The Dragon's Village: An Autobiographical Novel of Revolutionary China (21 page)

It was an unusually mild winter night. Moonlight softened every line of house and tree. Stars twinkled in the dark-blue sky. The air was scented by the breath of still-distant spring. On such a night at another time I would have lain down on my bed, content to gaze peacefully through the window at the heavens. But tonight I was too troubled to go to bed and sleep. Tomorrow we would start searching the landlords' houses. Wang Sha, Malvolio Cheng, Shen, Tu, and I had discussed and planned everything—or so we thought—but, as my aunt used to say, I'm a “worrywart.” This head-on confrontation could lead to violence, and while I had no fear of a verbal battle I knew my ninety-five pounds stood no chance in a real fight. I had heard that the peasants could get so aroused that they threw discipline to the winds. I knew that the landlords could get so desperate that they resorted to murder. I doubted if we could control events completely, but I put my hopes in Shen and Tu and Cheng. Any mishap would be our responsibility. We had plenty to worry about all right.

I had come to rely more and more on Malvolio Cheng. For all his eccentricities, I found that, when needed, he was a mine of information and level headed, too. Twenty years of activism put him that many years ahead of me in experience and judgment. That evening I asked him, “Cheng, tell me truly. Do you think the landlords in Longxiang are hiding arms?”

“They're guilty until they prove they're innocent, if you get what I mean.” He was frowning with concentration as he considered how best to explain this to me. Finally he said, “Look at it this way. The landlords' houses are fortresses, real fortresses, spiritual strongholds. We have to break into those forts. Right now, I can bet that some landlord is drinking wine with some peasants, perhaps with a few of our own people. The antique furniture, the old paintings on the walls, family heirlooms, shelves of books, solid walls of brick … all these things create a feeling of stability, of something unchanging and imperishable.”

Cheng spoke with an unaccustomed seriousness that gave depth to his voice. He knew what he was talking about. He came from a landlord family himself; I knew little more about it than that. But while I had seen the world from a high-rise apartment building or a villa in the middle of modern and almost wholly bourgeois Shanghai, Cheng had lived in and grown up in that old world of village feudalism. Intellectually he shared the progressive beliefs of our time, but at the same time he seemed unable to shake off a lingering memory of life in his landlord father's home. Bits of this conflict had come out in conversation as we got to know each other better during our time in Longxiang, and now I posed a direct question about it.

“Cheng, are you talking about things you've felt yourself?”

He started, surprised at the bluntness of the question. Then he looked at me frankly, full in the face, for a long while.

“Yes. But I long ago rejected that life.” His face and voice showed that he had no regrets on that score. He shrugged his shoulders and continued:

“After a few cups of wine the slightly tipsy guests will be feeling cozy and safe inside the impregnable fortress. With a confidential air their host will show them the deeds to his land embossed with imposing vermilion seals. He will tell them that to his certain knowledge Chiang Kaishek is by no means finished, that he has gathered a huge army on Taiwan and one fine day will be coming back. Other peasants, not favored to enter these halls, finer than any they have ever seen in their lives, will believe that
these fortresses are protected by the spirits of the landlords' ancestors and the gods who have always served the rich.

“Those myths must be destroyed. The only way is for the peasants to invade those fortresses and see for themselves that they are not impregnable, that there is nothing sacred about them.” From that we went on to review the details of our next day's activities, reading through our notes from the recent conference and racking our brains to uncover possible flaws in our plans.

Finally Cheng yawned and stood up to stretch his arms and back. “Let's call it a day. No matter how we plan and calculate, something will always crop up to take us by surprise.”

Next morning at daybreak we found an encouraging number of activists, including Xiu-ying, gathered in the courtyard of the office. But we waited in vain for Shen and Tu. Finally a ragged urchin rushed up with a message that they would both be late because they had been called to another village on “urgent business.” At this late moment we could not delay or postpone action. Left to ourselves, Cheng and I gathered the group around us and gave them some last encouraging words of exhortation. We told them to observe the discipline and laws of the laboring people; incriminating evidence or ill-gotten gains found in the search were to be turned in to two older peasants who would record it all in a notebook. At this point nothing else should be removed from the landlord's home.

As we moved off, a busily chattering group of more than a dozen, I was surprised to see several old women with their children edge their way into our ranks. A few other men and women straggled along behind us, far enough away so that they could still turn back but near enough to see what was going on or even join in the action. Most of the villagers went about their business as usual or timidly looked out of their doorways.

Our first target was the nearest landlord, a man named Bai. His house, surrounded by a stout brick wall with a single gate, stood a little apart from the cluster of buildings, farm houses, and hovels that made up the central
village of the township area. We marched without order and without ceremony straight across the stubbled fields that made up his estate. In the lead was Little Tian, one of our young activists, carrying a small red flag on a pole.

We had sent ahead no word of our coming, but when we reached the gate of Bai's walled compound, he already stood there waiting to receive us like guests. He was dressed in a worn but warm padded gown with a small black skullcap on his head. His black trousers were caught up at the ankles with black bands. On his feet were white socks and black cotton slippers with thick white soles. He had everything ready that we demanded: land deeds, account books, contracts, receipts for sales and loans. He said he had decided to cooperate and do everything according to the law, and so it seemed, but the smile on his sallow face was forced, and his eye pouches were baggy from lack of sleep. He led us politely inside the courtyard murmuring, “Please, please.”

As soon as we stepped into the courtyard, the hubbub died down and the villagers became very quiet. They craned their necks looking around, inspecting everything, touching nothing. These decorated courtyards and rooms, which seemed almost dowdy to me, filled them with awe. Many had seen such opulence before when they worked in the landlords' households, but then they had been only servants. Here for the first time in their lives they were being treated like honored guests by the “master” himself. It threw them off balance, as it was intended to, and they followed him sheepishly. It was like a lugubrious housewarming. Nothing was going according to plan. Something had to be done to rouse our docile troops.

Cheng motioned me aside. With a jerk of his head he directed my eyes along a dark corridor out of the main courtyard.

“I'm going to break the kitchen door. You get hold of the biggest pot you can find and smash it on the ground.”

“What for?” I was bewildered.

“That means we challenge him by destroying his honor. It's the peasants' custom in the South. We break his rice bowl. If he doesn't accept the challenge, then in their eyes
he will have lost face. Maybe it won't work here, but it's worth a try!”

Cheng rolled up his sleeves and picked up a cleaver in the kitchen. In a corner, I found a big iron cauldron that was used to cook food for at least fifteen people. I dragged it over to Cheng who was dismantling the door.

“I can't even hold it up, how can I throw it down?” I asked, my face already bathed in sweat from the effort I had made.

“I'll help you.”

“No, you have the door to attend to. It will be more effective if we can smash both the door and the pot at the same time,” I said.

“That's right.” But even Xiu-ying and I together could not lift the pot. So we decided to switch roles, even though according to Cheng's ideas this seemed to spoil the aesthetics of the operation.

While Cheng dragged the heavy pot out to the center of the courtyard, Xiu-ying and I took a leaf of the kitchen door and carried it along behind him. Some of the peasants stood in a ring, watching expectantly but not helping us. The three of us struggled to lift up the pot but when we let it drop on the flagstones it refused to break—a dull thud and that was all. After recovering our breath we tried to lift it higher. We failed again, but this time the flagstone cracked. Suddenly I had a brainstorm.

“Cheng, you take the cleaver and smash the door. I'll take a hammer and I'll beat the pot like a cymbal.”

“Good idea.” At least we could do something with the pot!

Hearing the noise, the rest of the peasants ran out of the rooms into the courtyard, not believing what they saw. These cadres were certainly full of surprises! The landlord's face turned deathly white. We clearly had spoiled his strategy. He was trembling uncontrollably. Even his head shook. It was a miserable, pitiful sight.

“Search!” shouted Cheng, theatrically pointing at the master bedroom.

But the peasants now showed a will of their own. To our consternation, the activists, followed by their supporters,
who had unexpectedly increased in number, scattered in different directions like the Furies unleashed. Cheng and I were left standing in the courtyard while chaos reigned. We heard the sharp crack of objects breaking, the splintering of wood, sounds of dragging heavy objects. There were cries of anger, triumph, surprise, and rage. Two children, their pockets bulging with small loot, scuttled out of a room and shot like arrows across the courtyard and out the gate before we could stop them. Their mothers looked pleased, then affected surprise.

One of the old peasant tally men had the presence of mind to close the compound gate and stand guard over it. Now no one could get in or out.

I shouted to Cheng above the hubbub, “We came here to get criminal evidence, but this is a total mess!”

“We can't interfere now,” he returned. “We wanted the masses to move and now they have! We can't stop them now. Anyway, I'm sure the landlords know what we're after, and you can be sure they're already one step ahead of us and our search.”

“But the peasants are carrying out whatever they fancy—and some are stealing to boot!”

“The owners have surely hidden away anything that's really valuable. We can't let the peasants go away empty-handed, but we do have to stop them from wholesale stealing.”

“What are we going to do with all this?” And I pointed at the store of clothes, furs, quilts, and all sorts of chests and bric-a-brac that was piling up in the courtyard. It looked like a junk sale.

“Don't worry. We'll let Landlord Bai keep what he really needs and divide the remainder among the needy peasants later.”

“But …”

“It's legal in a revolution,” Cheng cried. He did not wait for me to finish my question but hastened to reassure me as he and the two tally men pulled and tugged things to bring some sort of order to the mounting pile of goods.

The landlord's family, women and children, were driven out of their rooms into the courtyard. His mother, bent
with age, sat on the verandah step. Closing her eyes to the chaos around her, she pressed her forehead against the knob of the walking stick she held in her powerless, wrinkled hands. Meanwhile, the peasants continued to bring out whatever they found of value and piled these things in mounds under the direction of the two tally men. Every time a peasant threw something new onto the pile—an antique vase, a jacket—the eyes of the landlord family followed the object. But what use was it to keep count? After a while they simply hung their heads and ceased to pay any attention. They seemed crushed by their ordeal and fearful of the future.

I saw Cheng throw a glance at them. I knew what he was thinking as surely as if he had spoken: merited retribution.

Four peasants carried out a carved mahogany bed from the old woman's room. On this bed she had spent her first night with her bridegroom. On this bed she had conceived her children. She struggled to stand up. The younger women helped her. She pushed them aside impatiently. She tottered forward a step or two on her tiny bound feet and spoke with offended dignity to Cheng.

“We are a decent family. I brought up my children properly and I treat my servants kindly. Look at my white hairs. You cannot do this to me!”

She threw back her head and seemed to choke. Never before in her life had she been treated with anything but deference. She swayed on her feet, on the verge of fainting.

Her son rushed to her side and begged her to keep silent. She shook her head. Wiping away the tears with the back of her hand, she sat down again. She had made her protest. She also knew it was in vain.

Her son knelt down in front of her and said in a plaintive voice, “Mother, it is your son's fault. Your son is a worthless creature. He is not able to carry out his filial duty.” He hung his head. His words were stifled by spasmodic sobs.

The women and children standing behind the old lady knelt down and let out a tremulous, prolonged wail.

“Stop, you fools!” Cheng pounded on the broken door, his lips and jowls moving as if chewing something he didn't like. “There is no death around here. This is justice. What the hell are you starting a funeral chant for?” He hastened away into the next courtyard, presumably to see what the other peasants were doing.

After the search we marched through the village carrying the broken door. The great pot and the rest of the things we had confiscated followed us piled on a couple of ox carts. The effect on the peasants was electric. The whole village was galvanized into action. A crowd of peasants, the “moderates” who had held back, waiting, now fell in behind us.