Three Brothers, page 3
From that point on, our advancement to the next grade was based solely on our ability to recite Chairman Mao quotes, and I never again had a chance to surpass the girl from the city. To advance to third grade, all I had to do was recite five of Chairman Mao’s quotes, and to advance to fourth grade, I would probably need to recite ten or fifteen. In between, there were two years when nobody advanced, because all middle schools, high schools, and colleges were shut down during the Cultural Revolution. During that period, however, I continued attending elementary school, where I studied language, practiced math, and memorized Chairman Mao’s quotes and poems, as well as his classic essays, “Serve the People,” “In Memory of Norman Bethune,” and “The Foolish Old Man Who Moved Mountains.”
When I look back at that period today, I’m filled with both joy and a happy sorrow. This is because we didn’t have any pressure to study, nor did we have heavy school bags, homework, or parents anxious over their child’s failure to advance. During my childhood, apart from playing marbles, happy events included receiving the latest political directives, and watching adults stroll down the street, as well as personally accompanying the school’s troops as they marched into villages to celebrate. Even today, the memory of that happiness remains strong.
As for the rest, there was only endless hunger and loneliness and going down to the countryside to cut grass, feed pigs, and take cattle out to graze. This made me feel that the countryside was boring and exhausting, and that the land was dull and monotonous—and this feeling seemed to constrict my heart like a vine. Until I graduated from elementary school, the pretty girls from urban families who had been assigned to the countryside remained in my class. Their presence constantly reminded me of my sense of inferiority and of the gap between city and countryside. This gulf was the origin of my perpetual desire to leave the land—but it would also be a chasm that I would never succeed in crossing.
2. DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER
At long last, we entered the 1970s.
Like many of my classmates, I was promoted to middle school after successfully memorizing Chairman Mao’s Selected Quotations, Mao Zedong’s Poetry, and his three classic essays. During my tenure in middle school, however, the form of revolution underwent a fervent transformation. The return of the great political figure Deng Xiaoping meant that our school once again returned to a standard examination system. Just as spring inevitably brings rain, to advance to the next grade there were inevitably exams. But when the time came to take them, for some reason I was no longer driven to make up that one-point gap separating my desk-mate and me. Instead, I was fascinated with reading all the revolutionary novels I could find, including works such as The Golden Road, Revolutionary Tales in an Ancient City, Song of Youth, Steel Meets Fire, Tracks in the Snowy Forest, and Bright, Sunny Skies. At the time, I didn’t know that these novels were classified as “Red Classics” and instead assumed that—whether in China or outside—these were the only novels that existed. It was as if horses and cattle didn’t know that feed is better than grass and milk is better than water, and instead assumed that ordinary grass and straw and water are the tastiest things in the world. I didn’t know that, apart from these novels, there were also works by authors such as Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Mao Dun, and Ba Jin, as well as Lao She and Cao Yu, together with foreign works and Chinese classics such as Cao Xueqin’s Dream of the Red Chamber.
In fact, I wasn’t even sure whether Cao Xueqin was a man or a woman.
For me, the relationship between the countryside and the city was that the city was the countryside’s heartfelt yearning, while the countryside was the city’s entrails and its source of nutrition. During that period, our hometown was in the center of a market region several dozen li in diameter. On market days, people from the countryside came to our village, Tianhu, while people from our village would go to market in the county seat, thirty li away. Meanwhile, people from the city would travel to shop in the ancient capital of Luoyang, a hundred li away. I was content with my good fortune that my parents had given birth to me in Tianhu, which was much better than being from an even more remote mountain area. The novels I could read in the village would have been much harder to find if I were somewhere more isolated. I had two elder sisters and an elder brother, and although we faced constant poverty, we were also blessed with boundless prosperity and grace. Father’s diligence and endurance set a good model for his children, while Mother’s frugality and virtue, combined with her industriousness, ensured that my siblings and I would appreciate life’s hardships and beauty. This background became an enormous asset for me and provided an endless emotional reservoir once I started to write.
During our childhood, Eldest Sister was not in good health. In modern medical language, we would say she probably suffered from aseptic vertebral osteonecrosis, and although the condition didn’t generate any visible symptoms, it was nevertheless extraordinarily painful. Because of this, she had to withdraw from school and spent most of her time in bed. In order to pass the time, she read the sorts of novels that you could find in rural areas. In fact, she read all the printed material you could find in the countryside at that time. Whatever she read, I also read, and whatever books she had, I would have as well.
I’m filled with gratitude to Elder Sister when I think of how the head of her bed became my first library, thanks only to her illness. That kind of incomparable sibling affection brings tears to my eyes. To many, this may appear somewhat unreasonable, but it is true. Because of my love of literature, and the way this early revolutionary literature was able to fill the gaps in my youthful soul, I was able to get over the feelings of inferiority from the so-called urban-rural divide separating me from my classmates in speech, appearance, and social status.
I became more open-minded, and when my scores on middle school quizzes were not particularly high, this helped reassure me. Reading novels also helped me all but forget my regret at not being able to make up the gap that separated my scores from those of my desk-mate. Meanwhile, I found many of the stories in those revolutionary novels absolutely unforgettable and unspeakably sorrowful. In the first or second grade of middle school, I finally heard about the great Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber, also known as Story of the Stone. This and the novels Romance of Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, and Journey to the West were collectively referred to as the four great Chinese masterworks. Dream of the Red Chamber was the crown jewel, and while I had already read the other three works since Eldest Sister had copies at the head of her bed, for some reason Dream of the Red Chamber was never there. I asked some people in the village who wrote poetry couplets, “Does your family have a copy of Dream of the Red Chamber?” These local literati looked at me with surprise, as though my question reflected some secret adolescent desire. However, their reaction served only to further whet my determination to read the novel. One day a boy in my class surnamed Jin, whose elder brother was an air force pilot, told me that because Chairman Mao liked Dream of the Red Chamber, other people had trouble finding copies. He said that only cadres who were at least at the level of county chief or army commander were given a copy.
I only half-believed this explanation.
My classmate said his brother had sent him a letter saying that a high-level cadre had given him a copy of the novel, and that as soon as he finished reading it, he would mail it to my classmate, whereupon my classmate would lend it to me.
I was surprised by this and became very worried that the package might get lost in the mail.
Yet by the following semester I had forgotten about the whole thing. One day, however, the classmate removed from his book bag a mysterious package wrapped in several layers of paper, then pulled me aside and thrust it into my hands. I wanted to open it immediately, but when I started to do so he turned pale. So I hid the package in my book bag, and when no one was around, I slipped into the bathroom and opened this mysterious package. It was a book. On the light-colored front cover there was the boldly printed title, Dream of the Red Chamber. Printed on the back cover was the line, “For internal distribution only.” For some reason, I was overjoyed to see this, but I also trembled with fear. Covered in sweat and with shaking hands, I quickly wrapped up the book and stuffed it back into my book bag.
In class that afternoon, I wasn’t able to process anything the teacher was saying. Instead, my mind was on that copy of Dream of the Red Chamber, as though it were my favorite lover.
That summer vacation, to earn some money to help treat Eldest Sister’s illness, Second Sister and I would get up when it was still dark and proceed to a mountain gully several dozen li away, then use a cart to haul stones from the gully to a cement factory in our village. We would sell the egg-size rocks to contract teams doing roadwork, and we would sell larger stones to the commercial departments that were building houses on the roadside. We would work throughout the day without rest, until each of us was breathing heavily and drenched in sweat, as exhausted as sick horses. When I read that copy of Dream of the Red Chamber each night, however, I would become utterly engrossed. Tears would stream down my face, and I would sigh deeply as I read the sections describing Daiyu burying flowers, Daiyu’s death, and Baoyu’s decision to become a monk.
I became so engrossed in my reading that I completely forgot about my schoolwork.
It was also that year, as I was being promoted from middle school to high school, that I once again found my fate determined by my test scores. During that period, because I was so absorbed in literature, I became somewhat confused about real life. My fate, like that of my parents, was to work the land, so I would have no choice but to head out at dawn and work till dusk. I didn’t believe that if you were able to get into high school, it might be possible for you to stop working the land and instead become a city resident. Therefore I became reconciled to my situation, thinking there was no way for me to advance. I attended that year’s exams the same way that I would go with my classmates to watch an opera performance. At the time, the regulations for advancement specified that all the students with an urban residency permit would be automatically promoted, while those with rural residency permits would be promoted based on their test scores, plus letters of recommendation from their school and their production team. If you considered only test scores, Second Sister’s were significantly higher than mine, but if you also took recommendations into account, she would probably fall back behind me, meaning that I would likely be the only one from our family who would advance to high school.
It was around lunchtime that Father brought home the news. It was summer, and the cicada cries were resonating through the tree branches. Father sat in our courtyard, and after explaining to Second Sister and me that only one of us could advance to high school, he just sat there, gazing at us uncomfortably. After a hesitation, he added, “Both of you understand our family’s situation, in that we have many mouths to feed, and we also have to care for your elder sister. We really need for one of you to stay behind to work the land and earn some work points.”
When Father finished, Second Sister and I stood in front of him holding our rice bowls, neither of us saying a word. There was a pause, as time itself ground to a halt and seemed as if it would never start flowing again. Fate froze between us, as clear water becomes bright ice, and it was as though time had become a block of ice pressing down on our family’s courtyard. We remained frozen like this for a long time, a long, long time, until finally Mother emerged from the kitchen with a bowl of rice and said, “Come eat! You can continue discussing this after you’ve eaten.”
We each went to eat our food.
I can’t remember whether Second Sister carried her bowl inside or took it somewhere else. As for me, I took my bowl of boiled sweet potato noodles and unrefined black rice and went to sit under a tree. There was no one else under that tree, and as I sat all alone, I found that I simply couldn’t summon the energy to eat that bowl of food. It was at that moment—as I was facing a crucial crossroads in my life and confronting the question of whether or not I would continue in school—that an educated youth arrived in our village, sent down from the city. He wore a blue uniform and had his hair parted on one side. He was tall, and as he strolled over from the village street, he nodded to the people he knew. The villagers spoke to him in a respectful tone, and he nodded lazily in return.
Then he walked away.
As for me, I sat there for a long time after he left, gazing at his departing shadow, as though looking at a road leading into the distance. At that moment, I realized that I wanted to continue my studies. I wanted to go to high school. I wanted to seize from Second Sister the slot she was probably counting on. So, I quickly ate my food and returned home, where I saw that Second Sister had reemerged to get more rice from the kitchen.
We gazed at each other as though we were complete strangers.
That afternoon, I went down to the fields to work, but for some reason Second Sister didn’t go.
That night, Second Sister wasn’t home for dinner.
After dinner, Second Sister still hadn’t returned home.
I asked Mother, “Where is Second Sister?”
Mother replied, “She went to see her classmate.”
I shifted questions of fate to the back of my mind, as though temporarily covering a wound with a piece of medicinal plaster. I went to sleep. The moon set, and the stars faded, and in the dim night light outside the window there was half-translucent fog and the sound of crickets. Eventually, in the middle of the night—just as I was about to fall asleep, or perhaps after I had already fallen asleep—I was suddenly aware of the sound of our front door opening. I heard Second Sister’s soft footsteps out in the courtyard; they grew heavy as they approached my bedroom door. After a pause, Second Sister pushed open the door and approached my bed.
I sat up.
Second Sister said, “You haven’t gone to sleep?”
I grunted in response.
Second Sister said, “Lianke, as for high school, your sister has decided she won’t go. You should go.”
Upon saying this, Second Sister gazed at me in the moonlight. I don’t know whether she could see my expression, but I could vaguely make out her bleak smile. As she turned to leave, she said, “You should study well. Your sister is a girl, so she should stay home to work the land.”
After that, there was a long wait for high school to begin. The day before school started, Second Sister bought me a fountain pen, and as she was giving it to me, she had tears in her eyes. Nevertheless, she forced a smile and said, “Study well. You need to make good on your sister’s slot as well as your own.”
When I tell my son this story now, thirty years later, he stares at me in disbelief. It’s not that he can’t believe that Second Sister, because she was a girl, decided to let her brother continue his studies in her place, but rather that he can’t fathom that there was a long period under orthodox socialism when the nation’s rural children were perpetually poor and hungry. Parents at that time were unable to guarantee that their children had enough food to eat, much less that they were able to finish middle school and high school. Rural parents and their children felt as though they had been forgotten by society, and when we remember this period today, we are able to recall only its basic meaning.
3. EXECUTION
My most enduring memory from the seventies is not of revolution but rather of hunger and endless work.
Eldest Sister was sick and spent most of her time in bed. Taking care of her became our family’s primary focus. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, in 1966, Eldest Sister tried to go to Zhengzhou with her classmates as part of a Red Guard contingent, but she missed home and then couldn’t secure a place on the train into the city, so she had no choice but to return, missing her chance to see Chairman Mao.
Although Chairman Mao was a great man, he wasn’t a doctor, nor could he help cure Eldest Sister’s illness. This reality distanced our family from the revolution, the same way that the countryside is distanced from the city, peasants are distanced from city dwellers, and the poor are distanced from the rich. However, the scent of revolution—like summer heat or winter chill—would seep into our family’s house and courtyard and into the village’s fields. I remember how in the early seventies, after the peak of the Cultural Revolution’s struggle had already passed, the other commune members and I would divide our time between pursuing revolution and promoting production.
One day when I was out in the fields turning over sweet potato seedlings, two trucks full of revolutionary youths carrying machine guns suddenly drove by, whereupon the youths turned to us and fired a round of bullets. The bullets struck the grass at the head of the field, and as the grass trembled and dirt flew through the air, one of my companions, who had previously served in the army, shouted, “Get down!” The commune members all followed his lead and dove into the furrows of the sweet potato field. By the time we got up again, the truck had already disappeared into the distance, carrying away the revolutionaries and their laughter. I don’t know where this revolutionary contingent came from or where it went, but at that point our production team began shouting and cursing to the departing truck, “Fuck your grandmother! We’re working the land and you’re pursuing revolution, so mind your own business! What have we ever done to you?!”
The countryside wasn’t the main actor of that era or of the revolution itself. As in today’s post–Reform and Opening Up era, during the Cultural Revolution primary emphasis was placed on the city and not on the billion peasants living in the countryside. Historically, China’s major actors have always been those who have either participated in or had a close relationship with the revolution. The countryside had been the primary battleground of the revolution during its early years, but after Liberation—apart from the Great Leap Forward and the “Three Years of Natural Disasters”—there had been a fundamental change in the revolution’s cast. Now, the masses instead played a supporting role for the political leaders. They became part of the revolution’s radiation zone, sacrificial figures for the revolution’s ultimate success. The most important lesson from the Great Leap Forward and the Three Years of Natural Disasters is that the revolution does not produce grain, only political fervor. During the Three Years of Natural Disasters, millions of people starved to death, which demonstrated that regardless of the revolution, it was still necessary to work the land.
