You do not detest the world and its ordinary ways that will always be fashionable. By not exaggerating your challenge to those in power, you have survived to enjoy freedom of speech. You have also received kindness from others and, as far as you are concerned, the principle "I don't want others to owe me anything and I don't want to owe others anything" is wrong. You are indebted to others, and others are indebted to you, but adding together all the kindness you have received from others, you have certainly received much more than you have given. Indeed, you are very lucky, so why are you complaining?
You are not a dragon, not an insect, not this, not that, so, "are not" is thus you, but rather than negation, "are not" is a sort of reality, a trace, a cost, or a result. At the end point, that is, at the brink of death, you are merely an indication of life-expression and speech that confronts "are not."
You have written this book for yourself, this book of fleeing, your One Man's Bible, you are your own God and follower, you do not sacrifice yourself for others, so you do not expect others to sacrifice themselves for you, and this is the epitome of fairness. Everyone wants happiness, so why should it all belong to you? However, what should be acknowledged is that there is actually very little happiness in the world.
25
He saw no future in the total chaos of the times, so it was best for him to get out of danger. He wanted to retrieve that lost world, the startling beauty he had seen in the person of the landlord's daughter, the beautiful contour of her face and her slim figure. As the girl stood sideways outside his door, her pink fleshy earlobe was outlined in detail by the sunlight in the courtyard and her hair, eyebrows, and lips seemed to radiate light. Her beauty had entranced him, but the hatred in the girl's eyes was daunting. He wanted to dispel the girl's misunderstanding of him, so he went to the neighboring courtyard. He had imagined it to be a quiet courtyard complex with just the one family, which would be an isolated little paradise cut off from the chaotic world. The old man from next door had not come to collect rent for the street committee, so he went to pay his rent in the neighboring courtyard as an excuse to see the girl.
The small door on the street opened when he touched it, and the little courtyard inside the wall gave him a shock: it was a shambles, a clutter of odds and ends piled by the wall and under the eaves. An old woman was washing bedcovers in an aluminum basin at the top of the steps right in front of the main door, and there was a small child inside the house crying and making a racket. He thought he had come through the wrong door and was about to retreat when the old woman looked up and asked, "Who are you looking for?"
"I've come to pay the rent…"
"What?"
"I live in the courtyard next door, and I'm looking for the landlord. No one has collected the rent for months." He had come prepared with an explanation.
The old woman shook the soapsuds off her hands and pointed to the apartment at the side with a lock hanging on the door, took no more notice of him, and went back to washing the bedding in the basin.
He could only guess that something had happened to the landlord's family. It seemed that the whole place had been confiscated as public property and that the family had been relegated to occupying a side apartment. The hatred in the girl's eyes would now be even harder to erase, but he lacked the courage to return to the courtyard to look for her again.
In the early spring, in March, he went to Xiehejian in the Western Hills on the outer fringe of Beijing. He got on a train at Xizhimen, a station mainly for freight trains. It was a slow train to the outer suburbs in the mountain area of the northwest, and two hard-seat carriages had been coupled at the rear. The high tide of endless streams of students had passed, and the empty carriages were left with just a few passengers at the front and back. He sat down by the window of an unoccupied compartment. The train went through a series of tunnels and then began to wend its way through valleys. Out the window, he could see the old steam engine at the front puffing smoke and steam as it pulled a string of freight cars and this empty hard-seat carriage swaying at the back.
At a small stop called Goose Wings, where there was no platform, he jumped off and watched the long-distance train continue around the side of the mountain. The stationmaster waved the flag and blew the whistle, then went into the small hut by the shoulder of the road, leaving just him standing on the gravel by the side of the railway tracks.
While at university, he had come here as a volunteer laborer to dig holes and plant trees on the mountain. It was also in early spring, and the ground was still frozen. Each time he swung his pickax, he would not bring up two inches of soil, so, in a few days, his palms were covered in blood blisters. Once he was almost killed when he jumped into the bone-chilling river to recover the hemp bag containing the saplings he was to plant. He had it soaking in the river and it was swept away by the fast-flowing current. For this, he was commended, but the Communist Youth League still did not want him. He and some fellow students, all of whom had been refused membership, called one another "Old Reject." They formed a theater group and had just put on two plays when cadres of the student association at the university sought them out and spoke with them separately. They were not ordered to stop, but the theater group could no longer function, and, as a matter of course, disbanded.
They had performed Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. It had old-fashioned charm, with a sweet and kindly country girl from a small farm saying nostalgically that everything should be beautiful, with beautiful people in beautiful clothes and also with beautiful hearts; it grieved for a past that was like the old photographs he had burned.
He walked along the railway sleepers for a while, but, seeing a train coming from the distance, he went down the shoulder of the road and headed for the rock-covered riverbed. The water in the Yongding River was clear, unless it was swollen with rain or the sluices of the government dam upstream had been shut off.
He had brought Lin here and taken photographs. Lin had a beautiful figure, and she stood barefoot in the water with her skirt scooped up in her arms. Afterward, among the bushes on the mountain, they picnicked, kissed, and made love. He regretted not having photographed her nude as she lay in the grass, but all that was now beyond his reach.
What else could he do? What else was there to do? There was no need for him to go back to his office desk to arrange those virtually identical propaganda documents as he was meant to, as no one was in charge of him. Also, there was no need for him to rebeclass="underline" that strange righteous indignation, too, had passed. For several months, he had headed the assault on the opposition, but now the thrill and excitement had completely vanished, or, rather, he had tired, had had enough of it. He should bravely retreat while he still could; there was no need for him to play the role of a hero.
He took off his shoes and socks, and walked barefoot in the clear icy current. As the water gently trickled in shining broken ripples and sparkled in the sunlight, he suddenly started thinking clearly. He should go to see his father because he had not received a letter from home for a long time, and he should also take the opportunity, when no one would notice, to travel south to clarify this business in his file about his father having "hidden a gun."