Lost in the Long March

Wang Michael X. Wang

Description

From a rising literary star, an epic historical novel, set against the tense backdrop of the Long March and Mao's rise to power, that tells a powerful and moving story of two ordinary peopleChina, 1934: A naive orphan and shy gunsmith, Ping, has fallen in love with Yong, who is a sophisticated veteran, a skilled marksman, and a true believer in Marxist ideology. Winning her affections will take an ideological battle-something he does not understand. To make matters worse, Yong has shown interest in Ping's best friend, Luo. On the eve of a great Communist defeat, Ping sabotages Luo's rifle, causing the bullet to backfire into his friend's head. The army begins its year-long retreat, known as The Long March, and Yong turns to Ping for comfort and companionship. Ping deeply regrets killing his friend, and as his relationship with Yong blossoms, he is saddened that it will always be colored by guilt. Yong soon becomes pregnant. She hates the way the baby inside is changing her, both physically and emotionally. The Red Army can't retreat with a crying infant, so they need to find someone close to take the baby in. Ping and Yong leave their son with a woman, promising to return once the war is won. When World War II breaks out and Japanese soldiers arrive, their 12-year-old son decides to enlist in the Japanese army to find his parents, though he quickly begins to fear for his life . . . Deeply moving and brilliantly written, Michael X. Wang's Lost in the Long March is an exploration of how the history of a country is always its people, though their stories are often the first to be lost.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: ABRAMS BOOKS
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781647005832
• Langue: English

Extrait

ALSO BY MICHAEL X. WANG
Further News of Defeat: Stories

This edition first published in hardcover in 2022 by
The Overlook Press, an imprint of ABRAMS
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New York, NY 10007
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Copyright 2022 Michael X. Wang
Cover 2022 Abrams
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022933715
ISBN: 978-1-4197-5975-8
eISBN: 978-1-64700-583-2
ABRAMS The Art of Books 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007 abramsbooks.com
To my family, always .
Red Guards Battle Song
We are Chairman Mao s Red Guards, We steel our red hearts in great winds and waves. We arm ourselves with Mao Zedong Thought To sweep away all pests .
We are Chairman Mao s Red Guards, Utterly firm in our proletarian stand, Marching on the revolutionary road of our forebears, We shoulder the weighty task of our age .
We are Chairman Mao s Red Guards, Vanguards of the cultural revolution. We unite with the masses and plunge into battle To wipe out all monsters and demons .
Dare to criticize and repudiate, dare to struggle, Never stop creating revolutionary rebellion. We will smash the old world And keep our revolutionary state red for ten thousand generations .
PART I
COURTSHIP
Chapter 1
1934
When news of the most recent Kuomintang invasion arrived, Ping and the other platoon members were more interested in its carrier, a new comrade that would join their unit-a girl this time-named Yong. She had transferred to Iron Well Mountain from Ruijin, the administrative capital, by her own request, and because she had fought in the shorthanded eastern divisions during the second and third encirclement campaigns, the Politburo had decided to place her with a combat unit instead of the medical or propaganda detachments. She wanted to be here at Iron Well and defend the birthplace of the revolution. She was honored, she told the platoon, to fight with those who d been with General Mao the longest.
At first, Ping couldn t tell if her words were merely meant to sound charming. Nearly all the soldiers had been bandits or prisoners, and they cared about the Communist ideals about as much as they did their body odor. Ping was a gunsmith. Back in Canton, he d also been a gangster, someone who traded a week s work for a night with a perfumed courtesan. He d shove his way into the brightest building on the street, throw a rifle to the cashier as payment, and ask the lady of the house, Take me to your finest!
Yong had a crooked nose-a gift from the landlord her parents had sold her to when she was eight. Her hips were narrow, her chest was flat, and her arms were as skinny as bamboo shoots. When Ping handed her one of the extra flintlocks he d made-his elbow grazing her sharp shoulder as she turned away-the thought of lying with her, like lying with a quiver of arrows, made him shiver.
Yet there she was in the cave, snoring with the other members of their platoon. There she was carrying a bag of rice peels, the sack so heavy she looked like an ant lugging a pebble. There she was, drenched in rain, setting up a machine-gun emplacement. There she was squatting on the edge of a bluff, her feces splattering onto the mountainside like spilled ink. And there she was again behind a tree-perhaps this was when his desires emerged-waiting for the whistle so she could turn around and blow the Nationalists to smithereens.
He didn t think his attraction resulted only from proximity. Otherwise, he figured, he d be enamored with the peasant girls at the marketplace or the older ladies who served him rations at the Great Hall of the Proletariat. No, Yong was attractive for a more elusive reason. He found out that she truly believed in the words of the leaders, something that he, at times, wished he could believe in himself. Back from combat, she attended every party meeting, roundtable discussion, and lecture on Pear Tree Hill. She shushed those around her when the familiar mumbo-jumbo came on over the loudspeakers, urging them to memorize the words of Engels and Marx. She d stare, doe-eyed and drooling, at the educated men babbling under the hammer-and-sickle banner. Winning her affection, Ping began to realize, was like winning China. Her very being resonated with the goal to build a new nation. Winning her would take, as the leaders might say, an ideological battle.
The leaders proclaimed that having a girl around was good for the unit. The old, bourgeois ways of forcing women into arranged marriages would be abandoned for that of free will, for love. One or two women had been placed in every platoon, and darlings like Yong had many admirers. Not often openly, but Ping knew. He could tell by their sideways glances and fake smiles. Let me help you carry that spade. Here, take half of my sweet potato porridge. You ll catch cold standing in the rain like that! Come, sit under this tree with me! They were thugs, just like him, lordless mercenaries in a fractured country. He wouldn t pursue her in the same clumsy manner the rest of them did, though he didn t know what a graceful approach would be either-not yet. He would let them fight over her first-rush to her door, shoulder to shoulder, like a herd of donkeys.
She wasn t pretty enough, he was certain, to catch the eyes of the leadership, though would she settle for a member of her own platoon-a common foot soldier? Would she care that Ping was the only one among them with a trade? Surely being a gunsmith would give him a leg up on the competition. After all, where else was she going to get her bullets?
Chapter 2
Ping worked on a cliff overlooking the valley, in a makeshift armory next to his unit s cave. The rock formation-wavy lines of blue, gray, and burgundy-stretched from ceiling to floor, the crystals lighting up during mornings and afternoons like fireworks during the Spring Festival. Moldy water ran down the crevices whenever it rained.
Ever since the Nationalists had started retreating, the fighting was light, and Ping and his assistant, Luo, were ordered to stay in the rear and manufacture supplies. At first Ping had objected, but then he thought staying back only emphasized his importance in Yong s eyes, and so he agreed.
The Nationalists were led by Kuomintang general Chiang Kai-shek. A decade earlier, he had reunited most of the wealthy coastal cities-Nanjing to Shanghai to Canton-but his troops couldn t penetrate the rural interior, which was still in the hands of the local warlords that had always controlled those provinces, ever since the end of the Qing dynasty. The Nationalists considered the Communist guerrillas the most powerful of these warlords-a threat, both martially and ideologically, to total military dictatorship of the country. And the Nationalists were losing.
Chiang Kai-shek had never reached the gates of the mountain, not in 32 or 33, and certainly not now. They fell for the same tricks again and again. A Communist unit would sneak to the other side of the valley, shoot at an encampment, and lure the Nationalists back to hillsides or river crossings, where an ambush always waited. Like cocking your fist before throwing a punch, Mao had told them, squatting down at the base of Pear Tree Hill, where a semicircle of fruit trees shaded an amphitheater.
Since the beginning of spring, petals from the trees had drifted as far up as the mountain caves and as far below as the rice paddies. The local peasants gathered the flowers in flat baskets, laid them out to dry, and dropped them in water jugs to be used as tea and on their spicy turnip breakfasts. Still, the petals were everywhere, and the soldiers took extra awkward steps to avoid them when climbing the mountain pass.
Ping was standing over a limestone protrusion, smoothed out and made into an anvil, getting ready to cast another batch of shells, when Luo hurried in with two buckets of well water over his shoulders.
You see them yet, Little Brother? Luo asked.
Luo was taller than Ping by four centimeters and older by four years, and he was the only person Ping knew from before Iron Well. They weren t real brothers-only sworn ones. They had come to Chiang-hsi Province together after the 1931 purge that had killed most of the gang leaders in Canton, including their own.
Not yet, Ping said. All I see are farmers on the road.
He reached for the nearest ingot from a tall stack. He dropped it in an iron wok and put the wok over a fire. Waiting for the lead to melt, he dangled his legs over the cliff and stared out at the valley below. After a few minutes, he caught sight of his unit marching through the village, passing wattle-and-daub huts, peasants in straw hats, and water buffalo. Yong was among them, the third behind their platoon leader, who pulled on a horse that carried two injured men belly-down on its back.
Anyone dead? Luo asked.
Can t say, said Ping. I see bodies on Broadax, but can t tell if they re moving.
Luo squatted and fanned the flame, which needed constant attention. Too hot, the lead and wax would separate. Too cold, the ingot wouldn t pour.
At least Yong s not injured, Ping added. Ah Guang and Malin are as busy as ever trying to talk to her.
Don t pretend you don t want to join them, Little Brother, Luo said.
A month earlier, in the village square celebrating a victory and dr