Banished!

8. The Cleaning Bug

E IGHT ~ The Cleaning Bug 1 Grandpa Tao, Tao Wenjiang, was the oldest in the family He was sixty-nine the year they arrived in Sanyu (or seventy , the way country folk calculated it). He was also the tallest, at nearly five feet nine inches, and held himself ramrod straight. He had a full head of completely white hair, which was combed carefully back. Taciturn and with a naturally sober expression, he was a commanding figure. Before Liberation, he had been head teacher of a primary school in Nanjing. He had joined the KMT Party at one of its mass rallies and had served on a local KMT committee. This meant that as far as the present government was concerned, he had serious "historical problems." After Liberation, Grandpa Tao retired. He stopped doing any writing and limited his reading to flicking through the daily papers. Eventually he forgot how to write, although of course he could still read perfectly well. Grandpa Tao rarely lost his temper, but when he did, the sparks flew. He would hurl anything that came to hand-a teacup, for instance-and bellow terrifyingly When he calmed down, he would sweep the shattered fragments of the teacup into a dustpan and carefully mop up any spilled water. Through all the crises that the family suffered during the CultRev , Grandpa Tao remained imperturbable and behaved as if nothing had happened. His historical problems were reinvestigated, and every week he had to present himself at the local neighborhood committee office to make a self-criticism and give a report on his political thinking. When he got home, he would relapse into a deep silence and refuse to tell the family what had gone on. 129 On one occasion, when he returned from the neighborhood committee, he threw a cup. He stamped his foot and, scarlet in the face, bellowed, "Damn you, damn you, damn you!" The others did not know whether he was damning his interrogators or himself, but they were very frightened. They asked afterward what had happened , but Grandpa Tao's response was "No comment!" That happened just once. The rest of the time, Grandpa Tao was calm and cooperative, whether the Red Guards were sticking posters on their door frame as Tao was being struggled against or their house was being searched during the Smash the Four Olds campaign or new posters were being stuck on their door after they had been approved for the Glorious Banishment. He would take his glue pot and reglue and smooth down the posters. He took such pleasure in this methodical work and appeared so completely unmoved that he might as well not have known what was written on them. No wonder Tao would say, "Dad's got the cleaning bug!" It was true that Grandpa Tao's liking for cleanliness and order had reached almost pathological proportions. It involved not just their own posters. When Mr. Wang next door was struggled against and vitriolic slogans were pasted on his door frame, Grandpa Tao went there with his glue pot and got to work. The Wangs were furious but dared not object, although they glared at him indignantly Grandpa Tao appeared not to notice. He also enjoyed sweeping and mopping. After ten years of sweeping and mopping, the floorboards of their home were no longer a bright, varnished mauve, like the neighbors', but a pale, mottled color where the original wood showed through. And when he had nothing else to do, Grandpa Tao swept and mopped the corridors and stairs outside their flat. The Taos lived on the second floor, and he sometimes cleaned right down to the first or even to the ground floor. The neighbors' opinions of his activities varied. Some thought he had too much energy for his own good and was just being nosy Others thought he was a good-hearted old man and were grateful. And some thought that the neighborhood committee had assigned him this task as part of his "reform through labor," especially when they saw him cleaning the toilets in the building. In those days, people with political problems were often punished by being made to clean toilets or sweep streets. 130 Han Dong 2 Nothing much changed after their banishment. Grandpa Tao still spent his days broom in hand, sweeping away No Sanyu floors were made of stone or concrete; they were made of dried mud. So Grandpa...