Old Land, New Tales: Twenty Short Stories by Writers of the Shaanxi Region in China

by Chen Zhongshi

  Sister and Limin might have been laughing up their sleeves. Yet they did not know there was still another who was just like them, laughing up his own little sleeve.

  Years later, great changes took place. After the downfall of the Gang of Four—Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Hongwen, and Yao Wenyuan, the leaders of the sect of ultraleftists during the Cultural Revolution—Limin’s parents were set free, their unjust cases having been redressed. The following year, my sister encouraged Limin to register for the college entrance examination. They both took the exam, but with utterly different results. Limin was enrolled in a university in Beijing. My sister, a few points short of the admissions criteria, failed again.

  Limin left. All the villagers talked about him, their enthusiasm lasting several days. They said that now that everything had changed—now that he had turned from a blackbird to a phoenix—ten to one he would spread his wings and fly away.

  My sister was feeling a most complicated mixture of happiness and sadness. She was pleased for Limin’s success on the entrance examination but upset because it would mean several years of separation from him.

  I, an older boy by now—I’d be attending junior high school in two years—had learned something about the secret of love. I knew that my sister would feel sad and lonely. She loved Limin so much that even a moment’s separation would upset her. And when my sister was upset, I was upset.

  Still, I didn’t expect there would be any solution.

  I found that my sister had been regularly frequenting the road opposite the village. There she collected Limin’s letters from the hand of Uncle Li, the town postman, and in return gave him letters to be sent to Beijing. It looked as if my sister had reached some agreement with Uncle Li; perhaps she had asked him to keep the whole matter a secret. So far, no one in the village knew except me.

  Sister was loath to let the cat out of the bag. The villagers’ tongues had finally stopped wagging; if they discovered this new secret, they would make bawdy jokes to embarrass a shy girl like my sister.

  Papa appeared to be ignorant—or was he just pretending that he cared only about his land and crops? Sometimes I saw him gazing at Sister’s back in a pitiful, melancholy way. He said nothing, but he’d usually heave a deep sigh.

  I always knew when Sister received a letter from Limin. She would hide herself and read it behind the wheat stack on the threshing ground (the thought of the place still makes my cheeks burn and my heart pound). Back home again, her face ablaze with joy, Sister would sing cheerful songs. She has a sweet voice, and she can sing as well as the people on the radio.

  Seeing Sister in high spirits, Papa would knit his brows. Fretting, he’d interrupt her to plead in a mournful tone, “My dear child, please stop singing. It hurts my heart.”

  Every time Papa said that, I would silently blame him for spoiling Sister’s good mood. Still, I loved him and sympathized with him. Look, his hair had turned gray after Mama passed away. What a pitiful man he was!

  When my sister was happy, I felt lighthearted. Outwardly feigning ignorance, in private I was humming songs. I am not a good singer; to be frank, I’m more of a painter. However, under such circumstances I simply couldn’t help but sing to bless my sister. Any boy with a sister would agree: although to all appearances he has no interest in her marital state, at heart, how much loving care he harbors for her welfare!

  It is New Year’s Day again.

  We rural folks don’t normally celebrate New Year’s Day; we regard it as a city-dweller’s festival. We celebrate only the Spring Festival—a special day that we mark by eating special foods. Yet today, as other households in the village pay no attention and serve their simple, everyday food, our family, like a household of city dwellers, prepares for this foreign festival.

  In fact, it is Sister who wanted to celebrate New Year’s Day. Sister has been in charge of the family affairs since Mama died. Papa never interferes. As usual, he said nothing and went to the mountain after daybreak to chop firewood.

  I know Sister is happy. Yesterday she received a letter from Limin. However, I still silently wonder: Aren’t you making too much of this, Sister? Isn’t it going too far to feast on a meal of jiaozi? Just for receiving a letter from Limin? Don’t you know there isn’t much flour left in the vat?

  But I don’t want to oppose Sister’s decision. I have always supported her in whatever she wanted to do.

  Early in the morning, Sister goes to the vegetable cellar to dig carrots for the jiaozi fillings. She washes them clean and rubs them on an iron grater into shreds, which are later thrown into a boiling pot, scooped out, and kneaded into a ball. This she places in a white porcelain bowl. Then she begins to pound garlic and peppers, peel scallions, and get many other things ready. When all these preparations are finished, she gives me two yuan and sends me to town to buy two jin of mutton.

  I am very glad to run this errand for her. With a plastic bag in my hand, I set out at once.

  No sooner have I rushed out the door than Sister runs out after me. For some reason, she throws her arms around my shoulders, smiling. I can feel her arms tremble slightly.

  My sister, cheeks red like a morning cloud, hesitates for a moment and then whispers in my ear: “Don’t play on the way. Buy the meat, and come back quickly. Sister needs the mutton for the jiaozi. Today we have an important guest coming from afar. Guess who? It’s Gao Limin, the cadre who once lived and worked in our village! He came back to our province last month and is now doing his internship in a local factory. He said in yesterday’s letter that he would return to our village.”

  I feel a fiery passion transferred to my body from the arms of my sister. I look up and see shining tears in her eyes. Not until this moment do I notice that my sister has had her hair cut and that she is so beautiful, with her neck white as snow, her face pink as peach blossom, and her hair black as pitch—like a nymph who has just stepped down from a picture. I am so astounded that I’m unable to say a word. Nodding to her, I dart toward the town.

  At last I understand why Sister wants to make jiaozi today. Once, on the Dragon Boat Festival, I saw her get out the dates and glutinous rice for making zongzi. And on the Double Sixth Festival, she prepared ground buckwheat to dry in the sun for making liangfen, and the shelled peanuts, sunflower seeds, and the like to winnow in the wind. She wouldn’t let me touch these precious treats in normal times. It turns out that she has kept them for Limin.

  The sky is overcast, and there are snowflakes drifting in the air. The snow, which must have started some time ago, cascades down heavily as I head for the town. Silence reigns over the fields. Not a sound can be heard except for the quiet rustling of the snow. A few distant mountaintops looming in the mist begin to turn white.

  In the snow, I run, dance, and shout like a little lunatic. I feel excited because the young man Sister has missed day and night will soon be back. He was looked down upon in the village, but this time he will come back as a proud college student. A college student from Beijing! Beijing . . . is it a place you can easily reach? I have been there, too—in dreams. I will ask Limin to tell me all about Beijing. My heart is filled with affection and longing for him because he is going to be my sister’s husband, my brother-in-law. I even imagine that he, like other brothers-in-law, will hold an engagement ceremony and entertain the whole village so that my twenty-seven-year-old sister will no longer be ridiculed for being single. An older, unmarried girl is often mercilessly belittled, and Sister has been suffering a lot for that.

  Indulging in wild fancies as I run, I arrive at the town.

  Mutton has been sold out in the state-owned meat shop, so I get it from the free market at the flood land outside of town. With meat in hand I turn around, stride onto the road, and make for home at once.

  Someone calls me from behind.

  I stop to look back. It is Uncle Li, the town postman. He knows everyone—far and near, young and old—for he has been carrying letters along the road in the vale for so long.


  Uncle Li catches up with me, snow on his fur hat and shoulders. Passing a letter to me, he pats me on the shoulder, smiling. “Give it to your sister!”

  Then he goes away.

  I look at the words on the envelope. The letter is, indeed, addressed to Sister, from some chemical factory in the provincial capital. Sister said that Limin had come back for an internship in a local factory. Is this letter from him? But then more questions bewilder me: Isn’t Limin coming to visit us today? Didn’t Sister receive his announcement only yesterday? We have no acquaintances or relatives in the capital; who else can have sent this letter? No one but Limin! But why? Is something wrong?

  Worried, I open the letter without further consideration.

  The salutation “Dear Xing’er” scares me into a shower of cold sweat. I dare not go on. Good heavens, what an absurd thing I have done! I can’t read my sister’s love letter without her permission!

  But now that I’ve opened the letter, will Sister even believe me if I say I didn’t read it? Besides, it’s almost impossible for a little boy who has never read a love letter to withstand the temptation. I decide to read on, thinking Sister so dotes on me that she will certainly forgive me. Anyway, I am a tight-lipped boy. I won’t tell anybody—not even Papa. Sister doesn’t know how well I’ve kept her secret about what she and Limin did that day behind the wheat stack.

  By the roadside I find a spot away from wind and people, and I start reading.

  Dear Xing’er,

  How are you?

  I think I’d better get straight to the point and get everything clarified.

  Unfortunately, I can’t write you a longer letter. I suppose on the eve of the New Year you will have received the letter I sent you yesterday.

  I intended to return on New Year’s Day. I would like to tell you the whole story in your presence, but I don’t think either of us could stand that face-to-face torture. Therefore, I’ve decided not to return. I think it might be easier to have things settled in a letter.

  I have to tell you that my parents do not approve of our marriage. You may have seen in the provincial newspaper that my father has resumed his post as deputy governor. They disapprove mainly because you are a farmer; they say it would be impossible for us to ever live under the same roof. When I asked them to help find a job for you in the city, they refused, saying that they must not violate the Principles and abuse their power.

  My parents have found me a girlfriend—a college student whose parents and mine, old comrades in arms, have been through thick and thin together.

  Dear Xing’er, I love you as far as feelings are concerned, but since my parents suffered all kinds of hardships in the previous years and are now getting older, I cannot stand to see them continue to worry about me. Besides, a long-term view shows that our marriage involves not only the problem of separation, but also the practical disparities between job and occupation, commodity grain and rural grain—all of which would pose great difficulties in our life. Out of these reasons, dear Xing’er, I have yielded to my parents after a painful struggle—or rather, I have yielded to another side of myself. I am a selfish person. Forget me, please! Oh God! How terrible these words are.

  This is nothing less than a thunderbolt from above! Although some of the sentences in the letter are beyond my understanding, the main idea is clear enough: Limin wants my sister no more!

  I feel a swarm of mosquitoes droning in my head, sky and earth revolving, snow falling the other way round. Tucking the letter into my pocket, I take to my heels.

  Arriving home, I rush into the courtyard but stop momentarily.

  A song seeps out from inside the room, hot as red pepper, melting away in the snow. It is Sister, singing, “Honey, do you know a heart is burning for you? This heart will follow you no matter where you go, rain or shine . . .”

  It is one of Sister’s favorite movie songs. Tears flood down my face. Under a sky filled with whirling snowflakes, the earth keeps me still company and listens to Sister singing. I remain in the courtyard for a while. Then, wiping tears with my sleeves, I edge my way, step by step, into the room, my legs heavy, leaden.

  Sister is frying shelled peanuts beside the kitchen range. Smoke rises. Peanuts crackle.

  Perhaps the expression on my face betrays me. Sister comes out, casts a surprised glance at me, and asks me abruptly, “Baowa, where is the mutton?”

  I look at my empty hands. A light dawns upon me: I left the meat back where I read the letter.

  I make no reply, just take out the letter and hand it over. As I can bear it no longer, I throw myself onto the edge of the kang bed and cry out loud.

  It must be a long time before I stop crying; when I raise my head to look for Sister, she is not in the room. Scattered on the ground are the leaves of the letter, and the whole room is permeated with the choking smell of burnt peanuts.

  Where is Sister? My heart pounding, I rush out of the room in desperation.

  Outside, the wind and the snow are coming even harder. There is already a thick blanket of snow on the ground. As far as the eye can reach, everything is white: mountains, valleys, frozen rivers, and all. Everything ugly on the ground is covered by the white snow.

  Sister, where have you gone?

  I try my luck along the path above the threshing ground, moving out of the village, across a vast, open vale, and, blindly, toward the riverside. In the teeth of wind and snow, I slip and fall from time to time, in search of my dear sister.

  I’ve barely made it to the riverside when I spot a figure seated on a boulder; like a snowwoman, the figure is white from top to toe. Is that my sister?

  It is. Knees wrapped in arms, she stares perplexedly into the blurry distance, her eyes devoid of their normal liveliness. It looks as if she has ceased breathing, lost vitality, and turned into a beautiful marble statue.

  I sit quietly by her side, resting my head gently on her shoulder. I begin to sob again. As dusk closes in, the wind begins to ease off, while the snow, heavy as before, continues sending down its silent flakes. A flock of sheep streams down the slope opposite, moving slowly toward the village.

  Sister extends a hand to caress my head. Her hand, ice-cold, is shaking slightly. I look up and see, faintly, a few fine wrinkles on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes. She seems to have aged many years all at once. Oh, my dear ill-fated sister!

  Papa appears before us, as if from nowhere. There are lines of sweat on his face, snowflakes on his head, and dusty plateau mud on his clothes. His hair looks pure white.

  Papa stoops down, brushes snowflakes off Sister’s and my clothes, and takes out from under his elbow a fur hat to put on my head and a red scarf for Sister’s neck. Then, with his big, callous palm, he begins to remove the snowflakes from Sister’s head—and in so doing he caresses Sister gently and affectionately. Now I know, Papa, that you love not only your land and crops, but also Sister and me so dearly as well.

  Sister stands up, leans her head against Papa’s chest, and bursts into tears.

  Papa heaves a deep sigh, saying, “Ah, I know, I know all . . . I knew it, I knew! Papa didn’t tell you because I was afraid you’d be upset. I knew he’d desert us someday. It’s getting dark; let’s go home . . .”

  In the darkness, large snowflakes still soundlessly descend into this world.

  As in the old days, Papa, with one hand taking Sister’s and the other mine, leads us through the fields and toward the village. Treading on the mat of soft, loose snow, he mumbles, “Good snow, what a good snow . . . Hope it can help grow good crops, then we’ll be better off next year . . . Ah, at least the land won’t desert us . . .”

  Dear sister, did you hear that? Papa said the land won’t desert us. Yes, on this promised land, we will finally harvest our own happiness with toil and sweat.

  Translated by Zhang Min

  Chen Zhongshi

  Chen Zhongshi was born in 1942 in the Baqiao District of Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province. He began writing in 1965. Since 1979, whe
n he joined the Chinese Writers Association, he has published nine novellas, over eighty short stories, and more than fifty pieces of reportage, prose, and essays. He has published collections of short stories, including The Village and Going Back to the Old Poplar; literary criticism collected as My Creation Experience; a collection of essays; and several collections of novellas and novels, including Early Summer and Fourth Younger Sister.

  Chen Zhongshi’s short story “Trust” was awarded the National Outstanding Works prize in 1979. In the years since, his novels and other works have won many awards, including the Contemporary Literature Prize, the National Reportage Prize, the Shaanxi Double-Five Literature Prize, and the Mao Dun Literature Award. His piece “A Willow on Qinghai Plateau” was included in one of China’s primary literature textbooks.

  2

  CHEN ZHONGSHI

  A Tale of Li Shisan and the Millstone

  “Myyyy . . . sonnnn . . .”

  Whenever he created an especially good and satisfying line for his opera, Li Shisan would sing it out with great feeling. Actually, he sang out every line. He even recited each line of the spoken parts, hearing in his head the drumbeats and stringed instruments. Then, after considering and scrutinizing the lines, he would write them down on cheap linen paper with his half-bald writing brush, the second one he’d gone through already. He was too poor to buy the finer Xuan paper favored by painters and calligraphers. But though the linen paper was coarse and rough, it was as tough as leather, holding together no matter how often it traveled from hand to hand and was flipped from front to back by the shadow-play actors while memorizing their parts. Linen paper might not be fine, but it stood its ground the way the soft, thin Xuan paper never could.

  “Myyyy . . . motherrrr . . .”

  As he sang and wrote, Li Shisan felt exulted and content. Suddenly, he heard a loud, angry voice from the yard.