Su Tong - The Boat to Redemption

My cries hit the boat people within earshot like a thunderclap and provoked more shouting. ‘Ku Dongliang is rebelling, he’s rebelling!’ My father blanched and began to sway. The gaze in his eyes was very peculiar. What I saw wasn’t panic or terror, it was despair. A glob of phlegm caught in his throat, and when he tried to bring it up to spit it out, he was racked by a coughing fit.

Desheng and his wife, who were still aboard our barge, rushed up to help him into the cabin. Desheng glared at me as he propped my father up. ‘Dongliang, are you possessed by a demon or something? Your father isn’t a class enemy, but you might as well kill him as talk to him that way.’

His wife patted Father on the shoulder. ‘Don’t let it get to you,’ she said to him. ‘Someone in town ran into a demon recently, in broad daylight. It scared them out of their wits. I’m sure that’s what has happened to Dongliang.’

‘No, it didn’t!’ I shouted. ‘I’ve suffered for eleven years, and I’ve had enough. Now I’m rebelling!’

On the barges and on the shore, people were looking at me, shocked. ‘I’m rebelling!’ I yelled. ‘I’m rebelling!’ Tossing the quilt stuffing over my back and slinging my bag over my shoulder, I turned and headed back down the pier.

Sun Ximing and his wife ran after me; one of them grabbed my bag, the other held on to the cotton. ‘Where are you going, Dongliang?’ Sun asked. ‘What makes you think you can just leave? Where will you go?’

With a wave of my hand, I said, ‘Where I go is none of your business. It’s a big world, and there has to be a place for me in it.’

‘The world may be big,’ Sun said, ‘but it doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the Party and to socialism.’

‘What’s wrong with you today, Dongliang?’ Sun’s wife said, stamping her foot and waving her arms. ‘Everybody’s always talking about your bad points, but you’re a dutiful son. I told my husband that when the fleet chooses its most civilized family this year, it has to be barge number seven.’

‘Our barge isn’t civilized,’ I said, ‘but you choose whatever barge you want, I don’t care.’

Sun grabbed hold of my bag again and said, ‘Dongliang, you can’t abandon your father. How’s he going to live if you leave?’

‘He’s got arms and legs,’ I said. ‘He can take care of himself.’

‘OK,’ Sun said, ‘forget about him if you want, that’s your business. But shipping goods is my business, and how is your barge going to keep working if you leave? Tomorrow we’re taking on a load of oilseed. Your father doesn’t know a thing about how these barges work, and I can’t let you affect production.’

‘What do I care about oilseed? Or about production? From now on, the only thing I care about is me. I’m a free man!’

I started running, and didn’t stop till I’d left Sun Ximing and his wife far behind. But a couple of kids from other barges quickly overtook me. ‘They’re saying you almost lost your dick today,’ Xiaofu said. ‘Is that true?’

Chungeng sneaked a look down at my crotch. ‘Are you running away to keep from getting punished?’ he asked. ‘Wang Xiaogai says you go to the barbershop in town every day, and that you went there to harass Huixian. Have you already thumped her? Have you?’ Their questions pissed me off, but I was in no mood to wrangle with a bunch of kids, so I kicked Chungeng and started running again. He grabbed his knee where I’d kicked him, and started to scream, ‘You’re a moron, Dongliang, an ugly toad that wants to thump a swan. You deserve to have your dick cut off!’

As I was passing the oil-pumping station, a crumpled piece of paper flew in the air and landed at my feet. Li Juhua was standing in the doorway in her blue work clothes, watching me, her severe demeanour mocking me.

‘What have I ever done to offend you, Li Juhua?’ I said. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘You’ve never offended me,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I’ve been thinking that you know everything about someone except what’s in his heart. On the surface you look all right, so how could you have such a filthy mind?’

I just stared at her, stunned by her comment. ‘What do you mean, a filthy mind?’

She brushed some dust off her sleeve and said, ‘I don’t have an appetite for such things. Why do I need to tell you what you’ve done?’ Seeing the blank look on my face, she sneered, ‘Don’t act dumb with me. Do I have to remind you what you did to Little Tiemei in the barbershop?’

Now I understood. A frightful rumour about me had already begun to spread, thanks to Wang Xiaogai — the guilty one taking a bite out of the victim. I stood there in front of the oil-pumping station in a daze, so angry my limbs felt cold. Li Juhua’s words buzzed in my ears. ‘Go ahead, be as decadent as you want, it’s none of my business. You and I have nothing in common, and I don’t care if you wind up in prison.’

I had no desire to engage Li Juhua in a debate about the false accusation. Instead, I headed angrily to the security-group office to settle scores with Xiaogai. But when I got there, I could see through the window that he was out; Baldy Chen and Scabby Five were in the cluttered office playing a game of chess, head to head and cursing up a storm. A blackboard on the wall above them read: ‘Current security situation report.’ My name appeared below the heading: ‘Ku Dongliang of the Sunnyside Fleet took liberties with a woman at the People’s Barbershop.’ The sight of those scrawled words nearly blew the top off my head. Ignoring the door, I pushed open the window and all but jumped through it. ‘Erase that!’ I shouted. ‘Erase my name!’

Jerking their heads up, they both screamed. Wasting no time, Scabby Five picked his truncheon up off the table and dashed over to me. ‘Well, Kongpi, we don’t have the time to take care of you, so you are on your own!’

I flung my quilt stuffing at Wulaizi, but he ducked, and Baldy Chen rushed up. He was holding a rifle with a glinting bayonet fixed to the barrel. Blinking ferociously, he charged at me. I jumped down off the window ledge and ran all the way to the cotton warehouse, where I stopped and looked back to see Baldy Chen and Scabby Five in the doorway, yelling something I couldn’t hear. Maybe they had decided not to chase me so they could continue with their game of chess. After a quick survey of my surroundings, I picked up an enamel tea cup left on a stool by the gate watchman and took a drink, then wiped my face with a tattered towel. Since I couldn’t hang around here, I decided to go to the chess pavilion.

The area around the pavilion was like a black-market communication hub, where oil truckers pulled off the highway to unload and rest and pick up hitchhikers, taking them as far as Horsebridge or Wufu for fifty or sixty cents. It was an open secret.

I went up to the pavilion, my first visit in years, and was shocked by what I saw. The hexagonal structure now had only three sides, the swallow-tail eaves were gone, and striped plastic sheeting was wrapped around the six stone pillars, their tips peeking through the top to remind passers-by that this had once been Milltown’s grandest spot. This was possibly the most significant event on the banks of the river, and I knew nothing about it. Who was responsible? It had to be Zhao Chuntang. But why? My attention shifted from the pavilion to a slovenly worker crouching on the ground drinking tea and eating a steamed bun; a sledgehammer lay at his feet. I ran over to confront him.

‘Who authorized you to tear down the pavilion? Was it Zhao Chuntang?’ In between bites, he said, ‘It’s not my call, and not Zhao Chuntang’s. The order came from above.’

‘Why would anyone want to tear it down?’ I asked.