Sparrow walked calmly towards his cousin. Wu Bei slipped from his mind. Zhuli should not be here with her violin. He must get her home.
He walked towards her, lengthening his gait to appear confident and tall. “Cousin,” he said when he reached her. She turned and looked at him with keen eyes. For a moment, he faltered and then he repeated, more sternly, “Cousin.” She hardly seemed to breathe. He began walking Zhuli away, his bicycle beside them. More people were coming to join the frenzy. They carried bottles of ink and rolls of paper, and they wore red armbands that, in the dim light, glowed against their arms.
“No,” Zhuli said, turning back towards the noise. “Not this way. I’m going to the Conservatory.”
“Ling was supposed to see you home,” he said. He had to fight to keep his voice calm. “I never would have left you otherwise.”
“She did take me home, but I came out again, after the rain. I reserved the practice room, you see,” she said. “I must go. Room 103. It’s the best room, you know. Because the piano is very old, nobody plays it. But I told you that once, didn’t I? And I have my concert coming so soon, it’s less than three months away. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t seem to memorize the Ravel.”
“Come, Zhuli,” he said. “Let’s go home together. I’ll help you, I promise.”
She was looking at him now. She sighed and followed behind him. “Where are we going, cousin?”
He did not answer.
After a moment, she said again, “But where are we going?”
“Home. Give me your violin.”
She would not. They walked in the shadows.
Red Guards careening recklessly along the path barely noticed them. When one or two stared, Sparrow called out to them, “They’re bringing down that traitor Wu Bei! The coward has already pissed himself.” The Red Guards collapsed in laughter. They shouted, “Long live the Revolution!” and hurried on, afraid they had missed the show.
Behind them, the crowd had reached the crescendo of a poem by Chairman Mao, their voices ringing: “We wash away insects, and are strong.”
Sparrow and Zhuli arrived home, in the laneway. His brothers were in bed but Ba Lute was sitting at the window, in the darkness. He started when they entered.
“Ba,” Sparrow said.
“Door by door,” Ba Lute said softly. “They are going to every house.”
Zhuli had moved halfway into the cold room. “But, uncle, you’re a Party member…”
Sparrow almost said, “So is Wu Bei,” but when he saw his father’s face he said nothing.
“If it comes to unending revolution,” Ba Lute said, “even Party members and heroes must take their turn.” He smiled and seemed to laugh and Sparrow felt a trickle of fear running down his spine.
“Father, why don’t you go to bed? I’ll stay awake.”
“In bed or here or in the road, I won’t be able to sleep.”
“You must,” Sparrow said firmly.
“And where is your mother!” Ba Lute said in despair. “Off endangering herself and all of us. Pretending she can rescue poor Wen! Who does she think she is? Does she have the ear of our Great Leader? Is she so invulnerable?”
“I’m sure she’s written to us. Only the post has been so chaotic these past few weeks.”
“No, no,” Ba Lute said, speaking to himself. “It was not supposed to be like this. I criticized all the others at Headquarters. ‘Give up your feudal allegiances,’ I told them. ‘Give up everything for the Party! Lenient treatment for those who confess, severe punishment for those who refuse! But a reward, yes, a reward, for those willing to surrender others.’ They believed me and I believed myself. It is so much easier to believe than to disbelieve.”
“Father,” Sparrow said, but Ba Lute wasn’t listening to him.
“After all, what good can come from disbelief? What grows, what changes, what improves? Isn’t it always better for your country, your family, for yourself, to believe in something? Doubt can only lead to confusion and complications. And, in any case, our lives were better. We didn’t mean to grow complacent, surely we weren’t complacent, the struggle isn’t finished, and yet…”
Ba Lute got up. His great hulk seemed absurdly small. He walked slowly from the room, shaking his head and saying, “In everything, I trust the Party. I trust Chairman Mao. But no, no. I never wanted this.”
—
After Ba Lute had left the room, Sparrow sat with Zhuli in uneasy quiet. The curtains were closed but they could hear the vibration in the streets, waves of chanting and jubilation.
“This campaign is beginning very fiercely,” Zhuli said. She said it lightly as if she were discussing a new piece of music. “Actually, someone denounced you, Sparrow. I saw it myself.”
“The entire faculty was denounced. They can’t shoot us all.”
When she didn’t answer, he joked that he would welcome the change. Time in the desert, away from his ambitious students, would be a reprieve. Finally some time to focus on his own work.
Zhuli wasn’t listening. “I’ve hardly seen you in the last few days. Where have you been, what have you been doing?”
“Thinking.”
“Have you finished the new symphony?”
“Ah,” Sparrow said. “It’s barely a symphony.”
Zhuli smiled, but her face in the darkness looked very pale and thin. In another couple of months, she would turn fifteen but she did not look it; she appeared frail, as if her childhood sturdiness had abandoned her and left her with nothing to replace it. “If you’re looking for compliments, I won’t oblige. I know how much you hate them. But Sparrow, this symphony of yours, it helps me remember what music is. This symphony is the most honest thing you’ve ever written and it makes me afraid for you.”
“Cousin, you must be exhausted. Why don’t you rest?”
She smiled. “I’m not exhausted. In fact, I feel as if all my life I’ve been sleeping but now…finally, I’m coming awake.”
“In what way have you been asleep?”
“I see now,” she said, “that all the hours of practising, all the commitment, the ambition and the fantasizing, it’s all coming to a climax.” She was silent for a moment. “I’m moving too slowly. What was it that Professor Tan taught me? About Tzigane. The one who plays too slowly will be swallowed by time.”
“Nonsense.”
“Yesterday,” she continued, “when I left the Conservatory, I walked into the courtyard and, out of nowhere, I was surrounded by my classmates. They said that I must now come down to their level. They tried to grab my violin. I kept saying, ‘I’m a patriot, I want to serve my country,’ but they just laughed and said, ‘The butterfly belongs to no country.’ ‘The rightist bitch needs a lesson.’ ” She paused, folding her hands together with an earnestness that seemed to take over her entire body. “A few others came running from inside and there was an argument. It turned into a fight but Tofu Liu and I managed to get away. If Tofu hadn’t been there, I might have been in real trouble.” She was laughing. “We ran away! And I thought, how strange it is that I am the one running, because they are the ones afraid of a world they can’t control. Last night they went to Tofu Liu’s house. You know him, don’t you? So gentle he can hardly turn a page. They went through his house, beat his parents, smashed the furniture. All the musical instruments…his father is a rightist. Accused in 1958, the same year as my father.”