Gao Xingjian - One Man

"All of you who are not for the revolution can get the hell out of here!" the more radical among them shouted along with her. As a late-comer, she was trying to maneuver herself into a leadership position.

"If you want to be the leader, then go for it!"

He rose to his feet angrily and left the smoke-filled meeting room where forty or fifty people had been puffing on cigarettes the whole night. In the office next door, he pulled together three chairs and went to sleep. He was upset and confused. If he wasn't a fellow traveler of the revolution, was he then an opportunist rebel? Probably he was, and this was unsettling.

On the night of that New Year's Eve, the meeting thus unhappily dispersed. In the New Year, sporadic war began between Big Li's crowd and the most radical members of the Battle Corps that had announced a takeover of the paralyzed Party committee and political department.

"Smash the Party committee! Smash the political department! Revolutionary comrades, do you support or oppose the New Red Political Authority? There is a clear line of demarcation between being revolutionary or not!"

Little Yu was shouting into the broadcast system. Offices had been fitted with speakers, and the announcement of the political coup blared through all the corridors and rooms. Escorted by Big Li, Tang, and some service personnel, a group of old cadres and some young Party branch secretaries all wearing placards on their chests were paraded through the corridors of the entire building. In the lead was Wu Tao, beating on a gong.

What were they up to? Probably this was precisely how revolutions began. Those once dignified leading cadres who were the embodiment of the Party now filed past, one after the other, heads bowed, abject and wretched. The Party-member older sister led the rebel group with her fist raised and, shaking it, she loudly shouted, "Down with the capitalist road elements in positions of power! Long live the New Red Political Authority! Long live the victory of Chairman Mao's revolutionary line!"

In imitation of the national leaders at reviews, Tang waved at the people squeezed in the corridors and blocking office doorways. This made some laugh, but made others look grim.

"We know you are opposed to their seizing power-" the former field officer said.

"I don't, but I oppose their method of seizing power," he replied.

The person who approached him had transferred from the army to work as a political cadre. He was only a deputy department chief, and, in the chaos, was eager to advance himself. All smiles, he said, "You've got much more influence with the people than that mob. If you put yourself forward, we will back you. We hope that you will rally a contingent to work with us."

This conversation took place in the confidential documents room of the political department, a room he had not previously entered. The workplace documents and personnel files, including his own file with a record of his father's problem, were all kept in this place. When Big Li's crowd seized power, they pasted paper seals on the metal security cupboards as well as the locked document cupboards. The seals could be torn off at any time but nobody would dare to destroy the files.

The former field officer had sought him out in die main dining hall and said he wanted to exchange ideas with him. However, his arranging to meet in this room indicated another motive and, entering the room, he somehow sensed this. He knew who was behind the former field officer, because a few days earlier, the Party-committee deputy secretary, Chen, had given him a signal by putting a big bony hand on his shoulder. Chen formerly headed the workplace political department and seldom spoke or laughed; after being denounced, he had turned stony and cold. Chen had come up to him from behind and, as no one was around, had actually called his name and even addressed him as "comrade." Chen put his hand on his shoulder for one or two seconds, gave a nod, and walked past. This seemingly casual act, however, intimated extraordinary closeness, a pretense of having forgotten that it was he who had denounced Chen at a big meeting. This man far outstripped that motley crowd of rebels in political experience and meanness, yet here he was, stretching out a hand to him. He was by no means an old hand at playing politics, and was not as cunning as this man, but he knew he could not stand in their ranks. He reaffirmed his position, "I don't condone how they have seized power, but that doesn't mean that I am opposed to the general direction of those who have seized power. I definitely support rebelling against the Party committee."

This pleased the former field officer, who was silent for a while before saying with a nod, "We're also rebelling."

It sounded as if the man were saying "We're also drinking tea." He laughed, but said nothing.

"We were just having a casual chat, treat our conversation just now as having never occurred." Having said this, the former field officer stood up.

He left the confidential documents room, declined their deal, and severed links with them.

Less than ten days later, in February, after the New Year, the old Red Guards and some political cadres again organized a corps to oppose the seizure of power and smashed the workplace broadcasting station that was controlled by the rebels. The first armed conflict broke out between the two sides, and there were some injuries, but he was not present at the time.

Is it worth writing pure literature, that pure literary form where style, language, word games, linguistic structures, patterns simply follow their own course, but which is unrelated to your experiences, your life, the dilemmas of life, the quagmire of reality, or you, who are a part of the filth? Pure literature is a subterfuge, a shield, a limitation, and there is no need for you to crawl into a cage demarcated by others or yourself.

Your writing is not in the cause of pure literature, but neither are you a fighter using your pen as a weapon to promote truth. You don't know what truth is, but you don't need someone else to tell you what is. You know you are certainly not the embodiment of truth, and you write simply to indicate that a sort of life, worse than a quagmire, more real than an imaginary hell, more terrifying than Judgment Day, has, in fact, existed. Furthermore, it is very likely that when people have forgotten about it, it will make a comeback, and people who have never gone crazy will go crazy, and people who have never been oppressed will oppress or be oppressed. This is because madness has existed since the birth of humanity, and it is simply a question of when it will flare up again. Then are you trying to play the role of a teacher? Many have worn themselves out as teachers and preachers, but have people become any better?

It is best not to strive to make yourself despair, so why go on relating all this misery? You are distressed, but even if you wanted to, you can't stop. You must have this release, it has become an affliction, and the reason, you suspect, is because you yourself have this need.

You vomit up the folly of politics, yet, at the same time, you manufacture another sort of lie in literature, for literature is a lie that hides the writer's ulterior motive for profit or fame. However, what guides or stops the pen are not utilitarianism and vanity, but a deep, instinctual, animal drive, and differences within the species are due to the persistence of this drive, which is not affected by temperature changes, whether one is hungry or not, or the seasons. It is just like shit; if there is the need to, it is discharged. But it is unlike shit in that it is discharged in different places, and what is discharged must be endowed with sensuality and aesthetic beauty-for example, linking grief to your enjoyment of language. While exposing the land of your ancestors, the Party, the leaders, the ideals, the new people, and also that modern superstition and fraud-revolution-you use literature to create a gauze curtain, so that, viewed through it, that trash can at least be looked at. Hidden on this side of the curtain, in the dark with the audience, you derive pleasure; so doesn't this provide satisfaction?