Frog

I’d wanted to join the Red Guards when the revolution began, but Xiao Xiachun wouldn’t let me. He called me a black model promoted by Teacher Chen the Rightist. He called my great-uncle a traitor, a false martyr, and said that my aunt was a Nationalist secret agent, a turncoat’s fiancé and a capitalist roader’s paramour. To get even, I picked up a dog turd, wrapped it in a large leaf, and hid it in my hand. I walked up to him and said: Xiao Xiachun, how come your tongue is black? He opened his mouth, just as I’d planned. I crammed in the dog turd and took off running. He hadn’t a chance of catching me, since the only person in the school who could outrun me was Teacher Chen.

Watching him strut smugly along in Teacher Chen’s shoes, javelin in hand, starter pistol on his hip, gave rise to hateful jealousy — he needed fixing in the worst way. I knew he was deathly afraid of snakes, but there’d be no snakes in late autumn, so I scrounged up a length of rotting rope under a mulberry tree by the river, coiled it and held it behind my back. As soon as I was right behind him, I collared him with the rope and screamed: A venomous snake!

With a blood-curdling scream, he threw down the javelin and tore the thing off of his neck. When he saw it was only a piece of rope, he slowly gathered his wits, picked up the javelin and said through gnashing teeth: Xiaopao Wan is a counter-revolutionary!

Death! He pointed the javelin at me and charged.

I ran.

He chased me.

On the frozen river I lost my speed advantage, and sensed that a blast of cold air was catching up to me. I was terrified that I’d be run through by his javelin. I knew the guy had honed the tip on a grinding wheel, I also knew that he was mean enough to stick me with it. He’d already shown that by stabbing tree trunks and scarecrows, and had even killed a pig mating with a sow. I kept looking back as I ran. His hair was standing straight up, his eyes were open as far as they’d go, and if he caught me I was a goner.

I ran around people, I threaded my way through people, and when I slipped on the ice, I rolled and crawled to get away from his javelin thrust. He missed and struck the ice, sending chips flying. Then he slipped and fell. I scrambled to my feet and started running again. He got to his feet and was chasing me once more, banging into people right and left — men, women… Who the hell do you think you are! Hey — help! Murder —

I crashed into a line of people banging gongs and drums, sending them stumbling in all directions and causing dunce caps to fly off the heads of the miscreants. I bumped past Chen Bi’s father Chen E and his mother Ailian — I bumped into Yuan Sai’s father, Yuan Lian (he’d been labelled a capitalist roader), and crashed into Wang Jiao on my way past. I saw the look on Mother’s face and heard her horror-struck scream — I saw my good friend Wang Gan — I heard a thudding sound behind me, followed by a screech — Xiao Xiachun’s voice. I later learned that Wang Gan had stuck out his foot and tripped Xiao Xiachun, who’d cut his lip when his face hit the ice, and was lucky he hadn’t lost a tooth. When he got to his feet, he turned on Wang Gan, but was kept from getting even by Wang’s father. Xiao Xiachun, you little bastard, Wang Jiao growled, if you so much as touch my son I’ll gouge out your eyes! Three generations of our family have been tenant farmers, he said. Other people might be afraid of you, but you’re looking at one man who isn’t!

The meeting site was a sea of people, all gathered in front of an impressive stage made of wood and reed mats. At the time, the commune boasted a group of skilled workers who specialised in building stages and bulletin board kiosks. Dozens of horizontal red flags adorned the stage along with red banners with white lettering. When we arrived, four loudspeakers mounted on a pair of corner posts were blaring ‘A Song of Quotations’: Marxist thought has thousands of threads that come together in a single remark: To rebel is justified! To rebel is justified!

The place was in an uproar. I attempted to muscle my way up front, my eye on a spot at the foot of the stage. People I shouldered out of the way responded churlishly with feet and fists and elbows. But after all that hard work — my clothes were soaked and my body was black and blue — I not only didn’t make it to the front, I was actually manhandled to the edge of the crowd, where I heard the sound of cracking ice, and had a bad feeling in my bones. Just then a man whose voice sounded like a duck’s quack, burst from the loudspeakers: The public denouncement session is about to begin. All you poor and lower-middle-class peasants, please quiet down… in the front rows, please sit down, sit down…