Gao Xingjian - One Man

These were Lin's exact words, and he could not have heard them wrongly.

His father shook and almost shouted, "That's impossible! It happened more than thirty years ago!"

Father and son looked at one another. He believed his father more than the file, but he had to say, "Father, they are sure to investigate."

"In other words…" His father was wretched.

"In other words, who would now admit to having bought the gun?" He, too, despaired.

His father covered his face with both hands. He had finally realized the implications, and was weeping. The food on the table, hardly touched, had gone cold.

He said he did not blame his father, and, whatever happened, he was still his son, there was no question of his not acknowledging him as his father. During the great famine in the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward period, his mother had also been naive. She responded to the call of the Party and went to a farm to be reformed through labor; excessive fatigue led to her drowning in the river. He and his father were left to depend upon each other, and he knew his father loved him very much. When he came home from university swollen from malnutrition, his father used two months of meat-ration coupons to buy pork fat to make lard for him to take back with him. His father said it was cold up north and impossible to get hold of anything nutritious, whereas here carrots could be bought from the peasants. He could never forget his father pouring the boiling fat into a plastic jar, which immediately shriveled up and melted; the fat ran from the table to the floor. In silence, they got on their haunches to scrape up the solidified lard, bit by bit, with a spoon from the floor.

He went on to say, "Father, I've come back to clear up this business about the gun, for your sake and for mine."

It was only then that his father said, "I sold the gun to an old colleague at the bank more than thirty years ago. After Liberation, I have only had one letter from him. If he is still alive, he will be working at the bank. Do you remember him? You used to call him Uncle Fang. He was very fond of you and would never betray you. He didn't have any children and said he wanted to have you as his godchild, but your mother refused."

There was an old photograph at home, if he hadn't burned it, he recalled. This Uncle Fang was bald and had a fat round face. He was like a Buddha, but in a suit and tie. The child in a knitted pullover who sat on the lap of this living Buddha in a suit was holding a gold Parker fountain pen and wouldn't let go of it. The pen was later given to him, and he treasured it as a child.

After spending a day at home, he continued south by train another day and night. When he found the local bank and made inquiries, the youth at reception turned out to be a member of a rebel group. Then, after asking die cadre in charge of personnel, he found out that a certain Fang had been transferred twenty years earlier to a savings office in the suburbs. This was probably because old personnel who had been retained were not trusted.

He rented a bicycle and found the savings office. They told him that Fang had retired, and gave him his address.

At the end of a passageway of a simple two-story building, was an old woman in an apron washing vegetables at the communal tub. She gave a start at his inquiry, and asked instead, "What do you want him for?"

"I was passing through on a business trip and came to pay a visit," he said.

Hedging, the old woman wiped her hands incessantly on her apron, then finally said that he was not in. He suspected that she was Fang's wife, so, with a smile, he explained that he was the son of Fang's old friend so-and-so, and that he had come to visit his old uncle. The old woman quietly exclaimed, then took him to a door. She opened it to let him in, then brought tea and invited him to sit down. She told him her husband was working in the vegetable garden and that she would fetch him right away.

The old man came in with a hoe and placed it behind the door.

His one droopy eyelid was twitching, and a few sparse strands of white hair sprouted from the sides of his shiny head. Addressing him as Uncle Fang, he again explained that he was the son of such-and-such a person, and conveyed his father's regards.

The old man nodded, his droopy eyelid twitching, as he looked at him for a long time before slowly saying, "I remember, I remember, I remember… My old colleague, my old friend… How is your father?"

"He's all right."

"Ah, it's good to know he's all right, it's good to know he's all right!"

After chatting awhile, he said he was in trouble, or, rather, that he might be in trouble. It had to do with his father's having sold a gun.

The old man lowered his head to look for something, then took his cup in his trembling hands. He said he didn't want the old man to testify, but only wanted him to tell him what had happened. "Did my father ever get you to sell a gun for him?"

He stressed the word "sell" and said nothing about the old man having bought it. The old man put down his cup. His hands stopped shaking, and he went on to say, "This did take place, but it was decades ago, during the War of Resistance, when we were refugees; there was chaos and fighting in those times, and we had to protect ourselves from bandits. We had worked many years in the bank and had some savings, but, as banknotes depreciated, we converted our savings into gold and silver jewelry. We wore this on our persons, and carried a gun just in case."

He said his father had told him all this, but that was not the problem. The problem was that what had happened to the gun was never resolved, and it had been entered into his file that his father had hidden a gun. He said this as calmly as he could.

"This is hard to believe!" The old man sighed. "People from your father's work unit also came to investigate. It's hard to believe that it's also causing trouble for you."

"It hasn't yet, but it could, and I have to think of how to cope if something does flare up."

He explained again that he had not come to investigate, and put on a smile to put the old man at ease.

"It was I who bought the gun," the old man finally said.

"But my father said he got you to sell it for him-"

"But who did I sell it to?" the old man asked.

"My father didn't say," he said.

"No, it was I who bought the gun," the old man said.

"Does he know?"

"Of course he knows. Later on, I threw it into the river."

"Does he know?"

"How could he have known? By then, it was after Liberation, and there was no social unrest, so why would a person keep something like that? I secretly threw it into the river one night…"

There was nothing he could say to this.

"But why did your father have to bring it up? He's a trouble-maker! " The old man was blaming his father.

"If he knew that you had thrown it into the river…" he tried to defend his father.

"The problem is, he's just too naive!"

"He could also have thought the gun was still around and was afraid that if it was found and the owner traced-"

He wanted to defend his father, but his father had, in fact, made the report and had also implicated this old man. It was his father who was to blame.

"It's hard to believe, it's hard to believe…" The old man sighed, again and again. "Who would have thought something that happened over thirty years ago-before you were even born-would go from your father's file into your file!"

This gun at the bottom of the river must have rusted away to nothing and no longer existed, but undoubtedly remained on this retired old man's file, he thought but did not say. Changing the topic, he said, "Uncle Fang, you don't have any children, do you?"

"No." The old man sighed but said nothing.

The old man had forgotten that he had wanted him as a godchild. Luckily; otherwise he would have been as heavy-hearted as his own father.