handbills in the practiced manner of Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution or professional mourners scattering spirit money during rural funerals. People swarmed around us, penning us in with no way out. Fellow villagers, you’ve surrounded the person who least deserves it. I spotted Hong Taiyue’s white hair; supported by a couple of young men, he was walking toward me from the pagoda pine east of the main gate. He stopped just in front of the farmers and behind the seated old women, a space that had obviously been saved for him. This was an organized, disciplined crowd of petitioners, led, of course, by Hong Taiyue. He desperately missed the collective spirit of the people’s commune and the stubborn perseverance of Lan Lian, the independent farmer. The two eccentrics of Northeast Gaomi Township had been like a pair of oversize lightbulbs, spreading their light in all directions, like two flying banners, one red, the other black. He reached behind him and took out his ox hip bone, now yellowed with age, but retaining all nine copper coins around the edge; he raised it in the air, then lowered it, over and over, faster and faster, creating a
More people crowded up, filling the compound with noise, but quieting down almost at once.
Now there’s a Ximen Village in Northeast Gaomi Township, scenic as a dream,
Where once was a famous Apricot Garden where pigs wer each to a team.
Grain grew high, animals thrived, Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line was like the sun!
At this point, Hong flung the bone into the air, spun around, and, so all could see, caught it before it hit the ground. While it was in the air, it sang out its unique sound, almost like a living being. Amazing! The crowd roared. Scattered applause. The expression on Hong’s face underwent a dramatic change. He continued:
The village’s tyrannical landlord, Ximen Nao, left behind a bastard white-eyed wolf.
The fellow’s name is Jinlong, from childhood a smooth-talking phony do-gooder
Who wormed his way into the Youth League and the Communist Party.
By usurping authority he became Party secretary to settle old scores likea madman.
He parceled out land for independent farming and stole People’s Commune property
He restored landlords, rehabilitated the bad, making ox-demons and snake-spirits happy.
My heart breaks when I say these things, tears and snivel run down my face…
He flung the bone into the air and caught it with his right hand as he dried his eyes with his left. The next time he caught it with his left hand and dried his eyes with his right. That bone was like a white weasel jumping from one hand to the other. The applause was deafening, almost but not quite drowning out the sound of police sirens.
With increased passion, Hong continued:
Then in 1991, the little rogue came up with another evil plot,
He wants to drive us out of the village and turn it into a tourist resort.
To destroy good farmland for a golf course, a gambling casino, a brothel, a public bath, and turn socialist Ximen Village into an imperialist pleasure dome.
Comrades, villagers, beat your chests and think, is it time for class struggle?
Should Ximen Jinlong be killed? Even with his money, his prestige, his support; even if his brother, Jiefang, is deputy county chief. United we are strong. Let us sweep away the reactionaries, sweep them away, sweep them all away…
The crowd responded with a roar. People cursed and swore, they laughed, they stomped their feet, and they jumped in anger. Chaos reigned at the gate. I was just looking for an opportunity to climb out of the car and, as a fellow villager, get them to leave. But Hong Taiyue’s clapper talk had by then implied that I was Jinlong’s backer, and I shuddered to think what might happen if I confronted this fired-up crowd. All I could do was put on my shades to hide my face and lean back in the seat until the police came and broke up the demonstration.
I watched as a dozen cops standing on the perimeter of the demonstration brandished their clubs – no, now they’re in the midst of the surging crowd, surrounded.
I adjusted my shades, put on a blue cap, did my best to cover my blue birthmark, and opened the car door.
“Don’t go out there, Chief,” my driver said, clearly alarmed.
But I did, and I forged ahead at a crouch, until I tripped over an extended leg and found myself sprawled on the ground. The earpiece of my glasses had broken off, my cap had flown off my head, and my face was lying on the noon-baked concrete. My nose and my lips hurt. Suddenly I was in the grip of incapacitating despair; dying there would have been the easy way out. I might even have been given a hero’s funeral. But then I thought of Pang Chunmiao; I couldn’t die without seeing her one more time, even if my last glimpse of her was in her coffin. Just as I managed to get back on my feet, a chorus of shouts thundered all around me:
“It’s Lan Jiefang, it’s Blue Face! He’s Ximen Jinlong’s backer!”
“Grab him, don’t let him get away!”
Everything went black, then a blinding light, and the faces around me were all twisted, like horseshoes dunked in water after emerging from the forge, emitting steel blue rays of light. My arms were twisted roughly behind my back. My nose was hot and itchy, and it felt as if a pair of worms had wriggled onto my upper lip. Someone kneed me in the buttocks, someone else kicked me in the calf, and someone else slugged me in the back. I saw my blood drip onto the concrete, where it immediately turned to black steam.
“Is that you, Jiefang?” The familiar voice came from somewhere up ahead, and I quickly composed myself, forced the cobwebs out of my head so I could think, and focused my eyes as best I could. There in front of me was Hong Taiyue’s face, the picture of suffering and hatred. For some strange reason, my nose began to ache, my eyes seemed hot, and tears spilled out, the very thing that happens if you spot a friend when you’re in danger. “Good uncle,” I sobbed, “tell them to let me go…”
“Let him go, all of you, let him go…” I heard his shouts and saw him wave his ox bone like a conductor’s baton. “No violence, this is a peaceful demonstration!”
“Jiefang, you’re the deputy county chief, the people’s official, so you have to stand up for us villagers and stop Ximen Jinlong from carrying out his crazy scheme,” Hong said. “Your father was going to come and petition on our behalf, but your mother fell ill, so he couldn’t come.”
“Uncle Hong, Jinlong and I may have been born to the same mother, but we’ve never gotten along, not even as children. You know that as well as I.” I wiped my bloody nose. “I’m as opposed to his plan as you are, so let me go.”
“Did you all hear that?” Hong waved his ox bone. “Deputy County Chief Lan is on our side!”
“I’ll forward your complaints up the line. But for now, you have to leave.” I pushed aside the people in front of me and, as sternly as I could manage, said, “You’re breaking the law!”
“Don’t let him go until he signs a pledge!”
That made me so mad I reached out and snatched the ox bone out of Hong’s hand and brandished it over my head like a sword, driving the crowd back, all but one person who got hit on the shoulder and another who took it on the head. “The deputy county chief is assaulting people!” That was fine with me, right or wrong. Right or wrong, county chief or not, you people had better get out of my way – I opened a path with the ox bone, broke through the crowd, and made my way into the building, where I took the stairs three steps at a time all the way up to my office. I looked out the window at all those shiny heads beyond the gate, then heard some dull thuds and saw a cloud of pink smoke rise into the air, and I knew that the police had finally resorted to tear gas. Bedlam broke out. I threw down the ox bone and shut the window, ending for the moment my dealings with the world outside. I was not a very good government cadre, because I was more concerned about my problems than the people’s suffering. In fact, I was glad to see those poor people petitioning the government, since it would be up to Pang Kangmei and her ilk to clean up the mess. I picked up the phone and dialed the bookstore number. No answer. I phoned home. My son answered, which took the edge off my anger.
“Kaifang,” I said as calmly as I could, “let me talk to your mother.”
“What’s going on with you and Mom?” he asked unhappily.
“Nothing,” I said. “Let me talk to her.”
“She’s not here, and the dog didn’t come to school to pick me up,” he said. “She didn’t make lunch for me, and all she left was a note.”
