7
They dragged me out of school.
A crowd had gathered on the street, clearly waiting for me. A pair of grimy-faced militiamen walked over and tied me up with a length of rope that was long enough to wrap around me more than a dozen times and still have enough for one of the armed guards to hold on to as he dragged me along. The other man followed, nudging me along with the muzzle of his rifle. Everyone along the way gawped at me as I passed by. Then, from the far end of the street another group of bound individuals came staggering toward me. It was my mother, my first sister, Sima Liang, and Sha Zaohua. Shangguan Yunii and Lu Shengli, who weren’t tied, kept rushing up to Mother, only to be pushed aside by one of the burly militiamen. We met at the district headquarters – Felicity Manor – where we exchanged looks. There was nothing I could say, and I’m sure they felt the same way.
Escorted by the militiamen, we passed through several courtyards, all the way to the far end, where they crowded us into the southernmost room. The window on the southern wall was one big hole, its latticework and paper covering smashed and torn, as if to open up the activities inside to public scrutiny. I spotted Sima Ting, cowering in a corner, his face black and blue, front teeth missing. He gazed sadly at us. The furthermost little garden was just beyond the window, ringed by a high wall, one section of which had been broken through, as if to make a special gate. Guards patrolled the area, their uniforms billowing in the southern winds coming from the fields beyond.
That night, the district official hung four gas lamps in the room, and had a table and six chairs moved in. He also brought along some leather whips, clubs, rattan switches, steel wire, ropes, a bucket, and a broom. In addition to these, he installed a bloodstained slaughter rack for hogs, a butcher knife, a short flaying knife, iron meat hooks, and a bucket for catching blood. Everything you needed for a slaughterhouse.
Escorted by a squad of militiamen, Inspector Yang walked into the room, his prosthetic leg crackling. He had sagging jowls and rolls of fat under his armpits that made his arms stick out from his body, like a yoke hanging down from his neck. He sat behind the table and leisurely began preparations for the interrogation. First he took a Mauser that glistened blue from his back pocket, cocked it, and laid it on the table. Then he told one of the militiamen to hand him a bullhorn, which he laid beside the pistol. Next came a tobacco pouch and a pipe, which he laid beside the bullhorn. Finally, he bent down, removed his prosthetic leg – shoe, sock, and all – and placed it on a corner of the table. The leg was a terrifying pink under the gleaming white lamplight, but was marred by a series of black scars on the calf. The shoe and the sock were both badly worn. The thing rested on the table like one of Inspector Yang’s loyal bodyguards.
Other district officials sat somberly on either side of Inspector Yang, pens poised over notebooks. Militiamen stood their rifles against the wall, rolled up their sleeves, and picked up whips and clubs. Like yamen guards, they lined up in rows across from each other, breathing heavily
Lu Shengli, who had surrendered voluntarily, was grasping Mother’s leg and weeping. Teardrops hung on the tips of Eighth Sister’s long eyelashes, even though she was smiling. She was bewitching even under the most trying circumstances, and I began to feel guilty about keeping her from Mother’s breasts when we were young. Mother was staring at the lamps, expressionless.
Inspector Yang filled his pipe and struck a match against the rough surface of the table. It lit with a pop. His lips smacked noisily as he drew on the pipe to get the tobacco burning. Then he tossed the match away and covered the bowl with his thumb before sucking deeply and noisily and expelling the white smoke through his nostrils. He removed the burnt ashes by knocking the pipe bowl against the leg of his stool. After laying the pipe on the table, he picked up the bullhorn, placed it up to his mouth, so that the open end faced the masses outside the window. “Shangguan Lu, Shangguan Laidi, Shangguan Jintong, Sima Liang, Sha Zaohua,” he announced in a gravelly voice, “do you know why we’ve brought you here?”
We all turned to look at Mother, who was still staring at the lamp.
Her face was so puffy the skin was nearly translucent. Her lips twitched a time or two, but she said nothing. She merely shook her head.
Inspector Yang said, “Shaking your head is no way to answer my question. Based upon revelations by the masses and a full investigation by the authorities, we have gathered a mass of evidence. Over a long period of time, the Shangguan family, under the leadership of Shangguan Lu, concealed the whereabouts of Northeast Gaomi Township’s number one counterrevolutionary, a man whose blood debts are incalculable, the public enemy Sima Ku. In addition, during one recent night, a member of the family vandalized the class education exhibition hall and filled the church blackboard with reactionary slogans. For these crimes alone, your entire family can be shot. But in line with current policy, we’re prepared to give you a chance, a last chance, to save your lives. We want you to reveal the hiding place of the evil bandit, Sima Ku, so that this feral wolf can be brought to justice without delay. Second, we want you confess to vandalizing the class education exhibition hall and writing reactionary slogans, even though we already know who the guilty party is. We expect complete honesty, and for that you can expect leniency. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
We reacted with silence.
Inspector Yang snatched up his pistol and banged it against the table, without so much as lowering the bullhorn, which was still pointed at the window. “Shangguan Lu,” he bellowed, “did you hear what
I said?”
In a steady voice, Mother said, “This is a frame-up.” “A frame-up,” the rest of us echoed her.
“A frame-up, you say? We are not in the business of framing innocent people, nor in the business of letting guilty ones off the hook. String them all up.”
We fought and we cried, but all that did was delay the inevitable. They tied our hands behind us and strung us up from the rafters of Sima Ku’s house. Mother hung from the southernmost end, followed by Shangguan Laidi, Sima Liang, and me at the other hand. Sha Zaohua was behind me. My arms hurt, but that was bearable; the pain in my shoulder joints, on the other hand, was excruciating. Our heads slumped forward, our necks stretched out as far as they would go. It was impossible to keep our legs straight, impossible not to straighten out our insteps, and impossible to keep our toes from pointing straight down to the floor. I couldn’t stop whimpering, but Sima Liang didn’t make a sound. Shangguan Laidi was moaning, but Sha Zaohua kept silent. The weight of Mother’s body stretched the rope as taut as a wire; she was the first to start sweating and the one who sweated the most. Nearly colorless steam rose from her scraggly hair. Shengli and Yunii held on to her legs and swung back and forth, so the militiamen pulled them away like a pair of baby chicks. They rushed back and were pulled away again. “Inspector Yang,” the men said, “want us to string these two up too?” “No!” Inspector Yang said firmly. “We do things by the book.”
Without meaning to, Shengli pulled off one of Mother’s shoes. Her sweat ran all the way down to the tip of her big toe, and from there fell like rain to the floor.