by Ha Jin
Fall came. We were busy getting in crops, felling trees for fuel, and digging vegetable cellars. For a month the three batteries had not taken the canvas covers off their cannons. Everybody worked hard; even the cooks could not go to bed until midnight, because they had to pickle a lot of vegetables — cabbages, turnips, eggplants, green peppers, garlic, and the like. By the end of September, we had finished most of the preparations for the winter. Now we could spare some men and sent them to help the villagers in Guanmen with their harvest and their threshing and winnowing.
On the evening of October 1, National Day, right after the holiday feast, the leader of the mess squad, Mu Lin, burst into the Battalion Headquarters. At the sight of Diao and me, he cried, “Our guns are stolen!”
“What?” I jumped to my feet. “What guns? How many?”
“Two semiautomatic rifles,” he said, panting hard. “They just disappeared this afternoon, when we were busy cooking the dinner.”
“Damn it, it must be Dragon Head again. Let’s go.” I put on my pistol and went out with Mu. Commissar Diao and Scribe Niu came along with us, but they didn’t wear their pistols.
No trace of the crime could be found at the mess squad. Two guns, which the cooks had seen on the rack at noon, were missing. No doubt it was the work of Dragon Head’s men. But without any evidence in our hands, what could we do? I couldn’t help swearing.
“Commander Gao,” Scribe Niu interrupted me, “I saw Ma Ding fooling around in the bushes this afternoon. He must have pretended to cut firewood there.”
I turned to Diao. “We must send a squad to Guanmen and bring Ma Ding here.”
“Why the hurry?” Diao asked.
“This time it’s not transceivers but guns, my commissar.”
“They won’t shoot us with the stolen guns, will they?” Without waiting for my answer, he continued, “Let them keep the guns warm in their hands for a little while. It won’t hurt us. Dragon Head has done enough now, and he won’t get away with it this time. I’m going to report this to the Regimental Political Department. For sure, they will start an investigation immediately.”
What he said made sense, for Dragon Head was not our enemy and would never fire at us. There was no point in acting rashly. Besides, we did not have any evidence yet. That night Diao called the Regimental Political Department, and he was told that an investigating group would be sent over soon. At the same time he received an order that required either Diao or me to check in, within a week, at the Divisional Headquarters in Longmen City for a two-month program of studying Engels’s Anti-Dühring. We were told that the study was designed for officers with a rank above battalion leader.
We talked, and neither of us wanted to leave the battalion at this moment. Diao tried hard to persuade me. “Old Gao, it’s a good bargain. The board expenses are one and a half yuan a day; there will be six dishes at lunch. Longmen is a big city, where you can go to sports games, movies, and operas. In addition” — he smiled and blinked his eyes — “girls there are pretty, with long braids.”
“Old Diao, I appreciate your letting me have such an opportunity, but it’s no fun to study there. I can’t understand a book like that, no matter how hard I rack my brains. It will be torture. I don’t want to make a fool of myself at the Divisional Headquarters. Besides, so many things have to be done here at home. The garages are not roofed yet, and the winter drill will start soon. No, I won’t leave at this historic juncture. Old Diao, it’s your duty to sharpen your mind. You’re the brain of our entire battalion. You’re the very person who should go.”
We could not persuade each other. Strange to say, next morning a call came from the Regimental Headquarters which ordered me to leave for the study. All right, I didn’t complain, because to obey orders is the first principle for an army man. Niu Hsi helped me pack up, and that Saturday I set off for Longmen. Before leaving, I talked to Commissar Diao about Dragon Head’s case. “This time,” I said, “we must not let him go. We must teach him a lesson so that he will think ten times before doing this sort of thing again. I don’t mind if they put him in jail for three months. It seems he should postpone his wedding for a short while. The Dragon’s whiskers have to be plucked.”
“Old Gao, trust me. I’ll handle everything well. Now it’s not a matter of hair and skin but a matter of eyes and teeth.”
4
Longmen was a good city indeed, very clean. Except that not many girls wore long braids there, everything appeared as Commissar Diao had described. There was fish and meat at lunch every day, and we could even have beer on Saturday evenings. Staying indoors and being fed well, I gained twenty jin in those two months. But Engels’s book wore us down. The two professors from Longmen City College lectured well and tried hard to make every point plain to us. Still, we couldn’t penetrate the book. Shameful as it was, we had to admit that we were too old to become pupils of Marx and Engels.
As soon as the study was over, I returned to Hutou with two other officers in a jeep. At the Regimental Headquarters, I found the chief of the Officer Section, Liu Mingyi, my fellow townsman, and talked to him about Scribe Niu Hsi, for I had heard in Longmen that our regiment was going to send a junior officer to the Second Military Foreign Language Institute to study Russian for three years. Niu Hsi was a good lad and deserved to go to college. He had cut my hair every month for over two years; I was grateful, though I had never mentioned it. Chief Liu seemed to be convinced that Niu Hsi was a proper choice.
“We’ll look into his file and make sure that his family background is clean,” Liu said.
“Of course it’s clean; otherwise how could he be the scribe of my battalion?”
“Old Gao, I know that. This is merely a procedure.” He chuckled. “You’ll never change a bit and always have a temper like a firecracker.”
I took a carton of Peony cigarettes out of my bag and handed it to him. “Here, it’s for you, Old Liu.”
“Good stuff.” He took it with a smile, smelling the end of the carton. “Want to have a drink tonight?”
“No, I have to go back this afternoon.”
He narrowed his small eyes and waved his hairy hand, signaling me to come closer. I moved my chair a little forward and rested my elbows on his desk. A young officer was filing something on top of a metal chest five meters away.
“By the way,” he said mysteriously, “how do you get along with Diao Shu?”
“Not bad. He’s a smart man who knows how to use words.”
“Old Gao, we are country boys and don’t have many tricks in our heads. Be cautious about Diao.”
“Why? What have you heard?”
“Don’t ask me why. I cannot tell you. Have you ever thought of going home? I don’t mean for a break.”
“You mean to be demobilized?”
He smiled, blinking his eyes, and put his index finger across his lips.
I stood up and said, “Old Liu, thank you for the talk.”
“I thank you for the cigarettes.” He got to his feet. “You can tell Niu Hsi to prepare himself to go.”
Coming out of the headquarters at about two o’clock, I strolled to the bus station. I was surprised by what Liu had told me. It seemed that Diao had got up some little maneuvers against me. What did he do? And why did he do it? I could not tell. According to Chief Liu, I might be demobilized. I had never done anything irresponsible or offensive to Diao. How come he held a grudge against me?
The streets were covered with gray snow trampled hard by footsteps and vehicles. Some Korean women went by pulling handcarts, and each cart was loaded with a huge rectangular block of ice. They sang work songs and cracked jokes, which I could tell by their hearty laughter. Trucks blew horns some blocks away; the iron wheels of bullock carts clanked here and there.
At the corner of the movie house, the only one in Hutou Town, about fifty people gathered looking at something. Since the bus would not depart until three, I went over to see what was there. On the bulletin board was a large notice, and some
people at the back were pushing forward in order to read its contents. From a distance of twenty meters, I felt that the first picture on the white sheet looked like Dragon Head, so I elbowed my way through the crowd to have a closer view.
It was Dragon Head! His face, crossed by two red strokes, was swollen, and there were some dark patches and small cuts on his forehead and cheeks. His eyes resembled those of a dead fish, while his lips were much thicker than they had been. His long, disheveled hair stuck out in all directions, which made his head seem twice its normal size. Somehow the photograph, once looked at closely, appeared less like Dragon Head than what I had seen from farther back. Beneath him stood a line of characters in boldface: “A Criminal Who Stole Military Equipment.” I was shocked and read the charge:
Long Yun, male, 29, from a poor peasant family, has stolen numerous pieces of military equipment, including army clothes, two transceivers, two semiautomatic rifles, etc. The stolen objects have been recovered, and Criminal Long could not deny his crime in the face of the ironclad evidence. For three years, Criminal Long, also called Dragon Head, has commanded his men as a group of idlers, disrupting the agricultural production and sabotaging the national defense. He lorded over several villages and is known in Hutou County as a local tyrant. In order to quiet the anger of the common citizens and to secure the iron bastion of our country’s border front, this court has decided to sentence Criminal Long to death. The execution is to be carried out promptly.
With Dragon Head there were three other men to be executed. One had raped two women, another had embezzled twenty thousand yuan, and the third had stolen fourteen bicycles.
I started cursing Diao in my mind. Whatever the reason, Dragon Head did not deserve capital punishment. He used to be our friend and would fight any battle for us; now, two years later he was dispatched as an enemy. Even a dog shouldn’t be treated this way. During my stay in Longmen I had called Diao a few times and asked about Dragon Head’s case at least twice, but each time Diao had assured me that he would handle it properly and advised me to concentrate on the study. Now Dragon Head had been executed; how could Diao call this outcome proper!
When I got back to my battalion, I went to the commissar’s office directly. Diao sat at his desk writing something. At the sight of me, he stood up, holding out his hand. “Old Gao, you’re back. How was the study?”
“Not bad.” We shook hands. “Commissar Diao, I saw the police notice in Hutou Town; so Dragon Head is dead. Why did you do this? It’s too despicable!”
“Old Gao, how the hell can you blame me for it?” he said in a high voice. “I didn’t want him dead either. I told all the villagers the same thing last week, and now I must repeat it to you: If I could have saved him I would have done it. It was a matter of human life; I want nobody to be killed. He had bad luck and was caught in the middle of the campaign cracking down on crimes. One man who stole bicycles was executed too. But Dragon Head stole guns! If you were here, you couldn’t have done anything either.”
I went out and flung the door shut. Diao always talked well, but I could not believe him anymore. With his tongue he could take in the villagers from Guanmen but not me this time, although I didn’t know how to argue with him.
Having considered what he had said for a short while, I had to admit his words were not totally groundless. Even if he had tried, Diao could by no means have stopped the whole plot. At most, he had served as a secret camera and an official informant on Dragon Head.
Before dinner I got hold of Scribe Niu Hsi and asked him what he knew. We walked out of the barracks. Hard snow squeaked beneath our feet while we were climbing the hill. “The day after you left,” Niu Hsi said, “the investigating group arrived, three officers and two policemen. They arrested Ma Ding first. Without much trouble, Ma admitted he had stolen the guns.”
“Then how come Ma Ding was not sentenced?”
“They did not allow him to go home that night. The next morning, Dragon Head came, riding the black horse and wearing the two rifles across his back. He asked the investigating group to release Ma Ding and claimed he was responsible for everything. He said he had ordered Ma to steal the guns. They let Ma Ding go and took Dragon Head into custody. Dragon Head confessed that he had been behind everything, including the six hats and the two transceivers. I wrote down what he said during the interrogation, which was very short. He didn’t bother to hide anything.”
“Do you still have the notes?”
“No. They took them away the next day, together with the two guns. Dragon Head went with them too.”
“How did the villagers respond when they heard of his death?”
“They came over, crying and cursing. Wang Si and those militiamen pounded their chests and heads, shouting, ‘Brother Dragon’s wronged!’ The girl, Dragon Head’s fiancée, fainted and was carried to our clinic. Commissar Diao spoke with tears in his eyes and calmed them down. He told them that he had a heavy heart over the misfortune too, because he had lost a good friend. But our battalion wasn’t involved in the charge and the execution. We had no idea how this had happened. What he said seemed true, so after two hours they went back home.”
Gray mist was spreading above the two hundred thatched roofs of Guanmen Village below us. Kerosene lights and candles flickered timidly through the dim curtain of the evening air. A dog was barking. The voices of the children racing about in the streets sounded like birds’ chirping in deep woods. I did not want to talk more about Dragon Head. Niu Hsi might as well remain ignorant of the iniquitous reality. So I changed the topic and told him that I had arranged for him to go to college to study Russian. He looked hesitant.
“I know what’s in your mind, Little Niu,” I said. “You’re unsure of yourself.”
“No, Commander Gao. I think I can be a good student, as long as I work hard. To be honest, I’m thinking if I should go to college, since I’m already an officer.”
“Look at it this way.” I smiled. “In a person’s life, what part is longer — war or peace?”
“Of course peace is longer.”
“Then you need a skill and some knowledge to live in peace. When you’re old, do you think you can make a living by carrying a gun like I’m doing now?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Then you should go, must go.”
He nodded his head. We turned around and were about to go down the hill. Niu stopped and said, “Commander Gao, I want to tell you something that I don’t know if I should.”
“What? Tell me.”
“Commissar Diao said he had you sent to Longmen.”
“What did he tell you exactly?”
“He didn’t tell me anything. After the villagers left, I overheard him on the phone: ‘Fortunately, we sent Gao Ping away beforehand.” ’
“Oh, I understand it now.” I was surprised, as the series of events started linking together. We began going down the hill. Now the whole thing became clear in my mind. By ordering me to go to Longmen, the Regimental Political Department had intended to prevent me from interfering with Dragon Head’s case; at last, I figured out why among the officers in the study program I was the only battalion leader; the others all had a higher rank. I had not been trusted. Why? Why did Diao treat me as his rival?
Suddenly it dawned on me that Diao Shu was determined to get rid of me, because I happened to know the true history of his family. Anyone with that knowledge could turn him in at any time, so I accidentally became a time bomb in his political and military career. For his own survival, he had to remove me, and the first step to achieve this purpose was to make me appear untrustworthy to our superiors so that nobody would believe what I said. He must have been working on this scheme for quite a while. Undoubtedly, the regimental leaders had already taken me for a troublemaker.
As Chief Liu had revealed to me, three months later I was demobilized.
5
Seven years have elapsed since I left the army. Life has been awfully kind to me. For all these years, I
have worked as the chief of the Military Department in our commune. One of my children has gone to college in Tianjin, and the other is doing well in the middle school. In the evenings, I can have a few cups of liquor and chat away with friends till midnight. What else should I ask from life?
Diao Shu is the director of the Political Department of the Third Division now. He is an able man and probably deserves his series of promotions. Niu Hsi, who is still a lad in my eyes, returned to Hutou after graduation and has served as an interpreter in our Fifth Regiment for three years. Last month I received a letter from him. The letter reads as follows:
My Most Respected Commander Gao:
Please forgive me for my delay in writing to you. How are you now? How are your wife and children?
Recently I have been terribly busy, for the border is open now. Sometimes I work twelve hours a day. There are so many trade delegations, tourists, and business people that Russian interpreters are in great demand. Many of the local companies and factories turn to me for help when they have business to do with the Russians. Hutou is a peaceful town now — a city, I should say. You can see Russian travelers and shoppers in the streets every day, since there is a daily bus service across the border. Though I’m busy, I won’t complain. I have made a lot of money and got nine pairs of leather shoes and two dozen Western suits for free. In fact, I’m thinking of leaving the army now. There’s no need to worry about a job. Last month, Harbin Normal College contacted me and asked me if I would like to teach Russian in their school.
Dear Commander Gao, how grateful I am to you! Seven years ago, when you wanted me to go to college, I hesitated. It was you who made the decision for me. My family and I will never forget you — our great benefactor.
