世新中文 ‧ 中國文學名著英譯選讀教室

PAN QIJUN (1918-)

Abacus

Translates by Susan Wan Dolling

In my childhood days, the only “mechanical toy” I had was an abacus. It was an old abacus my uncle Ah Rong used for rent-collecting, which he gave to me when he bought himself a new one. I tied a string onto my abacus and, every morning, turned it upside down and pulled it along the concrete floor, pretending it was a train. The passengers on my train were Poetry Primer, Handbook on Womanly Virtues, Mencius, and a roly-poly man. When my train reached the study, it was time for my lessons. Thus, I drove my train slowly, taking as many unnecessary detours as I could. The beads on the abacus jumped up and down as it bumped along the not-too-smooth concrete floor, and my roly-poly man jumped up and down on the beads. The familiar lines from Poetry Primer rolled off my tongue,

Waking to Spring’s early morning chatter :

Birds, everywhere, calling to each other—

as I worried about my tutor’s fury when he discovered that I had not thoroughly memorized his assignments for me from the Womanly Virtues and from Mencius. I remember one time, as I was trying hard to recite the passage that began, “When Mencius met King Hui of Liang,” stumbling over King Hui of Liang twice, and before the third King Hui of Liang left my lips, my tutor’s redwood tea coaster had already landed on my forehead, cutting into my brow, leave a great, blue welt there. I bit my lip and held back the tears, knowing full well that once the tears started they would never stop and, consequently, my tutor would refuse to tell me stories at the end of my lesson period. On the other hand, I knew that if I learned my lessons well my tutor would be pleased with me and might even choose to show me how to do subtractions on the abacus. I had already learned how to do additions from my mother. She taught me a little ditty that ran, "one up for one, two up for two, three up plus five down minus two, four out of six forward one to ten" and so forth until we reached a hundred. Mother wanted me to master the abacus so I could help her do the housekeeping accounts, but I was not at all interested in keeping accounts.

I placed my huge abacus on the desk and, every time I finished reciting a passage, pushed one bead forward. On the way back, I brushed my fingertip past Mr. Roly-Poly and gave him a nudge, sending him rocking from side to side, Mr. Roly-Poly with his big, friendly smile. Then I, too, would sway from side to side together with him as I recited my lessons out loud, and when he stopped I’d stop to give him another push and start him up again. In this way, I kept myself awake to memorize the lessons. But, once my tutor's back was turned, I would play my abacus chess game, moving six beads from the left to the right and another six from the right to the left. I was the winner and I was the loser both. When this game started to make me feel lonely, I switched over to another game, turning the abacus upside down to make it into a boat. Folding up a paper table and two chairs, I made Mr. Roly-Poly captain of the ship. It wasn't a great game this, pushing my paper toys back and forth on my abacus boat, but it sure beat composition and calligraphy exercises. I wondered what my big brother in Beiping [Beijing] was up to. He must have a whole lot of different kinds of toys to play with. When he came home he might bring me a toy train and a toy boat that sent up real smoke, and a brand new roly-poly man, much prettier than the one I had, and a doll with real eyes that could open and close. In his letter he told me he was going to bring me a bright and shiny abacus, a little brass one, one that our Dad had given him on his tenth birthday; he polished it with brass polish to keep it shiny.

But my big brother never came home, and the old abacus remained my only toy. One time, Fifth Uncle was reciting Su Dongpo's prose-poem “Red Cliff” before our tutor. He turned the Red Cliff back to front by mixing up the verses. Our tutor reached for the rod, but since my abacus was closer at hand, he grabbed it and flung it at Fifth Uncle, who had already hid himself under his desk, and the abacus landed on the floor with its frame cracked open and its beads rolling off in all directions. Fifth Uncle stuck his tongue out at me from under the desk, and I burst into a torrent of tears. Our tutor pulled a long face and said sternly, “What’s there to cry about? I’ll just get it fixed for you, that’s all!” Though he kept up the appearance of a stern taskmaster, my tutor was really fond of me. Two days later he brought home a brand new abacus for me, a very pretty one from town, one with the redwood frame and ox-horn beads. He said:”That old abacus of yours is too far gone. I brought you a new one. You practice hard and learn how to use it well so you won’t be making mistakes when your turn comes to keep house.” I wasn’t going to keep house! Just take a look at mother, how hard she had to work, slaving away in the kitchen all day long, no time even to go watch the shows at the village temple. Besides, I had no use for sums and calculations. Who cared how much ten piculs of rice cost and how much that made a hundred piculs of rice? My abacus was a toy. I found a little sucking kitten and pulled it around on my abacus; she fell and got up again, fell and got up again; Uncle Ah Rong said that a kitten who could get up again after falling down was called a tiger cat. Unfortunately, my tutor called what I did cruelty to animals, scolded me, and took away my new abacus, locking it up in his drawer. Just as well. I didn't want to learn how to count beads anyway. I went back to playing with my old abacus, which Uncle Ah Rong had tied back up for me.

Later on, we moved to Hangzhou; Mother didn't let me bring that old abacus along. In the Hangzhou department stores were all kinds of new toys I had never even seen before. But by then I was already in middle school and considered all grown up; since no one volunteered to buy me toys any more, I couldn't ask even though I wanted to, so I put it out of my mind. There was just that one time when, in a glass showcase at this place called Merchandise Display, I saw the most elegant little brass abacus. Its bright, sparkling beads revived in my mind that other little abacus that was promised me by my brother. That other one must have been just as lovely as this one. I couldn't take my eyes off of it and finally asked the salesman behind the counter to take it out for me. I stroked the pearly bright, smooth beads, before he returned it to the showcase. The next day, I was there again. This row of shops called Merchandise Display was situated on the ground floor of a rickety, rundown building, with empty, echoey corridors running every which way. Like the rest of the stores here, this brassware shop too was dusty and deserted for lack of business. I, alone, stood there admiring the miniature candlesticks, little incense pots and water pipes, all made of brass, but the loveliest of them all was the little abacus. The cold and damp seeping through the empty corridors brought back to me the feeling of utter loneliness I experienced as a child, playing all by myself with my abacus, back in our hometown. If only my big brother hadn't died, I thought, I wouldn't have been left all alone, so lonely, and that brass abacus would have been mine by now; from out of the blue, my eyes overflowed with tears. I walked home, wrapped in my loneliness. In the end, I didn’t petition any grownup to buy me that brass abacus, and, on my third visit, it had been bought by somebody else.

    Thinking back my earliest childhood all through middle age, I could claim no affinity with numbers. Nevertheless, the abacus remained a favorite of mine; to me, it remained forever a lovely toy with movably parts. Whenever I was left alone at my desk, I would finger the beads on the abacus and listen to the clickety-clicking sound they made and, often, to while away the lonely hours, I would find myself playing that abacus chess game. Often, too, I’d be counting off from one to a hundred on the abacus with that ditty my mother taught me. I considered myself lucky for not having to deal with numbers for all my twenty years as a government clerk. But the wheel of life's fortunes is not under one's own control. How could I have dreamed that in my very last year in government service I would be assigned to audit accounts? Every day then, I went to work with abacus in hand, counting up sums amounting to hundreds of thousands, even millions, one by one, from the squares in the accounting books to the beads on the abacus and back again from the beads to the squares. Additions I did in the same way my mother had taught me; subtractions were done by my tutor's method. One mistake in the adding or subtracting, and everything was thrown off, and the whole thing had to be done all over again from the beginning. Credits, Debits, Vouchers, Checks, and whatnot whirled before my eyes and round and round my head, bringing to mind mother's hard work and Uncle Ah Rong's kindly attentions. Now that I myself need reading glasses to help my old eyes see, I can no longer hope to get away with reciting Mencius to the rocking rhythm of my roly-poly man, nor take my abacus for a train or a boat ride like I used to do as a child. Besides, everyone who is born into this world must work and take on responsibilities. How can I alone be exempt and do only those things I choose to do?

Luckily for me, I had worked for enough years to opt for voluntary retirement before I had to learn how to multiply and divide on the abacus. On the day of my retirement, I sat before my desk fingering the heavy beads on the abacus at the office. Slowly, heavily, the image of that child, dragging a old abacus with a roly-poly man jumping on it as it slid along the uneven concrete floor, and the child standing before that Merchandise Display glass showcase gazing at a little, shiny brass abacus, drifted before me. Decades, brightness and shadows, years flown by, how can one keep count? Sitting before this "official abacus" I had found so confining just yesterday, I now felt such affection for it that I found it hard to leave it behind.

1969