Gao Xingjian - One Man

The train south made an unscheduled stop during the night at a small station on the northern bank of the Yangtze River, and people were shut in the unbearably hot and stuffy carriages. The ceiling fans were whirring, but the rank odor of sweat made it even harder to breathe. Several hours passed like this. The explanation over the broadcast system was that there was armed fighting at a station up ahead. The tracks were piled with rocks, and they didn't know when the train would be able to go through. It was only after passengers surrounded the train guard to protest that the doors were opened and everyone got out. He went to a pond by a paddy field, washed himself, then lay on the embankment to look at the stars in the sky. The sound of angry voices died down, and, as the croaking of frogs filled the air, he began to doze off. He thought back to when he was a child and lay on a bamboo bed in the courtyard to stay cool, and had also looked at the sky like this. But those childhood memories were more remote than the bright morning star in the sky.

Bags of cement had been stacked waist-high across the road, with gaps left to poke rifles through. In front of the barricade was a mass of road construction equipment: roadblocks, cement mixers, and bitumen boilers. Concrete blocks strung with barbed wire had been put up to make a passage on the road just wide enough for a person to get through. Traffic had been cut, and a line of seven or eight empty electric trolleybuses with their cable rods removed stood on one side of the intersection. The footpaths, however, were crowded with pedestrians and nearby residents: young adolescents squeezing in and out, women with babies, and old men in singlets and slippers waving rattan fans. They were all standing against the iron railing of the footpath waiting to watch something happen. Were they waiting for an armed battle? There was much talk in the crowd, some were talking about the Red Command and others about the Revolutionary Command. Anyway, the two factions had mobilized their forces and there was going to be a fight. He couldn't work out which faction was in control of the road to the railway station, but, making his way through the crowd, he crossed the intersection and started walking toward the roadblock.

Blocking the exit, at the end of the passageway of concrete blocks strung with barbed wire, were workers wearing red armbands and woven-willow safety helmets: they were armed with sharpened steel drills. He took out his work permit. The guard opened it, took one look, and waved him through. He was not from the area and had nothing to do with the dispute between the two rival factions. There were no vehicles on the road, and it was lonely and deserted, so he walked in the middle of the road where the bitumen radiated the heat of the glaring sun. People tend not to go crazy in broad daylight, he thought.

Bang! A loud noise cut the hot drowsy loneliness. At first, he didn't know that it was a rifle shot, and he looked around at the two sides of the street. The wall of a big factory had a slogan written on it in characters the size of a person's head: fight with your life

TO DEFEND CHAIRMAN MAO'S PROLETARIAN REVOLUTIONARY

line! At this, he realized that the sound he had heard was a rifle shot. He started running, but immediately stopped. He mustn't show that he was panicking, because it would make the sniper even more suspicious of him. However, he immediately got onto the footpath and walked at a brisk pace.

It was impossible to say where the shot had come from. Was it warning off pedestrians? Or was it aimed at him? They wouldn't indiscriminately kill someone, would they? He was passing through, and had nothing to do with their dispute. But supposing someone shot and killed him, who would come forward as a witness? He suddenly realized that he could have been killed by the sniper, that his life was in danger, and he immediately turned down the very first lane. The lane, too, was lonely and deserted, and it seemed as if all the residents had evacuated the area. Terror sprang up in his heart. Only then did he believe that the whole city could easily turn into a battlefield, that people could suddenly become enemies because of an invisible line, and that both sides could go into bloody battle because of it.

As expected, the square in front of the railway station was crowded with people, and there was a line of travelers snaking from the tightly closed ticket window. He asked someone in front what time they would start selling tickets, but the person didn't know and simply shrugged. He got into the line, and, before long, people from out of nowhere had lined up behind him. None of the people in the line had big pieces of luggage, and there were no old people or children. They were all strong young men, apart from a young woman with two short plaits, farther ahead in the line. From time to time, she looked around, but as soon as she made eye contact with someone, she averted her eyes. She seemed to be on edge, probably afraid of being recognized. It was his guess that many of the people in the ticket line were on the run, but the large numbers gathered in the square put his mind at ease, so he sat on the ground and lit a cigarette.

There was a stir, and the line instantly broke up. Something had happened. He stopped someone to ask, and was told that the river had been sealed off. He asked what that meant. There would be no ferries and trains operating! There was also talk that there would be a bloodbath. Whose blood and who was it going to wash? He couldn't get an answer. The people in the square had suddenly dispersed, and the ten or so, who, like him, had nowhere to go, gradually came together and formed a new line at the tightly shut ticket window. It was as if they had to do this to get the support of the others. By this time, the sun was setting, the clock at the station was pointing at five o'clock, and no one else was turning up.

The ten or so people left had been cut off from any source of information. Sensibly, they no longer stupidly lined up in the sun but found some shade to chat or smoke. Now and then, people made comments: the two factions were making their final decision, the military would soon intervene, boat and rail transport services couldn't be stopped for long and, at the latest, would be running again the next day. It was all positive thinking. He no longer asked questions. The young woman was still there but kept some distance from everyone. She stayed in a corner with her head down and her arms hugging her knees.

He was hungry and thought of buying something to eat so that he would be able to last until morning. Sleeping with his backpack as a pillow on concrete meant nothing more than looking at the stars all night, and somehow he would be able to get through this summer night. He left the ticket window and went around to the nearby shops, but they were all closed and shuttered for the night. There were no eating places open, and the streets and lanes on either side were empty and deserted. No vehicles had passed by for several hours. At this point, he sensed the air becoming thick, and he became tense, and, not daring to venture farther, he turned back. The shadow of the clock tower had already extended to the center of the square, and there were fewer people in front of the ticket window. The young woman was still huddled in the same spot and the talkative person was no longer talking.

The shadow of the clock tower now stretched over most of the square, and the outline of the dark shadow became more distinct with the sun directly behind. All strangers to one another, they were at a station, waiting for a train, but they didn't know when it would arrive. What if the tracks had been cut? Were they really waiting for a civil war?

Bang-bang-bang! A burst of muffled gunfire reverberated in everyone's hearts, and they all got to their feet. Following this was a continuous volley of gunfire, also muffled, but this time it was machine-gun fire, and it was somewhere not far away. Everyone scattered like animals, and he, too, ran for his life. This was war, he thought.