One Man`s Bible

46

If you can use the smiling face of Buddha to look upon the world, you will be happy, your heart will be at peace, and you will be in nirvana.

You eat and drink with the village cadres, listen to them raving about nothing, bullshitting, and talking about women. "Have you ever touched Maomei?"-"Don't fuckin' talk nonsense, she's a pristine virgin!"-"Come on, have you ever touched her?"-"Hey, hold on, how do you know she's a pristine virgin?"-"Don't keep spouting rubbish, she's been promoted in the militia!"-"So what? You're just bullshitting, come on, out with it!"-"She's a successor to the revolution with the right genealogical background. How about saying something decent!"-"It's you who fuckin' never says anything decent!"-"That's crap, you've had too much to drink!"-"Hey, do you want to have a fight?"-"Come on, just drink up!"

This is life, and you have to drink like this to be happy! And you have to talk about how you managed to get a fir log and had two cupboards made from it. You tell people you are collecting cheap timber at the state price. You've settled here and, sooner or later, you will have to build a house, and building a house requires long-term planning. You will get a vegetable garden going, then build a pig pen, because for a person to get by, he has to keep a pig. Your meaningless chatter and gossip gradually makes you into a normal person, and your existence is no longer conspicuous.

You look at what is on the table. Virtually nothing is left of the big bowls of food, and the group has finished off nine and a half bottles of fiery sweet-potato liquor. You move away from the drunk who has slid under the table and is resting his head on your thigh, push the wooden bench, and stand up. The drunk falls to the floor and starts snoring. Everyone in the room, above the table or on the floor, is a rotten drunken mess with an idiotic smile on his face. It is only the host, Hunchback Zhao, who is sitting upright at the top end of the table, loudly slurping chicken soup. He rightly deserves to be Party secretary of the production brigade, because he can drink a lot but knows how to manage his liquor.

Over the past five days, there had been concerted training for seventy or eighty militia personnel from the villages. On the morning of the first day, they assembled in the commune courtyard, sitting on their bundled bedding, as they listened to instructions from the director of the Revolutionary Committee. Afterward, led by Old Tao, they did target practice on the threshing square, then they laid detonators, let off dynamite, and practiced with explosives under the cliff by the river. Also, on the harvested, drained paddy fields, they practiced squad and platoon assaults, scattering ranks like lightning, as they threw hand grenades, which noisily exploded and sent dirt flying into the air. They had been engaged in heavy action for days, and, on the last night, they were brought to this village. Hunchback Zhao, Party secretary for twenty years, had the credentials and the status for giving a really good feast to these brave stalwarts. Apart from the military-training food subsidy from the commune, there were also ten or so live chickens presented by the villagers. Hunchback's wife wasn't stingy either, contributing an old hen that was still laying, so there were meat and fish dishes, as well as salted vegetables and bean curd.

The heads of the militias were seated at the table in Hunchback's dining hall, the rest were looked after in the granary by the family of the brigade accountant. Those able to dine at Hunchback Zhao's table, naturally, had some standing, and he had been designated by Secretary Lu, as the school representative, to take part in the military training.

"Teacher, you've come from being at the side of Chairman Mao in the capital, you're willing to suffer hardship here, and you're one of our Secretary Lu's people, so don't stand on ceremony. Come and sit in the place of honor at the table!" Hunchback Zhao said.

The women customarily did not sit at the banquet table. Hunchback's wife was in the kitchen cooking, and young Maomei, who was just eighteen and had been promoted to company leader in the militia, was serving the food and running to and from the kitchen. The eight men at the table drank and ate from dusk till midnight. A bottle of liquor just filled a big soup bowl, and this was passed around, for each person to ladle out one scoop. Everyone was given the same amount, no more and no less. After a few rounds, when bottle after bottle had been emptied, he said he couldn't drink as much as everyone else, and, having refused several times, got away without drinking any more.

"That you, a distinguished person from the capital, will consent to drink liquor from the same bowl as us, country bumpkins with mud caked on our legs, is a great honor. Bring Teacher some rice!" Zhao said.

Maomei served him from behind a very big bowl of rice.

Flushed with alcohol, everyone became very talkative, and there was much laughing and joking. From revolutionary rhetoric they turned to talking about women, and started getting crude, so Maomei fled to the kitchen and didn't reappear.

"Where's Maomei? Where's Maomei?"

The men, all with red faces and thick necks, giggled and kept clamoring. Hunchback's wife came out to mediate, "Why do you want Maomei? Don't start getting reckless with your arms and legs just because you're full of alcohol, she's a pristine virgin!"

"Don't pristine virgins think of men?"

"Hmph! Her flesh is not for your lips!"

Everyone then turned to praising Hunchback's wife, saying this and that about her. "She knows how to manage the household and knows how to care for people. Old Zhao is really lucky!"

A local from the village then said, "There isn't anyone who hasn't enjoyed her favors!"

"Get rid of that filthy mouth of yours!" The teasing put Zhao's wife in high spirits. Straightening her apron, she put her hands on her hips and told everyone off, "All of you are gluttons, go get yourselves stuffed on green-feed slops!"

There was no end to the coarse talk, and there was the stench of alcohol all over the place. He could tell from the banter that not one of them had a bad pedigree. Otherwise, how else would they have managed to become village cadres?

"If it wasn't for the kindness of Chairman Mao, would the poor and lower-middle-class peasants enjoy what they do today? How else would we have girl students coming from the city to settle in our villages?"

"Stop all this indecent thinking!"

"It's only you who's fuckin' decent. Have you ever had it off with them? Come on, out with it!"

"There's a teacher present, surely he's disgusted by all this talk!"

"The teacher's not an outsider, he respects us, we people with mud on our legs. Didn't he sleep on the ground with us?"

You had, indeed. You slept with them on paddy-rice hay spread on the floor of a granary, and every day after military training you watched them compete in strength, wrestling, and tumbling, after which the loser had to let the winner grope in his trousers. When the village women watched, they joined in the cheering, some would even go up to tug at the loser's belt, and it would all end up with the men and women getting into a huddle. At such times, Maomei would stand aside, cover her mouth, and just laugh. Everyone was jolly until the whistle signaled for the lights to be put out.

You came out of the main hall; a cool breeze was blowing gently. There was no nauseating stench of alcohol, and the pure fragrance of paddy grass wafted in gusts through the air. In the moonlight, the villages became fused with the shadows of the undulating mountains. You sat down on the stone mill by the house and lit a cigarette.

You rejoiced that you had won their trust. There were no more suspicious noises outside, and no longer figures silhouetted on the windows in the moonlight. You were no longer being spied on. It seemed that you had settled permanently here, and that, from now on, you would mix with these men. They have lived like this for generations. They rolled in the mud and on women's bodies, when they were tired or drunk they fell fast asleep, they did not have nightmares. You could smell the moist air of the mud and felt relaxed, drowsy.

"Teacher, are you still up?"

You turned and saw Maomei come out the back door of the kitchen and stop by the pile of firewood. The hazy moonlight perfectly revealed her feminine charm.

"Teacher, you're really relaxed. Are you looking at the moon?"

She smiled at you. She had a sweet voice with a lilt. She was a sexy girl, her pointed breasts were firm, and you thought they had been touched by men. She was radiant and healthy, without worries or fears. This was the soil that had given birth to her. She would receive you, and seemed to be saying this, but did you want her? She was waiting for your response. In the darkness, her glinting eyes were fixed upon you without embarrassment or fear, once again arousing your lust for women. She was boldly confronting you, late at night, as she leaned against the pile of wood, but, unlike those men, those bandits, you didn't dare flirt with her or approach her, you didn't dare be frivolous, you lacked the courage.