Hard Like Water

by Yan Lianke

  That month, we had originally been waiting for the county to notify us that it was time to make additional disclosures regarding Wang Zhenhai’s capitalist consciousness. Before the end of the month, however, we received a notification that both Wang Zhenhai and Zhao Qing—who had previously served as the Party secretary of Damiao commune and was currently serving as the county’s Party committee deputy secretary—had both been seized one night and sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment (which once again proved the forceful and irreconcilable nature of class struggle). It turns out that Zhao Qing, like Wang Zhenhai, had taken land from a mountain district production brigade and redistributed it to the peasants. (Heavens, to think Wang was exposed by me! I’m not sure whether I’m a deity or a mere mortal, but I heard that Zhao Qing increased his production brigade’s productivity from 220 jin per mu to 450 jin, as a result of which he was promoted to county committee deputy secretary, but I never expected that, like Wang Zhenhai, he had similarly advanced by sacrificing socialist collectivism.) More importantly, even in my wildest dreams, I had never expected that Zhao Xiuyu would also be detained—though in the end she was imprisoned for less than a month, whereupon, following an interrogation session, she proceeded to write a statement that read, “The land distribution had nothing to do with Wang Zhenhai, and instead it was entirely my (immature) decision”—after which she committed suicide. There was also Brigade Leader Li Lin, who I hear was beaten to death by several dozen local villagers in retaliation for his having introduced me and Hongmei to locals who could write us testimonial letters. The villagers believed that had it not been for Li Lin, Hongmei and I would never have learned about the land distribution scheme, and therefore Wang Zhenhai wouldn’t have been seized by the government; Zhao Xiuyu wouldn’t have committed suicide in prison; and their privately owned land wouldn’t have been returned to the communal basket. Instead, Zhao Xiuyu ended up killing herself and Li Lin got beaten to death. What a tragedy—what a heartrending tragedy! This was entirely a product of the peasants’ myopia and narrow-mindedness. It was a tragedy resulting from ignorance caused by isolation and from a lack of awareness of collectivism! However, every time the villagers remembered Zhao Xiuyu, Li Lin, and Old Man Degui and his well-behaved son and daughter-in-law, they inevitably felt heartbroken, as though they themselves were at fault rather than those who had been punished. I resolved that after Hongmei and I were promoted to county head and town mayor, we would definitely grant the Wangjiayu production brigade an extra several thousand jin of returned grain, and we would have people send plenty of fair-price fertilizer to their village. This was the least Hongmei and I could do for Wangjiayu. Although we were a revolutionary couple, we were nevertheless still a pair of humanists. As for Wang Zhenhai and Zhao Qing being sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment, and the possibility that Mayor Wang might be stripped of his Party membership and all his extra-Party affiliations—all this took everyone by surprise, but it fell within a certain revolutionary logic. After all, it is the shared ideal of the state, the nation, the Party, and the People to quickly and economically establish socialism and implement communism. In both the Party and the constitution, it is specified that China’s national character is socialist, and the ultimate objective of the Communist Party is to implement communism. At the same time, the foundation of both socialism and communism is collectivism and the implementation of socialist collective ownership—this is a principle as simple as ants lining up to return to the nest or dogs peeing on the side of the road to remember their way home. However, Wang Zhenhai and Zhao Qing dared to give the state’s land back to individual villagers—and if this isn’t an example of capitalism reinserting itself back into socialism, what is?

  In every district, the town mayors and the commune Party secretaries dared to oppose the state, the nation, and the Party—and if the proletariat isn’t able to establish a dictatorship, then who will be? Is it possible that you haven’t heard the story from the famous play Pagoda Tree Village? Have you not heard the dialogue between Guo Daniang and Cui Zhiguo?

  CUI ZHIGUO: (Laughing.) I’m asking you, what kind of socialism would you call this? Do you have bulldozers? Do you have hydropower stations?

  GUO DANIANG: We have Party leaders and Chairman Mao! As long as our poor and lower-middle peasants are united in spirit, are able to organize together to form good cooperatives, and always follow Chairman Mao, we’ll be able to achieve socialism and communism!

  CUI ZHIGUO: I see that the pursuit of full granaries is one direction we might take, for which we would need to pursue a policy of “three horses and one plow,” doing things alone, and enriching one’s own family. If eighty percent of the peasants in Pagoda

  Tree Village can have three horses and a plow, they would all be able to live very well!

  GUO DANIANG: Where do you get all of these from? If they really do as you describe, then the poor will become even poorer, the rich will become even richer, and the poor and lower-middle peasants will be exploited and need to beg for food. Would that not take us back to the old society? Is that what your father meant?

  CUI ZHIGUO: No, no, no! How could he be at such a high level? This is what a great personage might say, but my father nevertheless would very much agree with this sentiment …

  GUO DANIANG: Ah, so it turns out that this great personage does indeed wear the same pants as landlords and capitalists …

  The work concludes with the commune led by Guo Daniang being completely victorious, and the arrest of Party secretary Deng, who never appeared on stage but continued to maneuver from behind the scenes and insisted on following a capitalist path.

  In the sixth month, heaven’s soldiers punish the corrupt, and they use an endless rope to tie up the legendary roc.

  It is said that when Wang Zhenhai and Zhao Qing redistributed land to the peasants, the county’s county head knew about it and gave them his tacit support. Furthermore, it turned out that the county head, Wang Zhenhai, and Zhao Qing were all demobilized cadres who had fought together in the Korean War and the SinoIndian War. They were war comrades who had fought in the same trenches. How could we prove that they weren’t part of the same anti-revolutionary group? How could we prove that they weren’t trying to overthrow socialist collectives and carry out a capitalist restoration? This surprising and heartening information flashed before us like a lightning bolt. I stared in amazement, absolutely dumbfounded. At that moment I was in the process of eating, and both my mouth and my eyes immediately opened as wide as a bowl. After commiserating with Zhao Xiuyu, Li Lin, Old Man Degui, and the other Wangjiayu villagers, I stood up, faced the sky, and shouted:

  The red flag is lifted up by the west wind

  Today we’ll bind the black dragons

  The path through the forest is slippery with moss

  but finally the wind unfurls the red banners like paintings

  The sun is shining brightly

  The birds are singing loudly

  Gray scholar trees and dark tung trees

  Green elms and tender toon trees

  There are orioles and swallows everywhere

  As well as gurgling streams

  The mountain road enters the clouds

  May I ask where you are going?

  The sparrow replies:

  There is a jeweled palace in the fairy mountain.

  With my back to the blue sky, I look down,

  And what I see is a human world full of city walls.

  2. The Revolution’s Unexpected Success.

  Not long after we uncovered the land distribution scheme, Hongmei and I were picked up in a sedan and taken away. The person who had sent for us was not an ordinary cadre, but Party secretary Guan from the prefectural Party committee, someone who had participated in the Long March and was a political commissar of a military sub-command. He was thin, dark-skinned, and had gray hair, but his eyes sparkled brightly, and he still wore his old military fatigues. By that point, we already knew that something significant had occurred
. Two county cadres whom I didn’t know well suddenly burst into my home as I was eating breakfast and took my bowl. They looked at the corn soup in the bowl and asked, “Are you still drinking this? Let’s go. From now on, you’ll be eating special rations.” I stared at them in bewilderment, whereupon they said, with great familiarity, “The district political leaders will want to speak to you and Xia Hongmei directly. Now that you and she succeeded in seizing an anti-Party and anti-socialist group, they will definitely want to promote you to mayor and to make Xia Hongmei town Party committee secretary.”

  However, we didn’t want to serve only as town mayor and town Party committee secretary. Only when we saw the sedan parked in front of the Cheng Brothers memorial arch did we realize that Director Liu from the county committee’s organizational bureau had come to pick us up. Director Liu was an experienced and steadfast man in his forties, but he was slightly hunchbacked, such that he resembled someone in his fifties. He enthusiastically shook my hand, softly addressing me as “County Head Gao.” Shocked by this form of address, I felt as though I had been struck by a lightning bolt, but I immediately realized what he meant. Another county committee cadre escorted me and Hongmei out of the alley, whereupon Director Liu said very mysteriously, “Get in the car, County Head Gao. Don’t ask any questions. When we reach the county seat, you’ll understand.”

  In this way, we were taken away from Chenggang. We bid farewell to Cheng Temple, to the Cheng Brothers memorial arch, and to the thousands of members of the Chenggang production brigade. We bid farewell to revolution and struggle, war and friendship, enemies and friends, Cheng Qinglin and the masses, streets and alleys, paths and fields, mountains and forests, livestock and dishes, and so forth. I sat in the car’s front seat, while the three others sat in the back. In the rearview mirror, I saw that Hongmei’s face was covered in a sheen of excitement, as though wisps of dawn clouds were hanging over it. At that moment, what I wanted more than anything else was to be able to sit in the back seat, so that I could lean close to her and let our legs touch and our hands discreetly rub together—so as to transmit to each other our excitement and trembling joy. However, I had already been assigned to the front seat, as a result of having been designated a new revolutionary star by the director of the prefectural committee’s organizational department. But was I being appointed full county head, or merely deputy county head? Perhaps only deputy county head, given that I wasn’t even thirty years old, had previously only been a deputy mayor, and my residency permit was still assigned to the Chenggang production brigade. At the end of the day, I was still just a peasant. In normal conversation, people never add the prefix “deputy” when addressing individuals with a deputy appointment, and this fact now caused me considerable agony. The excitement and anxiety of not knowing whether I was a full county head or just a deputy county head—but at the same time not daring to ask anyone—left me so anxious I couldn’t sit still. In order to demonstrate my nature as an extraordinary revolutionary, all I could do was sit there without moving, and it wasn’t until the car passed the underground tomb located eighteen li outside Chenggang, the place where Hongmei and I had madly, crazily made love, that I finally turned toward the window and softly coughed.

  Hongmei coughed twice, as though in response. This sedan—and that was the first time either of us had ridden in one—had indescribably soft seats, and during the ride I wondered countless times whether or not this jet-black sedan would belong to me once I was appointed county head. We drove past the Chenggang production brigade, Hongku commune, Daping commune, the county seat’s old city district, quickly traversing the seventy-nine-li distance and soon arriving at a small courtyard behind the county committee building.

  The courtyard was square, with tile-roofed houses on three sides and two half-open iron gates in the front. When we arrived, rifle-bearing sentries checked the car’s license plate and opened the gates for us. We parked in this small courtyard, with its red-tiled buildings, red walls, and red-brick paving. (It was as if we had fallen into a pool of blood.) Director Liu was the first to get out of the car, and he initially went into one room, then led us into the reception area outside another set of rooms. He respectfully poured us some tea, then invited us to have a seat on a pair of couches. This was the first time either of us had ever sat on a couch, and we were surprised to discover that these seats were even softer than those in the sedan. While seated, we felt as though we were in prison, and wished we could press our butts against the edge of the couch and stand up. Fortunately, Director Liu was busy pouring us tea and didn’t notice. Moreover, what did it mean that the director of the prefectural Party committee organizational bureau was personally pouring us tea? Director Liu placed two cups of tea on the stand in front of us (it was only later that I realized that sort of low, red table was called a tea stand), then said, rather mechanically, “This is the residence of the prefectural Party secretary, who has now relocated to the county seat, and in a little while he’ll come out to speak to you. In the meantime, please have some tea.” Upon saying this, he excused himself and left the room.

  I knew that the Party secretary of the prefectural Party committee was called Guan Mingzheng, but couldn’t believe that he would actually meet with us in person or that the revolution could have generated such an earth-shattering development. All I had done was to make a trip to the Balou Mountains and reveal Wang Zhenhai’s covert act of redistributing land to local households. Our objective had been to remove Wang Zhenhai from office as quickly as possible and in the process lay claim to the power he held. How could we have ever anticipated we would end up exposing the nation’s largest attempt to restore capitalism? How could we have anticipated that this case would end up bringing down the county head? The heat of success arrived prematurely and left us blinded and confused, boiling our innards such that we couldn’t sit still. We were completely unprepared for this premature success, and just as the first time we returned to the Chenggang revolution and displayed infantile symptoms of revolution, this time the success of the revolution propelled us into a disaster.

  After Director Liu left the room, Hongmei and I didn’t dare speak out loud. We stared at each other thirstily, and we each felt that the other’s gazes were like red-hot iron rods in a blacksmith’s furnace that longed to be doused in cold water, just as we each needed to get calm and coolness from each other. We sat on the couches and watched as Director Liu turned around outside the window. Our hands (her left and my right) suddenly grasped each other. Her hand was hot and soft, and it throbbed. The blood flowing through the veins in her fingertips was pounding in my palm, as though a waterfall were pouring onto my hand.

  She said, “Aijun, our revolution has succeeded!”

  I replied, “Do you know what kind of positions we’ll be assigned?”

  She said, “Chenggang’s power will definitely be given to you.”

  I laughed.

  “At the very least, you and I will be promoted to a deputy county-level position!”

  She abruptly pulled her hand back and stared at me coldly.

  I lightened my tone and said, “You may even be promoted to a full county-level position. Our success will then skyrocket!”

  She looked around inside and outside the room, then slowly shook her head, as though she couldn’t believe her eyes.

  I wanted to use Director Liu’s words to prove to her the correctness of my guesses and hypotheses. However, a sound suddenly appeared out of nowhere, like a small piece of wood falling from the table or windowsill. That sound made us both freeze in our tracks. It was only then that we both noticed that there was a door in the wall directly across from us. It was only then that we noticed that, in addition to a pair of couches, a tea table, a desk, a rotary phone, and a face-basin stand with a basin filled with crystal-clear water, there was also a red door covered with a white curtain embroidered with the characters for “serve the people.” The door behind the curtain was closed, and neither of us knew whether the sound we had ju
st heard came from inside or outside the room. We were afraid that Secretary Guan might suddenly show up at the door. We were afraid he might have overheard our discussion and might have observed us surreptitiously holding hands.

  We made an effort to separate our hands and then carefully place our butts back onto the edge of the couches where we had been sitting. Our throats felt dry, but we didn’t dare to drink any of the tea from the cups in front of us. We had a strong urge to strip off our clothes and roll around naked, but at the same time couldn’t bring ourselves to even move to sit closer to one another. We had been told that Secretary Guan was attending a meeting in a conference room, but were afraid he might suddenly walk in through that doorway with the white curtain. So we sat there without moving or saying a word, waiting for Secretary Guan’s arrival as a hot summer day waits for a cool breeze, as China’s endless dark night waits for a bright lamp, or as the dark old society waits for a red sun to rise in the east. Time resembled water accumulated behind a sluice, and our anxiety was like an ant running around on a hot skillet. It was oppressively hot inside the room, and there was the faint smell of red paint. Motes of dust were dancing in the sunlight that entered through the window and the doorway. We felt we could hear them knocking against one another and could see their shadows flitting across the floor like tiny black butterflies. We could detect a fragrance that Secretary Guan had scattered around, a crisp floral scent that wafted in all directions. Time became increasingly sluggish (I resolved that after I was appointed county head, I would live in this courtyard, in this apartment), and the air became increasingly warm and sultry (I wondered whether Hongmei and I should get married once the revolution achieved another enormous success). The specks of dust in my eyes multiplied, and the room’s reddish-gold light became increasingly dim (I thought how nice it would be if, at this moment, Hongmei and I could hide out in an uninhabited ravine somewhere in the Balou Mountains). The room’s fragrance increasingly came to resemble a mixture of morning grass, warm horse manure, and boiling meat (I thought that if I had been in Chenggang at that moment, I definitely would have Hongmei strip and dance naked in front of me). We were simultaneously bored and cautious—we wanted to drink but didn’t dare touch the cups in front of us; we wanted to cool off but didn’t dare touch the buttons on our clothes; we wanted to do that thing, but we didn’t dare hold hands. We desperately wanted to find something to do (such as read a newspaper or study a document) and to find an appropriate topic to discuss (such as recent international developments or the Party Central Committee’s new directives). I let my gaze stray from the tea stand to the desk, where I noticed that there was a large copy of Reference News under the phone. When I stood up to get the volume, a ten-centimeter color photograph slipped out. I picked it up and looked at it, and saw that it was a picture of a middle-aged female soldier. She was wearing glasses and a brimless hat, and appeared both friendly and stern, as though she were peering down at something. At the bottom of that photograph, meanwhile, there was a note that read: “My beloved wife!”