The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [114]
We were together again, but not at home. Father was sent to the countryside “to help reorganize the peasants,” but really because he refused to divorce Mother, or even denounce her. This was the beginning of the Great Leap Forward, when the land was divided into production brigades, and Father was to educate the peasants about the great changes. We left our apartment in Chengdu and moved to a small village—Dwaizhou. It was very strange to us, very new, and we were frightened. The peasants did not want us there at first, because we were more mouths to feed and we knew nothing about farming. Father worked very hard, though, and learned much, and helped the peasants explain their problems to the Party cadres. The peasants began to respect him, and then love him, because he fought for them and got them equipment, and fertilizer, and medical supplies. He taught classes at night also and conducted political struggle sessions to explain to the people the great goals of the revolution. Mother joined us after a year, and we were so happy! We wore peasant clothes now, and had no pretty dresses, but we were happy to have our mother back. And we could see that Father and Mother were so happy to be together.
We came to love Dwaizhou. I helped in the fields and the kitchens, and wandered all over with a stick of charcoal and rice paper, making little childish drawings. Hong played that she was a brave PLA soldier, and she acted out stories of revolutionary heroes for the peasants. And she was so proud of her nickname—because red was the color of the Party, and she was Red!
But then food became scarce. The Great Leap Forward had failed, and even Sichuan began to feel hunger.
Father tried to stop the foolish edicts. He fought the cadres when they ordered the peasants to slaughter all their livestock because livestock was property and ownership of property was Rightist. But the cadres overruled him, and the peasants had to kill their pigs and chickens and ducks, and send the food to workers in the city. But then, of course, there were no animals left to breed. I remember Father standing with the peasants as they killed their cherished breeding stock, remember him standing in puddles of blood, weeping along with the farmers. I remember the trips through the countryside, where I saw farmers standing in once fertile rice paddies and begging for food. I remember families who were once good friends fighting each other over a few fish or vegetables. I remember hunger.
My family did not starve, because Father was still an official, and had yuan to buy food. But there was often not a lot of food to buy, and many meals were made up of some cabbage and perhaps some peanuts. Sister and I missed the bowls of white rice and the steamed rolls and the “mooncakes.” But we did not complain, because so many people around us were worse off, and it was the price we all had to pay for the revolution.
But I never forgot. Hong and I would eavesdrop on Father when he would tell Mother about his latest inspection tour. He would whisper to Mother about the sights he had witnessed: dead bodies on the roadside, men chopped to pieces by villagers for stealing grain, children with open sores from malnutrition. He would sit, smoking one cigarette after another, saying that they must put a stop to it, and never let it happen again. And Mother would ask, “What is wrong with the Chairman? Has he gone mad?” Father would just shake his head.
Then suddenly it seemed that Father became very important. We learned later that he had joined with a group of reformers led by Deng Xiaoping. It was in 1960, I think, that investigations were started, and then reforms, and Father was a leader of the reforms in Sichuan and the cadres hated him. But the hunger ended, and Deng Xiaoping supported my father, and after two more years we moved back to Chengdu because