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pot?”
    “You really are stubborn,” Hong Taiyue said indignantly. “All right, Lan Lian, go ahead, be out there all by yourself. We’ll see who’s more powerful, you or the commune. Today I’m all but pleading with you to join the commune, but one day, Lan Lian, you’ll get down on your knees and beg me to let you in, and that day is not far off, take my word for it!”
    “I won’t join! And I’ll never get down on my knees in front of you!” His eyes were lowered as he continued. “Your Party regulations state, ‘Joining a commune is voluntary, leaving it is permissible.’ You cannot force me to join!”
    “You’re a stinking dog turd!” Hong Taiyue said in a furious out-burst.
    “Brother Hong, please don’t. . .”
    “You can stop that Brother this and Brother that,” Hong said scornfully. “I’m the Party secretary,” he said to Yingchun with a look of disgust. “And I’m the village chief, not to mention a member of the village security force!”
    “Party secretary, village chief, security officer,” Yingchun echoed timidly, “we’ll go home and talk this over . . .” She shoved Lan Lian and sobbed, “You stubborn ass, your head is made of stone, come home with me right now ...”
    “I’m not going anywhere until I’m finished with what I have to say. Village chief, you injured my donkey, so you have to pay to fix his leg.”
    “I’ll pay, all right, with a bullet!” Hong Taiyue patted his holster and laughed. “Lan Lian, oh my, Lan Lian, you’re really something.” Then, raising his voice, he exclaimed, “Tell me who this apricot tree belongs to.”
    “It belongs to me.” Huang Tong, commander of the local militia, had been standing in his doorway, watching the argument develop. He ran up to Hong Taiyue and said, “Party secretary, village chief, security officer, this tree was given to me during land reform, but it hasn’t produced a single apricot, and I’ve been thinking of taking it down one day. Like Ximen Nao, it has a score to settle with us poor peasants.”
    “That’s a bunch of crap!” Hong Taiyue said coldly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. If you want to be on my good side, then don’t make up stories. This tree produces no fruit because you haven’t taken care of it. It’s got nothing to do with Ximen Nao. The tree may belong to you now, but sooner or later it’s going to be the property of the commune. The road to collectivization requires the complete elimination of private ownership. Stamping out exploitation is a universal trend. And that is why you’d better start taking care of this tree. If you let that donkey gnaw at its bark one more time, I’ll flay the skin off your back!”
    Huang Tong nodded and forced a smile onto his face. Flashes of gold emerged from his squinty eyes. His mouth was open just enough to reveal his yellow teeth and purple gums. Huang Tong’s wife, Qiuxiang, Ximen Nao’s second concubine, appeared then, a carrying pole over her shoulder, with her twins, Huzhu and Hezuo, seated in a basket on each end. She had brushed her swept-back hair with osman-thus oil and powdered her face; she wore a dress with floral piping and green satin shoes embroidered with purple flowers. An audacious woman, she was dressed just as she had been when she’d been my concubine, with rouged cheeks and smiling eyes. She cut a lovely figure, with curves in all the right places, nothing like a laboring woman. I knew the woman well. She did not have a good heart. She had a sharp tongue and a devious mind, a woman whose only virtue was in bed, not someone to get close to or confide in. She had high aspirations, and if I hadn’t kept her down, my wife and my first concubine would have died at her hand. Even before I became a dirty dog, this wench saw the writing on the wall and turned on me, saying I’d raped her, that I ran roughshod over her, that Ximen Bai mistreated her on a daily basis; she even opened her blouse in front of a