When Rape Flowers Bloom (7)
Swannlee-126 01/21 11356
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When Rape Flowers Bloom
By Swann Lee
Chapter 7
I stumble home in the unfathomable night, wondering what is really happening to my life and where it is going. The walk from Teacher Zhang’s home to mine seems to take only one second. I was there, suddenly I am here.
My family is eating dinner in silence. I step into the kitchen and sit down at the table, bowing my head to hide my face from the flickering lamp light, while the kerosene fragrance comforts me as always.
“Where did you go?” Baba puts down his bowl and asks. “You didn’t…did you?”
Mama sets down a bowl of rice before me. She looks at Baba sharply, after glancing at my sisters.
“We’ll ask her later,” she says. Baba nods.
I begin to nibble at the rice. Just as we finish, we hear a knock on the door. Mama goes to open it. It is Teacher Zhang. His glasses are glittering in the dim light.
“I’m Hua’s math teacher,” he says, “and here is comrade Liu.”
I walk to the door and see two men dressed in dark blue uniforms.
“They’re from the police station,” Teacher Zhang says. “Your son will go with them and they’ll investigate.”
The two men come forward to put a pair of shiny metal rings on Datong’s wrists.
“What are these? Take them off me!” Datong waves his locked arms in front of him. A man takes a round black stick off his belt and jabs it at Datong’s arm. Datong suddenly lurches forward and crumples to the ground. The two men grab his arms and drag him away. As they are disappearing into the night, Mama jumps at Teacher Zhang and slaps him hard across the face, knocking his glasses to the ground.
“Our problem is our problem,” she shouts, looking crazy for the first time in my life. “Who needs you tortoise egg to meddle with it?”
Baba takes hold of my arms and lifts me up like a chicken. He carries me into the brick house, drops me on the ground, picks up a broom stick and begins to madly lash it against me. I suddenly realize what burning pain a cow must feel when whipped by a man. I crawl under the bed, but Baba drags me out before I get to the middle. When Baba stops beating me and I lie in bed, everything falls silent.
