The Four Books (8 page)

The women’s fourth brigade lived in a building belonging to the fourth brigade. There were only a few of them, and they all lived in four rooms, with the remaining four rooms serving as the district’s canteen. Those of us in the first brigade also stayed in buildings belonging to the fourth brigade, while the second and third brigades lived in buildings belonging to their respective brigades. Each building contained eight rooms, and each room contained four bunk beds, meaning that each room could hold up to eight people. The first brigade’s empty room was used as storage, to keep farming equipment and other items.

Not everyone was able to post their red blossoms at the head of their bed. Instead, given that every pair of bunkmates shared a simple willow desk, the person sleeping in the upper bunk would post his blossoms on the wall above the desk, while the person in the lower bunk would post them above the head of his bed. This way, it was easier to inspect how many blossoms they had each received. The rooms were several square meters in size, with four bunk beds and four willow desks. They were quite crowded, to the point that everyone would stumble over each other when they tried to walk around. Everyone folded their bedding into neat squares, as they do in the army. The sheets had to be pulled up every day, and when people weren’t using their stools they were placed under the beds. Everyone kept their washbasins next to their stools, and their teeth-brushing cups on the ledges above their bed. Their toothpaste and toothbrushes were all pointed east, with the bristles of their toothbrushes and their toothpaste caps facing upward. The walls had no decorations, other than a portrait of some higher-up, and the coat of whitewash had begun to turn yellow.

But now there were red blossoms above every bed and every desk. Multiple rows of red blossoms were arrayed there in the dark, giving the room a feeling of vitality, like a ray of light emerging out of the darkness. The people who had just been awarded their first red blossoms seemed almost too embarrassed to post them. But after being awarded three, five, seven, or even eight blossoms, everyone carefully used moist rice to post them in rows over their bed or desk, and then would step back to assess whether or not the rows were straight. In this way, they carefully posted their blossoms just as the Child had directed. They might not have held out any real hope of being able to trade in five small blossoms for a medium-sized one, or five medium-sized blossoms for a large pentagonal star, or of collecting the five stars that would permit them to leave Re-Ed. Even so, no one was willing to throw away their small blossoms or give them to anyone else.

I myself already had seven small blossoms. I had earned three for saying that one
mu
of land could definitely yield fifteen thousand
jin
of grain, and another because our third brigade produced more wheat than the others. The remaining three were in return for the several dozen pages of my
Criminal Records
that I wrote for the Child. These seven small blossoms were arrayed above my bed, like a comet shooting past my head, such that during the dark days and months that I spent at Re-Ed, I could always look up and see the bright moonlit sky.

To tell the truth, the Red Blossom and Pentagonal Star system that the Child implemented was a stroke of genius, and it encouraged everyone to enter a self-governing track, as though a herd of horses and oxen were to start plowing the fields on their own accord, without needing to be flogged.

We irrigated and weeded the fields, repaired the dikes between the fields, and waited for the following year, when each
mu
of land would yield fifteen thousand
jin
of grain. We didn’t have any leisure activities, and instead started working as soon as the sun came up and continued nonstop until sunset. At night, we would go back and read those books that we were allowed to read, and count the red blossoms posted above our beds and desks. One person already had several dozen blossoms, which were arranged in neat rows as though there were a fire burning in front of his bed. His blossoms were grouped into clusters of five, with each cluster perfectly aligned, as though a regiment of the Red Army were passing through. Every day he would review his troops at least once.

4)
Heaven’s Child
, pp. 98–103

The Child assigned people to cut down some trees, so that they could be sawed or chopped up. The wood would be used to make furniture for their rooms. The remainder would be used as kindling in winter. Just as the Child was warming up by the stove, there was a knock at the door. It was bitterly cold outside, and the frozen ground was as hard as death.

When the snow wanted to fall, it did.

When the weather wanted to be cold, it was.

The Child was in the process of lighting a fire with the books he had seized, when his door was suddenly pushed open and the Theologian appeared in the doorway. The Theologian looked at the Child, and saw that as kindling he was using a thick novel titled
Resurrection
. Next to the fire basin there were torn-out pages and half a book cover. There was also the French novel
The Red and the Black
. The Child was getting warm by the fire, his face glowing bright. “Sit down,” said the Child. “Don’t just stand there.” He then picked up the scraps of pages and the book cover and threw them into the fire as well. As he did so, the words
Red
and
Black
were devoured by the flames, as was the name Stendhal. The Theologian stood there, staring at the remaining half of
Resurrection
, and asked, “Are you reading this?”

The Child replied, “No, I’m not.”

“What books do you like to read?”

“None.”

“But you have so many . . .” the Theologian said, as he tried to sidle toward the fire basin, to sit down.

The Child kicked the Theologian a stool. “So many books,” he said, “and I can burn most of them in a single winter. In two years, they’ll be all gone.” He looked up, as though he had remembered something. He asked, “Why have you come?” The Theologian knew he should confess, so he replied with a laugh, “I have the fewest blossoms in my entire brigade, so I want to earn some more.”

The Child gazed at the Theologian.

“Look at how thick this book is,” he said. “Two hundred pages would earn you a small blossom, and a thousand would earn you a medium-sized one.”

After a brief silence, the Theologian said, “The books I donated are more important than those donated by others.”

“But they all burn just the same,” the Child replied. “The only real difference between them is their thickness. If a volume is too thin, it won’t produce even a tiny flame.”

The Theologian stared in shock.

“Hand them over,” the Child said, “and you will receive your own red blossoms. If others denounce you, however, the blossoms will instead go to someone else. In addition, you will be fined and forced to hand over the blossoms you have already received.”

“It occurs to me,” the Theologian said, standing up from the stool, “that my books have illustrations, which are quite unlike those that appear in other people’s books.”

The Child stared at the Theologian with wide eyes, as if the Theologian were one of those illustrations. “Regardless of how good the illustrations may be, they are still printed on paper and will burn like any other.”

The Theologian had no response. He went to fetch the volume, and quickly returned. It turned out he had left his books just outside the door, and had first tried to negotiate. He brought in a yellow bundle, from which he removed several volumes. One was the Old Testament, two were copies of the New Testament, and another was titled
Hymns
, and consisted of songs from the Bible.
Hymns
was a thick volume printed on glossy paper, and every page had a color illustration. The Child looked first at the book, then at the illustrations. He looked at the pictures of the Heavenly Father, the birth of Jesus, and the Virgin Mary. The Child laughed. When he saw a picture of Christ bleeding on the cross, the Child stared in shock. When he saw the image of the birth of Christ, the Child closed the book.

“For this volume,” the Child said, “I’ll give you a blossom for each pair of illustrations.”

The Theologian’s eyes sparkled with delight. So it came to pass. The Theologian was awarded fifteen blossoms. He posted all fifteen above his bed, where they resembled a row of inextinguishable lights.

5.
Heaven’s Child
, pp. 105–11

The Child went to the district seat.

The district seat was in a big town far away. It had buildings, roads, streetlamps, and buses. The Child was commended for his declaration that they would produce fifteen thousand
jin
of grain
per
mu
. He was asked to attend a district meeting, and discovered that their assembly hall was several times larger than the county’s hall and that the blossoms they awarded were also much bigger. These were silk blossoms, which naturally were better than paper ones.

When the Child arrived in the district, he found that they were overturning heaven and earth and smelting steel. The district was promoting steel production even more enthusiastically.

Originally, the ninety-ninth didn’t smelt steel. The higher-ups had wanted them to focus on growing grain and producing fifteen thousand
jin
per
mu
. They even requested that the criminals plant a model field capable of producing those fifteen thousand
jin
per
mu
, so others from neighboring Re-Ed districts could come and observe.

But now, the ninety-ninth also had to overturn heaven and earth and start smelting steel.

When the Child returned, he didn’t make a public announcement, and instead merely said, “The higher-ups have a request—which is that on a certain day of a certain month we all go to the ninety-first, which is thirty
li
away. They want us to watch a performance. When that day arrives, we must go.” “Can we not go?” someone asked. “Yes,” the Child replied. “But everyone who goes will be awarded two blossoms, and everyone who doesn’t will have to forfeit two blossoms.” So, everyone went. They ate breakfast early, and were issued grain for lunch. Then, they headed west. The earth was supporting their feet as they trudged westward. After they had walked about thirty
li
, the sun was directly overhead and that Re-Ed district appeared in the shadows. It also had buildings and a courtyard wall. What was different, however, was that between the field and the dry riverbed, there was an earthen stage, and next to that there were two mud and clay furnaces for smelting steel. The furnaces looked like typical rural limestone or brick furnaces.

On the earthen stage, there was a row of characters that read, “Overturn heaven and earth, catch up with England and surpass America!” That solemn and striking language appeared on a red placard hanging on a railing in front of the stage. The railing was sitting in the sun, and sunlight was blindingly bright, shrouding the ninety-first in a golden glow. Everyone was gathered there—several hundred people in all. People from neighboring Re-Ed districts had come as well, including the ninety-fourth, the ninety-fifth, the ninety-seventh, the ninety-eighth, together with those from the ninety-first. There were more than a thousand people, all extremely agitated. There were also peasants from neighboring villages. Children and old people were up onstage. Several loudspeakers were mounted in nearby trees. Then the meeting began, and the first matter of business was the ceremonial lighting of the furnace, for which they invited a higher-up to do the honors. Fireworks went off, and amid the sound they piled kindling and oil into the furnace. The higher-up went to light it. The furnace immediately started burning bright, as flames shot into the air. Everyone gasped and applauded, astonished at the sight. Next, the higher-up offered a speech. For the third event, there was a performance, a play that had been arranged by the headquarters. The central plotline followed a professor who despised his country and had betrayed the national development project. One day, the district reported that it could produce eight hundred
jin
of grain per
mu
, but the professor said that at most they could only produce a hundred and eighty
jin
. The district reported a per-
mu
production of five thousand
jin
, but the professor said they could only produce two hundred, for which they would need new irrigation. The district reported a per-
mu
production of eight thousand
jin
, but the professor replied that he had studied agriculture his entire life, and not even technologically advanced countries like America, England, France, or Germany could produce that much. As a result, the people of the district seat proceeded to struggle against him—attempting to reform his thought and get him to admit that five thousand
jin
per
mu
was in fact possible.