Ha Jin: Under the Red Flag

Nan felt uneasy about the whole thing. How could a husband invite other men to have sex with his wife? he asked himself. I wouldn’t. Never. Shuling must’ve had an affair with someone lately and have been caught by Cuckold Sang. They must’ve had a big fight today.

Sang was dragging at his pipe silently. Sitting beside him, Bing was putting the poker cards back into the box.

“Here,” Ming said, walking over with the paper, “listen carefully, Uncle Sang.” Then he read aloud with his eyebrows flapping up like a pair of beetle wings:

On the third eve of the Spring Festival, I, Sang Zhu, came to the Militia’s Office and invited five young militiamen—Hao Nan, Liu Daiheng, Yang Wei, Mu Bing, and Wang Ming—to have sex with my wife Niu Shuling. By doing this, I mean to teach her a lesson so she will stop seducing other men and be a chaste woman in the future. If any physical damage is done to her in the process of the activity, none of the young men shall be responsible. I, Sang Zhu, the husband, will bear all consequences.

The Pledger:

Sang Zhu

Wei placed the ink-paste box on the desk. “Put in your thumbprint if you agree, Uncle Sang.”

“All right.” Sang pressed his ringworm-nailed thumb into the ink, took it out, blew on its pad, and stamped a scarlet smudge under his name. He wiped off the ink on the leg of his cotton-padded trousers, which were black but shiny with grease stains. Turning away from the table, he blew his nose; two lines of mucus landed on the dusty floor.

“Now, let’s go,” Ming said, and motioned to the others as though they were going off to bag a homeless dog, which they often did on night patrol.

Nan felt unhappy about the pledge because Ming, the son of a bitch, had put Nan’s name first and his own name last among the group, as if Nan had led them in this business. At least, it read that way on paper. He was merely a soldier, whereas Ming was a squad leader.

The snow had stopped, and the west wind was blowing and would have chilled them to the bones if they had not drunk a lot of liquor. Each of them was carrying a long flashlight, whose beam now stabbed into the darkness and now hit a treetop, sending sleeping birds on the wing. They were eager to reach the Sangs’, get hold of that loose woman, and overturn the rivers and seas in her. In raptures they couldn’t help singing. They sang “I Am a Soldier,” “Return to My Mother’s,” “Our Navigation Depends on the Great Helmsman,” “Without the Communist Party There Would Be No New China.” In the distance, soundless firecrackers bloomed in the sky over Sea-Watch Village. The white hills and fields seemed vaster than they were in daylight. The first quarter of the moon wandered slowly through clouds among a few stars. The night was clear and quiet except for the men’s hoarse voices vibrating.

Nan followed the other men, singing, and he couldn’t help imagining what it would feel like to embrace a woman and have her body under his own. He thought of girls in the village, and also of Soo Yan. Though they were engaged, he had never touched her, not even her hand. This was an opportunity to learn how to handle a woman.

They entered Sang’s yard. A dark shadow lashed about on the moonlit ground and startled Ming and Daiheng, who were at the front of the group. Then a wolfhound burst out barking at them. “Stop it!” Sang shouted. “You beast that doesn’t know who owns you. Stop it!”

The dog ran away toward the haystack, scared by the beams of the flashlights scraping its body. The yard was almost empty except for a line of colorful washing, frozen and sheeny, swaying in the wind like landed kites tied up by children. Ming tapped on a pink shirt, which was apparently Shuling’s, and said, “It smells so delicious. Why no red on this, Old Sang? She’s too young for menopause, isn’t she?”

They broke out laughing.

Sang’s little stone house had a thatched roof. Entering it, they put their two rifles behind the door. An oil lamp was burning on the dining table on the brick bed, but nobody was in. Finding no woman, the men began swearing and said they were disappointed. Sang searched everywhere in the house, but there was no trace of his wife. “Shu—ling—” he cried to the outside. Only the hiss of the wind answered.

“Old Sang, what does this mean?” Daiheng asked. “What do you have in mind exactly?”

“I want you to do it to my wife.”

“But where is she?” Bing asked.

“I don’t know. You boys wait. I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”

Sang’s eyes were filled with rage. Obviously he didn’t expect to see an empty house either. He took a large bowl of boiled pork and a platter of stewed turnips from the kitchen and placed them on the table. They climbed on the brick bed and started eating the dishes and drinking the liquor they had brought along.

“It’s too cold,” Wei said, referring to the food.

“Yes,” Ming said. “Let’s have something warm, Old Sang. We have work to do.”

“You must treat us well,” Bing said, “or else we won’t leave tonight. This is our home now.”

“All right, all right, you boys don’t go crazy. I’m going to cook you a soup, a good one.”

Sang and Daiheng went to the kitchen, lighting the stove and cutting pickled cabbages and fat pork. In the village Daiheng was well known as a good cook, so he did the work naturally.

“Don’t be stingy. Put in some dried shrimps,” Wei shouted at the men in the kitchen.

“All right, we will,” Sang yelled back.

Nan remained silent meanwhile. He didn’t like the tasteless meat and just kept smoking Sang’s Glory cigarettes and cracking roasted melon seeds. In the kitchen the bellows started squeaking.

Ming and Wei were playing a finger-guessing game, which Nan and Bing didn’t know how to play but were eager to learn. Nan moved closer, watching their hands changing shapes deftly under the oil lamp and listening to them chanting:

A small chair has square legs,

A little myna has a pointed bill.

It’s time you eat spider eggs,

Drink pee and gulp swill.

Five heads,

Six fortunes,

Three stars,

Eight gods,

Nine cups—

“Got you!” Ming yelled at Wei. Pointing at a mug filled with liquor, he ordered, “Drink this.”

They hadn’t finished the second round when Daiheng and Sang rushed in. “She’s here, she’s here,” Daiheng whispered, his voice in a flutter.

Before they could straighten up, Shuling stepped in, wearing a red scarf and puffing out warm air. She whisked the snowflakes off her shoulder with a pair of mittens and greeted the men. “Welcome,” she said. She looked so fresh with her pink cheeks and permed hair. Her plump body swayed a little against the white door curtain, as if she didn’t know whether she should stay in or go out.

“Well, well, well,” Ming hummed.

“Where have you been?” Sang asked sharply, then went up to her and grabbed the front of her sky-blue jacket.

“I, I—let me go.” She was struggling to free herself.

“I know where you were. With that pale-faced man again. Tell me, is that true or not?” Sang pulled her closer to himself. He referred to a young cadre on the work team which was investigating the graft and bribery among the leaders of the production brigade. Nan remembered seeing the man and Shuling together in the grocery store once.

“Let me go. You’re hurting me,” she begged, and turned to the others, her round eyes flashing with fear.

“You stinking skunk, always have an itch in your cunt!” Sang bellowed. “I want you to have it enough today, as a present for the Spring Festival. See, I have five men for you here. Every one of them is strong as a bull.” His head tilted to the militia.