Susan Barker - The Incarnations

‘You were a good person, Teacher Zhao,’ I say. ‘You never committed any counter-revolutionary crimes. They were wrong to persecute you.’

Silence.

‘I don’t blame you, Teacher Zhao,’ I say. ‘There’s only so much suffering we can endure. I understand why you hanged yourself.’

Silence.

‘I envy you, Teacher Zhao. If I had the guts, I’d find a length of rope and betray the revolution too. .’

The thought of ‘betraying the revolution’ becomes more seductive by the day. I imagine affixing the rope to the pipes and kicking the upturned mop bucket out from under my feet. I imagine the noose squeezing my neck until the moment of release. It’s only the thought of my mother that stops me, and I can’t help but resent her for holding me back.

Autumn. The sky is bled dry of colour. Leaves wither and wilt from the branches of trees. They rustle under my shoes as I walk into the playground and see a new Big-character Poster on the notice board:

Down with Zhang Liya! Daughter of a Loyal Running Dog of Liu Shaoqi!

Since the Cultural Revolution began there have been many sudden reversals in status. A people’s hero one day can be persecuted as the people’s enemy the next. But this is so unexpected I nearly fall down in shock.

Zhang Liya Must Be Brought to Justice for Her Anti-Party Crimes.

Down with Zhang Liya, Part of Liu Shaoqi’s Plot to Assassinate Chairman Mao.

Girls crowd around the Big-character Posters. There are some half-hearted murmurs — ‘How dare Zhang Liya betray us!’ But most girls stare up at the posters in a subdued mood. After weeks of class struggle, revolutionary spirit is flagging.

The Red Guards are back. Long March, Patriotic Hua and Red Star — now known as Dare to Rebel, Red Soldier and Martial Warrior. The Red Guards have shaved their heads. Their khaki uniforms, unwashed or changed in weeks, are nearly black. Their eyes are hardened and they are more like veterans back from fighting a war than sixteen-year-old girls. Long March, now known as Comrade Dare to Rebel, has a loudspeaker in one hand, and a People’s Daily in the other, opened to an editorial about the latest Communist Party purge. She waves the newspaper about as she rants into the loudspeaker.

‘Though her father has been expelled from the Party and is now in prison for anti-Party crimes, Zhang Liya remains free and hiding out in the bourgeois luxury of her home. Zhang Liya must be brought to justice. We must bring her into school for interrogation! Down with Zhang Liya! ’

‘ Down with Zhang Liya! ’ Long March yells.

‘ Down with Zhang Liya! Down with Zhang Liya! ’ chant the schoolgirls in the playground — but obediently and bored.

The Red Guards, led by Comrade Dare to Rebel, turn and march out of the gate. Before I have the chance to think about what I am doing, I have caught up with Long March and tapped her on the shoulder. She wrinkles her nose at me, as though I am a cockroach or a rat.

‘Comrade Dare to Rebel,’ I say, ‘I have been to the Zhang family residence and have seen poisonous weeds of the Nationalist era hidden in Zhang Liya’s bedroom.’

I half expect to be cursed or slapped for daring to speak to her. But Long March frowns, thinking over what I said. ‘Then you must come with us, Comrade Yi Moon,’ she says urgently. ‘You must come with us and show us where the poisonous weeds are hidden. They will be used as evidence against Zhang Liya in her trial.’

Pride swells in my chest. ‘Comrade Yi Moon’, she called me. Not ‘Capitalist Roader’ or ‘Daughter of a Rightist’, but ‘Comrade Yi Moon’.

I follow the Red Guards out of the playground, to Ironmongers Lane and your home.

The Red Guards’ clenched fists bang bang bang on your front gate.

‘Open up, you Sons of Bitches! Open up, you loyal running dogs of Liu Shaoqi!’

Your servant girl unlocks and opens the gate and cries, ‘ Long Live Chairman Mao! Long Live Chairman Mao! Don’t attack me! I am just a servant exploited by bourgeois Zhang family!’

The Red Guards ignore the girl’s whimpering and stampede to your room.

You are waiting in a chair by the window. Your striking face shows no sign of fear or intimidation as twenty Red Guards chanting ‘ Down with Zhang Liya! ’ stomp their heavy boots into your room. You sit in your PLA uniform, and regard the mob of Red Guards with the dignity and composure that made you the natural choice for their leader. You have been expecting them.

‘Class Enemy Zhang!’ Long March yells. ‘You must come with us for interrogation and trial. Do you know why?’

You nod. You look older. Like the other Red Guards, the weeks of destroying the Four Olds have aged you. ‘Yes, Comrade Dare to Rebel, I do.’

Long March smirks. You have been her greatest rival for years, and your downfall is her triumphant rise. ‘Class Enemy Zhang Liya. You and your father were loyal running dogs of Liu Shaoqi and part of his conspiracy plot to overthrow Chairman Mao. Your crimes will be punished severely!’

You nod once more. ‘I understand.’

You don’t deny the accusations. You know the futility of denial. Your restraint and strength of character are remarkable. But the Red Guards will break you. And if they can’t break you with words, they will do it with knives.

‘We have also been informed of your loyalty to the Nationalist Party,’ Long March says. She nods at me, ‘Comrade Yi Moon, can you show us the evidence?’

For the first time since the Red Guards stormed your room, you look surprised. You stare at me in shock. I stare back coldly. I stamp out my guilt by remembering the humiliating terms of our ‘friendship’. How is this betrayal when there is no friendship to betray?

I go to your bed, reach for the screwdriver under the bedding and pry up the loose floorboard. I remove the cardboard box and turn your dead mother’s possessions out on to the floor. Long March pounces on the black and white photograph. She holds it up to her eyes and laughs in your mother’s lovely twenty-year-old face.

‘Who is this syphilis-ridden whore? Why does Zhang Liya have a picture of an ugly Nationalist-era prostitute under her floor?’

Your eyes are blank as Long March rips the photograph up and scatters the torn pieces over your chair.

‘Bring this loyal running dog of the Nationalists back to school!’ she commands. ‘Bring the poisonous weeds too!’

The Red Guards lunge for you. They force you into aeroplane position, wrenching your arms back and shoving your head forwards, and march you out. Other Red Guards start ransacking your room. Patriotic Hua holds up your mother’s scarlet and gold embroidered qipao. There is admiration in her eyes as she gazes at the shimmering silk. She strokes the fabric with her fingers, and the sensual pleasure of it softens her harsh face. Then she notices me watching her.

‘Who gave you permission to look at me, Stinking Rightist?’ Patriotic Hua snaps. ‘Take your beady little capitalist eyes off me!’

Long March, who is staring at the glamorous singer on the Hong Kong record sleeve, glances at me and says casually, ‘So you think you are one of the Red Guards now, Yi Moon? Don’t be so deluded. Go back to the black-category girls where you belong.’

They lock you up in Headteacher Yang’s former office. Red Guards go in and out, carrying water and food and the papers on which they have recorded your confession. Days and weeks go by, and I never once hear you scream or weep or beg. Your silence unnerves me more than the howls of the Cattle Shed. Your interrogator, Comrade Martial Spirit, prides herself on making class enemies scream. Screaming, she says, exorcizes the counter-revolutionary demons from the soul. Your silence will be seen as defiance. Your silence will provoke them to inflict even more pain.