‘Don’t you understand the difference between the higher echelons and the people?’ I said. ‘Would dogs ever dare question their superiors? Your arrogance is monstrous. Our leaders built the flyover to relieve congestion. How dare you turn things around and claim they are to blame for today’s traffic problems?’
‘You lead a miserable life. It’s not much better than a dog’s.’
‘Don’t you know that the more miserable you are, the longer you live?’ I said, exasperated by his ignorance.
The survivor always enjoyed feasting his eyes on the accidents that took place on the streets below. He once predicted that over three hundred people a year would die in traffic incidents caused by the construction of the pedestrian flyover. Never in my life will I forgive him this mistake. Admittedly, in the early days, the construction of the flyover did indeed lead to a dramatic increase in road casualties. Pedestrians would flock to it, hoping to make a safe crossing, but on finding it wasn’t yet open to the public, they would end up charging across the intersection at its busiest point. The survivor told me he could see the ghosts of the dead flitting between the flyover’s concrete legs.
But after the rape incident, the town leaders took steps to ease the problem. They erected metal huts on the flyover to house a medical rescue centre. Anyone injured in an accident below is promptly carried to the rescue hut and given free emergency care. The scheme has been a great success. The municipal Party committee has praised the nurses’ contribution to revolutionary humanitarianism, and awarded them prizes and certificates of merit. Although citizens are still denied the pleasure of using the flyover to cross the street, and people continue to be crushed to death by the busy traffic, the flyover still has its merits. When my classmate broke his leg at work, he managed to get it bandaged free of charge in the flyover’s rescue centre. I often visit the survivor in the museum to tell him of the great progress that has been made, but I have to make sure my colleagues aren’t watching — they are always making jokes about me. One time they saw me tuck into a meat pie at lunch, and they said, ‘Be careful, that’s dog meat.’ I felt queasy for days after that.
When he was alive, the survivor prophesied that the flyover wouldn’t open to the public until 1992, but there’s still a year and a half to go, and there are already signs that the official opening will take place soon: the flyover curfew officers have been replaced by a flyover management team, and the local traffic wardens have been issued with brand-new uniforms.
The flyover was originally scheduled to be opened last year, on the first anniversary of the dog’s death. The Central Committee wanted to make the flyover a symbol of the Open Door Policy. They decided its opening should be tied in with Ceau
escu’s visit to China, and that it should be named the Sino-Romanian Friendship Flyover. They instructed the town leaders to take great pains to ensure the opening was a success. The authorities decked the railings with little red flags, in preparation for the arrival of Ceauescu, who had been invited to open the flyover during a visit organised to celebrate the twinning of this town with an industrial city in his country. The government sent engineers to the site to search for any hidden bombs, and plain-clothed security officers patrolled the surrounding streets to check that no one was pasting counterrevolutionary flyers to the walls. But unfortunately, Ceauescu was assassinated a few days before he was due to leave, so the ceremony had to be called off.
When the Campaign to Learn from Lei Feng was launched, a broadcasting cabin was built on the flyover next to the metal huts, and every citizen in town who couldn’t afford to buy a radio jumped with joy. People were able to stand in the streets and listen to the broadcasts for free. They could hear revolutionary songs, programmes from the Chinese Peoples’ Television Broadcasting Company and even international weather reports.
During those months, the streets were filled with people making desperate attempts to emulate Lei Feng. They kept their eyes peeled at all times, searching for a chance to perform a good deed. You only had to trip over a kerb, or carry a heavy-looking bag, and someone would charge forward to offer to help. And there was no chance of you ever losing anything. One day, a pencil dropped from my pocket, and before I knew it, three children rushed over, picked it up and said, ‘Uncle, you’ve lost something,’ then smiled sweetly and gave a Young Pioneer salute. I took the pencil from them and said, just as the newspaper told us to: ‘Thank you, young comrades. You are real little Lei Fengs.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ they piped in unison. ‘We’re only doing our duty.’
‘Tell me, which school are you from? I would like to inform your headmaster of your exemplary behaviour.’
‘A person who performs good deeds should never leave their name,’ they chirped, then swung round and ran back to the end of the street to wait for their next prey, just like the Young Pioneers in the propaganda films.
We can all put up with taking the wrong road, but no one can bear reaching a dead end. When the survivor was alive, I was confused about everything — including him. I had lost my way. But after he died, I found I had nowhere to go. There was no hope left for me, nothing to look forward to. He had destroyed everything I believed in.
‘Everything is decided for you by your superiors,’ the dog said one day, ‘what job you do, who you marry, how many children you have. You have no belief in your ability to control your destiny. Your lives are so dull and monotonous, if you weren’t subjected to various trials and tribulations, you would never be strong enough to look death in the face.’ The dog uttered these words on the roof terrace, his head framed by the azure sky. The fumes pouring from the chimney stacks behind him smelled like the sour steam that rises from fermenting tofu. Against the blue sky, the smoke was blindingly bright.
‘I seem to have caught a cold,’ the dog said. ‘The breeze up here is bad for my health.’ He had picked up that last phrase from me.
I still don’t know how he died, though.
Sometimes I think he must have jumped from the roof. I imagine him darting across the terrace, then retreating to the edge as the old carpenter and the other two from the dog extermination brigade approached, followed by a pack of Young Pioneers brandishing spears and spades. He was either lassoed with a rope and dragged downstairs or beaten to death on the spot. His sharp claws and teeth couldn’t protect him from them. Once they had decided he should die, there was nothing he could do.
My three-legged dog never liked the Young Pioneers. He said that after years of being told to sacrifice their lives to the Revolution, they turn into little hooligans who lack any sense of morality or common decency.
‘They are children,’ I said. ‘We should forgive them. Childhood is sacred.’
He curled his lips and, glancing at the street below, said, ‘See those children making fun of the blind man? Look at their ugly faces! If their teachers sent them out tomorrow to perform good deeds, they’d fight for the chance to grab the blind man’s hand and help him across the road.’
Although their faces were a blur, I could see them racing across the blind man’s path, performing karate moves they had picked up from some martial arts film. Then the dog asked: ‘If you had to choose between me and a child, which one would you save?’
I couldn’t answer. Even today I wouldn’t be able to give an answer to that question. Naturally, I should put a human life before a dog’s, but my feelings for the survivor far exceeded any I felt for those children in the street — they were even stronger than the feelings I had for my girlfriend. If those children were indeed responsible for the survivor’s death, I know he wouldn’t have put up a fight. He could have bitten off one of their legs had he wanted to, but he would have chosen to suffer in silence rather than cause them any harm.