China Dream Page 3

  ‘Only married couples will be allowed to attend the event,’ replies Director Ma. ‘We’ve drawn up measures to keep everyone else away.’

  ‘My parents wouldn’t be seen dead holding hands!’ the chair of the Women’s Division replies. ‘They won’t even stand next to each other for a photograph. If you forced them to take part, their miserable frowns would definitely turn the event into a negative news story.’

  ‘Yes, just think!’ the Trade and Industry Bureau Chief interjects. ‘All those decrepit pensioners hobbling onto the stage, hunched over their walking sticks. Some of them will be deaf and blind. Others won’t have washed in years. Won’t exactly create a mood of optimism, will it?’ He shakes his head and looks down at the mobile phone and notebook on his lap. His leather shoes look far too shiny.

  ‘Well, we can invite some silver anniversary couples as well – they won’t look so ancient. And we must make sure to bar anyone with extreme views. Some old people these days spout out all kinds of dangerous nonsense.’ Zhou Yongkang is the head of the Municipal Political and Legal Affairs Commission, and enters the headquarters through the Gate of Heavenly Peace.

  ‘Don’t worry about any of them frowning,’ Old Sun calls out from the third row. ‘If we give them silk costumes and wads of cash, and promise them a banquet after the photographs have been taken, I’m sure they will smile for us.’ Old Sun officially retired from the Civil Air Defence Office six months ago, but he still likes to turn up for work every day and offer useful suggestions at Party meetings.

  The chief of the Food and Drug Administration Bureau, who is sitting beside him, says: ‘No need for any expensive banquet. Give my parents a bowl of soy milk and a dough stick, and they’ll grin from ear to ear!’

  ‘But we must treat our elderly citizens with respect,’ says Mayor Chen earnestly. ‘Filial piety is the bedrock of Chinese culture. The older the person, the more veneration they deserve.’

  In answer to Yuyu’s latest text: AM I PRETTY? Director Ma tries to send a smiley face emoji, but taps the wrong icon. She replies: WHY SEND A SAD FACE? YOU WANT ME TO CRY? He looks over to where she’s sitting, and among the Party members’ heads sees her glossy black hair shimmering like the shell of his mobile phone.

  ‘Having elderly people celebrating the China Dream will add gravitas and a sense of history,’ says Chief Ding, loosening his grey tie. ‘Now, Director Ma, please move on to the second project.’

  Ma Daode clears his throat. ‘Well, next on the list is a major new ballet called The Qingfeng Dumpling Store, devised jointly by the Civility Office and the Cultural Bureau. As we all know, the section chief of our local brewery is the spitting image of President Xi Jinping, so we’re hoping he’ll agree to dance the lead role.’

  ‘It will be a great hit!’ says Song Bin, his monkey face creasing into a broad grin. ‘If we unearth some good local talent and pull out all the stops, who knows, perhaps it might get transferred to the Beijing Opera House!’

  Director Ma stares at Song Bin who is sitting directly opposite him. Every wrinkle of his ageing face appears to be crammed with dust … Soot-filled lines around Father’s twisted mouth. Mother lying next to him, her head nestled in his armpit, eyes shut. With my sleeve, I wiped away the foamy pesticide and scraps of half-digested chicken that were leaking out between their lips. If they were alive today, they would be able to stroll hand in hand to the Golden Anniversary Dream celebration along with all the other elderly couples … As Director Ma continues to stare at Song Bin, a bitter taste rises from his stomach … I don’t know how my parents met or why they married. All I have is the information from my father’s personal record. Name: Ma Lei. 1922: born in Ping County, Shaanxi Province. 1939: joined the army. 1947: joined the Communist Party. 1949: married Zhu Mei. 1957: appointed County Chief of Ziyang. 1959: committed political error and demoted to post of grain auditor of Yaobang Village. 1960: summoned back to Ziyang to work in the County Financial Affairs Division. 1968: died from illness.

  As well as these sketchy details, Director Ma knows that his father went to a missionary school, and that thanks to the basic English he learned there, when he later served in the Korean War he was able to interrogate American prisoners and make inventories of looted goods, and so gained swift promotion to regiment commander. Ma Daode remembers playing chess with his father in their front garden. That was in the early days of the Cultural Revolution, before his father was targeted for persecution. Trying to interrupt his train of thought, he looks away from the Jade Buddha pendant hanging from Song Bin’s neck and says in a semi-daze: ‘I agree, Song Bin. Ballet is the perfect medium for promoting the China Dream. Once the Internet Monitoring Unit merges with our China Dream Bureau, the supervision of dreams will become integral to our daily work. We will record, classify and control the dreams of every individual, and begin work on a neural implant, called the China Dream Device, which will replace everyone’s private dreams with the collective China Dream. In the meantime, we must strengthen the guidance of online public opinion and social media platforms to ensure correct public responses to issues of the day—’

  ‘No need to go into the details of your Bureau’s daily work, Director Ma – just focus on the large-scale projects,’ Chief Ding interrupts sternly. ‘Now, back to the ballet – the Arts Federation should get fully involved this time, and hire all our best writers and choreographers. Promoting the China Dream through literature and the performing arts is the best way to reach the hearts of the masses.’

  Director Ma is furious at himself for going off topic. His heart is beating wildly. He pinches his right hand and focuses his attention on the murmur of the air conditioner at the back of the room.

  Chairman Zhang of the Arts Federation rubs his hand over the blue tablecloth and says: ‘Yes, we’re fully on board, Chief Ding. We’ve just launched a China Dream Poetry Competition. It’s our most ambitious literary project yet. And we’re also hoping to add more China Dream content to our website.’ Chairman Zhang likes to write poetry in his spare time. He too was sent for re-education in Yaobang during the Cultural Revolution. As they both regretted missing out on a university education, he and Ma Daode took a one-year diploma in the liberal arts a few years ago. Ma Daode remembers how, back in Yaobang, Zhang used to spray 666 Insecticide on the crotch of his trousers to keep mosquitoes away. It smelt so foul no one dared go near him. With alarm he feels memories sprouting in his mind again like mushrooms after the rain. If my past keeps bursting through like this, he thinks to himself, I will fall apart.

  ‘Promoting dreams through poetry,’ Mayor Chen says. ‘What an inspired idea!’

  The voices reverberate around the circular room. Some of the Party members are leaning back in their chairs, eyes closed; others are staring down at their phones; only a few black eyes are fixed on the leaders at the front. Director Ma scrolls through his contact list, taps on Hu and types: RECORDING THIS? Hu replies: yes. Hu is sitting near the front. The specks of light reflecting on his glasses are flickering like candles.

  ‘Replacing personal dreams with the communal China Dream is our Party’s main objective,’ Mayor Chen says. As he pauses for breath he hears a soft tapping. ‘Is that you sending a text, Commander Zhao? I see you have a new iPhone. Just be careful when you group-send erotic poems – you don’t want to end up in South Lake Retirement Home!’ The home he is referring to lies in a valley below Wolf Tooth Mountain. A former military air-compressor plant, it now serves as a prison for Party cadres of county level and above who have been sentenced for transgressions of duty. Its grounds feature a golf course and a fishing lake. Years ago, the area was rife with mosquito-borne diseases. It was there that Ma Daode and his classmates spent a summer half term picking peanuts. When they formed the Fear Neither Heaven Nor Earth Combat Team on their return, they fought with other classes over paint, brushes and waxed paper needed for their posters and pamphlets. ‘… The China Dream encourages the masses to embrace Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. It is ver
y different from the kind of brainwashing that took place in the Cultural Revolution …’ The Mayor’s voice has faded into a hum so muffled it sounds as though it is coming from another room. Director Ma looks around, but can see no one speaking. He wonders whether the noise is coming from inside his own head. It has a slight nasal twang now. He watches smartly dressed young secretaries hand out bottles of mineral water. The youngest one, Liu Qi, looks exactly like an air stewardess in her navy tailored suit. When she came to ask him for a job, he gave her one straight away because he used to play cards with her father, Liu Dingguo, when he was re-educated in Yaobang Village.

  One mid-autumn festival, Liu Dingguo invited our gang of sent-down youths to have a meal in his parents’ mud house. We wanted a snack to eat with our beers, so Liu Dingguo climbed over a wall to see what he could steal from his neighbour. A few seconds later, he came back with a bunch of radishes that had been drying in her yard. He plonked them on the table and said, ‘That crafty woman. Said she was too ill to work in the fields, but she’s not ill at all! She’s sitting in her back room right now eating fried eggs!’

  Director Ma receives another message: RAINDROPS ARE THE CLOUDS WEEPING. MY TEXTS ARE ME YEARNING FOR YOU. Realising he forwarded the very same couplet to his oldest mistress, Li Wei, last week, he resolves to stop stealing love poems from the Internet.

  To his irritation, he sees Yuyu eyeing him flirtatiously. How naive she is, Director Ma tuts to himself. These kids in their twenties have no idea about the danger of politics, how one small mistake can end a person’s life. During Ma Daode’s last year in Yaobang Village, the police stormed into his classroom and arrested a twelve-year-old pupil of his called Fang. Later he found out that all she had done was scrape a tiny piece of plaster from a Mao statue to use as a setting agent for some bean curd. It suddenly occurs to Ma Daode that when he fits the China Dream Device into his brain, all these memories that keep popping up without warning will be forwarded straight to the Ministry of Supervision. This thought makes him break into a sweat. It has taken years of hard work for him to rise from the General Affairs Bureau to his current high position. He has had to learn the precise tone of voice and turn of phrase to employ at meetings such as this. He wonders whether his distracted rambling just now might be a sign of his impending downfall. He scratches his nose and whispers softly: ‘Like a live crab dropped into boiling water, as soon as you turn red hot, your life is over.’ He came up with this adage in a seafood restaurant while contemplating the precarious nature of success, and it has become very popular online. He suspects it might perfectly describe his predicament right now.

  ‘These sixteen projects have great potential,’ Mayor Chen says, checking his watch. ‘Their planning and execution will require the concerted efforts of every department. Now I’d like to invite Zhu Zhen to tell us about the China Dream International Symposium she attended in Shanghai.’

  ‘I went to that symposium, and wrote this report when I got back,’ Chief Ding interrupts, picking up the document from the table, clearly furious that the Mayor has taken over the meeting. ‘You have each been given a copy, so you should all read it before we go any further. I can tell you that the main conclusion of the symposium was that the China Dream is a declaration of war against the reactionary Western concept of constitutional democracy.’

  The air conditioning seems to have stopped working. A stale whiff of cigarette smoke in the air transports Ma Daode back to his days in Yaobang … Old Yi, who looked after the cattle shed, used to smoke dried tobacco rolled in scraps of newspaper. His mud house was so small and dark, there was no place for him to pin up a portrait of Mao. But my fellow sent-down youths still accused him of disrespecting the Great Helmsman, and reported him to the county armed forces. The packet of tobacco he left behind after he was taken away turned me into a smoker for life.

  Trying to snap back to the present, Director Ma mutters: ‘We must conquer the fortress of dreams, eradicate all past dreams and promote the new national dream. All dreams must comply, all dreams must be thoroughly inspect—’

  ‘You’re sleep-talking, Director Ma,’ Mayor Chen scowls, nudging him in the ribs.

  Director Ma jumps up from his seat and with a look of fierce resolve continues more loudly: ‘From now on, every individual, irrespective of rank, must submit their dreams and nightmares to me for examination and approval. If they fail to comply, every dream they have ever had, and every dream they ever will have, will be deemed an illegal dream!’ Feeling sweat begin to drip down the side of his face, he falls silent and stares out at the sea of black eyes.

  Sharing the same bed, dreaming different dreams

  GAZE AT CLOUDS DRIFTING IN THE BREEZE, INHALE THE SCENT OF WILD FLOWERS AND LET YOUR MIND GROW CALM … Before he enters his apartment, Director Ma deletes this text he has just received and instantly forgets who sent it to him.

  He stands in the living room, jacket draped over his arm, wondering why everything feels so strange. His wife soon tells him. ‘Been kicked in the head by a mule, have you? This is the first time in years you’ve been home before six-thirty!’ Juan has tied her hair in a bun and is stringing a heap of beans. On the floor beside her are a pair of red slippers, two enamel basins and the portable stereo she will take to this evening’s fan-dance session. After she and Ma Daode returned from settling their daughter into her university digs in England, they dismissed the nanny. They rarely invite guests in case they see the boxes of gifts Ma Daode has received for political favours and report him to the anti-corruption unit. With just the two of them in this large duplex apartment now, the place feels empty, so they tend to confine themselves to the living room that has a four-seater leather sofa and a massive flat-screen television. They have even set up a kettle so they don’t need to go to the kitchen to make tea. On the coffee table in the middle of the room is a sour-smelling bag of bream that Juan has just brought back from the market.

  Director Ma sinks into the leather sofa and stares at the red goldfish swimming around the glass tank below the television. Its protruding eyes remind him of when his mother stood on a bench, her eyes bulging with terror as teenage Red Guards yelled abuse at her. Feeling his heart grow heavy, he looks instead at the black goldfish and its tail splaying out behind it like a long mane of hair … Little Fang’s hair was as black as that. She had the best calligraphy of all my pupils in Yaobang, and loved to write political slogans on the blackboard. She was arrested a week after her twelfth birthday. When she returned from detention, she didn’t leave her home for three days. On the fourth day, I saw her body floating in the village pond, her long mane of black hair splayed out around her head. The slogan she wrote on the blackboard the day she was arrested is still engraved in my mind: EVERY CHILD MUST JOIN THE REVOLUTION AND DEVOTE THEIR LIFE TO THE PARTY … Last year, Fang’s father, Old Yang, secured a licence to breed goldfish in the village pond. Before the government tried to demolish Yaobang last month, Ma Daode paid him a visit. His wife doesn’t speak. In the land reform campaign waged by the Communists during Mao’s rise to power, she witnessed peasants expropriate her father’s land and beat her mother to death with their bare hands, and she never recovered from the trauma. All she can do is sweep the floor, feed her chickens and make corn grits. Before Fang drowned, she liked to take her mother out for walks along the river.

  ‘When you are happy, know that happiness is fleeting; and when you are sad, know that sadness too will not last.’ Ma Daode wants to record on his phone this maxim which has entered his mind, then tells himself: No, I didn’t just invent that. Someone forwarded it to me yesterday. He feels beads of sweat collect on the palm of his hand and rubs them off on his sleeves.

  ‘So, you lost the plot at today’s meeting, I heard,’ his wife says, delighting in his misfortune.

  ‘Who told you?’ Ma Daode feels his memories shooting up like bamboo, enclosing him on all sides.

  ‘Everyone’s watching you. What do you expect if you waste your time trying to control peopl
e’s dreams instead of getting on with your job? Why are you in that stupid Bureau anyway? The Military Logistics Department is brimming with cash now that it’s turned itself into the Housing Office. Even the Earthquake Prevention Bureau leaders are richer than you. Why not just cut your losses and take early retirement? If you stay in that job any longer, you’ll end up in jail, like all those human rights lawyers.’ When Juan speaks, her mouth always twists to the side.

  ‘They’d never send me to South Lake Retirement Home! No way!’ Ma Daode’s pot belly creases as he reaches over for the remote control.

  On the television, a lawyer tells a local news reporter: ‘The municipal government must put an end to the violent land grabs. It has no right to sell the peasants’ land to greedy developers …’

  ‘Well, if the government doesn’t sell the land, how will it pay the salaries of all the officials and bureaucrats?’ grumbles Ma Daode, turning the volume down.

  ‘You’ve amassed three properties and are always chasing after women – you deserve to get sent to South Lake,’ his wife says, returning from the sweltering kitchen, steam rising from her hair. Ma Daode stares at the sweet-and-sour deep-fried fish she has placed before him on the table. He thinks of the text he deleted before entering the apartment, and remembers now that it was from Yuyu. He is worried that she is plotting something. She came to his office after work this afternoon and commanded him to write an official document professing his love for her, then made him stamp it with his thumbprint and the China Dream Bureau seal. He understands now why Song Bin wears a Jade Buddha pendant engraved with the words CHANGE BAD LUCK INTO GOOD FORTUNE. He too must have encountered similar problems with disgruntled mistresses, and learned to patiently ride out the storms.

  Juan reappears with a bowl of fried beans. ‘When you were courting me, you always took the fish head and left the rest for me,’ she says, sitting down. ‘Now, look! You dive straight in with your chopsticks and grab all the white meat for yourself.’