Running around like that, it was only natural that Youqing would wear out his shoes. Jiazhen, having been born into a well-to-do family in town, felt that a student like Youqing mustn’t go barefoot to school, so she made him a pair of cloth shoes. I myself felt that as long as you studied hard at school it really didn’t matter much if you had shoes or not. After he had worn his new shoes for only two months, I saw Jiazhen knitting a pair of soles. I asked whom she was making them for, and she said Youqing.
The work in the field already exhausted Jiazhen to the point where she had no energy, and now Youqing was going to push her over the edge. I picked up Youqing’s two-month-old pair of shoes to have a look. What kind of shoes were these? The soles were worn so thin that they were almost unwearable, and the laces and front part of one shoe had completely fallen off. When Youqing came back carrying his basket full of grass, I threw the shoes over to him and pulled him by his ear to show him, “Have you been wearing these, or gnawing on them?”
Youqing rubbed his sore ear, grimacing with pain. He wanted to cry but didn’t dare.
“If you keep wearing them like that, I’ll cut off your feet!” I warned him.
But I was wrong. Our family’s two lambs relied entirely upon Youqing to feed them. Doing such hard work at home took away from Youqing’s time, so he always had to run to school. When he got out in the afternoon, he wanted to get home early to cut grass, so he ran. And I haven’t even mentioned Youqing’s job of fertilizing the fields with the lamb manure. Who knew how many pairs of shoes we could buy for Youqing with the money we got every year from selling the lambs’ wool. After I yelled at him, Youqing would go barefoot to school, putting on his shoes only after he got there. One time it snowed but he still ran to school barefoot in the snow. As his father, I could hardly bear it. I told him to stop. “What’s that in your hand?”
He stood in the snow, staring blankly at the pair of shoes in his hands, not knowing what to say. I said, “Those are shoes, not gloves. Put them on.”
Only then did he finally put them on. Drawing back his head, he waited for what I had to say next. I waved my hand at him. “Get going.”
Youqing turned around and started running toward town. But I saw him stop before he had gotten too far and take his shoes back off. This kid was really impossible.
In 1958 the people’s communes were established. Our five mu of land all went to the commune, leaving us only a small plot of land in front of our hut. The village head was no longer called the village head — he was now called the team leader. Every morning the team leader would stand under the elm tree near the village entrance and blow a whistle. Tools in hand, all the men and women in the village would assemble at the village entrance as if they were in the military. The team leader would establish the daily tasks, and we’d all disperse and get to work. Everyone in the village thought it was fresh and new, lining up and then going down to the fields to work. Some of the people would laugh at each other and crack jokes about the others. When Jiazhen, Fengxia and I lined up we were in pretty good order, but some of the other groups looked just terrible. These families included both the young and the old, and one group even had an old lady with bound feet. Seeing those groups, the team leader would say, “Look at this bunch! No matter if I look at you horizontally or vertically, you still look horrible!”
Naturally, Jiazhen was reluctant to see our five mu of land be returned to the people’s commune. For the past ten years our family had completely depended upon this five mu to survive, and then, in the blink of an eye, this land became the public’s. Jiazhen would often say, “If they reallocate the land later, I want our same five mu back.”
Who could have known that before long even cooking pots would have to be turned over to the people’s commune? They said it was to smelt iron. One day the team leader went door-to-door smashing pots and pans. When he got to our house he laughed and said, “Fugui, are you going to hand it over yourself, or do we have to go in and smash it?”
Since everyone’s pots were to be broken anyway, I figured there was no real way out, so I said, “I’ll get it, I’ll get it.”
I carried our pot out and placed it on the ground. Two young men raised their hoes and smashed it. All it took was four or five blows to smash a good pot to pieces. Jiazhen stood by watching, so upset she even shed a few tears. She said to the team leader, “Now that our pot is broken, how are we supposed to eat?”
“You’ll eat in the dining hall,” the team leader said, waving his arms. “The village is setting up a communal dining hall. Smash your pots and nobody will have to worry about cooking at home anymore. You’ll save a lot of energy and at the same time we’ll all be on our way toward communism. If you’re hungry, just pick yourself up and head on over to the dining hall. We’ve got fish and meat — so much you’ll choke to death!”
The village set up a dining hall and our supplies of rice, salt, firewood — everything — were all confiscated by the village. The biggest shame was our pair of lambs. Youqing had raised them to be plump and strong, but even they had to be given up. That afternoon, as we carried our rice and salt over to the dining hall, Youqing, his head drooping, led our two lambs toward the drying ground. Deep down he was filled with reluctance. He had fed and cared for them with his own two hands. Every day he ran all the way to school and then all the way home, all for our lambs. He brought the lambs down to the drying field, where everyone in the village turned their oxen and sheep over to the village stockman, Wang Xi. Although the others were also reluctant to give their animals away, after handing them over to Wang Xi they all turned around and went home. Only Youqing remained — he stood there biting his lip without moving. Finally he asked Wang Xi in a pathetic voice, “Is it okay if I come back to visit them every day to give them a hug?”
As soon as the village dining hall opened up, mealtime each day became quite a show. Every family sent two women to pick up the food. They had to get in a long line just like the steamed breadline I was in while a prisoner of the communists. The sound of all those women yammering away was like the twittering sound of a flock of sparrows that flies in when it’s time to dry out the rice husks. The team leader was right: having a dining hall really did save a lot of effort. If you were hungry, all you had to do was line up and you’d have plenty to eat and drink. The portions were unlimited; you could eat as much as you wanted, and every day there was meat. The first couple of days the team leader, with his bowl in hand, happily went laughing from door to door, asking everybody, “So, did it save you a lot of energy? Do you think the people’s commune is a good idea or what?”
Everybody in the village was happy. They all said it was a great idea and the team leader responded, “These days our lives are more comfortable than that of a carefree loafer!”
Jiazhen was happy, too. Every time she and Fengxia came back carrying our food, she’d say, “There’s meat again!”
Jiazhen would put the food on the table before going out to call Youqing. After calling out to him a couple of times, we’d see him appear, running along the ridge carrying a basket full of grass. He was actually going to bring our two lambs some grass. The village’s three oxen and twenty-some lambs were all kept in the same livestock shed. As soon as those animals were taken by the people’s commune, it was their bad luck. They were often underfed and hungry. As soon as Youqing entered the shed he’d be surrounded. Youqing would call out to his lambs, “Hey! Hello! Where are you guys?”