Authors: Yan Lianke
The secretary gazed at a group of villagers, and said, Tell me, can you bear to watch as people from the same commune starve to death one after another? Can you bear to watch famine refugees come begging at your door, while you refuse to give them food? Are we not all living under the Communist Party? Are we not all class brothers and sisters?
The wholers thereupon seized Liven’s three to five remaining bins of wheat, loaded them onto a cart, and hauled them away, not leaving a single grain behind.
They carted everything away. But three days later, several more wholers arrived, each with a carrying pole and a letter written by the secretary. It said:
Mao Zhi,
One hundred and thirteen out of the four hundred and twenty-seven people of the Huaishugou production brigade have already starved to death. There isn’t any bark left on any of the trees in the village, and even all the soil has been eaten. After reading this letter, you must collect a quart of grain from every home in the village. Don’t forget that you and the people of Liven are all members of the socialist family, and are each other’s class brothers and sisters.
Mao Zhi, carrying the secretary’s letter, led the visitors to every home in the village, in order to collect a quart of grain from each family. The visitors left, and several days later someone else brought a letter from the secretary, and this person too went door-to-door to collect two bundles of wheat. Before the first month of the year was over, three to five groups of people had come to Liven demanding grain and bearing a carrying pole, a travel sack, and a letter with the commune’s seal and the secretary’s signature. If the villagers didn’t give them any grain, the visitors would plant themselves at the entrance to the village or in front of Mao Zhi’s house and refuse to leave. In the end, the villagers had to give them a quart of grain from the blind man’s household and a bowl from the crippled man’s household. In this way, Liven came to function as a granary for the entire commune, until eventually every family’s vats were empty. When the villagers used a bowl or ladle to scoop grain out of the vat, they would hear it strike the sides of the container, and every head of household would shudder, feeling a chill rise up from his or her heart.
On the final day of the first month, two more young people from the county arrived in the village. Their attire, however, was completely unlike that of the commune visitors, and instead they were wearing Mao suits with several pens sticking out of their shirt pockets. Mao Zhi immediately recognized one of them as County Chief Yang’s former secretary, who was now known as Teacher Liu at the county soc-school. Teacher Liu had a handwritten letter from the county chief himself. It said:
Mao Zhi,
We are both veterans of the Fourth Red Army. Currently, the socialist revolution has reached another pivotal turning point, and even the members of the county council and the county government are starving. After receiving this letter, please send us some of the village’s grain as quickly as possible, in order to help address this pressing matter.
The letter was written on a sheet of yellow grass paper, and the writing was crooked and uneven, as though a clump of weeds was growing on the paper. At the end of the letter, there was not only the county chief’s signature but also his fingerprint in red ink. Next to the fingerprint, there was the red badge from Chief Yang’s cap, which he had preserved from his time in the Fourth Red Army. The fingerprint was as red as fresh blood, with round and oval ridges, while the cap insignia was so old it resembled dried blood, and all five corners had faded to the color of lead. Mao Zhi looked at the letter, then removed the five-star insignia and held it in her hand. Without saying a word, she led the visitors to a spot beneath the eaves of her house, where she removed the lids of two large vats and announced that there was wheat in one and corn in the other. She told the visitors that they could take as much as they wanted.
Teacher Liu said, Mao Zhi, how much do you think we can carry by ourselves? Tomorrow a horse cart will come to the village.
Mao Zhi said, Let them come. When they come I will lead you to each home in the village to collect grain.
The next day, a horse cart did in fact arrive in the village, together with not one but two large carts with rubber tires. They stopped in the middle of the village, and the village children, who had never seen rubber tires before, all crowded around, touching and smelling the tires and hitting them with sticks. They noticed that the rubber had a peculiar odor, and that it had the same texture as ox hide. They hit the tires with hammers and sticks, but found that they simply bounced back. Then, a cripple and a deaf person who had never ventured far from home came over to look at the carts, as a blind person stood nearby listening intently to what other people were saying. While the villagers were looking and asking questions, Mao Zhi led the cadres from one home to another to collect grain.
When they arrived at the eastern end of the village, Mao Zhi said, Third Blind Uncle, they have come from the county to collect grain, and they have a signed letter from the county chief. Please open your grain vat and let the cadres help themselves to what they need. It is said that even the county chief is so famished that his legs are all swollen.
When they arrived at the western end of the village, Mao Zhi said, Fourth Auntie, is Fourth Uncle home? These visitors have come from the county seat. This is the first time in a century that people have come from the county to collect grain. You should open your vat and let them take as much as they want.
Fourth Auntie asked, After this, will they come again to collect more?
Mao Zhi said, This will be the last time.
Crippled Fourth Auntie removed the lid of the family’s grain vat, permitting the visitors from the county to take what was inside. The visitors then proceeded to the next family, the head of which had only one arm. He was Mao Zhi’s brother-in-law, which is to say the younger brother of her husband, and the first thing he said when he saw her was, Auntie, you’ve brought more people to collect grain? Mao Zhi replied, Please open the grain vat; this will be the final time.
Her brother-in-law led the visitors into the main room of his home, and allowed them to help themselves to his grain. The visitors’ two carts were filled to the brim with large and small bags, and in the end they carted away all of the village’s grain. It was already the first lunar month, and spring was not far away. It was agreed that the commune and the county wouldn’t send anyone else to demand grain, and every family was exuberant. But after the county committee and the county government hauled away the grain they had collected, a representative from the county agricultural ministry arrived with a letter from the county committee demanding even more, and a representative from the Organization Bureau arrived with a similar letter. A representative from the armed forces department not only brought a letter, but arrived in a car and bearing guns.
Following the first lunar month, after the announcement from the county was distributed, the families in Liven were no longer exuberant, and at most they would provide their visitors with only a single meal. But even so, people came from dozens of
li
away for the sole purpose of asking Liven for food. Ordinarily, you wouldn’t find beggars anywhere in the village, but at mealtime they would arrive from who knows where—leading their children by the hand to every home in Liven, passing their bowls through every doorway and up to every pot.
From the end of the
gengzi
year to the beginning of the following year, Liven experienced a severe grain shortage and the crisis became even more severe. There were refugees from other villages outside every home in Liven. These refugees were all wholers. Under the eaves of the front of houses and everywhere the sun was shining, families of beggars could be seen. At nightfall, they would sleep in people’s doorways, behind their houses, or even in shielded areas of the street itself. When it was so cold that they couldn’t sleep, they would go into the streets and stomp their feet, run around, and generally make such a commotion that all night long the village echoed with the sound of their footsteps.
One night, Mao Zhi walked out of her house and found several men secretly stripping the bark from the village’s elm trees, so she went over and told them that if they did that, the trees would die. One man stopped and looked at her, and asked if she was a Liven cadre. She replied, Yes, I am. The man said, I have a fifteen-year-old daughter at home. Please help her find a husband in Liven. Even a blind man or a cripple will do, as long as he can give us a quart of grain. Mao Zhi then went to the center of the village, where a family was sitting around a fire. She asked, Why are you still in Liven? Our village doesn’t have any food left. The father looked at her and said, I see that you are a cadre; is it true that anyone who is blind or crippled can stay and live here in Liven? Mao Zhi replied, It is true that this is a village of the blind, the deaf, and the crippled. There are no wholers who can live out their lives here in the depths of the Balou mountains. The man said, If that is the case, then by tomorrow my entire family of wholers will be missing either an arm or a leg, at which point you should certainly give us a bite to eat.
Mao Zhi didn’t dare continue forward. Every time she took a few steps, someone would kneel down in front of her and beg for food. People would kneel down and, sobbing, hug her legs. That night it was bitterly cold, and the moonlight was like ice. The people sleeping outside all went to the fields and pulled up the wheat straw, which they then brought back and spread out in the streets. They took the thatched roofs of the huts in the wheat fields, and spread them out on the ground in the village. Some people even slept in the ox shed at the front of town, and because it was so cold they pressed their bodies against the ox’s belly. If the ox was well behaved, the parents would let their children hug its legs while they slept.
There was also Seventh Cripple’s pigsty, near the entrance to the village. The pigs were half-grown, and on the floor of the pigsty there was a fresh layer of new straw. A family was sleeping on the ground with the pigs, the children hugging the piglets, and the entire family eating out of the pig trough.
When Mao Zhi visited the family that was sleeping with the pigs, she asked the parents if they weren’t afraid the pigs might bite their children.
They replied that pigs were better behaved than humans, and the risk was not so much that the pigs might bite the humans, but rather that the humans might bite the pigs. They said that in their village, there had even been a case of cannibalism.
Mao Zhi didn’t dare say anything else. The next day, she notified all the families in the village that at each meal they should each prepare two extra bowls, which they would then take to the village entrance to give to the famine refugees.
Afterward, the situation simply got worse, as even more famine refugees poured into the village, making it seem as though Liven were hosting a major convention. When the people of Liven ate their meals, they no longer gathered together in the dining area at the front of the village but rather, for better or worse, would close their doors and lock themselves in their houses. However, Liven did have food, and the village’s cemetery didn’t have a single new gravestone. This was something that people could see for themselves. The news spread like wildfire that all you needed when you arrived in the village of Liven was a letter marked with a seal from the commune or the county and you would be able to collect some grain, and if you brought out your rice bowl you would be able to receive a bowl of food.
People from throughout the Balou mountain region and beyond surged like the tide toward this village in the depths of the mountains. In Liven, the number of famine refugees vastly exceeded that of the original villagers. Some were from the same township or the same county, while others came from other provinces, including Anhui, Shandong, and Hebei. Overnight, Liven became known far and wide. Dayu and Gaoliu counties sent people to Liven with certified letters and, emphasizing either the village’s history or its geographic environment, claimed that they previously belonged to the same canton or county as Liven, and at the very least were either currently neighboring counties or belonged to the same district, and therefore hoped Liven could give them some grain.
By the middle of the month, Liven stopped giving out food to everyone who requested it. Families behaved as though they were confronting an implacable enemy, and kept their doors tightly shut all day long. They would eat at home, shit at home, and not speak or have any other interaction with anyone outside their own family. Even if they heard old men and women in the streets crying their hearts out, they remained unwilling to open their doors and give them any rice or steamed buns.
Mao Zhi was a cadre, and as such she was expected to behave differently from the other villagers. Therefore, at mealtime, she would always keep her door wide open. She would prepare a pot of sweet potato soup, and after everyone in her family had a bowl, she would leave the remainder outside her door. After three days, however, her husband stopped preparing an entire pot of soup, and instead would make only half a pot, and after another three days he began making only half of a small pot. Mao Zhi stared at him and said sharply, Stonemason, don’t you have a conscience? He replied abjectly, Go look in the jar yourself, and see how little flour we have left.