by Yan Lianke
Who are the People? In China, at this historical juncture, the People includes workers, peasants, the urban petite bourgeoisie, and the national bourgeoisie. Under the direction of the working class and the Communist Party, these classes will unite and establish their own nation, elect their own government, and exercise a dictatorial rule over those imperial running dogs—which is to say, the landlord class and the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, together with the Kuomintang reactionaries who represent those classes, and their accomplices. We want to oppress these people, and permit them only to be well behaved and not run amok.
On the wall behind me, where Hongmei was looking, there was a passage that read: To sum up our experience and concentrate it into one point, it is: the People’s democratic dictatorship under the leadership of the working class (through the Communist Party) and based upon the alliance of workers and peasants. This dictatorship must unite as one with the international revolutionary forces. This is our formula, our principal experience, our main program. Under the window were two famous phrases that resembled explosives. On the left side of the window there was the phrase Fight, fail, fight again, fail again, fight again … until their victory; that is the logic of the People, and they will never go against this logic. On the right side there was the phrase In class struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for millennia. Meanwhile, on the ceiling was Marx’s wise and prophetic declaration about a dictatorship of the proletariat, which served as a beacon to guide socialism: Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. On the floor was a passage from the great work in which Lenin extended Marx’s revolutionary theory of class struggle: The dictatorship of the proletariat is fierce war. The proletariat has been victorious in one country, but it is still weak internationally … Never before in history has there been a struggle like the one of which we are now witnesses … The People have had no way of acquiring experience in wars of this kind. We ourselves must create this experience.
It’s possible that, in the daily life of revolution, we don’t necessarily appreciate the power and magnificence of these sorts of quotations and slogans, but in this special detention chamber, after reading these quotations and slogans, I felt as though there were an enormous undercurrent rumbling beneath my feet. It was as if the Yellow River or the Yangtze were buried ten or fifty meters beneath me, as though a mudflow were struggling beneath the stools on which Hongmei and I were standing, or as though magma from a live volcano were in the process of forcing its way up through the earth’s crust. I could feel the earth shaking and the stool’s legs trembling, as though we might fall off at any moment.
After reading those slogans and quotations, I saw that Hongmei had turned around on her stool and was silently reading them as well. Her face was ashen, though in the light of the setting sun her pallor had a dull shade of red. We were positioned a meter apart from one another, and on the floor between us was the enormous Chairman Mao poster, separating us like snow-capped mountains and vast fields of grass. It was as if we were separated by a glass wall or a glass mountain, such that we could see one another but were unable to hold hands, and although we could speak, we couldn’t let our spittle fall to the floor. We assumed that the reason they had locked us inside this special detention chamber was because we were already a pair of dyed-in-the-wool revolutionaries and were only a day or so away from being promoted to county head and member of the standing committee. We assumed that the fact that they hadn’t sent us to a real prison was a gesture of humanism and comradely love, in light of our revolutionary efforts. We assumed that after we had endured this sort of revolutionary test they would escort us back and celebrate us.
I said, “Hongmei, are you OK?”
She nodded and said, “My legs are trembling.”
I said, “Then you should squat down for a while, but you must make sure that you don’t touch the ground.”
She said, “Yes, I know.”
Then the shadow in front of the window moved, and we saw a long and thin face peering in. Parallel to the man’s long and thin face, there was a bayonet strapped to the man’s shoulder. Hongmei and I looked at him, and seeing that he wasn’t stopping us from speaking or squatting, we once again felt the warmth of revolutionary humanism. We squatted down, grasping the edges of our stool seats (which appeared to be made from willow wood), and I said, “The quotations on the walls around us have remolded our ideology, and the Chairman Mao busts on the floor have prevented us from fleeing. If we were to touch the ground we would be committing a political mistake, which would make us doubly guilty.” Hongmei looked at the Mao busts on the floor in front of her, and a smile flickered across her face. She looked as though she were about to say something, but didn’t.
I added, “As long as there is revolutionary friendship and our hearts are united, then if there is anything you feel you shouldn’t say, just give me a glance, and I’ll understand.”
She said, “Will they make us squat here all night?”
I said, “I don’t know.”
She said, “If they make us squat here all night, we’ll surely fall to the ground and step on the Chairman Mao poster.”
I said, “Then we’ll have done exactly what they want, and our guilt will be doubled.”
At that moment, as the setting sun’s final rays lingered outside the window, and darkness began to fall, the detention chamber was suddenly lit up. All the room’s lights were turned on. There were five spotlights on the ceiling, and each wall had two more. These thirteen spotlights had two-hundred- or five-hundred-watt bulbs, and their parabolic reflectors were all oriented toward us. We felt as though our bodies were on fire and our eyes were in agony, poked with red-hot needles. We frantically rubbed our eyes, and by the time we had had a chance to adjust to that blinding light, the tiny window had already been shut tightly. We heard the footsteps of the sentry stepping down from his post, together with the creaking sound of the wooden steps under his feet. It was as if, after we had been thrown into the revolutionary furnace, everyone had simply departed, and would return to retrieve us only after we had been melted into an anti-revolutionary residue, at which point they would stomp on us and drive us to our deaths—and in this way they would forever reduce us to the status of despicable dogshit.
We used our intuition to discern all this.
We anticipated their intentions and objectives. The Mao poster on the floor beneath us was perfectly spotless, and if we stepped down we would inevitably leave a footprint. In fact, even if we first removed our shoes, our bare feet would still leave a mark. There were also the Chairman Mao busts that were arranged in an array of four streams leading to the door. When the lights came on, I saw that several of them had simple Chinese characters written on the side, including the characters 工, 十, 五, and 三, together with punctuation marks such as : and 、. I realized that the location and orientation of these busts must follow some sort of secret code. Hongmei and I observed the layout carefully and saw that it wouldn’t be sufficient to merely move two or three of the busts—if we wanted to get down off the stools and stand on the ground, we’d have to move at least five or six busts out of the way, and furthermore, every time we took a step forward, we’d have to return the busts to their original positions. At this point, the situation would become even more difficult, because we’d have to remember not only the precise position but also the orientation of each bust. No two busts were oriented in the same direction, and furthermore, they were not necessarily oriented along the four cardinal directions, but rather they might be oriented between east and northeast, or between southwest and southeast, or southeast and southwest. As a result, the busts positioned in the four streams resembled a revolutionary eight-diagram configuration, and if you entered it without knowing the se
cret path, you would surely never be able to re-create it again.
Hongmei and I gazed silently at one another. Fortunately, it was not yet the height of summer and not terribly hot. After dusk (at least I think it was after dusk), we didn’t hear the rumbling sound of the factory in the city or the whistle of the trains that pass through the suburbs every night transporting coal. (Oh, that unforgettable rail line through the suburbs!) We could faintly discern the scent of fields, which entered through the window and door like strands of silk. We smelled what resembled the odor of a brick kiln combined with the scent of grassy fields (or perhaps it was the scent of grassy fields combined with the odor of a brick kiln). Although I couldn’t see my own face, I could tell that my heart was as cold and gray as a wet blue cloth, and I could see that Hongmei’s face had begun to turn pale, as though she were once again beginning to panic. Time came to resemble viscous mud that overflowed into this big, cavernous room full of revolutionary echoes. We continued squatting on the seats of those willow-wood stools, each of which had only enough room for us to stand on. We alternated between peering down at our feet, looking at the images of Chairman Mao below us (that old fellow still had his kindly smile), and gazing at each other. We desperately wanted to come up with an encouraging word to raise the other’s spirits. (Substance is primary and spirit is secondary, but at certain times and under specific circumstances, substance must yield to spirit and spirit must replace substance as primary, becoming a leader and commander and chief—this is the worldview of materialist dialectics and of historical materialism.) We very much wanted to find something we could say to raise our will to struggle. I reflected for a long time and finally came up with something.
I said, “Hongmei, are you hungry?”
She shook her head.
I said, “Had we known that things would turn out this way, we should have eaten some of that food at lunch.”
She smiled but didn’t reply.
I said, “How do you think Secretary Guan found out about us?”
She stared, thought for a moment, then said quietly, “Perhaps while we were in that room waiting to see him, someone …”
I immediately said, “That’s not possible. The curtains were drawn so tightly there wasn’t a single opening.”
She said, “Then … maybe someone reported us?”
I said, “Perhaps.”
She said, “Who could it have been? Not even heaven or earth knew about us …”
I said, “Only your father-in-law, Cheng Tianmin. After Wang Zhenhai was seized, Cheng Tianmin realized that after our revolution succeeded, you and I would be rapidly promoted. Do you think he would have been happy to see us promoted? Could he have been concerned about the fate of his son? Could he have been secretly observing our activities?” I glanced out the window and noted that it was so quiet, it was as if you could hear the wind blowing in your ear. She said, “He saw us this morning when we left town.” I replied, “Maybe, after he saw us leave, he returned home, went into your room, and discovered the opening into the tunnel beneath your bureau. After discovering that opening, he would have realized everything. Then he would have followed us to the city and would have reported us right after we spoke to Secretary Guan.”
Half-convinced, Hongmei looked at me. Her legs had begun to go numb from squatting for so long, so she carefully stood up and stretched. As she did so, the stool shook a bit, so she immediately squatted down again and grasped the edge of the stool with both hands. At this point her face suddenly broke out into a cold sweat, and she turned even more pale than before—becoming as white as a sheet of paper. (Could one use this paper to draw a new, beautiful picture?) I said, “You have to be careful.” She replied steadily, “Aren’t your legs numb?” I said, “Yes, they are.” She said, “But my room was locked. How could he have gotten in?” I said, “Cheng Tianmin is a wily old fox. Maybe he had made a copy of your key?”
She stared at me. “Even if he had made a copy of the room key, there’s no way he could have made a copy of the bureau key, because I had the only one.”
I asked, “Are you positive you locked your bureau when you left?”
She said, “Yes.” But then she reflected further, looked down at the light red short-sleeve shirt she was wearing, and suddenly became uncertain as to whether or not she had in fact locked it.
She added, as though speaking to herself, “As I was leaving, I opened the bureau to change my shirt, but did I lock it afterward?”
I said, “Think carefully.”
She said, “I suppose it’s possible I didn’t.”
I said, “It’s definitely possible you didn’t. I saw you leave it unlocked on several occasions.”
She didn’t say anything else. It was as if, upon realizing she might not have locked the bureau after all, her face came to assume a dirty expression of remorse, as if earth from the fields and dust from the ripe grain were covering her bright face. She gazed at me silently for a while, then bowed her head.
I said, “A single ant hole can cause the collapse of a thousand li of dikes.”
She looked up, with tears streaming down her face. It was clear she felt an acute sense of shame and regret and could barely restrain herself from bashing her brains out in order to express her guilt and repentance. Under the bright lights, her face appeared snowy white and deep blue, and the tears dripping down onto her pink top looked like black ink drops. “If I did in fact forget to lock it, would you hate me?” Her bright eyes looked as though she were begging for forgiveness—as though there were an array of peeled wheat stalks positioned between our faces. Her voice trembled and a pair of teardrops fell onto the stool seat beneath her, where they fractured into countless droplets that splattered onto the Chairman Mao poster like grains of sand falling onto a sheet of paper. I said, “Hongmei, you mustn’t cry. You mustn’t let your teardrops fall onto the Chairman Mao poster.”
By this point she couldn’t be troubled about this and instead continued to let her tears fall onto the stool seat, from which they then splattered onto the poster. She insistently asked, “If it turns out that I really did bury your political life, would you hate me?”
I also started to believe that it was her failure to lock the bureau that had led to the current tragedy, yet there was no way I could possibly hate her for this. She was my soul and my flesh, my revolutionary companion and the driver of my revolutionary passion. I told her, “Hongmei, I don’t hate you at all. Nor do I have any regrets. I just hate myself, and regret that I didn’t take the opportunity to formally marry you when I could.” She stared at me with tears streaming down her face, as though trying to determine how much of what I was saying was true.
I continued, “If I had been able to marry you, then even if we were executed, the villagers would still have to bury us together.”
The teardrops in her eyes suddenly grew to the point that they were as large as beans. Glittering, they hung from her eyelids—looking as though they were about to roll down, but she somehow managed to keep them in place. I smelled the sharp salty scent of her tears. She was extremely moved by what I had said, and I was overcome by those two teardrops, by the anguished gaze with which she looked at me, and by the pale hue of her complexion. From the depths of my heart, I resolved that if it was really true that it had been her failure to lock the bureau that had led to our being sent to this special detention chamber in this special prison, then not only would I forgive and absolve her with the magnanimity of a politician and a revolutionary, I would love and treasure her even more than before. I would love our revolutionary affection and treasure our comradely love. I wanted our revolutionary passion to become a model for posterity—an exemplary model that people would continually praise. I very much wanted to say something grandiose in order to express my steadfast friendship, but a deep agony rose up in my heart, preventing me from uttering a single word. Instead, all I was able to do was bite my lower lip and stare at her face, which appeared even more delicate because of its pallor,
and at her eyes, which appeared even more captivating because they were filled with tears. We stared at one another for what seemed like an eternity, maintaining a profound silence. Our eyes were moist and heavy, while our hearts were pure and noble. We heard shards of time illuminated by the lamp whiz by us, and we heard the urgent pounding of our hearts, like dewdrops falling from tree leaves and grass blades onto the ground below. We smelled the bricks’ sulfuric odor seeping in through the cracks in the door and the corners of the roof—a damp, warm smell that infiltrated our nostrils and throats. We wanted to open our mouths and swallow it. We gazed silently at one another, until even this became exhausting. Finally, Hongmei lifted her hand and wiped away her tears, then she lowered her head and said with a smile, “Aijun, do you know what I most want to do right now?”
I shook my head.
She wiped away her smile and said very seriously, “What I wish most of all is that I could take off my clothes in front of you one final time. I want to stand there naked and dance crazily, like we did that time in the tomb. Then I want to lie down in front of you and do whatever you want me to do, and let you do to me whatever you want.”
