by Yan Lianke
Holding my bag, I stood in a corner of the courtyard.
When Guizhi and my son heard the door open, they both turned around. However, Guizhi didn’t come and take my bag, nor did she realize that the person standing in front of her was a future revolutionary. Instead, she merely stared for a moment, then smiled and said, “You’re back? Didn’t you say you would be returning home a few days ago?”
Remembering the revolution unfolding in the city and the scene by the railroad tracks, I replied, “I was delayed in the city.”
She said, “Come inside. Why are you still standing there?”
She added, “Hongsheng, greet your dad. Did you say it? Greet your dad.”
Hongsheng, who was already five years old, didn’t say anything, and instead he and Honghua, now awake, kept watching me timidly, as though this were not even my home. At that moment, I began to regret having proceeded with the demobilization process. I remembered what our commanding officer in the regiment had always said: “The revolution has not yet succeeded, so we must continue to struggle.” As I was carrying my bags inside, I took the opportunity to move several benches next to the outer wall. I looked around the two inner rooms, then asked, “Where’s my mother?” Continuing to rinse the grain without even turning around, Guizhi replied, “She wanted some peace and quiet, so she went to live on the Cheng Clan Hillock.”
My heart skipped a beat; it was as though a bullet had exploded in my chest. But I didn’t say a word and instead angrily ground my foot against the floor. I then went back outside and stood under the building’s eaves. I looked toward the hillock behind the town, but all I could see was the Qixian Great Hall in Cheng Temple’s rear courtyard and a corner of the Taoist Hall in the middle courtyard. The wind chimes hanging from the four corners of the hall were clanging noisily, and the sound cut through the courtyard. When I saw Cheng Temple, my heart sank, and I vowed that one day not only would I demolish the memorial arch, I would burn down the temple itself. Ever since I had moved to the town from the Cheng Clan Hillock, I had longed to destroy the memorial arch and burn down the temple. After having served in the army for four years, I was more determined than ever. At that moment, my son, Hongsheng, shouted, “Dad!” My heart melted at the sound of his voice, and I patted his head.
I said, “Call me ‘Pa,’ child. In the city, everyone says Pa.”
Hongsheng shook his head.
I said, “OK, then call me Dad … Go, if you go inside and look in the yellow bag, you’ll find some candy.”
After eating the candy, the children kept shouting “Dad, Dad!” as though “Dad” were the only person in the world capable of giving them candy. At that time, all candy was wrapped in thin red oilpaper printed with sayings like Fight Selfishness and Criticize Revisionism. When the children threw their wrappers onto the pile of pig manure and chicken droppings in the courtyard, I quickly retrieved them. I told the children not to throw away their wrappers, because doing so would be reactionary. The children didn’t understand what I was talking about, so Guizhi turned to me and observed, “This is the countryside, not your army regiment.” I initially wanted to explain that the revolution unfolding in the city and the county seat had already enveloped heaven and earth, and that it was precisely for the sake of the revolution that I had been demobilized and returned home—but when I saw Guizhi’s look of disdain, as thick as the courtyard wall, I had no choice but to bite my tongue. Moreover, her face appeared so dusty and dark, it was as though it had never been washed—which reminded me again of what had happened to me by the railroad tracks outside of town. This, too, made me swallow what I was about to say. All of a sudden, I didn’t even want to look at my wife.
I once again stared up at the eaves of Cheng Temple.
At that moment, a child who had just run into the alley dashed into my home and shouted, “Uncle Aijun, the branch secretary wants you to report immediately.”
Guizhi removed a soaking-wet bundle of wheat and placed it on the edge of the basin. It was as if the child who had run in had reminded her of something very important. With a lively expression, she shouted, “Go quickly! My father asked for you to go see him as soon as you returned, but while I was rinsing the grain I forgot to tell you.” Then she asked, “What did you bring my father? He likes candy and canned goods from the city.” She added, “Hongsheng and Honghua, go with your father to see your grandfather. Ask him if he wants any eggs and noodles, and if he does, I’ll take him some this afternoon.”
2. A History of Marriage outside the Revolution
I should explain that my father-in-law was also a Chenggang revolutionary. He served as a mail courier for the Eighth Route Army, and after Liberation was appointed to the position of village branch secretary. The dozen or so families living in the Cheng Clan Hillock were originally a production team belonging to the Zhaozhuang Brigade five li away. At the time, Cheng Village was only a small local market community where the township government office was located. The township’s mayor, Cheng Tianmin, was a twentieth-generation descendant of the Cheng Brothers. In 1964, the government decided to elevate Cheng Village to the status of a town, but in order to do so they needed to find a way to increase the size of the community. Therefore, Mayor Cheng Tianmin and my future father-in-law, village chief Cheng Tianqing, held a meeting and decided to have Cheng Village absorb the dozen or so families currently living on the hillock, so that it could be promoted from a village into a town. The residents of Cheng Clan Hillock moved down and built a row of houses behind Cheng Temple, thereby becoming members of Cheng Village.
After joining Cheng Village, I became the son-in-law of Cheng Tianqing, who was now the town’s Party branch secretary. On the day of our move, as my mother and I were cleaning up our new tile-roofed house, the branch secretary ambled over. He didn’t sit in the seat I brought over to him nor did he drink from the glass of water my mother offered him. Instead, he simply stood in that new house with his hands behind his back and gazed at the walls, at the ground, and at the beams and rafters. Then he touched the two paulownia trees—each of which had a trunk as wide as a rice bowl—that were growing in what had now become the house’s courtyard and said, “Technically, these trees should be public property, but now it appears that they belong to your Gao family.”
Overjoyed, my mother gazed at the branch secretary. “Is that OK?”
The branch secretary said, “If I say it’s OK, then it’s OK. That’s why I’m the branch secretary. What’s more, I was close to your son’s father, and now that he’s gone, who’s going to look after you and your son, if not me?”
My mother quickly poured away the cup of water that the branch secretary hadn’t touched. Then she went back into the kitchen to poach an egg, even adding some brown sugar. After the branch secretary finished the egg, he turned and looked me over from head to toe. He said, “You’re eighteen? You’re in high school in the county seat? I hear that you’re one of the top students in your class?” At that point I was still young and naïve, and I didn’t realize that the branch secretary was hoping to make me his son-in-law. Blushing, I replied to him, never expecting that a matchmaker would come to our home that very night.
The matchmaker said to my mother, “Joyous news! The branch secretary has taken a liking to your son, Aijun.”
I got married shortly after graduating from high school. Guizhi was the branch secretary’s third daughter. She had a completely ordinary appearance, like a hill covered in yellow earth. She was actually a year younger than me but looked three to five years older. I’m not sure why she appeared so much older than me. Was it because she was so short or because her skin was so dark? Or was it because even when her uncombed hair cascaded down it couldn’t conceal the countless moles that covered her face? The first time I saw Guizhi, the matchmaker had led me into her house like a mule. In Guizhi’s room, the wall was covered in old newspapers, the sheets folded into long strips, as though a large dam were positioned against the wall. When I saw her appearance, I s
uddenly felt as though there was a clump of cotton in my throat that I needed to spit out. The branch secretary entered after his daughter and said, “The two of you can talk to each other. I am a Party member and a cadre, and when we hold general meetings for commune members, I always stress the importance of being able to marry whomever you want.” He said, “Aijun, my child. I saw that your father died early, which makes you a descendant of the revolution. Your grades in the county high school weren’t bad—and seeing that, I agreed to let my daughter Guizhi become engaged to you. After the two of you get married and have a child, I’ll send you to join the army. In the army, you can join the Party, and after you return I’ll help make you a village cadre.”
Guizhi asked, “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
I looked up at her.
Guizhi asked, “Do you resent the fact that I’m ugly? And if we’re speaking freely, can I say that I resent the fact that your family is dirt-poor?”
I said, “Why aren’t you in school?”
Guizhi said, “The black Chinese characters in the textbooks look like a cloud of gnats swarming in front of me, and when I try to read, my head feels like it’s about to explode.”
I said, “Can your father really help me become a village cadre?”
Guizhi said, “Didn’t you hear what he just said? A year after we get married, and after we’ve had a child, he’ll send you to join the army.”
I said, “Why do we have to have a child before I join the army?”
Guizhi said, “If we don’t have a child, how could I be assured of your love?”
I said, “When could we get married?”
Guizhi said, “If it were up to me, we’d get married in the first lunar month of this year.”
I said, “Our family’s pigs are not fully grown, which means I don’t yet have enough money to get married.”
Guizhi said, “My family has already prepared a dowry, and whatever your family needs, mine can provide. But there is one condition, which is that after we marry, you must do as I say. If your mother makes me angry, I’ll smash a bowl in front of you, and if you make me angry, I’ll hang myself in front of you.”
In the first lunar month of that year, we got married.
3. Entering Cheng Temple for the First Time
I quickly led my son to my father-in-law’s house. When we arrived, my father-in-law was sitting in a rocking chair in the sun, smoking and playing with his family’s dog. (Is this what landowners in the old society were like?) He looked at the bags and cans of sweets I had brought him, and asked, “Are these from Jiudu, or are they our county’s local products?”
I replied, “I bought them in a grocery store in Jiudu. They were produced in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital.”
He took them from me and began sniffing them like a dog. He said, “Not bad. They smell very sweet.” Then he added, “You should take these into the temple and go see your Uncle Tianmin, who recently stepped down from his position as mayor and now lives in the temple, enjoying peace and quiet and reading old books every day.”
I emerged from my father-in-law’s house. He hadn’t mentioned wanting to prepare me to be a village cadre, nor had he mentioned the revolution or the village’s nature, a pool of stagnant water. In fact, he hadn’t even invited me to sit down, nor had he invited his grandson Hongsheng to eat something, let alone asked me about my experience and deeds in the army. Instead, he simply told me to leave his house, and said that my children and I should go to Cheng Temple. Revolution is not an invitation to a dinner party, nor is it a distribution of gifts; it is not an exchange of flattering and favors, nor is it painting and embroidery. Nevertheless, I had no choice but to visit Cheng Tianmin. He was the former mayor and the most visible representative of the historical Cheng Hao. His ancestors included individuals who had passed the imperial examinations, and those of his grandfather’s generation were xiucai scholars. As for Cheng Tianmin himself, before the revolution he had served as the principal of the county school, and in the first year after Liberation, the government recruited him as a prominent non-Party figure and appointed him to serve as the inaugural director of the county’s education bureau. It was said that when the government tried to appoint him to be county head, he sensed the complex formidability of the revolution and therefore chose instead to serve in a lower position as town mayor. To this day, from the grasslands of Inner Mongolia to the fishing villages of Hainan Island, from the Gobi Desert in the northwest to the gulf of Bohai in the northeast and the region of rice and fish in the south, the revolution was raging, with red banners flying and trumpets blaring. It was precisely at this point that he proposed to step down from his position as mayor. Was he afraid of the revolutionary storm, or was he stepping down precisely in order to advance further, like a wily hare with three secret burrows? Once (when I was still as small as an ant), I saw him in the street while accompanying my mother to the Cheng Village market, but my mother quickly pulled me to the side of the road, and after waiting for him to pass, she pointed to him and said, “My child, that is the mayor. If only you could have even half of his education and become a village cadre when you grow up, I would feel that my widowhood had not been in vain.” Why did she think I would be able to become only a village cadre? Why didn’t she expect me to become the village chief or town mayor, or even the county head or district commissioner? In the courses I took while in the army, didn’t the political instructor and the regimental commander keep telling us how Lin Biao was appointed division commander at the age of twenty? The world is yours, and it is also ours. If we are like the morning sun, then aren’t you like the evening sun, meaning that you must soon set below the western horizon?
Cheng Temple was located at the end of Rear Cheng Street. With Hongsheng carrying those two boxes of sweets and me carrying the four cans, we proceeded from Center Cheng Street’s second alley to Rear Cheng Street. When we encountered people along the way, they all repeated the same thing: “Aijun, did you leave the army?” I would simply smile and nod and then take a Golden Leaf cigarette out of my pocket and hand it to them. They would ask, “Where are you going?” to which I would reply, “I’m going to see the former mayor, who’s waiting for me in the temple.” They would say, “Aijun, if you become a village cadre, you should remember to look out for your fellow brothers,” to which I would say, “Look at how lifeless the mayor is. How could I possibly become a village cadre?” At this point, if the person I encountered was literate and could see and think clearly, he might say, “If you can achieve the revolutionary ‘three-in-one combination’—featuring a collaboration between cadres, technicians, and workers—that could make you a veritable youth cadre!”
I resolved that if I ever came to power, I would be sure to treat this person well. As long as his family didn’t have any political problems, then when it was time to irrigate the fields, I could let his family get water first, and when it was time to buy fertilizer, I could let his family purchase several dozen jin. I would do this because this was what I had to do. Why? Because I, Gao Aijun, am a conscientious revolutionary.
This was before lunch. Most of the men who had gone into the fields hadn’t yet returned, and the women were still at home cooking. As I was walking along Rear Cheng Street, I could see the sound of the bellows from each family’s stove, scurrying out like a mouse through the cracks under the doors. Plumes upon plumes of smoke blanketed the blue sky with white clouds, making it resemble a grief-stricken face (but whose?). I grasped Hongsheng’s hand. He kept glancing down at the two boxes of sweets he was holding, as the shiny paper glittered in the dark alley like flames. I knew he desperately wanted to eat one of those sweets, so when no one was looking, I opened the boxes and, after removing several sweets from each one, closed them again. As Hongsheng was eating the sweets, his face glowed with delight, and as he chewed happily, the glow from his face shone down on the ground of Rear Cheng Street. The courtyard walls, rear walls, and gable walls of the residences on either side of the s
treet made Rear Cheng Street appear rather narrow, like a canal. Layers of plaster had peeled off, and I could hear the plaster and cement falling to the ground. As I watched Hongsheng devouring the sweets, imbued with a spirit that could conquer mountains and rivers, I asked, “Hongsheng, are those good?”
He replied, “They’re delicious! They’re even tastier than meat.”
I said, “Your dad is going to join the revolution. After the revolution has succeeded, your dad will give you sweets every day.”
He gazed up at me with a look of bewilderment.
I patted his head as though I were a great personage. It was at that point that Cheng Temple appeared before us. There was a tall brick and tile gatehouse, on which the characters spelling CHENG TEMPLE were inscribed in gold—each character as large as a basket. Below these characters were the large red gates. I didn’t know whether some day in the future they would fall apart at my hand or whether they would stand unchanged, funneling cold air toward me as I faced them. At this point I didn’t realize that my beloved was waiting for me inside the temple. As I approached, my clothing was a mess, and in opening the boxes of sweets I had gotten oil from the oilpaper all over my fingers. Everything occurred without any preparation—with the bricks and tiles arranged there as if by fate. As I walked past the wall of the temple courtyard, the perfectly straight line of heavy bricks fell behind me. I arrived at the temple’s main gate, where two stone lions were squatting on either side and gazing up at me. I wiped my oily hands on one of the lion heads, as my son tugged at my hand and cautiously peered behind him.
