smell permeated the air.
While this was going on, Nainai's grandfather, an awe-inspiring figure representing the great empire and the law, was in despair. This hateful position was a “favor” bestowed on him by the dowager empress and the emperor. He did not dare refuse it. Thinking it over and over, he could not come up with any feasible solution, except wishing that someday they'd bestow this “favor” on someone else. But on that occasion he could hardly think, because the doomed men and women's eyes were fastened on him. Some were pleading. Others were desperate. Some drowned in tears. Some were spurting fire. Amidst panic and pain, once in a while he would be startled by a pair of eyes that were unusually calm and lucid.
All these eyes were like sharp long needles that poked through his body and soul. Sitting up on high, he did not know how to escape them. He was paralyzed. His heart filled with terror. He knew that people who looked at him with such eyes would never forget him. They would remember him through life and death and three reincarnations. Sooner or later they would come back, seek him out, and make him pay the debt of blood.
Of the many stories Nainai told me about our ancestors, this one somehow sank deepest into my heart. In the sixties when class struggle was emphasized, for a few years I really wished that I had never heard any stories from Nainai so that thought reform would not be such a difficult task for me. In fact, in those years I even wished that I had never had such a Nainai and those ancestors of hers. They were bloodsuckers, parasites, smiling tigers, piles of garbage, cow ghosts, and snake demons ... If I could erase them from my memory, I would become a reliable successor to the revolutionary cause like my schoolmates.
In 1966, just as I was secretly congratulating myself, for I believed that I had finally made a clear break with Nainai and her ancestors, I had a strange dream. It happened soon after the Cultural Revolution began, when I was a Red Guard. By day I was busy writing dazibao (criticism in big characters) and attending thousand-people mass rallies to criticize capitalist-roaders, reactionary academic authorities, foreign spies, and renegades. I was extremely serious about the Cultural Revolution. I believed that through this revolution the Chinese people, led by our great leader Chairman Mao, would wipe out bureaucracy, corruption, and privileges from among government officials. We would build an exemplary society for the entire world.
At night, however, I had no control over my dreams. In one dream there was a mass rally just like the ones I had attended in those days; but instead of the capitalist-roaders and reactionary academic authorities, I was the person the crowd struggled against. Around me, the frenzied revolutionary masses were yelling at the top of their voices. Everybody hated me. I was a tiny boat sinking in a vast raging ocean. I wanted to speak up, to debate with others and defend myself, but no one was willing to listen to me. They were all convinced that I was guilty. So they sentenced me to death. The sentence was to be carried out immediately . . .
Next I was on my way to the execution ground. Somehow my grass-green army uniform and Red Guard's armband disappeared. I was wearing a long white robe, which was the costume worn by innocent convicts in traditional Chinese operas. Around my wrists and ankles, iron chains were dangling and clanging. A bleak autumn wind was rising; my silk robe fluttered and my hairband flew up. People lined the street to watch me, thousands of them. When I looked them in the face, I could not tell whether they were glad or sad. They all seemed to be wearing masks.
As for myself, I remember that in my dream I felt very sick at heart because I was wronged and I had to die so young. But I said to myself: As the sentence could not be changed, I'd better meet my end heroically. There was no point in making a scene and disgracing myself at the last moment. I wanted to keep my memory intact. That much at least I could do.
Then I knew I was dead. My body was lying on the ground, but somehow I still had consciousness. I saw many people walk by my dead body. Perhaps it was a parade. This time they were not wearing masks, so I recognized my classmates, friends, neighbors, and relatives. Nobody stopped to look at me. Not a soft sigh was uttered; not a single tear. They all fixed their eyes on something high and glorious. I wanted to scream at them to attract their attention. But I found that I had lost my voice. It was a soundless world. Eventually they all passed me by and the light began to fade. I knew that I was really dead.
4
Nainai Failed Her Ancestors
Reflecting on the fact that I could not forget Nainai's stories no matter how hard I had tried, I realize that I am more attached to her than I once cared to admit. As I was her only granddaughter, she told me more stories about her life than she told my cousins.
To people who did not know her well, Nainai's life in the old society appeared carefree. Her forefathers had power and privileges, her father-in-law and husband had a great deal of money. Only I knew that Nainai's life was not as easy as others might have imagined. In a way it was extremely difficult, owing to the upheavals in China and the fact that she was a woman.
When Nainai was young, she had been to many places in China. Those were the good years in her life. At the beginning of the twentieth century the emperor granted her father an official position, not because the latter had any remarkable talent, but for the sake of his ancestors. At first Nainai's father was a local magistrate in Hunan, a province south of the Yangzi River. A few years later he was promoted to the position of niesi, also called nietai in Guizhou province. There he was the number-three official and, like his father, he was charged with the administration of justice.
His family, including his wife, Nainai, and a younger brother, went to these places with him. At first they traveled along the Grand Canal by official boats. Later they rode in covered wagons. On the way Nainai was deeply impressed by the beautiful spring on the Yuan River, the various dialects that Nainai's family could not understand, the distinct flavors of the local food (some were so spicy that they set fire to people's mouths, others were as cool and smooth as water from an ancient well), the minorities with their fantastic costumes and festivals, the hard life of the peasants, especially the women who in the south had to do the hardest physical labor as well as take care of the kids and housework . . .
Such experiences in her youth made Nainai different from her peers who were confined to the inner quarters of their fathers’ residences. “Never to come out the front gate, nor to walk across the second gate”—the Chinese saying testifies how far such young ladies were permitted to go in those days. The theory behind this was that if a young lady never sets eyes on strangers, her virtues and chastity would be preserved. To make sure that women would not go out and meet strangers, their feet were bound at the young age of five or six. From then on they would have to live like birds with broken wings.
Nainai was lucky, for she was spared this ordeal. The Manchus, though they had adopted many conventions of the Han people (the major nationality making up more than 90 percent of the Chinese population), were never crazy about “three-inch golden lilies.” Perhaps that was why many old Beijing residents said that Manchu women were on the whole much more sagacious than the men in their families. The most outstanding example of this was Dowager Empress Cixi, who for fifty years held the entire country under her thumb, along with two emperors who were her son and her nephew. During her reign, however, the Great Empire of Qing was like the setting sun. Quickly it dropped beyond the western hills.
In 1911 the revolution broke out. The Qing dynasty was overthrown. Nainai's father lost his official position, but the family made it back to Beijing unharmed. Once they settled down in the old capital, they found that nothing was the same. The great Qing dynasty was history. Gone with it were the power and privileges of the Manchus. For two hundred and sixty-seven years they had been the ruling class in China. Then almost overnight, they became a small, isolated minority, surrounded and hated by tens of millions of Han Chinese.
So in the years after the revolution, many Manchu families lived in fear and grief. Their money, now like a river without a source, quickly dried up. Many of them dared not think
