Gao Xingjian - One Man

"Hey-" a young man from the timber cooperative with a cigarette hanging from his lips recognized him and came over to shake hands. During the concerted militia training, they had done shooting practice together, then got to know one another while drinking and bullshitting together. The man, no doubt now a minor cadre, did not intend to invite him home for a meal, but said he was due at the timber cooperative. He had only stayed here temporarily, and, having left the place, was of little interest to anyone; he was just an outsider.

However, he found out that Lu's new house was on the other side of the river, on the mountain behind the flatland where the coal mine was located. After crossing the river, there were another three or four kilometers, and he would have to walk for some time. Rong had told him that the cadres in the county town were spreading the rumor that Lu had gone crazy. They said he had built a thatched hut on the mountain and had become a Daoist, living on a vegetarian diet, and, in a quest for longevity, was refining cinnabar to arrest the aging process. Lu's old comrades, his superiors in higher echelons who had been reinstated to their former positions or promoted, were certain that his revolutionary will had deteriorated. Lu told him this after he went up the mountain and saw his old benefactor.

"I don't want to get my hands dirty again. This is fine, a thatched hut with a purple bamboo garden where I grow vegetables and read books. I'm not like you, you're still young. I'm getting old, and I am not going to do much more in life," Lu said to him.

Lu, of course was not living in a thatched hut, but in an unimposing brick house with a tiled roof, which couldn't be seen unless one climbed up the hill behind the coal mine.

Lu had taken a retirement payment for old cadres, designed the house himself, and supervised the local peasants who built it for him.

The inside of the house was paved with blue-stone slabs. One of the slabs in the bedroom could be lifted: it was the entrance to a secret tunnel, which led into a small wooden hut by a stream adjoining a pine forest. It could be said that Lu had finally succeeded in preserving himself, yet, from time to time, probably because of what he had experienced in life, he still thought about possible plots against him.

In the main hall by a wall, inlaid into the floor, was an old stone tablet. Lu had some peasants carry it down from the ruins of the old temple on the top of the mountain. Much of the inscription was missing, but a rough outline of the life and thinking of the monk who had built the temple could be made out from what remained. A disgruntled graduate of the county level of the Imperial Civil Service Examinations had joined the rebellion of the Long Hairs, the Taipings. The Heavenly Kingdom of the Taipings had also aimed at establishing a Utopia on earth, but internal fighting and cruel killings led to defeat. The scholar subsequently renounced the world, to live here as a monk. Books were piled in Lu's bedroom. There were internal reference publications of the time for high-ranking cadres of the Party, such as the Japanese prime minister's Autobiography of Tanaka Kakuei and the three-volume Memoirs of General de Gaulle, as well as an undated, hand-sewn edition of The Essentials of Pharmacology and a new edition of classical poetry.

"I want to write something, I've already got the title: Daily Chronicle of a Man in the Mountains. What do you think of it? It's just that I don't know whether I'll actually be able to write it," Lu said.

He and Lu laughed. This tacit understanding was the basis of his friendship with Lu, and, probably, the reason he had received Lu's protection during those years.

"Let's get something to eat with the liquor!"

Lu wasn't a vegetarian at all, and took him to the coal miners' dining room. Below the hill, at the mouth of the coal mine where there were rows of workers' huts, was the structure for the electric trolley carts. It was late afternoon, work had stopped for the day, and the mine workers were queuing with their big bowls at the food window of the big bamboo-shed dining room. Lu had gone straight to the kitchen. Suddenly, a woman's voice called out, "Teacher!"

A young woman had left the queue of grimy coal miners, and was cheerfully coming over to greet him. He immediately made out that it was his student Sun Huirong, wearing a peasant woman's gown.

Her beautiful eyes had not changed, but her face and body had become rounder.

"How is it that you're here?"

He could not suppress his surprise and delight, and was about to go up to her when Lu emerged from the kitchen, gave him a shove, and commanded, "Get going!"

He instinctively obeyed. He had been under Lu's protection a long time, and it had become habit. But he couldn't help turning to look back. Anxiety, panic, despair, shame, all showed in her eyes that had sunk deeper and become darker. Her lips parted, wanting to speak but uttered no sounds. She was still standing apart from the men in the queue with their bowls, and everyone was looking at her.

"Ignore her, the slut sleeps with anyone, and she's got men fighting with knives in this mine!"

Lu was speaking to him in a low voice. He was upset, but, forcing himself to follow, he heard Lu say, "At the beginning of the month, when wages are paid and those devils have a bit of money, they go off to her house. The women in the village are all cursing and yelling about it. At present, she's working at the broadcasting station of the mine, but you can't go anywhere near her. If you say more than a few words to her, she will want you to go to bed with her, and everyone will assume that you couldn't get away and did go to bed with her!"

Half an hour later, Lu had taken out bowls and chopsticks, and poured liquor. The cook from the dining room arrived and brought out plates of quick-fried dishes, still hot, from a covered basket. He was not in the mood for drinking, and deeply regretted not having stopped to talk to Sun Huirong. But then, what would he have said to her?

You and she seemed to be from two different worlds. Although your world could never be clean, she was stuck in this coal pit, and would never be able to pull herself out. She had forgotten the distance separating you from her, forgotten her experiences, and forgotten her status as a whore in the eyes of the locals. To her, you were her teacher, she was not asking for your help, and probably she had never again thought of changing her circumstances. It was a sudden and total innocence that had resurfaced, a hazy childhood infatuation, and she was so happy that she forgot herself. As you came to this realization, you flinched from the pain of having hurt her like this, and for a long time you couldn't forgive yourself for being so weak.

At night, lying in Lu's bedroom with the secret tunnel, he listened to the sound of water flowing outside the window and the waves of wind blowing through the pine forest. Early the next day, he crossed the river and hurried to the village to get the early bus back to the county town.

You had a photograph of Sun Huirong. You had taken it at a performance of the revolutionary opera, A Qing Sao, by the Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team on National Day. It was before she had been assigned to the production brigade, when you had helped her with her makeup and lipstick. She sang the role of the heroine, A Qing Sao, who fought the bandit army of the Japanese puppet government. This opera had been prescribed in the syllabus issued by the County Education Bureau, and all the students had to learn to sing the songs from it in the music class. She had the best voice. It was impossible to know if she now had a man or was still a whore in the coal mine, which was run as a peasant collective enterprise. After you left China, the authorities sealed off your apartment in Beijing, and those photographs, together with your books and handwritten manuscripts, were all confiscated.