The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [116]
Hong came home that afternoon. She was sobbing. I thought she was weeping for Father, but that was not the reason. She had been thrown out of the Red Guard because of Father. Her armband had been ripped off and her uniform was torn. She had bruises on her face. Mother tried to talk to her. I tried to comfort her, saying that Father had suffered a great injustice, but that it would be corrected soon, and she would have her revenge on the Red Guard. But she wasn’t angry at the Red Guard, she was angry at Father! Father had caused her downfall! We did not speak after that.
Father did not come home. We heard that he was in jail. Later we heard that he had been sent to a work camp in Xinxiang. We stayed in the house after that. We knew that it was only a matter of time before we would be attacked. The Red Guard had come to the homes of other purged officials, searching for evidence of Western influences or decadent belongings or just to loot. It was a terrible time. I was worried about Father, Mother sat for hour after hour saying nothing, doing nothing, and Hong sank into silence and acted as if she could not stand the sight of us.
Finally in November it happened. It was cold for Chengdu, and I was huddled beneath my quilt, late at night, when the front door crashed open. We all ran downstairs to see what had happened. There were at least twenty Red Guards. The leader was a tall young man. His face was flushed with rage! He screamed at Mother, “American spy! You must confess now!” Mother glared back at him and answered, “I have nothing to confess. Perhaps it is you who has something to confess.” He grabbed her by the neck and threw her to her knees. I rushed at him, but he easily threw me off, and two other Red Guards—one of them a girlfriend from school—held me down. The leader screamed again for Mother to confess, but she just shook her head. He hit her on the back of the neck and she fell flat on the floor. I screamed for him to stop and my old friend slapped me in the face. The leader kicked Mother and pulled her back up to her knees.
“You are a spy,” he said, “and the wife of a traitor. We are here to express the outrage of the masses and give you revolutionary justice!”
“You know nothing about justice,” Mother answered, “so how can you give it?”
He kicked her again and pulled her arms behind her back and handcuffed her. It was a very painful position, but Mother did not cry out. Then he ordered his helpers to search the house. All this time Hong stood in a corner and said nothing.
They tore our house apart. They ripped the beautiful paintings with knives, they smashed the record albums into pieces. When they found the writings of Jefferson and Paine, they let out shouts of triumph. The leader slammed these books down in front of Mother.
“English books!” he screamed. “Who are these American thinkers you admire?!’”
“They were true revolutionaries,” she answered. “You should learn from them.”
The leader spat on her and made a pile of the books in front of her face. Then he lit a match and tried to set them on fire, but he did not know what he was doing and could not get the fire to take flame. He became so angry that he picked up the books and threw them at Mother’s head, giving her cuts and bruises. All this time, I was held down on my knees, and I cried and cried … and Hong stood silently in the corner.
The Red Guard stayed for hours. The sun was coming up as they were getting ready to leave.
“We will be back