by Ha Jin
After dinner, when the twilight turned smoky and festive with many knots of men chattering and with a bamboo flute trilling from one of the large tents, we set out for our compound’s Civil Information and Education Center, which consisted of two spacious classrooms and the auditorium. In front of that place flew the U.S. and the Nationalist flags. At its entrance knelt concrete statues of Stalin and Mao Zedong, both with hunched shoulders and bowed heads like a pair of criminals. Their faces and heads were glazed with patches of dried phlegm and snot. When we arrived the study session had already started. The guards at the door, who were Wang Yong’s men, let us in without cursing us for being late. I could feel the intensity of the atmosphere in the auditorium, where people, all sitting on the dirt floor, were so attentive that nobody took note of our arrival. The men confined in the classroom in the afternoon had been hauled onto the low stage in the front. Liu Tai-an looked more resolute than three hours ago and spoke like a real commanding officer.
“To put it in a nutshell,” he said, “those who follow the Communists will come to a bad end, because we won’t let them get away unscathed.” He then turned to Lin Wushen, whose hands were tied from behind. “We begin with you. Now, Lin Wushen, tell me, for the last time, where will you go?”
Without looking at him, the large man turned to us and cried, “I was born in China. Where else should I go!”
Silence ensued, the air as if frozen.
Liu Tai-an barked, “All right, you want to go to the mainland, I’m sending you there now.” Grabbing Lin Wushen’s neck with one hand and waving the dagger in his other hand, he hissed, “Let me ask you one more time, where will you go?”
Lin Wushen glared at him silently, then looked at us. Suddenly he shouted at the top of his voice, “Long live the Communist Party! Long live our motherland!”
Liu Tai-an stabbed him in the chest and twisted the dagger. Without another word Lin Wushen dropped on the floor. Immediately Liu bent down and cut his stomach open while the dying man’s feet were still kicking. His blood and intestines spilled out, and a few men at the front began retching. With a sidewise slash, Liu slit his chest, then pulled out his lungs and heart, all the organs quivering with steam. He cut out the heart and skewered it with the dagger. Raising the heart, he brandished his bloody free hand at us and said, “Look, this is what I meant when I said we wouldn’t let you leave unscathed. If anyone else wants to go back to the mainland, I’ll have to see the true color of his heart first.” He turned to give the corpse a kick.
For about a minute there was no sound in the auditorium. The air seemed thickened with the smell of the blood. I was stunned not only by the ferocity of Liu’s act but also by his skill in disemboweling the man, as though butchering human beings had been his everyday business.
“Let’s continue. Next,” Liu Tai-an ordered, still holding the heart on the tip of his knife.
The man they dealt with next was an acquaintance of mine. He was Yang Huan, a scrawny fellow with large, intense eyes and a massive scar on his cheek, who was also a graduate of the Huangpu Military Academy. But he had matriculated a year before me and was kept in another company here, so we hadn’t had a chance to talk at length when we ran into each other. I vaguely remembered that he had been very active in leading the revolt against the Nationalists in our alma mater. Probably he was a Communist.
They dragged Yang Huan to the center of the stage. Then a lanky man walked up to him and asked, “Brother Yang, do you still know me?”
“Mei Lufu, why are you here?” Yang Huan looked baffled.
“My friend, I came to help you. We lived in the same dorm at the Huangpu for three years, and I can’t forget how kindly you helped me, so now it’s my turn to pull you out of the Commies’ trap.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“You and I are both graduates from the Huangpu, and we’re students of Generalissimo Chiang, who treated us like a father. But I can’t comprehend why you want to return to the mainland. What made you so loyal to the Reds?”
I was bewildered. Although Mei Lufu said he was our schoolmate too, I couldn’t remember him. Yet without question the two men had once been roommates and buddies. Yang Huan answered, “China is where my home is, why can’t I go back?”
“Give him one on the mouth!” ordered Liu Tai-an.
Dutifully Mei Lufu slapped his former friend.
“Turncoat!” Yang Huan cursed loudly. “Scum of China, we’ll get even with you sooner or later.”
“Goddammit, you’re a traitor! You betrayed Generalissimo Chiang’s love and expectations.” Mei Lufu began punching him. “Take this. How dare you call me a turncoat?”
Then a bunch of guards fell on Yang Huan, who kept yelling, “Long live the revolution! Long live Communism!”
Clubs and iron bars landed on him while he was still mumbling, “Long live . . . long live . . .”
Within a minute they beat him to the brink of death. A heavyset man pressed the heel of his boot on Yang Huan’s throat and stamped down forcefully. Yang Huan twisted a little, then stopped moving. I was shuddering all over, never having thought that an educated man like Mei Lufu could be as vicious as Liu Tai-an. At the same time I was amazed that the two Communists they had just butchered had seemed entirely unafraid of death. Like me, Dajian was utterly terrified; he placed his hand on my shoulder to steady himself.
Liu Tai-an said to the twenty men on the stage, waving the bloody heart, “You’re lucky today. I spare you for now to see how you’ll behave tomorrow.” Then he turned to us. “Let’s end here for today, although I still mean to collect the tattoos from some of you. Brothers, please don’t follow the bad examples of Lin Wushen and Yang Huan. You’re free to go now.”
Both Dajian and I were alarmed, having realized that as graduates of the Huangpu Military Academy, we also must have been targets of the pro-Nationalists. They would use every means to coerce us. Unlike the Communist Party members, we didn’t feel we should sacrifice our lives for repatriation. We talked briefly on our way back and agreed we should act according to circumstances and shouldn’t openly refuse to go to Taiwan. Above all we had to survive. As long as we were alive, there would be an opportunity to get back to China.
Though many prisoners hated Liu Tai-an, some pro-Nationalists loved and revered him, and some even regarded him as a hero. At the sight of him, even some staunch Communists couldn’t refrain from quaking, let alone regular inmates like Dajian and me. It was this small muscular man who had started the slogan “We must go to Taiwan!” It was this savage man who had poured a large bowl of saki, bitten his middle finger to drip his blood into it, and thus inspired some POWs to follow suit: they mixed their blood in the liquor and drank it together to forge the bond of brotherhood. To be fair, Liu Tai-an was generous to pro-Nationalist inmates. As the vice chief of the regiment and the leader of our battalion, he was entitled to eat special meals like Han Shu, but he wouldn’t use this privilege and always ate the same food as the other prisoners. One day the kitchen couldn’t serve the midday meal on time because it had to cook for the officers first. Liu Tai-an went in and knocked over the cauldron of boiling millet and the pot containing stewed clams and potatoes. After that, even those officers who enjoyed special mess would avoid him during mealtimes. Another day, an illiterate prisoner played truant after signing up for a literacy class. Liu Tai-an knelt down and begged him to treasure this opportunity to learn how to read and write. For Liu, good and evil were as clear-cut as black and white—his mind wouldn’t tolerate any ambiguity. It seemed to me that although he had only an elementary education, he must have been a sick man whose mind was warped by the image of the macho hero in classical Chinese novels, embodied by wild figures like Zhang Fei and Li Kui, who wouldn’t hesitate to kill an evil man, eat his flesh, and guzzle his blood. In fact, many pro-Nationalists did compare Liu Tai-an to those fictional heroes, and he was proud of the analogy and relished his ability to inspire terror.
Back in our tent, we coul
dn’t stop cursing Liu Tai-an. One said that the Communists should have finished him off, referring to an incident one night the previous winter when a group of Communists had beaten him to his knees and made him beg for mercy. Some regretted they hadn’t formed their own armed force. Now without access to weapons they had become meat for the pro-Nationalists to hack at will. Some said that once they returned to China, they would get hold of Liu Tai-an’s and his lackeys’ families and relatives and wipe them out. Dajian told them that Mei Lufu’s younger sister lived in Tianjin City and worked at a newspaper, and one man declared he would settle accounts with her one of these days. As we were talking, both Liu Tai-an and Wang Yong arrived with the police force. They ordered us to get out of the tent immediately.
When we had lined up and stood at attention, Liu Tai-an said, “Those of you who have a tattoo on you step out.”
About thirty men moved forward, and Dajian and I followed them. Liu began to speak to us. “Don’t think I’m forgetful. I came to collect the tattoos like I told you. If you ate the U.N.’s food, you ought to leave a bit of your flesh in the U.N.’s camp. Whoever wants to return to the mainland, let me know now, and we’ll get the tattoo off of you. Now, lie down.”
The thirty of us dropped to the ground, face down and with both hands stretched out. Liu shouted, “Those of you who want to go to Taiwan raise your right leg.”
Hesitating for a few seconds, I raised my leg. Following me, Dajian did the same. But about half of the men didn’t do this. Liu Tai-an pointed at the first of them in the line and ordered his bodyguards, “Pull that bastard up!”
The moment they got the man on his feet, Liu Tai-an asked him, “Mainland or Taiwan?” He flashed at his face a specially made knife—a toothbrush with a razor blade affixed to the end of the bone handle.
“Mainland,” muttered the fellow. Two men were holding his arms from behind.
“Say it again.”
“Mainland.”
“All right, let me take this off.”
“Ow!”
Liu began cutting the tattooed words off his chest. The man started groaning, but still speaking clearly. “Yes, get rid of these damned words for your grandpa.”
In the corner of my eye I saw a “policeman” holding a short piece of iron wire that had impaled on it about a dozen pieces of bloody skin, each almost half an inch thick. Obviously they had just finished collecting tattoos at another tent. Beside Liu Tai-an stood a boyish man holding a white enamel pail, which contained several pieces of flesh stained with ink. Now I realized that all the prisoners tattooed by force had been the pro-Nationalists’ targets. They had marked two kinds of people among us, those who would be valuable to them and those who were their deadly enemies.
Liu Tai-an waved the piece of flesh he had just cut off from the man, and his other hand flipped open the glass case of a kerosene lantern held by one of his bodyguards. He burned the flesh over the flame, and it sizzled for a few seconds, scorched yellow. Then he put it into his mouth, munching it ferociously. I was so flabbergasted that my stomach started churning. He said through his teeth, “Even if I kill all of you Reds and eat your hearts and livers, my hatred won’t come down.”
A heavy hush fell over us, and Dajian began sobbing. As they went on collecting the tattoos, pulling those unyielding men to their feet one by one and forcing them to answer the question, more cries and moans rose from the line. Several men who hadn’t raised their legs originally now changed their minds and said they would sign up for Taiwan. Having held up my leg, I didn’t expect they would pull me up too. I was trembling and could hardly speak. A pimply-faced man put a bloody knife against my belly and said, “Now, my scholar, tell me where you’d like to go.”
“I’ll follow you,” I mouthed.
“Say it out loud,” Wang Yong broke in.
“Okay, I’ll go to Taiwan.”
Dajian was picked up from the ground too, and he followed my example. The minute they were done with us, Wang Yong had the new “converts” moved to a large tent that was roomy and clean inside. Yet I couldn’t go to sleep until the wee hours, listening to those men in the small tents groaning and cursing incessantly. I felt ashamed and reluctant to talk with Dajian, who tossed from side to side too. By following me, he made me bear the guilty conscience alone. Deep down, I wished I could have been as brave as a genuine Communist, who, crazed and fanatic, viewed death without flinching.
10. THE SCREENING
We ate breakfast at six the next morning, then packed all our belongings onto our backs and waited outside Liberty Hall. I had only a satchel and a blanket roll; some men had nothing but the ragged clothes on them, having gambled away everything else. The screening started at 8:00 a.m. Group by group we were led into the hall, where we waited to be called individually to meet the arbiters. We were to walk through a side door and into one of the three white tents, pitched specially for the screening, in which we would be asked whether we wanted to repatriate. After that, we would be sent to join either those going to Taiwan or those returning to the mainland. When our group had entered the hall, I couldn’t stop fidgeting, unsure where I was going to wind up. In a corner of the room the bodies of the two men killed the night before were still lying under rice straw. The iron bars hidden in the sleeves of the Chinese “policemen” scared me, and from outside a voice rang out, “Catch him! Smash his skull!” I closed my eyes and tried not to think.
A U.N. official came in to check our ID tags against his record and made us sign our names on a ruled manila envelope. About a dozen U.N. guards, all empty-handed, showed up too, so the hall quieted down some.
Meanwhile Dajian, standing behind me with several men between us in the line, kept looking at me and asked with his sluggish eyes what we should do. I turned my head away, not wanting to face him because I had no idea either. Out of the corner of my eye I caught him shaking his chin at me a few times, but I didn’t respond. Besides, our battalion’s police didn’t allow anyone to talk, so I couldn’t go up to him and say that all we could do was act as the circumstances required.
A pebble hit my back, signaling it was my turn. With shaky steps I moved to the side door. I walked slowly so as to see what it was like outside and to assess the situation. Some GIs stood at the entrances to the white tents, all having MP painted on their helmets and on their dark blue brassards. An idea finally came to mind: if the arbiters forced me to go to Taiwan I would rush out of the tent and beg the GIs to send me to the group heading for the mainland. If I spoke to them in English, they might help me, I guessed.
After entering a tent, I was ordered to sit down in front of two American officers, with a folding table between us. One of them was a Caucasian, tall with a long face and in a pea-green shirt; the other was a stocky Chinese. The white man, a captain, began speaking to me about the Geneva Convention and the consequences of my decision. I was amazed that he could speak Mandarin, while the other officer, who was a lieutenant, kept smiling knowingly. Once in a while the Chinese man put in a few words in Cantonese, which I couldn’t understand.
I must have looked absentminded, for the white officer grew impatient and said to me, “All right, tell me now, do you want to go to Taiwan or mainland China?”
“To the mainland,” I replied firmly.
He looked me in the face for a moment, as though in disbelief. Then he handed me a card, saying, “Go straight to the front gate and give this card to the guards.”
With tears on my face I bowed to both of them and said, “Thank you,” then hurried out toward the gate. The card in my hand was five by three inches, bearing these words: “The People’s Republic of China.”
I handed it to the GI standing at the middle of the gate with a rifle hung across his chest. He glanced at the card, grabbed my shoulder, and shoved me out of the compound. Near the sentry post was parked a truck whose back was under canvas. A GI beckoned me to get onto the vehicle by the ladder at its rear. Climbing up, I turned around to look at the white tents in hopes
that Dajian would be following me.
“Don’t look around, you motherfucker!” another GI yelled and pushed me into the back of the truck. There were only about a dozen men in it, most of whom looked unfamiliar to me. I grew more anxious. If only I had given Dajian an eye signal just now! I felt awful for having left him in the lurch.
About ten minutes later the truck rolled away toward a new compound, number 602, where all the would-be repatriates were assembled. Later I heard from a fellow who had joined us in the afternoon that after Dajian returned to my former company, he kept asking others, “Where’s Feng Yan? Did you see him?” They all shook their heads. For hours he wept quietly alone. What had happened that morning was that before entering a screening tent, he was sandwiched between two pro-Nationalists, who told him I had just made “the wise choice.” So Dajian declared to the arbiters that he would go to Taiwan too.
11. COMPOUND 602
As we were approaching Compound 602, which was just a few minutes’ drive from Compound 72, I saw a piece of reddish cloth dangling atop a bamboo pole. Coming closer, I recognized it as our national flag, self-made and with five golden stars on it. The sight of the flag excited us, and we realized this place must be controlled by the Communists.
More than four thousand men had already been here for days, all determined to return to our homeland. This meant we had come back to the ranks of our comrades. Indeed, this place differed greatly from Compound 72. All the tents were the same size and we shared the same mess. Most men looked cheerful and congenial, ready to help others. Later I heard that this place was nicknamed the Mainland Compound and that such an establishment had been achieved only through an arduous struggle. Many of these men had demonstrated and written letters, demanding that they be separated from the nonrepatriates. They sent delegates to negotiate with the prison authorities and the pro-Nationalist representatives for three days to little avail. Finally two Swiss from the Red Cross stepped in and mediated a settlement, and thus the Chinese POWs were separated according to our different destinations.