Shangde did not play mysterious after that, nor did he conduct a study of the Great Wall. He was more concerned about the well and borrowed more books on hydrography through me.
Between the dates with my girl and the discussions with Shangde, time flew. A year passed. It was a momentous one in which President Nixon came to China and started, as he put it, a "new era." The remaining confederates of Lin Piao were purged, China began to do business with the West. Soviet Union became the trump card that China and the United States played in dealing with each other. Nevertheless, Shangde and I paid little attention to these changes until the day when the British industrial exhibition came to Beijing.
For us, this was the real thing. Ever since the Communist Party attained power, not a single exhibition from any capitalist country was held in China. We longed to learn everything about the West, and Shangde also wanted to learn more about digging a well. But the tickets for the exhibition were extremely difficult to obtain. They were not sold to the public, but rather, given to "persons of concern and consequence" in factories, universities, hospitals, research institutes, and the government organizations. Those who had the luck to see the exhibition were talking about it everyday as if they had just come back from Mars. The listeners had endless questions about those wonderful machines and equipment that the "oppressed and exploited" British workers were enjoying. Everyone had an inexhaustible interest in the advanced science and technology that the "old and declining imperialist country" was developing. People were also surprised to get those beautiful brochures, descriptions, and introductions, all given to them free of charge, and all printed on paper of a quality seldom found in the country that invented paper almost two thousand years ago.
Shangde's father, as a "concerned scientist," was invited to the opening ceremony of the exhibition, and a few days later, was given two extra tickets. We were overjoyed, but Shangde's girl friend also wanted to go very much. Of course, I understood that she had the priority, and yet, I could not manage to hide my disappointment.
"Don't despair!" he said to me, "I'll draw a ticket for you."
My sadness turned into hope again, for Shangde was fond of painting and had been learning to draw. Once he showed me a collection of the masterpieces of Western painting, which was a rare survival of the xenophobia of the Cultural Revolution. He pointed out that Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa has no eyebrows and speculated whether that was the fashion in Renaissance Italy. I then called him jokingly Shangde Lisa for months until his brows sprouted out again. He was not a great painter yet, but he could already paint quite realistically. In fact, he had drawn sketches of both my girl friend and me, and they are our best sketches. After he promised me that, I rested assured.
The next day, I went to his home. His girl friend and he were waiting for me, and so was the ticket. What a similarity! Even though I knew it was drawn, I could not tell the difference without comparing it with the printed ticket. So happily the three of us went to the exhibition with the mixed excitement of both adventure and curiosity. The exhibition hall was designed by Soviet experts in the mid-50s when China was a member of the socialist bloc. Now the British national flag was fluttering below the red star. The story went that at first the flag was hung upside down, and the British Embassy even presented a note of protest. Looking at the flag, I was unable to see how it could possibly be hung upside down. It seemed to be the same either way.
"Ticket, ticket." The guard's voice was solemn and demanding as if the embarrassment of the communist diplomats had turned into a mixture of serious precaution and nameless indignation that was being vented upon the visitors. I was rather nervous, and for a minute, I even wanted to withdraw. After all, this was the first time I had done anything illegal. But I was pushed on by curiosity as well as adventurousness. Shangde and his girl friend went in. I deliberately lagged behind several other visitors. When I gave my fake ticket to the guard, my hand was slightly trembling. He seemed to hesitate for a second and take another glance at the ticket, but he dropped it into the box. My heart that had been up in my throat dropped down. I went in and looked around. I saw Shangde and his girl. I walked toward them hurriedly.
A big mistake! The visitor should go to get the packet of brochures and introductions first. My irregular action and flurried manners immediately caught the attention of the guards who were patrolling around inside the hall.
"What're you doing?" Two of them stopped me and questioned, "Why are you in such a hurry? Did you have a ticket?"
I was stunned and stuttered, "I...I'm just vi...visiting. I ga...gave my ti...ticket to that co...comrade."
"Let's see." They took me back to the gate. ... The ticket-box was opened, the fake ticket was recognized, and I was taken to the police station.
"What's your intention?" The officer asked me after the routine questions, "To destroy the exhibition?"
"No, I just wanted to see it."
"Who drew the ticket?"
"I did."
"After whose ticket did you draw it?"
"Nobody's."
"You liar!" He roared. Two policemen came up and slapped me in the face.
"I really don't know whose ticket it was. It's a used one I picked up outside the exhibition hall."
"You liar! We burn all the used tickets everyday." The two men hit me in the stomach. I doubled up and felt a terrible pain and nausea.
"Tell the truth!" The officer shouted. I would have, had I known it was impossible to fool them, but humiliation choked me. I remained silent.
"Well, you liar," he jeered, "You want to play tough? I'd like to see just how tough you can be. What're you waiting for?" He ordered the two policemen rhetorically.
They grabbed my arms, twisted them behind my back, and forced me to kneel on the floor. One of the men held my head steady by the hair. The other pressed his knee hard against my spine and slowly lifted my left arm. The torture was unbearable. The pain was indescribable. I felt as if my arm and spine were going to break. I remember hearing them crack. ... I confessed.
That evening, Shangde was arrested. Beijing was purging idlers and criminals. He was treated as an idler and sent back to the farm when the commissar there had just sent out his work transfer. All went in vain: a year's efforts to go through the red-tape, a father's hope, and a young man's expectations. When his father received the transfer, he almost went mad, now crying over it, then cursing his unworthy son. His crying and cursing stabbed my conscience constantly, but I did not know what to say to soothe him. I just went to his home everyday after work to do whatever I could for him.
Soon, I began to receive letters from Shangde, who showed me complete understanding and even comforted me saying that nobody could fool the police in such a case, just as nobody could puzzle us with a simple math question, and nobody could stand the notorious tortures in the police station, about which he had heard so much from so many people. He also said that he was actually happy to be back on the farm because he could really work on the project, namely, to locate the spot for another well. He asked me to check this and that in the books on hydrography. In retrospect, I wonder whether or not he really needed the information, but at the time, his requirement did ease my guilt considerably.
So we kept in touch. He was telling me every progress that he had made. His last letter told me that he had finally located the spot which he and two friends of his there firmly believed to have a wellhead. Then, the horrible news came. Shangde was dead.
It was the hot summer of 1974. The farm killed a big pig, which was a rare treat for the poorly fed youths. They did not want to eat up the pork all at once. To refrigerate it, they tied half of it on a rope and put it down in the deep well just above the water. Then they ate a quarter. Then an eighth. Then, the last eighth accidentally fell into the well. They tried every means but simply could not get it out. The well was too deep.
Finally, the commissar said, "Whoever can get the pork can have it." Several people tried again but had no success. When Shangde's two friends asked him if he had any idea, he did not even know about the whole business, for he was too much buried in making the concrete steps to carry out his project. They told him, "It's about twenty-five pounds of pork, Shangde! Our camp would have a banquet if you could get it out." He thought a while and said, "The pork will spoil the water. Tomorrow, I'll get it out somehow."
The next morning, he got up at 4:30 as usual and studied his English. An hour later, the two friends awoke and went with him to the well. His plan was to let him down the well by the wooden winch. He would carry a huge stone, with which he would dive to the bottom of the well to get the pork. Somehow, the winch collapsed and probably hit him. He was knocked out and drowned. This was what the two friends reported, officially.
People on the farm tried to fish him out, but they failed. Nobody dared to take any risk. Three days later, Shangde floated up and was finally pulled out. The corpse was examined, and his neck was found broken. Since nobody would ever drink the water from the well, they buried him within its dark confines. Because he died in "getting the pork for himself," and the commissar never mentioned it was he who had encouraged the farm workers to retrieve, Shangde was not considered or treated as a "revolutionary martyr" like the girl who had died of malaria on the farm a month before, but almost everybody attended his funeral. His camp-mates, who used to mock him as a bookworm, cried like mad.
So did I, but then my subconscious simply could not accept the tragic fact. For years I often dreamed of him, alive as before, with no eyebrows, but a mysterious smile, on his face smile. I would say to him, "So you didn't die after all. You're playing mysterious with all of us. What a joke, Shangde!" I would then slap him on the shoulder, only to wake up and find it was my own stomach that I had slapped. Lying awake in the darkness, I felt as if I were in a deep well, shuddering with cold, drowning with shame and guilt. I would then come to the cruel realization that Shangde was already dead, that he could never come back to life again. It was such an aching void! His father, I would like to believe, never felt the same. He had gone mad and took me for Shangde. I faithfully played the role until his death eight years ago.
After the downfall of the "Gang of Four" in 1976, the Cultural Revolution was officially declared to have come to an end. The state farms in the northeast of China were gradually abandoned, and the young farm workers were coming back to the cities. Two years later, I discovered that the two friends of Shangde's on the farm had also come back. I invited them to have dinner with me at Quanjude, the best restaurant for the famous roast Beijing duck. I reserved a private room for just the three of us. After a plate of duck and a few bottles of beer, I put down the chopsticks. Sincerely I told them about my guilt, of which they had known absolutely nothing. Then, I beseeched them to tell me what really happened to cause Shangde's death. They looked at each other in silence. I left the room to give them time for consideration. Two cigarettes later, I came back and found them in tears.
They told me that Shangde straddled the bucket that was connected to the wooden winch, and they let him down into the well all right. Then, he dived with the stone only once and got the rope that tied the pork. Everything went well just as he had planned. He straddled the bucket again, and they were winding the winch to pull him up. They were overjoyed to see him coming up with the pork. Then, they both tried to grab him. It was only a split second, but it was a momentous mistake. He was falling down with the bucket, the winch was spinning rapidly. One of them tried to grab the handle but was knocked away. The other tried to grasp the rope. Another fatal mistake! Not only did he fail to hold the rope, but he also caused Shangde to sway and probably to knock his head on the wall of the well. They both had heard a noise before Shangde splashed into the water. It was the final pull that destroyed the winch, which was then dragged into the well. They admitted that they were too cowardly to tell the whole truth, but they suffered from their guilt all these years. I understood them perfectly, for they had gray hairs on their young heads just as I did.
"Don't blame yourselves." I said, "It's the deep well..." Then, we all burst into tears, and wept, and sobbed ... Nobody touched the beer or the roast duck again. Before they said good-by to me, however, they told me that they did dig another well on the spot that Shangde had located. It was a complete success.
I could hardly wait to see the well. By now I had become a college student. As soon as the summer vacation began, I took the train and the bus and then walked about two hours to get to where the farm used to be. Although it was deserted, the local people were forming a tiny village around the new well, which was not too deep but had plenty of fresh water. None of the villagers knew any stories about the well except that it was dug by the students from Beijing. They took me for a hydrographic surveyor and told me that there had been another well, which was buried because the water was bad. They showed me where it was. I knew that it was Shangde's grave. What an unusual grave it was! Instead of sticking out, it was somewhat sunken. The stone mouth of the well could be clearly seen.
I stood by Shangde's grave for a long time, recollecting his short life. He died when he was only nineteen! What had such a brilliant young man accomplished? Nothing especially noteworthy but that well over there. What would he have been able to accomplish, had he survived the Cultural Revolution? Nobody could ever know. His boundless prospects were all sucked into the black hole of this deep well. The well is now buried, but can the deep well of the Cultural Revolution be buried like this? Should it?
1993
