Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused – Fiction From Today (21 page)

"So should we just write what happened?" Four Eyes asked.

"Of course the facts demand it," Abe Lincoln said, remaining resolute.

"But in that case, maybe he won't use the story," the Crabman said, still somewhat uncertain.

" 'Look not upon something that is not proper; act not upon something that is not correct,' " quoted the Professor. "Who cares whether or not he uses the story?"

"I've got a plan that might satisfy everyone," Four Eyes said as he picked up his pad of paper. "Listen to this: 'After I helped Old Chen the pensioner out of his house, I remembered his portrait of Chairman Mao. Of course it would have been impossible to leave that bright and glorious portrait in the fire. So, burning with righteous fervor, I charged back into the sea of flames. The thick smoke stung my eyes so badly that tears blurred my vision; the tongues of fire leaped toward me, but driven by ardent loyalty, I summoned up the courage to forge ahead. When I felt the wall, I looked up and-it was as if a weight pressing up against my heart suddenly fell to the ground-there was no portrait on the wall! I grabbed a quilt from the bed and rushed out of the room.' " Four Eyes was triumphantly smug as he looked around at his three friends. "What do you think?" he asked. "A case of going in like a lion and out like a lamb. You must admit it's a lot more lively."

"But can I really say that?" The Crabman was still somewhat hesitant.

"What's wrong with it? I ask you, if at that moment there really had been a sacred portrait of the chairman in the fire, would you have carried it out with you?"

"Probably, I would have."

"So why are you being such a stick-in-the-mud? Be a little more positive. When it comes right down to it, would you have taken it or not?"

"Most likely, I would have."

"Well, then, I rest my case."

Consequently, this was the statement they gave to the reporter. And so once more, we have proof that these students from Shanghai were not in the habit of being overcome by difficulties.

After the reporter returned to his district, many days passed without incident. And since the villagers spent their days fiercely hoeing the fields of corn and sorghum, they apparently forgot the matter. But the Crabman hadn't forgotten. After all, for him, it had been a personal experience, so his feelings about the subject were quite different from the gossip passed back and forth by mere observers. He sent letter after letter to Shanghai in which he boasted of his achievement to friends and relatives. The Professor could see him consulting the statement Four Eyes had written for him as he wrote these letters.

One day, Four Eyes and the others caught the Crabman completely off guard. He had just finished writing a letter and was standing near the kitchen stove, sealing the envelope with some sticky rice. As you know, some people feel elated after they have accomplished some task at hand. Take, for example, the way the team leader acted each time he got a haircut: he'd get a blissful look on his face, close his eyes, and hum a few bars of his favorite opera. The Crabman said, "Well, for guys like us, whoever has a girlfriend in Shanghai -"

"Whether she's got a job or not," Four Eyes interjected.

Abe Lincoln took up where Four Eyes left off, "A guy like that-"

Now the Professor chimed in, looking quite pleased with himself: "… is truly great!"

The Crabman, who still had the word
Shanghai
on his lips, registered a shocked look.

On their way to work, Abe Lincoln asked Four Eyes about the underlying meaning in the Crabman's comment.

"It's black and white," Four Eyes explained. "When he says, 'For guys like us, whoever has a girlfriend in Shanghai,' he means he has a girlfriend in Shanghai. 'Whether she's got a job or not' means his girlfriend doesn't have a job. She just hangs around the house, living off her family. In short, it means he thinks he's one great guy. I can read him like a book!"

Four Eyes might have analyzed the man's thoughts a little more thoroughly (maybe he was thinking of doing just that), but at that precise moment someone was running down the path, shouting. It was Shuanzhu, running like a scared rabbit. With one hand, he was holding his book bag tightly against his chest; with the other, he was waving a wad of-no, wait a minute, it was newspapers. If you'd seen the way he looked, you'd have thought he was a paper-boy shouting out the latest hot-news item.

There's no need to tell you, since you've all guessed by now, what was written up in that newspaper. Four Eyes picked up a copy, opened it, and there on the front page was a banner printed in red: LOYAL HEART SEEN IN BLAZING FLAMES OF ROARING FIRE: SHANGHAI HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE RISKS LIFE TO SAVE POOR PEASANT. Why, you didn't even have to read the article. Just looking at the color of the print was enough to make you think of red flames!

The contents of the article were more or less the same as the first draft that Four Eyes had come up with. To be more precise, the first part was exactly the same; just the ending was a little different. Phrases like "burning with righteous fervor," "charged back into the sea of flames," "the thick smoke stung my eyes," "tears blurred my vision," and "ardent loyalty" had all been left in. They had just been changed from the first person to the third person. But there was an added twist after the part that recorded his courageous advance. The article read: "He felt the wall, very carefully lifted the portrait down, and stuffed it under his jacket, pressing it close to his fervently burning heart. Next he turned around, yelled out, 'Long live Chairman Mao,' then rushed out of the building." Sometimes there is no such thing as compromise. Either the "east wind will prevail over the west," as Chairman Mao said, or the west wind will prevail over the east. How could Four Eyes fail to understand this fundamental concept? If you could take a minute to look at our characters now, you'd see that the Professor was scratching his head, Abe Lincoln was muttering something, Four Eyes was wide-eyed and tongue-tied, while our hero, the Crabman, had just plunked his butt down on the muddy ground as if somebody had kicked him in the shins.

Actually, the Crabman was afraid that the villagers would revile him for being such an egomaniac, and for the time being he didn't even dare raise his head. But regardless of what had happened, nobody was going to say anything disagreeable (didn't we already tell you the villagers said they'd seen just about everything?). After dinner, the team leader brought the newspaper over and sat on his heels by the doorstep. Once again, the Crabman was overcome by a sense of guilt and slipped away to hide behind the mosquito netting. Actually, he'd jumped to the wrong conclusion; the team leader had come there to ask one of the students to mark in red the passages in the article that referred to him. You see, since he couldn't read, he didn't know which parts featured him. As Abe Lincoln picked up a pen, he discovered that there really were quite a number of passages to be marked. Of course, the Crabman's exploits were inseparable from the topic of reeducating the poor and lower-middle peasants; so at each mention of poor and lower-middle peasants, how could the article not refer to the Party secretary, the team leader, and the representative of the peasants' association? Four Eyes asked the team leader why he hadn't told Shuanzhu simply to underline the relevant passages for him. The team leader threw down his pipe and swore, "That damned kid! I haven't seen a trace of him since dinner." Actually, we shouldn't blame Little Shuanzhu. Just think, from the time he finished hoeing the field until after dinner, he had already read the entire article to his father twenty times.

Henceforth, there were
two
famous people in our village. One was the team leader-he tucked that newspaper with all the red marking into his pant pocket, right next to his beloved pipe and his house keys, and took it with him wherever he went. Whenever he ran into a cadre from the production brigade at the commune or someone he was close to-a friend or a relative or even just the neighborhood street vendor-he would take out the article and show him the passages that were marked. And what would he do? He'd silently sit off to one side with a big grin on his face and smugly puff on his pipe.

Of course, the other famous person was the Crabman. The elementary school run by the people at the production brigade invited him to give their next presentation. The middle school at the commune also invited him to give a talk. The commune called a huge gathering of all the young high school graduates in the commune for the express purpose of having him speak. Just look at him as he takes the podium-he appears composed and at ease, and his words flow so eloquently, not a trace of guilt to be seen. Before long, there was a large meeting of the activist representatives from among the various high school graduates throughout the province (those who had answered the Party's call to go up to the mountains and down to the countryside), and naturally the Crabman was asked to be one of the representatives. Strutting about with an air of arrogance, he set out for the meeting.

It was early August, and the hoes had been put away. The team leader was in a position to help the old pensioner rebuild his house. Come to think of it, there really wasn't anything so hard about it. The four walls were still intact. In fact, after having withstood the fire, if anything, they were sturdier. All that had to be done was add little adobe, patch up the gable, put up the reed frame for the house beams, and smooth out some straw on top. Building houses is considered technical work, not something those Shanghai students had ever been involved in. But this time, the team leader asked Four Eyes, the Professor, and Abe Lincoln to help out by passing up some straw or by handing him a spade or some such task. This may also have been a consequence of the Crabman's actions during the fire.

During that time, the team leader went to the commune once, maybe to attend a meeting for third-level cadres, maybe an enlarged meeting of the Party committee. Or could it have been a general meeting of the representatives of the peasants' associations? Anyway, it was some kind of meeting. Of course, there was no way he would leave behind that article from the
Eastern Anhui News
. We can verify that by then, his copy of the newspaper was already starting to fall apart from so much handling. It was torn at the corners, and the places that had been marked in red were nearly illegible. But what did that matter? Those particular phrases had already bored their way into the depths of the team leader's heart. No matter where you put your finger, he could recite the passage from memory. However, this does not concern us here. Instead, let's turn to several letters he picked up from the post office and brought back to the students after the meeting was over.

There was one each for the Professor and Abe Lincoln but none for Four Eyes; the letter Four Eyes was holding in his hand was for the Crabman. First, he looked at the front; then he turned it over to look at the back; next he looked again at the front. He brought it up to within two inches of his eyes and, squinting one eye, scrutinized it. Next he went outside and held the letter up to the sun and shook it slowly. From the way he was acting, you might have thought he was a bank teller examining a forged bill.

"Well, what did you find out?" asked the Professor.

"Look," said Four Eyes as he handed the letter over to the Professor. "Now for guys like us, whoever has a girlfriend in Shanghai -"

"Whether she's got a job or not?" the Professor said with an expression that reflected his doubt. "What makes you think it's a letter from her? All that's written on the envelope is 'Name and address of sender confidential.' "

"Wanna bet? Why not just open it and have a look?"

"How can we open the Crabman's personal mail? That's not right, is it?" asked the Professor.

"Hey, Four Eyes, don't you dare open it. If you do, I'll tell the Crabman," Abe Lincoln chimed in.

Have you heard the slogan Fight selfishness, repudiate revisionism? Have you ever personally experienced the complications and pain brought on by too much mental activity? Now take a look at Four Eyes. His eyes were getting bloodshot from staring so fixedly at that letter. His lower jaw was twitching nervously, his cheeks were puffed out, and sweat was pouring from his forehead. The sight he presented was that of a starving wolf tempted by a piece of bait. He was desperately struggling against his own selfish desires. Perhaps you might also feel the utter futility of his efforts. Thus you, too, would be able to breathe a sigh of relief when Four Eyes finally ended up shouting and grabbing the envelope out of the Professor's hand. "What the hell!" Four Eyes shouted. "If someone can't even be curious, then what kind of a person is he?"

Generally speaking, it's no easy matter to open an envelope without leaving a trace of its having been opened. But then again, since Four Eyes is not exactly your average individual, we can't use normal standards when we're dealing with him. According to his own conclusions, he should be categorized as a person with much baser instincts. He carefully made a small opening in a corner of the envelope and stuck a thin bamboo chopstick in the hole, then twisted it around and around until the letter was tightly wound around it. He removed the chopstick, and the letter popped out. Obviously, in a moment, he would be able to reverse the process and reinsert the letter into the envelope. In light of this, we cannot help but admit that there is nothing that cannot be accomplished as long as one has confidence, patience, a cool head, and nimble fingers.

As Four Eyes read the letter, he started to whistle. His expression was as tranquil as a calmed ocean. In fact, the tense scene he had just experienced now seemed instead to be reenacted by the professor, who was itching for his turn. His neck was stretched so far it seemed as long as that of a wild crane. He said, "Forget it! So the Crabman will be angry. How long are you going to read it? What does it say? Hurry up and read it to us!"

"Why don't you read it yourself?" said Four Eyes.