The stationmaster in a blue uniform blew his whistle a few times, and people retreated behind the white line, but, for a long time, the train showed no sign of moving. Suddenly, there was a commotion, as armed military police ran up and formed a single row. Then came a long contingent of prisoners, heads shaved, each humping a bedroll on their backs and holding an enamel bowl. They were marching in time, softly chanting in a clear rhythm the slogan: "Strive hard to remake yourself, to resist means death!"

It was a soft chant with the solemnity of a hymn, repeated over and over, and the children stopped beating on their gongs and drums. The line of prisoners crossed the platform diagonally, and, to the sound of the repeated slogan, entered several stifling windowless carriages that had been added to the tail end of the train. Ten minutes later, there was an eerie quiet as the train slowly moved off. At that point, a few irrepressible sobs came from the platform, and, instantly, the inside and outside of the train filled with the sound of weeping children and adults. Of course, some people waved and put on smiles, but the artificially happy atmosphere had completely vanished.

Outside the train window, cement telephone poles, red brick houses, gray concrete buildings, chimneys, and bare branches on trees rapidly receded. However, this was what he wanted: he had finally fled that city of terror. The winds would be colder and harsher, but at least he would be able to breathe freely for a while without having to be on guard all the time. He was young and strong, without a wife or children, without responsibilities, and had only to work the soil. While he was at university, he had worked in the villages. Farmwork was exhausting, but the mental stress would not be as great. He wanted to hum a song, but what old song was there to sing? All right, then he wouldn't sing anything.

39

That soul mate of yours, Louis Armstrong, you think of as a brother. He has been dead a long time, but those old black-and-white movies raining with white lines, that old black soul mate's singing, still have you rolling on the floor.

Gossamer floating in the wind…

You must live happily and fully. Oh, Margarethe! You're thinking of her again, it was she who got you to write this damn book that has made you so wretched and miserable. That slut has caused you excruciating pain, and you want to fuck her really hard, so that you will make her hurt like she wants to, that masochist. But even if you were to hurt her much more, you would still not be able to cry.

And you really want to cry, to roll on the floor like a spoiled brat and to cry as hard as you can. But there are no tears, no tears, none at all. Hey, man, you're just getting old!

So what if you're a worm or a dragon! You're more like a homeless dog without an owner, so you don't have to please anyone and don't have to try to get anyone to like you. You, you're a mole that bores holes in the ground. You like the dark, you can't see a thing in the dark, you can't see the hunting rifles. You no longer have goals and what use are goals anyway?

Now that you have a new life, you want to use it as you want to, and you want what's left of your life to be lived more meaningfully. Most important of all, living has to bring happiness, and you must derive happiness from living for yourself. What others think is of no relevance whatsoever.

To be self-activated and to exist for yourself is a freedom that is not external to you. It is within you, and it depends on whether you are aware of it and consciously exercise it.

Freedom is a look in the eyes, a tone of voice, and it can be actualized by you, so you are not destitute. Affirming this freedom is like affirming the existence of a thing, like a tree, a plant, or a dewdrop, and for you to exercise this freedom in life is just as authentic and irrefutable.

Freedom is ephemeral; the instant of that look in your eyes and that tone of your voice springs from a psychological state, and it is that flash of freedom that you want to capture. To express this in language is to affirm freedom, even if what you write can't last forever. In the process of writing, freedom is visible and audible, and, at the instant of writing, reading, and listening, freedom exists in your mode of expression. To be able to obtain that small luxury of freedom of expression and expressive freedom is what it takes to make you happy.

Freedom is not conferred, nor can it be bought, it is your own awareness of life. Such is the beauty of life, and, surely, you savor this freedom just as you savor the ecstasy of sexual love with a wonderful woman.

This freedom can tolerate neither God nor a dictator. To be either of these is not your goal, nor would such a goal be attainable, so rather than wasting the effort you may as well simply want this bit of freedom.

Instead of saying Buddha is in your heart, it would be better to say that freedom is in your heart. Freedom castigates others. To take into account the approval or appreciation of others, and, worse still, to pander to the masses, is to live according to the dictates of others. Thus it is they who are happy, but not you yourself, and that would be the end of this freedom of yours.

Freedom takes no account of others and has no need for acceptance by others. It can only be won by transcending restrictions that are imposed on you by others. Freedom of expression is also like this.

Freedom can be manifested in suffering and grief, as long as one does not allow oneself to be crushed by it. Even while immersed in suffering and grief, one can still observe, so there can also be freedom in suffering and grief. You need the freedom to suffer and the freedom to grieve, so that life will be worth living. It is this freedom that brings you happiness and peace.

40

"Don't think peace will reign once old counterrevolutionaries have been purged. Rub your eyes hard and be vigilant, those practicing counterrevolutionaries are dangerous enemies! They are carefully hidden and crafty, they have accepted our proletarian revolutionary slogans but are secretly instigating capitalist factionalism and blurring our class demarcations. We cannot allow ourselves to be hoodwinked by them, think hard about the people who were sneaking around during the movement. Those two-faced counterrevolutionaries that hold up the red flag while opposing the red flag are sleeping right next to you!"

The deputy chairman of the Army Control Commission, Officer Pang, was political commissar in the army and had come especially from Beijing to visit the farm. Wearing glasses with thick black frames, he stood on the stone mill in the drying square and waved a document in his hand as he made his rallying call: "The May Seventh Cadre School is not a haven from the class war!"

A purge of the practicing counterrevolutionary group designated "May Sixteenth" was under way, and leaders and activists of rebel factions from the beginning of the movement were all marked for investigation. He was instantly relieved of his position as squad leader, and told to stop work to write a full report on those years, detailing the dates and places when and where which people had what secret meetings and had engaged in what shady activities.

At the time, he didn't know that, in Beijing, Big Li had been interrogated for days and nights on end, and that, after being beaten and kicked, confessed to being a May Sixteenth element. Of course, Big Li also named him. Big Li further confessed that the meeting in Wang Qi's home was part of a secret counterrevolutionary plot, which allowed them to collude with members of the counterrevolutionary gang and receive instructions for the ultimate goal of overthrowing the dictatorship of the proletariat. Big Li ended up in a mental institution. Wang Qi had also been interrogated. Old Liu had been beaten to death during an interrogation in the underground room of the workplace building, then taken upstairs and thrown out of a window. It was construed that he had committed suicide to avoid punishment.