at their mundane and repetitive existence.

Then the term started and with it, the analysis of the play
The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus
. To Huang Ho it seemed that this was written in a foreign language. He looked down at the text in front of him:

And I, that have with subtle syllogisms

Gravell'd the pastors of the German church
,

And made the flowering pride of Wittenberg

Swarm to my problems, as th' infernal spirits …

He could tell it was English because he recognised some of the words, but the meaning of these verses was beyond him. He ignored the book and stared instead at Suzie Mitchell's hair. He always sat behind Suzie Mitchell – she had hair such as he'd never seen, long and thick, falling halfway down her back, and so blonde it was almost white, like the soft silk of corn. She always wore it down, parted in the middle, with a long fringe that brushed her eyebrows. He had, of course, seen blonde hair before, and he'd seen long hair as well, but never had he seen hair like this.

‘Of course, the betrayal of ideals is obvious. But once Faustus has signed the pact, can human standards be considered relevant? Mr O'Neil?'

‘No, Sir.'

‘No, they can't. And why is that? Mr Huang?'

Huang Ho glanced at the lecturer, then averted his gaze – he had no idea what the man was talking about. Suzie Mitchell turned and looked at him expectantly, and he wished he could give an answer that would impress her, so as not to lose face, but all he could do was shake his head.

‘Miss Mitchell? Do you know?'

‘Well, when Doctor Faustus signed the pact, what he was doing was rejecting things like logic and the law and religion and all that, you know? So the fact that he did that meant that he no longer …'

Huang Ho clenched his fists under the desk, feeling shamed. Once more he cursed his grandmother for sending him here. When she'd told him that she wanted him to spend time in Australia he'd laughed, so absurd was her idea, and he'd refused, insisting he would soon be back in China. But the woman was clever, and she'd argued that if he spent one term in Australia – one term only – then she would not only
not
hinder his move back to China, but would give him enough money to live on comfortably for a year. Still he'd refused. So she'd argued that he could study the sciences and bring back that knowledge to China, and that argument had nearly convinced him, but not quite.

‘Are you so unsure, then, of your political ideals that you fear being exposed to capitalist ideas? Are you really so weak in your beliefs?'

He'd become angry then, and would have struck her as she stood there, so much smaller than him but standing so straight and rigid staring him down, but he realised to do so would be a sign that she'd hit a nerve, and so he'd controlled his temper and agreed to go for one term only and not a day more.

In return, he'd informed her, he would take her money, not, as she'd assume, to live comfortably, but to support what Chairman Mao was doing – to help the people. As well, he also demanded that she write an official statement severing her relationship with him. He, in turn, would publically denounce her on his return. He didn't want having a grandmother – one who was a bad element and a landlord as well – giving him a bourgeois antecedence when he applied to join the Communist Youth League on his return to China.

He wished, not for the first time, that his parents had been poor peasants. But his mother had died building China's great waterways – surely that would be looked on favourably. Bringing back some Western scientific knowledge would also increase his chances – hadn't Chairman Mao himself said everyone should be animated by five loves: love of Country, love of People, love of Labour, love of Science, and love of Common Property?

But though he did study physics, the university also insisted he study English …

Suzie Mitchell turned back towards him, looked him in the eye and smiled, then turned back towards the front of the class and whispered to the girl sitting beside her. They giggled, and Huang Ho knew they must be laughing at him. How dare she! She may know something about this Doctor Faustus, but what did she know of class struggles, she who sat there every week with skirts showing more leg than he'd ever seen on girls in Hong Kong, and bracelets jangling every time she moved her arm? She wouldn't last one week on an irrigation project. He picked up his books and left the lecture theatre.

Edward was crossing the University Footbridge on his way home when he noticed Huang Ho walking along the banks of the River Torrens. He stopped for a moment and watched him pick up something off the grass, then throw it in the river. The young man looked lonely and Edward wished he could go and talk to him, but to do so would break the promise he'd made Ming Li.

‘He's not stupid, Edward, far from it. If you should befriend him, then he were to see you with me later in Hong Kong, he'd guess straight away what was going on. Keep an eye on him, yes – I'd feel so much better knowing that – but please do it from a distance.'

So he regularly checked on Huang Ho's progress, and spoke with his lecturers and tutors, but he never approached Huang Ho directly. He thought of his phone conversation with Ming Li the previous night, and of her disappointment that her grandson was not doing as well as she'd hoped. It was not his marks that disappointed her most, but the fact that Huang Ho kept pretty much to himself, and appeared to have made no friends.

Ming Li had hoped that once here he'd compare life in Australia to life in China, and even Hong Kong, with an objective eye. She'd hoped he would learn to appreciate a life where everyone was free to think and say what they wanted, and where there were no shortages or restrictions, and even if he didn't embrace it, at least it would open his mind a little. She'd even hoped he'd want to stay longer than a term. But if Huang Ho continued to fail English he wouldn't be allowed to stay.

Edward sighed and continued on his way home. He'd never say so to Ming Li, but maybe it was better this way – once she accepted there was nothing more she could do, that Huang Ho was meant to live a different life, then maybe she'd start thinking about them. Here or in Hong Kong, it didn't matter anymore, as long as they were together.

Huang Ho lay on his bed, frustrated by the fact that he was missing out on the events in China. He'd received letters from his friend Zha You who, together with Leo Xin, was now back on the Mainland. Zha You told of the developments they were involved in. Apparently only a few weeks ago a young woman at Peking University had written a
dazibao
, or big-character poster, denouncing professors at the university as ‘black anti-party gangsters'. Chairman Mao had been so impressed with her actions that he'd ordered the text of the poster to be broadcast across the nation, and he told the youth of the country that
to rebel is justified
. Now high school and university students everywhere were calling themselves Red Guards and writing their own big-character posters against their universities, against their professors, their fellow students and even their families, determined to purge China of intellectual elitism and political enemies. And Huang Ho was missing all of this.