God Is Red - Liao Yiwu [56]
When I was seventeen, I caught smallpox without realizing it. On my way home one day, my body felt feverish, as if many bean sprouts were pushing through my pores. I found a small stream nearby and crawled over to drink water from it. I soon passed out. When I woke up, I noticed the red spots appearing like worms on my face and body. For the next day and half, I was in and out of consciousness. Then a dog found me and started barking, catching the attention of passersby, who carried me to a doctor’s home. The doctor saved my life. If God hadn’t been with me, the dog wouldn’t have found me.
Then I survived the brutal beatings and recovered from my rheumatism during the Land Reform Movement, and my wife saved my life when I was dying inside the labor camp in 1959.
Liao: You have a good wife.
Zhang: When she married me, she was only seventeen, a pretty girl. She grew up in a proletariat family. In those days, she could choose any man she wanted. I saw her when my brother and I went to preach in her village. I asked a matchmaker to connect us. Luckily, she said yes. My wife suffered so much for me. At the moment, I’m fairly healthy, but she’s been sick for more than seven years with rheumatism and cancer. There’s no hope for a cure. Even though I’m helpless and can’t share her suffering, I hope she can be comforted by the love of God. Without my wife, I would have died a long time ago. At this time, she’s getting weaker and weaker. I’m getting old too. I can’t share her pain. That’s probably our last hurdle in life.
Epilogue
Elder Zhang died quietly at his home on the day of the Chinese Moon Festival in 2007. He was eighty-five.
Chapter 11
The Yi Minister
It was a scene reminiscent of the Mao era when, each night, members of our commune in rural Sichuan would gather at a courtyard house and sit around gas lamps for political study sessions or public denunciations of landlords and counterrevolutionaries or to hear the year-end income results or argue about grain distribution. Having already worked a full day in the fields, everyone was tired and many ended up dozing off.
This gathering was different; for a start, everyone was awake, alert, and eager, even enthusiastic. The local driver I had engaged as my guide said I would be attending the Eucharist and church leaders from villages in a two-hundred-kilometer radius would be present. This particular service happened once a month, moving to a different village each time, and pastors and elders would return home to deliver Holy Communion to their congregations.
The driver said it was a tremendous honor to host a multivillage service. With so many villages in the Sayingpan region, many had to compete for the opportunity. When their turns came, the host villagers would turn the occasion into a major festival. Out of curiosity, I wondered why the services were not performed inside a chapel. “I saw several white church buildings on my way here,” I said.
“Services are normally conducted at individual houses,” he said. “For this, the host will slaughter pigs and chickens and prepare a banquet for every brother and sister at the service.” The food would come tomorrow after morning prayers. Tonight would be more formal.
People began to sit. I found a corner, away from the makeshift stage in front of the house. I had barely sat down when three pairs of hands stretched out in front of me, one holding a cup of tea and the other two with bowls filled to the brim with soft candies and dried black watermelon seeds. I hesitated and then accepted them with gratitude.
The crowd grew thicker, knees touching knees, the smell of tobacco and garlic