Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

broken off, my cap had flown off my head, and my face was lying on the noon-baked concrete. My nose and my lips hurt. Suddenly I was in the grip of incapacitating despair; dying there would have been the easy way out. I might even have been given a hero’s funeral. But then I thought of Pang Chunmiao; I couldn’t die without seeing her one more time, even if my last glimpse of her was in her coffin. Just as I managed to get back on my feet, a chorus of shouts thundered all around me:
    “It’s Lan Jiefang, it’s Blue Face! He’s Ximen Jinlong’s backer!”
    “Grab him, don’t let him get away!”
    Everything went black, then a blinding light, and the faces around me were all twisted, like horseshoes dunked in water after emerging from the forge, emitting steel blue rays of light. My arms were twisted roughly behind my back. My nose was hot and itchy, and it felt as if a pair of worms had wriggled onto my upper lip. Someone kneed me in the buttocks, someone else kicked me in the calf, and someone else slugged me in the back. I saw my blood drip onto the concrete, where it immediately turned to black steam.
    “Is that you, Jiefang?” The familiar voice came from somewhere up ahead, and I quickly composed myself, forced the cobwebs out of my head so I could think, and focused my eyes as best I could. There in front of me was Hong Taiyue’s face, the picture of suffering and hatred. For some strange reason, my nose began to ache, my eyes seemed hot, and tears spilled out, the very thing that happens if you spot a friend when you’re in danger. “Good uncle,” I sobbed, “tell them to let me go. . . .”
    “Let him go, all of you, let him go. ...” I heard his shouts and saw him wave his ox bone like a conductor’s baton. “No violence, this is a peaceful demonstration!”
    “Jiefang, you’re the deputy county chief, the people’s official, so you have to stand up for us villagers and stop Ximen Jinlong from carrying out his crazy scheme,” Hong said. “Your father was going to come and petition on our behalf, but your mother fell ill, so he couldn’t come.”
    “Uncle Hong, Jinlong and I may have been born to the same mother, but we’ve never gotten along, not even as children. You know that as well as I.” I wiped my bloody nose. “I’m as opposed to his plan as you are, so let me go.”
    “Did you all hear that?” Hong waved his ox bone. “Deputy County Chief Lan is on our side!”
    “I’ll forward your complaints up the line. But for now, you have to leave.” I pushed aside the people in front of me and, as sternly as I could manage, said, “You’re breaking the law!”
    “Don’t let him go until he signs a pledge!”
    That made me so mad I reached out and snatched the ox bone out of Hong’s hand and brandished it over my head like a sword, driving the crowd back, all but one person who got hit on the shoulder and another who took it on the head. “The deputy county chief is assaulting people!” That was fine with me, right or wrong. Right or wrong, county chief or not, you people had better get out of my way — I opened a path with the ox bone, broke through the crowd, and made my way into the building, where I took the stairs three steps at a time all the way up to my office. I looked out the window at all those shiny heads beyond the gate, then heard some dull thuds and saw a cloud of pink smoke rise into the air, and I knew that the police had finally resorted to tear gas. Bedlam broke out. I threw down the ox bone and shut the window, ending for the moment my dealings with the world outside. I was not a very good government cadre, because I was more concerned about my problems than the people’s suffering. In fact, I was glad to see those poor people petitioning the government, since it would be up to Pang Kangmei and her ilk to clean up the mess. I picked up the phone and dialed the bookstore number. No answer. I phoned home. My son answered, which took the edge off my anger.
    “Kaifang,” I said as calmly as I could, “let me talk to your mother.”
    “What’s going on with you and Mom?” he asked unhappily.
    “Nothing,” I said. “Let me talk to her.”
    “She’s not here, and the dog didn’t come to school to pick me up,” he said. “She didn’t make lunch for me, and all she left was a note.”
    “What’s the note say?”
    “I’ll read it to you,” he said. “‘Kaifang, make yourself something to eat. If Dad calls, tell him I’m at the Chili