Gao Xingjian - One Man

Some years later… How many years was it? Ten… no, twenty-eight years later, in Hong Kong, you answered a telephone call in your hotel. It was Liang Qin, who had read in the papers about your play. You didn't instantly recognize the name, and thought it was someone you had once met, and that the person wanted to see your play but couldn't get tickets, so you quickly apologized that it had already closed. He said he was your old colleague and wanted to take you out for a meal. You said you were flying out the next morning and that there wasn't time, maybe next time. He said, in that case, he would drive over right away to the hotel to see you. It was awkward to put him off, and it was only after putting down the receiver that you remembered him and your last conversation on your bicycles.

Half an hour later, he came into your room. He was dressed in a suit, leather shoes, linen shirt, and a dark-gray tie, but he was not flashy like the new rich from the Mainland. When you shook his hand, there was no gold Rolex watch, thick gold bracelet, or heavy gold ring. However, his hair was black, and, at his age, it would have been dyed. He said he had settled in Hong Kong many years ago. That neighbor from his youth, to whom he had written for the dictionary, found out how much he had suffered because of that letter, and felt so bad that he arranged for him to come out. He now had his own company, and his wife and son had moved to Canada on visas they had purchased. He told you frankly, "During these years, I have earned some money. I'm not wealthy, but I have enough to live out my old age in relative comfort. My son has a Ph.D. from a Canadian university, so I don't have anything to worry about. I commute, and if I can't stay in Hong Kong, I can pull out anytime." He also said he was grateful for the words you said to him back then.

"What words?" You couldn't remember.

" 'Don't get yourself killed in the process!' But for those words of yours, I wouldn't have been able to keep watching what was happening."

"My father couldn't keep watching," you said.

"He killed himself?" he asked.

"Luckily, he was discovered by an old neighbor who called an ambulance, and he was rushed to a hospital and saved. He was sent to a reform-through-labor farm for several years. Then, less than three months after being exonerated, he became ill and died."

"Why didn't you alert him at the time?" Liang asked.

"How could I dare write at that time? If they found out, my own life would also have been in jeopardy."

"That's right, but what sort of problem did he have?"

"Talk about yours, what sort of problem did you have?"

"Hey, let's not talk about all that!" He sighed, and, after a pause, asked, "How's your life?"

"What are you referring to?"

"I'm just asking, I know you're a writer, I'm asking how you are financially. You understand… what I mean, don't you?" Liang was unsure how to put it.

"I understand," you said. "I'm managing."

"I know that it's hard to make a living as a writer in the West, especially for Chinese. It's not like in business."

"Freedom," you said. What you want is freedom, the freedom to write the things you want to write.

He nodded, then again worked up the courage to say, "If you… Look, I'll be frank. For a time, I was financially constrained and didn't have the money, but you need only to say. I'm not some big tycoon but…"

"If you were a big tycoon you wouldn't be talking like this." You laughed. "A big tycoon would donate the money to carry out some fancy bit of engineering that would enable him to do more trade with the homeland."

Liang Qin took out a business card from his suit pocket, added an address and telephone number, and gave it to you, saying, "That's my mobile number. I've bought the house, so that address in Canada won't be changing."

You thanked him, said you didn't have a problem, and that if you had to rely on writing for a living, you would have stopped writing a long time ago.

He was deeply moved and blurted, "You're really writing for the people of China!"

You said you were writing only for yourself.

"I know, I know, write all about it!" he said. "I hope you'll write all about it, really write all about those times that were not fit for human beings!"

Write about all that suffering? you asked yourself after he had left. But you were already weary of all that.

However, you did think about your father. When he was exonerated and came back from the reform-through-labor farm, he was restored to both his former job and salary, but he insisted on retiring and came to Beijing to see you, this son of his. He planned to do some traveling after that, to drive away his cares and to spend his last years peacefully. You couldn't have known that the very night after you had spent the day with him at the Summer Palace, he was to cough blood. The next day, he went for a hospital examination and they found a shadow on his lung. It was diagnosed as full-blown lung cancer in its final stage. One night, his illness suddenly got worse, and he was admitted to a hospital. Early the next morning, he was dead. When he was alive, you asked him why he had attempted suicide. He simply said he really no longer wanted to live at the time. However, when he had just been able to live again, and, moreover, wanted to live, he suddenly died.

When those who had been exonerated died, their work units had to hold memorial services to offer some sort of commiseration to the families. At the memorial service, the son, who was a writer, of course, had to say something. Not to do so would have been disrespectful to his deceased father and also to the leadership of the comrades at the workplace, who had arranged the memorial service. He had been pushed to the microphone in the memorial hall and could not refuse before his father's ashes. He could not say that his father had been a revolutionary, although he had never opposed the revolution, and it was not appropriate to call him a comrade. All he could say was this: "My father was a weak man. May his soul be at peace in Heaven." That is, if there was a Heaven.

"Haul out before the people that evil scum of the Nationalist Party, the reactionary soldier-hooligan Zhao Baozhong!" the former lieutenant colonel loudly announced into the microphone on the dais. Officer Zhang, head of the Army Control Commission, wearing badges on his collar and cap, sat majestically alongside, showing no signs of emotion.

"Long live Chairman Mao!" The meeting suddenly erupted into a unified shout.

A fat old man in the back row of seats was dragged to his feet by two youths. The old man pulled his arms free and put up one arm to frantically shout, "Long live Chairman-Mao! Chairman-Chairman…"

The old man's voice was hoarse, but he struggled on. Two retired army personnel came forward. They had learned how to make an arrest in the army: they twisted the man's arm behind his back and immediately forced him to his knees, so that his shouts were stifled in his throat. Four burly youths then seized the fat old man and proceeded to drag him, but, like a pig refusing to be trussed up for slaughter, he pushed and stamped his feet against the floor as everyone watched in silence. While the old man was dragged along the passageway from his seat to the dais, a placard strung with barbed wire was forced around his neck, but even with his ears pinned back, he kept trying to shout. His face was swollen and had turned purple, and mucus ran from his eyes and nose. This old worker looked after the book warehouse and was once a soldier who had given his loyalty to the Liberation Army after escaping three times when conscripted by the Nationalists. He was eventually forced to bow his head and kneel on the ground. He was the last of the Ox Demons and Snake Spirits to be dragged out.