by R Yang
Unlike Wen, the others had parents who were high-ranking officials. Even though at the time some of them were in trouble, they all seemed to have old comrades-in-arms who were willing to help. Thus at first the seven big flies left the village on home leave. Later they joined the army elsewhere. By and by their hukou was transferred from Regiment 36 to their new army units. A few years later, when they were demobilized, they could go back to Beijing. The policy had always been that a demobilized soldier returned to his native place.
How I envied them! Secretly, of course. The method they used was called "curving back to the city." To use it, there were two conditions one must meet. First, the person's parents must have "iron buddies" in the army who could open a back door for an old friend's child. Second, the person had better be a man. The army did not welcome women.
Too bad for me! I was not a man; nor did my parents have friends in the army. Yuan, who was my best friend at the time, was more fortunate. Her father was a high-ranking officer who had been in the Long March. But even he could not get Yuan into the army. Thus Yuan was forced to take another path that turned out to be a shortcut. It led her straight back to Beijing.
The method Yuan used involved politics that I did not quite understand at the time. Seeing that the majority of Party members at Cold Spring were still those who had been in Zhao's inner circle, Yuan first advocated the idea of rehabilitating Zhao. It immediately made her popular among the local Party members. Never mind how the ordinary villagers might have felt about this. Their opinions did not count. Yuan was clear about this from the very start.
Before long she became the first Party member recruited from educated youths. After that she worked even harder and vowed that she would stay in the Great Northern Wilderness throughout her life. With tears in her eyes and speaking in the name of all the revolutionary martyrs, she sounded so sincere that I was touched. Secretly I felt really ashamed of myself.
Later she was recommended by the local Party organization to go to college. This was done in the name of the poor peasants, even though the poor peasants had no say in this matter. Not just any college, either: she was assigned to go to Beijing Foreign Language Institute, while others were sent to local agricultural, mining, and metallurgical schools. At the time I thought Yuan was really lucky. For she had told me that when she was in middle school, her dream was to go to Beijing Foreign Language Institute and be a diplomat in the future. Now her dream had come true.
It was only months after Yuan left the village that I learned from others that luck had nothing to do with it. Yuan and her father had the whole thing figured out. While Yuan was beating her breast and vowing to take roots in the Great Northern Wilderness, her father was busy pulling strings for her at a lot of different places. Perfect timing. Flawless tactics. A lot of guanxi. Everything worked out as they had planned. Hearing this, I had a hard time believing that Yuan could lie like that to me, her "best friend." Because of this, I despised her! At the same time she amazed me. By fooling me, she taught me a big lesson on "materialistic dialectics," that is, the more earnestly an educated youth swore that she would never leave the countryside, the faster she was liable to go away from it.
Knowing this in theory was no help for me, though. I just could not bring myself to lie like that. Nor would I go to the local leaders with gifts and honeyed words, much less "dedicate my body" to some of them. "Sick return"? Too bad I was healthy. Even those who were really sick, like Liu, who had rheumatic heart disease, and those who got hepatitis A or B on the farm, could not get permission to go back. "Family difficulty return"? As my parents were not in Beijing, that would not help me either.
Thus for me, the situation seemed hopeless. Some thoughts and questions that churned in my head in those days found their way into my diary:
At the age of twenty-one I am stuck in the bog, wasting my time day after day. All opportunities are lost. Doors are shut in my face. My life has just started. Yet it is already over. Like a wild goose with broken wings, I can only watch others fly into the horizon. I am water in a shallow pond, unable to flow anywhere. All this happened to me because I had a dream. It was a beautiful dream. It was a fatal mistake. When I woke up from it, I found myself in a nightmare that had no exit. If this is my fate, why? It is not fair! What have I done to deserve it?
This passage from my diary later got me into trouble. Yan, the political instructor, thought I was brewing rebellion. Actually when I wrote this, I was wondering about yinguo (causes and results). For centuries people had believed that everything in every life happened for a reason, which might reach back to previous existences. Though people often failed to see the causes of their reward and punishment, heaven knew them all and hell kept detailed records of their behavior. Thus there was the saying, "The net of heaven has large mesh, but it lets nothing through."
And heaven and hell never made mistakes. So the villagers at Cold Spring believed. I found it out when thunder struck our dormitory during a storm. Out of the thirty women who lived in it, five fell to the ground. They lost consciousness. Their backs were slightly burned. They were "rushed" to the hospital, where in a few days they all recovered.
While these women were in hospital, the villagers gossiped about them. Many insisted they must have done bad things. Even though people never found them out, heaven had eyes. Thus the thunderbolt was baoying (retribution) from the fathomless blue. It struck the guilty ones alone. The crimes they had committed were written on their backs in a heavenly language ordinary human beings could not comprehend ...
When I first heard this, I was outraged. This was what I would call "adding insult to injury." How could the local people be so superstitious? It was unfair and cruel for them to say such things! But there was no way to convince them. Especially a month later when they found out that one of the five victims had indeed done something bad. That is, a few days before the thunderstorm she said she was going to Hulin, the county seat. Hearing this, a friend of hers asked her to send money home for her at the post office. The family never received the money. Later the friend made inquiries and the woman confessed that instead of sending the money, she had used it and lied about it. Afterwards she paid the money back.
"See! That is what we meant! Baoying is always fair and just! Always! Now tell us you don't believe it!" The villagers with whom I had argued before were triumphant.
"Of course not! This was merely a coincidence!"
Even though I would never agree with the villagers on this, I guess I was influenced by them. Or maybe the belief of yinguo had been planted in my soul a thousand years before. It was a heritage from my ancestors. Thus in 1972, day and night my thoughts hovered around a reason that might explain why I was so unfortunate. Perhaps I had offended some Taoist deities.
In 1966, who masterminded the raid to drive the Taoists down the sacred mountain? I did. At that time, didn't the local people tell me that the deities at Mount Hua had worked miracles? If they were angry at me for depriving them of joss sticks, candles, and sacrifice from their priests and worshipers, I'm afraid I'll be doomed for many reincarnations to come.
Once my mind was on this track, there was no end to it. Old memories flooded back. In darkness, I saw vividly the Taoists with long white beards paying their last homage to the temples where they had lived for decades. They walked down the mountain road, looking back. Local Red Guards kicked them from behind. Their sorrowful eyes blamed me silently ... Whose eyes were those? The elderly homeowner was looking at the flowers we had crushed. Others were looking at the food they were unable to finish at the restaurants. Their faces were sweaty. Their eyes pleaded for mercy. I had no mercy in my heart. All I had were malice and self-righteousness.
But these were not the worst memories. What about that song I ordered our teachers to sing when I was guarding the cow shed?
The singing I seemed to hear again, in the stillness of the night. The teachers' voices were trembling and faltering. The singing carried so much grief, it was more like moan
ing and wailing. It should have broken my heart. Yet apparently I didn't have a heart. Proud of my status as a Red Guard, glad of the power I had over them, I ordered them to sing the song once more.
I also remembered the day we went to put up my dazibao at Teacher Lin's home. The room was dark, even though it was broad daylight outside. We had just pasted the long dazibao not only on the walls but also over the only window as a punishment for her. Teacher Lin and her family stood in a corner. Squeezed together, they tried to get out of our way. There were five of them, if I remembered correctly: Lin, her husband (who was also a teacher at for), two small children who were probably not in elementary school yet, and Lin's old mother. At the time they all looked very frightened. The old woman was trembling and the kids did not dare to cry ...
On that day I saw with my own eyes that Teacher Lin's home con sisted of only one room. Aside from the beds, it could not even hold two desks. No living room. No bathroom. No kitchen. No running water. No central heating ... Three generations were living together. Two teachers had to share one small desk ... I saw these, but I paid no attention. Because on that day, my mind was set on revenge. My revenge! How could I be so selfish? Teacher Lin's life was not easy and I made it even harder. So perhaps I deserved what I got and it had nothing to do with the deities?
After some time, even that disgusting "rapist" whom we beat to death in Guangzhou came back to haunt me. Was he really a rapist? Maybe he had the intention, but he certainly had not raped any of us. Even a convicted rapist may not get a death sentence. So what right did we have to take the law into our own hands and beat him to death? He was a man, after all. Maybe he had parents to support? Maybe he had a wife and children too? Would they ever find out what happened to him after he vanished through the chimney of the crematorium that night? Perhaps today they are still waiting for him to come back?
Was I thinking of the beating before I fell asleep? Or was I thinking of a trip I made to Hulin in winter? I had a strange dream one night.
I was walking on a snow-covered plain. The sun had just set. I was in a hurry. I must get back to the village before dark. Then it was dark. The village was nowhere to be seen. Fortunately on that night the wind was calm and the moon was very bright. The surface of the snow had been hardened by a blizzard. Under the weight of my foot it slowly gave way with a crunch. A second later, my foot touched solid ground. Then another crunch, solid ground again. I pressed on.
I took another step. The snow gave way. But under it, there was no ground. Before I had time to react, I slammed into a hole half a person deep. Shocked and cursing mothers, I climbed out. Dusted off the snow all over me and picked up my fur hat. I started walking again. But before long, I fell into another pit.
Then it dawned on me that I had strayed off the road and gotten to Little Southern Hill. (The summer before we had dug holes here to plant apple trees. But for some reason the saplings never arrived. Then winter came. Snow filled up the holes. On the surface, all was smooth and flat. Underneath, pitfalls.) So I was not far from the village. Yet I did not dare move my feet. At the moment, I was the only person left in the world. Around me the ice and snow glittered in the moonlight like so many diamonds.
Helplessly I looked up. The moon was disappearing. A white screen came up. It was not a screen. It was dense fog and it was churning violently. The fog advanced. Suddenly, I heard a woman's voice from it. It said: "Zhang Heihei. Zhang Heihei. Zhang Heihei . . . " I woke up hearing the voice ringing in the air.
Zhang Heihei? Who was Zhang Heihei? Don't think I know anybody with such a weird name. But, wait! The name does ring a bell. Have I heard it somewhere? How come I don't remember?
The name made me uneasy. It seemed ominous. Yet I felt it was a revelation of some sort. I wanted to get to the bottom of it. So for several days, I kept the search signal flashing at the back of my mind. Then one night when I woke up at three o'clock, suddenly the rusty gate of my memory opened.
Zhang Heihei. Of course I know her! She was a schoolmate of mine. We were in the same grade, not in the same class. But how much do I really know about her? Before that night in 1966, we had never met, and afterwards I never heard about her again. We were strangers "met as drifting duckweed in a river. " But that one night! How could I possibly forget?
On that night, the weather was very hot and stuffy. A thunderstorm was in the making. In a small room on campus that used to be a teacher's office, seven of us stood in a semicircle. We were a Red Guard Fighting Team. At the moment, we were interrogating a suspect who had been "arrested" by her classmates the day before. The suspect was a rather pale and thin girl of medium stature. Straight short hair. A simple white blouse and blue pants. She stood in the middle of the room. She was talking nonstop in a shrill voice.
"I am Zhang Heihei! My father is Zhang Laohei! My mother is Zhang Dahei! My younger brother is Zhang Xiaohei! We are a black family! Our home is a black den! I am the dog child of a capitalist! My father, my mother, me and my younger brother. We are all dogs! We are all black! . . . "
Hei means black, so the personal names she made up for herself and her family were Black Black, Old Black, Big Black, and Small Black.
Hearing her words, a Red Guard slowly unbuckled her belt. The iron buckle flashed in the air. It drew a curve and landed on Zhang Heihei's bare arm with a thud. The skin was cut open. Blood oozed out.
"Zhang Heihei!"
Black Black. Her voice grew louder. It sounded like a challenge to us.
"She must be a real counterrevolutionary!" I thought. "How dare she call herself Zhang Heihei?" My fellow Red Guards seemed to be thinking along the same lines. At the time China was engulfed in a turbulent red storm. Everybody was either a Red Guard, a Little Red Soldier, or a Red Rebel. Chairman Mao was our red commander in chief. We called ourselves "his little red devils." We read and quoted his little red book. Wore his red buttons on our chests. Red flags. Red armbands. Red blood. Red hearts ... We could not tolerate anyone who was of a different color. Peach was guilty. Yellow was criminal. Black and white were definitely counterrevolutionary!
So we all unbuckled our belts. As Red Guards, we could not possibly let her get away with this. Red Guards hated class enemies. We wouldn't handle them with care! The next moment, we were thrashing her.
"Zhang Heihei!"
"Zhang Heihei!!"
"Zhang Heihei!!!"
Each time one of us hit her, she would yell "Zhang Heihei," as if it were a punctuation mark. Her voice had become so shrill, to me it was no longer a human voice. It sounded like a piece of chalk scraping against a glass blackboard. It made my hair stand on end.
Her voice was a whip, with which she drove us to beat her. For as long as she was yelling "Zhang Heihei," we could not stop. We had to beat her into submission. It was impossible to beat her into submission! We had no mercy. She had no mercy. Willpower against willpower. We gave her no break. She would not let us off the hook. After a while we were all drenched in sweat and Zhang Heihei was soaked in blood. Her face, arms, and shoulders were covered with wounds. Black, blue, purple, and red. It was a heart-startling sight!
Yet Zhang Heihei did not seem to feel the pain. Nor was she afraid of us in the least. Utterly fearless, she was like a heroine in a revolutionary movie. Actually she was no heroine. She was schizophrenic. A doctor told us this the next day. But the night before, the idea did not occur to any of us. On the previous day Zhang Heihei had been "arrested" as a suspected counterrevolutionary. Her classmates handed her over to us for a trial and we judged her guilty.
Looking back on this incident six years later, I realized that I was put on trial too that night. Am I a hero or a coward? Am I loyal to Chairman Mao or sympathetic to a class enemy? These questions I had to answer with my action, not with empty words. Other Red Guards were watching me. I was watching others. We were witnesses and judges for one another. I could not afford to let others see my weaknesses. Thus the more uncomfortable and scared I felt, the harder I thrashed Zhang Heihei.
Uncomfortable and scared. That was how I felt. I wouldn't admit it then. But I can admit it now. The whole thing happened like a nightmare to me. I was caught in it. No way to escape. I was matched against others. I knew I lacked class feelings. I was hesitant. I was inferior. A ghost lived inside me. It made my heart skip a beat when the iron buckle of my belt hit Zhang Heihei. Later it wiped out the memory from my mind until I wanted to remember.
Now I think of it, the ghost had been put into me early on by Aunty's stories. Later it drank the music Father loved, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Mozart ... and fed on the literature I read, Cao Xuegin, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Hugo ... On that night it was trying to tell me: What you are doing is wrong! It is terrible! How can you lift up your hand against a helpless girl who is your schoolmate? Shame on you! Are you crazy? ... I did not want to listen to it. I did not have the courage to listen to it. Instead I tried to beat it into silence. So I was a coward after all. A hero should have the guts to say Stop!
Besides, was it just discomfort and fear I felt when I beat Zhang Heihei? Nothing else? Now the judge is no other but my own conscience, I ought to be more honest. Perhaps the beating and the blood stirred up something deep down inside me? I was thrilled in spite of the ghost's voice. Torture, death, agony, ecstasy, orgasm ... In the past, I had dreamed about these. I was obsessed. Then I had a chance to carry them out and whatever I did was justified. The wildfire burning in my heart had a good name: class hatred. The stronger, the better. In its name, torture and kill the class enemies. Drink their blood. Bite the flesh off their bodies. Smash their bones. All for the good of humankind ...
Now it's too late to take Nainai's warning. She was right when she said, remembering certain things can be a scourge and forgetfulness is often a blessing. Henceforth how can I look into the eyes of all the innocent people in the world and not see a verdict of Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!