Riding the Iron Rooster

The train pulled in, steaming and gasping, just as the sun came up. It had come from Dalian, 600 miles away, and it stopped everywhere. So it was sensationally littered with garbage—peanut shells, apple cores, chewed chicken bones, orange peels and greasy paper. It was very dirty and it was so cold inside the spit had frozen on the floor into misshapen yellow-green medallions of ice. The covering between coaches was a snow tunnel, the frost on the windows was an inch thick, the doors had no locks and so they banged and thumped as a freezing draft rushed through the carriages. It was the Heilongjiang experience: I crept in out of the cold, and once inside I felt even colder. I found a small space and sat hunched over like everyone else, with my hat and gloves on. I was reading Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time and I scribbled on the flyleaf, In the provinces every train is like a troop train. This is like one returning from the front, with the sick and wounded.

Even with three pairs of socks and thermal-lined boots my feet were cold; nor did I feel particularly cozy in my heavy sweater, Mongolian sheepskin vest and leather coat. I felt like an idiot in my hat and fleece-lined mittens, but it annoyed me that I was still cold, or at least not warm. How I longed for the summer trains of the south and the sweltering trip on The Iron Rooster, when I had lounged in my blue pajamas.

Mr. Tian said, "You come from which city in the States?"

"Near Boston."

"Lexington is near Boston," Mr. Tian said.

"How did you know that?"

"I studied American history in middle school. All Chinese study it."

"So you know about our war of liberation, Mr. Tian?"

"Yes. There was also a Paul who was very important."

"Paul Revere."

"Exactly," Mr. Tian said. "He told the peasants that the British were coming."

"Not just the peasants. He told everyone—the peasants, the landlords, the capitalist-roaders, The Stinking Ninth, the minorities and the slaves."

"I think you're joking, especially about the slaves."

"No. Some of the slaves fought on the British side. They were promised their freedom if the British won. After the British surrendered, these blacks were sent to Canada."

"I didn't read about that," Mr. Tian said, as the door blew open.

"I'm cold," I said.

"I'm too hot," Mr. Tian said.

The cold put me to sleep. I was wakened later by Mr. Tian, who asked me whether I wanted to have breakfast. I thought some food might warm me up so I said yes.

There was frost on the dining-car windows, ice on the dining-car floor, and a bottle of water on my table had frozen and burst. My fingers were too cold to hold any chopsticks. I hunched over with my hands up my sleeves.

"What food do they have?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"Do you want noodles?" I asked.

"Anything but noodles," Mr. Tian said.

The waiter brought us cold noodles, cold pickled onions, diced Spam that looked like a shredded beach toy, and cold but very tasty black fungus—a specialty of the province. Mr. Tian ate his noodles. It was the Chinese way. Even if it was not to your taste, when there was nothing else on the menu, you ate it.

"What is that music?" I asked. A tune was playing over the train's loudspeaker. I had heard it before, on other trains.

"It is called, The Fifteenth Moon,'" Mr. Tian said.

I asked him to explain the incomprehensible words. It was about a soldier who was fighting on the Vietnamese border—just south of where I had taken the train in Yunnan. The soldier was married, but his wife was not with him. And yet the soldier thought about his wife a great deal and realized that he was fighting for her—he was triumphant and heroic because she inspired him. That was a change. A few years ago he would have been fighting for Chairman Mao. It made a little more sense to fight for your spouse and the sentiment was that of "Keep the Home Fires Burning."

"I like this song, but I don't like Chinese music," Mr. Tian said.

"What do you like?" I asked, abandoning my chopsticks and eating the black fungus with my fingers.

"Beethoven. The Ninth Symphony. And I like this."

Mr. Tian opened his mouth and a crowlike complaining came out of it.

Ah goon Scamba Fey!

Party say roomee tie!

Renmanbee da warn hoo-day...

"The tune's familiar," I said. But I could not place it. He was staring at me, challenging me to remember. I said, "I give up."

After a while he told me that it was "Scarborough Fair," sung by his favorite musicians, Simon and Garfunkel. They were very popular at Harbin University and "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was a much-coveted tape.