Ha Jin - Under the Red Flag

Having watched the small man climb into the second limousine, Tang turned and retreated with the crowd to the front entrance. A warm breeze blew across his burning face; the scorching sun made the air flicker slightly. He felt as though he were an immortal, his feet stepping on the clouds and his eyes seeing a lot of stars and rainbows dancing on the horizon. Hope at last settled in his heart.

For several days Tang was thinking how to get rid of Da Long. He wouldn’t knife or hammer him. That would demand so much from himself that he might not be able to carry it through. He imagined taking his son onto a mountain and pushing him down a cliff, but all the hills nearby were not high enough. How about drowning him? There was only one reservoir in the village, and the two men in charge of the pump house were on the site all the time. Besides, Da Long could do the doggy stroke. If he put him away, he had to do a clean job and make sure that everything looked natural. Yes, he had it. Electrocute him. But how? He didn’t know how to handle electricity himself. It was too dangerous, and he might kill himself and others. Have some help? No, he had to do it by himself, no money for that.

Though never able to work out a perfect plan that would guarantee his son’s death, Tang did make one. He decided to use the horse cart, which Da Long had been learning how to drive. It was too bad that no rocks were to be transported anymore; otherwise Tang could easily have had the cart overturned and the boy buried by a load of rocks. These days he hauled only crops from the fields to the threshing ground.

One afternoon before leaving for work, Tang picked a few tiny peppers from his garden and put them into his tobacco pouch. The country folk called that kind of pepper “dog penis” because it was extremely hot and also resembled that organ of a dog. Tang threw on the cart a rope and a large wooden peg used for tightening up a crop load, and then he set out with his son for the millet field on the northern hill. Da Long was driving.

Sitting side by side, they didn’t speak on the way. Tang was smoking, and occasionally he squinted at his son. The boy was handsome: full forehead, thick brows, square mouth; so handsome that Tang wondered whether Da Long was his own son. Probably a wild seed, destined to be plucked off the soil. Then he felt a numb pain in his chest, and his head seemed to be reeling. I must do it, he said to himself. Without cruelty a man is nothing, just like a knife without steel in its blade. You have to sacrifice something to get another thing. He is taking away all my fortune. It’s time to wind things up. There aren’t many years left and I must do it now.

While several commune members were loading the cart and his son went into the cornfield to urinate, Tang approached the shaft horse quietly. He tapped its hindquarters and lifted its tail, then thrust a pepper into its anus. The horse quivered, but regained its calm manner as though nothing had happened. In the same way Tang fixed the other two horses.

A mountain of millet rose on the cart, and at the back of the load a man was turning the peg to tighten the rope. Da Long returned. His father walked over and handed him the whip, and said, “You drive it to the threshing ground. I have something to do in the field here.”

“All right,” the boy said, taking the whip. He had driven loads of crops before and didn’t suspect anything.

Watching his son’s triangular back, Tang realized the boy was almost a man. This further convinced him that he was doing a timely thing. Heaven help! Let it work out.

With a slight toss, the cart started moving out of the field. Everything seemed normal, and the other people turned to their work. Tang stood there, watching the load wavering toward the road and wondering why the hot peppers didn’t work. The load of the crop sank and rose, bumped a little, and got onto the surface of the road. As soon as the cart wheeled around to move down the slope a front horse, the roan stallion, plunged. Then the other horses began galloping too. The load was jolting wildly from side to side.

“Help!” The boy’s cry rent the air.

People were too shocked to respond at once. Without a word Tang was dashing toward the bumping cart. “Let’s go help,” someone shouted. Several men set off running behind Tang.

The load of the crop was plunging down the mountain road. The din of the horses’ hooves, the wheels, and the boy’s cries was fading away. After a few turns the cart disappeared; so did the noises, except for the horses’ neighing. Tang was running desperately. Gasping hard for breath, he felt as though his head was going to explode. Sparks and golden rings were floating around him while a taste of blood surged up into his throat. The commune members, left far behind, were amazed by his speed.

The cart fell into a small valley. Millet bundles were scattered everywhere, a few hung on the branches of apple trees. There beside a wheel lay Da Long, his eyes shut and his lips puffing out scarlet froth. Blood was trickling out of his nostrils. Tang threw himself at his son’s side and lifted his head up. The boy moaned, without much breath left in him. His chest had been crushed. Tears sprang to Tang’s eyes. It dawned on him that there was no hope for his son anymore and that he’d better finish him off. He looked around but couldn’t find a rock, then he saw the peg partly underneath a bundle. He picked it up, raised it with both hands, and struck Da Long on the skull.

“Hold it!” someone yelled from behind. “Don’t do it, Uncle Tang!”

The voice startled Tang and the peg fell to the ground. His son stopped breathing instantly. Two men grabbed Tang while others carried the boy off to the village. Everybody blamed Tang for his bad temper. However angry he was with his son for the accident, Da Long was merely a fourteen-year-old and a new hand in the work; there was no reason for Tang to strike him like that. Besides, the boy was dying, no father would beat a dying son. It was inhuman not to save the life in danger. Some people believed Tang had actually killed Da Long with the peg.

After the boy’s burial Zhen, together with Hsia, left for her parents’ in Apricot Village that very day. She couldn’t bear to see her husband drink hard and eat fish and meat. He had even killed the only four chickens that the commune allowed the family to raise. Nobody understood why Tang enjoyed himself so much, sonless though he was now. In the meantime the whole village was talking about his bad temper and cruelty.

Next morning two Beijing jeeps pulled up before the Tangs’, and a group of policemen jumped off and surrounded the yard. Two of them entered the front gate with pistols in their hands. Tang saw them and understood it was time to leave, so he put on an army cap and for the first time buckled his broad leather belt around his waist. He didn’t bother to look at the police, whom he simply took as his bodyguards. In a few days they would all salute him as General Tang. Surprised by his calm appearance, the two policemen stepped aside and let him pass without handcuffing him. They followed him out.

Tang inhaled the fresh air that made his chest contract with joy. In the distance, colorful clouds were tumbling and gleaming on the treetops like an army of horses and men marching onto a battlefield. He stopped and narrowed his eyes, listening to a bugle call to charge, the beating of drums, the din of a hot battle, the shouts of killing, the sweet female voices singing triumphant songs, the clinking of glasses mixed with the tunes of pipes and strings, the hurrays for the grand general, the explosions of firecrackers, and salvos. He smelled the fragrance of gunpowder and roast pigs.

“Ha, ha, ha—ha—” he laughed heartily to the sky while striding to the jeep. Never had he felt more like a man.