Shen Rong

                                At Middle Age
                                -------------

                  (Translated by Yu Fanqin and Wang Mingjie)



     Were the stars twinkling in the sky?  Was a boat rocking on the sea?   Lu
Wenting, an oculist, lay on her back in hospital.  Circles of light, bright or
dim,  appeared  before her eyes.   She seemed to be lifted by a cloud,  up and
down, drifting about without any direction.

     Was she dreaming or dying?

     She remembered vaguely going to the operating theatre that morning,  put-
ting on her operating gown and walking over to the wash-basin.  Ah, yes, Jiang
Yafen, her good friend, had volunteered to be her assistant.  Having got their
visas, Jiang and her family were soon leaving for Canada.  This was their last
operation as colleagues.

     Together they washed their hands.   They had been medical students in the
same college in the fifties and,  after graduation,  had been assigned to  the
same  hospital.    As friends and colleagues for more than twenty years,  they
found it hard to part.   This was no mood for a doctor to be in  prior  to  an
operation.    Lu remembered she had wanted to say something to ease their sad-
ness.  What had she said?  She turned to Jiang and inquired,  "Have you booked
your plane tickets, Yafen?"

     What  had  been her reply?   She had said nothing,  but her eyes had gone
red.   Then after a long time Jiang asked,  "You think you  can  manage  three
operations in one morning?"

     Lu  couldn't  remember  what she had answered.   She had probably gone on
scrubbing her nails in silence.   The new brush  hurt  her  fingertips.    She
looked  at the soap bubbles on her hands and glanced at the clock on the wall,
strictly following the rules, brushing her hands, wrists and arms three times,
three minutes each.   Ten minutes later she soaked her arms in a pail  of  an-
tiseptic,  75 per cent alcohol.  It was white - maybe yellowish.  Even now her
hands and arms were numb and burning.   From the alcohol?   No.   It  was  un-
likely.  They had never hurt before.  Why couldn't she lift them?

     She remembered that at the start of the operation,  when she had injected
novocaine behind the patient's eyeball,  Yafen had  asked  softly,  "Has  your
daughter got over her pneumonia?"

     What  was wrong with Jiang today?   Didn't she know that when operating a
surgeon should forget everything,  including herself and her family,  and con-
centrate on the patient?   How could she inquire after Xiaojia at such a time?
Perhaps,  feeling miserable about leaving,  she had forgotten that she was as-
sisting at an operation.

     A bit annoyed, Lu retorted, "I'm only thinking about this eye now."

     She lowered her head and cut with a pair of curved scissors.

     One operation after another.   Why three in one morning?   She had had to
remove Vice-minister Jiao's cataract, transplant a cornea on Uncle Zhang's eye
and correct Wang Xiaoman's squint.  Starting at eight o'clock,  she had sat on
the  high  operating  stool  for four and a half hours,  concentrating under a
lamp.   She had cut and stitched again and again.   When she had finished  the
last one and put a piece of gauze on the patient's eye,  she was stiff and her
legs wouldn't move.

     Having changed her clothes, Jiang called to her from the door, "Let's go,
Wenting."

     "You go first." She stayed where she was.

     "I'll wait for you.   It's my last time here." Jiang's eyes were  watery.
Was she crying?  Why?

     "Go on home and do your packing.  Your husband must be waiting for you."

     "He's already packed our things." Looking up, Jiang called, "What's wrong
with your legs?"

     "I've  been sitting so long,  they've gone to sleep!   They'll be OK in a
minute.  I'll come to see you this evening."

     "All right.  See you then."

     After Jiang had left, Lu moved back to the wall of white tiles,  support-
ing  herself  with  her  hands  against it for a long time before going to the
changing-room.

     She remembered putting on her  grey  jacket,  leaving  the  hospital  and
reaching  the  lane  leading to her home.   All of a sudden she was exhausted,
more tired than she had ever felt before.  The lane became long and hazy,  her
home seemed far away.  She felt she would never get there.

     She  became  faint.    She couldn't open her eyes,  her lips felt dry and
stiff.  She was thirsty, very thirsty.  Where could she get some water?

     Her parched lips trembled.



2

     "Look, Dr Sun, she's come to!" Jiang cried softly.   She had been sitting
beside Lu all the time.

     Sun  Yimin,  head  of  the Ophthalmic Department,  was reading Lu's case-
history and was shocked by the  diagnosis  of  myocardial  infarction.    Very
worried, the greying man shook his head and pushed back his black-rimmed spec-
tacles,  recalling  that  Lu  was not the first doctor aged about forty in his
department who had fallen ill with heart disease.   She  had  been  a  healthy
woman of forty-two.  This attack was too sudden and serious.

     Sun turned his tall,  stooping frame to look down at Lu's pale face.  She
was breathing weakly, her eyes closed, her dry lips trembling slightly.

     "Dr Lu," Sun called softly.

     She didn't move, her thin, puffy face expressionless.

     "Wenting," Jiang urged.

     Still no reaction.

     Sun raised his eyes to the forbidding oxygen cylinder,  which stood at  a
corner of the room and then looked at the ECG monitor.   He was reassured when
he saw a regular QRS wave on the oscillometer.   He turned back to  Lu,  waved
his hand and said, "Ask her husband to come in."

     A  good-looking,  balding man in his forties,  of medium height,  entered
quickly.  He was Fu Jiajie, Lu's husband.   He had spent a sleepless night be-
side  her  and  had  been reluctant to leave when Sun had sent him away to lie
down on the bench outside the room.

     As Sun made way for him, Fu bent down to look at the familiar face, which
was now so pale and strange.

     Lu's lips moved again.   Nobody except her husband understood  her.    He
said, "She wants some water.  She's thirsty."

     Jiang  gave  him a small teapot.   Carefully,  Fu avoided the rubber tube
leading from the oxygen cylinder and put it to Lu's parched  lips.    Drop  by
drop, the water trickled into the dying woman's mouth.

     "Wenting, Wenting," Fu called.

     When  a drop of water fell from Fu's shaking hand on to Lu's pallid face,
the muscles seemed to twitch a little.



3

     Eyes.  Eyes.  Eyes....

     Many flashed past Lu's closed ones.   Eyes of  men  and  women,  old  and
young, big and small, bright and dull, all kinds, blinking at her.

     Ah!    These were her husband's eyes.   In them,  she saw joy and sorrow,
anxiety and pleasure, suffering and hope.  She could see through his eyes, his
heart.   His eyes were as bright as the golden sun in the  sky.    His  loving
heart had given her so much warmth.   It was his voice, Jiajie's voice, so en-
dearing, so gentle, and so far away, as if from another world:


          "I wish I were a rapid stream,
          ......
          If my love
          A tiny fish would be,
          She'd frolic
          In my foaming waves."


     Where was she?   Oh,  she was in a park covered with snow.   There was  a
frozen lake,  clear as crystal,  on which red,  blue, purple and white figures
skated.   Happy laughter resounded in the air while they  moved  arm  in  arm,
threading  their  way  through the crowds.   She saw none of the smiling faces
around her, only his.  They slid on the ice, side by side, twirling, laughing.
What bliss!

     The ancient Five Dragon Pavilions shrouded in snow were solemn,  tranquil
and  deserted.    They  leaned  against  the  white marble balustrades,  while
snowflakes covered them.  Holding hands tightly, they defied the severe cold.

     She was young then.

     She had never expected  love  or  special  happiness.    Her  father  had
deserted  her  mother when she was a girl,  and her mother had had a hard time
raising her alone.   Her childhood had been bleak.   All she remembered was  a
mother prematurely old who, night after night, sewed under a solitary lamp.

     She  boarded  at her medical college,  rising before daybreak to memorize
new English words,  going to classes and filling scores of notebooks with neat
little characters.  in the evenings she studied in the library and then worked
late  into  the  night  doing autopsies.   She never grudge spending her youth
studying.

     Love had no place in her life.   She shared a room with Jiang Yafen,  her
classmate,  who had beautiful eyes, bewitching lips and who was tall, slim and
lively.  Every week, Jiang received love letters.   Every weekend,  she dated,
while poor Lu did nothing, neglected by everyone.

     After graduation, she and Jiang were assigned to the same hospital, which
had  been founded more than a hundred years earlier.   Their internship lasted
for four years, during which time they had to be in the hospital all day long,
and remain single.

     Secretly,  Jiang cursed these rules,  while Lu accepted the  terms  will-
ingly.  What did it matter being in the hospital twenty-four hours a day?  She
would have liked to be there forty-eight hours,  if possible.  No marriage for
four years.   Hadn't many skilled doctors married late or remained single  all
their lives?  So she threw herself heart and soul into her work.

     But life is strange.  Fu Jiajie suddenly entered her quiet, routine life.

     She  never understood how it happened.   He had been hospitalized because
of an eye disease.  She was his doctor.   Perhaps,  his feelings for her arose
from her conscientious treatment.   Passionate and deep,  his emotions changed
both their lives.

     Winter in the north is always very cold,  but that  winter  he  gave  her
warmth.    Never  having  imagined loved could be so intoxicating,  she almost
regretted not finding it earlier.  She was already twenty-eight, yet she still
had the heart of a young girl.   With her whole being,  she welcome this  late
love.


          "I wish I were a deserted forest,
          ......
          If my love
          A little bird would be,
          She'd nest and twitter
          In my dense trees."


     Incredible that Fu Jiajie,  whom Jiang regarded as a bookworm and who was
doing research on a new material for a spacecraft  in  the  metallurgical  Re-
search Institute, could read poetry so well!

     "Who wrote it?" Lu asked

     "The Hungarian poet Petofi."

     "Does a scientist have time for poetry?"

     "A scientist must have imagination.  Science has something in common with
poetry in this respect."

     Pedantic?  He gave good answers.

     "What about you?  Do you like poetry?" he asked.

     "Me?    I  don't  know anything about it.   I seldom read it." She smiled
cynically.  "The Ophthalmic Department does operations.   Every stitch,  every
incision is strictly laid down.  We can't use the slightest imagination...."

     Fu cut in,  "Your work is a beautiful poem.  You can make many people see
again...."

     Smiling, he moved over to her, his face close to hers.   His masculinity,
which she had never experienced before, assailed, bewildered and unnerved her.
She felt something must happen,  and, sure enough, he put his arms around her,
embracing her tightly.

     It had occurred so suddenly that she looked fearfully at the smiling eyes
close to hers and his parted lips.  Her heart thumping,  her head raised,  she
closed  her  eyes in embarrassment,  moving away instinctively as his irresis-
tible love flooded her.

     Beihai Park in the snow was just the right place for her.   Snow  covered
the  tall dagoba,  Qiongdao Islet with its green pines,  the long corridor and
quiet lake.  It also hid the sweet shyness of the lovers.

     To everyone's surprise, after her four-year internship had ended,  Lu was
the first to get married.   Fate had decided Fu Jiajie's intrusion.  How could
she refuse his wish that they marry?   How insistently and strongly he  wanted
her, preparing to sacrifice everything for her!...


          "I wish I were a crumbling ruin,
          ......
          If my love
          Green ivy would be,
          She'd tenderly entwine
          Around my lonely head."


     Life  was  good,  love  was  beautiful.    These  recollections  gave her
strength, and her eyelids opened slightly.



4

     After heavy dosages of sedatives and analgesics Dr  Lu  was  still  in  a
coma.    The  head  of the Internal Medicine Department gave her a careful ex-
amination, studied her ECG and her case-history,  then told the ward doctor to
keep  up  the  intravenous  drip  and injections of opiate and morphine and to
watch out for changes in her ECG monitor to guard against  more  serious  com-
plications due to myocardial infarction.

     On leaving the ward he remarked to Sun,  "She's too weak.  I remember how
fit Dr Lu was when she first came here."

     "Yes." Sun shook his head with a sigh.   "It's eighteen years  since  she
came to our hospital, just a girl."

     Eighteen  years ago Dr Sun had already been a well-known ophthalmologist,
respected by all his colleagues for his  skill  and  responsible  attitude  at
work.   This able, energetic professor in his prime regarded it as his duty to
train the younger doctors.   Each time the medical college assigned them a new
batch  of  graduates,  he  examined  them  one by one to make his choice.   He
thought the first step to making their Ophthalmology Department  the  best  in
all China was by selecting the most promising interns.

     How  had  he chosen Lu?   He remembered quite distinctly.   At first this
twenty-four-year-old graduate had not made much of an impression on him.

     That morning Department Head Sun had  already  interviewed  five  of  the
graduates assigned to them and had been most disappointed.   Some of them were
suitable, but they were not interested in the Ophthalmology Department and did
not want to work there.   Others wanted to be oculists because they thought it
a simple,  easy job.   By the time he picked up the sixth file marked Lu Went-
ing,  he was rather tired and not expecting much.   He was reflecting that the
medical college's teaching needed improving to give students a correct impres-
sion from the start of his department.

     The  door opened quietly.   A slim girl walked softly in.   Looking up he
saw that she had on a cotton jacket and slacks.   Her cuffs were patched,  the
knees  of  her  blue slacks were faded.   Simply dressed,  she was even rather
shabby.   He read the name on her file,  then glanced at her  casually.    She
really  looked  like  a little,  slightly built,  with an oval face and neatly
bobbed glossy black hair.  She calmly sat down on the chair facing him.

     Asked the usual technical questions, she answered each in turn, saying no
more than was strictly necessary.

     "You want to work in the Ophthalmology Department?" Sun  asked  lethargi-
cally,  having  almost  decided to wind up this interview.   His elbows on the
desk, he rubbed his temples with his fingers.

     "Yes.   At college I was interested in ophthalmology." She spoke  with  a
slight southern accent.

     Delighted by this answer,  Sun lowered his hands as if his head no longer
ached.   He had changed his mind.    Watching  her  carefully  he  asked  more
seriously, "What aroused your interest?"

     At  once  this question struck him as inappropriate,  too hard to answer.
But she replied confidently, "Ophthalmology is lagging behind in our country."

     "Good, tell me in what way it's backward," he asked eagerly.

     "I don't know how to put it,  but I feel we  haven't  tried  out  certain
operations  which  are done abroad.   Such as using laser beams to seal retina
wounds.  I think we ought to try these methods too."

     "Right!" Mentally,  Sun had already given her full marks.    "What  else?
Any other ideas?"

     "Yes  ...  well  ...  making  more  use  of freezing to remove cataracts.
Anyway, it seems to me there are many new problems that ought to be studied."

     "Good, that makes sense.  Can you read foreign materials?"

     "With difficulty, using a dictionary.  I like foreign languages."

     "Excellent."

     That was the first time Sun had praised a new student like  this  to  her
face.    A  few days later Lu Wenting and Jiang Yafen were the first to be ad-
mitted to his department.   Sun chose Jiang for her  intelligence,  enthusiasm
and enterprise, Lu for her simplicity, seriousness and keenness.

     The first year they performed external ocular operations and studied oph-
thalmology.    The  second year they operated on eyeballs and studied ophthal-
mometry and ophthalmomyology.   By the third year they were able  to  do  such
tricky  operations  as on cataract cases.   That year something happened which
made Sun see Lu in a new light.

     It was a spring morning, a Monday.   Sun made his round of the wards fol-
lowed by white-coated doctors,  some senior,  some junior.   The patients were
sitting up in bed expectantly,  hoping this  famous  professor  would  examine
their eyes, as if with one touch of his hand he could heal them.

     Each time he came to a bed, Sun picked up the case-history hanging behind
it and read it while listening to the attending oculist or some senior oculist
report on the diagnosis and treatment.  Sometimes he raised a patient's eyelid
to look at his eye,  sometimes patted him on the shoulder and urged him not to
worry about his operation, then moved on to the next bed.

     After the ward round they held a short consultation,  at which tasks were
assigned.  It was generally Dr Sun and the attending oculists who spoke, while
the  residents  listened carefully,  not venturing to speak for fear of making
fools of themselves in front of these authorities.   Today was the same.   All
that had to be said had been said and tasks were assigned.   As he stood up to
leave, Sun asked, "Have the rest of you anything to add?"

     A girl spoke up in a low voice from one corner of the room, "Dr Sun, will
you please have another look at the photograph of the patient in  Bed  3  Ward
4?"

     All heads turned in her direction.  Sun saw that the speaker was Lu.  She
was so short,  so inconspicuous,  that he had not noticed her following him in
the wards.   Back in the office where they had talked at some length,  he  had
still not noticed her presence.

     "Bed 3?" He turned to the chief resident.

     "An industrial accident," he was told.

     "When  he  was  admitted  to hospital a picture was taken of his eye," Lu
said.   "The radiologists' report said there was no sign of  a  metal  foreign
body.  After hospitalization the wound was sewn up and healed, but the patient
complained of pain.   I had another X-ray taken, and I believe there really is
a foreign body.  Will you have a look, Dr Sun?"

     The film was fetched.  Sun examined it.  The chief resident and attending
oculists then passed it round.

     Jiang looked wide-eyed at her classmate,  thinking,  "Couldn't  you  have
waited  until  after  the  meeting  to ask Dr Sun to look at that?   If by any
chance you're wrong, the whole department will gossip.   Even if you're right,
you're  implying  that the doctors in the Outpatients Department are careless,
and they are attending oculists!"

     "You're right,  there's a foreign body." Sun took back  the  picture  and
nodded.   Looking round at the others he said, "Dr Lu has not been long in our
department.   Her careful,  responsible attitude is admirable,  and so is  her
hard study."

     Lu  lowered  her head.   This unexpected praise in public made her blush.
At sight of this Sun smiled.  He knew it took great courage and a strong sense
of responsibility for a resident oculist to challenge an attending one's diag-
nosis.

     Hospitals have a more complex hierarchy than other organizations.  It was
an unwritten rule that junior doctors should defer to their seniors; residents
should obey the attending  doctors;  and  there  could  be  no  disputing  the
opinions of professors and associate professors.   So Sun attached special im-
portance to Lu's query, since was so very junior.

     From then on his estimate of Lu was, "She's a very promising oculist."

     Now eighteen years had passed.  Lu,  Jiang and their age group had become
the  backbone  of his department.   If promotion had been based on competence,
they should long ago have had the rank of department heads.   But this had not
happened,  and they were still not even attending doctors.  For eighteen years
their status had been that of  interns,  for  the  "cultural  revolution"  had
broken the ladder leading to promotion.

     The sight of Lu at her last gasp filled him with compassion.   He stopped
the head of the Internal Medicine Department and  ask,  "What  do  you  think?
Will she pull through?"

     The  department  head looked towards her ward and sighed,  then shook his
head and said softly,  "Old Sun,  we can only  hope  she'll  soon  be  out  of
danger."

     Sun  walked  back  anxiously to the ward.   His steps were heavy,  he was
showing his age.  From the doorway he saw Jiang still beside Lu's pillow.   He
halted, not wanting to disturb the two close friends.

     In  late  autumn  the  nights are long.   Darkness fell before six.   The
soughing wind rustled the phoenix trees outside the window.   One by one their
withered yellow leaves were blown away.

     Sun,  watching  the  whirling  yellow leaves outside and listening to the
wind,  felt gloomier than before.   Of these two skilled ophthamologists,  two
key members of his staff, one had collapsed and might never recover, the other
was  leaving  and  might never return.   They were two of the mainstays of his
department in this prestigious hospital.  Without them, he felt his department
would be like the phoenix trees buffeted by the wind.   It  would  deteriorate
from day to day.



5

     She  seemed  to be walking along an endless road,  not a winding mountain
path which urged people on,  nor a narrow one between fields of fragrant rice.
This  was  a  desert,  a quagmire,  a wasteland,  devoid of people and silent.
Walking was difficult and exhausting.

     Lie down and rest.   The desert was warm,  the quagmire soft.    Let  the
ground  warm  her rigid body,  the sunshine cares her tired limbs.   Death was
calling softly, "Rest, Dr Lu!"

     Lie down and rest.  Everlasting rest.   No thoughts,  feelings,  worries,
sadness or exhaustion.

     But she couldn't do that.  At the end of the long road, her patients were
waiting  for  her.    She seemed to see one patient tossing and turning in bed
with the pain in his eyes, crying quietly at the threat of blindness.  She saw
many eager eyes waiting for her.   She heard her patients calling  to  her  in
despair, "Dr Lu!"

     This  was  a sacred call,  an irresistible one.   She trudged on the long
road dragging her numb legs, from her home to the hospital, from the clinic to
the ward, from one village to another with a medical team.  Day by day,  month
by month, year by year, she trudged on....

     "Dr Lu!"

     Who was calling?   Director Zhao?  Yes.  He had called her by phone.  She
remembered putting down the receiver, handing over her patients to Jiang,  who
shared her consulting-room, and heading for the director's office.

     She  hurried  through  a  small  garden,  ignoring  the  white and yellow
chrysanthemums, the fragrance of the osmanthus and the fluttering butterflies.
She wanted to quickly  finish  her  business  with  Zhao  and  return  to  her
patients.    There were seventeen waiting that morning,  and she had only seen
seven so far.  Tomorrow she was on ward duty.  She wanted to make arrangements
for some of the out-patients.

     She remembered not knocking but walking straight in.   A  man  and  woman
were  sitting  on  the sofa.   She halted.   Then she saw Director Zhao in his
swivel-chair.

     "Come in please, Dr Lu," Zhao greeted her.

     She walked over and sat down on a leather chair by the window.

     The large room was bright, tidy and quiet, unlike the noisy clinic, where
sometimes the children howled.   She felt odd,  unused to  the  quietness  and
cleanliness of the room.

     The couple looked cultured and composed.   Director Zhao was always erect
and scholarly looking,  with well-groomed hair,  a kind face and smiling  eyes
behind gold-rimmed spectacles.   He had on a white shirt, a well-pressed light
grey suit and shining black leather shoes.

     The man sitting on the sofa was tall and greying at the temples.   A pair
of sun-glasses shielded his eyes.  Lu saw at a glance that he had eye trouble.
Leaning back against the sofa, he was playing with his walking-stick.

     The woman in her fifties was still attractive,  despite her age.   Though
her hair was dyed and permed, it did not look cheap.  He clothes were well-cut
and expensive.

     Lu remembered how the woman had sized her up,  following her  about  with
her eyes.  Her face showed doubt, uneasiness and disappointment.

     "Dr  Lu,  let me introduce you to Vice-minister Jiao Chengsi and his wife
Comrade Qin Bo."

     A vice-minister?  Well,  in the past ten years and more,  she had treated
many ministers, Party secretaries and directors.  She had never paid attention
to titles.   She simply wondered what was wrong with his eyes.   Was he losing
his sight?

     Director Zhao asked,  "Dr Lu,  are you in the clinic or on  duty  in  the
ward?"

     "Starting from tomorrow, I'll be on ward duty."

     "Fine,"  he  laughed.    "Vice-minister  Jiao  wants to have his cataract
removed."

     That meant she was given the task.  She asked the man, "Is it one eye?"

     "Yes."

     "Which one?"

     "The left one."

     "Can't you see with it al all?"

     The patient shook his head.

     "Did you see a doctor before?"

     As she rose to examine his eye, she remembered he named a hospital.  Then
his wife, who was sitting beside him, politely stopped her.

     "There's no hurry,  Dr Lu.   Sit down,  please.   We ought to go to  your
clinic for an examination."  Smiling,  Qin Bo turned to Director Zhao.  "Since
he developed eye trouble, I've become something of an oculist myself."

     Though Lu didn't examine him,  she stayed a long time.    What  had  they
talked about?  Qin had asked her many personal questions.

     "How long have you been here, Dr Lu?"

     She hadn't kept track of the years.  She only remembered the year she had
graduated.  So she answered, "I came here in 1961."

     "Eighteen years ago." Qin counted on her fingers.

     Why was she so interested in this?  Then Director Zhao chipped in, "Dr Lu
has a lot of experience.  She's a skilled surgeon."

     Qin went on, "You don't seem to be in good health, Dr Lu."

     What was she driving at?   Lu was so busy caring for others, that she had
never given any thought to her own health.   The hospital didn't even have her
case-history.    And  none  of her leaders had ever inquired after her health.
Why was this stranger showing such concern?   She hesitated before  answering,
"I'm very well."

     Zhao  added  again,  "She's  one of the fittest.   Dr Lu's never missed a
day's work for years."

     Lu made no answer, wondering why this was so important to this lady,  and
fretting  to  get back to her patients.   Jiang couldn't possibly cope with so
many alone.

     Her eyes fixed on Lu, the lady smiled and pressed,  "Are you sure you can
remove a cataract easily, Dr Lu?"

     Another difficult questions.   She had had no accidents so far,  but any-
thing could happen if the patient didn't co-operate well or if the  anesthetic
was not carefully applied.

     She couldn't recollect whether she had made a reply,  only Qin's big eyes
staring at her with doubt,  unsettling her.    Having  treated  all  kinds  of
patients,  she  had  got used to the difficult wives of high cadres.   She was
searching for a tactful answer when Jiao moved impatiently and turned his head
to his wife, who stopped and averted her gaze.

     How had this trying conversation finished?   Oh,  yes,  Jiang had come to
tell her that Uncle Zhang had come for his appointment.

     Qin quickly said politely, "You can go, Dr Lu, if you're busy."

     Lu left the big bright room,  which was so suffocating.  She could hardly
breathe.

     She was suffocating.



6

     Shortly before the day ended,  Director Zhao hurried over to the internal
medicine ward.

     "Dr  LU's always enjoyed good health,  Dr Sun.   Why should she have this
sudden attack?" his hands on his pockets,  Zhao asked Sun as they  headed  for
Lu's ward.  Eight years Sun's junior, Zhao looked much younger, his voice more
powerful.

     He shook his head and went on,  "This is a warning.   Middle-aged doctors
are the backbone of our hospital.   Their  heavy  responsibilities  and  daily
chores are ruining their health.   If they collapse one by one,  we'll be in a
fix.  How many people are there in her family?  How many rooms does she have?"

     Looking at Sun, who was depressed and worried, he added, "What? ...  Four
in a room?  So that's how it is!  What's her wage? ... 56.50 yuan!  That's why
people  say  better  to  be a barber wi a razor than a surgeon with a scalpel.
There's some  truth in it.  Right?  Why wasn't her salary raised last year?"

     "There were too many.  You can't raise everyone's," Sun said cynically.

     "I hope you'll talk that problem over with the Party branch.  Ask them to
investigate the work,  income and living conditions of the middle-aged doctors
and send me a report."

     "What's  the  use  of  that?   A similar report was sent in in 1978," Sun
retorted politely, his eyes on the ground.

     "Stop grumbling, Dr Sun.  A report's better than nothing.   I can show it
to the municipal Party committee,  the Ministry of Health and whomever it con-
cerns.   The Central Party Committee has stressed time and again that talented
people  and  intellectuals should be valued and their salaries increased.   We
can't ignore it.  The day before yesterday, at a meeting of the municipal com-
mittee,  it was stressed that attention should be paid to middle-aged  person-
nel.  I believe their problems will be solved." Zhao stopped when they entered
Lu's room.

     Fu  Jiajie  stood up as Zhao entered.   He waved his hand in greeting and
walked over to Lu,  bent down and examined her face.   Then he took her  case-
history from her doctor.  From a director he had turned into a doctor.

     Zhao,  a  noted  thorax  expert,  had returned to China after Liberation.
Very enthusiastic politically,  he was praised for  both  his  political  con-
sciousness  and  his  medical skill,  joining the Party in the fifties.   When
later he was made director,  he had to take part in so many meetings and do so
much administrative work, that he seldom found the opportunity to see patients
except for important consultations.   During the "cultural revolution", he had
been detained illegally and made to sweep the  hospital  grounds.    The  last
three  years,  as  director again,  he had been so tied up with daily problems
that he practically had no time for energy for surgery.

     Now he had come specially to see Lu.   All the ward doctors had  gathered
behind him.

     But  he didn't say anything startling.   Having read the case-history and
looked at the ECG monitor,  he told the doctors to note any changed and  watch
out for complications.  Then he asked, "Is her husband here?"

     Sun introduced Fu.   Zhao wondered why this charming man in his prime was
already going bald.  Apparently,  a man who didn't know how to look after him-
self couldn't look after his wife either.

     "It  won't  be easy," Zhao told him.   "She needs complete rest.   She'll
need help for everything, even to turn over in bed.   Help twenty-four hours a
day.   Where do you work?   You'll have to ask for leave.  You can't do it all
by yourself either.  Is there anyone else in your family?"

     Fu shook his head.  "Just two small children."

     Zhao turned to Sun, "Can you spare someone from your department?"

     "For one or two days, maybe."

     "That'll do to begin with."

     His eyes returning to Lu's thin pale face, Zhao still couldn't understand
why this energetic woman had suddenly collapsed.

     It occurred to him that she might have  been  too  nervous  operating  on
Vice-minister Jiao.   Then he dismissed the thought.   She was experienced and
it was highly improbable that an attack had been brought  on  by  nervousness.
Besides, myocardial infarction often had no obvious cause.

     But he couldn't dismiss the notion that there was some kind of a link be-
tween  Jiao's operation and Lu's illness.   He regretted have recommended her.
In fact,  Jiao's wife,  Qin Bo,  had been reluctant to have her right from the
beginning.

     That day,  after Lu's departure,  Qin had asked, "Director Zhao, is Dr Lu
the vice-head of her department?"

     "No."

     "Is she an attending doctor?"

     "No."

     "Is she a Party member?"

     "No."

     Qin said bluntly, "Excuse my outspokenness since we're all Party members,
but I think it's rather inappropriate to let an  ordinary  doctor  operate  on
Vice-minister Jiao."

     Jiao  stopped her by banging his walking-stick on the floor.   Turning to
her he said angrily,  "What are you talking about,  Qin Bo?   Let the hospital
make the arrangements.  Any surgeon can operate."

     Qin  retorted heatedly,  "That's not the right attitude,  Old Jiao.   You
must be responsible.  You can work only if you're healthy.  We must be respon-
sible to the revolution and the Party."

     Zhao quickly butted in to avoided a quarrel,  "Believe me,  Comrade  Qin,
although  she's not a Communist,  Lu's a good doctor.   And she's very good at
removing cataracts.  Don't worry!"

     "It's not that,  Director Zhao.   And I'm not being too careful  either."
Qin sighed,  "When I was in the cadre school, one old comrade had to have that
operation.  He was not allowed to come back to Beijing.  So he went to a small
hospital there.  Before the operation was through his eyeball fell out.   Jiao
was  detained  by  the  followers  of  the gang for seven years!   He has just
resumed work.  He can't do without his eyes."

     "Nothing like that will happen, Comrade Qin.  We've very few accidents in
our hospital."

     Qin still tried to argue her point.   "Can we ask Dr Sun,  the department
head, to operate on Jiao?"

     Zhao  shook his head and laughed.   "Dr Sun's almost seventy and has poor
eyesight himself!  Besides,  he hasn't operated for years.   He does research,
advises the younger doctors and teaches.  Dr Lu's a better surgeon than he."

     "How about Dr Guo then?"

     Zhao  stared.   "Dr Guo?"  She must have made a thorough investigation of
the department.

     She prompted, "Guo Ruqing."

     Zhao gestured helplessly.  "He's left the country."

     Qin wouldn't give up.  "When is he coming back?"

     "He's not."

     "What do you mean?" This time she stared.

     Zhao sighed.   "Dr Guo's wife returned from abroad.   When her father,  a
shopkeeper, died, he left his store to them. So they decided to leave."

     "To leave medicine for a store?  I can't understand it." Jiao sighed too.

     "He's not the only one.   Several of our capable doctors have left or are
preparing to go."

     Qin was indignant.  "I don't understand their mentality."

     Jiao waved his stick and turned to Zhao, "In the early fifties, intellec-
tuals like you overcame many difficulties to return here to help build  a  new
China.    But  now,  the  intellectuals we've trained are leaving the country.
It's a serious lesson."

     "This can't go on," said Qin.  "We must do more ideological work.   After
the  gang  was  smashed,  the social status of intellectuals was raised a lot.
Their living and working conditions will improve as China modernizes."

     "Yes.   Our Party committee holds the same view.   I talked with  Dr  Guo
twice on behalf of the Party and begged him to stay.  But it was no use."

     Qin,  who was about to continue,  was stopped by Jiao who said, "Director
Zhao, I didn't come to insist on having an expert or a professor.   I came be-
cause I've confidence in your hospital,  or to be exact, because I have a spe-
cial feeling for your hospital.  A few years ago, the cataract in my right eye
was removed here.  And it was superbly done."

     "Who did it?" Zhao asked.

     Jiao answered sadly, "I never found out who she was."

     "That's easy.  We can look up your case-history."

     Zhao picked up the receiver,  thinking that Qin would be satisfied if  he
got that doctor.   But Jiao stopped him.   "You can't find her.  I had it done
as an out-patient.   The was no case-history.   It was a woman with a southern
accent."

     "That's difficult." Zhao laughed,  replacing the receiver.  "We have many
women doctors who speak with a southern accent.   Dr Lu also  comes  from  the
south.  Let her do it."

     The couple agreed.  Qin helped Jiao up and they left.

     Was this the cause of Lu's illness?   Zhao couldn't believe it.   She had
performed this operation hundreds of times.   She wouldn't be so nervous.   He
had gone over before the operation and found her confident, composed and well.
Why this sudden attack, then?

     Zhao  looked again at Lu with concern.   Even on the brink of death,  she
looked as if she were sleeping peacefully.




7

     Lu was always composed,  quiet and never flustered.   Another woman would
have  retorted  or  shown her indignation at Qin's insulting questions or,  at
very least, felt resentful afterwards.   But Lu had left Zhao's office as calm
as  ever,  neither  honoured to be chosen to operate on Vice-minister Jiao nor
humiliated by Qin's questions.  The patient had the right to decide whether or
not he wanted an operation.  That was all there was to it.

     "Well, what big official wants you this time?" Jiang asked softly.

     "It's not definite yet."

     "Let's hurry." Jiang steered her along.   "I couldn't persuade your Uncle
Zhang.  he's made up his mind not to have the operation."

     "That's  nonsense!   He's travelled a long way to get here and spent much
money.   He'll be able to see after the transplant.   It's our  duty  to  cure
him."

     "Then you talk him round."

     Passing  by  the  waiting-room,  they  smiled  and nodded at the familiar
patients who stood up to greet them.  Back in her room,  while Lu was seeing a
young man, she was interrupted by a voice booming, "Dr Lu!"

     Both Lu and her patient looked up as a tall sturdy man advanced.   In his
fifties,  he was broad-shouldered,  wearing black trousers and a shirt  and  a
white  towel round his head.   At his cry,  the people in the corridor quickly
made way for him.  A head above everyone else and almost blind, he was unaware
that he attracted so much attention as he groped his way in the  direction  of
Lu's voice.

     Lu hurried forward to help him.  "Sit down, please, Uncle Zhang."

     "Thank you, Dr Lu.  I want to tell you something."

     "Yes, but sit down first."  Lu helped him to a chair.

     "I've  been  in  Beijing  quite a while now.   I'm thinking of going home
tomorrow and coming back some other time."

     "I don't agree.  You've come such a long way and spent so much money...."

     "That's just it," Uncle Zhang cut in,  slapping his thigh.   "So I  think
I'll  go home,  do some work and earn some more workpoints.   Although I can't
see, I can still do some work and the brigade's very kind to me.  I've made up
my mind to leave,  Dr Lu.   But I couldn't go without saying goodbye  to  you.
You've done so much for me."

     Having  suffered  from corneal ulcers for many years,  he had come to the
hospital to have a transplant,  a suggestion  proposed  by  Lu  when  she  had
visited his brigade with a medical team.

     "Your  son  spent  a lot of money to send you here.   We can't let you go
home like this."

     "I feel better already!"

     Lu laughed.   "When you're cured,  you can work for another twenty  years
since you're so strong."

     Uncle Zhang laughed.   "You bet I will!  I can do anything if my eyes are
good."

     "Then stay and have them treated."

     Zhang confided,  "Listen,  Dr Lu,  I'll tell you the truth.   I'm worried
about money.  I can't afford to live in a Beijing hotel."

     Stunned,  Lu  quickly  told him,  "I know you're next on the list.   Once
there's a donor, it'll be your turn."

     He finally agreed to stay.   Lu helped him out.   Then a little  girl  of
eleven accosted her.

     Her  pretty,  rosy  face  was  marred  by a squint.   Dressed in hospital
pyjamas, she called timidly, "Dr Lu."

     "Why don't you stay in the ward, Wang Xiaoman?" She had been admitted the
previous day.

     "I'm scared.   I want to go home." She began to cry.   "I don't  want  an
operation."

     Lu put one arm around her.  "Tell me why you don't want an operation."

     "It'll hurt too much."

     "It won't,  you silly girl!   I'll give you an anesthetic.  It won't hurt
at all." Lu patted her head and bent down to look with regret at  the  damaged
work of art.  She said, "Look, won't it be nice when I make this eye look like
the other one?   Now go back to your ward.  You mustn't run around in a hospi-
tal."

     When the little girl had wiped away her tears and left,  Lu  returned  to
her patients.

     There had been many patients the last few days.  She must make up for the
time she had lost in Zhao's office.  Forgetting Jiao, Qin and herself, she saw
one patient after another.

     A nurse came to tell her she was wanted on the phone.

     Lu excused herself.

     It was the kindergarten nurse informing her,  "Xiaojia has a temperature.
It started last night.  I know you're busy,  so I took her to the doctor,  who
gave her an injection.   She's still feverish and is asking for you.   Can you
come?"

     "I'll be there in a minute." She replaced the receiver.

     But she couldn't go immediately since many patients were  waiting.    She
rang her husband, but was told that he had gone out to a meeting.

     Back in her office, Jiang asked, "Who called?  Anything important?"

     "Nothing."

     Lu never troubled others,  not even her leaders.  "I'll go to the kinder-
garten when I'm through with the patients," she thought as she returned to her
desk.   At first she imagined her daughter crying and calling her.   Later she
saw  only  the  patients' eyes.   She hurried to the kindergarten when she had
finished.




8

     "Why did it take you so long?" the nurse complained.

     Lu walked quickly to the isolation room where her  little  daughter  lay,
her face flushed with fever,  her lips parted,  her eyes closed, her breathing
difficult.

     She bent over the crib.  "Mummy's here, darling."

     Xiaojia moved and called in a hoarse voice, "Mummy, let's go home."

     "All right, my pet."

     She first took Xiaojia to her own hospital to see a pediatrician.   "It's
pneumonia,"  the  sympathetic  doctor  told her.   "You must take good care of
her."

     She nodded and left after Xiaojia had been given an  injection  and  some
medicine.

     In  the hospital everything stood still at noon,  the out-patients having
left,  the in-patients sleeping and the hospital staff resting.   The spacious
grounds  were  deserted  except  for the chirping sparrows flying among trees.
Nature still competed with men in this noisy centre of the  city,  where  tall
buildings  rose compactly and the air was polluted.   In the hospital all day,
Lu had never been aware of the birds before.

     She couldn't make up her mind where to take her daughter, hating to leave
the sick child alone in the kindergarten's isolation room.  But who could look
after her at home?

     After some hesitation she steeled herself and headed for  the  kindergar-
ten.

     "No.  I don't want to go there," Xiaojia wailed on her shoulder.

     "Be a good girl, Xiaojia...."

     "No.  I want to go home!" She began kicking.

     "All right.  We'll go home."

     They had to go along a busy street with recently pasted advertisements of
the  latest fashions.   Lu never so much as glanced at the costly goods in the
shop-windows,  or the produce the peasants sold in  the  streets.    With  two
children,  it was hard to make ends meet.   Now,  carrying Xiaojia in her arms
and worrying about Yuanyuan at home, she was even less eager to look around.

     Arriving home at one o'clock,  Lu found a pouting  Yuanyuan  waiting  for
her.  "Why are you so late, mummy?" he asked.

     "Xiaojia's ill," Lu answered curtly, putting Xiaojia on the bed, undress-
ing her and tucking her in.

     Standing at the table Yuanyuan fretted,  "Please cook lunch, mummy.  I'll
be late."

     In frustration,  Lu shouted at him,  "You'll drive me crazy if you go  on
like that!"

     Wronged  and  in a hurry,  Yuanyuan was on the point of tears.   Ignoring
him,  Lu went to stoke up the fire,  which had almost gone out.   The pots and
the cupboard were empty.  There were no leftovers from yesterday's meals.

     She went back into her room, reproaching herself for having been so harsh
on the poor boy.

     In  the  past  few years,  keeping house had become an increasing burden.
During the "cultural revolution" her husband's laboratory had been closed down
and his research project scrapped.   All he had needed to do was to  show  his
face  in  the  office for an hour in the morning and afternoon.   He spent the
remainder of his day and talents on domestic chores,  cooking and learning  to
sew and knit, lifting the burden entirely from Lu's shoulders.  After the gang
was smashed,  scientific research was resumed and Fu,  a capable metallurgist,
was busy again.  Most of the housework was shouldered once more by Lu.

     Every day at noon,  she went home to cook.   It was an effort to stoke up
the  fire,  prepare  the  vegetables  and  be ready to serve the meal in fifty
minutes so that Yuanyuan,  Fu and herself could return to school  or  work  on
time.

     When anything unexpected cropped up,  the whole family went hungry.   She
sighed and gave her son some money.  "Go and buy yourself a bun, Yuanyuan."

     He turned back half-back, "What about you, mummy?"

     "I'm not hungry."

     "I'll buy you a bun too."

     Yuanyuan soon came home with two buns and gave one to  his  mother.    He
left for school immediately, eating his on the way.

     Biting into the cold hard bun,  Lu looked around at her small room, which
was twelve metres square.

     She and her husband had been content with a simple life,  living in  this
room since their marriage,  without a sofa,  wardrobe or a new desk.  They had
the same furniture they had used when they were single.

     Though they owned a few material possessions, they had many books.   Aunt
Chen,  a neighbour, had commented, "What will the two bookworms live on?"  But
they were happy.  All they had wanted was a small room some clothes, and three
simple meals a day.

     Treasuring their time, they put their evenings to good use.  Every night,
when their neighbours' naughty children peeped into their small room to spy on
the new couple,  they invariably found them at work: Lu occupying  their  only
desk studying foreign material with the help of a dictionary and taking notes,
while Fu read reference books on a stack of chests.

     The  evening was not wasted when they could study late quietly and undis-
turbed.  In the summer,  their neighbours sat cooling themselves in the court-
yard,  but the smell of tea,  the light breeze, bright stars, interesting news
and conversation ...  none of these could lure them from their  stuffy  little
room.

     Their  quiet  life  and  studious evenings ended much too soon.   Lu gave
birth to Yuanyuan and then to Xiaojia.  Their lovely children brought disorder
and hardship as well as joy to their lives.   When the crib was later replaced
by  a  single  bed and the tiny room filled with children's clothes,  pots and
pans,  they could hardly move about.   Peace was shattered by  their  children
laughing and crying.

     What  could  an  oculist achieve without keeping up with foreign develop-
ments in the field?   Therefore,  Lu often sat reading behind a curtain in the
room late into the night.

     When  Yuanyuan began school he had to use their only desk.   Only when he
had finished doing his homework was it Lu's turn to spread  out  her  notebook
and the medical books she had borrowed.  Fu came last.

     How hard life was!

     Lu  fixed her eyes on the little clock: One five,  one ten,  one fifteen.
Time to go to work.   What should she do?   Lots of things needed  winding  up
before  she went to the ward tomorrow.   What about Xiaojia?   Should she call
her husband?  There was no telephone booth near by and,  anyway,  she probably
could not get him.  As he had wasted ten years, better not disturb him.

     She frowned, at a loss what to do.

     Perhaps  she  shouldn't  have married.   Some claimed that marriage ended
love.   She had naively believed that,  though it might be true  of  some,  it
could  not  happen to her.   If she had been more prudent,  she would not have
weighed down by the burdens of marriage and a family.

     One twenty.   She must turn to her neighbour  Aunt  Chen,  a  kindhearted
woman  who  had helped on many occasions....   Since she would not accept any-
thing for her services, Lu was reluctant to trouble her.

     Still she had to this time.   Aunt Chen was most obliging,  "Leave her to
me, Dr Lu."

     Lu  put  some children's books and building blocks beside Xiaojia,  asked
Aunt Chen to give her the medicine and hurried to the hospital.

     She had intended to tell the nurse not to send her too many  patients  so
that se could go home early, but once she started work, she forgot everything.

     Zhao called her up to remind her that Jiao was to be admitted the follow-
ing day.

     Qin  called  twice asking about the operation and how Jiao and his family
should prepare mentally and materially.

     Lu was hard put to it to give an answer.   She had performed hundreds  of
such operations and no one had ever asked her that before.   So she said, "Oh,
nothing special."

     "Really?   But surely it's better to be well prepared.   What if  I  come
over and we have a chat?"

     Lu quickly told her, "I'm too busy this afternoon."

     "Then we'll talk tomorrow in the hospital."

     "OK."

     When  the  trying conversation had ended,  Lu had returned to her office.
It was dark before she had finished her clinic.

     Arriving home she heard Aunt Chen singing an impromptu song:

          "Growing up, my dear,
          To be an engineer."

     Xiaojia laughed happily.   Lu thanked Aunt Chen and was relieved to  find
Xiaojia's temperature down.

     She gave her an injection.   After Fu returned,  Jiang Yafen and her hus-
band, Liu, called.

     "We've come to say goodbye," said Jiang.

     "Where are you going?" Lu inquired.

     "We've just got our visas for Canada," replied Jiang,  her eyes fixed  on
the ground.

     Liu's father,  a doctor in Canada,  had urged them to join him there.  Lu
had not expected them to go.

     "How long will you stay?  When will you come back?" she asked.

     "Maybe for good." Liu shrugged his shoulders.

     "Why didn't you let me know earlier, Yafen?" Lu turned to her friend.

     "I was afraid that you'd try to stop me.   I was  afraid  I'd  change  my
mind." Jiang avoided her eyes, staring hard at the ground.

     From  his bag,  Liu produced some wine and food and said in high spirits,
"I bet you haven't cooked yet.  Let's have our farewell banquet here."



9

     It was a sorrowful farewell party that evening.

     They seemed to be drinking tears instead of wine.  To be tasting the bit-
terness of life instead of delicious dishes.

     Xiaojia was asleep, Yuanyuan watching TV next door.   Liu raised his cup,
eyeing the wine in it,  and said with feeling.   "Life - it's hard to tell how
life will turn out!   My father was a doctor with a sound classical education.
As  a child I loved old poetry and longed to become a writer,  but I was fated
to follow in his footsteps,  and now over thirty years have gone.   My  father
was  extremely  circumspect.   His maxim was 'Too much talk leads to trouble'.
Unfortunately I didn't take after him.  I like talking and airing my views, so
that landed me in trouble and I got bashed in each political movement.    When
graduated in '57,  by the skin of my teeth I missed being labelled a Rightist.
In the 'cultural revolution',  it goes without saying,  I  was  flayed.    I'm
Chinese.   I can't claim to have high political consciousness,  but at least I
love my country and really want China to become rich  and  strong.    I  never
dreamed that now that I'm nearing fifty I'd suddenly leave my homeland."

     "Do you really have to go?" Lu asked gently.

     "Yes.    Why?    I've debated this with myself many times." Liu shook the
half-full cup of red wine he was holding.  "I've passed middle age and may not
live many years longer.  Why should I leave my ashes in a strange land?"

     The others listened in silence to this expression of his grief  at  leav-
ing.    Now  he suddenly broke off,  drained his cup and blurted out,  "Go on,
curse me!  I'm China's unfilial son!"

     "Don't say that, Liu.  We all know what you've been through." Fu refilled
his cup.   "Now those dark years are over,  the sun is shining again.   Every-
thing will change for the better."

     "I  believe  that."  Liu  nodded.    "But  when will the sun shine on our
family?  Shine on our daughter?  I can't wait."

     "Let's not talk about that." Lu guessed that Liu felt impelled  to  leave
for the sake of his only daughter.   Not wanting to go into this,  she changed
the subject.   "I never drink,  but today before you and Yafen leave I want to
drink to you."

     "No, we should drink to you." Liu put down his cup.  "You're the mainstay
of our hospital, one of China's up-and-coming doctors!"

     "You're drunk," she laughed.

     "I'm not."

     Jiang,  who had been keeping quiet, now raised her cup and said, "I drink
to you from the bottom of my heart!   To our twenty-odd years  of  friendship,
and to our future eye-specialist!"

     "Goodness!    You're talking nonsense!   Who am I?" Lu brushed aside this
compliment.

     "Who are you?" Liu was really half tipsy.   "You live in cramped quarters
and  slave away regardless of criticism,  not seeking fame or money.   A hard-
working doctor like you is an ox serving the children, as Lu Xun said,  eating
grass and providing milk.  Isn't that right, Old Fu?"

     Fu drank in silence and nodded.

     "There are many people like that, I'm not the only one," Lu demurred with
a smile.

     "That's why ours is a great nation!" Liu drained another cup.

     Jiang  glanced  at Xiaojia sound asleep on the bed,  and said sympatheti-
cally,  "Yes,  you're too busy attending to your patients to  nurse  your  own
little girl."

     Liu  stood up to fill all the cups and declared,  "She's sacrificing her-
self to mankind."

     "What's come over you today,  boosting me like this?" Lu wagged a  finger
at Fu.   "You ask him if I'm not selfish,  driving my husband into the kitchen
and turning my children into ragamuffins.   I've messed up the  whole  family.
The fact is, I'm neither a good wife nor mother."

     "You're a good doctor!" Lu cried.

     Fu  took  another  sip of wine,  then put down his cup and commented,  "I
think your hospital is to  blame.    Doctors  have  homes  and  children  like
everyone  else.    And their children may fall ill.   Why does no one show any
consideration for them?"

     "Fu!" Liu cut in loudly.  "If I were Director Zhao,  I'd first give you a
medal,  and  one each to Yuanyuan and Xiaojia.   You're the ones victimized to
provide our hospital with such a fine doctor...."

     Fu interrupted,  "I don't want a medal or a citation.   I just wish  your
hospital  understood how hard it is to be a doctor's husband.   As soon as the
order comes to go out on medical tours or relief work, she's up and off, leav-
ing the family.   She comes back so exhausted from the operating theatre,  she
can't raise a finger to cook a meal.   That being the case, if I don't go into
the kitchen,  who will?    I  should  really  be  grateful  to  the  'cultural
revolution' for giving me all that time to learn to cook."

     "Yafen  said long ago that your 'bookworm' label should be torn off." Liu
patted his shoulder and laughed.   "You can study one  of  the  most  advanced
branches of science for space travel, and put on a stunning performance in the
kitchen  - you're becoming one of the new men of the communist era.   Who says
the 'cultural revolution's' achievements were not the main aspect of it?"

     Fu normally never drank.   Today after a few cups his face was red.    He
caught  hold of Liu's sleeve and chuckled,  "Right,  the 'cultural revolution'
was a great revolution to remould us.  Didn't those few years change me into a
male housewife?  If you don't believe it, ask Wenting.   Didn't I turn my hand
to every chore?"

     This embittered joking upset Lu.  But she could not stop them.  It seemed
this  was now the only way to lessen their grief at parting.   She forced her-
self to smile back at her husband.

     "You learned to do everything except sew cloth shoe-soles.    That's  why
Yuanyuan keeps clamouring for a pair of gymshoes."

     "You  expect  too  much,"  said  Liu  with  a  straight  face.   "However
thoroughly Fu remoulds himself, he can't turn into an old village woman carry-
ing a shoe-sole around everywhere!"

     "If the 'gang of four' hadn't been smashed, I might really have carried a
shoe-sole to the criticism meetings in my institute," said Fu.   "Just  think,
if  things had gone on like that,  science,  technology and learning would all
have been scrapped, leaving nothing but sewing cloth shoe-soles."

     But how long could they keep up these wry jokes?    They  talked  of  the
springtime of science since the overthrow of the gang, of the improved politi-
cal status of intellectuals although they were underpaid,  of the difficulties
of middle-aged professional.  The atmosphere became heavy again.

     "Old Liu,  you have lots of contacts,  it's too bad you're  leaving."  Fu
roused  himself  to  slap  Liu on the back.   "I hear home helps get very well
paid.  I'd like you to find me a place as a male domestic."

     "My leaving doesn't matter," Liu retorted.   "Just put an ad in that  new
paper The Market."

     "That's a good idea!" Fu adjusted his thick-rimmed glasses.   "The adver-
tiser is a university graduate with a mastery of two  foreign  languages.    A
good cook,  tailor and washerman, able to do both skilled and heavy work.  His
health is sound, his temper good, he's bold, hardworking and willing to accept
criticism.  And,  last of all,  his wages can be settled at the interview." He
laughed.

     Jiang  was sitting quietly,  neither eating nor drinking.   Watching them
laugh, she wanted to join in but could not.  She nudged her husband.

     "Don't talk like that, what's the point?"

     "This is a widespread social phenomenon,  that's the point." Liu  made  a
sweeping gesture.   "Middle age, middle age.  Everyone agrees that middle-aged
cadres are the backbone of our country.   The operations in a hospital  depend
on  middle-aged  surgeons;  the most important research projects are thrust on
middle-aged scientists and technicians; the hardest jobs in industry are given
to middle-aged workers;  the chief courses in school are taught by middle-aged
teachers...."

     "Don't go on and on!" Jiang put in.  "Why should a doctor worry about all
that?"

     Liu  screwed  up  his eyes and continued half tipsy,  "Didn't Lu You say,
'Though in a humble position I remain concerned for my country?'  I'm a doctor
no one has ever heard of,  but I keep affairs of state in mind.   Everyone ac-
knowledges the key role of the middle-aged,  but who knows how hard their life
is?  At work they shoulder a heavy load,  at home they have all the housework.
They  have to support their parents and bring up their children.   They play a
key role not just because of their experience and ability,  but  because  they
put  up  with  hardships  and  make  great  sacrifices - as do their wives and
children."

     Lu had listened blankly.  Now she interposed softly,  "It's a pity so few
people  realize  that."    Fu,  who had been speechless,  filled Liu's cup and
declared cheerfully, "You should have studied sociology."

     Liu laughed sarcastically.   "If I had,  I'd have been  a  big  Rightist!
Sociologists have to study social evils."

     "If  you  uncover  them  and  set them right,  society can make progress.
That's to the left not the right," said Fu.

     "Never mind,  I don't want to be either.   But I really am interested  in
social problems.   For instance,  the problem of the middle-aged."  Liu rested
his elbows on the table, toying with his empty cup,  and began again.   "There
used to be a saying,  'At middle age a man gives up all activities.'  That was
true in the old society when people aged prematurely.  By forty they felt they
were old.   But now that saying should be changed to 'At middle age a  man  is
frantically  busy!'    Right?   This reflects the fact that in our new society
people are younger, full of vitality.   Middle age is a time to give full play
to one's abilities."

     "Well said!"  Fu approved.

     "Don't  be  in such a hurry to express approval.   I've another crazy no-
tion."  Liu gripped Fu's arm and continued eagerly,  "Looking at it that  way,
you can say our middle-aged generation is lucky to be alive at this time.  But
in fact we're an unlucky generation."

     "You're monopolizing the conversation!" protested Jiang.

     But Fu said, "I'd like to hear why we're unlucky."

     "Unlucky  because the time when we could have done our best work was dis-
rupted by Lin Biao and the 'gang of four', Liu sighed.   "Take your case,  you
nearly  became an unemployed vagrant.   Now we middle-aged people are the ones
chiefly responsible for modernization, and we don't feel up to it.  We haven't
the knowledge, energy or strength.  We're overburdened - that's our tragedy."

     "There's no pleasing you!" laughed Jiang.   "When you're  not  used,  you
complain  that  your  talents  are wasted,  you live at the wrong time.   When
you're fully used, you gripe that you're overworked and underpaid!"

     "Don't you ever complain?" her husband retorted.

     Jiang hung her head and did not answer.

     All Liu had said had given Lu the impression that  he  felt  impelled  to
leave not entirely for his daughter's sake, but also for his own.

     Once more Liu raised his cup and cried,  "Come on!  Let's drink to middle
age!"



10

     After their guests had gone and the children were asleep, Lu washed up in
the kitchen.  In their room,  she found her husband,  leaning against the bed,
deep in thought, his hand on his forehead.

     "A penny for them, Jiajie." Lu was surprised he looked so depressed.

     Fu asked in reply, "Do you remember Petofi's poem?"

     "Of course!"

     "I  wish  I  were  a    crumbling  ruin...." Fu removed his hand from his
forehead.  "I'm a ruin now, like an old man.  Going bald and grey.  I can feel
the lines on my forehead.  I'm a ruin!"

     He did look older than his age.  Upset,  Lu touched his forehead.   "It's
my fault!  We're such a burden to you!"

     Fu took her hand and held it lovingly.  "No.  You're not to blame."

     "I'm  a  selfish  woman,  who  thinks  only  about  her work." Lu's voice
quivered.  She couldn't take her eyes away from his forehead.   "I have a home
but  I've  paid  it little attention.   Even when I'm not working,  my mind is
preoccupied with my patients.  I haven't been a good wife or mother."

     "Don't be silly!  I know more than anyone how much you've sacrificed!" He
stopped as tears welled up in his eyes.

     Nestling up against him, she said sadly, "You've aged.   I don't want you
to grow old...."

     "Never  mind.    'If  my love green ivy would be,  she'd tenderly entwine
around my lonely head.'"  Softly he recited their favourite poem.

     In the still autumn night,  Lu fell asleep against her  husband's  chest,
her  lashes moist with tears.   Fu put her carefully on the bed.   Opening her
eyes she asked, "Did I fall asleep?"

     "You're very tired."

     "No I'm not."

     Fu propped himself up and said to her, "Even metal has fatigue.  A micro-
scopic crack is formed first,  and it develops until a fracture  suddenly  oc-
curs."

     That  was  Fu's field of research,  and he often mentioned it.   But this
time, his words carried weight and left a deep impression on Lu.

     A dreadful fatigue, a dreadful fracture.   In the quiet of the night,  Lu
seemed  to hear the sound of breaking.   The props of heavy bridges,  sleepers
under railways,  old bricks and the ivy creeping up ruins ...  all these  were
breaking.



11

     The night deepened.

     The pendent lamp in the room having been turned off, the wall lamp shed a
dim blue light.

     Before her eyes flitted two blue dots of light,  like fireflies on a sum-
mer night or a will-o'-the-wisp in the wilderness,  which  turned  into  Qin's
cold stare when she looked carefully.

     Qin,  however, had been warm and kind when she summoned Lu to Jiao's room
the morning he entered the hospital.  "Sit down please,  Dr Lu.   Old Jiao has
gone to have his ECG done.  He'll be back in a minute."

     All smiles,  she had risen from an armchair in a room in a quiet building
with red-carpeted corridors reserved for high cadres.

     Qin had asked her to sit in the other armchair,  while she went  over  to
the locker beside the bed and got out a basket of tangerines, which she placed
on the side table between the chairs.

     "Have a tangerine."

     Lu declined.  "No, thank you."

     "Try one.   They were sent to me by a friend in the south.   They're very
good."  She took one and offered it to her.

     Lu took it, but held it in her hand.  Qin's new friendliness sent a chill
down her spine.   She was still conscious of the coldness in Qin's  eyes  when
they had first met.

     "What actually is a cataract, Dr Lu?  Some doctors told me that an opera-
tion is not suitable for all cases." Qin's manner was humble and ingratiating.

     "A growth which progressively covers the eyeball,  destroying the sight."
Looking at the tangerine in her hand,  Lu explained,  "It can be divided  into
stages.  It's better to have the operation done when the cataract is mature."

     "I see.  What happens if it isn't done then?"

     "The lens shrinks as the cortex is absorbed.  The suspensory ligament be-
comes  fragile.   The difficulty of the operation increases as the lens is li-
able to be dislocated."

     Qin nodded.

     She had not understood nor tried to understand what she  had  been  told.
Lu wondered why she had bothered to ask questions.  Just passing time?  Having
started  her ward duty only that morning,  she had to familiarize herself with
the cases of her patients and attend to them.  She couldn't sit there,  making
small talk.  She wanted to check Jiao's eyes if he returned soon.

     Qin  had  more questions for her.   "I heard there was an artificial lens
abroad.   The patient needn't wear a convex lens after an operation.   Is that
right.?"

     Lu nodded.  "We're experimenting on that too."

     Qin inquired eagerly, "Can you put one in for my husband?"

     Lu smiled.   "I said it's still at the experimental stage.  I don't think
he'd want one now, do you?"

     "No." Of course she didn't want him to be a guinea-pig.    "What  is  the
procedure for his operation?"

     Lu was baffled.  "What do you mean?"

     "Shouldn't  you map out a plan in case something unexpected crops up?" As
Lu looked blank,  she added,  "I've often read about it in the papers.   Some-
times surgeons form a team to discuss and work out a plan."

     Lu  couldn't  help laughing.   "No need for that!   This is a very simple
operation."

     Disgruntled, Qin looked away.  Then she turned back and pressed her point
patiently with a smile,  "Underestimating the enemy often  leads  to  failure.
This  has  happened in the history of our Party."  Then she got Lu to describe
certain situations which could cause the operation to fail.

     "One has to think twice about patients with heart  trouble,  hypertension
or bronchitis.  Coughing can create problems."

     "That's  just  what I feared," Qin cried,  striking the arm of the chair.
"My husband's heart isn't good and he has high blood pressure."

     "We always examine the patient thoroughly before an operation,"  Lu  con-
soled her.

     "He has bronchitis too."

     "Has he been coughing lately?"

     "No.  But what if he does on the operating-table?  What shall we do?"

     Why was she so anxious,  Lu wondered,  looking at her watch.  The morning
was almost gone.  Her glance fell on the white lace curtain hanging beside the
French windows and tension gripped her when the footsteps approaching the door
moved away again.   After a long time,  Jiao,  a blue and white  dressing-gown
round his shoulders, was helped in by a nurse.

     Qin commented, "It's taken you a long time!"

     Jiao shook Lu's hand and flopped down exhausted in the armchair.   "There
were lots of examinations.   I had a blood test,  an X-ray,  and an ECG.   The
staff were all very kind to me.  I didn't have to wait my turn."

     He sipped the cup of tea Qin handed him.   "I never thought an eye opera-
tion involved so many tests."

     Lu read the reports.   "The X-ray and the ECG are  normal.    Your  blood
pressure's a bit high."

     Qin piped up.  "How high?"

     "150 over 100.  But that doesn't matter."  Then she asked, "Have you been
coughing recently, Vice-minister Jiao?"

     "No," he answered lightly.

     Qin  pressed,  "Can  you guarantee that you won't cough on the operating-
table?"

     "Well...." Jiao was not so sure.

     "That's important,  Old Jiao," Qin warned him gravely.   "Dr Lu just told
me that if you cough, the eyeball can fall out."

     Jiao turned to Lu.  "How can I be certain I won't cough?"

     "It's  not  that  serious.   If you are a smoker,  don't smoke before the
operation."

     "OK."

     Qin pressed again.  "But what if you should cough?  What will happen?"

     Lu laughed.  "Don't worry,  Comrade Qin.   We can sew up the incision and
open it again after he stops coughing."

     "That's right," said Jiao.   "When I had my right eye operated on, it was
sewn up and then opened again.  But it wasn't because I coughed!"

     Curiosity made Lu ask, "Why then?"

     Jiao put down his cup and took out his cigarette case,  but put  it  away
again remembering Lu's advice.   With a sigh he related, "I'd been labelled as
a traitor and was having a difficult time.   When the sight went in  my  right
eye I had an operation.   Soon after it started,  the rebels came and tried to
force the surgeon not to treat me.  I nearly choked with indignation,  but the
doctor calmly sewed up the incision, threw the rebels out and then removed the
cataract."

     "Really?" Stunned, Lu asked, "Which hospital was that?"

     "This one."

     A coincidence?   She looked at Jiao again to see whether she had seen him
before, but could not recognize him.

     Ten years ago, she had been operating on a so-called traitor when she had
been interrupted by some rebels.  That patient's name was Jiao.  So it was he!
Later,  the rebels from Jiao's department,  collaborating with a rebel in  the
hospital, put up a slogan claiming that "Lu Wenting betrays the proletariat by
operating on the traitor Jiao Chengsi".

     No  wonder she hadn't recognized him.   Ten years ago,  Jiao,  sallow and
depressed,  dressed in an old cotton-padded coat,  had come  to  the  hospital
alone as an ordinary patient.   Lu suggested an operation and made an appoint-
ment, which he kept.  When she began operating she heard the nurse saying out-
side, "No admittance.  This is the operating theatre."

     "We won't allow stinking intellectuals to treat traitors."

     "Force open the door!"

     Jiao, indignant, said on the operating-table,  "Let me go blind,  doctor.
Don't do it."

     Lu warned him against moving and quickly sewed up the incision.

     Three  men  charged in,  while the more timid ones hesitated at the door.
Lu sat there immobile.

     Jiao said the doctor had thrown them out.   As a matter of fact,  Lu  had
not.  She had sat on the stool by the operating-table in her white gown, green
plastic slippers,  blue cap and mask.   All that could be seen of her were her
eyes and her bare arms above the rubber gloves.   The rebels were awed perhaps
by her strange appearance,  the solemn atmosphere of the operating theatre and
the bloody eye exposed through a hole in the white towel covering the patient.
Lu said tersely from behind her mask, "Get out, please!"

     The rebels looked at each other and left.

     When Lu resumed work, Jiao told her, "Don't do it,  doctor,  they'll only
blind me again even if you cure me.  And you may get involved."

     "Keep  quiet."  Lu worked swiftly.   When she was bandaging him,  all she
had said was, "I'm a doctor."  That was how it had happened.

     The rebels from Jiao's department,  coming to the hospital to  put  up  a
big-character poster denouncing her for curing a traitor,  had created quite a
sensation.   But what did it matter?   She was already  being  criticized  for
being  a bourgeois specialist.   These charges and this operation had not left
much impression on her.   She had forgotten  all  about  it,  until  Jiao  had
brought it up.

     "I really respect her, Dr Lu.  She was a true doctor." Qin sighed.  "Pity
the hospital kept no records then.  I can't find out who she was.  Yesterday I
expressed  my  wish  to Director Zhao to have her operate on my husband." Lu's
awkward expression made her add, "I'm sorry,  Dr Lu.   Since Director Zhao has
confidence in you,  we will too.   I hope you won't let him down.   Learn from
that doctor.  Of course, we've a lot to learn from her too, don't you agree?"

     Lu had no alternative but to nod.

     "You're still young," Qin said  encouragingly.    "I  heard  you  haven't
joined the Party yet.  You must strive for it, comrade."

     Lu told her frankly, "I don't have a good class background."

     "That's not the way to look at things.   You can't choose your family but
you can choose what you do with your life."  Qin was eloquent  and  enthusias-
tic.    "Our  Party does pay attention to class origins,  but not exclusively.
It's your attitude that counts.   When you draw the line between yourself  and
your family, get close to the Party and make contributions to the people, then
the Party will open its doors to you."

     Lu  crossed  the room to draw the curtain and examined Jiao's eye.   Then
she told Jiao,  "If it's all right with you,  let's do the operation  the  day
after tomorrow."

     Jiao answered briskly, "All right.  The earlier the better."

     It  was already after six when Lu took her leave.   Qin hurried out after
her.  "Are you going home, Dr Lu?"

     "Yes."

     "Shall I arrange for Jiao's car to take you?"

     "No, thank you." Lu declined with a wave of her hand.



12

     It was almost midnight, the ward was very quiet.  A single wall lamp cast
a pale blue light on an intravenous drip,  from which the medicine  was  drop-
ping, as if the only sign of Dr Lu's life.

     Fu,  sitting at the side of the bed,  stared blankly at his wife.  It was
the first time that he had sat alone with her since her collapse, probably the
first time that he had looked at her so intently for the past dozen years.

     He remembered that once he had fixed his eyes on her for a long time, and
she had asked,  her head on her side,  "Why do you  look  at  me  like  that?"
Sheepishly  he  had  turned his eyes away.   That was when they were courting.
But now she could neither move her head nor speak.  Vulnerable, she was unable
to raise a protest.

     Only then did he notice that she looked surprisingly frail and old!   Her
jet-black hair was streaked with grey;  her firm, tender skin, loose and soft;
and there were lines on her forehead.   The corners  of  her  mouth,  once  so
pretty,  were now drooping.   Her life,  like a dying flame,  was petering out
fast.   He could not believe that his wife,  a firm character,  had become  so
feeble overnight!

     She was not weak,  he knew that well.  Slim in build, she was in fact fit
and strong.   Though her shoulders  were  slight,  she  silently  endured  all
hardships and sudden misfortunes.  She never complained, feared or became dis-
heartened.

     "You're a tough woman," he had often said to her.

     "Me?  No, I'm timid.  Not tough at all." Her answer was always the same.

     Only  the  night before she had fallen ill,  she had made,  as Fu put it,
another "heroic decision" that he should move to his institute.

     Xiaojia had quite recovered  by  then.    After  Yuanyuan  had  done  his
homework,  the  children  went  to bed.   At last there was peace in the small
room.

     Autumn had come,  the wind was cold.   The kindergarten had asked parents
for  their  children's  winter  clothes.    Lu took out the cotton-padded coat
Xiaojia had worn the previous year, ripped it apart,  made it bigger and sewed
on a new pair of cuffs.   Then she spread it out on the desk and added a layer
of new cotton padding.

     Fu took his unfinished article from the bookcase and,  hesitating  for  a
brief second beside the desk, sat down on the bed.

     "Just a moment," Lu said without turning her head,  hurrying,  "I'll soon
finish."

     When she removed the coat from the desk,  Fu remarked,  "If only we could
have another small room.  Even six square metres, just big enough for a desk."

     Lu listened,  lowering her head, busy sewing.  After a while, she hastily
folded up the unfinished coat and said,  "I've got to go to the hospital  now.
You can have the desk."

     "But why?  It's late," he queried.

     She  said,  while  putting  on her jacket,  "There will be two operations
tomorrow morning and I want to check how the patients are.  I'll go and have a
look at them."

     She often went to the hospital in the evening in fact.  So Fu teased her,
saying, "Though you're here at home, your heart's still in the hospital."

     "Put on more clothes.  It's cold," he urged.

     "I won't be long," she said quickly.  With an apologetic smile,  she con-
tinued,  "Two funny patients,  you know.   One's a vice-minister.   His wife's
been worrying to death about the operation and making an awful  fuss.    So  I
must  go to see him.   The other's a little girl.   She told me today that she
had a lot of nightmares and slept badly."

     "OK, doc!" He smiled.  "Get going and come back soon!"

     She left.  When she returned he was still burning the midnight oil.   Not
wanting to disturb him,  she said after tucking up the children's quilt,  "I'm
going to bed first."

     He looked around,  saw she was in bed and again  buried  himself  in  his
papers and books.   But soon he sensed that she had not fallen asleep.  Was it
perhaps the light?   He bent  the  lamp  lower,  shielded  the  light  with  a
newspaper and carried on with his work.

     After a while, he heard her soft, even snoring.  But he knew that she was
faking.  Many times, she had tried to pretend she slept well, so he could feel
at  ease  studying  late.    In fact he had long since seen through her little
trick, but had no heart to expose it.

     Some time later,  he got to his feet,  stretched and  said,  "All  right!
I'll sleep too."

     "Don't worry about me!" Lu said quickly.  "I'm already half asleep."

     Standing with his hands on the edge of the desk, he hesitated, looking at
his  unfinished article.   Then he made up his mind and said,  closing all the
books, "I'll call it a day."

     "How about your article?   How can you finish it if you don't  make  full
use of your nights?"

     "One night can't make up for ten years."

     Lu  sat up,  threw a sweater over her shoulders and said in earnest,  her
her head against the bed board, "Guess what I've been thinking just now?"

     "You oughtn't to have thought of anything!  Now close your eyes.   You'll
have to cure other people's eyes tomorrow."

     "It's  no  joke.    Listen,  I think you should move into your institute.
Then you'll have more time."

     Fu stared at her.  Her face was glowing, her eyes dancing.  Obviously she
was very pleased with the idea.

     She went on, "I'm serious.   You've things to do.   I know,  the children
and I have been hampering you."

     "Come off it!  It's not you...."

     Lu  broke  in,  "Of course it is!   We can't divorce.   The children need
their father,  and a scientist needs his family.   However,  we must think  of
some way to turn your eight working hours into sixteen."

     "But  the  children  and the housework will all fall on you.   That won't
do!"

     "Why not?  Even without you, we can manage."

     He listed all the problems,  to which she answered one by one.    Finally
she  said,  "Haven't  you often remarked that I'm a tough woman?   I can cope.
Your son won't go hungry, your daughter won't be ill-treated."

     He was convinced.  So they decided to have a try the next day.

     "It's so very difficult to do something in China!"  Fu  said  undressing.
"During the war,  many old revolutionaries died for a new China.   Now to mod-
ernize our country,  again our generation has to make sacrifices though hardly
anyone notices it."

     He  kept  talking  to himself like this.   When he put his clothes on the
back of a chair and turned to get into bed,  he saw that Lu had fallen asleep.
With a faint smile on her face,  she looked pleased with her proposal, even in
her dreams.

     But who would imagine their trial would fail on the very first day?



13

     The operations were successful, though Lu's private plan failed.

     That morning when she had entered the ward ten minutes early as usual, Dr
Sun was already there waiting for her.

     "Good morning,  Dr Lu," he greeted her,  "we've got a donor's eye  today.
Can we fit in the corneal transplant?"

     "Excellent!  We've got a patient who's anxious to have the operation done
as soon as possible," Lu exclaimed in delight.

     "But you already have two operations scheduled for this morning.   Do you
think you can manage a third?"

     "Sure," she replied, straightening up as if showing him that she was per-
fectly capable.

     "OK, it's settled then." He had made up his mind.

     Holding the arm of Jiang, who had just arrived, Lu headed for the operat-
ing theatre.  She was in high spirits,  walking with a spring in her step,  as
though on an outing.

     The  operating  theatre of this hospital,  occupying a whole floor,  were
large and impressive.   The big characters "Operating Theatre" in red paint on
the  beige  glass  door  were  striking.    When a wheeled stretcher bearing a
patient  was  pushed  through  this  door,  his  relatives  remained  outside,
anxiously  looking  at the mysterious,  perhaps even frightening place,  as if
Death were lurking about inside.

     But in fact,  the operating theatre was a place of  hope.    Inside,  the
walls  along  the wide corridor were painted a light,  agreeable green.   Here
there were the operating theatres for the various departments.   The surgeons,
their assistants, anesthetists and theatre nurses scurried to and fro lightly.
No laughter,  no chatter.   This was the most quiet,  most orderly area of the
large hospital, into which more than a thousand patients poured every day.

     Vice-minister Jiao was brought into one of these theatres,  and then  put
on  a high cream-coloured operating-table.   His head was covered by a steril-
ized white towel.   There was an olive-shaped hole in it revealing one of  his
eyes.

     Lu  already  in her overall sat on a stool near the operating-table,  her
gloved hands raised.   The height of the stool  was  adjustable.    Lu,  being
small,  had to raise it whenever she operated.  But today, it had already been
adjusted.  She turned and glanced at Jiang gratefully,  realizing she had done
it.

     A  nurse  pushed the surgical instrument table nearer to Lu.   The adjus-
table plate was now placed above the patient's  chest,  within  the  surgeon's
reach.

     "Shall  we  start  now?"  Lu  asked watching Jiao's eye.   "Try to relax.
We'll first inject a local anesthetic.   Then your eye will feel  numb.    The
operation won't take long."

     At this, Jiao suddenly cried out, "Steady on!"

     What  was wrong?   Both Lu and Jiang were taken aback.   Jiao pulled away
the towel from his face, striving to raise his head.  He inquired, pointing at
Lu, "It was you, Dr Lu, who operated before on my eye?"

     Lu quickly raised her gloved hands lest he  touched  them.    Before  she
could speak,  he went on emotionally, "Yes, it was you.  I must have been you!
You said the same words.  Even your tone and intonation are the same!"

     "Yes, it was me," Lu had to admit.

     "Why didn't you tell me before?  I'm so grateful to you."

     "Never mind...." Lu could not find anything else to  say.    She  cast  a
glance  at the towel,  beckoned the nurse to change it.   Then she said again,
"Shall we start, Vice-minister Jiao?"

     Jiao sighed.  It was hard for him to calm down.   Lu had to say in a com-
manding tone, "Don't move.  Don't speak.  We'll start now."

     She  skillfully  injected  some novocaine into his lower eyelid and began
the operation.   She had performed such operations umpteen  times,  but  every
time  she  picked up her instruments,  she felt like a raw recruit on the bat-
tlefield.   Lu held out two tapering fingers to pick up a needle-holder  which
looked like a small pair of scissors.  She fixed the needle to the instrument.

     "What's the matter?" Jiang asked softly.

     Instead  of answering,  Lu held the hook-shaped needle up to the light to
examine it.

     "Is this a new one?"

     Jiang had no idea, so they both turned to the nurse.

     "A new needle?"

     The nurse stepped forward and said in a low voice, "Yes, a new one."

     Lu had another look at the needle pin and grumbled,  "How can we use such
a needle?"

     Lu  and  some  other  doctors  had  complained  many times about the poor
quality of their surgical instruments.   However,  faulty ones  appeared  from
time  to time.   Lu could do nothing about it.   When she found good scalpels,
scissors and needles,  she would ask the nurse to keep them for her for  later
use.

     She  had  no  idea that all the surgical instruments had been replaced by
new ones that day, but unfortunately there was a bad needle among them.  When-
ever such things occurred, Lu's good-natured face would change,  and she would
reprimand  the  nurse.   The young nurse,  though innocent perhaps,  could not
defend herself.   There was nothing to say in  the  circumstances.    A  blunt
needle not only prolonged the operation, but also increased the patient's suf-
fering.

     Frowning,  Lu  said quietly,  so that Jiao could not overhear,  "Bring me
another!"

     It was an  order,  and  the  nurse  picked  out  an  old  needle  from  a
sterilizer.

     The  theatre nurses respected Lu,  while at the same time being afraid of
her.  They admired her skill and feared her strictness.   A doctor's authority
was  established  through his scalpel.   A good oculist could give a blind man
back his sight, while a bad one might blind him permanently.   Lu had no posi-
tion, no power, but through her scalpel she wielded authority.

     The operation was almost complete, when Jiao's body jerked suddenly.

     "Don't move!" Lu warned him.

     "Don't move!" Jiang repeated quickly.  "What's the matter?"

     "I  ...  want  to  ...  cough!"  a strangled voice sounded from under the
towel.

     This was just what his wife had feared would happen.  Why choose this mo-
ment to cough?  Was it psychological?  A conditional reflex?

     "Can you control it for a minute?"

     "No, I ... I can't." His chest was heaving.

     There was no time to loose!  Lu hurriedly took emergency measures,  while
calming him down, "Just a second!  Breathe out and hold your cough!"

     She  was  quickly tying up the suture while he exhaled,  his chest moving
vigorously as if he would die of suffocation at any moment.    When  the  last
knot was done, Lu sighed with relief and said, "You can cough now, but not too
loudly."

     But he did not.  On the contrary, his breath gradually grew even and nor-
mal.

     "Go ahead and cough.  It won't matter," Jiang urged again.

     "I'm awfully sorry," Jiao apologized.  "I'm all right now.  Carry on with
the operation please."

     Jiang rolled her eyes, wanting to give him a piece of her mind.  A man of
his  age  should know better.   Lu threw her a glance,  and Jiang bit back her
resentment.   They smiled knowingly at each other.   It was all in  the  day's
work!

     Lu  snipped off the knots and started the operation again.   It continued
without a hitch.   Afterwards Lu got off the stool and sat at a small table to
write  out a prescription,  while Jiao was moved back on to the wheeled stret-
cher.  As it was being pushed out, Jiao suddenly called to Lu,  like a kid who
has misbehaved, his voice trembling slightly.

     Lu  stepped  over to him.   His eyes had been bandaged.   "Anything I can
do?" she stooped to ask.

     He reached out,  groping.   When he caught hold of her  hands,  still  in
their gloves,  he shook them vigorously.  "I've given you much trouble on both
occasions.  I'm so sorry...."

     Lu was stunned for a brief moment.  Then she consoled him, looking at his
bandaged face, "Never mind.  Have a good rest.   We'll take off the bandage in
a few days."

     After he was wheeled out, Lu glanced at the clock.  A forty-minute opera-
tion  had  lasted an hour.   She took off her white gown and rubber gloves and
immediately donned another.  As Lu turned to let the nurse tie the gown at the
back, Jiang asked, "Shall we continue?"

     "Yes."



14

     "Let me do the next operation," Jiang begged.   "You take a  short  rest,
then do the third."

     Lu shook her head and said smilingly,  "I'll do it.   You're not familiar
with Wang Xiaoman.   The child's scared stiff.   We became friends during  the
last few days.  Better leave her to me."

     The  girl did not come into the operating theatre on a wheeled stretcher,
but was almost dragged in.   In a white gown,  which was a bit too  large  for
her, she was reluctant to go anywhere near the operating-table.

     "Aunt Lu, I'm scared.  I don't want the operation.  Please go and explain
to my mother."

     The  sight  of  the  doctors and nurses in such strange clothes terrified
her.   Her heart was pounding,  as she tried to wrench away from  the  nurses,
pleading with Lu for help.

     Lu walked towards the table and coaxed her with a grin,  "Come on, little
girl.  Didn't you promise to have this operation?  Be brave!   There's nothing
to fear.  You won't feel any pain once you've been given some anesthetic."

     Xiaoman sized up Lu in her funny clothes and gazed at her kind,  smiling,
encouraging eyes.   Then she climbed up on to the operating-table.    A  nurse
spread a towel over her face.   Lu motioned the nurse to tie up her hands.  As
the little patient was about to protest,  Lu  said,  perching  on  the  table,
"Xiaoman,  be a good girl!   It's the same for all patients.  Really, it won't
take long."  She gave her an injection of the anesthetic  while  telling  her,
"I'm giving you an injection and soon your eye will feel nothing at all."

     Lu was both doctor,  devoted mother and kindergarten nurse.  She took the
scissors,  forceps and other instruments which Jiang handed to her while keep-
ing up a running commentary for the benefit of the girl.  When she severed the
straight muscle which caused the squint,  Xiaoman's nerve was affected and she
became nauseous.

     "You feel a little sick?" Lu asked.   "Take a deep breath.   Just hold on
for a minute.   That's better.  Still sick?  Feeling any better?  We'll finish
the operation very soon.  There's a good girl!"

     Lu's words lulled Xiaoman into a trance while  the  operation  continued.
When  she  had been bandaged and wheeled out of the room,  she remembered what
her mother had told her to say,  so she called out sweetly,  "Thank  you  very
much, aunty."

     Everyone  burst  out laughing.   The minute hand of the clock on the wall
had just moved half an hour.

     Lu was wet with sweat, the perspiration beading on her forehead,  her un-
derwear soaking.   Wet patches showed under her armpits.  She was surprised at
this because it was not hot.   Why  had  she  perspired  so  profusely?    She
slightly moved her numb arms,  which had ached from being raised for the dura-
tion of the operation.

     When she removed the operating gown again and reached  out  for  another,
she  suddenly  felt dizzy.   She closed her eyes for a minute,  shook her head
several times and then slowly eased one of her arms into a sleeve.    A  nurse
came to help her tie the gown.

     "Dr Lu!" the nurse exclaimed suddenly.  "Your lips are so pale."

     Jiang, who was also changing, turned to look at Lu.  "Goodness!" she said
in astonishment.  "You do look very pale!"

     It was true.   There were black rings under her eyes,  even her lids were
puffy.  She looked a patient herself!

     Seeing that Jiang's startled eyes remained fixed on her,  Lu grinned  and
said, "Stop fussing!  It'll soon be over."

     She  had  no doubt that she could carry on with the next operation.   Had
she not worked like this for years?

     "Shall we continue?" the nurse queried.

     "Yes, of course."

     How could they afford to stop?   The donor's eye could not be stored  too
long,  nor the operation be delayed.  They had to go on working.

     "Wenting,"  Jiang  stepped over to Lu and suggested,  "Let's have a break
for half an hour."

     Lu looked at the clock.  It was just after ten.  If they postponed it for
half an hour,  some colleagues would be late for lunch,  while others  had  to
rush home to prepare a meal for their children.

     "Continue?" the nurse asked again.

     "Yes."



15

     Doctors  of this and other hospitals who were undergoing further training
thronged the door talking to Lu.   They had got special permission to see  her
operate.

     Uncle  Zhang,  helped  by  a nurse,  clambered on to the operating-table,
still talking and laughing.

     The table was a bit too small for him and his feet and hands dangled over
the sides.   He had a loud voice and talked incessantly,  joking with a nurse,
"Don't laugh at me,  girl.  If the medical team hadn't come to our village and
persuaded me to have this operation,  I'd rather die than let you cut  my  eye
with a knife.   Just imagine!   A steel knife cutting into my flesh, ugh!  Who
knows if it will do me some good or not?  Ha!  Ha!..."

     The young nurse tittered  and  said  softly,  "Uncle,  lower  your  voice
please."

     "I know,  young lady.   We must keep quiet in a hospital, mustn't we?" he
still boomed.  Gesticulating busily with one hand, he went on.  "You can't im-
agine how I felt when I heard that my eye could be cured.   I wanted to  laugh
and, at the same time, to cry.  My father went blind in his old age and died a
blind man.   I never dreamed that a blind man like me could see the sun again.
Times have really changed, haven't they?"

     The nurse giggled while covering him with a towel.   "Don't  move  again,
uncle!" she said.  "This towel's been sterilized, don't touch it."

     "All right," he answered gravely.   "Since I'm in hospital, I should obey
the rules."  But he was trying to raise his strong arms again.

     Worrying about his restlessness,  the nurse said holding a  strap,  "I'll
have to tie your arms to the table, uncle.  That's the rule here."

     Zhang was puzzled, but soon chortled.  "Truss me up, eh?" he joked.  "OK,
go ahead!   To be frank,  lass,  if it were not for my eyes,  I wouldn't be so
obedient.  Though blind, I go to the fields twice a day.   I was born a lively
character.  I like to be on the go.  I just can't sit still."

     This made the nurse laugh,  and he himself chuckled too.   But he stopped
immediately when Lu entered.  He asked, cocking up his ears, "Is that you,  Dr
Lu?   I can recognize your steps.   It's funny, since I lost my sight, my ears
have grown sharp."

     Seeing him full of beans, Lu could not help laughing.  She took her seat,
preparing for the operation.   When she picked up the precious donor's  cornea
from  a phial and sewed it on to a piece of gauze,  he piped up again,  "So an
eye can be replaced?  I never knew that!"

     "It's not replacing the whole eye,  just a filmy  membrane,"  Jiang  cor-
rected him.

     "Can't  see  the  difference."  He wasn't interested in details.   With a
sigh,  he continued,  "It needs much skill,  doesn't it?   When I return to my
village  with  a pair of good eyes,  the villagers'll say I must have met some
kind fairy.  Ha!  Ha!  I'll tell them I met Dr Lu!"

     Jiang tittered,  winking at Lu,  who felt a little  embarrassed.    Still
sewing, she explained, "Other doctors can do the same."

     "That's quite true," he agreed.   "You only find good doctors in this big
hospital.  No kidding!"

     Her preparations over,  Lu parted his eyelids with a speculum  and  said,
"We'll start now.  Just relax."

     Zhang was not like other patients, who only listened to whatever the doc-
tors said.  He thought it impolite not to answer.  So he said understandingly,
"I'm  perfectly  all  right.    Go ahead.   I don't mind if it's painful.   Of
course, it hurts to cut with a scalpel or a pair of scissors.  But don't worry
about me.  I trust you.  Besides...."

     Jiang had to stop him, still smiling.  "Uncle, don't talk any more."

     Finally he complied.

     Lu picked up a trephine,  small as a pen cap,  and lightly  cut  out  the
opaque  cornea.   Cutting a similar disc of clear cornea from the donor's eye,
she transferred it to Zhang's eye.   Then  she  began  the  delicate  task  of
stitching it with the needle-holder.  The suture was finer than a hair.

     The  operation  went smoothly.   When she had finished,  the transplanted
cornea was perfectly fixed on the surface of the eye.   But  for  some  little
black knots, one could never tell it was a new cornea.

     "Well  done!" the doctors around the operating-table quietly exclaimed in
admiration.

     Lu sighed with relief.   Deeply touched,  Jiang looked up at  her  friend
with feeling.  Silently, she put layers of gauze over Zhang's eye....

     As  he was wheeled out,  Zhang seemed to awaken from a dream.   He became
animated again.   When the wheeled stretcher was already out of the  door,  he
cried out, "Thanks a lot, Dr Lu!"

     The  operations  had ended.   As Lu was pulling herself to her feet,  she
found her legs had gone to sleep.   She simply could not stand up.    After  a
little rest, she tried again and again, till she finally made it.  There was a
sudden  pain  in  her  side.    She  pressed  it with her hand,  not taking it
seriously for it had occurred before.   Engrossed in an operation,  sitting on
the little stool,  for hours at a time, she was aware of nothing else.  But as
soon as this operation had ended,  she felt utterly exhausted,  even too tired
to move.



16

     At  that  moment,  Fu was cycling home in haste.   He had not intended to
return that day.  Early that morning, Fu, at his wife's suggestion, had rolled
up his bedding,  put it on his bicycle carrier and taken it to his  office  to
begin his new life.

     By  noon,  however,  he was wavering.   Would Lu finish her operations in
time?   Imagining her dragging herself home to prepare lunch for the children,
he  suddenly  felt a pang of guilt.   So he jumped on his bicycle and pedalled
home.

     Just as he turned into their lane,  he caught sight of his  wife  leaning
against a wall, unable to move.

     "Wenting!  What's wrong?" he cried out, leaping of to help.

     "Nothing.    I'm just a bit tired." She put an arm round his shoulder and
moved slowly toward home.

     Fu noticed that she was very pale and that beads of cold sweat had broken
out on her forehead.

     He asked uneasily, "Shall I take you to hospital?"

     She sat down on the edge of the  bed,  her  eyes  closed,  and  answered,
"Don't worry.  I'll be all right after a short rest."

     She pointed to the bed,  too weak to say anything.  Fu took off her shoes
and coat.

     "Lie down and get some sleep.  I'll wake you later."

     He went to boil some water in a saucepan.   When he came  back  to  fetch
noodles,  he  heard  her  say,  "We  ought to have a rest.   Shall we take the
children to Beihai Park next Sunday?   We haven't been there for more than ten
years."

     "Fine.    I'm  all for it!" Fu agreed,  wondering why she should suddenly
want to go there.

     He gave her an anxious glance and went to cook  the  noodles.    When  he
returned,  food  in hand,  she had already fallen asleep.   He did not disturb
her.  When Yuanyuan came home, the two of them sat down to eat.

     Just then,  Lu began groaning.   Fu put down his bowl and rushed  to  the
bed.  Lu was deathly white, her face covered in sweat.

     "I can't fight it," she said in a feeble voice, gasping for breath.

     Frightened, Fu took her hand asking, "What's wrong?  Have you any pain?"

     With a great effort, Lu pointed to her heart.

     Panicking,  Fu  pulled  open  a  drawer rummaging for a pain-killer.   On
second thoughts, he wondered if she needed a tranquilizer.

     Though in great pain,  she was clear-headed.   She signed to him to  calm
down and said with all her remaining strength, "I must go to hospital!"

     Only  then did Fu realize the seriousness of her illness.   For more than
ten years she had never seen a doctor,  though she went to the hospital  every
day.   Now she was obviously critically ill.  As he hurried out, he stopped at
the door and turned to say, "I'll go and get a taxi."

     He rushed to the public telephone on the corner.   He dialed quickly  and
waited.  When someone answered, he heard a cold voice saying, "No taxis at the
moment."

     "Look, I've got a very sick person here!"

     "Still, you'll have to wait half an hour."

     Fu began to plead, when the man rang off.

     He tried to call Lu's hospital,  but no one seemed to be in the office of
the Ophthalmic Department.   He asked the operator to put him through  to  the
vehicle dispatch office.

     "We  can't  send  you  a  car without an official approval slip," was the
answer.

     Where on earth could he track down the hospital leaders  to  get  an  ap-
proval slip?"

     "But this is urgent!  Hello!" he shouted into the receiver.  But the line
had already gone dead.

     He phoned the political department which,  he thought,  ought to help him
out.   After a long time,  a woman picked  up  the  receiver.    She  listened
patiently  and  said  politely,  "Would  you please contact the administration
department?"

     He had to ask the operator to  put  him  through  to  the  administration
department.   Recognizing his voice, the operator demanded impatiently, "Where
exactly do you want?"

     Where?  He was not sure himself.   In a begging voice,  he said he wanted
to  speak to anyone in the administration department.   The telephone rang and
rang.  Nobody answered.

     Disappointed,  Fu abandoned the idea of finding a car.   He headed for  a
small workshop in the lane making cardboard boxes, hoping to borrow a tricycle
and trailer.   The old lady in charge, hearing of his predicament, sympathized
with him, but unfortunately could do nothing, for both her tricycles were out.

     What was to be done?  Standing in the alley, Fu was desperate.  Sit Lu on
the bicycle carrier?  That was impossible.

     Just then, Fu saw a van coming.  Without much thought, he raised his hand
to stop it.

     The van came to a halt,  and the driver poked his head  out,  staring  in
surprise.    But when he heard what was happening,  he beckoned Fu to get into
the van.

     They went straight to Fu's home.   When the driver saw Lu  being  dragged
towards the van supported by her husband,  he hurried to help her get into the
cabin.  Then slowly he drove her to the casualty department of the hospital.



17

     She had never slept so long, never felt so tired.  She felt pain all over
her body as if she had just fallen from a cloud.   She had not  the  slightest
bit  of strength left.   After a peaceful sleep,  her limps were more relaxed,
her heart calmer.  But she felt her mind go blank.

     For years,  she had simply had no  time  to  pause,  to  reflect  on  the
hardships she had experienced or the difficulties lying ahead.  Now all physi-
cal and mental burdens had been lifted.   She seemed to have plenty of time to
examine her past and to explore the future.  But her mind had switched off; no
reminiscences, no hopes.  Nothing.

     Perhaps it was only a dream.  She had had such dreams before....

     One evening when she was only five,  a north wind had been howling.   Her
mother had gone out, leaving her alone at home.  Soon it was very dark and her
mother had not returned.   For the first time, Lu felt lonely, terrified.  She
cried and shouted, "Mama ... mama...."  This scene often appeared later in her
dreams.   The howling wind,  the door blown open by a sudden gust and the pale
kerosene  lamp remained vividly in her mind.   For a long time,  she could not
tell whether it had been true or a dream.

     This time, it was not a dream but reality.

     She was in bed, ill, and Jiajie was attending her.   He looked flaked out
too.    He  was  dozing,  half  lying on the bed.   He would catch cold if not
awakened.  She tried to call him,  but no sound came out of her mouth.   There
was a lump in her throat choking her.  She wanted to pull a coat over him, but
her arms did not seem to belong to her.

     She  glanced round and saw she was in a single room.   Only serious cases
were given such special treatment.   She was suddenly seized  by  fear.    "Am
I...?"

     The autumn wind rattled the door and windows.   Darkness gathered,  swal-
lowing up the room.   Lu felt clearer after a cold sweat.   It was  real,  she
knew, not a dream.  This was the end of life, the beginning of death!

     So this was dying, no fear, no pain, just life withering away, the senses
blurring, slowing sinking, like a leaf drifting on a river.

     All came to an end,  inevitable.  Rolling waves swept over her chest.  Lu
felt she was floating in the water....

     "Mama ... mama...."

     She heard Xiaojia's call and saw her running along the bank.   She turned
back, reaching out her arms.

     "Xiaojia ... my darling daughter...."

     But waves swept her away, and Xiaojia's face grew vague, her hoarse voice
turned into sobbing.

     "Mama ... plait my hair...."

     Why not plait her hair?   The child had been in this world for six years,
and her one desire was to have pigtails.   Whenever she saw other  girls  with
pigtails  adorned with silk ribbons,  admiration overwhelmed her little heart.
But such requests were ignored.  Mother had no time for that.  On Monday morn-
ing, the hospital was crowded with patients and, for Lu, every minute counted.

     "Mama ... mama...."

     She heard Yuanyuan's calling and saw the boy running after her along  the
bank.  She turned back, stretching out her arms.

     "Yuanyuan ... Yuanyuan...."

     A wave swept over her.   When she struggled to the surface,  there was no
sign of her son, only his voice in the distance.

     "Mama ... don't forget ... my white gym shoes...."

     A kaleidoscope of sports shoes whirled around.   White and blue sneakers,
sports books,  gym shoes,  white shoes with red or blue bands.  Buy a pair for
Yuanyuan,  whose shoes were already worn out.   Buy a pair of white gym  shoes
and  he would be in raptures for a month.   But then the shoes disappeared and
raining down were price tags: 3.1 yuan, 4.5 yuan, 6.3 yuan....

     Now she saw Jiajie chasing after her,  his running figure mirrored in the
water.   He was in a great hurry,  his voice trembling as he called, "Wenting,
you can't leave us like this!"

     How she wished that she could wait for him!  He held out his hand to her,
but the ruthless current raced forward and she drifted away helplessly.

     "Dr Lu ... Dr Lu...."

     So many people were calling her,  lining the  banks.    Yafen,  Old  Liu,
Director Zhao,  Dr Sun, all in white coats; Jiao Chengsi, Uncle Zhang and Wang
Xiaoman in pyjamas.   Among the other patients,  she only  recognized  a  few.
They were all calling her.

     I oughtn't to leave.   No!   There are so many things I still have to do.
Xiaojia and Yuanyuan shouldn't be motherless.   I mustn't  bring  Jiajie  more
sorrow.   He can't afford to lose his wife so young.  I can't tear myself away
from the hospital, the patients.  Oh no!  I can't give up this miserable,  yet
dear life!

     I won't drown!   I must fight!  I must remain in the world.  But why am I
so tired?  I've no strength to resist, to struggle.  I'm sinking, sinking....

     Ah!  Goodbye, Yuanyuan!   Goodbye,  Xiaojia!   Will you miss your mother?
In  this last moment of my life,  I love you more than ever.   Oh,  how I love
you!  Let me embrace you.  Listen, my darlings, forgive your mummy who did not
give you the love you deserved.   Forgive your  mummy  who,  time  and  again,
refrained  from  hugging you,  pushing away your smiling faces.   Forgive your
mummy for leaving you while you're still so small.

     Goodbye, Jiajie!  You gave up everything for me!  Without you, I couldn't
have achieved anything.  Without you, life had no meaning.  Ah, you sacrificed
so much for me!  If I could, I would kneel down before you begging your pardon
since I can never repay all  your  kindness  and  concern.    Forgive  me  for
neglecting you.  I often thought I should do something more for you.  I wanted
to end my work regularly and prepare supper for you.  I wanted to let you have
the desk,  hoping you would finish your article.  But it's too late!  How sad!
I've no time now.

     Goodbye, my patients!   For the past eighteen years,  my life was devoted
to  you.   Whether I walked,  sat or lay down,  I thought only of you and your
eyes!  You don't know the joy I felt after curing an eye.  What a pity I shall
no longer feel that....



18

     "Arrhythmia!" the doctor monitoring the screen exclaimed.

     "Wenting!  Wenting!" Fu cried out,  fixing his eyes on his wife,  who was
struggling for breath.

     The doctors and nurses on duty rushed into the room.

     "Intravenous injection of lidocaine!" the doctor snapped an order.

     A nurse quickly injected it,  but before it was finished,  Lu's lips went
blue, her hands clenched, her eyes rolled upwards.

     Her heart stopped beating.

     The doctors began massage resuscitation.  A respirator was applied to her
head, which made a rhythmic sound.   Then a defibrillator went into operation.
When her chest was struck by this, her heart began to beat again.

     "Get  the ice cap ready!" the doctor in charge ordered,  the sweat on his
forehead.

     An ice cap was put on Lu's head.



19

     The pale dawn could be seen outside the window.   Day had broken at last.
Lu had lived through a crucial night.  She now entered a new day.

     A  day nurse came into the room and opened the windows,  letting in fresh
air and the birds' merry singing.   At once the pungent smell of medicine  and
death were dispelled.  Dawn brought new hope to a frail life.

     Another  nurse  came  to  take Lu's temperature,  while a medical orderly
brought in breakfast.  Then the doctor on duty dropped in on his ward round.

     Wang Xiaoman, still bandaged,  pleaded with a nurse,  "Let me have a look
at Dr Lu!  Just one peep."

     "No.    She nearly died last night.   No one's allowed to see her for the
time being."

     "Aunt,  perhaps you don't know,  but she fell ill because she operated on
me.  Please let me go and see her.  I promise not to say a word to her."

     "No, no, no!"  The nurse scowled.

     "Oh,  please!    Just  one glance." Xiaoman was close to tears.   Hearing
footsteps behind her,  she turned  and  saw  Old  Zhang  coming,  led  by  his
grandson.

     "Grandpa," she rushed to him,  "will you have a word with this aunt?  She
won't let me...."

     Zhang, with his eyes bandages, was dragged over by the little girl to the
nurse.

     "Sister, do let us have a look at her."

     Now with this old man pestering her too, the nurse flared up, "What's the
matter with you people, fooling about in the wards?"

     "Come off it!   Don't you understand?" Zhang's  voice  was  not  so  loud
today.   He went on humbly, "We've a good reason, you know.  Why is Dr Lu ill?
Because she operated on us.  To be frank, I can't really see her, but to stand
beside her bed for while will calm my nerves."

     He was so sincere that the nurse softened and explained patiently,  "It's
not  that  I'm  being  mean.   Dr Lu's seriously ill with heart trouble.   She
mustn't be excited.  You want her to recover very soon, don't you?  Better not
disturb her at the moment."

     "Yes,  you're quite right." Zhang sighed and sat down on a bench.   Slap-
ping his thigh,  he said regretfully,  "It's all my fault.   I urged her to do
the operation as quickly as possible.   But who  would've  thought...?    What
shall  I do if anything happens to her?"  He lowered his head in remorse.   Dr
Sun hurried to see Lu too  before  starting  his  work,  but  was  stopped  by
Xiaoman.

     "Dr Sun, are you going to see Dr Lu?" she asked.

     He nodded.

     "Will you take me along?  Please."

     "Now now.  Some time later.  OK?"

     Hearing  Sun's  voice,  Zhang stood up and reached out for him.   Tugging
Sun's sleeve, he said, "Dr Sun.   We'll do as you say.   But can I have a word
with  you?   I know you're extremely busy.   But I still want you to listen to
what's been bothering me."

     Sun patted Zhang on the shoulder and said, "Go ahead."

     "Dr Lu's a very good doctor.   You leaders ought to do your best to  cure
her.   If you save her,  she can save many others.   There are good medicines,
aren't there?   Give her them.   Don't hesitate.   I hear you have to pay  for
certain precious medicines.   Lu's got two children.  She's not well off.  Now
she's ill.  I don't expect she can afford them.   Can't this big hospital sub-
sidize her?"

     He  stopped,  holding  Sun's hands,  slightly cocking his ear toward him,
waiting for his answer.

     Sun had a one-track mind.   He never showed his feelings.   But today  he
was moved.   Shaking Zhang's hands,  he said emotionally, "We'll do everything
possible to save her!"

     Zhang seemed satisfied.   He called his  grandson  to  come  nearer,  and
groped for a satchel which was slung across the boy's shoulder.

     "Here are some eggs.  Please take them to her when you go in."

     "It's not necessary," Sun replied quickly.

     This put Zhang's back up instantly.   Gripping Sun's hands, he raised his
voice, "If you don't take them to her, I won't let you go!"

     Sun had to accept the satchel of eggs.   He decided to  ask  a  nurse  to
return it and explain later.  As though guessing what was in Sun's mind, Zhang
continued, "And don't ask someone to bring them back."

     Forced to acquiesce, Sun helped Zhang and Xiaoman down the stairs.

     Qin,  accompanied  by Director Zhao,  approached Lu's room.   "Zhao," the
woman talked while walking,  rather excitedly,  "I was like a bureaucrat.    I
didn't  know  it was Dr Lu who had operated on Old Jiao.   But you should have
known, shouldn't you?  Luckily Jiao recognized Lu.  Otherwise we'd still be in
the dark."

     "I was sent to work in the countryside at that time," Zhao replied  help-
lessly.

     Shortly after they had entered the room, Sun arrived.  The doctor on duty
gave  a  brief  report of the emergency measures taken to save Lu the previous
night.  Zhao looked over the case-history,  nodding.   Then he said,  "We must
watch her carefully."

     Fu,  seeing so many people entering,  had stood up.   But Qin, unaware of
his presence, quickly sat down on the vacant stool.

     "Feeling better, Dr Lu?" she asked.

     Lu's eyes opened slightly but she said nothing.

     "Vice-minister Jiao has told me all about you," Qin said warmly.    "He's
very  grateful  to  you.   He would have come himself if I hadn't stopped him.
I'm her to thank you on his behalf.   Anything you fancy eating,  anything you
want,  let  me  know.   I can help you.   Don't stand on ceremony.   We're all
revolutionary comrades."

     Lu closed her eyes.

     "You're still young.  Be optimistic.   Since you're sick,  it's better to
accept it.  This...."

     Zhao  stopped  her  by saying,  "Comrade Qin Bo,  let her have some rest.
She's only just regained consciousness."

     "Fine,  fine.   Have a good rest," Qin said,  rising to her feet.   "I'll
come again in a couple of days."

     Out of the ward, Qin complained frowning, "Director Zhao, I must give you
a piece of my mind.   Dr Lu's a real treasure.  If you had been more concerned
about her, she wouldn't have become so ill.   The middle-aged comrades are the
backbone of our country.  It's imperative to value talented people."

     "Right," was Zhao's reply.

     Gazing after her receding figure,  Fu asked Sun in a small voice,  "Who's
she?"

     Sun looked over the frame of his spectacles at the doorway  and  answered
frowning, "An old lady sprouting revolutionary phrases!"




20

     That  day,  Lu  was slightly better and could open her eyes easily.   She
drank two spoonfuls of mild and a sip of orange juice.   But she lay with  her
eyes blank,  staring at the ceiling.   She wore a vacant expression, as if in-
different to everything, including her own critical condition and the unhappi-
ness of her family.  She seemed weary of life.

     Fu stared at her in mute horror for he  had  never  seen  her  like  this
before.   He called her again and again,  but she only responded with a slight
wave of her hand,  as though not wishing to be disturbed.   Probably she  felt
comfortable letting her mind remain suspended.

     Time passed unheeded.   Fu, sitting at her bedside, had not slept for two
nights.  He felt exhausted.  Dozing,  he was suddenly awoke by a heart-rending
scream, which shook the whole ward.  He heard a girl wailing next door, "Mama!
Mama!"  and  a man's sobbing.   Then there came the sound of footsteps as many
people rushed to the room.   Fu hurried out too.   He saw a wheeled  stretcher
being  pushed  out  of  the room,  on which lay a corpse covered with a sheet.
Then the nurse in white pushing the stretcher appeared.   A  girl  of  sixteen
with  disheveled hair stumbled out,  shaking,  and threw herself at the stret-
cher.  Clutching at it with trembling hands, she pleaded, tears streaming down
her cheeks, "Don't take it away!   Please!   My mother's asleep.   She'll soon
wake up!  I know she will!"

     Visitors made way for the wheeled stretcher.  In silence, they paid their
respects to the deceased.

     Fu stood rooted amid the crowd.   His cheekbones stuck out prominently in
his haggard face.   His blood-shot eyes began to fill with tears.    Clenching
his fists, he tried to pull himself together, but shook all over.  Unnerved by
the girl's shrill cries, he wanted to cover his ears.

     "Mama,  wake up!   Wake up!   They're taking you away!" the girl screamed
madly.   Had she not been held back by others,  she would have pulled off  the
sheet.   The middle-aged man following the stretcher repeated,  sobbing, "I've
let you down!  I've let you down!"

     His desperate cries were like a knife piercing Fu's heart,  as he  stared
at the stretcher.   All of a sudden,  as if electrified,  he dashed towards is
wife's room.  He went straight to her, threw himself on the bed.   He murmured
with closed eyes, "You're alive!"

     Lu stirred,  awakened by his heaving breathing.   She opened her eyes and
looked at him, but her eyes didn't seem to focus.

     He felt a shiver of fear and cried out, "Wenting!"

     Her eyes lingered on his face coldly, and this made his heart bleed.   Fu
did not know what to say or do to encourage her to hold on to life.   This was
his wife,  the dearest person in the world.   How long ago was it since he had
read poems to her in Beihai Park that winter?  During all these years, she had
always been his beloved.  Life would be unthinkable without her!  He must keep
her with him!

     Poetry!  Read a poem to her as he had done then!  It was poetry which had
helped him to win her before!   Today, he would recite the same poem to remind
her of sweet memories, to give her the courage to live on.

     Half-kneeling beside her bed, he began to recite with tears in his eyes:

          "I wish I were a rapid stream,
          ......
          If my love
          A tiny fish would be,
          She'd frolic
          In my foaming waves."

     The verses seemed to have touched her.   She turned her head towards him,
her  lips  moving  slightly.    Fu  leaned over and listened to her indistinct
words: "I can no longer ... swim...."

     Choking back his tears, he continued:

          "I wish I were a deserted forest,
          ......
          If my love
          A little bird would be,
          She'd nest and twitter
          In my dense trees."

She murmured softly, "I can no longer ... fly...."

     His heart ached.  Steeling himself, he went on, in tears:

          "I wish I were a crumbling ruin,
          ......
          If my love
          Green ivy would be,
          She'd tenderly entwine
          Around my lonely head."

Tears,  blind tears silently poured down her cheeks and fell on the white pil-
low.  With an effort, she said, "I can't ... climb up!"

     Fu threw himself on to her, weeping bitterly.  "I've failed you as a hus-
band...."

     When he opened his tearful eyes,  he was astonished.   Again she remained
with her eyes fixed on the ceiling.   She seemed unaware of his  weeping,  his
appeals, unaware of everything around her.

     On  hearing Fu's sobbing,  a doctor hurried in and said to him,  "Dr Lu's
very weak.  Please don't excite her."

     Fu said nothing more the whole afternoon.   At dusk,  Lu seemed a  little
better.  She turned her head to Fu and her lips moved as if wanting to speak.

     "Wenting,  what  do  you  want to say?   Tell me," Fu asked,  holding her
hands.

     She spoke at last, "Buy Yuanyuan ... a pair of white gym shoes...."

     "I'll do it tomorrow," he replied,  unable to check his tears.    But  he
quickly wiped them away with the back of his hands.

     Lu, still watching him, seemed to have more to say.  But she only uttered
a few words after a long time, "Plait ... Xiaojia's hair...."

     "Yes,  I will!" Fu promised,  still sobbing.   He looked at his wife, his
vision blurred,  hoping she would be able to tell him all  that  was  worrying
her.  But she closed her lips, as if she had used up her energy.



21

     Two  days  later,  a letter came for Lu,  posted at Beijing International
Airport.  Fu opened it and read:

     Dear Wenting,

          I wonder if you will ever receive this letter.   It's not impossible
     that this won't reach you.  But I hope not!  I don't believe it will hap-
     pen.  Though you're very ill, I believe you'll recover.  You can still do
     a lot.  You're too young to leave us!

          When  my  husband  and I came to say goodbye to you last night,  you
     were still unconscious.   We'd wanted to see you this morning,  but there
     were  too  many things to do.   Yesterday evening may be the last time we
     will meet.  Thinking of this,  my heart breaks.   We've been studying and
     working  together  for more than twenty years.   No one understands us as
     well as we do each other.  Who would imagine we would part like this?

          I'm now writing this letter in the airport.  Can you guess where I'm
     standing at this moment?   At the arts and crafts counter on  the  second
     floor.   There's no one about, only the shining glass counter in front of
     me.  Remember the first time we travelled by air, we came her too?  There
     was a pot  of  artificial  narcissuses  with  dew  on  their  petals,  so
     lifelike, so exquisite!  You told me that you liked it best.  But when we
     looked  at the price,  we were scared off.   Now,  I'm before the counter
     again, alone,  looking at another pot,  almost the same colour as the one
     we saw.   Looking at it,  I feel like crying.   I don't know why.   Now I
     realize suddenly, it's because all that has gone.

          When Fu had just got to know you,  I remember once he  came  to  our
     room  and  recited a line by Pushkin,  "All that has happened in the past
     becomes a sweet memory."  I pursed my lips and said it wasn't  true.    I
     even  asked,  "Can  past misfortunes become sweet memories?"  Fu grinned,
     ignoring me.   He must have thought inwardly that I  knew  nothing  about
     poetry.  But today I understand.  Pushkin was right.  It exactly reflects
     my  mood now.   It's as if he wrote the line for me!   I really reel that
     all the past is sweet.

          A jet has just taken off,  its engines roaring.   Where is it going?
     In  an  hour,  I'll  be climbing up the steps into the plane,  leaving my
     country.   With only sixty minutes to go,  I can't help weeping,  and  my
     tears wet this letter.  But I've no time to rewrite it.

          I'm  so  depressed,  I suddenly feel as if I've made the wrong deci-
     sion.  I don't want to leave everything here.  No!  I can't bear to leave
     our hospital, our operating theatre, even that little desk in the clinic!
     I often grumbled that Dr Sun was too severe,  never forgiving a  mistake.
     But  now  I  wish  I  could  hear  his criticism again.   He was a strict
     teacher.  If not for him, I wouldn't be so skilled!

          The loudspeakers have just wished passengers bon voyage.   Will mine
     be good?  Thinking of boarding the plane in a moment, I feel lost.  Where
     will I land?   What lies in store?   My heart's in my boots.  I'm scared!
     Yes,  scared stiff!   Will we get used to a strange country,  which is so
     different from ours?  How can my mind be at peace?

          My husband's sitting in an armchair brooding.  Busy packing the last
     few days,  he had no time to think.  He seemed quite firm about the deci-
     sion.   But last night,  when he stuffed the last coat into the suitcase,
     he  said  all  of a sudden,  "We'll be homeless from tomorrow!"  He's not
     spoken since then, and I know his mind is still divided.

          Yaya was most happy about this trip.   She was nervous and  excited,
     and  sometimes  I  felt like hitting her.   But now she's standing at the
     glass door watching the planes landing and taking off, as if reluctant to
     leave.

          "Won't you change your minds?" you asked that night when we were  at
     your place.

          I  can't answer that question in one sentence.   Liu and I have been
     discussing it almost every day for the past few months.   Our minds  have
     been in a turmoil.  There are many reasons, of course, urging us to leave
     China.    It  is for Yaya,  for Liu and myself.   However,  none of those
     reasons can lessen my pain.   We shouldn't leave,  when  China  has  just
     begun a new period.  We've no excuse for avoiding our duties.

          Compared  with  you,  I'm  a  weaker  character.   Though I had less
     trouble than you in the past ten years.   I couldn't bear it as you  did.
     I  often  burst  out  when  viciously  slandered and attacked.   I wasn't
     stronger than you.  On the contrary, it shows my weakness.  Better to die
     than be humiliated, thought.  But there was Yaya.  It was surprising that
     I was able to brazen it  out  in  those  days,  when  Liu  was  illegally
     detained as an "enemy agent".

          All these are bitter memories of the past.   Fu was right in saying,
     "Darkness has receded,  and days has dawned."  The trouble is,  the  evil
     influence  of many years can't be eradicated overnight.   The policies of
     the government take a long time to reach the people.   Resentment is  not
     easily removed.  Rumours can kill a person.  I dread such a nightmare.  I
     lack your courage!

          I  remember  that  you and I were cited at that meeting as bourgeois
     specialists.   When we left the hospital afterwards,  I said to  you,  "I
     can't  understand  all  this.   Why should people who have worked hard in
     their field be crushed?   I'll  refuse  to  attend  such  meetings  as  a
     protest!"  But you said, "Forget it!  If they want to hold a hundred such
     meetings, let them.  I'll attend.  We'll still have to do the operations.
     I'll study at home."  I asked you,  "Don't you feel wronged?"  You smiled
     and said, "I'm so busy,  I've no time to care."  I admired you very much.
     Before we parted,  you warned me, "Don't tell Fu about such things.  He's
     in enough trouble himself."  We walked a block in  silence.    I  noticed
     that  you  looked  very  calm,  very confident.   No one could shake your
     faith.   I knew that you had a strong will,  which enabled you to  resist
     all kinds of attacks and go your own way.  If I had half your courage and
     will-power, I wouldn't have made such a decision.

          Forgive me!  This is all I can say to you now.  I'm leaving, but I'm
     leaving my heart with you,  with my dear homeland.   Wherever I go,  I'll
     never forget China.  Believe me!  Believe that I'll return.   After a few
     years,  when  Yaya's grown up and we have achieved something in medicine,
     we'll come back.

          I hope you'll soon recover!   Learn a lesson from your  illness  and
     pay  more attention to your health.   I'm not advising you to be selfish.
     I've always admired your selflessness.   I wish you good health  to  make
     full use of your talents!

          Goodbye, my dearest friend!


                                                       Affectionately,
                                                            Yafen



22

     A month and a half later, Dr Lu had basically recovered and was permitted
to go home.  It was a miracle.  Ill she was, Lu, several times on the brink of
death, survived.  The doctors were greatly surprised and delighted.

     That morning,  Fu jubilantly helped her put on a cotton-padded jacket,  a
pair of woollen trousers, a blue overcoat,  and wrapped around her neck a long
fluffy beige scarf.

     "How are things at home?" she asked.

     "Fine.    The  comrades of your Party branch came yesterday to help clean
the room."

     Her thoughts immediately turned to that small room with the  large  book-
case covered with a white cloth, the little alarm-clock on the window-sill and
the desk....

     She  felt feeble and cold,  though so warmly dressed.   Her legs trembled
when she stood up.  With one hand gripping her husband's arm, the other touch-
ing the wall, she moved forward leaning heavily on Fu.  Slowly, she walked out
of the ward.

     Zhao,  Sun and her other colleagues followed her,  watching her  progress
along the corridor towards the gate.

     It  had  rained for a couple of days.   A gust of wind sighed through the
bare branches of the trees.   The sunshine,  extraordinarily bright after  the
rain,  slanted in through the windows of the corridor.   The cold wind blew in
too.  Slowly Fu, supporting his wife, headed for the sunlight and the wind.

     A black car was waiting at the steps.   It  had  been  sent  by  the  ad-
ministration department at Zhao's request.

     Leaning on her husband's shoulder, Lu walked slowly towards the gate....




                               ---  The End ---