Record of Regret: A Novel by Dong XI

Author:Dong XI [XI, Dong]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 2018-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

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The guards in the watchtower had swung their searchlight around to light up the yard. It wasn’t long before guards were stationed over the only other manhole cover in the yard, which was almost directly under the watchtower. Another group of guards were stationed inside the tower. Both groups kept watch over the sewer entrances without speaking. The commander of the guards reassured them that there were only two exits; the rest of the sewer had been blocked off. The guards stood over the manhole, peering down through the two holes in the cover. There wasn’t much else to do but wait. Another thing I found out later was that the commander of the troops who served as guards at the prison had advised the warden that he was giving me three hours—if I returned from the original hole, I would be granted clemency, and if I came up out of the second hole, I would be charged with attempting to escape. The commander’s name was Mai Langyong. You know, it’s hard to imagine, especially in those days, that sort of romantic idea, letting me decide my own fate. But Mai Langyong was a Renaissance man who enjoyed dabbling in gutishi, a practically ancient form of poetry. It didn’t look to me or to the men with machine guns that what was taking place that night was simply an examination, an elegantly devised test administered by Mai Langyong. From above me, the commander was watching like a child watches a bug. I was unaware. I didn’t hear the footsteps of fate behind me.

Three years were added to my sentence. For a long time thereafter, whenever I saw Warden Jia in the yard, I would stand at attention and slap myself in the side of the head in a kind of salute and shout: “I’m sorry!” I told him: “I shouldn’t have come up from that hole. I thought about going back, but I couldn’t. I don’t know why. I will regret it until the day I die.”

Warden Jia said: “I told you to sincerely repent and earnestly reform yourself. The thing you should be sorry for is trying to escape in the first place.” Warden Jia would give me my lecture and then turn on his heel and walk away, leaving me still standing at attention in the yard.

He was right: I never should have tried. Lu Xiaoyan had wasted all her time, all her tears. She had told me countless times that it wasn’t worth it. I began to think about her again. She really cared about me, I realized. If that’s not love, what is?

When the weekend’s visiting hours were close, I asked to work overtime.

I had already been transferred from my job assembling parts in the workshop to a job in the foundry shop. Working in the foundry shop was considered the toughest, most tiring job in the entire factory. The foundry workers poured molten iron to cast the gearboxes and engine blocks for the tractors.

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