Ma Jian - Red Dust

The next day I reach Dazu and see the Buddhist rock sculptures of Mount Baoding. A thirty-one-metre reclining buddha protrudes from the rock face, flanked by shrines to Confucian precepts of filial piety and statues of Laozi, the Daoist sage. A cliff nearby is carved with a Wheel of Life showing scenes from the six states of existence into which man is destined to be reborn. Those who kept to Buddhist law are shown languishing in the comforts of paradise, while sinners condemned to hell writhe in agony as cruel demons rip their tendons and tear out their eyes. The barbaric tortures remind me of Zhang Zhixin, the idealistic high-school teacher who was executed in the Cultural Revolution for daring to question Mao Zedong’s rule. The soldiers who walked her to the execution ground were afraid she would shout subversive slogans at the firing squad so they slashed a knife through her larynx, and in her agony she bit off her own tongue.

On the 19th I continue east, trudging for hours along a noisy dusty track. When I can bear it no longer, I jump onto a packed bus, buy a ticket, and breathe smells of dirty teeth and soiled nappies all the way to the city of Chongqing.

It is raining when I step off the bus. The air is cool and fresh. Below me, through the grey mist, I glimpse the brown waters of the mighty Yangzi converge with a muddy tributary. The river is so wide I cannot see the opposite bank. Boats float near and far, some moving, some not. I climb a steep, narrow street lined with small shops and food stalls. The man with wet hair wheeling his bike, the girl in black stilettos, the old woman riffling through the rubbish bin, the lady with a sagging bottom and a dainty leather bag, the children thrashing each other with their satchels, the rats scrambling up the gutters, all seem oblivious to the rain.

I reach the address He Liu gave me before I left Chengdu. It is an old wooden house. I creak up the narrow staircase and see a large rat on the landing. He watches me approach, and politely steps to the side. Our feet almost brush as I pass. I knock on the door but no one is there. I presume they are not back from work, so I walk outside and buy a fizzy orange. A bald shopkeeper is hurling abuse at a female stallholder across the road. ‘I’ll fuck your grandmother, bitch!’ he shouts. ‘I’ll fuck your wife, bastard!’ she retorts. ‘Better stuff a cucumber in your knickers first!’ he bellows triumphantly. The stallholder looks crestfallen and everyone laughs. The rainwater cuts small channels into the mud on the road and seeps through the holes of my shoes. It reminds me of the night I got drenched outside Chengdu train station.

The following day I visit White Palace Prison on a hill outside town. My school textbooks were full of stories of communist martyrs who were tortured here in the Second World War by the merciless Guomindang. The communists have now turned the prison into a propaganda museum. I expected to see a dark, sinister fortress, but instead find the building resembles a small country hotel. The cells inside are dark and musty, and strewn with mangles and iron chains.

On my way out I stop to read the notice pasted on the gates. My eyes skip past the first paragraph (’To commemorate the founding of the People’s Republic and strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat. .’) and focus on the list of criminals below. Each name is struck with a red cross.

Zhang, male, 23 years. Planned to incite insurrection by setting up an illegal ‘China Youth Party’. Execution imminent.

Wang, male, 24 years. Listened to enemy radio stations and corrupted his friends with counter-revolutionary discourse. At 10:00 a.m., 10 October 1982, he stormed onto a tourist bus parked outside the Natural History Museum, claimed to be armed with explosives, and distributed leaflets on the benefits of plural democracy among the terrified foreign passengers. Fortunately, the driver was able to perform a brave citizen’s arrest. Execution imminent.

Chen, male, 27 years. Since June 1979 made frequent plots to leave the country. On 2 October 1981 he stole a fishing boat and, when crossing into Japanese waters, he yelled ‘I’m free!’ at the top of his voice. A few hours later the tide pulled his boat back across the border into the capable hands of the Chinese naval police. Execution imminent.

Lu, male, 25 years. Held private parties and danced cheek to cheek in the dark, forcefully hugging his female dance partners and touching their breasts. Seduced a total of six young women and choreographed a sexually titillating dance which has spread like wildfire and caused serious levels of Spiritual Pollution. Execution imminent.

Yang, male, 31 years. Duped 25 women into marrying farmers in Anhui and Qinghai with empty promises of a better life. The police confiscated 16,000 yuan and four wristwatches from his room. Execution imminent. .

The thirteen criminals listed above will be taken to the public execution ground and shot in accordance with the will of the people.

Public executions take place throughout China in the run-up to National Day. I have grown up reading these death notices and have attended several executions. I once watched an army truck stop, a young man called Lu Zhongjian come out, handcuffed, and two soldiers escort him away. When he started to scream, they slung a metal wire over his mouth and tugged it back, slicing through his face. Then they kicked him to the ground and shot three bullets into his head. His legs flailed and his shoe flew into the air. A year later I married his girlfriend. I only found out they had been lovers when I discovered his death notice hidden at the back of Guoping’s drawer.

I wonder how many people have been executed so far in the Campaign Against Spiritual Pollution. As I leave the prison gates a taste of stale blood rises to my mouth.

A week later I say goodbye to my friends in the wooden house, post a few letters and embark on my journey down the Yangzi. As the boat steams away, Chongqing looms behind us, stranded between the confluence like a wet, storm-battered ship.

I get off that night at Fulin. Yang Ming’s friend Liao Ye is waiting for me on the wharf. He reads me his long poem, ‘City of Ghosts’: ‘Listen to the silent voice of the Han/ The sobbing of the dead in your heart/ Saying: Once you belonged to the state of Ba or the state of Chu/ But who do you belong to now?/ Bereft of home and country/ Are you still the person you were?. .’ We spend half the night discussing poetry and the other half talking about women. He tells me of a beautiful poetess called Ai Xin who lives downstream in Wushan. ‘She is a river siren,’ he says. ‘Her beauty has lured many of my friends into the Wu Gorge and they have never been heard of again.’

The next morning, I take a boat to Fengdu, ‘City of Ghosts’, the legendary abode of the Son of Heaven who decides the fate of departed souls. The town’s narrow streets are filled with hordes of peddlers screaming their wares. A man selling rosaries throws one around my neck and I start screaming too. The fishmonger slits a knife down a live eel and grabs his money with blood-drenched hands. In the Temple to the Son of Heaven at the top of the hill I see the Eighteen Levels of Hell depicted in clay friezes along the wall. Garishly painted demons torture miserable sinners with spears and boiling fat. The quiet temple is a welcome respite from the hell of the streets outside.

On the 29th I reach Wanxian. My throat feels sore, and by the afternoon I have a temperature of thirty-nine degrees. Xiong Gang, my host at the cultural centre, takes me to the local hospital. Sick people who cannot afford treatment lie sprawled outside the gates. Flies dart between their faces and the oranges on the fruit stall. Inside, the wards are filled with glazed-eyed patients and the corridors stream with young men selling ice cream, tangerines and stolen drugs. When someone in a white coat appears they are besieged by patients asking the way to the ear, nose and throat clinic or how much longer they will have to wait for an X-ray.