Gao Xingjian - One Man

Just before daybreak, a horn sounded clearly two times. He sprang to his feet, quietly opened the door, and raced up to the road.

"Tang, you can really be counted on!"

Tang had the truck lights on, and raised an arm to signal him. He immediately ran back and woke the two men who slept on either side of him in the communal bed.

"Are you leaving right now?" They crawled to their feet, not fully awake.

"Yes, I've got a train to catch," he quickly rolled up his bedding.

A few minutes later, he leaped into the truck and waved to the vague forms of the two men who had helped him. Good-bye to the May Seventh Cadre School, this labor farm.

His head was a total blank. Outside the train window was a vast and desolate gray-yellow plain, trees with bare branches flashed past. He had not slept all night, but was tired, not sleepy. Looking mindlessly out of the window, he still did not dare to believe that he had escaped, just like that. The train passed the big bridge over the Yellow River, and the fields began to show signs of grayish-green: the wheat, after the winter, was starting to turn green. Two or three hours on, after stopping at several stations, the trees flashing past had turned green-gray, and, in the branches of a bare tree, some tender green leaves had appeared. Then lush green new willow leaves could be seen trembling in the wind, bringing tidings of early spring. The thought "You have been saved" welled up in his heart.

The fields turned green after crossing the Yangtze, and bright sunlight sparkled between the seedlings of the paddy fields. This world was real. Only then did he relax and fall into a deep sleep.

Following a change of trains, he got on a long-distance bus that bounced him up and down on the winding mountain road. The old bus rattled, shaking so badly that it felt as if it would fall to pieces. But, outside the window, as far as the eye could see, were luxuriant green mountains with clumps of bright pink azaleas among the bushes on the slopes. He was wild with excitement.

In the small county town, at the end of an old cobblestone street, he found Rong's house, a mud hut with a thatch roof Not being a local, Rong was not doing particularly well here, but the hut, which he did not have to share, with its vegetable garden enclosed by a bamboo fence, filled him with envy. Rong's wife was a local and worked as a shop assistant in a local store, and their small son, just a few months old, was sleeping in a cradle in the hall. In the courtyard, in the warm sun, a hen with a flock of fluffy yellow chicks was pecking the ground. This scene moved him.

While Rong's wife was in the kitchen, cooking for them, Rong asked about what was happening in Beijing and about his own situation. So, he talked a bit about it. Rong said, "What are all these criticism meetings about? Here, far from Beijing, the county cadres have also had their criticism meetings, although these didn't involve the ordinary people."

"Rong, do you remember when we used to have philosophical discussions in our letters and would ask searching questions to try and find out what was the ultimate meaning of life?" He wanted to joke a bit.

"Don't talk about philosophy, that's all just to frighten people," Rong coldly interrupted. "I spend my days looking after my family. When it rains hard, the thatch roof leaks. This winter, I had to change the thatch. I can't afford a tile roof."

Rong's calm indifference to seeking fame and wealth had allowed him to return to real life. He thought he should be like Rong, pass his days in this real way, and so he said, "I'd best go into the big mountains and find a village to settle in for good!"

However, Rong said, "You'd better think about that properly. You can get into those big mountains all right, but you won't be able to get out. You, you're always fantasizing; be a bit more realistic!"

Rong helped him work out that he should go to a village with electricity, one that could be reached in a single bus trip, so that if he got seriously ill he would be able to get to the county hospital the same day.

"If you want to settle down here, you'll have to get on good terms with the village cadres, the local tyrants. When you go to the county town to report your arrival, don't mention anything about those damn happenings in Beijing!" Rong warned him.

"I know, I won't fantasize anymore," he said. "I've come here to seek a refuge and to find myself a sexy village girl who will bear me sons and daughters."

"My only fear is that you're not going to be able to cope," Rong laughed.

Rong's wife asked him, "Are you serious? I can arrange it for you, it'll be easy!"

Rong turned and said to his wife, "Hey, you can't believe everything he says!"

He found a free-standing mud hut by the primary school of a small farm town. The production team had just built it, and the rafters and tiles had only gone up that winter. The walls, made by compacting mud and stones between wooden separators, had not been whitewashed, and, as there was no ceiling, when there was heavy rain, a fine spray of water would drift in between the tiles. No one had lived in the hut before. He used mortar to fill the gaps between the walls and the wooden door and window frames, pasted white paper on the glass windows for a bit of privacy, and used some planks to make a bed. He lined a part of the earthen floor with bricks, to stack up his boxes of books, which he covered with a piece of plastic and put his bowls, chopsticks, and daily utensils on top. Afterward, he put a big earthenware water vat inside the hut, so that he could ladle water when needed, and, later still, had a desk made at the timber cooperative in the little town. He was quite satisfied.

When he got back from weeding in the paddy fields, he would wash the mud from his feet and calves in the pond floating with duckweed, and then make himself a cup of green tea. Sitting in a bamboo chair, he would look at the distant layers of mountain ranges in the mist before him. The line "Plucking chrysanthemums by the eastern fence, I suddenly see the Southern Mountains," from Tao Yuanming's poem would come to his mind, but his was not the leisurely life of that scholar-official of ancient times who lived as a recluse. Each day, when it was barely light, as soon as he heard the singing on the village loudspeakers-"The east is red and the sun rises, in China there emerges Mao…"-he would go with the peasants to the paddy fields to plant seedlings. However, he no longer had to make a pretense of chanting Mao's Sayings. Weary after toiling all day, just to be unsupervised, drinking a cup of green tea, resting in the bamboo chair with his legs stretched out, was all he needed. And, at night, to be able to lie down alone on the big plank bed and no longer have to be on guard about talking in his sleep was really something to be thankful for.

From now on, he was a peasant, relying on his strength to feed himself. He had to learn everything about farm life-plowing, building paddy embankments, planting seedlings, harvesting grain, shoveling manure, using a carrying pole-and he no longer expected that they would still issue him a salary. He had to mingle with the villagers, not give them any reason to be suspicious of him, settle down, and no doubt grow old and die here. He had to make a home for himself here.

In a few months, he was working almost as fast as the villagers, and he was not like the county cadres who, if they were sent there to work, would find excuses to return to the county town every couple of days. For the peasants, the local cadres were aristocrats who worked in the fields purely for show, but for him there was universal praise. He thought he had managed to win the trust of both the peasants and the village cadres, and so he opened those nailed-up boxes of books.