His eyes snapped fully open. “You little traitor!” he said, drawing out each word. “You go ahead if you want to, but not me, and not the ox!”
“Why?” I was feeling both abused and angry. “Here’s where things stand. When the campaign was just getting under way, an independent farmer in Pingnan County was strung up from a tree and beaten to death by the revolutionary masses. My brother said that by parading you through the streets, he was covertly protecting you. He said that after they take care of the landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements, and capitalist-roaders, they’ll come after the independent farmers. Dad, Jinlong said the two thick limbs on the apricot tree were just waiting for you and me. Dad, are you listening?”
He knocked the bowl of the pipe against the sole of his shoe, stood up, and started preparing food for the ox. The sight of his bent back and sunburned neck reminded me of my childhood, when he’d carry me on his shoulders to market to buy persimmons for me. The thought saddened me.
“Dad,” I said, starting to get worked up, “society is changing. County Chief Chen has been overthrown, and I’ll bet the bureau head who gave you safe passage has too by now. It doesn’t make sense for us to keep farming independently. If we join the commune while Jinlong is chairman, it’ll make him and us look good…”
Dad stayed bent over low as he worked the sieve, completely ignoring me. I was starting to get steamed.
“Dad,” I said, “no wonder people say you’re like a rock in the crapper, hard and stinky! Sorry to say it, Dad, but I can’t follow you down this dead end into darkness. If you won’t look out for me, I’ll have to look out for myself. I’m not a child any longer. I want to join the commune, find a wife, and walk down a bright, shiny road. You can do what you want.”
Dad dumped the straw into the feed trough and stroked the ox’s deformed horn. Then he turned to face me, not a hint of anger on his face. “Jiefang,” he said gently, “you’re my son, and I want only the best for you. I know perfectly well how things stand these days. That Jinlong has a heart as hard as a rock, and the blood that flows through his veins is more lethal than a scorpion’s tail. He’ll do absolutely anything in the name of ‘revolution.’ “He looked up, squinting in the bright sunlight. “How,” he wondered, “could the landlord, a good and decent man, sire an evil son like that?” Tears glistened in his eyes. “We’ve got three-point-two acres of land. You can take half of that with you into the commune. The wooden plow was given to us as one of the ‘fruits of victory’ during land reform. You can take that too, and you can have the one-room house. Take what you can with you, and after you join, if you want to throw in your lot with your mother and them, go ahead. If not, then go it alone. I don’t want anything, nothing but this ox and this shed.”
“Why, Dad? Tell me why.” I was nearly crying. “What purpose is served by you hanging on to your independence?”
“None at all,” he said calmly. “I just want to live a quiet life and be my own master. I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do.”
I went looking for Jinlong.
“Brother,” I said, “I talked it over with Dad, and I want to join the commune.”
Excited by the news, he doubled up his fists and banged them together in front of his chest.
“Wonderful,” he said, “that’s just wonderful, one more great achievement of the Cultural Revolution! The last independent farmer in the county is finally taking the socialist road. This is wonderful news. Let’s go inform the County Revolutionary Committee!”
“But Dad isn’t joining,” I said. “Just me, with half our land, our wooden plow, and a seeder.”
“What do you mean?” His face darkened. “What the hell is he trying to do?”
“He says he isn’t trying to do anything. He’s just gotten used to a quiet life and doesn’t want to answer to anyone.”
“That old son of a bitch!” He banged his fist on the table beside him, so hard an ink bottle nearly bounced off onto the floor.
“Don’t get too excited, Jinlong,” Huang Huzhu said.
“And how do I do that?” he said in a low growl. “I’d planned to present two gifts to Vice Chairman Chang and the County Revolutionary Committee at New Year’s. One was the village production of the revolutionary opera The Red Lantern; the other was that we’d eliminated the last independent farmer, not only in the county or in the province, but in the whole country. I was going to do what Hong Taiyue failed to do. That would cement my authority up and down the line. Your joining without him means there’s still one independent farmer. I won’t have it. I’m going to talk to him. You come with me!”
Jinlong stormed angrily into the ox shed, the first time he’d stepped foot inside in years.
“Dad,” he said. “I shouldn’t be calling you Dad, but I will this time.”
Dad waved him off. “Don’t,” he said. “I’m not worthy.”
“Lan Lian,” Jinlong continued, “I have but one thing to say to you. For the sake of Jiefang, and for yourself, it’s time to join the commune. I’m in charge now, and you have my word you won’t have to perform heavy labor. And if you don’t even want light jobs, then you can just rest up. You’re getting on in years, and you deserve to take life easy.”
“That’s more than I deserve,” Dad said icily.
“Climb up onto the platform and look around,” Jinlong said. “Take a look at Gaomi County, or at Shandong Province, or at all of China’s nineteen provinces (not counting Taiwan), its metropolitan areas, and its autonomous regions. The whole country, awash in red, with only a single black dot, here in Ximen Village, and that black dot is you!”
“I’m fucking honored, the one black dot in all of China!”
“We are going to erase that black dot!” Jinlong said.
Dad stuck his hand under the feed trough and took out a rope covered in ox dung. He threw it at Jinlong’s feet.
“Do you plan to hang me from the apricot tree? Well, be my guest!”
Jinlong leaped backward, as if the rope were a snake. Baring his teeth and clenching and unclenching his fists, he jammed his hands into his pants pockets and then took them out again. He took a cigarette out of his tunic pocket – he’d taken up smoking after being appointed chairman – and lit it with a gold-colored lighter. His forehead creased, obviously in deep thought. But after a moment he flipped away his cigarette, stomped it out, and turned to me.
“Go outside, Jiefang,” he said.
I looked first at the rope on the ground, then at Jinlong and Dad, one scrawny, the other brawny, pondering who would win and who would lose if a fight broke out, as well as whether I’d stand by and watch or jump in and, if the latter, whose side I’d be on.
“Say what you want to say,” Dad said. “Let’s see what you’re made of. Stay where you are, Jiefang. Keep your eyes and ears open.”
“Fine with me,” Jinlong said. “Do you think I won’t hang you from the apricot tree?”
“Oh, you’ll do it, all right, you’ll do anything.”
“Don’t interrupt me. I’m only letting you off for the sake of Mother. I’m not going to beg you to join the commune, since the Communist Party has never begged anything from capitalist-roaders. Tomorrow we’ll hold a public meeting to welcome Jiefang into the commune, along with his land, his plow, and his seeder. The ox too. We’ll present him with a red flower, and do the same for the ox. At that moment, you’ll be all alone in this ox shed. It will be heartbreaking for you when the clash of cymbals, the pounding of drums, and the resounding cracks of firecrackers enter this empty shed. You’ll be cut off from the masses, living apart from your wife, and separated from your children, and even the ox that would not betray you will be forcibly taken from you. What will your life mean then? If I were you,” Jinlong said as he kicked the rope and looked up at the overhead beam, “if I were you, I’d loop that rope over the beam and hang myself!”