by David Hare
Cheng-k’uan Yes, yes I know. Many – grievances – yes – and also great need. Both. Grievances and need both high. Man-hsi?
Pause.
Ch’ung-lai’s wife What do you get?
Cheng-k’uan What?
Ch’ung-lai’s wife The leaders, what do the leaders get? You, the Chairman of the Association. Yu-lai over there, T’ien-ming, village head. What do you get?
T’ien-ming The leaders get less.
Ch’ung-lai’s wife They get some?
T’ien-ming They get some but they get less.
Yu-lai has been listening to this last exchange.
Man-hsi Two hundred and ten.
Cheng-k’uan Go into the temple. Make your choice.
Ch’ung-lai’s wife Thank you. Thank you. (She goes in.)
Yu-lai, Cheng-k’uan and T’ien-ming are left outside.
Yu-lai Why?
Cheng-k’uan Mm?
Yu-lai Why less?
Cheng-k’uan Less because …
T’ien-ming Less because you’re the leaders and you must wait for the peasants to suggest you get some.
Yu-lai Wait for them?
T’ien-ming Yes.
Yu-lai Well it’s not worth it. I’d be better off as a peasant.
T’ien-ming Yes.
Pause.
Yu-lai I think we should get something. Not for ourselves, more for expenses, for the Association. If we took over the inn, managed it, that would help pay for the school, pay for the oil we need for lamps for Association meetings. We’re going to have to make some money somehow.
Cheng-k’uan Take over the inn?
Yu-lai Why not?
Pause.
Cheng-k’uan Put it to the people.
Yu-lai I thought we were waiting for them to put it to us.
They smile.
Cheng-k’uan Take over the inn.
The peasants begin to come out carrying loot. Some have bags of grain, some implements. Fa-liang is wearing a landlord’s coat.
Hsueh-chen A quilt! A landlord’s quilt!
Tui-chin comes out with a pot bigger than himself.
T’ien-ming Are you sure that’s what you want?
Tui-chin Certain. I’ve always wanted it.
Fa-liang All my life I have been oppressed and exploited.
Tui-chin For all the grain I’m going to have.
He embraces T’ien-ming crying. Ch’ou-har has a huge bag of grain.
Ch’ou-har The bad life. The unbearable life of working for others.
Ch’ung-lai’s wife We are moving from hell to heaven. To live in your own house, to eat out of your own bowl, is the happiest life.
Yu-lai looks at T’ien-ming and smiles.
SECTION FOUR
1
Night. T’ien-ming and Man-hsi walk up and down in silence, guarding the road to Changchih. T’ien-ming choosing his moment.
Slogan: THE PARTY
T’ien-ming Comrade. What do you think of the Eighth Route Army?
Man-hsi What do I think of it?
Silence.
What can I think? I used to have nothing, now I’ve fanshened. Everything I have the Eighth Route Army gave me.
T’ien-ming And the Communist Party?
Man-hsi Isn’t that the same thing?
T’ien-ming Not exactly. The Party organized the army, in the army there are Party members. The Party directs the army, but most of the soldiers aren’t in the Party. And it’s the Party which led the battle against the landlords.
Man-hsi I see. (He doesn’t.) Where is the Party then, where can you find it?
T’ien-ming I …
Man-hsi Do you know?
T’ien-ming Yes.
Man-hsi Well?
T’ien-ming It’s many miles away, some hundred of miles.
In the countryside. Would you come with me?
Man-hsi Of course. Let’s go tomorrow.
Tien-ming It’s a long way. And through Kuomintang country. It’s difficult. Dangerous.
Man-hsi It doesn’t matter, you say the Party led us to fanshen, so we must find it, let’s go.
T’ien-ming Don’t rush into it. You …
Man-hsi Go on.
T’ien-ming You may be risking your life.
Man-hsi Well?
T’ien-ming You may be risking your family’s life.
Man-hsi I’ve made up my mind.
T’ien-ming Man-hsi …
Man-hsi Why do you talk about danger as if we weren’t in danger already?
T’ien-ming In that case … your journey is over. The Party is here. I am a member of the Communist Party.
Silence.
Man-hsi Why did you trick me?
T’ien-ming Because the Communist Party is an illegal organization.
Man-hsi So?
T’ien-ming If the enemy returns we will all be killed. Membership is secret. Even if you are arrested and beaten to death, you must never admit you belong.
Man-hsi You deceived me.
T’ien-ming Listen …
Man-hsi Who else in Long Bow?
T’ien-ming You’d be the first.
Pause.
Man-hsi What do you hope to do? To take over the village?
T’ien-ming Never.
Man-hsi What then?
T’ien-ming The Party must be the backbone of the village. It must educate, study, persuade, build up the People’s organizations – the Peasants’ Association, the Village Government, the Women’s Association, the People’s Militia, it must co-ordinate all these, give them a clear line to follow, a policy that will unite everyone who can be united. Without the Party the village is a bowl of loose sand. So its members must get up earlier, work harder, attend more meetings, stay up later than anyone else, worry before anyone else is worried. We must become the best organized, the most serious group in the village. All in secret. We must lead, not by force but by example. By being good people. By being good Communists.
Pause.
Man-hsi I’d hoped for something …
T’ien-ming Yes.
Pause.
Do you see? Do you see how hard it is? And how far? And how dangerous?
2
In a series of tableaux on the platform Hu Hsueh-chen, her husband and T’ien-ming act out the story that Ch’ung-lai’s wife tells.
Ch’ung-lai’s wife Liberation and the settling accounts movement were to Hu Hsueh-chen what water is to a parched desert. She won clothes and threw away her rags, she won a quilt and threw away her flea-infested straw, she won land and gave up begging. Knowing that these gains were the result of struggle and not gifts from heaven, she attended every meeting and supported those who were active although she herself was afraid to speak in public. Then she met a revolutionary cadre who helped to make her fanshen complete. This man, a doctor, asked for her hand in marriage. She hesitated. She asked for a conference to tell him the whole story of her life. She told him she could not stand any more suffering or oppression at the hands of a man. He persuaded Hu Hsueh-chen that he was a man of principle, and that, most important, as a product of the revolutionary army and its Communist education, he believed in equality for women. They were married in February 1946. Her husband began even to cook his own supper so his wife could attend meetings – something unheard of in Low Bow. She became more active when he explained that fanshen could only be achieved through struggle. She finally mastered her shyness and became secretary of the Women’s Association.
In late 1946 her husband had to move away. He wrote her letters urging her to work hard. ‘When you run into trouble, don’t be gloomy. For there can be no trouble to compare with the past.’ One day Man-hsi came to talk to her about the Communist Party. Then later T’ien-ming came and asked her if anyone had spoken to her on the subject. She knew the Party was meant to be secret so she denied having been approached.
A few days later T’ien-ming came back with an application form and helped her fill it out. He asked if she would give her life for the
Party.
Hsueh-chen I would.
Ch’ung-lai’s wife And he enrolled her in the Party to which her husband, unknown to her, had long belonged.
SECTION FIVE
1
Slogan: THE END OF CEASEFIRE
A tableau of Man-hsi being sent to war. He stands at the centre.
Yu-lai
Glorious are those who volunteer
To throw down tyrants
March to the border when the millet sprouts
Fight for the people
Defend our homes and lands
Most glorious are the volunteers.
Man-hsi goes to war. The village disperse, leaving Yu-lai with Cheng-k’uan. Hsien-e is working in the house behind.
Slogan: CIVIL WAR
Yu-lai What’s wrong?
Cheng-k’uan Nothing.
Yu-lai Don’t look so sad, he’s happy to go. He’s been given land, and we’ll farm it for him while he’s away.
Cheng-k’uan Yes.
Yu-lai Slut. Some soup. That’s why we’re going to win.
Because our volunteers don’t have to worry about their homes.
Cheng-k’uan The Kuomintang …
Yu-lai (turning away) If we can keep things on the move.
Hsien-e serves the soup. T’ien-ming appears.
T’ien-ming There’s a new directive …
Yu-lai Good.
T’ien-ming From the Party.
Cheng-k’uan What does it say?
T’ien-ming It says if the war is to be won, the peasants must be mobilized. They must take over the land to win food to eat, clothes to wear, houses to live in. It says many peasants have still not fanshened.
Yu-lai It’s true.
T’ien-ming Serious feudal exploitation still exists.
Yu-lai There are hundreds in the village who still don’t have enough to make a living.
Cheng-k’uan How’s it to be done?
T’ien-ming The land must be further redistributed.
Cheng-k’uan What land?
Yu-lai We’ve scarcely begun. More soup.
Cheng-k’uan There aren’t many gentry left in Long Bow. Two landlords, four rich peasants, it’s not going to go very far.
Yu-lai Middle peasants.
Cheng-k’uan You can start on the middle peasants certainly …
Yu-lai Plenty of those.
Cheng-k’uan But if you take away their goods all you do is drive them over to the enemy side.
Yu-lai That’s a risk.
Cheng-k’uan The middle peasants already don’t work as hard as they should, because if they work hard they become rich peasants, and if they become rich peasants we take it all away. Like cutting chives.
Yu-lai Does that matter?
Cheng-k’uan So the people in the village who can actually make a living, who can look after themselves, who ought to be our strength, will drift over to the Kuomintang.
Yu-lai So what do you think we should do?
He strikes Hsien-e who has returned with more soup.
You’re an idle cunt.
She goes.
The whole village is convinced the Kuomintang will return. The Catholics openly plot our assassination, peasants have begun to creep back in the night to return the goods that were seized from landlords, grenades go off in the hillside, you ask about fanshen, people have never heard the word. We’re at war. What do you think we should do?
Silence.
Leadership. Strong leadership, Cheng-k’uan. We must keep things moving.
Cheng-k’uan Well … (A pause.) What does the directive say?
T’ien-ming Cut off feudal tails. This time we must examine family history. Anyone whose father or grandfather exploited labour at any time in the past will have their wealth confiscated.
Yu-lai Very good.
T’ien-ming We must go right back, right through the last three generations to look for any remaining trace of feudal exploitation.
Yu-lai Very good.
T’ien-ming Cheng-k’uan?
They look at Cheng-k’uan. Then Yu-lai goes up to him.
Yu-lai If you don’t beat down the drowning dog, he jumps up and bites your hand. (Then he smiles and calls into the house.) Slut. My Luger.
Hsien-e brings him his gun.
And to work.
2
T’ien-ming The public meetings began again. All the remaining members of families already under attack had their last wealth seized. And families with any history of exploitation were added to the list. With the enemy troops so close and counter-revolution so likely, the campaign was emotional and violent. When there was no more land to be had, we ripped open ancestral tombs, leaving gaping holes in the countryside. It looked as if the country had been bombarded with shells.
Yu-lai But it was the living who bore the brunt of the attack. The gentry wives astonished us with their contempt for pain. We heated iron bars in the fire, but burning flesh held no terror for the women. They would die rather than tell you where their gold was hidden. They would only weaken, if at all, when their children were threatened.
Cheng-k’uan Slowly the advance of the Kuomintang was being halted. The military threat disappeared. And the campaign to find new wealth faded, a source of bitter disappointment to those of us who manned it. For when all the fruits had been divided, there were still many families who felt they had not fanshened.
3
Hu Hsueh-chen lying on the platform, her four-year-old daughter beside her. T’ien-ming at the door carrying his possessions.
T’ien-ming Hsueh-chen. Hsueh-chen.
She wakes.
I’m leaving tonight. Uh. Quiet, let me go quietly. I’ve been ordered to go and work at County Headquarters. You must elect a new secretary to the Party in Long Bow.
Silence.
Say nothing. I know what you’re thinking. I can’t help. One person doesn’t make any difference. Hsueh-chen. I … two years ago I couldn’t get a sentence out. The people … victory lies with the people.
Silence.
Good night.
He goes.
SECTION SIX
1
Slogan: NINETEEN FORTY-EIGHT
A single man working in the field. As at the opening of SECTION ONE.
Cheng-k’uan on the tower.
Cheng-k’uan There will be a meeting. There will be a meeting tonight.
Old Tui-chin stops and looks up.
Tui-chin Another meeting. Do the meetings never stop?
Cheng-k’uan Everyone to attend
Tui-chin ‘Under the Nationalists too many taxes. Under the Communists, too many meetings.’
He picks up an enormous pile of stubble, twice his own size and starts humping it home. He pauses. Yu-lai sees him.
Yu-lai Why aren’t you at the meeting?
Tui-chin They can meet without me tonight.
Yu-lai Why?
Tui-chin I’m busy. I’m tired.
Yu-lai Come to the meeting.
Tui-chin There’s no point, there’s nothing left to dig up, there’s nothing. We’ll just sit about and discuss redistributing our farts.
Yu-lai Come to the meeting.
Tui-chin Listen, we all struggled for this land. Now we’re not given time to work it because we’re at meetings talking about where to find more land which even if we found it we wouldn’t have time to farm because we’re always at meetings.
Yu-lai Come to the meeting.
Tui-chin I haven’t eaten.
Yu-lai The meeting is for your own good. (He hits him across the face.) It’s in your interest. (He hits him again.) You think I don’t have my work cut out without chasing up idle cunts like you?
Tui-chin stumbles away.
Where do you think your fanshen came from, you lazy turd?
2
The work team. Hou, Little Li, Ch’i-yun, Chang Ch’uer. Platform.
Slogan: THE ARRIVAL OF THE WORK TEAM
Ch’i-yun We paused for a moment to look down into the
valley. A long flat plain, in the centre a complex of adobe walls under a canopy of trees, the yellow fields stretching away on all sides. In the semi-darkness we could just see the last actions of the day: a donkey straining at a plough, a man raking corn stubble, a barefoot boy spreading night soil, a child playing with some sticks in a ditch. Over our heads the warm, motionless air hummed and whistled as a flight of swallows swooped low. The four of us stood a moment, none of us knowing each other, none of us knowing what to say. Then we began our descent into Long Bow.
The work team enter the village.
Yu-lai (off) You. Get out of that ditch and get to the meeting. (off) Is everyone in?
Cheng-k’uan (off) All at the meeting.
Yu-lai appears, a broad smile on his face.
Yu-lai Perhaps we should lock the doors.
He looks up and sees the four of them, standing looking at him.
I don’t know you.
Chi’-yun Comrade.
Hou I’m Hou Pao-pei, leader of the work team. We’ve been send by the government to supervise land reform in Long Bow.
Yu-lai I see. Wang Yu-lai, Vice-Chairman Peasants’ Association.
Hou Ch’i-yun. Chang Ch’uer. Magistrate Li. Members of the work team.
Yu-lai Welcome to Long Bow. (Pause.) We are all at a meeting, you’ve chosen a bad time.
Little Li Is there somewhere for us to stay?
Yu-lai I’m sure.
Hou We will be starting work at once.
Yu-lai Yes?
Hou Talking to the people, finding out how they’ve prospered …
Chang Ch’uer Agricultural methods.
Hou Yes.
Chang Ch’uer Mutual aid schemes.
Hou Examining the progress of the movement. Elsewhere there have been shortcomings. Some landlords, rich peasants, riffraff, have sneaked into the people’s organizations, where they abuse their power, ride roughshod over the people and destroy the faith of the masses in their new organizations.
Yu-lai You can sleep in the temple. I must go to the meeting. Mutual aid scheme. Discussion. You know.
He looks at them, goes out. The four of them left standing.
Hou Good, excellent, very good. Right.
Little Li Do you …
Hou Li, can you try and find the temple? We must know where we’re going to sleep. (He laughs.)