God Is Red - Liao Yiwu [64]
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The feast was over by one o’clock. After I made my farewell to Reverend Zhang, my driver recommended that I visit the site of the former Southwestern Theology Seminary in Salaowu.
The car glided on a newly paved concrete road; small tractors spewed plumes of black smoke, tainting the pristine air. When the driver stopped on the edge of a cornfield, I could see the outline of the seminary, standing like a lone island among a green sea of cornstalks. I began feeling unusually animated and eager. I leapt across ditches and walked briskly. I thought of Dr. Sun who had regaled me with stories about the seminary and its founder, an Australian missionary named Zhang Erchang. In the early twentieth century, the seminary became an incubator for Christian leadership in the region. When Zhang Erchang and his wife died, they were buried nearby. Nearly all the Christian leaders I had interviewed in the region mentioned this seminary and remarked on its tremendous influence over the local Christian community. My expectations ran high as I dashed across the cornfield, with the driver calling me from behind, panting and shouting, asking me to slow down.
Two or three small drab buildings with gray roof tiles made up the whole campus. If one didn’t know about its history, one would assume it was a small collection of farmhouses. There were no Western-style buildings, no stained-glass windows or biblical frescoes.
A villager directed us to the chapel, with its yellow crescent sun logo painted on a second-floor window. We followed several villagers through a small entrance. The inside was spacious, with exposed wooden beams. Paint was peeling off the ceiling. The afternoon lights filtered in through large windows. There was a dais and a blackboard on the front wall, with a red cross hanging above. Rows of long green benches could accommodate more than a hundred people.
Half a dozen villagers sat quietly inside the empty room, like diligent students who came ahead of their class to prepare for their lessons. My eyes darted around, trying to find traces of its former glory. I wandered out of the chapel, around the yard, and even climbed up a hill at the back, hoping to locate Zhang Erchang’s grave or tombstone. There was nothing.
I peeked in every room in the adjacent buildings. All I could see were dust, spiders, flies, and animal droppings. A fierce-looking dog leashed with a heavy cast-iron collar lay asleep inside a dilapidated room. In another building, I ran up to the second level; the wooden floors looked moldy and rotten. I took a couple of steps forward and heard a loud crash. A big hole appeared. A small crowd gathered down on the lower level and looked up, trying to figure out what was happening.
We came down. The driver followed me closely, worrying that I would get myself into some more embarrassing troubles.
I sat despondently on a flight of stone stairs in front of the chapel. A group of people walked past me to attend an afternoon service. I stopped one pious-looking woman and asked slowly in Mandarin: “Did you know a missionary named Zhang Erchang? Do you know anything about the Southwestern Theology Seminary?”
She looked befuddled and shook her head. She had no ideas what I was mumbling.
Part III
BEIJING AND CHENGDU
Chapter 13
The Secret Visit
Xu Wenli was a prominent human-rights activist, so it should have come as no surprise that it was in his cramped courtyard house on Baiguang Road in Beijing that I first encountered a member of China’s underground “house church” movement. This was in July 1998 and I had stopped by my friend’s house thirsty for some tea and found he had another visitor, middle aged with glasses, who was introduced to me as Xu Yonghai, a neurologist. We nodded at each other. The two Xus were not related but looked like brothers, both thin and pale skinned with long narrow faces, Wenli balding on top, Yonghai slowly losing his hair.
After the usual exchange of greetings, Wenli beckoned for me to sit and said by way of apology, “Let me just finish my conversation with