GU HUA

                       A SMALL TOWN CALLED HIBISCUS
                       ============================


                                  Part 3
                       The Nature of Men and Devils
                                  (1969)
                       ----------------------------


New Customs and Bad Ways


     By the end of the Four Clean-ups Movement Hibiscus, once a "black lair
of  capitalism",  had  changed  into  a  "fortress  of  socialism".    This
metamorphosis first manifested itself in the narrow flagstone street.   The
shops on both sides, originally of dark timber, now had the lower halves of
their walls white-washed and given a scarlet border.  Every other shop bore
a slogan in standard script "Promote What Is Proletarian and Liquidate What
Is Bourgeois",  "In Agriculture Learn from Dazhai",   "Defend the Fruits of
the Four Clean-ups", "Grasp Class Struggle and All Problems Can Be Solved".
Every  gate  was  painted  with couplets identical in size and in identical
calligraphy:  "Take the Dazhai Road", "Raise the Red Banner of Dazhai".  So
the whole street had uniformity with red slogans and couplets on white.  In
the past,  on fine days bamboo poles had been  fixed  up  between  opposite
upstairs  windows to dry or air clothes and bedding,  bright red and green,
which hung there like countless flags adding colour to Hibiscus.    Now  to
dignify  the  street  these  were  done away with.   At festivals,  or when
higher-ups came on a tour of inspection,  or other brigades came  to  learn
from  their  experience,  each family had to hang a red flag from its attic
over the street.   These hung limp if there  was  no  wind,  but  fluttered
triumphantly  in  a  breeze.   A rule was also made that no dogs,  poultry,
rabbits or bees could be kept,  in the interests of sanitation.    However,
each  household  was allowed three hens.   There was no explicit rule about
the use to which these hens should be put: most likely the money fetched by
their eggs was spent on salt and oil,  or a couple of eggs were poached for
the cadres who came down to the county and boarded with different families.
Street  stalls  were  strictly forbidden;  pedlars had to till the land and
give up trading.

     So the town's  appearance  was  revolutionized.    And  an  even  more
thoroughgoing revolution took place in the relations between the townsfolk.
A  system  of  public  security  was  instituted: visitors had to register,
people making a trip had to ask for leave,  and in the evenings  militiamen
patrolled  the  town.    At both ends and in the centre of the street there
were three "impeachment boxes",  and no action could be taken against those
who  wrote anonymous letters accusing their neighbours.   Failure to report
an offence was itself a crime,  while informing on others was laudable  and
would  be  set  down to your credit in your file;  in addition to which you
would be commended and rewarded.   These boxes were locked and unlocked  at
regular  intervals  by the man in charge.   The results of this system were
spectacular.   As soon as darkness fell every household bolted its gate and
turned in early to save lamp oil, so the whole town was quiet.  Even in the
daytime  neighbours  stopped  calling  on each other,  to avoid making off-
colour remarks which might be reported and  land  them  in  trouble.    The
townsfolk  had liked to be neighbourly and treat each other to snacks,  but
now that bourgeois humanism was under fire,  they pricked up their ears and
strained their eyes to keep close watch on each other.  Whereas their motto
had  been  "each  for  all and all for each",  they were now on their guard
against everybody else.

     Besides,  class  alignments  had  been  clarified.    After  countless
meetings  large  and small and various political line-ups,  it was clear to
all that hired hands were superior to poor peasants,  who were superior  to
lower-middle  peasants,  who  were  superior  to middle peasants,  who were
superior to well-to-do middle peasants ...  and so everyone  was  carefully
classified.    Before  squabbling  with  a  neighbour you had to figure out
whether his class status was higher or lower than  yours.    Only  reckless
teenagers  neglected to do this.   But after a few beatings-up they learned
not to take on people whose parents had a higher social status.

     A boy might sigh,  "What foul luck,  being the  son  of  a  well-to-do
middle  peasant.   People keep jeering that he tried to take the capitalist
road and become a rich peasant or landlord."

     "Who are you to complain?   Look at the kids  of  landlords  and  rich
peasants.  They have to hide their heads like tortoises!"

     "Serves  them  right.    Grandchildren  pay  for  their  grandparents'
crimes."

     "Huh,  if my dad  were  a  poor  or  lower-middle  peasant,  my  elder
brother'd be able to join the army."

     "A  lot  you  know!    There  are  all  sorts of poor and lower-middle
peasants.  Some of 'em have a bad political record and suspicious contacts.
Their ancestry doesn't stand up to investigation...."

     As for checking  up  on  the  cadres'  history,  that  was  even  more
stimulating.    The  work team had stipulated that all the cadres must come
clean to the Party and the revolutionary masses,  to  "pass  the  socialist
test".    The  town's  tax-officer had been highly respected because he had
fought as a guerrilla.   But  he  admitted  to  coming  from  a  bureaucrat
landlord  family  and to having seduced one of the family's maids before he
joined the guerrillas, after which he had mended his ways....  Heavens,  so
their tax-officer was such a scoundrel!  He looked so honest but was an old
womanizer!  Next time he dunned them for taxes they'd bawl him out.

     Then there was the manager of the supply and marketing co-op.   He had
snivelled and wept at a meeting,  saying that though he came  from  a  poor
family and his forefathers,  all hired hands, had slaved like oxen, once he
stood up he had forgotten his roots and soon after Liberation had married a
capitalist's daughter.  So his family and connections were complicated; but
now that they had five children he couldn't get a divorce....    Son-in-law
of  a  capitalist,  fancy that!   How could such a rotter manage the co-op?
Next time they had words they would curse him to his face as a capitalist's
agent and henchman.

     And then there was the accountant of the credit co-op.  At one meeting
he disclosed that although he'd been born in a  slum  he  had  been  press-
ganged before Liberation and served for three years in the puppet army.  So
the townsfolk nicknamed him Puppet Soldier Accountant....

     There were so many such cases, someone made up a jingle:

          When cadres come clean
          What a bad lot we find them to be.
          Now peasants should control landlords,
          But landlords control you and me!

     The Hibiscus market, formerly held at five-day intervals, was now held
on Sundays for the convenience of the townsfolk, miners and factory workers
in  the  vicinity.    A public security committee was set up to control the
market,  headed by Wang Qiushe who had joined the  Party  during  the  Four
Clean-ups  Movement and was now Party secretary of Hibiscus Brigade.   This
committee made a negative example of Hu Yuyin, the new rich peasant who had
made so much money by selling beancurd.   It  kept  a  strict  eye  on  all
capitalist  trends.   Its members wore yellow armbands and were responsible
for curbing speculation and  checking  up  on  traders  who  sold  farm  or
mountain products at high prices.   They confiscated those goods which were
a state monopoly.   So every market day their office was filled with  fresh
mushrooms, fish, frogs and meat.  As these things could not be handed in to
the  state  to  increase the public revenue,  at first they were left to go
bad, which was very wasteful.  Later they hit on the method of selling them
off cheap as low-quality goods.   This had three advantages: it  eliminated
waste,  provided  the  committee  with  funds,  and after they had rampaged
through the market with their yellow armbands each had  a  share  of  fresh
mountain or water products.   In the past, township soldiers had received a
small allowance to buy straw  sandals.    Naturally  Chairman  Wang  Qiushe
remembered  this,  and  he delivered some of these confiscated goods to the
commune canteen, to improve Li Guoxiang's diet.  Later this public security
committee changed its name to the  "militia  squad",  which  made  it  more
prestigious  and  powerful.   Any capitalist small fry who surfaced to sell
mountain or water products wished they could sink into the ground when they
saw this militia squad out to  "exercise  complete  dictatorship  over  the
bourgeoisie".    Sometimes,  however,  these  militiamen  hid  their yellow
armbands in their pockets and went about incognito until they  had  made  a
haul,  when they whisked them out.  Haha!  No fox, however wily, can escape
a keen-eyed hunter.   No capitalism,  however  underhand,  can  escape  our
militia!   After these "contraband goods" had been confiscated their owners
seldom protested,  because if they had they would have been arrested and  a
call  would  have  been  put through to their brigade to send militiamen to
escort them back....  As time went by some of the more backward hill people
secretly called these men "state-subsidized bandits".

     Another small revolutionary measure in Hibiscus  deserves  a  mention.
Every morning while the revolutionary masses were still in bed, the vicious
Rightist  Qin  Shutian  and  the  new  rich  peasant's  widow Hu Yuyin were
penalized by being made to sweep the flagstone street.

     But history is implacable,  unlike a girl who lets herself be  tricked
out.    Modern Chinese history has often defeated its opponents by surprise
tactics and even held up its heroes to ridicule.

     After Hibiscus was made a revolutionary model for the whole county, Li
Guoxiang was acclaimed as a pace-setter for her  "flexible  application  of
politics".   Before long, because the revolution needed capable young women
path-breakers,  she was appointed a  member  of  the  county  revolutionary
committee  and  Party  secretary  of  this  commune.    To  consolidate the
achievements of the Four Clean-ups she still spent most of her time  behind
the high wall of the Hibiscus Supply and Marketing Co-op.

     But  in  less than half a year,  before she had warmed the seat of her
office chair,  a more tempestuous movement engulfed Hibiscus.   For  a  few
days she panicked, then took her stand in the vanguard of this new movement
to lead it.   First she hauled out the tax-officer and other "revisionists"
with the Five Categories and paraded them through the town.  Before she had
gained full control of the movement, however,  some trouble-makers rebelled
and put up posters denouncing her.   Having discovered that the head of the
supply and marketing co-op and the accountant  of  the  credit  co-op  were
behind  this,  she  immediately  organized  revolutionary  cadres like Wang
Qiushe and the masses to launch a counter-attack  against  these  Rightists
posing  as  Leftists.    It  was  another mortal combat in which anyone who
vacillated or weakened would be trampled underfoot.

     But this was the time when Red Guards were roving the country  to  fan
the  flames  of  revolution,  and  they suddenly descended on Hibiscus like
heavenly troops.   Defying laws human and divine,  and backed by members of
the  Central  Committee,  they  kicked  aside  the  Party committee to make
revolution and turned the small town upside-down.    They  even  challenged
Leftists, and actually made a raid on Li Guoxiang's home.  Then the fat was
in  the  fire.    For  on  the  bed  of this unmarried Party secretary they
discovered some contraceptives.   In a rage they hung a pair of  old  shoes
round her neck and paraded her through the street!

     Paraded  together  with  Li  Guoxiang  that  day  were  all  the  Five
Categories,  wearing black placards.   Heaven knows what  they  thought  on
finding her in their ranks.   They kept their heads lowered,  their furtive
eyes on the flagstones below their feet.   Only the  Rightist  Qin  Shutian
turned round to stare at her.   Their four eyes,  meeting,  flashed.  Qin's
glance was scornful, ironic; Li Guoxiang's was as cold as steel.  After two
seconds Qin looked away and trudged forward,  backing down because the  Red
Guards  had  cracked  their  belts  with  brass  buckles.   Li Guoxiang was
thoroughly mortified by having not only a black placard round her neck  but
that pair of old shoes too.

     "I assure you,  there's some mistake,  Red Guards,  comrades-in-arms,"
she insisted.   "How can you lump me together  with  the  Five  Categories,
class enemies?   I've never been a Rightist.  In 1957, in the County Bureau
of Commerce,  I was in charge of investigating Rightists.   In '59 I joined
the  county committee to oppose Rightist trends.   In '64 and '65 I was the
head for the work team to ferret out class enemies and  new  rich  peasants
and to struggle against the old Rightists....  Ever since I started working
for  the  revolution I've been a genuine Leftist!   So young path-breakers,
comrades-in-arms,  you shouldn't have nabbed me.   New  Leftists  shouldn't
crack down on old Leftists."

     The  Red  Guards hooted with laughter.   "Bitch!   Who are you to talk
about Leftists?  New Leftists nabbing old Leftists,  eh?   Vicious slander!
A frenzied counter-attack!   We're struggling against counter-revolutionary
revisionists."

     The Red Guards,  rough and high-handed,  talked with a northern accent
and silenced Li Guoxiang by lashing her with their belts.

     What  was  the world coming to?   In those fantastic times,  truth and
falsehood,  good and evil,  right and wrong had all been mixed  up  in  one
simmering  witches' cauldron.   The innocent had to put up with humiliation
and drag out a  wretched  existence.    Bitter  factionalism  led  to  wild
excesses.

     Now  a  stone  bridge was to be built over the river,  making Hibiscus
accessible to motor-vehicles.   The Five Categories had to do unpaid labour
carrying stones and sieving sand, for which they received their midday meal
on the worksite.  Li Guoxiang absolutely refused to sieve sand with the new
rich peasant widow Hu Yuyin.   Instead she gritted her teeth to go it alone
and carry stones up the scaffolding.   She never for a  moment  forgot  her
status  or  her  superiority  to  these black devils with whom she had been
lumped.   The day was bound to come when  she  would  be  cleared,  when  a
distinction would be drawn between Leftists and Rightists.

     These  class enemies' rice ration was three ounces each.   The hot sun
and heavy work made them pour with sweat,  so that these  three  ounces  of
rice plus a helping of eggplant with paprika or boiled pumpkins barely took
the edge off their hunger.  But in the afternoon no one could slack, and so
the black-hearted devils asked for more.   Only Yuyin found three ounces of
rice enough.  As Li Guoxiang had previously done very little manual labour,
all this hard work increased her appetite and after the meal she still felt
ravenous.   The Red Guards supervising them devised a way to  punish  these
social  outcasts:  they  could  have  second  helpings  if they performed a
"devil's dance" from the door of the workshed where they ate to the canteen
window some fifteen  metres  away.    The  movements  of  this  dance  were
explained to them.

     "Qin  Shutian!    Before you were made a Rightist you taught music and
sport in a middle school and directed a song-and-dance ensemble.   Now give
your fellow riff-raff a demonstration!"

     Qin  Shutian  at  once  went  to the door of the workshed,  showing an
alacrity both laughable and disgusting to make an  exhibition  of  himself.
After  asking  once  more  about  the movements of this "devil's dance" and
thinking it over briefly,  without a glance at anyone he  started  dancing.
His bowl in one hand,  his chopsticks in the other,  he waved them this way
and that,  half crouching with his  knees  apart  as  he  pranced  forward,
yelling  in  time  with  his  movements:   "Black-hearted devils want more!
Black-hearted devils want more...."

     The Red Guards clapped and cheered.   Commune members who had gathered
to watch roared with laughter.

     "Encore, Qin Shutian!" they shouted.

     "Dance that three times a day, Crazy Qin, and you'll count as reformed
- we'll take off your label!"

     But the rest of the Five Categories were flabbergasted.   Some were as
livid as if newly risen from the dead.   Some hung their heads  and  turned
away, for fear the Red Guards or revolutionary masses might call on them to
do  this  "devil's  dance".   But no one panicked or wept.   They were like
stones in a cess-pool,  hard and stinking,  used to  humiliation  of  every
kind.  They had long since forgotten the meaning of "self-respect".

     The cook instead of laughing simply gaped.  Well, wonders never cease.
Reading  the  little  red  book,  singing  and reciting quotations from the
Chairman's works every day, overthrowing everything old,  smashing Buddhas,
razing temples,  raiding homes, and now this "devil's dance" ... were these
the new culture,  new ideology and  new  customs  of  the  "great  cultural
revolution"?  That cook must have failed to harden his heart and think like
a  genuine  proletarian,  for  when  he filled Qin Shutian's bowl his hands
trembled and tears started to his eyes.

     That day Li Guoxiang felt famished.   As soon as the  Red  Guards  and
revolutionary  masses had stooped laughing so uproariously she set off with
her empty rice bowl to the window.   Apparently she wanted to show that she
was  different  from  the Five Categories.   But the Red Guards insisted on
treating her as a monster.

     "Halt!  Where are you going?"

     "You bitch!  About face!  Parade step to the door!"

     One of the Red Guards, a girl,  stepped behind her brandishing a broad
leather  belt.    For fear of being beaten Li Guoxiang hastily retreated to
the door.   Forcing a smile she said,  "Little comrades-in-arms!   I've had
enough, I don't want a second helping."

     "Who  are  you  calling your comrades-in-arms?   So you've had enough,
have you?   Why put on such airs?   Who are you  trying  to  impress?    To
challenge?    Think  you're  a  cut  above the other monsters?   Never mind
whether you want more or not,  you're to do the 'devil's  dance'  like  the
Rightist Qin from this door to that window."

     "Yes!  This 'comrade-in-arms' must dance!"

     "Look,  with her oval face,  snaky waist and long hands and feet,  she
should be a good dancer."

     "If she won't dance, make her crawl there!"

     The Red Guards were all shouting at her at once.    For  some  strange
reason  these  young  path-breakers  who  stopped  at nothing had a special
contempt and hatred for Li Guoxiang.

     "Young generals, comrades, honestly I can't dance.   I've never danced
in my life.   Don't be angry,  don't whip me, I'll crawl, I'll crawl to the
window...."

     Tears in her eyes, Li Guoxiang crawl off like a dog.



     Leftism carried to an extreme had turned into a boomerang.    Leftists
who had delighted in crushing others were now under fire themselves.   This
is what Buddhists call "retribution".

     At the end of 1968 when the county revolutionary committee was set up,
Li Guoxiang was cleared,  declared a revolutionary Leftist and co-opted  on
to  the revolutionary committee and made chairman of the commune.   She had
no cause for resentment or complaint.   As she herself had pointed  out  in
each political movement,  at the start when the masses were being mobilized
it was hard to avoid slight excesses,  the problem was how to  control  and
lead the masses.   One couldn't pour cold water to dampen their enthusiasm.
Especially in this "great proletarian cultural revolution unprecedented  in
history", it was only to be expected that for a while Leftists would attack
Leftists and good people would gun for each other.




"Spreading the Gospel"


     Fantastic  times give rise to fantastic happenings,  which were indeed
most solemnly enacted throughout the length and breadth of our great  land.
Readers  born  since then must regard them as incredible aberrations.   But
this was one page in our country's unhappy history.

     Wang Qiushe,  Party secretary of Hibiscus Brigade,  went north with  a
delegation from the county to learn from the experience of other communes -
an  epoch-making  event in this remote little town in the Wuling Mountains.
When they left the county to join other delegations in the district,  their
coach  was  decorated with red silk and flags,  and they were seen off with
fire-crackers,  gonging and drumming.   They had an  even  more  impressive
send-off at the district railway station.   And they travelled by a special
carriage.  Not knowing what a special coach or carriage was,  the townsfolk
who had never left Hibiscus had to ask the Rightist Qin Shutian.  He seemed
to know all the answers,  having read so many books and seen so much of the
world,  fattening himself on the blood of the labouring people.   So it was
his  duty  to enlighten them.   He said there were special cars exclusively
for leaders,  and special coaches to take people to important  conferences.
Just  as  in  the  old  days  an  official's  status could be seen from the
trappings of his sedan-chair,  today different leaders had their  different
transport.  County heads, for instance, had jeeps with canvas roofs.

     "Listen  to  this  stinking  diehard!" someone protested.   "Ask him a
question and he grabs at the chance to attack socialism!"

     "Well, you asked me," countered Qin with an abject look.   "Whatever I
say you call it vicious slander.   So don't ask me any more questions.   If
you do, I won't answer them, to keep out of trouble."

     "What are special carriages?" someone else insisted.

     Qin had to explain that a passenger train had  eleven  carriages  with
more than a thousand seats.   To ensure the comfort and safety of great men
like Vice-commander-in-chief Lin Biao, the only people allowed to accompany
him on his special train were his staff,  doctors,  nurses and guards.   He
could work,  hold meetings,  eat and sleep on the train.  And other traffic
had to make way for it at each station, junction, bridge or tunnel....  Now
certain important delegations going to attend a conference  also  travelled
by  special  trains.    So  their  brigade  secretary  was getting the same
privileged treatment as a provincial  head,  travelling  north  by  special
coach and train.

     The  Hibiscus  townsfolk  also  heard  that  when Wang Qiushe,  on his
return, alighted at the district station where the revolutionary masses had
assembled to welcome the delegates with  gongs,  drums,  fire-crackers  and
flags,  he  had waved his little red book over his head.   They knew he had
learned that from a film of Vice-commander-in-chief Lin.   And he had  kept
shouting,  "Long live the red sun!  Long live the red sun!..."  It was said
that the county revolutionary committee had sent a  jeep  to  the  station.
All  the  way  back,  a  hundred li and more,  he kept on shouting slogans.
After lunching with the county heads he went  back  by  jeep  to  Hibiscus,
still  shouting  slogans.    Only  he  had caught a chill and his voice was
hoarse.

     Winter days are  short.    When  darkness  fell  the  stilt-house  was
brightly lit.  Cadres and commune members came to greet Wang, make reports,
ask  for  instructions or simply watch the fun.   When one lot left another
arrived.   One family who hoped the brigade would find their daughter a job
brought  a big vat of sweet-potato liquor and set it on the square table by
the hearth to refresh Secretary Wang after his journey.   In his jubilation
he forgot his exhaustion and insisted on all the cadres and poor and lower-
middle  peasants joining him in a drink.   As for the middle and well-to-do
middle peasants,  he simply smiled and nodded at them.   So those qualified
to drink raised their cups to congratulate him on his triumphant return.

     "Secretary  Wang!   Seems you travelled thousands of li by special car
and train,  and ate special grub for a whole month.   All you missed out on
was flying!"

     "Yes, I didn't fly.  But planes aren't too safe.  Nowadays the higher-
ups prefer special cars and trains...."

     "Now  that  you've  been  all that way,  seen so much of the world and
brought back valuable experience, you must tell us all about it!"

     "Dazhai is the red banner in agriculture,   There's no end to what the
whole country must learn from them.   Of course I'll tell you about it,  so
that we can turn our Hibiscus into a model commune."

     "Customs change with the times.   Tripitaka made his pilgrimage to the
West  on a white horse,  taking only his three disciples Monkey,  Pigsy and
Sandy....   Now our  Secretary  Wang's  had  mechanized  transport  on  his
pilgrimage  north,  with  tens  of  thousands of other delegations from all
parts of the country...."

     "What's that?  Are you tipsy, uncle, dragging in Tripitaka?   That was
feudal   superstition,   their  pilgrimage.     We  want  to  revolutionize
agriculture!  If the higher-ups heard you, you'd be in for it."

     "In such a big country, Secretary Wang,  our Hibiscus only counts as a
small fingernail."

     "Hibiscus  isn't  all  that small;  besides it's very important.   The
county only sent three heads of brigades on this trip."

     These eager questions and tributes made Wang  crease  his  eyes  in  a
smile as he sipped the liquor and munched freshly fried peanuts.  Hoarse as
he was he answered every question.

     "Is  it true,  Secretary Wang,  that over ten thousand people from all
parts of the country go there every day?" one youngster asked.

     "Yes, from north, south, east and west.   Minority people from Yunnan,
Xinjiang  and Tibet go there too.   All the schools,  halls and hostels are
packed.  That hostel we stayed in must be as long as our flagstone street,"
replied Wang.

     "Say, do they use chemical fertilizer?" the youngster asked again.

     Wang didn't know what he  was  driving  at.    "Of  course  the  state
guarantees  them  a  supply,  a  model  place,  a  red banner for the whole
country.  But the main thing about them is their self-reliance."

     "If ten thousand people go there every day and  spend  even  only  one
night  there,  think  of all their shit and piss!   That brigade's not more
than nine hundred mu; with all that manure I'd expect the crops to shoot up
then flop and not form ears.   Why should  they  need  chemical  fertilizer
too?"

     Everybody in the stilt-house roared with laughter.

     Before  Wang  could take this youngster to task for having such stupid
notions although his class origin was  impeccable,  in  came  Secretary  Li
Mangeng.    During  the Four Clean-ups Movement the work team had wanted to
expel him from the Party,  but as he had admitted his mistake and handed in
Hu Yuyin's money, he had been let off lightly and simply demoted.

     "You're  late,  Secretary Li!   Wouldn't your wife let you go?   I was
just going to send for you," drawled Wang,  his face red and  shining,  not
troubling  to  get  up.   He pointed at a stool and poured Mangeng a cup of
liquor.

     "Well, what's been happening here while I was up north?"

     Li Mangeng was Wang Qiushe's subordinate now,  though in the  past  he
had  thoroughly  despised  him.   So this reversal of their positions irked
him.   Still he was no longer the simple-minded ex-soldier he had been  ten
years ago,  but a family man.  He gave Wang a brief resume of recent events
in Hibiscus,  the daily readings and recitations from Chairman Mao's  works
in  each team,  the number of "supreme instructions" written up at each end
of the town,  and the number of glorious images of the Chairman  which  had
been painted.

     "But  the  townsfolk  seem  to  have some muddled ideas."  Wang looked
stern.  "You haven't stressed politics enough.  Just now, dammit if someone
didn't compare my fact-finding trip to the north to Tripitaka's  pilgrimage
to the West.  And someone said Dazhai, the red banner of our whole country,
shouldn't  need  any  chemical  fertilizer because the shit of ten thousand
visitors a day would be more than enough to flatten its maize and  wheat  -
isn't  that ridiculous?   They were poor and lower-middle peasants who said
that, but some of the Five Categories must have given them the idea.   This
is a new trend in class struggle!  If we don't crack down on class enemies,
they'll attack us!"

     Mangeng nodded.   So did the others, though some of them were laughing
up their sleeves.

     "What valuable experience have  you  brought  back,  Secretary  Wang?"
asked Mangeng to change the subject.

     "Rich  experience.     Enough  to  last  us  for  several  life-times.
Including something we'd never even heard of.   If I hadn't seen it with my
own  eyes  I'd never have dreamed of it."  Wang took another swig of sweet-
potato liquor.

     "Go on, tell us about it, Secretary Wang!" Mangeng had a drink too and
munched a couple of peanuts.

     "It's a whole ceremony called 'three loyalties and  four  infinites'."
Wang rose to his feet, his eyes flashing, fished the little red book out of
his  pocket and held it to his chest.   He seemed as if transported to some
holy land,  wearing a halo.   "Of all the thousands of  things  Dazhai  has
learned, the most important is stressing politics.  Every morning they 'ask
for  instructions';  every evening they 'make a report'.   This is done too
now on the trains, in bus stations, different organizations and schools."

     The novelty of this held everyone's attention.

     "When are you going to tell the cadres and masses about this?" Mangeng
asked.

     "It can wait!" croaked Wang.  "This time we won't stick to the rule of
first notifying Party members and cadres.  Go to brigade headquarters,  Old
Li,  and  broadcast  this announcement: We're holding a mass meeting now in
the market-place.   Everyone's to bring his little  red  book.    The  Five
Categories and their families aren't to come."

     "You're  fagged  out after your journey and you've been drinking,  why
not wait till tomorrow...." Mangeng made no move.

     "Secretary Li!   Politics takes top priority!   This can't  wait  till
tomorrow.    Tell  everyone  to  bring the little red book." Glaring,  Wang
repeated his order.



     An hour or so later the old stage in the market-place was brightly  li
up  by  the  paraffin  lamp.    Below  were  a  dark  huddle of heads and a
sprinkling of glowing pipes and cigarettes.    These  last  few  years  the
townsfolk  had  grown  accustomed to turning out for mass meetings whenever
summoned,  day or night,  to express  enthusiastic  support  for  some  new
editorial  or  "supreme instruction" and to parade in celebration of it....
Wang Qiushe mounted the stage escorted by some brigade cadres,  who  seated
themselves on two benches on this rostrum.   Secretary Li Mangeng, standing
under the paraffin lamp,  called the names of the different team leaders to
check  the  number  of  people  present.    When the team farthest away had
arrived,  he declared the meeting open and announced that  Party  Secretary
Wang  would  give  the  revolutionary masses an account of his delegation's
trip.

     Amid hearty applause Wang stepped to the front of  the  stage,  waving
his hand and nodding.  Not till the clapping ended did he start gruffly:

     "Poor and lower-middle peasants, revolutionary comrades!  Have you all
brought your little red books?"

     People immediately groped in their pockets, many of them shouting:

     "Yes, we have!"

     "We've brought the selected works!"

     "Why doesn't the brigade give us each a pocket edition?"

     Fine,  all  hold up your little red books!" Wang eyed the market-place
as the commune members raised them above their heads.   "Good!   A  sea  of
red!    From  now on,  going to the fields,  knocking off work or attending
meetings,  you must carry those all the time.   Never go  anywhere  without
them,  to keep close to the red sun!  When you sing, sing quotations.  When
you read, read the little red book!"

     These opening remarks reduced the meeting-place to solemn silence.

     "I've just had the honour of going north to gain experience  with  the
delegation  from  our  county and district.   We travelled thousands of li,
spent over a month.  Dazhai is a red banner for the whole country,  a model
in  agriculture.    People from all over China and abroad are learning from
it.  Dazhai has whole lots of valuable experience.  For instance they award
work-points for politics and run political night schools.   Their poor  and
lower-middle  peasants  are  in  charge  of  the  schools,  of  supply  and
marketing, sanitation,  culture and sport.   They've done away with private
plots and markets.   But,  above all,  they lay stress on politics!   Class
struggle is what counts,  they read the Chairman's works every day and  are
loyal  to our leader.   So the gist of their experience is 'three loyalties
and four infinites'.   Up here in the mountains we didn't know about  that.
But  now  I've  brought you word of it and I'll show you what it means,  so
that every morning you can 'ask for instructions' and  every  evening  make
your 'report'."

     The commune members found this intriguing and mystifying.  Wang Qiushe
broke  off  at  this point to look at the back wall of the stage.   Finding
nothing there he asked Mangeng irately,  "What's the meaning of this?   Why
haven't you hung a glorious image on that wall?   Go and fetch one at once!
There's one in the primary  school.    Look  sharp!    You  shouldn't  have
overlooked something so important!"

     At  once  Mangeng jumped down from the stage and dashed to the primary
school,  while Wang continued to expatiate on  the  "three  loyalties"  and
"four infinites" and the morning and evening rituals.   Soon Mangeng panted
back, covered with sweat and dust, a portrait of the Chairman in his hands.
As they had no paste or drawing-pins at hand,  Wang ordered him to hold the
painting up carefully and reverently in the middle of the stage.

     "Now,  comrades, all hold up your little red books and stand up facing
the red sun!" Wang boomed.  His audience at once did this.

     Wang then gave a demonstration.  Standing to attention,  chest out and
head thrown back, he gazed into the distance, his left arm at his side, his
right elbow bent to clasp the little red book to his heart.   He then stood
sideways looking at the glorious image and recited:

     "First we salute out most respected and beloved  great  leader,  great
teacher,  great commander-in-chief,  great helmsman, the red red sun in our
hearts - long life to him!   May he live for ever!   We wish our  respected
Vice-commander-in-chief Lin good health!  May he always enjoy good health!"

     Wang  had  raised  his little red books level with his head to wave it
rhythmically during this incantation....   Carried away by his own splendid
performance,  his  throat hoarse,  his eyes filled with hot tears,  he felt
boundless strength and pride.   He exulted  like  a  votary  who  has  long
cultivated  virtue  and  finally  mastered  the Way.   At that instant,  if
required to, he would not have hesitated to climb a hill of swords,  plunge
into a sea of fire,  dash his brains out or shed his hot blood....  Next he
made an impassioned speech urging the revolutionary masses and cadres to go
straight into action to prove their loyalty.   Each  production  team  must
hold a ceremony every morning and evening,  to turn Hibiscus Commune into a
splendid revolutionary school....   By now Mangeng was worn out,  his hands
and legs ached from holding up the portrait; but he dared not move - he had
to prove his loyalty.



     Soon  after  Wang Qiushe's return with this experience,  the commune's
revolutionary committee sent in a report to the county.    The  authorities
there  with  their  political  acumen  realized  that  this  was the newest
innovation of the "great proletarian cultural revolution";  to  neglect  it
would be criminal and lead to trouble.  At once they declared Wang Qiushe a
model  for  the  whole  county  and  invited  him to their office to give a
demonstration of the morning and evening ritual.  They then sent him out by
jeep to pass on his experience to all the communes in the county.   So Wang
Qiushe's  name  became a household word.   But this made him swollen-headed
and,   since  his  educational  level  was  low  and  he  lacked  political
experience,  he  misjudged  the  situation  and  parroted  denunciations of
capitalist-roaders,  including the former county secretary Yang Min'gao and
the  former  commune secretary Li Guoxiang,  who had been relieved of their
posts.  This false move was to cost him dearly.  But more of that later.

     Here I would like to point out that this spate of modern superstitions
was a new variety of the benighted feudal  ideas  which  had  prevailed  in
China  for thousands of years - it cannot be ascribed to any single leading
figure.   Things have to be seen in historical perspective.    Have  to  be
studied carefully, dispassionately and objectively, to find the root of the
trouble and remedy it.   However,  there is no need here to probe into when
and where this modern cult originated.   We can leave  the  performance  of
Wang Qiushe of Hibiscus to speak for itself.




A Tipsy View of the World


     Gu Yanshan, the "soldier from the north", was now known as a confirmed
drunkard.    Because when he had been suspected of having an affair with Hu
Yuyin,  to whom he had sold state grain,  he had been forced to  undergo  a
medical examination in the county hospital.  To him that was an unspeakable
torture.    Though  Old Gu had longed for years for a home of his own and a
happy family, he had never been willing to pay such a price.  But now there
was no escaping it.  In a spotless white room, where the sunshine streaming
in had dazzled his eyes, he was ordered to strip naked.  A crowd of interns
in white coats and masks gathered round.   They bent over him,  prodded and
pinched  him,  then exchanged meaningful glances.   Lying motionless like a
castrated stallion,  all over goose-flesh and dripping with cold sweat,  he
shivered and closed his eyes,  his mind a blank....  He had been wounded in
the thigh near Tianjin by KMT troops.   Blood had soaked through his padded
trousers and he had thought he was going to die, to leave this land so soon
to be liberated.   His mind was a blank then too.  But comrades-in-arms had
rescued him, and after an old peasant woman had nursed him for over a month
he went back to his unit.   Of course he wasn't  going  to  die  this  time
either....   Who had gunned for him this time?  And what sort of battle was
this?   It was to combat revisionism and capitalism,  to root out bourgeois
ideas  and promote what was proletarian,  to ensure that China would remain
socialist and prevent another blood-bath.   So everyone must pass the  test
and  undergo  a  thorough  examination,  both  mental  and physical.   This
involved much more than taking up arms to fight the enemy.    It  was  much
more complex and bewildering....   After what seemed an endless examination
a male nurse told him to go out and put on his clothes.   Through the door,
left  ajar,  he  heard  the  doctors' diagnosis:  "The fellow is impotent."
Someone  -  probably  an  ingenuous  intern  -  asked  softly,   "Is  he  a
hermaphrodite?    Someone  who  switches  sexes?"    The  doctors' hoots of
laughter,  as if this were a prize joke,  shook the window-panes.   Old  Gu
wished that Old Man Heaven would send an earthquake to swallow him up along
with that mocking laughter.

     The  work team reported to the county committee that as Gu Yanshan had
lost his class stand completely and exerted such a bad influence, for years
fostering capitalist forces,  he should be expelled from the Party and sent
home to labour.  But some veterans in the county committee recalled that he
was  a  cadre  from the north who had previously committed no mistakes;  so
although his attitude had been bad and he had  not  made  a  serious  self-
criticism,  he  should  be allowed a way out.   They decided to let him off
with a stern reprimand and reduce his salary,  then  watch  his  subsequent
behaviour.

     Before  long  the higher-ups assigned a new number-one man to Hibiscus
Grain Depot.   Although Old Gu was not removed from his post,  he  did  not
"come downstairs".   Well,  he was used to living upstairs,  and he had not
committed suicide.

     With no official duties he took life easy.  The next year the storm of
the "cultural revolution" swept down on them.   But Old Gu took no part  in
it, drinking to drown his sorrows.  Often he drank himself tipsy, then told
the children stories of doughty drinkers,  heroes of old like Wu Song,  who
killed a tiger in his cups.   He knew  no  end  of  such  legends  and  the
children  never tired of listening to them,  never denounced him either for
"peddling black feudal, bourgeois and revisionist wares".

     That winter, Old Gu heard that Mangeng's wife Peppery had brewed a vat
of maize liquor,  real fire-water,  and had raised a black  dog  which  now
weighed a dozen catties.   So one evening he went to their home through the
whirling snow, taking sixty yuan to buy the liquor and dog, meaning to have
a good binge with Mangeng.   As Mangeng had been down on his luck  for  the
last  few  years,  under  the thumb of Wang Qiushe he had to do what he was
told,  but sometimes was given a rap on his knuckles.   They put the  black
dog  in  a sack and drowned it in the river,  then took it home and scoured
off its fur with lime,  turning it into a plump white hairless dog.    Next
they  lit  the  fire,  cut up the dog and fried it with tea-seed oil,  then
simmered it with spices.

     Eating dogflesh in snowy weather has always been one of the  favourite
treats of grown-ups and children alike in the Wuling Mountains.   And as it
so happened,  this evening Peppery had taken  her  daughters  home  to  her
mother, there was no one to stop these two fellows from boozing.

     Mangeng boasted, "I'm going to drink you under the table."

     Old Gu said, "We must smash this vat of yours this evening."

     At first they drank from wine cups,  then switched to mugs and finally
to rice bowls.

     "Drink up,  dammit!   I've never been really pissed,  so I don't  know
what  my capacity is."  Old Gu clinked bowls with Mangeng,  then tossed off
his liquor.

     "That's the style,  drink up!   Years ago I made one wrong  move,  and
since then everything has gone wrong ...  all because of a woman - damn all
women.   Drink up!   I'm treating you to this liquor."  After draining  his
bowl Mangeng slapped it down on the table.

     "A woman?   There are all sorts of women,  some the salt of the earth,
some real devils....  Can't lump them all together.  Here,  give me another
drink." Old Gu held out his empty bowl.

     They  were still only half tipsy.   For fear of making a gaffe Mangeng
kept quiet.  Old Gu found his boastfulness ridiculous.  He had pocketed the
sixty yuan yet said he was standing treat.  Son of a tortoise,  it's Old Gu
who's treating you!

     Toasting  and  trying  to  outdrink each other they emptied bowl after
bowl.   By degrees they felt  buoyant  yet  brimming  with  strength,  high
spirits  and confidence,  as if able to trample the world underfoot.   They
now picked up their chopsticks and stuffed fat dogflesh into  each  other's
mouths.

     "Brother Gu!   Old soldier,  eat this chunk for me, dammit, even if it
were a chunk of human flesh."

     "Mangeng,  there are people nowadays with hearts  like  iron,  fiercer
than  tigers.   Real cannibals they are!   Yet they're the ones favoured by
the higher-ups...   To be heartless,  is  that  revolution?    The  way  to
struggle?"

     "You've said it, ha!  Drink up!"

     The more they drank,  the more they warmed to each other, and the more
worked up they grew.

     "Mangeng!  You say, is that woman Li Guoxiang any good?   The piddling
manager of a restaurant, she suddenly changed into the head of a work team.
Things  had been fine in our Hibiscus till she turned it topsy-turvy,  with
no peace for man or beast!   Then she suddenly  changed  into  one  of  the
county  committee,  our  commune  secretary....   How did she shoot up like
that?...   Till those Red Guards who stop at nothing hung old  shoes  round
her neck and paraded her through the street...."

     The  liquor had gone to Old Gu's head.   In a rage he staggered to his
feet, cursing and pounding the table.  Cups,  bowls,  dishes and chopsticks
clattered.

     Mangeng spat out a dog bone and bellowed with laughter.

     "That  woman  can't dance the 'devil's dance' but she can crawl like a
dog....  What a joke!  She's not bad-looking, but a holy terror, the things
she says and does....  When I worked in the district government,  her uncle
- he was district secretary - tried to foist this hell-cat on me....  I was
a fool....   if I'd agreed,  she'd be under my thumb today!   At very least
I'd be top man in the commune."

     "Don't lose heart.  Not many hell-cats, even in history,  have crawled
over men's heads to shit on them.   Crazy Qin in your brigade told me there
was Lu Zhi of Han, Wu Zetian of Tang, the Empress Dowager of Qing....   The
truth  is,  brother,  that Rightist Qin isn't such a bad lot as most of the
Five Categories...."

     "Don't give me that talk,  Old Gu,  an old revolutionary like you from
the  north.    Haven't you been denounced right and left,  haven't I had to
make endless  self-criticisms,  all  because  of  Crazy  Qin!    All  those
recantations  I  wrote  -  too superficial.   The work team all but made me
kneel on shards.  To hell with it....   I'm through with caring about other
people.    I can harden my heart and get tough,  what do I care if the Five
Categories change into pigs or dogs, if they live or die....   What matters
is getting by myself with Peppery and the girls...."

     "You should have a heart,  Mangeng.   Can't you see that the one worst
up against it in Hibiscus is that young widow?   Has Peppery  stuffed  your
eyes up the crotch of her pants?"

     Drink both clears the mind and befuddles it.   Old Gu's eyes were red,
either from drinking or from weeping.

     At this mention of Yuyin,  Mangeng's eyes glazed  over....    After  a
while he said,  "My sister!   No, she's a rich peasant now.  I made a clean
break with her long ago... poor woman....  What a fool I am!   A fool!"  He
suddenly  burst  out laughing,  then abruptly wiped the smile off his face,
his expression wooden again.   "A fool,  that's what I am....   I  was  too
young,  took things too seriously....  Didn't marry her, the Party wouldn't
let me, but... if...."

     "If what?   Don't talk with your mouth full  of  dog  bones!"  Old  Gu
stared at him aggressively.

     "Fact  is,  the  truth  is,  brother,  when  I  think  of her my heart
aches...."

     "Still sweet on her?   Seems to me you wronged her,  hit her when  she
was down....   It was cruel what you did to save your own hide!  She looked
on you as her brother,  gave you one thousand five hundred to keep for her,
and  you  handed  it  in to the work team as her loot from profiteering,  a
proof of her capitalist crimes....   Brother and sister are like  birds  in
the same wood, who fly off in different directions in time of danger!"

     "Old Gu!  Old Gu!...  Don't!"  Mangeng beat his chest, tears streaming
down his cheeks.  "Each word you say cuts like a knife....  I couldn't help
myself,  couldn't!    Fighting  the enemy I gritted my teeth,  ready to die
rather than desert....   But up against the Party,  the work team from  the
county, what could I do?  You tell me!  I was afraid of being expelled from
the Party!  Hell, I can't lose my Party membership...."

     "Aha,  Li Mangeng!  This evening I spent sixty yuan to buy this vat of
liquor and dog - and this admission of yours!" Old Gu bucked up on  hearing
the  former Party secretary of the commune sob uncontrollably.   He laughed
and bellowed, "So your heart's not completely black and hard.  Not everyone
in Hibiscus has a heart of stone!"

     "...Brother, you're still the 'soldier from the north' looked up to by
the whole down.  A rough diamond...."

     "So you still have some human feeling, brother!" Old Gu crowed.   "You
still have some feeling!"

     They kept this up, laughing and crying till dawn.

     When  the  vat  was  finally  empty,  chucking  aside their bowls they
flopped down, shaking with laughter.

     "I'll spare your damned vat to come and drink tomorrow!"

     "You're stinking drunk, pissed!   Take that dog leg for when you drink
in your room upstairs tomorrow!"

     "Keep the rest of the dog,  Mangeng....   I must get back to the grain
depot.  Haven't 'come downstairs' yet ... have to stay upstairs...."

     The snow was falling softly,  as if  to  cover  and  conceal  all  the
garbage everywhere.   A dim flashlight shone on a trial of uneven footprint
to the flagstone street.  Luckily the highway bridge had been completed, so
there was no need to call up the ferryman.

     Old Gu staggered back through the north wind.   The liquor had gone to
his head, making it reel.  Standing in the middle of the street he swore:

     "Listen, you!  Hell-cat!  Slut!  What have you done to our town?  Even
made  a  clean sweep of our poultry and dogs.   Grown-ups and kids,  no one
dares say a word.   You bitch!   You hell-cat!   You slut!   If you've  any
guts, come and have it out with me!..."

     His  shouts  woke  the people living on both sides of the street,  and
they knew whom the "soldier from  the  north"  was  cursing.    As  it  was
freezing,  no  one  got up to watch or to stop him.   Only the staff of the
supply and marketing co-op felt sorry that Li Guoxiang  was  not  there  to
hear his curses - she had gone to the county to attend a meeting.

     Gu  Yanshan  was  beside himself.   That dawn in the flurrying snow he
rampaged up and down the street, shouting curses.  Finally, intoxicated and
tired out, he flopped down at the gate of the co-op.  There he vomited onto
the snow.   A stray  dog  running  over  avidly  lapped  up  his  vomit....
Snoring, Old Gu shook his fist.

     "...Keep  quiet,  Secretary Wang,  Chairman Li!   Just smack your lips
over your own grub and grog.  I'm drunk, I'm going to sleep....  Smack your
lips over your own grub and grog...."

     Old Gu did not freeze to death.   For a wonder he didn't even catch  a
chill.  Before it was light, while the shops on both sides of the flagstone
street  were  still  closed,  he was carried up to his room above the grain
depot.  Who carried him?  There is no knowing.




Phoenixes and Hens


     Wang Qiushe's tour of the county to demonstrate the  new  morning  and
evening rituals met loud acclamations.  Everywhere he was received and sent
off with fire-crackers,  drumming and gonging.   This style of life went to
his head, for he was treated to more chicken,  duck,  fish and meat than he
had ever seen before in his life.  And while spreading the truth he took an
active part in the criticism campaign, denouncing the counter-revolutionary
revisionist  crimes of Yang Min'gao,  the top man in the county,  and their
commune Party secretary Li Guoxiang.  The latter had had to step down to be
educated and criticized by the revolutionary masses.   She ground her teeth
with  fury  at the way the stilt-house's owner had turned against her,  and
could have kicked herself for boosting up such a  wretch.    "Confound  it!
Talk  of  lifting  a  rock  and dropping it on your own feet!" she swore at
herself.   " you made him an activist,  sponsored him to  join  the  Party,
appointed  him  secretary  of the brigade,  and wanted to groom him to be a
government cadre.   You even took a fancy to this bachelor a  little  older
than  you....    But  now  the dog has bitten the hand that fed him!   He's
forgotten all you did for him and once across the river has torn  down  the
bridge.   He's a real snake in the grass, denouncing uncle and me right and
left...."

     In those days the cadres who had stepped down to be investigated  used
to recite this jingle:

          When phoenixes are out of luck, hens soar;
          A moulting phoenix isn't up to a hen.
          But when its plumage grows once more
          A phoenix is a phoenix, a hen a hen again.

Li Guoxiang recited this too and took courage from it.   And indeed in less
than a year it came true for her.   When the county revolutionary committee
was re-established with Yang Min'gao as its first deputy chairman,  she was
co-opted as a standing member,  concurrently chairman of the  revolutionary
committee of the commune.   Her lovely phoenix plumage had grown again, and
she was once more the queen of all feathered creatures.

     Poor Wang Qiushe!   He had not yet washed the mud  from  his  feet  or
climbed  up to become a state functionary,  entitled to ride in a jeep as a
full-time propagandist.   After he had shone for a year or two,  attracting
others  to follow his example,  the rituals he had introduced spread to all
corners of the county and new activists emerged who could recite their vows
in standard Chinese,  unmixed with the local accent,  flourish  little  red
books  more  stylishly  and perform a "loyalty" dance.   So although he had
been a path-breaker,  his performance paled  by  comparison,  his  historic
mission accomplished.   In the eyes of the revolutionary masses and cadres,
he was no longer a treasure.  Before long the high-ups called upon the mass
representatives in different leading bodies to go back to their  own  units
to grasp revolution and promote production.  So back he went to Hibiscus as
chairman  of  the  brigade.    This made him Li Guoxiang's subordinate once
more.  The phoenix was still a phoenix, the hen a hen.

     Remorse is bitter.  A year before,  Li Guoxiang had regretted boosting
up  the stilt-house's owner;  now he bitterly repented having denounced her
in public.   But who could be held to blame?    Big  movements  have  their
stormy  ups  and  downs,  and leaders and masses alike have to keep in step
with the political situation....   Sometimes Wang Qiushe  felt  tempted  to
bite off his tongue!   He often slapped his mouth,  fuming,  "Idiot!  Dolt!
Throwing your weight about!   Who made you an activist,  sponsored  you  to
join  the Party and sent you to Dazhai?   Dogs should wag their tails,  but
bit the mistress who'd fed you...."  After racking his brains it dawned  on
him that his only hope of getting ahead politically and rising in the world
was  by  sucking up to Li Guoxiang and relying on Yang Min'gao.   They were
above him in the power structure.  He was no numskull.   Though remorse was
bitter it paid better than being pigheaded.

     To revert to Chairman Li Guoxiang, she had quiet quarters on the floor
above the Hibiscus Supply and Marketing Co-op.   Her outer room,  an office
and reception room, contained a desk, a wicker armchair and some stools.  A
portrait of Chairman Mao hung on the wall,  which also  had  pasted  on  it
quotations  of  his in gold characters on red paper.   There was a bookcase
for the Chairman's works, as well as a telephone.   The predominant colour,
red,  proclaimed her status and character.   We need not describe the inner
room,  her bedroom as we are ingenuous Red Guards who insist on prying into
the private life of a spinster in her thirties.   After six in the evening,
when the co-op closed and its staff went home to their quarters in the back
yard, this room was uncannily quiet.

     Wang Qiushe had come here several times to make his  reports  and  ask
for her instructions.  He always halted nervously at the door to smooth his
hair  and  clear his throat;  but as Li Guoxiang did not want to see him in
private,  he had never been admitted.   Instead of losing heart he believed
his  sincerity  would  eventually  move  her  and  enable him to storm this
fortress.

     "Chairman Li,  Party Secretary Li...."  Today he knocked softly at her
door again.

     "Who's there?" she was laughing with somebody inside.

     "It's me....  Wang Qiushe...." he stammered, his throat dry.

     "What do you want?" Her voice had turned cold and stern.

     "I've a little business...."

     "We can discuss it later.  I'm busy now, studying material."

     Wang  Qiushe  slunk  back  to the stilt-house,  his appetite spoiled .
Still, since he was "No.  1" in the brigade,  cadres kept coming to consult
him or commune members to bring him information.   So what with all the new
"supreme instructions" and "important documents" sent down from  above,  he
was  far  from  being  lonely.    One  afternoon some days later he spruced
himself up.   First he went to the barber's shop for a haircut  and  shave.
He  had  on a smart jacket over his white shirt,  newly washed trousers and
his pigskin shoes.   Not until the townsfolk were at supper and lights  had
appeared  in  their  windows  did  he go to the supply and marketing co-op,
determined not to leave till he had seen Li Guoxiang and unburdened himself
to her.

     For some strange reason when he stepped through the side gate  of  the
co-op  compound,  his  heart  went  pit-a-pat as if he were doing something
underhand.   Luckily he didn't run into anyone.   He stood for a  while  in
front of Li Guoxiang's door before raising his hand to knock.

     "Chairman Li, Party Secretary Li...."

     "Who is it?  Come on in." Her voice was kindly.

     Wang  Qiushe  went in.   Li Guoxiang,  seated at the round table,  was
eating a braised chicken.

     "So it's you.  What do you want?   You've come several times,  haven't
you?   Well,  tell me your business.   I had visitors all afternoon.  You'd
think they'd come from some drought area the  way  they  emptied  my  three
thermos flasks!"

     After a cursory glance at him, Li Guoxiang turned her attention to the
braised  chicken.    But  that  one glance struck Wang as condescending and
ironical - she was treating him like an inferior.

     "Chairman Li,  I,  I want to admit my mistakes to the leadership,"  he
stammered.

     "What mistakes?   You're a pace-setter here.  You've lectured all over
the county,  you have a good record."  She glanced at him again with a show
of surprise,  and added sarcastically, "Don't be so polite, Secretary Wang.
Doesn't the proverb say:  A dragon is no match for a local snake.  I may be
in charge of the commune,  but I can't cope with you cadres.   Any time you
like you can have me dismissed from office!"

     "Chairman Li,  Party Secretary Li....  Even if you don't jeer or swear
at me, I've lost face....  How can I look you in the face?...   I'm a good-
for-nothing.   As soon as I started riding high,  I forgot your goodness to
me...."  His head sagged like a ripe ear  of  paddy.    Shoulders  bent  he
perched  himself  on  a stool and sat there respectfully,  his hands on his
joined knees.

     "Well,  what brought you here?   Why eat humble pie  like  this?"  she
asked as she turned to pick up a chicken leg.  In her position she was used
to people grovelling to her.

     "I'm...  er,  too stupid to size up the situation....   I just shouted
slogans with everyone else,  like a parrot - a real fool I was...."    Wang
watched her expression, wanting to see her reaction.

     "Just say what's on your mind.  I never blame anyone for speaking out;
it's  hedging  I  can't abide."  She shot him another glance and discovered
that this evening he looked quite presentable.

     "I want to come clean with you, chairman.   I've behaved like a swine,
forgetting your goodness to me!   I let you down, and County Secretary Yang
as well....   You two were the ones who boosted me so that I could join the
Party,  be a Party secretary...  But I, I parroted the rest of them and, to
keep in step,  showered filthy abuse on you both....   I could kick  myself
for  that  now....    Only  wish  I  could tie myself up for you leaders to
punish...."  This speech poured out like muddy water from  a  breach  in  a
pond  while  his  tears  plopped on the floor.   "You went to such pains to
train me, but I let the higher-ups down.   Came a great cropper....   Now I
want  to apologize to you and Secretary Yang and ask for punishment....   I
should slap my mouth a thousand times before you...."

     At first Li Guoxiang frowned, then looked grave.  His remorseful tears
seemed to have softened her heart.   Looking rather upset,  she  wiped  her
greasy hands with her handkerchief and sat back limply in the wicker chair.
She  felt  rather  at  a  loss  -  but  only  for a few seconds.   Then she
straightened up, raised her eyebrows and glanced at him disdainfully again.

     "That's ancient history now.  Let bygones be bygones.  You have a good
memory,  I've forgotten all that...  and I don't care about it.   A bit  of
abuse and criticism were good for me.  I don't want you to harp on it or to
make a self-criticism....  And I'm not interested in your remorse...."

     "Honestly,  Chairman  Li,  I  mean  it....    I  know how kind and how
forgiving you are...."  Because she was still giving herself official  airs
and keeping him at a distance, his heart pounded, his palms sweated, and he
felt  bitterly  frustrated.    But there was no backing down now.   He must
arouse her interest to show her that he was still useful ...  he was  quite
clear-headed  now.    He  recalled  the talk he had heard recently about Li
Mangeng,  secretary of their brigade,  and Gu Yanshan who had been  toppled
during  the  Four Clean-ups Movement.   They had gorged themselves on dog's
meat late one night,  got stinking drunk and talked a  lot  of  reactionary
nonsense.    Then the "soldier from the north" had rampaged up and down the
street swearing....   Yes,  first he'd offer her this  "information".    In
times like these, if you didn't inform on others they'd inform on you.

     "Chairman Li,  I'd like to take this chance to tell you about some new
trends in Hibiscus...."

     "What new trends?"

     Sure enough, she had turned to face him, her eyes flashing.

     "Qin Shutian and the rest of the Five Categories are  getting  out  of
hand."  Wang deliberately approached his subject indirectly.   "The brigade
has ordered them to admit their crimes every morning and express repentance
every evening,  but they actually turn up later than the  poor  and  lower-
middle  peasants!   Nowadays eighty per cent of the brigade join in loyalty
exercises and dance the loyalty dance.   The only ones too pig-headed to do
this  are  a  few  of  the  old  folk.   They prefer bowing to the glorious
image...."

     "Don't talk nonsense.  The Five Categories are dead tigers.   It's the
live  tigers  and  snakes  that  the problem."  She fixed him with narrowed
eyes.   The icy glint in them made Wang  Qiushe  tremble.    But  then  she
decided  to  bait him.   "A revolutionary cadre can't just pay attention to
people already labelled: it's more important to keep an eye  on  those  who
pass themselves off as the rank and file....  What about the old cadres, Gu
Yanshan and that lot.  Have they been up to anything recently?"

     Wang's heart missed a beat.   If she already knew about Gu Yanshan and
Li Mangeng's escapade,  this information of his wouldn't be worth  a  fart.
Still,  gritting  his  teeth,  he  gave  an embroidered account of what had
happened,  then stated that Li Mangeng wasn't fit to be  secretary  of  the
brigade.

     "Secretary  Wang!    Come  and  sit here and have a drink."  To Wang's
surprise,  this report of his had  made  Li  Guoxiang  much  more  cordial.
Turning round she took a bottle and two glasses from the cupboard,  as well
as a dish of fried peanuts.  "Don't think you men are the only ones who can
drink.  I'll take you on.  We'll see who turns red first!"

     Wang was overwhelmed by this unexpected favour.   He took the  bottle,
filed  both  glasses  to  the  brim,  then sat down at the table and looked
respectfully, unblinkingly, at his hostess.

     "Come on.   Let's drain this glass!" Li Guoxiang raised her glass  and
glanced  at  him  from  under it.   Wang followed suit.   Then they clinked
glasses and tosses back the wine.

     "Here's a chicken leg for you.   You have good teeth,  polish it off!"
To  show her trust and friendliness,  Li Guoxiang passed him her half-eaten
chicken leg.  He accepted it with a bow.

     "What else has been happening in the brigade,  in  town?"  she  asked,
enjoying the gusto with which he was eating.

     "There's  an  ill wind blowing through Hibiscus.   The last few years,
all sorts of strange fish have surfaced....   You may not  know,  chairman,
but  the  tax-officer  who was thrown out and sent home a few years back is
now attacking us,  asking the provincial and district authorities to  clear
his case."  Wang had lowered his voice and kept glancing at the door.

     "So  that's  one." Li Guoxiang looked grave.   "The tax-officer from a
bureaucrat landlord family, dismissed during the Four Clean-ups,  is trying
to reverse his case."

     "A new rebel corps has been set up ...  the chairman of the supply and
marketing co-op is said to be its secret head....  And they want Gu Yanshan
to be their adviser, but he's not interested - the drunken sot."

     "That's two.   A new development,  a rebel corps master-minded by  the
chairman of the co-op, but Gu Yanshan's too befuddled to join in."

     Li  Guoxiang  was  making  notes  now in the notebook which she always
carried with her.

     "The young assistant in the rice mill...."

     "Well?"

     "Has had it off with the wife of the credit co-op's accountant."

     "Pah!  Stop farting!  Why report that?"

     Li Guoxiang sat back blushing, her hair a little tousled.

     "No,  that woman let on to the rice mill assistant that her old man is
going to the county to denounce you...."

     "Ha, that's three.  A new development." She kept cool.  "You see, if a
leading  cadre  doesn't have a mass line and people to keep tabs on things,
it's hard to cope....  Tell me all the other new trends you know about,  so
that the leadership can take appropriate action."

     "That's  all  for  now."  Wang  was no longer stammering nervously but
eating and drinking heartily.  He felt he had made good again in her eyes.

     "Wang Qiushe!" she snapped sternly.

     "Chairman Li..." His legs trembled as he stood up, cringing.

     "Sit down,  sit down,  you're all right...." She rose and paced up and
down as if thinking over some important decision.   "I'll sort them out one
by one.  How many guns has your brigade militia?"

     "We've one platoon."

     "Are you in charge of it?"

     "Of course.  As brigade secretary." He slapped his chest.

     "Good.  Don't let bad characters get control of it.   No one's to make
a move till I give the word."

     "I promise to be responsible to you and you only,  chairman.   I'll do
whatever you say."

     "Sit down,  sit down.   There's no need to be so tense."  She put  her
hands on his shoulders and he sat down submissively,  rather excited by the
warmth and softness of her fingers.   "With  the  power  in  our  hands  we
needn't use force.  It's only those without power who do that.  Understand?
Taking  up  arms is a last resort....   As for Li Mangeng we'll have to win
him over and keep him under your thumb.   One key task  of  the  revolution
today is preventing men like Gu Yanshan from staging a come-back, to regain
power in Hibiscus,  go in for class conciliation,  put production first and
preach humanistic nonsense....  Understand?"

     Wang nodded like a woodpecker,  lost in admiration of her  wisdom  and
courage.

     Li  Guoxiang  went  back to her wicker chair by the round table.   Her
hands on its arms, as if tipsy,  she stared unblinkingly at the stilt-house
owner.   "I can tell you frankly, Secretary Wang, I'm delighted that you've
turned over a new leaf.   We can let bygones be bygones.   I need some able
assistants and mean to test you....  I'm not promising anything, but if you
come  up to scratch I'll raise your case some time with Chairman Yang,  and
see if you can't be relieved  of  your  other  duties  and  made  a  deputy
chairman of the commune...."

     What a bolt of spring thunder!   Wang's heart palpitated.  This was an
opportunity not to be missed - it affected his whole future.   He sprang to
his feet, then dropped down on his knees before her.

     "Chairman Li!  I, from now on I'm your man... even if people call me a
cur... I'll be loyal to you...."

     Li Guoxiang startled, then smiled complacently and said rather archly,
"Get up,  get up!   Revolting.  A cadre shouldn't be so spineless.  What if
someone saw you...."

     Instead of standing up, Wang gazed up at her,  his faced streaked with
tears.  Her heart softened, she leaned forward to stroke his hair.

     "Get up for goodness' sake.   A grown man...  just had a haircut?  You
smell of scented soap.  How hot your cheeks are....  I must rest now.  I've
had too much to drink.  These are still early days, go on home...."

     Wang stood up,  wide-eyed with infatuation,  and gazed at  her  as  if
longing for some sign or order.




Among Monsters


     Qin Shutian and Hu Yuyin of the Five Categories had been penalized for
two  or  three years by having to sweep the flagstone street every morning.
Both got up very early.   They usually started sweeping from the middle  of
the street to both ends, taking half each.  Sometimes they started from the
ends  and  met  in the middle.   Luckily the street was not wide and little
more than three hundred metres long.   So every day of the year,  while the
townsfolk were still dreaming blissfully, they took their bamboo brooms and
swept in silence.  Their brooms seemed to sweep away, then sweep back again
spring, summer, autumn and winter.

     Qin Shutian swept with style, having once been the director of a song-
and-dance ensemble.   Holding himself erect,  with his right hand above and
his left hand below,  he swept with easy strokes like  an  oarsman  on  the
stage;  and  his  steps were rhythmical.   With his nimbleness and good co-
ordination he worked fast and well,  seldom  sweating.    And  he  swept  a
stretch  for Yuyin too every day.   The work always made her perspire,  and
she envied Qin his skill.  A woman should have excelled a man at this job.

     Crazy Qin's behaviour these years had been contemptible and laughable.
During the Four  Clean-ups  he  was  the  man  most  fiercely  attacked  in
Hibiscus.    Later,  the Party secretary of the brigade got the work team's
permission to let him go on heading the Five  Categories  -  "counteracting
poison with poison".   He was labelled Iron-hat Rightist, to show that this
label would go to his grave with him.   Fortunately  he  had  no  wife  and
therefore  no children to inherit this political legacy.   And he knew that
revolution needs a target.   Unless each village and town kept a few  "dead
tigers",  how  could mass movements and struggles be mobilized?   Each time
the higher-ups urged them to grasp class struggle,  the local cadres called
meetings,  paraded  and  denounced  the Five Categories,  then reported the
number  of  class  enemies  struggled  against  and  recalled  their   past
bitterness  to educate the masses.   In teams where the Five Categories had
died out,  their children took their place.   Otherwise,  how  to  convince
people  that  in  the  historical period of socialism there would always be
classes, class contradictions and struggles?

     As the cadres in the countryside earned workpoints not salaries,  they
could hardly be called "capitalist-roaders" or "agents of the bourgeoisie".
After  Land  Reform there had been a number of movements to re-define class
status.  As the means of production had been collectivized,  putting an end
to  private  property,  the  criterion  for  this  was each one's political
record.   But children could still inherit their parents' class  status....
Anyway, let us get back now to Crazy Qin.

     In  1967,  when  class  struggle  was  at  its  height,  all  the Five
Categories had been ordered to place clay effigies of themselves  at  their
gates,  to  distinguish  them  from  the revolutionary masses who exercised
dictatorship over them.   Hibiscus Brigade had twenty-two such people,  who
needed twenty-two clay effigies.  This unpaid labour was naturally assigned
to Crazy Qin because he could write and draw.   He dug up loads of clay and
dumped one at the gate of all the Five Categories.   This was a job  for  a
craftsman  Spectators gathered every day to make comments.   And because he
worked overtime,  in less than a month he had finished twenty-two  men  and
women,  tall,  short,  lean or fat.  On each pedestal he wrote the name and
title of the monster whose likeness he had caught.   This was  one  of  the
wonders  of  the brigade.   Grown-ups and children flocked to look and pass
judgement,  all agreeing that the effigy  at  Crazy  Qin's  gate  was  most
lifelike.

     "You  selfish swine,  Crazy Qin!   You only put yourself out over your
own statue."

     "That wasn't selfishness.   Doesn't the chairman say that life is  the
only source of literature and art?...  Of course I know myself best, that's
why mine's more lifelike."

     But Crazy Qin had been seriously deficient,  neglecting to make a clay
figure of Yuyin,  the new rich peasant's widow,  for the doorway of the old
inn.   This "plot" was discovered much later,  and at once he was struggled
against to find out why he had protected her and what the two of them  were
really  up  to.    He promptly hung his head and admitted his guilt: he had
only remembered the earlier number of Five Categories and  forgotten  those
designated  as  rich  peasants in the Four Clean-ups.   He promised to make
amends,  yet procrastinated till new instructions came down:  The  struggle
against  the  Five  Categories  must  not  remain formalistic;  their wrong
thinking must be thoroughly exposed so that they really stank.   And so  no
clay figure appeared outside the inn,  and for this Yuyin was most grateful
to Qin Shutian.  The evening that he was denounced she hid in her room, her
eyes swollen with weeping.  She felt he had saved her life.  Because if she
had seen children pee on her effigy she would surely have  been  driven  to
suicide.

     But although formalism was frowned upon, each time the Five Categories
were paraded they still had to wear black placard and tall hats.   Hibiscus
was a small out-of-the-way town near the border  of  the  province.    They
heard  that  Beijing  even  leading  cadres and veteran revolutionaries had
black placards hung round their necks in mass struggle meetings.  How could
Hibiscus compare with the capital?   It wasn't even marked on  the  map  of
China.    It  goes without saying that all the black placards worn by their
Five Categories were the handiwork of  Crazy  Qin.    To  show  his  public
spirit,  he  made  his  own  extra  large.   Each placard bore the wearer's
"title" followed by a name marked with red crosses,  to show that  each  of
them  deserved to be shot.   And here again he played a trick,  not putting
any red crosses on the placard of the "new rich peasant Hu Yuyin".  Luckily
this "plot" of his escaped the vigilant eyes of the  masses.    Because  of
this Yuyin, whose beancurd stall had made her a new rich peasant, had tears
of gratitude in her eyes each time she was paraded.   It made her feel that
in this callous world there still lingered the faint warmth of spring.

     The townsfolk said that Crazy Qin had grown glib  and  slippery  after
being struggled against in so many movements.  Each time the militia called
him  to a struggle meeting,  he went off as calmly as if going off to work.
When he was paraded he knew the way and always took his place at  the  head
of the Five Categories' column.

     "Qin Shutian!"

     "Here!"

     "Iron-hat Rightist!"

     "Present!"

     Sternly challenged, he called back clearly and succinctly.

     At  the  start  of  the  movement  to  purify the class ranks,  a mass
mobilization  meeting  was  called  by  the  commune,  at  which  the  Five
Categories  of different brigades were paraded.   They were then ordered to
wait at the four corners of the meeting-ground while  the  new  policy  was
explained.   But after the meeting dispersed, the militia forgot about them
and left them there - a grave lapse in the grave class struggle.    It  had
been  announce  that  they  were  not to move without the Party secretary's
permission,  or they would be punished for sabotaging the rally.   What was
to be done?   Would they just have to stay put there?  It was Crazy Qin who
hit on a solution.  He mustered the others and shouted:  "Attention!   Eyes
right!    Eyes front!   Number off,  at ease!"  He then stepped forward and
clicked his heels,  standing to attention to salute the  deserted  meeting-
ground.

     "Report,  Secretary Li!   Secretary Wang!" he announced.  "The twenty-
three Five Categories of Hibiscus have been criticized and educated at  the
rally.    Please  let them go back to their different teams to repent their
crimes and reform themselves through labour."

     A slight pause followed,  during which  he  pretended  to  have  heard
certain instructions.

     "Right!"  he  cried.    "We shall carry out the higher-ups' orders and
abide by the law.   Dismiss!"  Having gone through this procedure  he  sent
the others away.

     First  thing in the morning Hibiscus was wrapped in mist.   No dogs or
cocks could be heard in the flagstone street.    The  townsfolk  and  their
livestock  were  sound asleep as Qin Shutian went with his broom to call up
Yuyin.   They were the first to see each other every morning.   Standing at
the gate of the inn they would exchange glances and smiles.

     "What an early riser you are, brother.  Calling for me every day...."

     "I'm ten years older than you, Yuyin.  I don't need so much sleep."

     "Do you have insomnia?"

     "Me?  Well yes, it started when I was a teacher."

     "What do you do when you can't sleep?"

     "I sing songs from Wedding Songs."

     At  mention  of this they fell silent.   Those songs had involved them
both in so much trouble.   Little by little  these  morning  encounters  of
theirs  became  an  indispensable part of their lives.   If one of the them
failed to turn up,  the other would feel as upset as if something important
were missing.   He or she would finish sweeping the street in silence, then
go to see what was wrong.   Their minds would only be at rest when they met
again the next morning to exchange glances and smiles.

     One  misty  morning they began sweeping from the middle of the street,
their backs to each other.   The only sound in the stillness was the  swish
of  their  brooms  on  the  flagstones.    At  the corner of the supply and
marketing co-op, Qin leaned against the wall for a short rest.  Suddenly he
heard the side gate in the alley creak.   He peered round and saw  a  burly
black figure shoot out then shut the gate behind him.  "A thief!" His heart
missed a beat.   But no,  the man's hands were empty, he was not encumbered
with loot.  Consumed with curiosity,  Qin watched the fellow make off.   He
knew  that  all  the  staff  of  the  co-op lived in the backyard,  only Li
Guoxiang lived upstairs.   And he thought he recognized  the  man  who  had
left.   What did this mean?   He dared not make a sound.  That noon he went
back to the co-op to have a look,  but heard  no  talk  of  anything  being
stolen.

     A  few  days later it dawned clear and fine.   Qin and Yuyin parted in
the middle of the street to sweep to the ends.   At the corner of the co-op
wall  he  stopped  to rest again,  and this time he peered round before the
side gate creaked.  When it did a burly black figure shot out again, pulled
the gate to behind him and hurried off down the alley.   This time Qin  had
seen  him  clearly.    He was astounded.   Heavens,  what did he do in that
compound every night?   The implications of this were so serious,  he dared
not  make it public.   But he ran to the other end of the street and called
Yuyin into a corner, where he whispered this secret to her.

     "Don't breathe a word about  this  to  anyone  else,"  he  urged  her.
"there's  nothing  the  townsfolk can do about it,  so we'll have to turn a
blind eye.  In our position especially...."

     "Was it him?"

     "Yes."

     "With whom?"

     "With her."

     "Him,  her - who the devil knows who you mean."  But Yuyin was flushed
and smiling.   "Hell!  Whispering into my ear, you're pricking me with that
bristly moustache of yours!"

     "All right, all right, I'll shave it off.  Shave every day."

     Cheek to cheek, looking into each other's eyes,  it was the first time
they had been so close.

     Another  morning Qin decided to play a trick.   He told Yuyin about it
when they met in the middle of the street,  and she replied with  a  smile,
"Whatever  you  say."   Breaking their rule for the first time,  instead of
sweeping the street they shovelled up some cow-dung from the team's ox shed
and spread it in front of the co-op's side gate where anyone coming out was
bound to tread.  Then they hid round the corner, peeking out.  Too bad that
it was misty again.  Unconsciously they nestled close together.  After some
time they heard footsteps coming downstairs.   Qin bent  down  while  Yuyin
rested  her cheek on his shoulder,  both looking in the same direction,  so
excited and tense they felt they could hear their hearts  pounding.    When
Yuyin  leaned  round  the corner,  Qin straightened up and pulled her back,
keeping his arm around her and holding her close,  the rascal!   She had to
slap him twice to make him let go.

     The  side  gate  creaked,  the  black shadow flashed out and must have
slipped on the cow-dung.   They heard a thud like a log falling on  to  the
flagstones.   The fellow's head must have taken a hard crack.  He lay there
groaning, unable to get up.

     "Serves him right,  the swine!"  Yuyin clapped her hands like a  child
and started giggling.

     Qin  hastily  covered  her  mouth  and glanced at her warningly.   The
warmth of his hand seemed to find its way to her heart.

     The two street-sweepers stood there watching the groaning figure as he
tried in vain to get up.   It looked as if he had broken a bone.   Qin  was
frightened.    Then it occurred to him that here was a chance to "atone for
his crimes".   He whispered some instructions to Yuyin.   But this time his
cheeks  were smooth shaven and he had no moustache to prick her face.   She
pushed his hands away and went off to sweep the street.

     Qin walked softly back to the middle  of  the  street  and  set  about
sweeping  too.   Suddenly,  as if he had just spotted something,  he strode
over with his broom towards the co-op, shouting, "Who's there?  Who is it?"

     Reaching the alley he cried with a show of surprise,  "Secretary Wang!
How come you slipped and fell here?  Get up, quick!"

     "A  fine mess you've made of your sweeping.   Leaving cow-dung to trip
people up."  Wang Qiushe was sitting in the stinking dung.    Angry  as  he
was, de dared not raise his voice.

     "I'm  to  blame,  Secretary Wang.   Come on,  let me help you up." Qin
tugged at one of Wang's feet in the gutter.

     "ouch!  That hurts!  I've sprained my ankle"  Wang broke out in a cold
sweat.

     At once Qin let go of his  foot  and,  regardless  of  the  filth  and
stench, lifted him up and sat him on the threshold.

     "Well,  Secretary Wang?   Want to go home?  Or shall I take you to the
clinic?" he asked with concern.

     "I'll go home.  If you carry me back,  Crazy Qin,  I shan't forget it.
Ouch...." Wang still kept his voice down for fear of waking the neighbours.

     Qin bent down and hoisted Wang on to his back.   The stilt-house owner
seemed as strong as an ox after all these years of good living.   No wonder
he came out philandering at night.

     "You got up too early,  Secretary Wang.  You must have seen a ghost to
take such a tumble."

     "Rubbish!   Get a move on.   We don't want people  to  see  the  Party
secretary on the back of one of the Five Categories....  Presently you must
go the hills to get herbal medicine for me."



     A broken bone takes a hundred days to heal.   For more than two months
the stilt-house owner had to keep to his bed.   Luckily the brigade  doctor
brought  him medicine and took good care of him.   Li Guoxiang was too busy
to find time to call.   Having stayed long enough at the  grassroots  level
she had moved back to the county.

     Qin  and  Yuyin  continued  getting  up at dawn to sweep the flagstone
street.   At first they were very happy,  enjoying their daily  encounters,
for  their  triumph  over Wang had drawn them closer together.   They hated
being apart.   Each felt a longing hard to put into words....   One day  at
dusk Qin took her a flowered dacron blouse wrapped in cellophane, tied with
red ribbon.   Heavens, she was overwhelmed.  She had never seen anything so
fine.  In her position she wasn't fit to wear it.   After Qin left she took
it out - it was as soft as silk.   Not liking to put it on,  she clasped it
to her heart and tucked her head under the quilt to cry  all  night.    She
felt guilty,  as if holding a warm heart.   She decided to and burn incense
at Guigui's grave the next morning,  to confide in  him  and  ask  for  his
advice.    Guigui  had  always  let  her have her own way,  had spoiled and
cosseted her.  His ghost would protect and forgive her;  she hoped he would
send  her a dream....   The next morning when Qin knocked at her door,  she
had put on the dacron blouse inside her jacket, next to her heart.  But she
had made sure to keep even its collar hidden.

     In silence they swept the street  ...  then,  out  of  the  blue,  Qin
suddenly dropped his broom and threw his arms around her!

     "Are  you  crazy?   Heavens,  Brother Qin,  are you out of your mind?"
Yuyin's voice trembled, her eyes brimmed with tears....   Sobbing,  she let
him hold her close and caress her.   Finally she hardened her heart to push
him away.   How could they do such a thing?   Counter-revolutionaries,  the
lowest of the low,  how could they think of love?   It just wouldn't do....
She hated the fire that still blazed in her heart.  Why hadn't it gone out?
Why couldn't she be turned into wood or stone?   Everything else  had  been
taken away.   Life had put her beyond the pale as if she were a leper,  and
all that was left, confound it, was this tormenting fire.  As she swept the
street that morning tears coursed down her cheeks.

     For the next few mornings they ignored each other, sweeping the street
in silence.   Their hearts ached.   How they longed to live like real human
beings.  Qin still went to the inn at dawn to wait for her, turning away in
silence  when  she  came  out....    Time can heal a wounded heart,  dispel
despair, quench irresistible passions.   But only for a while,  only on the
surface.

     A few weeks later Qin seemed to have calmed down.  Yuyin smiled at him
again,  calling  him  "Brother  Qin",  and  her  smile and voice held a new
tenderness.   As if by tacit agreement they said no more about  the  danger
they  had  narrowly  escaped.   They reverted to their old ways.   Like two
street-sweeping machines,  they did not know why they were  living  or  how
they could live on.  This situation did not last long, however.  Yuyin came
down with flu and ran a fever,  growing delirious.   Qin had to do the work
of both,  after which he drew on his pitiful knowledge of medicine to  pick
wild  herbs and brew medicine for his "fellow criminal".   The townsfolk no
longer paid much attention to them,  and so this passed unnoticed.    Yuyin
could  only  lie in bed while Qin nursed her.   Every day with tears in her
eyes she would falter, "Brother Qin...."

     High and low have their different fates.   In a couple of  weeks  when
Yuyin had recovered she resumed her sweeping of the street.   At about five
every morning Qin would call her up and accompany her to the middle of  the
street.  But this was a time of thunderstorms and high winds, for it was an
unusually wet spring.   They went on sweeping the street mechanically, only
now they worked side by side.  Suddenly a storm broke, the sky turned black
and the rain came pouring down.

     Yuyin tugged Qin to run back to  the  inn,  where  they  arrived  like
drowned rats.   Her room was still dark.   They stripped off their drenched
clothes to wring them out, and with chattering teeth she begged:

     "Brother Qin ...  Brother Qin ...  do put your arms round me....   I'm
freezing."

     "And  only  just  over your illness.   Let me carry you to the kang to
tuck you up snug in the quilt."

     Qin groped through the dark till he was touching her.  To their horror
they had forgotten that they were naked.

     The rain beat down,  the wind roared.   If only that angry thunder and
lightning would stop,  letting the rain and mist shut out the world!   This
guilty pair of political reprobates,  the fire  in  their  hearts  not  yet
quenched,  still knew the lightning of passion, the warmth of life.  In the
wind and rain the tree of their love burgeoned to put out delicate  flowers
and form bitter fruit.




"An Intelligent Girl Like You"


     It often amazed Hu Yuyin that she could endure, live on, and even fall
in  love with Qin Shutian.   When marched back to the inn after having been
struggled against,  beaten and paraded,  she felt like life was  not  worth
living,  felt at her last gasp.   Sometimes, fully dressed, she fell into a
trouble sleep still wearing her black placard.   Opening her eyes the  next
morning,  she  could hardly believe that she was still alive.   If only she
had died!   She touched her breast and felt her heart still beating.   That
meant she must get up to sweep the street....

     In  moments  of self-pity she decided to choose a good day - the first
or the fifteenth - to kill herself.   As that would be her  last  act,  she
must  choose  a  lucky  day.    And she mustn't spoil her looks by hanging,
stabbing herself or taking ratsbane.  Drowning would be best.   Then,  when
they  fished  her  out  and laid her on a door-plank,  she would seem to be
sleeping, spick and span, her hair unruffled.  Only her face would be white
and rather puffy.  Once lovely as a goddess, she should keep her good looks
in death.  Then her ghost would not be ugly or frightening.

     So she often went up the stone bridge over Jade-leaf Stream  to  stare
into  the  water.   The bridge was nearly forty feet high,  the stream like
green silk.   The moist cliffs on either side were overgrown with saxifrage
and wistaria.  Looking down at their reflection in the water, you could see
two  bridges,  four  cliffs.    From  the  bridge she could see her dimples
reflected in the stream.  A high bridge, deep water, steep cliffs.  So many
unhappy women had committed suicide  here  that  the  townsfolk  called  it
Lovelorn Bridge.   Each time Yuyin came here to look at her reflection, her
heart ached and she wept.  Is that you, Yuyin?  Are you really a bad woman?
Have you wronged anyone?  Have you enemies?  No,  none!   She never trod on
an ant, seldom lost her temper, never even teased children.  Far from being
mean or grasping,  she'd helped many people....  So why was she persecuted,
hated and struggled against?   Treated as the lowest of the low,  unable to
hold up her head or to smile in public.   It was too unfair, too cruel!  "I
won't die!   Why should I?   I've done nothing wrong,  why shouldn't I live
on?"  So she never jumped off the bridge.

     She  had other ways of chastening herself.   Once she fasted for three
days.  Yet each morning she got up to comb her hair and wash her face; each
evening she had a bath and changed her clothes.   On  the  fourth  day  she
fainted  while  sweeping  the street.   Qin carried her back to the inn and
talked to her like a brother,  then made her egg soup.   As he fed  her  he
cried,  the  first  time  she  had  seen him in tears.   When this Iron-hat
Rightist was forced to kneel down on a brick or paraded with a placard,  he
always  grinned  as  if  going  to  a feast.   He seemed to be an incurable
optimist.   Now he was crying for her - that warmed her frozen heart.   She
had always been softhearted.  When Guigui was alive and they were well-off,
she had dreaded hearing about other people's troubles.   Qin Shutian, Crazy
Qin had been protecting her.    Before,  she  had  hated  him  as  the  man
responsible  for  her unhappiness.   Hadn't he spoiled her luck by bringing
all those actresses to her wedding to combat  feudalism?...    Now  he  was
trying to make it up to her.   Being in the same boat they sympathized with
each other.   As she lay in bed he softly sang the "Song of Copper  Coins",
each  verse ending with "an intelligent girl like you".   And as he sang he
looked at her with tears in his eyes.   What did he mean?   He did not want
her  to ruin her health,  he wanted her to live.   Hibiscus wasn't the only
place in the world,  and they still had their lives before them.   Besides,
there  must  be  more to life than political movements and struggles.   You
should realize that, an intelligent girl like you!...

     The strains of the old folk-song which Yuyin had sung as a child  made
her want to live on.   She began to pay more attention to Qin Shutian.  One
of the Five Categories, the lowest of the low, he was still so cheerful and
active, as if he found nothing shameful in being labelled a monster.   When
publicly paraded,  he always led the way boldly.   At criticism meetings he
flopped down on his knees, hanging his head, before being sworn at,  kicked
or beaten.   When his left ear was boxed,  he waited for another box on his
right.   The revolutionary masses said he wasn't a real diehard but an  old
campaigner.   At first Yuyin had thought him contemptible.   Later she came
to see that he was right,  because this way he got off more lightly.    But
she  couldn't  follow suit.   If anyone pulled her hair,  she couldn't help
smoothing it.   If anyone clamped down her head  she  always  smoothed  her
clothes when allowed to raise it.   If made to kneel,  as soon as she stood
up she brushed off the dust on her knees.  She received extra beatings as a
result,  but failed to change her  ways.    When  called  "a  diehard  rich
peasant", she wished she could die and be done with such persecution.

     Something else had motivated her to live on.   That was the arrival of
those lawless Red Guards with their northern accent,  who had pounced on Li
Guoxiang  the  secretary of the commune and paraded her with old shoes tied
round her neck.   What was the world coming to - this was unheard of!    It
seemed  anybody  could  be struggles against....   When she went home after
being paraded that day,  her heart  was  strangely  light.    It  was  bad,
gloating  over other people's misfortunes.   She washed her face and looked
at herself in the mirror,  the mirror her mother had left her.   Their  new
storeyed house,  confiscated in the Four Clean-ups,  had been turned into a
hostel and the old inn had been left to her.   It  must  be  several  years
since  she  last  looked  in  a mirror.   She discovered she had aged,  was
growing wrinkled; but the contours of her face hadn't changed, her hair was
still thick and soft, her eyes big and bright.   It occurred to her:  If Li
Guoxiang  weren't a cadre and I weren't a rich peasant,  hat bitch couldn't
compare with me!

     Sometimes she turned in early but couldn't sleep.   It was hot and she
lay naked on her quilt.   She covered her eyes as if in embarrassment, then
lowered her hands to her breasts, still so full and firm.  Really,  she was
like a new bride,  how disgusting, but there was nothing she could do about
it.   She didn't look like one  of  the  Five  Categories,  who  should  be
shriveled  and bent.   After that she went on looking in the mirror,  often
weeping at her reflection,  wishing that the fire in  her  heart  could  be
extinguished.

     That  morning  during  the  storm,  when  it  was too dark to see your
outstretched fingers and she and Qin were wet through,  Old Man Heaven  had
connived at their crime....  But the townsfolk's vigilance was concentrated
on  politics and class struggle.   How could they have imagined that making
these two bad elements sweep the street would lead to this  affair  between
them?   Dazed and exhausted by endless movements, promotions and demotions,
constant uncertainty and the slogans which changed  from  one  day  to  the
next, the townsfolk merely noticed that the flagstone street seemed cleaner
every day,  so spick and span that a grain of rice dropped by a child could
be picked up and eaten.   An Qin  Shutian  and  Hu  Yuyin  were  uncommonly
diligent,  volunteering  for  all  the  heaviest,  dirtiest work.   Yuyin's
wrinkles smoothed out and her cheeks were as rosy as a flowering  hibiscus.
Anyone would have thought she had been notified that her "new rich peasant"
label would soon be removed.

     So  the  Iron-hat Rightist and "new rich peasant" widow lived together
illicitly,  in fear and trembling,  like young  lovers  whose  parents  are
opposed  to  their  marriage.    Yet to them every second was sweet.   They
embraced and  kissed  passionately,  their  long  pent-up  emotion  finding
expression  at  last.    They  knew  this was very risky,  in view of their
political and social status.   So they never lit a lamp at night,  used  to
living  in the dark and enjoying it.   Sleeping on Qin's arm,  sometimes in
her dreams Yuyin murmured,  "Guigui,  Guigui."  But this did not upset Qin,
who would answer as if he were Guigui,  still devoted to his wife.  He sang
Yuyin all the songs from Wedding Songs,  and she admired his  good  memory,
his fine voice.

     "You're  the  one  with a fine voice,  Yuyin.   That year I brought my
actresses here,  you were so charming ,  had such a crystal voice,  that we
wanted to get you to join our ensemble.  But at eighteen you married...."

     "That  was my fate.   But you shouldn't have used our wedding for your
rehearsal, you spoiled our luck...."

     "Are you crying again?  I shouldn't have raked up the past."

     "I don't blame you, brother.   It's my fault,  I'm ill-starred.   See,
I've stopped crying, sing me some more songs."

     Qin sang:

          My love's like a flower in bloom,
          Tomorrow the sedan-chair will bring me my bride.
          On red-lacquered stools, while drums and fiddles sound,
          We'll drink in the bridal chamber side by side.

     And  this  time she joined in,  both of them singing so softly that no
one outside could hear.  Theirs was the happiness now of true lovers.

     When summer came Yuyin suffered from nausea and could eat nothing  but
pickles.    When  at last it dawned on her that she was pregnant she nearly
fainted away,  not knowing whether to laugh or cry.    For  years  she  had
longed  in  vain  for  a  child,  but now this "happy event" had caught her
unawares when her life was so wretched.   Why hadn't it  happened  earlier?
If she'd had three or four children when she kept her beancurd stall,  they
would never have built that storeyed house.  With all those extra mouths to
feed she would have been eligible for relief;  and Guigui would never  have
taken  his own life....   The fortune-teller had told her that she would be
childless,  yet here she was in the family way at last.   Was this good  or
bad?  She panicked.  But she resolved to put up with any pains to have this
child,  even  if  it  cost  her  life.   People had jeered at her for being
barren, and she had thought bearing children a woman's first duty.

     Yuyin was in no hurry to tell Qin that she was expecting.   She  would
wait till she was absolutely certain.  But she clung to him more fondly and
often cooked him special dished which she herself would not touch.   At the
same time,  as if purifying herself for some religious rite,  she no longer
slept  with  him,  preferring  to  lie  quietly alone without any covering,
stroking her belly to feel the small life inside....   Her eyes shone  with
happiness,  with tears of joy.   Life had never been so good since Guigui's
death.  What a fool she had been to want to kill herself.  How could anyone
call her an intelligent girl?

     One morning a month later,  when positive that she was  pregnant,  she
shared her secret with Qin.   He understood then why she had treated him so
affectionately yet kept him at a distance.    Dropping  his  broom  in  the
street  he drew her to him laughing through his tears.   She hastily warned
him not to make a scene.

     "Yuyin,  we'll own up to the brigade and apply  to  get  married,"  he
cried, his head on her breast.  "This is something I never dared dream of."

     "Will  they let us?   Won't this count as another crime?" she answered
calmly, having thought of all eventualities.

     "We're still human.  There's no rule forbidding the Five Categories to
marry," he assured her, his arms around her.

     "If they'll let us marry,  fine.   But nowadays people  are  like  mad
bulls, out for blood....  Never mind.  Don't you worry, brother.  No matter
what they do, this baby is ours.  Oh, how I'm longing for it!"

     She pressed close to him, trembling and sobbing, as if giant hands had
reached out to snatch her unborn child away.

     That  morning,  naturally,  the  flagstone street was not swept clean.
And starting from that morning, Qin Shutian took on the duties of a husband
and would not let Yuyin get up to sweep.   She was  able  to  lie  in,  and
sometimes indulged in tantrums.   Qin, whether deliberately or not, made it
clear to the townsfolk that she was his woman and he would sweep  her  half
of the street for her.




Mortals and Devils


     Wang  Qiushe's fall at the foot of the co-op wall kept him indoors for
two months.  When Chairman Li Guoxiang came to inspect Hibiscus she visited
the stilt-house and told him in a perfunctory way to take it easy and  rest
well,  simply  glancing  at  his  badly swollen foot without touching it or
showing much concern.  Had she been any other woman,  Wang might have sworn
at  her  lack of sympathy.   But after all their scandalous carryings-on he
felt indebted to her  for  favouring  and  boosting  him.    For  her,  his
superior,  to  visit  him  was  an act of condescension.   One could hardly
expect a member of the county revolutionary committee,  the chairman of the
commune,  to  snivel  or  cry like an ordinary woman.   Her calm showed her
courage and insight.   He should learn from her now to behave  and  get  on
with other people.

     One day Wang,  leaning on a cane, was hobbling outside the stilt-house
to limber up when along came the Iron-hat Rightist.   A "confession" in his
hands,  Qin bowed to him.  Wang stopped to read the confession and gaped in
astonishment, blinking.

     "What the devil!  Applying to marry the rich peasant widow Hu Yuyin?"

     Qin bowed again and answered respectfully,  "That's  right,  Secretary
Wang."   To lessen the tension he inquired politely,  "Is your foot better,
secretary?  Shall I fetch you more herbs from the hills?"

     Wang frowned,  stopped blinking and narrowed  his  beady  eyes.    His
feelings  about this Iron-hat Rightist were mixed.   When he had slipped in
the cow-dung that unlucky morning,  it was Qin who had carried him home and
covered  up  for  him by spreading the story that he had sprained his ankle
while inspecting the paddy fields.   The brigade had therefore regarded  it
as  an injury incurred at work,  and had paid for all his medical expenses.
But what about Hu Yuyin?   Wang had had designs  on  the  attractive  young
widow,  but  had  made  no  advances  to  her because of his affair with Li
Guoxiang.   Life was truly kaleidoscopic.   Imagine a woman with  her  fine
looks  first  marrying that dolt of a butcher,  then falling into the black
hands of Qin Shutian.

     "Have you been having it off with her?" Wang glared at Qin  as  if  to
divine his secrets.

     "Of  course  I  can't  hide  the  truth  from you,  secretary...." Qin
answered disarmingly with a shameless grin.

     "You're farting!  When did this start, eh?"

     "I don't remember exactly, but I'll come clean to the higher-ups.   We
had to sweep the flagstone street every morning,  and what with her being a
widow and me a bachelor we felt drawn to each other."

     "Two birds of a feather.  How many times have you laid her?"

     "I ... I'd never dare, not without the higher-ups' permission."

     "You're lying!  Who are you fooling?   A titbit like her,  who's never
had a child - how could a randy tomcat like you resist her?"

     Qin  flushed.   "Don't laugh at us.   Hens mate with cocks,  phoenixes
with phoenixes....   Can the brigade write us a note to take to the commune
and get registered?"

     Leaning  on  his  cane  Wang  hobbled  to a rock to sit down.   He was
frowning again with narrowed eyes.   Qin's "confession"  posed  a  problem.
"Two  of  the  Five  Categories want to get married....   Is there any rule
about this?   The Marriage Law only mentions citizens with political rights
who are over eighteen....   But do you count as citizens?   You're the scum
of society, the targets of dictatorship!"

     Qin bit his lips,  wiped off his smile  and  said  grimly,  "Secretary
Wang, we're still human beings, aren't we?  However bad, we're still human!
And even if we were cocks,  hens,  geese or ganders, who could stop us from
mating?"

     Wang bellowed with laughter,  tears starting to his eyes.   "Fuck your
mother,  Crazy Qin!  I don't treat your lot like animals, that's the policy
for all China, so don't you distort it.  All right, I'll be lenient.  We'll
discuss your confession in our brigade headquarters,  then send it  to  the
commune for approval.   But I'd have you know new directives have come down
from the Central Committee,  calling for another  campaign  to  purify  the
class ranks.  So you may not get permission."

     Qin pleaded,  "Secretary Wang, if you put in a word for us the commune
will approve....  We've already ... already...."

     Wang's eyes widened.   He thumped the ground with his cane.   "Already
what?  Out with it."

     Qin  hung  his head.   He decided he had better own up now rather than
later.  "Yuyin's in the family way...."

     Wang spat in disgust.  "Damned diehards!   Two class enemies having it
off on the sly....   Clear off!   Tomorrow I'll send you a couplet on white
paper to put up on the door of the inn."

     The next day a militiaman delivered this couplet to Qin.   It was just
what he wanted.   Smiling all over his face he took it to the inn.   Yuyin,
lighting the fire, burst into tears at the sight.

     Putting up white couplets  was  a  punishment  introduced  during  the
movement  to  do away with old ideas,  old customs and the old culture,  to
make public the scandalous goings-on of lovers, so that their names stank.

     "Don't cry, Yuyin.   See what's written here?   It won't hurt us."  He
spread out the couplet.   "Our relationship is publicly acknowledged by the
brigade.

          A guilty pair
          A black couple.

And above is: The Monsters' Lair.   Who cares whether we're black or  white
or  labelled as monsters.   The brigade's made it clear that we are husband
and wife."

     Qin was really a clever devil.    Yuyin  stopped  crying.    With  her
approval  he  made some paste and stuck the white couplet neatly on the inn
gate.

     Word of this caused a great stir in Hibiscus.   Old and young came  to
marvel at this wonder.

     "A black couple - that's a fact."

     "Yes,  a widow in her thirties,  a bachelor in his forties, just right
for each other!"

     "Will they give a wedding feast?"

     "If they do, who'd date go?"

     "Is this some kind of retribution?"

     For half a month the  townsfolk  could  talk  of  nothing  else.    Gu
Yanshan,  still  nominally  the deputy manager of the grain depot,  went to
look at the couplet but did not make any comment.

     The townsfolk's speculations gave Qin and Yuyin an idea.   One evening
when  all  the  shops were closed,  they prepared two bottles of wine and a
dozen dishes, put their wine cups on red paper as if for some ritual,  then
raised these nuptial cups.   Though the commune had not given its approval,
no one was likely to take any interest in their wedding.  If they did, that
would be showing them a favour.   Anyway it was already  a  fait  accompli,
accepted  by  the brigade and their fellow townsfolk.   Like attracts like.
If two monsters came together it didn't hurt  anyone  else.    Their  faces
shone with joy....

     As  they  toasted  each  other  in  the  time-honoured  way they heard
knocking at the gate.   It terrified them.   Yuyin trembled and Qin put his
arm round her to protect her.  Knock, knock, knock!

     Qin whispered, "Listen to that knocking.  It's not the way the militia
come to nab us, yelling their heads off and kicking the door or pounding it
with rifle butts...."

     Yuyin calmed down and nodded.  Men kept their heads in a crisis.

     "Shall I open the door?" he asked.

     "Yes."

     When  Qin summoned up courage to open the door,  he discovered that it
was Old Gu,  the "soldier from the north".   He had brought a cardboard box
and a gourd of liquor.   Well,  this was a surprise!  Qin hastily asked him
in and bolted the door while Yuyin,  still pale with fright,  offered him a
seat.  And Old Gu did not stand on ceremony.

     "Earlier  today  I spotted you buying fish and pork on the sly....   I
thought,  I must go and drink a cup at their wedding....    I  figured  you
wouldn't report me....   You two, as far as I can see, aren't the usual run
of the Five Categories.   And a marriage comes only once - or at most twice
in a lifetime...."

     When the "black couple" heard this, tears streamed from their eyes and
they  knelt  down  to  kowtow.   So in this world of cut-throats there were
still decent people.  Sympathy and kindness hadn't died out completely.

     Gu Yanshan let them kowtow to him.   Then chuckling rather tipsily  he
said,  "Get up,  get up.  This is the old-fashioned way.  Want me to act as
go-between?  These last few years,  looking at the world with drunken eyes,
I see everything more clearly.   Actually your go-betweens were your brooms
and the flagstones in the street....   Never mind,  this evening I can play
the part!"

     Husband  and wife wanted to kneel again,  but he hastily made them sit
down as if he were really the master of ceremonies.

     "I've brought you a small present."  Old Gu opened the  cardboard  box
and  took  out  four lengths of cloth,  a toy car and aeroplane and a doll.
"Don't refuse now.  I give presents like this whenever any of the townsfolk
marry....  Hope you'll soon have a bouncing son ...  doesn't matter whether
you're  red  or  black,  now  that  you're  married  you're  bound  to have
children."

     Yuyin felt so overwhelmed she nearly fainted away ...  but she took  a
grip on herself.  Kneeling before Old Gu again she sobbed:

     "Chairman  Gu!    You must let me kneel to you....   Because of me and
those rice seconds, you were framed....  I'm to blame for all your troubles
...  and you an old cadre from the north....   If  all  cadres,  all  Party
members were like you,  we'd have some peace....  Chairman Gu, if you don't
despise me, I'll slave like an ox to make it up to you."

     That reduced Old Gu to tears too, but he forced a smile, "Get up,  get
up,  let's  enjoy  ourselves,  why  harp on that?   We're the ones who know
ourselves best.  Come on,  drink!   There's no work for me now in the grain
depot, so this evening I mean to get good and drunk."  Qin reset the table.
Husband and wife toasted Old Gu with brimming glasses of wine.   But having
tossed his back he produced his gourd, making them regret not having bought
a bottle of spirits that day.

     "That sweet red wine will make you a loving couple.  But I'll stick to
my fire-water - more kick in it."

     They toasted each other in turn, all deeply moved.   Then Gu proposed,
"Old Qin!   I heard you were made a Rightist because of some wedding songs,
and Yuyin has a fine voice, so why not sing now at your own wedding feast?"

     How could they refuse this request?   Flushed with wine and happiness,
husband and wife stuck up the lively Chair-bearer's Song:

          Why cry, pretty bride?  We'll carry you there,
          Our eyes your lanterns, our shoulders your chair.
          Four men, eight legs fly like the wind,
          Our shoulders sore, the bend and slope left behind.
          Give me a smile, a laugh; I'll quench my thirst
          At your wedding feast, but call me "brother" first!



     A  month  later Qin Shutian and Hu Yuyin were summoned to the commune.
They thought it was to register their marriage; but Qin took the precaution
of taking along two changes of clothes in a bag.

     As soon as they entered the office,  Chairman Li Guoxiang pounded  her
desk and thundered at Qin:

     "Qin Shutian!  Of all the gall, you Iron-hat Rightist!"

     Wang Qiushe was sitting beside her,  his face furious.   With them was
another commune cadre, paper and pen before him.

     Qin and Yuyin lowered their heads,  their arms at their  sides.    Not
knowing what was wrong Qin said, "I admit my crime to the leadership...."

     "When labouring under surveillance, in defiance of the laws and of the
masses  you lived in sin with the rich peasant Hu Yuyin,  making a frenzied
attack on the proletarian dictatorship...."

     The  previous  evening,   when  Wang  Qiushe  had  come  to  ask   for
instructions,  Chairman  Li  had pressed him for details about his sprained
ankle.   He described how he had slipped in some cow-dung while leaving the
co-op first thing in the morning and how Qin, then sweeping the street, had
carried him back to the stilt-house.   Recently, he said, Qin's conduct had
improved.

     "Trust you to be taken in!" she jeered.  "You fool!   How wide is that
alley by the co-op's side gate?  People never lead cows down it.  How could
cow-dung come there?   You spent so many nights in the co-op,  the Iron-hat
Rightist must have spotted you and laid that trap for you!   Dumb as an  ox
you are, with no notion of class struggle!"

     Wang wished he could hide his head for shame.   But he was convinced -
she had better judgement than he did.

     "Class revenge!  Tomorrow I'll send militiamen to nab Crazy Qin!  I'll
have his hide!"  Wang was livid at having been tricked and made  to  suffer
for over two months by a Rightist.

     "We  mustn't  use  force,  mustn't  flay  a class enemy," she answered
calmly.   "Hasn't he asked to marry Hu  Yuyin?    In  fact  they're  living
together  openly.    First  we'll  announce that their marriage is illegal.
Then send him to a labour camp for ten years - we  can  notify  the  county
authorities.   In a labour camp he won't be able to spy on us."  So Qin and
Yuyin were summoned to the commune.

     "Qin Shutian!   Hu Yuyin!    Is  it  true  that  you  are  co-habiting
illicitly?"  Li Guoxiang demanded sternly.

     Qin  looked  up  to  plead,  "I've done wrong....   But we handed in a
confession to the brigade cadres and they sent us  a  white  paper  couplet
acknowledging us as a 'black couple'....  We thought, seeing that she was a
widow and I was a bachelor of over forty,  both in the Five Categories, and
we hadn't done anything  sneaky  ...  the  commune  leadership  would  give
permission...."

     "You're  farting!"  Hearing this insinuation Wang pounded the desk and
sprang to his feet.   "You shameless swine!   Rightist hooligan!   Counter-
revolutionary scoundrel!   Kneel to beg my pardon,  quick!  Today I've seen
through you, you dog.  Dammit, kneel!"

     Yuyin took Qin's arm.   A Rightist for so many years,  today  for  the
first  time he refused to kneel or even hang his head.   In the past he had
submitted to political orders, but he wasn't going to kneel to this lecher.
Yuyin,  sensing this,  plucked up  courage.    Wang  charged  towards  them
fiercely brandishing his huge fists.

     "Wang Qiushe!   Let me say a word before you kill us!"  Yuyin faced up
firmly to the stilt-house owner, and the look in her eyes halted him.

     "How long have we known each other?   This isn't the first time  we've
stood  face  to  face,  is  it?   But I've never washed your dirty linen in
public....  I won't in future either.   All the townsfolk know about us and
accept  our register.   So today just tell me this:  Are we the ones who've
broken the law,  or those cadres who makes reports in the daytime and sneak
through side gates after dark?"

     "How  dare  you!   Open defiance!"  Even seasoned Li Guoxiang had lost
her cool.   She began to swear like  a  fishwife:  "Diehard  rich  peasant!
Slut!  Bitch!...  I'll tear out your tongue!"

     This scene was a disgrace to the commune office.  The art of struggle,
dignified  leadership,  a  high  political  level had all been flung to the
winds.   But now Chairman Li gritted her teeth and took a grip on  herself,
clenching  her  fists.    She had learned from Vice-commander Lin Biao that
political power is the power of repression.   The time had come to exercise
this power.

     "Send in some militiamen!   Bring wire!   Strip the rich peasant woman
naked and wire her breasts!"

     Were these inhuman orders carried out?    It  does  not  bear  writing
about.    But  even  more primitive tortures than these were carried out in
China in the late sixties of the twentieth century.

     When the new movement to purify the class ranks was  launched  in  the
commune,  Qin  and  Yuyin  were  its chief targets as counter-revolutionary
criminals.   Their trial took place on the stage in Hibiscus  market-place.
Qin  was  sentence  to ten years' hard labour and Yuyin to three;  but she,
being pregnant,  would not be sent to a camp.   Many of the townsfolk  shed
tears for them in secret, including Li Mangeng and his wife Peppery.  These
townsfolk  had  no firm stand and could not distinguish between friend foe.
They failed to realize that  any  kindness  to  unarmed  enemies  like  Qin
Shutian  would  have  endangered the people.   That if they were to stage a
come-back, tens of thousands of revolutionary heads would fall,  streams of
blood would flow and corpses would strew the ground.  Then Qin would put on
his Wedding Songs again,  attacking socialism as if it were feudalism,  and
their country would change colour.   Yuyin would set up  her  stall  again,
selling  beancurd  at  ten cents a bowl to exploit the people,  so that she
could build another storeyed house and become a new landlord or a new  rich
peasant.

     Qin  and Yuyin proved stubborn and defiant at their trial.   They shed
no tears.   All these years of being struggled against had turned them into
unregenerate   diehards,   the   social   base   of   counter-revolutionary
revisionism.   Qin refused to admit his guilt or bow his head.   And  Yuyin
held  herself  proudly,  letting  everybody  see  the vile new life she was
carrying.   Even when sentence was passed,  the militiamen could not  clamp
down the prisoners' heads.

     Standing side by side,  they looked into each other's eyes.  They said
not a word, that would not have been allowed.  But each knew what the other
diehard was thinking.

     "Live on, just stick it out."

     "Don't worry.   Most of the townsfolk are good people.   I shall stick
it out for our child."