God Is Red - Liao Yiwu [15]
When I woke up, the moon was out. I managed to stand. I was still very hungry, but my stomach pain had gone. “Amen,” I murmured to myself. “Amen. Thank you, Lord, for your protection.” I was alive when I know I should have been dead.
Liao: All three of you survived.
Zhang: During the Cultural Revolution, Bishop Liu was taken to somewhere in Haidong for more interrogation. He was beaten many times. His health deteriorated a lot. In 1983, when the Party reversed its policy on religion, we were reunited. The local Religious Affairs Bureau found us a two-bedroom house across the street from the old church. So the three of us moved in there and tried to persuade the residents and the school authorities to give us back our church and the church’s property. Bishop Liu cited Party policy in his negotiations and told them, “Even though we are old and feeble, we are not giving in—this is God’s church.” The residents told him, “To hell with your God.”
Next we tried to persuade officials at the local Religious Affairs Bureau. Carrying my aunt on my back, we went to the Dali Prefecture government building, but nobody wanted to talk with us. So I walked out of the building and put my aunt down on the stairs outside. I sat next to her, fasting and staging a sit-in protest.
Liao: How old were you then?
Zhang: I think I was seventy-five or seventy-six. My aunt was close to ninety. We would come home in the evening and go there again in the morning. My aunt had asthma and could hardly breathe. I told her to stay home, but she refused. “The Lord belongs to all of us, not to you alone, she said.” In the 1980s, the road from the old section of Dali to Xiaguan, the prefecture capital, was really bad. Every day, I would get up at the crack of dawn. I would pray first, then sweep the yard and cook breakfast. My aunt had become a nun at the age of twenty-one. She was a beautiful woman and kept herself up really well. She would scold me for being a tomboy. Well, I had to act like a man. I had to do farmwork in the field, raise pigs and chickens. I never had any time to myself. On the first morning of our official sit-in protest, my aunt told me to change into my new clothes: “We are staging a protest in the middle of the street. Don’t dress up like a beggar and embarrass the Lord.”
I carried her to the bus terminal outside the city’s south gate. Two hours later, we were outside the prefecture government building. I laid out a quilt on the ground and had my aunt lie down. I sat next to her and began praying. Soon, we were surrounded by a curious crowd. I told them what had happened. We were there every day. Rain or shine, we didn’t care.
All we knew was that there was a large crowd every day. Sometimes the crowd was so thick it was like a human wall. I felt a little uneasy. So, I would stand up, raise the cross above my head, and ask them to disperse. But more people would stop and watch. Some would get close to my aunt and whisper back to the crowd, “The old woman is still breathing. She is mumbling something to herself.” I would correct the person by saying, “She’s not talking to herself. She’s praying.” And they would ask, “What is she praying?” And I would repeat her words loudly, “Dear Lord, you put me here to test me in this secular world. Please forgive my sins and correct my thoughts. Please rescue me from the evil forces of this world. Amen.”
Liao: Did people understand?
Zhang: No, they didn’t. Many people said we were crazy. Some kindhearted people suggested we give up. “You should think from the government’s viewpoint,” they’d say. “They have a whole prefecture to run. It’s not easy. You should be patriotic and love your country.” I didn’t argue with them. We stayed outside the government building for twenty-eight days. During the day, I fasted. I would only