You quickly summoned some of the English words you knew and blurted them out all in a row. Your accent was heavy that day, and several times, you dropped the verb or got the subject and object mixed up. I guessed that your English teacher might have been of Swahili origin. You probably meant to say “I’m very glad to meet you,” but what came out was “You very glad meet me.” Ian couldn’t help but laugh, so I tried to ease the situation for you. I said to Ian, “It’s better than nothing.”
In the following days, your English had real practical value. It seems you were just nervous that first day.
You blushed in embarrassment when Ian laughed. In hopes of gaining some ground, you reached for the slingshot hanging at your waist. Raising it, you looked up, searching for a speck in the sky. After a moment, you took aim and fired a small stone. A bird fell to the ground. It was a sparrow in flight. You not only aimed well but also understood the principle of lead time.
At that moment, you were granted admission in the minds of all, even though they still had to ask the rest of their questions.
“Why are you here?”
You didn’t answer. You just stared at the examiner. I saw the fire in your eyes.
Actually, I had seen fire in others’ eyes before. Everyone who signed up for the training camp possessed fire. But your fire was different than the others’. It wasn’t the type that would warm others. It’s an understatement to say your fire wasn’t warm. In fact, it was icy cold, cold as a blade. You said nothing. The only response you offered the examiner was that fire.
Ian told me to add your name to the list for the Army Corps of Engineers. I pulled on his sleeve and whispered that it would be a pity to put someone like you in level one. The students granted admission at that time were divided into two levels. The first was the army corps class. Its graduates would be well-trained soldiers. Students from the other level, an officer’s class, would become the grassroots cadres of a special force upon graduation. Ian hesitated, saying you lacked military experience. I replied that experience could be gained, but talent was hard to come by. Ian didn’t say anything else. He just wrote your name in the other column. Later, I realized how bold I’d been. I wasn’t an official member of the training camp, but I didn’t regard myself as an outsider. Fortunately, no one minded my interference.
You passed the medical exam and became a member of the advanced class. They gave you a plain cloth uniform and a pair of cloth shoes. On your chest patch was “Soaring Dragon.” That was your unit designation. Below it was the number 635. That was your code name. From that day on, you were not Liu Zhaohu; you were 635. The Americans’ training program was top secret, so students couldn’t use their real names, and they couldn’t communicate with friends or relatives. This was to prevent the leak of classified information and also the possibility of implicating family members. Your true identity was only noted on the registration form, and that was locked in the desk of an American instructor. It’s a shame that in the chaotic withdrawal from Yuehu, the Americans forgot to take these forms with them. A long time later, I learned that it was this piece of paper that brought such unspeakable horrors to your life.
At that time, though, none of us ever imagined the direction the future would take.
Nearly twenty years after you applied for training camp, I met you again in Yuehu. It was August 15, 1963. After I realized who you were, surprised, I clasped your hand, which was as thin as a blade. I asked, “Liu Zhaohu, what happened to you? Why have you grown so thin?”
You sighed and said, “It’s a long story. It would take another lifetime to tell it. I’ll wait for Ian, then I’ll tell you both. I don’t have the energy to go through it twice.”
I didn’t press. I just took your hand and led you along the path that had changed so much and that would continue to change even more. We walked softly, slowly. Our steps were best measured not in feet, but in inches. We feared crushing the tender pieces of old memories buried beneath the changes.
We saw a slogan painted in whitewash on the outer wall of the former student dormitory. I determined that it was relatively new, since I hadn’t seen it the previous year. It was neat, with artistic characters imitating the Song style, each stroke balanced and sharp. It read “Learn from Comrade Lei Feng!” A soldier in the People’s Liberation Army, Lei Feng had been the subject of a propaganda campaign after his death in 1962, depicting him as a model citizen and encouraging people to emulate his selflessness and devotion to Mao.
But you only told me that much later. On the day we saw the slogan, I asked you who Lei Feng was. You thought for a while, then said, “He was a good man.” I asked you how that was so. Was he a doctor, helping the needy and dying? Did he give away all he had to the poor? You couldn’t help laughing and shook your head. You said, “Pastor Billy, you really are out of touch.”
I reminded you I’d been gathering dust in the ghost world for eighteen years. You thought for a moment, then agreed. “You’re right. You know more about that world than me.”
This wasn’t the first slogan I’d seen. Beneath it, there were layers of slogans. This was the longest wall in Yuehu and could be considered the face of the entire village. Slogans appeared there every few years. A few years earlier, it read “The people’s commune is good!” Before that, it said, “Let a hundred flowers blossom, and a hundred schools of thought contend.” Further down, it reads, “We must liberate Taiwan!” The layer below that was your training camp’s rules.
Or . . . no, wait. I missed a layer. Between Taiwan and the rules was “Oppose America and aid Red Korea. Protect and defend the nation!”
“Remember that?” I asked. “Camp rules?”
“Every word,” you said.
We stood in the afterglow of the setting sun, reciting the camp rules. You didn’t hesitate or pause, and you didn’t miss a single word. Neither did I. We were perfectly in sync.
It made sense that you still had every word at hand. Before and after class every day, you stood in front of the Chinese captain, saluting, and recited them. My own ability to recite without error should have been a stranger thing, since I was just a missionary. I was not enlisted, and I was not an instructor or a student. I was only in close connection with my American compatriots at that time, doing something for them that perhaps a pastor should not have done. But going between my church and your camp many times every day, I memorized your rules.
What the captain can’t see, think, hear, or do, we must see, think, hear, and do for him.
Then we looked at each other, and, at exactly the same moment, we started laughing. Time is a strange thing. It washes away the outer skin of solemnity and reveals the absurd nature of things. At that time, you thought this was the golden rule. You all only knew that the bound duty of a soldier was to obey. However, there was a limit to your endurance. The rubber band in your mind was elastic, but there was a time it broke. So even many years later, I still recalled that silent but earth-shattering rebellion of yours, outside your courtyard.
You ran your fingers along the wall of the dormitory where you had lived, muttering, “Why is it shorter?”
I said, “It’s the weight of the slogans. All those years, all those layers.”