Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in Chaos (14 page)

On Saturday evenings, the cow demons were allowed a visit from a family member. When Papa spoke to Mama on her first visit, he asked her not to worry about him. He assured her he was emotionally and mentally strong. “My will to live,” he said, “is unbreakable.” He pointed out to her that most of those who killed themselves were young teachers and administrators. “The older ones,” he said, “like me, have been through these things before. We know it will end someday. But the younger ones think this will go on forever. They see no reason to live. But I have you and the children. I have hope.”

“I do, too,” Mama assured him.

Yicun and I visited Papa on his birthday, during the second week of
his incarceration. Mama prepared a gift for him—a bowl of dumplings. I watched as Mama made the dumplings, my mouth watering. I could hardly remember the last time we’d eaten meat. I was tempted to ask Mama for one—just one. But I decided not to. She placed the boiled dumplings in an aluminum lunch box, tightened the lid so nothing would spill, and wrapped it in a towel so they would stay warm. Yicun and I walked to the cowshed bearing the birthday present. At the entrance, we were stopped by a civilian sentry who snorted, “You kids go away! This is not a playground.”

“We’re here to see our papa, Wu Ningkun,” I responded.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the container.

“It’s a birthday present.”

“Open it.”

I removed the lid. He took the container and peered inside, held it to his nose, sniffed deeply, and looked at me suspiciously. He dipped his finger into the container and stirred the dumplings around. “Dumplings, huh? And for your father’s birthday?”

“Yes,” I replied. “And you are making them cold.”

He fished out a dumpling, stuffed it into his mouth, chewed and swallowed it.

“Those are for my papa,” I protested. He plucked out another.

I grabbed for his hand and screamed, “Stop it!”

He caught my wrist and twisted it hard. I let out a cry of pain.

“You little shit,” he shouted.

Yicun began screaming.

“Damn you,” the sentry bellowed. “Shut up! I am trying to see if you’ve put anti-revolutionary messages in the dumplings.”

There was a commotion inside. Several voices cried, “What’s the matter? What’s going on?”

The sentry released me and handed me the container. “Go in,” he ordered and waved his hand toward the door.

Inside stood a circle of several men and women, staring wide-eyed at us.

Papa rushed to us and lifted Yicun in his arms. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“No, Papa,” Yicun whimpered.

I handed him the bundled dumplings. “From Mama,” I said through my tears. “Happy birthday, Papa.”

The others stood silently, staring hungrily at the dumplings.

We had been with Papa less than five minutes when the sentry shouted, “Time’s up!”

I took my brother’s hand and we left.

On the way home I saw a new poster on a wall near our apartment. It read
DOWN WITH LIANG NAN THE ACTIVE COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY
.

Liang Nan—Auntie Liang—was Xiaolan’s mother. I’d just seen Xiaolan’s father in the cowshed with Papa. I read the poster and learned that Auntie Liang had been caught sitting on a copy of the
Anhui Daily
. The paper carried a front-page photo of Chairman Mao. Sitting on the picture of Chairman Mao made Auntie Liang an “active counterrevolutionary.”

The Cultural Revolution took yet another twist in the autumn of 1968, when a new Party directive was issued called “Cleansing Class Enemies.” It was designed to identify and reeducate or remove class enemies from the ranks of the revolutionary masses. Mama was summoned to a mass meeting, where the new policy was articulated.

“The capitalist intellectuals of our nation live in large buildings in the cities, and many of them live capitalist lives,” a Propaganda Team leader proclaimed. “Your lavish life is supported by the backbreaking labor of the poor and lower-middle peasants. Because of this division, it is impossible for intellectuals to understand the real cost of the lives you live. And it is impossible for you to reform your thoughts since thoughts grow from experience. If you are incapable of reforming your own thoughts,” he concluded, “you are unqualified to teach students. Teachers and students of all institutions of higher learning will move to the countryside to live with the peasants, share their labor, their food, their huts and their daily routine and learn from them by doing what they do. From this experience and this experience alone can genuine thought reform and a real revolution emerge.”

The faculty and students of Anhui University, he said, would be sent to live among peasants at the Wujiang People’s Commune in Hexian County, a hundred miles east of Hefei. Children were exempt from the directive. Two rooms in the university child care center would be transformed into a special holding facility for them. The cost of maintaining children was to be deducted from their parents’ salaries.

Mama came home deeply worried. “You will remain here,” she told us. “But Papa and I have to go away.”

“When?” I asked nervously.

“How long?” Yiding added.

“I don’t know,” she replied.

When Yicun began to whimper, Mama put him on her lap and comforted him. “Yimao and Yiding will take care of you. Papa and I will write to you.”

Mama told me that I was old enough to watch over my brothers and to make sure they had enough to eat and were cared for if they became ill.

I became a parent to my five-year-old brother and a guardian of my twelve-year-old brother. What remained of my childhood was over. I was ten years old.

Many meetings were held during the next week to explain the logistics of the move and the routine of life in the countryside. Apartments were to be locked after the residents departed. When someone was properly reeducated and sent home, they could reoccupy the same apartment. Until that day the campus would be a ghost town, with only the child care center operational. On December 20, one day before the scheduled departure, Papa was released from the cowshed. Yicun clung to him throughout the day.

In the afternoon our mother took the bus downtown and bought bread and sweets for us to take to the child care center. She meticulously packed a bag of clothing for each of us and rolled up straw mats, blankets and sheets for our bedding. After dinner Mama tied a key to the door on a string around my neck. She told me if any of us needed
more clothing, I should return home to get it. When it was time for Yiding and me to leave, we slung our bedrolls over our shoulders and picked up our bags. Yiding’s parting words were “Don’t worry, Mama and Papa.”

“Mama, I’ll take care of everything,” I affirmed. I strained to keep my voice from breaking. I wanted to cry, to go to my own bed, to stay at home. I looked up into Mama’s eyes and saw that she, too, was forcing back tears. I waved goodbye.

In the center, I found that six girls had been assigned to one room and fifteen boys to another. Children six and under were housed in three other rooms. When I went to my room, I found Xiaolan lying on her bedroll on the floor, staring at the ceiling.

“Xiaolan!” I squealed in delight.

“Maomao!” she said and jumped up.

We unrolled my bedding next to hers and sat together for the next hour, talking about and guessing at what life might be like in this facility.

My parents had prepared wooden placards that they were required to carry as they marched out of the city. Papa wrote on his placard, “It is hard for any person to avoid mistakes, but one should make as few as possible. When a mistake is made one should correct it, and the more quickly and thoroughly the better.”

Mama told Yicun it was time to take him to the center. She held him, and Papa picked up his bedroll and a bag of clothing. They walked out into the starless winter night. Yicun wrapped his arms around Mama’s neck. Along the way he began to cry. “I want to stay with you and Papa,” he whined. “I’m afraid.”

“Yiding and Yimao will be at the center, darling,” Mama reminded him. “They’ll take care of you.”

“I don’t want you to go,” he sobbed.

They stopped. Papa put down the bags and took Yicun from Mama. Yicun buried his face against Papa’s shoulder.

Inside the center, the woman in charge—Comrade Pan—demanded,
“Why are you so late?” She was one of the teachers who daily placed Yicun on the potty chair and refused to allow him to play with others. She was a chubby woman with a tiny nose, narrow eyes and big protruding teeth. She was a Party member and an enthusiastic speaker at rallies. When she was angry, her eyes seemed to close completely and she leaned close to the object of her anger as if she were going to bite. The children were terrified of her wrath.

“I’m sorry,” Mama responded contritely. “We had many things to take care of.”

“
We
have many things to take care of
here
,” Comrade Pan snapped. “Now hurry!”

“Where will he stay?” Mama asked.

“The two- to four-year-olds are there,” Comrade Pan answered, pointing to a large room where a dozen youngsters had already put down their mats and blankets.

Mama knelt and carefully unrolled Yicun’s mat and blanket. Yicun watched from my father’s arms. Papa put him down and gently pulled his hands free of his neck. Yicun grabbed Papa’s leg, locked his fingers together and began to wail. Other children sat up to watch. Comrade Pan became agitated and scolded Yicun and my parents.

When Yicun was quieted, Mama and Papa turned to leave. Yicun rolled over and lay on his stomach and rested his chin on his pillow. He looked at his parents, pleading silently through his tears. Outside, Mama and Papa walked for a few steps, shuffling their feet. They stared at the ground. Suddenly, Mama turned and hurried to a window. Papa followed. They watched Yicun, still lying on the floor. His woeful gaze pierced Mama’s heart. She covered her face with both hands. Papa started to cry.

I had been hiding in the hallway, hoping to get a last look at them. I watched as they trudged away, passing between row upon row of darkened dormitories and classroom buildings that lined the route like the ghostly ruins of a dead civilization.

They embraced before Papa returned to the cowshed.

The children of the child care center were awakened early by supervisors. There was no breakfast. We were marched to a special spot on the street. Each of us was handed a small paper banner with a quotation from Chairman Mao scribbled on it and instructed to wave it over our head as the marchers approached. Our supervisors reminded us to pay attention and to shout slogans together as loud as we could when they gave the signal.

Three thousand adults gathered at the athletic grounds. In the front ranks were the revolutionary faculty, staff and students. Behind them were the cow demons and the rest of the university’s political menagerie. They stood four abreast in long columns. A leader of the Propaganda Team addressed them. “Our journey will be a hundred miles. We will cover the distance in six days. Now let us begin
our
Long March.” He gave a signal, and everyone cheered and waved Little Red Books in the air. The columns turned and the journey began.

I heard a sound like thunder a few blocks away. I stepped out from the other children and saw a mass of men and women approaching. Those in the front ranks held Little Red Books and waved them over
their heads while pounding the sky with their fists. As the marchers came closer, the throng lining the street five and six deep joined in shouting slogans. One earsplitting blast of phrases followed another. Hundreds of spectators—those selected to remain on campus along with the general population of Hefei—thumped drums and thrashed cymbals. With each fresh outburst from the crowd, the marchers responded with slogans. Yicun held both hands over his ears as he looked up at me curiously, wondering what this madness was all about. I tried to tell him but I could not even hear my own voice. When the first marchers were a few feet from us, our supervisors began jumping in the air, waving their signs and screaming for the children to chant with them. The smaller children began to cry. I held up Yicun so he could see over the heads of the others.

“Long Live the Great Leader Chairman Mao!” a teacher howled, and we responded in a screeching salvo, “Long Live the Great Leader Chairman Mao!”

“Long Live the Revolutionary Road of Chairman Mao,” the marchers shouted back, and the teachers answered, “Long Live the Revolutionary Road of Chairman Mao.” At a signal from the teachers the children intoned in their little voices, “Long Live the Revolutionary Road of Chairman Mao.”

Comrade Pan was leaping up and down, waving both arms in the air and screaming slogans. She snapped her head from side to side like a dog chasing a fly and sprayed everyone near her with her spit. She sprang high into the air and came down on the foot of another supervisor. Both women screamed. Comrade Pan lost her footing and sprawled on all fours in the middle of the street. She lay there awkwardly as the marchers stepped around her. No one offered assistance. She rose slowly and limped to the side of the street. She seemed momentarily dazed. Another supervisor leaned in to her face and shrieked out a slogan. Comrade Pan once more took up the cry. But she was less energetic, and she no longer made revolutionary leaps.

I saw Mama and, a short distance behind her, Papa. They were
both bent beneath the weight of their packs. “There’s Mama and Papa!” I said to Yicun.

I put him down and took his hand and ran to Mama. She broke ranks and approached us.

“Mama,” I cried. She embraced Yicun. She examined his face and pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his runny nose; he’d caught a cold. She squeezed his hands and said, “Be a good boy, Yicun. Bye-bye.” She hurried back to her place in the column.

I turned to look for my father. I waved and pointed him out to Yicun. Papa looked at us forlornly. He forced a smile but I saw his eyes were shining with tears. “Goodbye, Papa,” I called and raised my hand. In an instant he, too, was gone.

At the end of Papa’s group was a big four-wheeled cart. It was pulled by several men harnessed to it. Among them were the president and the Party secretary of the university. On the cart were the bedrolls and the bags of the Red Guards and the Propaganda Team members. At the end of the parade was a bus with only a driver in it. The bus was there in case any marchers collapsed and could not be revived. But later, they were sure to be subject to accusations and criticism for anti-revolutionary exhaustion.