That night, as a freezing rain fell, a shadowy figure climbed the wall into our yard. “Who’s there?” Mother whispered. The man rushed up and knelt on the path. “Help me, Sister-in-law,” he said. “Is that you, Sima Ting?” “It’s me,” he said. “Help me. They’re going to hold a big assembly tomorrow and put me in front of a firing squad. We’ve been fellow villagers for all these years, and I’m asking you to save my life.” Mother opened the door, and Sima Ting slipped quickly inside. He was trembling in the darkness. “Can I have something to eat? I’m starving!” Mother handed him a flatcake, which he grabbed out of her hand and gobbled down. Mother sighed. “It’s my brother’s fault,” he said. “He and Lu Liren have become mortal enemies, even though we’re all related.” “That’s enough,” Mother said. “I don’t want to hear any more. You can hide out here, but I am, after all, his mother-in-law.”
At last the mysterious VIP showed his face. He was seated in a tent, writing brush in hand. A large inkstone carved with a dragon and a phoenix lay on the table in front of him. He had a pointed chin and a long, narrow nose; he was wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses, behind which his tiny black eyes glistened. His fingers were long, thin, and ghostly pale, like the tentacles of an octopus.
The greater half of the Sima family’s threshing floor was thronged with poor-peasant representatives from Northeast Gaomi Township’s eighteen villages. They were ringed with sentries every four or five paces, members of the county and military district production teams. The VIP’s eighteen bodyguards were lined up on the stage, faces hard as steel, murderous looks in their eyes, like the Eighteen Arhats of legend. Not a sound from the area below the stage, not even the crying of children old enough to know better. Those too young to know better had nipples stuffed in their mouths at the first whimper. We sat around Mother. In contrast with the anxious villagers sitting nearby, she was surprisingly calm, absorbed in strips of hemp lying on her exposed calf, which she twisted into shoe soles. The white strips rustled as they turned on one leg and merged into identical strands of twisted rope on the other. That day a freezing northeast wind brought cold air over from the icy Flood Dragon River and turned the people’s lips purple.
Before the assembly was called to order, a disturbance occurred as the mute and members of the military district team marched Zhao Six and a dozen or so other men up to the edge of the threshing floor. They were bound and wore placards with black lettering over which red Xs had been drawn. When the villagers spotted them, they lowered their heads and said nothing.
People tucked their heads between their legs to keep the VIP from actually seeing their faces as his black eyes swept the crowd. But Mother kept twisting hemp, her eyes never leaving the work in front of her, and I sensed that the sinister gaze rested on her for a long time.
Lu Liren, wearing a red headband, addressed the audience, spittle flying everywhere. He had been suffering migraine headaches, and nothing worked to stop them, although the headband lessened the pain a little. When he was finished, he asked the VIP for instructions. The man slowly got to his feet. “Welcome Comrade Zhang Sheng, who will instruct us on what to do,” Lu Liren said as he began to clap. The villagers sat dumbfounded, wondering what was going on.
The VIP cleared his throat and began to speak, slowly drawing out each and every word. His speech was like a strip of paper dancing in the cold northeast wind, and over the decades that followed, whenever I saw one of those white funeral paper cutouts that are filled with incantations to ward off evil spirits, I was reminded of that speech.
When the speech ended, Lu Liren stepped up and ordered the mute and his men, plus several officers with holstered Mausers, to drag the prisoners up to the stage like a string of pinecones. The men filled the stage and blocked the villagers’ view of the VIP. “Kneel!” Lu Liren commanded. Quick-witted men fell to their knees. Dull-witted ones were kicked to theirs.
Below the stage, people glanced at one another out of the corners of their eyes. A few of the bolder ones stole a glance at the stage, but the sight of all those men kneeling, snot dripping off the tips of their noses, drove their heads back down.
A skinny man in the crowd stood up on shaky legs and announced in a hoarse, quaking voice, “District Commander… I… I have a grievance…”
“Good!” Pandi shouted excitedly. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Come up onto the stage!”
The crowd turned to look at the man. It was the one called Sleepyhead. His gray silk robe was ripped and torn; one sleeve hung by a thread, exposing his swarthy shoulder. His hair, once neatly combed and parted, had turned into a crow’s nest. He quaked in the cold wind as he looked around fearfully.
“Come up and speak your piece!” Lu Liren said.
“It’s no big deal,” Sleepyhead said. “I’ll tell you from down here, all right?”
“Come up!” Pandi said. “You’re Zhang Decheng, aren’t you? I recall that your mother was once forced to go around with a basket begging for food. You have suffered bitterly and your hatred is deep. Come up and tell us about it.”
Bowlegged Sleepyhead made his way through the crowd up to the front of the stage, which, made of rammed earth, was a meter or so high. He jumped, but only managed to further dirty his robe. So a soldier bent down, grabbed his arm, and jerked him into the air, his legs curling beneath him as he cried out in pain. The soldier deposited him on the stage; he landed on unsteady legs, which swayed as if he were standing on springs until he was finally able to steady himself. Raising his head, he looked out over the crowd below and was startled by gazes that hid countless emotions. His knees knocked as he bashfully stammered out something that no one could hear, let alone understand, then turned to climb down. Pandi grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him back, nearly causing him to lose his footing. Looking increasingly pathetic, he said, “Please let me go, District Commander. I’m a nobody, please let me go.” “Zhang Decheng,” she said truculently, “what are you afraid of?” “I’m a bachelor, stiff when I’m lying down and straight when I’m standing up. I’ve got nothing to be afraid of.” Pandi said, “Well, since you’re afraid of nothing, why don’t you speak up?” “I told you, it’s no big deal,” he said. “So let’s just forget it.” “Do you think this is some sort of game?” “Don’t get mad, District Commander. I’ll talk. What happens happens.”
Sleepyhead walked up in front of Qin Two and said, “Mr. Two, you’re an educated man. That time I went to study with you, all I did was fall asleep, right? So why did you smack my hand with a ruler until it looked like a warty toad? Not only that, you gave me a nickname. Remember what you said?” “Answer him!” Pandi roared. Mr. Qin Two looked up until his goatee stuck out straight and muttered, “That was a long time ago. I’ve forgotten.” “Of course you don’t remember,” Sleepyhead said, with rising excitement and increasing clarity. “But I’ll never forget! What you said, old master, was ‘Zhang Decheng, in my book you’re a sleepyhead.’ That is all it took for me to be saddled with the name Sleepyhead from then on. That’s what men call me and what women call me. Even snot-nosed kids call me Sleepyhead. And because I’m stuck with a rotten name like that, I still don’t have a wife at the age of thirty-eight! What girl would marry a man called Sleepyhead? That name ruined me for the rest of my life.” Poor Sleepyhead was so upset by then that his face was awash with snot and tears. The county official with the brass-capped teeth grabbed a handful of Qin Two’s gray hair and jerked his head back. “Speak up!” the man demanded. “Is what Zhang Decheng said true?” “Yes, yes it is,” Qin Two replied as his goatee quivered like a goat’s tail. The official shoved Qin Two’s head forward until his face was in the dirt. “Let’s hear more accusations,” he said.