Ch 41

Ivan Braginsky celebrated the Victory Day in Berlin. That day, he fired all the bullets that were left in his rifle into the air. When he returned to his hometown Bereza, only his father came out to welcome him.

His mother passed away a month ago. Around that time, his big sister was working in Moscow and his little sister had been transferred back to the country along with her troop. When Tonya came home, their mother's body was still warm; when Natasha came home, they hadn't yet descended her coffin into the ground. And now, both of them returned to Moscow but neither wrote to him about the horrible news. Because victory was so close and he was coming back very soon.

Over the four years, death notices never ceased to loosen its claws of Bereza. In the summer of 1941, it pronounced Polina the fate of a widow; in the spring of 1945, it informed Frosya about her only son's death. Who could have possibly foretold to mama Braginsky of the next letter she received? Would it be "Your Vanechka" and "Your Natashenka" whom she had been pining for day and night? Or the unavoidable… "died in action"? Their healthy mother had a heart attack. The worries of her children tormented herself to death at the eve of victory.

Beside the table were several buckets of home-made wine. His father and him sat down face to face and started drinking from noon until starlit darkness. The old man babbled about the war, then suddenly started singing out loud; later, he shouted and cursed with the most malicious words that could be found in the world, and, in the end, lied on the table crying out loud.

"Here!" His father stumbled to the cupboard and retrieved a letter, "Sent home days ago…for you…"

Even that Ivan had been drunk to the bottom, he recognized Wang Yao's handwriting on the envelope with a glance. It was sent out from Moscow on May 9. His trembling fingers finally managed to spread out the letter, but there was only one sentence.

"I'm going back to mother."

He cried out loud in a drunkard's manner, just like his father. Ever since being shocked into an oblivion by the terrible news, he finally realized one thing—he had no mother anymore.

This summer, Ivan stayed in the village with his father and helped with the farming. Neighbors often invited him to their homes and asked him to talk about the life at the front. They wanted to picture out how their lost husbands or sons were living.

Demyan Morozov left behind three little Morozovs; the oldest was only eleven. Anatoliy Chaplin left with a pair of eight-year-old twins. Zhora Virbitski left with his newly-wed wife. Mishka Volkov left with some old textbooks and a lonely mother who had dried up her tears. The only thing that comforted the old lady was that, unlike those who died on the battlefield far away, her son, a guerilla fighter, was hanged by the invaders right inside their village. She could bury him under the home soil and visit him from time to time. "Vanechka! Good boy!" She once said to Ivan, "In other families, their sons and daughters died and left their mamas all alone. You three all survived. I almost wanted to call up Matrena from the grave and let her take a good look at you…"

In the slack season, Ivan often went to his mother's grave. He would lay his head on the slightly elevated mound, letting his body hid under the tall grass—like an infant lying in the cradle—and gazed upon the silver crescent above his head. The moon was like a sickle the farmer left behind, falling into the endless field-like sky.

The land beneath him continued with her own eternal cause, accepting deaths and giving lives. She bare all the flames and gunpowders of this world, but soothe them with her pliable, strong and all-embracing heart. He could feel the sound of the bustling lives budding in the deep ground—though, he didn't hear it directly, but from another person's heart.

That person must be familiar with everything about the land. Because that person was a young biologist—like him, was "worker of the land", and, like him, was life itself. That person had once lay inside his arms and told him that the land was like mother. But now he had returned to his own mother.

Ivan took out the juju that was hanging on his chest. He fulfilled the promise not to unwrap the pendant until the day of victory. The ancestors of the little girl who owned this juju were probably nomads living on horseback. The delicate pendant of a little white horse was like his handsome Kostya, especially those dark round eyes…Wang Yao gave him this little white horse that symbolized happiness and safety, so he indeed lived to the peaceful days. But what did he give to Wang Yao in return? A portrait painting. In the end, he couldn't resist but to draw on the eyes and, thus, the story of painting eyes on dragon became true. His lover never lied to him…

"I will find you. There's not a person that Ivan can not find."

In September, 1945, Ivan went back to the art academy of Moscow and continued his study. The episodic vertigo, headache and chest heaviness forced him to go to see a doctor. The nerve damage crawling inside his body since 1944 was confirmed and would follow him for the rest of his life.

The war had ended, but the damage it caused would stay with his generation forever. Many passed away from relapses of old injuries, but Ivan, with the permanent nerve damage, lived from twenty-four to ninety. He lived longer than others, and sufferred more than them as a result.

Then, he didn't know that he would live that long; he was only deteremined to gather up the courage to keep on living. Everything he had witnessed at the frontier over the four years called out to him from the depth of his heart, "Draw us, Vanya! Let people in the future see what had happened on this piece of land."

He missed Wang Yao very much. He began to imagine how Wang Yao would had fought and lived in his own country. Then, the angina would act up. Thus, when his lover surfaced under his brush, he thought that this handsome dark-haired young man was by his side…

Except that under those brows had been cloudy all along.

Anyone had once been young—the wonderful, unrevivable youth! To people in love, what they promised each other meant their entire future. Back then, the most willing confession was—"I will find you again…"

The brilliant war-theme artist and professor Braginsky had also been young once. Then, he gradually became a middle-aged man. When he was young, he thought that he had nothing to be afraid of after coming back from the battlefield. But his growing age told him that what was more challenging than war was life itself.

In fact, the professor did have opportunities to visit China through academic exchange, but he always ended up ripping the completed application form. As long as he went to China, he would find Wang Yao—he was certain of this. In 1956, he occasionally discovered the name that had long occupied his heart on a biology journal, with the author's contact information included at the end of the paper. The professor pondered over the biology jargons for a long time and came to a ridiculous conclusion—that this biologist had already married and had children.

In fact, it was natural to come to such a conclusion. It would be abnormal not getting married for a man in his mid-thirty with a successful career. By this standard, he was rather eccentric. Thus, their gathering was unnecessary. If he wanted to see him, all he needed was closing his eyes and he would see that handsome, clever and tender young man from 1941.

But the letters to Wang Yao still needed to be written, except that every time he finished a letter, he ripped it into pieces in fits of chest pain and headache. One day, he finally managed to glue the envelope before going nuts, but when he got to the post office he realized one crucial thing—that it was already 1961 and the relations between the two countries had worsened beyond repair. The letter could not possibly be sent out.

Over the years, he had kept a plain-looking diary—the same one he waved in his hand to tease Wang Yao some twenty years ago. He wanted to know his lover's past, but back then he didn't know a single Chinese character. After the war, with many years of input, he finally managed to learn some Chinese, although being an adult with nerve damages, learning a new language was no easy task. In the deep night, he would bury his head in a Chinese-Russian dictionary, trying to read this diary. Thus, the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth years of Wang Yao's life slowly unfolded before his eyes.

He saw Wang Yao inviting classmates into his dorm and the little rooms was filled with laughter, singing and the sound of accordion. He saw Wang Yao winning first place of biology contest and the old teacher asked him, "Wang, would you like to be a biologist in the future?" He saw Wang Yao anxiously putting on the clothes he would be wearing on the graduation dance, hoping to dance with his lovely classmate Lerika…

Back then, they didn't know each other; they didn't know about the war.

On the last page of the diary was a paragraph that Wang Yao left him on the morning of February 15, 1942 before sneaking out while he was still in his sleep. To be exact, it was a poem, like the ones Wang Yao read to him before.

Evening woods once accompanied the floating clouds

Autumn's echo suffused with the setting sun

Countless hands inked red and grey in this world, (but I mourn over)

A heart of sadness (that) could not be drawn.*

The professor read again and again, and searched the dictionary over and over but still couldn't comprehend what was written. He was forty years old after all.

"Evening Lookout in Jinling" by Gao Chan (848-898)