Volume Two: Blood Tears in the Ancestral Hall · Guarding the Roots in Troubled Times
Zhao Dehou woke in the middle of the night.
It wasn't his bladder.
It was the sound beneath the ground. Something was wrong with it.
He opened his eyes.
The room was dark.
A little grayish-white came through the window paper.
Clouds had swallowed most of the late-night moon.
At the other end of the kang, his wife breathed evenly.
She hadn't woken.
He didn't move.
His ear lay against the pillow.
Listening.
He had been listening to the Thousand-Sheep Song for more than a decade.
Since the year they dug the canal, 1952.
The first time he heard it had been beneath the blockhouse.
That night, after hauling stones, he'd leaned against the brick wall to rest.
Suddenly he heard hoofbeats under the ground.
Fine, scattered ones.
Drawing near from far off.
He thought someone from the next village was traveling by night.
He pressed close to the ground and listened a while.
It wasn't on the ground.
It was beneath it.
Later he asked Chen Yanqiu.
Chen Yanqiu said, "The old folk of Qingshiyuan say that when people die and are buried in the yellow earth, their souls turn into little lambs. They walk beneath the ground. On deep, still nights you can hear them. It's called the Thousand-Sheep Song."
He knew what a good year sounded like.
Long, even hoofbeats.
Like canal water running over flagstones.
One step.
Another.
Neither hurried nor slow.
Walking from the head of the canal to its tail.
Steady and sure.
Like a column of men treading to a drumbeat.
He knew what a bad year sounded like, too.
The famine year, 1960.
The hoofbeats were weak and mournful.
Dragging.
Some hooves stopped after two steps.
Rested a long while before sounding again.
As if they couldn't go on.
As if from hunger.
Tonight's sound he was hearing for the first time.
The hoofbeats were broken.
Scattered.
Some hooves ran in a panic.
Darting from the east end of the village to the west.
Then doubling back.
Back and forth.
Like animals whose tails had caught fire.
Some hooves circled in a single spot.
One loop.
Two loops.
Three.
Prints laid over prints in the same place.
As if searching for something.
And not finding it.
Some hooves stopped in mid-stride.
Stopped for so long he thought the sound was gone.
Then started up again.
It wasn't the weakness of famine.
Starving sheep can't run.
This sound could run.
But it wasn't the lively gait of a harvest.
In a harvest year the hoofbeats kept time.
A drumbeat.
The rushing of canal water over stone.
This sound was fright.
The fright of not knowing which way to run.
Zhao Dehou sat up on the kang.
The quilt slid down from his chest.
Night wind slipped in through the cracks in the window.
Cold.
He threw his jacket over his shoulders.
He didn't light the lamp.
He was afraid of waking his wife.
He simply sat in the dark.
Hands resting on his knees.
Fingers curled slightly.
Outside, the canal water was still flowing.
Rushing along.
The same as in other years.
The sound of the current was steady.
But the hoofbeats underground were not the same as in other years.
The canal water hadn't changed.
The ground beneath had.
He felt his way out the door.
His foot found the threshold.
Stepped over.
He stood in the courtyard.
The soles of his feet against the ground.
The earth was cold.
The chill climbed up through his arches.
The hoofbeats climbed up from beneath his feet.
Fine, broken.
Disordered.
Like a flock of sheep spooked by something.
Scattering in every direction.
And finding no way out.
Running a while to the east.
Halting.
Running a while to the west.
Doubling back.
He stood a long time.
The moon was behind the clouds.
The courtyard was so dark he couldn't see his own hand.
Only the sound of the canal remained.
Rushing.
Rushing.
The next day, in daylight, Zhao Dehou wandered around the village.
He told no one what he had heard the night before.
But he wanted to see whether anything in the village was amiss.
At the door of the supply and marketing co-op.
A few women were crowded around a freshly posted notice.
Heads together.
Someone was reading in a low voice.
Someone's finger moved across the paper.
Zhao Dehou walked over.
They scattered.
Like water parted by a stone.
The notice was white paper.
Black characters.
The red seal pressed on extra heavy.
The smell of ink hadn't faded yet.
He stood in front of it.
Read it through.
"Resolutely suppress all counterrevolutionary activity."
The characters were large, in bold black type.
Thick strokes.
Heavy ink.
The exclamation mark at the end stood like an upright knife.
He walked on.
When he passed the primary school.
The slogan on the wall had changed.
Last year it had read "Study hard, improve every day."
Written in red paint.
Rounded strokes.
Now it read "Never forget class struggle."
The characters were freshly painted.
The red paint had dripped.
Leaving streaks of red down the wall.
Like claw marks.
On the blackboard newspaper was drawn a figure with head bowed in confession.
Chalk.
The figure was bent at the waist.
Head lowered to his knees.
Beside it was written "Resolutely overthrow landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements and rightists."
The wind had scraped off a little of the chalk.
The last stroke of the character for "counter" was gone.
He stood there a while.
He knew these characters.
But they didn't seem quite the same as last year's.
Last year, the parents who came to the school for the parents' meeting.
Still had smiles on their faces.
Standing at the edge of the playground.
Watching the children run.
This year, the people passing the school gate.
Walked faster.
Heads down.
A glance inside, and on they went.
Near noon.
He saw a child run out of the school gate crying.
A boy.
Seven or eight years old.
In a patched blue cloth jacket.
His satchel clutched to his chest.
Both arms locked around it.
Wiping tears as he ran.
His shoelaces had come undone.
He trod on them.
Each step.
The laces whipped.
He knew this child.
Liu Mancang's boy.
Liu Mancang was an old revolutionary.
He had joined the Party in northern Shaanxi before Liberation.
Had fought alongside the army.
One leg had been wounded.
He walked with a slight limp.
His left leg was a little shorter than his right.
When he hurried, his body bobbed up and down.
After Liberation he'd come back to the village to farm.
Never contended with anyone over anything.
Whatever work the team assigned, he did.
In 1952, when they dug the canal.
Liu Mancang was the first to jump into the canal and haul stones.
That year his father was gravely ill.
Sent word three times for him to come home.
He never went.
Held his post at the work site three days and three nights.
His old wound, soaked by canal water, had turned white.
When he climbed out of the canal.
The injured leg was swollen a full ring thicker than the other.
Zhao Dehou called out to the boy.
"Mancang's boy. What's the matter?"
The child hiccupped through his sobs.
Shoulders jerking.
"The teacher won't let me join the Young Pioneers."
His voice was thick with tears.
Bubbles formed in his nose.
He wiped it with his sleeve.
The sleeve was soaked through for a stretch.
Zhao Dehou asked.
"Why?"
The child said.
"The teacher says my family's class background is too high."
Zhao Dehou crouched down.
Level with the child.
He saw the boy's eyes, red.
The pupils black.
The tears still hung from his chin.
"You know what your dad's class background is."
"The teacher said so. My grandpa used to have ten mu of land."
"Isn't your dad a revolutionary? He joined the Party back at school."
"The teacher said. That's a historical problem."
The boy cried harder.
The sobs were squeezed out of his throat.
Broken. Halting.
"My dad worked on the canal with everybody else."
"He hauled stones in the canal."
"His legs went white from the water."
"He even told me to study hard."
The boy hugged his satchel tighter.
The satchel was sewn from old cloth.
Washed pale.
The corners rubbed fuzzy.
Zhao Dehou listened to all of it.
Said nothing.
He thought of the winter of 1952.
Liu Mancang standing in the canal water, hauling stones.
The water cold enough to cut.
The old injury in his leg, jolted by the cold.
The pain beading sweat on his forehead.
The drops falling into the canal.
Mixing with the muddy water.
He hadn't made a sound.
Back then nobody asked who his father was.
They only asked whether he could haul.
Zhao Dehou patted the boy's head.
His palm against the small skull.
The hair was soft.
"Your dad's a good man."
"Go home and tell your dad."
"Tell him Zhao Dehou said so."
"If he's a counterrevolutionary,"
"then there's not a revolutionary left in this village."
The boy looked up at him.
The tears still hung there.
But his eyes were less afraid.
"Really?"
"Really. Go on home."
The boy walked a few steps.
Turned back.
"Grandpa Zhao. Don't tell the teacher I said it."
Zhao Dehou nodded.
"I won't."
The boy turned and ran.
His satchel bounced on his back.
His shoelace dragged behind him.
Zhao Dehou stood a while longer in the street.
The crowd outside the co-op had dispersed.
Only one man was left, still reading the notice.
He walked over.
The man turned around.
It was Qian Wanjin.
Qian Wanjin held a folded sheet of paper.
Seeing Zhao Dehou,
his fingers flinched.
He shoved the paper into his pocket.
A trouser pocket.
Deep.
The paper went in.
A small square bulged out.
Zhao Dehou didn't ask what he had pocketed.
He only saw that the corners of Qian's mouth no longer curled up as usual.
Usually Qian Wanjin's mouth carried a smile.
Not much of one.
Not too little.
Just enough to make people think him easygoing.
Today that bit of a smile was gone.
His lips were pressed tight.
The corners pulled down.
The two of them stood outside the co-op for a while.
Neither spoke.
Wind funneled in from the alley.
It made the corners of the notice rattle.
Like someone clapping.
Qian Wanjin left first.
Short, quick steps.
Soles scuffing the ground.
Shuffle, shuffle.
After a few paces,
he looked back.
"Dehou."
"This notice is a bit ominous."
Zhao Dehou didn't answer.
Qian Wanjin went on his way.
Zhao Dehou kept wandering.
He passed the primary school.
From the classroom windows came the sound of recitation.
The Quotations of Chairman Mao.
Loud.
Pouring out of the windows.
One line after another.
"Never forget class struggle—"
"Never forget class struggle—"
The children's voices were in unison.
But it didn't sound like reading.
It sounded like shouting.
He passed Liu Mancang's gate.
No one in the yard.
The door was shut.
A yellow slip of paper was pasted on the door.
Writing on the yellow paper.
He stood there a moment.
Didn't knock.
Walked on.
Near dusk,
he got home.
The canal water was still running.
Splashing.
The same sound as yesterday.
But when he crouched in the yard to listen,
the hoofbeats under the ground were still disordered.
More disordered than last night.
The hoofbeats surged from the north.
Then turned back from the south.
Collided in the middle.
A tangled mess.
He suddenly understood.
The sheep were afraid too.
That night,
Zhao Dehou didn't go to the canal again.
He sat on the threshold.
Pipe in his mouth.
Unlit.
The bowl was cold.
His wife asked from inside the house.
"Why don't you come in?"
"Getting some air."
Really he was listening.
To the canal water.
To the wind.
To those shattered, scattered hoofbeats under the ground.
He thought of the boy from that day.
Thought of Liu Mancang's back as he hauled stones on his bad leg.
Thought of Qian Wanjin's tone when he said "a bit ominous."
Thought of what Chen Yanqiu had once said.
"When the world is about to change, people's hearts panic first."
The sheep under the ground were panicking too.
They didn't know where to run.
He finished smoking.
Without a flame.
Just holding it in his mouth.
He took the pipe out.
Knocked it against the threshold.
No ash.
Only a bit of dry spit knocked out.
He stood.
Brushed the dust from his trousers.
Went inside.
The door closed behind him.
A creak.
The lamp in the house went out.
The next morning at daybreak,
Zhao Dehou pushed open the courtyard gate.
Walked toward the village entrance.
The lanes were empty.
No one under the old locust tree.
A layer of frost lay on the stone bench.
White.
No one at the well either.
The windlass stood still.
Only the wind.
Turning the fallen leaves over and over on the ground.
The locust leaves had withered.
Curled at the edges.
Rolling along the ground.
Like a flock of lambs running in panic.
He reached the village entrance.
Stopped.
At the end of the dirt road,
on the gray-yellow horizon,
a red flag was coming this way.