Howard Goldblatt (Editor) - Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused – Fiction From Today

After the punishment expert retired to his bedroom, the stranger sat for a long time in the living room, mulling over the fact that he himself was far less confident as to the outcome of the experiment than the punishment expert himself. And later, when he got up to go to his own bedroom, he was certain that when he stood by the punishment expert's bedside the following morning, the old man would still be able to see him. He had discovered the flaw that lay beneath the polished surface of the punishment, a flaw so crucial as to virtually ensure the failure of the punishment expert's experiment.

The scene the next morning confirmed the stranger's suspicions. The punishment expert lay atop his bed, face pallid with fatigue, and told the stranger that everything had gone smoothly the night before. But just as he had approached the end, he had awoken. With a tragic sweep of his hand, he threw aside his quilt to show the stranger what had happened: "I was so scared I wet the bed."

The bed was sopping wet. The stranger estimated that the punishment expert must have urinated at least ten times over the course of the night. He gazed at the punishment expert panting on the bed. He was satisfied. He didn't want the punishment expert to succeed. For his four dates, his memories, were in this frail old man's hands. The old man's death would spell eternal separation from his own past. And this was precisely why the stranger was unwilling to point out the nature and position of the flaw in the punishment that had led to his failure the night before. Thus when the punishment expert invited him to come again at the same time the following day, he merely smiled and carefully made his way out of the bedroom.

The scene on the second morning was much the way it had been on the first. The punishment expert lay prone upon his bed staring anxiously toward the stranger as he pushed open the door to the bedroom. In order to hide his sense of shame and humiliation, the punishment expert once again pushed aside his quilt to reveal that he had not only wet the bed but had also soiled it with a pile of his own shit. But the experiment had progressed in much the same manner as the night before-he had woken up at the last moment. In a voice tinged with sorrow, he said, "Come back tomorrow. I promise that I'll be dead by tomorrow."

The stranger failed to give these parting words his full attention. He gazed with pity upon the punishment expert, feeling as if he should tell him about the flaw. The flaw was simply this: after ten hours, a bullet should appear, a bullet that would shatter the punishment expert's head. The punishment expert had spent ten years perfecting the ten-hour process that would lead to his own death but had neglected to include the bullet with which the episode must inevitably culminate. At the same time, however, the stranger was all too aware of the danger of such a revelation. His past would die along with the punishment expert. And he sensed that as long as he was with the punishment expert, his past was never far away. He left the room without having revealed his secret, secure in the knowledge that the flaw would ensure that his past was not lost.

On the third morning, however, the stranger found an entirely different scene when he pushed open the door to the punishment expert's bedroom. The old man had fulfilled his promise of the day before: the punishment expert was dead. He hadn't died on the bed. Instead, his body hung from a rope about a yard away from the bed.

Confronted by this reality, the stranger felt a withered clump of weeds begin to entangle his heart. The punishment expert's death forever precluded the possibility of any kind of connection with the four memories he had once sought. To gaze upon the punishment expert now was to see the lynching of his own past. He distantly recalled March 5, 1965. And at that very same moment, he remembered the punishment expert's fury when he had spoken of death by hanging. The punishment expert had finally chosen to take his own life by means of a degraded punishment.

It wasn't until he left the room much later that he discovered a note written on the back of the door:

I HAVE REDEEMED THIS PUNISHMENT.

The punishment expert had clearly been lucid and sober as he wrote this message, for he had concluded by carefully noting the date: "March 5, 1965."

Translated by Andrew F. Jones

That afternoon, the armed work detachment posted a notice on the whitewashed wall of Ma Kuisan's home, which faced the street; it announced the following morning's executions at the usual place: the southern bridgehead of the Jiao River. All able-bodied villagers were to turn out for educational purposes. There were so many executions that year that people had lost interest in them, and the only way to draw a crowd was to make attendance mandatory.

The room was still pitch-black when Father got up to light the bean-oil lamp. After putting on his lined jacket, he woke me up and tried to get me out of bed, but it was so cold all I wanted to do was stay under the warm covers-which Father finally pulled back. "Get up," he said. "The armed work detachment likes to get their business over with early. If we're late, we'll miss our chance."

I followed Father out the gate. The eastern sky was growing light. The streets were icy cold and deserted; winds from the northwest had swept the dust clean during the night; and the gray roadway was clearly visible. My fingers and toes were so cold it felt as if they were being chewed by a cat. As we passed the Ma family compound, where the armed work detachment was quartered, we noticed a light in the window and heard the sound of a bellows. Father said softly, "Step it up. The work detachment is getting breakfast."

Father dragged me up to the top of the riverbank; from there, we could see the dark outline of the stone bridge and patches of ice in the hollows of the riverbed. I asked, "Where are we going to hide, Father?"

"Under the bridge."

It was deserted under the bridge and pitch-black, not to mention freezing cold. My scalp tingled, so I asked Father, "How come my scalp is tingling?"

"Mine, too," he said. "They've shot so many people here that the ghosts of the wronged are everywhere."

I detected the movement of furry creatures in the darkness under the bridge. "There they are!" I shouted.

"Those aren't wronged ghosts," Father said. "They're dogs that feed on the dead."

I shrank back until I bumped into the bone-chilling cold of a bridge piling. All I could think about was Grandma, whose eyes were so clouded over with cataracts she was all but blind. The sky would be completely light once the cold glare from the three western stars slanted into the space under the bridge. Father lit his pipe; the fragrant smell of tobacco quickly enveloped us. My lips were turning numb. "Father, can I go out and run around? I'm freezing."

Father's reply was "Grate your teeth. The armed work detachment shoots their prisoners when the morning sun is still red."

"Who are they shooting this morning, Father?"

"I don't know," Father said. "But we'll find out soon enough. I hope they shoot some young ones."

"Why?"

"Young people have young bodies. Better results."

There was more I wanted to ask, but Father was already losing his patience. "No more questions. Everything we say down here can be heard up there."

While we were talking, the sky turned fish-belly white. The village dogs had formed a pack and were barking loudly, but they couldn't drown out the wailing sounds of women. Father emerged from our hiding spot and stood for a moment in the riverbed, cocking his ear in the direction of the village. Now I was really getting nervous. The scavenger dogs prowling the space under the bridge were glaring at me as if they wanted to tear me limb from limb I don't know what kept me from getting out of there as fast as I could. Father returned at a crouch. I saw his lips quiver in the dim light of dawn but couldn't tell if he was cold or scared. "Did you hear anything?" I asked.