Director Ma looks out through the car window at the fields he ploughed when he was a sent-down youth. The blazing August sun has scorched a line of young saplings planted along the Fenshui River. Beyond them, he sees the imposing red-brick warehouse that was built in the 1920s beside a pier where junks from the cities upstream would pick up cargo on their way to Ziyang. Now the river is too shallow for large vessels to navigate, but back during the violent struggle, it was filled with boats and the sound of gunfire. Rival factions fought for control of the river front to ensure the flow of supplies to their forces in Ziyang. It was here that East is Red and the Million Bold Warriors waged their bloodiest battles.
In a battle in May 1968, an East is Red unit from the electricity plant joined forces with a platoon of lower-middle-class peasants and students from Red Flag Secondary School to regain control of the wharf. They approached in rowing boats, firing shrapnel at the red warehouse, and moored at the pier. A dozen workers jumped ashore and charged at the warehouse with machine guns, yelling, ‘Enemy forces must surrender or die!’ But the Million Bold Warriors were prepared. They tossed hand grenades at the pier, setting it alight. Then they gunned down any East is Red worker who jumped into the river and sent motorboats out to block their escape routes.
Four days later, our unit drove to the red warehouse in army tanks to launch a revenge attack. When we arrived, we saw a hundred black and swollen corpses still trapped beneath the pier … As Ma Daode stares at the red warehouse now, he catches a scent of rotting flesh … We held a funeral service for them. One girl stepped onto a stone bench and recited her poem through a megaphone: ‘“I’m dying, mother. / Tell the Million Bold Warriors that no crime against humanity will evade the punishment of history.”’ We had lit hundreds of incense sticks to try to mask the stench, but it was so overpowering that after reading only two lines the girl stopped and retched.
On the other side of the river he can see Yaobang Industrial Park. The wild grove has been felled recently to make way for a road that will extend to a steel bridge currently under construction. Eventually the park will spread across the river, doubling in size and engulfing the whole of Yaobang. The villagers have mounted fierce protests against the development, so work has been placed on hold for the last six months. But the authorities have decided that Yaobang must be demolished today, and as Ma Daode lived here in the Cultural Revolution, Mayor Chen has sent him to persuade the villagers to peacefully evacuate their homes.
In a meeting convened by the Demolition Bureau last night, Director Ma heard that the government has offered Yaobang more compensation than any other village that has been demolished in the county. But because of Yaobang’s proximity to Ziyang, its farmers have become rich over the last decade selling mushrooms, herbs and poultry to the city, and have built three-storey houses which they insist are worth much more than the compensation offered by the government. Endless disputes have ensued. Director Ma has no choice now but to grit his teeth and make a final, last-ditch effort to bring them round.
He remembers how, a year after he left the village, he returned with his propaganda troupe to perform the final scene of The White-Haired Girl. He danced the proletarian hero while Juan danced his fiancée, the white-haired peasant girl. After rescuing her from her mountain cave and overthrowing the evil landlord, he led her off towards a glorious Communist future, leaping and pirouetting across the stage with such dazzling grace that the entire audience gasped in awe. In the evening, Secretary Meng, the village head, invited him and Juan back for dinner. He served them wine and fried vegetables, and even killed a chicken in their honour. The villagers felt proud that the sent-down youths they had looked after for so long had achieved such success.
The straight concrete road along which Ma Daode is being chauffeured in a Japanese Land Cruiser was built in 1978, at the start of the reform era. The riverside track it replaced used to get very muddy after the rain. When Ma Daode first arrived here with the eleven other teenagers from Ziyang, he slipped down into the mud so many times that, in the end, he pulled off his canvas shoes and trudged the rest of the way to the village barefoot, all the while staring at the bottom of the girl in front of him, who would later become his wife. That first evening, Secretary Meng presented each of the sent-down youths a hand-carved whetstone. Four years later, when he received the official letter summoning him back to Ziyang, Ma Daode walked to the end of the pier, took the whetstone from his bag and hurled it into the river as far as he could.
In the distance he glimpses the Cultural Revolution slogan ENEMY FORCES MUST SURRENDER OR DIE painted on a wall which, a second later, he sees is the new perimeter of the Industrial Park. As the car speeds on, he realises that it is he who is daubing the past onto the present.
As soon as the girl on the stone bench retched, everyone else began to vomit as well. Then five ragged Million Bold Warriors were dragged from the red warehouse out onto the pier, kicked in the back of their knees and forced to kneel. Raising a Mauser pistol high in the air, a mad-eyed boy called Tan Dan announced that East is Red had lost one hundred and twenty comrades and that their deaths must be avenged. Then he went over to the five captives and, one by one, shot them in the head and kicked them into the river. After he walked away, all that remained on the pier was half a skull dripping with fresh blood.
Director Ma tells his driver, Mr Tai, to pull up on the side of the road, then he jumps out, clasps his hands together and draws deep breaths, trying to empty his mind. He doesn’t want these nightmare visions to distract him from this morning’s task. The demolition workers who tried to bulldoze the village last month were attacked so violently that several were taken to hospital and almost died. At noon today, a task force including police officers, armed police and ambulance men will enter the village to enforce the evacuation. On the road ahead, Director Ma sees red flags fluttering from the flat roof of a fake house constructed of concrete blocks and plywood.
‘Please get back in the car, Director Ma,’ says his secretary, Hu. ‘You have a lunch meeting at one with the Prosperity Hotel general manager to discuss sponsorship of the Golden Anniversary Dream, so we don’t want to run late.’
‘Do we have to go any further?’ Mr Tai says nervously. ‘What if the villagers drag us out of the car?’ He’s wearing a smart Western suit and has a long, skinny neck. A young man from the Demolition Bureau is sitting in the passenger seat beside him.
‘Drive on, don’t be afraid,’ says Director Ma. ‘I was a sent-down youth here in the Cultural Revolution, so they will treat us with respect.’ He then phones Commander Zhao, head of the Demolition Bureau, and Director Jia, head of Public Security, who are travelling in the car behind, and says, ‘We’ll go in first. You stay here. I’ll call if we need you.’
The Land Cruiser pulls up outside the concrete house festooned with red flags. Before Director Ma set off this morning, he was told by his network of informers that this fake house was the protest headquarters, and that the surrounding makeshift watchtowers were equipped only with bricks, metal rods and petrol cans, and could be easily overcome. The fake house stands right at the entrance to the village. There are three toppled telegraph poles blocking the road ahead, and red flags and banners jutting from the trees on either side. The surrounding fields are dotted with other fake dwellings farmers have built in the last few months, hoping to pass them off as real houses and so earn more compensation. These tall shacks have neither stairs nor electricity, and are used mainly for housing pigs and growing mushrooms. Although many villagers have factory jobs in the cities, few have dared leave Yaobang recently in case their land is seized in their absence. To protect their property, they have formed a Land Defence League and take turns manning the various watchtowers. Although they drove back the demolition team last time, it was not a complete victory. Twenty villagers were arrested and thirty were hospitalised; the mushrooms in Gao Wenshe’s shack were tossed onto the fields, and a bulldozer dumped earth into the village pond, killing Old Yang’s goldfish. Ma Daode has been informed that in preparation for today’s assault, Old Yang’s son, Genzai, has built a cannon and converted his delivery van into a crude armoured tank.
A group of villagers wanders up, saying: ‘No cars allowed into the village.’
‘Tell Secretary Meng to come and speak to us,’ Director Ma shouts, climbing out of the Land Cruiser. Above the doorway of the concrete house is a banner that says LAND DEFENCE LEAGUE WATCHTOWER. He peers through an unglazed window and sees villagers sitting at tables playing mah-jong. During the last month, Secretary Meng has phoned him countless times, begging him to persuade the authorities to save Yaobang. Director Ma did pass on his letter of appeal, but he suspects the developers gave Mayor Chen a huge bribe, because the demolition team are under strict orders today to flatten the entire village. Director Ma feels his courage waver. His heart is thumping wildly.
‘Secretary Meng’s ill, he’s at home in bed,’ a young man with a shaven head calls out from the back of the room.
‘Let me speak to Genzai then, the commander of the Land Defence League,’ Director Ma replies, sticking his head further inside the window.
‘I am Genzai,’ the young man says, walking over to him. ‘Wait a minute – are you Old Ma? How come you’ve got so fat?’ Genzai looks as tall as his father, Old Yang, but his eyebrows and forehead remind Director Ma of Genzai’s drowned sister, Fang.
‘Ah, Genzai, it’s you!’ Director Ma says, softening his tone, hoping to ingratiate himself. ‘Your dear father, Old Yang, was like a father to me. He’s well, I hope?’
‘Dad told me that since you’ve become a municipal leader, you’ve forgotten about your old friends in Yaobang.’ Genzai strolls out of the fake house and puts a cigarette in his mouth.
‘“When you drink a cup of water, never forget who drew it from the well,” as the saying goes. Yaobang Village is still very close to my heart, I assure you.’ Director Ma hopes that if he wins Genzai over, the rest of the village will follow.
‘Well, tell your friends from the Demolition Bureau to fuck off, then,’ Genzai snaps back. ‘Unless they accept our demands, we won’t let them into the village.’
When Ma Daode first arrived in Yaobang as a sent-down youth, he stayed in Old Yang’s home for a few months until the new village school was built. It was a small brick house partitioned by mud walls into three rooms. The central room had only a stove, a few farm tools and some wicker baskets, so Old Yang sectioned off a corner of it for him with a bamboo blind. Fang, who was about eight at the time, would often kneel in front of the stove and put water on to boil. Genzai was born shortly after Ma Daode moved in. Today, in his grey shirt and nylon trousers, he looks like a township clerk.
On the old phone Ma Daode reserves for conversations with his mistress Li Wei, he receives a text from her, saying: EVERY MORNING I WILL SERVE YOU BREAD, MILK AND BOILED EGGS. WITH ME BY YOUR SIDE, ALL YOUR WORRIES WILL BE GONE … He wishes he could turn this phone off and not have to read her messages, but as he lent his other phone to Commander Zhao, he needs to keep it switched on.
‘The expanded Industrial Park will be a boon for you all,’ Director Ma says with a big smile. ‘You’ll be given apartments in the new village just two kilometres away, and well-paid factory jobs. Look at the bridge that’s being built. It’s been designed by foreign engineers, and will be the first steel bridge to span the Fenshui River. It will make a splendid entrance for visitors to Ziyang.’
‘You have some gall, Director Ma! Yaobang villagers looked after you for four years, but now that you’re an official, instead of repaying your debt to us, you come and tear down our homes! Ungrateful bastard!’ Ma Daode recognises this man. His father was branded a ‘former rich peasant’ during the Cultural Revolution. He visited their home once. The whitewashed walls, spotless brick floor and earthen teapot evoked the simpler lives of times long past.
Director Ma considers launching into the speech that has been brewing in his mind, but doesn’t want to waste it on such a small audience. He turns to the friendliest-looking man, the elderly postman, and says: ‘Can you ask all the villagers to come out? I have some important things to say.’
‘If anyone dares destroy my ancestral home, I’ll fight them to the death,’ shouts a young man in a red baseball cap, standing behind Genzai. ‘The twenty villagers who were arrested last time were supposed to be released today, but there’s still no sign of them.’ Ma Daode knows that this man is an informer. The authorities have promised him that if today’s demolition goes according to plan, he’ll be given the job of chauffeur to the manager of the Industrial Park.
Director Ma’s old friend Dingguo walks up, a big bandage around his head, and shouts: ‘We don’t need you to mediate!’ In the last clash with the demolition team, Dingguo got struck on the head by a truncheon while trying to stop them from arresting his son. Director Ma knows he needs to get him on side as well. Although Dingguo is four years his junior, his hair is already completely white. Ma Daode remembers how Dingguo liked to tag along with him when he went out for walks and tell him the provenance of every dog in the village.
‘It’s good to see you, Brother Dingguo. Let’s try to reach a compromise.’ Ma Daode wants to start off by reminding him that he gave his daughter, Liu Qi, her job in the municipal government.
‘There’s no point talking to you corrupt officials,’ says the informer in the red baseball cap. ‘You don’t understand: if we can’t farm our land, our tractors and ploughs will turn to rust.’
‘You feast on exotic delicacies now, Ma Daode,’ Dingguo says, ‘but we’re just lowly peasants. If you seize our land, we’ll have nothing left. And how do you expect us to buy a house in the new village with the measly compensation you’re offering us?’ Although Dingguo has deep wrinkles and white hair, when his face scrunches up with anger, he still looks like a child.
‘What about all the wads of cash you have stashed under your bed – why not give a few of them to us?’ says a man called Liu Youcai. His grandfather built the red warehouse. After the Communists seized power, his parents donated it to the state and moved into the north-facing outhouse which is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. He is a shrewd little man with a ruddy complexion and dark, hypnotic eyes. As soon as the Daoist temple was built on Wolf Tooth Mountain, he secured a licence to run a fortune-telling stall outside the entrance, and from his earnings has bought himself a Volkswagen estate and a two-storey house with solar panels. Villagers often seek him out for advice and guidance, and before anyone leaves to find work in the city, they always ask him to choose an auspicious date for the journey.
Liu Youcai casts his eyes over the assembled crowd, waiting for it to fall silent, then turns to Director Ma and says: ‘We’ve been notified that the village will be torn down at noon. No one died last time the demolition team tried to evict us. But if the bulldozers roll up here again, we’ll fight to the bitter end. They’ve sent you here first to sweet-talk us into leaving, haven’t they? If you win this battle, you’ll be made Municipal Party Secretary, no doubt. If you lose, you’ll still keep your job. But if we lose, we’ll become rootless vagrants, and will spend the rest of our lives in and out of jail, vainly petitioning for redress. What might we gain from this deal? At most, some menial factory job in the Industrial Park. But just think what we would lose: the ancient Buddhist temple, the historic Liu Clan Ancestral Hall, the unique black-brick courtyard houses, the thousand-year-old locust tree. Our Liu ancestors chose this site for the village because of its auspicious location, with the mountain range stretching like a protective dragon to the north and the life-giving river to the south. In the last two centuries, the village has produced four eminent scholars and three county-level officials. We have resolved to defend Yaobang to the death, not just to safeguard our own livelihoods, but more importantly, to preserve our heritage and our ancestral graves. So, I’m sorry, Director Ma, but we won’t be taking your miserable compensation fee.’
‘Don’t cling to your petty clanship dreams!’ Director Ma replies. ‘Embrace the China Dream, then the Global Dream, and the world will be our oyster. You could emigrate to Europe and live in any castle or country estate you want.’
‘Think you can fool us with that crap?’ Genzai shouts. ‘Why don’t you bugger off to Europe, and visit your old friend Karl Marx while you’re at it. We know our rights. Remember that speech President Xi Jinping gave last week? See, we’ve painted a quote from it on that wall: ANY OFFICIAL WHO CARRIES OUT VIOLENT LAND REQUISITIONS WHICH HARM THE INTERESTS OF THE PEASANTS WILL BE HELD TO ACCOUNT.’
‘We’ve heard Ziyang and Zigong have dispatched a hundred armed officers and eighty riot police here today. But we’re not afraid. We have the support of President Xi Jinping himself!’ This man shouting from the roof of the fake house is Guan Dalin, the sales manager of the Industrial Park’s concrete factory. He can finish a bottle of rice wine at one sitting, and is the only man in the village to have succeeded in marrying a woman with an urban residency permit.
Director Ma feels suffocated and out of place, like a swan trapped in a hen house. In his entire career, he has never faced such hostile defiance.
‘We’ve prepared for this battle,’ says Genzai. ‘We painted a huge portrait of President Xi yesterday. It’s on the roof up there. When we unfurl it over the house, let’s see if the bulldozers dare come near us. Did you know that President Xi spent seven years in this province as a rusticated youth?’
‘He was sent to the north of the province – he has no connections with anyone down here,’ Director Ma replies. ‘Have you heard about the violent struggle phase of the early Cultural Revolution, before the Red Guards were disbanded and expelled to the countryside? Back then, even death was no escape from the horror. That red warehouse over there was crammed with bodies. Green-bottle flies were drawn by the stench and clung to the bricks in such big swarms that the whole building turned dark emerald. There were corpses strewn everywhere. Fellow compatriots, I saw it all with my own eyes. I saw two kids from opposing factions both yell “Long Live Chairman Mao” before shooting each other in the head. We mustn’t repeat the tragedies of the past. More than three hundred Red Guards and rebel workers lie buried in the wild grove over there.’ Sensing that he is sinking into the past again, Director Ma stops talking and closes his mouth.
‘The “culture rebellion”, or whatever you call it – we know nothing about that,’ says the young mushroom farmer, Gao Wenshe, his buck teeth glinting in the sun. ‘All we know is that this is our village, and if anyone tries to kick us out, we’ll fight to our last breath.’
Director Ma turns to a young man with a pierced nose, dressed in black jeans and a black shirt, and asks: ‘What’s your name? I haven’t seen you before.’
‘Don’t ask – I’m not from around here,’ he replies, waving his mobile phone dismissively.
‘His mother, Juduo, has been a great help to us,’ Genzai says. ‘She moved to Zigong a few years ago to teach in the secondary school. Since the government sent us the compulsory eviction order, she’s come back many times to educate us about land requisition laws.’
‘Juduo’s your mum?’ Director Ma says to the young man in the most genial tone he can muster. ‘I knew her well. She likes to sing revolutionary operas, doesn’t she? I remember at the mass meeting held to condemn Heroes of the Marsh as a bourgeois novel, she sang that beautiful line: “I have more uncles than I can count, with hearts that are loyal and red”.’
‘How dare you talk to me about my mother, you fat pig,’ the young man snarls with contempt. ‘We’ve got buckets of manure here ready to feed you and the other swine you’ve brought along.’ The crowd bursts into laughter. Ma Daode wants to laugh as well, but when he thinks that in less than two hours all of these people will be arrested, injured or beaten to death his jaws clench with fear.
‘Juduo is one of the twenty people who were arrested last time and are still locked up in jail,’ says Liu Youcai, his dark eyes no longer sparkling.
The crowd continues to swell. Director Ma’s phone keeps vibrating, but he’s afraid to answer it. He has no idea what to do next. At noon, the mobile phone signals will be blocked. He knows he has been dispatched here purely for show, so the government can claim it was willing to negotiate. But whether he persuades the villagers to evacuate or not, Yaobang will still be demolished.
He lights a cigarette, sucks deeply and looks over to Wolf Tooth Mountain and the field that stretches to the dark woods at its foot. One evening, after ten hours of hard labour, our gang of sent-down youths gathered at the end of that field to pledge our undying allegiance to Chairman Mao. Juan was trembling with exhaustion, and inadvertently dropped her copy of the Little Red Book. Knowing her life would be in danger if anyone noticed her let this sacred collection of Mao’s thoughts fall into the mud, I quickly scooped it up and returned it to her. Fortunately, there were so many red flags and buckets about, no one noticed. That night, she came to my bed, told me she had left a glove in the field and asked to borrow my torch. I went out with her to help her find it, and to thank me for saving her life earlier that day, she led me into the dark woods.
The command to MAKE THE CHINA DREAM COME TRUE AND FIGHT TO THE BITTER END TO DEFEND OUR HOMELAND on the red banner hung across the road is very familiar to Director Ma, as this is what he and his staff are urged to accomplish when they turn up for work every day.
The fierce sun has reduced the earth to a fine powder that shrouds the road. Whenever a motorbike passes, a cloud of yellow dust lifts into the air. Director Ma decides the time has come to give his speech. There must be a hundred villagers here now. A small group has wandered over to the Land Cruiser to gawp at its luxurious interior and chat to the man from the Demolition Bureau. Director Ma climbs onto the roof of a crushed car, raises a loudspeaker Hu has handed him and says: ‘Fellow countrymen, my name is Ma Daode. I spent four years here in the Cultural Revolution, working in the fields and teaching in the village school. And before that, during the Great Famine, I lived here with my parents for six months. I cherish these mountains and rivers as much as you do, and I applaud your determination to protect them. I haven’t come here today to force you to evacuate – that’s not my job. No, I have come simply to warn you that the demolition team will arrive at noon. If you resist, you will have to suffer the consequences: destitution, homelessness, even death. But if you leave peacefully and accept voluntary resettlement, there will be a hundred jobs made available for you in the expanded Industrial Park. It will be the China Dream of National Rejuvenation in action! Fellow countrymen—’
‘Stop trying to swindle us!’ shouts Dingguo, enraged by the treachery of his old friend. ‘The village was promised seventy million yuan compensation, but we’ve only received nine hundred thousand. That works out less than a thousand yuan per person. If you take our land, how do you expect us farmers to earn a living? In the first phase of the Industrial Park’s expansion, forty villagers were given jobs, but half of them have been sacked already. This second phase will be just another empty promise.’
‘What right do you have to slap land acquisition notices on our ancestral homes?’ an old woman in the middle of the crowd shouts, waving her walking stick in the air.
‘Well, half of you signed the voluntary resettlement contract,’ Director Ma replies. He knows that the village was built by the venerable Liu family when it moved down from Shanxi Province. The Liu Clan Ancestral Hall has a Song Dynasty stone plaque engraved with the poem: ON THE ANCIENT ROAD, WE BID FAREWELL TO THE LAND OF PAGODA TREES. / A THOUSAND LI DOWNRIVER, THE WOODS ARE IMBUED WITH FEELING. / BELOW THE RAIN-DRENCHED WOLF TOOTH MOUNTAIN, WE SET UP HOME.
‘But if you forcefully evict us today, everyone who signed will lose their right to compensation,’ complains a young man. ‘What a stitch-up!’
‘The government’s been colluding for years with crooked developers,’ says a woman holding a bag of shopping. ‘Look where it’s got us! The Fenshui River has turned the colour of black tea – it’s filled with dead fish. When we irrigate our fields with it, all the seedlings die.’
Director Ma feels his throat tighten. ‘New green guidelines forced us to close the concrete factory – that’s why those workers were laid off. But the second phase will focus on hi-tech, so the new jobs will be secure. If you want a better life, you have to let go of some things. We’ll pay you a fair price for your land, but don’t expect any money for the fake houses you’ve cobbled together on those fields.’
‘Those shacks in Yiniao didn’t have windows the government still paid compensation for them,’ the sales manager Guan Dalin shouts down from the roof.
‘Your new village will be built over there, at the foot of Wolf Tooth Mountain,’ Director Ma says, pointing into the distance. ‘The plans have been approved. In just two years’ time, you’ll be able to go to your jobs in the Industrial Park, then travel home on a bus, enjoy a hot shower and watch television in your brand-new apartments. You’ll be living the China Dream!’ Director Ma is gesticulating so passionately, he almost loses balance.
‘Dream-talking again! We could never afford one of those flash apartments with the pittance you’re offering us. I warn you, if you don’t stop harassing us, I’ll get on a bus and set fire to myself like that guy did the other day.’ Guan Dalin is referring to a farmer from a neighbouring village who committed self-immolation on a crowded public bus to protest against the seizure of his land.
‘Tell the demolition team I’ve brought a bucket of diesel, and if they dare enter my house, I’ll set fire to myself as well.’ This middle-aged man dressed in an army camouflage uniform has a pair of binoculars around his neck and is holding a Labrador on a lead.
‘That man got bashed in the head last time,’ the informer whispers to Director Ma, removing his red baseball cap and wiping the sweat from his brow. ‘The car you’re standing on belongs to him.’
A group of men walk out from the concrete house, singing: ‘“This is our native land. Every grain of its soil belongs to us. If an enemy tries to seize it, we will fight them to the death …”’ Everyone knows these Cultural Revolution songs now that they are played on the radio again all the time. Ma Daode remembers singing this same song, standing on the high balcony of the Drum Tower in Ziyang, waving an East is Red flag. His scalp was sweating then as much as it is now. ‘Listen to me, fellow countrymen,’ he shouts. ‘Two units of armed police equipped with live ammunition will storm the village today, with urban-management officers and assistants. You’ll stand no chance against them. “An arm can never defeat a leg”, as the saying goes. Surrender now, and trust that the government has your best interests at heart.’
‘Enough of that shit!’ says Dingguo, grabbing a spade. ‘Nothing you say will change our minds. We’re ready to die for our village. We’ve pledged that if anyone is killed today, the rest of us will take care of the children they leave behind. You’re lucky you have ties to this place, or we would’ve beaten you up. So just bugger off now, and tell your bosses we will never surrender.’
Ma Daode knows from Liu Qi that Dingguo’s brother was also arrested during the last assault. He takes a gulp from the bottle of water Hu passes him, and says: ‘The Buddha Light Temple and Ancestral Hall won’t be touched – I promise. Only the cemetery and the old houses will be torn down. Then we’ll move the village over there, and you can start your lives anew. Fellow countrymen, seize this opportunity! To those who abandon doubt, new paths will open; to those who relinquish cares, eternal spring awaits!’
‘See this kitchen knife?’ says a young woman with a huge cold sore as she steps out from the concrete house. ‘If Commander Zhao dares to come near me, I’ll hack off his dick!’
From the roof, Genzai shouts: ‘And what will you do with it when you take it home?’ Everyone sniggers, and the dogs start barking as well.
Ma Daode remembers dragging Secretary Meng to the village square for a denunciation meeting. A fellow sent-down youth put a spittoon on Meng’s head and the villagers roared with laughter. He can see the same grins plastered on the faces surrounding him now. He tries to return to the present, but his memories are like footballs on a pond: the harder he pushes them down, the higher they bounce up again. ‘Fellow compatriots!’ he yells at the top of his voice. ‘To safeguard the achievements of the revolution, your garrison must be dismantled. Anyone who opposes Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line will be eliminated.’
Suddenly he remembers standing outside the Million Bold Warriors headquarters in the last days of the violent struggle. The facade was daubed with Mao’s favourite quote from Dream of the Red Chamber: ONLY HE WHO IS NOT AFRAID OF DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS CAN DARE UNHORSE THE EMPEROR, which he himself had painted there the previous year. On the hemp-sack barricade before him lay the three hundred bullets his faction had just surrendered. His heart filled with the anguish of defeat. During his first month in Yaobang, where he was sent a few weeks later, it felt so strange for him to sleep without a weapon in his hand that he would often wake in the middle of the night in a panic and be unable to doze off again.
‘What do you mean, “Chairman Mao’s line”?’ Liu Youcai says with disdain. ‘This is President Xi’s empire now!’
‘Yes, sorry, I mean President Xi’s China Dream will bring joy to the entire nation!’ Unsure whether he is using words from the right era, Director Ma jumps off the crushed car in a fluster and hands the loudspeaker to Hu. Then he checks his phone and sees there are only ten minutes left before midday. Already in the distance he can hear the rumble of advancing trucks and bulldozers. The noise evokes a memory of a Million Bold Warriors platoon marching down Victory Road, rifles aloft, rounding up everyone in sight: boys handing out leaflets, passers-by, class enemies digging ditches in the ground, and herding them into the public square below the Drum Tower, while another unit stood on the roof of the general post office, pointing their guns down at the crowd.
From the high balcony of the Drum Tower the commander of the Million Bold Warriors shouted: ‘You dared attack us, you East is Red bastards? If you don’t surrender now, we’ll round up the whole lot of you.’ He was wearing a heavy army coat with a pistol thrust in the belt. As he was the only Red Guard in Ziyang to have attended one of Mao’s mass rallies in Beijing, and his father was an army general, he was the obvious choice for leader.
Cross-eyed Chun was standing next to me in the square. He held up a pamphlet and yelled, ‘You conservative Red Guard enemies, East is Red will never surrender. We will defend Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line to the death!’ A second later, two loud gunshots rang out, his knees buckled and he toppled to the ground. Inside my pocket, I was still clutching the pack of cards he’d just given me that was missing a King of Clubs. He looked up at me and said: ‘Am I going to die?’ ‘I don’t know,’ I answered. ‘I’m going to become a corpse, I can feel it,’ he mumbled, his voice growing faint. ‘Don’t bury me in the earth. Don’t …’ He tried to keep blinking his eyes, until he opened them one last time and could not close them again.
To break his train of thought, Director Ma looks over to the Buddha Light Temple. It is an ancient grey-brick building with a tall yellow-tiled roof. A hundred years ago, it housed the embalmed corpse of a Liu ancestor who achieved the status of Bodhisattva.
As the bulldozers draw close, the earth shakes and the villagers scatter. The young men climb to the roof of the concrete house, while the women and children retreat to find shelter in the lanes.
Director Ma’s phone vibrates. READ THIS ONE, MY AGED SWEETHEART: MAN SEES AN ADVERT THAT SAYS ‘NO NEED TO GO UNDER THE KNIFE. FOR A LONGER, THICKER PENIS, SEND US A CHEQUE ASAP.’ SO HE SENDS ONE OFF. A FEW DAYS LATER HE RECEIVES A PARCEL, OPENS IT, AND FINDS … A MAGNIFYING GLASS!! Before Director Ma has time to smile, he hears Liu Youcai yell at him: ‘If Ma Lei could see you betraying us like this, he would turn in his grave!’ As Director Ma hurriedly deletes the text, he sees his father’s face twisted into a morbid grimace. He remembers how he always wore a black quilted jacket in the winter and a long white robe in the summer. After he was condemned as a Rightist in 1959 for blaming the collective farming system of Mao’s Great Leap Forward for the famine ravaging most of China, he was removed from the post of Ziyang County Chief and sent to Yaobang to audit the production and distribution of grain. Instead of buckling under, he continued to criticise the system, and wrote an article revealing that Yaobang’s annual yields of maize had halved since its farms were collectivised. The villagers admired his honesty and bravery, so although they had been ordered to persecute him, they left him in peace. Eight years later, when Ma Daode was due to be sent to the countryside for re-education, he was able to use his father’s connections to secure a position in Yaobang. As it is the closest village to Ziyang, every Red Guard in the city hoped to be exiled there.
The roar of the approaching bulldozers makes Ma Daode judder. Behind them he sees truck after truck of armed police and urban-management officers advance in clouds of dust.
‘Let’s get out of here, Hu,’ he says. ‘I tried to help them, but kindness is never rewarded.’ Hu dashes out in front and beckons their driver. As the Land Cruiser turns round, Ma Daode sees, reflected on the windscreen, the gruesome blood-spewing face that has haunted his dreams. The day after Cross-eyed Chun was shot on the square below the Drum Tower, we drove a steel-plated truck into the general post office. I stood on the truck’s open back and hurled hand grenades and lances at the Red Guards on the roof.
Director Ma looks over to the bridge being built across the Fenshui River and thinks of the bodies buried on the other bank, where the wild grove used to be. One morning we had three boys from the Million Bold Warriors tied up at the back of the truck, beside the bodies of our six dead comrades. The tallest was a big bully I knew from primary school. Our East is Red anthem was blaring through the loudspeakers: ‘They thrust a blood-soaked knife into our throat and assume that we are dead. But we will never die! The East is Red flag will wave on for ever in the sour wind and crimson rain …’ The boy who wrote the lyrics to this song had died in battle the previous week. At the wild grove, we untied our three captives and forced them to dig a grave for the bodies, then we buried them alive inside it. No – that’s not exactly true. Before we shovelled the earth back into the pit, we stabbed two of the captives first. We were going to stab the big bully as well, but were afraid he would shout ‘Long Live Chairman Mao’ as the knife entered his chest, so we stuffed his mouth with twigs and buried him alive with the eight corpses.
IF YOU WERE A TEAR IN MY EYE, I WOULD NEVER CRY AGAIN, IN CASE I MIGHT LOSE YOU … Director Ma ignores this latest text, and on the phone he is holding in his other hand types: MAYOR CHEN, DESPITE MY BEST EFFORTS TO PERSUADE THEM, THE VILLAGERS REFUSE TO EVACUATE. As he sends it, he notices the signal is fading, so quickly texts the estate agent, Wendi: I’LL VISIT YOU TONIGHT AND FUCK YOU TO DEATH, followed by a line of scowling emojis.
A brick crashes onto the roof of the Land Cruiser. At least it didn’t break the windscreen.
From beyond a mud wall a makeshift cannon fires chicken bones and condoms filled with cement powder. The armed police raise their plastic shields to protect themselves, then lower them again. Young urban-management thugs in black T-shirts lift their wooden batons and gleefully lash out at the crowd. Director Ma is now trapped between two police vans and an ambulance.
He looks up at the flat roof of the concrete house and sees Genzai unfurl a huge portrait of President Xi Jinping. ‘That’s as big as the poster you’ve commissioned for the Golden Anniversary Dream,’ Hu remarks. ‘Must have cost them a fortune to laminate.’ When he joined the East is Red suicide squad to attack the general post office, Director Ma’s comrades took one look at the words LONG LIVE CHAIRMAN MAO on the huge banner hung over the entrance and froze. I too was afraid to touch that sacred red slogan, but I told them that if we didn’t attack we would be killed. So we crawled beneath the banner on our stomachs. As soon as we came out the other side, one of our squad was bludgeoned with a brick and died on the spot.
‘Don’t attack the concrete house yet,’ Ma Daode calls out to the men in the bulldozers. ‘Let’s bring Xi Jinping down first.’ He is relieved to discover that the thoughts in his head now correspond with the words leaving his mouth. An odour of decay that seems to come from both the past and the present flows down into his lungs. The sales manager Guan Dalin is standing next to Genzai on the flat roof, waving the national flag. Some young men who’ve returned from factory jobs in the cities have climbed onto the barricades at the entrance to the village and are filming the scene on their mobile phones.
‘Remember, our goal is to evacuate the village without bloodshed,’ shouts the head of the urban-management team. ‘We must move fast this time, and not repeat the mistakes we made in Xiaozhai Village last week.’ The fashionable Mohican haircut he gave himself this morning doesn’t match his official uniform. His team have donned yellow safety helmets and their black Alsatians are barking at the village dogs. Although the battle has not yet started, Director Ma sees broken chair legs caught in branches and the streets of Ziyang strewn with bricks and dead bodies after another attack on the Million Bold Warriors. We carried our dead comrades to the riverbank, washed the blood from our hands, changed into clean uniforms and held a memorial for them below the Drum Tower. Corpses of our enemies lay all around us. In the hot June sun, they swelled and let off a foul stench. One dead girl had flies all over her face and an ice-lolly wrapper stuck to her hair. After today’s clash, there will be no corpses left on the road. There are ambulances with body bags ready to take them away, and even cages for any orphaned pets.
Dingguo is dragged out of the concrete house and pinned to the ground. ‘Fuck off to Siberia, you mother-fucker!’ he yells at the field officers. ‘May your daughter freeze to death with the fucking polar bears.’
‘Handcuff that wanker and shove him in the van,’ says the urban-management leader, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
The young woman who threatened to hack off Commander Zhao’s penis is also pinned down and handcuffed. Trying to break free, she cranes her head back and sinks her teeth into the officer’s arm, but is punched back down again. ‘You dog-fucker,’ she shouts. Seeing the big wound on his arm, the officer yells: ‘You dare bite me, you filthy slut? Just wait until I get my own back on you tonight …’
‘Well, you just wait till I strap your mother to an electric fan and make her spin to death …’ Her shirt buttons have been ripped off, and her exposed breasts quiver as she howls.
‘Fling that cunt into the van!’ the team leader barks. A band of riot police rush over and bundle her inside.
An officer trying to detach the Xi Jinping poster is struck by a petrol can. The President’s face is splashed with fuel and instantly goes up in flames. While the villagers on the street stand paralysed by fear, armed police officers brave the fire and drag people out from the concrete house. A front-loader truck advances. The elderly postman runs out and strikes an urban-management officer with an iron pick. As blood spurts from the officer’s neck, an armed policeman with a shield digs an electric baton into the postman’s back and kicks him to the ground.
Director Ma recalls the day East is Red attacked a hospital occupied by the Million Bold Warriors. When we ran out of bullets, we hid behind a stack of propaganda hoardings, waited until the Million Bold Warriors had used all their hand grenades and petrol bombs, then we charged out and attacked them with farming tools. We battled all day and night, making our way up from the basement to the fourth floor. Everywhere rang with the clatter of lances, shovels and hoes. Yao Jian’s square face was slashed right open along one side. He leapt on top of me and we wrestled each other to the ground. Two years before, when my classmates and I were messing about in the school corridor, Yao Jian had tried to trip me up, so I shoved him onto his back and the marbles in his pocket scattered over the concrete floor. This time, in the hospital corridor, I raised a metal hoe in the air and prepared to strike him, but he kicked it from my hands, jumped up, grabbed me by the hair, yanked my head back, pulled out a pair of scissors and pressed them against my face. I swung my fist round and punched him hard in the jaw, then wrenched the scissors from him, and with one single thrust, plunged the sharp blades into his neck. The blood that spewed from his mouth and splashed all over my face felt disgustingly warm.
The villagers shout: ‘Long live President Xi!’ and then hurl petrol bombs and rocks. The demolition workers in yellow helmets begin to advance towards the village behind a line of armed police. Assistants with dogs and pitchforks rush out ahead and pursue the fleeing villagers. An elderly couple who have fallen to the ground shout: ‘Long live Chairman Mao!’ as they are dragged away by two female officers.
A petrol bomb strikes the red banner emblazoned: MAKE THE CHINA DREAM COME TRUE, FIGHT TO THE BITTER END TO DEFEND OUR HOMELAND! Ma Daode smells the heady petrol fumes. The East is Red Headquarters reeked of diesel, printing ink and garlic. There were a hundred of us dossing there. When the Million Bold Warriors received a cannon from their supporters in the People’s Liberation Army, they launched another attack on us. A hundred of them surrounded our headquarters, then charged up to the top floor, shouting: ‘Surrender and your life will be spared!’ When they reached the big room at the top, a Red Guard grabbed a boy called Cui Degen, who was standing right next to me, slammed him onto the ground, handcuffed him and struck him in the head again and again with a hand grenade until his eyes rolled back and his legs convulsed. I reached for a metal pike and rammed it into the murderer. Two other Red Guards then pounced on me and we fought with our fists until one of them stabbed me in the chest three times and I collapsed on the floor. Then Sun Tao, a boy in the year below me at school, stepped out from the gang of Million Bold Warriors, slapped my face and shouted: ‘Son of Rightist dog!’
‘We’ll defend President Xi with our lives!’ Genzai yells to the line of shield-bearing armed police. ‘Attack us, if you’re not afraid to die!’ A bulldozer rams into the concrete house, shattering a chunk of the facade. Afraid that the wobbling structure is about to collapse, the people on the roof drop onto their stomachs. But the sales manager Guan Dalin keeps standing, calmly strikes a match and sets himself on fire. For a few seconds he hops madly in the ball of flames, then he leaps off the roof, lands on the bulldozer and rolls onto the road. Firefighters spray him with extinguishers, and as he thrashes about in the white foam he howls: ‘Long Live President Xi Jinping.’ … One of the Million Bold Warriors boys was hit by a petrol bomb in our headquarters. We stood and watched as he jumped around in the orange flames then slowly crumpled to the ground. When his comrade went over and tried to drag his corpse outside, I raised my gun and shot him in the head.
The bulldozer revs up again, spewing clouds of diesel smoke, and with another loud thud rams into the concrete house. ‘Look over there, the construction workers are leaving the bridge and are coming over to help the villagers,’ cries Commander Zhao, his face dripping in sweat.
‘And those drivers are pulling up to see what’s going on,’ Chief Jia shouts back. ‘Quick, Sergeant Pan, cordon off the area and arrest anyone who’s filming on their phones.’
With a deafening crash the fake house finally caves in. Director Ma catches a final glimpse of Genzai, plummeting down in the chaos of falling concrete, his hands still clutching the national flag and the sunlight glinting on his shaven head before he disappears into the cloud of dust. He remembers that when he was digging his parents’ grave in the wild grove on the other side of the river, he was gripping a Chairman Mao badge in the palm of his right hand. He glances down and sees a ripped condom, and beside it a red badge exactly like the one he is thinking about, embossed with the golden face of Chairman Mao. A brick soars overhead and hits the windscreen of a police car. Chief Jia pulls down his visor and shouts: ‘Fucking hooligans!’
Waves of dust roll from the bulldozers’ tracks; smells of chives and urine move through the air. Director Ma sees the middle-aged man in army camouflage being dragged towards the police van. ‘Bastards!’ the man shouts, foaming with rage. ‘If you demolish my home I’ll kill myself right here in front of you.’ He has kicked off his left shoe in his effort to break free, and is digging his bare toes into the earth. His Labrador is foaming at the mouth as well.
‘Fine – kill yourself if you want,’ Chief Jia shouts back, infuriated that this villager has dared wear an army uniform.
‘If you tear down my house, I’ll murder your mother! I’ll fight you to the death!’ As he continues to yell, officers grab hold of his barking Labrador and lock it in a cage.
The bulldozers’ tracks clank and screech. More villagers appear from a side street hoping to mount an attack, but when they see the huge column of armed police, they drop their pitchforks and flee.
Once the police manage to seize the villagers’ makeshift cannons and tanks, the situation calms down. The informers in red baseball caps are arrested as well so as not to arouse suspicion. Director Ma catches a whiff of perfume from one of the captured women. Her lipstick and streaks of dyed blonde hair turn his mind to the pleasures of the bedroom. She has a rope around her neck and is being shoved into the back of a police van by three officers.
As Ma Daode turns round and heads for the Land Cruiser, a villager bashes him with a flattened bicycle, and he tumbles onto his back with quivering legs akimbo. Hu rushes over to help him up. Commander Zhao has received a blow to the head as well and is being carried to an ambulance on a stretcher. As he passes, Director Ma grabs hold of his hand and says, ‘Comrade-in-arms, give me your Little Red Book. I will take care of it. You have fallen heroically in battle. Your Red Guard armband is drenched in blood. But fear not. The East is Red flag will fly for ever over the streets of Ziyang …’
‘Let’s go, Director Ma!’ Hu says, trying desperately to pull him over to the car.
‘Think I’m your fucking slave, do you, Ma Daode?’ Commander Zhao shouts as his stretcher is pushed into the ambulance. ‘Your salary’s no higher than mine, you know! Making us tear down whole villages to pay for your fucking China Dream shows and your bloody China Dream Device. You fucking—’ He shakes a fist in anger as the ambulance doors are closed.
‘Yes, let’s leave, I’m not feeling at all well,’ Ma Daode says. Once inside the Land Cruiser, he takes out his mobile and reads a new text: DIRECTOR MA, DIDN’T YOU AGREE TO MEET ME FOR LUNCH AT THE PROSPERITY HOTEL? I’M WAITING FOR YOU IN ROOM 123. PLEASE HURRY UP …
‘Were you an East is Red member, by any chance, Director Ma?’ Hu asks. ‘I’ve noticed that the Cultural Revolution has been on your mind a lot these last days …’ This is the first time Hu has asked Director Ma about his past. Although his tone is casual, Director Ma spots a sly flicker in his eyes and suspects he knows more than he is letting on.
Mr Tai turns on the engine, but can’t set off because the road is blocked with vehicles.
‘Yes, I joined East is Red. Seeing Commander Zhao’s head wrapped in bandages just now took me back to the violent struggle. In January 1968, the Million Bold Warriors attacked our headquarters in the Agricultural Machinery College. All we had were twelve rifles we’d looted from the college’s military training office, but they had just been given a cannon and fifty guns by their supporters in the army. Thousands of them stormed our building and attacked us room by room, tossing hand grenades as they went. The noise was ear-splitting. When they reached the top, they tied up our vice commander and stabbed him repeatedly with two drill bits. His steaming blood and guts splattered everywhere. They called it the “Cultural Revolution”. Bullshit! It was armed warfare. If auxiliary forces hadn’t come to our rescue, the sixty of us held captive would have been killed. I still got stabbed three times in the chest, though. It was a miracle I survived.’
‘Why rake over the past?’ Hu replies, his bald head glistening with perspiration. ‘You’re a municipal leader now: your wish is your command. My mother died in the Cultural Revolution. She used to work for the county supply office. My father has never told me where she’s buried, and I have never asked.’ Hu’s eyes are blank but his voice is wavering.
‘We were teenagers, secondary-school children,’ Ma Daode continues. ‘We boycotted classes and flung ourselves into the revolution before we’d had a chance to pick sides. And once violence starts, it continues under its own momentum. First it’s fists, then it’s bricks, and before you know it, there will be guns. Look what happened here today, Hu – it was just like the violent struggle when opposing factions tried to kill each other while both pledging undying allegiance to Chairman Mao!’ Director Ma looks out of the window at the concrete house that has been reduced to a heap of rubble. Why was I not buried along with my comrades, all those years ago?
‘Live a worthy life and die an honourable death – that’s all we can hope for,’ Mr Tai interjects. He turns the radio to a music station and taps the beat of the song on his steering wheel.
‘Yes, you’re right, Hu – we must forget the past. That’s why I want to develop the China Dream Device. Mr Tai, can you close the windows and switch on the air conditioning, please?’ Director Ma rubs the sweat from his neck with a tissue, leaving long red marks on his skin.
‘Someone in the Bureau is saying that your China Dream Device is a crazy pipe dream,’ Hu says, a hint of malice creeping into his voice. ‘He says you’re just proposing these hare-brained projects because you’ve run out of ideas.’
‘Don’t tell me who it is. Hey, Tai, pass me a cigarette?’ Director Ma is troubled by what Hu has just said, but wonders whether he is telling the truth. Mayor Chen offered him a month’s sabbatical last week, but he turned it down because he was afraid Hu might take over his job in his absence.
‘The Cultural Revolution – it was a heroic time, though, wasn’t it?’ Mr Tai says. He pulls a cigarette from the car pocket, lights it and hands it to Director Ma.
‘Our faith was unshakeable back then,’ Director Ma replies. ‘We believed that in life we followed Chairman Mao and in death we reunited with Karl Marx. We devoted our entire being to the Communist Party. Turn left here – the road along the river is full of potholes.’
When Director Ma finishes the cigarette, he tosses it out of the window … I trudged for hours through dirty, broken snow. My father had sent a neighbour out to call me back home. Behind me, a man was pushing a bicycle that creaked and groaned all the way. The looted army boots I was wearing kept my feet warm. When I opened our front door I smelt chicken stew. My sister was by the stove, stirring a pot of corn gruel. There were feathers and drops of chicken blood on the floor. On a chair in the corner was a placard that said: DOWN WITH EVIL RIGHTIST MA LEI and a tall, cone-shaped dunce’s hat. My father was sitting on the bed under a lamp, writing a letter. He glanced up and noticed the bandages around my head. When we had attacked a convention of rebel factions the day before, a soldier guarding the rostrum had hit me with his rifle butt. My mother came out from under the door curtain with a basin of hot water disinfected with purple potassium permanganate. She told my father to stretch out his legs. His bloodied kneecaps were splintered with fine shards of coal. My mother whispered to me: ‘Come and help hold up his knees, Daode,’ but I ignored her. She washed Father’s knees with the disinfected water until her hands were stained purple. My father shuddered at the pain, but didn’t make a sound. Through the corners of his eyes, he continued to look at the letter he was writing. That afternoon, Red Guards had forced him to kneel in hot coal ashes. But I had drawn a clear political line between myself and this old Rightist called Ma Lei, so I could not allow myself to help my mother treat his wounds.
A hot breeze blows in through the car window. Director Ma presses the button to close it again. With the big white bandage around my head and a look of surly resentment, I knelt by the stove and pumped the bellows to keep the fire going, and glanced briefly at my father wiping his face with a flannel. ‘As long as the wounds are clean I’ll be fine,’ he said to my mother. The flannel was drenched with his blood and sweat. The more he wiped his neck with it, the dirtier his neck became.
The scent of the chicken stew softened the room’s hard edges. I asked my sister to tell me who had done this to our father. She dropped some salt into the pot and picked up some chopped spring onions. ‘It was another struggle session, of course,’ she answered at last. ‘I hope one day that boy will know what it’s like to kneel on hot ashes with a heavy placard around his neck. Here, Mother, have this.’ She sprinkled the bowl of corn gruel with the chopped spring onions and handed it to my mother, then ladled some out for me. I drank it ravenously, blowing on each spoonful to stop it burning my mouth.
‘I have some spare bandages,’ I said, careful not to look at anyone in particular.
‘I’m fine – let’s all go to sleep now,’ my father said. ‘You’ve walked a long way. Have a quick wash, then go to bed.’ Although he didn’t raise his eyes, I knew he was talking to me. I wondered why he had called me home if it was just to have a meal and go to bed. My mother told me to take off my dirty socks and boil up some water for my father. I wanted to shout at her, but was too tired. I had spent months living on the streets, fighting endless battles, and there was seldom a chance to sleep. The Million Bold Warriors had seized control of the outskirts. We had captured four of Ziyang’s fourteen schools and most of the hospitals, post offices and department stores, but had lost many lives in clashes near the train station and the Drum Tower. As soon as I stretched out on the sofa I was overcome with exhaustion and sank into a deep sleep.
In my dreams, I heard my father moan like an ox. My sister shook me awake and shouted: ‘Get up. Mother and Father have locked themselves in the attic!’ I ran upstairs and banged on the door. I smelt a strong whiff of pesticide seeping through the cracks. ‘Open the door,’ my sister pleaded. ‘What are you two doing in there?’ She burst into tears, and kept knocking, again and again. I heard fingernails scraping against the floorboards inside. I wanted to light a lamp. My sister groped her way downstairs in the dark and ran to the back yard. Then she called out and told me to come outside, climb up to the attic and smash the window. I did as she asked. After clambering inside, I switched on the light and saw my parents on the floor, my mother’s purple-stained hand gripping my father’s sallow hand, as their souls drifted off to the Yellow Springs of the netherworld. Beside my father lay an opened bottle of pesticide. The foul liquid that was leaking from it smelt like raw garlic and paraffin. An enamel wash bowl my mother had used to clean her face lay toppled beside her in a puddle of water.
Director Ma feels his grief weighing down like an overripe pear that longs to drop from its branch but is afraid of smashing into pieces. The Land Cruiser approaches Drum Tower Street in the old quarter of Ziyang. White Heaven is on the next turning to the left. He will enter through the Gate of Heavenly Peace, update Propaganda Chief Ding on the morning’s events and proceed to Prosperity Hotel. After a quick talk with the general manager about the Golden Anniversary Dream, he will then check into a room and make love to his new mistress. She is a young woman who has returned from America with a business degree, and now calls herself ‘Claire’. He met her ten days ago when she came to the China Dream Bureau and proposed to help them set up a giant advertising screen somewhere in the city centre.