God Is Red - Liao Yiwu [27]
Hou was a regular at public denunciations, which continued even as famine swept China in 1959. A Christian survivor told me that people were too weak to beat up class enemies, so instead, the masses would pinch and bite them. He remembered seeing Hou covered with bruises.
In 1963 the government under President Liu Shaoqi adopted a series of policies to curb Mao’s radical industrialization and nationalization programs and help alleviate the famine situation. Mao retreated. Persecution of Christians abated, and there was more food. In 1964 Mao countered with his “Socialist Education Campaign,” and Hou was called to attend a weeklong political study session with forty other Rightists and counterrevolutionaries at a segregated building guarded by soldiers. He was forced to answer question after question until he simply stopped talking and dropped to the ground, dead. There is no official record on the specifics of his death, and those in attendance suffered collective amnesia. All I have to go on are the lines from Wu’s book: that Hou took out his cross, slipped to the ground, and died of an aneurism. The interrogations, public denunciation meetings, and political study sessions were over for him.
We know Hou’s body was cremated several hours after he died. No autopsy was performed. Several days later, Hou’s wife arrived from Chengdu and took an urn of his ashes home. According to Mr. Wu, she never dared ask how her husband had died. Maybe it was good that he had died before the Cultural Revolution, Wu said.
In 1980 the United Front Department of Dali issued a notice officially exonerating Hou of any wrongdoing. Wu accepted the notice on behalf of the Hou family and then mailed it to Hou Mei-en, the daughter in Chengdu. He is certain that Hou’s wife and daughter are still alive, though he has heard nothing from them in thirty years. I asked if the government had compensated the family for its suffering, and Wu shook his head, “Not a single penny.” Church assets were sold off by the government to private developers. The state-run chemical plant built on the church property went bankrupt and was closed. The land is now occupied by the Internal Medicine Department of Dali’s No. 2 People’s Hospital.
Chapter 6
The Cancer Patient
Stripes of light from the setting sun occupied a corner of Li Linshan’s tiny courtyard. As Li was talking, he massaged a large lump of flour dough to make shells for dumplings. His pale face turned crimson from the effort; sweat beaded his forehead. I had heard he was a singer and urged him to give me some local Shanxi opera tunes. He straightened his back and took a deep breath, exhaled. He said the opera required that the singer howl in a higher register but he no longer had the strength and that the best he’d be able to manage would be a lower octave. “I might sound like a woman,” he warned. I really liked his version; I thought it mixed in some styles of hymn singing. I applauded enthusiastically.
When the steamy dumplings were put on a low table in the courtyard, we sat and Li led a prayer of thanks, which went on for some time. “Today is Praying for World Peace Day. Lord, you have brought Brother Kun Peng and Mr. Liao over to listen to my humble life story. They are prominent intellectuals but are willing to be friends with me. I thank you for your blessing and hope you bless them with good health . . .” Heads were bowed in silence around the table. I watched the dumplings grow cold. Having experienced the famine of the 1960s, I never refuse food and am somewhat of a glutton, but I ate slowly and smiled throughout the meal. I smiled when we finished our interview and shook hands to bid our good-byes. I smiled for about half a mile along the road. I didn’t want to smile, and my face hurt from faking it; I had been in a house of great suffering.
A gathering thunderstorm finally broke, with torrents of rain and strong winds, but soon the moon rose, and the clearing clouds looked like dangling shreds of wet mountain moss against the lunar light.
I first heard of