The Four Books (6 page)

Each time, however, he returned empty-handed.

A middle-aged professor asked him, “What in the world was it that you saw?”

He didn’t respond.

The professor became agitated. “Do you think I don’t know? Wasn’t it a couple fornicating?”

The Technician opened his eyes wide and said, “I saw it first.”

“Where did you see it? Did you catch them? Do you have any evidence?” The professor laughed coldly and said, “If you discovered a couple fornicating in the bushes, others can surely find other couples in other bushes.” As he was saying this, he strode deliberately toward a clump of bushes, but after walking a few steps he turned and called out, “I want to make a discovery and report it, so that I’ll be able to return home for New Year’s!”

Everyone suddenly dispersed, heading in search of bushes and leaving their plows and wheat seeds behind. No one worked anymore, and instead they all spread out toward bushes, ditches, and ravines—as though they were looking for somewhere to pee or take a shit, while in reality they were trying to catch adulterers. They were hoping to find a Re-Ed couple rolling around on the ground naked or embracing each other. At this point, the Technician appeared as expected, suddenly standing in front of that couple, and exclaimed in surprise, “Heavens—we came here for labor reform, yet the two of you have the balls to engage in this sort of lascivious behavior!” He then ordered the couple to put their clothes back on and go with him. He scared them so badly they both turned pale, whereupon he led them to the Child.

In this way, he achieved merit in the eyes of the Child.

A few days before the Spring Festival, he was permitted to return home to spend the Lunar New Year with his wife.

Everyone searched the bushes and ravines, or the fields around the other brigades, looking for adulterers. They were gone for a long time, until the sun was high in the sky. Eventually they returned, and when they saw one another no one asked what the others had discovered. Instead, they laughed with embarrassment and disappointment.

One professor, for the sake of saying something, asked, “Did you take a shit?”

Another laughed and replied, “I had a little diarrhea.”

Yet another remarked, “I drank too much water today, and keep having to take a leak.”

Then they began silently pulling the plow again without getting distracted and looking around in all directions.

Things continued like this for another six days, but in the end no one managed to catch any adulterers. However, the two hundred
mu
of land we had been allotted and assigned was plowed faster than the others. When we were almost done, everyone was so exhausted they seemed ready to collapse, and they all returned to the compound and fell into bed. I felt the same way. My plow had vibrated so violently that my arms were numb like two sticks, and when I pinched them it was as though I were pinching the leg of a pig or a dog. It was at this moment, as I was sleeping like the dead, that the Technician shook me awake and whispered urgently in my ear, “Quick, get up. I discovered that there are five women in the fourth brigade who didn’t return from the fields.”

I stared in surprise, then sat bolt upright in bed. Relying on the moonlight streaming in through the window, I put on my shoes and followed the Technician out of the building. We stood in the shadow of a tree out front, and I listened as he told me how every day at dinnertime, when everyone in Re-Ed was returning to the canteen from the fields, he would carefully note who was eating together and who seemed unusually affectionate with each other. He said he observed at least ten couples. He even noticed some men who gave women food to eat, and women who would place in the man’s bowl the buns they couldn’t finish, or couldn’t bring themselves to finish. He said that in order to prove that these ten couples had become unusually affectionate with one another, after dinner he went to hide behind a wall in front of the women’s dormitory, and he watched for which women either failed to return to their room, or returned but then immediately left again.

“Five in all,” the Technician told me softly. “It is now the middle of the night, and while there are twenty-seven women in the ninety-ninth, only twenty-two have returned to their room.”

The night was already as dark as the bottom of a well, but the moon was shining brightly overhead, as though frozen in the sky. A dull rumble of exhausted snores could be heard coming from the dormitory—the sound resembling a mixture of mud and clay, like a dirt road after a heavy rain. In the darkness, I stared at the Technician’s face, as though examining an incomplete sketch.

“Why don’t you catch them?”

“If I were to catch them alone in the middle of the night, won’t they simply claim that I had entrapped them? But if you were to go with me, you could be my witness.”

I reflected for a moment. “But then if we catch someone, who will get credit for reporting them?”

“I’ve already thought of that,” he said. “If we catch one couple, we will share credit, if we catch two couples each of us will take credit for one, and if we catch three then we’ll split the credit sixty/forty, with you getting forty percent while I get sixty—since, after all, I’m the one who has invested the most time and effort into this.”

That seemed fair. I didn’t hesitate, and after a brief consideration I followed him out of the compound. As we passed through the main gate, we saw that the light was still on in the room where the Child was sleeping, and there was a sawing sound coming from inside, as though the Child were working on something. We naturally couldn’t wake him, and carefully tiptoed past his door and his window.

At the base of the wall along the eastern perimeter of the district courtyard, we found a couple hiding in the shadows. We crept up and shined a light on them, then realized it was actually another pair of men from Re-Ed, who had also snuck out to catch some adulterers. We headed back behind the wall, then saw someone’s shadow moving. We shined the light, and saw it was a man from the third brigade, lying on the ground. We asked him what he was doing there, and he replied that he had heard there were adulterers in the district and he hoped to get credit for catching them. The three of us then walked over to a small grove up ahead, but before we arrived four lights started shining simultaneously. We exclaimed,

“How could it be another group?”

Later that night, after the moon set and the stars started to fade, everyone began to feel somewhat cold. They decided that since the sun was about to rise, they should head back, and they returned empty-handed to the compound. At that point, they realized that more than sixty men had gone in search of adulterers, accounting for more than half of the men in the ninety-ninth. The oldest was sixty-two and the youngest was only in his twenties, and when they all lined up together they resembled a dragon swimming through the night.

C
HAPTER
3

A Flurry of Blossoms

1. Heaven’s Child, pp. 59–64

The Child found what happened in the city to be completely unforgettable.

To receive his commendation, the Child went to the county seat, which was in fact a city with buildings, roads, and streetlights.

At the beginning of winter, those who reported production of more than six hundred
jin
of grain per
mu
of land were praised, whereupon they all proceeded to the county seat to receive their awards. There the Child reported six hundred
jin
of grain per
mu
. This was a large figure, but there were also some people who reported as much as sixteen hundred
jin
. The award for those reporting one thousand
jin
was an iron shovel, and for those reporting fifteen hundred
jin
the award was a shovel and a hoe. Those reporting more than two thousand
jin
would also receive a flashlight and a pair of rubber rain boots, and for every additional hundred
jin
over three thousand they would receive another foot of muslin fabric. As a result, everyone started reporting like crazy. Some reported five thousand
jin
, others reported ten thousand, and one person even reported having produced fifty thousand
jin
per
mu
.

They were shouting and waving their hands. One person loved his country so much that he reported production of a hundred thousand
jin
per
mu
.

The county chief laughed. Sitting up on the stage of the assembly hall, he blushed bright red and lowered his hands, saying, “You must not exceed ten thousand
jin
! You must not exceed ten thousand
jin
!” Everyone attending the meeting rushed the stage. One person ran toward the record keeper and announced, “I reported a hundred thousand
jin
, and want to claim all of the county’s awards!” The record keeper asked skeptically, “Can you really produce a hundred thousand
jin
per
mu
?” The person replied, “Don’t you want me to love my country? If I don’t succeed in producing a hundred thousand
jin
per
mu
, then next year you are welcome to decapitate my entire family, and even my entire village.” The person said that the prize he wanted was a scythe, but in order to claim it he would have to report three thousand
jin
per
mu
. For two scythes he would need six thousand jin per
mu
. But he had not yet calculated how much grain would be required for six scythes, so instead he simply reported a hundred thousand
jin
.

The Child stared in bewilderment, unable to comprehend the scene unfolding before his eyes.

The Child sat with the third brigade, and when everyone rushed onto the stage to report their production targets, he was pushed off. The Child seemed ready to burst into tears, but at that moment the county chief leapt onto the stage, jumped up onto a table, and shouted for everyone to quiet down. He shot two flares into the air. Bang, bang! They sounded like two gunshots, and the assembly hall fell silent. The county chief stood on the table, his face lit up. He praised everyone’s enthusiasm and self-awareness, and said that no one, absolutely no one, could exceed ten thousand
jin
. If they did, it would be considered a false report. The county chief said that some people reported ten thousand
jin
, others eight thousand, and some only a few thousand. Who would report the most, and who would report the least? The county chief told everyone to return to their seats below the stage, explaining that in a little while the air would be filled with red blossoms, which would tell them how much they could report. Everyone went back to their seats. Suddenly, the auditorium was indeed filled with red blossoms that fluttered down like red rain. The blossoms were cut from red paper—bright red, dark red, pinkish red, and purplish red. Each of them had a ribbon attached, on which was written a number.

Someone tossed the red blossoms into the air, and they fell like rain.

Everyone stood on the benches and grabbed at the blossoms.

Everyone grabbed a blossom.

If the blossom had
5,000
written on it, it meant you could report a production target of five thousand
jin
of grain per
mu
, and you could claim your hoe, pickax, and scythe, together with a lot of cloth. If it had
10,000
written on it, you were truly in luck, because it meant that your award would be enough muslin fabric to last your entire family for five years—so much fabric that you would need a shoulder pole to carry it home. Everyone took their red blossoms up onstage to claim their awards. When the blossoms fell on the Child’s head, he was only able to grab one that was as large as a fist. The number on the blossom was a measly
500
, which meant that he would have no honor and receive no award.

The Child stood onstage still looking as though he were about to cry. He stood in the crowd of people, like a lamb separated from its flock.

The Child appeared as though he would burst into tears.

Someone went to collect their award, and carried it past him. The Child asked, “Can one
mu
really yield ten thousand
jin
of grain?”

The person laughed. Smiling, he stroked the boy’s hair, squeezed his shoulder, and patted the back of his head with his fist.

The Child went in search of the higher-up from the district headquarters, who had brought him there. He looked everywhere, even in the assembly hall’s bathroom. The bathroom was new, and had a light and a cement floor. The higher-up was in the process of kicking at that hard, slick, and radiant floor, saying, “When I go back, I’m going to install a cement floor like this one in the headquarters’ bathroom, so I won’t have to worry about it getting splattered with urine.”