WHEN WE WERE SENT DOWN to the countryside, Line didn’t go with me to the commune in Yunnan. Instead, she went with her parents to labor at a cadre school, because that was where Mr. Li went. Of course, their situations were entirely different. Line was a child, a dependent, she did what she liked and it was mostly a breeze. Mr. Li, on the other hand, was a Trotskyite, he was forced to do everything. After a while, they stopped calling him Trotskyite, but the factory workers who ran the cadre school couldn’t stand Blood-swollen Turtlehead, so they made him suffer in many ways. In the parlance of the village folks back then, there were the “four back-breakers”: digging wells, making bricks, harvesting wheat, and fucking pussies.
With the exception of the last activity, Mr. Li did them all. He also carried piss and shit, leveled fields, made roof tiles, did woodwork and more; dredged the river in the early spring and watched over things turning green in midsummer. Sometimes, he was the night watchman. If anything got stolen, the old village farmers gave him hell. It was a good thing he grew up eating beef, which gave him a robust constitution. Plus, he was rather on the young side, not even thirty years old; had that not been the case, Line would have been way out of his league.
When people in our department talk about Mr. Li, they always mention how impressed they were with his performance at the cadre school. They thought that for an intellectual who grew up overseas to take on so much responsibility was really quite extraordinary. He never complained about the forced labor or the criticisms that he took. After everything was over, he had nothing bad to say about the nation or the Party. He was a good comrade and had the potential to be brought into the Party. But Mr. Li said, as he was still carrying the ugly name of Blood-swollen Turtlehead with him wherever he went, and as he didn’t want to sully the Party’s good name, it should perhaps wait.
Line said, Mr. Li’s behavior was fascinating. He did everything he was told and always had that same silly grin on his face that he had when he was getting bopped on the head. She thought Blood-swollen Turtlehead, the big E.T., was a real hoot. Had there not been so many eyes and ears at the cadre school, she would have done it with him long ago.
Later, Mr. Li said to me personally: my brother, we went to the same school, worked in the same field, are colleagues in the same department, and back in the day, you brought me steamed buns— what an extraordinary bond. What I mean is, I would like to speak honestly with you. During my time at the cadre school, I got hung up the way young people sometimes do, and thought that I had fallen under some sort of a curse. For someone who studies the scientific method like me to harbor such a notion is hard to believe, I know. But considering everything I have seen in the Mainland, the blood-swollen thing, the Trotskyite thing, the headful of bumps thing, superstition no longer seems so far-fetched. And strangest of all: every day after work, there is always a note on my bed. So I wanted to believe that I had deeply offended someone somewhere and was paying the price. The number one suspect was my Indian roommate in college. On one occasion, when I was annoyed with him burning his incense in the room, I went into the toilet to create a disturbance. I flushed the toilet eight times in a row. That must have offended him so he put me into a nightmare, one that I couldn’t wake up from for three years. Faced with such supernatural forces, I knew I had to behave lest I end up with a fate even more gruesome. That was the story of Mr. Li at the cadre school.
While Mr. Li labored at the cadre school, I was stationed at a commune in Yunnan where I met Chen Qingyang, so I didn’t think much about Line anymore. But once in a while, I thought about Mr. He. I figured out why he wanted to tell a kid to move right before his death. It was because when he died, he didn’t want anyone to see him.
Before the Cultural Revolution, the mining school had a club that would light up with games of poker and chess on every summer night, from eight to eleven. The room had a ceiling fan and a sofa with a floral trim. It was both cool and spacious. Every night, our department went there to play chess. One time, someone told Mr. He that Wang Er’s game was terrific. At the time, Mr. He had a head of slick black hair (dyed), polished nails, a deep voice, and was generally winsome. He played a good game of chess but he couldn’t beat me. Still, he played with me often and never got embarrassed when he lost.
When Mr. He died, a section of his hair was black and a section of it was white, a very unattractive look. His hands lay at his sides and his neck caved in at an unnatural angle. Basically, he died like a gopher. Mr. He must have predicted that he would look hideous after his death; that was why he didn’t want to let anyone see him.
After Mr. He’s body was taken away, pieces of his brain remained. The police said to the mining school folks, you guys figure out what to do with the rest. The mining school folks thought about it and said: let the family of the deceased decide what to do, leave a few people here to guard the remains, the rest can clear out. When it was dusk and still no family members appeared, the guards grew angry and grumbled: their own loss, we’re out of here, leave this crap for the crows. As the day’s last remaining light faded, the wind picked up. It was cold.
When I was in Yunnan, I thought about another thing related to Mr. He. When they were doing the autopsy, Mr. He’s big gun was thick and long, and categorically erect. Thinking about it before sex can quell all desire and make you not want to do it anymore.