On second thought, he wondered whether it was too rash to confront Secretary Yang so soon. He was merely a worker, whereas Yang was the Party boss of Dismount Fort. Would people believe what he said about Yang?
Then he remembered that a few days ago Hsiao Peng had said to him in private, “Bin, cheer up. Don’t be intimidated by them. Our Maintenance supports your exposing them. Yang Chen should be reprimanded for having your letter sent to Liu Shu.” Hsiao’s words convinced Bin that he had grassroots support among his fellow workers. If the County Administration had the case investigated, surely there would be people willing to testify against the leaders.
So he made up his mind to deal with Yang now.
That night, he took out a big brush made of goat’s hair and wrote on a large sheet of paper: “Yang Chen Always Persecutes Me!” After the ink dried, he pasted the writing on a piece of cardboard. With a pair of scissors he poked two holes at the top of the board and attached a red ribbon to it.
To him the five words looked strenuous and elegant, each as big as a brick. Finished with the work, he couldn’t help appreciating his own calligraphy with squinting eyes. His wife and daughter meanwhile were sleeping in the bed near the southern window; Meilan was snoring a little, her face pale and flabby and her nostrils slightly swollen. She was twenty-eight, but already had wrinkles on her forehead and temples. A yellow towel wrapped her permed hair, to keep the curls from being crushed in her sleep. One of her legs stretched out from under the flowery quilt, displaying bluish veins beneath the skin; her foot was shapely, but the toes had ringworm nails. On her sole there was a curved cut, about an inch long, inflicted by a piece of broken glass two days before. The cut seemed to have festered, so Bin moved to the tiny medical cabinet on their oak chest and took out a vial of merbromin. With a cotton ball held at the tips of the scissors, he dabbed the red solution on her wound. The moment he was done, she kicked her foot, moaning faintly, and withdrew her leg under the quilt.
Having returned the vial to the cabinet, he resumed watching his wife and child, whose chubby face was chapped by cold wind. He heaved a sigh and felt ashamed. Logically speaking, with such handsome calligraphy, he should have been a distinguished man, at least in this town. He asked himself, Why am I still a worker if these hands are cut out for brushwork? Why on earth can’t a man like me get a decent place for his family to live? Look at this room, it’s a doghouse, a snail shell.
The more he thought, the worse he felt. I swear, he said to himself, I shall get a good apartment for my family sooner or later! There will be no end of bothering them if they don’t give me one.
Early the next morning, after telling Meilan that he was going to the County Administration to see the designs of some propaganda posters, and that he wouldn’t be late for the second shift, Bin set out for the train station. He cycled with his right hand gripping the handlebar and his left holding the placard, which was wrapped in red paper, so that people might take it to be a framed portrait or a mirror. At the train station, he locked his bicycle to a railing bar on the wooden fence; then he bought a ticket for the eight o’clock train.
Gold County was twenty miles to the west, only an hour’s trip. It’s a remarkable town, with historic and military importance, because it borders on the Yellow Sea and to the south there is a bay which has been used as a navy base for more than a hundred years. The Russians and the Japanese had fought over it, and in turn their fleets had occupied it.
The sun was warm, though it was a chilly day. Trees had shed their leaves, standing naked around the large plaza before Gold County Train Station. On the east, beyond rows of poplars, perched a column of Russian-made self-propelled guns, which apparently had just rolled off a train. Soldiers were sitting on them, eating breakfast and drinking water from canteens. Once in a while, dark smoke was ejected from the rear of one of those guns; the air smelled of diesel. On the north, near the entrance to a boulevard, a crowd gathered at the bus stop, men shouldering parcels and trussed fowls and piglets, and women carrying babies and baskets full of fruits, eggs, and vegetables. Bin went across to join the crowd. Then a bus came. After a good deal of pushing and shoving, he got aboard.
The election had just started when he arrived at the County Administration. The guards at the door of the conference hall didn’t suspect anything when they saw Bin, who looked scholarly, walking in a meditative manner and carrying the placard with his little finger. They thought he must have been on the organizing staff or worked as an assistant to one of the candidates. The object wrapped in red paper must have been a slogan or a picture.
But once in the hall Bin turned into another man. He hastened to the stage, where Secretary Yang, a middle-aged woman, and an old man like a peasant were sitting at a long table. Behind them, in the middle of a lavender screen, hung a giant portrait of Chairman Mao; four pairs of red flags stretched upward from the Great Leader’s shoulders, as though he wore gorgeous wings.
Yang had on a blue Mao suit and a black cap covering his bald crown. He was a beardless man, over fifty, and his soft skin betrayed his career as a civil official who had been well sheltered from the elements. Also on the stage stood a tall young man in wire-framed glasses, presiding over the election. With a microphone in his hand, he was explaining the rules and procedures to the voters, while the hall was still bustling with spitting, chitchatting, sniffling, and the cracking of sunflower seeds.
As he was climbing the short stairs on the right side of the stage, Bin turned to the three hundred people sitting below. He stopped at the edge of the stage, ripped off the red paper, and raised the placard to the audience. All at once the hall was thrown into a turmoil. Many people stood up, some pushing forward to look at the words closely.
“Beautiful handwriting!” one woman said.
“He looks like a scholar, he can’t be a liar.”
“Wow!”
“Who could tell Yang Chen is a demon!”
“Shameless, Yang shouldn’t be there,” a young peasant shouted with both hands around his mouth.
“Get down, Yang Chen!”
“Yang is disqualified.”
On the stage, from where they sat, the three candidates couldn’t see the contents of the placard, so they got up and went over to look. At the sight of the words the woman and the old man smirked, shaking their heads and withdrawing to their seats. But Yang bellowed, “I don’t know this man! It’s slander, pure invention! I swear I don’t know who he is.” His big head jerked about as he stamped his feet; the loudspeakers in the back corners of the hall were broadcasting the thumps made by his white plastic soles.
It was true Yang didn’t know Bin. Naturally, he was protesting that this was a dirty trick some people had devised against him. “I’m framed, framed for nothing!” he kept blustering, his broad mouth twitching and his nose congested. Time and again he glared at the other two candidates.
Bin interrupted him. “I know you. You don’t know me? Didn’t you forward my accusation letter to the leaders of the Harvest Fertilizer Plant? Didn’t you overtly support them to suppress different opinions and persecute those who criticized them? I’d know your bones if you shed your skin!”