Naked Earth (28 page)

“This is no time to get bitter,” Liang said frowning. “Only thing you can do is try to be cool. Keep to your own proper standpoint as a Party member and wait for the Party’s decision. You know the Party will never punish anybody unjustly.”

He sounded as if he had heard something, she thought. Ts’ui’s case must be really serious. “Comrade Liang,” she suddenly said, “If even you have washed your hands of him, then what hope is there?” Her tears came in a hot blinding rush. “I might as well die. I’ll die right in front of you, Comrade Liang.” Before he could stop her she was up and running toward the wall, ramming her head against it.

“Hey, don’t! What is this? What for?”

“Let go of me!” She kept bumping her head against the wall, making a noise like stamping feet. “What do I want to keep my life for? What use is it to me? If my kids were here I’d dash them on the ground—I’d see that they died before me. You might as well get a knife and kill all of us. You might as well,” she panted.

Struggling with him she slid to the ground and refused to get up. She rolled all over the floor weeping and yowling as if he were butchering her. “Ai-ya, Comrade Liang, why did you save him in the battle of Hongchiao? What made you do it, Comrade Liang?” she wailed. “If he died then we would have been a Glorious Army Family. What are we now, if he is to die now?”

“Get up, get up! What is this?” Liang said desperately. “Collect yourself, Comrade Chu. Are you a
kan-pu
of the Revolution or a country woman?”

That ought to have pricked her sensitive spot. But she no longer cared. It took three orderlies and a lot of promises to get her out of there into Liang’s office car, which took her home. “Don’t be so wild,” Liang had said again and again. “Give me time. I’ll try and get information—we’ll both try. We’ll keep in touch.”

Within the week she had tried to kill herself in the office of almost everybody of any importance among her circle of acquaintances. Where she came from, women are the noisiest suicides in the world. She was not afraid of alienating these people, knowing that she was not welcome anyway, even if she was on her best behavior. She came to them as a dangerous germ-carrier. They avoided her if they could, but once they came face to face with her they could not just “pull their face down” and go all official on her. They thought she was impossible—putting on an act too. But mixed with their exasperation and disgust there was, as often as not, a flash of genuine pity.

It had worked with Yuan, the director of the Cultural Bureau. She had known him in the Old Area. In those days he had not been altogether indifferent to her charms. In his mild way, of course. He was a soft-faced, slender man wearing rimless glasses. She could see that he was rather shaken and that somehow quieted her and she started to tell him about Liang. She had not heard from Liang ever since their interview. And every time she went to see him he had been out.

“And he and Ts’ui P’ing had been such friends. Always together ever since high school. They left college to go to Yenan together, and on the way Liang Po got dysentery. There were no doctors around, no medicine. He would have died if Ts’ui P’ing hadn’t stayed up nights nursing him. For two months. Arnh.” She paused to make this little affirmative noise as if she were her own attentive listener, in the style of leisurely storytellers. She was hoarse and pale with clear red circles around her eyes.

“When they got to Yenan they both entered the Resist-Japan University. After their graduation Chairman Mao sent them into the occupied areas, to be political workers in the New Fourth Army. Came the South Anhwei Incident—Arnh! That was when the New Fourth Army was almost wiped out by the Nationalists. Ts’ui P’ing got a bullet in his leg and Liang Po stuck to him and looked after him. They were both captured and imprisoned in the Shang Jao Camp. Then when the Japanese came, all the prisoners were moved farther into the interior. There was a riot when they got to Red Rock and the prisoners broke away. Ts’ui P’ing was wounded in the riot. And Liang Po carried him, all the way from Red Rock in Fuchien to the top of the Wu Yi Mountain between Fuchien and Chianghsi. Arnh,” she said evenly, looking blankly at Yuan.

“Then there was the Battle of Meng Liang Kang in 1947,” she continued. “That time Ts’ui P’ing was a battalion commander in the East China Field Army. Liang Po was the political instructor in his battalion. Liang was wounded at the front. Ts’ui P’ing crawled up under fire to carry him back to shelter. Arnh. It was a near thing. For both of them.

“Then in 1949 when Shanghai was being Liberated, they each led a battalion entering Shanghai through Hongchiao. Arnh. This time it was Ts’ui P’ing who was wounded and Liang Po who helped him.”

She was silent for a long moment, looking straight at Yuan. “That’s why I can’t understand. How is he ever going to face Ts’ui P’ing again after this? Is he so sure he’ll never see him again?” she said, suddenly starting to cry.

Yuan did not say anything. Then quite abruptly he said, “Don’t go to Liang Po again.”

She looked at him quickly. “Why?” When Yuan did not answer she whispered, “Please tell me. Please.”

“Well, it’s no use pestering him if he doesn’t want to help,” Yuan said irritably. Then he changed his mind and added a little sheepishly, “Besides, according to what I heard, he’s the one who wrote the letter informing against Ts’ui P’ing.”

Her lips moved with a checked exclamation. After a moment of reflection she asked in a low voice, “What did he say in the letter?”

“Talked a lot about their old friendship. What you told me just now,” Yuan smiled slightly. “He negated it, said it was Petit-Bourgeois Gratitudism. He gave a very full account—exact dates of every time they saved each other’s life, and everything.”

“But what for?”

“To show what a great sacrifice it was to inform against him, I suppose. Otherwise people might think it’s just a friend—not like a brother or a father, or even a brother-in-law.”

“What did he accuse him of?”

“I can’t remember all the items. Smuggling, among other things. Sending soldiers under his command to smuggle dope.”

“Ts’ui P’ing never did anything like that,” she said quickly.

He said just as quickly, “Then you needn’t worry. They have to have proof.”

She said after a slight pause, “But how was it they just arrested him without going through discussion and criticism
t’an-pai
? I thought those were the usual procedures.”

“Yes, it is rather irregular.” Then Yuan said carelessly, moving some things around on his desk, “Ts’ui P’ing hasn’t offended anybody, has he?”

“No.” Then she said, “Not that I know of—Do you mean—I mean, do you think somebody else is at the back of this?”

Yuan lifted the area around his eyes very slightly, disclaiming all knowledge and expressing some doubt.

“Maybe it’s just that Liang Po knows Ts’ui P’ing has done something to offend somebody, so he’s doing this to please whoever it is,” she speculated. “Maybe Ts’ui P’ing told him himself,” she said with bitter triumph. “That would be just like him, telling his friend things that he kept from his own wife. Now he would feel sorry. If he only knew.”

“All this is guesswork,” Yuan said, suddenly brisk. “Now the reason I told you this is for your own protection. The main thing is to be calm. And keep away from Liang. It won’t do any good to denounce him or anything. I know you’re not frail and emotional like ordinary women. I can trust you not to tell anybody about this. In your own interest.”

He was already sorry for his indiscretion, she thought. It was not serious enough for her to blackmail him with it, but still she pressed her advantage and extracted from him a promise to speak to one of the leaders of the Three Antis.

After that day she continued to go around haunting her influential friends, making Yuan’s office her chief port of call. There was always a sense of achievement just in going her rounds, forcing her way into people’s presence, making them listen to her. Even when two men from the Public Security Bureau called, trying to stir her up against her husband and produce proof of his guilt, she harangued them on his innocence with tears and supplication, turning the interview into an opportunity. They did not come again after the second time.

One afternoon she came home exhausted. Ho, the Culinary Officer, on hearing the lift, emerged from his cubicle. He came lumbering up to her in his washed-out padded uniform. Because it was cold his hands were curled up inside the narrow sleeves, peasant fashion, so that the two thick pipes of dangling arms made a gentle arc on either side of him. He was either very afraid of her or frightened of being seen talking to her, or both.

“Comrade Chu,” he said. “Some people came just now from the Public Security Bureau. Told you to go and get the clothes and things back. Said the execution took place this morning.”

As she walked toward her room she saw a coolie sitting astride the window washing it at the end of the corridor. The glass pane shone dazzling bright in the sun. The dark rag the coolie was using to wipe it and the tin pail on the floor filled the air with an odor of dampness. From out the window came the whirring hum of trams and the sound of school bells. The world seemed to be going on as usual.

In her room the desks were in the sun, showing up the white bloom of dust on the two black telephones. Nobody had rung up for some time now, and people could no longer be reached on the phone. The telephones’ silence forbade and stifled and absorbed all noises in the room. She closed the door inaudibly when she came in. The amah was trying to hush the older child who was whining for something but it all sounded very faint.

She threw herself face downward on the bed. She could not hear herself crying, as if she was on a padded door between life and death. Gripping the counterpane in one hand she banged the bed weakly, beating on the soft, thick, heavy door.

“TS’UI P’ING
, former member of the Party convicted of corruption, smuggling and other crimes of resistance to the Three Antis, was executed day before yesterday.”

The newspapers were never very up-to-date. The caption jumped at Liu. He ran his eyes hurriedly through the small print. It said:

That phrase about his refusal to
t’an-pai
was mere routine. Liu had come to this conclusion by watching many such cases. Whenever they decided to put somebody to death they said he refused to confess, whether he confessed or not. As if he could have got out of it if only he had the sense to admit his sins. That was very effective propaganda, inducing all suspects to co-operate in the hope, however slight, that the government would be lenient to them once they pleaded guilty.

What had happened to Ts’ui was a shock to Liu but not exactly a surprise. At the headquarters of the Three Antis he had been assigned to sort letters informing against
kan-pu
above the rank of directors of departments. He had come across a letter some time ago informing against Ch’en I, Mayor of Shanghai. The letter was signed “A Faithful Party Member.” It said that in 1946 when Ch’en I, in command of the East China Field Army, had been isolated in the mountainous area in central and south Shantung, Yenan had sent him a large sum of counterfeit
Fapi
with which he was to buy supplies from Nationalist-held areas. So Ch’en I had some of his
kan-pu
disguise themselves as merchants and infiltrate into Chinan and Tsingtao to do some shopping. Only half of this money was used in buying medicines and medical equipment for the treatment of the wounded. The other half went for the purchase of fur coats, fur-lined gloves and boots and eiderdown quilts for Chen and his aides, and a lot of tinned food so that wounded soldiers could have nourishing meals. But “Faithful Party Member” said, “I was seriously wounded at the time. There wasn’t even a woolen blanket in the tent I slept in. I had heard of those tins but had never seen them. Afterwards I found that they were all piled in General Ch’en’s headquarters. During our retreat from central and south Shantung the tins just disappeared.”

He also accused Ch’en of repeatedly going against sensible advice, making costly strategic errors that had resulted in heavy casualties, as in the blind attack on Quemoy Island in 1949.

The letter was worded so strongly, Liu had taken it at once to his leader.

After hurriedly leafing through it the man had said, “All right, I’ll handle this material.” Liu was just about to move away when the other called out, “Comrade Liu.” After a visibly nervous pause he said, watching Liu, “In the Three-Anti campaign we have to place special emphasis on Organizational Qualities. All the material that passes through your hands is dead secret. You are to confide it only to me. I don’t suppose you need be reminded of that.”

“Yes, I know,” Liu said.

That did not stop him from making all kinds of surmises about the letter. The informant seemed to know so much about inside information, he must have been an officer himself. The East China Field Army had been built around what was left of the New Fourth Army. Ts’ui P’ing had been a New Fourth Army man. And Liu seemed to remember hearing that at one time he had served under Che’n I. Now that he thought about it, the handwriting could be Ts’ui’s even if it had been carefully disguised.

He supposed that his unit leader had lost no time referring the letter on to his own superior. The last man on the receiving end would be the Commander in Chief of the Three-Anti Movement in East China—Ch’en I.

What could Ts’ui have been thinking of?—Ts’ui’s speedy arrest and execution had almost confirmed his suspicion that it was Ts’ui who had written the letter. He could never be sure but he felt that he knew as much about it as anybody else except the two or three people on top who were really in the know.