21
Lin had her head down as she pushed her bicycle from the shed near the main entrance of the building. She had been avoiding him for some time. He blocked the exit and playfully bumped her bicycle with his front wheel. Lin looked up and forced a wry, apologetic sort of smile, as if to say it was she who had bumped into his bicycle.
"Let's ride together!" he said.
Lin did not get on her bicycle as in the past to take the cue and head off, cycling some distance in front, to a secret rendezvous. In any case, the Cultural Revolution had closed down all the parks at night. They walked for a while, pushing their bicycles, without saying anything. The walls along the road were now covered with university rebel Red Guard slogans naming members of the Political Bureau of the Party Center, and the Deputy Premier. These new slogans blotted out the old slogans by blood-lineage Red Guards that had called for the sweeping away of Ox Demons and Snake Spirits.
YU QIULI MUST BOW HIS HEAD TO ACKNOWLEDGE HIS CRIMES
BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY MASSES!
TAN ZHENLIN, YOUR FUNERAL BELL IS TOLLING!
Lin had removed her red armband and wrapped her head and face with a long gray scarf. She tried her best to cover herself, to make herself inconspicuous, and, mingling with pedestrians wearing gray and blue padded coats on the street, her graceful figure was no longer prominent. All restaurants had closed for the day, so there was nowhere to go; anyway, it seemed, there was nothing to talk about. The two of them walked with their bicycles in the cold wind, with a clear distance in between. Thrown up by gusts of wind and grit, fragments of posters drifted about under the streetlights.
He was stirred by the solemnity of the impending all-out fight for justice, but could not help feeling miserable, because his love affair with Lin was on the brink of ending. He wanted to restore his relationship with Lin but how could he broach the topic and how could he make it a relationship between equals so that he was not simply the recipient of Lin's love? He asked about Lin's parents, expressing his concern, but Lin walked on in silence without answering. He could not find the words to get through to her.
"There seems to be a problem with your father's history." It was Lin who first spoke.
"What problem?" he said, alarmed.
"I'm just alerting you," Lin said flatly.
"He's never taken part in a political party or group!" he protested immediately, out of a basic instinct for self-preservation.
"It seems as if…" she cut herself short.
"It seems as if what?" he asked, stopping in his tracks.
"That's all I've heard."
Lin kept pushing her bicycle without looking at him. She thought of herself as being superior, she was alerting him, showing concern for him, she was concerned that he might do something crazy. She was protecting him, but he could tell that it was no longer love. It was as if he had concealed his family background from her, and her concern was spoiled by her doubts. He tried to explain: "Before Liberation, my father was section chief in a bank and a steamship company, then he was a journalist with a private commercial newspaper. What's wrong with that?"
What instantly came to his mind was the small cloth-covered booklet of Mao's On New Democracy, which his father hid with the silver coins in the shoebox under the five-drawer chest when he was a child, but he said nothing, it was useless. He felt wronged, primarily because his father was not him.
"They say your father was senior staff-"
"So what? He was still hired staff and lost his job before Liberation. He has never been a capitalist and has never represented the capitalists!"
He was furious, but instantly he felt weak. He knew he would not be able to regain Lin's trust.
Lin made no response.
He put his foot on the bicycle-stop in front of a poster freshly pasted up, stood there, and asked, "What else is there? Who's saying this?"
Lin steadied her bicycle and, averting her eyes, looked down to say, "Don't ask, just be aware of it."
The youngsters in front of them collected their buckets of paste and ink, got on their bicycles, and left. The posters they had just written were still dripping with ink.
"So you've been avoiding me because of this?" he asked loudly.
"Of course not." Lin still did not look at him but quiedy added, "It was you who wanted to break off the relationship."
"I miss you, I really miss you!"
He spoke loudly but felt weak and helpless.
"Forget it, it's impossible…" Lin said softly, avoiding his eyes. She turned, pushing her bicycle to go off.
He grabbed the handlebars of her bicycle, but Lin put her head down and said, "Don't be like that, let me go, I'm just telling you that there is a problem with your father's history-"
"Who said this? People in the political section? Or was it Danian?" he kept asking, unable to contain his fury.
Lin straightened up and turned away to look at the cars on the road and the endless stream of bicycles on both sides.
"My father wasn't declared a rightist-" He wanted to argue, but that, too, was something he wanted to forget. He remembered his mother saying that it was all over and in the past. That was when his mother was alive, he was still at university and had gone home for the New Year.
"No, not that problem…" Lin turned her handlebars and put a foot on the pedal.
"Then what problem is it?" He grabbed her handlebars again.
"They say he had hidden a gun…" She bit her lip, got on her bicycle, and pedaled away hard.
There was an explosion in his brain and he seemed to see Lin speed by with tears in her eyes; maybe he was seeing things or maybe he was just feeling sorry for himself. Cycling away with her head wrapped in the scarf, Lin merged with the others on bicycles and, as scraps of paper and dust flew into the air beneath the streetlights, soon it was impossible to make her out. It was probably at that point that he reeled and stumbled against the poster that had just been pasted on the wall, and got ink and paste on his sleeve, and, as a result, he firmly remembered how it was when he and Lin parted.
His mind had seized up and he was in a quandary. He did not get on his bicycle right away because the weight of the words "hidden a gun" had made his head spin. When he came to his senses and thought about the implications of these words, he knew he had no option but to go all the way with rebelling.
Their band of twenty or so charged into the hutong at the side of Zhongnanhai. At the red gate bristling with sentries, they demanded that the senior cadre representing the Party Center come to their workplace both to acknowledge culpability and to exonerate cadres and masses declared anti-Party. When they entered the office, the old revolutionary who held the rank of general before taking command of this important position actually received them, unlike the noncommittal and reticent senior cadres of their workplace who just hid away in their offices. The man had an extraordinary presence, and remained seated, majestic and dignified, on the high-backed leather chair behind the desk in that very spacious office.
"I won't get up to greet you, I've had too many meetings with the masses. When I was taking part in the revolution and mass campaigns, who knows where you lot of youngsters were? Of course, I am not promoting seniority simply because I am much older than all of you." The senior cadre was the first to speak. His voice was loud without being pompous, but his attitude and tone sounded as if he was speaking at a meeting.
"You young people want to rebel, and that's excellent! But I have had a little more experience. I have rebelled and carried out revolution against others, and others have done the same to me, and I have committed errors. Errors in what I said has upset some comrades and made them angry. I have already apologized to my comrades, what else do you want? Are you incapable of committing errors? Are you always correct? I would never dare say that of myself. It is only Chairman Mao who is always correct! And there can be no doubts about that! Who among you is not capable of committing errors? Ha-ha!"