Gugu lit a cigarette and puffed so hard her sad features were swathed in a cloud of smoke. She’d gotten old, with deep wrinkles at the sides of her mouth, bags under her eyes, and a clouded look — we did everything humanly possible to save Zhang’s wife, including giving her some of my own blood, but she had a heart condition. In the end, we gave Zhang Quan a thousand yuan, which was a lot of money at the time. But even after taking the money he wouldn’t let us off the hook. He carried his wife’s body on a flatbed cart, followed by his three daughters in funeral hemp, to the offices of the county Party committee when the provincial head of the family-planning committee was in town on an inspection tour. The police sent a beat-up old Jeep to deliver Huang Qiuya, Little Lion and me to the county guesthouse. The police were surly and crude, and the way they manhandled us, you’d have thought we were criminals. The county officials wanted to talk to me, but I stiffened my neck and refused, saying I’d only talk to the provincial authority. So I walked unannounced into the visitors’ room, where he was reading a newspaper in an easychair. One look and I knew, it was Yang Lin! Now a fair-skinned deputy governor with a healthy complexion. I was furious, and the words came out like machine-gun fire — pow pow pow pow. You people up there send down your orders, and we down here run our legs off and talk till our lips split open. You want us to be civilised, talk policy, and work on the ideological state of the masses… while you stand there giving orders, suffering no back pain and, since you don’t bear children, you don’t know how a woman hurts! Why don’t you come down and see what’s happening, see how we work like dogs so we can be cursed, beaten black and blue, our heads bloodied, and then, if some little problem arises, instead of backing us up, you take sides with hooligans and shrews! You cast a chill over us — here pride crept into Gugu’s monologue — other people might shy from talking to high officials, but not me! When I see a high official I really start talking — it’s not that I’m a great talker, but that I’ve got a bellyful of bile. I was crying the whole time I talked to him, and I stopped to show him the scar on my head. Did Zhang Quan break the law when he hit me with his club? Did jumping into the river to save his wife and giving her my own blood count as doing everything called for by humanity and duty? By then, I was really bawling. Go ahead, send me to a re-education camp, throw me in jail, but I’m through! Tears were welling in Yang Lin’s eyes. He got up to pour me some water and went to the bathroom to get me a moist, hot towel. Work at the grassroots level is hard, he said. Chairman Mao said: Educating the peasant masses is critical. You have suffered, Comrade Wan. I know that, and so do the county officials. We have a high opinion of you. He came over and sat beside me. How would you like to come work for me in provincial headquarters, Comrade Wan? I knew exactly what he was getting at, but when I thought back to all those terrible things he’d said at the public denouncement rally, my heart cooled. No, I said firmly, that’s not for me. I’m needed here. In a somewhat rueful tone, he said, Then how about a move to the county health centre? No, I said, I’m staying put. Maybe I should have gone with him, Gugu said, just up and left. What you can’t see doesn’t bother you. If people want babies, let them go ahead and have them. Two billion, three billion, when the sky falls, the tall people can hold it up. Why should I worry about any of this? I’ve suffered all my life from being too compliant, too revolutionary, too loyal, and too serious about things.
It’s not too late to come to your senses, I said.
What the hell does that mean? she spat angrily. Come to my senses? I’ve just been venting to a member of my own family, a little private bitching. Your aunt is a steadfastly loyal Communist who did not waver when she was being brutalised during the Cultural Revolution, so why would she now? No, family planning is absolutely essential. If we let people have all the babies they want, that’s thirty million a year, three hundred million a decade. At that rate, in fifty years the Chinese population alone would flatten the earth. So we must lower the birth rate, no matter what it costs. That will be China’s greatest contribution to humanity.
I understand what you’re saying, Gugu, I said, but my immediate problem is, Renmei has run off…
She can run but she can’t hide. Where could she go? She’s hiding in your father-in-law’s house.
Renmei has a stubborn streak, and if she’s pushed too far, I’m afraid she might do something stupid…
You can stop worrying. I’ve come up with a plan. I’ve fought it out with women like her for decades, and I know exactly how they think. They’re all talk, and she won’t kill herself. She likes living too much. It’s the quiet ones who might hang themselves or take poison. In all my years working with family planning, the women who kill themselves do so for some other reason, so you have nothing to worry about.
Then what do I do? I said, still troubled. I can’t truss her up like a pig and drag her to the hospital.
We may have to get tough with her, Gugu said, especially since it’s your wife. Being my nephew is your bad luck, because if I let her go ahead, how am I going to deal with the masses? They’d be on me as soon as I opened my mouth.
I have no choice but to do as you say, I said. Should I bring members of my unit to help out?
I’ve already sent your unit a telegram.
Was it you who sent the first telegram?
Yes, it was me.
Since you knew early on that she was pregnant, why didn’t you take care of it then?
I didn’t know till I returned from attending two months of meetings in the county capital. That bastard Yuan Sai, she sputtered, all he ever gives me is trouble. Fortunately, someone reported him. That will save us trouble later on.
Will he be punished?
If I had my way, they’d shoot him! she said angrily.
I doubt that Renmei was the only one.
We have a handle on this. There’s your wife, the wife of Wang Qi at Wang Clan hamlet, the wife of Jin Niu in Sun Family Village, and Wang Dan, Chen Bi’s wife — she’s the farthest along. There are another dozen or so in other counties, but they’re not our concern. We’ll start with your wife, and then the rest, one after the other. No one will get away.
What if they leave the province?
Gugu sneered. Even the magical monkey Sun Wukong could not escape from the Buddha’s palm.
I’m in the army, Gugu, so Renmei should have the procedure. But Wang Dan and Chen Bi are farmers, and their first child was a girl. According to policy, they can have a second. She’s so tiny that getting pregnant is always hard…
Gugu cut me off with a taunt: You haven’t taken care of your own problem, so what are you doing speaking up for them? The policy is that they can have a second child, but only after the first child’s eighth birthday. How old is their daughter, Chen Er?
It’s only a matter of a few years, I said.
How glib that sounds, Gugu said sombrely. Just a few years early, but what if everyone was just a few years early? This would be a terrible precedent, it’d make a mess of things. Forget about other people. You’ve got problems of your own.
9
Gugu led a special family-planning team into our village. Her second-in-command was the deputy commander of the armed police bureau. In addition to Little Lion, the team consisted of half a dozen brawny militiamen. They arrived in a van equipped with a loudspeaker and a powerful caterpillar tractor.