The Four Books (11 page)

The next day someone notified the Musician that within three days she would need to leave the provincial seat and relocate to the Re-Ed district next to the river. In a sense, therefore, it was in search of her beloved Scholar that she relocated to Re-Ed. Like two fruits on separate trees, they were unable to be together until after they had been eaten by worms and fallen to the ground.

The Technician had already discerned that the Musician’s habit of socializing with me was merely a subterfuge, and he was so familiar with their meeting patterns he felt he could easily catch them whenever he wanted and take them to the Child, thereby earning twenty small red blossoms. After the Technician finally resolved to take action, however, he went more than half a month without seeing the Scholar place his chopsticks over his bowl after eating, and he never saw the Scholar and the Musician strip naked and lie down together in a passionate embrace. The Technician was desperate to catch them in an adulterous union, even if it was only once, so he could then go to the Child and make a report and collect at least twenty red blossoms. The Technician had never really been in love, and he thirsted for this scene the way a parched man thirsts for a sip of water. But it was precisely at this point that the Musician and the Scholar were unexpectedly caught by the Child and the higher-up, and the credit for making the report went to the Child, and not to the Technician.

After the Technician heard that the Scholar and the Musician had been seized, he ran to the district entrance, but all he saw was the cart carrying the Scholar, the Musician, and the higher-up disappearing into the distance. The sky was full of clouds, behind which the afternoon sun was like an unquenchable fire. Amid the billowing clouds, you could see a point or two of light swallowed up by the darkness. Everyone had already dispersed, and they seemed surprised that the Scholar and the Musician could manage to carry on a secret affair before their very eyes, and relieved that the ninety-ninth had finally hosted such a momentous event. Instead of constantly searching for iron, wood, and steel—the same monotonous tasks day after day—the criminals instead had an extraordinary event that everyone would discuss and remember for a long time, just as they would remember a performance with a beginning but no end. The Technician stood in the tracks left by the mule cart at the entrance to the district. He looked around, with a stunned and disappointed expression—as though seeing a sky dark with storm clouds, but which had not yet produced any snow or rain.

“Who reported them?” he asked, half to himself. “Who reported them to the Child?”

The few lingering comrades watched him for a moment, then either returned to their rooms or went back to work.

“How did the Child and the higher-up learn about this?” The Technician walked over to me and asked again, “Who reported to them?”

After everyone else left, the Technician and I walked to the courtyard and we saw that the Child’s door on the west side of the district was tightly shut. In the entranceway, the covers of two books were wedged under his window like a pile of leaves at the base of a wall. The Technician continued to ask me who had reported the affair to the Child and the higher-up. He said that other than himself, no one in the ninety-ninth had known about it.

“There are more than a hundred pairs of eyes in the district,” I replied coldly.

“If I had realized that this was how things would turn out, I would have reported them earlier.” He repeatedly clenched and unclenched his fists, which hung by his sides like a pair of eagles about to take flight. “I want to know who the fucker was who claimed those twenty red blossoms. They were clearly mine, but someone else walked off with them.”

As he was heading back to the dormitory, the Technician kept mumbling to himself. He seemed to feel that the failure to make the report and claim those twenty red blossoms was the biggest tragedy of his life, and was far more serious than having been sent to Re-Ed in place of his advisor.

The Technician started searching for the person who robbed him of his twenty red blossoms. He spent several days visiting everyone’s dormitory room to see who might have ten or twenty new blossoms over their bed or in front of their desk. The Child had said that everyone had to post their blossoms over their bed or their desk, so that their dorm mates could verify whether or not a sudden increase was legitimate. Whoever reported the affair between the Scholar and the Musician, and thereby claimed the twenty-odd blossoms that rightfully belonged to the Technician, would have to publicly display these new blossoms and implicitly announce to everyone that he was behind it. The Technician kept devising excuses to sneak over to my bed, to the Theologian’s, and the beds of a dozen or so other Re-Ed criminals who hoped to accumulate enough blossoms to permit them to return home. He would even use the pretense of needing to borrow a needle and thread in order to go into the women’s dormitory and see who had a new row or two of blossoms above their desk or bed. He knew that five small blossoms could be exchanged for a medium-sized one, five medium blossoms for a pentagonal star, and five stars for the freedom to leave Re-Ed and return home. In order to earn five stars, you would need either twenty-five medium-sized blossoms or a hundred and twenty-five small ones. Many people were too daunted by the prospect of trying to earn a hundred and twenty-five blossoms, and therefore didn’t even bother. The Technician, however, was convinced that as long as he put his mind to it, he would eventually be able to earn the requisite number of blossoms. He had already received the third-highest number of blossoms in the district, with twenty-five small ones. The person in the lead had thirty-two small blossoms, while the person in second place had twenty-seven. If someone suddenly appeared with more than thirty small blossoms, or more than six medium-sized ones, the Technician would know who had stolen the blossoms that rightfully belonged to him. He wanted to find that person, not necessarily to do anything to him but rather simply because he wanted the satisfaction of knowing who had discovered the Scholar and the Musician’s adulterous relationship. If possible, he wanted to ask the person if he or she had witnessed the Scholar and Musician coupling naked.

In the end, the Technician never did manage to find that person who reported the affair and collected the reward.

The Technician didn’t find anyone who suddenly had an additional twenty small red blossoms above their bed or desk. After failing to identify this person for several days, the Technician found himself in a wretched mood, as dispirited as someone who had been robbed and couldn’t track down the thief. Although he still did what was expected of him, he became very silent, keeping his head bowed all day long. Before his very eyes, the door of merit had swung shut and was now tightly locked, as though a floodgate had suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his path.

Following the seizure of the Scholar and the Musician, the district was rewarded with fifty
jin
of pork and thirty
jin
of beef. For the next few days, everyone smelted steel, feasted, and enjoyed a festive and joyous atmosphere in the middle of winter, as though it were New Year’s. Of the men, apart from the ones who were inside every day searching high and low for iron to smelt, the remainder gathered around the furnaces and discussed the adulterous affair. Of the women, apart from the ones who took turns cooking in the kitchen, the rest also spent their time gathered around the furnaces discussing the affair. Like food and rice, it got everyone excited, until they ran out of raw iron to smelt. Apart from essential tools like shovels, hoes, plows, seed drills, and rakes, all of the metal implements in the ninety-ninth had already been donated, including kitchen rods, cabinet handles, and locks, and even the nails above the windows. In addition, all the trees in the vicinity of the village had been chopped down to provide fuel for the furnaces, and consequently on a clear day you could see for dozens of
li
in every direction. All that remained were tree stumps, which resembled baby suns emerging from the ground. The smell of wood chips and molten iron permeated the courtyard and the endless expanse of sandy terrain. In order to increase steel production, everyone’s grain allotment was cut from forty-five
jin
a month to twenty-five, and in order to claim those final twenty
jin
they would need to contribute at least two tons of steel every month.

It turned out that the previous meal allotment of four
liang
of white and yellow flour and half a steamed bun per person had been cut to three
liang
, with everyone also receiving half a bowl of vegetables. Apart from radish and cabbage, not only did they not have any meat, they barely even had any oil in their vegetables.

The investigation team sent by the higher-ups consisted of several young militia who searched each of their rooms and confiscated everything containing any metal, including even a porcelain teeth-brushing cup that happened to have a metal rim.

If they found a rice bowl with a metal rim, they would confiscate that, too.

If they found a wooden chest under someone’s bed with a metal lock and latches, they would pry off the lock and confiscate it. Then they would toss this scrap metal into a wicker basket and drag it to the furnaces. After visiting each brigade’s tool shed, they would calculate the number of people and the amount of land belonging to the brigade, and would leave one hoe or shovel for every two people, but would take everything else to the furnaces.

By the beginning of the twelfth lunar month, after the criminals had smelted all of the available iron, they sat silently around the extinguished furnaces. No one spoke, and no one was playing cards or chess. Because there wasn’t enough food, and because they couldn’t even take their newly smelted steel and exchange it for additional food, at noontime everyone just received one or two wheat buns and half a bowl of soup, and by evening they stopped cooking altogether. Instead, they crowded around the furnaces without moving, watching the smoke and flames from the steel-smelting furnaces in other Re-Ed districts and villages in the distance. Everyone remained paralyzed until the sun set and the fire in the furnaces finally went out, and a winter chill blew over from the river. At this point the Technician, who hadn’t said a word for several days, suddenly stood up and shouted,

“What sort of prize will I receive if I find new iron resources for smelting steel?”

The Technician became extremely animated, as though he were helping everyone toward the light. He shouted, “If I find new resources, it will be as if I am able to reclaim your food that was confiscated. Will each of you then give me one of your blossoms?” He added, “In return for reclaiming your food, all I want is for each of you to give me a blossom. Do you agree?” As he said this, he gazed at his comrades, who were standing or squatting around the furnace. He saw that no one wanted to speak, and instead they were watching him as though he had gone suddenly insane. The Technician looked one last time at the people standing and squatting around the furnace, then turned and headed toward the entranceway to the district courtyard.

He marched quickly in search of the Child.

5.
Old Course
, pp. 139–45

A cataclysmic event shook the ninety-ninth.

The day after the secret meeting between the Technician and the Child, when the district was still sound asleep, the two of them suddenly left together. When they returned a week later it was also early morning and everyone was still in bed. It was as if a set of rules had been suspended while the Child was away, and everyone became more relaxed. They would sleep soundly all night, and sometimes wouldn’t get out of bed until the sun was already high in the sky. When the Technician returned, some people were cuddled up in their blankets, while others were hidden under their covers secretly reading some forbidden book or writing letters or journal entries. The sunlight was already flowing in through the windows, while a sparrow would fly back and forth and periodically alight on the window ledge. In the dead of winter, the rows of buildings resembled rows of coffin vaults. It was at this point that hammerlike footsteps were heard coming from the entrance to the men’s dormitory. Then the Technician slammed the door open, appearing in the doorway. Everyone looked over in surprise and then quickly sat up in bed.

The Technician stood there—his tall, thin body planted in the entranceway like a flagpole. But what surprised everyone the most was that he was holding a wooden board, on which was pasted a white sheet of paper with five pentagonal stars, each as large as a man’s fist. The stars were cut out of the same sort of glossy slick paper as the red blossoms above everyone’s bed. The Technician shouted,

“I’m sorry, but I have to leave now. I’ve already become a new person!”

A red light flickered over the Technician’s face, which was stained dark from smelting steel. When he held up the wooden board with the five large pentagonal stars, it happened to catch the sunlight streaming in through the windows, making the five stars appear as though they were burning bright. Everyone stared at the Technician and his wooden board, as though they had just opened one of the furnaces and been confronted with a burst of flames.

They were shocked by the sudden appearance of these five stars. At the time, no one knew what had happened in the ninety-first. The Technician proudly walked over to the innermost bed and leaned his wooden board against it. He climbed onto the bed and used a piece of twine to tie up his bedding with a few efficient gestures, then hopped back down again. From beneath the bed he pulled out a wooden chest that had been stripped of its locks and latches, then placed the useful contents of the chest into a travel bag and tossed aside useless things like old shoes, tattered socks, and old notebooks. In the blink of an eye, he packed everything he wanted to take with him, but when he was at his desk collecting some books and pens, his hand suddenly paused. He saw that, in addition to the five stars—which were equivalent to a hundred and twenty-five small blossoms—on the wall above his desk there were still the original twenty-five small blossoms he had painstakingly earned.