What they saw from the embankment above the village was the standard treatment for counter-revolutionaries.
The boy’s hands were tied together at the front. His head was shaved. He sobbed but was told that self-pity would only make things worse. He was given a placard to wear around his neck that read ‘son of landlord-leech’ and ‘counter-revolutionary element’. He had probably fought back when the other children threw stones at him.
He was paraded around the old market square a few times so that people had a chance to throw rotten vegetables at him then led to an ancestral shrine that had been gutted and made into a community hall. In there, he was put through a struggle session. People came forward and made accusations. Spreading rumours. Trainee saboteur. Confusing the feelings of the People. All of this was broadcast to the people in the square over speakers crackling with cold static. He confessed to his crimes and was ready to be punished.
Ren was eating an apple. He was unmoved at the scene below. ‘Last in line. First in line. Sleeps in. Gets up too early…’
Little Wu laughed nervously.
‘Come down from there’ called a soldier to them with a red arm patch.
They sauntered down the hillock.
‘You two like to sit above the people, do you?’
‘No brother, Cadre. Taking a short break. We are travelling’. Ren held his half-eaten apple behind his back.
They showed their papers. He looked at them indifferently.
‘You are travelling to different places’ he observed.
‘I will escort her to her mother’s then I will report to my collective for harvest.’
‘Why are you apart?’
‘We were married before 1949’.
He looked at Little Wu's big doe eyes. He did the maths.
‘Dirty dog!’ he exclaimed to Ren.
‘It was legit’ Ren replied. ‘But it was a close thing’.
‘Why were you in Hong Kong?’
‘Funeral, my father’ said Little Wu.
‘Why did your mother not go?’
‘He was already dead to her’ said Little Wu.
‘It is complicated’ Ren offered.
‘You had better come into the village. For your protection, understand. A typhoon is on the way. ’.
‘Thank you, Brother Cadre’ said Little Wu. 'Hopefully, it will hit Hong Kong instead of us'.
Ren smiled but could not keep his apprehension from showing.
Ren and Little Wu sat on a stack of wooden crates in the cover of the old ancestral hall and watched the wind kicking up. Then the rain pelted down. Across the square, the three children they had watched from the hillside were locked in the stocks. They bowed in the mud and got soaked. They knew better than to cry or wriggle. The law soldiers watched from a balcony in a teahouse on the other side of the square. They travelled in a unit from village to village offering ‘discipline services’ and ‘revolutionary reminding’. Ren was not happy with Little Wu. Lying about the funeral was a mistake. Now she was acting like being stuck in the village was for the best. This irritated him more.
‘Why don’t you go free those children?’ he asked her.
‘What?’ he retorted.
‘If we are honoured guests in the village I am sure the soldiers won’t mind if you help the children run free’.
‘As free as these typhoon winds?’ she asked.
‘And what would you prefer I had said to the soldier, anyway?’
‘Something near to the truth. It is the only lie these people accept’.
‘When you are so far from the truth, won’t any old lie do?’
‘The lie has to conform to their world but offer you an excuse.’
‘Such as?’
‘Just talk about the harvest for God’s sake! You wanted to come back sooner. You were prevented from your duty. That sort of thing’.
Ren sulked. He was not ready to let it go but saw that she was getting annoyed with him.
Two of the law soldiers jogged over to them when the squalls began to ease. Their papers were inspected again. Their story was repeated. The cadres were impassive. Their severe haircuts gave their weariness nowhere to hide. They looked scrawny, but they had not been denied food. They refrained from it.
‘Continue your journey with the best wishes of the People’s Committee of Foshan’ the older one finally said.
‘Long live the revolution, comrades’ said Ren with just the right level of fervour.
Off they went. Ren trailed behind little Wu with the luggage. He felt as if he had lost the argument.
Little Wu looked pensive and seemed to Ren to be a little lost for words. He felt a little sorry for her. Watching the children left in the stocks during the downpour had unsettled her. Children it seemed to her could have any idea you want them to have. Humiliation only worked if victims have an irrevocable idea of who they are.
‘Why punish the children?’ she asked Ren.
‘They are punishing the parents. Showing them how helpless they are to protect their own children.’
He looked at her steadily for a few moments. It seemed the right time to confide in her. He told her about his mission at the house outside Canton and how he would have to find a way to get into the house and do his work in the aviary.
‘Why punish the parrots?’ she asked.
For once, Ren had absolutely nothing to say.
‘To make a communist family feel helpless?’ she asked.
Ren had based his attitude to Little Wu on his seniority to her. He had the idea that it alone assured him that there was little to learn from Fat Tony’s kid daughter. This did not have to create awkwardness between them. They sat on a log and shared sips of water from Little Wu's broad tin cup.
Little Wu asked after a while, ‘Want to know what happened to the father?’
‘Yes’.
‘So do I but I know it is hopeless’ she said, her face downcast.
‘Chinese people don’t drink out of these’ Ren observed as he flicked the remaining water from the pannikin.
‘It is British?’
‘It is’ she confirmed. Again, Ren had nothing to say.
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