Under the Red Flag (18 page)

Hong shuddered at the thought of chamber-busting. These boors could do anything, and she would be exhausted to death, having to control her temper and please these uncles and cousins. She remembered reading in a newspaper that at a village wedding three men had been killed by a chamber wall that had been busted as well and fallen on them. She told of her fear to Lilian, who assured her that she would keep her company at night and fight any man who dared to touch Hong.

Fried carps and whole chickens had been placed on the square tables. The first course, tenderloin sautéed with bamboo shoots, was being carried out in platters which resembled small barges. The guests were eager to see what wine and liquor they were going to drink. “See those large vats over there?” a young peasant said. “Screw his mother, I thought they had beer inside. Only vinegar and soy sauce were in them. Almost choked me just now.”

Another man chuckled. “Serves you right. Who told you to steal a bowl of that?”

“They must’ve spent thousands for the feast, tut-tut-tut,” an old man said. “Every part is so big.”

Suddenly the back gate opened and the barrel of a rifle emerged, then a band of militia. “Don’t move!” the tall commander ordered through a megaphone, his other hand raising a Mauser pistol. “This banquet is banned.”

A whole company of militia rushed in, every man fully armed, even carrying four grenades and a filled canteen on the hips. Pang Hai went over to argue, but the commander ordered his guards, “Hold the groom in custody. Don’t let him go.” Then he announced to the stunned guests, “Now you are free to leave.”

Nobody moved. Some of them had sent a gift to the Pangs or the Chens before the wedding, and many had saved their appetite for this feast by cutting both breakfast and lunch, so they all stayed. They saw a broad red flag flitting beyond the brick wall toward the back gate. Some children were singing the song “Destroy the Old and Set Up the New.”

Before the song was finished, schoolchildren poured in. There were about three hundred of them and every one wore a red armband. The militia commander spoke through the megaphone again. “Comrades Small Red Guards, your task today is to wipe out the food. You must eat up this old feudal custom. Start now!”

Promptly the children split into fifty groups around the tables and began attacking the dishes. They didn’t bother to pick up chopsticks, using their hands instead. Their cheeks swelled up as their jaws were crunching. Every bite they took was a sting in Pang Hai’s heart. Suddenly Hai sprang away and rushed into the kitchen shed. Four militiamen followed him, shouting, “Halt, halt!”

Hai picked up a large shovel used for stir-frying and plunged toward a nearby table. He wanted to chop down a few of these
little wolves. But before he could reach them, the militiamen seized him, pinned him to the ground, and removed the shovel. “I borrowed the money, I borrowed the money!” Hai groaned.

Women were crying inside and outside the house. Hong sat on the ground for a few minutes; then she got up and hid away in the haystack. Mr. Pang didn’t lose his head and begged his leaders to intervene. Secretary Liu and Director Ma went up to the militia commander and talked with him. Five minutes later they returned, shaking their heads. “Feng Ping sent them here,” Liu told Mr. Pang. Ma chimed in, “He’s too high-handed.” They dared not say more, because Feng was their superior now.

Meanwhile, realizing the banquet was gone altogether, the guests began leaving. However, some of them were so hungry they didn’t leave without doing something. They smashed the soy-sauce and vinegar vats. Broken cups, plates, bowls were scattered everywhere in the yard.

“Feng Ping, I screw your ancestors one by one!” Hai yelled again and again, his mouth pointing to the sky.

Though cursing Feng Ping too, Lilian didn’t lose her senses, and unlike Mingming, who had fled, she still remembered her duty as a bridesmaid. She had noticed Hong slipping to the haystack and tried keeping an eye on her. But when she went to fetch the bride half an hour later, Hong was no longer there! “Hong, where are you?” Lilian cried. Her voice reminded others of the delicate bride. No girl could stand such a blow. Mrs. Chen was mad, crying and plunging in vain at the militia commander. She wanted to take him to the Commune Administration to seek justice, but the man merely gave her a contemptuous look, his guards holding her back.

Meanwhile Hong was running toward the well on Old Folk Road. Tears were streaming out of her eyes, and she was too
ashamed to face her mother and the in-laws now. It was she who had brought such a disaster on Hai and herself. The Pangs had spent four thousand yuan on the banquet alone and couldn’t receive a fen in return. All the food was eaten up by the pupils. Oh, Hai and she would never be able to clear the debt. Such a miserable life was worse than death. Without thinking twice, she jumped into the dark well. To her surprise, it was not so deep as she had thought. The water barely reached her chest, but it was ice cold. She touched her thighs, her hips, her stomach, her breasts, her neck, and found every part of her body all right. She began trembling as she realized she had been merely a step away from the jaws of death. If she had plunged herself headlong, she would have killed herself easily by hitting the rocks. She groped around and felt the slippery wall covered with moss. It was impossible to climb out.

A moment later a metal bucket came down, hitting the rocky wall with a clank. Hong realized it was time to cook dinner and the well would be busy soon. She stuck her body to the wall and avoided standing in the way of the bucket, which floated on the surface of the water for a second, plunged in, came out full, and rose to the mouth of the well. Then another bucket descended and carried up a full load too. Hong raised her head to see who was up there, but she saw only the drawer’s blue sleeves.

It occurred to her that this well was used by the people on three streets for drinking water. On Bath Street there was a well whose water had been sweeter than this one. Two years ago, the daughter of the Tangs on Blacksmith Road had drowned herself and her baby girl in that well because her husband and parents-in-law had scolded her for being unable to bear them a boy. People who had used the well for drinking water never stopped
cursing the young woman. There were a lot of ways to kill herself, why did she choose this well? Because of the drowned bodies, no one would go there to fetch drinking water. Only a few families used the well for washing now. A pain seized Hong’s heart. If she had died in here, she would have been a restless ghost, because everybody up there would have cursed her. Then she remembered her mother. How unfilial she was. When he was dying, her father had asked her to take good care of her mother, but she had forgotten everything and acted so foolishly. She burst into tears and blew her nose over the water. Another bucket was coming down. Hong held her breath.

Up on the ground a large-scale search for the bride was under way. Lilian had gone to Feng Ping’s office and cursed him in front of his subordinates. At first Feng wanted to have her dragged out, but on hearing that she had told his mother on him—the old woman was waiting at home to scold him—and that Hong had disappeared, Feng restrained his temper and began to worry, sweat breaking out on his narrow forehead. Obviously the whole thing had gotten out of hand. If Hong killed herself he would feel guilty all his life. Such a nice girl, she shouldn’t end up this way, in the hands of that rascal Pang Hai. With his squint eyes glittering, Feng told Lilian, “Stop blaming, all right? We must hurry and find Hong. It’s terrible. I hope nothing will happen to her.” Then he picked up the telephone and ordered the militia to search every dangerous cliff, ditch, pit, and hole in Dismount Fort and its vicinity, and report to him the minute they found her.

The militia in the Pangs’ yard changed their attitude at once and joined the family looking for the bride. They went to the railroad station and the six bridges in town. They combed several
bushes and a few cornfields. Every reservoir in nearby villages was checked too. Nobody had seen a shadow of Hong, and group by group the men returned empty-handed. Hai never stopped cursing Feng Ping, declaring he would level the graves of Feng’s ancestors and annihilate the entire Feng clan if anything happened to his young wife.

It was almost dark. The half-moon cast a bluish curtain of mist on the tiled roofs, the treetops, the streets. Light bulbs flashed on one after another, and children were playing hide-and-seek on the streets. The militia had gone home for dinner, while the Pangs, Mrs. Chen, and Lilian were still searching. The well keeping Hong had been looked and shouted into several times, but Hong, clinging to the jagged wall, wouldn’t respond to the calling. She was uncertain who was up there and didn’t want to be surrounded by a crowd when she got out, though she was trembling all over and her stomach was twinging with hunger and fear. Finally came a familiar voice. “Hong, are you down there?”

“Yes, I’m here, Lilian!”

“My goodness, you are in there. Did you hurt yourself? Oh!” Lilian broke into tears.

“No, I’m all right.”

“Wait, we’ll pull you out.”

“Come back, Lilian. Come back.” It was too late to stop Lilian, who had left for help.

A few minutes later Hai and Mrs. Chen arrived with a rope and a large bucket. Hai shouted into the well while sobbing and lowering the bucket, “Hong, are you all right? Why do this to yourself? It’s not your fault …” Words just gushed out of his throat. Never had he been so talkative.

Hong climbed into the bucket. “I’m in it now. Pull,” she cried.

The second her feet touched the cement terrace, Hai embraced her and burst out wailing. “Even heaven collapsed, you shouldn’t do this. How could I live without you!” Despite her dripping clothes, he held her tight as though afraid of losing her again. She felt his arms and chest so warm and so powerful that she let herself go, leaning against him as if nesting in a comfortable bed. Lilian was wiping her cheeks with a white handkerchief.

“My little devil, how could you abandon your old mother!” Mrs. Chen said while wrapping her daughter with a blanket. She was also unable to control her tears.

Hong was too overwhelmed to say a word. The street was shimmering in the moonlight. A smell of baked sweet potato was lingering in the air and aroused a pang in Hong’s stomach. Together they walked back to the bridechamber, which would be safe and quiet for the first night.

Again, the Spring Breeze Blew

At her husband’s funeral in the afternoon Lanlan cried so hard that she fainted and was unconscious for almost twenty minutes. The leaders of the production brigade assigned an oxcart to carry her back from the graveyard. Once home, she placed her one-year-old boy Kai on the brick bed and lay down beside him. Soon her sobbing subsided. She thought of returning to her mother’s in Quarry Village the next morning.

She wasn’t sure why she was so heartbroken. Certainly she missed her husband, but she couldn’t tell whether she loved him so much as to cry her heart out for him. Since their marriage, they had fought almost every week. Now it was over. Two days ago, her husband had fallen from their house while repairing the roof. He broke his neck on the edge of a large water vat and died instantly without leaving her a word.

Outside, a hen began clucking. That’s the black one, Lanlan told herself. Forty-six eggs now. Remember to boil ten for tomorrow’s trip.

Eggs reminded her that her husband had died without food in his stomach. This again brought tears to her eyes. Though he had often beaten her, they had managed to live together; as the
old saying attests: “One night’s husband and wife guarantees a hundred days’ affection.” They had shared the same bed for twenty-two months and had been somewhat attached to each other. Besides, he had left her a son who was healthy and almost an exact copy of him.

Why am I so unlucky? she asked herself. I’m still young, just twenty-seven, a young widow. From now on, I’ll have to take care of everything inside and outside the house, and have to be both mom and dad to Kai.

As if something tore at her heart, she sobbed again, mumbling to the pillows, “A young widow, a young widow.”

It was getting dark. The smell of fresh corn cakes and fried soy paste began to fill Sea Nest Village. Sheep’s bleating and pigs’ squealing could be heard now and then. Lanlan didn’t cook, but she knew she had to eat so as to nurse the baby. Lying in the dim room, she remembered Ailian, who had been a young widow for only a year and then married another man. But Ailian is a beauty in the village, she said to herself. I can’t compare myself with her.

She heard a creak at the door. “Who is it?” she asked loudly. No sound. It must have been a dog, she thought. Since no food had been left in the outer room, she didn’t bother to get up.

Suddenly the door curtain burst open and a man jumped in. “Keep quiet,” he hissed, waving a long knife.

By instinct she turned to reach for the sleeping baby. “Don’t move!” rasped the man.

She froze, staring at him. He was a small man, bony and pallid. His hair was long and unkempt, and his round eyes were glowing luridly. Though scared, she managed to ask, “What do you want?”