‘What's there for you to do?’ he said unhappily. ‘For years it was me who kept you from going to school. Now you must cherish this opportunity if you're to have any hope for a decent future. Don't throw your life away like I did. No, go to school and work hard. Education is the path to success. Everything else will lead you astray.’
‘I don't agree with you, Dieh! First, I don't think you threw your life away. Second, I don't believe that education is the only path to success. Third, and most importantly, I don't think I can learn anything useful in school. My teacher doesn't know as much as I do.’
‘I don't care,’ he insisted, ‘I want you to stick it out for a few years.’
‘Dieh, I have strong feelings for meat. And I can help you with lots of things at the plant. I can hear the meat speak to me. Did you know that it's a living organism? I can see it wave to me with all its little hands.’
Father stared at me, as if he'd been strung up by his tie. Then he and Mother exchanged looks. I knew they thought I must be losing my mind. I'd assumed that Father, if not Mother, would understand my feelings. He, at least, had a vivid imagination. But, no. His imagination, it seemed, had dried up.
Mother walked up and rubbed my head, both to show her concern and to to see if I had fever. If I did, then she knew that what she'd heard was wild talk, delirium. But I wasn't running a fever, I was absolutely all right. There was nothing wrong with me or my mind, not a thing.
‘Xiaotong,’ she said, ‘don't be silly. You have to go to school. I was so obsessed with money all this while that I never stopped to think about your education. But now I understand that the world offers many things more valuable than money. So do as we say and go to school. You may not want to listen to your father and me, but you'll listen to Lao Lan, won't you? It was he who made us realize that you and your sister belong in school.’
‘I don't want to go either,’ protested Jiaojiao. ‘The meat speaks to me too, and waves to me with all its little hands. And sings, and has feet. Its hands and feet are like kittens’ paws, clawing and moving…’ She gestured in the air as she tried to demonstrate how the meat moved before.
I was impressed by her vivid imagination. Only four, and from a different mother, but our hearts beat in unison. I'd never mentioned that meat spoke to me or that it had hands, but she knew what I meant and gave me the support I needed.
Frightened by our strange talk of meat, our parents could only stare at us blankly. If the phone hadn't rung at that moment they'd have stood there all day, still staring. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that we'd had a telephone installed, though it was for internal use only and controlled by a switchboard at the village headquarters. Still, it was a telephone, one that connected our house with Lao Lan's and the houses of several local cadres. Mother moved to answer it.
I knew it was Lao Lan.
‘Lao Lan wants us to go to the plant right away,’ she said to Father after hanging up. ‘People from the county propaganda office are bringing along representatives from the provincial TV station and some newspaper reporters. We're to entertain them till he gets there.’
Father adjusted the knot in his tie, then swivelled his neck up and down and from side to side. ‘Xiaotong,’ he said hoarsely, ‘and Jiaojiao, we'll talk more tonight. But you're both going to school. Xiaotong, I want you to set a good example for your sister.’
‘Not today,’ I said, ‘no one's going to school today. It's too big a day, a day of celebration, and we'd be the biggest fools if we spent it in school.’
‘I expect big things from you two,’ Mother said as she touched up her hair in the mirror.
‘And that's what you'll get,’ I said. ‘But going to school is not one of them.’
‘Not one of them,’ echoed Jiaojiao.
POW! 31
‘Bring it out! Bring it out so I can see it!’ A man whose forehead looks like shiny porcelain stands in the yard barking commands to his underlings. He's clearly not a happy