The railroad trip from Manzhouli to Harbin was six hundred fifty miles, give or take, but it was unreliable, often disrupted by bandits and by floods from swollen rivers. That was why Li Lisan had sent a squad of guards to keep his family and Yomei and Lily safe on this leg of their journey. There were not many passengers on the train, and the four of them stayed in a private compartment, Yomei and Lily sleeping on the upper bunks while Lisa and Inna used the bottom beds. The next morning, the young officer came to deliver breakfast. Yomei and Lily were thrilled to see salted duck eggs and fried peanuts and fermented tofu cubes, together with rice porridge and twisted steamed buns. They hadn’t eaten a warm Chinese breakfast for years and began to dig in with relish, while Lisa seemed bewildered by the food and just took a few bites. At lunch and dinner, there were braised chicken and smoked fish and assorted pickles, so they all indulged their appetite. To Yomei and Lily’s amazement, Inna enjoyed the Chinese food that she hadn’t tasted before. Her mother often urged her to be careful with the piping hot porridge or soup, so as not to burn herself.
The trip, which normally took less than fifteen hours, stretched to ten days. When they finally arrived at Harbin, it was already early October. Li Lisan stood alone on the platform to meet them. Yomei and Lily were surprised to see him in a U.S. military overcoat and green combat boots. He was quite eye-catching dressed like that. Why was he kitted out that way, even if the American outfit must be warmer and more comfortable? Yomei and Lily didn’t expect to be hosted by him here. They were supposed to continue to Yan’an, and Harbin was a layover. But Li Lisan insisted they stay in the city a few days, saying he would let Yan’an know of their arrival here, so there was no hurry to continue west. He took them to his jeep parked in the small square before the train station, and together they headed toward his house downtown.
Most trees had lost leaves, and hoarfrost glazed the branches and the asphalt. His house with dormer windows was a Japanese bungalow that had five rooms and a glassed-in porch and a small flagstone patio in the back. Over dinner—noodles and sauerkraut stir-fried with sausage—he explained that Yomei and Lily should stay with his family while they were in Harbin, and that was why he’d taken them here directly. He told them that he knew the unusual relationship between Yomei and Lin Biao. Actually, more than a week prior, Lin Biao had heard about their coming this way and begun talking about his feelings for Yomei, whose imminent arrival seemed to be roiling him. He told his colleagues that he and Yomei had a long-term relationship and he had been expected to marry her. He was with his current wife, Yeh Qun, only because he had not resisted his colleagues’ persuasion stoutly enough. But he had agreed to marry her and had even had two kids with her. Now he insisted that the marriage was a mistake and he wanted to marry Yomei instead.
Li Lisan’s explanation disturbed Yomei, who hoped she and Lily could leave for Yan’an the following day, but their host said that would be rude and might make Lin Biao more agitated. Now the man commanded half a million troops, and the civil war with the Nationalists had just broken out—there was so much at stake that Yomei mustn’t act impulsively and must discuss with him, Li Lisan, what she was going to do before she took any action. From Lisan, Yomei learned there was a theater group in town. At the moment they were preparing to stage some Russian plays in celebration of the October Revolution. He would definitely put Yomei in touch with them. That way, she could stay in the city a couple of days for professional reasons. Meanwhile, they could figure out how to meet with Lin Biao. In any event, she mustn’t steal away without letting the man know and must act politely and reasonably. In other words, she mustn’t do anything to upset Lin Biao, whose emotional state would impact the whole situation of the northeast. In short, their relationship was no longer purely personal, and was already entangled with the political and military situation here. In spite of their bafflement, Yomei and Lily agreed not to rush to Yan’an right away and to stay in Harbin for a few days.
The next morning Li Lisan gave Yomei the address of the local theater group, and after breakfast, she set out there. It was a four-story building off Gogol Avenue. They were rehearsing some plays, and Yomei was eager to see the rehearsal. She persuaded Lily to go with her. Together they took a long stroll downtown.
The city was known as the Far East Moscow. Indeed, it was inhabited by a lot of Russians, and there were also Koreans and Japanese, though the latter were usually dressed like Chinese to avoid being recognized, now that they were citizens of a defeated country who were stranded in Manchuria. Yomei liked the atmosphere of the city, which had Russian influence everywhere. Even some streets were named after Russians, such as Nekrasov, Lomonosov, Horvath, Vladimir, Yeager, Mikhaylov. Churches and synagogues stood on some of Harbin’s streets and plazas here, unlike those in other Chinese cities, and downtown there was even a Saint Sophia’s Cathedral, imposing and onion-domed like the grand churches in Moscow’s Red Square. Yomei and Lily saw flyers in Russian posted on walls and utility poles. They also heard local Chinese toss out Russian words on the streets. This was definitely an interesting city, a metropolis enveloped in an international atmosphere.
The theater group was actually a spoken drama troupe, called the Aurora Borealis Theater Association. Today they were doing a rehearsal of Chekhov’s A Marriage Proposal, a one-act play. They were going to stage a pair of short plays in early November to celebrate the Soviet revolution. One of the pair was A Provincial Lady, which Yomei had seen in Moscow long ago but hadn’t enjoyed that much, partly because there was so much French used in it and she didn’t understand some of the foreign words. To her, Turgenev as a playwright was a bit too elevated in style, operating mainly in the aristocratic stratum. Yomei watched their rehearsal of A Provincial Lady and was appalled, because the Chinese translator hadn’t accounted for the French and Italian embedded in the Russian original at all. Everything was put plainly in Chinese. As a result, the play was not only drastically simplified but also amazingly transparent. Nonetheless, Yomei didn’t interfere with such an adulterated effort and just told the acting group that their rendition was very different from Turgenev’s original play, some parts of which were hard to translate, though those snippets in other languages were essential for representing the culture of the gentry and the well educated. But she did help them with A Marriage Proposal, because she loved Chekhov. She had read the play long ago in the original Russian and had also seen it performed in Moscow. Both she and Lily noticed that the actors here spoke pure and refined Mandarin, which kept their diction clear and elegant, and which also meant they might go far in their acting careers. Yet to Yomei’s surprise, the director of the two plays, a middle-aged man with thin eyes, was an amateur. He introduced himself as Niu Lang, a high-school history teacher. He loved Russian literature and had been asked to direct the pair of plays. Evidently Li Lisan’s office had apprised them of Yomei’s background, so Mr. Niu was delighted to have an expert who could evaluate their work and help them. He sounded warm and sincere, eager to get Yomei involved in their production.
Yet both Yomei and Lily could see that the performance of A Marriage Proposal was somewhat half-baked. The play was a comedy and should be entertaining and funny, but none of the spectators at the rehearsal laughed. Throughout the half hour, the play felt dreary, dragging on lifelessly to the end. Mr. Niu, the director, looked embarrassed, apparently knowing it flopped. “Please help us make it more engaging,” he implored.
“Do you have an extra copy of the translation?” Yomei asked. “I read it only in the original. I need to take a look at the Chinese version.”
“Of course, we have some extra copies,” Mr. Niu said and turned to the actor who played the suitor Lomov. “Young Hong, go get a copy of the script for Yomei. She’s an expert in spoken drama and studied theater arts for seven years in Moscow.”
“I’ll read the play tonight and will come to speak to the cast tomorrow morning,” Yomei told the director.
They all thanked her, pleased to have her diagnose the problem. They seemed to appreciate her straightforward demeanor, which cut to the chase without any preamble. On their way back to Lisa’s house, Lily said she was a tad disappointed with the theater group and that this city looked like a cultural backwoods. But Yomei was excited and said the actors were quite good. In fact, it wasn’t easy to find a group who all spoke refined Mandarin. Also, Lily should keep in mind that Harbin at the moment was the only major city occupied by the CCP’s army. Maybe this might be the place where they could start their careers in China. What she said lifted Lily’s mood.
Yomei’s hunch at the city’s potential was indirectly verified by Lisa. At dinner, she told them that she had visited the Foreign Language School in Daoli district that afternoon and was impressed by its Chinese students, so she decided to live in Harbin with her husband while teaching Russian at that school. “To be candid,” Li Lisan chimed in, “native Russian speakers are badly needed, so Lisa will be invaluable to the school.” He dipped his pork bun into the vinegar saucer and then took a bite.
What they said got Yomei’s mind spinning. She intuited that this place would be much better than Yan’an if she wanted to be an artist in spoken drama. A director had to have her own theater or she couldn’t get anywhere.
That night she read the mimeograph of Chekhov’s play carefully, paying more attention to the dialogue where the characters talk at cross-purposes, and found it so hilarious that she even laughed out loud from time to time. The translation was well done for the most part. She mulled over the troupe’s rehearsal and figured out the problem. To her, the two male actors in the play were fine, but the heroine Natalya was below par. So the next morning, she went to the rehearsal venue alone, since Lily wanted to go with Lisa to visit the Harbin Foreign Language School. Yomei spent most of the morning with the actress, Jin Minju. The slender woman was Yomei’s age, and of Korean descent, but she spoke Mandarin like a native speaker. She and Yomei sat at a rectangular table, together with the director and the other actors. She told Minju, “You acted like a squeamish young lady. That contradicts the role of Natalya in the play, who is neither a daughter of a rich renowned family nor a pretty virtuous girl of humble birth. First, you shouldn’t wear a long white dress like you always stay indoors. Natalya’s mother died long ago and she has to manage the family’s estates, working both inside and outside the house. She even works in the fields with hired hands. You should put on some more peasantlike clothes, to make her appear more experienced in hard work. Maybe she should wear a bun instead of a long braid. Second, in the play she is selfish and greedy and good at running the household, so she must rule the roost. Even her dad must listen to her. The tough life has already worn away all of her ladylike qualities, so let her be loud, willful, truculent like a shrew. She’s so stingy that she wouldn’t even hire a servant and has to do everything by herself. That makes her a capable and strong woman, an old maid few men are interested in. That explains why she goes berserk when she gets to know that Lomov actually came to propose to her, but that she just outraged him and turned him away. So don’t be afraid of letting rip when you’re acting her role. Some large gestures can make her lively and more memorable. By the way, Minju, do you like dogs?”
“Yes, I do.” The actress nodded.
“Have you thought why Natalya is so obsessed with her dog—why her mutt must be superior to any other dog?”
“I’m clueless,” said Minju. “Maybe she just happens to like dogs.”
“Think about Natalya’s life. She lost her mother long ago and must have been lonely ever since her girlhood, so her argument with Lomov about the superiority of her dog, her longtime companion, must be absolutely sincere. Let her act in all earnestness in that part. That might make her funny, pathetic, also sympathetic to the audience.”
“This makes sense,” Minju said, her round eyes full of gratitude.
Mr. Niu put in, “I’m so glad you came to help us, Yomei. I can see you’re a true professional. To be honest, you’re the first Chinese person I have met who can read Chekhov in the Russian. Please help us through the dress rehearsal. You can save us from botching this play. We couldn’t let ourselves go with abandon in the performance partly because we were acting with trepidation, fearful that we might spoil a classical piece.”
Yomei smiled and said, “Actors have to depend on their own inner impulse to perform well. You have to let yourself go because you’re also acting yourself onstage.”
The actors at the table wrote down her remarks. Minju admitted that she was too careful about her own image, afraid that the audience might think of her as a shrew, a wayward harpy. From now on, she would act more freely.
Yomei explained that she wouldn’t be able to see their premiere, having to leave for Yan’an to see her parents soon. But she would try her best to see another rehearsal of theirs and wished them a big success with A Marriage Proposal. They should keep her updated about their progress. She even mentioned that she might consider coming to Harbin to build a theater based on the Stanislavski method, which they’d heard of but didn’t really understand.
That evening some friends appeared at Lisa’s home. They were Liu Yalou, Yang Zhicheng (Grandpa), Zhong Chibing, and Li Tianyou. Like before, the one-legged Chibing was on crutches. They all said they had come to see their old buddies Yomei and Lily. Liu Yalou had changed some—he was stouter but still strapping and more eloquent, even exuding a faint scent of eucalyptus. Over Big Red Robe tea he had brought, they reminisced about their old days in the Soviet Union and had a lot of pleasant memories in spite of the hardship they’d gone through during the war years. Now, the four men were all key generals under Lin Biao, commanding field armies and in charge of major offices. Liu Yalou was more advanced in his career than the others, serving as the chief of the general staff of the CCP’s army in the northeast, as Lin Biao’s right-hand man. He was open about the intention of his visit now, saying Yomei should marry him without further delay, because he was still single, having waited for her all these years. (That was not exactly true. He had divorced his third wife in the Soviet Union before he returned to Manchuria, together with the Russian Red Army that came to fight the Japanese Kwantung Army the previous year. He had been single for just one year.) Yomei didn’t enjoy being hemmed in like this, but she managed to treat them as her friends. To a large extent they were, as they had always been warm and friendly to her and Lily.
Yet their visit disturbed not only the two young women but also the Lis, who realized that Yomei’s presence here made her the object of pursuit by both Lin Biao and Liu Yalou, even though she liked neither of them, so she’d better leave Harbin as soon as possible. Li Lisan was the CCP’s chief liaison officer in the northeast and often rubbed shoulders with Americans. That was why he wore the U.S. military uniform, which made him stand out from his comrades. He told Yomei and Lily that he could arrange a flight for them to Yan’an within two or three days. Yomei was delighted to hear that. But how about that meeting with Lin Biao? asked Lisa. Indeed, her husband agreed, it would be rude to go away without seeing him. No matter what, Yomei mustn’t just pass by Lin Biao’s door without saying hello. Besides, Lin Biao was Li Lisan’s boss and might bear him a grudge if Yomei just ignored him. Lily believed Li Lisan had a good point, and no matter how unpleasant it was, they ought to go see Lin Biao before their departure.