Yu Hua - Brothers

After they sat down on the shore, the children started feeling terrified by the night sea. There was only the sound of the wind and waves; the moonlight appeared and disappeared; and the darkness of the sea seemed to expand and contract. Baldy Li and Song Gang held Song Fanping tightly, and he hugged them close. They sat at the sea for a long, long time, until the boys fell asleep. With one on his shoulders and the other in his arms, Song Fanping made his way home.

STRUGGLE SESSIONS became increasingly common in Liu Town, and the middle-school yard bustled like a temple festival from daybreak to nightfall. Song Fanping had to carry that placard with him when he left home every morning and hang it from his neck once he reached the school gate. He stood at the gate, head bowed, and only after all the people coming to the struggle sessions had entered did he remove the placard and start sweeping the street in front of the school. When each struggle session ended, he would walk back to the entrance, put on his placard, and stand there with his head bowed. People poured out, kicking, abusing, and spitting at him, and though he was jostled from side to side he didn't utter a word. Then another struggle session would begin. Song Fanping had to wait until darkness fell — and make certain that there was no one left in the schoolyard — before he could take his placard and broom and head home.

Baldy Li and Song Gang would hear the sound of his heavy steps as Song Fanping walked into the house, his face lined with fatigue. He would always sit silently on his stool for a while, then he would get up, splash his face with well water, and use a rag to wipe down the dust, footprints, and children's spittle off his placard. Throughout all this, Baldy Li and Song Gang didn't dare say a word. They waited patiently, knowing that once Song Fanping washed his face and wiped the placard clean, he would become cheerful again and talk to them about many cheerful things.

Baldy Li and Song Gang didn't recognize the characters on the placard, but they knew these were the words that had brought Song Fanping all his misfortune. Before they appeared, Song Fanping was exultantly waving a red flag atop the bridge; but after they appeared, even little children spat and pissed on him. One day the boys finally had to ask him, "What do these characters mean?"

Song Fanping had just finished wiping clean his placard. Taken aback, he paused for a while. Then he smiled and said to them, "Next fall you'll start school, so I'll teach you how to read, starting with these characters."

This was Baldy Li and Song Gang's first lesson. Song Fanping taught them to sit with their backs straight and their hands in front of them. Then he hung the placard on the wall and brought over one of the chopsticks of the ancients. He prepared for almost half an hour before beginning the lesson, filling them with anxious anticipation.

Finally he stood in front of the big wooden placard and coughed solemnly to clear his throat. "Now we'll begin our lesson. First let me announce two rules. First, no squirming about. Second, raise your hand if you wish to speak."

He raised an ancient's chopstick and pointed at the first character on the placard. "This character is pronounced di. Think, what does di mean? Which of you wants to guess?"

Song Fanping first pointed at the ground, then stomped his foot, all the while winking at th e boys. Baldy Li beat Song Gang to it, pointing downward and shouting, "I know!"

"Hold on," Song Fanping interrupted. "If you wish to speak, you must raise your hand."

With his hand raised, Baldy Li blurted, "Di means land,’ which is what is below us, what we're standing on."

"That's correct," Song Fanping said. "You're very clever."

Then Song Fanping pointed at the second character in landlord. He said, "This character is even harder. It's pronounced ‘zhu.’ Think: Where have you heard this word before?"

Baldy Li shot his hand up before Song Gang again. This time Song Fanping didn't let him answer. He said, "You answered last time; now it's Song Gang's turn. Song Gang, think, where have you heard this character zhu used before?"

Song Gang timidly responded, "Is it the same zhu that appears at the beginning of chairman, as in ‘Chairman Mao?'"

"Correct!" Song Fanping said. "You're very clever."

At this Baldy Li exclaimed, "He didn't raise his hand."

Song Fanping said to Song Gang, "He's right, you didn't raise your hand, but you can raise it now."

Song Gang quickly raised his hand. He asked anxiously, "Is it too late to raise my hand?"

Song Fanping laughed. "Of course not."

On this day the boys learned five characters. They first learned land, then the zhu character in "Chairman Mao." They finally understood what the placard said: It was that Song Fanping was the chairman of the land.

Song Fanping and his placard had to travel together every day. He took the placard with him in the morning and came back with it in the evening, just like those women who brought their grocery bags to work and back. Baldy Li and Song Gang still roamed freely exploring the entire town. They had been absolutely everywhere, even visiting places where only ducks, chickens, cats, and dogs went. The streets were still overgrown with red flags and dotted with people as numerous as the hairs on a cow, who dispersed at the end of every day like an audience at the end of a movie. Gradually, more and more people appeared wearing dunce hats and bearing wooden placards. Initially, Song Fanping had been the only one sweeping the streets in front of the middle school, but he was joined a few days later by two other teachers. They stood next to Song Fanping, all three in a row, wearing placards around their necks. One of the two teachers was a bespectacled, scrawny old man, whose placard bore the word LAND-LORD, just like Song Fan-pings. This made Baldy Li and Song Gang very excited. They said to him, "So you're also a Chairman Mao of the land."

The children's words caused the teacher to tremble. His face turned as white as a corpse, and he said to them, "I'm a landlord, I'm a bad man. Please hit me, please yell at me, please criticize me."

Baldy Li and Song Gang often spotted Sun Wei, Victory Zhao, and Success Liu practicing their sweeping leg kicks. The three middle-schoolers spent just about every day under a wutong tree by the side of the road, hugging the tree while practicing their kicks around its trunk. Sun Wei could actually circle the entire tree while kicking continuously. His movements resembled a theater troupe performer's as his long hair blew in the breeze. Victory Zhao and Success Liu could kick only about halfway around the tree before landing on their butts or dropping their raised legs midkick. Therefore, Sun Wei became their coach. Running his fingers through his hair, he would repeat what Song Fanping had taught them: "Quicker, quicker. Only when your moves are swift can you perform the three moves as one."

Baldy Li and Song Gang strutted past. They knew that these three were still missing a move, since only they knew the real sweeping leg kick. Song Fanping hadn't taught the others the real deal, having saved the most important part for the two of them. So they would walk back and forth hand in hand, watching the middle-schoolers and giggling.

The students were so absorbed in their kicks that they didn't notice that the two snot-faced little boys were secretly laughing at them. The long-haired Sun Wei started to practice circling the tree twice without stopping. Once he was going so fast he lost control, and his entire body went flying.

Baldy Li and Song Gang couldn't contain their laughter. The middle-schoolers stalked over to them, glaring. Sun Wei, covered with dust and dirt, got up, walked over to them, and spat out, "What the fuck are you laughing at?"