by Sheng Keyi
Jia Wan had made an appearance at poetry salons, but did not talk much in a crowd. He was relatively low key. He was from the same village as Mogen, a writer who, though he was not well educated was very talented, and had been admitted into the Writers’ Class in an unconventional move when he won a national award for a novella he had written. Later, he entered the Literature Department. Now he was an activist, diligent in his work with the Unity Party, passing messages, running errands, doing odd jobs, and generally making himself useful in any way he could. The Writer’s Class was a place where people of unusual abilities could be found, who often quietly helped the Unity Party by drafting and writing slogans, making donations, or offering bedsheets to be used as banners.
As the result of a campaign speech made with absolute authority, Qizi had become the backbone of the Unity Party. Hei Chun was elected by an overwhelming margin to serve as the first chairman of its meetings.
Mengliu still had not joined the Party, but in order to see Qizi, he often showed up at their activities and performed small favours for them. Sometimes he bumped into her, but they exchanged no private words. They talked occasionally, but it was strictly on the level of comrades, as if there had never been anything more between them. All of their feelings seemed to have been transferred elsewhere.
The Wisdom Bureau’s Freedom in Broadcasting Forum was an expansion of the Unity Party’s Propaganda Department. Because of the unrest amongst the people and changes in its personnel, the Unity Party had been thrown into confusion. Some members were in hiding, others had fled, many kept farewell notes handy, ready to sacrifice their lives. There were also those who had the core members of the party in their sights, intending to weaken their positions. Hei Chun particularly was under attack, with people saying that he was a womaniser, and that he had used the funds raised by the Party on luxury-brand cigarettes, alcohol, and a life of corruption and vice.
One evening the previous week, in a dimly lit corridor where the whitewash on the termite-infested wall was flaking off in slivers, Mengliu had come out from the washroom and overheard a conversation between Hei Chun and Qizi. Hei Chun wanted Qizi to take over as chairperson, saying she was the only one capable enough for the role. He had written a letter of resignation and would inform the Party the next day. Qizi said he couldn’t withstand the wind and rain, and that his heart became overwhelmed with anxiety at the first signs of trouble.
What made Mengliu’s heart race was not that Hei Chun wanted to elevate Qizi, but that he had confessed his feelings for her, using this critical moment when she was vulnerable to express his affection. He bore with the unpleasantness and listened as Hei Chun continued.
‘Last year in the twelfth lunar month, your long hair was awash in sunlight as you skated alone on the ice, eating candied hawthorns. I came up behind you, raced past, and caused you to fall. The candy stick flew from your hand and made me stumble too. I cursed, then turned back and saw you, looking like a penguin with your arms flapping as you tried to catch your balance. Your eyes were dark and your face clear and golden. At that moment, I forgot everything. I couldn’t even remember that I had crashed into you. I asked which department you were in, and you asked if I was going to go to your department to apologise. I said I wanted to bring you a bunch of flowers, and asked what flowers you liked. I slid up next to you, and you recognised me then. You said my skating was much worse than my poetry…’
Mengliu kicked the base of the wall, knocking a shower of white plaster loose. He imagined the frozen lake, the sun shining on it, and Qizi’s face like amber, with her dark eyes, looking irritated but lovely and innocent at the same time. The sky was a monotonous grey, and the trees were withered. Only she was alive with colour. It was like an image from a film, developed in the darkroom of Hei Chun’s mind.
‘Qizi, everyone is very supportive of you. If I withdraw, it will be good for the Unity Party. Anyway, I’ve already achieved my goal.’
‘Goal? What have you achieved?’
‘…Actually, it’s not exactly a goal. I do things out of interest.
There’s no reason. I don’t have to be responsible to anyone.’
‘I won’t be the chairperson. I oppose your resignation.’
Qizi’s recorded speech was like a newly-unearthed weapon. Mournful, bleak, poignant and tragic, it made spring at the Wisdom Bureau extraordinarily dreary.
Mengliu and Shunyu each carried a bundle of cloth, paint, and a bag of jingling objects. As they listened to the broadcast, they walked toward the basketball court, where there was plenty of space for them to work.
‘Qizi’s actually a very talented performer. Can you hear how sensational she is? She makes me want to cry.’ Shunyu pricked up her translucent jug ears and pursed her thin lips. ‘She is possessed. Her father is angry and wants to disown her.’
Mengliu had slowed his pace, and was looking at a speaker attached to the trunk of a tree. He began to envision angels running barefoot from the speaker, elves, roaring lions, snorting horses. Out of the dark forest came the thundering sound of thousands of horses and soldiers, the sad howling of wolves, the honking of a lone goose, and the whimpering of the north wind.
‘On this sunny day, we are on a hunger strike. In the beautiful days of our youth, we cannot help but resolutely cast aside everything that’s good. However, we don’t really want to do that. We refuse to take it lying down!’
‘…’
‘Democracy is the greatest impulse for the survival of human life. Freedom is an inherent, natural right. Everyone has a right to know the truth…
‘We do not want to die! We have a vision for the future, because we are at the most beautiful age of our lives. We do not want to die! Our motherland is still so impoverished, and we do not have the right to cast it aside. Death is not our aim! But if an individual’s death, or the death of a few, will enable more people to live a better life, and to create prosperity for the motherland, then we have no right to hold on to our own lives!
‘When we are hungry, our mothers and fathers, do not mourn. When we say farewell to this world, our uncles and aunties, do not shed tears. We only have one hope, and that is for you to have a better life. We only have one request: please don’t forget, we are definitely not pursuing death!’
‘What are you looking at? Idiot!’ Shunyu swatted Mengliu with the cloth.
‘I was listening to the speech. It was really good. Earth- shattering.’
‘A talented literary work? Did you play any part in it?’
‘She has plenty of talent to deal with this sort of thing.’
‘What’s going on with the two of you? Are you still planning to go overseas?’
Mengliu could not answer Shunyu’s question. He thought back to what had happened two days earlier, when he had worked overnight assisting the Unity Party. His stepfather had come and could not find him, and had lain on his doorstep all night, waiting. As soon as he saw Mengliu, he caught hold of him, but in his anxiety he could not get his words out. He wanted Mengliu to go back to the village and lie low until the trouble was over. He said, ‘Don’t join this damn rebellion.’
Mengliu asked him, ‘Who’s rebelling? It’s just a petition. But I’m not even signing that.’
His father had scolded, picked up a book, and started to hit him with it. After a while, his attack weakened, leaving him tired and helpless.
Mengliu was overcome by a burst of sadness.
‘Why are you in a daze? Why don’t you say something?’ Shunyu said, elbowing him.
‘If Qizi starts to create literary works, she will certainly be an excellent writer,’ he said.
‘She’s very smart. It’s like she’s from another world.’
‘Both of us have low IQs. Why don’t we get together?’
‘Don’t flatter yourself. My IQ is much higher than yours! Someone as beautiful as me is only fit to be with a hero. Who wants to make do with you, Mengliu?’
He knew her hero was Hei Chun, but even though it was
just a joke, it still stung. They had idled the time away together in mutual sympathy. They no longer felt like going to the theatre, and they had no interest in concerts. They bumbled around a few antique markets, and finally grew tired of that too. They were bored with the blandness of it all, watching their friends rush like soldiers to the front line of revolution. In the end, they were conscience-stricken, thinking they should at least show their sympathies. It was because of this feeling that they had begun doing these errands for the Unity Party.
With Mengliu’s excellent penmanship and Shunyu’s nimble handiwork, they stitched up banners and wrote slogans, listening to the radio as they worked. After Sixi’s theme song, the Freedom Forum came on air. The guest, a well-known intellectual, brought explosive inside information, saying there was an intense internal struggle in the Plum Party, which had split into two factions. One of the factions wanted to take advantage of the demonstrations to raise a public outcry, hoping bigger trouble would be stirred up.
Mengliu spread out the cloth, indicated his approval of the tailoring, and took up his paint brush and began writing. The paint fumes caused him to sneeze and his eyes to water, but by the time the Freedom Forum ended, the words had emerged from the black background he had created for the banner.
‘These are the biggest words I’ve ever written in my life.’ Mengliu stood up and massaged his knees, feeling like he was no bigger than a toothpick in front of the black banner.
‘Will you go to Round Square tomorrow?’ Shunyu looked at the black banner spread out on the ground.
‘We’ll see.’
‘When you were doing the poetry reading at the bar, do you remember what you and Hei Chun were fighting about?’
‘I didn’t fight with anyone.’
‘Hei Chun said it doesn’t matter if poetry is romantic and graceful, so long as it is passionate.’
‘Since when have you become his spokesperson?’
‘The Three Musketeers should unite for the power of poetry. It boosts morale.’
‘Poetry, apart from inviting trouble for yourself, is utterly useless. Aren’t Bai Qiu’s poems banned now? What use are a few lines of rhetoric?’
Mengliu thought of Bai Qiu’s death. He was like a bird, flying down from the roof of the Wisdom Bureau, his last words folded neatly in his pocket. His death had nothing to do with anything, except that he despaired over this damned generation, confused between right and wrong.
‘Bai Qiu was always a poet.’ The wind lifted a corner of the banner reflected in Shunyu’s eye. She whispered, ‘I admit that I like Hei Chun, but I don’t have the courage to stand with him. I am weak.’
‘Your loneliness serves you right, then.’ Mengliu used stones to weigh down the corners of the banner, then checked to see if the paint was dry.
‘I kind of hate Qizi.’
‘What do you hate her for?’
‘She always plays hard to get with men.’
‘Doesn’t seem so to me.’
‘Why don’t you apologise to her?’
‘I…didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘A man should be a little more magnanimous.’
‘If you think that Qizi is the roadblock between you and Hei Chun, you’re wrong.’
‘I like him, and that’s my own business. It’s got nothing to do with anyone else,’ Shunyu said.
Mengliu stood up straight as a flagpole and replied, ‘Shunyu, you can extract sweetness from the bitterest root, and that’s a real talent. I, on the other hand, suck bitterness from a sugar cube. Our perspectives are different, and our tongues don’t detect the same flavours. But why don’t you compete with Qizi? You’re also very pretty. Don’t you have a long line of suitors behind you? Why are you only entranced with Hei Chun? Let me tell you, he’s a selfish bastard, and a bit of a playboy. When is he ever free? The rumours about him never stop, and he likes to read love letters from his female fans in public. He’s not good enough for you. You should look for a guy who’s more…’
Shunyu was kneeling on a white banner outlining the words, ‘Long Live Freedom’. Her brush suddenly stopped. She screwed up her face, looked up at him and said, ‘However bad Hei Chun is, I don’t mind. Even if he were in prison, I’d bring him food every day.’
‘What? Are you really that far gone?’
Ignoring Mengliu, Shunyu dipped her brush into the ink and continued to outline the words.
Just then Sixi ran onto the basketball court, her clothing dazzlingly colourful. Two others trailed along in her wake, Jia Wan and Mogen. Neither said anything, they simply rolled up and neatly stacked the banners that had already dried and checked to see how many more strips of cloth were left. They went to work turning them into banners, Jia Wan commenting on those that had been filled with words, saying which strokes were too thin, where the ink was too light, and which characters should be written in a way that looked more imposing. He almost completely negated the effort that had been put in by the others.
Shunyu tossed her brush aside and looked at Jia Wan in exasperation. Mengliu knew she did not like the fellow, and he also felt there was something sordid about him, like a painting in a vulgar frame. He always wore a suit, as if he thought it would make him look classier. Instead, it only proved he had no taste. From Shunyu’s point of view a pretentious poet who wore a suit every day, as if he was in a hurry to attend a banquet, wouldn’t be able to write anything worth reading.
Tired and with an aching back, she didn’t even attempt to be polite to him. ‘What do you think you’re doing, coming over and pointing here and pointing there? You don’t like it? This is the way I do things. Why don’t I go buy some cloth and you rewrite it all?’
When Jia Wan heard these angry words, he realised he had offended Shunyu. He smiled obsequiously and said, ‘No, no, no. Don’t be angry. I didn’t mean to criticise. I just think we should pay attention to every detail, so that we will be taken seriously. These banners and writings are the voice of the people, and can be taken as the face of the Wisdom Bureau.’
‘So you’re saying that I’m making everyone lose face? What were you doing all this while? Go back to the press conference and talk to the reporters. Why bother coming back here where all the dirty work is done? It doesn’t do much for your image!’
Sixi interrupted, ‘Don’t bicker. We’re all doing our best. Jia Wan has joined the Unity Party. He’s in charge of publicity and logistics, and he’s just trying to fulfill his responsibilities.’
‘Oh, is that right?’ Shunyu said. ‘If I’d known I was working for him, I wouldn’t have come even if there were eight sedan chairs waiting to escort me here. I would rather be at home lying in bed, reading a novel.’
The short-haired Mogen said, ‘Our fellow student here seems a little biased. Actually, you aren’t doing this for any one person. We are all working for the country, for the good of the people.’
This just stoked Shunyu’s anger. ‘Are you trying to make a fool of me? I don’t want to hear it. You tell me how many people really have the best interests of the country and the people at heart. Aren’t they all after a little power? What is it about the country, or the people? Do they need you to be in charge?’
Once Shunyu lost her temper the insults flew from her mouth like daggers, and she wouldn’t relent on anyone’s account. Mengliu knew that her heart was in turmoil because she was completely lovesick over Hei Chun. He led her away from the basketball court, listening quietly as she vented her frustration.
‘Just look at him, with his slip-sliding eyes. I think it’s pretty clear he’s not a gentleman. He joined the Unity Party, and next thing you know, he may bring the whole thing crumbling down.’ Shunyu wiped vigorously at the ink on her fingers. Walking past a cluster of willow trees, she said, ‘Let’s go to Round Square. Maybe we’ll find something to do there.’
‘Let’s not. I’m worried about your father.’ Mengliu pretended to object, but actually he wanted to see Qizi.
‘My father donated two thousan
d kuai to the Unity Party yesterday.’
‘That doesn’t mean he allows you to participate.’
‘Let’s just go. I’m bored.’
‘I guess I could go and help construct the broadcast station.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘Well, I’m not your father. I can’t stop you.’
‘Yuan Mengliu, you arsehole. Are you being cheeky with me?’
‘Sure I am! If I’m the one who has to look out for you, doesn’t that make me your father?’
‘You’re incorrigible. Hey – do you want to hear one of my father’s romantic stories?’
She told him the story as they walked towards the square. ‘It’s from when he was in the army. Of course, he hadn’t met my mother at that time. My father’s company rested in a village for a few weeks. He got a little stir crazy, so sometimes he went to the river to play the chuixun. Because he played so well, a beautiful girl was fascinated by the music. He taught her to play the xun. On the night before he was to depart, my father and the girl went into the bushes by the river and, you know…He also left the xun with the girl.’
‘What sort of xun?’
‘He didn’t say.’
‘What happened next?’
‘There was no “next”. My father only knew her nickname, something like Little Liu. Maybe she was the sixth child in her family, so they called her liu.’
‘Your father really was a romantic, seducing a village girl while in military uniform.’ Mengliu pretended to be preoccupied, but he was thinking of all the rumours he had heard about his own father. He took out his xun and looked at it, noting where his adoptive father had seen the engraved words meng liu and taken that as his name. Could there be some relationship between these two ‘sixes’, these ‘lius’?
Impossible! Inwardly, he laughed at himself. It was too fantastic. How could he even entertain such a ridiculous notion?