God Is Red - Liao Yiwu [32]
Liao: You mentioned suicide before; would you still try to do it if you could?
Li: Now I think it’s a sin. All lives are given by God. Only he has the right to end them. I used to have all sorts of illnesses, and I had surgeries. I lived in a village without water. I thought life was unbearable and I wouldn’t be able to survive, but I did. I think a natural death will be much more bearable than going through a surgery or living in a village without water. Death will be like a leaf falling onto the ground. My soul will float into the arms of angels.
Epilogue
Liao published this story on an overseas Chinese language website. John Zhang, a pastor at the San Mateo, California–based Bay Area Reformed Evangelical Church, was deeply moved by the patient’s courage and raised funds through his nonprofit organization, Humanitarian China, to cover the surgery. Li Linshan was able to undertake surgeries. At this time, the patient is on the path of recovery.
Chapter 7
The Fellowship
Li Linshan, the cancer patient, wanted me to go with him to a Christian service so I might better understand what God had done for him. It was dusk on August 18, 2009, as I left the house I was staying at in Dali and made for a nearby intersection where Li said he would meet me. It was a pleasant evening, with a warm southerly breeze and the sky smeared pink with clouds. The streetlights came on. I could see shadows of human activity flickering in the windows of low-ceilinged houses. Li was waiting for me, and we headed toward a suburban village through the east side of Dali’s old town.
I was becoming used to the messy alleyways that connected the city with its rural suburbs. A mismatched mixture of new buildings and old houses lined the way. Gigantic machines spewed out dust from a stone quarry. Trucks and tractors ran amok on the narrow roads, squeezing pedestrians into single file along the sidewalks. Li Linshan seemed oblivious to the noise and bustle around us, shuffling along with ease. He began humming a hymn, which lifted my mood. The setting sun cast rich layers of purple shadow. I thought for an instant we were inside a half-finished oil painting.
Li said we were going to Ganjia Village, near Erhai Lake, though the chaotic mixture of tall buildings and low houses along our route gave no indication of where one village ended and another began. I simply followed Li, who said the area used to be a cornfield, but had recently been converted into pig and chicken farms. That explained the permeating stink in the air. It was not until we walked past a family-run grocery store and turned into a courtyard that I realized we had reached our destination. On the stairs to the house, two shabbily dressed women greeted us. They shook our hands enthusiastically and ushered us into the house, which was already so crowded with people that I imagined being submerged in a pot of steamy hot soup bubbling with noise and laughter. It was a sparsely furnished room, maybe ten square meters, with an extremely low ceiling. A double bed, an old Chinese-style armoire, and a pile of cardboard boxes filled half the space; squeezed into the other half were eighteen or so people occupying a small sofa and scattered benches and chairs. People stood up to make room for us, handing us candies and fruits. I found a seat against the wall, next to a tiny coffee table with a pot of plastic violets and a vacuum flask. Li was engulfed with greetings as soon as he entered, and a woman ushered him to the sofa, which someone jokingly referred to as “the throne of our honored leader.” After maybe ten minutes the chattering died down and Li was asked to lead the