Fat Years - Chan Koonchung [124]
Lao Chen was still the most cool-headed. He approached He Dongsheng with a glass of water, but He Dongsheng looked away. “I’ll untie you so you can drink some water, okay?” Lao Chen said gently.
He Dongsheng was somewhat moved. Lao Chen loosened the rope. “What just happened was unplanned,” he said, “whether you believe it or not. The roosters are just about to crow and then it’ll be light. Your long dark night is about over. Just be patient a little while longer, all right? Do you have any more questions to ask?” Lao Chen addressed the other three while he helped pour water into He Dongsheng’s dry throat.
“Yes. I almost forgot,” said Fang Caodi. “That lost month. Or, strictly speaking, that lost twenty-eight days. Professor He, the one week of anarchy and the three-week crackdown that you just told us about—except for the three of us and you, everyone I’ve asked about it doesn’t remember that time. Lao Chen, you don’t remember either, do you?”
“I really don’t have any memory at all,” answered Lao Chen.
He Dongsheng started to laugh—a sort of gurgling from his throat—it was still hard for him to talk. “I’d like another glass of water,” he said as he swallowed to clear his throat.
“Professor He,” pressed Fang Caodi, “can you explain it to us? That year when everyone was given a bird flu vaccination. It was really a drug created by the Office of Stability Maintenance to make us all forget, right?”
“No, it wasn’t,” corrected He Dongsheng. “The bird flu vaccination was to prevent bird flu, and only ten or twenty million people were actually vaccinated. Where would the Office of Stability Maintenance find such an amazing amnesiac drug? It would be wonderful if we did have one. Then our Communist Party could rewrite its history any way it wanted to.”
“Then what was the real reason why everyone forgot?” asked Fang Caodi.
“Was it the Ecstasy in the water?” asked Little Xi.
“How should I know?” He Dongsheng began to laugh again, a genuine, mirthful laugh. “If you ask me for the real reason, I can only tell you that I haven’t a clue! Don’t think we can control everything. Many things happen that are beyond our expectations. We never dreamed that the month you’re talking about would just disappear from people’s memories.”
“If you don’t know, then who does?” asked Fang Caodi. “Don’t try to keep anything from us …”
“I’m not trying to hide anything. Let me tell you everything I know. After the ‘Action Plan for Achieving Prosperity amid Crisis’ began to meet with some success, the first sentence in a People’s Daily editorial was ‘Since the global economy has entered a period of crisis, China’s Golden Age of Ascendancy has officially begun …’ It was only editorial rhetoric to put these two events together in the same sentence. After that, the sentence was picked up. It ricocheted across the media until everybody could recite it by heart.
“At that time, the Central Propaganda Bureau issued another report that mention of the intervening twenty-eight days was dwindling, even on the Internet. We thought people couldn’t stand to remember those hard times, and everyone was too busy making and spending money.
“This was very good for the Party. Anarchy and suppression are not exactly splendid states—they’re bloody affairs, even sinful, if you’re a religious person. So the Propaganda Bureau took advantage of the situation and forbade all news media, including the Internet, from discussing those twenty-eight days. You know China’s Internet-control techniques are the best in the world, and of course the traditional media wouldn’t dare disobey our orders. Besides that, after China’s prosperity and ascendancy began, everybody lost interest in the West. Now the Chinese people prefer to watch our own colorful media, and only a tiny minority still watch non-Chinese media sources. In this way those already rarely discussed twenty-eight