Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (14 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

One summer day Xu Sanguan came home and said to Xu Yulan, “On the way back it seemed like no one who lives in our lane was at home. Everyone’s in the streets. I’ve never seen so many people in the streets before in my entire life. There are people with red armbands, and people marching, and people writing political slogans, and people pasting up big-character posters. The walls on the main street are covered with big-character posters. They paste them up one on top of the other, thicker and thicker, until it looks like the walls are wearing cotton-padded jackets. And I saw the county secretary, that fat guy from Shandong. He used to think he was really something. Whenever I used to see him, he would be holding a nice cup of tea in his hand, but now he’s got an old metal washbasin in his hand, and he keeps banging on it and cursing himself, saying he’s a dog through and through.”

Xu Sanguan said, “Have you heard? Do you know why the factories have shut down, and the stores are closed, and why there are no classes at the schools? You know why you don’t have to go fry dough? Why some people have hung themselves from trees, and some people are locked up in ‘cow sheds’ and beaten half to death? Do you know why? Do you know why as soon as Chairman Mao says something, people take what he said and make it into a song, and paint his words on the walls, and on the pavement, and on cars and ferry boats, on their sheets and pillowcases, on cups and cooking pans, and even on bathroom walls and the sides of spittoons? Do you know how it was that Chairman Mao’s name grew so long? Listen to this: He’s the Great Leader Great Teacher Supreme Commander and Helmsman Chairman Mao May He Live Ten Thousand Years! That’s fifteen words in all, and you have to say it in one breath, without missing a beat. You know why that is? Because the Cultural Revolution has arrived.”

Xu Sanguan said, “I’m only just now starting to understand what this Cultural Revolution is all about. It’s actually just a time for settling old scores. If someone offended you in the past, now’s the time to write a big-character poster about him and paste it on a wall on the street. You can accuse him of being an unreconstructed landlord, or a counterrevolutionary, or whatever. You can say whatever you like. There aren’t any courts or police these days anyway. There’s just a lot of different crimes. You can pick any one you like, put it up on a poster, and sit back and watch everybody hound whomever you’ve accused to death. These days when I lie in bed, I think to myself, maybe I should find an enemy too, write a poster, and settle some old score. But the only enemy I ever had was that bastard He Xiaoyong, and he was hit by a truck and killed three years ago. I’m a good man, and I haven’t made any other enemies all these years. That’s good, because at least I don’t have to worry about someone putting up a poster denouncing me.”

Before he had finished, Sanle pushed open the front door and rushed in with a shout of alarm, “Someone put up a poster on the wall of the rice store saying that Mom is a ‘broken shoe.’ ”

Xu Sanguan and Xu Yulan, frightened out of their wits, immediately ran over to the rice shop to see the poster on the wall. Sanle had not been mistaken. Among many other posters, there was indeed one that singled out Xu Yulan, saying that she was a “broken shoe,” a shameless tramp, saying that she had become a prostitute at the age of fifteen, saying that you could sleep with her for just two
yuan
a night, saying that the men she had slept with would fill up ten whole trucks.

Xu Yulan pointed at the poster and broke into a string of curses. “It’s your mama who’s the real ‘broken shoe’! Your mama’s the real tramp. She’s the one who’s a whore. Ten truck-loads? She’s slept with so many men the whole earth couldn’t swallow them all!”

Xu Yulan wheeled around to face Xu Sanguan and began to cry. “Only someone who’s had no sons and no hope of grandsons, who’s got boils growing on his head and running sores on his feet, only someone like that could be capable of spitting out this kind of venom.”

Xu Sanguan said to the people standing next to him, “This is slander, pure and simple. It says Xu Yulan became a prostitute at fifteen. Bullshit! You think I wouldn’t know if that were true? The night we got married, Xu Yulan left this much blood on the sheets.” Xu Sanguan drew a circle in the air with his hands. “If Xu Yulan was a whore at fifteen, you think I would have seen any blood on our wedding night?” Seeing that the other people in the store hadn’t replied, Xu Sanguan answered his own question, “Of course not!”

That afternoon Xu Sanguan called Yile, Erle, and Sanle to him and told them, “Yile, you’re already sixteen now. And Erle’s fifteen. Go out to the street and copy one of those posters. Doesn’t matter which one. Just copy one of them, and then paste it over the poster about your mom. Sanle, you’re still a snot-nosed little brat, so I guess all you can really do is carry a bucket of paste for the other two. Now remember, you can’t just tear down a big-character poster. These days, if you tear one of those things down, you’re a counterrevolutionary. Don’t even think about tearing them down. Just copy out a new poster and paste it over the other one. I can’t very well take care of this myself, because everybody will be looking. If you kids go, you won’t draw as much attention. You brothers better go get the job done before it gets dark.”

When night came, Xu Sanguan said to Xu Yulan, “Your three sons have pasted over that poster, so you can relax now. I doubt very many people saw it. There’re so many posters out there that no one could possibly get around to all of them. And they’re putting up new ones all the time. Before you can finish the first one, someone’s put another one on top of it.”

TWO DAYS LATER a group of people wearing red armbands came to Xu Sanguan’s house and took Xu Yulan away. They were planning to hold a massive struggle session in the town square. They had already found a landlord, dug up a rich peasant, located a rightist, caught a counterrevolutionary, and gotten hold of a capitalist roader in a position of power. They had everyone they needed except a prostitute. They said they had spent three days looking for a prostitute, and since there was only half an hour left until the meeting was to begin, they had finally found one. They said, “Xu Yulan, come with us. We need your help. This is an emergency.”

She didn’t come back until later that afternoon. When she returned, the hair on the left side of her head was all gone, but the hair on the right remained untouched. They had given her a “yin yang” haircut, neatly shaving half of her hair at the part, so that it looked like a rice paddy midway through the harvest season.

When Xu Sanguan saw her, he let out an involuntary cry. Xu Yulan moved over to the window, picked up the mirror from the sill, and after seeing herself in the mirror, began to sob.

“Now that I look like this, how can I show my face? How am I going to live? When I was walking home, they were all pointing and laughing at me. Xu Sanguan, I didn’t know how ugly I was yet. I knew they’d cut off half my hair, but I didn’t know it would be this ugly. I didn’t know until I looked in the mirror. Xu Sanguan, what am I going to do? Xu Sanguan, they cut off my hair at the struggle session. I heard the people below me laughing, and I saw my hair falling by my feet, so I knew they’d shaved my head, but when I tried to feel it with my hand, they slapped my face so hard my teeth hurt, and they said I wasn’t allowed to touch. Xu Sanguan, how am I going to go on living? It would be better to die. I don’t have anything against them, and they didn’t have anything against me. I don’t even know them. So why did they shave my head? Why didn’t they just let me die? Xu Sanguan, why don’t you say something?”

“What am I supposed to say?” Xu Sanguan said. Then he let out a long sigh. “There’s not a whole lot we can do now. You’ve got a ‘yin yang’ head. Nowadays women with hair like that are supposedly either ‘broken shoes’ or whores. There’s nothing much you can say, now that you’ve been made to look like that. No one will believe what you have to say for yourself. You couldn’t wash yourself clean even if you jumped into the Yellow River. You can’t go out anymore. You’ll have to stay in the house.”

Xu Sanguan helped shave off the other half of Xu Yulan’s hair, then kept her inside the house. Xu Yulan herself was perfectly willing to stay in, but the people in red armbands were not willing to let her. They would come and take her away every few days, dragging her along to their struggle sessions. At almost every struggle session held in town, no matter how big or small, Xu Yulan was always standing to one side. Most of the time she was just playing a supporting role.

Xu Yulan said to Xu Sanguan, “They’re not after me. They’re attacking other people. I just stand to one side and keep the ones who are being attacked company.”

Xu Sanguan told his sons, “Actually, they’re not attacking your mom. Your mom is just keeping those capitalist roaders and rightists and counterrevolutionaries and landlords company. She just stands to one side and pretends to be participating. Your mom is just playing a supporting role. What do I mean by a supporting role? Well, she’s like MSG. You can add MSG to any kind of dish, and it makes everything a little tastier.”

Later, they made Xu Yulan bring a stool out into the busiest part of the shopping street and stand on top of it. She stood atop the stool with a wooden sandwich board around her neck. They had made the sign especially for her. It read simply: XU YULAN, PROSTITUTE.

They escorted Xu Yulan to her spot, watched as she put the sign around her neck and stood up on the stool, then left. After they left, they forgot all about her. She stood there all day, looking left and right, waiting for them to come back. When the sun went down and the streets emptied, she began to wonder if they had forgotten that they had left her there. Only then did she make her way home, carrying the stool in one hand and the sign in the other.

She was left to stand on the street all day long many times. When she got tired of standing, she would sit down on the stool and pound her legs and rub her feet until she was ready to stand once more on the stool.

The place where she stood was quite a distance from the nearest public toilet. When she had to go to the bathroom, she would walk two blocks to the public toilet next to the rice shop, with the wooden placard still dangling around her neck all the while. Everybody would watch as she walked by, clasping the placard and, with averted eyes, remaining as closely as she could to the side of the road. When she arrived at the toilet, she would take off her sign and lean it against the wall. When she was finished, she would replace the placard around her neck and move back to her spot.

Standing on the stool was very much like participating in a struggle session. She had to stand with her head bowed in front of her, because criminals were expected to bow their heads in just such a manner. Xu Yulan stood on the stool with her head bowed, staring at her feet. But if she stared at one spot for too long, her eyes would start to get sore, so every once in a while she looked up at the people walking up and down the street.

She noticed that no one paid any attention to her. Some of the people who went by would glance in her direction, but only a very few of them gave her a second look. This made Xu Yulan feel much better, and she told Xu Sanguan, “When I stand on the street, I’m just like a telephone pole for all anyone cares.”

She said, “Xu Sanguan, I’m not afraid of anything anymore. I’ve suffered everything now. There’s nothing else they can do to me. It’s already come to this. What more could they do to me? Kill me? Fine, I’m really not afraid of dying. But sometimes I think about you, I think about the kids, and I start to feel frightened. If it wasn’t for you and the kids, I really wouldn’t be afraid of anything.”

The thought of her three sons brought tears to her eyes.

“Yile and Erle ignore me. They won’t even talk to me anymore. When I call to them, they pretend not to hear me. Sanle’s the only one who still talks to me, who still dares to call me his mom. I’m out there every day suffering, and when I get home, you’re the only one who’s good to me. When my feet are swollen, you pour a basin of hot water for me to soak them in. When I come home late, you’ve kept some dinner under the quilt because you were afraid it would get cold. When I’m standing out there on the street, you’re the one who brings me things to eat and water to drink. Xu Sanguan, as long as you’re good to me, I’m not afraid of anything in the world.”

Xu Yulan usually had to stand out in the street all day long, so Xu Sanguan would bring her something to eat and water to drink. At first Xu Sanguan wanted Yile to go, but Yile refused. “Dad, why don’t you tell Erle to do it?”

Xu Sanguan called for Erle and told him, “Erle, we’ve all eaten, but your mom hasn’t had anything yet. Why don’t you take her something to eat?”

Erle shook his head. “Dad, why don’t you have Sanle do it?”

Xu Sanguan got angry. He said, “I ask Yile to do it, and he passes the job on to Erle. I ask Erle to do it, and he passes the job to Sanle. And Sanle, the little brat, just puts the bowl down on the ground and disappears without a trace. When they want to eat, when they want clothes on their backs, when they want some money, they’re my sons all right. But when it comes to taking their mom something to eat, it seems like I don’t have any sons anymore.”

Erle said to Xu Sanguan, “Dad, I don’t want to go outside anymore. Whenever I go out, people who know who we are call me Two
Yuan
a Night. It’s so embarrassing.”

Yile said, “I’m not afraid of them calling me Two
Yuan
a Night. If they call me names, I just call them names right back and even louder than they did. And I’m not afraid of fighting either. If there are more of them than me, I’ll just run. I’ll head home and get a knife and run back and show them and say I’m a merciless killer and if they don’t believe me, they can go ask Blacksmith Fang’s son. Then it’s their turn to run. It’s not that I’m afraid of going out. I just don’t feel like going out, that’s all.”

Xu Sanguan said, “I’m the one who should be afraid to go out. Whenever I go out, people throw little rocks at me, and spit at me, and other people want me to stop and publicly denounce your mom. If they did that to you kids, you could just pretend you didn’t know or understand, but I’m too afraid of what will happen if I refuse to say anything. It’s just as bad for me, if not worse. What are you kids afraid of? You kids were born into the new society, and you’ve grown up under the red flag. You’re innocent. Look at Sanle. Isn’t that little brat out all day long, playing in the streets? Though he’s taken it a little too far today. It’s getting late, and he still hasn’t come home.”