On his second day back in the office following his two-week suspension, Director Ma unscrews the flask of Old Lady Dream’s Broth that he prepared as well as he could the night before, takes a large swig, then flings open his window and yells that he wants to fly to Garden Square. Hu grabs him by the belt, tells him to consider the political consequences of such unhinged behaviour, and pushes him back down onto the swivel chair.
Three guards swiftly appear and escort him from the China Dream Bureau to the security department on the ground floor. The peculiar stench of his Old Lady Dream’s Broth drifts through the White House and the Gate of Heavenly Peace and lingers in the air for days. After this unfortunate episode, Ma Daode is diagnosed with manic depression and schizophrenia, and is banned from returning to his office. But he insists he is perfectly fine, and that his temporary loss of sanity was caused by incorrect proportions of ingredients in the broth’s recipe. He vows to find the correct formula through repeated trials, then apply for a patent, return to the China Dream Bureau and market the potion throughout the world under the brand name China Dream Soup.
In today’s trial, he pours a cup of blood from a black cat into an empty Coca-Cola bottle, then adds a wolf’s heart, a slice of ginger that has been soaked for a week inside a corpse’s mouth, and a few drops of the foul-smelling Yellow Spring water he bought from Master Wang for 100,000 yuan. After a good shake, he dips his tongue into the acrid concoction. The taste seems fine to him. All he needs to do now is go to the wild grove, shed a few tears and add them to the bottle; then he can swallow the contents and see what he forgets. He decides to set off at once, but as soon as he steps outside onto the main road, yesterday vanishes from his mind. Terrified he might forget who he is as well, he rushes back inside, writes: MA DAODE, DIRECTOR OF CHINA DREAM BUREAU, on the lid of a shoebox and ties it around his neck with a shoelace. Then he goes back out and sets off again.
The cold October wind fills him with a solitary gloom. He tries to retrieve some memories from this morning. I put on my suit and checked myself in the mirror as I adjusted my tie. It’s blood red. One of my shoes is black; the other is one of the two-toned brogues that belonged to my father. He looks down at his feet. Yes, there it is. Then there was Juan barefoot in the kitchen, sleepily stretching her arms, reminding me to take my medication. Who does she think she is? I won’t touch those bloody pills! Then the phone rang. Was it my daughter? No. Was it that girl, Yuyu, who’s gone to Birmingham University? No – she phoned a few days ago, threatening to come back next year unless I send her more money. Nasty piece of work! Still, she’s not as bad as the estate agent Wendi who reported me to the Political and Legal Affairs Commission. None of that matters any more, though. When my China Dream Soup is in the shops, all those people who mocked me for failing to produce the China Dream Device will have to watch me return to the China Dream Bureau in a blaze of glory.
He walks on with a determined frown. Now that his arse has enlarged in old age, he feels steadier on his feet. All he can see of the people in the distance is a swathe of unblinking black eyes advancing towards him like a sheet of rain. This road that runs from Revolution Boulevard to Drum Tower Street used to be a cobbled lane lined with stalls where farmers from outlying villages would sell their produce, but since Ziyang was promoted from county to municipal status, it has been expanded into a busy four-lane road that connects with the provincial highway. Ma Daode has never walked along it before, as his journey to work follows a more northerly route. But today he wants to go to the wild grove on the other side of Magpie Bridge, and this is the shortest way. He notices a few dilapidated apartment buildings stranded along the new road, their balconies still festooned with colourful laundry, gleaming in the sun. Bearing right into the newly pedestrianised Drum Tower Street, he sees that English-style street lamps have been erected along the pavements all the way to the refurbished Drum Tower at the end. He looks at the hazy mist hovering over the sparkling new paving stones, and remembers how the cobbled streets that used to run through this old district were always encrusted with dirt. This is where Ma Daode grew up. It was along this street that he and his wife Juan used to take their evening strolls. Feeling an itch at the back of his throat, he breaks into a military song: ‘“Forward! Forward! We soldiers face the sun, our feet stamping the earth of the Motherland …”’ It is about ten in the morning now. People are sitting at street-side tables eating corn gruel; shopkeepers are unloading crates of instant noodles and stacking them up outside their shops. A farmer sitting at a nearby table shouts out as he passes: ‘Bit early in the morning to be out promoting the China Dream, isn’t it, Director Ma?’
Ma Daode looks at this farmer’s buck teeth and says: ‘Hey, you’re Gao Wenshe, aren’t you, the mushroom grower from Yaobang Village? You remind me so much of your sister.’
‘I don’t have a sister, and there’s no Yaobang Village either.’ A grain of yellow corn is stuck at the corner of his mouth, and his hair is still flattened where he slept on it.
‘You did have a sister,’ Ma Daode replies, ‘but during the Great Famine, your mother was so hungry, she had no choice but to kill her and eat her.’ Ma Daode feels a surge of compassion as this long-buried memory returns to him.
‘Just bugger off, will you! I don’t have a mother or a sister, and you and your corrupt officials demolished Yaobang Village months ago to line your filthy pockets!’
‘You did have a sister. Her name was Gao Tianmu. I swear on Chairman Mao.’ Ma Daode wants to make the gesture of an oath but can’t remember where to place his right hand.
‘Fuck you and fuck your China Dream!’ Gao Wenshe shouts. Then he jumps up from his seat, rips the sign off Ma Daode’s neck and flings it onto the pavement.
‘Ungrateful bastard! If it hadn’t been for your sister you wouldn’t be alive now. Your mother had to eat her after you were born so that she could produce enough milk for you.’ Ma Daode picks up the sign from the ground and continues towards the Drum Tower. Although he has taken a few sips of the China Dream Soup, not all of his childhood memories have been wiped out. Gao Tianmu’s little face, as pale as candlewax, is still etched in his mind. He remembers the morning they walked to the village school together. She was so hungry, she had to keep stopping to rest, but he still managed to trick her into giving him the baked goose dropping she was clutching in her hand. As her family had run out of food, her mother had resorted to stealing goose droppings from their neighbour’s yard and baking them in the wok to save the family from starvation.
An elderly woman appears in front of him. He recognises her as the old woman who spoke at the Golden Anniversary Dream celebration. ‘You’re the mother of Pan Hua, aren’t you? How sprightly you look today. Have you come out to buy some regional snacks?’ Ma Daode feels wide awake now, and decides that his China Dream Soup gives an even better boost to the brain than coffee.
‘Sprightly? What do you mean? I’m stone cold dead,’ she says, looking deep into his eyes.
‘So you’ve drunk Old Lady Dream’s Broth of Amnesia then?’ he asks. ‘Have you crossed the Bridge of Helplessness yet? You do remember me, don’t you? I’m Director Ma.’
‘Every dead soul must drink a cup of Old Lady Dream’s Broth before they cross the Bridge of Helplessness and return to the mortal world. But when I reached the bridge, Old Lady Dream wasn’t there. An old school friend was ladling it out instead, and he let me cross without drinking any. That’s why I can still remember my past life. I’ve returned to the World of the Living to search for my daughter’s reincarnation.’
Ma Daode wonders whether hostess Number 8 from the Cultural Revolution Nightclub might be the reincarnation of Pan Hua after all. ‘Do you think she is here in Ziyang?’ he asks.
‘She won’t have gone far. I’ve worked out she’d be forty by now. I know I will find her.’ The old woman sounds determined.
‘See this concoction here?’ he says. ‘I call it China Dream Soup. It’s a refined version of Old Lady Dream’s recipe. Please try some.’
She gives the bottle a sniff and returns it to him. ‘No, thank you. It smells much more pungent than Old Lady Dream’s Broth.’
‘When I reach the wild grove, I will add some of my tears to it and swallow it in one gulp, and your daughter will vanish from my mind for ever.’ Ma Daode feels a strong connection to this woman, and wants to prolong the conversation.
‘I can see from your eyes that you have a debt of blood,’ she says. ‘You won’t be allowed across the Bridge of Helplessness. You’ll be flung into the River of Forgetting and will spend eternity as a feral ghost.’ Then she turns and walks away.
A feral ghost? Ma Daode can’t believe his ears. What an injustice! I only fought in those battles to defend Mao Zedong Thought. How can I be punished for that? When our East is Red faction and a unit of rebel workers reached the railway station, hoping to make our escape, we discovered that the Million Bold Warriors were already standing on the roof of our train behind two large machine guns. Wives and children of the rebel workers were waiting for us, huddled in a corner. As soon as they saw us, they rushed onto the platform, and were instantly gunned down. Children caught in the crossfire stood gripping pillars, frozen with fear. No one came to take the corpses away. They lay there for days, growing purple and swollen like rotten aubergines. I want to scrub out all those dreadful scenes. But what I want to forget the most is my shameful betrayal of my father. When I see him again, I will fall to my knees and beg for his forgiveness.
Hearing a message buzz on his phone, Ma Daode wishes he could send a text to his father, although he knows full well there are no relatives in his list of contacts. Since his parents died, he and his sister have not even spent one Chinese New Year together. My sister put their copy of Selected Works of Mao Zedong safely in her bag, then gathered together the other belongings the Red Guards hadn’t burned, and set fire to them in the back yard. The letter my mother left for us was written in green ink. Her delicate handwriting sloped to the right, while my father’s sloped to the left. A few months after their burial, my sister moved far away to Xinjiang Province.
HOW I WISH I WERE YOUR MOBILE PHONE: HELD CLOSE TO YOUR CHEST, GAZED UPON BY YOUR EYES, CHERISHED IN YOUR HEART. Who sent this one? Ma Daode wonders. Was it that woman who chose the music for my China Dream promotional video? As soon as he deletes her text, she evaporates from his mind.
On his right, he sees the newly built Rich Family Supermarket. The stone lions flanking the front gates and the horizontal tablet above the entrance give the modern building an air of antiquity. This is where Ma Daode’s family home once stood. He came here last month after it was demolished and the supermarket was being built. He notices that a Qingfeng Dumpling Store has been opened on the ground floor. I used to sleep in a room just where that dumpling store is now, on a cast-iron bed facing south. Our home was a two-storey grey-brick house. The front door and window casements were painted dark red. When my father came home from work, he would sit on a stool in the front yard and read his newspaper, and would only come inside when the lights were turned on and mosquitoes began to swarm around him. The house was damp and the windows were too high up. When the front door was closed, we couldn’t see a thing. Only when my mother was putting water on the stove to boil and calling out to my father would the living room feel a little cosier. After my father changed from being County Chief of Ziyang to a condemned Rightist, the house was divided and shared with two other families. My parents built an attic room in our portion of the house for my sister and me to sleep in. We loved our new smaller home in which the four of us would shuffle about, continually bumping into each other. The LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM slogan I painted on our living-room wall is now daubed over the dumpling store’s front window. Or are my eyes deceiving me? When the Red Guards stormed into our home, they ordered my parents to stand facing the wall, heads bowed. The hand-sewn cloth shoes on my parents’ feet looked out of place in that atmosphere of terror.
I ran about, showing my fellow Red Guards where our family’s bourgeois belongings were hidden. Song Bin, dressed in khaki fatigues and a red armband, dragged my mother’s leather suitcase down from the attic and kicked it open, and out poured relics from the old society: a silk cheongsam, a pair of high-heeled shoes, a necklace, a bracelet and a gold-embroidered leather handbag. The enraged Red Guards hurled these incriminating objects at my mother and shouted: ‘Destroy old thoughts, old culture, old habits, old customs! Destroy the Four Olds and establish the Four News! Eliminate reactionary ideology!’ But then they kicked open the other leather suitcase, pulled out an old family album, and from between its pages fell a faded photograph of my mother with the English family she had worked for.
A second later I heard them howl: ‘Down with the female spy, Zhu Mei,’ and my mind exploded. I knew I was doomed. In a manic rage, they ransacked our home, flung everything they could into a heap outside and set light to it. To prove my commitment to the revolution, I picked through burning pesticide bottles, paraffin lamps, mirrors and shoehorns, and pulled out from the flames a mimeographed pamphlet on the policies of Chairman Mao and the first newsletter from Red Sun Secondary School which Song Bin had given me, put them carefully into my bag and walked away under the contemptuous gaze of my classmates and neighbours. Being the son of a Rightist was bad enough, but being the son of an agent of Western imperialists was unforgivable.
I was expelled from the Red Guards the following morning. But I didn’t lose heart. Instead, I resolved to learn the Quotes of Karl Marx off by heart and throw myself into the revolution with greater zeal. When East is Red took me under their wing, I cut all ties with my family and devoted my entire being to Chairman Mao. Although I did occasionally sneak home for some food and a good night’s sleep, I never uttered another word to my parents, not even on the last evening we spent together just before they killed themselves.
Passers-by begin to surround Ma Daode and point at him. ‘Is he on his way to petition the China Dream Bureau?’ one man asks. The supermarket security guard standing by a stone lion says: ‘If you want to buy something, go inside – don’t just stand here blocking the entrance.’
Ma Daode points at the ancient stone tablet above the door, and shouts: ‘Tear down that feudal artefact at once! Eliminate old ideologies and old customs of the exploiting class!’ Feeling unsettled, he looks down at the sign he is holding that tells him he is Ma Daode, Director of the China Dream Bureau. But which Ma Daode am I? After a brief hesitation, he hangs the sign around his neck again.
Song Bin walks out of the dumpling store and says: ‘Coming to “mingle incognito with the masses”, are you, old friend? Wonderful! Step inside and try some of our President Xi dumplings.’
Director Ma has no choice but to shake Song Bin’s hand. ‘Your wife’s very clever to have opened a branch here, just as the China Dream era is kicking off,’ he says. ‘I hope she makes a success of it.’
‘You think Hong opened this place? She hasn’t a clue how to run a business! Truth is, with all these officials being had up for corruption and womanising lately, I thought I should take early retirement, just to be on the safe side. So this dumpling store is my little escape route! You’ve done well, though, Daode. Out of all of us from Red Sun Secondary School, you have climbed the highest. But it can’t have been easy. There are so many regulations to comply with these days, aren’t there? So much red tape!’ Song Bin flashes a knowing smile, and Ma Daode understands at once that he’s hoping to wangle a favour. Devious bastard. Wants me to get some government department off his back, does he? He’s always just looking out for himself. In the violent struggle, he avoided most of the bloodiest battles by hiding in the Million Bold Warriors headquarters, making mimeographs of their weekly reports.
‘I did rise high, but it didn’t last,’ Ma Daode replies. ‘Like a live crab immersed in boiling water: as soon as I turned red hot, I was dead.’ In his pockets, Ma Daode is clutching his phone with his left hand and the bottle of China Dream Soup with his right. He longs to extricate himself from his former classmate.
‘Everyone gets knocked down now and then,’ Song Bin continues. ‘Think of your father: just because his hairstyle was like Chairman Mao’s, Red Guards accused him of plotting to supplant the Great Helmsman. They sheared off all his hair and paraded him through Ziyang. I remember him being marched down this very street. I joined the crowd in shouting: “If Ma Lei doesn’t confess his crime, we will destroy him.” I should really reflect on those times, when I have a chance. Anyway, it sounds like the China Dream Bureau is making great strides. I hear it’s taken control of all the local websites and social media platforms. Seems like Hu is doing a good job of holding the fort in your absence.’
‘You ransacked our home, Song Bin,’ Ma Daode says, staring straight at his monkey-like face. ‘Right here, where we’re standing now. You persecuted my mother and father so brutally they took their own lives. Your Million Bold Warriors slaughtered three hundred East is Red members. This road was a river of blood. Have you forgotten everything?’
‘But East is Red murdered five hundred of us! And remember: you were the one who told us to search your house. You led us here yourself. I swear on Chairman Mao I never killed one person. Not one.’ When Song Bin closes his mouth, his thin lips disappear.
‘A thousand people were killed in Ziyang. We both fought in the battles. Don’t pretend you have no blood on your hands. The day we attacked the general post office, you stabbed a man called Zhao Yi with a three-pronged spear!’ Ma Daode jabs his chest to show where the weapon entered Song Bin’s victim. Wanting to bring the conversation to a close, he says: ‘Go on, spit it out then! Which department has been on your back? Industry and Commerce, Public Security, Fire Prevention …?’
‘Well, as it happens, it’s your China Dream Bureau. Your online administrators have encrypted the dream I had last night. I asked them to let me access it just now, but they refused. They said it’s a Cultural Revolution dream.’
‘They wouldn’t deny you access just because of that,’ Ma Daode replies. ‘You must have said something to annoy them.’
‘Well, I did tell them I’m the same age as President Xi. I said that he and I were both Red Guards in the Cultural Revolution, and were exiled to Yanhe County together …’
‘Ah, no wonder! You’ll be labelled an “overzealous Red Guard” for that! Roping President Xi into your affairs – what a nerve! If you hadn’t worked for the government for so many years, you’d be in serious trouble. What’s wrong with you? You’ve retired already, but you still don’t know how to behave!’
I remember the look of hatred on Song Bin’s face when he terrorised our teachers. He slapped our maths teacher so hard, it sounded like he was swatting a fly against a concrete wall. Her cheek turned bright purple. Ma Daode looks at the new slogan painted on the supermarket’s exterior wall: THE COMMUNIST PARTY IS GOOD, THE PEOPLE ARE HAPPY! and sees, hidden beneath it, an older slogan that says: TO PROTECT CHAIRMAN MAO’S REVOLUTIONARY LINE, FIGHT BLOODY BATTLES TO THE BITTER END!
‘Soon every dream about the Cultural Revolution will be eradicated, though,’ Ma Daode continues. ‘See this bottle of China Dream Soup? If all goes to plan, the nightmares that plague our minds will be swept away and replaced with the brand-new China Dream. You and I will be able to forget past sorrows and forge new futures for ourselves!’ He walks away, then glances back and says: ‘I gave you a set of Sino-Russian Friendship stamps at school. The twenty-two-cent one had a portrait of Stalin. It must be worth a fortune today.’
Indignant at his refusal to help, Song Bin puts his hands on his hips and shouts: ‘What a great memory you have! Come back later and try some Xi dumplings, and we’ll have a proper talk.’
Ma Daode sees a tricycle cart parked near the Drum Tower. He goes over to it and says to the owner: ‘Chairman Mao commanded us to struggle with words, not weapons. Quick, unload all those dangerous bulbs of garlic from your cart and hand them over to the masses.’
‘Think you’re an urban-management officer, do you?’ the farmer sneers. ‘Don’t boss me about. If you want some of my garlic, they’re twenty-five yuan a crate. They’re grown for export to South Korea. A hundred per cent organic. If you don’t want any, bugger off.’
‘Don’t you know who I am? I made that!’ Ma Daode points to the China Dream promotional video playing on the giant screen attached to the Drum Tower. Right now, it is showing his mistress, the young entrepreneur called Claire, getting out of bed in a pink nightgown, opening a window and gazing out at a blue sky.
‘Shut up, you filthy petitioner – you’re a disgrace to the city,’ the farmer says to Ma Daode, pushing him away; then he spits his cigarette stub onto the ground and crushes it out with his shoe.
Director Ma feels trapped between his two selves. Whether he speaks through the one to his left or to his right, he can’t seem to find the right words. He proceeds to the Drum Tower. The ticket office hasn’t opened yet. Without thinking, he heaves himself over the wooden fence, walks through the unlocked door and slowly climbs up the steep wooden stairs.
When he reaches the Drum Tower’s lofty balcony, he gazes out over the city. He can see that most of the old town is now a mass of high-rise buildings. The Monument to the Revolution, county hospital and Cultural Palace were demolished years ago. All that remains unchanged is the Fenshui River that flows sluggishly along the old road to the west. Why did my parents kill themselves? A gentle breeze blows past, lifting some leaves from the square below. He looks down at the two-toned brogue on his right foot. Those shoes are the only belongings I inherited from my father. Why am I wearing one of them now? I remember the day Mao’s earth-shattering slogan TO MAKE REVOLUTION IS NO CRIME; TO REBEL IS JUSTIFIED was painted on the wall of this tower. I took out my notebook and faithfully copied it down. My father was denounced and beaten countless times during the months that followed, but so were millions of other people and they managed not to lose hope. The night I was summoned home, why didn’t my parents warn my sister and me that they were planning to kill themselves? Of course, my father never recovered from the heartbreak I inflicted on him when I told the Red Guards to ransack our home … Ma Daode feels struck with remorse. He wishes he could walk over to his parents now and put his arms around them.
The phone in his pocket judders. It’s a message from his daughter: YOU SHOULD INVITE BRITISH FAMILIES TO CHINA AND SEND CHINESE FAMILIES TO BRITAIN ON BILATERAL CULTURAL EXCHANGES. IT WOULD BE MUCH MORE MEANINGFUL FOR BOTH SIDES THAN RUSHED VISITS TO THE USUAL TOURIST SITES … She advises him to set up a travel agency and put the idea in motion. Ma Daode wonders whether these exchanges would belong to a China Dream or a British Dream. He notices people on the square looking up at him or perhaps at the huge screen below the balcony. When the China Dream Bureau opened bids to erect a giant screen here to broadcast promotional films and public-service announcements, many businesses vied for the deal, offering bribes of cash and beautiful women, but Ma Daode turned them all down and awarded the contract to his oldest lover, Li Wei, who was in fact the most suitable candidate as she was already renting the tower.
‘Have you gone up there to kill yourself?’ yells an elderly volunteer security guard with a red armband around her left sleeve. ‘Come down at once!’
‘Look at this!’ Ma Daode shouts, climbing onto the balcony’s crenellated edge and pointing at the sign hanging from his neck.
A few people huddle together and begin to talk among themselves:
‘Bet he’s a migrant worker trying to drum up some cash.’
‘No – he’s probably a peasant petitioning the authorities about the demolition of his house.’
‘We should call the police. He’s creating a disturbance.’
The garlic seller walks over and says to them: ‘No, he’s just a madman who thinks he’s a government official. Hey, idiot! If you’ve got the balls, jump!’
Ma Daode clears his throat and launches into a speech: ‘Comrades, battle companions, see this sign? It’s true: I really am the director of the China Dream Bureau, a municipal government leader. But today, I want to speak to you, not as an official, but as an ordinary Ziyang resident. I was born and bred here. For four years I was banished to Yaobang, over there, to be re-educated by the peasants.’ Ma Daode points to the west. ‘Now I work on the fifth floor of that huge government and Party headquarters.’ He points to the north. ‘What is this in my hand, you may wonder?’ He raises the Coca-Cola bottle.
The throng below yells: ‘It’s a petrol bomb! Quick – run!’
‘No, come back!’ Ma Daode replies. ‘It’s not a bomb! It’s a new, improved version of Old Lady Dream’s Broth of Amnesia, which I have named China Dream Soup. In a moment you will discover how it can magically banish your nightmares and replace them with the China Dream. No need for pills or injections, or even the China Dream Device. One sip of this soup and you can make a clean break with the past …’
‘I’ve seen his toad-like face before,’ says a voice in the crowd. ‘He cut the ribbon at the grand opening of Ten Thousand Fortunes Company.’
‘Old Lady Dream’s Broth?’ another man cries out. ‘That’s only drunk by dead souls who need to forget their past lives before they are reborn into new bodies. I’ve never heard of a living person drinking it before. Go on then, you fool. Take a sip and see what happens!’
‘I will drink it, but before I wipe out all my memories, I want to see my parents one last time,’ Ma Daode says, pointing towards Garden Square twelve kilometres away. ‘My unfilial behaviour drove them to their grave. But I have changed. I have changed entirely, inside and out, down to the very marrow of my bones.’
‘Aren’t you the son of Ma Lei and Zhu Mei?’ an old man in glasses calls out. ‘They were good people, those two. In the Cultural Revolution they were paraded through the streets every day.’
‘Yes, it’s him! The son of the Rightist. He joined East is Red, and could fight with knives, lances and pistols, as well as his bare fists, and was a master of kung fu. I once saw him run straight towards the barrel of a gun. He was fearless!’ The man now speaking is wearing blue overalls and has no head.
Seeing the large number of people who have gathered in the square to gawp, Song Bin brings out crates of steamed dumplings from the Qingfeng Dumpling Store, loads them onto a trolley and then, with his wife, wheels it through the throng shouting: ‘Try some Xi dumplings. Pale and plump, soft and tender! Who could resist? Only ten yuan a pair.’
‘Officer Ma, I’m Comrade Chun, reporting for duty,’ a cross-eyed boy cries out from the crowd. Ma Daode looks down at his old friend, and sees that the two bullets that struck him in the shoulder exited through the waist. It must have been a high-calibre machine gun because there is no blood around the wounds.
‘Comrade Chun, when we buried you, I placed two bullets in your hand so that you could avenge your death in the netherworld,’ Ma Daode cries back, feeling the burden of his past weigh heavily on his shoulders. He addresses the crowd again: ‘See, if you don’t drink this China Dream Soup, the past and the present form a tangled web from which it becomes impossible to break free. I’m sure you all have terrible memories you long to get rid of. Well, if you open this bottle of soup, add a few of your own tears, mix it all up and take a sip, your past will vanish as swiftly and permanently as a text you delete from your phone. So, for a life of unbridled joy, drink China Dream Soup!’ Ma Daode sees that the square below is now filled with people, but their faces are blank. ‘Whoever wants a free taste, raise your hand!’ he shouts. A sea of hands rises above the crowd. ‘Wonderful. Now, just think of something sad that happened to you in the past and get ready to shed a few tears.’
‘That’s easy – my wife left me last year to work in a factory in Guangdong, and she refuses to come back,’ says a migrant worker squatting on a street corner.
‘I’ve never cried about anything in my life, but my heart is full of sorrow,’ says a man with a bald patch. Then he crunches a clove of garlic and bites into a dumpling.
‘My newborn son was strangled to death by a family-planning doctor, right in front of me,’ says a woman with a blue hairband. ‘I wept so much, I have no tears left to cry. What should I do?’
‘Borrow someone else’s,’ suggests Ma Daode. ‘Those who have tears, lend them to those who have none. Your reward will come in the next life. Now, let’s all travel back in time to the Cultural Revolution and sing together: “Chairman Mao’s books are my favourite books. I read them a thousand times, ten thousand times. When I absorb their profound meaning, my heart glows with warm joy …”’
‘Your heart may be glowing with warm joy, you bastard, but mine is fucking stone cold! In fact, let me rip out your heart, then we can see how bloody warm it is!’ This boy’s bloodied forehead looks like a smashed watermelon. He’s wearing dirty overalls and a Million Bold Warriors armband. Ma Daode recognises him as a boy he kicked off the flat roof of a building. Yes, I tied his arms back with rope and with one sharp kick sent him flying over the edge. I trudged back home through the snow in his leather boots. The battle continued for days. When I returned a week later, I heard that the Drum Tower had been set alight with petrol bombs. With the help of rebel workers from the Agricultural Machinery Factory and the Red Sword Combat Team, the Million Bold Warriors captured the tower and cut off the escape routes out of the city. Pan Hua was stranded up here on the balcony. After a flaming bottle struck her in the chest, she leapt over the edge and soared to the Yellow Springs, her clothes and hair ablaze.
‘We must put the past behind us, and look ahead, look ahead. That’s why I made this soup …’ Ma Daode answers, struggling to find an adequate response to the young man he killed.
‘Come down, Ma Daode, and open the door for me!’ his mistress Li Wei shouts up to him. ‘I need to get into my office.’ She is wearing a woollen dress and knee-high leather boots. Her long glossy hair looks as though it has just been blow-dried in a salon.
‘Ignore her – she belongs to the Million Bold Warriors!’ Ma Daode shouts down sternly.
‘Don’t pretend not to know me,’ Li Wei replies, craning her neck up to look at him. ‘I’m Li Wei, your oldest lover. Come down right now. I’m renting this building, and if anything bad happens here, I’ll be ruined.’ The giant screen casts a blue light over her terrified face.
‘But my lover is called Pan Hua. At the height of the violent struggle, she leapt from this tower shouting: “Long live Chairman Mao!”’
‘Stop it, Ma Daode!’ Li Wei yells, stamping her feet and beginning to sob. ‘You are the only man I have been with in my whole life. Stop acting like a madman and come down at once.’
‘Don’t worry, he won’t jump,’ says a woman who has just bought some garlic and dumplings. ‘He promised to give me a sip of his China Dream Soup so I can forget the misery of my past. I trust him!’
‘You’re just a little squirt, an East is Red nobody,’ cries the boy with the bloodied forehead. ‘But I’m the Million Bold Warriors communications officer. If you hadn’t kicked me off the roof, I’d be Propaganda Chief of Ziyang by now.’
Ma Daode draws a deep breath of air and savours the delicious scent of pork dumplings and raw garlic. Just a drop of black vinegar, and the taste would be sublime.
‘I don’t care about any of you any more. Once I drink this soup you will all be gone. That other Ma Daode will be gone as well and I will be free at last!’ Ma Daode lifts the bottle to his eyes and tries to shed a tear, but realises he will only be able to cry when he sees his parents again.
His secretary, Hu, calls out from below: ‘I’ve kept this to myself all this time, but I must tell you now. During the violent struggle, your East is Red faction staged an exhibition of counter-revolutionary criminals. My mother was one of your exhibits. You locked her in a wooden cage for days and let visitors jab her with bamboo rods and spit in her face.’ He points to the ghostly figure with long white hair who is standing beside him.
‘I recognise you, old lady!’ Ma Daode says. ‘You worked in the county supply office. But why are you a ghost? We didn’t kill you.’ He remembers that she was a lively woman with tightly permed hair. During a street battle waged against her rebel faction, he raised his stick and prepared to strike her on the neck, but his friends gathered round and said: ‘Wait, don’t kill her. Make her lick a corpse instead.’ So he dragged her over to a fallen comrade and forced her to lick the blood from his bludgeoned face.
‘I’m here to assist the troops,’ says a teenager whose chest is riddled with bullet holes. ‘Don’t worry – it wasn’t you who shot me. We’re all desperate to try your soup, so stop talking about it and give us some!’
‘Which faction do you belong to?’ asks Cross-eyed Chun, walking over to him.
‘I’m a Red Guard from the provincial university,’ the teenager answers. ‘I’ve been deployed here to support the Million Bold Warriors.’
‘Bastard!’ Chun shouts, pouncing on top of him. ‘Let me avenge my death!’ The two youths wrestle to the ground and tear at each other’s clothes and hair.
Ma Daode looks down and sees an East is Red unit line up in front of the Drum Tower entrance to prevent a gang of Million Bold Warriors from breaking in. The two groups stand facing each other, hurling insults back and forth. Then he looks over to the square and sees thousands of Red Guards begin to flood in from all sides. Caught in the chaotic scrum of people and ghosts, Li Wei sobs: ‘You promised we would never part, Ma Daode! During all these years, my love for you has never waned. Why are my gleaming white thighs and the moist sanctuary between them not enough to keep you by my side?’
‘My heart belongs to Pan Hua, but she died many years ago.’ Ma Daode gazes out at the impenetrable sea of people and, feeling as though he is performing in a tragic ballet, assumes an expression of pained sorrow.
‘I pity poor Juan being married to an unfaithful bastard like you!’ shouts Song Bin’s wife, Hong. ‘May this be the last thing you ever eat!’ She snatches a dumpling from the trolley and tries to fling it at Ma Daode, but it hits the China Dream screen instead, its juice spurting out in an oily mist. As Song Bin grasps hold of her hands to stop her throwing any more, Ma Daode shouts down to her: ‘You’d be better off keeping an eye on your own husband, Hong! Just check the messages on his phone.’ At this, Hong breaks free and punches Song Bin hard in the face, then pursues him through the crowd as he tries to flee.
‘But look, I am Pan Hua,’ Li Wei calls out. ‘My soul is reincarnating into Li Wei’s body so that I can be with you again. After I fell from that tower and was buried in the wild grove, you were the only classmate who visited my grave. That is why I want to return to you.’ As these words leave her mouth, Li Wei transforms into Pan Hua, wearing a faded army uniform and a red scarf around her neck. Only her long glossy hair remains unchanged.
‘But remember that pamphlet the Red Guards wrote called “Crimes of Rightist Ma Lei, husband of a female spy who worked for an English family”? You grabbed one from a pile and copied every word of it into your notebook. You despised me.’ Ma Daode looks over to the White House and the Gate of Heavenly Peace.
‘I only copied it to understand your parents better. When I reached the end, I realised your mother was a good person after all, and I resolved to fall in love with you.’ Since Li Wei has transformed into Pan Hua, her voice has become husky and acquired a Sichuan accent.
‘Ah, if only I had known!’ he says. ‘Now I understand why you were so desperate to rent this tower, Li Wei – I mean, Pan Hua. Your mother is looking for you, by the way. I bumped into her on Drum Tower Street just now.’
Ma Daode looks down again, and is so astonished by the battle scene now unfurling in the square, his legs almost give way. He can see captives, hands raised in surrender, being herded out of the old general post office by a squad of Red Guards; and on a hemp-sack barricade on the street outside, he sees the mad-eyed boy called Tan Dan waving a Mauser pistol in the air, just as he did over forty years ago after he executed the captives on the river pier in Yaobang.
Pan Hua joins the other East is Red recruits who are pushing the enemy faction away from the ticket office. A small group of Million Bold Warriors runs off to the side, scrambles through a hole in the fence and begins to form a human ladder up the Drum Tower. Voices cry out from the jostling hordes: ‘Get out of here, you Million Bold Warrior bastards!’
The garlic seller sees his tricycle cart being toppled over and shouts: ‘Why aren’t the urban-management officers arresting these bloody hooligans?’ A group of Red Guards surrounds Song Bin’s trolley of bamboo steamers, yelling: ‘We Million Bold Warriors are great! It’s you who should bugger off, you East is Red scum!’ Then they open the steamers, grab hold of the small, breast-like Xi dumplings and hurl them at the China Dream screen. One hits the corner of Ma Daode’s mouth and falls onto his two-toned brogue. In the distance, he sees a People’s Liberation Army truck, packed with more Red Guards and rebel workers, advance along Drum Tower Street. A deafening clamour of gongs and drums melds with piercing battle cries. The flat roofs of every surrounding building are now crammed with onlookers. Propaganda Chief Ding is standing among them, waving a burning red flag. From the huge speakers beside the giant screen below, the new China Dream theme song, with lyrics composed by Ma Daode himself, blares out: ‘The China Dream is really good, really good, really good …’
Above the cacophony, Ma Daode yells: ‘Comrades-in-arms! With our blood and our lives we have established the glorious new era of the China Dream. Let us bid farewell to the past and sing in unison: “The Cultural Revolution is really good, really …” Forgive me, I mean: “The China Dream is really good, really good …”’ Just as he is about to sing ‘really good’ for the third time, Ma Daode sees his father, an English fountain pen clipped to the pocket of his white shirt and a two-toned brogue on his left foot, being dragged by Song Bin out of the Qingfeng Dumpling Store. A stocky little youth, whom Ma Daode instantly recognises as Yao Jian, then yanks his father’s head back, chops off a chunk of his hair, looks up and shouts: ‘If you don’t jump now, Ma Daode, I’ll come up and kick you off myself!’ Ma Daode stares in amazement at Yao Jian standing there with blood streaming from his mouth, a pair of scissors in his hand and a pool of blood at his feet, looking exactly as he does in the nightmare vision that haunts his days and nights.
His vision blurs for a moment. Blood begins to trickle from every orifice of his body. He feels his life force slowly slipping away. Knowing that there is no time left for him to try to produce any tears, he spits a drop of his blood into the bottle instead. Then he gives it a shake, yells: ‘Long live Father! Long live Mother! Long live the China Dream!’ and with a grand flourish splashes the China Dream Soup over the crowd below. When the foul-smelling liquid touches their heads, some people cry, some laugh, others cover their noses and flee like a colony of ants escaping a jet of urine.
The soup’s morbid stench drifts through every street and lane. Ma Daode smiles. Although he hasn’t drunk any yet, his memories have already vanished and his mind is completely clear. He raises his gaze from the sea of blood-red flags and looks straight ahead. The crowd is still lobbing the small, pillowy dumplings at him. But when they enter Ma Daode’s line of vision, all he sees are soft white clouds bobbing in the clear blue sky. Everything looks clean and pure. He is certain that this heavenly scene unfolding before him is the China Dream of President Xi Jinping. Summoning every remaining ounce of his energy, he discards his vibrating phone and with the grace of a dancer, leaps off the edge of the balcony and soars upward and onward, towards a beautiful and radiant future.