Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in Chaos (18 page)

“Why are you here?” he growled. “I have to drive all day tomorrow and I need my rest.”

“Everyone’s truck is covered but ours. I want ours covered,” she said.

“I’m a driver,” he shot back. “What in the hell can I do about it?”

Mama ran home. She and Yiding began unloading the truck, carrying the belongings inside and stacking them in the hall. Yiding never complained. I felt so sorry for him. He crawled onto the truck and untied the ropes he’d lashed across our things, threw them aside and handed the bags and boards to Mama.

Mama wrung out the blankets and laid them flat on the floor. We did not finish unpacking and sorting and drying until dawn. The rain stopped an hour later. Mama and Yiding moved our belongings back onto the truck. They finished tying everything down minutes before an announcement on the loudspeakers that it was time for everyone to assemble at the sports grounds. The drivers crawled into the cabs of their trucks and drove there. We walked to the assembly point with throngs of others. By the time we arrived, thousands of people were already gathered. Each of the departees was given a red paper flower to pin over his heart. A small ribbon with the slogan
TO SETTLE DOWN IS GLORIOUS
was attached.

The “Supreme Ruler” of the province, a PLA commander, took the stage. “Congratulations!” he shouted. “You are all answering Chairman Mao’s call. You are settling down in the villages to learn from the peasants. Become one with them. Through physical labor you will transform your bourgeois views. We salute you. We congratulate you.”

The commander was not leaving Hefei, yet he celebrated the heroism of those who were. He concluded by waving a Little Red Book over his head and shouting, “Victory on Chairman Mao’s revolutionary road!” The crowd repeated the phrase. When the commander was done, other party dignitaries followed him to the platform and repeated word for word what he’d already said.

Everyone cheered.

Yicun fell asleep in Mama’s arms. I glanced at Yiding and noticed he was struggling to stay awake. A command blared over the loudspeakers for the departees to get into their trucks. The moment of our separation had come. Mama turned to me and said, “Yimao, your little brother is in your care. When I’m settled I’ll come back for you. Go to school and study hard!” She gave me a dreary look. She hugged Yicun and put him down. He grasped my hand. Mama and Yiding climbed into the truck beside the driver, who smoked and stared into space. I noticed
LIBERATION MODEL
printed in metallic characters along the side of the truck’s hood. At a signal, the drivers started their engines and honked their horns. There was a tremendous roar and the air was filled with blue fumes.

I waved my hand in front of my face to clear the air and Yicun buried his face in my shirt. I watched Mama as she leaned out the window and waved at us. I wished she would open the door and run back to us. The streets were lined with people singing and dancing and waving Little Red Books. The scene brought back the memory of my parents marching away earlier. This time Mama was going with my older brother and leaving me in charge. The trucks rumbled past, and Yicun and I waved and yelled, “Goodbye, Mama, goodbye, Yiding.”

Shortly after four
P
.
M
., Mama’s truck arrived at Gao Village. The driver jumped out. Mama watched as people approached the truck from nearby hovels. A short man wearing soiled clothing and no shoes strutted in front of the others. He held a cymbal the size of a large plate in one hand and a stick in the other. As he neared the truck, he lifted the cymbal and began pounding on it with the stick. The cymbal had a hole in it. It made a pathetic bang like an old tin can. Nonetheless, he struck it vigorously.

He had a swollen face. His hair was unkempt, his teeth were stained amber. One of his eyes rolled around, seemingly independent of the other. He reeked of alcohol and was unsteady on his legs. From the corner of his mouth drooped the stub of a cigarette.

“I’m Li Tinghai,” he slurred. His accent was so heavy my mother had difficulty understanding. “I’m the head of this village.”

“This is your settle-down cadre,” the driver volunteered.

“Oh, shit!” Li Tinghai muttered and gave my mother a sullen glare.

A woman in the group cackled, “Don’t call him Li Tinghai. Just call him Lao Panghai—Old Crab.”

The man exploded, “You shut up, you filthy slut!” He extracted a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and waved it menacingly at her. “See this? Six Articles of Public Security! Any of you”—he waved it at the others—“will fall into the Six Articles as a counterrevolutionary if you make trouble. Then you’ll be shot.”

“You old fart,” a young man said. “You can’t read that.”

Everyone burst out laughing.

Old Crab turned to my mother. “What’s your name?” he snapped.

“I’m Li Yikai.”

“And that?” he said, nodding toward my brother cowering in the truck.

“My son Yiding.”

“Two more mouths to feed!” He spat out his cigarette stub and circled the truck, examining our belongings. “I don’t suppose you brought any cigarettes, did you?” he asked.

“No, I’m sorry,” my mother replied.

Old Crab approached the driver and asked for a cigarette. The driver grudgingly handed him one. He asked for another. “For my brother,” he explained. The driver gave him another. He put it in his pocket, and the two men stood smoking and chatting.

The driver told my mother and Yiding to unload their belongings. “And hurry,” he said. “I have to get back to Hefei tonight.”

Old Crab shouted, “Put that stuff on the ground and I’ll decide later what to do with it.” Mama and Yiding began unloading as the others watched.

I returned to the center with Yicun. Although school was in session, nothing much was taught. Students spent almost all the time singing revolutionary songs and reciting Chairman Mao’s quotations. We bowed to the bust of Mao and read the Little Red Book and the Three Old Articles, “Serve the People,” “In Memory of Dr. Norman Bethune” and “The Foolish Man Who Moved a Mountain.” We read them every day until we could recite them perfectly, line by line. That was our education.

I was solely responsible for my little brother. Yiding was gone and all of the older children had departed with their parents. One morning I went shopping with my ration coupons and tried to buy candy for Yicun. I searched for nearly an hour but could find none. I decided instead to get him a toy. All of the available toys were political. So I paid four fen and bought him a small paper portrait of Chairman Mao standing on Tiananmen, waving to Red Guards. I had heard in school that holding a portrait or icon of Chairman Mao was energizing. “It will give you ten thousand pounds of energy” was one of the things our teachers taught us. In return, you had to be very respectful toward it.

On the way back to the center I became exhausted. I rested on the steps of a building. I didn’t feel well. So I took out the picture of Mao and prayed for him to give me energy, make me strong and well.

Nothing happened.

I started to think about everything I’d been taught to believe about Chairman Mao and the Party. It dawned on me that it was all lies. I felt ridiculous holding a piece of paper and praying to it.

I looked around at children with their Little Red Books, the Red Guards chanting, the soldiers offering to serve the people. I looked at all of the drab clothing and the blank stares and the short haircuts of young women in shapeless slacks and soiled shirts, posters praising or condemning this or that person. I sensed the deep sadness of people buried beneath all the shouting and slogans. I sensed the true sadness of Grandmother, Auntie Liang, Xiaolan, Mama and Papa. I saw the unhappiness of everything and everybody. My ears had been filled with the ecstatic noise of the teachers and the crowds at parades as our parents left us behind, of the weeping of families broken apart, of the pleas of innocent people punished for being born into the wrong family, of the cries from people being beaten and dragged away. Could I be the only one who saw this for what it was? Everyone was pretending and everyone was afraid and everyone was wearing a mask.

I felt more alone than ever.

I wondered if this was what Auntie Liang knew the night she left Xiaolan at the center. I wondered what might happen to me, alone in this vast sea of liars.

————

Mama sent me a letter saying she had arranged to bring my little brother to the village. I was to stay in Hefei. Since the PLA was still in charge of the university, a PLA soldier would bring Yicun to her. She enclosed money and ration coupons. I went shopping and bought Yicun a new pair of shoes and candy and cookies.

A few days later the soldier arrived. I was uneasy when I saw the young man. I didn’t trust soldiers. I scrutinized this one carefully, looked into his eyes to see if I might see anything frightening. I listened to his voice for the tone I’d heard from the soldier who had hurt me. This soldier was young and seemed to be honest and trustworthy. I gave him fifty fen and four ounces of rice coupons so he could buy a bowl of rice for Yicun on the journey. I explained to Yicun that he was going to join Mama and Yiding. He left without a word. I watched him leave the center with the soldier carrying a box of cookies.

I no longer had anyone to care for. There was no one to talk to when school was not in session. I sat on the floor and read or stared out the window. Days passed. Each one seemed the same.

I developed a fever. When I tried to eat, I vomited. I drank warm water and ate nothing. Soon I had throbbing headaches that felt like there was a stone rolling around inside my head. I skipped school and stayed in my room. The supervisors forgot me. One night my head hurt so much that I cried out for help but no one answered. I cried for Mama. Finally, I drifted into a hazy delirium.

After a sleepless night, I decided it was time to stop living. I knew I was near death but I wasn’t afraid. I remembered Grandma and Auntie Liang and I knew they would take care of me. I waited for death. I had visions of my brothers and Mama and Papa eating together at a table in the village. They didn’t miss me.

I breathed a cheerless lonely soliloquy to the bare walls and the cold floor. I called to Auntie Liang. At last she heard me and replied. I saw her face in the window. I opened my eyes wide and smiled. I whispered her name and she nodded. I told her I wanted to go outside and make snow butterflies. She held out her hand and beckoned me to come with her. Her skin was radiant. Her eyes sparkled like stars in a black winter sky.

“I am coming, Auntie Liang,” I said. I raised my arms to embrace her.

I did not take flight with Auntie Liang that night. Even as I reached up to her she changed into a cloud of tiny butterflies that dissolved in the night. I wanted to cry but I was too weak. Sometime later—I’d lost count of the days and nights—the door opened and someone gasped, “What is going on here?”

I managed to open my eyes, and as my vision cleared, I recognized the familiar face of one of Papa’s close colleagues, Professor Wang Yichuan. I’d last seen him imprisoned in the cowshed with Papa. He hurried from the room and returned a few minutes later with Comrade Pan. “Why was this child left alone?” Professor Wang asked angrily.

“We had no idea she was sick,” Comrade Pan answered.

“We know her father is a rightist, Comrade Pan. But what crime has this little girl committed?” Professor Wang demanded. “Why are you letting her die on your floor? Where is your heart?”

Comrade Pan’s voice was suddenly soft and solicitous. “We will take her to the hospital,” she said and left the room.

Professor Wang knelt beside me. He took my hand in his and whispered, “It’s going to be all right, Yimao.”

Comrade Pan returned and said, “Army Representative Zhang Xing has given us permission to use his car, Professor Wang. It’s here now. Let’s go.”

Professor Wang pulled away my soiled sheet and picked me up and carried me outside to the car. After laying me across the backseat, he said, “I have to go now, Yimao, I’m sorry.” Comrade Pan climbed into the front seat next to the driver. As the car pulled into the street, I felt as if my insides were being shredded. The road was in disrepair, and as the car bounced up and down, I wanted to tell the driver it was killing me. Yet my lips could form no words; my tongue lay dry as paper in my mouth.

We stopped outside the city hospital. The driver carried me inside. We passed through a thick confusion of stretchers and beds and crying children, of IV bottles and people lying on the floor moaning or sitting against the walls smoking or walking up and down the halls looking dazed and lost. I was carried into a room where a doctor examined me.

“She is as good as dead,” he said and stepped back. “There is nothing I can do. Anything I might try would just be a waste of my time.”

“No, you must do
something
,” Comrade Pan protested.

“Listen,” the doctor responded impatiently, “stop this! Tell her family to prepare for her burial.”

“No,” Comrade Pan answered. The doctor walked away. Comrade Pan told the driver to carry me back to the car. Half an hour later we stopped outside a building. Comrade Pan went inside and returned with a man. “Is this her?” he asked. His voice was deep and rich.

“Yes, it is, Representative Zhang,” Comrade Pan said. “They would not admit her to the city hospital. They said she was beyond hope. Will you help her?”

The representative leaned over me, touched my forehead for a moment, pulled back my eyelid to see my eye, felt my pulse. He withdrew and stood outside the car for several seconds, saying nothing.

“Well?” Comrade Pan asked imploringly.

“The PLA hospital is better than the city hospital,” the representative
said. “But it is restricted to officers and their immediate relatives and soldiers.”

“What is to be done?” Comrade Pan asked.