Mother cut her off and turned to me: Scram, she scolded. You and your knucklehead friends go play outside. I don’t want you goofing around in here.
Out in the lane, Wang Gan said, Xiaopao, you have to treat us to some roasted peanuts.
Why’s that?
Because we have a secret, Chen Bi said.
Tell me, I said.
First treat us to some peanuts.
I don’t have any money.
What do you mean, you don’t have any money? Chen Bi said. You stole a piece of cast-off copper from the state-run farm and sold it for one-twenty. Did you think we didn’t know?
I didn’t steal it, I jumped to my own defence. They threw it away.
Whether you stole it or not doesn’t matter. You did sell it for one-twenty. Your treat, come on. Wang Gan pointed to the swing set next to the threshing square, where people had gathered around an old man who sold roasted peanuts amid the back-and-forth creaks of swings.
After I divided thirty cents’ worth of peanuts into three portions, a dreadfully earnest Wang Gan said, Xiaopao, your aunt is going to marry the county Party secretary to be his second wife.
Like hell! I said.
Once she’s married to him, Chen Bi, said, your family will be in a much better position. Before you know it your brothers and your sister, even you, will be moved into the city, where you’ll get jobs, eat marketable rice, go to college, and become Party cadres. Don’t forget your friends when that happens.
That Little Lion is quite the looker! Wang Gan blurted out.
14
When the ‘sweet potato kids’ were born, the household heads could register them with the commune and receive coupons for sixteen and a half feet of cotton and two jin of soybean oil. The amounts were doubled for twins. The receivers’ eyes would be moist and their hearts would swell as they gazed upon the gold-coloured oil and the cotton coupons, printed with sweet-smelling ink. What a wonderful new society! Gifts for the newborn. The nation needs people, Mother said. The nation needs workers; it values people.
The masses were grateful for the gifts received and silently vowed to repay the nation with even more children. The wife of the granary watchman, Xiao Shangchun, who was the mother of my classmate Xiao Xiachun, had already given my friend three kid sisters, the youngest still nursing, and she was pregnant again. On my way home from tending our ox, I often saw Xiao Shangchun coming down off the little bridge on his rickety bicycle. He’d put on so much weight his bicycle strained audibly under its burden. Old Xiao, villagers liked to tease, how old are you now? Do you have to go at it every night? No, he’d say with a grin, but I have to labour hard to produce people for the nation.
In late 1965, the population explosion was a source of considerable pressure on the leadership. As the first family-planning policy in New China peaked, the government proposed: One is good, two is just right, three is too many. When the county film unit came to town, before the movie started, family-planning slides went up on the screen. Enlarged images of male and female genitalia produced queer shrieks and wild laughter from the viewers in their seats. We youngsters contributed mightily to the commotion as many young hands — boys and girls — came together on the sly. The birth control propaganda acted like an aphrodisiac. The country drama troupe split into a dozen small teams that went into the villages to perform the short play Half the Sky, that criticised favouring boys over girls.
By then Gugu had been promoted to director of the health centre’s obstetrics department and deputy head of the commune’s family-planning steering committee. The Party secretary, Qin Shan, was listed as committee head, but he was a figurehead, leaving the actual responsibilities of leading, organising and implementing family-planning policy for the whole commune to her.
Gugu had put on a bit of weight; her teeth, whose whiteness had been the source of so much envy, had begun to yellow as her work schedule hardly even allowed time to brush her teeth. A male-like hoarseness crept into her voice, as we heard over the loudspeakers on a number of occasions.
Gugu’s announcements invariably opened in the same way: People do what they’re best at and peddle the goods they have. I’ll stay with mine, so today I want to talk to you about family planning…
The prestige she’d once enjoyed was on the decline during those days; even village women who had benefited from her counsel and attention began to cool towards her. She worked diligently in the service of family planning, but with meagre results. In the village she became isolated.
One day the county drama troupe came. When the female lead sang out, The times have changed: boys and girls are equal. Wang Gan’s father, Wang Jiao, shouted out from beneath the stage, Bullshit! Equal? How dare you say they’re equal! His outburst was echoed by those around him — catcalls and unfriendly shouts. Then came the missiles — chunks of brick and roof tiles — that were hurled onto the stage, sending the actors scurrying like scared rats. Wang Jiao had finished off a half jin of liquor that day — courage in a bottle — and his wild nature surfaced. Pushing people out of his way, he jumped up onto the stage, wobbling unsteadily as he stated his case with unrestrained gestures: You people can govern heaven and earth, but who says you can govern common people about having kids? Get some twine and sew up women’s openings if you think you’re up to it. That was greeted by roars of laughter, which further energised him; picking up a broken roof tile, he took aim at the bright gas lantern hanging from a railing in front of the screen and hurled it. The lantern went out, leaving the area in darkness. Wang Jiao spent the next two weeks in lockup, but was unrepentant upon his release. If you’re man enough, he railed at just about everyone he met, just try to cut off my dick!
Gugu had drawn large enthusiastic crowds upon her return home years before. But now, on the rare visit, she was shunned by nearly everyone. Gugu, Mother once asked her, this family-planning business, was it your idea or were you following orders?
What do you mean, my idea? Gugu replied testily. It’s the call of the Party, a directive by Chairman Mao, national policy. Chairman Mao has said: Mankind must control itself, people must learn to embrace viable population growth.
Mother just shook her head. Since the beginning of time, having children has been governed by nature. During the Han dynasty, the Emperor issued an edict that girls were to marry when they reached the age of thirteen. If they were not married, their fathers and elder brothers were held responsible. If women didn’t have children, where would the nation get its soldiers? Every day we hear that America is planning to attack us and that we must liberate Taiwan. If women can’t have babies, where will the soldiers come from? And with no soldiers, who wards off the American attack and who liberates Taiwan?
Don’t bother me with those platitudes, Sister-in-law. Chairman Mao is a bit smarter than you, don’t you think? And Chairman Mao has said: We must control our population! With no organisation and no discipline, at the rate we’re going, mankind is doomed.
Mother was ready: Chairman Mao also said that more numbers means more manpower, and more manpower means more things can be achieved. People are living treasures. The world requires people. He also said: It is wrong to keep rain from falling and to keep women from raising children.
You are putting words into Chairman Mao’s mouth, Sister-in-law, Gugu said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. In olden days, you’d lose your head for falsifying an imperial edict. We’ve never said that women cannot have babies, but that they should not have too many. In other words, planned pregnancies.