GU HUA

                       A SMALL TOWN CALLED HIBISCUS
                       ============================


                                  Part 2
                          The People of Hibiscus
                                  (1964)
                         ----------------------


The Fourth Big Building


     In no time it was the spring of '64.  A cold, wet,  windy spring,  bad
for  the  crops.    The  sole surviving old hibiscus tree on the river bank
flowered out of season,  while the soap-bean in the  street,  which  should
have been a mass of flowers, failed to blossom.  That gave rise to a lot of
talk:   Was it a good omen or a bad one?   According to the old folk,  when
hibiscus blossomed in spring something out of the way would happen.    They
had  seen  it three times: first in 1909,  when a plague killed off most of
the townsfolk; secondly in 1933,  when Hibiscus was flooded for a whole two
weeks;  thirdly in 1949,  when the PLA came south to mop up bandits, and at
last the poor stood up....  So really there was no knowing what fate had in
store.

     The whole town was on tenterhooks.   But as now,  fourteen years after
Liberation,  no  fortune-tellers came to the market,  some people consulted
Qin  Shutian  of  the  Five  Categories.    Qin,  who  always  seemed  most
enlightened and progressive,  told them not to be so superstitious, linking
social changes with natural calamities.   And finally he quoted one of  the
revolutionary  teachers'  sayings  that  no  illiterate country could build
communism.   Some felt he was showing  off  his  erudition  to  stress  the
commune members' low level of consciousness.

     But  it  does  happen  sometimes  that changes in Nature coincide with
important social events.  Towards the end of February, the county committee
sent a work team to Hibiscus led by the  former  manageress  of  the  state
eating-house.  Li Guoxiang, simply dressed this time, her expression grave,
for  the  first  few  days  kept  a low profile and stayed in Wang Qiushe's
stilt-house,  as he was a "poor peasant".   This was what the  Land  Reform
work  teams  had  called  "striking  roots  to  establish  contacts".   The
townsfolk always showed great respect to work teams sent from  the  county,
but they were woefully ignorant about political changes,  their wits dulled
by their old way of life.   Even Gu Yanshan and Li Mangeng,  who  had  seen
something  of  the world,  expected to jog along in the old rut.   Although
dismayed by Li Guoxiang's reappearance, they did not take it too seriously.
After all, they were the ones running Hibiscus.  Besides, both of them were
busy,  Gu distributing good seeds of  early  rice,  and  Mangeng  arranging
ploughing.

     So  when  the work team first moved into the stilt-house,  this caused
little stir in town.   Everyone was more interested in the new house  being
built by Yuyin and her husband.   Both of them had lost weight that winter,
so busy were they getting a blueprint drawn,  preparing building  materials
and  hiring carpenters and masons.   But losing weight only added to Sister
Hibiscus's beauty.   Her old inn was so rickety not that once the new house
was built they meant to pull it down.  The new house was just beside it, on
the  site  they  had  bought  for  two hundred yuan from Wang Qiushe of the
stilt-house.  Having spent that money already, he regretted having sold his
property so cheaply - he should have asked at least another hundred.   Why,
that was enough for a thousand bowls of beancurd!  Now, whether he liked it
or not, Li Guigui and Yuyin were building their new brick, tiled house with
whitewashed walls.   It had an impressive archway overlooking the flagstone
street,  and two French windows  upstairs  which  opened  on  to  a  pretty
balcony.    Downstairs,  stone steps led up to its red-lacquered gate.   So
this building combining Chinese  and  western  features  towered  over  its
ramshackle  neighbours,  outshining even the department store,  the grocery
and the eating-house.   It was the fourth big building in  Hibiscus  -  and
private  property!    Even  before  the  scaffolding  was  dismantled,  the
townsfolk gathered there every day to admire it.  Comrade Li Guoxiang, head
of the work team,  had mingled with the crowd on several occasions  to  jot
down in her notebook the "masses' reactions".

     "Fancy making enough from beancurd to build a mansion like this!"

     "It's grander than the Salt Guild before Liberation."

     "It's  profiteers  who  get  rich.    This must have cost two or three
thousand."

     "What luck for a butcher like Li Guigui,  moving in to live  with  his
wife's family....  He must have done good in some earlier life!"

     "Hu  Yuyin's the smartest woman in town.   Never put money in the bank
but hoarded it on the sly...."

     When the new house was built,  the old inn not yet  pulled  down,  the
hibiscus  flowered out of season.   To ward off bad luck,  Yuyin decided to
give a big feast for the cadres as well as the builders.  She consulted her
Brother Mangeng,  the Party secretary,  about this,  and he gave his  tacit
consent.    Then  she  invited  Old Gu,  the tax officer,  the managers and
accountants of the co-ops,  department  store,  grocery  and  eating-house,
besides some friends.   Most people accepted gladly.  She also made a point
of inviting Li Guoxiang who disapproved of her,  and the tow other  members
of the work team.   Li Guoxiang told her politely that the work team's rule
was not to attend any feasts,  but she promised to drop in later to see the
new house.  At least Yuyin was grateful for this show of courtesy.

     On the first of March,  at the crack of dawn fire-crackers exploded in
front of the new house,  waking up the whole of Hibiscus.    The  big  red-
lacquered  gate  stood  open,  and  on  it  was  pasted  a  couplet in gold
characters on red paper:

     A hard-working couple have made a socialist fortune;
     Our townsfolk add lustre to the people's commune.

An inscription on the lintel read:  Live in peace and work hard.   Needless
to say, the calligraphy was Qin Shutian's.

     All that morning people flocked in to offer congratulations,  bringing
mirrors and other gifts.  Fire-crackers were let off continuously, till the
flagstone street in front was covered with red and green paper like flowers
scattered by a fairy.   The air reeked of the  heady  smell  of  gunpowder,
liquor and meat.   At noon all the guests had arrived,  and ten tables were
laid in the new house and the old inn - what a scene of  excitement!    Old
Gu,  Secretary  Mangeng,  the  tax officer,  the managers of the co-ops and
other cadres sat in the seats of honour.

     Before the feast started Yuyin,  both radiant  and  exhausted,  begged
Mangeng,  "I  can't  drink  and Guigui's shy in public,  so will you act as
host?   You can hold your liquor.   Get Manager Gu and the others to  drink
all they can.  This is a red-letter day...."

     "Don't  worry.    I'll  start  by  making our 'soldier from the north'
tipsy!"

     "Crazy Qin has been a big  help,"  Yuyin  added.    "I  must  show  my
appreciation to him differently."

     "That's right, he's in a different category."

     "Another thing,  Brother Mangeng.  Once we've moved into our new house
and pulled down the old one,  Guigui and I want to adopt  a  baby  boy,  if
that's all right with the brigade...."

     "My word,  sister,  drunk with joy, eh?  What else do you want?  Well,
they're waiting for me to start...."

     It was  true,  without  drinking  a  drop,  simply  listening  to  the
neighbours'  congratulations  and  watching their smiling faces,  Yuyin was
drunk with joy.

     The "soldier from the north" was in such high spirits that  after  one
drink,  prompted by Party Secretary Mangeng,  he stood up,  cup in hand, to
speak.   As always on formal occasions,  he spoke  with  his  old  northern
accent as if to stress the importance of what he said.

     "Comrades!    Today we're all as pleased as our hosts,  coming here to
celebrate the completion of their new house.   An ordinary working  couple,
relying on their own hands, they saved enough money to build it.  What does
that mean?   Hard work can lead to riches,  a better life.  We want to live
well, not badly.   That shows the superiority of our socialist system,  the
brilliance  of  our  Party's  leadership.    So  that's  the first thing to
remember as we tuck in.   Secondly,  as  fellow  townsfolk,  what  attitude
should we take to the owners of this new house?  Envy them?  Try to imitate
them?    Or make snide remarks on the sly?   I think we should imitate them
and learn from them.   Of course not everyone can keep  a  beancurd  stall.
But  there  are  plenty  of other ways to develop collective production and
family side-lines.   Thirdly,  don't we talk a lot about building socialism
and advancing to communism?   Communism isn't something we can sit and wait
for.   A few years ago,  we tried eating in the communal  canteen,  but  it
didn't  work out.   I think we'll know that communism is coming to Hibiscus
when,  apart from good food and clothes,  every family builds a  new  house
like this, even bigger and better than this!  Instead of thatched roofs and
adobe,  instead  of rickety wooden stilt-houses,  we must have rows of neat
storeyed buildings, a street as smart as in a city...."

     As this was not a meeting,  instead  of  applauding  this  speech  the
feasters  laughed  and cheered as they clinked cups.   Of course a few were
thinking:  This is drunken talk.   New houses and a good  life  -  is  that
communism?    According  to  the higher-ups,  class struggle was the way to
communism.

     Next the tax officer proposed a toast.   When he wished the owners  of
this new house a baby son and great prosperity,  the guests all drank their
health.

     They were drinking home-brewed liquor distilled from grain which  went
down easily but then had a kick.  And there were ten large dishes: chicken,
duck,  fish and meat.   Old Gu and Mangeng let themselves go and had a good
drinking-bout.

     Certain canny people took a more detached view and noticed  that  Wang
Qiushe,  for the first time in his life,   had not come to help out or join
in the fun.   That wasn't in character.   Did he  regret  having  sold  his
property  so cheaply,  so that he didn't want to see the new house built on
it?   Or was he too busy now with the work team in his stilt-house,  having
become  an  "activist" again?   Another disquieting possibility was that he
had some inside information and,  knowing what  was  brewing,  was  on  his
guard.




The Stilt-House


     The  stilt-house,   once  the  property  of  a  despot  landlord,  was
elaborately built,  entirely of wood.   Overlooking the street,  its  front
yard was now overgrown with brambles,  while the plantains in its back yard
were withering and the pomelo trees there were infested with insects.   Its
lower  storey,  with a sunken fire-place,  had been the servants' quarters.
The landlord had disported himself upstairs either in  the  front  sitting-
room  or  one  of  the three back bedrooms.   Wang Qiushe lived downstairs,
generally leaving the upper storey empty for any work teams which  came  to
Hibiscus.  Before he sold the grand carved bed upstairs, he had slept there
for  two  or  three  years  and dreamed many a pleasant dream of cuddling a
singsong girl or drinking and feasting.  Lying there, he used to wonder how
many women the landlord had taken to that bed:  young, middle-aged,  plump,
slim.   Later on the fellow had died a painful death from syphilis.   Serve
him right!  But Wang fancied the bed still smelt of cosmetics and scent.

     Gradually Wang Qiushe developed bad habits.  On clear moonlight nights
he used to caper about the sitting-room as the landlord was  said  to  have
done,  or  sprawl on the bed hugging a pillow as if it were his sweetheart.
"Sing your sugar daddy a song,  love!"  The gentry  in  the  old  days  had
thought  it smart to sing arias from Beijing opera;  but as Wang could not,
he sang snatches of local operas.  Sometimes he padded barefoot through the
sitting-room and bedrooms as if chasing after a  woman.    He  skirted  the
pillars,  jumped over tools and crawled under the table,  cursing,  "Little
slut!   Little devil!"  When worn out by this he flopped down on the  grand
carved bed like a dead snake,  unable to move.   Then,  in frustration,  he
wept.

     "That landlord had food,  liquor,  women ...  but  all  I  can  do  is
dream...."

     For  a time,  the neighbours hearing this commotion and his shrieks of
laughter or curses,  thought the place must be haunted by a fox-fairy,  who
had bewitched Wang Qiushe to punish him for his bad ways.  At first some of
them  had  proposed matches to him,  but now they no longer did.   And most
young women and girls would lower their heads and  hurry  past  the  stilt-
house,  to  avoid  coming under the influence of its "black magic".   Later
Wang claimed to have met bewitching fox-fairies lovelier than all the girls
in town - except for Hu Yuyin the beancurd pedlar.    However,  he  stopped
sleeping  upstairs,  not  from fear of fairies but for fear of going crazy.
And soon it was said in town that the owner of the stilt-house had not seen
any fairies but was infatuated with Sister Hibiscus and had hung around the
old inn till Li Guigui with his chopper drove him away.   But as Yuyin  and
her husband were highly thought of, such rumours were not believed.

     As Wang neglected the upkeep of the stilt-house,  when Li Guoxiang and
her two colleagues moved in it was tilting precariously,  propped  up  with
three  wooden  buttresses.    To  each of these was fastened a heavy stone,
which on dark nights looked like three corpses hanging there - a  sight  to
make your flesh creep.   The floors crawling with insects were black,  with
weeds growing through their cracks like a green inlaid design.   And behind
the house matted creepers reached up the windows.

     Li  Guoxiang was touched by this rickety house and yard overgrown with
weeds,  shocked to find Wang Qiushe,  the "Land Reform activist",  still so
badly  off fifteen years after Liberation.   What was the problem?   During
the three hard years,  capitalism had reared its ugly head.    Unless  they
launched a new movement and grasped class struggle, there was bound to be a
new polarization in the countryside with the rich becoming richer, the poor
poorer.    The  Party would turn revisionist,  the fruits of the revolution
would be lost,  there  would  be  a  restoration  of  capitalism  with  the
landlords  and  bourgeoisie seizing power again,  and true Communists would
have to take to the mountains to fight guerrilla warfare....   The sight of
Wang Qiushe's broken pan and cracked bowl brought the tears to her eyes, so
deep  was her class feeling!   She and her colleagues spent two yuan apiece
to buy him a bright aluminium pan,  plastic chopsticks and ten rice  bowls.
They  also  set  to  work  to clean up the back yard and save the half-dead
plantains and pomelo trees.   In  doing  this  Li  Guoxiang  raised  blood-
blisters on her hands and scratched both her wrists.   When the stilt-house
had been cleaned up, she pasted a red couplet on its gate:

          Never forget class struggle,
          Never stop criticizing capitalism.

     In order to "strike root" in the town the work team was in no hurry to
call meetings,  put  up  slogans  or  mobilize  the  masses.    First  they
investigated  the political status of all the cadres and townsfolk,  to see
with whom they should unite,  which people needed to  be  re-educated,  and
which  should  be  isolated  and  attacked.    One day Li Guoxiang sent her
colleagues to visit "poor peasants" in town while she stayed in the  stilt-
house  to read Wang Qiushe some directives.   In her previous dealings with
him she had been favourably impressed by his poverty,  his  hatred  of  the
oppressors,  his firm class stand and his obedience to the higher-ups.   He
was not bad-looking either, strong,  cheerful and pleasant.   Better still,
he  was  quick  on the uptake,  had a ready tongue and a certain organizing
ability.   It is wrong to judge a man by appearances.   Wang  was  shabbily
dressed now;  but if he wore a cadre's uniform, a shirt with a white collar
and brown army gum-shoes,  he would look no worse than a section  chief  in
the county.   She decided to use him as a mode,  in the coming movement; so
that she herself would be known  throughout  the  county  for  her  skilled
handling of this campaign in Hibiscus.

     As  Li  Guoxiang read out the document and made these plans,  she eyed
Wang Qiushe appraisingly from time to time.  He, of course,  had no idea of
her  intentions.    When  she  read the directives on "purifying" the class
ranks, checking up on everybody's status, and cleaning up the economy,  his
eyes lit up.  He could not resist asking her:

     "Team Leader Li, is this to be a second Land Reform?"

     "A  second  Land Reform?   Yes,  we'll be relying on poor peasants and
hired hands to crush the landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries,
bad elements and Rightists, as well as the new bourgeois elements!"

     "Will people be reclassified, Team Leader Li?"

     "It's a tricky situation.    Where  Land  Reform  wasn't  carried  out
thoroughly, our class ranks will have to be overhauled.  I like the way you
use your brain, Old Wang."

     "There's  one thing I don't understand.   Does cleaning up the economy
apply to the property of each family?"

     He stared unblinkingly at Li Guoxiang,  tempted to ask if there  would
be  another  sharing out of property.   Rather embarrassed by his scrutiny,
she looked away as she went on explaining:

     "We'll go through the brigade's accounts for  these  last  few  years,
check  up on any corruption among cadres,  check up on the traders who have
given up farming,  and the property of speculators.   We'll put on a  class
exhibition,  and  settle  accounts  politically  as well as in the economic
field."

     "Fine!  I'm all for such a movement.  You can count on me."

     Wang sprang excitedly to his feet.   This seemed too good to be true -
a  second  Land Reform.   Those dolts who had got good land,  buffaloes and
tools last time had worked hard and saved money to build  a  house  or  get
rich.   He,  Wang Qiushe had seen further.   Still a poor peasant, he could
struggle against them.   In jubilation he caught hold of the team  leader's
hands.

     "Team Leader Li,  I'm at your service.  I'll do whatever the work team
says."

     Li Guoxiang pulled her hands away.  Disgusting!

     "Sit  down!"  she  said  sternly.    "Don't  forget  yourself  or  the
impression you're making."

     Wang flushed and sat down.

     "Beg  pardon!    I  was so carried away by that directive I forgot you
were a woman, Team Leader Li...."

     "Don't talk nonsense.   Let's get  back  to  business."    She  smiled
tolerantly,  smoothing  back her hair.   "You know this town.   Who are the
newly rich here?"

     "You mean among cadres?  Or ordinary households? ... One of the cadres
protects capitalist elements.   He sells Hu  Yuyin  sixty  pounds  of  rice
seconds to make beancurd for each market,  and out of their profits they've
built a big house.   But he has a good record and  he's  highly  respected.
You may have trouble if you tackle him."

     "If  he's  really  done  wrong,  we're not afraid to touch the tiger's
backside.  Who else is there?"

     "The tax officer.  They say he comes from a bureaucrat landlord family
and hates the poor and lower-middle peasants.  He often calls me a bum, one
of the lumpen proletariat...."

     "Ha,  slandering poor peasants is  slandering  the  revolution.    Who
else?"

     "Then there's Li Mangeng,  secretary of the brigade.   He has a wobbly
stand,  gets the bad element Qin Shutian to write slogans and round up  the
Five  Categories.    And  he  calls Hu Yuyin who sells beancurd his sister.
He's in cahoots with the  managers  of  the  grain  depot  and  supply  and
marketing co-op.  They're the ones who run Hibiscus...."

     Wang  Qiushe  had  told  the truth.   These local heads did call him a
greedy loafer who was afraid of hard  work.    Li  Mangeng  had  gone  even
further,  refusing him relief grain and relief clothing - the fellow had no
class feeling!   As long as they were in charge he could never really stand
up.    Thank  Heaven the government had sent this work team to speak up for
the poor and topple the rich and powerful!

     Li Guoxiang mad notes of all he  had  to  tell  her  about  the  local
cadres.   And Wang Qiushe was a mine of information.  He had a good memory,
knew which townsfolk were related or connected, which had quarrelled, which
had plundered another family's hen-coop or been cursed  by  someone  else's
wife, which had a child who didn't take after his father....  He reeled all
this off in circumstantial detail,  citing places,  witnesses,  dates.  The
team leader began to be quite impressed by this  "activist"  who  knew  all
about Hibiscus.

     "These last few years,  because of the state's temporary difficulties,
commercial rules have been relaxed and the markets have got out  of  hand,"
she said.  "Which family has made the most money by trading here?"

     "Need you ask?   Hu Yuyin, who's built that big new house.  She set up
a beancurd stall, counting on her good looks to attract customers.   Made a
pile.   She's really smart.  On good terms with most everyone in town.  And
the cadres...."

     "What's their attitude to her?"  The team  leader  felt  very  curious
about this.

     "They like her pretty face!  Secretary Li treats her so well, his wife
is jealous.  The manager of the grain depot supplies her with rice seconds,
the  tax-officer  is  like a brother to her,  just taxing her one yuan each
market-day.   Even that bad element Qin Shutian  is  thick  with  her,  and
learned  all sorts of old folk-songs from her to make out that socialism is
feudalistic.  I ask you, how low can you sink."

     From  this  conversation  Li  Guoxiang  gained  invaluable  first-hand
material.    She  decided  that  the  owner  of  the  stilt-house had great
potential and she must try to groom him in this movement.



     Two weeks later the work team had the  low-down  on  every  family  in
Hibiscus.  However, they had not yet mobilized the masses.  They decided to
set  about  this by contrasting the bitter past with the sweet present,  to
arouse the townsfolks' class feeling.    First  they  would  share  a  meal
recalling their former wretchedness,  then sing songs about it,  and put on
an exhibition of class struggle in the brigade.  This exhibition would have
two parts: pre-Liberation and post-Liberation.   For the  first  part  they
needed certain exhibits: a tattered quilt,  a ragged padded jacket,  an old
basket, a stick with which to beat dogs, a chipped bowl.

     But where would they find such things fifteen years  after  Liberation
now that everybody was so much better off?   At the time of Land Reform the
poor had been so happy to have stood up,  all they wanted to do was to farm
the  good land they had received and race ahead down the road to socialism;
so they had thrown all that junk  away,  sick  of  the  sight  of  it,  not
foreseeing  that  it  would  be  wanted  so  much  later  for an exhibition
contrasting past and present.  They should have looked further ahead.   The
worse  off  places  were,  the more they should recall the wretched past to
remind themselves how much better off they were now.   Of course there were
minor faults in today's collective economy, but that was no reason for them
to complain or lose heart.  It was no good either comparing themselves with
communes doing better.

     Li  Guoxiang  intended  to  put on this exhibition to get the movement
going.   But she could find no pre-Liberation exhibits until  suddenly  she
had  the  bright idea of consulting the activist.   Wang Qiushe hesitated a
moment, then said:

     "Well, there are some things you might use...."

     "Hurry up and fetch them."

     Li Guoxiang smiled,  weight  lifted  from  her  mind,  as  her  trusty
henchman rummaged in one corner.

     Presently,  covered with dust, he brought a crate of things for her to
inspect: a ragged old quilt, a filthy,  threadbare padded jacket,  a broken
basket  and  a badly chipped bowl.   All that was missing was a stick,  but
that could be found anywhere.

     "Aha,  that's solved my problem.   Trust you,  Old Wang!" she approved
cheerfully.

     "But  the  quilt  and  jacket  were  government  relief  I  got  after
Liberation...." he confessed.

     "Are you joking?   This is a serious  political  task,"  she  answered
sharply.    "I've  been to big museums in Hengzhou and Guangzhou where most
exhibits in the cabinets are models or replicas."




A Woman's Reckoning


     Word went round that the work team  was  going  to  take  over  Sister
Hibiscus's  beancurd  stall  and  her  husband's cleaver.   Where this talk
started there is no knowing.   But people love to gossip just as  bees  and
butterflies  spread  pollen in spring- this is second nature to them.   And
they often embroider this gossip so that it grows  increasingly  fantastic,
until they are distracted by some new rumour.

     Their  neighbours'  significant  glances and whispered comments preyed
upon the minds of Hu Yuyin and her  husband,  making  her  feel  desperate,
making him scared stiff.   Guigui lost his appetite.  No wonder politicians
use public opinion as a weapon and  conduct  a  publicity  campaign  before
taking any action.

     "Good  heavens!"    Yuyin complained.   "Other husbands are pillars of
strength.   But if we have any trouble you're more timid than a woman,  too
scared to eat!"

     "Yuyin, I, we didn't think...." Guigui faltered.  "In the new society,
people  shouldn't  build themselves houses.   Some families tightened their
belts a few years before Land Reform, skimping and saving to buy themselves
fields and orchards;  but then they were labelled  as  landlords  and  rich
peasants, weren't they?"

     "What do you think we should do?" Yuyin clenched her teeth.

     "Let's  not  wait for the work team to pounce on us,  but hurry up and
get this new house off our hands... even selling it at a loss.  We're fated
to live in this dump."  Guigui's eyes were flickering this way and that.

     "You big shit!"  Yuyin stabbed at him furiously with  her  chopsticks,
leaving  two  red  marks  on  his  forehead.   "Landlords and rich peasants
collected rent!  They loaned money at high interest,  exploited their hired
hands!    Does  a  butcher exploit anyone?   Do I exploit anyone by selling
beancurd?  Sell our new house?  Fated to live in a dump,  are we?   How can
you even think of such a thing!  Here we've worked our fingers to the bone,
nearly wearing out the mill handle and the cauldron, and you say:  Sell the
new house!   Heavens,  other men fight in wars to win a country, mine can't
even hold on to a house...."

     Guigui felt his forehead - beads of blood were oozing from  where  she
had stabbed it.   Yuyin's eyes filled with tears of remorse.   In the eight
years of their marriage never before had they quarrelled.  Having no child,
she had mothered her husband instead;  indeed,  his very weakness had  made
her  more  protective,  more  solicitous for him.   To her,  Guigui was her
husband, her brother, sometimes even her son - and now she had bloodied his
forehead!  She hastily put down her bowl and went over to clasp his head in
her arms.

     "You fool, you!  Can't you even say if it hurts?"

     Guigui,  far from losing his temper,  rested his head on  her  breast.
"It  doesn't really hurt,  Yuyin.   I just suggested selling the new house,
but it's up to you to decide.  What you say goes....  You're my family,  my
home....  With you, I'm not afraid of anything... not afraid to go begging,
I swear it...."

     Yuyin  held him close,  as if to shield him from danger,  and she shed
tears.   Yes,  as  a  countrywoman,  a  stallholder,  her  world  was  very
restricted.  She and her husband were everything to each other.  It was for
each other that they had worked so hard, putting up with so many hardships.

     "Yuyin, you mustn't think me such a rat.  I do have guts.  If you told
me to kill someone for our new house,  I'd do it with my cleaver.  I know I
could...."  His eyes closed,  Guigui was muttering as if in his sleep - and
in such a lawless way!

     Yuyin hastily stopped his mouth.   "Are you crazy,  talking like that?
It's a crime even to think of such a thing."  Turning  away  from  him  she
wiped her eyes.

     "I  just  said  that  to  show you,  Yuyin....   I'm not going to kill
anybody...."

     "Either you want to sell our new house, or you want to risk your neck.
A little bit of gossip  and  you're  scared  stiff....    If  real  trouble
happened, how could you cope?"

     "The worst they can do is kill us."

     This  angered  Yuyin  again.    She raised her hand to slap him,  then
lowered it.  She felt crushed,  the situation was so serious.   But for all
her gentle ways she had determination.  She reached a decision:

     "I'll  go  and see Li Guoxiang,  the head of the work team,  to ask if
they really mean to take over my beancurd stall and  your  cleaver....    I
think the work team members sent from above are mostly like Manager Gu,  on
the side of us underdogs."

     Guigui watched her admiringly.  In any pinch,  his wife was always the
one  who  knew  what  to  do.    Their  roles  as husband and wife had been
reversed.

     As she combed her hair Yuyin wondered how to broach the matter to  the
team  leader  without  annoying  her or giving anyone a handle against her.
But just before setting out she heard a pleasant woman's voice outside:

     "Is Hu Yuyin at home?  There's no market today."

     Yuyin went to the gate and  discovered  Li  Guoxiang  there,  smiling.
What a coincidence!  She hastily ushered her in.  Li Guoxiang appeared more
affluent,  less  wrinkled,  than she had as manageress of the eating-house.
Her present job called for brains, not physical exertion,  and as she lived
quite comfortably at thirty-three she still looked fairly young.

     Guigui  was  relieved  to  see  that  she  had  come  alone and seemed
friendly.  He made haste to brew tea and offer her peanuts and melon seeds.
This done he threw his wife a glance and said with a sheepish smile,  "Make
yourself  at  home,  Team Leader Li."  Then he took his hoe from behind the
door and went off to his vegetable plot.

     Li Guoxiang sipped her tea and asked half jokingly,  "Is your  husband
so shy of strangers that he has to run off like a savage?"

     "Oh,  him,  he's dumb."  Flushing, Yuyin offered her peanuts and melon
seeds,  thinking:  What do you,  an old spinster,  know about men that  you
call them savages?

     "I've  come today from the work team to see over your new house.   And
to  discuss  a  couple  of  things  with  you.    Don't  worry,  we're  old
acquaintances, but we can't allow personal considerations to interfere with
public business."  Taking a handful of melon seeds she stood up.

     Yuyin  had  turned  pale.    She  felt  rather tense.   This visit was
certainly ominous.   The team leader could not have come to see  their  new
house out of curiosity.   But Yuyin kept a grin on herself as with a forced
smile she led Li Guoxiang out and opened the red-lacquered gate of the  new
house.    The inside smelt of new wood and of varnish.   As the team leader
inspected the hall, the wing-rooms,  kitchen,  store-room,  and the pigsty,
hen-coop and lavatory in the back yard,  she kept commenting, "Not bad, not
bad."  Then they went upstairs to see the bright, spacious bedroom with its
big wardrobe,  four-poster bed,  chest of drawers,  desk,  round table  and
armchairs.   This shiny new furniture stood out in pleasant contrast to the
gleaming whitewashed walls.

     "Not bad, not bad,"  Li Guoxiang approved, nodding her head as if most
impressed.

     Yuyin watched her reactions carefully, but could not make out what she
was really thinking.   Finally she opened the French windows and they  went
out to the balcony which overlooked the town.  Leaning on the balustrade Li
Guoxiang  had  the air of a high official on a reviewing stand.   From here
she could see the old houses of adobe and brick as well as  the  ramshackle
stilt-house,  so  different  from this fine new building,  showing the gulf
between wealth and poverty.

     Back in the bedroom,  Li Guoxiang sat down in front of the desk by the
window.   Yuyin, standing beside her, saw that Team Leader Li had taken out
a notebook and fountain-pen.

     "Sit down,  sit down.   Just the two of us,  let's have a talk."    Li
Guoxiang was acting as if the house were hers.

     Yuyin drew up a square stool.  Confronted by this team leader with her
notebook,  she felt in an inferior position;  so it was appropriate for her
to sit on a stool while the other sat in an armchair.

     "Hu Yuyin,  as you must know,  our work team from the county has  come
here  to  launch  a  Four  Clean-ups Movement," began Li Guoxiang formally.
"First we have to asses each family's political  and  financial  situation.
You're neither the first family we're investigating,  nor the last.  If you
come  clean  to  the  work  team,   it  shows  your  trust  in  the  Party.
Understand?"

     Yuyin nodded, though completely at sea.

     "I've  drawn  up a preliminary reckoning for you and have come here to
check it out.  You can point out any discrepancies there are."  Li Guoxiang
looked hard at Yuyin.

     Yuyin nodded, thinking that this saved her trouble.   If called on for
a  reckoning  she might have panicked.   And the team leader's attitude was
fairly friendly,  she wasn't glaring at  her  as  if  haranguing  the  Five
Categories.

     "In  the  second  half  of  1961,  Hibiscus market changed from once a
fortnight to once every five days.  That's six markets a month, right?"  Li
Guoxiang eyed Yuyin.

     Again Yuyin nodded in silence.   She had no idea why the  team  leader
was harking so far back.

     "That  makes  two years and nine months up to February this year,"  Li
Guoxiang went on, consulting her notebook.   "In other words,  thirty-three
months in all.  A hundred and ninety-eight markets, right?"

     Too stupefied to nod, Yuyin sensed that this was an interrogation.

     "You  use about fifty pounds of rice to make beancurd for each market.
Some people call this a family side-line,  but we won't go into  that  now.
You  must sell about ten bowls of beancurd for each pound of rice.   If you
sell five hundred bowls at each market, you should make approximately fifty
yuan.  From that we can deduct a hundred, say,  for your expenses.   So you
still make two hundred yuan a month!  That, incidentally, is as much as the
salary of a provincial secretary.  So your annual income is 2,400 yuan.  In
two years and nine months you must have made 6,600 yuan!"

     Yuyin was amazed by this detailed reckoning.   Heavens,  she had never
worked it out herself.... She felt as if struck by lightning.

     "Trading in a small way, I never figured that out....   We just muddle
along,  and  what  money  we put by we spent on this house....   I've got a
trading  licence,   Team  Leader  Li.     I   got   permission   from   the
authorities...."

     "We're  not  saying  you  broke  the  law  or  exploited  anyone."  Li
Guoxiang's expression was cryptic.   "Doesn't it say on that red couplet on
your  gate,  'Make a socialist fortune'?   I'm told that was written by the
Five-Categories element Qin Shutian.   Don't be upset,  I'm just getting to
the bottom of this."

     Yuyin,  first  alarmed,  now  looked  numbed and apathetic.   Her lips
clamped together, she stared at the floor.  The team leader went on calmly:

     "Another thing.  The manager of the grain depot, Gu Yanshan,  supplied
you  with  sixty pounds of good rice for each market,  didn't he?"  She was
looking sterner now, as if interrogating a loose woman.

     "Not good rice!"  exclaimed Yuyin.  "Seconds, sweepings from the grain
depot.   I always have to sieve it to get rid of the sand,  husks and dirt.
And  I'm  not the only one Manager Gu supplies.   Lots of organizations and
private families buy seconds to feed their pigs....   I bought it first for
your pigs, then used it later for this little side-line...."  At mention of
Manager  Gu,  Yuyin had roused herself from her apathy.   Old Gu was a good
man.  If she had done something wrong, she mustn't involve him.

     "That's why I just reckoned you use  fifty  pounds  of  rice  to  make
beancurd.    I  deducted ten pounds for husks,  grit and sand.   I'm making
allowances for you.   And those people who buy rice seconds to fatten their
pigs  sell  them  to  the state,  whereas you change yours into a commodity
which you sell for a profit."

     This silenced Yuyin.  And the team leader went on calmly, referring to
her notebook:

     "Six markets a month,  sixty pounds each  market-day,  a  hundred  and
ninety-eight markets in two years and nine months.  Manager Gu has supplied
you  altogether with 11,880 pounds of rice.   A staggering amount!   Still,
that's another question.  Although you're involved, the main responsibility
isn't yours."

     After this reckoning Li Guoxiang wrote in her notebook, "This has been
confirmed by Hu Yuyin, the beancurd pedlar."  She then left.  Yuyin saw her
off, too frantic even to offer her any refreshments.

     That evening Yuyin told her husband the team  leader's  estimate  that
they had bought over ten thousand pounds of rice and made 6,600 yuan.  They
were as nervous as tow profiteers on the eve of a second Land Reform.   But
the profiteers in the old society were now in  the  Five  Categories,  they
stank, and no one was afraid of them.  Yuyin and her husband had made a bit
of  money in the new society.   Did that mean they would be reclassified as
new landlords or rich peasants?

     After this,  Yuyin and Guigui found it hard to sleep at night.    They
accepted  that they were destined to live in a dump.   Though thieves might
break in here,  they felt it was politically more  secure.    They  stopped
longing  for  a child,  secretly glad that they had none.   Otherwise their
child would have been treated as a little  Five  Categories  element,  poor
thing!




Killing the Chicken to Frighten the Monkey


     That evening,  the work team called its first mass meeting in front of
the stage in the market-place.    The  guttering  paraffin  lamp  had  been
repaired and cast a bright light, making people's faces seem livid.  In the
past  the leading figures in the town would have been up on the stage;  but
now the manager of the grain depot,  the Party secretary  and  tax  officer
were  witting  below  on  stools they had brought or on bricks.   Yuyin and
Guigui sat immediately behind them, as if hoping for their protection.  The
only people on the stage were the work team.  The townsfolk,  intrigued and
puzzled by this new departure, wanted to squeeze forward for a closer look.
Some  made  a  detour to the front of the stage to locate the "soldier from
the north" and Secretary Mangeng.

     Another new departure was that Li Guoxiang,  presiding at the meeting,
did not make the usual opening speech about the excellent international and
domestic situation before getting down to business.   First one of the work
team read out three circulars.  That from the province announced that a bad
character hostile to the Party had viciously attacked  the  Four  Clean-ups
Movement  and  incited some backward people to beat up the work team.   For
this serious crime he had been sentenced to fifteen years of  hard  labour.
The  circular  from  the  district  announced  that  a  member of the Party
committee of a certain commune and the Party secretary of one  brigade  had
for years been using his power to protect the Five Categories.  When a work
team was sent there he had stormed and raged, refusing to answer questions;
so he had been dismissed from his post, expelled from the Party and made to
work under mass supervision.  The circular from the county announced that a
pedlar in one commune,  who had been a prostitute before Liberation and had
long been profiteering,  had bribed that cadres to help her scrape  through
this  movement.   She had been paraded and struggled against to educate the
cadres and Party members.

     The effect of  these  announcements  was  uncanny:  at  once  absolute
silence reigned,  as if a sudden blizzard had frozen everyone attending the
meeting.   Gu Yanshan,  Li Mangeng and the others who normally ran Hibiscus
could only stare, dumbfounded.

     "Fetch  the  bourgeois  Rightist  Qin  Shutian!"  one of the work team
thundered.

     At once Wang Qiushe and a militiaman marched Qin Shutian to the stage.
There was a stir of excitement,  but soon it subsided.   Qin  Shutian,  his
hands  at  his  sides  and his head lowered,  was too dazzled by the bright
light to open his eyes.

     Li Guoxiang had been sitting by the square table on the  stage.    Now
she  walked forward,  smoothing back her hair,  and pointed at Qin Shutian.
With a clear local accent she said:

     "This is the notorious Qin Shutian,  Crazy Qin of Hibiscus.   The poor
and  lower-middle peasants here,  the revolutionary masses,  hate landlords
and rich peasants.   But do you hate this class  enemy?    I  call  on  all
cadres,  Communists  and Youth League members to say what you think of him.
During the three hard years,  this Qin Shutian cut quite  a  dash,  writing
couplets and slogans,  playing instruments and singing.   At every marriage
and feast,  he was always invited to play in the band.   When you put on  a
dragon dance,  he always took part.  When you met him on the road, how many
of you greeted him or gave him a cigarette?   How many of you  listened  to
those  decadent  stories he told in the fields,  using the past to satirize
the present?  Your children, too young to have been oppressed or exploited,
how many of them called him 'Uncle Qin'?"

     Li Guoxiang had not raised her voice,  speaking calmly and reasonably.
The  atmosphere  seemed  icy,  with  all present holding their breath.   Gu
Yanshan,  Mangeng,  Yuyin and her husband felt that a gulf was  yawning  at
their feet.

     "Many extraordinary things have happened,  comrades!" Li Guoxiang went
on slowly,  as if chatting to them.   She had obviously mastered the art of
struggle  and prided herself on her ability to sway the masses.   "Not long
ago,  a pedlar in our Hibiscus built a brand new storeyed house.   Some  of
you  have  pointed  out  that  it's grander than the two biggest shops here
before Liberation.   We should ask:  Just how much money  has  that  pedlar
made these last few years?   Whose money was it?  And where did she get the
rice to make her beancurd?   But we won't go into that now.   Who wrote the
couplet on her red-lacquered gate?  Qin Shutian, recite that couplet."

     Qin raised his head to glance at her from the corner of his eyes.   "I
wrote it," he answered.   "It says,  'A hard-working  couple  have  made  a
socialist fortune.   Our townsfolk add lustre to the people's commune.'  On
the lintel...."

     "That's a reactionary couplet,  comrades!"  She signed to Qin to  keep
quiet, then raised her voice.  "'A hardworking couple have made a socialist
fortune.'  Doesn't that stink?  How can individuals building socialism make
a fortune?  In the past we talked about 'ill-gotten gains' but he's made up
this  reactionary  slogan  'a  socialist fortune' to fool you.   This is an
attack on the people's commune's  collective  economy!    In  our  Hibiscus
today, the rich build big houses, the poor sell their land - what does this
mean?   Just think it over,  comrades.  And that second line 'Our townsfolk
add lustre to the people's commune' is even more blatant.   Who  are  these
townsfolk?    Are they genuine poor and lower-middle peasants,  or are they
people with a dirty past and disreputable connections?    We  have  learned
that they made up a jingle to slander our policy and our class line:

          The government has its quirks;
          It trusts a slacker who shirks,
          Ignores those who really work,
          And those who do well it pulls up with a jerk.

Is  this  just  backward talk?   How can people like this add lustre to the
people's commune?   The people's commune is paradise,  it's splendid.    It
doesn't  need private ownership to add lustre to it.   These people want to
bring down our regime.  They're against the Party and socialism,  comrades.
And  a  reactionary couplet like this is openly pasted up in our town!   Is
the owner of that new house here or not?   Don't tear  that  couplet  down.
We'll  deep  it as a negative material for all of you to read three times a
day.  Don't under-estimate the written word, comrades.   It's often used by
class enemies as a weapon."

     Unconvinced  by  this,  Qin  Shutian  looked up at her.   At once Wang
Qiushe behind him rammed his head down.  And some activists shouted,  "Make
Qin Shutian kneel down!"

     "Can we let him keep standing there?" another protested.

     There was a pause before a voice seconded, "No, we can't!"

     Trembling,  Crazy  Qin  looked pleadingly at the Party secretary,  but
Mangeng had lowered his head and paid no  attention.    Behind  him  Sister
Hibiscus  and  her  husband  were  staring  frantically round.   Qin's legs
buckled and he knelt down.

     "You can stand up,  Qin  Shutian,"  said  Li  Guoxiang  to  everyone's
surprise.    But  of course,  as a cadre sent from above she adhered to the
policy for struggle meetings.

     Qin stood up as before,  hands at his sides,  head lowered.   Only his
trouser knees were now covered with dust.

     "Now we'll go on criticizing you,  Qin Shutian,  to tear off your mask
and expose you to the masses," she continued.   "The older  generation  all
know  the  story  of  the  hero and thieving scholar Xiao Rang in the novel
Outlaws of the Marsh.   Some of our cadres have treated Qin  Shutian  as  a
good scholar.   Aren't the walls and rocks here covered with the slogans he
has written?   With over a hundred  households  in  Hibiscus,  is  everyone
illiterate  except  for  this  Five-Categories  element?    Why  add to his
prestige?  Tell us, Qin Shutian, who honoured you like this?"

     Crazy Qin stole a glance at Secretary Mangeng.  "It was the brigade...
brigade..."

     "All right,  that's enough."  Li Guoxiang knew the time  was  ripe  to
raise a more serious problem.  "Qin Shutian!  Tell the revolutionary masses
your class status."

     "A bad element, bad element," he said.

     "A bad element indeed!   Comrades, the work team has uncovered a plot.
Found out in the course of our investigations that Qin Shutian is not a bad
element but a vicious Rightist,  who wrote a reactionary song-and-dance  to
attack the Party and socialism.   Who did him the good turn of changing him
from a Rightist into a bad element who ran after women?  A list of the Five
Categories is kept in the County Public Security Bureau.  This is a serious
breach of law and discipline!"

     Here Li Guoxiang paused.   Like all experienced speakers she knew when
to  give  her  audience a moment to think,  to realize the enormity of some
problem, or to memorize some maxim.

     The meeting-place buzzed with comments and exclamations.

     "Commune members!" The team leader lowered her voice  again.    "many,
many  strange things have happened in Hibiscus.   Qin Shutian has a special
status as the head of all the Five Categories here.   He's  been  put  over
them.  Just think, how could our cadres give an important task like that to
a Rightist?   It's the duty and right of the poor and lower-middle peasants
to supervise and remould the Five Categories.   But some of our cadres gave
this  right  to a class enemy.   What does this mean,  comrades?   It means
drawing no distinction between the enemy and ourselves - a complete loss of
class stand.   Today our work team has singled out Qin Shutian as a target,
a negative example, and a mirror to show our cadres and Party members which
side they're on!"

     She  then  led them in shouting slogans,  had the Rightist Qin Shutian
marched out and ordered the Five Categories and their families to leave.

     By way of conclusion Team Leader Li said:

     "Now that the class enemies have left,  I have something to add."  She
smoothed her hair gracefully,  her voice much softer.   "Commune members, a
sharp class struggle,  a complex struggle to the death,  is going to unfold
in Hibiscus.   The work team will plunge into this struggle whole-heartedly
with you.   During the hard years when policies were  relaxed,  some  Party
members,  cadres  and  commune  members made certain mistakes - never mind.
Our policy is: Own up,  pay back what you've embezzled,  and make  a  fresh
start.  What if some people refuse to admit their faults?  They'll be dealt
with according to the law and Party discipline.   Otherwise, the landlords,
rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements and Rightists will get
out of hand with Party members in cahoots with them;  and if our cadres and
the  masses  do  nothing  about  this,  before  long  our  Party  will turn
revisionist, and the landlords and bourgeoisie will seize power again!"



     Yuyin and Guigui went back to the inn completely panic-stricken.  They
realized that their new house was doomed.   Before they had spent a  single
night  there  it  had been the ruin of them.   Even if they were willing to
stay on in this dump,  they no longer had any sense of security.   For what
upset  them  most was the realization that Manager Gu and Secretary Mangeng
were going to be victimized too by  the  team  leader.    Like  clay  idols
fording  a river,  they would hardly be able to save themselves,  let alone
anyone else.

     Trembling with fright Guigui stared, wild-eyed, at his wife.

     Yuyin sat on a bamboo  chair  reflecting  that  if  the  tow  of  them
panicked, their only way out was to hang themselves.

     "I  tell  you  what,  there's  no time to be lost.   They may come any
evening to raid us.   I'll give that money we have left to Brother  Mangeng
to  keep.    Otherwise  it will land us in trouble...."  She spoke in a low
voice, her eyes on their door.

     "Mangeng?   Didn't you hear what he did for Crazy Qin?  ...  The  team
leader  was  gunning  for  him  most  of  the time,  killing the chicken to
frighten the monkey...."

     "Never mind.   He's in the Party.   At most he'll get  a  bashing  and
write a self-criticism.  What can they do to an ex-PLA man?"

     "We don't want to get other people into trouble."

     "He's my adopted brother.  The only person we can count on."

     "All right.  And let's stop selling beancurd before they take over the
stall.    You'd  better  go  away till all this blows over.   I've got some
distant relatives in Xiuzhou in Guangxi.   We've been out of touch for over
ten years, so nobody here knows about them...."




Party Secretary Mangeng


     Secretary Mangeng's home,  these last few days,  had been the scene of
rows and recriminations.   His strapping wife,  known as  Peppery,  was  an
able-bodied field worker and a capable housekeeper.   The previous year her
husband had talked himself hoarse to  publicize  this  advantages  of  late
marriage  and birth control,  but his wife bred like a rabbit.   Of her six
children, four had survived,  all girls.   Some commune members teased her,
"As  the secretary's wife,  you ought to take the lead in family planning!"
Her arms akimbo she would retort, "Me take the lead?  If I had my way,  I'd
produce a whole squad of militiawomen...."

     The  year that Li Mangeng married he had thought his wife rather crude
with her big hands and feet.   When she rolled up her sleeves and  trouser-
legs  she  showed  all  the  strength of a man.   She couldn't compare with
lovely Hu Yuyin.   The old folk said that beauties were  always  ill-fated.
What would Yuyin's fate be?  He had no way of knowing, not being a fortune-
teller.   But after his wife had given birth to two daughters,  he began to
appreciate her good qualities.   Field work,  house-work,  nursing babies -
nothing tired her or stopped her singing.  Up before it was light, at night
she  snored  as  soundly  as a man or a hefty cow.   Then she had four more
babies,  without even going to the  commune  hospital.    He  came  to  the
conclusion,  "Living  with  a woman like this you know where you are.   She
saves me a lot of worry."  If she had a fault it was her fecundity.

     Peppery seldom made a scene.   But she wasn't too  easy  in  her  mind
about him working outside.  And she was afraid he might be led astray by Hu
Yuyin whom he had taken as his "sister" before their marriage,  because she
was as lovely as a fairy.   Watching carefully for two years she could  see
no  sign  that  they  were  carrying  on.    However,  she didn't relax her
vigilance.   Although she said nothing she made it clear that she  had  her
eye  on  him - he had better watch out.   Sometimes she said half jokingly,
"Have you been up to some dirty business again with that sister  of  yours?
You should have some self-respect."

     "Are you asking for a beating?"

     "I'm just reminding you that your roots are here.   Her husband may be
a sap but his cleaver is sharp!"

     "Stop shitting through your yellow teeth!"

     "You love that bitch's white teeth, don't you?"

     Not until Mangeng raised his fist would she pipe down.

     When they got back from the meeting that evening, Peppery scolded:

     "Party secretary!   Over half the work team leader said was  aimed  at
you!  Did you take that in?"

     His face grim, Mangeng sat down on a bench to twist a tobacco spill.

     "What  are  you  really  up  to  with  that  sister of yours who sells
beancurd?   Why did you lose your class stand with Crazy Qin?    That  team
leader all but named you by name.   What a rum creature she is,  not like a
girl or a married woman either."  Peppery sat herself down on the other end
of the bench.

     "Stop farting,  will you?   Wasn't the stink at the meeting enough for
you!"  Mangeng scowled at his wife.

     "Don't  come the big boss over me!   Why not put up a fight outside if
you're such a fine fellow?"  Peppery was not giving in.

     "Will you lay off?"    Mangeng  rounded  on  her,  his  face  furious.
"Itching for a clout, are you?"

     Peppery  always  had enough sense to back down when he seemed about to
explode.  So although in the last eight years they had often squabbled,  as
he knew that she wouldn't take anything lying down and she knew that he was
the  stronger,  they had seldom come to blows.   Now she sprang up from the
bench, making it tilt and landing Mangeng on the floor.

     "Serves you right!"  crowed Peppery as she slipped into the bedroom.

     He jumped up and chased her to the bedroom door.  "You bitch!   See if
I don't clobber you!"

     She  pulled the door nearly shut.   "Don't you dare!   Who told you to
sit on that side?  You can't blame me for your fall."

     Normally,  whenever she teased him,  he would calm down and lower  his
raised fist.

     But  this  evening  he  could  not calm down.   His wife's remarks had
reminded him of the team leader's challenge: Which side are you on?  Had he
really sided with the landlords,  rich  peasants,  counter-revolutionaries,
bad  elements,  Rightists  and  bourgeoisie?    Or encouraged capitalism by
supporting Sister Yuyin's beancurd stall?  Now that she'd made enough money
to build a new house,  the best in the whole  town,  did  that  mean  she'd
exploited  people  to get rich quick?   Did it make her a new rich peasant?
As for changing Qin Shutian's status from that of Rightist to bad  element,
he  had  announced  this  at  a  mass  meeting  without taking the business
seriously enough,  he hadn't gone through any formal procedures.   Was  the
team  leader  right  in calling a bad element less vicious than a Rightist?
To him,  they were much of a muchness - both poisonous snakes.   And had he
really favoured a class enemy by giving Qin the job of writing slogans?

     The next evening, Peppery had taken a bucket of swill to feed the pigs
as  Mangeng,  just back from a struggle meeting in the commune,  washed his
feet in the doorway,  when Yuyin came anxiously  along  and  handed  him  a
package wrapped in oilpaper.  She told him it was 1,500 yuan, and asked him
to keep it for her.   If he was short of money he could spend some.   Yuyin
looked distraught, not her usual self at all, with tousled hair and wearing
a black gown.   Not even sitting down to rest,  she dashed frantically off,
afraid to let anyone see her.

     As Mangeng knew this money could not be banked,  he followed the local
custom of hiding it in the crack of  a  big  brick  upstairs  without  even
counting  it.    Regarding  money matters,  he and Yuyin trusted each other
implicitly.   And this method of keeping money was no secret in town  -  it
was  common.   Thieves would have to dismantle the walls to find the board.
It was insects and rats that had to be guarded against.

     Mangeng had meant to keep this from his wife,  but she saw the dust on
his  clothes  when  he  came  downstairs,  and  his  refusal  to answer any
questions only increased her suspicions.  She wept and sobbed,  complaining
that  they  had been married all these years,  she had borne four daughters
for him, yet he treated her like a thief....  Mangeng's heart was melted by
her tears, and he felt he could confide in his own wife.

     But there he was wrong.   When he disclosed this secret to her in bed,
Peppery sprang up abruptly.

     "Fine!    You'll  be the ruin of us!   You're asking for trouble,  you
wretch!   I've been a good wife to you but you're bewitched by that tramp!"
She shrieked at him as if possessed by a devil.

     "What's  there  to  scream  about?    Have some self-respect,  woman!"
Mangeng got up to bellow back at her.

     "What's there to scream about!  When you've made me a tortoise's wife!
Tomorrow I'll go and have it out with that bitch!"  Her hair down,  wearing
only thin underclothes,  Peppery pounded her thighs as she wept and stormed
at him.

     "Will you shut up?   You bitch!   I consult you and you carry on as if
the  sky  were  falling,  our family finished!"  Mangeng's eyes were nearly
popping out of his head,  but he tried to control his  anger  for  fear  of
rousing the neighbours and causing a scandal.

     "Tell  me  straight,  what's that bitch Hu Yuyin to you?   Is she your
wife or am I?  I'm sick of the way you've ogled each other for years."

     "I'll stop your stinking mouth,  damn  you!    I've  done  nothing  to
deserve being spattered with filth like this."

     "Go ahead!   Clobber me!  The mother of your four daughters - you want
to ditch me!   I'm not fresh and tasty like her.   All right,  beat  me  to
death, then you can take a new wife."

     Peppery butted his chest with her head,  ramming him against the wall.
Unable to shove her away,  Mangeng quivered with fury,  his  eyes  flashing
fire.

     "Heaven  strike you dead!   Hiding loot for your fancy woman!   Do you
want this family or not?   What did the  team  leader  say  at  yesterday's
meeting?   Do you want to land me and the kids in trouble too?  You hand in
that money,  or you'll be the death of us all!....   Heavens,  she's stolen
your  heart away!   You'd wrap her sweat rag round your neck!   I'll report
you to the work team, see if I don't,  and get them to send militia here to
search!"

     Thwack!   Peppery was knocked to the ground.   Beside himself, Mangeng
had hit her so hard that she lay limply in one corner.   For fear she would
get up and make a fresh scene, he pinned her down with his knee.

     "Will  you  stop  bitching?    Raising  such a row at this hour of the
night!  Who wears the pants in this family, eh?  Want me to knock you dead?
Anyway I've nothing to live for."

     In desperation Mangeng punched his own head.

     Peppery lay on the floor,  blood oozing from her lips,  her nose black
and swollen.  But at least she was frightened into keeping quiet.

     By now the four children had woken and run in crying.

     Their  daughters'  cries  acted  like  some  magic  cure  for madness.
Mangeng at once let his wife go.   She scrambled up and  grabbed  for  some
clothes, ashamed to let the little girls see her half-naked.

     Dogs were barking outside.   Their neighbours had been aroused.   They
came over now to make peace.   Tapping  on  the  windows  and  doors,  they
called, "Secretary!  Sister-in-law!"



     After this intervention the storm subsided.   They shut their door and
went back to bed again.   Peppery ignored her husband,  turning her face to
the wall.  She had stopped crying, but Mangeng sobbed to himself:

     "Heavens ... how are we to get by! ...  These people are like mad dogs
out for blood.  They've no conscience, they've hardened their hearts.  Poor
thing  ...   I never let you down,  did what I thought right ...  you can't
treat people like cattle....   But I doubt if I can get by in this movement
myself....  If you don't trample on others they trample on you - that's the
only way to get on nowadays...."

     There  is  something fearful about a grown man weeping.   This was the
first time in his thirty-odd years that Mangeng had sobbed like this.   His
wife  was  aghast.   But her resentment still rankled.   When she heard him
sobbing more and more bitterly, she sat up to reason with him.  However big
a fool he'd made of himself, he was still her man.

     "What's the idea!   You knock me down and trample on me as if  I  were
one  of  the  Five  Categories - isn't that enough to work off your hatred?
Have you no conscience?   However ugly or low-class I  am,  I'm  your  wife
who's slaved for you,  borne you six children.  I'm your four daughters' ma
- yet you knocked me down,  give me black eyes ...  kneel on my  breast....
Oh, why ever was I born?  Life isn't worth living!"

     She  had meant to talk him round,  but instead her resentment surfaced
again, making her feel so sorry for herself that now she too began sobbing.
She pinched Mangeng's shoulder hard.

     "A dog must have eaten your conscience....  I flew off the handle too,
I shouldn't have cursed you.   You have no feeling for me,  none at  all...
but I feel for you,  you wretch....  You ought to know, when I swear at you
I love you....  If you've no feeling for your ugly wife,  you ought to have
some for your sweet little girls...."  This outburst had been punctuated by
sobs.

     Mangeng's heart softened.   Tears pouring down his cheeks, he took his
wife in his arms.  Yes, this woman,  these four children and this home were
his.  He and his wife had worked hard for eight years like magpies building
their nest twig by twig.

     Peppery's  heart  softened  too.    She knelt in front of her husband,
placing his hands on her heart.

     "Mangeng,  you  take  my  advice....    You're  Party  secretary,  you
understand  the policy in this movement,  what's meant by a struggle to the
death....   We mustn't die,  we must live on....   You can't wrap  fire  in
paper - the truth will out.  You mustn't keep that money....  Remember Land
Reform,  when  those  people who hid gold and silver for the landlords were
beaten half to death and had to wear tall hats....   Turn it in to the work
team.    If  you  don't,  someone else will blab....   It's not as if we're
selling her out....  we aren't.  She has only herself to blame.  In our new
society, everybody should get rich together or be poor together, instead of
trying to feather their own nests the way she has...."

     Mangeng held his wife close.   He was  still  weeping  inwardly.    He
seemed  to  have  said  goodbye to his original self,  for that old Mangeng
would never have passed the test of this "life and death" struggle.




Manager Gu


     A notice came down from the  Organization  Department  of  the  county
committee  and the County Grain Bureau:  "As Manager Gu Yanshan of Hibiscus
Grain Depot has lost his class stand and stolen state grain  to  sell,  his
case  is  extremely serious;  he must be suspended from his post at once to
make a self-examination and write a confession."  This notice was read  out
by  the work team at a meeting of all members of the grain depot except for
Gu Yanshan.   This was a real bolt from the blue.    Gu,  confined  to  his
bedroom upstairs,  lost all freedom of action.  The work team appointed two
activists to guard his door day and night for fear,  or so they said,  that
he  might  commit  suicide.   At first he could not believe his own ears or
eyes but thought he was having a ridiculous  nightmare.    It  couldn't  be
true!  It was like a play or film produced by a man who had never been near
the  front,  never  been to a village - you could see at a glance how bogus
the whole thing was.   Once he had seen a war film in which the  instructor
stood  facing  the  enemy  line and yelled,  "Comrades,  for motherland and
people, for all our oppressed class brothers throughout the world, charge!"
Heavens,  who had time to speechify on a battlefield?   Presenting yourself
as a target!   How bogus,  ridiculous and maddening.  But this order to him
to stop work and write a confession was genuine.   He wasn't deaf or blind,
he  wasn't  dreaming.   And so this "soldier from the north",  known to all
Hibiscus for his good temper and decency, was roused from his stupefaction.
He blew his top, pounded the table, chairs and partition.

     "Work team!" he bellowed.  "Who do you think you are!   You've sent in
false  reports to the county committee!   Li Guoxiang,  you creep,  at last
you've torn off your mask!   To my  face  you  call  me  old  comrade,  old
revolutionary,  then suddenly you stab me in the back.  In the war years we
launched surprise attacks against the Japs and Old Chiang; but you, you use
this tactic against comrades....   While we fought  tunnel  warfare,  under
fire,  you  were  still  wetting  your  nappies!   To win New China,  blood
streamed and corpses piled up,  yet now you're attacking people  right  and
left, not letting anybody live in peace...."

     Gu Yanshan tugged and kicked at the door, but it was padlocked outside
- no doubt because his attitude was so bad.  The two activists ignored him,
smoking and chatting as they stood guard with their guns.   Maybe guns that
Old Gu and his comrades-in-arms had captured from the Japanese.

     "Hey,  you watch-dogs!   Open up!   Open the door.   I'll teach you to
take aim and fire....   Why lock me in?   What sort of lock-up is this?  If
I'm to go to prison I'll go to the county, I refuse to stay in this private
lock-up of yours!"

     No one paid attention.   They were letting  him  off  lightly  by  not
handcuffing  him.    Struggle is ruthless,  with no room for such bourgeois
weaknesses as human-kindness.   Eventually he tired,  his throat hoarse and
dry.   Then, having drunk a cup of icy water, he flopped down with his back
against the door and dozed off.   He woke up in the middle  of  the  night,
freezing.  It was too dark to see a thing.  He groped his way to the bed to
wrap  a  blanket  round  himself,  then paced to and fro like a besieged or
captured general.  His mind seemed clear enough now to start assessing what
had happened.   At once he felt rather remorseful.   How disgraceful for  a
Communist,  a veteran soldier,  to carry on like an old woman, pounding the
door and disturbing the whole street because of a bit  of  injustice.    Gu
Yanshan,  Gu  Yanshan,  it's  twenty years since you joined the revolution,
joined the Party - can't you stand a little test?   You think in peace-time
everything is plain sailing,  with never a cloud in the sky, never a storm?
You were only a platoon leader when you  were  demobbed  to  work  here,  a
piddling little cadre....   Then some notions which he normally suppressed,
being afraid to admit them,  flashed to his mind.   You served in the North
China Field Army under Commander Peng Dehuai.  Well, Commander Peng, one of
the  founders of the state,  just because he spoke up for the people in '59
in Lushan and came out against  everybody  smelting  steel  and  eating  in
communal  canteens,  was sacked from his post,  stripped of his uniform and
labelled a rightist opportunist.   Everyone knew that was  unjust,  it  was
wrong  to  criticize  and  struggle against him - the last thing the people
wanted.   Then our country had three hard  years,  stopped  the  nationwide
smelting of steel,  stopped sending up boastful sputniks, stopped eating in
communal canteens,  taking his advice after all....    But  what  was  this
present movement?   The people had just caught their breath, production was
just picking up,  life improving a bit,  yet here they were settling scores
for the relaxation of policies during the hard years, which they now called
a  "rightist deviation".   They were tearing down the bridge after crossing
the river, turning against their friends....  Commander Peng, Gu Yanshan is
nobody compared with you.  The manager of a grain depot in a small town, an
ordinary "soldier from the north", and they've just made me stop working to
think over my mistakes.   They haven't clapped me in prison  or  handcuffed
me.   How fantastic,  a Communist in a Party prison!   What rubbish....  Of
course Gu knew this way of thinking was very,  very dangerous.   If  people
found out he'd be for it, he'd really land up in gaol.

     Gu  Yanshan's  morale  fluctuated  and he kept changing his mind.   He
could make no sense of this struggle in which he was involved.    Commander
Peng,  actuated by a sense of justice, had spoken out for the people.  When
had he,  Gu Yanshan,  ever thought about or discussed the government?    He
wasn't up to that,  not by a long chalk.   He had always been loyal,  doing
what the Party said.   He was just a decent fellow in the Wuling Mountains,
an  ordinary,  insignificant  nobody....      How  come  this revolutionary
struggle had to burst out in their own ranks and start by annihilating  its
own fighters?   A "life-and-death" struggle,  how appallingly grim!  Had he
really let the Party and revolution down?   "Stolen state grain to sell"  -
maybe  that  referred  to  the  sixty pounds of seconds he'd sold to Sister
Hibiscus for her beancurd....   What a fool he was!   This was as clear  as
day to everyone in town, but it had taken him three days to figure it out.

     After grasping this he felt easier in his mind.   It wasn't as serious
as the work team or the notice from the county made out.   These  last  few
years  plenty  of  organizations  as well as individuals had bought seconds
from the grain depot to feed pigs, poultry or rabbits.  Of course, maybe he
shouldn't have supplied Hu Yuyin with any....   Hell,  what gave  him  that
idea?  ...   Honestly,  though no womanizer and known by the whole town for
his decency,  he had taken a fancy to Yuyin,  to her smiling face  and  big
eyes  with  such  black  pupils and clear whites.   He liked to hear voice.
When he sat by her beancurd stall he felt at  home.    Was  that  a  crime?
Deprived a woman's warmth, couldn't he have a warm place in his heart for a
woman?    This was nothing immoral,  didn't affect her marriage;  so he had
decided to help Sister Hibiscus.   Did  those  rice  seconds  undergo  some
qualitative  change  when  made into beancurd?   Was that what made this so
wrong?

     Little by little he calmed  down.    He  knew  he  would  be  detained
upstairs for a couple of months to "think over his mistakes",  watched even
when he peed.   It was hard to get through the  time.    Previously,  first
thing in the morning,  he had swept the street in front of the grain depot,
joking with the commune members off to the fields, hugging every child with
a satchel.  In the evening he had the habit of strolling down the street to
pass the time, stopping at the door of some shop for a chat.   sometimes he
would  be  dragged  in  to  drink a cup of sweet-potato liquor and eat some
fried peanuts,  and they would have a good yarn about past and  present....
Now he was denied these diversions.  The street was so near yet so far!



     Five  days  after  Gu  was  suspended  to make a self-examination,  Li
Guoxiang came upstairs to explain the policy to him.

     "Been feeling rather tense these days,  Old Gu?"  she  asked  sweetly.
"Ah,  we respected you as an old comrade and wanted to learn from you,  not
realizing how serious your problem was.   The county committee may be using
it  as  an example in this movement!"  Gu always felt that her golden voice
was wasted in Hibiscus and she ought to  have  been  an  announcer  in  the
county broadcasting station.

     He  nodded  coolly  at  her.    His  attitude to the team leader was a
mixture of contempt, admiration and pity.  But now, representing the county
committee,  she held the fate of Hibiscus in her hands,  including his  own
fate.    The higher-ups respected her for her ability.   At big meetings or
small or when chatting,  phrases like "Marxism-Leninism",  "class struggle"
and  "the  Four Clean-ups" kept pouring from her lips.   She could talk for
hours at a stretch without drinking a drop of water or ever once  coughing,
as if she had been to a college to learn revolutionary terminology.

     "Well?  What have you been thinking these days?  No matter how serious
the problem, if you make a clean breast of it to the Party it won't be hard
to clear up.   And as far as I'm concerned, the earlier you take this bath,
the earlier you can 'come downstairs' and join the revolutionary masses  in
this  great  movement  to  re-educate our Party members and cadres,  and to
reorganize our class contingents."  To show her sincerity  and  touch  this
"soldier  from  the  north",  Li  Guoxiang added,  "See,  I made a point of
talking to you alone, without the other members of the work team.  At least
I have no prejudice against you."

     Gu Yanshan, untouched by her sincerity, shot her a glance which seemed
to imply:  You can say whatever you like, don't expect me to agree.

     Apparently sensing his antagonism,  she decided to needle  him.    She
produced  her  notebook  and  leafed  through  it slowly till she reached a
certain page.  Her expression sterner, she said formally:

     "Listen,  Gu Yanshan,  to the figures in this account.   The work team
has established that in the two years and nine months since the second half
of  1961,  Hibiscus  has  had  six markets a month,  making one hundred and
ninety-eight in all.   Before each,  you sold sixty pounds of rice  to  the
pedlar Hu Yuyin,  a new bourgeois element,  to make beancurd.   That totals
11,880 pounds of rice -right?"

     "Over ten thousand pounds!"  Sure enough,  Gu sprang to his feet as if
struck by lightning.  He had never figured this out.

     "A sizable amount, eh?"  Her eyes glinted.  She seemed to be gloating:
See, I goad you once and up you jump.  You're easy to handle.

     "Those  were  seconds,  not  the good rice from the state storehouse,"
protested Old Gu loudly and indignantly.

     "Never mind that.   As manager of  the  grain  depot  you  issued  ten
thousand pounds,  didn't you?   Did you grow that rice?  Wasn't it from the
storehouse?   Did you report this to the county?   Who  gave  you  so  much
authority?"    Li  Guoxiang  sat  there  motionless  as she fired off these
questions.

     "Seconds are seconds, rice is rice.   I sold it to her at the official
price,  to  other  units and individuals too.   You can check our accounts.
Didn't make a cent extra profit."

     "So clean you didn't make a cent?   Well,  maybe.   But a bachelor has
his  way  of being paid...."  she prompted him.   She was watching him with
secret pleasure like a hunter watching a goat fall into his trap.   "Surely
you don't need the work team to remind you."

     "What way has a bachelor of being paid?"

     "That beancurd pedlar's the beauty of HIbiscus.   Her flesh is so soft
and white!"

     "What a thing for a woman to say!"

     "Don't give me that talk.   What cat doesn't like salted fish?    It's
not too late yet for you to come clean.   When did your relationship start?
This is up her street, wasn't her mother a prostitute?"

     "You think we had an affair?"  Gu,  his eyes nearly popping out,  fell
back two paces.

     "Well?" Li Guoxiang tilted her head coquettishly.

     "Team  Leader  Li!   How could I have it off with her?   How could I?"
The veins on Gu's forehead stood out,  as he backed against the wall.   "Li
Guoxiang!    Call  in  your colleagues,  and I'll take off my pants to show
them....  Hell, that was a slip of the tongue...."

     "Gu Yanshan,  you hoodlum!"  She rapped the desk and stood up,  as  if
she had lost patience.   Eyes dilated, eyebrows raised, she looked furious.
"Taking such liberties with me!  An old bachelor!   So you want to take off
your  pants.    I'll  call  the  whole town to a meeting and let you expose
yourself to everyone!  Insulting the work team!  Remember who you are!"

     "I, I forgot myself, you pushed me so hard....   I take that back...."
Old  Gu  was  an honest fellow with little experience of struggle,  so that
when anyone had a handle against him he quickly backed down.    He  covered
his face with his hands.   "I've done other wrong things,  but this I can't
do.  I'm impotent, dammit...."

     "Tell the truth,  that's better."  She was amazed and intrigued by his
disclosure,  delighted at having won a moral victory over him.   "Sit down,
Old Gu.   Let's both sit down.   Keep calm.   I haven't lost my temper with
you.   You've done wrong, so how can you take that attitude?  Our work team
sticks to the Party policy, penalizing cadres to make them mend their ways,
curing illness to save the patient.   The only people we attack mercilessly
are those dead against the movement...."

     With  that  she went back to the desk and sat down.   Old Gu also went
back to his seat.  He felt limp and utterly wretched.

     At this point the two activists poked their heads round the door,  but
Li Guoxiang waved them away.

     "To  repeat what I said before,  Old Gu.   You can clear everything up
with the work team, and I can tell the county committee I'll be responsible
for  you."    She  was  chatting  pleasantly  again  in  a  fresh  bout  of
psychological  warfare,  meaning  to strike while the iron was hot so as to
crush once for all this popular leading figure in Hibiscus.   "Your problem
goes far beyond this,  and may be much more serious than we think.  Even if
you've  not  had  an  affair  with  Hu  Yuyin,  you're  involved  with  her
financially  and ideologically.   You used ten thousand pounds of seconds -
if they were seconds  -  to  help  her  give  up  farming  and  go  in  for
capitalist-style  trading.    Hers  is the biggest newly rich family in all
Hibiscus.   She's not a simple  woman.    what's  her  relationship  to  Li
Mangeng?    They  call themselves brother and sister,  but Li Mangeng isn't
impotent like you,  is he?   You know,  Hu Yuyin for all her fine looks  is
barren.  Li Mangeng has given her political protection to make huge profits
all this time in Hibiscus.  And what's the relationship between him and Qin
Shutian?    Between  Qin  Shutian  and Hu Yuyin?   Between her and that tax
officer from a bureaucrat landlord family?   We've checked up that the tax-
office only collected a dollar's tax from Hu Yuyin for each market,  though
her turnover was more than three hundred yuan.   What does that mean?    So
for  a  long time you people,  inside and outside the Party,  have actually
been in cahoots,  making use of each other and ganging up together  to  run
Hibiscus.  In fact, you're a clique."

     Here Li Guoxiang paused.

     Gu's forehead was beaded with sweat.  "Clique!  What clique!  That's a
dirty lie, a frame-up."

     "What,  afraid?  You can't deny it."  Li Guoxiang raised her voice and
spoke sternly.  "Of course, if you all admit it and make a clean breast, we
may not classify you  as  a  clique.    Three  feet  of  ice  isn't  formed
overnight!   Last year some of the revolutionary masses reported you to the
county committee....  The work team can recommend not dealing with you like
a clique - but that depends largely on  your  own  attitude.    Hu  Yuyin's
attitude is bad,  she's run away in fright.  But we've arrested her husband
Li Guigui for questioning....  Old Gu, you're known in town as a good sort,
a peace-maker;  people all look up to you,  so you'd better give  the  lead
while   the  way's  still  open.     Otherwise  the  consequences  will  be
serious...."

     How well-meaning she sounded, showing such great forbearance.

     "Heavens, I'll stake my head on it, there's no clique in Hibiscus."

     Gu Yanshan seemed suddenly to have aged ten years.  His whole body was
wet with cold sweat.




The Young Widow


     Yuyin stayed  for  two  months  with  Guigui's  distant  relatives  in
Xiuzhou,  waiting  for the trouble in Hibiscus to blow over.   "Keep out of
harm's way" was  the  common  people's  motto  for  coping  with  disaster.
However,  "A monk can run away, but not a monastery," and certain disasters
are unavoidable.   Especially as in the new society each  policy  prevailed
throughout  the  country,  and  no  matter  how  far  you fled you could be
recalled by telephone or telegram.

     For  two  months  Yuyin  had  been  thinking  day  and  night  of  her
"monastery"  in  Hibiscus.    She  had received one encouraging letter from
Guigui,  telling her that the movement was in full swing there and all  the
Five Categories had been rounded up and harangued, then paraded in front of
a  demonstration of the townsfolk.   All the former cadres had disappeared,
everything was now run by the work team.  The tax-officer from a bureaucrat
landlord family had been criticized and struggled against.  The militia had
raided several households,  and his cleaver had been confiscated.   So much
the better,  it was a lethal weapon....   It was said that in this movement
people were going to be reclassified.   He ended up by insisting  that  she
should stay away, and on no account write.

     How  useless  Guigui was,  not saying a word about his situation apart
from the confiscation of his cleaver.   Yuyin could  only  guess  what  was
happening.    He said the cadres had disappeared - did that mean Manager Gu
and Brother Mangeng?   Which houses had been raided?   Their  new  storeyed
building?    In  the  reclassification  would  they  be  given  a new class
status?...  Oh,  Guigui,  how thoughtless of you not to write more clearly.
That was the only letter she had from him.   Had Guigui been arrested?  The
more she speculated,  the more her heart misgave her.   she was like a  hen
cooped  up  after a guest's arrival,  conscious of some impending calamity.
Just what calamity,  no one had told her.   Would she be put  in  the  Five
Categories,  the  scum  of the earth,  those ragged,  grimy devils who were
pelted with pebbles  and  clods  by  schoolchildren,  hauled  out  in  each
movement  or  struggle  for the revolutionary masses to spit at,  curse and
beat?...

     Heavens, if she sank so low, how could she live on?  Impossible!   She
had never done anything wrong,  never said anything reactionary or sworn at
the cadres.   To her Manager Gu and Brother Mangeng had seemed like her own
family.    How  could a beancurd pedlar hate the new society which had done
her no harm?   After Liberation there were no more bandits  or  kidnappers,
men  no  longer  gambled,  played cards or took concubines;  everyone could
sleep soundly at night.  It was good,  the new society.   If not for it,  a
poor girl with her looks would long ago have been kidnapped and carried off
to some brothel....   No,  it was the Five Categories who were bad,  black-
hearted wretches.  How could she be lumped together with such scum?

     At this time word went round the county town of Xiuzhou  that  a  work
team would be coming to launch another movement like land reform.   Indeed,
people had called to ask her relatives,  "Where is this sister-in-law from?
What's  her class?   How long has she been staying here?   Has she a letter
vouching for her from her commune?"  She had too much tack,  too much self-
respect  to  outstay  her  welcome  and  involve  her hosts.   "There is no
escaping disaster."  She decided to ignore Guigui's advice and go  back  to
Hibiscus.   Indeed,  she should have realized earlier that now of all times
she ought to be with her husband, ought to share whatever fate was in store
for them.   she wanted to be buried in the same grave as Guigui.   It's too
bad  of  you,  Yuyin!    How  cruel  of  you  to  neglect him for two whole
months....  Hurry now!  Hurry!

     She walked from dawn till dusk, urging herself,  "Hurry,  hurry!"  All
she  was carrying was a brown satchel with a change of clothes and a torch.
She had tow snacks on the way,  one of rice fried with eggs,  the other  of
two  bowls  of beancurd.   Too much soda in the beancurd had made it rather
yellow.   It wasn't as white and soft as hers,  nor served with as much oil
and  flavouring.    And the white-aproned woman attendant behaved as if she
were dishing out charity,  not laughing  and  joking  with  her  customers.
Yuyin's customers, when they put down their bowls to leave, would say, "I'm
off now, sister.  See you at the next market."  "So long then.  Keep out of
mischief on the way, your wife's watching out for you."

     She reached Hibiscus at nightfall.

     "Who's  there?"    A man with a gun stepped out of the darkness.   She
knew him,  he was a young fellow from the rice mill.   When she had gone to
the  grain  depot to buy seconds,  powdered with white from head to foot he
used to beg jokingly:

     "Elder sister, by my go-between.  A bachelor's life is hard."

     "What kind of wife do you want?"

     "One as white and pretty as you, with big eyes and arched eyebrows."

     "You wretch!  I'll find you a bitch."

     "I want one with a willowy waist and high breast like yours."

     "Get away with you, you clod....  I'll call your Manager Gu."

     "How cruel you are, sister!"

     "Scram!  Your parents died too soon to teach you manners."

     Well,  it seemed the movement was still going on in Hibiscus,  so  men
stood guard at night and even this young rascal could carry a gun.

     "It's you,  eh?   Come back on your own?"  He recognized her,  but his
harsh voice was like the crack of a whip.   Then,  ignoring her,  he walked
aside  with  his  gun.    Normally  he would have clowned and cracked crude
jokes.

     "Come back on your own?"  Her heart missed a  beat.    What  did  that
mean?    If  she  hadn't  come,  would  they have sent to arrest her?   She
virtually ran into the flagstone street.   The  shutters  were  up  on  the
shops,  but she couldn't make out what the slogans which covered them were.
In front of her inn she stumbled and nearly fell.   On the door was the old
brass padlock,  so Guigui was out.   The padlock at least was familiar,  it
was the one left by her dad and mum.  She took a deep breath.   But what of
the  new  storeyed building next door?   What were those strips of white on
the gate?   Two of them formed a cross.   So evidently their  house  hadn't
simply been raided,  it had been sealed up.  She fumbled in her satchel for
her torch and shone it on the red  gate.    On  it  was  nailed  a  notice:
Exhibition of the Class Struggle in Hibiscus.   So her house had been taken
over as an exhibition hall?   Guigui hadn't said a word about this  in  his
letter....    Guigui,  you good-for-nothing,  where have you got to at this
hour of the night?  Your wife's back, but instead of coming to meet her you
leave the gate locked.

     She knew it was no use searching for Guigui, she'd get no sense out of
him.  She decided to go and see Manager Gu Yanshan.   He was a true friend,
fair-minded,  glad to help people.   The only old revolutionary in town, he
had prestige and his words carried weight....   She glided noiselessly down
the flagstone street, as if about to take flight.  The grain depot's  front
gate was locked but the small side gate was open.  When the gateman saw her
he recoiled as if at the sight of a ghost....   Why was that?   In the past
people meeting her in the street, the men especially,  had always smiled at
her....

     "Can  you  tell  me,  uncle,  if  Manager  Gu is in?"  She ignored his
strange look in her eagerness to find Old Gu.

     "Woman Hu,  are looking for Old Gu?"  The gatekeeper  turned  to  peer
inside,  then peeked out at the road.  Seeing no one about he said gruffly,
"It's no use looking for Old Gu,  you've got him into big  trouble.    He's
said  to  have  stolen  ten  thousand  pounds of state grain and sold it to
encourage capitalism....   He's too closely watched day and night  to  even
find a belt to hang himself, poor sod...."

     Yuyin's heart contracted....   What, Old Gu under house arrest.... she
could never have dreamed it.   To her Old Gu represented the  new  society,
the government,  the Party.   But now he was locked up.   What could such a
decent,  kindly man have done wrong?   Men like him had shed their blood to
win New China, how could they be against the new regime?

     She  went  back to the flagstone street.   Looking up she saw that the
light was still on in Manager  Gu's  room  upstairs.    She  stared  at  it
unblinkingly.   Was Old Gu writing confessions under the lamp, or trying to
think of a way to outwit his guards and commit  suicide?    He  mustn't  do
that.    Old Gu,  don't take it too hard,  someone must have thrown dirt at
you.   All the people of Hibiscus can vouch for you to the county  and  the
province.   We'll send in a petition.   Every man,  woman and child in town
knows that you've never done anything wrong,  you're such  a  decent  sort.
For  a  moment  Yuyin forgot her own fearful predicament in her indignation
and concern for Old Gu.

     Ah, now she remembered,  over three months ago Li Guoxiang the head of
the  work  team  had gone to her new storeyed house and sat upstairs in the
newly furnished room to do some reckoning for her.   According to  her,  in
two  years  and  nine months she'd made over six thousand yuan from selling
beancurd, and someone had supplied her with ten thousand pounds of rice....
That must be why Old Gu was being kept a prisoner.   Well,  she was the one
to blame,  the one who had made money - why blame Old Gu?   And some of the
proceeds from her sale of beancurd were in Brother Mangeng's keeping.

     She must find Brother Mangeng.   Most likely he was still in charge of
Hibiscus.    He'd acknowledged her as his sister,  so he would protect her.
He was even closer to her than a real brother....  Yuyin made off at a run.
for all her confusion she wasn't completely at sea.   And her steps were so
light  and noiseless she seemed to be flying....   Ah Brother Mangeng,  you
couldn't marry me....  a Party member couldn't take a wife like  me...  but
you held me in your arms and kissed me on the wharf.  Held me so tight that
it  hurt,  and  swore  to  look after me as long as you lived....   Brother
Mangeng,  that stone slab on the wharf is still there....   I  know  you'll
look after me.  Brother Mangeng, you must save me, save your sister....

     She  had  no  idea  how  she  ferried  across the river or climbed the
opposite bank....  She knocked at Mangeng's gate.  She had seldom been into
his house but she knew it well.   Hefty Peppery came out to open the  door.
But  she  was  taken aback when she saw her.   The women in town had always
stared at her with envious admiration.   Women tended to be jealous.    But
how was it that now everyone in town,  men and women, old and young, looked
at her as if she were a ghost or jinx?

     "Is Brother Mangeng at home?"  she  asked.    Never  mind  his  wife's
expression, she must find the man who loved her and had promised to protect
her.

     "Please  don't  ever  come looking for him again!   You nearly did for
him,  for our whole family....   The kids and I nearly got tarred with  the
same brush....  Now the high-ups have sent him to the county town to make a
self-examination and study.   Off he went with his bedding-roll....   I can
tell you, someone let on about that one thousand five hundred yuan you gave
him, and he handed it over to the work team...."

     "Oh ... men ...  Heavens, how can men be so heartless...."

     Yuyin felt deafened and dizzy,  as if after a clap of  thunder.    She
staggered and nearly fell.

     "Men?    That  man of yours had a nerve!   Threatened to kill the work
team head.  He's in the graveyard now!"

     With that Peppery slammed the gate shut as if shooing away  a  beggar.
A big, solid gate it was.

     Yuyin  wanted  to  sink  into the ground....   But she couldn't die at
their gate like a real beggar.  She bore up,  surprised by her own stamina,
then walked off, her steps light and noiseless, as if about to take flight.

     "Where are you, Guigui?  Peppery said you wanted to kill the work team
head, but you never would - you haven't the guts.  If you meet a shaggy dog
or a cow with a crooked horn,  you dodge in fright....   No, you'd never do
such a thing.   Guigui,  you're the only dear one I have left in the  whole
world.   Why hide yourself away in the graveyard?   What are you up to, you
idiot?   That's where all the townsfolk are buried and no one dares  to  go
there  even by daylight,  so why is a scared-cat like you skulking there in
the dark?"

     Her thoughts were in a whirl ...  yet suddenly she had a  premonition.
Oh, Guigui, dear Guigui, don't tell me you've ... no, you couldn't.  Surely
you must have waited to see me again....

     She  was  crying aloud as she raced along the rough track,  running as
fast as her legs would carry her,  yet not falling.   What a fool she  was,
crying and shouting,  so worked up over nothing.   Isn't that Guigui?  He's
come ... yes, it's Guigui, my Guigui! ...

     When Guigui was just twenty-two, Yuyin just eighteen,  and old butcher
had  acted as their go-between.   The first time she set eyes on him he was
tall and lean,  with fine features and a ruddy face,  so shy that he wanted
to  hide  behind  the  door....    Her  dad and mum had said:  His trade is
butchering,  good!   To start with she'd been silly enough to  compare  him
with Brother Mangeng,  and of course Guigui didn't measure up to him.   So,
resenting this, Yuyin had cold-shouldered him.  She hung her head, pouting,
inwardly cursing his gall.   But Guigui was an honest fellow.   Without  so
much as a murmur he had come to the inn every day to fetch them water, chop
firewood  and  sweep  the  floor.   He mended the roof when it leaked,  and
washed their mosquito nets and quilts in the river.   Every day he came  to
help  out  quickly and efficiently with the chores,  then took himself off,
not letting her parents persuade him to stay for a meal or even a drink  of
tea....    The neighbours said Innkeeper Hu must have done good deeds in an
earlier life to have found himself such an honest son-in-law.    They  said
Yuyin  was  in  luck,  getting such a husband to come and live in her home.
Most likely she could leave all the housework to him and  live  a  pampered
life....   Oddly enough, the more she disliked this Guigui, the more highly
everybody spoke of him.   And he seemed to be bursting with energy just  to
impress  her.   Later on,  like a busy beaver,  he even took to washing her
clothes, shoes and stockings on the sly.  All right,  wash them if you want
to!    You  can  wash  them  all your life if you're so hardworking.   I'll
pretend not to see and pay no attention to you.

     For half a year or so her attitude to him  had  been  one  of  guarded
neutrality.   But then by degrees,  devil take it,  it dawned on Yuyin that
Guigui was handsome, good-tempered and well-mannered.  She took a liking to
him,  coming to appreciate his good qualities.   So  it  irked  her  if  he
happened not to come to the inn for a day,  and she would keep going to the
gate to look out for him....   That pleased her dad and mum and made  their
neighbours  exchange  significant smiles.   Why?   Because Guigui had taken
Mangeng's place in her heart.  Besides,  Mangeng was married now to a woman
as strong as he was,  an amazon capable of killing a tiger.   Why shouldn't
Guigui compare favourably with him?   Guigui  was  her  man,  her  husband.
There was nothing wrong with him.   He was hardworking,  handy,  kindly and
soft-spoken.   They had a  magnificent,  truly  stylist  wedding  at  which
actresses  lovely  as  fairies  from the the county song-and-dance ensemble
performed and sang wedding songs all evening.   Later  some  of  the  older
women  in  Hibiscus said that not even the rich men for a hundred li around
had ever put on such an impressive wedding....

     Gusts of wind flattened the grass and bent the trees as  Yuyin  rushed
recklessly forward....

     Guigui was beside her,  talking to her and keeping her company....  Do
you remember,  Guigui?   On our wedding night those lovely actresses pushed
us into the bridal chamber,  then went away.   We were both tired out after
all that dancing and singing.  You were red in the face, you fool,  hanging
your head,  afraid even to glance at me.  You went to bed without daring to
get undressed.   I didn't know whether to laugh or to be angry.   Why,  you
were as bashful as a bride....  Did you think I wasn't shy?  You were shyer
than  I  was,  you  fool.    I  suddenly felt you were more like my younger
brother than my husband.   (My,  at that time the word  "husband"  made  my
cheeks  burn,  my  heart  beat  fast.)  I didn't think a man like you would
swear at me or be unkind and beat me.  I thought you'd do what I wanted....
That night we both slept in our clothes,  didn't touch  each  other.    How
laughable it seems now.  The next morning you got up before it was light to
fetch  water,  get the breakfast and sweep up the shells of melon seeds and
peanuts littering the hall.  I didn't know that,  I was still sound asleep.
Oh,  Guigui,  I'm still rather spoilt, first by my dad and mum, and then by
you....

     "Yes,  Guigui,  I love being spoilt  by  you,  but  you  were  such  a
nincompoop  of  a  bridegroom,  you  were  even  more  bashful than I was -
remember?  The second evening,  a lantern-slide team came to town.   We had
no  films  in  those  days  but  used to watch lantern-slides once a month,
right?   Before Liberation all we had were shadowed Young Erhei's Marriage.
The young couple were really good-looking.   Because they didn't want their
parents to arrange their marriages for them,  they met at night in a  wood,
and  thugs  tied  them up and took them to the district government.   As we
watched I snuggled up to you.   How feudal that was,  marriages arranged by
go-betweens,  and  the village cadres tying young people up.   How lucky we
were to have been born in the new society, with no more feudalism,  able to
sit together,  a man and a girl,  without anyone tying us up.   It was very
dark there that night, with not a star in the sky.   I remember,  while you
watched,  you put your arm round my waist.   Then you whipped it away as if
you were afraid of being scalded, till I grabbed it and gently slapped you.
Why not put your arm around me?  I was your wife, you were my husband,  not
any hooligan....  After that you didn't let go....

     "Guigui,  Guigui!    How  well we always get on together,  because you
always do whatever I want.   You call  me  your  commander,  your  empress.
Where did you pick up such silly names?  From watching a few old operas and
new plays?   And I've been good to you too,  never throwing tantrums.   All
those years we've never flared up at each other.   Not that it didn't upset
us being married seven years without having a baby....  How we longed for a
baby,  Guigui!  Without one, we always felt there was something missing, no
matter how fond we were of one another -  it  seemed  as  if  our  marriage
wasn't for keeps.   A baby, flesh of our flesh, would have kept us together
all our lives....   Because of this I often wept behind your back  and  you
often sighed in secret.  Actually we each knew how the other felt, but both
pretended not to....   Later we squabbled over this,  but not loudly enough
for the neighbours to overhear.   In fact you didn't  blame  me,  I  blamed
myself....    Later  I  had the superstitious notion that it was because we
doted so on each other that we couldn't ever  have  children.    We  should
squabble  and  scold each other like other couples....   Oh,  Guigui!   Why
don't you say anything?  You keep frowning, what's upset you?  Do you blame
me for selling beancurd,  for building that new storeyed house which landed
us  in  trouble?    We  quarrelled  over  that,  and  I stabbed you with my
chopsticks because you wanted to sell it at a loss...."

     Yuyin  sped  on  through  the  night,  beside  herself,  her  thoughts
wandering.   All around was dark and she felt dazed.  She couldn't remember
who had ferried her across the river on her way back.  She ran on, as if to
catch up with someone ahead.  "Guigui, wait for me!  Don't be unkind!  Wait
for me!" she cried.   "I've a whole lot of more to tell you.   I want  your
advice on something very important...."

     Someone  seemed  to  be running after her with pounding footsteps.   A
ghost or a man?   She couldn't be bothered to look  in  her  impatience  to
catch up with her husband.  Probably it was a man, ghosts were said to make
no sound.   Why should anyone chase her?   She had no possessions,  nothing
but the tail-end of her life.   Did they have to  criticize  her,  struggle
against her,  tie her up?  I want to be with Guigui, with my Guigui....  If
you catch me and tie me up, I shall bite through the rope....

     At last she climbed up to the graveyard.   People said this place  was
haunted,  but  she  was  not afraid.   There were thousands of grave mounds
here,  where from way back whole generations of townsfolk had been  buried.
They  had all found their final resting-place here,  the good spirits,  the
ghosts of those unjustly killed,  old and young,  good and  evil,  men  and
women, whether bound for heaven or hell.

     "Guigui!  Where are you?  Where are you?"

     It was too dark to make out which of the grave mounds was new or old.

     "Guigui!    Where  are  you?    Answer me!   Your wife's coming to see
you!..."

     Her shrill mournful cries  hung  in  the  air,  overriding  all  other
sounds, like green will-o'-the-wisps in the darkness, and floating out over
the desolate graveyard.   She rushed wildly over the uneven ground.  On the
road she had never once stumbled,  but here she kept falling  down,  hardly
able to scramble up again,  as if she would sleep here among the graves for
ever.

     "Sister Hibiscus!  Stop calling, stop looking for him.  Brother Guigui
can't answer you."

     After a while someone helped her to her feet.

     "Who are you?  Who are you?"

     "Who am I?  Don't you know my voice?"

     "Are you a ghost?"

     "What should I say?  Sometimes a ghost, sometimes a man."

     "You...."

     "I'm Qin Shutian, Crazy Qin."

     "One of the Five Categories!  Scram!  Leave me alone!"

     "I only want to help you,  Sister Hibiscus.   You simply mustn't  take
this too much to heart.  You must take care of yourself, you've still years
to live...."

     "I don't want you here,  don't want your pity.   Pitch dark it is, and
you're a bad lot, a Rightist...."

     "Sister....   Li Guigui was classified as a new rich  peasant.    That
makes you...."

     "You're lying!  What new rich peasant?"

     "It's the truth I'm telling you...."

     "Ha, ha, so I'm the wife of a new rich peasant!  A beancurd pedlar the
wife of a new rich peasant!  Are you trying to scare me, you wretch?"

     "I'm not, I'm telling the truth, not making this up."

     "The truth?"

     "Tortoises don't make fun of turtles,  they're all in the mud.  In the
same fix."

     "Heavens,  a rich peasant's wife....   This is  all  your  doing,  you
wretch....    When  we  married  you  brought  all  those  tramps to oppose
feudalism by singing wedding songs.  You spoilt my luck,  that was the ruin
of  us...."    Yuyin  broke down and sobbed.   "Why did you have to collect
those songs?  Why oppose feudalism?   You ruined yourself for life,  and as
if that wasn't enough you ruined Guigui and me...."

          Candles cast a ghostly light,
          Wax tears from them seeping:
          When the candles go out the tears dry,
          But the girl is hoarse from weeping.
          Candles cast a ghostly light
          As we sing at her wedding;
          We sing of heart-rending grief,
          Of all the tears she's shedding.

     Crazy Qin was really crazy.  He sat on a grave mound singing this song
he  had  written  years  ago  for that poisonous dance-drama of his Wedding
Songs.