The Four Books (24 page)

“So, you really won’t tell me who filed inaccurate reports, and you really won’t smelt any more steel? In that case, you should just use this gun to shoot me. If you kill me, then you won’t need to tell me the names of the people who filed inaccurate reports, nor will you need to continue smelting steel.”

As the Child was saying this, he picked up the gun, awkwardly pulled out the magazine, and then, even more awkwardly, inserted the bullet. He went to considerable effort to place the bullet in the chamber. Then, he turned the handle of the gun toward the Scholar, pointing the muzzle toward himself, and said, “If you fire this gun at me, tomorrow you won’t need to smelt any more steel.” He added, “My only request is that you shoot me in the chest, so that I’ll fall forward when I die. Please don’t let me fall backward.”

The Child said, “I’m begging you to shoot me. Just make sure that the bullet enters my chest from the front.”

“I’m begging you!” The Child lifted his head and stared wide-eyed at the Scholar. He pleaded like a six-month-old infant crying for milk, saying, “Shoot me, because if you kill me, you won’t need to smelt any more steel. Just make sure you shoot me in the chest, so that I’ll fall forward when I die.”

The Scholar had never seen a gun up close. The Child held the handle toward him, and the muzzle of the gun toward himself. Then he pushed the gun toward the Scholar, who reflexively leaned away. The Child begged the Scholar to shoot him, but as he was doing so the Scholar turned pale and mumbled something as he backed out of the tent.

After that, the Child had everyone else enter his tent one after another. When each of them entered, he begged them as well, handing them the gun and saying, “This gun is loaded. If you don’t want to smelt steel tomorrow, I beg you to shoot me right here and now. Just make sure that the bullet enters my chest from the front, so that I’ll fall forward when I die.” After the first group left, he called in another group, saying, “You are going to start smelting steel tomorrow? It’s okay if you don’t. This gun is loaded, and I beg you to shoot me. Just be sure that the bullet enters my chest from the front, so that I’ll fall forward when I die.”

He told everyone who entered his room the same thing. By this time the sun was about to come up. The eastern sky was turning white and a new day was about to begin. The sun was about to be reborn out of the waters of the Yellow River, and the sky was glowing red. As the earth began to wake, the river flowed in the direction of the rising sun. Everyone in the ninety-ninth was out of bed. Some of them had not slept all night. Some took their magnets and sacks and headed down to the river to collect black sand. Others took their axes and saws and went far, far away to cut down trees for firewood.

Those professors and expert blacksmiths who had already mastered the steel-smelting process began tending to the furnaces, bringing over the black sand and lighting the fires, and preparing for a new round of steel smelting.

The entire world was busy again. The sky was bright, and the river was flowing furiously.

4.
Old Course
, pp. 350–59

I let down the residents of the ninety-ninth.

I finally exchanged a hundred and twenty-five small blossoms for five pentagonal stars. I would finally leave the riverside, and leave this endless expanse of marshland and small ponds along the former route of the river. I would finally be completely free. I would return home to be with my wife and son forever. The day before I was to leave Re-Ed, I remained silent. When I was told to chop wood, I chopped wood; and when I was told to collect black sand, I collected black sand. But when everyone else was busy, I snuck back to my tent to prepare my clothes and my bags. To prevent others from noticing that I was first in line to return home, I decided to leave behind my quilt, pillow, and the wooden chest under my bed, together with the old Mao suit hanging on the post. The only things I packed were those five pentagonal stars and a cloth bag, in which I put some extra buns I had secured from the canteen under the Child’s authority, together with some of the diaries and journals I had kept while working on the riverbank, which I didn’t want the Child to see. After returning home, I hoped to write a book about re-education through labor. That would be a true book, not like the installments of
Criminal Records
that I secretly gave the Child every month. I wanted to write an utterly sincere book—writing it not for the Child, not for my country, and not even for the People or for my readers, but rather just for myself. I had already begun jotting down some fragments for this truly honest book in the margins of the journal that I kept for the Child. All I wanted to take with me were some field rations and these fragments for a truly honest book. I was prepared to leave all else behind.

The only thing I wanted was for everything to remain unchanged after I left. In particular, I wanted to make sure that, apart from the Child, no one, including even the Theologian, realized that after their blossoms had gotten incinerated by some idiot, I had somehow managed to accumulate my hundred and twenty-five blossoms and exchange them for five pentagonal stars.

The previous night, in the middle of the night, the Child had given me my five stars.

I resolved to leave this steel-smelting area the following night and head into town, to the county seat. That night it was my turn to watch the fourth, fifth, and sixth steel-smelting furnaces. This was the best time to slip away. In the afternoon I snuck back to my tent to prepare my things, and that evening I went to the canteen to pick up several steamed buns and a couple of oil pancakes that had been prepared by the Child himself. After dinner, when everyone retired to their rooms to rest, I sat in my tent for a while, as I normally would, chatting briefly with my roommates. I asked one how much black sand he had collected, and another how many trees he had chopped down and how far he had walked.

I pretended to complain about having to watch the furnace, saying, “Fuck, tonight it’s my turn again. Once again, I won’t be able to get a good night’s sleep.” Acting depressed, I exchanged a few more words then stuffed my bag under my jacket and headed out to the furnaces. New Year’s was rapidly approaching, but it seemed as though my riverbank companions had no sense of time, and had no idea that it was almost New Year’s. Instead they continued lighting fires and smelting steel, just as before. In the distance other people’s furnaces could be seen burning brightly along the river, like floral brocades. The light they produced illuminated the riverbank along with the shrunken stream flowing down the center of the riverbed. While there was no moon, there were a myriad stars that completely filled the night sky. The running water brought a moist chill that covered the riverbank like drops of rain. Those who had been living here a long time had already lost the ability to smell that salty scent. Instead, the only thing they noticed was the nauseating odor released when people overturned sand while searching for iron—a smell like the greasy odor of willow sap in the springtime.

I walked along the embankment toward the second brigade’s fourth, fifth, and sixth furnaces. The biggest and tallest furnace was the sixth, which stood like a tower in the middle of the others. As I walked down to the river, I took the sack I had stuffed under my jacket and hid it among some of the stones behind the furnace. Then I put on my jacket and proceeded to the front of the furnace. The person for whom I was subbing had previously been an architectural designer in the National Institute of Engineering Design. Before Liberation, several buildings and bridges he designed had won prizes in the West. Given that Westerners had awarded him prizes, he naturally had to undergo Re-Ed. After all, if he, whom Western nations had recognized, was not a national criminal, then who was? But after becoming a criminal, he also became an expert in smelting steel out of black sand. The steel star the Child had taken to the provincial seat had been one of which he had overseen the smelting. I walked over to him and said simply, just as I always would, “Go home and sleep.” He responded, “Burn the elm kindling during the first half of the night, to make the fire hotter, and then you can switch to willow, poplar, and paulownia kindling, to make the fire softer.” We exchanged a few more words, whereupon he headed back in the direction of the huts.

Apart from a few professors watching the fires, there was no one else here near the furnaces, and when the others called me over to play cards with them, I said, “You guys amuse yourselves—I have a furnace full of black sand here, and I need to keep the fire burning hot.”

So, they played cards while I stayed there alone. The fire in the furnace crackled away, sometimes loud and sometimes soft. This was the first batch of steel that the Child had smelted since his return from the provincial seat, and the leftover black sand was piled up next to the opening of the furnace. I added some extra elm to the fourth, fifth, and sixth furnaces. Because the opening of the sixth furnace was large, it burned more quickly, so after I had filled the furnace I brought several more bundles of kindling and piled them next to it. The smell of freshly chopped wood was so strong that it made you feel as though you had entered an oil mill, and oily resin would drip down from the burning wood into the fire, where it would explode in a burst of fragrance.

I was about to depart, yet still felt a certain reluctance. After feeding the fire, I once again climbed the river embankment to gaze out at the burning furnaces against the night sky. The hundreds and thousand of furnaces running along the river burned brightly like a fiery dragon, turning night into day. The Yellow River flowed from the west, and the furnaces resembled lanterns or golden scales affixed to its body. There was a dense, moist smell of burning in the air. In another three days it would be New Year’s. If I could reach the town by the following afternoon and then walk for another day and night, by the morning of the following day I would reach the county seat, where I would be able to buy a ticket for the first train out. That way, by New Year’s Eve I would be able to make it to my home in the provincial seat, and would be able to spend New Year’s Eve with my wife and children. Upon seeing me suddenly return, my wife would shout in surprise, while my son and daughter would first stare in shock and then rush forward and hang from my neck as though they were my grandchildren. They would boil a pot of water so that I could take a warm bath, then would look for some of my old clothing for me to wear. Perhaps they wouldn’t find any, and instead would bring me some of my son’s clothes. By this point, my son would already be nearly my height, since it had been five years since I entered Re-Ed, during which time I hadn’t returned home once. In those five years, my son and daughter would probably have changed so much that I might even have trouble recognizing them. As I stood on the embankment, the night breeze blew over me like a bucket of cold water poured on my head. But even in that bitter cold, I feverishly missed my children. I tried to imagine how my wife might have changed in the past five years, and was even concerned that I might not have the courage to strip and go to bed with her. I wanted to stand at the highest point of the embankment, with my back to the furnaces, and sing or scream. And, yet, I also knew that I couldn’t do anything unusual and instead had to continue tending to the furnaces, so as not to arouse suspicion.

I stood on top of the embankment, inwardly frantic but acting as though nothing unusual were happening. Eventually, I took a piss, then slowly climbed back down. After returning to the furnace, I examined it under the starlight, and felt to see if the bag I had hidden between the stones was still there. Humming to myself, I then went around to the front of the furnace. At that point, someone suddenly appeared between furnaces four and five, looking back and forth as though he were searching for something. Upon seeing me he rushed forward several steps, but then stopped and again looked around. Then, in a very soft voice, he uttered that portentous question,

“Do you really have five pentagonal stars?”

It was the Theologian.

As he asked me, his voice seemed to tremble. He sounded urgent, and his voice grew coarse, as though he were dragging the words out of his own throat.

“How did you know?”

“It doesn’t matter,” the Theologian said impatiently. “If you really have five stars, then you should leave quickly. I’ll watch the furnaces for you. I’m afraid that if you wait, you might lose this opportunity.”

I used the light from the fire to peer at the Theologian’s face. He had an urgent expression and grasped the front of my jacket as he entreated me to leave.

“I know for a fact you have five stars.”

I stared in shock, then turned and went back to the stones behind the furnace. I took out the bag and said “thank you,” then, with my back to the furnace, quickly proceeded toward the road. At this point, the Theologian followed me, saying, “As I was walking over from the embankment, I began to suspect there were people waiting for you along the main road.” After nodding to him again, I turned left and, half walking and half running, leapt into an empty riverbed and quickly disappeared into the pitch-black night.

As though running on air, I sprinted forward, my bag swinging against my thighs. By the time I had gone two
li
, I looked back in the direction of the furnaces. A feeling of gratitude for the Theologian welled up in my heart as though I had drunk too much water. I regretted that I had left so quickly and had not shaken the Theologian’s hand. I really wanted to go shake his hand and affectionately bid him a proper farewell. But I recognized that this was an idle thought, and that under no circumstances could I go back. Just as I was thinking this, I reached a fork in the road. The left fork linked up to the main road, while the right one led to the field where the firewood brigades were chopping wood for the furnaces. As I was trying to decide which road to take, two lanterns suddenly shone directly in my face. Shocked, I saw four men with their faces covered by towels, such that only their forehead and eyes were visible. They surrounded me as I raised my arm to shield my eyes and attempted to turn away from that bright light. As I was trying to recognize them, one hatefully spit out the word “Traitor!” Then another kicked me in the crotch and I dropped to my knees. Someone kicked me in the back, and someone else punched me in the face. After silently kicking and hitting me, one of them covered my eyes with his hands, then another started searching me and my bag. Without much trouble they were able to find my money pouch in a pocket sewn into my underwear. One exclaimed, “We found it!” Another added, “Burn it!” Then I heard the sound of firewood being lit. Through the cracks in the fingers of the hands covering my eyes, I could see that there was a yellow light in front of me, and as that light became a fire, the hands covering my eyes loosened. With several more kicks and punches, they forced me to kneel next to the fire. The four of them came up to me and took the pages of my manuscript out of my bag, and set them on fire. They also took the leather jacket I was wearing and removed the five red pentagonal stars that had been cut out of slick paper and wrapped in a white sheet of drafting paper, and threw them into the fire one after another. After the last star was burned up, they took the last few dozen pages of my manuscript and threw them into the fire as well. The one who had shouted “Traitor!” came over and undid his pants, then pissed on my head and face. Upon seeing him do this, the other three men also undid their pants and, in the light of the fire, pissed on me as well.