The fear on Liu’s face pleased Bin a lot. While filing a brass faucet in Maintenance, he couldn’t help humming a folk song. His fellow workers asked him why he was so different this morning. He told them he had had an auspicious dream the night before, with whales and a boat that carried him into the blue ocean. Asked further, he wouldn’t explain what this meant but kept smiling mysteriously. “What a superstitious bookworm,” they said behind his back. At lunch he bought a good dish — fried tofu cubes mixed with pork and leeks — and also a mug of beer.
He felt nobody in the world could subdue him after he had painted “Execute the Devils,” which ought to be a masterpiece. Probably this work would survive him and become a sought-after treasure, passing through generations to posterity. It was too bad that Song would have it; otherwise he would have sent it to the National Gallery in Beijing. If they accepted it, he might be able to go to a university, not as a student but as a lecturer or a professor, just like the cobbler who had recently been invited to teach math at a major university on the strength of his inventing a method of rapid calculation.
In the evening Song came again. Bin talked about the leaders’ breaking their promise to let him go to college and then about Liu’s lifestyle. He insisted that somebody had seen Liu and Nina lying in each other’s arms on the bank of the reservoir near Quarry Village, and that they went to the waterside every Sunday afternoon. On their way there Liu often bought her grapes, or sweetmeats, or boiled periwinkles, or steamed mantis shrimps. Bin defined the affair thus: “Liu Shu purchases her thighs with power. That’s why Hou Nina was given a new apartment and got a raise each year.”
After their talk, Bin took out “Execute the Devils.” Song looked excited by the painting and said, “Comrade Old Shao, thank you for trusting us.”
His words puzzled Bin. Bin said, “I painted this for you, to express my gratitude, yes, also my trust.”
“We’ll cherish it and hang it in our editorial office.” Song rolled the painting up and put it under his arm. He slung his duffel onto his back, getting ready to leave for the ten o’clock train.
They shook hands and said good-bye.
Bin felt mortified by the rough way Song had handled the painting. It seemed Song took it as something like a poster and obviously wouldn’t mind sharing it with anyone. Now Bin began to doubt Song’s character; at least he no longer took him for a good friend. You shouldn’t play the lute to a water buffalo, he said to himself. Without doubt Song was ignorant of the fine arts, unable to appreciate real work.
Twelve
HAVING READ SONG’S report on Bin’s case, Jiang Ping, the editor in chief of Environment, felt that after minor revisions he should publish it. Though the newspaper was designed mainly to bring natural environmental issues to people’s awareness, it would be better if once in a while it published something about the social environment — to reduce moral and cultural pollution.
Two weeks later the report came out on the front page of Environment with the title “The Legend of Shao Bin.” It consisted of four long sections: first, “A Conscientious Artist”; second, “Persecutions After Two Cartoons”; third, “In the Face of the Abuse of Power”; fourth, “A Cry of Blood and Justice.” In addition to the thirty-five hundred words, a photograph of Bin, three inches by two, was printed in the first section, and the cartoons about housing and bribery appeared in the middle of the article. There were also the prints of two seals carved by Bin in the Worm Style; one said, “Eliminate the Wicked and Enhance the Good,” and the other, “Justice Will Prevail.” The sentences in the article were trenchant, emotional, now and then invigorated by a pair of exclamation marks. Never had Environment looked so lively.
The minute the newspaper came off the press, Yen sent two copies to Bin by the express mail.
On reading the article Bin burst into tears, which scared his daughter. She dropped her bottle and ran out of the room, shouting, “Mommy, Daddy’s crying.”
Meilan rushed in with an iron ladle in her hand. Seeing the half-filled bottle lying on the dirt floor, she became angry, about to yell at Bin. But he smiled and handed her a copy of the newspaper, saying, “I got them! Caught them all in one net.”
She took the paper and hurried back to the kerosene stove, on which a wok of celery and potato slivers was sizzling. She left in the room an aromatic puff of scallion, fried with soy sauce.
To Bin, the best feature of the article was its broad scope — no relevant detail was left out. There were twelve places where Secretary Yang’s name was mentioned. At one point, the author even questioned him directly: “As the head of the commune, you didn’t make any effort to correct the wrong done by Liu and Ma, but instead you connived with them. Where is the principled stand of a Communist? How could you forget and maltreat the people who put the power in your hands? We advise Comrade Yang Chen to think this over.”
Bin perused those powerful sentences several times and was convinced that whoever read the article would feel that the indignation was honest and justified. This time Secretary Yang could not feign innocence and remain behind the scenes; he had to face his crimes and pay for them.
After supper Bin cycled to Bank Street and stuck the article, with twelve thumbtacks, to the propaganda board in front of the Commune Administration. From there he went directly to the plant to post the other copy. It was too bad that Yen had mailed him just two copies; if only he could have kept one for his own records.
When Bin arrived at work the next morning, the newspaper had vanished from the notice board. At first he was outraged, but seeing some workers grin at him knowingly, he felt a little comforted. One of them said, “Bin, you looked so handsome in the paper, like an eighteen-year-old.”
Another asked, “Did you get paid for the article? How much a word?”
What a silly question. Bin didn’t bother to answer, reluctant to admit he wasn’t the author and had got no pay for the writing.
Strangely, neither Liu nor Ma looked scared when they came to the workshop to question Bin. Liu told him bluntly in the presence of his fellow workers, “You’ve done enough; this is the end. We’ll sue you for libel, and our commune will sue you too!”
“Yes,” Ma said. “You think you’re good at screwing people over, but this time you screwed your own asshole.”
“Tell us who wrote the article,” Liu ordered.
Bin kept silent. Their words unnerved him, so he said he had to go to the latrine and would be back in just a minute to answer their questions. He put a handful of cotter pins on the workbench, held his sides with both hands as though suffering from enteritis, and left. Once outside, he fled to the Second Workshop, fearing the leaders would rough him up.
In Maintenance, Liu and Ma, having waited for twenty minutes, were cursing Bin loudly. “Next time,” Liu said, “we’ll tie him to a bench when we question him. Even if he messes his pants we won’t let him go.”
Ever since the article was published, the telephone in the editorial office of Environment had been ringing continually. Many people called to relate similar stories of their own and begged the editors to report them; at the same time, some officials called and claimed that the article was full of distortions and that the editors must be answerable for the consequences. The Bureau of Environmental Protection of Gold County, which sponsored the newspaper, dispatched two cadres, with a policeman, to the editorial office to investigate the case. In addition, the leaders summoned Jiang Ping to the bureau and rebuked him. They reminded him that the newspaper was a public mouthpiece, not a means for venting private malice and causing social disturbances. Jiang, however, was too stubborn to admit he had done anything wrong and insisted that reporting evil winds didn’t contradict the aim of the newspaper, because the title Environment ought to include both the natural and the social. Nonetheless, his superiors ordered him to write out a self-criticism and make a detailed report on the process of the article’s publication.