Online Flip Book / Download   Back to our Information Page

1

Papa was back.

After exactly twenty years of reform through labor, which took him from the North-East to Shanxi, and then from Shanxi to Gansu, he was just like a sailor who, swept overboard by a wave, struggles blindly against the undertow until miraculously another wave tosses him back onto the same deck.

The verdict was: it was entirely a misjudgment, and he has been granted complete rehabilitation. That day, when the leaders of the Theater Association honored our humble home to announce the decision, I almost jumped up: when did you become so smart? Didn’t the announcement that he was an offender against the people come out of your mouths too? It was Mama’s eyes, those calm yet suffering eyes, that stopped me.

Next came the dress rehearsal for the celebration: we moved from a tiny pigeon—loft into a three-bedroom flat in a big building; sofas, bookcases, desks and chrome folding chairs appeared as if by magic (I kept saying half-jokingly to Mama that these were the troupe’s props); relatives and friends came running in and out all day, until the lacquer doorknob was rubbed shiny by their hands, and even those uncles and aunts who hadn’t shown up all those years rushed to offer congratulations . . . all right, cheer, sing, but what does all this have to do with me? My papa died a long time ago, he died twenty years ago, just when a little four or five year old girl needed a father’s love—that’s what Mama, the school, some kind-hearted souls and my whole social upbringing, starting from birth, told me. Not only this, you even wanted me to hate him, curse him, it’s even possible you’d have given me a whip so I could lash him viciously! Now it’s the other way round, you’re wearing a different face. What do you want me to do? Cry, or laugh?

Yesterday at dinner time, Mama was even more considerate than usual, endlessly filling my bowl with food.

After the meal, she drew a telegram from the drawer and handed it to me, showing not the slightest sign of emotion.

“Him?”

“He arrives tomorrow, at 4:50 in the afternoon.”

I crumpled the telegram, staring numbly into Mama’s eyes.

“Go and meet him, Lanlan.” She avoided my gaze.

“I have a class tomorrow afternoon.”

“Get someone to take it for you.”

I turned towards my room. “I won’t go.”

“Lanlan.” Mama raised her voice. “He is your father, after all!”

“Father?” I muttered, turning away fiercely, as if overcome with fear at the meaning of this word. From an irregular spasm in my heart, I realized that stitches from the old wound were splitting open one by one.

I closed the composition book spread in front of me: Zhang Xiaoxia, 2nd Class, 5th Year. A spirited girl, her head always slightly to one side in a challenging way, just like me as a child. Oh yes, childhood. For all of us life begins with those pale blue copybooks, with those words, sentences and punctuation marks smudged by erasures; or, to put it more precisely, it begins with a certain degree of deception. The teachers delineated life with halos, but which of them does not turn into a smoke ring or an iron hoop?

Shadows flowed in from the long old-fashioned windows, brightly illuminating the opaque glass desk-top. The entire staff-room was steeped in drowsy tranquility. I sighed, tidied my things, locked the door and, crossing the deserted school grounds, walked towards home.

The apartment block with its glittering lights was like a huge television screen, the unlit windows composing an elusive image. After a little while some of the windows lit up, and some went dark again. But the three windows on the seventh floor remained as they were: one bright, two dark. I paced up and down for a long time in the vacant lot piled with white lime and fir-tree poles. On a crooked, broken signboard were the words: “Safety First.”

Strange, why is it that in all the world’s languages, this particular word comes out sounding the same: papa. Fathers of different colors, temperaments and status all derive the same satisfaction from this sound. Yet I still can’t say it. What do I know about him? Except for a few surviving old photographs retaining a childhood dream (perhaps every little girl has such dreams), . . . him, sitting on an elephant like an Arab sheik, a white cloth wound round his head, a resplendent mat on the elephant’s back, golden tassels dangling to the ground . . . there were only some plays that once created a sensation and a thick book on dramatic theory which I happened to see at the waste-paper salvage station. What else was there? Yes, add those unlucky letters, as punctual and drab as a clock; stuck in those brown-paper envelopes with their red frames, they were just like death notices, suffocating me. I never wrote back, and afterwards, I threw them into the fire without even looking at them. Once, a dear little duckling was printed on the snow~white envelope, but when I tore it open and looked, I was utterly crushed. I was so upset I cursed all ugly ducklings, counting up their vices one by one: greed, pettiness, slovenliness . . . because they hadn’t brought me good luck. But what luck did I deserve?

The elevator was already shut down for the day, and I had to climb all the way up. I stopped outside the door to our place and listened, holding my breath. From inside came the sounds of the television humming, and the clichés of an old film. God, give me courage!

As soon as I opened the door, I heard my younger brother’s gruff voice: “Sis’s back.” He rushed up as if making an assault on the enemy, helping me to take off my coat. He was almost twenty, but still full of childish attachment to me, probably because I had given him the maternal love which had seemed too heavy a burden for Mama in those years.

The corridor was very dark and the light from the kitchen split the darkness into two. He was standing in the doorway of the room opposite, standing in the other half of the darkness, and next to him was Mama. The reflection from the television screen flickered behind their shoulders.

A moment of dead silence.

Finally, he walked over, across the river of light. The light, the deathly-white light, slipped swiftly over his wrinkled and mottled neck and face. I was struck dumb: was he this shriveled little old man? Father. I leaned weakly against the door.

He hesitated a moment and put out his hand. My little hand disappeared in his stiff, big-jointed one. These hands didn’t match his body at all.

“Lanlan.” His voice was very low, and trembled a little.

Silence.

“Lanlan,” he said again, his voice becoming a little more positive, as if he were waiting eagerly for something.

But what could I say?

“You’re back very late. Have you had dinner?” said Mama.

“Mm.” My voice was so weak.

“Why is everyone standing? Come inside,” said Mama.

He took me by the hand. I followed obediently. Mama turned on the light and switched off the television with a click. We sat down on the sofa. He was still clutching my hand tightly, staring at me intently. I evaded his eyes, and let my gaze fall on the blown-up plastic doll on the windowsill.

An unbearable silence.

“Lanlan,” he called once again.

I was really afraid the doll might explode, sending brightly-colored fragments flying all over the room.

“Have you had your dinner?”

I nodded vigorously.

“Is it cold outside?”

“No.” Everything was so normal, the doll wouldn’t burst. Perhaps it would fly away suddenly like a hydrogen balloon, out the window, above the houses full of voices, light and warmth, and go off to search for the stars and moon.

“Lanlan.” His voice was full of compassion and pleading.

All of a sudden, my just-established confidence swiftly collapsed. I felt a spasm of alarm. Blood pounded at my temples. Fiercely I pulled back my hand, rushed out the door into my own room and flung myself head-first onto the bed. I really felt like bursting into tears.

The door opened softly; it was Mama. She came up to the bed, sat down in the darkness and stroked my head, neck and shoulders. Involuntarily my whole body began to tremble as if with cold.

“Don’t cry, Lanlan.”

Cry? Mama, if I could still cry the tears would surely be red, they’d be blood.

She patted me on the back. “Go to sleep, Lanlan, everything will pass.”

Mama left.

Everything will pass. Huh, it’s so easily said, but can twenty years be written off at one stroke? People are not reeds, or leeches, but oysters, and the sands of memory will flow with time changing into a part of the body itself, teardrops that will never run dry.

. . . a basement. Mosquitoes thudded against the searing light bulb. An old man covered with cuts and bruises was tied up on the pommel horse, his head bowed, moaning hoarsely. I lay in the corner sobbing. My knees were cut to ribbons by the broken glass; blood and mud mixed together . . .

I was then only about twelve years old. One night, when Mama couldn’t sleep, she suddenly hugged me and told me that Papa was a good man who had been wrongly accused. At these words hope flared up in the child’s heart: for the first time she might be able to enjoy the same rights as other children. So I ran all around, to the school, the Theater Association, the neighborhood committee and the Red Guard headquarters, to prove Papa’s innocence to them. Disaster was upon us, and those louts savagely took me home for investigation. I didn’t know what was wrong with Mama, but she repudiated all her words in front of her daughter. All the blame fell on my small shoulders. Mama repented, begged, wished herself dead, but what was the use? I was struggled against, given heavy labor and punished by being made to kneel on broken glass.

. . . the old man raised his bloody face. “Give me some water, water, water!” Staring with frightened eyes, I forgot the pain, as I huddled tightly in the corner. When dawn came and the old man breathed his last, I fainted with fright too. The blood congealed on my knees . . .

Can I blame Mama for this?

2

The sky was so blue it dazzled the eyes, its intense reflections shining on the ground. I was clutching a butterfly net, holding a small empty bamboo basket and standing amidst the dense waist-high grass. Suddenly, from the jungle opposite appeared an elephant. The tassels of the mat on its back were dangling to the ground; Papa sat proudly on top, a white turban on his head. The elephant’s trunk waved to and fro, and with a snort it curled round me and placed me up in front of Papa. We marched forward, across the coconut grove streaked with leaping sunlight, across the hills and gullies gurgling with springs. I suddenly turned my head and cried out in alarm. A little old man was sitting behind me, his face blurred with blood; he was wearing convict clothes and on his chest were printed the words “Reform Through Labor.” He was moaning hoarsely, “Give me some water, water, water . .

I woke up in fright.

It was five o’clock, and outside it was still dark. I stretched out my hand and pulled out the drawer of the bedside cupboard, fumbled for cigarettes and lit one. I drew back fiercely and felt more relaxed. The white cloud of smoke spread through the darkness and finally floated out through the small open-shuttered window. The glow from the cigarette alternately brightened and dimmed as I strained to see clearly into the depths of my heart, but other than the ubiquitous silence, the relaxation induced by the cigarette, and the vague emptiness left by the nightmare, there was nothing.

I switched on the desk lamp, put on my clothes and opened the door quietly. There was a light on in the kitchen and a rustling noise. Who was up so early? Who?

Under the light, wearing a black cotton-padded vest, he was crouching over the waste-paper basket with his back towards me, meticulously picking through everything; spread out beside him were such spoils as vegetable leaves, trimmings and fish heads.

I coughed.

He jumped and looked round in alarm, his face deathly-white, gazing in panic towards me.

The fluorescent light bummed.

He stood up slowly, one hand behind his back, making an effort to smile. “Lanlan, I woke you up.”

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing.” He was flustered, and kept wiping his trousers with his free hand.

I put out my hand. “Let me see.”

After some hesitation he handed the thing over. It was just an ordinary cigarette packet, with nothing odd about it except that it was soiled in one corner.

I lifted my head, staring at him in bewilderment.

“Oh, Lanlan,” beads of sweat started from his balding head, “yesterday I forgot to examine this cigarette packet when I threw it away, just in case I wrote something on it; it would be terrible if the Team Leader saw it.”

“Team Leader?” I was even more baffled. “Who’s the Team Leader?”

“The people who oversee us prisoners are called Team Leaders.” He fished out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat away. “Of course, I know, it’s beyond their reach, but better to find it just in case . . . ”

My head began to buzz. “All right, that’s enough.”

He closed his mouth tightly, as if he had bitten out his tongue. I really hadn’t expected our conversation would begin like this. For the first time I looked carefully at him. He seemed even older and paler than yesterday, with a short greyish stubble over his sunken cheeks, wrinkles around his lackluster eyes that seemed to have been carved by a knife, and an ugly sarcoma on the tip of his right ear. I could not help feeling some compassion for him.

“Was it very hard there?”

“It was all right, you get used to it.”

Get used to it! A cold shiver passed through me. Dignity. Wire netting. Guns. Hurried footsteps. Dejected ranks. Death. I crumpled up the cigarette packet and tossed it into the waste-paper basket. “Go back to sleep, it’s still early.”

“I’ve had enough sleep, reveille’s at 5:30.” He turned to tidy up the scattered rubbish.

Back in my room, I pressed my face against the ice-cold wall. It was quite unbearable, to begin like this, what should I do next? Wasn’t he a man of great integrity before? Ah, Hand of Time, you’re so cruel and indifferent, to knead a man like putty; you destroyed a father before his daughter could remember his real face clearly . . . eventually I calmed down, packed my things into my bag and put on my overcoat.

Passing through the kitchen, I came to a standstill. He was at the sink, scrubbing his big hands with a small brush, the green soap froth dripping down like sap.

“I’m going to work.”

“So early?” He was so absorbed he did not even raise his head.

“I’m used to it.”

I did not turn on the light as I went down along the darkness, along each flight of stairs.

3

For several days in a row I came home very late. When Mama asked why, I always offered the excuse that I was busy at school. As soon as I got home, I would dodge into the kitchen and hurriedly rake up a few leftovers, then bore straight into my own little nest. I seldom ran into him, and even when we did meet I would hardly say a word. Yet it seemed his silence contained enormous compunction, as if to apologize for that morning, for his unexpected arrival, for my unhappy childhood, these twenty years and my whole life.

My brother was always running in like a spy to report on the situation, saying things like, “He’s planted a pot of peculiar dried-up herbs,” “All afternoon he stared at the fish in the tank,” “He’s burned a note again. . . . ” I would listen without any reaction. As far as I was concerned, it was all just a continuation of that morning, not worth making a fuss about. It was my brother who was strange, talking about such things so flatly, not tinged by any emotion at all, not feeling any heavy burden on his mind. It was no wonder; since the day he was born Papa had already flown far away, and besides, in those years he was brought up in his Grandma’s home, and with Mama’s wings and mine in turn hovering over Grandma’s little window as well, he never saw the ominous sky.

One evening, as I lay on the bed smoking, someone knocked at the door. I hurriedly stuffed the cigarette butt into a small tin box, as Mama came in.

“Smoking again, Lanlan?”

As if nothing had happened I turned over the pages of a novel beside my pillow.

“The place smells of smoke, open a window.”

Thank heavens, she hadn’t come to nag. But then I realized that there was something strange in her manner. She sat down beside the small desk, absently picked up the ceramic camel pen-rack and examined it for a moment before returning it to its original place. How would one put it in diplomatic language? Talks, yes, formal talks . . .

“Lanlan, you’re not a child anymore.” Mama was weighing her words.

It had started; I listened with respectful attention.

“I know you’ve resented me since you were little, and you’ve also resented him and resented everyone else in the world, because you’ve had enough suffering . . . but Lanlan, it isn’t only you who’s suffered.”

“Yes, Mama.”

“When you marry Jianping, and have children, you’ll understand a mother’s suffering . . .”

“We don’t want children if we can’t be responsible for their future.”

“You’re blaming us, Lanlan,” Mama said painfully.

“No, not blaming. I’m grateful to you, Mama, it wasn’t easy for you in those years . . .”

“Do you think it was easy for him?”

“Him?” I paused. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know either. As a person, I respect his past . . . ”

“Don’t you respect his present? You should realize, Lanlan, he showed great courage in staying alive!”

“That’s not the problem, Mama. You say this because you lived together for many years, but I, I can’t make a false display of affection . . . ”

“What are you saying!” Mama grew angry and raised her voice. “At least one should fulfill ones own duties and obligations!”

“Duties? Obligations?” I started to laugh, but it was more painful than crying. “I heard a lot about them during those years. I don’t want to lose any more, Mama.”

“But what have you gained?”

“The truth.”

“It’s a cold and unfeeling truth!”

“I can’t help it,” I spread out my hands, “that’s how life is.”

“You’re too selfish!” Mama struck the desk with her hand and got up, the loose flesh on her face trembling. She stared furiously at me for a moment, then left, shutting the door heavily.

Selfish, I admit it. In those years, selfishness was a kind of instinct, a means of self-defense. What could I rely on except this? Perhaps I shouldn’t have provoked Mama’s anger, perhaps I should really be a good girl and love Papa, Mama, my brother, life, and myself.

4

During the break between classes, I went into the reception office and rang Jianping.

“Hello, Jianping, come over this evening.”

“What’s up? Lanlan?” He was shouting over the clatter of the machines. His voice sounded hoarse and weary.

“He’s back.”

“Who? Your father?”

“Clever one, come over and help; it’s an absolutely awful situation.”

He started to laugh.

“Huh, if you laugh, just watch out!” I clenched my fists and slammed down the receiver.

It’s true, Jianping has the ability to head off disaster. The year when the production brigade chief withheld the grain ration from us educated youth, it was he who led the whole bunch of us to snatch it all back. Although I normally appear quite sharp-witted, I always have to hide behind his broad shoulders whenever there’s a crisis.

That afternoon I had no classes and hurried home early. Mama had left a note on the table, saying that she and Papa had gone to call on some old friends and that they would eat when they returned. I kneaded some dough, minced the meat filling, and got everything ready to wrap the dumplings.

Jianping arrived. He brought with him a breath of freshness and cold, his cheeks flushed red, brimming with healthy vitality. I snuggled up against him at once, my forehead pressed against the cold buttons on his chest, like a child who feels wronged but has nowhere to pour out her woes. I didn’t say anything. What could I say?

We kissed and hugged for a while, then sat down and wrapped dumplings, talking and joking as we worked. I was almost on the verge of tears from the gratitude, relaxation and the vast sleepiness that follows affection.

When my brother returned, he threw off his work clothes, drank a mouthful of water, and flew off like a whirlwind.

It was nearly eight when they got home. As they came in, it gave them quite a shock to see us. Mama could not then conceal a conciliatory and motherly smile of victory; Papa’s expression was much more complicated. Apart from the apologetic look of the last few days, he also seemd to feel an irrepressible pleasure at this surprise, as well as a precautionary fear.

“This is Jianping, this is . . . ” My face was suffocated with red.

“This is Lanlan’s father,” Mama filled in.

Jianping held out his hand and boomed, “How do you do, Uncle!”

Papa grasped Jianping’s hand, his lips trembling for a long time. “So you’re, so you’re Jianping, fine, fine . . . ”

Delivering the appropriate courtesies, Jianping gave the old man such happiness he was at a loss for what to do. It was quite clear to me that his happiness had nothing to do with these remarks, but came from feeling that at last he’d found a bridge between him and me, a strong and reliable bridge.

At dinner, everyone seemed to be on very friendly terms, or at least that’s how it appeared on the surface. Several awkward silences were covered over by Jianping’s jokes. His conversation was so witty and lively that it even took me by surprise. After dinner, Papa took some Zhonghua cigarettes from his tin cigarette case and offered them to Jianping. This set them talking about the English method of drying tobacco and then on to things like soil salinization, the insect pests of peanuts and vine-grafting. I sat bolt upright beside them, smiling like a mannequin in a shop window.

Suddenly, my smile began to vanish. Surely this was a scene from a play? Jianping was the protagonist—a clever son-in-law, while I, I was the meek and mild new bride. For reasons only the devil could tell, everyone was acting to the hilt, striving to forget something in this scene. Acting out happiness, acting calmness, acting out glossed-over suffering. I suddenly felt that Jianping was an outsider to the fragmented, shattered suffering of this family.

I began to consider Jianping in a different light. His tone, his gestures, even his appearance, all had an unfamiliar flavor. This wasn’t real, this wasn’t his old self. Could strangeness be contagious? How frightening.

Jianping hastily threw me an enquiring glance, as if expecting me to repay the role he was playing with a commending smile. This made me feel even more disgusted. I was disgusted with him, and with myself, disgusted with everything the world was made of, happiness and sorrow, reality and sham, good and evil.

Guessing this, he wound up the conversation. He looked at his watch, said a few thoroughly polite bits of nonsense, and got to his feet.

As usual, I accompanied him to the bus-stop. But I said not a single word along the way, and kept a fair distance from him. He dejectedly thrust his hands in his pockets and kicked at stones.

An apartment block ahead hid the night. I felt alone. I longed to know how human beings survived behind these countless containers of suffering and broken families. Yet in these containers, memory is too frightening. It can only deepen the suffering and divide every family until everything turns to powder.

When we reached the bus-stop, he stood with his back to me, gazing at the distant lights. “Lanlan, do I still need to explain?”

“There’s no need.”

He leaped onto the bus. Its red tail-lights flickering, it disappeared round the corner.

5

Today there was a sports meet at the school, but I didn’t feel like it at all. Yesterday afternoon, Zhang Xiaoxia kept pestering me to come and watch her in the 100 meters dash. I just smiled, without promising anything. She pursed her little mouth and, fanning her sweaty forehead with a handkerchief, stared out the window in a huff. I put my hands on her shoulders and turned her around, “I’ll go then, all right?” Her face broadening into dimples, she struggled free of me in embarrassment and ran off . How easy it is to deceive a child.

I stretched, and started to get dressed. The winter sunlight seeped through the fogged-up window, making everything seem dim and quiet, like an extension of sleep and dreams. When I came out of my room, it was quiet and still; evidently everyone had gone out. I washed my hair and put my washing in to soak, dashing busily to and fro. When everything was done, I sat down to eat breakfast. Suddenly I sensed that someone was standing behind me, and when I looked round it was Papa, standing stiffly in the kitchen doorway and staring at me blankly.

“Didn’t you go out?” I asked.

“Oh, no, no, I was on the balcony. You’re not going to school today?”

“No. What is it?”

“I thought,” he hesitated, “we might go for a walk in the park, what do you think?” There was an imploring note in his voice.

“All right.” Although I didn’t turn round, I could feel that his eyes had brightened.

It was a warm day, but the morning mist had still not faded altogether. It lingered around the eaves and treetops. Along the way, we said almost nothing. But when we entered the park, he pointed at the tall white poplars by the side of the road. “The last time I brought you here, they’d just been planted.” But I didn’t remember it at all.

After walking along the avenue for a while, we sat down on a bench beside the lake. On the cement platform in front of us, several old wooden boats, corroded by wind and rain, were lying upside down, dirt and dry leaves forming a layer over them. The ice melting in the water crackled from time to time.

He lit a cigarette.

“Those same boats,” he said pensively.

“Oh?”

“There’re still the same boats. You used to like sitting in the stern, splashing with your bare feet and shouting, “Motor-boat! Motor-boat!” The shred of a smile of memory appeared on his face. “Everyone said you were like a boy . . . ”

“Really?”

“You liked swords and guns; whenever you went into a toyshop you’d always want to come out with a whole array of weapons.”

“Because I didn’t know what they were used for.”

All at once, a shadow covered his face and his eyes darkened. “You were still a child then . . . ”

Silence, along silence. The boats lying on the bank were turned upside down here. They were covering a little girl’s silly cries, a father’s carefree smile, softdrink bottle-tops, blue hairclips, children’s books and toy guns, the taste of earth in the four seasons, the passage of twenty years . . .

“Lanlan,” he said suddenly, his voice very low and trembling, “I, I beg you to forgive me.”

My whole body began to quiver.

“When your mother spoke of your life in these years, it was as if my heart was cut with a knife. What is a child guilty of?” His hand clutched at the air and came to rest against his chest.

“Don’t talk about these things,” I said quietly.

“To tell you the truth, it was for you that I lived in those years. I thought if I paid for my crime myself, perhaps life would be a bit better for my child, but. . . ,” he choked with sobs, “you can blame me, Lanlan, I didn’t have the ability to protect you, I’m not worthy to be your father. . . .”

“No, don’t, don’t. . . I was trembling, my whole body went weak, all I could do was shake my hands. How selfish I was! I thought only of myself, immersed myself only in my own sufferings, even making suffering a kind of pleasure and a wall of defense against others. But how did he live? For you, for your selfishness, for your heartlessness! Can the call of blood be so feeble? Can what is called human nature have completely died out in my heart?

“ . . . twenty years ago, the day I left the house, it was a Sunday. I took an afternoon train, but I left at dawn; I didn’t want you to remember that scene. Standing by your little bed, the tears streaming down, I thought to myself: “Little Lanlan, shall we ever meet again?” You were sleeping so soundly and sweetly, with your little round dimples, . . . the evening before, as you were going to bed, you hugged me by the neck and said in a soft voice, ‘Papa, will you take me out tomorrow?’ ‘Papa‘s busy tomorrow.’ You went into a sulk and pouted unhappily. I had to promise. Then you asked again, ‘Can we go rowing?’ ‘Yes, we’ll go rowing.’ And so you went to sleep quite satisfied. But I deceived you, Lanlan. When you woke up the next day, what could you think. . . .”

“Papa!” I blurted out, flinging myself on his shoulder and crying bitterly.

With trembling hands he stroke my head. “Lanlan, my child.”

“Forgive me, Papa.” I said, choked with sobs. “I’m still your little Lanlan, always . . . ”

“My little Lanlan, always.”

A bird whose name I don’t know hovered over the lake, crying strangely, adding an even deeper layer of desolation to this bleak winter scene.

I lay crying against Papa’s shoulder for a long time. My tears seeped drop by drop into the coarse wool of his overcoat. I seemed to smell the pungent scent of tobacco mingling with the smell of mud and sweat. I seemed to see him during the breaks between heavy labor, leaning wearily against the pile of dirt and rolling a cigarette, staring into the distance through the fork between the guard’s legs. He was pulling a cart, struggling forward on the miry road, the cart wheels screeching, churning up black clods of mud. The guard’s legs. He was digging the earth shovelful after shovelful, straining himself to fling it towards the pit side. The guard’s legs. He is carrying his bowl, greedily draining the last mouthful of vegetable soup. The guard’s legs . . . I dared not think any more, I dared not. My power to imagine suffering was limited alter all. But he actually lived in a place beyond the powers of human imagination. Minute after minute, day after day, oh God, a full twenty years . . . No, amidst suffering, people should be in communication with one another, for suffering can link people’s souls even more than happiness. even if the soul is already numb, already exhausted . . .

“Lanlan, look,” he drew a beautiful green necklace from his pocket, “I made this from old toothbrush handles just before I left there. I wanted to give you a kind of present, but then I was afraid you wouldn’t want this crude toy . .”

“No, I like it.” I took the necklace, moving the beads lightly to and fro with my linger, each of these wounded hearts. . .

On the way back, Papa suddenly bent over and picked up a piece of paper, turning it over and over in his hand. Impulsively I pulled up his arm and laid my head on his shoulder. In my heart I understood that this was because of a new strangeness, and an attempt to resist this strangeness.

Here on the avenue, I seemed to see a scene from twenty years earlier. A little girl with blue hairclips, both fists outstretched. totters along the edge of the muddy road. Beside her walks a middle-aged man relaxed and at ease. A row of little newly-planted poplars separates them. And these little trees, as they swiftly swell and spread, change into a row of huge insurmountable bars. Symbolizing this are twenty years of irregular growth rings.

“Papa, let’s go.”

He tossed away the piece of paper and wiped his hand carefully on his handkerchief. We walked on again.

Suddenly I thought of Zhang Xiaoxia. At this moment, she’ll actually be in the race. Behind rises a puff of white smoke from the starting gun and amid countless faces and shrill cries falling away behind her, she dashed against the white finishing tape.