The Four Books (10 page)

I couldn’t believe it.

He said, “Just watch.”

Through the opening between the two furnaces, we saw the light of the setting sun splash onto the ground like red water. The alkaline soil was originally white, but had been walked over by countless people. The ground, which was flooded in summer but dry in the autumn and winter, appeared black after having been trampled on by countless feet, and under the glow of the setting sun it had a grayish brown tint. Combined with the orange light from the six furnaces, the ground and people’s faces assumed a yellowish purple hue. Only the Musician’s face appeared different. She was wearing an immaculately clean waist-length coat with a gray scarf. When she first arrived at the ninety-ninth her hair was still jet black, and she wore it in the sort of ear-length bob that was fashionable in the city, though now she wore it in a braid. She was watching the Scholar, who was playing cards and, because he was losing, had pieces of paper stuck to his face as a penalty. She stood there, the red light of the fire failing to taint the soft whiteness of her face, which looked as if the sun and wind from the banks of the Yellow River rarely touched her. Then, sure enough, she walked over and squatted down directly behind the Scholar, discreetly placing the sweet potato she was holding into his pocket. The Scholar said something I couldn’t quite make out, then handed someone his cards and retreated to the far end of the area. After making sure no one was around, he hid between a furnace and a wood pile, and began eating.

“Did you see?” asked the Technician.

I nodded.

“I’ve been observing them for several months. They were the couple I discovered in the bushes when we were planting the wheat.” As the Technician spoke, he led me away and urged me to hop into a ditch with him. “Tonight, it’s the Scholar’s turn to watch the fire of the second furnace. You should get up at midnight, and if we don’t succeed in catching this pair of adulterers, you’re welcome to twist my head off.”

I looked at the Technician’s animated expression.

“You know, I’ve already checked—catching a pair of adulterers will earn us at least twenty small blossoms, which can be converted into four medium-sized ones.” As the Technician said this, he held his hand in front of him and began counting on his fingers, so excited that his hand was trembling. “I’ll tell you now that if we catch them this time I don’t want to split the reward with you forty/sixty, but rather thirty/seventy. Or even twenty-five/seventy-five. Meaning that I would receive fifteen blossoms, while you receive one-fourth of that, which is to say five blossoms.”

He stared at me. “I’m not asking you to do anything extraordinary —simply come be my witness.”

I stood there without moving.

The Technician added, “Just say whether or not you’ll do it. If you won’t, I can easily find someone else. All I’m asking is that you come take a walk with me tonight.”

I didn’t say anything, and instead merely gazed at the Musician’s braid.

“Will you do it, or not?” The Technician abruptly stood up. “Are you really not going to do it?”

I also stood up. I looked at the Technician’s face, then out at the fields, and finally at the Scholar, who was returning to the group after having finished the sweet potato. I nodded vigorously and announced, “I’ll do it!”

It was decided. As the sun was setting, the dinner whistle was blown in the district courtyard, and everyone jumped like well-fed sparrows flying out of a ditch. The Re-Ed residents began heading back, while those assigned to watch the furnaces stayed where they were and waited for others to bring them their food. Of the six in the latter group, one was the Scholar, who had stayed behind to watch the second furnace. After bidding everyone goodbye, he waved to the people heading back and asked them to bring him his food on the early side. Not only did one of the criminals nod to him, but I noticed that the Musician, who was leaving as well, also turned around and nodded.

Then everyone left.

The area around the furnaces suddenly became as quiet as a lake after a flood. Under the last rays from the setting sun, there appeared a speck of light, like fine rain. From the top of the furnaces there emerged flames and clouds of white smoke, which peeled off in the air. As the people went behind the courtyard wall, the sound of their footsteps gradually faded, leaving the furnaces surrounded by a silence that seemed even more desolate on account of the preceding tumult. I walked back with the others until I reached a corner of the wall, and then I deliberately slowed down, doubled back, and quickly returned to the furnace. As I approached, I greeted the Scholar.

The Scholar looked at me.

“Tonight, you must not let the Musician come meet you.” I stood urgently in front of him, my voice as sharp as a thornbush struggling to grow through a stone crack. “Someone has noticed the two of you, and if you’re caught you’ll never leave here as long as you live.”

The Scholar turned as white as a sheet.

After saying this, I turned and walked away, disappearing into the light of the setting sun.

2.
Criminal Records
, pp. 129–30 (excerpt)

Beloved organization, this is my most significant discovery and report. For me, the ambiguous relationship between the Scholar and the Musician was actually as clear as day, and regardless of how secretive the codes they used in arranging all rendezvous, they couldn’t escape my gaze. Previously the two of them would arrange their meetings by whispering to each other at mealtimes; now they would communicate in code. The Scholar, for instance, would shift his chopsticks from his right hand to his left, whereupon the Musician would do the same. While working in the fields, they would then find an opportunity to retreat to the bushes, where they remained for a while. If only one of them shifted their chopsticks, that would mean their rendezvous had to be postponed until later that night. As for where they would meet, that would be determined by how the Scholar left his chopsticks on his bowl when he finished eating. If he left them crossed over one another, that meant that early in the the evening they would retreat to the thornbushes behind the district courtyard, and if he left them parallel to one another that meant they would retreat later that night to the ditch on the eastern side of the steel-smelting furnace. . . .

3.
Heaven’s Child
, pp. 111–15

In the end, the Technician didn’t succeed in catching the two adulterers, and consequently he didn’t receive those fifteen bright and alluring blossoms. On several occasions he snuck out of bed in the middle of the night, but invariably returned empty-handed, as a light breeze blew emptily across the land.

After another half a month, everything began to calm down again, and noticing anything out of the ordinary was like finding a needle in a haystack.

After yet another half a month, a higher-up came to the ninety-ninth. He arrived in a mule cart, his face pale and mottled. When he arrived he examined those steel-smelting furnaces, then walked over to the district’s dormitories. After collecting several books, he once again went off in search of iron. He magically seemed to know where each person had hidden their iron rice bowls, teeth-brushing cups, and stainless steel spoons. He then called the Child over, and they proceeded to have a long discussion. The Child’s face was pale and sweaty, and he repeatedly wrung his hands. Eventually, the higher-up climbed back onto his cart, which was now transporting a newly forged steel ingot half as large as a millstone, and rode away.

A week later, the higher-up returned to the ninety-ninth. He left his mule cart in the entrance to the district courtyard and went directly to the furnace to collect the newly forged steel. The raw iron they had initially brought to the furnace had been as large as a millstone, mysterious and lustrous as a chunk of granite. In the furnace, however, it became as small as a sieve, and its surface was covered with tiny depressions. After smelting the iron for another week, what they removed from the furnace was a couple of chunks of steel the size of winter melons. No longer bright green, this newly smelted steel was instead brownish yellow, and was honeycombed like high-quality tofu.

The winter sun was still warm, and a cool breeze blew over from the Yellow River. The six furnaces had only managed to smelt those two chunks of steel. While looking at the Child, the higher-up kicked the rice-ball-sized chunk of steel that had rolled out of the furnace.

The Child appeared deathly pale.

After his initial silence, the higher-up became kind and affable. He called the Child over and told him many, many things, then patted the Child’s head, squeezed his shoulder, and led him to the mule cart. Inside there was half a cartful of books that the higher-up had confiscated from other districts.

Standing in front of all those books, the Child broke into a broad grin.

The Child ran up to the furnace, counted the number of people working there, and proceeded to look in the women’s dormitory, but couldn’t find the Musician anywhere. Then he led the higher-up over to the tree-cutting team stationed near the river. Before they had walked very far, they reached a group of men chopping down trees, and asked them a few questions, then spoke to another group of men farther down the river. Finally, they went to an empty ditch between these two groups of people. Initially they walked openly, but soon they were sneaking along like a pair of cats, and in the end they were literally crawling forward. After a moment, the higher-up rushed into the ditch, and reemerged with the Scholar and the Musician.

They had been caught.

They were led away.

The Child’s face was as pale as the moon.

When they all reached the district courtyard, the higher-up patted the Child’s head and squeezed his shoulders. Then, his hand still resting on the Child’s head, the higher-up smiled and said, “The books in the cart are all for you.”

The Child looked at the Scholar and the Musician, and asked, “What about them?”

“The adulterers will be taken away.”

The Child turned white as a sheet, as the Musician and the Scholar were both led away in the cart.

4.
Old Course
, pp. 100–108, pp. 133–39

That day, it was the Technician’s turn to watch the furnace. Every night he tried to catch the adulterers, but he always returned empty-handed. He didn’t feel at all tired, however, and instead remained very excited. Even though his eyes were so bloodshot that they looked like a fishnet or spiderweb, they also resembled a field of red, yellow, and blue blossoms on a fertile plot of land in early spring. His eyes were as colorful as two mirrored gardens in which there were different groups of multihued people walking back and forth. In these groups of people, the Technician was continually observing the Musician and the Scholar. He had already figured out their rules and whereabouts, and had discovered their secret tactics for arranging their rendezvous. At mealtime every day, Re-Ed criminals would gather in the canteen, where the Technician noticed that the Musician and the Scholar no longer ate together as they had before, passing tasty morsels of food back and forth to each other’s bowls, but rather they increasingly drew apart, as if aware that they were being watched.

At mealtimes and when everyone else was out working, the Musician would always want to stay with me, telling me about her experience learning to play the piano when she was young. She said when she began using a Western piano to play traditional folk music she became the youngest music teacher and professional pianist in the entire province. Every time she would sit at the piano and play pieces like “Flower Bridge,” “Jasmine Blossom,” and “Blue Sky of Liberation,” the audience’s eyes would be riveted on her. She would gaze down from her position up onstage, looking out at that mass of eyes like a flock of crows about to fly at her. When she was performing the Chinese national anthem, “March of the Volunteers,” her fingers would dance back and forth over the piano keys like summer raindrops on the mountains, and the piano produced incredibly realistic sounds of gunfire, soldiers shouting, and battle sounds, all the killing, victory, and celebration. The audience’s thunderous applause seemed to go on forever, making her feel as though she were in a beautiful fantasy.

The Musician became a member of the first generation of locally trained musicians following the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Seven nights in a row, her romanticism led her to dream that someone was telling her: All you need to do is, during your next performance, substitute one of the melodies in your piece with another, and in this way you’ll find your beloved. The dream also revealed to her the full name of her future beloved—and it was the Scholar. It turned out that her next performance was in celebration of the provincial governor’s sixtieth birthday. The guests in attendance were all soldiers and revolutionaries, and it was in the presence of these esteemed guests that she performed three tunes: one was called “On the Front Lines,” another “Roar On, Beloved River,” while the third was the Chinese national anthem, “March of the Volunteers.” While playing this third piece, she remembered her dream, and she suddenly switched from “March of the Volunteers” to the Hungarian composer Liszt’s “Dreams of Love.” No one in the audience had ever heard the latter piece before, and they felt as though water were flowing delicately past their ears. When she finished, the applause rained down like thunder, as every soldier and revolutionary gazed brightly at her.