Serve the People! (6 page)

Wu Dawang also decided not to go straight to bed. He wound his way around those companionable clusters of drinkers to the deserted, southernmost end of the ground. There he sat, alone. To any casual observer, this deep moonlight contemplation might have suggested an inquiry into the fundamentals of existence, into the ethics of love, desire and revolution, into the conflict between honour and self-interest, into duty and hierarchy, human nature and animal instinct. But in reality these thorny abstractions slipped by him like smoke, leaving behind only two considerations: one, Liu Lian's extraordinarily seductive body; and two, the probable consequences of entering into the kind of relations that she seemed to be proposing, and the Division Commander finding out. The simple but powerful blade of his mind stripped the issue of all complexity, leaving only these two principal contradictions. Meditating on the former, he was lost in blissful daydreams; thoughts of the latter called up the terrifying presentiment that just around the next corner of his life an execution ground awaited. On the battlefield, multitudes had met their end at the hands of the Commander-it was common knowledge that during the Civil War, he had blown an enemy's head off at close range before stamping, repeatedly, down on it. Picturing the entire scene to himself-- that mangled ball of human flesh trampled beneath the Commander's army boot Wu Dawang shivered and vowed that Liu Lian would have to shoot him before she had her way with him; he would defend, to the death, his honour as a soldier and a revolutionary.

If my wife didn't have to work in the fields every day, he thought to himself, I bet her skin would be softer and whiter than yours.

If my wife had your clothes and face creams, she'd probably be prettier than you.

If my wife had grown up in the city, she'd speak just as nicely as you.

Sometimes my wife smells just like you or, if she doesn't, it's only because she doesn't have time to bathe as often as you do. Think your soft skin, pink cheeks, big eyes, white teeth, tiny waist, firm breasts, long legs and round buttocks would be enough to turn my head? A revolutionary soldier? And how did a capitalist-bourgeois slut land a war hero like the Division Commander anyway?

When Wu Dawang stood up, except for his sense of perplexed regret about the Commander's choice of mate, he was much lighter of heart. He felt that his simple, honest soldierly virtues had, for the moment, vanquished his would-be seductress. He was filled with pride: pride at his extraordinary ability to scorn the Division beauty, at his own incorruptible integrity. But just as he was about to retire, proudly, to his dormitory, up popped his Political Instructor out of nowhere.

You certainly know how to make yourself scarce, don't you? I've been looking everywhere for you.'

He studied the Political Instructor's face by the light of the moon.

Was there something you wanted, Sir?'

The Instructor snorted.

`I expected better of you, Wu Dawang, I really did. I never dreamed that you -you, of all people! would cause me this kind of trouble. I've) ust had the Division Commander's wife on the phone, and she was less than happy. She told me you had no idea that to serve the Division Commander and his wife was to Serve the People. She said she wanted you replaced first thing tomorrow with someone new, someone who knew something about political theory. Come on, spit it out, what did you do to her? You're a Sergeant, a Party member, you've got awards and honourable mentions coming out ofyour ears, there's no one I trust more in the company. How on earth did you manage to forget to Serve the People? Spit it out,' he repeated, `what was it? Cat got your tongue?

The Revolution is not a dinner party,' the Instructor continued. `It's no walk in the park. It's about blood, sweat and sacrifice. Two thirds of the world's population still live in misery and oppression. Under Chiang Kai-shek, the people of Taiwan are suffering from unspeakable poverty, hunger, cold and disease. The People's Liberation Army that means you and that means me-there's still work for us, plenty of it. The US imperialists are everywhere, our borders are crawling with a million Soviet revisionists. As soldiers, every one of us needs to stand tall and fix his eyes on distant horizons, to think of China and of the world, to keep our feet on the ground and fulfil our duties, to work as hard as we can for the liberation of mankind. But what do I find here? You can't even look after Liu Lian while the Division Commander's away. If you don't look after Liu Lian properly, the Commander won't be able to concentrate on his meetings in Beijing. If the Commander can't concentrate, it'll affect the entire Division's battle training; if an entire Division isn't ready for battle, it affects the army as a whole; and if World War III does break out- then you'll see j ust how big an influence someone like you and something like this can have. And if it comes to that, a hundred deaths by firing squad will be too good foryou. And for me and the Division Commander as well.

`That was the big picture,' the Political Insructor went on. `Here's the detail. How can you be so stupid, Wu Dawang? I thought you wanted your family transferred to the city, I thought you wanted promotion. A few words from the Division Commander could solve all your problems. And who's going to get these magic words out of him? His wife, the person he sleeps next to. Liu Lian.

`Go to bed,' he finished. `I'm not going to ask again what it was, exactly, you did. I've agreed to send someone new over tomorrow, as requested. But I've decided to give you a chance to put things right. So I'm going to send you back to the Commander's house for one more day. I'll let Liu Lian know it was my decision, so if she's looking for someone to blame I'm her man. But beyond that, it's all down to you. It's in your hands now. An outstanding soldier is not content only to take light from the beacon of Revolution, but should also enhance its eternal brilliance by his own efforts.'

Verbosity--and in military thinking especiallywas the Political Instructor's particular talent. As his superior held forth unstoppably, Wu Dawang began to feel a furious hatred for Liu Lian. Several times he came close to revealing her degenerate, capitalist attempts at seduction, but each time the words sprang to his lips he swallowed them back down, for reasons that were unclear to him. Wu Dawang's discretion, his willingness to accept humiliation in order to protect a woman's reputation, was of course very much to his credit as a soldier, and as a man of honour. But lurking deep within this generous nobility of spirit, could there also have been a tiny, selfish desire to savour this delicious secret alone? Since the curtain had only just gone up on this grand romantic drama, did he perhaps feel it would be wrong to spoil the plot for his audience before the performance had properly begun? Remembering, as his Instructor droned on, how the Division Commander had trampled on that ill-fated head, Wu Dawang placed his foot on a sturdy clump of grass. While the Political Instructor was interrogating him as to what, precisely, he had done to offend Liu Lian, he twisted his foot from side to side, as one would stub out a cigarette, imagining he was grinding her face into the ground: her mouth, her red lips and white teeth, her forehead and her high, straight nose. As the Political Instructor warmed to his theme, Wu Dawang moved on down her body until, at the thought of her marvellous breasts, his belligerent foot faltered and shrank from the impressive hollow it had made--defeated by a bosom.

The moon had now reached the southwest. Unnoticed by Wu Dawang, the drinkers had dispersed back to their respective companies and the barracks were quiet. The breeze was still lapping about, rustling across the drill ground. He examined the hole he'd made, its edges scattered with displacedyellow- brown earth and crushed plant stalks. The strong, sharp smell of raw soil flavoured the cool night air. Guiltily contemplating, by the light of the moon, the mess he had made, he nudged the loose soil back with his boot.

'Go to bed,' the Political Instructor repeated, `it's getting late. But remember what I said: you won't get a third chance. If the Division Commander's wife has really taken against you, you're done for.'

`Thank you, Sir,' Wu Dawang finally responded. if I wasn't in uniform, I'd kneel down and kowtow to you right here.'

'What kind of talk is that for a revolutionary,' the Political Instructor chided him, giving him a light clip around the ear before heading back to his dormitory.

Wu Dawang followed on behind; back to bed.

AS ANY GOOD READER OF fiction will know, the progress of a story is dependent not only on the personalities of its main characters, but also on the experiences that have brought them to where they are today to their narrative present. And it was now that Wu Dawang's own personal history exerted a truly decisive influence. One light flutter of the butterfly's wings sent the globe of fate spinning in an entirely new direction.

As Wu Dawang lay sleeplessly on his bed, reflecting on the twists and turns his life had taken, he eventually fixed on the question of his marriage. Six years ago, at the ripe old age of twenty-two, he had been a simple farmer in Wujiagou, a village nestling among the mountains of Funiu in western Henan. Every day, he would start work when the sun rose and stop when it sank. Just as a weed starved of sunlight or a wild sapling deprived of rain struggles for survival, he lived in ignorance of the most basic and instinctive of life's comforts and pleasures. His father had been taken ill and died years ago, leaving a widow and her only son to eke out a miserable existence in the poor, remote, drought-stricken mountain village they called home.

Luckily for Wu Dawang, however, his mother insisted at great personal cost on keeping him in school until he was sixteen.

Thanks to these years of education, he became the accountant for Wujiagou's production team-the collective farming unit into which the Communist government had organized the village.

Time passed, and he reached marriageable age. More time passed, but still no match could be found for him. Just as he was on the verge of despair at his marital prospects, it so happened that the leader of the village production team fell ill before a rush harvest meeting at the local commune, and appointed Wu Dawang as his deputy. At the meeting, the commune accountant, one Zhao, needed someone to help him copy out a list of attendees' names so that he could issue each with expenses (three steamed buns and one yuanz).

So Wu Dawang volunteered.

This chance assignment would change the course of Wu Dawang's drab existence. For, unbeknownst to Wu, although the accountant's wife and children were still classified as peasants and therefore drew their income from the land, Zhao himself was on the state payroll. He therefore qualified as a government official -as a Someone on a social and professional footing with the director of the commune himself.

Zhao was in his midforties and of medium height, with eyebrows drawn so faintly across his broad face they were hardly worth having. When Wu Dawang delivered the list to him, he was sitting in an easy chair behind his desk. He glanced over the document, then looked up at the young man. `What village are you from?'

'Wujiagou.'

'You're very young to be a team leader, aren't you?'

`I'm the accountant, I'm only standing in because the team leader's ill.'

`An accountant, you say? How old are you?'

`Twenty-two.'

`How far did you get in school?'

`Junior middle school.'

`Engaged?'

`Not yet.'

Perhaps because Zhao, as an accountant, had a soft spot for his fellow professionals, or perhaps because he had a bureaucrat's eye for talent, the interview went Wu Dawang's way from there on in. After several glances up at Wu, then back at his list of names, Zhao broke into a smile. `Nice handwriting,' he complimented him, `and in ballpoint, too. Quite the master calligrapher.'

And so it was that the regularity of Wu Dawang's writing hand transformed his personal prospects. One day, long after the rush harvest and planting had come and gone, when the new corn seedlings were already an inch high, the team leader came back from a trip to market with news for Wu Dawang. `The commune accountant Zhao has taken a shine toyou,' he reported, in great excitement. `He's asked me to bring you to see him.'

Wu Dawang accompanied his leader the dozen or so miles to Zhao Village, uncharacteristically well turned out in a new blue jacket and pair of black twill trousers. Although both were borrowed, this getup was close enough to a military uniform to give him an unmistakable dash-and, most importantly, to convince Zhao that here was the very fellow for his only daughter.

It was in his unusually spacious and wellapportioned three-roomed tiled house that the accountant revealed Wu Dawang's new career direction to him. `Before the year's out, Dawang, I'll fix it for you to join the army.'

A career in the military, Zhao said, was not just about education and training. It was also a way into the Party, to commendations; it was the ladder to promotion, to becoming an official. `And once you're an official, you can get an urban registration permit for my daughter- Ezi here -so she can come and live the good life in the citywithyou.' This was every peasant's dream: to leave the uncertain, never-ending toil of farming for the comforts of the city and a stateallocated job.