by Ma Jian
‘I only copied it to understand your parents better. When I reached the end, I realised your mother was a good person after all, and I resolved to fall in love with you.’ Since Li Wei has transformed into Pan Hua, her voice has become husky and acquired a Sichuan accent.
‘Ah, if only I had known!’ he says. ‘Now I understand why you were so desperate to rent this tower, Li Wei – I mean, Pan Hua. Your mother is looking for you, by the way. I bumped into her on Drum Tower Street just now.’
Ma Daode looks down again, and is so astonished by the battle scene now unfurling in the square, his legs almost give way. He can see captives, hands raised in surrender, being herded out of the old general post office by a squad of Red Guards; and on a hemp-sack barricade on the street outside, he sees the mad-eyed boy called Tan Dan waving a Mauser pistol in the air, just as he did over forty years ago after he executed the captives on the river pier in Yaobang.
Pan Hua joins the other East is Red recruits who are pushing the enemy faction away from the ticket office. A small group of Million Bold Warriors runs off to the side, scrambles through a hole in the fence and begins to form a human ladder up the Drum Tower. Voices cry out from the jostling hordes: ‘Get out of here, you Million Bold Warrior bastards!’
The garlic seller sees his tricycle cart being toppled over and shouts: ‘Why aren’t the urban-management officers arresting these bloody hooligans?’ A group of Red Guards surrounds Song Bin’s trolley of bamboo steamers, yelling: ‘We Million Bold Warriors are great! It’s you who should bugger off, you East is Red scum!’ Then they open the steamers, grab hold of the small, breast-like Xi dumplings and hurl them at the China Dream screen. One hits the corner of Ma Daode’s mouth and falls onto his two-toned brogue. In the distance, he sees a People’s Liberation Army truck, packed with more Red Guards and rebel workers, advance along Drum Tower Street. A deafening clamour of gongs and drums melds with piercing battle cries. The flat roofs of every surrounding building are now crammed with onlookers. Propaganda Chief Ding is standing among them, waving a burning red flag. From the huge speakers beside the giant screen below, the new China Dream theme song, with lyrics composed by Ma Daode himself, blares out: ‘The China Dream is really good, really good, really good …’
Above the cacophony, Ma Daode yells: ‘Comrades-in-arms! With our blood and our lives we have established the glorious new era of the China Dream. Let us bid farewell to the past and sing in unison: “The Cultural Revolution is really good, really …” Forgive me, I mean: “The China Dream is really good, really good …”’ Just as he is about to sing ‘really good’ for the third time, Ma Daode sees his father, an English fountain pen clipped to the pocket of his white shirt and a two-toned brogue on his left foot, being dragged by Song Bin out of the Qingfeng Dumpling Store. A stocky little youth, whom Ma Daode instantly recognises as Yao Jian, then yanks his father’s head back, chops off a chunk of his hair, looks up and shouts: ‘If you don’t jump now, Ma Daode, I’ll come up and kick you off myself!’ Ma Daode stares in amazement at Yao Jian standing there with blood streaming from his mouth, a pair of scissors in his hand and a pool of blood at his feet, looking exactly as he does in the nightmare vision that haunts his days and nights.
His vision blurs for a moment. Blood begins to trickle from every orifice of his body. He feels his life force slowly slipping away. Knowing that there is no time left for him to try to produce any tears, he spits a drop of his blood into the bottle instead. Then he gives it a shake, yells: ‘Long live Father! Long live Mother! Long live the China Dream!’ and with a grand flourish splashes the China Dream Soup over the crowd below. When the foul-smelling liquid touches their heads, some people cry, some laugh, others cover their noses and flee like a colony of ants escaping a jet of urine.
The soup’s morbid stench drifts through every street and lane. Ma Daode smiles. Although he hasn’t drunk any yet, his memories have already vanished and his mind is completely clear. He raises his gaze from the sea of blood-red flags and looks straight ahead. The crowd is still lobbing the small, pillowy dumplings at him. But when they enter Ma Daode’s line of vision, all he sees are soft white clouds bobbing in the clear blue sky. Everything looks clean and pure. He is certain that this heavenly scene unfolding before him is the China Dream of President Xi Jinping. Summoning every remaining ounce of his energy, he discards his vibrating phone and with the grace of a dancer, leaps off the edge of the balcony and soars upward and onward, towards a beautiful and radiant future.
A note about the cover
When the artist Ai Weiwei was ‘disappeared’ by the Chinese government in 2011, in a fit of rage I printed hundreds of black-and-white photographs of him with the message ‘Free Ai Weiwei’ and, with my then five-year-old daughter, scattered them over his sunflower-seed installation in London’s Tate Modern, so that the Turbine Hall was covered with his face. Three years ago, my daughter and I met him in person at his exhibition in London’s Royal Academy. When my British publisher asked me for ideas about the cover for this book, I immediately thought of the monumental forest of dead trees that stood at the entrance to the exhibition. They reminded me of the gnarled willow under which Ma Daode’s parents lie buried. The bare, jagged branches seemed to convey at once the totalitarian mission to suppress the past and the individual’s stubborn quest to remember. When I met up again with Ai Weiwei in Berlin where I have been based for the last year, I asked if we could use a photograph of the trees, but he volunteered instead to design the whole cover. The work of art that he has produced is beyond anything that I could have hoped for. In the shattered branches, I see the brutality of autocracy, the splintering of the self and the human soul’s yearning for freedom. It encapsulates everything I wanted China Dream to say. I am immensely honoured and grateful that he has given the book such a beautiful and powerful image.
Acknowledgements
Since my voice was extinguished in China, many people have helped allow my words live on elsewhere. I would like to express my deep gratitude to the following people: Sarah Chalfant, Rebecca Carter, Clara Farmer, Juliet Brooke, my new editor Becky Hardie, as well as the many foreign publishers who have supported me over the years, including those in Hong Kong and Taiwan. My gratitude to Flora Drew is inexpressible.
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Epub ISBN: 9781473557741
Version 1.0
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Copyright © Ma Jian 2018
Translation Copyright © Flora Drew 2018
© Ai Weiwei
Ma Jian has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published in the United Kingdom by Chatto & Windus in 2018
penguin.co.uk/vintage
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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