Ha Jin - The Crazed

On my way to the hospital for my afternoon shift, I was stopped by a traffic jam at May First Square. About six hundred students from the Yellow Plain Mining College, the City Institute of Industrial Arts and Crafts, the Teachers College, and our school — Shanning University — were demonstrating there. They held up large banners with slogans written on them, such as PUNISH CORRUPT OFFICIALS! DOWN WITH PARASITES! SAVE OUR COUNTRY! LONG LIVE DEMOCRACY! GIVE ME FREEDOM OR DEATH! Some of them wore white headbands as if they belonged to a dare-to-die team, though they were all empty-handed except a thickset fellow toting a lumpy bullhorn. As they marched, drums and gongs thundered between rounds of shouted slogans.

On the eastern fringe of the square, near the Second Department Store, stretched a line of workers, three or four deep, all in white Bakelite helmets, which had the name STEEL PLANT printed on them. Every one of these men carried a wooden cudgel across his back. They looked lighthearted and once in a while cursed the demonstrators loudly. Despite their role as law enforcers, they seemed spoiling for a fight, waiting to wreak mayhem. I had heard that the Mayor’s office had sent them over to keep order, and that they were paid double for this kind of “work.” Some of them smoked self-rolled cigarettes and some sucked hard candies, laughing in whoops as they swapped wisecracks and insults with one another. Meanwhile, thousands of onlookers gathered along the sidewalks; some gave the students the thumbs-up, and a few even joined the procession moving northeast. With both hands raised above her head, an old woman displayed a white neckerchief bearing the word WRONGED! Apparently she was seizing this opportunity to air her grievances.

“Down with the privileged class!” a short girl shouted in a sharp voice. People followed her, flourishing their fists or tiny flags.

“Give us democracy!” cried a boy. Again hundreds of voices roared together.

“All are equal before the law!” a male voice immediately shouted through a megaphone, but the timing was out of sync and few people responded.

To my surprise, I saw Kailing Wang among the students. She held up a small rectangle of cardboard displaying the slogan UPHOLD HUMAN RIGHTS! Her face was sweaty and tan, but she looked spirited, her abundant hair hanging down over her shoulders. As I wondered how she had gotten mixed up with these demonstrators, she caught sight of me and stepped out of the procession. She came over, saying in a fluty voice, “Hi, Jian Wan, want to join us?”

“No. I’m going to the hospital.”

“How’s Mr. Yang doing?” Her voice turned earnest, and her smile revealed her even teeth.

“Improving, but not a whole lot. How many students here are from our school?”

“About one hundred and sixty,” she said, jutting her chin forward a little. “We tried so hard to mobilize the kids, but most of them wouldn’t come, especially the graduating seniors.”

“I don’t blame them. The school has threatened to give them a bad job assignment if they get involved.”

“Still, this isn’t bad, is it?” She pointed to the demonstrators.

“No at all. Actually I’m impressed. I didn’t know you were such a revolutionary.”

“Or a counterrevolutionary.” She giggled nervously and seemed uneasy about her own quip. She wore a white tank top and coffee-colored culottes, which had just come into fashion.

I told her, “I showed Mr. Yang the Brecht play you translated.”

“Did you?” Her face lit up. “What did he say?”

“He said it smelled good.”

She laughed. “Tell him I’ll come to see him soon.”

“I will.”

Without further delay she said good-bye and hurried away to catch up with her group. She seemed to play some organizing role in the demonstration, but not a major one. In a way I was perplexed by her interest in this kind of activity, but at the same time impressed by her audacity. Even most of the undergraduates remained uninvolved. Unlike the students, Kailing had a teenage son. Wasn’t she risking the boy’s future as well? After this turmoil, the school would at least demand she make self-criticism. She’d be lucky if they didn’t demote her or brand her with a criminal name.

I had to skirt a huge jam of onlookers to get through to Cloud Bridge Road, which led to the hospital. The air reeked of sweat, diesel oil, vinegar, soy sauce, fried garlic and scallion, roast chicken, and braised pig’s feet. Dismounted cyclists kept cranking the bells on their handlebars, some yelling at one another. Fifty yards away in the west a tractor loaded with black bricks was put-putting clamorously, but had to mark time. As I pushed my bicycle past the front of an ice cream stand, a tall simian man in dark glasses, who looked like an official or an entrepreneur, said loudly to an old woman about the students, “These nitwits must’ve been overstuffed and have too much energy to spare. If we starved them just for a week, I bet none of them would come here to make such a fuss. We should ship them all to the vegetable farms in the suburbs and make them work the fields twelve hours a day.”

“Tut-tut-tut, these brats are real spoiled,” said the woman, shaking her puckered face and waving a horsehaired fly whisk. She stretched her neck and called out, “Ice brick, half a yuan apiece.”

“Damn, it’s so hot,” cursed the man. “I screw their mothers for giving birth to these bastards!” He spat on the ground, scraping the phlegm with his boot.

I stared at him and he glared back. His dull eyes, reminding me of cooked oysters, were so ruthless that I ducked my head. Before stepping away, I caught a glimpse of the muzzle of a pistol that stuck out of the ribbing waistband of his jacket. Evidently he was a plainclothes agent. As I walked along, I noticed that among the spectators about a dozen men and women wore the same kind of dark glasses as that man’s. Raising my eyes, I saw two men in white shirts and blue pants working a video camera on the rooftop of the department store. The machine panned down to follow the demonstrators. Despite the hustle and bustle, few of the vendors, sitting on their haunches or on canvas stools, had stopped crying for customers. Some people were still haggling over prices.

When I reached the corner of Swift Horse Road, a middle-aged jaundiced man appeared, waving a miniature flag made of orange paper. “Down with the Communist Party!” he yelled. No one repeated his shout, but immediately a crowd, about twenty people thick, gathered around him. He fluttered the triangular flag again and screamed, “Down with socialism!” Still, the crowd was silent, watching him in horror and confusion.

Before he could shout more, three plainclothes agents, two men and one woman, rushed over, grabbed his hair and arms, and handcuffed him from behind. “Help! Save me!” he hollered, his eyes bulging and flashing, sinews drawn tight in his neck. His mouth went agape, dripping saliva. “Don’t be slaves anymore!” he shouted at us over his shoulder.

Nobody interfered. Instead, a bowlegged locksmith walked over, and wielding his long pipe, he struck the man’s crown three times with its brass bowl. “Damn you, how dare you call me a slave?” he barked.

“Ow, don’t hit me, Uncle!” the man screeched. At once a thread of blood trickled down his forehead. A few bystanders laughed.

“Serves you right, such an unreformable reactionary!” the old locksmith said through his teeth, and bent down to pick up his own flat cap from the ground.

“What a moron!” said a young herb peddler. “He can’t see that cops are everywhere.”

The three agents dragged the man away despite his blustering resistance. From time to time his legs stretched straight, his feet unyielding, yet they hauled him along. One of the agents kept thrashing his shoulders with the buckle end of a leather belt while the woman kicked the backs of his knees. Within a minute they disappeared past a barbershop door. Throughout the commotion, a gray-browed cobbler, sitting next to a toy stand, his lips clamping a few tiny nails, hadn’t even once stopped hammering the sole of a leather shoe mounted on his last. All around, people talked about the arrested man, calling him a fool and saying that at least one of his family members had been executed by the Communists.