A Road of a Thousand Years. Part One. Chapter Four

The summer of that year was hot and restless, as if the city itself did not know what would become of it tomorrow.

Dazibao composed by Nie Yuanzi were read on the radio, and the words were like blows — everyone knew: today they could come for you. Chen Wang’s classmates no longer laughed; they whispered, exchanged glances, and even threatened:

“We’ll tell everything to the Party Secretary. Are you defending your teacher? She is just as much an enemy as those professors.”

He remained silent.

On that day, they came with posters to Peking University — against “monsters and demons,” against those who did not support the Helmsman. The crowd was noisy, the faces alien, the shouts identical. And suddenly he saw her.

Mei Lin stood at the entrance to the university, next to her parents. She was pale as paper, holding her father by the hand. Her eyes were filled with horror, and she looked straight at him — with a gaze that held everything: fear, farewell, a silent question, and something resembling a reproach. In a moment, she shook her head slightly, as if wanting to say: “Don’t. Don’t follow them. Don’t become one of them.” But the words were not spoken — only this barely noticeable gesture, only trembling lips, only clenched fingers.

In that instant, everything around vanished: there was no crowd, no shouts, no posters. Only she. He wanted to approach, to say something, but he could not. His feet were rooted to the ground, and his voice drowned in the roar of the crowd. And he could not look away. And he could not leave.

And then everything began to whirl:

“Forward!” screamed the Red Guards.

“Down with old thinking!”

“Long live Chairman Mao!”

They burned costumes and scenery of the Peking Opera, dismantled the Great Wall for bricks, built pigsties, rode in agitation trains, protested in Wuhan and Guilin. But all that was later, and all that no longer mattered. Because it was then, in the square, that he realized: their lives had parted forever, and no words, no actions could change that. Yes, then, in the square by the university, he met her for the last time.

And it was in that moment, on that day when everything around was collapsing, and he stood in the crowd, unable to take a step, unable to utter a word, that new lines were born in him. Lines of a poem that he would continue to write that night, and finish only many years later, as a different person, no longer a boy — as a teacher, in the same school, in the same classroom where he had first heard her voice:

but you too are no longer the same
and darkened now is that hand
which tenderly caressed me
when, disregarding those near,
you gave yourself to me
but i know the day will come
when i am replaced by a shadow
when snows cover everything
and only a beam from afar
unexpectedly finds you
and again you will go there
and again you will find me

But he did not know then that these words would become his only memory of her, that everything else would be erased by time, fear, and others’ ghosts. He did not know that ahead lay only losses, only gray faces, only long years in which there would be neither forgiveness nor return.

And on this day, amidst the shouts and the crowd, he felt for the first time: everything had already happened, everything had already been written, and nothing could be changed. A new play would not begin — the roles were played, the costumes burned, the stage empty. And only in memory, like an echo, would her name resound for a long time yet.

Mei Lin.

Part Two. Chapter One →
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