Chapter 16

Wang Fen felt she had a mouth and no way to say how hard done by she was.

Qiu Haiyue looked at the state of her and went on. "We don't know yet what notice will come down from the commune. Expect the worst. If you're labelled bad elements, the village will have to carry that out."

Yu Lili had only just come round and now she went limp in her chair. Bad elements? That would drag her own family down with them. She started crying again, quietly, and the one in her belly turned into a burden along with the rest.

Wang Fen felt the sky go dark on her. How had a calamity this size landed on her house?

There was nothing Qiu Haiyue could do. She didn't care for the Zhaos, but she was a cadre, so she treated everyone alike and helped where she could.

Yue Chuan brought Zhao Wanwan back on his bicycle.

"Right. Secretary Liu at the commune helped us. Zhao Fangsong gets fifteen days' detention and you can collect him then. Your family wasn't labelled. That's the one time it works." Yue Chuan felt thoroughly unlucky himself. He had never expected anything like this.

Wang Fen and Yu Lili stopped crying when they heard it. Some good news at last.

Then Wang Fen saw Zhao Wanwan at the gate and swung a foot at her. Luckily Qiu Haiyue was quick and got in the way.

"Comrade Wang Fen, I'll say it again. You don't beat and curse the children in your house. Women hold up half the sky now. Don't bring the old society's ways in here, or I'll have you sent for education." Qiu Haiyue loathed that kind of behaviour. She had thrown herself into the work and her thinking was sound.

Wang Fen looked at Qiu Haiyue and Yue Chuan standing in her gateway, set her teeth, and didn't dare move again.

Qiu Haiyue knew she could only save the girl for the moment. "Wanwan, after we've gone, if your granny hits you, come to Granny Qiu's house. We'll stand up for you."

Only now did Zhao Wanwan have time to think about where she stood, and it gave her a jolt. She grabbed Qiu Haiyue's leg at once. It helped that the girl before her had a good name, or this would have been harder.

"I'll remember, Granny Qiu."

Qiu Haiyue rubbed her head.

Yue Chuan took in the scene and remembered to tell Wang Fen. "Write your self-criticism. You won't be labelled, but the criticism still has to be written. I'll call another meeting to drive the point home, and you can get up and read it out."

Wang Fen didn't dare argue now. She agreed, haltingly.

When he had finished, Yue Chuan caught Qiu Haiyue's eye and the two of them left together.

Wang Fen hauled Zhao Wanwan into the yard and shut the gate.

Zhao Wanwan was small and had no strength in her. She was no match for a woman who had worked the fields for years.

"You can't hit me. I'll go to Granny Qiu." Zhao Wanwan was frightened now. She was afraid Wang Fen would stop caring about any of it and start on her. She had eaten one flatbread that morning and nothing since, she was hungry, and a beating on top of that would probably put her on the floor.

Wang Fen's raised hand came down again. She looked at Zhao Wanwan with hatred in her eyes. Who would have thought this meek-looking granddaughter had anything but meekness in her.

"Fine. I won't hit you. You can get to work."

Zhao Wanwan knew she meant it this time and didn't dare answer back once. She did look over at Yu Lili, hopefully.

Yu Lili had heard they wouldn't be labelled and had stopped worrying altogether. She sat to one side settling herself and paid Zhao Wanwan no attention at all. She was only a girl. Nobody was going to beat her to death.

Wang Fen was in earnest this time. Three meals missed and the girl would behave. Did she really think she was afraid of Qiu Haiyue?

The Zhao business was all over the village inside an hour, and the notice of criticism went up on the board.

People finished their midday meal and gathered in twos and threes to talk about it.

Old Mrs. Chen was among them with Chen Yuanyuan, and listening to them put her in a wonderful mood. Wang Fen really did think that idle son of hers could pull off something like that.

"To think she'd do a thing like that. What was she using for a head?"

"That's it. My family wouldn't dare. Turn into bad elements and you're living in the cowshed."

Old Mrs. Chen finished playing with Chen Yuanyuan and looked up to speak, and saw Zhao Wanwan going past with a basket on her back, Zhao Qingqing and Zhao Lanlan behind her. She shook her head. Suddenly there was no fun in it. Scoring off Wang Fen only brought you down to her level. So she took Yuanyuan home.

The Zhao business went round once and then nobody said much more about it.

Half a month later Zhao Fangsong came home, right at spring planting, with everyone out in the fields. He came in by the only road into the village, so all of them working the land saw him.

Half a month had left him more broken down than before. His clothes had been patched to start with and looked dirtier now, and he walked without lifting his head.

Zhao Wanwan was working at home. When Zhao Fangsong pushed the door open she took half a step back without thinking. The half month had been bad. Wang Fen gave her one meal a day and kept her working, and if she didn't do as she was told, that meal went too. She went to Qiu Haiyue once, and Wang Fen said the family had it hard and there wasn't the food, and there was nothing Qiu Haiyue could do.

Wang Fen was out in the fields and heard it from somebody else, and ran home.

"Oh, my son, you're back. Let me look at you, have you lost weight?" Wang Fen said these tender things in that coarse voice of hers, and the effect was unsettling.

In the ten-odd days of detention Zhao Fangsong had eaten reasonably well. It was the sleeping he couldn't manage. He had been going over himself the whole time.

"I'm all right, Ma. I had enough to eat." He didn't know what else to say, and after a long pause that was all of it.

Wang Fen wouldn't let Yu Lili work the fields with the pregnancy, so she had been out walking and heard the news too, and hurried home.

More tenderness all round once she was in the house.

"It's that wretched girl's fault. It was her idea. If it weren't for her, would this family be the joke of the village? I had to stand up at the meeting the other day and read out a self-criticism." Wang Fen had never been so hard done by in her life.

Zhao Fangsong looked at Zhao Wanwan standing to one side and waved it off. "Let it go. I did say to you, Ma, that we shouldn't, that it was too dangerous, and you agreed to it as well. Let's live quietly from now on and stop thinking about things like that. Besides, she's a child. There's no use blaming her."

Zhao Wanwan hadn't expected him to speak for her. It wasn't her fault anyway. If Wang Fen had said no, nothing would have happened. At bottom it was the pair of them being greedy.

Her days got easier after that, though Wang Fen still set her so much work that she never got free of it.

By September 1969 all three Chen children had started school.

Chen Yuanyuan was nine months old and could walk herself round the table holding on.