My childhood home had changed hands several times. The new occupant, I knew, was Director Ji of the General Affairs Building.
He had been transferred from the military, where it was said he’d been a regiment vice-commander. He was the head of a large,
prosperous and flourishing family. There was a small plaque nailed to the green gate: ‘Five Good Family’, it read, referring
to the family virtues of respect for the old and concern for the young, gender equality, marital harmony, household economy
and neighbourly solidarity. Was Director Ji’s family really that wonderful? I couldn’t say if the plaque gave me a warm feeling
or made me feel hostile. The date tree still standing in the yard dropped a leaf on my head, and when I shook it off, it landed
on my shoulder. The leaf alone knew who I was and was welcoming me back. I hadn’t set foot on the street in years. I felt
like a stray dog lingering in the ruins of a former dog house.
A youngster rolling an iron hoop came walking by. ‘Did you bring a gift for Director Ji?’ he asked me. ‘There’s no one at
home, they’re all at work.’
‘No, I didn’t bring a gift,’ I said. ‘I’m from the Housing Office. Just looking the place over.’
After eleven years on the river, my childhood home was just a reminder of the past. I walked alongside the wall and I spotted
the rabbit warren I’d built back then. The Ji family was using it as a rubbish dump. I went up to the window on the eastern
wall. It was protected by an iron grille. A curtain on the other side kept out all the light; I couldn’t see inside, but that
had been my room. My metal-framed cot had been placed right under the window.
I’d like to have seen if it was still there, but I could only pace back and forth outside. I did notice a paper-cut window
decoration, a pair of butterflies, so maybe that was now the bedroom of Director Ji’s daughter. I purposefully turned and
walked off.
A tall parasol tree stood on the other side of the street, and as I gazed at the shade it provided, I had an idea: that would
be an ideal hiding place, a safe spot for me to keep an eye on my childhood home. I started climbing, and the view opened
up in front of me. The date tree was still growing; the shade from its canopy covered half the yard. Drying racks had been
set up all over the other half, and I was shocked to see all the duck and chicken and fish and meat drying in the sun, more
than most families could ever consume. Preserved chicken and duck, pigs’ heads and fish, all in separate groups in the sunlight.
I remembered the flowerbed beneath the date tree, where Mother had tended her Chinese rose bushes for years. But unlike other
people’s gardens, her roses hadn’t bloomed until the spring we moved away; several flowers, scrawny pink buds, appeared that
year for the first time. I’d got up in the middle of the night to relieve myself and had seen her sitting by the flowerbed
in the moonlight, reflecting upon her life. ‘This is my fate,’ she’d said. ‘The sins of your father. The roses are about to
bloom, just when I’m leaving. I won’t be around to see them.’
But today my mother’s image followed me relentlessly. It reappeared at Number 9 Workers and Peasants Avenue, and beneath the
date tree. Her indignant gaze crossed the wall and glared at me, filled with disappointment that I hadn’t improved over the
years. ‘I don’t want you climbing that tree. Get down here and come home. Come home!’ I was clear-headed, and knew I could
not do as she wanted. The home was within reach, but, unhappily, it was no longer mine. I couldn’t go back.
As I sat in the tree, my hip began to ache, the effect of Old Seven’s vicious kick. It could turn out to be a permanent injury.
I
rubbed and rubbed, and suddenly a flood of unconnected thoughts came together. For the first time I was actually thinking
about my life. Father and Mother: why had I chosen him over her? If I hadn’t fled from her side, would my future have been
brighter? Who would have offered me the better education? By staying with her I’d have missed out on the barge and the river,
but at least I’d have had a home on the shore. The shore or the river: which life would have been better? Then I heard myself
reply forlornly, It’s all
kongpi
, yes,
kongpi
. Neither life offered anything good. The shore, the river – both bad. I’d be better off staying here, up a tree.
The higher I climbed, the more entranced I became with the branches and leaves. A brown dog spotted me and walked to the base
of the tree, where it barked ferociously, startling me and disturbing the stillness on Workers and Peasants Avenue. I thought
that Old Seven and his pals had caught up with me, so I climbed even higher. When I looked down, I saw someone open his door
and stick his grey head out to see where the noise was coming from. Seeing nothing, he pulled his head back and closed the
door.
The dog’s barking had also attracted the attention of the boy with the iron hoop, who stopped at the foot of the tree, looked
up and spotted me. ‘What’s somebody your age doing climbing a tree?’ he shouted, surprised by what he saw.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I was tired, so I came up here to get some sleep.’
‘Liar,’ he said. ‘Only birds sleep in trees. You’re no bird.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m worse off than a bird, because I don’t have a home on the shore and must sleep in trees.’
He didn’t know whether to believe me or not. But then he shouted, ‘You’re lying. You said you were from the Housing Office.
You people fix houses, not trees, so what are you doing up there? Planning a burglary?’
‘Is that what you think people who climb trees do? Who do you think you are, you little bastard? You listen to me – when I
lived here you were still in your mama’s belly!’
The boy picked up his hoop and dashed over to a nearby gate. I knew he’d gone to fetch an adult, so I scrambled down the tree.
I couldn’t keep hiding up a tree. It dawned on me as I jumped down that my hands were empty. I didn’t have my bag; I must
have left it in the barbershop. Also, my quilt stuffing should be ready by now.
Keeping my eyes peeled the whole time, I made my way back to the barbershop door, where I carefully surveyed the surrounding
area. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, except for glinting shards of glass on a rubbish pile. All my doing. I could
distinguish the pieces of mirror from the shattered soft-drink bottles. The shop had closed early. The barber’s pole had been
turned off, and the sunflowers, seemingly shaken by what had happened, were hiding behind their big leaves, no longer interested
in showing their faces. The front door was closed and locked, and there was no one inside. A sign stuck up on the glass door
piqued my curiosity, so I went over to see what it said. It took my breath away. Every word slammed into my chest like a bullet.
STARTING TODAY, KU DONGLIANG OF THE SUNNYSIDE FLEET
IS BANNED FROM THIS SHOP.
SIGNED: EMPLOYEES OF THE PEOPLE’S BARBERSHOP,
MAY 1977
Banned! They’d banned me from the barbershop! What right did they have to keep me from entering a public establishment? I
pounded on the door. There was no one inside, but the noise brought out the cotton-fluffing couple across the street, who
were covered from head to toe with cotton fuzz. The man had my bag in his hand, his wife was holding the rolled-up quilt stuffing.
‘You ran off just in time,’ said the old man, smacking his lips at my good fortune. ‘There were actually four of them, but
the one
called Yama went to buy cigarettes. If he’d stuck around, you’d have been in worse trouble. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you?
He’s cut the arms off five men in Phoenix. I personally witnessed two of them.’
The woman stopped her husband from saying more and handed me my bag and the cotton stuffing. ‘You’ve read that announcement,’
she said, pointing to the barbershop. ‘They asked me to tell you to stay away from now on. They don’t want you in there any
more.’
I took my bag and felt around inside. My diary was missing, which proved something my father often said: You’re sure to lose
anything you don’t want to lose. All the jars and cans were still there, everything but my diary. ‘Where’s my diary?’ I blurted
out in alarm. ‘Who took my diary?’
My panicky shout gave them a fright. The man crouched down to help me rummage through the bag, while his wife, obviously upset,
frowned and headed back into the shop, muttering unhappily, ‘This town’s full of bad people. We were being nice, keeping your
bag for you, just so you can accuse us of stealing your stuff. We may be poor, but we’re not so poor we’d take your diary!’
F
ATHER’S PUNISHMENT
was unavoidable.
Someone in the fleet must have heard about the scandal I’d caused in the barbershop or had seen the announcement on the door.
Either way, they couldn’t keep it to themselves and just had to tell my father. Standing on the bow, rolling pin in one hand
and a coil of rope in the other, he was waiting for me.
Everyone could see that he was fuming. ‘What’s the rope for, Old Ku?’ someone asked, probably already knowing the answer.
‘I’m waiting for Dongliang. Have you seen him?’ No one had. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Father said. ‘I think I know where he
is.’
‘But what’s the rope for?’ they asked. He was about to say something, but stopped, reluctant to publicize a family scandal.
Sun Ximing, having heard that Father hadn’t had anything to eat, brought over some food. ‘Dongliang will be back soon to make
dinner,’ he said to comfort Father. ‘This will tide you over for now.’
Father rejected the overture. ‘I’ve got too much anger in me to eat. I’m not waiting here for lunch. The audacity of that
boy – he’s five hours late.’
‘Dongliang’s not a boy any more,’ Sun said. ‘Something must have come up to keep him ashore. Maybe he had a date. He’ll be
back sooner or later, so what’s the problem? You’re not thinking of tying him up, are you?’
‘You may not know this, Old Sun, but minor errors often grow into major ones. There are rules for a country and rules for
a family. His thinking and his moral character are flawed, and if national laws don’t apply, domestic law has to. He must
be tied up!’
Bag and cotton stuffing in hand, I arrived at the piers where the barges were moored. The first thing I saw was Father standing
on the bow with the coil of rope in his hand. Some people on the other barges had gloating looks on their faces, others were
waving to keep me from going aboard. Father was fuming. I’d done the one thing he could not tolerate: I’d defied his authority.
I was five and a half hours late, and I knew I was in for a punishment. Five slaps in the face, maybe, or five hours on my
knees. Maybe he’d make me write a five-thousand-word self-criticism. It all depended on my degree of contrition. I’d never
even considered the possibility that he’d actually be planning to tie me up. I was twenty-six years old. Six-Fingers Wang’s
daughters were watching me, so was Chunsheng’s sister. Li Juhua could have been peeking at me out of the oil-pumping station
for all I knew. My hip was sore, I was tired, and he was planning to tie me up! If I let him do that in front of all those
people, I’d be ashamed to show my face anywhere after that. I’d be better off tying myself to a rock and jumping into the
river.
I decided to stay where I was until he’d cooled down enough to put down the rope. I called Xiaofu over to take the quilt stuffing
on to our barge. But then I changed my mind. What if he wouldn’t let me come aboard? The stuffing would come in handy. So
I decided to hand him my bag instead. But then I thought, what if he wouldn’t let me go aboard ever again, and I had to start
a new life on the shore? I’d need the bag on my travels, by train or bus, so I decided to keep it with me for the time being.
My abnormally hesitant behaviour began to unnerve Xiaofu, who complained, ‘What do you want me to help you with? You’re driving
me crazy.’ So I took the jars and cans out of the bag for him. He picked up the soy sauce and vinegar bottles and took them
up on to the barge, laying them at my father’s feet.
‘Thank you, Xiaofu,’ Father said politely. ‘You’re a good boy.’ He didn’t seem so angry, after all, but the moment Xiaofu
turned back to me, Father picked up the bottles and flung them back on the shore. ‘You coward!’ he shouted. ‘What is it you
don’t have – legs or guts? Why don’t you come aboard instead of having somebody else act as your porter?’
The soy-sauce bottle shattered at my feet, spilling its contents on the ground and splattering my trouser legs. Now I was
the angry one, as I wiped it off. ‘You’ve got legs, haven’t you? If you want to tie me up, come over here and do it if you
can!’
I regretted the provocation the moment the words were out of my mouth. It only made things worse. Father’s face turned almost
green with rage. ‘You think I won’t come after you, is that it? I haven’t turned into a fish, not yet, so dry land doesn’t
scare me. I’ll come down there, all right, and I’ll tie you up.’
He’d been on the barge so long he’d forgotten how to use the gangplank. He rested one foot tentatively on the edge to see
how springy it was, then the other foot. But that’s as far as he dared go. He stood there, looking strangely awkward as the
gangplank bounced up and down. ‘Careful!’ I shouted. Straining to keep his balance, and gasping for breath, he pointed at
me. ‘Don’t give me that,’ he said. ‘If I fell into the river and drowned, you’d be free. Too bad for you, I’m not going to
die that easily. I’m still your father.’
Desheng jumped aboard our barge and pulled my father off the gangplank. ‘Don’t get worked up, Old Ku. Don’t try it. You’re
not used to it any more. If you try walking on it, you’ll be in the river for sure.’
‘What do you mean, not used to it? I used to walk on it all the time, even carrying a sack of rice.’
‘I know that,’ Desheng said, ‘but you haven’t done it in years. Even if you made it across, you’d get motion sickness on land.’
The fear in Father’s eyes was unmistakable as he looked nervously at Desheng. ‘What do you mean by that? You’re making that
up. Why would I be unsteady on land?’
Desheng began to sway, holding his head in his hands and rocking it back and forth. ‘Being unsteady on land and on the water
are the same. People not used to being on a boat get motion sickness on water, just like people who aren’t used to walking
on land are unsteady on the riverbank. You’ve been on the river so long the barge is your land and the land is your barge.
That’s why you won’t be able to walk on the shore.’
I could see that Father’s mind had begun to wander. He cast a wary eye to the shore, blinking rapidly as he pondered what
Desheng said. But then his gaze bounced back to where I was standing. ‘Are you coming here or not? Are you waiting for me
to wobble on the gangplank or on the ground?’ He twisted the rope around his hand and shouted, ‘You’re acting awfully brave,
putting up a desperate struggle with your back to the wall.’
‘And I’ll keep struggling if you’re set on tying me up,’ I said. ‘Hand the rope to Desheng, and I’ll come up.’
‘Why should I? He doesn’t represent the government, and he’s not your dad. I am. You’ve done a terrible thing today, and I’m
going to punish you by tying you up.’
While the two of us, father and son, faced each other, one on the river, the other on the shore, Desheng’s wife joined her
husband on our barge and asked Father to give her the rope. ‘You two are causing a scene. Dongliang’s a grown man,’ she said,
‘old enough to be a father himself. He’s stronger than you, and you can’t tie him up unless he lets you. And even if he did,
because he’s a
dutiful son, it’d be such a loss of face for him he’d never be able to live it down.’ She was right. The people who were watching
us nodded in agreement.
But not Father. He shook his head. ‘I don’t want him to be dutiful, I want him to be better than he is. You don’t understand
how hard it is to get him to improve himself. I teach him, but he doesn’t get any better. But if I stop teaching him, he’ll
just get worse. And if I simply leave him alone, he’ll break every rule there is. He’s a disgrace, and I have to treat him
like a little tyrant, because that’s the only thing he responds to.’
‘All this talk about getting better or worse doesn’t mean anything aboard these barges,’ Desheng’s wife said with a scowl.
‘All we want is to get by and live a peaceful life. I’ll talk to him, tell him to come up and admit he was wrong. I’ll make
him promise to stop doing things that make you angry.’
‘Who cares if he admits he was wrong or not?’ Father said. ‘He’s the type who refuses to mend his ways.’
Desheng’s wife was first to notice the pained look on my face. She pointed to me. ‘Take a good look at Dongliang,’ she said.
‘His face is as white as a sheet. He can’t stand the way he makes you mad. Put the rope down, Old Ku, or take it into the
cabin. You can use what you want, national laws or family law, there’s no loss of face if no one sees. But you can start by
letting Dongliang come aboard.’
Desheng and his wife both tried to take the rope away from Father, but he tightened his grip and refused to let go. But he
looked a bit less angry, which Desheng noticed. This time he gave the rope a hard tug and wrenched it out of Father’s hand.
Now that he was no longer holding the rope, Father’s face showed how weary he was. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to
tie you up. Don’t come aboard today, stay where you are. Lead as degenerate a life as you want. Go ahead, stir up plenty of
trouble and break all the rules. I won’t need to use family law; I’ll let
national laws do their job. Sooner or later you’ll be handed over to the dictatorship of the proletariat.’
Thinking he was beginning to give in, I started up the gangplank, and barely avoided getting hit by a flying rolling pin.
‘Who said you could come up here?’ he shouted. ‘Get your ass back on the shore!’
My hip really hurt from twisting my body to get out of the way of the rolling pin, and that only fuelled my anger. ‘Are you
going to let me come aboard today or aren’t you?’ I gave him my final ultimatum. ‘If you won’t, then I’ll never step foot
on that barge again.’
‘Is that a threat? Do you think I’m afraid of your threats? Go on,’ he said with a wave of his hand, ‘get back on the shore.
From this day on I have no son!’
‘Who wants to be your son anyway? Who needs a father like you?’ The blood had rushed to my head and stoked my courage. A stream
of ugly curses gushed from my mouth, washing over Father like a raging torrent. ‘Take off your trousers, Ku Wenxuan, and show
everybody. Who wants a father like you? Everybody else’s father has a whole dick. How come you only have half of one? Where
do you get the nerve to try to educate me with only half a dick? And you wanted to tie me up! Half a dick. I tell you, I’m
like I am today all because of that dick of yours!’
My cries hit the boat people within earshot like a thunderclap and provoked more shouting. ‘Ku Dongliang is rebelling, he’s
rebelling!’ My father blanched and began to sway. The gaze in his eyes was very peculiar. What I saw wasn’t panic or terror,
it was despair. A glob of phlegm caught in his throat, and when he tried to bring it up to spit it out, he was racked by a
coughing fit.
Desheng and his wife, who were still aboard our barge, rushed up to help him into the cabin. Desheng glared at me as he propped
my father up. ‘Dongliang, are you possessed by a demon
or something? Your father isn’t a class enemy, but you might as well kill him as talk to him that way.’
His wife patted Father on the shoulder. ‘Don’t let it get to you,’ she said to him. ‘Someone in town ran into a demon recently,
in broad daylight. It scared them out of their wits. I’m sure that’s what has happened to Dongliang.’
‘No, it didn’t!’ I shouted. ‘I’ve suffered for eleven years, and I’ve had enough. Now I’m rebelling!’
On the barges and on the shore, people were looking at me, shocked. ‘I’m rebelling!’ I yelled. ‘I’m rebelling!’ Tossing the
quilt stuffing over my back and slinging my bag over my shoulder, I turned and headed back down the pier.
Sun Ximing and his wife ran after me; one of them grabbed my bag, the other held on to the cotton. ‘Where are you going, Dongliang?’
Sun asked. ‘What makes you think you can just leave? Where will you go?’
With a wave of my hand, I said, ‘Where I go is none of your business. It’s a big world, and there has to be a place for me
in it.’
‘The world may be big,’ Sun said, ‘but it doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the Party and to socialism.’
‘What’s wrong with you today, Dongliang?’ Sun’s wife said, stamping her foot and waving her arms. ‘Everybody’s always talking
about your bad points, but you’re a dutiful son. I told my husband that when the fleet chooses its most civilized family this
year, it has to be barge number seven.’
‘Our barge isn’t civilized,’ I said, ‘but you choose whatever barge you want, I don’t care.’
Sun grabbed hold of my bag again and said, ‘Dongliang, you can’t abandon your father. How’s he going to live if you leave?’
‘He’s got arms and legs,’ I said. ‘He can take care of himself.’
‘OK,’ Sun said, ‘forget about him if you want, that’s your business. But shipping goods is my business, and how is your barge
going to keep working if you leave? Tomorrow we’re taking on a
load of oilseed. Your father doesn’t know a thing about how these barges work, and I can’t let you affect production.’
‘What do I care about oilseed? Or about production? From now on, the only thing I care about is me. I’m a free man!’
I started running, and didn’t stop till I’d left Sun Ximing and his wife far behind. But a couple of kids from other barges
quickly overtook me. ‘They’re saying you almost lost your dick today,’ Xiaofu said. ‘Is that true?’
Chungeng sneaked a look down at my crotch. ‘Are you running away to keep from getting punished?’ he asked. ‘Wang Xiaogai says
you go to the barbershop in town every day, and that you went there to harass Huixian. Have you already thumped her? Have
you?’ Their questions pissed me off, but I was in no mood to wrangle with a bunch of kids, so I kicked Chungeng and started
running again. He grabbed his knee where I’d kicked him, and started to scream, ‘You’re a moron, Dongliang, an ugly toad that
wants to thump a swan. You deserve to have your dick cut off!’
As I was passing the oil-pumping station, a crumpled piece of paper flew in the air and landed at my feet. Li Juhua was standing
in the doorway in her blue work clothes, watching me, her severe demeanour mocking me.
‘What have I ever done to offend you, Li Juhua?’ I said. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’