This is a story my uncle told me.
  My uncle’s friend Mr. Liao did some things in his youth that most people wouldn’t do, and went down a few roads that others didn’t dare to travel. As a result, he was forced to leave his home, temporarily. According to my uncle, in everybody’s life there are times when you take the wrong turn, or do the wrong things. Sometimes it is just that everybody else says you’re wrong, but you firmly believe that you’re right. And sometimes you are bold but not careful enough, or you’re careful but not bold enough. “Whatever it is,” my uncle declared, “it’s all part of the school of life, an ongoing process, and, finally, it becomes—history.”
  My uncle said that when Mr. Liao left home, he was no longer a young fellow. In fact, he was in the prime of his life, a vigorous man in his forties who had five children. The oldest was thirteen, the youngest only three years old. His wife, Amien, had had a miscarriage in April that year, less than a month ago, and was still very weak. On the night he went away, Mr. Liao, clasping joss sticks in his hands, prayed to his forebears in his home’s ancestral hall. Then he took leave from his family.
  My uncle told me that what Mr. Liao feared the most was not leaving home, but the possibility of having to see his wife shed bitter tears. Yet his fears didn’t come true. A-mien’s black hair was falling lazily on her shoulders in the faint light, and her face was pale. Her eyes, which Mr. Liao had once described as deep and clear as a mountain lake, were calm and serene as in the absence of even the slightest breeze of wind. Mr. Liao couldn’t detect a trace of fear or alarm in them, nor disappointment or reproach, or any expectations. “And that,” my uncle sighed, “made him feel much worse than tears and anguish could ever have!”
  It was well past midnight; all the children were asleep. As he stood in the ancestral hall, there were only three people to say farewell to Mr. Liao: his wife, his old mother and his cousin. His mother was inside the hall, erect as a pillar, while his cousin outside was urging him in a low voice to leave quickly. His wife was leaning against the door side, looking out into the pitch-dark courtyard. In the quiet of the night, the old wall clock inside the hall could be heard ticktocking its lonely farewell for them. Mr. Liao had put one foot outside the door, and was about to step out completely, when he suddenly took A-mien’s face in his hands and, fighting for composure, said to her, “Don’t think me heartless! Please, take good care of yourself. For your own sake, and for our children!” She just nodded, her eyes still like a tranquil mountain lake when no wind is blowing. Hurriedly, he kissed her ever so lightly on the forehead, a flurried goodbye with warm lips hardly brushing her brow. Then he swiftly lifted his other foot over the doorsill, raised his head to throw one quick glance at the two tall coconut palms guarding the entrance to the yard, and rushed out the gate.
  It was the end of May, when the early morning mist is still cool. A pale waning moon was suspended between a few scattered morning stars. My uncle said that Mr. Liao didn’t dare to turn his head to look back at his wife and his old mother, his cousin and his ancestral home. At that moment, his heart was as heavy as lead within him, yet his feet had to keep running as fast as birds. Accompanied by the barks of dogs and the crowing of cocks, he dashed out of the village where his clan had lived for more than a hundred years, determinedly heading westwards towards a sugar cane field in the next village, right next to the railroad track. As he ran, his vision was blurred with tears.
  My uncle told me that after Mr. Liao had left his home, the police arrested more than ten employees of the farmers’ association and the township office, all colleagues of Mr. Liao, inciting their families to show up at the Liaos’ house every day in groups of three or five “delegates.” They would take turns kneeling in the Liaos’ big courtyard, pounding their chests and stamping their feet in anguish, wailing and cursing, demanding that Mr. Liao’s mother should persuade her son to come out of hiding and give himself up to the authorities, instead of dragging their families into the whole affair. Mr. Liao’s mother would respond by pounding her chest and stamping her feet in turn, crying and swearing, “My son . . . my son . . . I don’t know where the hell he is, I just don’t!” A secret service agent from Taipei would pay them frequent visits, slamming the table with his fist and glaring threateningly, declaring that they had searched the homes of several of Mr. Liao’s friends in other cities and counties, . . . .