“You’ve lost your backing, buddy, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you were next. If you’re smart, you’ll give up your position and hand it to someone who knows something about farming. Singing opera doesn’t put food on the table.”
With a sneer, my brother said, “The County Revolutionary Committee made me chairman, and they’re the only ones who can take it away from me. The Commune Revolutionary Committee does not have that authority.”
Trouble was sure to come, and when my brother spoke so angrily to Yang Qi, the big ceramic Chairman Mao badge fell off his tunic, right into the latrine pit. My brother was stunned. Yang Qi was stunned. When my brother had gotten his bearings back and was about to jump into the latrine to retrieve the badge, Yang Qi also got his bearings back. He grabbed my brother by the lapels and shouted:
“Counterrevolutionary, I’ve caught a counterrevolutionary!”
My brother, along with the landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements, and capitalist-roader Hong Taiyue, was assigned to supervised labor. As for me, I was sent to the brigade feeding tent to feed the livestock, working for Old Fang Liu and Hu Bin, who had been released after serving out his sentence.
By moving my bedding to the sleeping platform in the feeding tent, I was finally able to leave the compound I loved and hated in equal measure. My departure also freed up a bit of space for Dad, who had begun sleeping in the ox shed when I told him I was joining the commune. For all its virtues, the shed was still a lean-to made to house an ox; in spite of its shortcomings, it was still a roof over his head. I urged him to move back into the room I vacated and told him not to worry, that I’d keep looking after our ox.
Although it was Yang Qi who had denounced my brother, costing him his position as chairman and pinning on him the label of active counterrevolutionary, he was not chosen to be the new chairman; the Commune Revolutionary Committee chose Huang Tong as chairman of our village committee, since he had performed well over the years as director of the Production Brigade. He would stand in the middle of the threshing ground like a commander deploying his forces when he passed out work assignments. Those from good families were given light work; those with bad backgrounds were sent out into the fields to man the plows. My brother stood with Yu Wufu, the onetime security chief, Zhang Dazhuang the turncoat, Wu Yuan, the rich peasant, Tian Gui, who had run the distillery, and Hong Taiyue, the capitalist-roader. A look of anger was stamped on my brother’s face; Hong Taiyue wore a sneer. Bad elements who had been undergoing labor reform for years showed no expression. By now used to spring plowing, they already knew which ox and which plow they were assigned. So they walked into the storeroom, brought out their plows and harnesses, and went over to the oxen that were waiting for them. Those animals have rested all winter and aren’t in shape, Fang Liu said, so go easy on them the first day. Let them lead. Then he picked out a black, gelded Bohai ox and a Western Shandong for Hong Taiyue, who deftly harnessed them; though he’d spent years as Party secretary, he was born a farmer and knew what he was doing. After watching the others, my brother lined up his plow, laid out the harness, and, curling his lip to show his unhappiness, said to Fang Liu:
“Which two animals do I get?”
Fang looked my brother over and said under his breath, but loud enough for my brother to hear, It’s good for a young man to temper himself. He untied a female Mongol ox from the tethering pole, one my brother was very familiar with. Early one spring years before, when we were tending oxen by the river, my brother’s figure had been reflected in her eyes. She stood obediently beside him chewing her cud, and a large chunk of chewed grass slid noisily down her throat. He tossed the halter over his shoulder, getting no resistance from her. Fang Liu’s gaze swept over the tethering pole and fell on our ox as if he’d just that moment discovered what a good animal it was, for his eyes lit up and he made a clicking noise with his mouth.
“Jiefang,” he said, “you can take the one you brought us and let it team up with its mother.”
Jinlong took the reins and commanded the ox to walk over to where he could be harnessed. But the ox kept his head low, leisurely chewing his cud. So Jinlong tugged at the reins to get the animal to move; that didn’t work either. Our ox had never had a ring placed through his nose, so his head was immovable. It was, as it turned out, his strength that brought about the punishment of a nose ring. Ox, that didn’t have to happen, and wouldn’t have if you’d displayed the same human understanding that was so evident when you were with Dad. Your obedience could well have established you as the only ox in the history of Northeast Gaomi Township to never have a nose ring. But you chose to ignore the attempts to get you to move.
“How does anyone get an ox to do what it’s told without a nose ring?” Fang Liu asked. “Does Lan Lian use magic incantations to get it to do what he wants?”
Ximen Ox, my friend, they hogtied you and stuck a hot poker through the septum of your nose. Who did it? My brother Jinlong. I didn’t know then that you were a reincarnation of Ximen Nao, so I couldn’t appreciate what you were feeling at that moment. The person who fitted a brass ring through the burned hole in your nose was your own son. How did that make you feel?
Once the nose ring was in place, they led you out into the field, where springtime, the season of rebirth, was making itself felt everywhere. But as soon as you reached the plot of land to be plowed, you lay down on the ground. All the farmers, veterans of many spring plowings, had watched you pull a plow by yourself, seemingly with ease, spreading waves of soil as you created one straight row after the other. They were curious, even mystified, by your behavior. What’s this all about? My dad was out on his narrow strip of land that day, a handheld hoe a substitute for an ox and a plow. Bent at the waist, eyes fixed on the ground at his feet, he moved slowly, one swipe of his hoe at a time. “This ox,” a farmer said, “wishes it could be working with him, the way it used to.”
Jinlong stepped backward, took his whip off his shoulder, and brought it down on the ox’s back. It left a white welt on your hide. You were in the prime of your life then, so your hide was tough and resilient. Jinlong’s lashing did no serious damage. If you’d been old and weak or young and underdeveloped, it would have split your hide.
There’s no denying that Jinlong was a very talented young man. Whatever he put his hand to, he did better than anyone. There weren’t more than a handful of men in the village who could handle one of those four-yard-long whips with accuracy, and he was one of them. The dull sound of the whip on your hide dispersed in the air around you, and I know Dad must have heard it. But he didn’t look up or pause in his work. I knew the depth of his feelings toward you, so the punishment you were taking must have hurt him a great deal. But rather than run over to protect you, he kept working. My dad was suffering as much from the lashing as you were!
Jinlong gave you twenty lashes and only stopped from exhaustion; he was gasping for breath, his forehead was bathed in sweat. But you lay there, head on the ground, hot tears squeezed out of your tightly shut eyes and darkening your face. You didn’t move and you didn’t make a sound, but the spastic ripples on your hide proved that you were still alive. If not for that, no one witnessing the scene would have doubted that they were now looking at a dead ox. With a steady stream of curses on his lips, my brother walked up and kicked you in the face.
“Get up, damn you,” he snarled. “Get up!”
You stayed where you were, eyes still shut. Enraged by your defiance, he kicked you in the head and the face and the belly, over and over and over, and from a distance he looked like a shaman in a dance of exorcism. You put up with the assault without moving, while the Mongol ox beside you, your mother, trembled as she watched what was happening to you; her crooked tail went stiff, like a petrified snake. Out in the field, my father sped up the pace of work, digging deeply into the earth.
The other farmers, having finished their plowing, returned, surprised to see that Jinlong’s ox was still lying on the ground. As they gathered round, the good-hearted rich peasant Wu Yuan said:
“Is he sick?”
Tian Gui, who consistently played the role of a progressive, said, “Look how plump he is, how glossy his coat is. Last year he pulled Lan Lian’s plow, this year he’s lying on the ground pretending he’s dead. This ox opposes the People’s Commune!”
Hong Taiyue glanced over at my dad, who still hadn’t looked up from his labors. “The kind of master you have determines the kind of ox you get,” he said coldly. “Like master, like ox.”
“Let’s beat him!” the traitor Zhang Dazhuang said. “I don’t believe he’ll keep lying there if we really beat him.” The others agreed.
And so, seven or eight plowmen formed a circle around the ox, took their whips off their shoulders, held the handles, and let the lashes hang down behind them. They were getting ready to start the beating when the Mongol ox crumpled to the ground like a toppled wall. But she immediately began pawing at the ground and got back to her feet. She quaked from head to tail, her eyes were glazed over, her tail was tucked between her legs. The men laughed.
“Would you look at that!” one of them said. “She’s paralyzed with fear before we even begin.”
