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 A Stinking Stone from the Outhouse Shortly after my letter-writing campaign, I opened up another front in my secret war against the Party. I started a weekly visit to each of the heads of the Tanggu campus. I knew that obtaining local consent was crucial. Squash Face had made it clear that the college would never approve my transfer if the local officials staunchly opposed the move. This battle, I knew from the very beginning, would be the most difficult, as my early visits had shown. But I had one advantage against the Party officials: secret determination and hatred, the intensity of which they could never imagine. I laid out my battle plan carefully. I drew up a schedule of visits and hung it by my bed. Each evening after sunset, I checked the schedule and, like a vampire bat coming out of its cave in search of a meal, slipped out of the dorm to visit the home of one of the officials. I started each week with Chairman Zhang. As soon as I entered the chairman’s apartment, I transformed myself into a dying patient. My eyes went into a daze, my breathing became labored , and my mind began to suffer memory loss. Having set the proper mood, I started my speech. The first five minutes I fired a volley of sugarcoated bullets at the petty bureaucrat. ‘‘Chairman Zhang, I don’t know how to thank the Communist Party for doing so much for us ordinary people. As the Great Leader said, you are the true servants of the people. You work hard day and night for the welfare of the people. You are always concerned with the illnesses and suffering of the poor. China would not have become such a great country if it were not for the leadership of the Communist Party. The more I think of what I have today, the more I am grateful to the Communist Party.’’ Practice makes perfect. After several performances, I reached a point of delivering these pat-the-horse’s-behind flatteries without blushing, and with such sincerity that I could move a heart of stone. But Chairman Zhang’s heart was harder than stone. Although continually bathed in  water warm, luxurious praises, he had hardened his heart and was resolved to guard the gates of the department. He would let no one out. I swallowed hard, eyes drooping wearily, and allowed a meaningful pause. Then I began again. It was time for launching the second volley, the outpourings of the frustrated heart of a revolutionary youth. ‘‘Chairman Zhang, you know, I long to dedicate my life to the cause of the Communist Party. If only I were not sick. But, you know, I have been sick since I got here. You have seen my lab reports. My diarrhea—’’ ‘‘Yes, I know about your diarrhea. You have told me. The Party Committee has discussed your situation.’’ Chairman Zhang attempted to cut short my familiar speech. But I was in a trance now and paid no attention to his efforts to stop me. ‘‘My diarrhea is getting worse now. I am very weak, as you can see, and I think—’’ my voice becoming fainter and barely audible, ‘‘I think I am . . . going . . . to die.’’ I allowed another pause. My head sank to my breast as if I were in the process of sinking into oblivion before the thirteen-inch tv. After a moment’s silence, I raised my head slowly as though trying to perform a final act of defiant courage and strength—the last show of fortitude and moral rectitude by a dying hero, a fatally shot cowboy in an old American movie—and turned with an angry gaze at the chairman. It was the gaze of a dying man who was no longer afraid. ‘‘Do you really care about people’s suffering? Are you a true member of the Communist Party? The Party cares about people’s suffering, but you don’t seem to care!’’ Growing louder, my voice rasped with a twinge of hysteria. ‘‘What have you done for the people? Living comfortably in your little house, smoking expensive cigarettes and drinking expensive tea, is that what you call caring for the people? Did you really take an oath when you joined the Party? Or did you sneak into the Party for some despicable selfish reasons?’’ No one had ever dared to speak to the chairman that...

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