Gao Xingjian - One Man

Then couldn't you have found some other means for just surviving? For example, by simply being an obedient citizen, going with the flow, living for today and not being concerned about tomorrow, changing with the political climate, saying what people wanted to hear, pledging allegiance to whoever was in power? you ask.

He says that was even harder, it needed much more effort than being a rebel. It needed much more thinking; one needed to be constantly working out the unpredictable weather, and could a person accurately predict heaven's temperament and mood? His father was one of the common people and he did just that, and when it came to the crunch, he ended up swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills. His father's demise was not very different from his old revolutionary maternal uncle's. There was no clear goal to his rebelling. It was simply due to his instinct to live, but he was like a praying mantis putting up a foreleg to stop a cart.

Then, perhaps, you were born a rebel, or at least born with a rebellious streak?

No, he says, he was gentle by nature, like his father. It was just that he was young, at an impressionable age, and very inexperienced. He couldn't follow the road of his father's generation, but didn't know what road to take.

Couldn't you have escaped?

Where could he escape to, he asks you instead. He couldn't escape from this huge country, and he couldn't leave that big beehive-like workplace where he got his salary. That beehive allocated his city residence permit, his monthly grain coupons (fourteen kilos), oil coupons (half a kilo), sugar coupons (quarter of a kilo), meat coupons (half a kilo). It also issued his annual fabric coupons (nine meters), his salary scale-based industrial certificates (2.05 certificates) for buying a watch, a bicycle, or everyday commodities such as wool, and even determined his citizen status. If he, this worker-bee, left the beehive, where could he fly? He says there was no other option, he was just a bee whose refuge was this hive. As the hive was infected with madness, what else was there to do except wildly buzz around, attacking one another?

But did wildly buzzing around save your life? you ask.

He was already buzzing around. If he'd known all this earlier, he wouldn't have been an insect. He smiles sardonically.

An insect that can smile is somehow grotesque. You go right up to take a good look at him.

It's the world that is grotesque, not the insect that has taken refuge in the hive, the insect says.

Beyond the pass at Shanhaiguan it got cold early, and he had run into chilly winds blowing down from the northwest. The bicycle, hired in the county town, was impossible to ride against the wind, and even pushing it was hard. At four o'clock in the afternoon it was already dark, when he reached the place where the commune was located, but the village he was going to was a further ten kilometers away. He decided to stay the night in the cart station, where the peasants stopped for a break with their donkey- and horse-carts. He forced himself to eat a bowl of hard sorghum along with the two strips of salted turnip that had gone bitter, then stretched out on the woven rush mat on the earthen kang. In weather like this, the villagers didn't take their carts out, so he had to himself a communal kang that could accommodate seven or eight people. His letter of introduction from the nation's capital seemed to have made an impression, because a special effort had been made to heat the kang for him. However, as the night wore on, it got so hot that the lice on him were probably oozing oil. Even after he had taken off everything except his underpants, he was still sweating, so he got up, sat on the edge of the kang, and smoked, as he pondered the real possibility of seeking refuge somewhere in a village during these chaotic times.

He was up early. There was still a strong north wind, so, leaving the clumsy, heavy-duty bicycle at the cart station, he set off on foot against the wind, and, after three hours, arrived at the village. He asked from house to house whether there was an elderly woman with such-and-such a surname who was a primary school teacher. People all shook their heads. There was a primary school in the village with one teacher, a man, but his wife had given birth and he had gone home to look after her.

"Who else is at the school?" he asked.

"There hasn't been a class for more than two years. It wasn't really a school, so the production brigade converted it into a store-house. It's piled high with sweet potatoes!" the villagers said.

At this point, he asked for the Party secretary of die production brigade, to get someone in charge.

"The old one or the young one?"

He said he wanted a villager who was in charge, so, naturally, the old one was better, he would be sure to know about things. He was taken there. The old man, a bamboo pipe clamped in his teeth, was weaving a rattan basket. Without letting him explain why he had come, the old man mumbled, "I'm not in charge, I'm not in charge!"

It was only after he said that he had come specially from Beijing to carry out an investigation, that the old man became respectful and put down his work. Holding the bronze bowl of his pipe and exposing his brown-black teeth, his eyes narrowed as he listened to him explain the situation.

"Oh, yes, there is such a person, the wife of old man Liang. She taught at the primary school, but she retired because of illness, a long time ago. People have been here to investigate her, but her husband is a shadow-play singer with a poor-peasant family background, so there weren't any problems!"

He explained that he was looking for this old man's wife because he was doing an investigation on another person, that it didn't actually concern the woman herself. At this, the old man took him to a house on the outskirts of the village. At the front door, he shouted out, "Old man Liang, your wife!"

There was no answer. The old man pushed open the door. No one was there, so, turning to the village children who had followed behind, he said, "Go quickly and fetch her, a comrade from Beijing is waiting for her in the house!"

The children dashed off, shouting as they ran. The old man also left.

The walls of the main room were gray-black from smoke, just like the square table and two wooden benches, the only furniture in the room. The kitchen adjoined, but the fire was not burning, so, feeling extremely cold, he sat down. It was gloomy outside, although the wind had died down. He stamped his feet trying to get warm, but, after a long wait, there was still no sign of anyone.

He thought about his waiting in this destitute, faraway village for the former wife of a high official. What could have made her settle in this village? Why had she become the wife of a poor peasant, a shadow-play singer? But what did this have to do with him? It was simply to delay his return to Beijing.

After almost two hours, an old woman appeared. Seeing him inside the house, she hesitated, stopped, but finally came in. The old woman wore a gray scarf around her head, a dark-gray padded jacket, an old pair of padded crotchless overtrousers that puffed out because they were tied at the ankles, and a pair of grimy black padded shoes. Could this genuine old peasant woman be the revolutionary hero of those times, who had been educated at a prestigious university and had worked in intelligence? He got to his feet and asked if she was Comrade Such-and-Such.

"No such person!" the old woman instantly said with a dismissive wave.

This gave him a shock, but he went on to ask, "Are you also known as…?" He repeated the name.

"My surname is the same as my husband's, Liang!"

"Is your husband a shadow-play singer?" he asked.

"He's very old and stopped singing a long time ago."