Yan Lianke - Serve the People!

The sight of the sparrows roosting peacefully on the windowsill of the first-floor bedroom told him that the window was not about to be thrown open. Perhaps Liu Lian was somewhere else. In any case, she couldn't have any idea that he was back. Before he'd left she'd warned him repeatedly not to return without a summons from his company.

But now, his nerve broken, he'd disregarded that warning.

As he approached his company barracks, a truck from a neighbouring company drove past him, lined with soldiers in full uniform and packed with their rucksacks. Each face had the same grim set to it, as if they were on their way to carry out a distasteful, but unavoidable mission. On the side of the truck closest to Wu Dawang hung a banner made of red cloth, emblazoned with the slogan: `Wherever I Wander is My Home'.

The truck hadn't been going much faster than walking pace, but when it reached Wu Dawang's company barracks, the driver changed gears and accelerated to cycling speed. At that moment two bottles of liquor suddenly flew out and smashed against the red-brick gable of the company office. A volley of profanities followed the bottles and the truck drove off.

A moment later, almost as if he'd been expecting just such an incident, the company's Signals Officer scurried out with a dustpan and brush and deftly swept up the fragments of glass.

Wu Dawang called out to him.

Although the officer turned to glance at him, he walked back into the building as if he hadn't heard a thing, leaving Wu Dawang even more confused. As he stood there, desperately trying to make sense of things, his Political Instructor appeared in the main doorway and strode over to greet Wu Dawang.

'Sergeant,' he began, as he approached, 'weren't you told to stay at home until we recalled you?' He hurried Wu Dawang inside, told him to sit down and poured him some hot water to drink. He then ran some tap water so Wu Dawang could wash his face, and even brought out his precious made-in-Shanghai scented soap so that his visitor could wash the dust of the journey off his hands. This sequence of extraordinarily hospitable acts went some way to calming Wu Dawang's jangled nerves. The Political Instructor next asked Wu Dawang how his journey had been and, on discovering that the returning Sergeant had not had lunch, immediately told the Signals Officer to ask the canteen to stir-fry him a bowl of egg noodles.

While Wu Dawang ate, the Political Instructor informed him of the following.

First, that the Division Commander's wife had personally told them that because of serious family problems Wu Dawang required a three-month period of home leave, and an extended furlough had accordingly been granted. As long as there was no urgent business calling him back to barracks, he could take as long as he needed.

Secondly, that at a seminar in Beijing organized and directed by the Central Nblitary Commission, the Division Commander had volunteered for an assignment that no other Division had been prepared to take on: to test out a pilot scheme aimed at streamlining and restructuring the entire army. In practical terms, this meant that the Division was to be disbanded; that, within the vast machinery of the People's Liberation Army, it was to disappear like so much smoke.

Thirdly, given that the majority of companies were to be demobilized and a minority transferred, all promotions had, for the time being, been cancelled. This meant that Wu Dawang's dream of becoming an official looked doomed, yet again, to founder this time on the rocks of bureaucratic mischance. But because he was such a favourite of the Division Commander and his wife, the former had left instructions that an exception was to be made in his case. A job was to be arranged for Wu Dawang in a city in his native province. His family were to be moved there also, and appropriate work found for his wife.

Fourthly, with all the restructuring going on, the personnel situation in barracks was currently extremely unstable. As a result, there had been a high turnover of staff in the Division Commander's household. Though each orderly had taken pains to conduct himself with cautious discretion inside Compound Number One, and though Liu Lian had done her best to smooth things over, each had somehow succeeded in provoking the Commander's wrath. Because of the present uncertainty of the Commander's temper, it was requested that Wu Dawang should not return to his old post; indeed, that he should not visit the house at all, unless some matter of pressing importance called him there.

As he listened to the Political Instructor, a feeling of enormous relief flooded through Wu Dawang. The anxiety that had overtaken him as soon as he had reached the Division barracks began to ease: his affair with Liu Lian remained undiscovered.

Mass demobilization and Wu Dawang's own imminent departure seemed to be bringing this unusual tale of romance to a brusque close; fate had assertively ruled against the happy reunion of our lovers. The Political Instructor offered a kind of consolation prize-to sweeten the bitterness of separationgranting Wu Duwang a brief period of calm before unhappiness reclaimed him.

His company's Captain was nowhere to be seen. Earlier in his career he himself had once served as the Division Commander's Orderly (at exactly the time, in fact, when the Commander had reluctantly parted company with his first wife). The Captain therefore enjoyed much closer relations with Liu Lian and her husband than the Political Instructor did. It was this intimacy that made Wu Dawang keen to learn more from him about what was going on — he was like a murderer torn between wanting to keep up the appearance of innocence and to find out if anyone knew about his crime. So, once the afternoon study session was underway, he told the Political Instructor he had an urgent report to make to the Captain. After considering this request, the Instructor asked the Signals Officer to help him find the Captain-even though he himself would have known perfectly well where he was and what he was doing.

The Signals Officer led Wu Dawang to the southernmost end of the barracks, to the rooms of the Commander of the Third Battalion, Second Regiment. The battalion barracks were fronted by a large copse of tung trees, whose withered, yellow leaves had formed a gloomily autumnal carpet over the ground. A sentry stood in the doorway to the Battalion Commander's quarters-short, stout and stubbornly conscientious to the point of refusing them entry. The Commander, he informed them, had been most particular that no one should be allowed in. So they waited by the door while he disappeared inside to report their arrival, and see if the Captain of the Guards Company was available.

He kept them waiting for what felt like an inordinate length of time. Fidgety with impatience, Wu Dawang took himself over to the Battalion Commander's window. Through it he witnessed a scene that gave him his first, glimmering sense that perhaps his entanglement with Liu Lian had not been as straightforwardly personal an affair as he thought. He could see the Commander's desk piled with dishes, bowls and empty bottles of the local sorghum-distilled liquor. A dozen or so scarlet chopsticks lay scattered on the floor.

The Commander and his four guests had obviously been drinking since lunchtime, for at least three of them now looked too far gone for any more sense to be got out of them that day. As a stunned Wu Dawang took in this debauched display, he noted that, in addition to the Battalion Commander and Wu Dawang's own Captain, the party included the Deputy Commander of the Third Regiment, the Political Instructor of the Third Battalion and a staff officer from Division HO. These individuals neither shared a common place of origin nor had they fought alongside each other. The one thing that united them was their link to the Division Commander — they had all served him either as Personal Orderly, Bodyguard or Signals Officer earlier in his career, when he was only a Captain or Battalion Commander.