22 "Thought Reform through Labor"

二十二 “劳动改造”

——To the Edge of the Himalayas (January -June 1969)

——到喜马拉雅山边去(1969年1月—6月)

In 1969 my parents, my sister, my brother Jin-ming, and I were expelled from Chengdu one after another, and sent to distant parts of the Sichuan wilderness. We were among millions of urban dwellers to be exiled to the countryside.

1969年，我父母、姐姐、弟弟京明和我一个接一个地被撵出成都，发配到四川偏远地区。那时，千百万城市居民被下放到农村。

In this way, young people would not be roaming the cities with nothing to do, creating trouble out of sheer boredom, and adults like my parents would have a 'future." They were part of the old administration which had been replaced by Mao's Revolutionary Committees, and packing them off to the sticks to do hard labor was a convenient solution.

这样，年轻人就不会再呆在城里“游手好闲，惹事生非”，我父母这样的成年人也有了一个去处。过去的共产党机构现在被毛泽东的革命委员会代替了，以前当官的现在全无职无位了，让他们到农村做体力劳动，倒是一个简易的解决办法。

According to Mao's rhetoric, we were sent to the countryside 'to be reformed." Mao advocated 'thought reform through labor' for everyone, but never explained the relationship between the two. Of course, no one asked for clarification. Merely to contemplate such a question was tantamount to treason. In reality, everyone in China knew that hard labor, particularly in the countryside, was always punishment. It was noticeable that none of Mao's henchmen, the members of the newly established Revolutionary Committees, army officers and very few of their children had to do it.

根据毛泽东的说法，我们到农村是去“改造”。毛泽东说每个人都要“劳动改造”，但他从来不解释两者的关系。当然，也没有人敢请他说清楚，甚至想一想这个问题也算“犯上”。事实上，上上下下的中国人都心知肚明：笨重的体力劳动，特别是落户农村，是一种惩罚，最明显不过是的：(此处删去一句)，那些新成立的革命委员会成员、军队里的军官，都不用到农村改造，他们的孩子也大都没去。

The first of us to be expelled was my father. Just after New Year 1969 he was sent to Miyi County in the region of Xichang, on the eastern edge of the Himalayas, an area so remote that it is China's satellite launch base today. It lies about 300 miles from Chengdu, four days' journey by truck, as there was no railway. In ancient times, the area was used for dumping exiles, because its mountains and waters were said to be permeated with a mysterious 'evil air." In today's terms, the 'evil air' was subtropical diseases.

我们家最先走的是父亲。1969年新年刚过，他就被发配到位于喜马拉雅山脉东南的西昌地区米易县。那里是很偏远的地方，今天是人造卫星的发射基地。它距离成都有三百哩，当时不通火车，坐卡车翻山越岭要花四天。在古代，此地是流放犯人的地方。据说这儿山林谷壑中弥漫着一种神秘的“瘴气”。

A camp was set up there to accommodate the former staff of the provincial government. There were thousands of such camps throughout China. They were called 'cadres' schools," but apart from the fact that they were not schools, they were not just for officials either. Writers, scholars, scientists, teachers, doctors, and actors who had become 'useless' in Mao's know-nothing new order were also dispatched there.

前省委的干部们在这儿建立了一所“干校”，在中国起码有好几千个这样的农场。它们并非学校，也不专为共产党干部所设。作家、学者、科学家、教师、医生、演员，在愚昧至上的新秩序下，都变成无用的人，都被发配到这类地方来。

Among officials, it was not only capitalist-roaders like my father and other class enemies who were packed off to the camps. Most of their Rebel colleagues were also expelled, as the new Sichuan Revolutionary Committee could not accommodate anything like all of them, having filled its posts with Rebels from other backgrounds like workers and students, and with army men.

来“干校”的人不仅有像我母亲这样的“走资派”和其他“阶级敌人”，绝大部分政府里的造反派也落到同样的下场。四川省革命委员会容纳不下他们，因为这个新的权力机构得包括工人、学生背景的造反派，外加军人。

"Thought reform through labor' became a handy way of dealing with the surplus Rebels. In my father's department only a few stayed in Chengdu. Mrs. Shau became deputy director of Public Affairs on the Sichuan Revolutionary Committee.

“劳动改造”成就了处理剩余造反派的现成方式。我父亲同事里只有少数人留在成都，姚女士算一个，她准备当四川省革命委员会的宣传部副部长了。她不再当造反派头目了，此时所有选反派的组织都解散了。

All Rebel organizations were now disbanded.

The 'cadres' schools' were not concentration camps or gulags, but they were isolated places of detention where the inmates had restricted freedom and had to do hard labor under strict supervision. Because every cultivable area in China is densely populated, only in arid or mountainous areas was there space to contain the exiles from the cities. The inmates were supposed to produce food and be self supporting. Although they were still paid salaries, there was little for them to buy. Life was very harsh.

“干校”不是集中营或劳改营，但是它们与外界隔绝，成员们被限制了自由，在严格的管理下做笨重的体力劳动。中国每块可用耕作的土地都挤满了人，所以“干校”只能建在荒凉地区或大山里，“学员”们得种粮养活自己。虽在他们仍拿工资，但是什么也买不到，生活十分艰苦。

In order to prepare for his trip, my father was released from his place of detention in Chengdu a few days before his departure. The only thing he wanted to do was to see my mother. She was still being detained, and he thought he might never see her again. He wrote to the Revolutionary Committee, as humbly as he could, begging to be allowed to see her. His request was turned down.

为了让我父亲收拾行装，在去米易前几天，他被放回家了。回来后他只想一件事：看看我母亲。母亲仍在关押中，父亲怕自己将来再也看不到她了。他写信给革命委员会，语气尽可能谦卑，求他们准许让他去见她，但是石沉大海，沓无回音。

The cinema in which my mother was being kept was on what used to be the busiest shopping street in Chengdu.

关押我母亲的那个废弃了的电影院坐落在成都市从前最繁华的春熙路。

Now the shops were half empty, but the black market for semiconductor parts which my brother Jin-ming frequented was nearby, and he sometimes saw my mother walking along the street in a line of detainees, carrying a bowl and a pair of chopsticks. The canteen in the cinema did not operate every day, so the detainees had to go out for their meals from time to time. Jin-ming's discovery meant we could sometimes see our mother by waiting on the street. Occasionally she did not appear with the other detainees, and we would be consumed by anxiety. We did not know that those were the times when her psychopath guard was punishing her by denying her permission to go and eat. But perhaps the next day we would catch sight of her, one among a dozen or so silent and grim-looking men and women, their heads bowed, all wearing white armbands with four sinister black characters: 'ox devil, snake demon."

我弟弟京明经常出入的那个半导体、收音机黑市就在旁边不远处。他几次看到母亲和别的被关押者排成一行拿着饭盒、筷子去食堂。由于电影院食堂不是天天营业，他们间或得外出到另一家食堂进餐。京明的发现意味着我们有时能在街道上看见母亲。要是她没有其他在押者一齐露面，我们就焦急万分，不知她怎么了。后来才知道这是那个虐待狂看守在处罚她，让她挨饿。但可能第二天我们就见到她了，在一队十几个沉默不语、神情黯然的男女中，低着头，戴着白袖套，袖套上是四个黑色大字：牛鬼蛇神。

I took my father to the street for several days running, and we waited there from dawn fill lunchtime. But there was no sign of her. We would walk up and down, stamping our feet on the frost-covered pavement to keep warm. One morning, we were again watching the thick fog lift to reveal the lifeless cement buildings, when my mother appeared.

我和父亲去守候了几天，从凌晨等到中午，但是她始终没有出现。我们在街上徘徊，在结霜的人行道上跺脚取暖。这天早上，当浓雾消散，毫无生气的水泥楼房显现时，母亲出现了。

Having seen her children many times on the street, she looked up quickly to see whether we were there this time Her eyes met my father's. Their lips quivered, but no sounds came out. They just locked eyes until the guard shouted at my mother to lower her head. Long after she had turned the corner, my father stood gazing after her.

她已有好几次在这条街上看见过她的孩子们，所以此时两眼飞快地寻找着我们的身影。当她的眼睛遭逢到父亲时，两人的嘴唇都微微颤抖着，没有发出声音，他们只是目不转睛地凝视着，直到看守喝令我母亲低头。我母亲转过街口消失了，父亲依然站在那里，两眼呆呆地望着。

A couple of days later, my father was gone. Despite his calm and reserve, I detected signs his nerves were on the verge of snapping. I was desperately worried that he might go out of his mind again, particularly now that he had to suffer his physical and mental torment in solitude, without his family nearby. I resolved to go and keep him company soon, but it was extremely difficult to find transport to Miyi, as public services to such remote areas were paralyzed. So when I was told some days later that my school was being dispatched to a place called Ningnan, which was only about fifty miles from his camp, I was delighted.

两天后，父亲走了。尽管他显得很平静，我看得出他的神经绷得紧紧的。我很担忧他的精神病会复发，特别是他要去“干校”，将在孤独中承受精神和肉体的折磨。没有家人在一旁支持、安慰。我决心尽快去看他、陪他。但怎么去呢？通向边远地区的长途客车早就不开了。几天后，当我得知我们学校的学生将去宁南县，离我父亲干校只有五十哩时，我很高兴。

In January 1969, every middle school in Chengdu was sent to a rural area somewhere in Sichuan. We were to live in villages among the peasants and be 'reeducated' by them. What exactly they were supposed to educate us in was not made specific, but Mao always maintained that people with some education were inferior to illiterate peasants, and needed to reform to be more like them. One of his sayings was: "Peasants have dirty hands and cow shit sodden feet, but they are much cleaner than intellectuals."

1969年1月，成都市所有的中学生都被送到四川农村。我们得和农民一起生活，接受他们的“再教育”。他们究竟教育我们些什么，从来没有明确说过。毛泽东只是一再说受过教育的人比文盲农民更愚蠢，需要改造得更像农民。他的一句名言是：“尽管他们手是黑的，脚上有牛屎，还是比资产阶级和小资产阶级知识分子都干净。”

My school and my sister's were full of children of capitalist-roaders, so they were sent to particularly godforsaken places. None of the children of members of the Revolutionary Committees went. They joined the armed services, which was the only, and much cushier, alternative to the countryside. Starting at this time, one of the clearest signs of power was for one's children to be in the army.

我所在的中学和姐姐的中学都满是走资派的孩子，自然被发配到最荒凉的地区去。革命委员会成员的孩子没有和我们一起去“接受再教育”，他们当了兵，这是当时唯一的、比下农村更舒适的选择。从那时起，某人重新得势的征兆之一就是他的孩子参了军。

Altogether, some fifteen million young people were sent to the country in what was one of the largest population movements in history. It was an indication of the order within the chaos that this was swiftly and supremely well organized. Everyone was given a subsidy to help buy extra clothes, quilts, sheets, suitcases, mosquito nets, and plastic sheets for wrapping up bed rolls. Minute attention was paid to such details as providing us with sneakers, water cans, and torches. Most of these things had to be manufactured specially, as they were not available in the poorly stocked shops. Those from poor families could apply for extra financial help. For the first year we were to be provided by the state with pocket money and food rations, including rice, cooking oil, and meat. These were to be collected from the village to which we were assigned.

文革中，全国约有一千五百万青少年被送到农村，是全世界有史以来最大的一次人口迁移。这次行动组织之迅速，之井井有条，说明文革的混乱其实是在控制下的。我们每个人都有一份补助金，用以买衣服、被子、床单、箱子、蚊帐以及包裹铺盖卷的塑料布。连发胶鞋、水壶、手电筒这样的细节也注意到了。大多数东西都得专门生产，因为它们在货架空空的商店里买不到。贫穷家庭的孩子还可以申请额外的津贴。下乡落户后的头一年，由国家供给我们零花钱，定量的食物，如大米、食油和肉等。这些钱、物从落户的公社领取。

Since the Great Leap Forward, the countryside had been organized into communes, each of which grouped together a number of villages and could contain anywhere from 2,000 to 20,000 households. Under the commune came production brigades which, in turn, governed several production teams. A production team was roughly equivalent to a village, and was the basic unit of rural life. In my school, up to eight pupils were assigned to each production team, and we were allowed to choose with whom we wanted to form a group. I chose my friends from Plumpie's form. My sister chose to go with me instead of with her school: we were allowed to opt to go to a place with a relative. My brother Jin-ming, though he was in the same school as I, stayed in Chengdu because he was not yet sixteen, which was the cut off age. Plumpie did not go either, because she was an only child.

大跃进起，农村组成了人民公社，每个公社包含许多村子，大约有两千到两万农户。一个公社管几个生产大队，生产大队又分成若干生产队。一般每个生产队就是一个村子，是农村生活的基本单位。在我们学校里，最多八个学生安插到一个生产队，可以选择同伴自愿组合。我选择了小胖子的同班同学。我姐决定和我一起去，而不跟她的学校走。政策允许“投亲靠友”。我弟弟京明和我在同一所学校，他不到十六岁，所以留在成都，十六岁是下乡的起码年龄。小胖子也不用下乡，她是独生女，政策准许她留在父母身边。

I looked forward to Ningnan. I had had no real experience of physical hardship and little appreciated what it meant. I imagined an idyllic environment where there was no politics. An official had come from Ningnan to talk to us, and he had described the subtropical climate with its high blue sky, huge red hibiscus flowers, foot-long bananas, and the Golden Sand River the upper part of the Yangtze shining in the bright sun, rippled by gentle breezes.

我盼望去宁南。我没有亲身体验过体力劳动的艰苦。按我的想象，下乡是去一个如诗如画的世外桃源，远离政治。一位来自宁南的公社干部给我们讲话，描述那里的亚热带气候：湛蓝的晴空，硕大的红木棉花，30厘米长的香蕉，金沙江在明媚的阳光下闪烁，微风吹过江南，荡起道道涟漪。

I was living in a world of gray mist and black wall slogans, and sunshine and tropical vegetation were like a dream to me. Listening to the official, I pictured myself in a mountain of blossoms with a golden fiver at my feet. He mentioned the mysterious 'evil air' which I had read about in classical literature, but even that added a touch of ancient eroticism. Danger existed for me only in political campaigns.

长久以来，我生活在一个阴沉沉、雾蒙蒙、满街白纸黑字大字报的世界里，阳光灿烂、万紫千红对我来说像是一场梦，我一边听那位宁南县干部在台上讲，一边在下面想象自己坐在奇花遍野的山坡上，脚下是金光闪闪的金沙江。那人也提到“瘴气”，我曾在古文中读到它，一听更觉得这个地方古老、神秘了。我一点儿也没想到疾病的可怕，心目中的危险仅限于政治运动。

I was also eager to go because I thought it would be easy to visit my father. But I failed to notice that between us lay pathless mountains 10,000 feet high. I have never been much good at maps.

我急着赶快出发，另一个原因是以为距离父亲很近。我没想到宁南和不远的米易之间隔的是一万多米高的无路可通的崇山峻岭，对地图我从来一窍不通。

On 27 January 1969, my school set off for Ningnan.

1969年1月27目，我的学校向宁南开拔。

Each pupil was allowed to take one suitcase and a bed roll.

We were loaded into trucks, about three dozen of us in each. There were only a few seats; most of us sat on our bed rolls or on the floor. The column of trucks bumped up and down country roads for three days before we reached the border of Xichang. We passed through the Chengdu Plain and the mountains along the eastern edge of the Himalayas, where the trucks had to put on chains. I tried to sit near the back so I could watch the dramatic snow showers and hail which whitened the universe, and which almost instantly cleared into turquoise sky and dazzling sunshine. This tempestuous beauty left me speechless. In the distance to the west rose a peak almost 25,000 feet high, beyond which lay the ancient wilderness in which were born many of the world's flora. I only realized when I came to the West that such everyday sights as rhododendrons, chrysanthemums, most roses, and many other flowers came from here. It was still inhabited by pandas.

每个学生可以带一只箱子和一个铺盖卷，坐在卡车上，每辆卡车约装三十个学生。只有几条凳子，大多数人坐在自己的铺盖卷上。一串卡车在乡间公路上颠簸行驶了三天，把我们送到西昌边界。过了成都平原后，我们沿着喜马拉雅山脉东南走，翻山时卡车得系上链条、我爱靠着车尾坐，看鹅毛大雪和冰雹如何把世界变白，又如何一下子变成了蓝天和耀眼的阳光。大自然变幻无穷的美丽使我目瞪口呆。西边远处几立着一座山峰，有七千六百多米高。在它之外是古老的山野，世界上许许多多植物都发源于此。我来西方后才知道每天看到的花卉，如杜鹃花、菊花、大多数的玫瑰花都发源于此。那里也是大熊猫的生息之地。

The second evening we entered a place called Asbestos County, named after its major product. Somewhere in the mountains, our convoy stopped so we could use the toilets two mud huts containing round communal pits covered with maggots. But if the sight inside the toilet was revolting, the one outside was horrifying. The faces of the workers were ashen, the color of lead, and devoid of any animation.

出发后的第二天下午，我们来到一个叫石棉县的地方，这是以该地主要的矿产石锦命名的。在山间公路上，车队停下来让我们上厕所。所谓厕所不过是两个泥巴窝棚，里面是一排挖在地上的坑，坑里爬满了蛆。如果说厕所里的情景令人作呕的话，厕所外面所见的让人恐怖，这里的工人脸都像死人似的灰白——铅的颜色，个个表情呆滞。

Terrified, I asked a nice propaganda team man, Dong-an, who was taking us to our destination, who these zombie like people were. Convicts from a lao-gai ('reform through labor') camp, he replied. Because asbestos mining was highly noxious, it was mainly done by forced labor, with few safety or health precautions. This was my first, and only, encounter with China's gulag.

我吓坏了，问负责送我们去目的地的工宣队员东安，这些像僵尸一样的人是怎么回事。东安说他们是犯人，石绵矿有剧毒，主要由服苦役的犯人来采，在几乎无任何安全保护和卫生环境下干活。这是我第一次，也是唯一次，亲眼看见中国的劳改营。

On the fifth day, the truck unloaded us at a granary at the top of a mountain. Propaganda publicity had led me to expect a ceremony with people beating drums and pinning red paper flowers on the new arrivals with great fanfare, but all that happened was that a commune official came to meet us at the grain station. He made a speech of welcome in the stilted jargon of the newspapers. A couple of dozen peasants were there to help us with our bed rolls and suitcases. Their faces were blank and inscrutable, and their speech was unintelligible to me.

第五天，卡车把我们送到一座山巅的粮站，目的地到了。大吹大擂的下乡落户光荣的宣传，使我以为会有一个敲锣打鼓的大会迎接我们，给我们戴大红花。但是，欢迎仪式只是一个公社干部来粮站接我们，他结结巴巴说了一通报纸上面的话。还来了一群农民帮我们提行李，他们面无表情，说的方言也令我们莫名其妙。

My sister and I walked to our new home with the two other girls and four boys who made up our group. The four peasants who carried some of our luggage walked in complete silence, and did not seem to understand the questions we put to them. We fell into silence, too. For hours we trekked in single file, deeper and deeper into the great universe of dark-green mountains. But I was far too exhausted to notice their beauty. Once, after I had been struggling to support myself against a rock to catch my breath, I looked around, into the distance. Our group seemed so insignificant amid the vast, boundless mountain world, with no roads, no houses, and no other human beings in sight, only the wind soughing through the forests, and the purling of hidden streams. I felt I was disappearing into a hushed, alien wilderness.

我姐姐和我以及另外两个女孩、四个男孩一齐去新家，我们八个人组成一个小组。有四个农民帮我们提行李，一路上谁也不说话。他们似乎听不懂我们问的问题，大家只好沉默。我们一个跟一个，走了好长时间，一步步走进墨绿色的深山，我筋疲力尽，无心欣赏它们的美。有一次，我勉强靠一块巨石上喘气，四下望去，发现我们的队伍在这个无穷无尽山连山、绵延起伏的世界中十分地渺小。这是山的天下，没有道路、没有房屋、没有人烟，耳朵里只听到风在林中呼啸，还有不知何处传来的潺潺流水声，我感觉到自己完全消失在这份寂静神秘中了。

At dusk, we arrived at the lightless village. There was no electricity, and oil was too precious to be wasted if it was not completely dark. People stood by their doors and stared at us with open-mouthed blankness; I did not know flit denoted interest or indifference. It was stares like these which many foreigners encountered in China after it was first opened in the 1970S. Indeed, we were like foreigners to the peasants and they to us.

黄昏时，我们来到一个黑蒙蒙的山村，没有电。煤油又太昂贵，不到天黑透是不会点上的。人们立在门口半张者嘴，瞪着眼睛看我们，表情不知是感兴趣还是冷淡。大概像七十年代中国刚开放时许多外国人在中国遇到的情景一样，的确，我们对农民来说像外国人，他们对我们来说也是如此。

The village had prepared a residence for us, made of timber and mud and comprising two big rooms one for the four boys, and one for the four girls. A corridor led to the village hall, where a brick stove had been built for us to cook on.

村里已为我们安排了住所，两个柱泥墙的大房间，分别给了我们四个女孩和四个男孩。一条走廊通往村子里的大厅，这里有一个砖砌的炉灶，供我们做饭用。

I fell exhausted onto the hard plank of wood that was the bed I was to share with my sister. Some children followed us, making excited noises. They now started banging on our door, but when we opened it they would scamper away, only to reappear to rap on the door again. They peeped into our window, which was just a square hole in the wall, with no shutter, and screamed odd noises. At first we smiled and invited them in, but our friendliness met no response. I was desperate for a wash. We nailed an old shirt onto the window frame as a curtain and began to dip our towels into the freezing water in our washbasins. I tried to ignore the children's giggles as they repeatedly flipped up the 'curtain." We had to keep our padded jackets on while we washed.

进了屋，我一头栽到一块硬邦邦的大木板上就爬不起来了。这木板是我和姐姐合用的床。有些村里的孩子尾随着我们，发出兴高采烈的闹嚷声。他们围在我们门口拍门，我们开了门，他们又一哄而散。待我们关上门，他们又跑回来使劲敲。他们也从窗外往里看，叽叽喳喳的议论，发出一些奇怪的声音。所谓的窗户，不过是墙壁上挖了个方形的洞，当然没有百叶窗，也没有装玻璃。我们露出笑脸，请孩子们进来玩，但没人敢进来。我非常想洗澡，于是把一件旧衬衣挂在穿洞上，权作窗帘，然后把毛巾浸在脸盆内冰冷的水中。我努力不去注意孩子们的吃吃笑声，他们不断撩起“窗帘”，我们只得穿着棉袄马马虎虎的擦身体。

One of the boys in our group acted as leader and liaison with the villagers. We had a few days, he told us, to get all our daily necessities like water, kerosene, and firewood organized; after that we would have to start working in the fields.

我们之中的一位男同学是领队，负责和村里人联系。他回来转告我们，大家有几天空闲时间准备生活用品，如煤油、柴火及挑水注满水缸。几天后，我们就得下田干活了。

Everything at Ningnan was done manually, the way it had been for at least 2,000 years. There was no machinery and no draft animals, either. The peasants were too short of food to be able to afford any for horses or donkeys. For our arrival the villagers had filled a round earthenware water tank for us. The next day I realized how precious every drop was. To get water, we had to climb for thirty minutes up narrow paths to the well, carrying a pair of wooden barrels on a shoulder pole. They weighed ninety pounds when they were full. My shoulders ached agonizingly even when they were empty. I was vastly relieved when the boys gallantly declared that fetching water was their job.

宁南的农活全靠手工，跟两年年前干活的方式一样。没有机械——连牲畜也没有，因为粮食太宝贵了。为了迎接我们，村民们替我们担满了一缸水，第二天我就见识到每滴水有多宝贵了。担水得爬三十分钟狭窄的山路才能到达井边。装满水后，每担有八十斤重；即使是空桶，扁担一上肩，铁肩膀也马上疼痛难忍了。当男同学们骑士般的宣布担水的事归他们时，我登时放了心。

They cooked, too, as three out of us four girls, me included, had never cooked in our lives, having come from the kind of families we did. Now I began to learn to cook the hard way. The grain came un husked and had to be put into a stone mortar and beaten with all one's might with a heavy pestle. Then the mixture had to be poured into a big shallow bamboo basket, which was swung with a particular movement of the arms so that the light shells gathered on top and could be scooped away, leaving the rice behind. After a couple of minutes my arms became unbearably sore and soon were shaking so much I could not pick up the basket. It was an exhausting battle for every meal.

男同学们也负责做饭，因为四位女孩子中连我有三个从未做过饭。在这里学做饭可不是轻松的事，米是没有去壳的谷粒，必须先倒进一个石头钵里，用沉重的石槌使尽全力锤打。接着把打出来的谷米混合物装在一个大竹筛子里，以一种特殊的手膀运动托着摇，轻轻的谷壳会集中在上面被划拉出去，剩下来。一上阵我的手臂就疼痛难耐，不久便抖个不停，端也端不住筛子。每做一顿饭都像一场筋疲力尽的战斗。

Then we had to collect fuel. It was two hours' walk to the woods designated by the forest protection regulations as the area where we could collect firewood. We were only allowed to chop small branches, so we climbed up the short pines and slashed ferociously with our knives. The logs were bundled together and carried on our backs. I was the youngest in our group, so I only had to carry a basket of feathery pine needles. The journey home was another couple of hours, up and down mountain paths. I was so exhausted when I got back that I felt my load must weigh 140 pounds at least. I could not believe my eyes when I put my basket on the scales: it came to only five pounds.

我们还得上山砍柴。到森林保护规则允许砍伐的地区要走两个钟头的山路。因为只许砍枝桠，我们得爬上矮松树，用柴刀一个劲儿地乱砍。砍好的柴打成捆，背在背上。我是小组中最年轻的，所以只背了一筐松针。走回来又是两个小时，翻山越岭到家后，我累得心里直想，这筐至少重一百三十斤，挂在秤上，我简直不敢相信自己的眼睛：还不到五斤！塞进灶里，一下子就烧光了，连一锅水也烧不开。

This would burn up in no time: it was not enough even to boil a wok of water.

On one of the first trips to gather fuel, I tore the seat of my trousers getting down from a tree. I was so embarrassed I hid in the woods and came out last so no one could walk behind me and see. The boys, who were all perfect gentlemen, kept insisting I should go in front so they would not walk too fast for me. I had to repeat many times that I was happy to go last, and that I was not just being polite.

开头一次砍柴时，我从树上跳下来，把裤子的后裆撕破了。我很窘，只好躲在树林里，最后才走出来，心里巴望着别的人都走在我前面，看不见我的破裤裆。但是，所有的男同学都拥有十全十美的骑士精神，死活都要我走在队伍前面，免得他们走得太快把我抛在后头。我只得一再解释我不是客气，而是真的想要走在最后。

Even going to the toilet was no easy job. It involved climbing down a steep, slippery slope to a deep pit next To the goat fold. One always had either? one's bottom or one's head toward the goats, who were keen to butt at intruders.

甚至上厕所也不是易事，得爬下一个陡峭溜滑的斜坡。厕所是一个深深的坑，坑上搭着木板，两条腿分别蹲在两块板上。隔栏就是山羊圈，蹲下来时，要么面对山羊，要么屁股冲着山羊。这些家伙不喜欢入侵者，总想用角把我们抵走。

I was so nervous I could not move my bowels for days.

Once out of the goat fold it was a struggle to clamber up the slope again. Every time I came back I had new bruises on me somewhere.

我一上厕所就感到神经紧张，几天解不出大便。一旦走出来，又是一番奋斗，才能爬上斜坡。每次回到住房，我身上总要添些新的伤痕。

On our first day working with the peasants, I was assigned to carry goat droppings and manure from our toilet up to the tiny fields which had just been burned free of bushes and grass. The ground was now covered by a layer of plant ash that, together with the goat and human excrement, was to fertilize the soil for the spring plowing, which was done manually.

第一天上工时，我们和农民一起干活，我被派出背我们厕所和其他圈里的粪便，放到一块刚用火烧去灌木和杂草的空地上。现在这上面覆盖着一层草木灰，与羊粪、人粪混和在一起，就是肥料，以备春耕。

I loaded the heavy basket on my back and desperately crawled up the slope on all fours. The manure was fairly dry, but still some of it began to soak through onto my cotton jacket and through to my underwear and my back. It also slopped over the top of the basket and seeped into my hair. When I finally arrived at the field I saw the peasant women skillfully unloading by bending their waists sideways and tilting the baskets in such a way that the contents poured out. But I could not make mine pour. In my desperation to get rid of the weight on my back I tried to take the basket off. I slipped my right arm out of its strap, and suddenly the basket lurched with a tremendous pull to the left, taking my left shoulder with it. I fell to the ground into the manure. Some time later, a friend dislocated her knee like this. I only strained my waist slightly.

我背上沉重的篓子，手脚并用爬上斜坡。这些烘便还算干燥，但仍有一些粪汁开始慢慢浸透进我的棉布外罩，浸湿了我的内衣和背部，又从顶部溅到我的脖子上，渗入头发里，当我终于走到那块空地时，我看到背粪的农妇们十分灵巧地把腰斜着一扭，轻轻松松地把背篓里的粪便倒了出来。但我怎么弄也倒不出来，我累得要命，拼命想赶快把背上的重荷扔掉，于是慌慌忙忙脱掉右肩上的背带。就在这一瞬间，背篓重量猛一下甩向左边，我往左一屁股跌在粪堆上。不久后，一位朋友的膝盖就这样脱了臼。我还好，只是稍稍扭伤了腰。

Hardship was part of the "thought reform". In theory, it was to be relished, as it brought one closer to becoming a new person, more like the peasants. Before the Cultural Revolution, I had subscribed wholeheartedly to this naive attitude, and had deliberately done hard work in order to make myself a better person. Once in the spring of x 966 my form was helping with some roadwork. The girls were asked to do light jobs like separating out stones which were then broken up by the boys. I offered to do the boys' work and ended up with horribly swollen arms from crushing stones with a huge sledgehammer which I could hardly lift. Now, scarcely three years later, my indoctrination was collapsing. With the psychological support of blind belief gone, I found myself hating the hardship in the mountains of Ningnan. It seemed utterly pointless.

吃苦是“思想改造”的一部分。照当时的理论，我们都应吃得津津有味，因为它使我们一步步变成新人，更像农民，在文革前，我天真地抱着这种态度，故意去做笨重的体力劳动，希望自己变成个好点儿的人。在1966年春的一天，我们班去帮助筑路。女孩子分配到轻活：把各种石头分开，再由男孩子砸碎。我自告奋勇做男孩子的事，抢着用我举也举不起的大锤砸石头。一天下来，两臂又红又肿。现在，还不到三年，我所受的灌输崩溃了，盲目信仰的心理消失后，我发现自己厌恶宁南大山里的艰苦生活，吃苦似乎毫无意义。

I developed a serious skin rash as soon as I arrived. For over three years this rash recurred the moment I was in the country, and no medicine seemed able to cure it. I was tormented by itchiness day and night, and could not stop myself from scratching. Within three weeks of starting my new life I had several sores running with pus, and my legs were swollen from infections. I was also hit by diarrhea and vomiting. I was hatefully weak and sick all the time when I needed physical strength most, and the commune clinic was thirty-odd miles away.

我刚到这里就患了严重的皮疹。以后三年，只要一到农村，这种湿疹就复发，而且无药可治。我日夜为奇痒所苦，忍不住要去搔它。在开始新生活的三个星期内，我身上几处流浓，小腿感染发肿，腹泻、呕吐也来了。公社的医疗所远在三十多哩外。在最需要强壮身体时，我苦于摆脱不了虚弱。

I soon came to the conclusion that I had little chance of visiting my father from Ningnan. The nearest proper road was a day's hard walk away, and even when one got there, there was no public transport. Trucks were few and far between, and they were extremely unlikely to be going from where I was to Miyi. Fortunately, the propaganda team man, Dong-an, came to our village to check that we were settled in all right, and when he saw I was ill he kindly suggested I should go back to Chengdu for treatment. He was returning with the last of the trucks which had brought us to Ningnan. Twenty-six days after I had arrived, I set off back to Chengdu.

这时，我也醒悟到几乎不可能从宁南去看父亲。走到最近的公路要花一天时间，就算走到了，也没有公共汽车。途经的货车很少，去米易的更罕见。幸好，工宣队员东安来我们村检查安置工作，当他看见我病了时，就好心提议我回成都治疗，他正好要乘最后一辆送学生到宁南的卡车回去。这样，我刚到宁南二十六天后，就又动身回成都了。

As I was leaving I realized that I had hardly got to know the peasants in our village. My only acquaintance was the village accountant who, being the most educated man around, came to see us often to claim some intellectual kinship. His home was the only one I had been in, and what I remember most were the suspicious stares on his young wife's weather-beaten face. She was cleaning the bloody intestines of a pig, and had a silent baby on her back. When I said hello, she shot me an indifferent look and did not return my greeting. I felt alien and awkward, and soon left.

要走了，我才发现自己还不认得村里的农民。我只认识会计，他是这里识字最多的，常常来拜访我们，显然是因为大家都是“读书人”。他的家是我唯一去过的农家，记得最清楚的是他年轻妻子那张经过日晒雨淋的脸上所表露的猜疑神情。她当时正在清洗血淋淋的猪内脏，背上背着个一声不吭的婴儿。当我对她打招呼时，她冷漠地看了我一眼，也没开腔。我觉得和整个环境格格不入，不知如何是好，很快就离开了。

In the few days I actually worked with the villagers, I had little spare energy and did not talk to them properly.

在和村民们一起劳动的那几天里，我没有多余的精力，也就没有和他们交谈。

They seemed remote, uninterested, separated from me by the impenetrable Ningnan mountains. I knew we were supposed to make the effort to visit them, as my friends and my sister, who were in better shape, were doing in the evenings, but I was exhausted, sick, and itchy all the time.

他们似乎远在天边，与我无关，我们之间隔着难以翻越的宁南大山。我清楚我应该努力去接近他们，就像朋友们和我姐姐那样，晚上下工后去拜访他们。但是我每天都又累又痒又浑身不舒服。

Besides, visiting them would have meant that I was resigned to making the best of my life there. And I subconsciously refused to settle for a life as a peasant. Without spelling it out to myself, I rejected the life Mao had assigned to me.

另外，去拜访农民对我，意味着我要在那儿呆一辈子。而我已在下意识里拒绝了当农民，拒绝了毛泽东为我安排的一生。

When the time came for me to leave, I suddenly missed the extraordinary beauty of Ningnan. I had not appreciated the mountains properly when I was struggling with life there. Spring had come early, in February, and golden winter jasmines shone beside the icicles hanging from the pines. The brooks in the valleys formed one crystal-clear pool after another, dotted around which were fancifully shaped rocks. The reflections in the water were of gorgeous clouds, canopies of stately trees, and the nameless blossoms that elegantly wriggled out of the cracks in the rocks. We washed clothes in those heavenly pools, and spread them on the rocks to dry in the sunshine and the crisp air. Then we would lie down on the grass and listen to the vibration of the pine forests in the breeze. I would marvel at the slopes of distant mountains opposite us, covered with wild peach trees, and imagine the masses of pink in a few weeks' time.

三个星期的为生存而奋斗，使我无心欣赏宁南大山。临别时，我才突然爱上了这里非同一般的自然美景。春天来得早，二月金黄的迎春花就在挂着冰凌的松树旁怒放了。山涧里，溪水形成一个接一个冰晶透明的水塘，奇形怪状的岩石散布在周围。水里的倒影是多彩多姿的云朵和大树仪态万方的华盖。无名的小花从岩石缝里挣扎着冒出来，亭亭玉立地开着。我们在这些仙境般的水池里洗衣服，洗完了在岩石上摊开。当艳阳和爽风带走水气时，我们躺在草地上听松林在山风中呼呼地响。我对远山满坡的野桃树总是不胜惊叹，想象有几个星期后，那里将是粉红色桃花的海洋。

* * *

When I reached Chengdu, after four interminable days of being thrown about in the back of an empty truck, with constant stomach pains and diarrhea, I went straight to the clinic attached to the compound. Injections and tablets cured me in no time. Like the canteen, the clinic was still open to my family. The Sichuan Revolutionary Committee was split and second-rate: it had not managed to organize a functioning administration. It had not even got around to issuing regulations concerning many aspects of everyday life. As a result, the system was full of holes; many of the old ways continued, and people were largely left to their own devices. The managements of the canteen and the clinic did not refuse to serve us, so we went on enjoying the facilities.

我踏上了归途，在空荡荡的卡车尾部被抛上抛下，忍受着胃痛、腹泻的折磨。漫长的四天旅程后，我终于回到成都。径直去了省委附属的门诊部。打针吃药使我很快恢复了。省委门诊部像省委大食堂一样，仍然对我家开放。四川省委会力不从心，你争我斗，没法形成有效的行政机构，甚至没能制定出一套管理日常生活、工作的规章制度。结果是，旧规定还是起作用，新旧夹杂充满漏洞，人们大半还是可以自行其事。大食堂和门诊部没有把我们拒之门外，我们仍然享受便利。

In addition to the Western injections and pills prescribed at the clinic, my grandmother said I needed Chinese medicines. One day she came home with a chicken and some roots of membranous milk vetch and Chinese angelica, which were considered very bu (healing), and made a soup for me into which she sprinkled finely chopped spring onions. These ingredients were unavailable in the shops, and she had hobbled for miles to buy them in a country black market.

除了门诊部开的西药和针剂外，姥姥说我需要中药调理。一天她回到家，提着一只鸡和一些当归、黄芪，说炖鸡吃是“大补”。汤里她还洒了些切得细细的小葱，这些东西在商店里买不到，她是颤着小脚走了好远到农村集市上去买的。

My grandmother was unwell herself. Sometimes I saw her lying on her bed, which was extremely unusual for her; she had always been so energetic I had hardly ever seen her sit still for a minute. Now her eyes were shut tight and she bit her lips hard, which made me feel she must be in great pain. But when I asked her what the matter was, she would say it was nothing, and she continued collecting medicines and standing in line to get food for me.

姥姥自己也病了。过去她总是精力充沛，忙个不停，很少见她坐一坐。现在我有时见她躺着，两眼紧闭，狠狠咬着自己的嘴唇，像是忍受巨大痛楚。我小心翼翼问她哪不舒服，她却总是简单地说没事，仍去为我买药，排队买东西，回来做给我吃。

I was soon much better. As there was no authority to order me to return to Ningnan, I began to plan a trip to see my father. But then a telegram came from Yibin saying that my aunt Jun-ying, who had been looking after my youngest brother, Xiao-fang, was seriously ill. I thought I should go and take care of them.

我病好之后，没有人命令我回宁南，我开始计划去看父亲。正在这时，一封电报从宜宾发来，说俊英娘娘患了重病。她一直在照料我最小的弟弟小方，我马上启程去服侍她。

Aunt Jun-ying and my father's other relations in Yibin had been very kind to my family, in spite of the fact that my father had broken the deep-rooted Chinese tradition of looking after one's relatives. By tradition, it was considered the filial duty of a son to prepare for his mother a heavy wooden coffin with many layers of paint, and to provide a grand and often financially crippling funeral.

我父亲在宜宾的亲戚对我家一直都非常好，尽管我父亲没能好好照顾他们。中国历来儿子孝顺的表现是为母亲准备一口上好木料、滑漆多层的棺材，并在她去世后不拘财力很讲排场地办丧事。但我父亲不但没有做到这一点，相反地，我祖母1958年去世时，亲戚们在葬礼后才告诉他。

But the government strongly encouraged cremation to save land and simpler funerals. When his mother died in 1958, my father was not told until after the funeral, because his family was worried that he would object to the burial and the elaborate service. After we moved to Chengdu his family hardly ever visited us.

原因是共产党政府提倡丧事从简，推行用火葬以节省土地。亲戚们因此担心父亲会反对他母亲土葬和隆重的葬礼。自我家搬到成都后，亲戚们很少来拜访。

However, when my father fell into trouble in the Cultural Revolution, they came to see us and offered their help. Aunt Jun-ying, who had been traveling frequently between Chengdu and Yibin, eventually took Xiao-fang under her care to relieve my grandmother of some of her burden. She shared a house with my father's youngest sister, but had also selflessly given up half of her part to the family of a distant relative who had had to abandon their own dilapidated lodgings.

然而，当我父亲在文革中倒楣时，他们却常来看我们，尽力帮助。俊英娘娘不断往来于成都和宜宾之间，后来干脆把小方带到宜宾去照顾，以减轻姥姥的负担。她和我父亲最小的妹妹“八娘”各住一半从前祖母的房子，她无私地再把自己的一半分了一部分给一门远亲。因为那家的房子旧得不能住了。

When I arrived, my aunt was sitting in a wicker easy chair by the front door to the hall, which served as the sitting room. In the place of honor lay a huge coffin made of heavy, dark-red wood. This coffin, her own, was her only indulgence. The sight of my aunt overwhelmed me with sadness. She had just had a stroke, and her legs were half-paralyzed. Hospitals were working only sporadically.

我到宜宾那天，娘娘坐在堂屋正门边的一张藤椅上。堂屋中放着一口黑红色上等木料大棺材，这是她自己的棺材，是她仅有的“奢侈品”。看见她时，我不禁悲从中来。她刚中了风，腿已经半瘫痪了。那时医院断断续续的开诊，医疗设备没有人保养、修理，大都坏了，药物供应也时有时无。医院说对她的病无能为力，她只得呆在家里。

With no one to repair them, facilities had broken down and the supply of medicine was erratic. The hospitals had told Aunt Jun-ying there was nothing they could do for her, so she stayed at home.

What my aunt found most traumatic were her bowel movements. After eating, she felt unbearably bloated, but she could not relieve herself without great agony. Her relatives' formulas helped sometimes, but more often failed. I massaged her stomach frequently, and once, when she felt desperate and asked me to, I even put my finger into her anus to try to scratch out the excrement. All these remedies only gave her momentary relief. As a result, she did not dare to eat much. She was terribly weak, and would sit in the wicker chair in the hall for hours, gazing at the papaya and banana trees in the back garden. She never complained. Only once did she say to me in a gentle whisper, "I'm so very hungry. I wish I could eat..."

俊英娘娘最痛苦的是排便。吃完饭后，她会感到无法忍受地胀痛，每次都得经历一番挣扎才能排出大便。亲戚们的偏方有时有用，有时没用。经常给她按摩肚子，一次，她胀痛得忍耐不住，叫我用手指伸进她的肛门把大便抠出来。所有的这些方法只能暂时让她解脱一下，结果是她只敢吃一点点东西，变得很虚弱，只好常常坐在客厅的藤椅上望着后院的番木瓜和芭蕉树。她从不诉苦，只有一次轻言细语对我说：“我好饿，要能吃就好了……”

She could no longer walk without help, and even sitting up required a great effort. To prevent her getting bedsores, I would sit beside her so she could lean on me. She said I was a good nurse and that I must be tired and bored sitting there. No matter how much I insisted, she would only sit for a brief period every day, so that I could 'go out and have some fun."

她得有人扶着才能走动，渐渐地，甚至连坐着也很困难了。但她不能老躺着，怕得褥疮。我就坐在她身边，让她靠着我。她说我是个好护士，又说我一定累了，一定厌烦老坐着陪她。不管我怎么坚持，她每天只坐一会儿，以便我能到外面散散心。

Of course, there was no fun outside. I longed for something to read. But apart from the four volumes of The Selected Works of Mao Zedong, all I discovered in the house was a dictionary. Everything else had been burned. I occupied myself with studying the 15,000 characters in it, learning the ones I did not know by heart.

当然，外面没有什么可散心的。我渴望看书。但是除了四卷《毛泽东选集》外，房子里只剩下一本字典，别的书都烧掉了。

I spent the rest of my time looking after my seven-year old brother, Xiao-fang, and took long walks with him.

我靠研究字典里的一万五千个字消遣，努力记住那些不认识的字。

Sometimes he got bored and demanded things like a toy gun or the charcoal-colored sweets that were on lonely display in the shops. But I had no money our basic allowance was small. Xiao-fang, at seven, could not understand this, and would throw himself on the dusty ground, kicking, yelling, and tearing my jacket. I would crouch and coax and eventually, at my wits' end, start crying as well.

剩下的时间都花在照料七岁的小方身上。我常带他出去散步，有时他觉得没味道了，就闹着要玩具枪或炭块模样的糖果——商店里只有这些可怜巴巴的东西陈列着。但是我没有钱，我们连基本的生活费都很少。小方才七岁，不懂这些，常常一屁股坐在满是灰尘的大街上又踢又叫，扯我的外衣。我蹲下来，好话相哄，在智穷计尽时也跟着哭起来。

At this, he would stop and make up with me. We would both go home exhausted.

每当这时，小方就不哭了，和我言归于好，两人都筋疲力尽地回家去。

Yibin was a very atmospheric town, even in the middle of the Cultural Revolution. The waving rivers and serene hills, and the hazy horizon beyond, produced a sense of eternity in me, and soothed me temporarily from the miseries all around. When dusk fell, the posters and loudspeakers all over the city were obscured, and the unlit back lanes were enveloped in mist, broken only by the flickering of oil lamps seeping through the cracks between the frames of the doors and the windows. From time to time, there was a bright patch: a small food stall was open. There was not much for sale, but there would be a square wooden table on the pavement, with four long narrow benches around it, all dark brown and shiny from years of rubbing and sitting. On the table would be a tiny pea-shaped spark - a lamp that burned rapeseed oil. There was never anyone sitting at these tables chatting, but the owner kept the stall open. In the old days, it would have been crowded with people gossiping and drinking the local 'five-grained liquor," accompanied by marinated beef, soy-stewed pig's tongue, and salt-and-pepper roasted peanuts. The empty stalls evoked for me a Yibin in the days when life had not been completely taken over by politics.

甚至在文革中，宜宾也是个充满诗意的小城。波涛起伏的江水和宁静的山峰外是模糊的天边，给我一种无穷无尽的永恒感觉，使我在重重悲剧中得到短暂的纾解。每当黄昏降临时，刺目的大字报，护音器都朦胧隐去，没有街灯的小巷子包裹在雾气中，只见街道两边木板房的缝隙中透出一闪一闪的灯光。不时有一处明亮的小天地：临街的小吃店，总有一张木桌摆在人行道上，四条窄板凳围在周围。桌、凳都因年长日久和人来人往而磨得油光闪亮，桌上放着一盏光小如豆的菜油灯。尽管从没有人坐在桌边交谈，店主仍把小吃店开着。在过去的岁月，一到黄昏时，这样的小店就会挤满了人，七嘴八舌“摆龙门阵”，一起品呷着当地名酒“五粮夜”，面前放一盘佐酒的腌猪舌头或卤牛肉，要么就是麻辣花生。那时，生活还没有完全被政治所支配。而现在只剩空空的小吃店，唤起我恍若隔世的遐想。

Once out of the back lanes, my ears were assaulted by loudspeakers. For up to eighteen hours a day the town center was a perpetual hubbub of chanting and denouncing. Quite apart from the content, the noise level was unbearable, and I had to develop a technique of forcing myself to hear nothing to preserve my sanity.

一走出漆黑的小巷子，扩音器的声音就从四面八方袭来。市中心每天广播十八个小时以上，除了颂歌就是声讨。内容且不说了，光是音量就大得无法忍受，我不得不强迫自己充耳不闻，以保持精神健全。

One evening in April, a broadcast suddenly caught my attention. A Party Congress had been convened in Peking.

4月的一天傍晚，广播却吸引了我的注意：共产党代表大会在北京召开了。

As usual, the Chinese people were not told what this most important assembly of their 'representatives' was actually doing. A new top leadership team was announced. My heart sank as I heard that the new organization of the Cultural Revolution was confirmed.

和往常一样，中国人不知道他们的代表在这个最重要的大会上干些什么。广播说将宣读新的中央委员会名单，我的心顿时一沉，这意味着文革的组织机构将被确定下来。

This Congress, the Ninth, marked the formal establishment of Mao's personal power system. Few senior leaders from the previous Congress, in 1956, had made it to this one. Out of seventeen Politburo members, only four Mao, Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai, and Li Xiannian were still in office. All the rest, apart from those already dead, had been denounced and ousted. Some of these were soon to die.

这次代表大会中是中共第九次代表大会，象征毛泽东个人权力机构正式建立。1956年“八大”上的最高领导，没几个还留着。当时的十七位政治局委员中只有四个——毛泽东、林彪、周恩来，李先念进了新的政治局，别的人除了去世的，都已被批判、斗争和清除掉了，有些人也来日不长了。

President Liu Shaoqi, the number-two man at the Eighth Congress, had been under detention since 1967, and was ferociously beaten at denunciation meetings. He was denied medicine for both his long-term illness, diabetes, and his newly caught pneumonia, and was given treatment only when he was on the brink of death because Mme Mao explicitly ordered that he be kept alive so the Ninth Congress would 'have a living target." At the Congress the verdict that he was 'a criminal traitor, enemy agent, and scab in the service of the imperialists, modern revisionists [Russians], and the Kuomintang reactionaries' was read by Zhou Enlai. After the Congress, Liu was allowed to die, in agony.

国家主席刘少奇，共产党“八大”的第二号人物，从1967年起一直被监禁，在斗争会上被毒打。他生病了，也得不到治疗，既不能治疗长期患有的糖尿病，也不能治疗被监禁后所患的肺炎。等到生命垂危之时才给予治疗，因为毛夫人下令无论如何得再让他活些日子。她说：“现在快要开刘少奇的会了，不能让他死，要让他活着重看被开除出党，给‘九大’留下活靶子！”刘少奇的判决书上称他是：“一个埋藏在党内的叛徒、内奸、工贼，是罪恶累累的帝国主义、现代修正主义和国民党反动派的走狗。”这个判决书是由周恩来宣读的。九大后，才准许刘少奇死，他死得很惨。

Marshal Ho Lung, another former Politburo member and a founder of the Communist army, died scarcely two months after the Congress. Because he had wielded power in the army, he was subjected to two and a half years of slow torture, which, he said to his wife, was 'intended to destroy my health so they can murder me without spilling my blood." The torment included allowing him only a small can of water every day during the boiling summer, cutting off all heating during the winter, when the temperature remained well below zero for months on end, and denying him medicine for his diabetes. In the end, he died after a large dose of glucose was administered when his diabetes got worse.

贺龙元帅是另一位政治局委员、共产党军队的奠基人之一，他是在九大后两个月去世的。慑于他在军队里的威望和权力，在两年半的时间里，打手们慢慢折磨他。用他自己对夫人的话说就是：“他们硬是想把我拖死，杀人不见血。”折磨他的办法有：大热天每天只给一小壶水；在严寒的北方动机，几个月温度都在零度之下，关掉了暖气；不给她药治他的糖尿病。最后，当他的糖尿病恶化时，一夜之间给他输了两千多毫升葡萄糖。注入几个小时后，贺龙就去世了。

Tao Zhu, the Politburo member who had helped my mother at the start of the Cultural Revolution, was detained under inhuman conditions for nearly three years, which destroyed his health. He was denied proper treatment until his gall bladder cancer was far advanced and Zhou Enlai sanctioned an operation. But the windows in his hospital room were permanently blacked out with newspapers, and his family was not allowed to see him at his deathbed or after his death.

文革初期曾帮助过我母亲的政治局委员陶铸，也被惨无人道的关押了三年。不断的精神和肉体的折磨摧垮了他的健康。他患上了胆囊癌，却不给他治疗，捱到癌细胞扩散全身的末期，才由周恩来出面批准给他动手术。他病房里的全部玻璃都用报纸糊上，透不进光来。当他快断气时或终于去世后，都不准家属来看他。

Marshal Peng Dehuai died of the same kind of drawn out torment, which in his case lasted eight years, until 1974. His last request was to see the trees and the daylight outside his newspaper-covered hospital windows, and it was turned down.

彭德怀元帅也是被类似的残酷折磨整死的，他的苦难持续了八年时间，从1966年到1974年。他的病房窗户也是被报纸贴得密密实实的，他最后的要求是看一眼外面的树枝和阳光，但仍被拒绝了。

These and many similar persecutions were typical of Mao's methods in the Cultural Revolution. Instead of signing death warrants Mao would simply indicate his intentions, and some people would volunteer to carry out the tormenting and improvise the gruesome details. Their methods included mental pressure, physical brutality, and denial of medical care or even the use of medicine to kill. Death caused in this way came to have a special term in Chinese: po-had zhi-si - 'persecuted to death." Mao was fully aware of what was happening, and would encourage the perpetrators by giving his 'silent consent' (mo-xu). This enabled him to get rid of his enemies without attracting blame. The responsibility was inescapably his, but not his alone. The tormentors took some initiative. Mao's subordinates were always on the lookout for ways to please him by anticipating his wishes and, of course, to indulge their own sadistic tendencies.

这些和其他千千万万的迫害事件体现了文化大革命中使用的典型手法。并不签署死刑判决书，(此处删去一句)，但总有人心领神会，变着法子折磨。他们的办法包括精神压力、肉体摧残、不给治病——甚至以药杀人。这种整死人的办法在中国有个特殊名词，叫“迫害致死”。毛泽东当然清楚所发生的事，(此处删去一行)。他的责任毋容置疑。执行者也有份儿，(此处删去一句)。他们喜爱施虐的天性也得以尽情发挥。

The horrible details of the persecutions of many top leaders were not revealed until years later. When they came out, they surprised no one in China. We knew all too many similar cases from our own experience.

这种令人毛骨悚然地折磨共产党上层领导的内情直到多年后才逐渐为人知晓。说出来后，没有人感到惊愕，人们的亲身经历使大家对这类事已经是司空见惯了。

As I stood in the crowded square listening to the broadcast, the new Central Committee was read out. With dread I waited for the names of the Tings. And there they were - Liu Jie-ting and Zhang Xi-ting. Now I felt there was to be no end to my family's suffering.

当我站在宜宾广场的人群中听广播念九大中央委员会名单时，我提心吊胆地等“二挺”的名字出现。果然有他们，我感到我家已永世不得翻身了。

Shortly afterward a telegram came saying my grandmother had collapsed and taken to her bed. She had never done anything like this before. Aunt Jun-ying urged me to go home and look after her. Xiao-fang and I took the next train back to Chengdu.

不久后，我收到电报，说姥姥病倒了，她以前从没有这样过。俊英娘娘催我回家照料她，我带着小方马上乘火车回了成都。

* * *

My grandmother was approaching her sixtieth birthday, and her stoicism had at last been conquered by pain. She felt it piercing and moving all over her body, then concentrating in her ears. The doctors at the compound clinic said it might be nerves, and that they had no cure for it except that she should maintain a cheerful mood. I took her to a hospital half an hour's walk from Meteorite Street.

我姥姥快满六十岁了，无法忍耐的奇痛终于压倒了她。她感到有千万根针扎在身上，扩散着，最后集中到耳朵里。门诊部的医生这说可能是神经性病痛，他们没有办法，唯一的建议是尽量保持心情愉快。我带她去另一家医院，从支机石街走路得半个多小时。

Ensconced in their chauffeur-driven cars, the new holders of power felt little concern for how ordinary people had to live. Buses were not running in Chengdu, as they were not considered vital to the revolution, and pedicabs had been banned, on the grounds that they exploited labor.

新当权派根本不关心小老百姓出门交通，因为他们出门有专门司机开小汽车接送。公共汽车对革命并非生死攸关，他们就由它停开。人力三轮车又被禁止，说是压迫劳动人民。

My grandmother could not walk because of the intense pain. She had to sit on the luggage rack of a bicycle, with a cushion on it, holding on to the seat. I pushed the bicycle, Xiao-her propped her up, and Xiao-fang sat on the crossbar.

我姥姥因剧烈疼痛不能行走，我只好借了辆自行车，在后面的行李架上放一块软垫，扶她坐上去。她手抓住车座，我推自行车，小黑扶着她，小方则坐在自行车的横杠上。

The hospital was still working, thanks to the professionalism and dedication of some of the staff. On its brick walls, I saw huge slogans from their more militant colleagues accusing them of 'using work to suppress revolution' - a standard accusation for people sticking to their jobs. The doctor we saw had twitching eyelids and black rings under her eyes, and I guessed she must be exhausted by the throngs of patients, in addition to the political attacks she was having to endure. The hospital was bursting at the seams with grim-looking men and women, some with bruised faces, others with broken ribs lying on stretchers victims of denunciation meetings.

多亏一些医生护士保持了职业道德和献身精神，医院还没有关门。但医院墙壁上有大标语，指责他们“以工作压革命”——这是坚持工作者的标准“罪名”。那位替姥姥检查的女医生眼圈发黑，眼皮时不时地抖动。我想她一定是被大群大群的病人搞得疲惫不堪了，而且她还得忍受那些政治攻击。医院里挤得满满的，到处是阴沉沉的男女，有些人脸部青肿，有的断了肋骨躺在担架上，他们都是批斗会上的牺牲品。

None of the doctors could diagnose what was wrong with my grandmother. There was no X-ray machine or any other instrument to examine her properly. They were all broken. My grandmother was given various painkillers.

医生仍说不出我姥姥患了什么病。X光和其他临床诊断设施都坏了，没法给她检查，只给了她各种止痛药。

When these failed to work, she was admitted to the hospital. The wards were crowded, the beds jammed right up against each other. Even the corridors were lined with beds. The few nurses rushing from ward to ward could not manage to look after all the patients, so I decided to stay with my grandmother.

当这些药都不管用时，医院没收她住院。病房爆满，病床一张挨着一张，连走廊也排满了床。护士们从这间病房跑到那间病房，无法细心照料如此多的病人。于是我决定陪姥姥住院。

I went home and got some utensils so I could cook for her there. I also brought a bamboo mattress which I spread under her bed. At night I was constantly awakened by her groaning, and I would climb out from under my thin quilt and massage her, which soothed her temporarily. From under the bed, the room smelled intensely of urine. Everyone's chamber pot was placed next to the bed. My grandmother was very fussy about cleanliness, and she would insist on getting up and going to the toilet down the corridor even at night. But the other patients did not bother, and often the chamber pots were not emptied for days. The nurses were too busy to attend to such details.

找回家拿来一些厨房用具，以便在医院里为她烧饭。一张竹席铺在她病床下，就是我的床。整夜，我不断被她的呻吟声惊醒，从薄被子下面钻出来给她按摩，暂时减轻她的痛苦。病房里，到处是浓浓的尿臊臭，每个病人的尿壶都放在病房旁边。我姥姥很讲究清洁，一定要自己起身到厕所去大小便，甚至夜间也如此。但别的病人并没这样做，他们的便盂有时几天也不倒掉，几个护士忙得团团转，顾不上这些细节。

The window by my grandmother's bed looked out over the front garden. It was overgrown with weeds, and its wooden benches were collapsing. The first time I looked out at it, several children were busy trying to break off the few branches of a small magnolia tree that still had one or two flowers on them. Adults walked by indifferently.

姥姥的病床紧靠着窗户，可以看到医院的前园。现在这里长满了杂草，木凳也被砸坏了。我第一次透过窗户看出去时，见到几个小孩正围着一棵瘦小的玉兰树，扯它所剩无几的枝桠，要摘上面开着的几朵孤伶伶的花。成年人从旁经过，也不干涉，破坏树木的行为已屡见不鲜了。

Vandalism against trees had become too much a part of everyday life to attract any attention.

One day, from the open window, I saw Bing, a friend of mine, getting off his bicycle. My heart started to leap, and my face suddenly felt hot. I quickly checked in the windowpane. To look into a real mirror in public was to invite condemnation as a 'bourgeois element." I was wearing a pink-and-white checked jacket, a pattern that had just been allowed for young women's clothing. Long hair was permissible again, but only in two plaits, and I would dither for hours over how I should do mine: Should they be close together or far apart? Straight, or curved a little at the ends? Should the plaited part be longer than the loose part, or vice versa? The decisions, all minute, were endless. There were no state regulations about hairstyles or clothes. It was what everyone else was wearing that determined the rules of the day. And because the range was so narrow, people were always looking out for the tiniest variations. It was a real test of ingenuity to look different and attractive, and yet similar enough to every body else so that nobody with an accusing finger could pinpoint what exactly was heretical.

一天，从开着的窗户外，我一眼看见了我的朋友平先生从自行车上跳下来。我的心也跟着蹦跳了，脸一下子发了烧。我飞快地把玻璃窗当镜子，照了照自己。在公共场合照镜子会召来横批，有“资产阶级生活方式”之嫌。那天，我穿了一件白底粉红格子外衣。当时刚允许年轻妇女穿这类图案的衣服。头发也可以留长了，但只能梳成两条辫子。我经常左思右想：两根辫子应该靠近一点呢？还是分开一点呢？梳得直挺挺的呢？还是辫梢微微曲翘呢？辫子部分比松散部分长一点呢？还是短一点呢？这类差别虽然细小却无穷无尽。政府并没有规定头发该怎么梳，衣服的样式、色调如何，但是大家怎么打扮你也得怎么打扮。因为大家差不多都一样，稍稍有点变化就会引人注意。所以看上去既要吸引人，又要跟别人没什么大的不同，使人无可挑剔，便成了一门真正的学问。

I was still wondering how I looked when Bing walked into the ward. His appearance was nothing out of the ordinary, but a certain air set him apart. He had a touch of cynicism, which was rare in those humorless years. I was very much drawn to him. His father had been a departmental director in the pre-Cultural Revolution provincial government, but Bing was different from most other high officials' children.

我还在翻来覆去不满自己的形象时，平已经走进病房来了。他样子很平常，但有某种气质使他与众不同。那是一种玩世不恭的味道，在当时毫无幽默感的时代里可算得凤毛麟角。他父亲是文化大革命前共产党省委某个部的部长，但平和绝大多数高干子弟不同。

"Why should I be sent to the countryside?" he said, and actually succeeded in not going by obtaining an 'incurable illness' certificate. He was the first person to show me a free intelligence, an ironic, inquisitive mind which did not take anything for granted. It was he who first opened up the taboo areas in my mind.

“为什么我要下农村？”他说，而且说到做到，为自己搞了一张“病情证明”，留在成都。他是我见到的第一个思想自由、不以任何事为神授皇颁而不可怀疑的人。他是第一个打开我头脑里的禁区的人。

Up to now, I had shunned any love relationship. My devotion to my family, which had been intensified by adversity, overshadowed every other emotion. Although within me there had always been another being, a sexual being, yearning to get out, I had succeeded in keeping it locked in. Knowing Bing pulled me to the brink of an entanglement.

至此为止，我一直想避开谈恋爱，因逆境而变得更强烈的对家人全心的爱，盖过了其他感情。虽然在我的内心一直有另外一种性爱的感觉存在，渴望冲出禁忌，但是我成功地把它锁了起来。认识平使我内心交战不已。

On this day, Bing turned up at my grandmother's ward with a black eye. He said he had just been hit by Wen, a young man who had come back from Ningnan as the escort for a girl who had broken her leg there. Bing described the fight with deliberate nonchalance, saying with a great deal of satisfaction that Wen was jealous of him for enjoying more of my attention and company. Later, I heard Wen's story: he had hit Bing because he could not stand 'that conceited grin of his."

这天平出现在我姥姥病房里，一双眼睛青肿，说刚被温先生打了一拳。温是我所在四中的高中学生，不久前护送一位在宁南大山里摔断腿的姑娘回成都就医。平故意满不在乎地描绘他俩人打架的情形，暗示说温不高兴他与我过从甚密。后来我听温说他打平的原因是他不能忍受：“这家伙在我面前自鸣得意、龇牙咧嘴地笑。”

Wen was short and stout, with big hands and feet and buck teeth. Like Bing, he was the son of high officials. He took to rolling up his sleeves and trouser legs and wearing a pair of straw sandals like a peasant, in the spirit of a model youth in the propaganda posters. One day he told me he was going back to Ningnan to continue 'reforming' himself. When I asked why, he said casually, "To follow Chairman Mao. Why else? I'm Chairman Mao's Red Guard." For a moment I was speechless. I had begun to assume that people only spouted this sort of jargon on official occasions. What was more, he had not put on the obligatory solemn face that was part of the act. The offhanded way he spoke made me feel he was sincere.

温生得短小粗壮，大手、大脚、大板牙。和平一样，他也是一个高干子弟。但他总是卷起袖子、挽起裤脚、穿双草鞋，打扮得像个农民——完全是宣传画里的模范青年形象。一天，他告诉我他要回宁南去继续接受改造。我问他为什么，他随口回答：“为了紧跟毛主席呀！我是毛主席的红卫兵嘛！”我一下子愣住了，无言以对。我还以为人们只在公开场合才说这种官活。然而他并非故作正经，他是脱口而出，使我觉得他是认真的。

Wen's way of thinking did not make me want to avoid him. The Cultural Revolution had taught me not to divide people by their beliefs, but by whether they were capable of cruelty and viciousness or not. I knew Wen was a decent person, and when I wanted to get out of Ningnan permanently, it was to him that I turned for help.

温的思维方式并没有使我对他敬而远之。文化大革命教育了我不要按人们的信仰来区分他们，而该看他们是否心术不正，是否残酷。我知道温是个正派人，当我想永远脱离宁南时，就是请他帮的忙。

I had been away from Ningnan for over two months.

There was no rule that forbade this, but the regime had a powerful weapon to make sure I would have to go back to the mountains sooner or later: my residence registration had been moved there from Chengdu, and as long as I stayed in the city, I was entitled to no food or any other rations. For the time being I was living off my family's rations, but that could not last forever. I realized that I had to get my registration moved to somewhere near Chengdu.

我离开宁南已经两个多月了，虽然没有规定不准这样做，但是国家有办法使我迟早必须回大山里去。我的户口已由成都迁到宁南去了，呆在城里没有粮食和其他配给。这段时间我是靠家里人的定量配给过活的，维持不了多久。我意识到必须赶快把户口迁移回成都附近某个地区，因为农村户口不准迁进城镇，所以把户口重新迁回成都根本不可能。

Chengdu itself was out of the question, because no one was allowed to move a country registration to a city. Moving one's registration from a harsh mountainous place to a richer area like the plain around Chengdu was also forbidden. But there was a loophole: we could move if we had relatives who were willing to accept us. It was possible to invent such a relative, as no one could keep track of the numerous relatives a Chinese might have.

把户口从偏僻的山区迁移到像成都平原这样富庶的地区也不行，除非有亲戚在那儿愿意接收我们。“发明”个亲戚是容易办到的，因为中国人七大姑八大姨太多，没有人弄得清。

I planned the transfer with Nana, a good friend of mine who was just back from Ningnan to try to find a way to get out of there. We included my sister, who was still in Ningnan, in our plan. To get our registrations moved, we first of all needed three letters: one from a commune saying it would accept us, on the recommendation of a relative in that commune; a second from the county to which the commune belonged, endorsing the first; and a third from the Sichuan Bureau for City Youth, sanctioning the transfer. When we had all three, we had to go back to our production teams in Ningnan to obtain their approval before the registrar at Ningnan county would give us the final release. Only then could we be given the crucial document, which was essential for every citizen in China our registration books which we had to hand in to the authorities at our next place of residence.

我有个好朋友南南刚从宁南回来找路子，我跟她计划一块转，还加上我此刻仍在宁南的姐姐。迁移户口首先得搞到三张证明：第一张是亲戚所有的公社，说明他们愿意接纳我们；第二张是这个公社所在的县政府，批准公社的请示；第三张是四川“上山下乡知识青年办公室”，批准这次迁移。有了这三张，我们还得回宁南生产队，获取他们的批准，然后再到县城找管户口的，最后由他同意放我们走。只有到那时候，我们才可拿到那份对每个中国公民都至关重要的文件——户口薄。到了新地方，再把它交给当地政府。

Life was always as daunting and complex as this whenever one took even the smallest step outside the authorities' rigid plan. And in most cases there were unexpected complications. While I was planning how to arrange the transfer, out of the blue the central government issued a regulation freezing all registration transfers as of 11 June.

只要你想从政府划死的框框里走开一小步，哪怕是小小的一步，生活总是变得这般复杂困难。这还不算，节外生枝是家常使饭。当我们正在计划迁移时，犹如晴天霹雳，中央政府发出一项新规定，在6月21日起冻结户口。

It was already the third week in May. It would be impossible to locate a real relative who would accept us and go through all the procedures in time.

现在已经是5月的第三个星期了，在那之前，能找到一个真正愿意接纳我们的亲戚，然后再把所有关卡打通，几乎不可能。

I turned to Wen. Without hesitating for a moment, he offered to 'create' the three letters. Forging official documents was a serious offense, punishable by a long prison sentence. But Mao's devoted Red Guard shrugged off my words of caution.

我们找温求助，他没有半点犹豫就同意为我们制造这三张证明。伪造官方文件是严重的犯罪行为，可能会坐很久的牢。但是这位忠于毛泽东的红卫兵对我们的告诫只是耸耸肩。

The crucial elements in the forgery were the seals. In China, all documents are made official by the stamps on them. Wen was good at calligraphy, and could carve in the style of official stamps. He used cakes of soap. In one evening all three letters for the three of us, which would have taken months to obtain, if we were lucky, were ready.

关键是印章。在中国，所有的官方文件都有印章盖在上面。温写得一手好字，也会模仿官印的字体刻章。他用一块肥皂来刻，一个晚上的时间，我们三个人所需的全部证明就都有了。没有他，就算运气好，这些至少也要花好几个月才能搞到。

Wen offered to go back to Ningnan with Nana and me to help with the rest of the procedure.

温还提议和我、南南一起回宁南，帮助我们处理剩下的手续。

When the time came to go, I was agonizingly torn, because it meant leaving my grandmother in the hospital.

快走了，我又不想走，放不下心，姥姥还在医院。

She urged me to go, saying she would return home and keep an eye on my younger brothers. I did not try to dissuade her: the hospital was a terribly depressing place.

她极力催我动身，说她要出院回家，以照看年幼的弟弟。我没劝阻她。

Apart from the revolting smell, it was also incredibly noisy, with moaning and clattering and loud conversations in the corridors day and night. Loudspeakers woke eve none up at six in the morning, and there were often deaths in full view of other patients.

因为医院实在是个令人压抑的场所，不仅气味不好闻，而且还吵得不得了。每日每夜不是呻吟声就是过道的上喧哗声，还有叫个不停的扩音器广播，每天清晨六点钟就把每个人都吵醒了。最糟的是不断有病人在众目睽睽下去世。

On the evening she was discharged, my grandmother felt a sharp pain at the base of her spine. She could not sit on the luggage rack of the bicycle, so Xiao-her rode it home with her clothes, towels, wash bowls, thermos flasks, and the cooking utensils, and I walked with her, supporting her. The evening was sultry. Walking even very slowly hurt her, as I could see from her tightly pursed lips and her trembling as she tried to suppress her moans. I told her stories and gossip to divert her. The plane trees that used to shade the pavements now produced only a few pathetic branches with leaves on them they had not been pruned in the three years of the Cultural Revolution. Here and there, buildings were scarred, the result of the fierce fighting between Rebel factions.

姥姥出院那天傍晚说，觉得尾椎骨刺痛，不能坐在自行车车的行李架上。小黑骑上车，带走她的衣物、毛巾、洗脸盆、热水瓶和碗筷，我扶着她慢慢走回家，那天黄昏天气闷热，姥姥边走边咬着嘴唇，身子不时抖着，显然在竭力抑制痛得忍不住的呻吟声。我对她说些闲话想分散她的注意力。街旁的梧桐树曾是绿盖成荫，现在只剩下稀疏的枝叶——三年文革无人管理的结果。建筑物伤痕累累，这是造反派战斗所留下的。

It took us nearly an hour to get halfway. Suddenly the sky turned dark. A violent gale swept up the dust and the torn fragments of wall posters. My grandmother staggered. I held her tight. It started to pour with rain, and in an instant we were drenched. There was nowhere to take cover, so we struggled on. Our clothes were clinging to us and impeding our movements. I was panting for breath. My grandmother's tiny, thin figure felt heavier and heavier in my arms. The rain was hissing and splashing, the wind slashed against our soaked bodies, and I felt very cold. My grandmother sobbed, "Oh heaven, let me die!? Let me die!" I wanted to cry too, but I only said, "Grandma, we'll soon be home ....”

我们走了一个钟头，才走一半。天色突然变了，狂风卷起尘土和大字报碎片扑面而来。姥姥踉跄了几步，我紧紧扶着她。接着下起大雨来，我俩顿时全身都淋透了，附近又没有地方可以躲，只好一步步艰难地向前挨。湿漉漉的衣服贴在身上，妨碍我们行走。我觉得透不过气来，姥姥瘦小的身体在我手臂里越来越重。雨乘风势密集得像大幕似地挡在我们面前，抽打着我们已经湿透的身体。我感到非常冷，姥姥啜泣起来：“老天！让我死了吧！死了吧！”我也想哭，但只是说：“姥姥，马上就到家了…”

Then I heard a bell tinkling.

忽然听见一阵车铃声，有人问：“喂！要搭车吗？”

"Hey, do you want a lift?"

A pedal-cart had pulled over; a young man in an open shirt was straddling it, rain running down his cheeks. He came over and carried my grandmother onto the open cart on which an old man was crouching. He nodded to us. The young man said this was his father whom he was taking home from the hospital. He dropped us at our door, waving off my profuse thanks with a cheerful "No trouble at all," before disappearing into the sodden darkness. Because of the pressure of the downpour, I never learned his name.

原来身后来了一辆三轮货车，一个年轻人身穿衬衣，敞开胸，蹬着车，雨水顺着脸颊小溪似地往下淌。他走过来，抱我姥姥上了车，上面已有个老人蜷成一团低头坐着，这时点点头向我们打招呼。年轻人说这是他的父亲，他刚从医院接他回家。他把我们一直送到家门口，挥手说了声：“不用谢！”就消失在雨幕中了。由于雨水呛得我张不开嘴，我没问他的姓名。

Two days later my grandmother was up and about in the kitchen, rolling out dumpling wrappings to give us a treat. She started to tidy up the rooms, too, in her usual non stop way. I could see she was overdoing things and asked her to stay in bed, but she would not listen.

两天后，姥姥起床了，下厨给我们作烙饼，又像往常一样忙忙碌碌打扫房间。我看得出她是强撑着，我要她休息，她不听。

By now it was the beginning of June. She kept telling me I should leave, and insisted that Jin-ming should go as well, to look after me, since I had been so sick last time in Ningnan. Though he had just turned sixteen, Jin-ming had not yet been assigned a commune. I sent a telegram asking my sister to come back from Ningnan and look after our grandmother. Xiao-her, fourteen at the time, promised that he could be depended on, and seven-year-old Xiao-fang solemnly made the same announcement.

已经是6月初了，姥姥不断催我快走，并要京明和我一起去，说我上次在宁南病得很重，没人照料不行。京明刚满十六岁，暂时还未被送下乡。我发了封电报，要姐姐回成都照顾姥姥。十四岁的小黑自靠奋勇地说可以信得过他，七岁的小方也郑重其事地作了保证。

When I went to say goodbye to her, my grandmother wept. She said she did not know whether she would ever see me again. I stroked the back of her hand, which was now bony, with bulging veins, and pressed it to my cheek.

当我向姥姥告别时，她哭了，说她不知道这辈子还能不能再见到我了。我抚摸着她瘦骨嶙峋、青筋凸起的手背，把它贴在我脸上，强抑住要夺眶而出的眼泪，说我很快就会回来的。

I suppressed the surge of tears and said I would be back very soon.

* * *

After a long search, I had finally found a truck going to the Xichang region. Since the mid-1960s Mao had ordered many important factories (including the one where my sister's boyfriend Specs worked) to be moved to Sichuan, particularly to Xichang, where a new industrial base was being built. Mao's theory was that the mountains of Sichuan provided the best deterrent in case the Americans or the Russians attacked. Trucks from five different provinces were busy delivering goods to the base. Through a friend, a driver from Peking agreed to take us -Jin-ming, Nana, Wen, and me. We had to sit on the back of the open truck because the cabin was reserved for the relief driver. Every truck belonged to a convoy which met up in the evening.

我好不容易才找到一辆去西昌的卡车。从六十年代中期以来，毛泽东命令许多重要工厂(包括我姐姐男朋友“眼镜”工作的那家工厂)迁移到四川，还特别在西昌地区建设了一个新的工业基地。毛泽东的理论是四川的大山是最好的掩体，可防御美国或苏联的攻击。从五个不同省份调来的卡车组成了车队，不停地向西昌的工业基地运输物资。通过一位朋友介绍，一个北京车队的司机答应让我们搭便车。我们得坐在卡车尾部，因为驾驶室里坐了一位副驾驶员，以换班驾车。每辆卡车属于一个车队，每天黄昏时会合。

These drivers had the reputation of being happy to take girls but not boys much the same as their brotherhood the world over. Since they were almost the only source of transport, this angered some boys. Along the way I saw slogans pasted on the trunks of trees: "Strongly protest the truckers who only take females and not males!" Some bolder boys stood in the middle of the road to try to force the trucks to stop. One boy from my school did not manage to leap away in time and was killed.

这些司机跟他们的全世界的同行差不多，乐意载姑娘而不愿带小伙子。因为卡车是唯一的交通工具，男孩子就很愤怒。沿途都可以看到贴有树干上的标语：“强烈抗议五省车队搭女不搭男！”有些胆大的男孩挡在路中间想强迫司机停车，我学校就有个男同学因没及时跳开而被辗死。

From the lucky female hitchhikers, there were a few reports of rape, but many more of romance. Quite a few marriages resulted from these journeys. A truck driver who took part in the construction of the strategic base enjoyed certain privileges, one being the right to transfer his wife's country registration to the city where he lived. Some girls jumped at this opportunity.

偶尔也听说幸运搭上便车的姑娘被强奸的事，不过，多的却是浪漫的恋爱故事，这些旅途造成了不少眷属。参加战略基地建设的卡车司机享有一些特权，其中包括允许把他的妻子的农村户口迁到他所住的城里，有些姑娘就抓住了这个机会。

Our drivers were very kind, and behaved impeccably.

载我们的司机很善良，行为无可指责。

When we stopped for the night, they would help us secure a hotel bed before going to their guesthouse, and they would invite us to have supper with them so we could share their special food, free.

当黄昏停车住宿时，他们总是先帮我们找好住处，才去专门接待他们的招待所，还请我们一起吃晚饭，使我们能免费享受丰盛的饭菜。

Only once did I feel there was something faintly sexual on their minds. At one stop another pair of drivers invited Nana and me to go on their truck for the next leg. When we told our driver, his face fell a mile, and he said in a sulky voice, "Go ahead then, go ahead with those nice guys of yours if you like them better." Nana and I looked at each other and mumbled in embarrassment, "We didn't say we liked them better. You are all very nice to us .... We did not go.

只有一次我觉得他们脑里或许有点儿与性相关的念头。一次停车时，另外一辆车的司机邀请我和南南下一段坐他们的卡车。当我们告诉我们那位司机时，他的脸拉长了，酸溜溜地说：“那好，你们去好了，和你们那些好人儿们一起走好了，反正你们更喜欢他们。”南南和我面面相觑，喃喃地说：“我们没有说过喜欢他们，你们对我们都很好……”结果我们没有去。

Wen kept an eye on Nana and me. He constantly warned us about drivers, about men in general, about thieves, about what to eat and what not to eat, and about going out after dark. He also carried our bags and fetched hot water for us. At dinnertime, he would tell Nana, Jin-ming, and me to join the drivers to eat while he stayed behind in the hotel to look after our bags, as theft was rampant. We brought food back for him.

温表现得好似南南和我的监护人，不断要我们小心司机，小心男人，小心小偷，小心吃东西，晚上不要出门……他帮我们提东西，给我们送热水，吃饭时间总是要京明、南南和我随司机一起去吃饭，而他呆在旅馆里替我们看行李，当时小偷遍地都是。我们吃完后再带些东西回旅馆给他。

There was never any sexual advance from Wen. On the evening we crossed the border into Xichang, Nana and I wanted to wash in the river, because the weather was so hot and the evening so beautiful. Wen found us a quiet bend in the river where we bathed in the company of wild ducks and twirling reeds. The rays of the moon were pouring onto the river, the image scattering into masses of sparkling silver rings. Wen sat near the road with his back studiously to us, keeping guard. Like many other young men, he had been brought up in the pre-Cultural Revolution days to be chivalrous.

温对我们没有任何不恭的地方。进入西昌地界后的那天黄昏，南南和我想去河里洗个澡，天气很热，而西昌的月夜又是那么美。温替我们找到一个僻静的河湾，我和南南在弯弯的芦苇旁边。在野鸭的陪伴下洗澡。月光洒在河面上，散成千千万万闪闪的银环。温坐在路边，一丝不苟地背对着我们，为我们放哨。像许多小伙子一样，文革前的教养使他们觉得要有骑士风度。

To get into a hotel, we needed to produce a letter from our unit. Wen, Nana, and I had each secured a letter from our production teams in Ningnan, and Jin-ming had a letter from his school. The hotels were inexpensive, but we did not have much money, since our parents' salaries had been drastically reduced. Nana and I would get a single bed between us in a dormitory and the boys would do the same. The hotels were filthy, and very basic. Before going to bed, Nana and I would turn the quilt over and over looking for fleas and lice. The hotel wash bowls usually had rings of dark-gray or yellow dirt on them. Trachoma and fungal infections were commonplace, so we used our own.

住旅店得有证明。温、南南和我的证明是各自的宁南生产队开的，京明的是四中开的。住旅馆很便宜，但是我们的钱不多，因为父亲的大部分工资被扣发。所以南南和我同睡一张珠，温和京明则在另一个房间挤一张床。旅店很脏，设备又简陋。上床前，南南和我总要一遍又一遍细细地检查被单，看有没有跳蚤和虱子。旅店的洗脸盆上是一圈圈黑灰色或深黄色的污垢，极容易染上沙眼，我们就用自己随身携带的脸盆。

One night we were awakened about twelve o'clock by loud bangs on the door: everyone in the hotel had to get up to make an 'evening report' to Chairman Mao. This farcical activity was in the same package as the '1oyalty dances." It involved gathering in front of a statue or portrait of Mao, chanting quotations from the Litfie Red Book, and shouting "Long live Chairman Mao, long long live Chairman Mao, and long long long live Chairman Mao!" while waving the Little Red Book rhythmically.

一天晚上，大约十二点钟，我们被一阵呼呼的敲门声惊醒。每个人都得起来“向毛主席作晚汇报”。这种滑稽的表演和跳忠字舞是孪生兄弟，表演方式是晚上聚集在毛泽东画像或塑像前朗诵语录，一遍遍有节奏地挥舞着小红书，高喊：“祝毛主席万寿无疆！万寿无疆！万寿无疆！”

Half awake, Nana and I staggered out of our room.

Other travelers were emerging in twos and threes, rubbing their eyes, buttoning their jackets, and pulling up the cotton backs of their shoes. There was not a single complaint. No, one dared. At five in the morning we had to go through the same thing again. This was called 'morning request for instructions' from Mao. Later, when we were on our way, Jin-ming said, "The head of the Revolutionary Committee in this town must be an insomniac."

睡眼朦胧的南南和我跌跌撞撞地走出房间，别的旅客也三三两两出现了，用手揉着眼睛，扣着衣扣，拉着鞋后跟。没有一个人抱怨，没人敢。早上五点钟，我们又得起来，“向毛主席作早请示”。当我们重新上路对，京明说：“这个城里的革委会主任一定是神经衰弱，睡上睡不着觉。”

Grotesque forms of worshipping Mao had been part of our lives for some time chanting, wearing Mao badges, waving the Little Red Book. But the idolatry had escalated when the Revolutionary Committees were formally established nationwide by late 1968. The committee members reckoned that the safest and most rewarding course of action was to do nothing, except promote the worship of Mao and, of course, continue to engage in political persecutions. Once, in a pharmacy in Chengdu, an old shop assistant with a pair of impassive eyes behind gray-rimmed spectacles murmured without looking at me, "When sailing the seas we need a helmsman..." There was a pregnant pause. It took me a moment to realize I was supposed to complete the sentence, which was a fawning quotation from Lin Biao about Mao. Such exchanges had just been enforced as a standard greeting. I had to mumble, "When making revolution we need Mao Zedong Thought."

唱颂歌、背语录、戴毛泽东像章、挥舞小红书，早已是我们生活的一部分。当全国各地革委会在1968年末先后成立后，这类荒诞可笑的对毛泽东顶礼膜拜的仪式更变本加厉。新上任的革命委员会成员们认识到：最安全、最划算的行动就是什么工作也不做，除了整人，就是使劲搞毛崇拜。一次，我在成都一家药店买药，一个老营业员从他的灰边老花眼镜后面无动于衷地瞄了我一眼，嘴里呐呐地说：“大海航行靠舵手……”他干巴巴地停住了。我愣了一下，才醒悟过来，我应该接下句：“干革命靠毛泽东思想。”这是一段林彪讨好毛泽东的话，这样的对答成了打招呼用语。

Revolutionary Committees all over China ordered statues of Mao to be built. A huge white marble figure was planned for the center of Chengdu. To accommodate it, the elegant ancient palace gate, on which I had stood so happily only a few years before, was dynamited. The white marble was to come from Xichang, and special trucks, called 'loyalty trucks," were shipping the marble out from the mountains. These trucks were decorated like floats in a parade, festooned with red silk ribbons and a huge silk flower in front. They made the journey from Chengdu empty, as they were devoted exclusively to carrying the marble. The trucks which supplied Xichang returned to Chengdu empty: they were not allowed to sully the material that was going to form Mao's body.

全中国大大小小的革命委员会忙于修建毛泽东塑像，成都市中心就竖立了一尊巨大的白色大理石毛泽东站像。为了容纳它和兴建“毛泽东思想万岁展览馆”，炸掉了成都市雄伟的古城楼。记得几年前，我站在这个城楼上兴高采烈地观看国庆烟火。大理石取材于西昌，由专门称为“忠字车”的载重卡车运来。那种车队每辆都插满小旗，披上红绸彩带，还有朵大大的红绸花束在车头。车队从成都只能空车出发去载大理石，而往西昌基地运物资的卡车即使空车返回，也不准载大理石，做毛泽东雕像的石头得专车专用。

After we said goodbye to the driver who had brought us from Chengdu we hitched a lift on one of these 'loyalty trucks' for the last stretch to Ningnan. On the way we stopped at a marble quarry for a rest. A group of sweating workers, naked to the waist, were drinking tea and smoking their yard-long pipes. One of them told us they were not using any machinery, as only working with their bare hands could express their loyalty to Mao. I was horrified to see a badge of Mao pinned to his bare chest. When we were back in the truck, Jin-ming observed that the badge might have been stuck on with a plaster. And, as for their devoted quarrying by hand: "They probably don't have any machines in the first place."

我们和那位载我们到西昌的司机挥手告别后，搭的就是这样一辆“忠字车”去宁南。路上，我们在一个大理石采石场停下来休息。一群汗流浃背的工人光着膀子、蹲在地上喝茶，抽几尺长的细烟杆。有人告诉我们，他们没有用任何机器采石，全靠一双手，以表示对毛主席的忠心。他赤裸的胸膛上别着一个毛泽东徽章，使我又吃惊又为他痛。当我们又上路时，京明说那个徽章可能是用胶布粘上去的。至于他们赤手空拳采石，他说他们大概本来就没有机器。

Jin-ming often made skeptical comments like this which kept us laughing. This was unusual in those days, when humor was dangerous. Mao, hypocritically calling for 'rebellion," wanted no genuine inquiry or skepticism. To be able to think in a skeptical way was my first step toward enlightenment. Like Bing, Jin-ming helped to destroy my rigid habits of thinking.

京明总爱说这样不敬的酸话使我们大家笑个不停。这在那些年月很罕见，幽默很危险。毛泽东虽然鼓励大家“造反”，但并不想要任何人真正犯上，对权威不恭也不行。想问题没有“忌讳不恭”的约束，是我启蒙的第一步。就像平一样，京明帮助我解脱了脑里的桎梏。

As soon as we entered Ningnan, which was about 5,000 feet above sea level, I was hit by stomach trouble again. I vomited up everything I had eaten and the world seemed to be spinning around me. But we could not afford to stop. We had to get to our production teams and complete the rest of the transfer procedure by 21 June. Since Nana's team was nearer, we decided to go there first. It was a day's walk through wild mountains. The summer torrents roared down ravines across which there were often no bridges. While Wen waded ahead to test the depth of the water, Jin-ming carried me on his bony back. Often we had to walk on goat trails about two feet wide at the edges of cliffs with sheer drops of thousands of feet. Several of my school friends had been killed walking home along them at night. The sun was blazing down, and my Skin began to peel. I became obsessed with thirst, and drank all the water from everybody's water cans. When we came to a gully, I threw myself on the ground and gulped down the cool liquid. Nana tried to stop me. She said even the peasants would not drink this water unboiled. But I was too wild with thirst to care. Of course, this was followed by more violent vomiting.

我们进了海拔约一千五百米的宁南，我的肠胃病又犯了，一吃东西就吐，眼前天旋地转。但是我们不能停下来，必须尽快到生产队，以在6月21日前办完迁移手续。南南的生产队较近，我们决定先去那里。我们在大山里爬上爬下，走了一整天。夏季的山洪咆哮而下，山涧里的水面上没有桥梁。温走在前面探水的深浅，京明把我背在他瘦骨嶙峋的背上。我们常常得在两尺宽的羊肠小道上走，一面是陡峭的石壁，一面是万丈深渊。学校里有同学就是在夜间行走时跌落悬崖摔死的。太阳火辣辣地照在头顶，我们都脱了皮。我渴得忍不住，很快就喝光了每个人水壶里的水。但还是渴，每到一个山涧，就一下子扑在地上大口大口喝冰凉的山水。南南想阻止我，说甚至农民也不喝这种没煮沸的水，但我顾不得许多。当然，紧接着是翻肠倒胃的呕吐。

Eventually we came to a house. It had several gigantic chestnut trees in front, stretching out their majestic canopies. The peasants invited us in. I licked my cracked lips and immediately made for the stove where I could see a big earthenware bowl, probably containing rice fluid. Here in the mountains this was considered the most delicious drink, and the owner of the house kindly offered it to us. Rice fluid is normally white, but what I saw was black. A whine burst out from it, and a mass of flies lifted off from the jellied surface. I stared into the bowl and saw a few casualties drowning. I had always been very squeamish about flies, but now I picked up the bowl, flicked aside the corpses, and downed the liquid in great gulps.

终于，我们看到了人家。门前是几棵高大的板栗树，四下伸展着威风凛凛的华盖。农民请我们进去歇脚。我一眼看见灶台上放着一个大陶钵，就舔着干裂的嘴唇不知不觉走了过去。陶钵里可能盛着米汤，在这样的大山里，这是最可口的饮料。主人很客气地请我喝，米汤本应是白色，但我看到的却是一片暗黑。突然一阵嗡嗡声爆发了，一群苍蝇从米汤上面飞起，再往里看，还有些被淹了的苍蝇。平时，我看见苍蝇就恶心，此刻却熟视无睹，把苍蝇吹开，大口大口吞下米汤。

It was dark when we reached Nana's village. The next day, her production team leader was only too glad to stamp her three letters and get rid of her. In the last few months the peasants had learned that what they had acquired were not extra hands, but extra mouths to feed. They could not throw the city youths out, and were delighted when anyone offered to leave.

到南南村子天已经黑了，第二天，她的生产队长十分乐意地在三张证明上签字盖章，巴望她快离开。几个月来，农民们明白了，他们得到的并不是额外的劳动力，而是额外的供养的嘴巴。他们没法把这些城里的撵走，现在有人自愿离开，自然求之不得。

I was too sick to go on to my own team, so Wen set off alone to try to secure the release of my sister and myself. Nana and the other girls in her team tried their best to nurse me. I ate and drank only things which had been boiled and reboiled many times, but I lay there feeling miserable, missing my grandmother and her chicken soup.

我病倒在床，无法去自己的生产队。温就独自前往办理姐姐和我的手续。南南和她队上的女伴们尽力照料我，绐我喝反复煮沸的东西。但我仍躺在床上浑身难受，想念姥姥和她美味的鸡汤。

Chicken was considered a great delicacy in those days, and Nana joked that I somehow managed to combine turmoil in my stomach with an appetite for the best food. Nevertheless, she and the other girls and Jin-ming went all out to try to purchase a chicken. But the local peasants did not eat or sell chickens, which they raised only for eggs. They put this custom down to their ancestors' rules, but we were told by friends that chickens here were infested with leprosy, which was widespread in these mountains. So we shunned eggs as well.

在那些岁月，鸡是珍品，南南开玩笑说，我的肠胃病害得妙，只想吃最好的东西。她和别的女孩及京明都四下为我买鸡。但当地农民既不吃鸡，也不卖鸡，他们养鸡是为了下蛋，是这里祖宗的规矩。朋友们却听说原因是这里的鸡带麻风病菌，这种可怕的疾病在这些山区相当普遍。这一说吓得我们连鸡蛋也不敢吃了。

Jin-ming was determined to make me some soup like my grandmother's, and put his bent for invention to practical use. On the open platform in front of the house, he propped up a big round bamboo lid with a stick and spread some grain underneath. He tied a piece of string to the stick and hid behind a door, holding the other end of the string, and placed a mirror in such a position that he could monitor what went on under the half-open lid. Crowds of sparrows landed to fight for the gram, and sometimes a turtle dove swaggered in. Jin-ming would choose the best moment to pull the string and bring down the lid. Thanks to his ingenuity, I had delicious game soup.

京明决心为我做姥姥那样的汤。他爱发明些小玩意的长处派上用场了。房前是一个晒谷场，周围麻雀很多，他用棍子支起一个大圆簸箕，下面洒上谷子，一根绳子一头系在棍上，他握着另一头，躲在屋里，从一面摆好的镜子里观察动向。只见麻雀蜂拥而至抢食，偶然还会来一只大模大样的斑鸠。京明把握好时机拉绳了，我就有鲜美的野味汤喝了。

The mountains at the back of the house were covered with peach trees now bearing ripe fruit, and Jin-ming and the gifts came back every day with baskets full of peaches.

屋后的山坡上长满了桃树，现在结实累累。京明和姑娘们每天上山大篓大篓地背桃子。

Jin-ming said I must not eat them uncooked, and made me jam.

京明说我生吃不行，于是为我做果酱。

I felt pampered, and spent my days in the hall, gazing at the faraway mountains and reading Turgenev and Chekhov, which Jin-ming had brought for the journey. I was deeply affected by the mood in Turgenev, and learned many passages from First Love by heart.

我就这样被“娇惯”着，每天坐在门厅里看远处一重重的山。读京明带来的屠格涅夫和契诃夫的书。我对屠格涅夫的小说情有独钟。看了一遍又一遍，甚至能背下《初恋》的许多段落。

In the evenings, the serpentine curve of some distant mountains burned like a dramatic fire dragon silhouetted against the dark sky. Xichang had a very dry climate, and forest protection rules were not being enforced, nor were the fire services working. As a result, the mountains were burning day after day, only stopping when a gorge blocked the way, or a storm doused the flames.

夜晚，蜿蜒的远山轮廓就像一条神话中的火龙出现在黑沉沉的天边。由于西昌的气候十分干燥，森林保护法又没有施行，没有防火设施，许多山天天在燃烧，只有当一道峡谷挡路或一场大雨自天而降时，山火才会熄灭。

After a few days Wen returned with the permission from my production team for my sister and me to leave. We set off immediately to find the registrar, although I was still weak, and could walk only a few yards before my eyes became dazzled by a mass of sparkling stars. There was only a week left before 21 June.

几天后，温回来了，带来盖好章的文件：我们生活队同意放我和姐姐。我们于是立刻上路去找县里管户口的李安办。虽然我仍然十分衰弱，走几步就两眼金花乱冒，但没法子，离6月21日只有一个星期了。

We reached the county town of Ningnan, and found the atmosphere there like wartime. In most pans of China heavy factional fighting had stopped by now, but in remote areas like this local battles continued. The losing side was hiding in the mountains, and had been launching frequent lightning attacks. There were armed guards everywhere, mostly members of an ethnic group, the Yi, a lot of whom lived in the deeper recesses of the Xichang wilderness. Legend had it that when they slept, the Yi did not lie down, but squatted, burying their heads in the folds of their arms.

我们到了宁南县城，发现这里的气氛就像在打仗。此时，中国大部分地区的大规模武斗已经被制止了。但是在宁南这样的边远山区，武斗还在继续。打输的一派躲到了山里，不时袭击。县里里到处是武装人员在把守，大多数是彝族人。这些少数民族生活在西昌地区的深山老林中，传说他们睡觉的姿势不是躺着，而是蹲坐着，双手抱膝，头枕在膝上手臂里。

The faction leaders, who were all Han, talked them into doing the dangerous jobs like fighting in the front line and keeping guard. As we searched the county offices for the registrar, we often had to engage in long, involved explanations with the Yi guards, using hand gestures, as we had no language in common. When we approached, they lifted their guns and aimed them at us, their fingers on the triggers, and their left eyes narrowed. We were scared to death, but had to look nonchalant. We had been advised that they would regard any demonstration of fear as a sign of guilt, and react accordingly.

武装派的头头，指使彝人在前面冲锋或干持枪站岗这些危险的事。我们到县政府找李安办时，得和彝人守卫用手势比比划划解释个老半天，因为我们不懂彝语，他们不懂汉语。一接近，他们就举起枪对着我们，还把指头扣在板机上，我们吓得要命。却又不得不做出满不在乎的样子，据说他们会把任何害怕的神色看作是心虚的表现，并会据此行动。

We finally found the registrar's office, but he was not there. Then we bumped into a friend who told us that he had gone into hiding because of the hordes of city youth besieging him to sort out their problems. Our friend did not know where the registrar was, but he told us about a group of 'old city youth' who might.

最后我们终于找到李安办的办公室，但他不在。遇到的一位朋友告诉我们李安办躲起来了，因为大多成都来的“知识青年”找他解决问题，忙得他不可开交。那位朋友也不知道他躲到哪里去了，不过他建议我们去找一队“老知青”，说他们可能知道。

"Old city youth' were ones who had gone to the countryside before the Cultural Revolution. The Party had been trying to persuade those who had failed exams for high schools and universities to go and 'build a splendid new socialist countryside' which would benefit from their education. In their romantic enthusiasm, a number of young people followed the Party's call. The harsh reality of rural life, with no chance to escape, and the realisation of the regime's hypocrisy because no officials' children ever went, even if they had failed their exams had turned many of them into cynics.

“老知青”是指文革前下乡的青年人。共产党一直在动员大学考试落榜的青年到农村去，说他们可以“在社会主义新农村的建设中大显身手”。这鼓舞了青年的浪漫热情，许多人响应了共产党的号召下乡落户。农村生活的严峻，去了就出不来，又眼见干部子弟即便落榜也不下乡的现实，不少人由理想破灭而转为玩世不恭。

This group of 'old city youth' was very friendly. They gave us an excellent meal of game and offered to find out where the registrar was. While a couple of them went to look for him, we chatted with the others, sitting on their spacious pine veranda facing a roaring fiver called the Black Water. On the high rocks above, egrets were balancing on one long slender leg, raising the other in various balletic postures. Others were flying, fanning their gorgeous snow-white wings with panache. I had never seen these stylish dancers wild and free.

这群“老知青”对我们十分友好，招待我们吃了一餐丰盛的野味，又去帮我们问李安办在哪儿。我们在等答复时，坐在宽敞的松木阳台上，面对一条叫做黑水河的咆哮河水谈天。河中高高的礁石上，鹭鸶一只细长的脚独立着，一只展伸着，好像在摆出优美的芭蕾舞姿。有些鹭鸶在飞翔，优雅地挥动白雪般的翅膀，我还从没见过这样自然而千姿百态的舞者。

Our hosts pointed out a dark cave across the river. From its ceiling hung a rusty-looking bronze sword. The cave was inaccessible because it was right next to the turbulent river. Legend had it that the sword had been left there by the famous, wise prime minister of the ancient kingdom of Sichuan, Marquis Zhuge Liang, in the third century. He had led seven expeditions from Chengdu to try to conquer the barbarian tribes here in the Xichang area. I knew the story well, and was thrilled to see evidence of it before my eyes. He captured the chieftain of the tribes seven times, and each time he released him, hoping to win him over by his magnanimity. Six times, the Chieftain was unmoved and continued his rebellion, but after the seventh time he became wholeheartedly loyal to the Sichuanese king. The moral of this legend was that to conquer a people, one must conquer their hearts and minds a strategy to which Mao and the Communists subscribed. I vaguely mused that this was why we had to go through 'thought reform' so that we would follow orders willingly. That was why peasants were set up as models: they were the most unquestioning and submissive subjects. On reflection today, I think the variant of Nixon's adviser Charles Colson spelled out the hidden agenda: When you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.

主人指给我们看河对面的一个黑暗山洞，洞顶悬吊着一把锈痕斑斑的青铜剑。山洞位于湍流的江边陡壁上，人进不去。传说这把青铜剑是公元三世纪三国蜀汉丞相诸葛亮留下来的，他七次远征这一地区的历史十分有名，现在故事里的剑就近在眼前，我兴奋得不得了。故事里诸葛亮七擒当地部落酋长孟获，又七次放了他，希望以宽宏大量来征服人最重要的是征服他们的心，毛泽东和共产党对这种战略很在行。我隐约想到，恐怕这就是为何要我们“思想改造”的原因——这样我们就会心甘情愿地做驯服工具了。这也说明为什么要我们以农民为榜样，因为他们是最不会思索地听从指挥的。今天我们能看到这传说的又一寓意：攻心要有强力做后盾。

My train of thought was interrupted by our hosts. What we should do, they enthusiastically advised, was drop a hint to the registrar about our fathers' positions. "He will slap the seal on in no time," declared one jolly-looking young man. They knew we were high officials' children because of the reputation of my school. I felt dubious about their advice.

主人的话打断我的沉思。他们热心建议我们见到李安办时向他暗示父亲的职务。一位笑眯眯的小伙子说：“他一听就会马上拿出大印来给你们盖上。”因为我们学校颇有名气，他们都知道我们是高于子弟。

"But our parents no longer hold these positions. They have been labeled capitalist-roaders," I pointed out hesitantly.

我对他们的提议半信半疑，有点犹豫地说：“但是我们的父母都成了走资派了……”

"What does that matter?" Several voices brushed aside my worry. "Your father is a Communist veteran, right?"

几人齐声回答扫除了我的顾虑。“这有什么关系？他是老共产党员吧？”

"Right," I murmured.

“是。”我喃喃地回答。

"A high official, right?"

“是高干吧！”

"Sort of," I mumbled. "But that was before the Cultural Revolution. Now..."

“也算是，”我含糊地说，“但这是文革前的事了，现在……”

"Never mind that. Has anyone announced his dismissal? No? That's all right, then. You see, it's as clear as daylight that the mandate of Party officials is not over. He will tell you that'

“那有什么关系，有人宣布撤他职了吗？没有？那就对了呀！你看，事情明明白白，共产党老干部气数未尽，他就知道……”

The jolly young man pointed in the direction of the sword of the wise old prime minister. I did not realize at the time that, consciously or subconsciously, people regarded Mao's personal power structure as no alternative to the old Communist administration. The ousted officials would come back. Meanwhile, the jolly young man was continuing, shaking his head for emphasis: "No official here would dare to offend you and create problems for himself in the future."

那位乐呵呵的小伙子指着诸葛亮留下的铜剑说。那时我还没有意识到中国老百姓似乎从来没有真正认为毛泽东的个人权力体系足以取代文革的共产党体制。他们似乎都相信被撵下台的共产党干部还会东山再起。这时，那位乐呵呵的小伙子还在继续说话，摇着头加强语气：“这时的干部谁敢得罪你们，将来给自己惹麻烦！”

I thought of the appalling vendettas of the Tings. Of course, people in China would always be alert to the possibility of revenge by those with power.

我想起“二挺”骇人听闻的报复性迫害。中国人总得防着有权势或可能有权势的人哪天报复。

As we left, I asked how I should drop the hint to the registrar about my father's position without sounding vulgar. They laughed heartily.

离开时，我问他们该怎样向李安办暗示父亲的职务而又不至于显得庸俗。他们都大笑起来，说：

"He is just like a peasant!? They don't have that kind of sensibility. They won't be able to tell the difference anyway. Just tell him straight out: "My father is the head of"' I was struck by the scornful tone in their voices. Later I discovered that most city youth, old or new, developed a strong contempt for the peasants after they had set fled down among them. Mao, of course, had expected the opposite reaction.

“他只是个农民！没有那么细腻的感情，怎么说都行，反正他们也辨别不出来。你干脆就直接了当地说，你爸爸是什么长……”我注意到他语气时的轻蔑。后来我发现大多数“知识青年”，不管是老的还是新的，在农村落户后都渐渐看不起农民。这结果与毛泽东所期望的恰恰相反。

On 20 June, after days of desperately searching the mountains, we found the registrar. My rehearsal of how to drop the hint about my parents' positions proved completely unnecessary. The registrar himself took the initiative by asking me: "What did your father do before the Cultural Revolution?" After many personal questions, put from curiosity rather than necessity, he took a dirty handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and unfolded it to reveal a wooden seal and a flat fin box containing a sponge in red ink. Solemnly he pressed the seal into the sponge and then stamped our letters.

在几天焦虑地满山乱转后，我们终于在6月20日找到了李安办。我一直在脑里演练该怎样说出父亲的职务，但和他一对话，却发现原来完全没有必要。李安办主动问我：“你父亲文革前干什么？”他又问了好多个问题，与其说是必要，毋宁说是好奇，问完后，他从外衣口袋里掏出一个肮脏的手帕包，打开露出一个木头印，还有一个扁平的小盒子，装的是印泥。他慎重其事地把章戳在印泥里。然后在我们的三张证明上一一盖上了大印。

With that vital seal and by the skin of our teeth with less than twenty-four hours to spare we had accomplished our mission. We still had to find the clerk in charge of our registration books, but we knew that that was not going to be a big problem. The authorization had been obtained. I relaxed immediately into stomach pains and diarrhea.

在户口冻结二十四小时前，我们总算盖到这个非同小可的最后一章。当然我们还得去找管理户口簿的办事员拿户口簿，不过这只是手续而已。我一下子松懈了下来，结果是剧烈的胃疼和腹泻。

I struggled back with the others to the county town. It was dark by the time we arrived. We made for the government guesthouse, a drab two-story building standing in the middle of a walled enclosure. The porter's lodge was empty, and there was no one visible on the grounds either.

我挣扎着返回县城，到达时天已大黑。我们找到了县委招待所，这是一幢单调的两层楼房，在一个四面有围墙的院子里。招待所登记处没有人，整个大院也空空如也。

Most of the rooms were shut, but on the top floor some bedroom doors were half open.

大多数房间的门紧闭着，只顶楼上有些房门虚掩着。

I entered one, after making sure there was no one in it. An open window looked out on some fields beyond a dilapidated brick wall. Across the corridor was another row of rooms. There was not a soul around. From some personal things in the room and a half-drunk mug of tea, I gathered that someone had been staying here very recently.

敲了敲，里面没人，我就进一间。窗户开着，可以看到一处后院墙半塌，外面是一片田野，走廊对面是另一排房间，四下似乎连个鬼也没有。从房间里一些私人物品和喝了一半的剩茶，我猜出有人刚在这里，走了没多久。

But I was too tired to wonder why he or she and everyone else had deserted the building. Without even the energy to close the door, I threw myself onto the bed and fell asleep fully dressed.

我实在太疲倦了，没有精力去想这人是什么人，为何离开。我甚至没有力气把门关上，就一头栽在床上和衣睡着了。

I was jolted awake by a loudspeaker chanting some quotations by Mao, one being: "If the enemy won't surrender, we will eliminate them!" I was suddenly wide awake. I realized our building was under attack.

扩音器声把我惊醒，大声播放毛泽东语录，特别震惊的—条是：“敌人不投降，就叫它灭亡！”凭经验，我马上意识到有人在攻打这座楼了。

The next thing I heard was the whine of bullets very close by, and windows breaking. The loudspeaker yelled out the name of some Rebel organization, urging it to surrender. Otherwise, it screeched, the attackers would dynamite the building.

接着我听到近旁子弹的呼啸声和玻璃窗的破碎声。扩音器在叫唤一个造反派组织的名字，警告他们赶快投降，不然的话，他们就要炸楼了。

Jin-ming burst in. Several armed men wearing rattan helmets were rushing into the rooms opposite mine, which overlooked the front gate. One of them was a young boy shouldering a gun taller than himself. Without a word, they raced to the windows, smashed the glass with the butts of their rifles, and started shooting. A man who seemed to be their commander told us hurriedly that the building had been the headquarters of his faction, and was now being attacked by the opposition. We had better get out quickly but not down the stairs, which led to the front. How then?

京明冲了进来。一些端着枪、戴着藤帽的人跑进走廊对面面向大门的房间，其中有一个满脸稚气的少年，背的枪比他还高。他们什么也没说，就冲到窗户边用枪托砸碎玻璃。端起枪往外打。一个人看上去是这伙人的头领，要我们赶快离开大楼。原来这是他们这一派的司令部，现在反对派来攻了。我们当然越快逃离越好。但现在从楼梯下去已经不可能了，楼梯面对大门，出去就挨打，怎么办？

We frantically tore the sheets and quilt covers off the bed and made a sort of rope. We fled one end of it to a window frame and scrambled down the two stories. As we landed, bullets whistled and hissed into the hard mud around us. We bent double and ran for the collapsed wall. Once over it, we kept running for a long time before we felt safe enough to stop. The sky and the maize fields were beginning to show their pale features. We made for a friend's place in a nearby commune to catch our breath and decide what to do next. On the way, we heard from some peasants that the guesthouse had been blown up.

我们疯狂地把被单撕成条，结在一起，好像根绳子，一头拴在窗框上，另一头抛下楼。当我们手抓着被单两腿乱蹬到地面时，子弹飕飕打在四周的硬土上。我们弓着腰跑，跳过倒塌的围墙，一路飞奔，奔得像快断了气，直到觉得安全后才停下来。此时天色和玉米地都开始泛白，我们前往附近一个公社的朋友处歇口气，以决定下一步怎么办。路上，听一些农民说那个招待所已被炸飞了。

At our friend's place, a message was waiting for me. A telegram from my sister in Chengdu had arrived just after we had left Nana's village in search of the registrar. As no one knew where I was, my friends had opened it and passed the message around so that whoever saw me could let me know.

在朋友处，有一个消息正等着我。我姐姐从成都发来电报，电报到时我们刚好离开南南村子去县城找李安办。因为没有人知道我在哪里，朋友们便把它拆开，并逢人就告诉电报的内容，使得不管谁看见我都能把话带到。

This was how I learned that my grandmother was dead.

我就是这样得知姥姥去世的。