Naked Earth

CHAPTER I

The yellow dust rolled on, across what was once called the Central Plain because it was considered the center of the world, surrounded by barbarians. Two trucks sped along the highway one after the other, in two balls of yellow fog.
A plump middle-aged man in the standard civilian Liberation Suit of bluish grey cloth stood on the running board of the second truck. He was the driver's assistant. His eyes popped out in his choleric red face as he shouted supplications to the slow, lumbering coal truck just ahead of them. He had shouted himself hoarse but either his words were drowned in the roar of the engines or the coal-truck driver pretended not to hear him.
When they had reached a bend in the road the other truck finally, in a burst of conscience, swung out of the way and let them move up front.
"Let's slow down a bit," the assistant said to the driver, 'so they'll also eat some dust".
The driver nodded.

Hanging on to the window frame with one arm, the assistant twisted around to look back, grinning happily. Now and then his plump face would suddenly go all red and blotchy again with rage and he would yell back, "Ta ma ti! Your turn to eat some dust!"
The truckful of young people started to laugh - One of them said half seriously, "This driver's tso fung, style, is no good. He should go under discussion. Maybe we should call a meeting tonight." He winked at his comrades,.
They were all students from various universities in Peking- When the People's Government mobilized university students to take part in the Land Reform, all the Active Elements in the student body vied with each other in signing up. Some of them had just graduated this summer.
Liu Ch'uen, one of the new graduates, sat at the back of the truck where it jolted the worst. He had his arms crossed loosely, elbows resting on his knees. The sun was still broiling hot though it was already autumn. His bluish grey summer uniform, soaked through with perspiration, clung in ripple-marks on his back. Warm puffs of wind blasted the dust against his face like a flapping, stinging, coarse veil. He frowned and could hardly open his eyes, but he was smiling. He was tall with a thin, dark gold face dimpled on one cheek, and keen narrow eyes.
"The east is red;
The sun has risen;
China's produced a Mao Tze-tung. . "
They had started singing in a corner up front. With a sudden lurch towards the side of the road the truck just managed to miss a mule-cart coming from the other direction Half a tree and a big clump of green reeds swept into the open truck and switched against the faces of the riders. The girls shrieked and squealed with laughter, piling on top of one another as they ducked. One of them pulled off a leafy branch from the tree and started to beat time with it on her friend's back as they sang.
They sang a Land Reform song they had just learned, "Unite, hey! — Tillers of the land! ... " But they liked the old favorites best, like that one beginning with "Our
China, so big and wide." The tune was probably adapted.
from some Russian song. It had the gray, windy sadness. that vast spaces bring-
The road gradually sank and the bare smooth banks on either side kept rising until they stood up sheer, like yellow mud walls. The earth was loose and sandy in this part of the country. Every time a mule-cart
passed with its iron-bound wheels it dug deep ridges in.
the road. Centuries of traffic had worn the road into a ditch from ten to twenty feet deep. Sitting high up on the truck the students could just see the yellowish green tree tops on the plain.
Some of the riders began to complain that their legs- had gone to sleep, so they shifted position as best they could. A pretty girl now sat facing this side, framed in a hole in the crowd. Her skin had the bluish pale translucency of fresh-peeled lychee flesh and her eyes were wide splits in the ripe fruit showing the moistened lacquered surface of the purplish black seed within. Liu Ch'uen looked at her. The fold of her eyelid made a long- deep line fading out at the end with an upward sweep. The wind had plastered a small green leaf on her hair.. She had short hair curling outward a little at the ends. Set against the dully throbbing, changeless yellow countryside, her head and shoulders made a startling little picture, distinct and yet infinitely far away, like a patch of sky reflected in a wayside puddle.
Just glancing in her direction once or twice made Liu Ch'uen feel that everybody was watching him. She was too pretty. Before they got on the truck they had each announced their own name and the university they came from. And, they usually mumbled it half laughing, feeling that self-introduction is a ridiculous thing if you perform it seriously. But somehow all the male members of the group had managed to catch Su Nan's name and knew that. she was a graduate of Yenching University.
Liu Ch'uen turned and looked the other way, 'fanning himself with his cap. Then it occurred to him that this was really superfluous with a roaring wind blowing straight at him, so he put the cap back on his head. The wind immediately snatched at it. He caught it just in
He could not remember hearing Su Nan talking to anybody. But she looked happy. She was carrying an oil-paper umbrella and she often stuck it out, brushing it against the trees so that it kept bouncing back jerkily with a sharp noise like ripping silk. The sleeves of her bluish grey uniform were rolled up above the elbow, showing thin young arms-
The singing died down when throats went dry.. The girl who had been beating time with a tree branch was Yu Ling, a classmate of Liu's. She leaned over and tapped him on the shoulder with her long whip of a bough.
"Hey, Liu' Ch'uen, Liu Ch'uen," she called out. "How much longer to go?"
Because he did not answer at once the tree branch knocked him on the head. "Hey, Liu Ch'uen! We've covered half the distance, haven't we?"
He didn't like it much when he saw Su Nan looking at him- "No use asking me. Ask the driver!" he said smiling. Maybe this was nothing between classmates, but other people might misunderstand. They were all cadres now, he told himself. And for a low-ranking cadre, one of the worst offenses was to nao nan - nu kwan - hsi, get up
man-woman relations. Besides, they were setting out to do a very serious and important job. This kind of tso fung would give the leaders the wrong idea.
The man who represented the leaders. in this group was Comrade Chang Li, a party member, an organizer sent down by the Cultural Bureau- In his middle thirties, Chang was of medium height, with full, long blue-green cheeks and rather full mauvish pink lips. He sat quietly smiling among these effervescent youngsters, trying to get all their names’ straight. Liu had introduced everyone he knew to Chang. Liu had been active in the Students' Association of Peita, the University of Peking, so he had been in constant contact with similar groups in all the other universities. He was also a member of the Youth Corps and was being considered. for admittance into the Party. Chang obviously regarded him as a leader among the students and relied on him to maintain order in the group.
The dusty, creamy glare of the sun gave them a headache - They all dozed off sitting back to back, until they were wakened by the soreness at the end of the spine where the jolting hurt them- Thus they alternated between sleeping and waking, headache and rump-ache.
Towards mid-afternoon it looked like rain. The sun became a furry, soft white spot in the oppressive' uniform grey of the sky. The truck was now bumping along at breakneck speed. Rain would turn the dust into mud as slippery as rice gruel. Wheels wouldn't be able to move an inch in the mire and it would be disastrous to be stranded in these parts, miles away from anywhere. The driver stepped on the gas.
Liu Ch'uen's last nap was cut short by a burst of song. He looked out the back and saw rain. The drenched young people at the back were singing, defiantly cheerful. The truck had already turned out of. the ditch and was running along a narrow lane with broad fields stretching away flatly to the sky on both sides. They passed a kao patch, the stalks taller than a man. It was the season of the "green, gauze curtain," the affectionate name the
farmers give to late summer kao liang. Then came cabbage patches and the small humps of burial mounds and
an occasional thatched hut- In the greenish twilight of
the shower, everything looked dark and clear like preserves swimming in a green glass jar.
The driver looked over his shoulder and said something to Comrade Chang. He nodded "We're there!" Everybody cheered.
The vegetable patches gave way to an endless stretch of yellow mud wall about ten feet high. In this part of
north China all villages had been walled in as protection against brigands.
"With sudden shouts and clanging cymbals and thumping drums a crowd of peasants surged forth from a rectangular entrance dug in the wall. White towels tied around the militiamen's heads bobbed behind the soaked and tattered paper flags they were waving. A double file of youths and children moved forward wriggling the Rice-sprout Song. The girls had trouble with their sticky wet silk sashes which clung to their bodies, and legs instead of whirling gracefully around them.
The people on the truck, a bit nervous at this noise, could not hear the slogans being shouted. But of course
these were the villagers out to welcome them in spite of the rain. They waved back shouting "Thank you, kinsmen!" and broke out into the deafening chorus of "Unite, hey! — Tillers of the land!" Meanwhile the truck had splashed its way through the crowd, pushing them into the field or against walls, their little bamboo flag-poles tilting en masse like windblown reeds.
When the truck finally pulled to a stop, the crowd had been left behind. But two 'men who were presumably kan-pu (cadres), puffing along behind the tail-gate, caught up with the truck as it slowed down. They were all ready to help everybody down but seemed, a bit put out upon noting the youth and good looks of the girls in the group,. fearing criticism if they should appear too eager to hold the young women by the hand. They decided instead to' lead the way to the temple where their guests were to be quartered. Sitting on top of a small wooded mound, the vermilion-walled temple had two large white vertical signboards on either side of the gate, both saying "Primary School of Han Chia Tau, 3rd District".
The fast walkers in the welcoming party were catching up now too, gongs and cymbals clanging thinly in the damp. The Land Reform Workers, their knapsacks on their backs, jumped down from the truck into the mud' and hurried after the kan - pu up the steep winding Steps. of crumbling brick- Liu Ch'uen lingered behind to herd them along- Then he ran up alone, shielding his head with an arm. Midway up the steps an umbrella tilted'
over him-
"Comrade Liu," Su Nan said.
"No, it's all right," Liu said smiling in perfunctory polite refusal- Then he took the umbrella from her. "Let me hold it." After a few steps he realized that he was: holding it away from himself, almost at the length of
arm. He hadn't been so old-fashioned with other girls he had known at college. But he was not at ease with Su Nan. Water slid off the edge of the umbrella in silvery, sheets, dripping on his head. He was considerably worse off than before. And then he also had to slow down his. pace. Two could not run as fast as one. Su Nan probably noticed his plight. She said nothing, but as they neared the end of the climb she was walking quite close to him,. forcing him to come under the umbrella.
Those who had arrived before them were crowded on. the porch of the temple, busy shaking their caps and wringing out their trouser legs. Everybody looked up when they came in together. When Liu Ch'uen went up to talk to the men he thought he could sense quiet disapproval, then had an uncomfortable feeling that he was becoming supersensitive.
Chang Li was surrounded by several village kan-pu. Returned to introduce them to the students- The secretary of the Party branch office, Pao Hsiung-ch'ien, Go Forward Pao-a name obviously adopted after the Liberation-was a youngish farmer with thin, birdlike good looks, rather high-shouldered in a high-collared white Chinese shirt.
"Comrades, I wish I could find the words to tell you how happy we are at your coming," Pao said smiling. "All of you have Culture. We have a lot to learn from you."
"Not at all, not at all," Chang said. "It's we who ought to learn from you. You kan-pu are closest to the people-"
"The comrades must be hungry." Pao said to Sun Fu-kwei, who had been introduced as the Farmers' Association Organizer. "Tell them to hurry up with the dinner." He turned with an apologetic smile to the Land Reform Workers, "Nothing to eat here. We've got thirty catties of white flour ready and a hundred eggs. Didn't dare kill a pig-we weren't sure whether you comrades would be able to get here today. You know, meat won't keep in this weather."
Chang protested, "Please don't bother. We'll eat whatever there is."
"We don't have to eat white flour," Liu joined in. "Fact is, you don't have to cook separately for us. We'll board with the farmers."
Pao scratched his head and laughed uncertainly, blowing through his teeth. "Raining like this—" he said after a moment, "Better eat here and go to bed early. You comrades must be tired out."
"Besides, there's no trouble at all. Everything's at hand. Everything's at hand," added Sun.
"It seems to me we better not start by Taking the Opposite Stand from the group," Chang said to Liu with a smile. "Whatever question comes up, it's got to be United with Actual Circumstances- We can't be Dead Brained, set on having our own way. That's also a form of dogmatism." He laughed.
Liu was taken aback by the reprimand, which he felt was quite uncalled for. Maybe Chang had resented his speaking up with what might be misconstrued as a tone of authority and thought it was a good idea to snub him before the other students in order to build up his own prestige within the group. Liu noticed Su Nan looking at him. She must be thinking that he had been trying to show off. And instead of gaining face, he had lost it. He flushed and it took all his will power to stay smiling. Above all he must not have it said of him that he could not take criticism.
They all went inside the temple and sat down in a dark, deserted schoolroom. Chang asked Pao how many Party members they had in the locality. He informed Pao that all the different organizations should hold separate meetings the next 'day in order to Communicate the Policy. All the kan-pu had turned up in the temple, the chairman of the Farmers' Association, the chairman of the Women's Association, the captain of the local militia, the head of the village and his assistant, the Party Organizer and Party Propagandizer. Most of them still retained some of their peasant shyness. They squatted quietly at the door listening to the talk. Some squatted outside under the caves, staring into the rain as they listened.

Militiamen scurried in and out, hugging sacks of flour and baskets of eggs. A man brought noodles piled in a high mound in a scarlet-painted wooden basin. The noodles, neatly tied on top with a bit of rose-red paper ribbon, cascaded downwards like thick limp strands of beige-colored hair. Liu could tell from the man's round-eyed, self-effacing look that this was not their ordinary fare at the village- He suddenly felt like a wealthy patron of the temple staying for the night, feasting on butchered meat, desecrating the god worshipped there.
Soon he smelled the fragrance of large flat cakes baking in dry pans. Reminding himself that he must not sulk, he said brightly, "Where are the drivers?" Nobody had seen them around. "I'll go and find them. Dinner's about ready," Liu said.
He thought it was still raining when he walked down the steps under the trees which were still sniffling and shedding big tears.. But the sky had cleared and there was in the air a touch of the golden haze of setting sun. The cicadas had just started singing, a bit wheezily. The long syrupy threads of sound ran on unbroken from tree to tree.
A knot of people had gathered around the truck parked on the wayside. The rain had washed off the dust from the cab of the truck. Children were peering at their own reflections in the dark green metal doors, aglow with the last rays of the slanting sun. They doubled up, slapping their knees, helpless with laughter, as if they were the funniest-looking objects in the world. Men and women, both wearing odd little sleeveless blouses of white cloth, also bent down peering and giggling but barking prohibitive phrases at the children- Somehow it came as a shock to Liu that he could understand the few words that floated up to where he stood, halfway down the steps. Perhaps there had been a moment when he had felt, with

a guilty twinge, that these people were as foreign to him as Malays or Ethiopians.
A short girl with greasy shoulder-length hair and a bread savage face, not unattractive, had been squatting beside the truck holding up her baby, trying to make it look at its own mirrored image without much success. A beardless old man with a basket slung on one arm came up from the rear and stood staring, his brows arched high in surprise on his vacuously handsome, smiling face.
The old man had been standing there for some moments before a man turned to ask him, "Your son back from the market yet?"
The old man hemmed and hawed absentmindedly as he continued to gape at the truck-
"Sold anything?" the other man asked.
The old man looked away vaguely as if he had forgotten some important errand and at once started across the field. He treaded. carefully on the narrow winding footpath, crossing his bare feet daintily with every step, his blue tatters flapping in the breeze. After he had gone some distance he glanced back over his shoulder at the truck. He was still smiling, with brows arched high in the same pleased and astonished expression. About twenty yards from there he looked back again with the same smile and raised brows.
The crowd appeared to take no notice of his departure. But presently the man who had spoken to him sniggered. "Scared him off."
"Bet you they didn't sell any of it," a woman said. `Who, buys pork this time of year? It's neither the New Year nor a festival."
"Must be all spoiled, in this heat. Over twenty miles to the market and back," said the man.
"Spoiled! Must be cooked!" she said. "Crazy to kill pigs at this time of year."

Another man sighed. "Ai! He Might as well kill them while the killing is good."
Liu instinctively drew behind a tree as if he did not want to risk being seen, so he could hear more of it.. He must have pushed against the tree trunk, making it shake,. because the cicadas stepped singing.
The people down below stopped talking. They just stood looking at the truck.
"Did these people come down from the District Headquarters or the hsien - the county?" a man finally said.
Nobody answered. But another man said, "They'll never be able to get up anything around here. Now, over there in Seven Mile Fort where there's a big landlord they sure had fun," he said giggling. "Before they even struggled against the landlord, his red silk, padded blankets were already piled on the beds of the "kan-pu.
The crowd tittered. While nobody told him to stop babbling, some of the more prudent people started to move away.
"Think I'll go and see if they've sold any of the pork," a man said- "I don't know but that I'll, get some and have crescent dumplings for dinner. Might as well."
It looked as if soon everybody would be gone except perhaps the children. Liu came down the steps shouting from far off, "Hey, kinsmen! Anybody seen the drivers?"
They turned startled faces towards "this shape coming out of the dark.
"I'm looking for the drivers. Anybody know where they've gone?"
They began to wander off nonchalantly as if they had not heard him and the children started to run. Again Liu had a baffling sense of racial and language barriers between them - But then one of the men turned and pointed down the road. "They're at the co-operative," he said.

The girl with the baby said worriedly, as if he had uttered soiree indiscretion, "Let's go home, hai-tze child's dad." She stood watchfully with the baby in her arms, waiting for the man to get safely in front of her. The frightened baby burrowed into the dark nest of hair piled on her shoulders.
Liu turned quickly away from them and strode down the road between darkening fields. Here and there a hut with walls of kao-liang stalks tied together stood by the Wayside. But the co-operative store was built of bricks. He could see the little one-roomed building from afar. The lamp had already been lit inside. He wondered what the drivers were doing there. What could they buy in a poky little place like this? Besides, they would be going back with the truck to Peking tomorrow.
He walked up to the little folding door and pushed it open. Two red-eared men with their backs to him stood drinking at the counter that cut across the cozy, yellow-lit room. Inside the counter there was a chimney-stove used to bake sesame cakes and a kneading board and a board for chopping meat, each perched on its own tall stand. Bolts of cloth and bars of soap lined the wall. The clerk was dipping wine out of an earthern jar with half of a dry gourd. He poured it into the men's blue-rimmed, pea-green bowls.
Liu went up and slid an arm about the shoulders of both the driver and his assistant- "Come along. Dinner's ready," he said. "You people certainly know your way about around here."
"Have a drink with us, comrade," said the flushed driver. "You need something to drive out the cold, after getting soaked to the skin the way you have."
"No, no danger of catching cold in this weather," Liu said laughing. "Con about finished? Dinner's ready." They paid and drifted out after him.

Right after dinner they made ready to sleep, the men and girls in two separate schoolrooms. Floor space had been cleared for little heaps of kao-liang stalks arranged in orderly rows. Liu was grateful for his soft pallet though the kao-hang stalks weren't too fresh and smelled a bit mouldy and ratty. The darkness was loud with the long drawn squeaks of night insects in the courtyard and the squawks of frogs after rain. Moonlight coming in through the carved latticed window fell on the stone-paved floor in little patterns like old coins of white jade, round with a square hole in the middle.
Liu was kept awake by his thoughts and the veteran mosquitoes of autumn. The stone floor under him was pressing harder and harder against his back and as the night wore on, the moist cold breath of stone seeped through the straw. Rats scuttled along the beams and chased each other over the floor like a brood of puppies, .scattering the men's shoes.
He heard the first faint cockcrow. The loud snoring around him seemed to have died down as if the sleeping men were now far away from him. Their rafts were well over to the other shore of the night while he still had endless darkness ahead of him. He was filled with impatience with himself. The kao-liang stalks under him rustled incessantly with his turning. But what woke up Chang Li was probably his clapping his hands to kill mosquitoes.
He saw Chang sit up and then walk out of the room, dragging his shoes, probably to relieve himself in the courtyard. After a while Chang returned to his pallet and sat yawning audibly. The shadowy white of his undershirt stood out against the moist darkness.
"You aren't asleep, Comrade Liu?" he asked. "Not used to this kind of accommodations, eh?"
Liu was going to say that he couldn't sleep because of the mosquitoes. But the hint of mockery in Chang's voice put his back up. After a slight pause he said smiling, "No. I was thinking: conditions aren't so simple in this village."
"Conditions are never simple anywhere. — Why, have you heard anything or noticed anything?" Chang seemed interested. Liu heard the kao - Jiang stalks rustle as the other man groped around his pallet for cigarettes. A match rasped and Liu watched Chang light his cigarette. Chang held the match up. "You smoke?"
Coming over to get a cigarette Liu sat down beside Chang and told him about the villagers gathered around the truck, what they said about the Land Reform-
Chang laughed when he heard that at the Seven Mile Fort, the kan-pu had availed themselves of the landlord's padded blankets before he was even struggled against. "Some of the kan-pu have gone corrupt-there's no doubt of that. All they're after is luxury, enjoyment of life. But we can't carry out this work all by ourselves. Got to rely on the kan-pu. We must use this work to educate the kan-pu
His voice was firm and yet light-hearted. It did. Liu good to listen to him in the dark.
"And the farmers. Ai!" Chang sighed, half laughing. "They've always been backward. You can't imagine how foolish they are at heart. They don't know good from bad. Often take the enemy of the people for a good man. All they ever see is the bit of material advantage right in front of them. Short sighted. They swing with the wind and it makes them unreliable. Full of Change of Weatherism, thinking that no government can last, everything passes away like a spell of good or bad. weather. So they're afraid to be active, afraid even to take things given to them free, in case the old government will come back and revenge on them. They're such cowards, when a leaf falls they're scared it'll crack their heads open."

Liu was very much surprised at his low opinion of the farmers. "But if they're like this, how are we going to work out this Land Reform? We can't settle things arbitrarily. We're supposed to Follow the Route of the Masses."
"Follow the Route of the Masses means relying on them and stimulating them, helping them, starting Thought Mobilization. That's our real job, to lead."
Liu smoked silently. "Yes," he finally said, and after a while he went back to his pallet and lay down, watching the red tip of his cigarette. The moonlight had crept close to his head. He reached out to it and looked at the dim, ancient milk-white coin in the flat of his palm. He closed his fist gently and then opened it again to look at what he had in his hand. He thought of Su Nan sleeping in the next room, perhaps with a jade coin of moonlight balanced on her forehead. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
Chang spat and lay down, squeezing out his cigarette on the stone floor. "Now be careful you don't set the kao-liang stalks on fire," he said smiling.