In November of that year, a new president was elected. Roosevelt, who proposed a “New Deal,” defeated Hoover with about 57 percent of the popular vote. He won 472 electoral votes to Hoover’s 59, the largest margin since Lincoln.
Roosevelt intended to replace a laissez-faire economic policy with government intervention. He kept saying, “We must give the people hope.”
Some time passed, and Christmas came around again.
One set of figures in their paper, concerning the unemployed, differed somewhat from what they’d expected. Qin Siyu wanted to speak with people receiving relief to see whether he might discover new problems or gain fresh insights.
He made inquiries and learned there was a relief-distribution site not far from the university.
As it happened, he qualified for assistance himself.
Roosevelt would not take office until the following March. President Hoover strongly opposed giving people direct relief, arguing that it would undermine Americans’ “spirit of striving,” and held Britain up as a cautionary example.
Even so, local governments, charitable organizations, churches, and religious groups were already distributing food on their own.
Qin Siyu had never received relief before and was a little bewildered at first.
Chinatown’s residents had always relied on themselves, and few Chinese Americans sought relief. The CCBA, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, did not support having Chinatown receive relief either, although unemployment had long since surpassed one-third. Recently, however, some Marxists had begun organizing demonstrations demanding public assistance, and the city government had now agreed to provide food and lodging jointly with the CCBA.
Qin Siyu wandered around for quite a while before finally finding the place.
A sign above a canopy read “FREE DOUGHNUTS,” and a long line had formed beneath it.
Many of the people in line were respectably dressed, in overcoats and hats. Their wives, children, and parents believed they were going to work, but in fact they had lost both their jobs and their income long ago. Every day they simply came here to collect free meals and take them home.
There were many children in line as well.
Their parents had sent them. People who had once lived comfortably now had to depend on relief, and their pride made them feel ashamed. Children had not yet developed that kind of pride, or at least not so firmly, so their parents sent them instead.
Many of the children wore innocent smiles and played noisily with one another in the queue.
The traditional American ideal prized struggle and hard work: this was fertile ground where anyone who worked diligently could fulfill their dreams. Now people could only queue for relief, leaving them ashamed, self-reproachful, and consumed by guilt. Only the children remained cheerful and radiant.
Today they were handing out soybean cakes and peanut bread.
Relief provided only calorie-dense foods that would fill the stomach.
Qin Siyu chatted with those around him. Some who had formerly belonged to the employed middle class worried that losing their jobs would make it impossible to maintain their previous insurance coverage. One even suggested different levels of coverage, basic and enhanced. Under an inferior plan, for instance, the drugs might have stronger side effects, but the premiums would be cheaper. At least everyone could avoid dying for the moment.
Qin Siyu wrote down every suggestion.
The line slowly advanced.
A few places ahead of him stood an older Black mother. She seemed to be ill and was standing there weakly, with several children clustered around her.
As their turn drew near, Qin Siyu suddenly sensed that something was wrong.
Several Black people stood off to one side, looking bewilderedly at the line.
The man distributing food was tall and burly. He handed out soybean cakes one after another with mechanical indifference, but whenever a Black person reached him, he invariably acted as though they were invisible, skipping them and giving the cake to the next person.
The Black mother a few places ahead of Qin Siyu was visibly nervous. Sure enough, when her turn came, she was ignored yet again.
Qin Siyu watched the white official handing out relief.
He wore a tie and was impeccably dressed.
The children did not understand at all. They stretched out their hands, gazing eagerly at the food.
Children’s worlds were so simple. They stood there with their necks craned, palms upturned, waiting quietly and intently.
To them, the man was giving out something delicious. He had given some to this person and that person; if they only kept waiting, surely their turn would come.
Everyone should receive one. There should be enough for everybody. That was a rule of the world that simply couldn’t be broken.
And there was peanut butter in it!
The people behind them received food.
So did those farther back.
Several people near the rear began talking. “The people who worked here before weren’t like this. Now… sigh. And this is the only distribution point nearby. If you can’t get anything here, you’ll have to walk another ten blocks.”
Someone else said, “Tomorrow’s Christmas. Why do something like this?”
The first person replied, “I hope next year will be better. Roosevelt supports relief. The federal government will intervene directly. He promised—”
In despair, the Black mother began pulling at her children. “Come on. Let’s go.”
The children looked up at their mother without understanding.
She kept tugging at them. “Let’s go. We’ll come back another day to eat.”
The children began shouting, and then crying. “No!” “I want it!” “I want it!” “You promised us! Tomorrow’s Christmas!”
At first, their mother tried to coax them gently. “They don’t want to give us any. We shouldn’t force them.”
But the children refused to relent. “Yesterday you said we could have some because tomorrow’s Christmas! You said the Lord would give us delicious food!”
At last, their mother broke down. “I thought we’d get some too, but things can go wrong! There’s nothing I can do now! We’re not the center of the world. You can’t always get everything you want, do you understand?! You want this, you want that. All you ever think about is what you want! Can’t you see that I’ve already done everything I can? Can’t you see that I really can’t do anything more?!”
Exhausted and humiliated, with her children blaming and pressuring her one after another, she finally collapsed under the strain.
That was when the commotion began.
Qin Siyu suddenly took two steps forward and strode up to the table. Without hesitating, quick as lightning and before anyone could react, he reached out, seized the relief worker’s tie knot, clenched his teeth, and yanked down with all his might—
With a bang, the man’s chin slammed straight into the hard tabletop!
His teeth rattled violently, and he felt as though his eyeballs might fly right out of his head!
“Aah!” Screams erupted all around. The relief worker sprawled across the table like some bizarre fish. Qin Siyu tightened his grip on the man’s tie knot, bent his head, and pointed toward the minority applicants who had been passed over, especially the Black mother. Fixing the man with his deep black eyes, he said, “Give them peanut bread!”
Still holding the tie, Qin Siyu bent over, stared into the man’s murky gray eyes, and repeated, “Did you hear me? Give them peanut bread!”
* * *
The crowd began stirring. More people joined the demand, calling, “Give them peanut bread!” Those who had been denied food finally received it, and Qin Siyu was taken away.
The white man who had been “victimized” called the police.
Naturally.
Qin Siyu had originally intended to wait until those people got their food, then make a run for it. He could run very fast. Unfortunately, he hadn’t expected several police officers to be keeping order nearby.
He had no choice but to switch to Plan B. Without revealing his name or his university, Qin Siyu simply asked, “Could you notify a classmate of mine?”
The officer looked impatient. “Who?”
“Someone from the Aston family,” Qin Siyu said. “His name is Kingsley Aston… Kingsley Aston.”
* * *
Sure enough, it was Aston who got him out.
Just as he’d thought, Qin Siyu reflected. The two of them knew each other reasonably well, and he’d been locked up only because he was researching their paper. Aston wouldn’t abandon him.
When they met, Aston had both hands in his pockets.
He wore a tie and looked refined and splendidly dressed, as though Qin Siyu had dragged him away from some formal occasion.
Their eyes met. Qin Siyu approached with his head lowered, while Aston’s gaze remained cool and indifferent, as if he were carrying out a routine errand.
“I’m sorry to trouble you again,” Qin Siyu said. “The Black people weren’t getting any food at all. Several children started crying. Apparently the workers before this weren’t like that, but the current ones discriminate against them. Maybe now that a scene’s been made… those children will get peanut bread for Christmas this time. Lots of people couldn’t stand what was happening. Perhaps after today they’ll even replace that fellow.”
At last, Aston raised his eyes to look at him.
Qin Siyu asked, “Was it much trouble getting me out?”
“Not particularly.” Aston’s tone remained matter-of-fact. “I know the police chief.”
Of course people of their class attended the same upper-class gatherings. The political and business elites all knew one another; it would have been stranger if someone of Aston’s standing didn’t know anyone at the police department. The two sides needed to help each other.
So he really did know him. Qin Siyu had guessed correctly again. He smiled. “I still have to apologize.”
“You’ve helped me quite a bit as well.” Aston had no desire to dwell on the subject. He looked Qin Siyu up and down and said, “But—”
“Hmm?”
Aston fixed his eyes on Qin Siyu. “I heard that relief worker was a big man, at least two hundred and fifty pounds. And you actually managed to teach him a lesson?”
Qin Siyu was in a good mood. He smiled. “It was all about strategy.”
“Strategy?”
“Mm.” Qin Siyu curved his lips into a smile. He slipped a finger beneath the knot of Aston’s tie and traced a little circle, then wound his fingertip around the fine silk. Before Aston could react, he hooked the tie and abruptly pulled hard, drawing Aston to within a few centimeters of him. Leaning close and looking straight into his icy-blue eyes, Qin Siyu explained, “I did it like this… grabbed his tie, pulled him down, and smashed his chin against the table.”
Suddenly they were so close that their hair seemed about to touch. Aston could even see his own reflection in Qin Siyu’s dark pupils. Something shifted in his gaze.
Qin Siyu smiled again. “He howled in pain.”
“…” Aston straightened up, took his tie between two fingertips of his right hand, and very slowly drew it out from between Qin Siyu’s fingers, letting it hang against his abdomen again.
Qin Siyu felt only the silk sliding between his fingers, soft and smooth, wonderfully pleasant to the touch.
When the tie finally slipped free, that finger of his even felt a faint sense of emptiness.
“Anyway, thank you,” Qin Siyu said. “I’ll organize what I gathered today when I get back.”
“Do as you like,” Aston said coolly.
Having said that, he remained standing in the doorway.
Aston’s car was parked elsewhere, and his driver was on the way. Qin Siyu didn’t know that. Seeing Aston standing in place, he went over and waved a hand in front of him. “Why aren’t you moving?”
Aston’s eyes moved to his face.
Qin Siyu asked, “Have you been immobilized by an acupoint strike?”
“An acupoint strike?” Aston asked. “What’s that?”
“Well,” Qin Siyu said, “how should I explain it?”
Earlier that year, the author known as the Master of Returning Pearls had begun serializing the wuxia novel Legend of the Swordsmen of the Mountains of Shu in Tianjin’s Tianfeng Bao, sparking a craze for martial-arts fiction. Even the Chinese community in Chinatown was finding ways to read it. Qin Siyu had read a little himself and become hooked.
“You see, Chinese medicine has what we call ‘acupoints,’ or acupuncture points in English, that govern different bodily functions.” Feeling that he wasn’t explaining himself very well, Qin Siyu lifted his chin and touched a finger to his Adam’s apple. “For example, there’s a point here associated with the throat.”
Because he wanted to become a doctor, Qin Siyu had also learned a few things from physicians at Chinese medicine clinics.
Aston watched him.
Qin Siyu’s neck was pale, and his Adam’s apple gently rounded. A little blood and dirt stained the side of his neck where the corner of his mouth had been injured, like cranberries scattered across snow. His fingertip rested against his neck and moved over his Adam’s apple.
Aston’s gaze settled there.
His Adam’s apple was much less prominent than those of Western men, and his skin was smooth and fine.
Qin Siyu slid his fingertip downward from his Adam’s apple toward the front of his waist, watching his own hand. “There are many important acupoints along the midline of the body.”
Aston’s eyes followed Qin Siyu’s finger from his neck to his belt buckle, then lifted to his face. “And what’s an acupoint strike?”
“An acupoint strike…” Demonstrating it on himself would be ridiculous, so Qin Siyu turned his finger toward Aston instead, made an estimate, and finally tapped twice at the center of his sternum through his tie. “This is called the Shanzhong point. It has to do with tightness in the chest.”
“And?” Aston said.
“In martial-arts novels, striking particular acupoints makes the other person lose certain functions.” As he explained, Qin Siyu pressed and twisted his fingertip against that spot so Aston could feel the pressure. “So in a novel, if I pressed here like this, you should start having trouble breathing.”
“…” Feeling the pressure, Aston looked down at Qin Siyu with his icy-blue eyes, raised a hand, grasped Qin Siyu’s wrist, moved it aside, and let it drop.
Qin Siyu laughed. “Anyway, that’s what it means.”
When the two police officers had pinned him to the ground, Qin Siyu had bruised one cheek. Now it was mottled blue and purple, and the corner of his mouth was split. Below it, some blood had been wiped away, leaving a dried stain.
The Cadillac arrived. The driver got out and helped Aston remove his overcoat. With practiced movements, he folded it lengthwise along the back, turned one sleeve inside out, and slipped the other sleeve into it, ensuring the coat wouldn’t get dirty or wrinkled. Finally he hung it carefully over his arm.
Honestly, how fussy can you people get? Qin Siyu thought.
Aston turned back and opened the car door. “Get in.”
“I’d rather not.” Qin Siyu had just witnessed the driver’s elaborate little performance. “I’m not exactly clean, either.”
“Get in. We’re going back to Berkeley.”
Qin Siyu scratched his head, his fingers pattering over his forehead a few times. “…Then thank you again.”
As he spoke, Qin Siyu began brushing the dust off his trousers. The police had made him sit on the ground, and his pants were covered in dirt.
He patted his backside, pulled the seam of his right trouser leg outward with his left hand, twisted to look behind him, and brushed it off with his right hand. Then he switched sides, twisted again, and brushed with his left.
When he was done, he turned his back to Aston. “Am I clean now?”
Aston’s gaze swept from his lower back to his backside. It was clean. “Mm.”
Once in the car, Qin Siyu looked out the window. Catching sight of his own reflection, he seemed to start in surprise and touched his cheek with his fingertips.
Blue and purple all over, as if he were about to go onstage in a Chinese opera.
Aston noticed as well and asked casually, “Does it hurt?”
Before Aston asked, Qin Siyu hadn’t minded at all; he’d hardly even noticed. But people were strange that way. Once someone brought something to your attention, you suddenly became aware of it.
Now his face began to ache faintly.
Qin Siyu was perfectly honest about it. Touching his cheek, he said, “It didn’t seem to hurt at all before, but now that you’ve asked, it seems—”
Aston glanced over. “Hmm?”
Qin Siyu turned toward him, met those icy-blue eyes, and smiled. “Suddenly it does hurt~”