Serve the People! (12 page)

FOR THREE DAYS AND THREE nights, Liu Lian and Wu Dawang imprisoned themselves within the house, attending only to their most primitive needs. The compound began to seem like a wholly autonomous domain, answerable only to its own laws, independent of the world beyond its steel fence. They came together whenever and however they wanted, and when they were tired they rested as they were -- sitting or lying, his head resting on her thigh, prickling her tender skin with its bristly crew cut- until their energies returned.

But after a certain point--on the afternoon of the third day-primitive joy gave way to primitive fatigue; a fatigue that was not only physical, but also psychological.

The position of the Division Commander's house, within the senior officers' compound, made it easy to keep their wanton confinement hidden. Over the road in front of the compound was the back wall of the Division Social Club. With the barracks deserted, the gate to the club was permanently locked. Its gongs, drums and more exotic musical instruments (an exultant French horn, a dazzling bronze flute and a set of huge scarlet timpani, wheeled out only for the promulgation of Chairman Mao's highest directives, for important conferences in Beijing or for great matters of state) were all deathly silent. Even if the gate was thrown open and the drums brought back to life, much of the noise would have been muffled by its thick red-brick walls; only a faint, indistinct rumble would disturb the peace of the Commander's house. Likewise, anyone in the club would be oblivious to noise generated by Wu Dawang and Liu Lian.

The vegetable garden and a copse of willows screened the back of the house from the headquarters of the Signals Company. Neither had ever heard anything of the other's existence.

To the east was an abandoned building site. The Division Commander's predecessor had planned a recreational conference facility for the senior officers, in which they could read the papers, chat, play chess or ping-pong, and so on, after dinner. And when it came to meetings, of course, the conference room would only be a few steps from their front doors. But one evening, shortly after the current Division Commander had been appointed, he stood surveying the construction site, studying the lie of the land and inviting opinions from a few of his immediate subordinates. `In the words of Chairman Mao,' he finally pronounced, `work is like a carrying-pole lying on the ground before us, testing us as to whether or not we dare take it onto our shoulders. Sometimes the load is heavy, and sometimes it is light. Some eagerly grasp the light load but fear the heavy, pushing it onto the shoulders of others. This is an example of incorrect thinking. Some comrades, by contrast, delight in taking up the heavy loads for themselves and leaving the light work to others, in putting themselves last and others first. This is the good Communist spirit which we all need to emulate.'

His recitation complete, the Division Commander went back to his house to drink the after-dinner tea his new wife Liu Lian had prepared for him. From that moment on, the building work ground to a vig orous halt and the site was overrun by scrubby weeds. The sentries only patrolled on the other side of the red-brick wall that skirted the site--well away from the house itself. The inhabitants of Compound Number One would need to be screaming blue murder to be overheard by the patrols. Only to the west was the house overlooked-by Compound Number Two, the Political Commissar's house. As luck would have it, though, with the Commissar off on camp and field training, his wife had gone on social manoeuvres to the provincial capital, taking her orderly with her on a tour of her relatives.

All was as if Heaven itself had willed it. And, true to this Heaven-sent opportunity, for the first two and a half days they remained inside the house, enslaving themselves to their most basic desires. In the end, though, their weary bodies let them down, refusing them more of the same delirious happiness. Even though they tried the exact position that had worked so ecstatically well-her lying on her back on the bed, him standing at its foot-success eluded them. They considered endless permutations and variations of arrangement and mood; none had the desired effect.

Failure trailed them, like a shadow.

`What's wrong?' she asked, as they lay exhausted on the bed.

I'm just tired,' he replied.

`It's not that. You're bored with me.'

`I want to put some clothes on and go and do some work in the garden. I'll get undressed again when I come back inside, all right?'

`Please yourself.'

He climbed down off the bed and went over to her wardrobe. However, as he opened the door, an accident of incalculable counter-revolutionary enormity occurred-one that threatened the very fabric of society and state; something far more serious than stamping on one of Chairman Mao's quotations. Taking his uniform out of the wardrobe, he brought with it a plaster statue of Mao Zedong. It plummeted to the ground and shattered pitilessly all over the floor, filling the room with powdery shards. Chairman Mao's severed head rolled, just as a ping-pong ball would, over to the side of the table, discarding en route its snow-white nose, which came to rest, like a dust-covered soya bean, in the middle of the room.

Wu Dawang stood white-faced, rooted to the spot, as the smell of plaster of Paris billowed up around him.

With a squeal of alarm, Liu Lian bolted from the bed and to the telephone. `Hello, switchboard?' she gabbled into the receiver. `Is the Head of Security still in barracks?'

In an instant, Wu Dawang understood the gravity of the situation. The word `bitch' springing disbelievingly to his lips, he dropped his uniform and charged over to grab the telephone from Liu Lian.

`What the hell are you doing?' he barked, slamming it back down.

She concentrated on struggling free and getting the receiver back. To stop her, he stood guard in front of the table, repelling all her desperate, violent lunges, swatting her arms away, muttering angrily beneath his breath. He was amazed by her strength and stamina: every time he saw her off, she would somehow return for a fresh assault. At last, to get her away from the telephone, he gathered her up to his chest-much as one would capture a large bird by wrapping one's arms around it-carried her to the bed and threw her contemptuously down onto it. He then trampled very deliberately over the bits of plaster, grinding them to dust, as he repeated over and over to her and to himself: `Still think you're going to make that phone call? Think you're going to go running to Security?' He placed his bare foot on the Chairman's head and twisted it down, hard. `You heartless bitch,' he said again, staring at Liu Lian as he twisted it back the other way. When he'd reduced everything beneath his feet to powder, he realized-rather to his surprise-that he hadn't heard her say a single thing through this entire violent outburst of his. Taking a moment to look more calmly at her, he discovered that, far from seeming traumatized by the political cataclysm of the last few minutes, she was sitting serenely on the edge of the bed, gazing at him, her cheeks flushed and eyes shining with anticipation.

Glancing down at himself, he realized that their violent, naked struggle had reawoken in him that elusive sense of furious excitement. For some reason, the way she was gazing almost wonderingly at himas a tourist might gawp at a j umping, squawking monkey in a zoo-- only intensified his rage at her ruthless attempt to betray him. Roughly, he turned her onto her front and entered her from behind, pouring-just as he had done three days earlier all his desire for revenge into this intense sexual impulse.

Again, as she had done three days ago, she burst into loud, happy sobs.

When she'd regained her composure, she turned over, slid off the bed and came to squat, smiling, down next to him. `I put that statue under your clothes. I knew that as soon as you tried to get dressed, you'd knock it to the ground.'

Discovering he'd been tricked, he might have grabbed hold of her hair-perhaps to hit her, or just to shout at her, to express his anger. Instead, he took her ravishingly pretty face in his hands and kissed it. `I didn't mean it when I called you a bitch) ust then.'

She shook her head at him, her face pink with gratitude. Outside, after some light drizzle, the sun was coming back out into an almost clear sky, filling the room with the mellow, golden light of approaching autumn. She stood up and sat, straight backed, on the bed once more. A modest glint of triumph lit up her face, her beatific smile sharpened by a kind of knowing, feminine mischief.

A deep quiet fell over the room, as if the physical world around them had dissolved into nothingness. The sweat steamed off their bodies, adding a salty tang to the room's musty air.

They gazed at each other, both their faces suddenly wet with tears. It was as if this unhinged passion had, somewhere deep inside their numbed psyches, awoken a capacity for love of which neither had known they were capable; a love that both knew could only end in painful separation. Neither dared say or do anything, for fear it would bring their fragile, unsustainable liaison instantly to an end. Their tears pattered onto the ground, like raindrops falling from eaves. He took a step forward and, kneeling before her, laid his head on her lap like a child looking for comfort. As she distractedly ran a finger through his short hair, her tears fell onto his face, mingling with his own before running down her legs. She tilted his face up toward her and kissed him, as a prelude to speaking.

`Would you like to marry me?'

`Yes.'

`I'd like to marry you, too, but it's impossible.'

His eyes asked why.

'Have you forgotten who my husband is?'

She spoke mildly, without emphasis; as if talking about some trivial object she had absentmindedly lost. But to him her words sounded like a warning. His tears stopped, cut off at the source. At the same time the gentle sorrow in her expression stiffened into awkward reserve, as if Wu Dawang were a passing stranger she'd mistaken for a friend.

'So you don't want to leave the Commander?' he said.

'Of course I do. But it's not going to happen.'

'Why not?'

`Because he's the Division Commander.'

'Didn't his last wife divorce him?'

'More fool her.'

'So you don't want to leave him?' he repeated.

'Look, I'm not going to ask him for a divorce. I'm just happy thatyou want to marry me; that's enough for me. And I'll keep my promise: I'll do whatever it takes to getyouyour promotion and haveyour family moved to the city. Whatever you want, I'll make sure you get it.'

Though their eyes were now dry, neither had noticed when the other had stopped crying; when the great tide of love had begun to ebb. Reality had conquered fantasy. Wu Dawang was neither particularly surprised by or inclined to doubt Liu Lian's resolve -from the outset, he'd known how the thing would turn out. But for a brief instant he'd allowed a delusion to overwhelm his common sense. Neither suspected the other of shedding insincere tears; both knew that, sooner or later, hard truth would prevail over daydreams.

None the less, Wu Dawang became almost petulant in his desperation to retrieve that fleeting, shared intensity of feeling from the clutches of Liu Lian's cool pragmatism. Retreating a few steps, he sat down on the chair by the table.

`I don't care whetheryou divorce the Commander, fix me a promotion or get my family moved to the city. Whatever happens, I'll never forget you.'

This declaration didn't have the impact he'd anticipated. After a pause, Liu Lian merely smiled. `Flatterer.'

Wu Dawang's face crumpled anxiously. `Don't you believe me?'

'Of course. Like I believe Chairman Mao's really going to live for 10,000 years,' she teased.

He cast about for a way of proving his devotion. Finally, his eyes fell on the dust of the statue that he'd first smashed to pieces, then crushed to powder underfoot. `Ifyou don't believe me,' he said, `you can tell Security what I did to that statue. I'll either be shot or spend the rest of my life in prison.I

He kicked again at the powder dusted over the floor, his face sweating with agitation. When he looked back up, she was still contemplating him - but more seriously than before.

`Do you really think I'm going to forget you?'

'You're the Division Commander's wife, you can forget whoeveryou like. All I know is I'll never forget you.'

'D'you want me to swear it?'

'Hot air.'

Glancing across at the poster of Chairman Mao stuck above the table, she walked over, ripped it off the wall, screwed it up and tore it into pieces. She then threw them onto the floor and stamped on them.

'You can report me, too. Once we were both Partyfaithful. Now we're both counterrevolutionaries. But you destroyed an image of Chairman Mao by accident, while I did it deliberately. Which makes me more counterrevolutionary. Believe me now?'

For a moment he paled with shock at what she'd done. Then he walked over to the basin, pulled a quotation off the wall behind it and, like her, screwed it up and stamped on it.

`I'm more counterrevolutionary than you. I deserve two firing squads.'

Scanning the room, her eyes fixed on a red book lying on the corner of the writing table: The Selected LY7orkd of Mao Zedoaq. She grabbed up the bible of Revolution, pulled off its jacket and tossed it to the ground, then tore through its pages, ripping and screwing them up until finally she reached the title page with its portrait of Chairman Mao, which she made into a ball and stamped on.

`Now who's the bigger counterrevolutionary?'

Without replying, he strode out of the room and over to the stairwell. There, he threw onto the floor the framed double portrait of Lin Biao and Chairman Mao entitled The Great Helinsinwi Guided Ud Across the Sead. Having smashed the glass, he gouged out the two men's eyes into four dark, scowling holes. He then straightened up and looked over at her. `You tell me.'

She walked into the Division Commander's mapfilled conference room and staggered back out carrying an almost life-sized, gold-plated bust of Chairman Mao. After laying the statue down in front of Wu Dawang she chiselled off its nose with a neat little hammer. `How about that, then?'