by Andrew Kwong
Most of the youths were taken aback, but the militia leader took over again. ‘Repent and we may reduce your punishment. Fuck your mother,’ he growled at Baba, his voice barely broken. He then tilted his head towards Chairman Mao’s portrait on our grey brick wall, showing that Baba’s words meant nothing to him.
Baba shook his head again and lowered his gaze back to the terracotta floor. He must have been aware of how frightened we were, and how futile it was to reason with the pubescent gang, let alone deny their accusations. Now a prisoner of the people, he had been banished to the lowest caste in the never-ending proletariat revolution.
By now the cold light of the broken dawn had begun filtering into the house. Our cousins were awake, and Sixth Aunt was comforting them. Yiu-hoi and Ah-ki’s parents were away, working in different towns. Tenants gathered around and neighbours congregated outside the front gate to see who had been arrested. Among them were Ah-dong and the other children, including Earring – the new kid who had just moved into the street. They were stunned as we all were. Arrests were common, but knowing that my father had already been to re-education camps several times since the PRC had been proclaimed, they were surprised that he was being persecuted further.
It was a shock to the household – except for Choi-lin, who took over the scene with confidence. She kept the tenants and neighbours from blocking the front door and hindering the officers as they filed in and out of the big house. Choi-lin then approached Baba while the guards looked on, as if she was one of their members. They didn’t interfere. We all knew she was a dedicated worker for the Party, a promising young comrade.
‘It’s time to repent,’ she said to Baba. ‘The people will forgive you.’
Baba kept his head down and made no response.
I recalled the many questions Choi-lin had asked us kids about Baba and Mama, and the uncles I hardly knew, while offering us lollies. I’d wondered why she was so interested in us.
Mama had stopped shaking and was still holding us close. She didn’t look at Choi-lin.
The young woman tried a few more times to draw a reaction from Baba, but he didn’t give her anything. She huffed and straightened herself above him, then mumbled something to the leader before marching out of the house, lips tight and face pale.
*
That morning I watched the People’s Militia officers carry their shiny weapons with pride, looking solemn, tough and authoritative. Their uniforms were patched, but oh, how they prized them. I had prized them too: I’d always dearly wanted to be part of Chairman Mao’s revolution and to wear that uniform when I grew up. But now my father had been arrested, I only felt pangs of hurt, and humiliation – it was clear now that Baba was definitely not a secret agent for the Party.
Some of the officers left our house, soon returning with shovels and hoes. They began digging up the tiled floor of our room, then sifted through the underlying sand to look for weapons they claimed Baba had hidden. He just looked on with quiet resignation and said to us in a strained voice, ‘You have nothing to fear. Just be good children for your mother and study hard, very hard.’
He mentioned Chairman Mao, raising his voice with reverence for his captors to hear, trying to let them know that he wasn’t a spiteful counter-revolutionary. But they ignored him. Their leader paced up and down the sitting room, wearing an angry expression as he drew hard on a Red Flag cigarette.
I can’t recall all the words of wisdom Baba tried to pass on that day. His look of determination was etched in my memory forever, though, together with his desperate wish that we must all aim for an education.
Mama lit a cigarette and held it to his lips. The rope around his neck was so tight that veins bulged each time he drew a puff. She said nothing to him. They seemed to have accepted their fate as they submitted themselves to the authorities. The charge of counterrevolution meant the prospect of the most severe punishment from the People’s Court.
Officers started pulling out our belongings and carefully examining each item. Mama looked on helplessly. I saw fear swirl in her eyes. As she began to attend to our breakfast – the usual watery rice porridge – she was in tears. We kids didn’t want to eat; we wanted to stay close to Baba, who was still tied to the rosewood chair. A few young guards stood over him, solemn as ever, as their comrades extended their search to the whole house. They took away family photographs and old letters, and left the living quarters in a mess.
Baba told us to go to school and assured us that he’d still be at home when we returned. Mama agreed. She was feeding him breakfast with a spoon as the guards looked on.
With much reluctance, we went off to school. People stood outside their doors and stared at us, whispering after we walked past. Some sighed to express their sympathy for the family they had known for generations. A few bolder ones shook their heads to object to what had happened, and bowed to us. No one was bold enough to speak up.
*
Baba’s arrest was on my mind all day – the longest and worst of my life. I worried about how I’d be treated as the son of the latest black element in town. Maybe other kids wouldn’t ever play with me again; instead they’d taunt me with all kinds of awful names. I also worried about never earning my Red Scarf. And I’d never become a Party member as all my schoolmates would.
But worst of all were the thoughts of the public sentencing meetings that could condemn my father to be shot at Pig Head Hill or sent to a labour camp far from home for a long, long time. This idea sickened me and seized me with such terror that I lost control of my bladder again. I was ill all day.
Everyone at school seemed to be talking about us. I heard many unpleasant stories about my family – things I’d never heard before. My sisters were crying. No one dared to sympathise with us because to do so would have been counter-revolutionary.
The dream I’d long cherished of my father being on a secret mission for the revolution had collapsed into ruins around me. I felt naked before the whole town.
Finally the noon lunchbreak arrived. My sisters and I hurried home among the midday crowds of schoolchildren, pedestrians and cyclists. How we hoped we would find our father at home.
On the highest point of Come Happiness Bridge, we saw Baba and the arrest party heading towards us. A chill closed around me like a steel jacket, paralysing me.
Baba was being marched away at gunpoint on the other side of the road. The militia leader walked a few steps behind, holding the end of the rope tied around my father’s neck. Baba mostly kept his head down, but from time to time he looked up as if hoping to see us among the lunchbreak crowds. He spotted us almost at the moment we saw him.
Ignoring scores of cyclists rushing about, we ran across the road. My sisters held on to Baba’s legs, and I threw myself at his feet. We wept without shame. He couldn’t bend over because the rope around his neck was choking him, so he lowered himself to his knees to be close to us. Tears rolled down his face.
At that moment I was no longer embarrassed about my father. I no longer cared what other children thought about me. I wouldn’t even have cared if I was never awarded a Red Scarf. I didn’t want that Liberation Army uniform. I only wanted Baba to be with us.
We clung to him, oblivious to the people around us. Some neighbours sobbed quietly but with their heads half-bowed, a flash of silent protest in their eyes.
Wailing, my sisters and I kept a tight grip on Baba. He made us promise to study hard and to be good, useful people. A distinctive scar in the middle of his forehead didn’t mar the handsome face of a man in his prime. What’s more, there wasn’t a trace of fear in his eyes. His strength reached us in a way that nobody else could have detected. Passers-by paid little attention: arrests were a common sight and people tended to mind their own business for fear of attracting attention from the authorities. We were isolated in our grief, but in that instant, as a family, we were also united forever.
‘Get a good education and never stop learning,’ he reminded us once more. ‘Keep your heads high, an
d don’t be afraid—’
The militia leader pulled on the rope, and Baba choked.
The officers then prised us from Baba as he struggled to finish his goodbyes. They dragged him away, leaving us howling on top of Come Happiness Bridge. Loudspeakers on the street corners blared out Chairman Mao’s message: ‘The revolution has not completely succeeded yet. Comrades, we all have to continue to work hard for its final triumph.’
*
I didn’t want to shout slogans or sing and dance to revolutionary songs anymore.
In the months that followed Baba’s arrest, I had even more trouble sleeping. I often woke from a restless night filled with fear and hopelessness. Rather than staying in bed tossing and turning, I’d slip out of the house in the early hours to sit on the levee wall.
Time and again I was seized by such a state of terror that I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to be dead. At other times I would try to capture a last twinkle of hope in the stars, wishing they would keep me company a bit longer in the dark. But every dawn I was disappointed when they faded.
CHAPTER 6
What exactly was Baba’s crime? I didn’t know, and I couldn’t understand. I asked myself, Doesn’t my family deserve to be part of the new China we’re all so proud of? Aren’t we all equal, as Chairman Mao tells us every day? Aren’t we one people like brothers under the Party? Why do we have to eradicate people so that the revolution can go on? I had many questions but no answers, and no one else to ask.
My teachers, knowing I was at a crossroads, tried to bolster my revolutionary spirit and guide me back to the true path. In morning political studies they repeated Chairman Mao’s words to me, but I was unable to recite them with enthusiasm. Unimpressed, they stood me in front of the class and said I was the son of the latest counter-revolutionary in town; they explained how family classifications could undermine a child’s desire to be a true follower of the Party, and how to overcome that. ‘This is the triumph of people’s vigilance under Chairman Mao,’ the class teacher told the children.
When this didn’t pull me out of my despondency, both teachers and schoolmates began telling me to wake up, and be strong and bold enough to denounce my father and his crime. ‘You must have courage to eliminate even your own parents for the sake of the revolution,’ Comrade Teacher Wong said to me every day. But I loved my parents, and the thought of betraying them never entered my mind. I lowered my gaze, wouldn’t look anybody in the eye and sought solace in my own self.
On the streets some of the schoolchildren treated me and my sisters worse than beggars, and some of our friends stopped playing with us. A few nasty ones called us names. Ying and Ping often cried at school, and Weng was also sad, but too young to understand what was going on. I sat by myself and avoided others. I couldn’t pay attention in class.
One day my sadness turned to anger, and I decided to fight three of the bullies. They were boys from a nearby street who wouldn’t stop taunting us. That day, I replaced the books in my schoolbag with pieces of rock as big as peaches. As my sisters and I were crossing Come Happiness Bridge, the three boys appeared as usual, and began to tease us and call us names. ‘Son and daughters of a counter-revolutionary, see you on Pig Head Hill,’ they jeered.
When we didn’t respond, one of them rubbed a handful of sand into Weng’s hair and said, ‘Here’s something for you, capitalist piggie.’
Weng cried. The boys laughed. They followed us and kept yelling. Frightened for their own political safety, the adults on the street dared not interfere.
With rocks in my hands, I charged at the boys. They were stunned and ran off, but soon returned, threatening to beat us up. I threw a rock at the boy who’d assaulted Weng. Blood ran down his face. He cried in pain. The others ran away, for good this time.
The injured boy’s father complained to the head of our street committee, who came to our house and demanded I be taught a lesson. ‘I’m not leaving until you show me this brat is punished,’ he snarled at Mama. ‘That poor boy will carry a scar on his forehead forever.’ The Street Committee Member stayed on to watch Mama discipline me.
She grabbed my wrist and hit me with a fallen gum-tree branch that I’d collected for firewood on Come Happiness Road. Her eyes were shut, but I could see pain on her face. She beat me hard, as if releasing her pent-up sorrow and anger all at once. I screamed. But she didn’t stop until the stick broke into pieces.
That evening when she was attending to my bruises and welts, she wept more. ‘Sorry, my son, I’m so sorry.’ Mama couldn’t stop sobbing as she took me into her arms.
It was the first and only time she beat one of her children.
Although Mama and I suffered for my standing up to the bullies, that was the last time those boys annoyed us. Other children also moderated their teasing, and looked on from a distance as my sisters and I walked to and from school holding hands.
*
While Baba was in prison awaiting trial, the District Head made frequent visits to see Mama, who had to be available. He wanted to make sure her political thinking was unchanged, and to urge her to take a stand against her husband. The odour of the District Head’s cigarettes always heralded his entry into our home. A bulge under his patched army uniform made us suspect he wore a revolver, the type of gun often carried by comrades in town.
‘Help your husband to admit he is a counter-revolutionary,’ he said to Mama in the stern manner of comrades with authority. ‘Help him to plead guilty for his crime against our Motherland. Help him to beg for mercy from the People’s Court.’
In a timid voice Mama mumbled, ‘If he didn’t do any of those things, what has he got to admit to the People’s Court?’
‘Confess that he is a counter-revolutionary in hiding!’ he shouted at her.
The District Head usually spoke to Mama in a strident official tone that frightened us children. But other times he tried to seem understanding and even friendly towards her. On those occasions he wore a silly grin that I hated, and which Ying said nauseated her – those yellow teeth and shifty eyes. Ping agreed.
One day he tried to whisper in Mama’s ear while they stood in our family’s shared room. I looked up at them from my homework. Oh, how I hated him drooling over Mama. I went over and held on to her. She folded her arms across her chest and tightened her grip on the lapel of her worker’s jacket. Together we edged away from the patched army uniform. I stared up at him, but Mama kept her head bowed, not daring to meet his gaze.
Every time he came to our house, the District Head delivered the same advice. And with her head lowered, my mother gave the same reply. I could feel her quiet strength as she resisted. He would become impatient, pacing inside our room and hissing at us, before marching out of the house without humming ‘The East Is Red’.
*
My mother had lost her smile; a frown took over her once pretty face. Not even the mail carrying our regular allowance from Hong Kong made her beam anymore. Whenever I was at home with her, I listened to her moans and sighs from morning to night. She wept in her bed as I wept in mine. I tried not to be too loud so that she couldn’t hear me – I didn’t want my sadness to make her more miserable. On my mind was the constant fear that she might kill herself, like those unhappy people in Hong Kong. Before I could let myself fall asleep I listened to her breathing to make sure she was still alive.
From as early as I could remember, suicides had been common in town, and the old lychee tree not far from our house was a popular location for hangings in the night. We would never forget how two bodies were recovered one morning. My sisters, my cousin Yiu-hoi, my friends Ah-dong and Earring and I walked to school on the opposite side of the road to the tree, hurrying in case ghosts were following us. I had visions of my mother hanging from its thick, sprawling branches. I was also petrified that she might throw herself into a well, or the nearby Nine Meanders River or off Come Happiness Bridge. I ran home from school every day and was relieved to find her there, even though she always wore t
he same expressionless face.
During Baba’s imprisonment in town she visited him every week, taking him food, personal items and, most importantly, letters from his kids, as we weren’t allowed to visit him. He loved our letters and always asked how we were doing at school. He sent messages back, urging us to study hard and never to stop learning. Mama told us that though his hair had turned grey, his spirit was still strong. But each visit left her more drained and shrivelled. She could barely lift her eyes to look at us, and when she did all I saw were tears trickling down her face. It would take a few days for her to gather enough courage to visit him again.
Mama had to attend evening re-education meetings designed for spouses and families of the accused while they awaited trial. The prisoners’ loved ones had to be prepared to denounce them before they were presented to the People’s Court.
I went with Mama to keep her company. In the hall of the Wonder River Primary School nearby, everyone sat quietly on little stools they’d brought with them as the District Head and his committee members repeatedly encouraged the audience to be bold and patriotic, and to have the courage to stand up and denounce any criminals in their family or friendship circle. He frequently quoted Chairman Mao’s assertion that the revolution was not a dinner party but ‘an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another’. Occasionally someone stood up to criticise a loved one, while the District Head and his committee members would be busy taking notes for future reference.
Mama told us that Baba, too, had to attend evening political sessions, although his were held after a long day’s hard labour while he waited for his hearing. Each prisoner was routinely put through interrogations until they agreed to the confession prepared for them, which would become evidence in their trial. Baba’s interrogators kept him awake for three days and nights in one grilling session; he was so exhausted that he admitted to whatever allegations they put in front of him, except for being a counter-revolutionary.