Snake Apple

By Xiao Zi

"What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?" (Luke 9:25)

I was still in high school when I got to know Lengzhi. I was enrolled in the top high school of the Province, and Lengzhi was one of my classmates.

It was a boarding school located in a shabby suburban area. The only place on the campus with a hot water supply was a long way from our dorm. At that time we were all about fifteen or sixteen years old, and on winter days none of us could be bothered going over there to fetch hot water for a bath, so we would settle for bathing in cold water. Taking a cold-water bath might make you feel really warm afterwards, but the real challenge was taking that first splash of cold water, this demanded a lot of nerve. As our nerve could fail pretty quickly we started depending on one another. We would go to the bathroom in pairs. After stripping, we would stand face to face, then, shouting One, Two, Three! we would shut our eyes and dash the ice-cold water over each other. On those freezing days, through our screams, Lengzhi and I became quite good friends.

Lengzhi had the kind of feminine physique I most admired - slim build, delicate long hair down over her shoulders, luminous eyes, nose and mouth. Her natural beauty reminded me of a water-color painting. Our school was known as 999 because 99.9% of the students in the school would go on to college. Our school uniform became a symbol of high prestige. Lengzhi should have felt really lucky being able to attend such a famous school as well as being one of the best looking girls there. But actually she was not really very happy because her academic grades were only about average. She had always had high expectations of herself and she was never satisfied with being less than the best. She never invited her classmates back home. It was not until we knew each other really well that she told me that her parents were just ordinary workers and also that she had a brother who was mentally retarded. The family's whole future seemed to be on her shoulders. With this background, it was easier to understand the high expectations she had of herself. There were often tensions between us. If I got a higher test score than she did, she would ignore me for a couple of days, in spite of the fact that normally my test scores could not match hers. When she got better scores were than I did, she would cheerfully invite me to eat with her in the cafeteria. I didn't really mind all this. I was very unsure of myself and needed an assertive friend like her as my bulwark. And in that respect Lengzhi never disappointed me. In our junior year, I achieved a certain reputation in writing and composition and our teacher encouraged me to run a small literary publication. But actually I was only an idealist who might be able to put together a few lines of poetry under the mosquito net but could not possibly handle practical tasks like promoting literary writings, let alone editing and publishing. One month after I started the job I was already thinking about resigning. Lengzhi, however, passed me a note in class and on the note she wrote: "You silly thing, how can you ever achieve anything if you're not willing to extend yourself?" Both the note and the expression on her face left a deep impression on me.

After high school, we both went on to the same college and soon we were even assigned to the same class. Lengzhi had become a very mature young woman, who no longer worried about test scores. Instead, she was aiming to display her true abilities on a much broader and more complex scale. At that time I was in love, and so was she. I was taking my romance very seriously and it took up a lot of my time, my energy and my tears. By contrast her affair was much easier and much more glamorous too. Her boy friend was the most handsome and talented guy in the entire department. He was not only her prince at dancing parties, he also helped her write her thesis. She announced that she and her boyfriend had agreed from the very beginning that their dating relationship would only be effective up till graduation. After that they would each go their own way and not get in one another's hair. In addition to this official boyfriend, there were plenty of others around her willing to be her protectors. Once she found favor in the eyes of the farm manager and this took on an importance for all the students as every girl in the department got a free fried egg every morning for a whole month. In consequence Lengzhi's influence extended right through the department.

After graduation she got a job in the financial world and I continued my studies at school. For the first couple of years I didn't hear anything from her. Every time I tried to arrange a get-together, she would always say she was too busy. I knew she was probably working hard again. I didn't blame her because I knew how hard a rookie has to fight to survive.

But eventually, two years after we left school, I received her invitation to her birthday party. The party was in a high-class hotel. Lengzhi, wearing a modern hairstyle and a close-fitting dress, displayed elaborate jewelry around her bare neck. According to the party host, Lengzhi had been promoted to be acting general manager of a foreign company with a handsome 5-digit monthly income. A lot of the people at her party were her business acquaintances. In their rich makeup and gorgeous dresses, they looked like characters from Thackeray's Vanity Fair. As for me, just a graduate student in casual clothes, with unshaved legs and old socks, in this setting I must have seemed like some rare creature in an exhibition.

"Still in school? You are going to become an old maid. Come on, quit school and I'll find a job for you." Lengzhi laughingly offered.

I didn't know what to say. I thought back nostalgically to how we used to help splash cold water over each other in the bathroom. But I wasn't really certain whether my melancholy was due to her worldliness or my own conservatism.

That was the darkest year of my life. I found no peace from my books, yet I did not want to get immersed in the corrupt society around me. I seemed to have lost my goals in life. At one point I even tried to commit suicide.

But that was also the year when I was fortunate enough to come to know God.

Jesus gave me a limitless horizon, a horizon of freedom and love. My heart experienced a complete transformation, so did my life. Lengzhi seemed to notice the difference in me, though she remained aloof. Then after another year of God doing wonderful things in my life, I met my ideal lover, a tall handsome Englishman who was also an active Christian. For some years I had been skeptical about love and marriage, but at last I found myself as part of a joyous marriage relationship bathed in God's love.

This time Lengzhi could bear it no longer. She called and asked me if I could introduce her to my friends.

I said certainly, and invited her out to lunch. I knew she would rather have boys around her, so I invited a couple of the church brothers to join us.

A couple of days later Brother Chen called me and asked: "Do you know Miss Lengzhi well?"

"Why? What happened?" I asked.

After lunch that day, Lengzhi had asked Brother Chen to walk her to the station. When a taxi came along she refused to take it but instead she offered to buy him a drink. She also asked him a lot of strange questions.

"Your friend must be pretty lonely and unhappy to talk so much to a man she had only just met." observed Brother Chen.

His words surprised me. I had always thought of Lengzhi as having the outlook on life of a successful entrepreneur, not as someone who was in need of the peace and joy that comes from God.

I called her straight away and asked her frankly: "Lengzhi, tell me. Have you really been happy these last few years?"

My question seemed to trigger an intuitive defense.

"Of course I'm happy! You guys are all crazy!" Before I had a chance to ask any more questions, she hung up.

Some time later, I attended a party with my former classmates, not a very frequent happening. Many of us did not know each other well, but I knew some of them worked for Lengzhi. From their casual conversation I learned that Lengzhi had had enough money to start a business of her own, but instead she had become a rich man's mistress.

"She is smart. I bet she'll have got rid of him in a couple of years."

"True, but who would want to marry her after that?"

"Well, that's hard to say. There are plenty of wealthy idiots out there..."

Here were these former friends gossiping about her as if they were discussing a low-class Hong Kong movie star.

Once again I was silent.

Two years later I was about to go abroad with my husband. I went to Lengzhi's office to say goodbye to her.

Her office was decorated with shiny sliding doors and a soft carpet. Lengzhi was sitting behind a huge plastic plant, and the whole scene looked like a poster for a modern feminist movie.

I tried to say something intimate, but I failed. Lengzhi was too far away from me now. Her heart was no longer open to me.

As I was on my way out, she picked up a bag of fruit from her desk and gave it to me.

That year, one of the most popular fruit was snake apples, also known as California apples from America. They were big, red and very attractive.

My mother used the apples to serve to her guests. But later she complained, "Where did you get those expensive apples? They looked good, but they were all rotten on the inside."

My brother added: "Sister would never have bought these herself. Someone must have given them to her as a present and they must have been somebody else's present prior to that."

Suddenly I remembered that the name snake apple came from the story of the Garden of Eden in the Bible. The Snake tempted Eve and she became enchanted with the fruit; it was good for food and pleasing to the eyes. California apples were bright and attractive so they were honored with the nickname snake apples.

God created all things for mankind to care for and enjoy. Mankind, however, were so taken up with their own material possessions that they turned away from God. They failed to distinguish God's eternal glory from their idols. No wonder our lives have turned into a nightmare!

Lust, vanity and pride. They are just like these shiny apples that dazzle our eyes so that we fail to see God's richness and to enter into God's rest.

Paul said in the Bible: "Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be mastered by anything." How rich God's blessings are!

How I long that Lengzhi might find true wisdom and true peace in Christ.

The author came from Shanghai. She earned a Master's degree in English Literature. She now lives in England as a full-time mother.