you go to get down off the rock again, but hear him next to you, reminding you: 'What is right is that you are dizzy and not the rock.'
'Of course…' You're getting confused.
'You are not the rock!' the joker says decisively.
'Of course I'm not the rock,' you acknowledge. 'Is it all right to come down?'
'You are far from being as solid as this rock! I'm talking about you!'
'Right, so I may as well-' You give him the answer he wants and go to step down.
'Don't be in such a hurry. But standing on the rock you can see farther than if you came down, right?'
'Of course.' You again give him the answer he wants, without even thinking.
'In the distance right in front of you-don't look at your feet, I said, look in front of you-what do you see?'
'The horizon?'
'What's the horizon? There's always a horizon! I'm talking about above the horizon, have a good look-'
'At what?'
'Surely you see it?'
'Isn't it just sky?'
'Look again carefully!'
'It's no good,' you say, blinded, 'there are all sorts of bright colors…
'That's right, you can have any color you want. What a brilliant, beautiful sky, everything to be hoped for is right before your eyes, and you may be considered as having opened your eyes.'
'Surely it's all right to get down now, isn't it?' You close your eyes.
'Look at the sun again! This time look again at the sun in its golden brilliance, its magnificence! You will discover, listen to me, you will discover miracles! Unimaginable miracles, the most beautiful miracles!'
'What miracles?' you ask as you cover your eyes with a hand.
The joker takes your other hand, and you feel there is a bit of support as you hear wind pouring into your ears. The joker gives a clue, 'The world has such brilliance!'
The joker removes the hand you have over your eyes. You see in the sky an ink-blue-black bottomless pit and start worrying.
'You're worried, aren't you?' This joker is experienced. 'When people see miracles they always get worried, otherwise why would they be called miracles?'
You say you want to sit down.
'Hold on a bit longer!' he commands you.
You say you really can't hold on any longer.
'Even if you can't, you have to. If others can hold on, why can't you?' he reprimands you.
Your legs give way, and, doubling over, you sprawl on the rock seeking his help and wanting to vomit.
'Open your mouth! If you want to shout then shout, if you want to call out then call out!'
So, following his instructions, you give a mighty roar but can't stop your nausea and chuck up a lot of bile.
Whether the cause is justice, an ideal, virtue, the most scientific ideology, or a heavenly endowed mission, it will cause a person mental and physical anguish, endless revolutions and repeated sacrifices. And God or savior, or heroes on a lesser scale, or exemplars on an even lesser scale, and the nation on a grand scale, and the Party above the nation, are all built on such a rock.
As soon as you open your mouth to shout, you fall into this joker's trap. The justice you seek is this joker, and you slaughter for this joker. So you must shout this joker's slogans and, losing your own voice, learn to parrot words; hence you are recreated, your memories erased. Having lost your head, you become this joker's follower and, even while not believing, you are forced to believe. Having become this joker's foot soldier and henchman, you sacrifice yourself for this joker, then, after he has done with you, you are discarded on the joker's altar to be buried alive with him or set on fire to enhance this joker's brilliant image. Your ashes must flutter along with the joker's in the wind until the joker is thoroughly dead, and, when the dust settles, you, like dust, too, will vanish.
21
Lin had her head down as she pushed her bicycle from the shed near the main entrance of the building. She had been avoiding him for some time. He blocked the exit and playfully bumped her bicycle with his front wheel. Lin looked up and forced a wry, apologetic sort of smile, as if to say it was she who had bumped into his bicycle.
'Let's ride together!' he said.
Lin did not get on her bicycle as in the past to take the cue and head off, cycling some distance in front, to a secret rendezvous. In any case, the Cultural Revolution had closed down all the parks at night. They walked for a while, pushing their bicycles, without saying anything. The walls along the road were now covered with university rebel Red Guard slogans naming members of the Political Bureau of the Party Center, and the Deputy Premier. These new slogans blotted out the old slogans by blood-lineage Red Guards that had called for the sweeping away of Ox Demons and Snake Spirits.
YU QIULI MUST BOW HIS HEAD TO ACKNOWLEDGE HIS CRIMES
BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY MASSES!
TAN ZHENLIN, YOUR FUNERAL BELL IS TOLLING!
Lin had removed her red armband and wrapped her head and face with a long gray scarf. She tried her best to cover herself, to make herself inconspicuous, and, mingling with pedestrians wearing gray and blue padded coats on the street, her graceful figure was no longer prominent. All restaurants had closed for the day, so there was nowhere to go; anyway, it seemed, there was nothing to talk about. The two of them walked with their bicycles in the cold wind, with a clear distance in between. Thrown up by gusts of wind and grit, fragments of posters drifted about under the streetlights.
He was stirred by the solemnity of the impending all-out fight for justice, but could not help feeling miserable, because his love affair with Lin was on the brink of ending. He wanted to restore his relationship with Lin but how could he broach the topic and how could he make it a relationship between equals so that he was not simply the recipient of Lin's love? He asked about Lin's parents, expressing his concern, but Lin walked on in silence without answering. He could not find the words to get through to her.
'There seems to be a problem with your father's history.' It was Lin who first spoke.
'What problem?' he said, alarmed.
'I'm just alerting you,' Lin said flatly.
'He's never taken part in a political party or group!' he protested immediately, out of a basic instinct for self- preservation.
'It seems as if…' she cut herself short.
'It seems as if what?' he asked, stopping in his tracks.
'That's all I've heard.'
Lin kept pushing her bicycle without looking at him. She thought of herself as being superior, she was alerting him, showing concern for him, she was concerned that he might do something crazy. She was protecting him, but he could tell that it was no longer love. It was as if he had concealed his family background from her, and her concern was spoiled by her doubts. He tried to explain: 'Before Liberation, my father was section chief in a bank and a steamship company, then he was a journalist with a private commercial newspaper. What's wrong with that?'
What instantly came to his mind was the small cloth-covered booklet of Mao's On New Democracy, which his father hid with the silver coins in the shoebox under the five-drawer chest when he was a child, but he said nothing, it was useless. He felt wronged, primarily because his father was not him.
'They say your father was senior staff-'
'So what? He was still hired staff and lost his job before Liberation. He has never been a capitalist and has never represented the capitalists!'
