Naked Earth (8 page)

“What are you laughing at?” T’ang, who had been sitting hunched up smoking all this time, suddenly raised his head and demanded loudly.

“Nothing.” Now she was spluttering with laughter. Liu began to feel worried.

“Silly child!” T’ang glared at her. He was afraid that Liu would feel offended at being made such a figure of fun. Frowning deeply, he lifted his long pipe and knocked her on the head with the little brass bowl at the end of it.

Erh Niu cuddled up to him, rubbing her head hard against his shoulder. She seemed to be specially fond of her father today, so full of affection for him that she did not know what to do about it.

“The bigger you grow, the sillier you get,” T’ang grumbled as he caressed her hair. Then he sighed for no reason.

It pained Liu to see them so happy together. Soon it was suppertime. After supper T’ang’s wife washed the bowls and chopsticks in a wooden bucket. After wiping the table Erh Niu went out to the courtyard and took Liu’s uniform off the washline—the suit she had washed today. It was already half dry. She spread it on the table and smoothed her palm slowly across it, pressing down hard so that the blue-gray cloth looked almost like it had been ironed.

Liu went and got a spare lamp and lit it by tilting it against the oil lamp hung above the stove. He went back to his own room, taking the lamp with him. He thought he would sleep early to avoid talking with the Tangs. He was just going to lie down on the
k’ang
when T’ang’s wife shouted, “Somebody to see you, Comrade Liu!”

“Who is it?” He came out buttoning his jacket.

He never expected to see Su Nan standing in the middle of the room. She had her hands in her coat pockets and was slapping herself idly, puffing out and deflating the pockets in turn. The dim lamplight lengthened the shadowy deep cut of her eyelids and accentuated the porcelain thin rim of her pink lips.

“Have you people finished supper?” she asked.

“We’ve just eaten,” Liu said smiling. “Please sit down.”

“This comrade here—what’s your honorable name?” T’ang’s wife said conversationally.

“My name is Su. Is this your young miss?” Su Nan asked T’ang’s wife, putting her hand on Erh Niu’s shoulder.

“Yes, this is our slavegirl,” T’ang’s wife answered.

Erh Niu bowed her head still lower as she continued to smooth Liu’s uniform with her palms, working with greater concentration than ever.

“What’s your name?” Su Nan stopped to look at her.

Erh Niu smiled faintly but she kept her eyes riveted on the clothes spread flat over the table. A flushed, stubborn look had come on her face.

“Name of Erh Niu,” her mother answered for her. “Already seventeen this year, and still an absolute idiot,” she said smiling.

“You’re just saying that out of modesty,” Su Nan said. “I’ve seen her around. Liveliest girl in the village.” She suddenly noticed Liu’s shoes, covered with yellow mud. “Why, where have you been today?” she said in surprise. “You’ve waded in water?”

“Just now on my way back I was walking along the ditch and I slipped and fell inside and got all wet,” Liu explained. As he spoke, somehow his eyes strayed toward Erh Niu as if in guilt. This was the second time that Erh Niu had heard the story. This time she was far from amused. From what could be seen of her lowered face, her cheeks were puffed out with pique and her eyes were dark and unhappy.

Liu thought it was so unreasonable of her. What made her think that he was afraid of telling Su Nan the truth? He had just told her mother the same thing. He couldn’t very well go back on his story in front of everybody. But though he reasoned thus to himself, he felt unaccountably ashamed and apologetic.

Su Nan went to the door that led to the inner room and peeped in. “Is this your room?” she said smiling.

“Yes, come in and have a look.”

As soon as she entered she took a folded sheet of letter paper out of her pocket and handed it to him after unfolding it. “I wrote a letter,” she whispered. “If you agree to what I say there, sign your name at the bottom. I hope to get as many signatures as possible.”

Liu needled the lampwick into giving more light and ran his eyes hurriedly over the letter. Then he read it a second time just to gain time. His only comforting thought was that hers was the only signature at the bottom. Perhaps she hadn’t shown it to anybody else yet.

“Of course I agree,” he said. “But I don’t think you should send this letter.”

Su Nan smiled. “Sure, I know you can’t write letters to Chairman Mao just like that. It’s an Unorganized and Undisciplined Action.”

“And furthermore, nothing will ever come of it,” Liu said. “We are not Party members, we have no connection with the Organization. What we say just won’t be taken seriously.”

Leaning against the table she drew her forefinger back and forth across the tiny flame of the lamp, quickly so that the finger never got burned. She kept at it with childish absorption. But finally she raised her head and looked at him. “But the way they’re running things around here! I don’t think Chairman Mao knows.”

Liu did not speak. After a while he said, “Chairman Mao himself has said, ‘To correct a wrong, you must go further than what is just.’”

“Still, you can’t just struggle against anybody, with no standard, no principle!” Sudden anger made her raise her voice a little.

Liu stopped her with a slight shake of his head. He glanced back at the door over his shoulder and whispered, “Let’s go out for a walk. We can talk outside.”

She took her letter back, folded it and stuffed it into her pocket. As they came out of the room Erh Niu was squatting in front of the stove, poking at the ashes. T’ang and his wife sat across the table, smoking and sewing respectively, both looking tense. Obviously they thought Su Nan’s coming had something to do with them, it being too late for ordinary social visits. And she had pointedly got Liu to go into the other room where they had held a whispered consultation. And now she was going away with him.

The smooth yellow mud walls looked clean and dismal in the frosty blue moonlight. They walked along the dirt path between earthen houses which had not changed much for the last two thousand years. The moon was so bright that cocks mistook it for dawn and crowed, cracked and quavering, all over the countryside. Some houses they passed were too run-down to have doors. Across the deep blackness of the courtyard, a faint glimmer of unearthly dark yellow light showed through the rounded, humped mud house, exactly like a burial mound peopled with ghosts. Sometimes there was the sound of children crying feebly. It was like those old stories of post-mortem child-bearing which told of live babies dug out of graves.

It was impossible to talk stumbling along the uneven ground, one after the other. They finally stood still and turned toward each other.

“I want you to promise me not to mail that letter,” he said. When she did not answer, he said, “Did you show it to anybody else?”

“No.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” His relief was mingled with and all but drowned by a delirious flush of happiness at the thought that she had come to him first, out of all the people. It was difficult to keep talking in a worried tone. “Really, right now we have no status whatever. Within the Corps we’re regarded as the Masses. We can’t save anybody even if we ruin ourselves doing it.”

“I know,” she said after a pause.

“For instance, that day—picking on you for no reason—it was really too ridiculous. I was furious, but I thought it’s no use getting into direct conflict with him. There’s nothing we can do at present except to be patient.”

Su Nan sighed shortly. “Let’s go back. If somebody should see us there’ll be more talk of Small Circle-ism.”

“I’ll walk you home.”

On the way back the dogs suddenly started barking and there was a regular stomping of feet marching in step. The house lights went out quickly one by one. Liu and the girl stopped under the eaves of a house and peered out at the small band of militiamen moving past the lane ahead, with lanterns lighting their way. The ones that walked in front held rifles and wore cartridge belts. After them came some men with their arms tied behind them. At the rear, they could see the white towels on the militiamen’s heads bobbing in the moonlight.

“Looks as if they’re making arrests,” Su Nan whispered.

“We better wait here for a while,” Liu whispered.

The barking of dogs had spread to the east end of the village. Liu and the girl tried to guess which house the militiamen were entering.

The dark blue vault of northern sky dimmed into a powdery misty pallor toward the center where the moon was. The full white moon looked down coldly as it had done during all the past dynasties. Like a mirror it never remembered faces.

Liu wished that he and Su Nan had met in some other age. It couldn’t have been worse than now, when he never even dared to speak to her. A few years earlier would have made all the difference.

“Is your home in Peking?” he asked.

“Yes, I’ve always lived there.”

“It’s funny we’ve never met. I’ve lived there all my life just like you.”

A long, low chair-like stone structure for pounding grain stood under the eaves of the house. Su Nan sat on it, leaning forward against the handbar. Liu wanted very much to touch her hair. But he was afraid that she might think that he was taking advantage of the situation. He would be abusing her trust and friendship and it would spoil everything.

Not much could be seen of her in the dark. He stood at her back, the toe of one of his canvas shoes kicking soundlessly at the low stone slab. He was still painfully hovering on the brink of the irrevocable gesture when she turned her head very slightly so that her backward glance barely brushed past him. But she must have known. Abruptly she hunched forward, pressing her cheek against her hands on the handbar as if overcome by sudden shyness.

Then Liu put his hand on her hair and when she twisted away from him, he held her hand over the hand-bar. After a moment he said, “I wonder where we’ll be sent to when we Obey The Distribution.”

“I don’t know. What did you put down, when you filled in the forms?”

“I said I’d prefer to work in north China or eastern China. But that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yes, they might still send you anywhere. They say it’s best not to emphasize personal preferences.”

“Maybe we’ll meet again in Hsinchiang.”

“Yes, who knows?”

“There’re worse places than Hsinchiang.”

Su Nan said half laughing, “I heard that in Kansu there’s so little water, you have to cook rice with the water you’ve washed your face with.”

They both talked fast, lightly and nervously, laughing a little, well aware that whatever they said was just camouflage over the fact that he was holding her hand.

But she suddenly turned rigid and pointed wordlessly at a large ball-like black shadow under the wall at the next corner, some distance away. It could be a squatting man.

Startled, Liu called out loudly, “Who’s that there?”

No answer.

“Who is it?” he shouted again, striding toward it.

“Sentry,” the militiaman said curtly and spat on the ground.

“Let’s go back. It’s getting late,” Su Nan said.

In silence he walked after her past the squatting sentry. When they had turned the corner they happened to look up and saw another black shadow squatting on the roof of a house. That must be another sentry. They said nothing for the rest of the way to the house Su Nan was quartered in.

She went in. He was walking home alone when he again heard the regular footsteps, coming from behind and getting nearer, it seemed. The dogs in the neighborhood were again barking loudly. The barking sounded cold and desolate, with a curious feeling of distance derived from the vast empty silence of the night. The village was so dead quiet, Liu could hear from far off the desultory talk among the militiamen. The rhythmic thumps of the footfalls, the faint sound of the voices and the short, scattered barks of the dogs rose and fell, humming in his ears, so that he began to suspect that he had heard nothing, it was just the blood pounding in his ears.

The yellow dirt path, drained colorless in the moon-light, stretched straight ahead. He stumbled on and on between the pale thick walls, as if in a dream, half lost in heavy sleep.

The marching steps were always behind him. He even had a crazy idea that if he should make the wrong turn they would follow him blindly and would never find their way to the Tangs’ house.

THE BEAN
oil in his lamp was nearly all burned up. A small green oval pearl of a light still stood erect in the dregs at the bottom of the soot-stained metal dish. Instead of lighting up the cave-like mud room it merely filled it with crowding, hulking blue-black shadows.

There was no light in the other rooms, and not a sound. The Tangs seemed to have gone to bed. Perhaps they were also under the illusion that if they kept quiet they would be overlooked.

Liu stuffed all his things into his knapsack—toothbrush, socks, underwear. He had to move out at once, back to the school. It was against the regulations for a Land Reform Worker to stay in a landlord’s house. You had to Draw the Line Clear. Of course he knew that he did not have to leave in this much of a hurry. It wasn’t his fault, after all, that he had been quartered with the Tangs. It was just that he had no wish to see what was about to happen.

When he rushed out again into the moonlit courtyard, the doorway was blocked by the militiamen swarming in with their lanterns.

“Who is it?” one of them barked at him in a military manner.

“It’s me. Member of the Land Reform Workers’ Corps.”

A lantern was lifted and thrust close to his face. After that they just pushed past him into the courtyard, shouting, “Where’s T’ang Yü-hai? He’s to come out at once! He’s wanted for questioning!”

Liu jostled his way out of the door and went half running down the dirt lane. In a moment he had left the hubbub behind him.

Then he suddenly remembered he hadn’t brought along his other suit, the one that Erh Niu had just washed. He felt disgusted with himself for remembering such a trivial thing at a time like this. Still, he had better go back and get it, since it was his only change of clothes. And he’d better go right now, taking advantage of the confusion. If he were to go there alone tomorrow, T’ang’s wife and Erh Niu were sure to cry and beg him to help them. The scene was just what he dreaded. Besides, it might take a lot of explanation if someone saw him going into their house after tonight.