Gao Xingjian - One Man

"What will all of you do?" you ask.

"That day, don't go anywhere else. Just come here to eat seafood with me," Dongping says with a joyless smile. He seems to be very generous, not as rough as he used to be, and he has become wiser.

People stop joking and the music suddenly seems to be louder, and who knows what season Vivaldi has reached.

"It doesn't matter!" the American says in a loud voice.

"What doesn't matter?" his girlfriend retorts. She then rebuffs him, "You can never make yourself understood when you speak Chinese!"

After dinner, the American takes out a piece of opium the size of a fingernail to share around, but the two of you must catch the last boat back. Dongping says there is plenty of room, and the two of you can stay the night, then go for a swim in the morning. Margarethe says she is tired, and also that she will be flying out at midday tomorrow. Dongping escorts the two of you onto the ferry and, when it departs, he is left alone on the wharf, holding both hands high, and waving. You say to Margarethe that you were close friends in Beijing and had suffered together. He is a rare friend. He doesn't know any foreign languages and can't go anywhere. The police raided his home in Beijing. He often had parties with music and dancing, but the neighbors thought that there were indecent activities going on and reported him to the police. Afterward, through various strategies, he got to Hong Kong. This trip to Hong Kong is to say good-bye to him.

"It's hard making a living anywhere," Margarethe says sadly. You lean against one another by the railing on deck. The sea breeze is cool.

"Do you really have to leave tomorrow? Can't you stay one more day?" you ask.

"I'm not as free as you are."

The wind blows spray into your faces. Once again you confront a farewell, maybe this is an important moment for you. It seems that your relationship should not come to an end just like that, but you do not want to make promises, and simply say, "Freedom is in one's own hands."

"It's easy for you to say that, but, unlike you, I have a boss." She has turned cold again, like the sea wind. Above the sea is pitch-black darkness, the specks of bright light on the island have vanished.

"Talk about something interesting." Sensing she has upset you, she adds, "You talk and I'll listen."

"What shall I talk about, the March wind?" You talk nonsense and restore a nonchalance to your voice.

You sense her shrugging her shoulders, and she says it's cold. The two of you go back into the cabin. She says she's tired, and you look at your watch; there is still half an hour before reaching Hong Kong Island. You say she can lean on your shoulder and have a nap. You are also overcome by weariness.

March wind. Why March? And why wind? In March, on the North China plains, it is still very cold. Endless stretches of muddy marshlands and alkaline flats on the ancient riverbed of the Yellow River have been reclaimed for farmland by reform-through-labor prisoners. If there was no drought, the millet sown in winter would result in a harvest of the same amount of seed after the beginning of spring. In accordance with the newly promulgated highest instructions of the highest leadership, these prison farms were converted into May Seventh Cadre Schools, and the original prisoners and military police were sent to the desolate uninhabited highlands of Qinghai province. Hence the farms came to be farmed by purged bureaucrats and workers from the Red Capital.

"The May Seventh Cadre School is not a haven from the winds of class struggle!" The army officer from Beijing had come to convey this instruction. This time it was a purge of the May Sixteenth counterrevolutionary group that had infiltrated every nook and cranny night down to mass organizations. Anyone who was investigated would instantly be considered a practicing counterrevolutionary. The very first time he was confronted, soon after the initial period of the movement to sweep away Ox Demons and Snake Spirits, he was so frightened that he made a confession on the spot. But now he had become a fox and was capable of biting back. He, too, could bare his sharp fangs and put on a mean pose. He was not going to wait for a pack of hunting dogs to pounce on him. Life, if this could be called life, had thus taught him to be an animal. At most, he was a fox surrounded by hunters, and, if he made a false move, he would be torn to shreds.

After several years of chaotic warfare over what was right one day and wrong the next, a whole series of crimes could be listed for anyone who had to be purged. As soon as a person was investigated, problems were sure to be found, and if a person had problems he would be declared the enemy. This was known as fighting to the death in the class struggle. As the army officer had named him as the main target of investigation, all that remained was for the masses to get fired up so that they would direct their fire at him. He was fully aware of this process and, before the masses were fired up, he had to bide his time.

Right up to the day before the commanding officer announced that he was to be investigated, the masses were still laughing with him. The masses lived with him and, in the same dining hall, drank the same corn gruel and ate the same unleavened mixed-grain buns with him. They slept together on the cement floor of the granary on a mattress padded with straw. The row upon row of communal mattresses were forty centimeters in width per person-no more, no less-measured with a tape measure, whether one was a high-ranking cadre or an odd-job worker, fat or thin, old or sick. However, the men and the women were separated. Husbands and wives without young children to take care of couldn't stay in the same place. Everything was organized in military formation-squad, platoon, company, battalion-and everyone came under the leadership of the commanding officer. At six o'clock in the morning, the bugle call got people up, and they had twenty minutes to brush their teeth and have a wash. They then stood before the portrait of the Great Leader on the wall to seek "morning instructions," sang songs from Mao's Sayings and, holding high the little red book, shouted out "long live" three times before going to the dining room to drink gruel. Assembly followed, and Mao's Selected Works were recited for half an hour before people shouldered their hoes and pickaxes to work on the land. Everyone had the same fate. What was the point of all this endless fighting?

The day he was taken off work to write a confession, it was as if he had the plague and everyone was afraid of catching it. No one dared to talk to him. He didn't know what they were investigating, so when he saw a close friend heading for the mud-walled lavatory, he followed him in, undid his trousers and, pretending to urinate, said in a low voice: "Why are they investigating me?"

The friend gave a dry cough and, putting down his head as if he were totally engrossed in shitting, didn't look up. There was nothing for him to do but leave. It turned out that even when he went to the lavatory he was being spied on. The joker who had received the letter to implement the investigation on him was outside the mud wall, pretending to be deep in thought.

A meeting to "help" him was held on the cement drying ground. To help was to use mass pressure to force a person to admit to mistakes, and mistakes were the same as crimes. The masses were like a pack of dogs slinking off to bite as the whip directed, thereby ensuring that they themselves would not be lashed. He was familiar with this infallible key to mobilizing the masses.

The scheduled speeches became more intense and vicious. Each speech was prefaced by quoting from the little red book that was used as a cross-reference for a person's words and actions. He put his notebook on the table and made it clear he was taking notes. This was the signal he wanted to give: he had taken a stance, and he was recording everything. When the day came and things changed, he was not going to forgive anyone. The past years of constantly changing political movements had turned people into revolutionary gamblers and scoundrels. The winner was a hero and the loser was the enemy.