Free My Name is Number 4 by Ting-Xing Ye

poverty-stricken section of Jiangsu Province, and were looked down upon by other Shanghainese. This girl would thus be a genuine Red Guard, not a pretender like me. I had blabbed that I came from Jing An District, an area full of people with bad class background. No wonder Guo-zheng had tried to shut me up. All troubles came from the mouth, Great-Aunt would have said.
    “Yes, I have heard of your district.” I wished I had bumped my head harder so I wouldn’t have started this conversation.
    “I want to trade places with you,” Guo-zheng interrupted.
    I climbed down, stepped across the seat backs and was directed to the rack across the aisle. Obviously moving me was Guo-zheng’s way of shutting me up. I would not tell her of my plan to get off the train far short of our destination.

    If it had not been for the sign, I would never have recognized Wuxi station, even though I had seen it many times in my early childhood. As we drew slowly to a halt people swarmed onto the platform and began to pound at the doors and windows, screaming that they wanted to get in. The chaotic scene frightened me. Nobody dared to open the windows, eventhough, with the train still and no ventilation, the coach became so stifling that it was difficult to draw a breath. To open the window would be like punching a hole in a dike. I changed my plan, horrified at the thought of trying to climb down into that desperate crowd, and made up my mind to stop in Wuxi on my way back from Beijing.
    An hour or so later, the besieged train shuddered and began to inch its way out of the station. I dozed the rest of the afternoon away and it was almost dark when we reached Nanjing. The railway workers told us to get out. It was the end of the line and the train needed to be serviced.
    Guo-zheng, Xiu-fang and I decided to stick around the station rather than follow the other pilgrims into the city to see the sights, rest in free accommodations and eat free meals. We were joined by the girl I had spoken to earlier. She called herself Yang-yang—Bright Sun—a stylish name at the time. Her father had originally named her Zhao Di—Waiting for Brothers. Compared with me, she was tall, at least five-foot-eight, and three times heavier.
    Before I did anything else I had to visit the washroom. The four of us pushed through the wall of clamorous travellers, and when we finally made it, I discovered one of the unpleasant results of hundreds of thousands of human beings in a confined space. Unlike most public bathrooms, this one was large, with one sink and two rows of cubicles separated from one another by waist-high walls. The “toilet” was a wide slot in the floor, periodically sluiced by water that flowed under all the cubicles and emptied into a cistern. There was no water inthe tap in this stinking and fly-infested place and every toilet was plugged by a pile of human dung that rose above the level of the floor, which was wet with urine. When I stepped carefully into a cubicle, I gagged at the sight and the putrid smell. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
    Back outside, we walked along the rails beside the coaches, begging entry to the northbound train, bribing the occupants with what little food we had and fetching water for them. At last we met a sympathetic Red Guard who helped drag me in through the window after Yang-yang lifted me up. But Xiu-fang was heavy and clumsy, and after numerous pushings and pullings she fell in a heap onto the track, screaming in pain and clutching her right ankle.
    One of the passengers gave Guo-zheng directions to the station’s clinic. I tried to climb down to help her with Xiu-fang.
    “No, no. You stay,” Guo-zheng shouted up to me. “Keep a place for us when we get back.”
    She returned half an hour later, but without Xiu-fang. After Yang-yang and I had hauled her in through the window, she gave us her report.
    “The doctor said Xiu-fang has to have her ankle X-rayed because it’s probably broken. He