My Romance Slowly Ends
This was a time when the political atmosphere of the whole nation tended to relax, but my personal situation still had not shown improvement, as I had hoped. Even though I had officially removed the rightist label, I was still considered a rightist and I encountered discrimination against me. My wages still had not returned to normal, but had only attained the level of a new graduate (50 yuan). This made my fiancée’s parents very disappointed in me. They thought that I still had not returned to normal after removing the label and they were no longer supportive of our love.
After this visit when I had returned to Xian, she wrote to me and suggested that things were not working as we had hoped and she wished to part company with me. It was impossible for me to return to Shanghai to try to change her mind. She said that she still loved me, but we are more like brother and sister. From then on she never wrote to me again. It seemed impossible for me to comprehend.
When I had to go back she said quietly that she would love me forever. I had to return to Xian, but she said that I should set my mind at rest about our relationship. However, not a long time after being back in Xian, I received a letter again saying that she must part company with me. This time she said that we could only be friends. She did not write again.
The one year I had to wait to return to Shanghai seemed like a very long time and the details of the meaningless work that I had to do are too boring to describe. In the summer of 1964, I went to Shanghai. This time I knew that I could not set foot in her home. I called her to come to my oldest sister’s home. She came, but appeared distressed, although she embraced me as usual. We saw each other as much as possible, but these times were all in private. However, shortly after arriving back in Xian, I received another letter from her asking that we part company. She said that we could not even be friends. Now I fully knew that there would be no next time. I had lost a fine girl and my heart was broken, but I could not give up. I wanted to see her once more and speak clearly. But I had to prepare to break off the friendship forever.
In 1964 the famine was alleviated. With the country being out of a crisis, the political atmosphere was tending to deteriorate again. The “four clean movement” was coming. I also lost confidence that I could ever shift my job to Shanghai.
In the beautiful spring of 1965, I gathered all the gifts and souvenirs she had given me. I had slippers for ten years that she had embroidered and made with her own hands. There were it seemed, a thousand letters that she had written to me. My ten-year long love story had ended for good. When I went to Shanghai I called her and told her that I had brought back all the souvenirs she had sent to me. She was not willing to meet me. (Sixteen years later she told me that it was her father who told her to not meet me. If she had, she felt that she would never leave me. But, by then, it really didn’t matter.) She asked me to leave all the things at my sister’s house and she would get them and also return all of my gifts later.
I could not give up. I remember that it was a Monday, a radiant and enchanting spring scene after about 2 o’clock when I went to her work unit. I stayed outside, but paced up and down. I was too early and she would not be through with work until 5 PM. What could I do until then? I subconsciously walked along the clean and tidy street and crossed to the opposite side of the street. I saw that there was running water under the little bridge and red flowers and green willows. I imagined that it was such a charming place for us to meet and talk. I strode over the running water, across the bridge, and without thinking I went in a gate. There was more delightful scenery in the compound. I went on and suddenly discovered that I was in a production unit. There was another gate in front of me. Just as I went out of the gate with an uneasy feeling in my heart, I was called to halt by a guard. They took me to their security section. It seems that this was a secret unit. They asked me, as if I were a spy, “Where do you come from?” Where is your work unit? What do you want?” I replied that I came from Xian to see my fiancee and she is in a medical institute nearby here and I must get there by 5 o’clock.
After half an hour the comrade of the security section came back and spat out one terrible sentence, “You are a rightist!” But, he then allowed me to leave. I waited outside of the institute. I knew that she knew that I was waiting for her. At 5 o’clock sharp she walked haltingly with a girl friend coiled on one arm and brushed me aside. I followed her to get on the bus. It was especially crowded. I had no courage to follow her any longer. I felt that she had brought humiliation upon me. It made me blush with shame. I seemed to have become a rogue stalking a female. I went from being a fiancée to being a stalker. How I wished I could lie down under the bus suddenly. But there was a crowd of people completely surrounding me. It seemed that they heaved a sigh. Would she feel any compunction?
Suicide in China can be an honorable death under the right conditions. But it was inevitable that the Communist party would not take any pity on me. I was an unknown person and a rightist. If I were to do something like that they would feel justified in labeling me as an unworthy person. I became reconciled to settle my life by perhaps dying of a broken heart aided by starvation. But, after some time I decided to live because I believed that she would be bound to face me one day at last in the future. Even that sad hope made me want to live.