My Name is Number 4 by Ting-Xing Ye

Author:Ting-Xing Ye [Ye, Ting-xing]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-67386-0
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2007-03-12T16:00:00+00:00

13. “Bourgeois” was a critical term meaning “opposed to Party policies” or “anti-revolutionary.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

To celebrate the New Year, Lao Chang ordered the cooks to slaughter a pig, which put broad smiles on our faces. For many weeks we had had nothing to eat with our rice but preserved vegetables and dried fish so loaded with salt that it reminded me of stories of the Red Army, half-starved on the Long March, having to lick salt blocks for strength.

All of us arrived at the canteen half an hour early. As I waited in line with the others, anticipating the savoury odour and rich taste of pork, I recalled the many times when Mrs. Yan would wake me up at four in the morning so we could go to the market to queue up for a piece of pork fat. The fat required fewer coupons than meat, and Great-Aunt found it valuable as a flavouring for freshly cooked rice, with a bit of salt or soybean sauce. My hunger also reminded me of the day a few weeks before when I discovered Jia-ying had brought a can of chicken fat from home and I tried not to show my jealousy.

When our meal began, I chewed my one thin piece of pork, cooked in soybean sauce and edged with fat and skin, as slowly as possible, relishing every bite. It was heavenly.

After dinner, while I was rinsing my dishes at the pump station with Jia-ying, several gaunt and bedraggled prisoners began to yell at us. For the first time at New Year they had been denied meat; instead, they had been fed bones, intestines and nameless organs.

“You useless city brats have ripped the food from our mouths,” they snarled. We ran off with our dirty dishes, followed by their curses.

Two days later they got their revenge. Although we had been repeatedly warned not to move around on our own, not even during the day, I insisted on going to the latrine by myself, for I had my period and did not want to change my napkins with others around. Everyone else had gone to the rice-threshing ground to fetch new straw for our beds. I was gratified to find the latrine empty.

A few moments later I heard rustling. Thinking there must be a bat in the thatched roof—a fairly common occurrence—I covered my ears, for I had been told that bats like to crawl into people’s heads. At the same time I closed my eyes and bent my head between my knees, hoping no one would come in and see me in such a ridiculous position, pants around my ankles, squatting over the trench.

“How are you, my dear?”

Startled, I opened my eyes and saw a man’s hand waving at me over the top of the partition.

“Why don’t you come over here, young lady? From what I can see, we’ll be friends in no time.”

I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out. I jumped up, pulled up my pants, and ran

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