BIRD ON A HIGH BRANCH
by Royston Tester
Originally appeared in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, vol 10, no 1, Jan 2011
"I marvel that men seek fish where only treetops are."
All Men Are Brothers (Shui Hu Zhuan/水浒传)
Shi Nai'an and Luo Guanzhong.
Trans. Pearl Buck
I
"In The Second Month Of The Fourth Year Of Established Calm An Earthquake Struck"
Three Kingdoms (Sanguo Yanyi /
Luo Guanzhong
The burgundy pump.
Stiletto heel --- from a foggy sedan on Gongti Beilu, one August afternoon.
He did not often see that.
There.
A limousine. The snug, ample thigh. How Wang Jing glimpsed the flesh, and shied away. Thrust his shoulder against the chute cackling cement footings into new, straw-laden ground at Gong San Plaza --- 'A Complex Area Between Workers Stadium and San Li Tun,' as the glossy hoardings put it. At this site perimeter, far and near, where the shoe stepped out. 'Drunk in the last minute, then meeting. Tel: 588 8888.'
In a trice, it happened.
This burgundy pump; a Beijing leg uprighting itself.
"Look out, Wang Jing!" Xiao xin! 小心!
The rest, a devastating collision as, spiraling just above him, two umber girders --- hoisted by adjacent cranes --- glanced off one another. Ch'u pi – ju pi; like a split brushstroke. A disloyalty dance that severed crucial wires and hurled its load, bent-bastard barreling toward earth. Whshh. Chkk. Where Wang Jing stared distractedly --- alongside bulldozer and backhoe --- cursing.
About to fill a hole.
"'Let's pretend these people are animals...'" Li Fan recited, in her Shanghai way, flushing, haughty; all amateur surprise. A half-dozen students giggled; perched behind yellow desks at Teahouse Corner in Liu Hebei village. "'...and each shoot arrows into the sky.'"
In the commune school that day, nothing was funnier.
Li Fan smirked too --- as much because her first day's lesson went so well: Zhao's Orphan (Zhao Shi Gu Er /赵氏孤儿), the ancient text she quoted; chapter-one title scratched on a board, 'Remonstration in the Peach Garden.'
Li Fan was twenty years old --- a recent graduate, serious and keen, with slender hands, glossy hair, and barely discernible lisp. A French Concession landlord's daughter.
Wang Jing, sixteen, the only son of Xingtai soybean farmers.
"What does 'remonstration' mean?" she asked.
Who knew?
He observed her peachy breasts.
Wang Jing did not discover what lay beyond those opening scenes --- the 'Crimson Cloud Tower over a terrace,' 'scent wafting for miles around' --- dictated, repeated, inscribed in chalk, at single-storey Teahouse Corner, over six weeks.
He failed to understand Chuang-tzu's 'Parable of Prince Hui's Cook' (of Tuesday and Friday mornings), and never fathomed Li Fan's handwritten posters of Luo Guanzhong's Three Kingdoms on "our wall": Sanguo Yanyi / 三国演义.
In forty-odd years in Beijing, wifeless as he was, he occasionally pondered these mysteries but could not solve them. In the loneliest spells --- and there were many for such a shamefaced, hardworking man, 'parallel citizen,' a legal and not-legal migrant, paying his own protection --- he would recite verbatim the Orphan passages, the story of a kitchen blade, and titles that once hung beside a window. In those and the Zhao Shi Gu Er recitations, his voice became assured; as though he sang a favoured melody. 赵氏孤儿
This false start in life, its crevices.
How many times you could utter 'remonstration.'
Here.
Where no-one bothered much with Wang Jing. A careworn man in hiding; without women, family, or friends beyond a construction site. A muttering man who never returned to his village, Liu Hebei.
Zhao Shi Gu Er /赵氏孤儿/Zhao's Orphan
Chapter One
'Remonstration in the Peach Garden'
"It is said that Duke Ling of the State of Jin during the Warring States Period, who came to the throne as a child, was a petulant youngster of unstable temperament. But, fortunately for his realm, the influence of his benign forbears, dukes Wen and Xiang, still lingered, and the people were content and industrious."
"This is the 'nail-headed rat-tail,'" Li Fan would say, forming the stroke. "You draw one."
Heavy-pawed Wang Jing followed.
"That's more the 'unraveled hemp rope.' Try again."
For hours into the night they created line on scraps of paper --- and, in hushed voices, talked of threaded shapes, and dots. As though their lives depended on it.
"These are 'horses' teeth.'"
Everything became lines, that April 1966: out loud in the mildewed classroom; Li Fan's drawing beneath the kerosene lamp when, at 8pm, the electricity shut off; lines in the corners of his eyes; lines his sentimental Uncle Jia fed him...about Jing's family in Xingtai.
"Where are your parents, Snail?" she asked, using part of his nickname (Thickhead Snail), fearing they perished in the famine six years before.
"Neighbours are still searching for them," he replied unevenly, gazing into the table; at 'dragon veins' --- though he did not know them as that.
March had been a month of earthquake --- and suicides of high-ranking government officials in the capital, two hundred miles north.
"Shaking the four seas, shaking the five continents," his uncle growled; Jia's phrase for any upheaval. A short-tempered man --- known as Short-Arse Jia --- who, as commune leader, housed refugees, as well as his relatives, fleeing the Xingtai destruction. "Eight thousand lives lost," he would moan. At night he paced the courtyard. Added it up. "A thousand fingers eating daily."
"I hope your mother and father are found," said Li Fan, tailing off 'bundles of brushwood.'
She touched his forearm.
"A month," he replied, acknowledging her sweep across the page. One day like three autums.
Fingertip through down.
"There is always jihui," she reminded him. 机会.
A chance? Not really, he thought.
Snail knew what he knew.
Uncle Jia would eventually say.
Zhao Shi Gu Er /赵氏孤儿/Zhao's Orphan
Chapter One
'Remonstration in the Peach Garden'
"As the years went by and Duke Ling attained manhood, his nature became even more depraved, his extravagance knew no bounds, and he plundered the people mercilessly to pay for an orgy of constructing palaces and pleasure domes. He held human life in complete disregard; if anything, no matter how slight, irritated him, he would unleash a whirlwind of executions of innocent people."
Wang Jing slept fitfully on the schoolroom floor amongst the other evacuees --- and near Li Fan. In the mornings, his aunt Dong Mei prepared corn cake. The group drank tea. Every eighth day, and for good fortune, she cooked an egg.
More recently, when the loudspeaker announced a call on Liu Hebei's village phone, a jumpy Wang Jing girded himself to learn nothing. Or worse. There was chatter from Beijing --- and not only of General Ruiqing's leap from a third-storey window; an unsuccessful suicide.
"His colleagues are laughing at him," Li Fan heard. "Our Head of State, Liu Shaoqi, told everyone, 'You have to have technique...heavy head and light feet, but he arrived feet first.'
Wang Jing lit the kerosene lamp in his uncle's courtyard on Crabapple Blossom Road; took out sheaves of crumpled paper, ink. He did not want to understand this gossip or the political reasons for his uncle's meetings in Beijing. Li Fan handed him a brush --- to practice 'wrinkles on a demon's face.'
In the brisk evening, early May.
"The leaders are throwing themselves out of buildings?"
"Some are," she replied, a line spilling from beneath Wang Jing's nervous grip. "Deng Xiaoping said Ruiqing 'jumped like a female athlete diver...a lolly on a stick.'"
"They must be frightened," he said, thinking of his unsuspecting father and mother, silent by the unlit hearth --- and how mudbrick walls could part like lips. Of trembling hands, fresh air, and dust upon his cheek. Why would anyone choose death? Or mock someone spared?
"Nice," remarked Li Fan of his strokes across the paper --- avoiding further word of grisly Beijing and its hasty summoning of Party officials.
Wang Jing blushed.
He felt enraged by anything that moved.
Save the lines of Li Fan teacher --- steadying him.
"Try these," she would say.
Chuang-tzu's 'Parable of Prince Hui's Cook' (of Tuesday and Friday mornings)
"Prince Hui's cook was cutting up a bullock. Every blow of his hand, every heave of his shoulders, every tread of his foot, every thrust of his knee, every whshh of rent flesh, every chkk of the chopper was in perfect harmony --- rhythmical like the dance of the Mulberry Grove, simultaneous like the chord of the Ching Shou. 'Well done!' cried the Prince. 'Yours is skill indeed.'"
In the lamplight, Li Fan trotted out series of 'bands dragged through the mud chopper' --- which brightened Wang Jing's eyes; so eager for a precise beginning, and a careful tailing off.
With close-touching dots, Li Fan soldiered across the plain.
"Rat footprints, Li lao shi?" 李老师.
She shook her head.
"Mi Fei dots," Li Fan told him. "Like broken ink."
"A dot or a line?"
Wang Jing gazed at the watercourse magic.
"Neither."
"You're teasing me Li teacher."
"They help build 'dragon veins,'" she explained. "The invisible part, like breath."
Wang Jing frowned.
"It gives a painting life, Snail."
"I preferred 'cow hair'" he said, grabbing the brush.
"You're past that."
Lifting it back.
To and fro they struggled.
"Shanghai made you like this?" he gasped.
"To behave so rudely to a man?"
"Yes."
"You're not a man," she whispered.
He dashed his hand against the paper.
"Living in the French Concession made you smart?"
"I'm you're elder," she replied. "You ask too many questions."
Li Fan looked about --- at Uncle Jia's chipped window-frame. "Settle down, Wang Jing."
Seven parts glad, three parts not, he snatched the brush.
"Let go, you freak," she ordered. You bing. Yanking it back. 有病.
He tickled her ribs --- hill-valley-hill --- until she squealed. Well...squeaked. "Eh, ye!" Clouds around her arms and wrists. White, pink.
Wang Jing's shadow across the table.
He kissed her lips.
Bird on a high branch --- nest below.
Zhao Shi Gu Er /赵氏孤儿
Chapter One
'Remonstration in the Peach Garden'
"The tower commanded a panoramic view which reached to the horizon; the whole of the capital city and its inhabitants came under the gaze of the viewer from its height. Duke Ling was transported with joy to receive this unexpected gift from Tu'an Gu, and straightway concluded that his chief bodyguard was the most devoted, loyal and capable of all his subjects."
II
"In The First Year Of Radiant Harmony Hens Were Transformed Into Roosters"
Three Kingdoms (Sanguo Yanyi /
Luo Guanzhong
"Xiao xin, Wang Jing!" Look out! 小心!
The umber crane-bird of steel and cables tumbled from such height. Its
wing clipped his yellow helmet, shoulder; slammed into crawler tracks at Gong San Plaza.
"Sound the alarm!"
Pain, sudden and intense, like a nudge become a stabbing, claw. Cut down the fifty-eight year old man --- in seconds.
He sought an exit. An opening.
Walk, stride, he told himself.
"It needs the hospital," several co-workers agreed, running past a muddied forklift; two Harbin men pressing rags into the base of Jing's neck. His head undone.
Only walking will matter, Wang Jing thought. I must march like in an Opening Ceremony.
"Let's get the foreman's van."
"Jing, Wang Jing?"
At this instant, a mother would recall her child; a husband, his wife. Wang Jing --- blood across his throat --- remembered wire.
A young woman's torn flesh.
"I know Beijing hospital," he told his Shenzhen outrigger boss. Or believed he did. "I can walk to the hospital." Confidently. As Li Fan strode into his uncle's village for six weeks --- into the Liu Hebei schoolroom, all those years ago.
The work gang restrained him. It felt like that. Wang Jing on his feet, pushing men aside. It felt like that too.
"There are emergency rooms nearer," the company supervisor, an Urumqi migrant, told him.
"Damn you," replied Wang Jing. Did he say that?
He knew Beijing Hospital. He was going there. That was it.
I can tread in reverse, he consoled himself. To ease the spine --- strengthen my heart. Zhao's Orphan. I will speak in Li Fan's tongue. Zhao Shi Gu Er. Talk her talk. 赵氏孤儿. Tunes in a parade. Recite lines.
I will smoke!
Protesting, the crew released him.
Wang Jing shrugged the bloody cloths. Tight.
Felt nothing.
Like a cat --- from a tall tree --- that regained its nerve, or filled its belly, he crept backwards, inch by inch, finding ground. His compass, fissures in a tea egg. Momentum? Slithering down --- like skin without joint or bone.
He'll never make it, said the faces of Gong San Plaza.
Wang Jing shuffled from the site.
Zhao Shi Gu Er /赵氏孤儿
Chapter One
'Remonstration in the Peach Garden'
"Zhao Dun kowtowed before the duke's carriage. 'Your unworthy servant,' he said. 'Ventures to have something to inform you of, Your Majesty. I hope you will have the magnanimity to indulge me. I have heard that a virtuous ruler uses music to gladden the hearts of the people, while a ruler who lacks virtue uses music only to gladden his own heart. From ancient times, it has been the practice of rulers to take their pleasure either within the palace with the courtesans and servants or abroad hunting and sightseeing. Never has it been heard that an upright ruler kills people for sport. Such atrocities as setting savage mastiffs on, or shooting, harmless passersby, and dismembering a cook for some trifling misdemeanour are unheard of even for unrighteous rulers. But Your Majesty has been guilty of all these things! If you spill blood so promiscuously, the common people will rebel and the other feudal lords will invade our state, and then the disasters attendant upon the fall of the tyrants Jie of Xia Dynasty and Zhou of the Shang Dynasty will befall Jin! It is because your humble servant cannot bear to sit by and watch the ruin of our country that I dare to risk death by speaking so bluntly. I beseech Your Majesty to turn your carriage around, return to the court and mend your ways by devoting yourself to affairs of state. No more frittering away day after day in petty pleasure-seeking, and no more taking of innocent lives! Only then will Jin be pulled back from the brink of disaster, and Your Majesty follow in the footsteps of the sage kings Yao and Shun.' Having said this, he kept kneeling in front of the duke's carriage."
(RED GUARDS SING IN UNISON):
"WHEN THE CHAIRMAN GOES PAST WAVING
COUNTLESS SUNFLOWERS BLOOM TOWARDS THE SUN"
(Wang Jing declares):
"Which way is East?"
"STEALING A REVOLUTIONARY PAIR OF IRON SOLES"
"DEEP-SEA SHIPPING NEEDS A HELMSMAN"
(Wang Jing declares):
"Which way West?"
At first light, Snail rode his Flying Pigeon bicycle to the Commune Clinic --- and knocked at the grating.
Kissing Li teacher was a foolish act. He went too far. Later this morning, in the classroom, she would remain insulted, hurt. On his return from the capital, Uncle Jia would beat him! Li Fan, resign. Or run away. Had she filed a complaint with Lui Hebei's Party secretary? Or with Bumps on the Face who – as village barefoot doctor – right now peered through a wooden hatch?
"Ah," said the bespectacled man, evidently from deep sleep; waving him into the office, no bigger than a bushel measure.
Wang Jing sniffed trouble.
"Your parents..." announced Bumps, removing his glasses.
The teenager nodded.
Gazing at moles beside the physician's nostrils.
Flared.
"I'm sorry."
Wang Jing nodded again. Fear --- lead white --- in his eyes.
Doctor and student faced one another across the threadbare kwang.
"Your jia shushu arrives from Beijing this afternoon," Bumps went on. 贾叔叔. "He will take you to Xingtai."
Wang Jing stared. Shook the man's hand. Memory of Li Fan --- her touch, a kiss --- receding with the gentle clasp.
Tears fell across his mouth.
Father and mother were seated, that was all; a grinning brick before him.
Moles, shiny moles.
Chuang-tzu's 'Parable of Prince Hui's Cook' (of Tuesday and Friday mornings)
"'Sire,' replied the cook. 'I have always devoted myself to Tao. It is better than skill. When I first began to cut up bullocks, I saw before me simply whole bullocks. After three years' practice, I saw no more whole animals (but saw them, so to speak, in sections). And now I work with my mind and not with my eye. When my senses bid me stop, but my mind's eye urges me on, I fall back on eternal principles. I follow such openings or cavities as there may be, according to the natural constitution of the animal. I do not attempt to cut through joints; still less through large bones.'"
Outside the clinic, Wang Jing headed for the public latrines on Ten
Thousand Butterflies Street.
"School's closed! School's closed!" yelled three of his friends, running by --- Condor, Longface Donkey, and Eunuch. "Chairman Mao has liberated us."
Wang Jing shrugged. "Ni ta ma de."
The trio came up to him --- kicking his shins, wrestling their classmate.
"Fuck you," he told them again, struggling. 你他妈的.
"Long live our Great Helmsman!" shouted Longface Donkey, by far the happiest; free from schoolroom disgrace. "Long live Chairman Mao."
"Come with us, Thickhead," said Eunuch, twisting Snail's ankle.
"Your aunt Dong Mei's giving us armbands," added Condor.
"We'll be Red Guards," Longface Donkey beamed.
Thickhead Snail followed all the same.
At Liu Hebei's school compound, the group halted. Li Fan and a Party official were arguing amidst some pupils.
As usual, Condor, Eunuch, and Longface Donkey had misunderstood the cadre announcement. Classes were far from ended.
"We can instruct both topics," Li Fan was saying heatedly. "'Zhao's Orphan' and 'Mao Zedong Thought.'" Zhao Shi Gu Er and Mao Zedong Sixiang Gailu.
"These are our leader's orders," the county-level official Cheng Guangjin told her. "Mao Zedong Sixiang Gailu." 毛泽东思想概论.
"I will teach both," replied Li Fan. "赵氏孤儿 and
"I'm to replace you if you don't comply."
Snail felt anguish at the sight of Li Fan. His pulse galloped like Mi Fei dots across a page.
Too distraught about his parents to do a moral duty, or worry about new schools and old, he would defer the apology. Rehearsed all night.
Snail turned to the soybean field --- villagers bowed to their tasks. He would seek refuge in the peach orchards behind Zhang Yang's fertilizer factory.
Zhao Shi Gu Er
Chapter One
'Remonstration in the Peach Garden'
"The sight of the duke, apparently in a state of abject contrition and whimpering like a child, dispelled the towering rage that had been bursting in Zhao Dun's breast. The prime minister did not know whether to laugh or frown. He felt like a negligent father facing his wayward son; indignation and affection, shame and regret struggled within him. Then, remembering his authority, he stood in front of the Gate to the Peach Garden, resolutely barring the way for the duke."
Suddenly, Party official Cheng slapped Li Fan hard.
The insubordinate Shanghai girl staggered, and fell against
the playground bucket.
Mastering the grief he felt for his family, Snail rushed to assist Li Fan –supporting her elbow.
"What are you doing?" growled Cheng. "This broken shoe is a counterrevolutionary. Li Fan must change her conduct."
"'Broken shoe'?" she repeated, astonished. A prostitute?
Snail flinched.
"Are you hurt, Li Fan lao shi?"
Li老师was dusting her sleeve, and thigh.
Fingermarks along her jaw.
"I'm not hurt," she told him, averting her eyes.
"You will be my instructional assistant," Cheng informed Li Fan, ushering the students, and a disgruntled Condor, Eunuch, and Longface Donkey into the premises.
Snail remained in the courtyard.
"Hurry inside, you!" Cheng told them. "Ni, this is new China."
你! He indicated Wang Jing... who leapt at the man, landing punches, two, three, into his belly.
"Long live Chairman Mao!" roared Longface Donkey through the window, ripping posters from the wall. 毛主席万岁!
Horrified classmates jostled for the kill.
Snail stepped backwards.
A stunned Cheng beckoned his assailant.
"Li lao shi is honourable," the youth declared.
Turning, fleeing to his uncle's house.
"Come back, delinquent child!"
"李老师 is pure!" Wang Jing shouted.
Not a soul pursued him. The gravity of his offence sealed. All face lost.
"'Death of a thousand cuts...'" he heard chanted from the school.
As he raced by Liu Hebei's latrines.
"I need to piss."
At Crabapple Blossom Road, so wishing to put matters right with Li Fan; yet alone with thoughts of his mother and father; he leaned against the crooked trunk of a cedar to await jia shushu from Beijing. Please never come贾叔叔, he thought.
"'We are Mount Tai...'" the students belted-out from Teahouse Corner.
Miserably, Wang Jing undid his pants.
"'We are the Great Wall...'" he steamed along.
(RED GUARDS SING IN UNISON):
"STORM FORWARD"
Chuang-tzu's 'Parable of Prince Hui's Cook' (of Tuesday and Friday mornings)
"A good cook changes his chopper once a year – because he cuts. An ordinary cook, once a month --- because he hacks. But I have had this chopper nineteen years, and although I have cut up many thousand bullocks, its edge is as if fresh from the whetstone. For at the joints there are always crevices, and the edge of a chopper being without thickness, it remains only to insert that which is without thickness into such a crevice. By these means the crevice will be enlarged, and the blade will find plenty of room. It is thus that I have kept my chopper for nineteen years as though fresh from the whetstone."
III
ESTABLISHED CALM:
"Move on, old man," said the security lad, at Oakwood Residences –'A Gentleman's Private Castle,' 'Senechal of Genteelness.' Wang Jing had walked backwards past the Workers Stadium; through the narrower 'Russian' streets at the foot of Ritan Park. At the Ancient Observatory, he would turn right.
"Who said I was stopping, 傻逼?" Wang Jing glared. "Sha bi."
Stupid cunt.
He rested, nevertheless --- beneath an electricity pylon, alongside a cluster of silver birches. Everything bordered by scaffolding from a development --- Fortune Heights --- that ran a city block. 'Ocean Honoured Chateau,' 'Seducing Modern and Romantic Imagination' (someone had defaced the 'S').
After pouring its remnants over his head, Wang Jing gnawed at a discarded 7Up. The qi xi can fell. 七喜. His Gong San Plaza accident was far worse than he imagined. Eyes smarting; throat ablaze --- a draught of fire into his brain.
He felt like two pieces.
Torn flesh.
Like a man at a cat, he reached for the place where his skull once reigned. 七喜 and more 七喜: pulpy wetness greeted him.
At Gong San Plaza, he had not realised his head was sliced cleanly away --- pitched like a softball, in one glorious arc, 七喜-七喜-七喜, onto a first-storey girder. Landed at the foot of an astonished electrician sucking a peach.
(IN UNISON):
"RED GUARDS ARE NOT AFRAID OF HARDSHIP ON THE MARCH"
The Oakwood sentry muttered urgently into a cellphone.
Trucks lumbered in and out of Fortune Heights, welders on one knee, a bulldozer shuddering against the ground, teams of labourers manoeuvring steel mesh.
If my crown is gone, thought Wang Jing --- why do I not gaze on the straw-laden mud of Gong San Plaza? Why do I have this view?
How have I come so far?
Beyond, like a crimson and white shoreline, the Third Ring Road bore its load.
What could a roaring overpass-traffic sing?
(IN UNISON):
"Today I will seize you!
I'll make your muscles cramp
Take off your skin
Play soccer with your skull!"
Come off it, thought Wang Jing. Third Ring Roads cannot chant --- or march.
Straddling gigantically above the freeway, in murky sunlight, the half-torso of China Central Television headquarters was poised to cross eight lanes. Wires and platforms trailing from its loins like temple ware.
Wang Jing heard people, not engines.
What were they saying?
Amidst the din, he could not make it out.
A foreign woman strode by --- her canvas tote bag in multiple languages advertising Harrow International School of Beijing, 'the brightest, bright future for every child.'
Wang Jing struggled to smile --- his face wooden --- as he looked up the skirts of the electricity pylon; criss-crossing into the sky.
How crowds diminished; voices grew louder --- and roared.
(IN UNISON):
"THE REDDEST, RED SUN IN OUR HEARTS"
Oh yes. That was it! The Mao-fanatic, comrade-in-arms, Lin Biao. Stringing adjectives together. Zui-zui-zui. Like no tomorrow.
Wang Jing remembered six glorious hours.
Tiananmen Square. August 18, 1966.
Suddenly the Great Helmsman appeared. Ha-ha-ha. The greatest, great day of Jing's life. Mao Zedong on that rally balcony. Parading. An hour for every second Wang Jing endured --- this August afternoon.
Can you hear the cheering, Li Fan?
Frenzy, joy? More people than I had ever seen.
Mao.
His simple proclamation crackling from loudspeakers --- and so difficult to hear above the yelling and song. His thick Hunan accent.
(SOLO):
"IMBALANCE AND HEADACHE ARE A GOOD THING"
China's leaders before us. A ribbon of men in the far distance --- like your dots, Li Fan --- on that terracotta wall. We believed it; we looked in that direction --- and saw what we saw.
You were not in Tiananmen.
Li Fan.
After my betrayal, how could you be?
(IN UNISON):
"WE PUT ON OUR BLOOD-SOAKED STRAW
SANDALS"
"IRON SOLES DYE THE SEA OF FLOWERS RED"
Head throbbing, fiery draught at his neck, Wang Jing stood up. The Third Ring Road with him; CCTV building in step. He would, after all, make it to the hospital.
Pushing himself backward, against posters of bunny-faced Westerners at a cocktail party, wine stacked in a connoisseur's cellar, Wang Jing proceeded toward Jianguomen Qiao, and the Dongbianmen railway station.
Last, last leg.
(IN UNISON):
"THERE'S NO GOING BACK"
"LONG STRIDES"
Chapter One
'Remonstration in the Peach Garden'
"Zhao Dun had no choice but to stand aside and allow the duke and his entourage to enter the Peach Garden. His heart was full of rage and bitterness. As he glared at the retreating back of Tu'an Gu, he ground his teeth, and muttered to himself, 'A blockhead of a ruler, and a doomed country – all the fault of that rascally official.'"
Two days' returned from Xingtai --- and his parents' funeral --- Thickhead Snail faced anarchy in Uncle Jia's village.
"You cannot be here," Longface Donkey told him. "They will struggle with you like they did with Li Fan."
"Yes, he should stay," Eunuch interjected. "His uncle will clear his name."
"Travel with us to Beijing," Condor said. "Red Guards travel free."
His schoolmates' wild looks unnerved him. What had happened to his
friends --- in a week?
"We'll see Chairman Mao!"
Hard gleam in their eyes.
"In Tiananmen Square!"
From Teahouse Corner, you could see the hastily constructed platform by Liu Hebei's peach orchards.
Three white pointed hats of the condemned.
"No, uncle," cursed Thickhead Snail, pulling away from Uncle Jia's steel grip. "You can't make me do that."
"RED TEN THOUSAND YEARS!" a man, with black armband, was bellowing into a megaphone.
In spite of the hot June sun, villagers were out in force, as at Spring Festival. Officials would this afternoon denounce the latest bevy of class enemies --- and order them shot.
The idling lorry awaited its passengers --- for the execution grounds beyond the river.
"Get up there and help, Snail," his uncle said angrily. "You owe me
this duty."
"Shushu, no," Snail remonstrated. "Please, 叔叔."
Longface Donkey, Condor, and Eunuch, kicked at Snail's
buttocks.
He stumbled onto the rickety stage.
"DARE TO CRITICIZE, DARE TO FIGHT"
On the raised planks, three terrified residents --- hands tied behind their backs --- stood in full sun before their neighbours.
"Grab his hair," said inquisitor Cheng Guangjin, knocking the conical hat from Zhang Yang's head --- 'Capitalist-roader' scrawled in chalk, on a board, at his neck.
Snail dutifully yanked the man's head.
"Eh?" screeched Cheng Guangjin, "Speak up! You didn't pay your workers for eight months. They were starving. You didn't care."
"We had no cash," replied the fertilizer-factory owner. "We paid them as soon as we could."
"Liar! Liar!" from his employees.
"You built a house, Zhang Yang."
"My wife and child needed a roof over their heads!"
"Big, fancy villa," said the man with a megaphone. "Hey? Landlord tone? What do you say, comrades?"
"Control the traitor!" Cheng Guangjin commanded Snail, tugging the youth's arm. A chunk of Zhang Yang's scalp left its home.
Snail gazed at the clump. Tossed it aside.
"My wife and child will starve without me!"
"Drilling the basement, cheating his workers!" the inquisitor railed on.
Cheng Guangjin guided Snail's hand to the second prisoner --- the tall paper cone on her head, 'Li Fan' printed in black ink, a red cross painted through.
'Landlord's daughter, whore schoolteacher, counterrevolutionary' on the heavy board around her neck. Suspended by wire.
Snail seized her pointed hat.
"WE'RE THE RED GUARDS OF CHAIRMAN MAO"
Li Fan's head was shaved.
Always prepared, he thought. There was nothing to pull --- but her ear.
He tried to laugh.
"Broken shoe! Broken shoe!" yelled the crowd.
"What do you say, young woman?" demanded the megaphone.
Her legs shook.
"Broken shoe," Snail prompted, shaking his head. What could he do?
"What do you say, Thickhead Snail?" uncle Jia cried out, beneath his nephew's feet. "Shout it out!"
Snail tilted her ashen face --- sunflower in high wind. "You have to confess."
"I AM A COW-DEVIL AND SNAKE-SPIRIT, I AM GUILTY, I AM GUILTY..."
Desperately, she tried to repeat what Snail was telling her. Bystanders mocked her lisp.
"We can't hear you!" the villagers yelled in unison. "Th-neaky th-nake
th-pirit."
"What can I do if you won't speak up?" Snail hissed, yanking her ear.
At the nape of her neck, a red spot grew.
Then another.
"Bourgeois whore!"
Along the wire.
IV
RADIANT HARMONY:
"小心, Wang Jing!" Xiao xin!
Again? Crimson clouds. So far away? His gang mates' cries seemed to echo around Dongbianmen station.
"Duck, man!"
Shanghai passengers hurried through the gate --- into Beijing crowds on the esplanade.
Wang Jing peered at a woman --- travelled long --- as she received quiet welcome from her son, daughter-in-law, and their children.
There were many such scenes of reunion. This dragon-filled, too bright, afternoon.
The slender, greying lady, marked by the years, stood stiffly, patiently, in slacks and pink blouse --- as her relatives, at a cellphone, arranged the next move.
Home.
From her new bicycle cart, at Wang Jing's side, a beautiful, young American was selling peach cupcakes lined-up smartly --- like Red Guards, he thought --- on a sheet of China Daily.
"Would you like one?" she enquired, pointing to the Western pastries on newspaper Zhongguo Ribao. Their sweet scent wafted for miles around. 中国日报.
Here's my new China, he told himself, gazing instead at the Shanghai woman, a nation overthrower. Her son and his wife pointed to the footbridge across Jianguomen Qiao. Without looking at them, yet contentedly enough, the elderly mother lifted her left shoulder as though raising a lifetime. The tailing-off of one particularly hard journey.
She stepped in Wang Jing's direction.
"You wouldn't like a cupcake?" intervened the American, all teeth and swinging arms. "Freshly baked this morning."
"Xiexie," Wang Jing thought he said --- thank you. He reached for what she offered, parting his lips. 谢谢.
The Shanghai arrival was upon him. How magnificent she looked in burgundy sandals; Shanghai leg in Beijing. How Li Fan. How long he could stay here --- perhaps had always been here --- watching the Dongbianmen gate. Grow dim.
At Gong San Plaza --- six seconds, and several miles behind --- his torso lay, like a branch, across muddy tracks; head high on a first-storey girder. Mouth and neck stuffed with rag.
How serenely his lady walked at the railway station.
Passing all cupcakes by.
