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Authors: Ha Jin

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BOOK: Ocean of Words
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On the bus Dragon Head greeted a man behind him, then chatted with another man on his right. He appeared to know everybody. The conductor began to sell tickets. When she came to Dragon Head’s seat, he handed her a one-yuan bill and said, “Two for Guanmen.”

The driver in the front turned around and said aloud to the conductor, “Dragon Head doesn’t need to pay.”

“What?” Dragon Head said. “Don’t try buying off a revolutionary, Old Zhao. I have to pay, because the bus is our country’s. If you owned it, I’d take a ride directly to my brick bed at home.” A few passengers laughed. The conductor accepted his money and gave him two tickets.

“Together with Hsiufen?” the driver asked, giggling without turning his head.

“Damn you, Monkey Zhao,” Dragon Head retorted. His fiancee flushed a little and turned her head away. Some people chuckled, looking at the girl.

The bus pulled out. On the roadside, cement wire poles fell behind one by one, and bulletin boards, wider and taller than a soccer goal, moved past one after another. A white line of Chairman Mao’s instructions paraded on a brick wall:
DIG DEEP HOLES
,
STORE GRAIN EVERYWHERE
,
DO NOT LORD OVER THE WORLD
! From the side I peered at the girl who sat beyond Dragon Head by the window. Against the breeze her curly bangs were fluttering on her smooth forehead. Her chin set forward a little, giving a clear contour to her face, while her eyes were half closed.

Somehow she felt me observing her. She turned around and gave me a childlike smile. All of a sudden I felt pity for her, not because of her beauty, which was in no way extraordinary, or because of my amorous attention, but because of the man she was engaged to. Dragon Head was not a bad fellow, but he was unreliable and could never be a good husband. Marrying a man of his kind is like building a home below a dam. I would have no child rather than allow my daughter to be such a man’s wife.

The bus jolted to a stop at Guanmen Village. About a dozen passengers got off. Before I could wave good-bye to him and his fiancée, Dragon Head stopped me. “I want to have a chat with you, Commander Gao.” Then he pointed to an aspen.

We moved a few steps to the tree, leaving the girl standing alone at the bus stop. “You can do me a favor, can’t you, Commander Gao?”

“What favor?”

“We need a pair of transceivers.”

“What for?”

“We often go to the Wusuli River to keep an eye on the Russians. But we can’t go all together. You see, those of us on the river and those at home must find a way to keep in touch. I know you just got a bunch of new transceivers. Can you give us two of the big ones?” He was referring to some old three-watt transceivers that had just been put out of service.

“No, Dragon Head, I can’t,” I said firmly. “We do have some old ones, but they have all been listed and numbered, and we have to return them to the Regimental Logistics Department.”

“Why do they want them back? They won’t use them, will they?” He looked quite cross.

“I have no idea. According to the rule, we have to send back every one of the machines. Forgive me, Dragon Head. It’s not personal. Say, if you wanted a transistor radio of mine, I would give it to you, but this is a matter of discipline.”

“All right, I understand discipline all right. We won’t ask you for them again.” Without saying one more word, he turned around and walked away to the girl. His large shadow, cast by the setting sun, covered a long strip of land ahead of him.

That night Commissar Diao and I had a drink. I took out a packet of sliced pork head that I had brought from Hutou, and he told Orderly Liu to get a bottle of corn liquor from his room. “Old Gao,” he said, “we two should really get loose tonight. Ha! Pork head, I haven’t tasted this since we came here.” He picked a chunk and put it into his mouth. “Hum, so good. Delicious!”

I smiled and poured the liquor into my green mug.

Two mugs later, I told him that I had met Dragon Head in
Hutou and that he had asked me for two transceivers. “Crazy. He’s more vigilant than we are,” I said.

“He’s just that kind of man. You cannot do anything about it — it’s easy to change a mountain or a river but not a man’s nature.”

“He’s too warlike,” I said. “It’s the busy farming season now. Fields need hoeing and vegetables must be sown, but he and his men patrol around carrying guns and banners. It looks like he can’t live without war.”

“I agree with you, Old Gao, a hundred percent.” Diao’s tongue was a little thick. I didn’t advise him to stop drinking; today we were off duty and should relax.

“I know his type well,” he said again, and stuck a piece of the meat into his mouth. “What do you think would be his best end, O-Old Gao?”

“I’ve never thought about it. What do you think?”

“His best end is to be killed by our enemy.” He chuckled. “I can see you’re shocked, but I told you the truth. My granduncle was like that too, the same … same type.” He raised his mug and drank.

“Same as Dragon Head?”

“Yes. My granduncle used to be a landlord, a ri-rich one. He overrode the entire village. Nobody dared oppose him, and he took care of everybody’s business. For instance, a cart driver stole a chi-chicken from a farmer’s house; he led the farmer to … to the cart driver’s home, carrying a big stone, and they smashed the only caldron on the kitchen range. The family couldn’t cook for many days. Everybody said my granduncle would be avenged sooner or later. My dad told me that he would have been e-executed by the Communists, if — if he had lived longer.”

“How did he die?” I was curious. Diao would never talk like this when he was sober.

“How?” He giggled, shaking his head. “He was beheaded
by the Japanese devils. The Japs surrounded our village and brought all the folk to — to the marketplace. They ordered them to tell where the guerrillas hid themselves. The folk didn’t know. The Japs set two straw cutters in the front of the crowd and said they would chop off some heads if the folk didn’t tell them. My granduncle stepped out and said he knew, but he wouldn’t tell. The Japs were mad and or-ordered him to go down on his knees. He refused. They beat him to the ground with gun butts, and … and put him under the blade. Still he wouldn’t tell, and never stopped cursing, so they cut his head off.”

“What happened then?”

“The villagers all said that only my granduncle knew … where the guerrillas were, and that he was the liaison man of the guerrillas. In fact he was not. Since he had been killed, the Japs let the folk go in the end.”

“That’s a heroic story,” I said, a little moved.

“A funny one.” He giggled again, but his eyes looked teary. He turned his face to the gloomy wall. After a few seconds, he resumed. “The truth is that all the folk hated his guts, but nobody dared touch him, because he was the lolord in the village. If the Japs had not killed him, the folk would have buried him alive when the Communists came to start the Land Reform. Beheaded by the Japs, he became a hero, a famous one. People in the nearby counties would men-mention his name as a true Chinese. All the villagers were grateful and thought… he had sacrificed himself to save their lives. He didn’t love them a bit, to say nothing of sacrificing his life for them. I don’t think the idea of sacrifice had ever entered his head. Who knows what the devil was in him … that drove him to step out. The funniest part is that — when the Land Reform was about to begin, the head of the Work Group told my grandpa, in secret, to sell all our land. Promptly my grandpa sold it and told everybody … 
that my granduncle had left a large debt, and that we had to sell everything to clear the debt. So when the reform began, the villagers voted the Diaos’ class status to be middle peasant, since we were indeed as lan-landless as any of them. Isn’t it funny that the richest landlord turned into a middle peasant overnight?”

He giggled huskily. “You see, if my granduncle had been alive, we would’ve been classified as a landlord family. The folk would never have let us Diaos go. They would have wiped us out. If so, I couldn’t be here, commanding the Communist troops.”

“Old Diao, you cannot deny that your granduncle’s deed is a revolutionary part in your family history.” Although I said that, I felt his family’s class status should have remained as landlord.

“Humph, what’s history?” He emptied his mug, giggling again. The tiny flame on the kerosene lamp flickered on the table. “History is a mess of chances and accidents. It’s true that my granduncle was killed by the Japs for his own good, for the villagers’ good, and for our family’s good. But while lying be-beneath the blade of the cutter, he couldn’t know the meaning of his death, could he? It’s all the later occurrences that made his death meaningful, isn’t it?”

“You may be right, I’m not sure.” I was somehow puzzled by his way of thinking. “Then how do you compare your granduncle and Dragon Head?”

“Old Gao, you’re really a simple, honest man. My granduncle died in the hands of our national enemy. That’s why we Diaos are still a Revolutionary Martyr’s Family. Likewise, if Dragon Head is killed by the Russians, or by anyone who happens to be our enemy, he’ll be a hero. Don’t you think so?”

“I’ve never thought of it that way,” I admitted. “I don’t like Dragon Head much, but I can’t tell how he’ll end. He’s
so young, probably not thirty yet. Maybe he’ll live longer than I. Who knows?”

“How humorous!” He laughed, his round eyes shining a little in the dim light. “I didn’t know you had a sense of humor, Old Gao. Let’s forget Dragon Head. Cheers.”

We drank the last drop. He returned to his room. I went to mine, leaving the mugs and the chopsticks on the table for the orderly to clear away.

At four o’clock the next morning, I was woken up by a call from the Third Battery. Commander Meng spoke on the phone. “Our storehouse was broken into.”

“What’s lost?”

“I don’t know exactly at this moment. Commander Gao, I’m leaving for the storehouse now, and I will inform you immediately after I know.”

“I’m coming. See you at the storehouse.” I put on my clothes and pistol and set out for the western end of the village.

The dawn was just breaking, and it felt rather chilly walking through the moist air. Five minutes later, I was at the storehouse, where Commander Meng, Political Instructor Wang Hsin, and two soldiers on sentry duty had already gathered. There was a hole, as large as a jeep wheel, in the back wall. “Commander Gao, two of the transceivers are missing, so far as we can tell,” Meng reported.

“Fortunately,” Instructor Wang said, “our ammunition has been moved to the new barracks — ”

“Son of a rabbit,” I cut him short. “It’s Dragon Head! Yesterday afternoon he asked me for transceivers. I refused him, so he had them stolen at night. I’ll go and question him.”

“No, you should not.” Commissar Diao emerged from behind. “Old Gao, don’t act rashly. We have to think about this.”

At this moment a clatter of horses’ hooves came from the east. We all turned to watch. A group of fully armed militia riders were ambling away from the village. Their broad red standard was waving slightly in the pink dawn. One rider was carrying a dark box on his back. No doubt it was a transceiver. Dragon Head rode at the front on a large black horse, leading them northward to the Wusuli River.

“Damn them all,” I cursed. “I hope they’ll be put out of action by the Russians.”

“Old Gao, calm down, please,” the commissar said. “We’ll get him sooner or later. One cannot eat up a fat man in one bite.” Then he turned to the others. “You can all go back now. Commander Gao and I will handle this by ourselves. No one else is to know of this.”

After they left, the commissar and I made our way back to the Battalion Headquarters. I couldn’t help cursing, but Diao remained quiet.

“I’ll grab hold of him this evening and recover those machines,” I assured Diao.

“Don’t do it. Please listen to me, Old Gao. It’s not time yet to settle things with him. Don’t you remember the saying that goes: ‘Today you caper about swaying your butt, tomorrow we’ll rip out your guts’?”

“I know that, but if we don’t stop him now, tomorrow he’ll steal our trucks and cannons.” We turned at the corner of the village millhouse.

“No, they don’t know how to drive a truck. They are horsemen.” He looked somewhat mysterious. “To tell you the truth, Dragon Head is on the list, and he will be dealt with eventually.”

“What list?” I stopped.

“I don’t know exactly. Anyway, we two cannot handle him. He’s too big for us. As a matter of fact, I have to call Regimental Commissar Feng Zhi and report on the whole
thing. We shouldn’t do anything before hearing from the Regimental Political Department.”

This was entirely new to me. I had never thought Dragon Head was so important that some secret eyes kept him under surveillance. That morning Diao called the regimental commissar and was told to wait for a decision.

The order came after lunch. When Scribe Niu Hsi was cutting my hair in the middle of the yard, Commissar Diao came in and told me, “Old Gao, I just received a call from Commissar Feng. He told us to be quiet, as if nothing had happened.”

“All right, I’ll be as quiet as a deaf-mute,” I said, keeping my head low for Niu Hsi to shave the hair on my nape. I felt Diao looked rather unnatural, perhaps because of what he had divulged to me the night before.

“I’ve got your word, Old Gao. So the case’s dropped now.” He was about to leave.

“Hold on,” I called him, and he turned back. “Old Diao, from now on, I don’t want to have anything to do with Dragon Head. I cannot endure him, and I may wind up calling him names and making a scene. So please deal with him yourself.”

“That’s not a bad idea — I mean, to avoid clashes. He’s not so difficult to persuade. Fine, from now on I’ll stroke the dragon’s whiskers.”

A week later, we all moved into our new barracks, and for the rest of the year I didn’t see Dragon Head again. It seemed that I had indeed washed my hands of whatever he did.

3

Because the Chinese and Russian governments had started to negotiate, the situation at the border was much less intense than it had been the previous year. Except for three
days’ combat readiness in early March, it was rather peaceful throughout the winter. We spent most of the time carrying out drills and criticizing Lin Biao, who had plotted to assassinate Chairman Mao. It seemed the Russians had changed their minds and would not invade our country anymore. Over seventy of our older soldiers were demobilized in January. By now we had completely dissolved our contact with Dragon Head and his men. Even Commissar Diao no longer believed that we might need the militia as foot soldiers to defend our cannon emplacement.

BOOK: Ocean of Words
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ads

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