by Keyi Sheng
*
My mother, my father’s second wife, Xie Yinyue, was a dimpled girl from the mountains of Xielingang. She was pretty, but had a hard life. Because of the war and unrest, she had been orphaned as a child and was sent to live with her brother and sister-in-law. I do not know if she might have suffered any harsh treatment from her sister-in-law, but it is enough to know it was not a very happy childhood. She was full of old-fashioned ideas and her smile revealed red lips and white teeth. She was ten years younger than my father. The first time he saw her, she was washing clothes in the Zhixi River. The waters of the Zhixi were like my mother’s eyes, crystal clear. My father was domineering, telling my mother that the river was now under his control, and his office was at the dam, all of which was true. This was about six months after his first wife had died.
Later, when my father proposed marriage, my mother’s oldest brother did not agree. He felt that my father had the look of a gangster and feared my mother would suffer ill fortunes with him. At any rate, a widowed man had to be somewhat unlucky.
My mother was determined to go with my father, who was not the least bit worried since he had fought his way from the country to the city, and from the old society to the new China, conquering everything on Earth. In the territory of Yiyang, there was nothing he could not accomplish.
‘I am only discussing it with you out of courtesy. If Yinyue and I run away together, what can you do about it?’ my father said to my uncle. Being a wise man, my uncle quickly yielded and gave them his full support.
Xielingang had a lot of bamboo. It was said that, previously, the emperor liked the bamboo sleeping mats from there and expected the residents to send some in tribute each year. My father said the emperor was a real novice – he should have travelled to the place and picked the most radiant, vivacious girls there to be his concubines, then he would have known that it was more comfortable to sleep with them than on the mats.
My mother was the prettiest, most charming daughter-in-law within a hundred mile radius of the village. She wasted no time, quickly giving birth to a litter of new villagers.
When my elder brother was born, my grandfather was pacing in a circle outside the room. Until his grandson had turned one month old, he would be kept in the room, as was traditional for newborn children, and my grandfather would not be able to see him. Actually, my grandfather was not that eager to see his grandson, but he was very keen to show off his great learning. He had selected several possible names for the boy, and he could not wait to start explaining to the other villagers the meaning of the names. But my father did not use any of them. He did not want my grandfather’s interference in family affairs and was intent on depriving him of all powers.
The treatment and ostracism my grandfather received at home was basically that usually reserved for a concubine.
My grandfather was not yet sixty at this time, so still had some spunk and was not so easily pushed aside. He was particularly adept at acting pitiful. He was eloquent; even without swearing, and even though he might have made some errors, people’s sympathies still inclined toward his side. Once when father and son clashed hotly, my grandfather called on our ancestors for mercy. He went on a flight of fancy, breaking down history, analysing Confucius and Mencius, citing the four classics and eight virtues, calling for the three cardinal guides and five rites, until finally the hammer of judgement landed squarely on my father’s head. But the judgement was revoked by my father’s single phrase: ‘You’re not worthy.’
My grandfather was always smouldering after a fight, and when my father was not home, he made things difficult for my mother. My mother was generally a woman of few words, but when provoked into an argument, her thin lips would clap as lively as cymbals, and she used slang and proverbs perfectly. My grandfather never won an argument with her. When it was all over, he would sit alone outside the door, and his aloof expression would slowly give way to sorrow over his hopeless situation.
My father was the lord of the family; his wife and children were his people. The weakness and gentleness of the women and children not only failed to evoke any tenderness in him, they actually contributed to his violence. My father often beat my mother. Once, he beat her so badly she rolled all over the floor, her hair dishevelled and her body covered in blood, and it finally prompted her to leave home. A month later, my uncle brought her back, and my father accepted her like tribute from a vassal. My mother took out snacks and dry goods from her bag, and once the light went out at night, she rolled in the sack with my father.
The distinction between city and rural people is as clear as that between black- and white-skinned folk. My father had it very carefully calculated. He arranged for his own retirement, citing ill health as the reason, and for my eldest brother to quit school and replace him. My brother’s official residential status was immediately elevated from from a rural one to an urban one. He started enjoying state wages, and everyone else nearly died of envy.
My brother, Li Shunqiu, was born good-looking, bashful, reticent, and soft-spoken. When he occasionally laughed out loud, he would emit a couple of syllables of ha-ha, then stop abruptly. He was prone to nostalgia, and never let go of friendships forged in our village, but always gathered with his friends when he came home. By the time the nationwide anti-crime crackdown started in 1983, his old pals had become real peasants with dark skin, thick knuckles, slipper-clad feet, and smoking low-grade cigarettes. When they gathered, it was just like old times when they were kids going to the fields to pluck gourds or to the river to fish. My elder brother had a complete set of fishing equipment. When they were not used, the nets hung in the backyard neatly, like polished weapons. He could quickly straighten out messy nets, and knew how to repair the holes. He knew which sort of net to use to catch which type of fish at different stages, just as he knew which kinds of fish spawned in the shallow waters and which kinds liked to come to the surface in the dark of night.
Summer nights in the village were as docile as an unspoilt maiden. The moon parked itself in the night sky. Fireflies flitted around the grass field and thorn bushes. The Lanxi River lay on the ground basking in the moonlight. My brother was fishing on this sort of night, his body cutting across the satiny surface of the water like a pair of scissors.
There was no warning sign for the bad turn of events.
The night the incident occurred was livelier than when the folk theatre group came to perform in the village. The people had come out in force, flocking towards the Brigade Department, surrounding the police cars, taking stock of those powerful and forceful people. Leaning from the window, they watched the police shave half the hair of the young people, covering their mouths as they snickered. At the time of the Great Leap Forward, the Brigade Department was the interrogation room and prison used to imprison farmers in the fight against secret agricultural production, and only later it was converted into a mill. Now, it was once again the temporary interrogation room.
The village Party Secretary tried to find out the sense of propriety of the matter from an armed man. ‘Young people watch open-air films, sometimes jeering and engaging in group fights. This is not unusual. . . But why are the armed forces alerted this time? Will there be a problem?’
Looking arrogantly at the Party Secretary, the armed man took a cigarette from his mouth and said, ‘Don’t you know this is a special crackdown period?’
‘Do you think you could send the trial back to the township government for verdict? If anything happens here, my skull will be cracked.’ The Party Secretary lit a new cigarette for Minister Cai, then tossed the match away. He looked at the other party helplessly. ‘The neighbours meet frequently and they are under the mistaken impression I am colluding. . . No, of course, it is cooperating. As a member of the Communist Party, I have always cooperated unconditionally with the work of my superiors.’
Minister Cai wore a uniform that was stretched around his body like a ball. He seemed like he was about to raise a hand to slap the secretary’s face. Smoke
swirled from his nostrils and mouth, as if his whole person were being consumed in flames. ‘Just do as I say. You’re so short-sighted. You can’t see any farther than you can piss.’
The Party Secretary stared at the minister alertly, his facial features all bunched together. ‘But, how far I can piss depends on the minister’s orders, right?’
Minister Cai said slowly, ‘There is too much chaos in society right now. The central government had a meeting and is launching a nationwide “severe crackdown on criminal offences” movement. Those who can be caught and those not easily caught will eventually be swept up in an iron grip. Those who can be sentenced, will be; and those who cannot be sentenced, will also be dealt with resolutely. Those who must be killed and those who can’t be killed, all will be eliminated without delay. The population of our county is large, so the crime index is also higher than other counties. This is no good. There is so much to be done I don’t even have time to sleep at night. These people today are gangsters. They gather to fight, molest women, fish in the river, and steal state property. . .’
‘Gang crimes have to be settled with a bullet!’
The Party Secretary was shocked. ‘These. . . young people were watching an open-air film, jeering, and fighting, but they always do this! They are law-abiding people who have never committed any outrageous act. It was not a gang, nor a gang issue,’ he protested.
The minister said that whether or not they had done anything outrageous, or committed a crime, everything would be clear after the interrogation. The law functions on evidence.
Two hours later, six handcuffed young men with half-shaved heads were squeezed into the police car.
A week later, the verdict was handed down. Li Dage, the leader, was given the death penalty, along with several of the other participants. For his role in the fight, my oldest brother received the lightest sentence, eight years in jail.
The Lanxi Middle School’s drill ground served as the site for the mass trial meeting, but this was not what was most important. After the trial meeting, the condemned prisoners were to be dragged to the Lanxi River and executed. Nobody had seen a killing before and did not want to miss the opportunity. It was as if a public holiday had been declared.
My sister was still at the factory and had no idea what was happening at home. My mother’s tears flowed and her nose ran. My father was no longer cursing, but kept his mouth tightly shut. My second brother, Li Xiazhi, quietly filled a bucket of water, then obediently went to the vegetable field and hoed for a while. I snuck up the dam and rushed to the school to watch the mass trial meeting.
The weather was not bad. It was hot, with a wind blowing in from the south and the river’s layers of ripples moving north. I went on the causeway, where it seemed a crowd of people had sprouted from the ground. All of them were rushing toward Lanxi Town, where there were organised groups of orderly students looking especially stern and confident. The causeway was usually only this lively during the Dragon Boat Festival. The burst of festive atmosphere gave me a thrill. I was soon swallowed up by the crowd, feeling nervous and excited. I became so sweaty as I walked that perspiration dripped from the ends of my hair, falling to the ground and producing a soft, tough sound, transparent and sticking thickly to the ears. I was not even sure where the school gate was. I just followed the crowd and made my way straight to the drill ground.
Many photos were taken, forming a record of the scene I witnessed. A large poster was hung, and a shrill loudspeaker pierced my ears. The heads of the condemned hung low. On Li Dage’s chest hung a sign with the words ‘gangster’ on it, with a huge red X. A few who did not have red X’es on their signs stood in a row at the back, their hands behind their backs. The drill ground was surrounded by a packed crowd. The air turned muggy. A huge mushroom-shaped cloud formed overhead, like a lion watching the proceedings, its profile greyish-white. After a while, it turned into a ball, then became formless. There were periods of total silence. One of the marked criminals collapsed, unable to stand any longer. Two uniformed personnel held him up after that. Later the crowd began to loosen and expand. The trial was over. The people turned and followed the vehicle parading through the streets, escorting the offenders to the execution ground. They wanted to see for themselves as the bloody red flower came into sudden bloom across the chest of the condemned when he was shot.
I twisted my ankle as I squeezed through the exit of the drill ground, so I did not make it to the execution ground, but this had no effect on my later boasting to my classmates when I described all I had heard, as if I had seen it. I said ten people with guns stood in a row before the ten kneeling criminals. There was a gunshot, and it was as if the condemned had been kicked. The bodies lurched, blood-spattered, and a burnt smell instantly filled the air, like the smell of a barbecued kebab.
When my brother went to jail, a decree from my father brought my sister obediently home from the factory. All day, her lips were sucked in like a chicken’s arse, but she cried all night every night, both for our brother and for herself. If not for my brother’s misfortune, she could have remained at the factory. She was sixteen at the time, and there was a fellow at the factory who always smiled at her. It was the first time she heard the sound of her own heart pounding like a drum. After she returned home, she was still obsessed with his smile, thinking of it until it finally floated away like the evening clouds.
My sister returned to her old life, the brief three months she had spent in the factory were like a scratch that did not even leave a scar on her skin. Even so, that period flung open the gates to my sister’s emotional life, thanks to that fellow at the factory.
I was too young to understand the implications of my sister’s next entanglement, this time with the recently divorced Li Letian, son of the village Party Secretary. One night, my father slapped my sister and said, ‘You’re a shameless hussy, why do you want to be stained with a divorcee with kids; do you think it’s so easy to be a stepmother?’
The next day when Chuntian spoke with the son of the village Party Secretary at the riverside, she said, ‘My father won’t agree.’
The son of the Party Secretary, clearly of the same mind as my father, said, ‘You’re a virgin. I don’t deserve you.’ Then he walked away.
My sister sat alone in the grass slope crying. When she found that I had crept among the willows to eavesdrop, her anger erupted. ‘What are you looking at, you little bitch?’
I retorted with words learnt from my father, ‘Shameless hussy, wanting to be a stepmother. Hussy!’
I cursed as I ran. Half of a red brick flew behind me, hitting me right in the hindquarters. I immediately wailed in pain. Chuntian was so scared she started to examine my injury and, applying spittle to it, she started to cry with me. She cried even louder than I did, as if it were a competition. I stopped and watched her cry. I had never seen my sister cry so openly. Up until then, I had even thought she didn’t really know how to cry, only knowing how to twitch her shoulders like in the silent films.
My father really hated the Party Secretary.
For a while, our house was as sombre as a grave, and there is never any light in a tomb. My parents’ hair greyed rapidly. They were like an earthen dam that had suddenly collapsed, its dust covering the bodies of me and my sister. We were all coated in grey.
My father made things increasingly difficult for my sister. He would pull up and replant the rice planted by her, criticising my sister for not planting neatly enough, saying that the gaps between the plants were lopsided. He was like a teacher correcting homework, cursing as he made corrections, then finally driving my sister to stand in the field as punishment.
My sister stood on the ridge of the field with the evil sun overhead, as still as a statue. It was as if everything was her doing, and she could never do anything to please my father, as he scolded her every day, cursing her like livestock. My sister acted as docile as a lamb, sometimes with tears in her eyes, going wherever my father pointed. If he said to hoe up weeds, she h
oed up weeds; if he said to pull weeds, she pulled weeds; if he said to stop work, she dropped her tools immediately. One would think my father would be quite satisfied, but he continued to scrub and polish my sister, as if working a piece of jade.
When the fields had been sown, my father tied a piece of red cloth on a bamboo rod and told my sister to use it to chase away the sparrows, coordinating her time of rest with the birds’. After seven or eight days when the seed grains had sprouted into rice shoots, my father brought home bundles of nylon yarn for my sister to weave into nets, pocketing the money he got as a deposit for the nets for himself.
The old man did not let me off either. When he went out fishing, he would call me, the ‘unlucky ghost’ following him with the fish basket. We lived in the lake area. There were always many open loti in the ponds, and water chestnut leaves covered the face of the water. It was beautiful in a dull way. As I walked on the turf, shellfish-like objects often dug into my soles. If I stepped on a water chestnut shell, it would make me scream, but my father never even looked back. He could tell from the underwater debris in the puddles on the roadside where the previous fisherman had fished. If he pulled out a dripping snail or clam, he did not slow his pace at all. Like a general clad in armour and carrying sharp weapons, he led his endless army forward. He rarely caught any fish. At most a small fish or two would sit in the bottom of the basket. It was as if he had not really gone out to fish, but to relax.