The Seventh Day

by Yu Hua

  In this, his first-ever interrogation, Zhang Gang was in no mood to be lenient. This fake prostitute was not only failing to be humble and meek, but even had the gall to display the supercilious pride Zhang Gang had thought only instructors at the police academy possessed. Zhang Gang was already seething with righteous indignation, and now, when police custody was compared to a sewer, his patience was pushed beyond its limits. He raised his boot and planted a vicious kick in Li’s groin. Li clutched his groin and screamed in pain, rolling around on the floor for minutes on end. “My balls!” he cried. “You’ve crushed my balls!”

  Zhang Gang was unimpressed. “What do you need your balls for, in the first place?”

  Li was held in custody for fifteen days, and after his release he began what was to become three years of protests. At the start he would appear at the main entrance to the public security bureau every day without fail, rain or shine, gripping a handwritten sign that read “Give me back that pair of balls!” To make clear that these appendages were not just ornamental but had practical application, he would emphasize to passersby that he used his earnings to sleep with call girls.

  Someone pointed out that it was rather crude to write the word “balls” on the sign. He cheerfully accepted this correction, changing it to read “Give me back that pair of testicles!”

  “See, I’m using cultured language,” he explained to passersby.

  Li’s prolonged protest created an enormous headache for the public security bureau director and his deputies. It was a real nuisance to see Li holding his sign up outside the front gate every day, especially when their superiors dropped in for an inspection and inquired, “What’s all this about testicles?”

  After holding a meeting to discuss what to do, the director and his deputies transferred Zhang Gang out of the bureau and into a local police station. Li and his testicular complaint followed him there. A year later, it was the police station commander and deputy commanders’ turn to squeal, and they got into the habit of running over to the public security bureau at least a couple of times a week to pour out their woes and present gifts to the bureau chief and his deputies, claiming that it was impossible for their station to operate normally. The chief and his deputies showed due solicitude for their subordinates’ predicament, transferring Zhang Gang to the detention center, where he was soon followed by Li and his “pair of testicles.” After two years of tearing their hair out, the detention center’s chief and deputies brought their story before the bureau chief and his deputies, reporting that every day that pair of testicles was hanging around outside their office, destroying all semblance of legal dignity. They had put up with this for a full two years, they said, and it was high time the “pair of testicles” were moved somewhere else. The bureau chief and his deputies agreed that the detention center had really had a hard time of it and that Li and his “pair of testicles” indeed ought to find an alternative home. But there wasn’t a single police station that was willing to accept Zhang Gang, for everyone was aware that the minute he arrived, so would his unsightly shadow.

  Zhang Gang knew that the detention center wanted to get rid of him and that no police station would take him. For his part he was not keen on staying in the detention center, so he went to see the public security bureau chief and applied to transfer back to the bureau. After hearing him out, the bureau chief found that one scene kept coming back to haunt him—that of a “pair of testicles” hanging around there at all hours. He thought things over briefly and asked Zhang Gang if he’d considered changing his profession. Zhang Gang asked what he had in mind. The chief proposed that he resign and open a little shop or something. Once he was no longer a policeman, the chief suggested, that “pair of testicles” might well get off his back. Zhang Gang smiled thinly and told the chief he had only two choices ahead of him: one was to kill Li and be done with it; the other was to stand outside the front door, next to the other protestor, and hold up a sign demanding he be allowed to return to the public security bureau. Tears welled up in his eyes as he spoke. The chief sympathized with Zhang Gang’s situation and in any case was about to retire, and once retired he wouldn’t care in the least if that “pair of testicles” loitered outside the entrance. He rose to his feet, walked up to Zhang Gang, and patted him on the shoulder. “Come on back,” he said.

  So Zhang Gang returned to the bureau, but Li, strangely, failed to follow him. Even after Zhang Gang had been working in the bureau for a month, people in other departments still assumed he was just visiting. Why was he always coming by the bureau, they wondered—what had happened over at the detention center? He had been transferred back, Zhang Gang told them. They were amazed, asking why they hadn’t seen that “pair of testicles” at the entrance. The bureau chief and his deputies found this startling too, for that matter, and once during a meeting a deputy chief blurted out, “How come those testicles are not there at the entrance any more?”

  Even in their absence, Zhang Gang remained on tenterhooks, and at the beginning and end of every workday his eyes were inevitably drawn to the entrance. Only when he was certain that Li had not appeared was his mind put at rest. At first he was concerned that Li might simply be ill, and that as soon as he recovered he would again come and loiter outside the building. But three months passed, then six, and there was still no sign of that “pair of testicles.” Zhang Gang breathed a sigh of relief, feeling at last he could focus on work and resume normal life once more.

  It was over a year before Li reappeared, by which time everyone in the bureau had completely forgotten about him. This time he no longer held up a sign that read “Give me back that pair of testicles!” but strode in with a black bag on his back. The guard at the entrance noticed a figure brush past as a van was leaving the compound, and he barked out a challenge. The visitor answered without turning his head, “I’ve got business.”

  “Come and sign in,” the guard called.

  But by then Li was already inside the main building. In the hallway he asked a policeman where he’d find Zhang Gang. After answering his inquiry, the policeman began to sense there was something familiar about this visitor, but didn’t make the connection to the notorious “pair of testicles” of four years earlier. Li didn’t take the elevator, fearing he might be recognized, and took the stairs up to the fifth floor. When he entered room 503, there were four policemen sitting there. Li recognized Zhang Gang immediately and opened his black bag as he approached. “Zhang Gang,” he said.

  Zhang Gang raised his head from the file he was writing in and recognized Li. As he looked at him in confusion, Li pulled out a long knife from his bag and slashed Zhang Gang’s neck. A jet of blood spurted out, and Zhang Gang put a hand to the wound, leaning back weakly into his seat. He hardly had time to groan before Li plunged the knife into his chest. Only now did the other three policemen react, charging at Li, who pulled the knife out of Zhang Gang’s chest and flailed out at his attackers. They could only use their arms to defend themselves and were soon gashed and bleeding heavily. Fleeing to the corridor, they cried, “Help! There’s a killer!”

  The fifth floor of the public security bureau was thrown into chaos. Swathed in blood and panting heavily, Li slashed away at anyone within reach. Policemen rushed to the scene from other floors, and it was only when twenty of them set on Li with electric cattle prods that they managed to subdue him. By that time he was leaning against a wall and too weak to put up further resistance.

  Zhang Gang died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Li was executed six months later.

  This case immediately made headline news. Everyone was talking about it, saying how the police like to throw their weight around, but when it comes down to it they are all useless, even a man who’s got no balls can slash one of them to death so easily and wound another nine, two seriously. If it had been a crowd of men with balls, they could surely have massacred the entire public security bureau. Hearing these comments, the policemen refused to concede they were at fault, arguing that had t
hey known Li planned to kill people they would have overwhelmed him from the start. People who arrive at the public security bureau with backpacks are normally there to deliver bribes, one policeman pointed out—who could have known that this guy would pull out a knife, rather than a gift?

  For over ten years Zhang Gang’s parents made efforts to see that their son was awarded the title of “martyr.” The city public security bureau objected to this, on the grounds that Zhang Gang did not die in the line of duty. His parents then embarked on a long petitioning effort, appealing first to the provincial public security bureau, then taking things up to the public security ministry in Beijing. The city public security bureau was driven to distraction by the parents’ campaign. One year, as China’s two major political congresses were being held in Beijing, Zhang Gang’s parents unfurled a banner in Tiananmen Square, demanding that their son be recognized posthumously as a martyr. The authorities in Beijing were infuriated, and they subjected their colleagues in the provincial and city public security bureaus to scathing criticism. The city public security bureau changed its tack, submitting a request that Zhang Gang be awarded martyr status. The provincial authorities passed this request on to Beijing, but were stonewalled. Zhang Gang’s parents persisted in their appeals, making a particular point of boarding a train to Beijing when the two big meetings of the Communist Party Congress were in session, but they would always be intercepted en route, then held in custody in one small hotel or another and not released until the meetings were over. Once the story of Zhang Gang’s parents’ petitioning campaign was publicized on the Internet, the city stopped sending agents to intercept and detain them, and changed its tactics. During every sensitive period when the meetings were in session or the Party Congress was on, they would send people to escort Zhang Gang’s parents on sightseeing excursions instead. Every year, the parents ended up enjoying the kind of expense account tourism that only Party leaders normally get to enjoy. After all this fruitless petitioning, their despair gave way to a taste for novelty, and every time a sensitive date approached, they would make a point of asking what famous scenic spot remained to be seen, meaning they would like to go and see it. The city government was at its wits’ end—it was said that it must have spent a million yuan on Zhang Gang’s parents during these ten years.

  I was searching for my father among the throngs of skeletal people. I had the uplifting sensation that he had left traces here, even if those traces were as faint as the distant call of a departing goose. Surely I would discern the marks he had left, just as one feels the movement of a breeze as it ruffles one’s hair. I knew that I might not be able to recognize my father even if he was standing in front of me, but he would be able to recognize me at a glance. I would make my way toward the skeletal people—sometimes a large crowd, sometimes a small clump—and stand before them as though on display, hoping that one among them would call me by my name.

  I knew that such a voice would sound foreign to my ears, just as Li Qing’s greeting had sounded unfamiliar. But I would be able to distinguish my father’s call just from his tone. In the world that had left me, there had always been an intimate note to my father’s greeting, and in this new world that should remain unchanged.

  Here there roamed everywhere the figures of those who had no graves. Denied a place of rest, these figures were like trees in motion—sometimes scattered, disconnected trees, sometimes dense stands of timber. When I walked among them, it was as though I were wending my way through a well-managed forest. I was looking forward to hearing the sound of my father’s voice, ahead of me or behind me, to the left or the right. I was looking forward to that call of “Yang Fei!”

  Often I would run into people wearing black armbands. With the black gauze fastened in place, their sleeves seemed empty. The absence of skin and flesh told me these people must have been here a long time. They would look at me and smile—a smile conveyed not by facial expression but through their vacant eyes. It was a smile of understanding, because we were all in the same boat. In the other world no one would wear a black armband on our behalf—we were all grieving for ourselves.

  One such self-mourner noticed my searching look. He stood in front of me and I gazed at his bony face. There was a little hole in his forehead. He greeted me in a friendly fashion.

  “Are you looking for someone?” he asked. “Or for several people?”

  “Just one,” I said. “My father. He may be here.”

  “Your father?”

  “Yang Jinbiao is his name.”

  “Names don’t mean anything here.”

  “He was in his sixties—”

  “It’s impossible to tell people’s ages here.”

  I looked at the skeletons walking in the distance and close by, and it was true that one couldn’t tell how old they were. My eyes could distinguish only tall and short, wide and narrow, and my ears could differentiate only male and female, old and young.

  Recalling how debilitated my father had become in his final days, I added further details: “He’s five foot seven, very thin—”

  “Everyone here is thin.”

  Looking at these people who were all so thin that only their bones were left, I didn’t know how further to describe my father.

  “Do you remember what he was wearing when he came over?” he asked.

  “A railroad uniform,” I told him. “A brand-new railroad uniform.”

  “How long ago was it that he came over?”

  “It’s been over a year now.”

  “I’ve seen people in other kinds of uniform, but nobody wearing a railroad uniform.”

  “Maybe somebody else has noticed him.”

  “I’ve been here a long time. If I haven’t seen him, nobody else will have, either.”

  “Maybe he changed his clothes.”

  “A lot of people do change before coming here, it’s true.”

  “I feel he must be here somewhere.”

  “If you can’t find him, he may have gone to the burial ground.”

  “He has no grave.”

  “If he has no grave, then he should be here.”

  As I wandered here and there in search of my father, I found myself once more approaching the two avid chess players. They sat cross-legged on the grass, as concentrated as two statues. Their bodies were completely motionless, and it was just their hands that continually gestured, as though making moves. I saw neither board nor chess pieces, just their hands moving forward and back or side to side, and I couldn’t tell whether the game they were playing was Chinese chess or Go.

  One skeleton’s hand had just put down a piece, only to raise it again immediately. Two skeletal hands immediately clasped that skeletal hand, and their owner shouted, “You can’t retract your move!”

  The owner of the single hand cried out, “But you just retracted a move yourself.”

  “I retracted that move because you did that before.”

  “I did that because you retracted your previous move.”

  “I retracted that previous move because yesterday you retracted moves.”

  “Yesterday it was you who retracted a move first—that was why I did it.”

  “The day before yesterday it was you who started it.”

  “Well, who started it the day before that?”

  The two of them kept up an endless wrangle, accusing each other of retracting moves and tracing their adversary’s history of such misdeeds farther and farther back into the past, from days to months and from months to years.

  “I can’t let you take back that move,” the owner of two of the hands cried. “I’m about to win.”

  “No, I’m taking back that move,” the owner of the one hand cried.

  “I’m not playing with you anymore.”

  “I’m not playing with you, either.”

  “I’m never going to play with you again.”

  “I’ve been wanting to stop playing with you for ages.”

  “Let me tell you something: I’m leaving. I’m
going to get cremated tomorrow and then go off to my burial ground.”

  “I’ve been meaning to get cremated for ages now—can’t wait to get to my burial ground!”

  I interrupted their bickering. “I know your story.”

  “Everyone here knows our story,” one of them said.

  “Newcomers maybe don’t,” the other said.

  “Even if they don’t, our story is still kicking ass.”

  “Or, to put it more delicately, our story is the talk of the town.”

  “I know about your friendship too,” I said.

  “Friendship?”

  The two of them chortled.

  “What’s friendship?” one asked the other.

  “Haven’t a clue,” the other said.

  Laughing away, they raised their heads, and two pairs of cavernous eyes looked at me. “You’re a newbie, are you?” one of them asked.

  “He came with that cute girl,” the other said, before I had time to reply.

  The two skeletons lowered their heads and with a titter resumed their game. It was as though they had never been arguing, as though neither of them had ever taken back a move.

  After playing for a little while, one of them raised his head. “Do you know what board game we’re playing?”

  I glanced at the movements of their hands. “Chinese chess.”

  “Wrong. It’s Go.”

  Soon the other one turned to me. “Now you know what we’re playing, right?”