Chapter Thirty-Three: Out of Place

On her first day auditing classes, Jin Yue was much more ceremonious than Hong Tao had ever been. She wore her festive floral dress, reserved for holidays, and a pair of tiny red leather Mary Janes. The schoolbag they’d bought for her was far too large, so Hong Tao used military tent canvas provided by Jin Yue’s father to sew her a small bag, attaching backpack cords as straps. He even stitched a red five-pointed star and a little flower onto it.

Hong Tao’s secret—that he could tailor clothes himself—had already been exposed. The pants and shirts he wore were visibly different from everyone else’s: not the usual baggy, loose-fitting garments, but rather close-fitting, accentuating his tall frame, so he stood out wherever he went. He looked like a walking clothes rack. Had he been a bit more handsome, people might have looked twice; as it was, most folks started their gaze at his trousers, nodding approvingly, but when their eyes reached his shirt’s collar and above, they’d purse their lips.

One day, as Jin Yue recited her Chinese phonetic exercises, Hong Tao, bored and inspired, decided to alter her oversized green army pants. He worked through the afternoon, transforming the side-pocketed trousers into slim, straight-legged ones. The result: Jin Yue burst into tears, unaccustomed to anything but the wide-legged pants she’d always worn.

But no one was blind to beauty. That evening, Jin Yue’s mother and sister surely counseled her; what parent doesn’t want their child to look lovely, especially a girl? Now that there was a solution, they weren’t about to tell her that baggy side-pocket pants were prettier than tailored ones. The only complaint from Jin Yue’s mother was that Hong Tao had converted side-opening women’s pants into front-opening men’s trousers—a minor flaw.

Hong Tao was now a busy man. Not only did he tailor his own clothes, he also helped his mother, Jin Yue’s mother, and her sister with theirs. Hong Tao’s father disapproved of this “vain” trend and refused to let Hong Tao alter his pants. This time, Jin Yue’s father sided with Hong Tao’s dad; he couldn’t stand women and children wearing tight pants, preferring the two-baggy-pocket look.

Hong Tao didn’t just change Jin Yue’s clothes; he gave her hair a makeover too. The little girl originally wore a single ponytail, but Hong Tao transformed her hair into dozens of tiny braids, each tied with colorful nylon threads. He would have used colored elastics, but there was nowhere to buy them.

This time Jin Yue didn’t cry. She danced with joy, delighted by her head full of braids. Likely, she didn’t appreciate the style itself, but was simply happy with the colorful threads. Her father, though, was nearly in tears; this new look was utterly unexpected—a little monster, he thought. Worse, Jin Yue refused to let anyone touch her hair, not even her parents. At any moment, she’d stand before the mirror, admiring herself.

Jin Yue’s father was a straightforward man. Since his daughter was happy, he let her be. After all, they were just children; beauty or ugliness didn’t matter. As for parental embarrassment, Uncle Jin was open-minded—so long as nothing shameful was done, he didn’t care what people said.

Thus, on Jin Yue’s second day accompanying Hong Tao to school, the two became a spectacle. The tall, skinny boy with squinting eyes carried a girl whose head bristled with braids. Together, with a handful of boys much older than themselves, they monopolized the school’s only concrete ping pong table. From high school students to first graders, from male teachers to female teachers, everyone stopped to take a look, mostly at the girl with the braids, wondering who she was. As for the tall, squint-eyed boy, everyone knew him; students called him “the oddball,” and teachers referred to him as “Director Bai’s student.”

In the two months Jin Yue and Hong Tao spent together, she’d made significant academic progress, especially in mathematics—addition and subtraction within one hundred posed no difficulty. She was now memorizing multiplication tables and had mastered phonetics, beginning to recognize three new characters each day. Uncle Jin was both pleased and worried: pleased that his daughter’s learning hadn’t been wasted, and that at this rate she’d finish the first-grade curriculum before officially starting school. Worried that Jin Yue increasingly obeyed Hong Tao, calling him “Brother Tao” at every turn, following his instructions in everything, and disregarding her parents. She was still little, so they could manage her, but as she grew, they feared she’d be out of reach. What irked Uncle Jin most was when Hong Tao led Jin Yue to push his little bamboo cart all the way to Wangfujing, even visiting the department store. Upon returning, Jin Yue said nothing about their adventure; if her sister Jin Xing hadn’t seen them, they’d have kept it secret.

“I took her to broaden her horizons,” Hong Tao explained when Uncle Jin complained to his father. “My dad says you shouldn’t study yourself into stupidity, shouldn’t study mechanically. You need to understand the world as you learn, so you can grasp the meaning in books more deeply and quickly. I have no money to take her to the Forbidden City to see history, nor to the Natural History Museum for nature, so I could only take her to the department store to observe daily life. That’s culture too, isn’t it?”

Hong Tao’s response left both his father and Jin Yue’s father speechless. His father had indeed said such things, not just spoken but practiced them, and Jin Yue’s father had always supported this philosophy. Now that it was their daughter’s turn to broaden her horizons, could they object? To say no would be to accuse themselves of lying before their children; to say yes, the pair might venture to the Summer Palace next.

In the end, they compromised: Hong Tao promised that if he took Jin Yue on any further excursions, he’d notify them in advance. Neither father pursued the matter, pretending nothing had happened.

“Brother Hong, I feel as if I’m pushing my daughter into the fire,” Jin Yue’s father confided after much thought.

“You can’t blame me!” Hong Tao’s father replied, exasperated. “I told you from the start, even I can’t figure my own son out. I have no clue what goes on in his head—this isn’t me setting you up!”

“It’s not regret,” Jin Yue’s father clarified. “It’s just… your boy is different from others. When he talks to us, his eyes—are those a child’s eyes? It’s like he sees us as children. Especially when he smiles at me, I feel like he’s mocking me!”

“So you’re saying my son’s possessed by a fox spirit? Or a ghost? Come on, Jin, can’t we be a little more materialist?” Hong Tao’s father didn’t share this feeling, and even if he did, he’d never admit it—not about his own son. Even if the boy were a monster, he was still his son.

“Alright, let’s drop it. Fox spirits, really… Let’s just play chess,” Jin Yue’s father said, realizing the matter was beyond comprehension and best forgotten.

When the poplars lining the streets began releasing their white fluff, summer was officially announced. Everyone hurriedly shed heavy woolen pants and sweaters for lighter clothes. Yet the colors remained somber, as if watching a black-and-white film—blue, green, white everywhere. Children in the streets and alleys, like insects stirred by the spring thunder, began to play: after school, groups of boys and girls could be seen everywhere, playing with cigarette cards or jumping rope.

Hong Tao never joined in the cigarette card games—he’d had enough in his previous life and didn’t care to revisit them. In winter, it wasn’t so obvious, but by early summer, when he stood among boys his age, he was always the most conspicuous. Not only was he tall, with long, narrow eyes, but his attire and gaze were so distinct—he simply didn’t look like a child. It was as if a full-grown adult had been shrunk and dropped among children.

He was also unusually clean and tidy. His green jacket and trousers, tailored to fit, were always pressed and crisp, though the green had faded to yellowish from repeated washing. This only made him stand out more—he could make old clothes look like a woolen suit. Even his undershirt, just plain cotton, was always ironed flat, and a small badge was pinned to the collar.

In truth, Hong Tao wasn’t entirely satisfied with his wardrobe—he’d done his utmost with what he had. Two green suits, one blue, all refashioned from his parents’ old clothes; he couldn’t find new material. He didn’t care for polyester, preferring linen, silk, cotton, bamboo fiber—natural fabrics valued in his previous life. Polyester was cheap. Besides replacing the white polyester shirt with cotton, he couldn’t find any other fabric to substitute for the blue and green synthetic pants.

Having his own well-fitted clothes, he couldn’t neglect Jin Yue. No fabric? No problem—he had skill. He transformed ordinary white shirts with lantern sleeves, ruffled collars, decorative trim, added fabric ties, faux belts, waists, pleats, cutouts—every style he could imagine, he tried for Jin Yue. Eventually, she couldn’t find a single piece of “normal” attire for the era, much to Uncle Jin and Aunt Guo’s frustration. They glared at Hong Tao every time they saw him, but could do nothing—after all, he was Jin Yue’s tutor. They couldn’t very well curse the teacher for teaching their child.