One Man's Bible (17 page)

19

The first battle between Red Guards broke out in the main courtyard of the workplace. In the middle of the day, when people were coming out of the building to go to the dining room, a Red Guard from outside came and put up a poster on the courtyard wall. He was stopped by a security guard. Some Red Guards from the workplace came and tore down the poster.

The cocky youth with glasses was surrounded on all sides, but he loudly protested, “Why can’t I put it up? Putting up posters has been authorized by Chairman Mao!”

“That’s Liu Ping’s son trying to overturn the verdict on his father, don’t let him get up to mischief!”

A security guard motioned to the gathering crowd and said, “Don’t crowd around here, go off and eat!”

“My father’s innocent! Comrades!” Shoving aside the guard, the youth held his head high to address the crowd. “Your Party committee has changed the general direction of the struggle away from Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line, don’t let them hoodwink you! If they aren’t up to something underhanded, why are they scared of posters?”

Danian squeezed his way out of the crowd of silent onlookers and said to some Red Guards of the workplace, “Don’t let this stinker pose as a Red Guard, take off his armband!”

Holding high his arm with the armband and protecting the armband with his other hand, the youth went on to shout, “Comrade Red Guards! Your general direction is wrong! Boot out the Party committee and make revolution, don’t be accomplices of the capitalists! All of you comrades who want to make revolution, go look inside the university campuses, they are proletarian rebel territories. You are still under the White Terror out here—”

The youth was pushed back against the wall. He turned to the crowd of onlookers for help but no one dared to come to his rescue.

“Who is
your
comrade? You turtle grandson of the fuckin’ landlord class, how dare you pose as a Red Guard? Take it off!” Danian ordered.

A scuffle broke out for the armband. The youth was strong but could not fend off several people tackling him. First his glasses flew to the ground and were instantly trampled, then his armband was pulled off. This self-assured, confident successor to the revolution was now propped against the wall, cowering, his arms protecting his head. Then, falling on his haunches, he began to wail uncontrollably and was instantly transformed into a miserable pup.

Old Liu was also dragged out, tottering and stumbling, from the building and denounced in the courtyard. But he was an old revolutionary who had experienced a lot in life and did not buckle like his son. Holding his head high, he tried to speak, but, immediately, Red Guards pushed his head to the ground so that his face was covered in dirt and he could do nothing but keep his head down.

Squashed in the crowd, he witnessed in silence what had happened, and in his heart he chose to rebel. He slipped out during worktime and went around the university campuses in the western part of the city. At Peking University, which was thronging with people,
among the posters covering the buildings and walls, he saw one by Mao Zedong: “Bombard Their Headquarters—My Poster.” When he got back to his workplace office, he was still fired up. Late that night, when nobody was around, he wrote a poster. He did not wait for people to come in for work to collect signatures. He was afraid that by morning, when he was more clear-headed, he might not have the courage. So he had to put up the poster in the middle of the night, while he was still fired up. The masses had to heroically speak out to overturn the verdicts on people branded as anti-Party.

In the empty corridor of the building, some old posters rustled in a draught; this sense of loneliness was probably necessary to support heroic action. The impulse for justice sprang from a sense of tragedy, and he had been thrust into the gambling den, although at the time it was hard to say whether he wanted to gamble. In any case, he thought he had seen an opening and there was something of gambling with life in being a hero.

The stalwarts, branded anti-Party at the start of the Cultural Revolution, had not been able to raise their heads, and the activists following the Party committee had not received directives from their superiors, so when people saw the poster they remained silent. For two whole days, he came and went alone, drowned in feelings of tragedy.

The first response to his poster was from the manager of the book warehouse, Big Li, who phoned to fix a time to see him. Big Li and a thin youth, a typist called Little Yu, were waiting for him in the courtyard in front of the kitchen.

“We agree with your poster and we can work together!” Big Li said, and shook his hand to confirm that he was a comrade-in-arms.

“What’s your family background?” To be a rebel also took into account a person’s family background.

“Office worker.” He did not explain any further. Such questions always made him feel awkward.

Big Li looked at Little Yu, as if to ask what he thought. Someone came with a flask to get hot water, and the three stopped talking. They heard the water filling the flask and the person walking off.

“Tell him about it.” Little Yu had approved.

Big Li told him, “We’re setting up a rebel Red Guard group to fight them. Tomorrow morning, at eight o’clock sharp, we’re holding a meeting at the teahouse in Taoranting Park.”

Another person came along with a flask, so the three of them parted and went their separate ways. It was a clandestine association and not to attend would be a sign of cowardice.

Sunday morning was very cold, and the pellets of ice on the road crunched underfoot like broken glass. He had arranged to meet with four youths at Taoranting Park in the south of the city. His workplace was far away in the north, so it was not likely that he would meet anyone he knew. The sky was gray and overcast, and no one was in the park, because all forms of enjoyment had been stopped during this abnormal period. As he trudged along the road crunching the ice, he felt as if he had a divine mission to save the world.

The tables by the lake were deserted and inside the teahouse, behind thick cotton door curtains, only two old men were sitting opposite one another by the window. When everyone had arrived, they sat outside around a table, each warming his hands on a mug of hot tea. First of all, each gave his family background as was required for rebellion under the red flag.

Big Li’s father was a shop assistant in a grain store, his grandfather used to mend shoes but he was dead. At the start of the Cultural Revolution, Big Li had put up a poster about the Party branch secretary, and for this he had undergone correction. Little Yu, the youngest, had come straight from middle school to the workplace, where he had been working as a typist for less than a year. Both of his parents were workers in a factory, but he had been expelled from
the Red Guards for getting to work late and leaving early. Another, Tang, worked as a motorbike traffic officer and before that he used to drive a car in the army. His family background was impeccable but he had a glib tongue and, according to him, the Red Guards had expelled him because he was keen on practicing comic dialogue. Another person wasn’t present because he had to take care of his sick mother in hospital. Big Li conveyed the message that the person unconditionally supported rebelling and fighting the restoration faction.

Finally, it was his turn, and he was about to say he lacked the qualifications for being a Red Guard and that it wasn’t necessary to include him in their group. However, before the words came out of his mouth, Big Li waved his hand and said, “We all know your stance, we also want to unite with revolutionary intellectuals like you. Those present today are core members of the Red Guard of our Mao Zedong’s Thought!”

It was as simple as that, and there was no need for further discussion. They, too, regarded themselves as the successors of the revolution, and it was right for them to safeguard Mao’s Thought. It was indeed as Big Li said, “In the universities, the rebel group has already thrashed the old Red Guards, what are we waiting for? Victory will be ours!”

That very night, back in the empty workplace building, they put up the manifesto of their rebel Red Guard group. Big posters targeting the Party committee and the old Red Guards were posted in the corridors of every floor of the building down to the main hall, and out in the main courtyard.

At daybreak, when he returned to his small room, the stove-heater had long since gone out. The room was chilly, and his fervor, too, had subsided. He got into bed to reflect upon the significance and consequences of their actions, but, overcome by exhaustion, fell fast asleep. When he woke up, it was already twilight, but his head was still fuzzy. The accumulated pressure of staying vigilant day and
night for months had dispersed, and he went on to sleep for a whole night.

He was up early, and went to work not expecting to see poster responses pasted everywhere upstairs and downstairs. Suddenly, hero or not, he was indeed a fighter who was in the limelight. The tense atmosphere in the office had relaxed, and people who had been avoiding him a few days ago now all greeted him with a smile and spoke to him. Old Mrs. Huang, under investigation at the time, held his hand and would not let go. Tears streaming down her face, she said, “You have spoken the thoughts in the minds of the masses. You people are Mao Zedong’s true Red Guards!” She was simpering like the old villagers greeting the Red Army that had come to liberate them, as shown in revolutionary movies, and even the stage words were much the same. Even Old Liu who never revealed his emotions smiled as he looked at him, nodding to indicate his respect. This superior of his, too, was waiting for him to liberate him. No one knew that they were only five hastily assembled youths, and their suddenly becoming an unstoppable force was due to the fact that they also wore red armbands on their sleeves.

Some put signatures to their announcement of withdrawal from the old Red Guards, and Lin was among them. This gave him a ray of hope that maybe they would resume their former liaison, but at noon, when he looked around in the dining hall, he did not see her. He thought that probably, at this time, she was keen to avoid him. In the corridor upstairs, he came face to face with Danian, who pretended not to have seen him and quickly walked past, but he was no longer swaggering with his head arrogantly cocked.

The somber workplace building, with its individual offices, was like a giant beehive, and operating procedures were built up in layers of authority. When the original authority was shaken, the whole hive started buzzing. People deep in discussion stood in groups in the corridors, and wherever he went, people nodded at him or stopped him for a chat whether he knew them or not. They were
flocking to talk to him just as they had flocked to talk to the Party secretary or political cadres during the eradication of Ox Demons and Snake Spirits campaign. In a few short days, almost everyone had indicated they were rebelling, and every section had discarded Party and administrative structures and formed combat teams. He, a low-level editor, had, in fact, become a prominent figure in this workplace building with its huge hierarchy of grades, and it was as if he was the leader. The masses needed a leader like a flock of sheep needed to stay near the sheep with a bell, but the lead sheep was itself driven by the loud crack of a whip and didn’t know where it was going. Anyway, he did not have to sit in the office all day, and he could come and go without anyone questioning him. People took the work from his desk, did his editing for him, and he was not allocated other work.

He had gone home early, and, entering the courtyard, saw a grubby person with messy hair sitting on his stone doorstep. He gave a start when he saw it was Baozi, from the family next door. They were friends as children, but had not seen one another for many years.

“You devil, what brings you here?” he asked.

“It’s really great that I’ve found you, but it’s impossible to give you a one-word answer!” Baozi, king of the urchins in the alleys and lanes in those days, had now learned to sigh.

He unlocked the padlock and opened the door to his room. The retired old man next door also had his door open and poked out his head.

“He’s a schoolmate from my old home down south.”

Now that he, too, wore a red armband, he took no notice of the old bugger and stopped him with one sentence. The old man’s face wrinkled up into a smile that exposed his sparse teeth as he chuckled approvingly before retreating into his room and closing the door.

“I escaped without a towel or toothbrush and have been posing as one of the hordes of students who have come to Beijing. Do you
have something for me to eat? I haven’t eaten properly for four days and nights. I’ve only got a handful of loose change and don’t dare spend any of it. By pretending to be a student, I’ve been able to get a couple of steamed buns and a bit of thin gruel in hostels.”

As soon as he came into the room, Baozi slapped on the table a few Mao-head banknotes and some coins he had taken out of his pockets. He went on to say, “I escaped through the window the day before I was to be denounced by the whole school. A sports teacher, denounced for feeling a student’s breasts during gymnastics, was dragged out as a bad element and beaten to death by Red Guards.”

Baozi’s forehead was creased with anxiety and he looked utterly wretched. Where was that mischief-making devil that went around stripped to the waist in summer as a child? Baozi could tread water, swim under water, and stand upside down like a dragonfly with his feet sticking up above the surface. When he went off to the lake to learn to swim without telling his mother, he had this companion to bolster his courage. Baozi was two years older, more than a head taller, and when it came to fighting he was really tough, so if he ran into boys looking for a fight, as long as Baozi was there, he was not afraid. It was unthinkable that this intrepid desperado would today travel so far to seek him out for protection. Baozi said that after graduating from teachers’ college he was sent to teach language at a county school. At the start of the Cultural Revolution, the Party secretary used him as a scapegoat.