“This meeting is over!” The Party Secretary waved both of his arms and left the stage.

  The crowd dispersed without a sound. People slowly dragged their heavy legs forward out of the meeting room and into the cold toward their dorms.

  The struggle went on day after day. More meetings were held, and more clerks taken away. Ordinary salesmen and shy shop girls who had lived, eaten, and joked with the rest of them were revealed to be “class enemies” and “right-wing reactionaries.”

  After the initial shock and confusion, those left were at a loss how to react to the new political atmosphere. People were tempted to talk to each other in private, looking for answers about what was going on, but as more and more of their friends and acquaintances disappeared, so did normal life, and even friendships started to dissolve. Life became a guessing game about who had betrayed whom. No one could afford a friendship with the wrong person. To protect themselves, people withdrew into hard shells. They quickly learned not to make any comments if others were talking. People even had to worry about when, where, and to whom to nod and smile. It seemed ridiculous, but anything—simply walking away from a group, a gentle nod, or the utterance of a sound—could be interpreted as hostility to socialism. And nobody could afford that.

  All the brave young people suddenly became timid and afraid. The people taken away in handcuffs were as innocent, or as guilty as themselves. Like them, they were enthusiastic, patriotic, and courageous, blessed with loud voices and free spirits. In fact, these were the very qualities for which they were praised as “young socialist pioneers” and which brought them here, so far, far away from home. How was it possible that they had turned overnight into class enemies?

  Still, everyone was haunted by the same question: Could it be my turn tomorrow?

  A frightening rumor began making the rounds that the “class enemies” led away in handcuffs had been sent to Sandan Farm, a labor camp, as slaves for life. Their fates were sealed. They would never be reunited with their families. This was enough to numb any young heart and dash any remaining naïve hopes. No one could make any sense out of this fearful situation. So, they gasped, sighed, adjusted to the new reality, and learned to hide their true selves. They were too frightened even to question what was happening, much less fight it.

  By then, Yan found herself carrying a child. Weak with morning sickness, she was happy to stay home in bed. All she wanted was a pile of fluffy pillows to put behind her back, but she made do with a pile of coats and jackets.

  Her bed was her sanctuary. With bed rest came long hours of contemplation, pondering her past, present, and future, if there was one. She let her mind wander freely wherever it chose to go. And, of course, she indulged herself in brooding over the current state of the department store, trying to make some sense out of the madness.

  Yan felt a dark force spreading over the workplace, and although she could not imagine the reason for it all, she sensed the strategy of seeking random scapegoats to cause panic and hysteria. And since the workers could not trust each other, they turned even more toward their manipulators—the authorities—for answers and protection. She shuddered at her own thoughts.

  Could it be possible?

  Why would the people’s government plot such things against its own innocent citizens?

  What does the government want from us?

  Maybe she was just making it up, although she had always had reservations about the new government for stripping people of their personal property and casting everyone with a different opinion as a class enemy. Maybe her views were biased because of her upper-middle class upbringing. However, there was more to it than that, and she knew it.

  Meanwhile, everyone at the department store was scared and confused, ducking for cover and trying not to stand out. They would do anything to stay away from Sandan Farm. Ironically, to avoid being sent to the farm, people had to learn to become sheep. They learned to repeat only what the authorities said without adding any of their own opinions or even a single syllable. They learned to be meek and obedient.

  Yan was angry and frustrated. “It’s pathetic,” she said to herself between clenched teeth. She could not, would not, turn herself into one of those meek things and be pushed and pulled around, waiting for the eventual slaughter. Neither would she be the one to stand up, question authority, and become a scapegoat. She was too smart for that. Two decades of being pushed downhill taught her to be patient, to observe and endure. So, she reasoned, why not take advantage of her physical condition by staying home full-time, staying away from everything, including the malicious meetings, during which clerks like herself were taken away in handcuffs?

  It was the perfect solution to keep herself out of trouble: No one wanted to prosecute a pregnant woman who was helping produce “China’s next generation.” But how could Yan keep her husband away from those deadly meetings without making a public statement?

  An Chu was a stubborn and courageous man who never gave in to threats and power. He would not pretend to agree with things he did not believe. Yan worried about him and was constantly haunted by the thought that An Chu might not come back home after one of those meetings. She imagined him being led away in handcuffs, leaving her and her unborn child forever. Of course, no one would dare to come to her door and deliver the bad news. By the time she realized that he would never come home again, it would be too late for her to find him. She wouldn’t even be able to say goodbye to him! Her baby would never have a father. Her heart skipped every time she realized that her husband wasn’t home on time. What had initially attracted her about him—his open-mindedness, his outspokenness, and his willingness to take on leadership roles on behalf of all the workers—suddenly became dangers to him, to her, and to their baby. But she could not make him otherwise. She could only shake her head and keep on worrying.

  Yan consoled herself with the fact that An Chu worked alone in the warehouse, where he had only stone walls with which to share his opinions. “Stay in the warehouse,” she warned him every morning before work. “Please don’t visit the store anymore unless it’s necessary for work. Don’t trust anyone. We have a baby coming soon and cannot afford any problems.”

  Yan knew by An Chu’s silence that he wouldn’t listen to her advice; he would do what he thought was right.

  “Please, for the sake of our child,” she begged him.

  “Don’t worry,” An Chu said. “Everything will be alright.”

  “Come straight home after work. Promise me. Tell them I need you, I’m not doing well, the baby is giving me problems … anything. Please don’t go to the meetings.”

  An Chu readily agreed but only to please her. He was eager to get out of the house, and make it to work on time.

  Yan also knew he was playing along with her because he rarely arrived home on time.

  By the time he dragged his tired body home, it was always well into the night. She waited by the clock patiently, lying in bed without any lights on, feeling the dark surroundings, sensing the tiny movements inside her, and apprehensively waiting for the faintest approaching sounds of the jangling keys that dangled from An Chu’s belt. Their cheerful song always arrived just ahead of her husband. Every night, half of her imagined him on his way home, walking along the dark, dirt road with his keys, while the other half tormented her with thoughts of him heavily chained, clanking his way to Sandan Farm. These two possibilities loomed simultaneously over her. With every tick of her little clock, her anxiety grew.

  Then, the faint tinkle of faraway keys would break the night air. An Chu was coming home! They didn’t send him to Sandan Farm! Another night of anxious waiting was over. She stretched out her hand and searched in the dark until she felt a string tied to her bed frame and pulled it. A hazy yellow light brought the little room back to life, the 15-watt light bulb swaying in the middle of the room, creating patterns and casting moving shadows on the walls. Yan was thankful for her one crude light fixture for it was a luxury to have electricity then. People outside the city wall still used kerosene lamps, candles, and kitchen fires. Yan pulled herself out of bed, set the table for her husband, and took out the warm food she had carefully concealed under the quilt on her bed. Her body kept the food warm … or was it the other way around?

  She paced around the room waiting for her husband to get closer. She could tell his mood by the way his keys danced, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, and sometimes very, very angry. Tonight, An Chu’s keys sounded like dead weights. They told the story of a heavy heart. She walked to the door and opened it. An Chu was right there in front of her. His face was as dark as the night.

  The little suitcase bench groaned when An Chu dropped himself onto it. Normally, he would joke about their family “throne” every time he sat on it but not tonight. Now he was silent. He picked up a pair of chopsticks, and shoveled the food into his mouth. Yan waited for him to speak. An Chu kept on eating. Yan couldn’t wait any more.

  “How was your day?”

  “Oh, it was fine.” He kept on eating.

  “How was the political meeting today?”

  He stopped chewing, and his chopsticks lingered in the air. He knew it was a difficult question to answer. “I wouldn’t know, would I? Didn’t you tell me not to go there?” An Chu wasn’t good at lying. From her face, he knew she did not believe him.

  “I know you went. I know you never listen to me. Your shift was over four hours ago!”

  An Chu sighed. He put down his chopsticks and empty bowl. He couldn’t hide everything from her. She was too smart. What should he tell her?

  Yan hit him with a storm of questions.

  An Chu dodged some and answered some.

  The bits and pieces of news she squeezed out of him only increased her worries. The big meetings and political discussions were mainly centered around Soviet Revisionism, and those who were sympathetic to their Soviet big brother (whose friendship the pioneers came to strengthen in the first place) were now marked as rightists. An Chu thought that the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China should be friends in spite of their political differences. Knowing that her husband always spoke his mind, Yan was worried that the Communist Party would mark him as a political rightist in his personal record. That could haunt him for the rest of his life and dog their future children’s lives, as well.

  Yan’s worrying was not just worrying. Ten years later, An Chu came across his personal file, which had traveled thousands of miles with him all the way to the west and back to Shanghai. He glanced curiously through the stack of thin, discolored papers and saw a dark red stamp containing four Chinese characters: “An Internally-defined Rightist” was printed above the official logo of the Zhang Ye Department Store. He just shook his head, laughed, closed his file, and walked away.

  An Chu was such an honest, carefree man that it never occurred to him that he should have removed that page—the only political blemish on his record. Neither did he worry about the future consequences of that dark seal. On the contrary, he found it laughable and ridiculous that anyone could accuse him of being a “rightist” just for having spoken his mind because deep within him, he knew that whatever he had said was said with good intentions and love for his country.

  That night, after she squeezed what she could out of him, Yan let him have it: “I told you not to go to the meetings, and you just won’t listen! Look now, I’m sure they’ve already marked you as a ‘rightist’ for the rest of your life. Your poor, unborn child has already become the descendant of a rightist!” She was so angry that she felt all her blood rush to her head and her feet became unsteady.

  An Chu jumped up and grabbed her. “You shouldn’t get so angry. It’ll hurt our child.”

  “It’s already hurting our child. And it’ll hurt our child more if you go to Sandan Farm!”

  “I’m not going to Sandan Farm. Look, I’m right here with you and our baby. I’ll be more careful in the future. I promise.” This time, he meant it.

  Aside from the immediate danger, Yan and An Chu shared other concerns: What would happen to the department store and the bigger plan to modernize the West now that the Sino-Soviet brotherhood was breaking up? And what would eventually happen to all the idealistic young pioneers like themselves? They had come all the way here to seek a new future, filled with socialist enthusiasm to help their motherland. And on a personal level, while their adventure had “freed” them from their past, it had also cut them off from their roots. An Chu and Yan had both vowed to run away from the city of Shanghai and never return. Now, they had to discuss the impossible possibility of having to go back and resume their lives there. The question was: How to get back?

  Chapter VIII

  Disasters, Natural

  and Man-made

  1958 was a drought year. As political floods washed away the familiar landscape of life for millions in the cities, in the countryside, farmlands started to dry up. As far as the eye could see, barren fields cracked with thousands of open mouths, silently, weakly begging for a drink. A few still, muddy rivers stood nearby, helplessly, too dry to offer any relief to their dependents.

  Nothing grew. Farmers across the northwest lost all their crops, their only lifeline in a sea of sand. They stared hopelessly at the naked blue sky, blazing sun, and parched fields lying under a shroud of yellow dust. Desperate people started killing their livestock one by one and consuming the precious seed grain needed for next year’s planting. Soon, they began eating tree bark, clay, anything to sustain themselves. Instead of farming, long, tedious hours were spent staring thirstily at the sky, searching for any wisps of moisture without which life crumbled into dust like the earth beneath them.

  But no clouds came. The sky only sneered back at the farmers, accompanied by the mocking glare of the sun. Empty stomachs hurt and could not be filled. Two meals a day became one and then dwindled to any morsel small enough or soft enough to choke down.

  By then, the little city of Zhang Ye was flooded with hungry people from the surrounding countryside. Famine had already reduced these farmers to walking bones, motivated to move only by a whiff of frying oil or steaming pancake. They combed through every corner of the city, searching for anything to eat: spoiled rice, dried vegetable peels, any scrap that was deemed fit for the garbage pail by the city folks. When night fell, men, women and children, too weak to leave the city and head home, curled up with other surviving family members and slept on the open streets. Many never woke up again. They drew the last breaths of their lives while dreaming of the foods they could not find.

  It was hard to walk across town without encountering skeletons partially hidden under torn blankets and sheets, especially those of children and old people. Unable to feed or even clean up after the hordes of displaced, starving souls, Zhang Ye degenerated into a giant open morgue with few claiming the mortal remains of loved ones now on public display.

  The city’s residents were more fortunate. They escaped death because most of them were either salaried government employees or related to one. Though meager, their incomes ensured them of at least one meal a day through a monthly ration of grain or other dried foodstuffs. They ate whatever was apportioned to them: dried sweet potatoes, dates, corn meal, beans.

  An Chu and Yan were getting by, although they were very hungry. An Chu was very worried about Yan and their unborn child. His wife was having a difficult pregnancy. Although she was frighteningly thin, she was nauseated by the very smell of food. Sometimes, when she felt a bit better, she would talk deliriously about the everyday home-style cooking of Shanghai: the steamed fish, fried tofu, or tender greens in roasted garlic sauce.

  Looking at his wife’s pale face, childlike smile and bright eyes when she recalled these dishes, An Chu felt pangs in his heart. How he wished he could go out and bring home everything Yan wanted, just one nice meal to satisfy her hunger and make her happy. He frowned and knit his eyebrows when confronted with reality, the coarse cornmeal, millet, barley, and dried hot peppers, the drought, death, and anti-revisionism, the disintegrating department store and the bleak future facing his little family.

  The sense of utter helplessness irritated An Chu. When a man could not help his own family and meet their basic needs, he lost the dignity of being a man. There must be something he could do to restore his dignity and the dignity of his fellow men who were going through the same troubles.

  Having attended only three years of elementary school, An Chu did not have enough education to make a speech. But he knew right from wrong. He could hear the roar of political slogans and the weak cries of dying people. He felt restless. He needed to confront reality instead of accepting it. A voice inside him urged him to speak out, to speak out on behalf of all the government employees in Zhang Ye, to confront the ugly truth of death, and to represent those too hungry to shout out. An Chu held out a naïve hope that maybe the local party committee would listen to him. Maybe his words would make them realize that it was more important to help the starving families all around them than to focus on senseless political slogans.

  So, An Chu spoke out.

  He spoke out several times. But no one listened to him and no one dared to support him openly, which made him appear to be foolishly wrong. He shouted. He screamed. And yet his strong, firm voice was drowned out by the endless chanting of Chairman Mao’s quotations and the fierce, heated anti-revisionist slogans that seemed to be the answer to any question.

  He was upset. Everyone around him seemed to be blind, blind to the naked truth. They saw having one meal a day as a challenge, a testament to brave revolutionary fervor, a glorious sacrifice reserved to be endured by the chosen few. An Chu felt he was the odd man out. He was being smothered. Eventually, he was not allowed to talk anymore for he had deviated from the main political current. He did not realize that he was standing dangerously close to the scorching wildfire of revolutionary enthusiasm, which had begun burning violently throughout the country.