Under the Red Flag by Ha Jin Page A

there was poison in them.
    At eight Ding arrived at the Commune Administration on Bank Street. The other six committee members were already in the conference room, waving fans and drinking tea. Ding was not afraid of such a meeting, since two men here, Feng Ping and Tian Biao, were loyal to him. Though Yang was the Party chief in the commune, he had only one man on the committee, Dong Cai, who obeyed him like a dog. The other two members, Huang Zhi and Zhang Meng, were fence-sitters and would trim their sails according to the wind.
    After they gave condolences to Ding, the meeting started.While the secretary was introducing the topic, Ding was somehow bewildered, seeing that Yang seemed uninterested in this matter. He had expected Yang would jump at him and criticize him severely for having the coffin made.
    “In short,” Yang said, “I think this belongs to family affairs. We should let Old Ding decide by himself. Now everybody may express his opinion.”
    Ding couldn’t understand why all of a sudden the secretary appeared to be so gentle and sympathetic. Then his own man, Tian, began to speak. “I agree that it’s a private matter, and Chairman Ding has the right to decide on his own. But as the head of the commune, he ought to think of the consequences, the political effect. What will we do if lots of commune members begin to follow Chairman Ding’s example and refuse to cremate the dead?”
    “I agree,” said Feng, who was also Ding’s man. “I think the political consequence is enormous. We can’t afford to let our leader make such a mistake.”
    Ding was unhappy about his men’s performance. Why do they all turn against me today? he asked himself. They all have a mother. Could they burn their mothers’ bodies? I can bury my mother secretly without a ceremony. Few people will know where. I just don’t want to burn her up. I promised her not to do that.
    While Ding was lost in his thoughts, Dong Cai, Yang’s man, began to speak: “I agree with Secretary Yang. I think this is a personal matter that we shouldn’t interfere with. We all have old parents. I wouldn’t have my mother cremated if she died. That would wreck my family’s fortune; at least my father would think so. No, never.”
    “Thank you,” Ding said, so grateful that he couldn’t contain himself anymore. “I promised her not to burn her body! Before she died, she begged me with tears not to do that. She just wanted to be buried somewhere deep in the earth. I won’t take any arable land.”
    The meeting dragged on for an hour without reaching a decision. Finally, the secretary proposed a vote, not on whether to bury or cremate the dead but on whether to let Ding choose himself. The result was 4 to 3, in favor of personal choice. Ding felt relieved.
    Without saying good night to his men, Ding set out for home. When he turned at the corner of Old Folk Road, Feng and Tian emerged from the side entrance of the Commune Administration. They called Ding and wanted to have a word with him.
    “Chairman Ding,” Tian said, “do you trust a bastard like Dong Cai or us?”
    “Of course I trust you.”
    “We’ve followed you for years,” Feng said. “We know you are a good, filial man. But they don’t think so. Don’t be taken in by them. They want you to make a mistake and then they’ll jump at you and rip you apart.”
    “Well, how come?”
    “They set a trap for you, Chairman Ding,” Tian said, his narrow eyes glittering. “If you bury your mother tomorrow morning, I’m sure they will report you to the higher-ups tomorrow afternoon. To prevent ground burials is a major political task this year, you know that. In fact, Secretary Yang didn’t want to hold tonight’s meeting. It was Feng and I who persuaded Huang Zhi and Zhang Meng to propose the meeting. They just want to see you fall into a well and then they’ll stone you to death, but we want to stop you before you fall.”
    “Yes,” Feng said, “as the saying goes: ‘Loyal