(10 of 29)
A few days later, there came to my house a slightly built man wearing a pair of tinted spectacles. With him came two other men and a woman wearing armbands with the three Chinese characters for ''revolutionaries.'' ''You are the class enemy of this house, guilty of conspiring with foreign powers,'' the man said. ''Do you deny it?'' ''Of course I deny it! Who are you? What do you want?'' ''We are the Proletarian Revolutionaries.'' ''I never heard of such a title,'' I said. ''You are going to hear a lot about us. We are the Revolutionaries who represent the working class, which is the ruling class in China.'' The man with the tinted spectacles assumed a severe tone of voice. ''Where have you hidden your gold and weapons?'' ''What gold and weapons?'' ''You know what gold and weapons!'' ''I have no gold or weapons. The Red Guards have been here. They did not find any gold or weapons.'' ''You hid them. Our Great Leader told us that the class enemies are secreting gold and weapons. He can't be wrong.'' The Revolutionaries ripped open mattresses, cut the upholstery of the chairs and sofas, removed tiles from the walls of the bathrooms, poked in the fireplace and the chimney, lifted floorboards, climbed onto the roof, fished in the water tank under the ceiling and crawled under the floor. Darkness had long descended on the city when they decided to dig up the garden. They switched on the terrace lights and started digging. The damp, ash-covered lawn was trampled into a sea of mud; all the flower beds were dug up, and spades were sunk into the earth around the shrubs. They even pulled plants out of their pots. But they found nothing, for nothing was there to be found. In the end, physical exhaustion got the better of their revolutionary zeal. But they were fuming; they had lost face by not finding anything. The man in the tinted glasses was beside himself with rage. His face turned white, and his lips trembled. He raised his arm to strike me. At that very moment Meiping's cat, Fluffy, tore through the kitchen door, jumped on the man's leg and sank his teeth into the man's calf. Screaming with pain, the man hopped wildly on one leg, trying to shake the cat off. The others also tried to grab Fluffy, but the agile cat ran out of the house and climbed onto his favorite branch of the magnolia tree. From this safe perch, Fluffy looked at us and mewed. The wounded man was almost demented. He dashed to the tree and shook it. Fluffy hopped up to a higher branch, ran onto the roof of my neighbor's house and disappeared into the night. One of the men said, ''You keep a wild animal in the house to attack the Revolutionaries. You will be punished. As for the cat, we will have the neighborhood committee look for it and put it to death. You are very much mistaken if you think by making your cat bite us we will give up. We are going to look further for the gold and weapons.'' They locked me into the dining room. I resigned myself to the possibility of the total destruction of my home. Pulling three dining chairs together, I lay down on the cushions. I dozed despite the shouting and arguing outside. At daybreak, a woman Revolutionary said to me, ''You are not allowed to go $ out of the house anymore. The Red Guards will take turns watching you.'' I was astonished and angry. I asked her, ''What authority have you to keep me confined to the house?'' ''I have the authority of the Proletarian Revolutionaries. We are doing you a kindness in putting you under