nightmares.
'I warn comrades to note that they want to restore capitalism. I am talking about the Ox Demons and Snake Spirits, high up, and down below, from the Party Center down to provincial cadres!
Where they exist in the Party Center, we must relentlessly drag them out, we must safeguard the purity of the Party and not let the glory of the Party be sullied! Are there any here among you? I would not dare to vouch that there are not. Aha, you thousands gathered at this meeting, are all of you so pure and clean? Are there none groping for fish in muddy waters, colluding with higher ups and jumping down below? They want to confuse the battle lines of our class struggle; I urge all comrades to be on the alert and to sharpen their eyes. All who oppose Chairman Mao, all who oppose the Party Center and all who oppose socialism must be dragged out!'
As the voice of the official on the platform died down, everyone starting shouting slogans:
'Exterminate all Ox Demons and Snake Spirits!'
'I swear to protect Chairman Mao with my life!'
'I swear to protect the Party Center with my life!'
'If the enemy refuses to capitulate, it must be destroyed!'
All around him people took the lead in shouting, and he, too, had to shout out loudly so that he could be heard; he couldn't just make a show by raising his fist. He knew at this meeting that anyone who behaved differently from others would be noticed, and he could sense that he was being observed, arrows were pointing at his back, and he was sweating. He felt for the first time that maybe he was the enemy, and that very likely he, too, would be destroyed.
Maybe he belonged to the class that had to be destroyed. Then what class did his deceased parents belong to? His paternal greatgrandfather wanted to be an official, donated a whole street of properties, but still couldn't manage to buy himself the black silk hat worn by officials. He went berserk, got up one night and torched everything, including the house he had kept to live in. That was during the Qing Dynasty, before his father was born. His maternal grandmother had mortgaged all the property left by his maternal grandfather, and was financially ruined by the time his mother was born. Neither of his parents had been involved in politics. However, his father's younger brother had performed a meritorious deed for the new government by stopping a sum of money at the bank from going to Taiwan, and that was how he had earned the title of Democratic Personage. They were all salaried workers, did not want for food and clothing, and lived comfortably, but they also lived in fear of losing their jobs. They had all welcomed the New China, and believed that the new nation would be better than the old one.
After 'liberation,' when the great armies of the 'Communist bandits'-later called the 'Communist Army,' later still called the 'Liberation Army,' and then later officially named the 'People's Liberation Army'-entered the city, both his parents felt liberated.
Incessant war, bombing, fleeing as refugees and fear of robbery all seemed to have gone forever. His father did not like the old Nationalist government. His father had been a branch manager in a state-run bank, but in his father's own words, his failure to understand the nepotism and infighting cost him his job. Following that, for a while, he worked as a journalist with a small newspaper, but when it closed down, he could only sell off property in order to survive. He remembered the silver 'big heads' in the shoebox under the five-drawer chest getting fewer by the day, and the gold bracelets disappearing from his mother's wrist. This very shoebox under the five-drawer chest had been used to hide a copy of On the New Democracy, printed on the coarse paper used in Mao Zedong's border region. The book had been smuggled into the city by his father's mysterious friend Big Brother Hu. This was the earliest publication he had seen of Mao Zedong's writings, and it was hidden with the silver dollars.
Big Brother Hu was a teacher in a middle school, and whenever he visited, any children were chased off. However, he quietly looked forward to this talk of 'liberation' and deliberately went in and out of his parents' room. He heard bits that he understood. The fat postmaster, a landlord, said that the Communist bandits advocated sharing property and sharing wives, eating from one pot of food, and rejecting blood ties. He also said they engaged in rampant killings.
His parents did not believe the postmaster. His father, laughing, said to his mother, 'That maternal cousin of yours,' that is, her father's maternal cousin, 'is a Communist bandit with a pockmarked face, if he's still alive…'
This maternal uncle had joined the underground Party in Shanghai long ago, while at university. Afterward, he left home and went off to Jiangxi province to take part in the revolution. Twenty years later this uncle was still alive and he eventually met him. His pock-marked face was not frightening, and, flushed with alcohol, he looked even more heroic. He had a resounding laugh but was asthmatic and said that during those years when he was a guerrilla fighter he couldn't get tobacco and often dried wild herbs to smoke.
This maternal uncle came into the city with the big army, put notices in the newspapers to look for his family, then, through relatives, found out what had happened to this maternal cousin of his. Their meeting had something theatrical to it. His maternal uncle was worried about their not recognizing him, so he wrote in his letter that he could be identified on the railway platform by a white towel tied to the top of a bamboo pole. His soldier aide, a peasant lad from the countryside, was there waving a long bamboo pole over the heads of the thronging crowds. Sweat was pouring off the rim of the lad's army cap, but, regardless of the heat, he kept it strapped on to hide his scabby head.
Like his father, his maternal uncle was fond of drinking. Whenever he came he always brought a bottle of millet liquor and a big lotus-leaf parcel of chicken wings, goose liver, duck gizzards, duck feet, and pork tongue. These savory delicacies filled the whole table. The soldier aide would be sent away and the two men would chat, often until late into the night; his maternal uncle would then be escorted back to the army compound by his aide. This maternal uncle had so many stories to tell-from his early years in an old-style big family on the decline, to his experiences in the rolling battles during the guerrilla war. He would listen even when he couldn't keep his eyes open, and refused to go to bed even after his mother had told him several times.
Those stories came from a world totally alien to the children's stories he had read, and from children's stories he turned to worshipping revolutionary myths. This maternal uncle wanted to encourage him to write, and had him stay in his home for a few months. There were no children's books in the house but there was a set of The Collected Works of Lu Xun. This uncle's method of teaching was to have him read one of Lu Xun's stories during the day and then, after returning home from official duties, he would ask him to talk about it with him. He couldn't understand those old stories; moreover, at the time, he was more interested in catching cicadas in the weeds and rubble by the wall. His maternal uncle returned him to his mother and, with a loud laugh, conceded that he had failed.
His mother at the time was still young, not even thirty. She didn't want to rear a child or be a housewife anymore, and instead whole-heartedly threw herself into the new life; she started working and didn't have time to look after him. He had no problems with school-work and immediately became a good student in the class. He wore a red scarf and didn't join the boy students in their dirty talk about girls, or in their pranks. On Children's Festival Day on June 1, he was selected by the school to take part in the city celebrations at which he presented flowers to the exemplary workers of the city.
One after the other, his parents had been honored as exemplary workers of their work units and awarded the prizes of enamel tea mugs and notebooks printed with their names. For him, those years were also lucky years. The Youth Palace often had singing and dancing programs, and he hoped that one day he would be able to go on stage to perform.
He attended a fiction recital, at which a teacher read a work by the Russian writer Vladimir Korolenko. The story took place on a snow-swept night, and the first-person narrator was driving a jeep on a mountain road when the brakes failed. He saw a light on the cliff and struggled up to the house where there was an old woman. In the middle of the night, the howling wind made it impossible for the narrator to fall asleep and, listening to the wind, he seemed to hear someone sighing from time to time. Thinking he might as well get up, he found the old woman sitting by the solitary lamp in the room, facing the banging door. The narrator asked the woman why she hadn't gone to bed. Was she waiting for someone? She said she was waiting for her son. The narrator indicated that he could wait instead. It was then that she said her son was dead and that it was she who had pushed him down the mountain. The narrator naturally couldn't help questioning her about it. The old woman gave a long sigh and said her son deserted during the war and came back to the village, but she did not allow her deserter son into the house.
The story somehow moved him deeply and it made him feel that the world of adults was incomprehensible.
