CHAPTER VII

The meeting that night mainly concerned reporting to the District Government about the Fruits of Struggle. Most of the Land Reform Workers, without quite knowing what it was all about, had caught on to the idea that the report would be a delicate matter, hedged about by the hidden strife and tension among their leaders.
It all started with the grain discovered in the hollow wall of Han T'ing-pang's house. The Hans had a hired man, Miao Yung-sau, who went to the Land Reform Workers' Corps with the information that one of the walls in Han's bedroom was hollow, with bags of rice, wheat, and kao-liang flour and maize stored inside. A search proved him to be right and the foodstuffs were confiscated.
This find was made just as the Land Reform Workers and the kan-pu were in the midst of reclassifying the village population as part of the preparatory work before the division of land. Miao, the hired man, belonged to the Destitute Class, one grade below a Poor Farmer, and therefore entitled to get more land. As an informer he should have been promoted another grade, which would make him Special Class, equivalent to the Soldiers' Families, even better than a Destitute. But Go Forward, Pao bore Miao a grudge because once they had quarreled while gambling during the New Year- Now he said Miao had never been Positive and seldom came to meetings. So although he was Destitute, he was not a Respectable Destitute. So in the end Miao barely made the grade as a Poor Farmer.
Chang naturally considered this confiscated grain as Fruits of the Struggle, to be entered in the Fruits. Account and reported to the District Government. But Go For­ward Pao kept putting it off, saying the villagers insisted that, instead of handing it all over to the government, it should be split up among them. He persuaded several Positive Elements in the village to go around stirring people up, clamoring for their share. If the grain was divided among the villagers, the amount everybody received would of course remain under Pao's control. He needed something too, just then, to sweeten up the Posi­tive Elements. They were the only ones who ever made any noise. Once their mouths were stuffed with food, there would be no danger of anybody complaining of unfairness when the land was divided among them in another week or two — the great event everybody was waiting for.
Chang didn't let on he had guessed all along this was what Pao had in mind. But now when he came back from the hsien, knowing he would be leaving, he called a meeting of the kan-pu at once. At the meeting he told them, "For us who work among the Masses, the first requirement is that we must have the power of dis­crimination. Without judgment, Comrades, we cannot fulfill the tasks Chairman Mao Tse-tung has entrusted to us. We ought to listen carefully to all the kinds of voices that come from the Masses and be able' to tell the difference- This time, for instance, there's a lot of talk about concealing the grain, not reporting it. Now it 'seems to me this chatter is not the real opinion of the Masses. It's just one or two Bad. Elements trying to make trouble, taking advantage of the Backward Thought of the Masses. 'Comrades, we'll have to find out the real source of this opinion and expose the Bad Elements before the Masses, show them up for what they really are."
 Pao rightly took this as a threat directed at him. He felt a bit nervous and decided to sacrifice the two Positive, Elements who had made the most noise, to identify them as Bad Elements.
During the meeting of the Farmers' Association that night, Chang pointed out to the villagers that it would be wrong not to report the confiscation. At the same time he cleared the Masses of all blame, insisting it was not their idea but the conspiracy of a few Bad Elements among them.
Pao took an active part in tracing the talk back to the
 Bad Elements who had supposedly started everything. The two men dared not mention Pao, fearing his revenge. The Land Ref Gun Workers' Corps would soon be gone, but Pao would be here the rest of their lives- There was nothing they could do except bow their heads and admit their guilt. The Masses of course said nothing. In fact some of them were quite pleased to see these Positive Elements get their comeuppance. A resolution was passed by unanimous vote that the Bad Elements were to be tied up and beaten with sticks.
Chang was set on having this business attended to before he left. Pao also was anxious to dispose of another matter while Chang was still here. It concerned the landlord, Han T'ing-pang, and his wife, who were still detained in the school. 'The kan-pu had patiently waited. for Han's father-in-law to ransom him. But aside from the small sum of money in response to his first letter, further entreaties had produced no results. Sooner or latter the couple had to be disposed of.
Pao had scruples, however. Being an extremely clever and observant man, even if uneducated, he knew the way the Government usually did things. At the beginning of a new movement they always encouraged the kan-pu to go at it with abandon, giving them a free hand. But as soon as there were enough signs of discontent among the Masses, the Government took measures to Chin Pieng, Correct the Deviation- The slogan would be: "A cook can reboil half raw rice; a horse can turn round and eat the grass behind it." But in making redresses they could not resurrect any of the men they had shot, nor would they give back any of the confiscated property. The only remedy left was to punish the "over-leftist" kan-pu. The imprisonment or demotion of a few low-ranking kan-pu was a small price to pay for bolstering the Government's support. Pao did not worry much about the promotion of the Rich Farmers and Middling Farmers to the rank of Landlords, and their subsequent execution- Chang had been in charge here when this took place. If Han T'ing­pang and his wife were to die, it had better happen while Chang was still around- Then it could be blamed on Chang if there should be any trouble later on.
So Go Forward Pao secretly approached Han's tenants and told them to go and make a row outside the jail. They were to complain that all the other landlords had been executed while Han alone had been spared and they remained unavenged. Everybody in the village knew about Pao turning against his own accomplices, and Han's tenants were afraid of falling into the same trap. But they dared not try hedging or bargaining. Their spirits were broken when they saw with their own eyes Tang Yu­hai and the others being taken to town to be shot.
The next afternoon while Chang was in the school office checking over the accounts of the Fruits of the Struggle, he heard people shouting in the back courtyard.
"Ma ti, that bastard son of a dog is certainly getting off light!"
"So unfair! Everybody's had their revenge except us! We want — our — revenge!"
"Drag the turtle's egg out of there and do him in right now!"
"Kinsmen, kinsmen!" It was Go Forward Pao's voice pleading with them, smooth as silk- "You go home first and wait a few days. Wait till I Reflect your Opinion Up‑
' ward. Anyhow, you can rest assured that the Govern­ment's opinion will be the same as yours, because yours is the opinion of the Masses. Don't you worry!"
The more he pleaded, the louder they yelled-
"Pu hsing! Won't do! The Government is too gener­ous! The dog's bastard has been having an easy time!"
"We've waited long enough! When is he going to pay back the money he owes us?"
"Get him out of there and let us do the questioning!' If we aren't paid at once, we'll string the turtle's egg up!"
Pao rushed to the front courtyard, to get help from Chang. "What shall we do? Han T'ing-pang's tenants are kicking up a row. They want to take the two of them out and to li kang t'a-meng, do them in with great force-"
Chang looked up from the accounts and scratched his head with, an inverted pen. He was alert enough to notice how the disturbance died down as soon as Pao came over to the front courtyard.
"Han's tenants — aren't they the same people who refused to go and get the land deeds from him that time? They've certainly made progress very fast." He smiled at Pao. "What made them so Positive all of a sudden?"
`Pao smiled back at him. "Well, however dead-brained they may have been, I should say they have awakened by now. Seeing with their own eyes the Great Struggle Meeting going off with a bang and all those landlords shot, they know that the world has really changed — it's a poor man's world now."
"Hmm, yes." Chang had to nod, smiling. Turning to the other Corps members in the room he said, "You see, the Masses have really risen! Now that the Masses have risen, we mustn't be frightened and shrink back and be­come the Masses' Tail."
"Right!" Pao said quickly- "I'll go and get all the other comrades; we'll all go and look on. We'll pump gas into them, all right."
All the Corps members were summoned to the school. Chang met them below the stone steps in the front court­yard and gave a little speech to prepare them psycholog­ically before they went in to watch what was going to happen.
"We are not one-sided humanitarians. As it has been so well-put by Chairman Mao, 'The Revolution is not a dinner party; it's not writing, or painting, or embroidery. It can't be so refined, so unhurried, so elegant, so gentle, polite and modest. The Revolution is an act of violence by which one class overthrows another. A short reign of terror has to be created in every village in the country. Without this, the activities of anti-revolutionary forces in the country can never be suppressed, and the power of the gentry can never be overthrown.' We should also remember another of Chairman Mao's sayings, 'To correct a wrong we must go further than what is just; without excesses we can never correct a wrong!"
After his explanation everybody looked at his neigh­bor, a bit jittery and at the same time childishly curious and excited. As they trooped into the temple, heading for the back courtyard, they passed the schoolroom where the children were having their lesson. The teacher read one sentence from the book and all the students repeated after him in a tuneful chant, swaying their bodies side­wise on the benches. The afternoon sun was on them and the voices were drowsy. As the Corps members walked past and the shrill monotonous chorus gradually receded behind them, they had a strange feeling that they had left behind the world they knew.
All of them tried to find the right expression upon entering the back courtyard — just the right shade of gravity, dignified without being funereal. As they ap­proached the low flight of stone steps they saw that a thick rope hung down from the eaves. It hung loose, swaying a little in the breeze- Several tenant farmers were standing around, looking nervous. The atmosphere was thick, as if somebody had hanged himself here and the body had just been taken down and removed.
All the Corns members stood. waiting under the eaves. Go Forward Pao and Sun Fu-kwei also came. Then sever­al militiamen dragged a middle-aged woman out of the windowless room at the back where they kept the fire­wood. It was Han T'ing-pang's wife, heavy with child, wearing a striped grey blouse and pants, streaks of her bobbed hair plastered by sweat to her bruised, sallow face.
"You Big Feudal Exploiting Landlord! Facing death right now, and you don't know enough to be afraid!" a Positive Element shouted. "We've been too polite to you all this time. You don't seem to appreciate it. You want to be Reactionary to the very end. Today, if you still won't tan pai, confess, we're going to take your dog's life!"
Though the woman hung her head, it was impossible for a prenant woman to look humble. She looked in­furiatingly proud and overbearing with her belly thrust far out.
"Tie her up! We'll 'string up half a pig' for her!"
"Look at the slut," the Positive Element shouted. "Old enough to be a granny- And she's still breeding brats for old Bloodsucker Han."
Several Positive Elements directed the tenants to push her down on the ground- Quickly they tied her left arm and left leg together with the rope that hung down from the eaves. When they pulled at the other end of the rope, she went up in the air, left side up. Then they tied her right arm and right leg together and hung two heavy wooden buckets on the leg.
The woman began to moan and mumble indistinguish­ably, begging for mercy. The sun coming in under the eaves lit up the top half of her body, hanging head down. A fly flew through the sunlight, turning gold all over. It circled and settled on her nose, which had been beaten into a blob.
They had a tubful of water ready. Two tenants lifted it between them and started to pour water a little at a time into the buckets hanging from her leg.
"Ai-yo! Ai-yo!" Her groans rose higher and her face gradually came alive with pain as more water splashed into the heavy buckets. The fly slowly flew away.
"Quick, t'an-pai, confess! Where's the rest of your
money? And your jewelry? Where did you hide them?" a Positive Element shouted at her.
Ai-yo!" She kept changing the tone and pitch of her groans as if trying to find in certain sounds a mo­mentary relief, however slight. "Quick — speak! Speak and you'll be let down. You can go home right now if you t'an-pai. Where's the
money? And the gold? The gold rings?" ''There isn't any!" she panted. "Ai-yo, there really isn't! Ai-yo, my ma! Ma-a ya! I die of pain! Can't bear it any more!" With her head hanging upside down, the skin on her face was drawn up so that she looked much. younger- Her eyes were bright and she seemed to be grinning.
The Corps members consciously avoided standing too close to one another; it might appear they huddled to­gether in fear. They were not so much afraid as ashamed and repulsed at the sight of the pregnant woman strungt up in mid-air like a lumpy, triangular rice cake. They tried not to shuffle their feet or stir uneasily.
"Well? Are you going to t'an-pai or aren't you?". "Ai-yo, I'm wronged, I'm innocent! Ai-yo, what sins I must have committed in my last life, to deserve such a death!"
"Think you're going to die now? That easy?" Pao could not help  laughing out loud.
"Come on, hurry it up!" Sun said. "We've got to break through this fort of bigotry today."
"Ah... " A sudden long shriek sailed high in the
air. The sound was so coolly clear and shrill, for a moment it was difficult to tell where it came from.
There was not much water left in the tub, but the tenant who had lifted it suddenly found it too heavy for. ,him. It half slipped out of his hand as he set it down. with a thump, splashing water on his feet.
"Speak! Speak quick! Any gold?" asked a Positive Element.
" yu, yu;. there is, there is! Ai-yo, spare me! There's. a gold ring!"
"Where's the gold ring?"
"There's a •gold ring! Ai-yo, ai-yo! Spare me, to yieh, master!"
"Where is it? Speak, quick!"
"Can't remember — Ai-yo! Let me down so I can think—"
"You'll be let down as soon you've said where it is-" "In the hollow wall! In the hollow wall!"
"Nonsense! The wall has been searched. Even if it were a needle we'd have found it."
"Then there isn't any left," she said, panting.
"All right, so you won't talk-you're asking for it! Reactionary to the very end!"
The rope with pig's bristles woven into it was biting deep into the swollen flesh of her wrist and ankle, tied together. The groans had stopped.
"Tsou t'a nai-nai," Sun swore. "Fainted!"
"Splash water on her face," Pao said.
A tenant reached down for the tub and emptied it over her face, flooding the stone floor- Water dripped down from the tips of the greasy strands of hair.
"Ai-yo! Ai-yo!" The groans resumed, only they were more like sighs or just the sound of outgoing breath. Her eyes, now dull and half open, were the only lusterless things on the glistening wet face.
"T'an-pai, quick! Otherwise I, your father, will be at you again! — Ma-ti, no more water!"
The man looked around and happened to spot in the crowd a little boy he knew, who had apparently sneaked out of the schoolroom to watch the free show in the court-:yard. "Hey, Kung Hsiao-san, Little Number Three Kung," the man called out. "Go get a bucket of water!"
But the child was frightened. He turned and ran, ,dropping his head between his shoulders.
"  kou t'ui` little dog's leg! Landlord's spawn!"
the man cursed.
"I'll go." Another man picked up the bucket and walked down the steps.
"Ai-yo! Ai-yo!" With eyes closed, the woman seemed lulled by her rhythmic groans.
Liu stood rooted with his hands in his pocket. He had held his fists tight all this time and his arms had gone to sleep. When he tried to change his stance he found he could not take his hands out of his pockets and had to slowly unfold his fingers first.
"Why does he take so long?" the Positive Element grunted. "I'll go and see." He pattered. down the steps. The little boy was still hanging around the courtyard, re­luctant to go back to his classroom. He was squatting at the foot of the wall in front of a large rock, trying to tilt it back with one hand to look for crickets underneath. Seeing him, the Positive Element suddenly changed his mind and strode over, bending over him to lift the stone. The boy again scurried away, frightened.
"Ma-ti, since we're at it, might as well have our fill,'
the man said- Holding the boulder with both hands he walked up the steps and threw it with a loud thud into one of the buckets hanging beneath the woman. The crowd gave a shocked cry as the water splashed over them. If the woman screamed, it was drowned in the din. But after the general tumult there was silence, in which a kind of lapping sound could be heard, curiously gentle and yet heavy, like ducks' feet paddling in shallow water. The body still hung there, but blood was flowing down the trouser leg to the foot and wrist bound together, then dripping to the ground below, the crimson wisps slowly fanning out in the water on the floor-
The bucket was still swinging from the impact of the boulder. The woman's body swayed with it, head down, turning now this way, now that way, but aloofly, with a disinterested, far-off air. The wind fingered the greasy strands of her hair.
Pao was the only one who spoke after the pause. Ma  so quick!. Certainly had an easy time! Come on,
let her down and carry her out."
All the Positive Elements and tenants crowded for­ward to help untie the rope. Liu saw Su Nan looking around dazedly. He walked up to her quickly and pro­pelled her down the steps, holding her by her elbow. "Let's get away from here," he heard himself saying.
•
He took her out of the school. It would only take a few minutes for them to get back their self-control, but right now he felt they had better go where nobody was watching. Walking down the mound, they crossed the Toad and went into the fields. Somehow it was surprising to find it was still daytime and the sun was still out. The brownish yellow fields extended all the way to the far horizon. The warmth of the sun on their backs, inter­laced with cold whiffs of autumn wind, began to make things feel more real.
He was walking after Su Nan on a footpath when she half turned around and, without taking her eyes off where she was looking, whispered to him, "What's that?"
A mule was pulling a cart around a field in circles, ;occasionally shifting course abruptly. City-bred, with no knowledge of farming, they could not tell what function it served- There were some people standing on a foot-path shouting, but at this distance they could not hear what they were saying. The cart seemed to prefer to run over the stumps of chopped off trees in the waste field. Other­wise it seemed quite aimless in its erratic circling, unless that was a plough attached behind. it. But, it was, not a plough; it was a long grayish black bundle dragging on the ground. A moment later Liu realized that it was a .man. He had heard of a form of punishment called .chian ti kuang: tze, grinding the earth-roller. This must be it. The man was Han T'ing-pang then.
It seemed to Liu and Su Nan as they stood watching that the mule cart was whirling around like a truck out of control and might rush at them crazily any moment. Su Nan suddenly turned and walked away, dragging him after her- She knew what was going on. Her fingers felt cold against his and hard as sticks.<> They walked swiftly to the village wall, turned with it and kept walking. After they had gone some distance they stopped, flattening their backs against the wall. They felt all hollowed out as if all their insides had been taken out. The setting sun had turned the great stretch of mud wall behind into a bleak pale orange-
They settled back against the wall without moving. Then Liu found that they were still holding hands. He drew her hand toward him but she seemed hardly to notice it, though finally she did turn round, to look at him.
Liu suddenly put his arms around her, pressing her face hard against him as if to squeeze out all the sights and sounds of the world outside.
"Su Nan," he whispered. Then he said, "Su Nan, I'll never forget you-"-
She neither moved nor answered. But after a while she abruptly lifted her head to glance at him and then looked quickly away as if displeased- "You sound as if we're never going to see each other again."
"All right, then I'll forget you," Liu said smiling. "I'll forget you as soon as my back is turned."
Though her face was turned away from him he could see her cheek sticking out roundly, so he knew she was smiling.
He kissed her. For a moment he shut out the things he had just seen.
"When are you leaving? You're lucky to leave!" Su Nan said.
Instead of answering, he just held, her tighter.
With her cheek pressed against the top pocket on his tunic she could hear paper crackling in his pocket. She rubbed her face against it a second time to hear the crackle.
"That's your letter," he told her. "I really don't feel like posting it. Once it's sent off there won't be any."
"Then take it with you to Shanghai and mail it from there."
"Won't your family think it's queer if they get a let­ter from you and, it's postmarked Shanghai?"
She smiled. "Well, you're going to get some mail yourself. Don't worry."
"But you can't write me until I've written to tell you my new address, after I've got there. Figure out how long that will take. At least three weeks."
It was impossible to kiss and have a good look at each other at the same time. With an effort he drew back to look at her, holding her at arm's length. "The first time I saw you, we were all singing on the truck, remember? I listened hard, trying to tell your voice from the others!"
"My voice is no good."
"Your singing voice is higher than your ordinary voice, but it's beautiful, too."
Su Nan looked down and started to laugh, leaning her forehead against his chest.
"Why do you laugh?"
When he had asked for the third or fourth time she said, "I never sang that day- I just opened my mouth and pretended."
They both laughed a long time, unable to stop.
"I guess we're both a bit hysterical right now," Liu said.
Abruptly they stopped laughing and leaned their heads back against the wall. They turned to look at each other. Liu could not help thinking that if the smooth mud wall were to tilt back to become the k’ang, and be were to see her face like this every .night and every morn­ing, his days would be safely locked in happiness at both ends and it would not matter what happened in between-
So he made a resolution which was so simple he felt it was ridiculous. He must do a good job from now on in the hope of getting promoted step by step in the hier­archy of kan-pu. When he had attained a rank equiva­lent to that of a regiment commander he would be allow­ed to marry- What. he had seen in the village had been brutal. But there had to be excesses during a Revolution-
"I may come back from the south very soon," he said to Su Nan. "And then of course, it may take a long time. But in any case, within a few years I think I can manage to arrange for both of us to work in the same place, then we'll always be together." He tried to turn her face to­ward him- "Say something. Say it's all right."
At his insistence he felt her nod slightly against his shoulder. After that she seemed unable to face him- He had to force his mouth on hers. There was nothing left except the small sound of the wind in the grass, stirring uneasily on the edge of their consciousness- Someone might come any moment. The long withered grass made a chill rustle like a crusty old centipede crawling, drag­ging its rows of legs along the ground.
"You had a haircut," Su Nan said. "I was wondering what made you look different."
"Yes, I had it cut in town yesterday."
"No wonder you look like a country bumpkin." She reached up to stroke his hair- The next moment they were apart, walking side by side along the wall at a respectable distance from each other. Footsteps and voices had turned the corner behind them. It sounded like Sun Fu-kwei and one of the Positive Elements.
Liu and Su Nan thought they might go somewhere else and talk. When they reached the end of the wall and hesitated before turning into the main road, they saw that the lamp had been lit at the co-operative store. They had not realized until then it was getting dark.
Somebody waved at them from the window of the co­operative. "Liu Ch'uen! Comrade Liu! Comrade Chang is looking for you! Something about the Fruits Accounts."
Liu had to go inside. And once there he could not get away. That evening he was entitled to retire early, since he and Chang would be leaving early next morning. But he displayed what Chang extolled before the others as "matchless passion for work" and sat up half the night in the co-operative with Su Nan and the others, clicking an abacus.
Returning to the school he packed up and then went to sleep with his clothes on. He had scarcely fallen asleep when he was awakened by Chang. It was still pitch dark: The school janitor brought in a lamp and their breakfasts. Go Forward Pao, Sun Fu-kwei, Hsia Fung-ch'ueng and several other kan-pu came to see them off, fighting for the right to carry their packs.
"We feel so bad that you have to leave in such a hur­ry," Pao said with all the wistfulness he could muster. "Just when we've really got acquainted."
"We hate to leave too," Chang said, wringing his hand. "Everybody has been so affectionate. Real comrades!"
"It's too bad you can't stay to see the finish of the Reform," Sun said. "We were planning a big celebration. A lion dance and a show and stilt walking-"
"We have Fung T'ien-yiu," Hsia pointed out. "Best stilt walker in these parts-"
Again Chang experienced the urge to slap the man's stupid face. Ignoring Hsia, he clapped Pao and Sun on the shoulders- "Better turn back now, all of you. You still have lots of important work to do."
"No, don't send us back," Pao begged. "Give us a few more pointers- We'll feel so lost without you."
"No! Don't be so modest," Chang said. "It's we who have learned a lot from you."
"We feel like walking you to the hsien." Sun said. "Well, 'Even if you walk us with a thousand miles, in
the end we still have to say goodbye'," Chang quoted sentimentally
After more such exchanges, they finally parted outside the village.
"Hope you come back- Drop in on us any time!" Pao shouted, waving.
The sun had not yet risen. Pink and orange clouds striped the sky. The dark earth beneath the high heavens looked even flatter than usual. The thin, wavering sounds of distant cockcrows rose like smoke all along the horizon.
As he walked Liu kept peering into the fields in the half light. The sight of the short stumps of felled trees made him feel jumpy. The birds were chirping loudly with the coming of dawn. If there had been anything like what he'd seen yesterday sticking to the stumps, it would be picked clean by the birds.
Looking away from Chang's back ahead of him, he noticed a shadow squatting in a waste field. It looked vaguely like a woman digging for sweet potatoes- Some­thing made him look back when he had gone on for a short distance- In the increasing light he was almost sure now that it was Erh Nu.
As they went on walking and the cart track gradually sank, the rising dirt banks on either side blocked off the view. The earth smelled wet with dew. Liu found him­self walking along a passage filled with the faint dull fragrance of soil, slightly suffocating. The terrifying countryside was at last shut out. Maybe he was never to see it again.
He suddenly said to Chang, "You go on ahead. I have to stop and relieve myself."
Walking in the ditch Chang wouldn't be able to see him unless he specially spied on him.
Liu ran back onto the plain and went behind a tree. From there he peered down the road to make sure nobody was looking.
Erh Nu seemed frightened when she saw a man in uniform racing toward her. Pulling her tattered blouse across her breast she half stood up as if getting ready to run.
"Erh Nu! It's me!" Liu called her name for the first time. "How are you? You all right? I've been wondering how you were."
Erh Nu squatted down again indifferently, digging into the ground with her bare fingers.
He stopped in front of her under a tree waiting to get his breath back. Then he said to her. "I'm going away right now. I won't be coming back."
While she still said nothing, she raised a hand and poking her fingers into her matted hair, grey with dust, tried to comb it with her fingers. Much of her hair had come loose from her pigtail, falling about her face and onto her shoulders. Combing it, she suddenly seemed to realize that all the mud and dirt on her fingers had got into her hair. She dropped her hand quickly.
"I'm worried about you," Liu said.
She seemed to have. forgotten again and started to comb her hair with all ten fingers.
"Erh Nu — " He was going to say how sorry he was and now he hoped she did not think too badly of him. "Tell your mother that I've left," he went on to say. "Tell her I'm sorry I wasn't able to help you. I feel very bad about it.
The sun had risen. On the yellow-lit tree top and all over the branches, hard little green dates stood out against the light amidst the sparse foliage. The dates were point­ed at both ends and the green was just beginning to be flushed with an orange tint. She had laughed at him be­fore for not knowing what date trees looked like. He still wouldn't have if it hadn't been for the dates.
He stood under the tree not knowing what else to say. "Erh Nu, you're still very young," he finally said. "Young people should never give up."
She shook her head slightly. It could mean that she would not give up. But then two lines of tears coursed down her cheeks and she rubbed at her face with the back of her grimy hand.
For a long time he did not speak. Then he said with­out moving, "I've got to go now. Take care of yourself.'
She lifted her head, looking at him for the first time and, with a smile, nodded slightly in quick dismissal. With her front teeth knocked out her grin was at once childlike and shocking-
He turned round and walked off at a brisk pace, over­taking the leaves of the date tree that fell off and skidded rustling ahead of him.