For a moment, neither of the leaders knew what to do with this man who was pretending to be paralyzed. Then the union chairman Bao and a few young men arrived and tried to persuade Bin to get up. But Bin refused to budge and kept his eyes shut.
Liu stepped closer and said through his teeth, “I knew you’d show up today, you are so addicted to upsetting meetings. Now, if you don’t get up I’ll finish you off right here. Son of a rabbit, get up!”
Still Bin didn’t move. Ma bent down and pinched his cheek, but Bin only responded with a groan. To everyone’s surprise, Liu raised his foot to straddle Bin’s head and dropped his large bottom on Bin’s face. “All right,” he said, “I’m smothering you to death on the spot.”
Under Liu’s weight, the rims of Bin’s glasses snapped, and a lens fell out on the cement floor. Ma stepped forward and ground it to bits with his leather heel. Bin couldn’t breathe and stopped making noise, feeling his limbs grow numb as though they were no longer his own. Liu’s bottom, smelling of onion, was so heavy that Bin realized he would faint in a few seconds if he didn’t take action. So he wiggled his head a little and took a big bite.
“Ah!” Liu jumped up, apparently crippled. With his right hand covering his hip, he was hobbling away and screaming, “Oh, my butt. He bit my butt!” His forefinger pointed back at Bin while the palm was rubbing his hip.
Ma kicked Bin in the thigh and motioned to his men. “Get him out of here.”
They lifted Bin’s upper body and dragged him to the entrance, while Bin kept shouting, “They broke my balls and glasses!”
“It’s a madman,” someone said to the people who couldn’t get through the crowd to look.
“A lunatic bit his leader,” another added.
Sitting on a boulder outside the theater, Bin tried to collect his thoughts. Spasms were seizing his lower abdomen, and he believed his testicles were swollen with dark blood. They were so painful that he couldn’t stand up and walk home. Fortunately, Hsiao Peng happened to be at the theater and offered to take him home by bicycle.
They arrived at the dormitory house fifteen minutes later. Meilan was not in. Bin felt sorry that he couldn’t make tea for Hsiao, but he said he wasn’t thirsty. As Hsiao was about to leave, Bin tentatively asked him whether he would mind giving witness to the beating. Hsiao said plainly, “Forget it, Young Shao. Why do you enjoy fighting so much? Nothing good will come of it if you go on like this, you know? Don’t think of fighting anymore, all right? Think about your work and your family.”
“What do you mean by my ‘work’?” Bin’s voice turned angry. “You mean I haven’t worked well.”
“Yes, you only know how to mess things up. To be honest, I wish you weren’t in our Maintenance. Who can keep watch on you all the time?”
“Did they ask you to do that? To be responsible for what I do?”
“Damn, you understand everything but never try to change. You must change yourself.”
Bin remained silent as Hsiao raised the door curtain, which was made of strings of glass beads, and walked out. “Coward,” he cursed Hsiao under his breath.
How embarrassing to be hurt like this. Bin felt too ashamed to go to the Commune Clinic, where he would have to show the bruise to a doctor or a nurse. All he could do was cover the purple area with a flat bottle of cold water. Meilan cried and wanted to go to the leaders and curse them and their ancestors, but he dissuaded her. It was no use quarreling with those savages who knew only one language: brute force.
Unlike Bin, Liu didn’t mind showing the bite on his rear to others. Before the conference was adjourned for lunch and a nap, he left for the photo shop, which was on Main Street, near the entrance to the marketplace. Since the fair had been moved, few customers were in the shop. When Liu arrived, the photographer Jia Cheng was reading Evergreen News, the town’s newspaper, and smoking a pipe in the dim waiting room.
“Old Jia,” Liu said, “can you take a picture of me now?”
“Of course, Secretary Liu, we’re not busy today.” Jia stood up, knocking the pipe on his palm, and turned to the studio.
“No, not there.” Liu explained that he wanted to have a photograph taken of the wound on his bottom, so there was no need for the tall camera and they had better do it in a quiet place.
Unfortunately, the shop’s miniature Seagull camera had been sent to Dalian City for repair. They had no choice but to use the tall camera. Jia called over the receptionist, a pallid girl with two tiny brushes of hair behind her ears, and told her to stand at the door of the studio and allow nobody to enter. Then in the heat of the intense lights, Liu ascended the platform, which was used for family or group pictures, to raise his behind to the level of the lens. He was facing the backdrop, an oil painting of a vast landscape filled with terraced fields, in which red flags were flying here and there and midget human figures were working with picks and shovels and carrying baskets loaded with soil. He unbuckled his pants and let them drop over his feet. Turning a little, he kept his right hip toward the camera. His hand held up the leg opening of his red shorts; the wound was displayed above the gluteal fold.
“Goodness, it’s black! Is it a dog bite?” Jia asked while turning to the camera.
“No, a man bite,” Liu said with his teeth gritted.
“How did it happen?”
“Shao Bin, the son of a turtle, early this morning he went to break up the conference. We tried to stop him, and he went wild and turned on me.”
Chuckling, Jia went behind the camera and covered himself with the cloth, saying, “A little bit to your left, that’s good.”
The photograph taken, Liu buckled up his pants and followed Jia out of the studio. The girl looked at him with a knowing smirk on her face, her eyes rolling. Liu smiled back, then turned to the photographer. “Old Jia, can you make it express? I need five pictures as soon as possible.”
“I’ll do my best,” Jia said in a nasal voice. “At the latest, they’ll be ready the day after tomorrow. All right?”
“Good, thanks.” Liu turned to the girl. “How much?”
“One twenty-eight.”
He paid and went out. But before crossing the granite slabs over the gutter to get to the street, he remembered something and returned to the photo shop. At the sight of him, the girl tittered and sniffled.
“I need a receipt,” Liu said.
“Sure.” She kept her head low.
While she was writing the receipt, Liu went into the darkroom, in which Jia was coloring a photograph with a little brush. Liu said, “Old Jia, I forgot something very important.”
“What?” Jia stood up, brush in hand.
“I want you to put the date on the pictures. Today’s June thirtieth.”
“I can do that. No problem.” Jia’s smile revealed a gold molar.
On his way to the Commune Guesthouse, where the conference attendees were to eat a six-course lunch, Liu felt that this time he had caught Shao Bin. He would publicize this incident across the whole county and make him notorious as a mad, man-biting dog. Yes, he was going to heat up the water and boil this turtle alive.
Ten
AFTER LIU GOT THE PHOTOGRAPHS, a general meeting was held in the plant. Since everybody had heard of the incident in the commune’s theater, the attendance was unprecedented; never had the dining hall been so full. About a dozen men were sitting on the windowsills.
Director Ma first described how Bin had bitten Secretary Liu. Next he announced that Bin was temporarily dismissed from his work, so that he could have time to write his self-criticism and self-examination. Hearing this, some men booed, because they thought Bin was lucky to have a few days off.