Ocean of Words Read Free Page A

background, Kong must have lost his senses and ignored the class distinction. As a high school graduate, he must have read too many Russian novels, in particular Turgenev, whom I had once heard him praise beyond measure, as though the story-maker were as great as Lenin and Stalin. Kong acted like a petty intellectual, who believed in romances and universal love.
    After exchanging views on the new discovery, Deng and I decided to talk to Kong again. The next afternoon, when the other soldiers were wearing straw hats and hoeing potatoes on the mountain, Kong sat in the headquarters answering our questions.
    “Did you talk to An Mali?” I said.
    “Not yet.”
    “When do you plan to do it?” Deng put in.
    “Probably this weekend.”
    “Comrade Kong Kai,” I said, “do you know what her family background is?”
    He nodded.
    “Then why do you fool around with that capitalist’s daughter?” Deng asked.
    “She’s not a capitalist, is she?”
    “What? You don’t mind having a counterrevolutionary capitalist as your father-in-law?” Deng thumped the desk.
    “Commander Deng, Mali’s father died years ago. She’s an orphan now and I’ll have no in-laws. Besides, she was born and raised under the Red Flag like me.”
    “You, you — ”
    “Kong Kai,” I broke in, since Deng was not his match in this sort of verbal skirmish, “your offense is twofold. First, you violated the rule that allows no soldier to have an affair; second, you crossed the class line. Chairman Mao has instructed us: There is no love without a reason, and there is no hatred without a reason; the proletariat has the proletarian love, whereas the bourgeoisie has the bourgeois love. As a Communist Party member, to which class do you belong?”
    Kong hung his head in silence. Deng launched an attack again. “What can you say now?”
    No answer.
    “You’re ill, Little Kong,” Deng went on in a voice full of comradely affection. “Everybody gets ill sometimes, but you shouldn’t hide your illness for fear of being cured.”
    “Today we called you in,” I added, “because we care about you and your future. We want to remind you of the dangerous nature of the affair.”
    Seeing that he seemed too ashamed to talk, I thought it better to dismiss him, so I said, “We don’t need to talk more about this. You understand it well and must decide how toquit it yourself, the sooner the better. If you don’t have anything to say, you’re free to go.”
    Slowly he stood up and dragged himself out, with his cap in his hand.
    “You should’ve ordered him to quit it,” Deng said to me. I was surprised and didn’t say anything. He went on, “He’s so stubborn. How can we let him lead the squad? It’s all right to fall into a pit, but he simply refuses to get out. How — ”
    “Old Deng, let’s give him some time. He promised to quit it.”
    As I expected, Kong entered the larch woods with the girl on Sunday. This was necessary, because he needed to meet her once more to break it off; I didn’t ask him to report progress. I wouldn’t give him the wrong impression that I enjoyed seeing young people suffer. As long as he quit in time, it would be fine with me.
    I met Kong several times the next week. Judging from his calm appearance, it seemed he had disentangled himself. But the following Sunday, Scribe Yang, who had been assigned to keep an eye on him, reported that Kong had sneaked out. I told him to go look for Kong in the larch woods and bring him to my office immediately, together with the girl. An hour later, Yang returned empty-handed and said they were not in the woods. Then I sent him, with the orderly, to search the village. They spotted the lovers, who were lying in each other’s arms on the sandy bank of a stream, under a wooden bridge, but the couple slunk away at the sight of the searchers. Yang and Zhu returned with a used condom as evidence.
    I was worried and dispatched the orderly to the Fifth Squad to wait for Kong and