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They say he was uncovered in the deep bed of an ancient river that had long since shifted its stream and been left to grow with artemesia and wild licorice. The loess split around him as they tilled it, and he sprang forth from the yellow silt. He was made from the river, made from the earth, made from the sun; made, they said in the barest whispers, by Huángdì himself. The light of the heavens shone on him like he was beaten from gold, but he was forged from the hardest sky iron.
They say he stretched, raising his arms to the sky, and asked at once for a tool to join them in tilling the soil. It was clear he had been born to work with and for others. Indeed, he was a child of labour. His village named him Huáng Zhì, and looked upon him with superstitious awe, despite the fact that he never held himself higher than the least among them, and clung fast to the revolutionary principles he'd been born into.
He only stayed until the new fields were brought into cultivation. He had a huge heart for the common good and his comrades, but all who looked on him could see he was missing something. He yearned, without knowing quite what it was he wanted, and that gave him an edge of restlessness, so he could not fully settle to the life of his village.
One day, he gathered his simple belongings together and hefted his bag onto his shoulder. They say he was filled with the light of heaven again, as he walked down the road in the cool of the morning with the sun low behind him and his shadow stretched out in front, just waiting for him to catch up. They say he will walk till he finds what completes him.
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Huáng Zhì leaned on the railing of the little boat and waited for the rest of the people to trickle on. It was early in the morning and the mist was slowly lifting from the water, but it looked like it would clear and be a beautiful day. Already the sun was burning bright.
All around him, people had jars of tea and bowls of noodles and a few were yawning. Huáng Zhì was ready for the day to begin. He had work waiting for him, and he was looking forward to it. It would be simple, and he would contribute with the labour of his hands and back to the building of a new land.
The boat pulled away with a small cloud of smoke and Huáng Zhì wrinkled his nose. The owner needed to check the engine, because that was uneconomical as well as being bad for the parts. The boat laboured against the current as they pushed out into the stream.
There was a sudden burst of raised voices from the other side of the boat, followed by a splash and a shrill scream. He looked up to see a woman pointing frantically into the water. A little head bobbed, not far from the boat, but rapidly being swept away.
Huáng Zhì pushed through the crowd and toed off his shoes and slid off his trousers. A man threw a wooden boat pole in, and Huáng Zhì followed it. He dived like a dolphin, following the memory of where he'd last seen that little head. He pulled in front of the boat pole, looking for the splash and disturbance of a struggling child. Fear started to chill his heart that he hadn't acted swiftly enough, but he saw the flash of a hand only a few metres in front of him and quickly dove down. His hand fastened around a tiny wrist and pulled, dragging with kicking desperation for the surface, hoping the boat pole was still there.
It was, and Huáng Zhì gripped the child by the shoulder as he grabbed for it. The child knew what to do and clung on tight. He was shaking and heaving for breath, and Huáng Zhì knew he was not much calmer.
"Kick off your shoes," he said. "We must hold onto the pole and kick, kick, keep kicking, until we reach the other side or a boat comes to pick us up. Do you understand me?"
"Yes," said the child, clearly pulling himself together and understanding that safety lay in his calmness and effort now.
"Good," said Huáng Zhì, starting to slowly propel them forward. "We can do this. Start now. We don't have to go quickly, but we must endure. We must kick and kick, as our comrades march. This will be our own march to safe harbour."
"As our comrades marched to Yán'ān," said the child.
"Exactly," agreed Huáng Zhì, happy to find the child understood. They both stretched out their arms and pushed forward. It was hard, and the water dragged at them. The child started to cry.
"Be brave, little comrade," said Huáng Zhì. "Simply hold tight for a little while, and I will kick alone. We have broken through the fortifications on the Xiāngshǔi, and soon we will leave Guìzhōu. They say Comrade Máo crossed a river there four times to avoid capture. I think we can cross one."
Huáng Zhì kept kicking and talking of the bravery of the Red Army, and how the child was as brave as they were. In truth, though, he was tired, and the water was cold, and he began to despair that they would ever make it across the river. He could imagine his legs failing, his grip failing, and the pair of them washing down and down the uncaring river, sinking like insignificant stones to the silty bottom.
He looked inside himself, seeking hope, or at least grim determination. He realised it didn't matter if they never made it, and he abandoned optimism in favour of grinding tenacity. He would kick and push and continue. He would simply be, and he abandoned all his fears, all his dreams, and made himself act.
"You are doing well," he said to the child. "You are clinging on like a hero." The words were for him just as much.
Huáng Zhì was nearing the end of his strength when he finally noticed the current slowing, and heard the increasingly loud noises of the city he'd nearly forgotten about.
"We're nearly there," said the child. "You've done it. You've really done it."
"We've nearly done it," gasped Huáng Zhì. "You and I, together, have done it."
Next to him, the child kicked with renewed vigour, and the boat pole slowly edged towards the bank. They could hear shouting and encouragement from the water's edge, and they dragged themselves from the water into a small crowd of astonished people.
"Dà Yǔ," shouted one, "water tamer!"
"I was here when Chairman Máo did it," claimed another. "It's impossible!"
Many hands pulled them up the bank and onto the path. They were still inside the city, at least, but definitely on the outskirts. Huáng Zhì wasn't sure how far they'd been swept downstream, but hoped they would be able to get back. They were wrapped in jackets and plied with tea, as Huáng Zhì explained what had happened. The crowd gasped with horror.
"Where is the boat?" asked someone. "Did they abandon you?"
"I don't know," said Huáng Zhì blankly. Now that he was out of the water and had time to consider, he realised he had expected the boat to pursue them. They had been cast adrift and given up for dead. It seemed the child realised the same thing, because he started to cry. "Never fear, there must be a reason why they did not follow, and your mother, at least, will surely come down this bank to find you as soon as she may."
A party official pushed through the crowd and Huáng Zhì nodded to him respectfully. Before he rightly understood, the pair of them were bundled into a cart and on their way back to the city, for what purpose he couldn't quite fathom, but the official said he would take care of everything, and Huáng Zhì hoped that was true.
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Huáng Zhì straightened his tunic and checked his reflection anxiously in the mirror. He looked dubiously at himself, still not entirely sure how he ended up in a private party dormitory in Běijīng as a new hero of the revolution. It was bewildering. He barely recognised himself, and just wanted the whirlwind to stop and his life to go back to being simple.
He made his way down to the hallway. He was being picked up and taken to a reception dinner for some delegation from Russia. Others were waiting there also, other heroes of the revolution. Huáng Zhì had had no idea there were so many. They came and went, as their stars waxed and waned, and, he guessed cynically, they became more or less useful. He hated feeling like he was part of an insincere sideshow, and had never thought that the party would manufacture heroism as if it was clothing.
His tutor was there, and greeted him in Russian. He responded in the same language, noting the approving nod he got in response. He suspected his hitherto unsuspected talent for languages was what was keeping him from being sent back to the provinces. Every moment he was spared from touring farms and factories and schools was spent with his tutor, learning Russian.
He expected another dull event, filled with the expressionless bureaucrats that made up the politburo. His tutor introduced him to the Russian delegation, and he expected them to be more of the same. However, as his hand was enveloped in a warm grasp, he realised that the Russians were not quite all the same.
"Ivan Kuznetsov," the stranger said. He continued in accented, but perfectly intelligible, Chinese, "it is an honor to meet you."
"The honour is mine," replied Huáng Zhì, in his own Russian, which he now sincerely hoped was just as good as Ivan's Chinese.
They were seated next to one another at the dinner, and Huáng Zhì found the conversation flowed freely, despite the language barrier. It was the best night Huáng Zhì had spent since being scooped up from the side of the river and whisked away into this dream world. There was something solid and real about Ivan, like he lived a simple life and served his people with his hands.
"I have had an excellent evening," said Huáng Zhì. "Your Chinese is wonderful, and I hope we will get to meet again. How long is your delegation staying for?"
"Your Russian is remarkable," replied Ivan. "I hope we will stay for long enough that I can talk with you again."
Huáng Zhì hoped so too. He had found much joy in talking, and found that, for all their different language, they had similarities in their hearts, though he felt foolish to say that. He'd been immersed in a confusing world of politics, and Ivan seemed separate from it, clear and straightforward. Still, he shook hands again, warmed by the simple contact, the uncomplicated smile they shared, and their mutual hope to meet again.
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To his surprise, they met every day. It seemed Ivan had been loaned to the publicity work Huáng Zhì was doing, and they spent days at orchards, demonstrating their skill at welding, and reading the works of Lenin at sewing circles. The work that had seemed superficial and insincere when Huáng Zhì was alone seemed much deeper and more absorbing with Ivan at his side with his ready smile and warm, sure hands.
A day off was a rare pleasure, and Huáng Zhì's tutor had made no objection to Ivan spending the day with him. Indeed, he seemed quite satisfied with the friendship that had sprung up between them, though Huáng Zhì, at least, knew that his own feelings went far beyond friendship.
His time in Bějīng had not been wasted. Huáng Zhì had learned much of prudence, and a regard for privacy that should have shocked him. Accustomed to the close living of a village or crowded city, he had found the closeness here to be of a different, more intrusive sort. While he would not have hesitated, in his home village, to be transparent about where they were going and what they were doing, and might have even invited others along to make a merry expedition, Huáng Zhì returned vague replies and even prevaricated in any answers he had to give about their plans. He was unsettled by the pleased smile that hovered around his tutor's mouth at his non committal responses.
It was this prudence that led him to choose boating at Yíhíyuán. He admired the strength of Ivan's shoulders and arms as he rowed them quite into the middle of the lake. He produced a bag of carefully hoarded food for the fishes, to account for their pausing in the middle of the lake.
"I am glad to have a chance to speak with you, alone and out of earshot," said Ivan. Huáng Zhì was a little startled for him to speak so openly, but he welcomed his bluntness. Their time here would be, of necessity, short.
"And I, also," he said.
"I must speak plainly, though I know it is not your way," Ivan said. "I have come to love you, dearer than a brother, as my own heart knows you, and I must know first if these feelings are returned."
"Indeed, it has been long since I have known you to be the other half of my soul," Huáng Zhì said. He yearned to take Ivan into his arms and hold him close, to meet those lips with a kiss at last and feel the strength of his heartbeat racing against his own. Huáng Zhì swallowed hard and fought down the need to pour out all his feelings of devotion. There was more to be said. "I fear that I shall lose you soon," he continued.
"Perhaps," said Ivan. "There is talk - I am not supposed to know, but your guards conveniently underestimate my understanding - of you returning to Russia with me for similar tours and morale building. When one overturns a thousand years in the sweep of a red glove, one needs heroes more than ever."
"Stolen moments, and no permanent solution," said Huáng Zhì. "And always, always, the expectation that we will be friendly eyes for our respective country, that we will be friendly ears for any indiscretions we come across - and, perhaps, more than just chance collectors of information."
"There is no good solution," said Ivan heavily. "But, perhaps, there are solutions that are less worse than the others."
His hand rested on the side of the boat, and Huáng Zhì covered it with his own. The touch was so beautiful, and Huáng Zhì made sure to memorise the feeling of the skin under his fingers in case he never got to feel it again in such a glorious moment. His love was returned, and surely that was enough. Even as he thought that, he rejected it. Love, like hope, was not enough. What was needed was dogged action, bitter tenacity, in service of an end goal. They should be striving for the edge of the water, for firm ground under them both, to stand shoulder to shoulder in their love.
"I love you," said Huáng Zhì, "and I have no stomach for the insincere life of an official party lapdog. Will you turn your back on this world, and strive for an unknown shore, even if we do not make it?"
Ivan turned his hand over and gripped Huáng Zhì's in a warm, comforting grasp. "Yes," he said simply.
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They say that Huáng Zhì found what he was looking for in the most unlikely of places, after the most harrowing of trials in a false world of mirrors and gaiety. They say his soul found a match, likewise forged of sky iron in the light of heaven.
They say that Huáng Zhì and his love found a way free of the mirror world, and found themselves a place where neither were remarkable, and where they could labour with their hands and love with their hearts with equal fervour. They were the hammer and the sickle, building a new world. One day, they walked into Vladivostok with new names, and their shadows stretched out before them as the sun shone down the blessings of heaven on their shoulders.