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

by Chen Zhongshi

  Darky smiled softly and said, “So you do, help me to do everything . . .”

  “Darky,” said Lai Shun, “I know I shouldn’t come to your home. But I dream of you and feel empty-hearted when I wake up.”

  “What’s your dream?”

  “Sometimes in my dream, you’re dressed in a new suit of clothes and look like a girl of seventeen or eighteen. You go to town and sing opera while many people play musical instruments for you. And in other dreams, you’re sobbing under the weeping willow in front of the restaurant. When I have good dreams I worry: dreams are the opposite of reality, so isn’t this a bad omen? And when I have bad dreams, I worry that they might come true. So tonight I came over to take a look at you. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

  Darky was amused. “Lai Shun, you have a sweet tongue and your words are too pleasant to my ear!”

  Lai Shun, adopting a stern expression, said, “It’s true! If I’m telling a lie, let the devil take my soul away.”

  Then Darky looked into Lai Shun’s face, thin and shining white. He did not evade her glance but returned it boldly. His mind flew high into the clouds.

  Afterward, Darky tilted her head and watched the bright moon in the sky and a pair of birds perching in a willow at the foot of the yard. She could tell that the birds were a couple; they balanced their bodies together on a thin twig with their small talons, one sleeping soundly, the other lightly dozing and waking. They reminded Darky that human beings, like birds, pair off wing-to-wing during the daytime, while at night they sleep together, leaning closely against each other. That is how life should be, she thought. And yet Lai Shun led a pitiable life, dreaming of another man’s wife every night. Thinking about that, she felt dejected and sighed for him.

  “Lai Shun, at your age, why don’t you find a wife?”

  Her words touched a tender spot in Lai Shun’s heart. But instead of shedding tears, he laughed.

  Darky asked, “Why are you laughing?”

  “It serves me right to be a bachelor! Had I been more persistent in proposing to you, we would have been a couple. It’s a pity that I didn’t. Mu Du has had a better fate.”

  Darky kept quiet.

  Lai Shun said, “Darky, does Mu Du treat you well? It’s good to run a restaurant, but it’s hard work, so you need to take care of yourself. During your period, you’re not supposed to touch cold water—but you continue to fetch two full buckets of water on a shoulder pole from the river!”

  Darky was surprised; how could he know such things? From her complexion? Mu Du—who ate, drank, and slept with her—had no idea about that, while Lai Shun had discovered it! It dawned on Darky that this pale-faced man truly cared for her well-being, and she was deeply moved.

  She replied, “He is a silly man, but he does what I ask.”

  The two chatted away about many things, and Lai Shun forgot about the time. So did Darky, who had never conversed that way with her ex-husband when she left the deep mountain for marriage on the plain. And then there was Mu Du, who never offended or beat her but was not particularly considerate—and it never occurred to him that his wife might be lonely. Humans want not only respect but also love. A woman can be as strong as a tiger, but sometimes she also feels as weak as a puppy or a kitten.

  As they talked, naturally and comfortably, Lai Shun took Darky’s hands, licked them with his soft tongue, and bit them gently with his teeth. She said nothing. Afterward, she saw him to the door.

  The moon was bright in a star-studded sky, and the night was deepening. The golden wheat encircling the village rippled in the cool breeze; the moonlight on the stalks made the fields look like ocean waves. The dense, intoxicating fragrance of the April fields swelled in Darky’s breast.

  The restaurant opened every day and did not close even during the busy period of the wheat harvest. Mu Du, like a strong ox, bore the heavy burden of reaping wheat at night, threshing grain, plowing the fields, and sowing seeds, while still selling meals during the day. When his work was done he was exhausted and instantly fell into a sound sleep. He lay on the kang like a dead snake fallen from a treetop.

  When Darky woke up at midnight, she could not rouse him. She could only wait for the school bell to ring at daybreak.

  Their family was no longer poor. Indeed, they’d become respectably well-off. Now when Darky came across the credit agent and his small son, she would walk past them without a glance rather than step aside or keep a distance. One market day, she was in a private clothes shop when the small man came in with the mayor’s daughter. He asked the price of a silk scarf. As he and the shopkeeper bargained noisily, Darky approached and asked brusquely, “How much is it?”

  When the shop assistant replied, “Thirteen yuan,” Darky said, “I’ll take it!” She drew the money from her pocket and swaggered off with the scarf hanging from her hand. Her behavior embarrassed the small man and his young wife, and they blushed profusely. Darky never wore that scarf, not even in the cold winter.

  Mu Du once asked her, “Why did you buy it if you don’t wear it?”

  Darky replied, “Can’t you understand?”

  Seeing Darky spend money freely, Mu Du himself gradually followed suit. Others often played tricks on him and made bets with him; naturally he was the loser and had to buy wine or cigarettes as a penalty. Sometimes, the winner would gnaw some pig’s feet or take two bowls of noodles instead.

  Eventually Mu Du began gambling at card games. When he was in a good mood he would play all night, unaware of Darky asleep on their big and lonely bed.

  At meals, Darky set out two dishes on the table, with two chairs and place settings, so they could eat together. However, after filling a bowl and garnishing the rice, Mu Du would stride out the door, bowl in hand, to eat and chat with others. After supper, when Darky asked Mu Du to sit and talk with her for a while, Mu Du would say, “You take care of all the things in the restaurant! Just tell me if you have anything that needs doing.”

  Darky asked, “Can’t you talk about anything else?”

  “Anything else?” Mu Du would reply. “Nothing! Let’s go to bed.” He would fall into a wheezy sleep as soon as he lay down.

  That was always the moment when Lai Shun would arrive. Darky would not let him go, asking him about this and that, prolonging their time together.

  One night, Mu Du went out to gamble, and Lai Shun and Darky chatted at her home deep into the night. Darky complained about Mu Du, her eyes brimming with tears. Lai Shun soothed her, but the more he comforted her, the more brokenhearted she felt. She laid her head in his lap and sobbed.

  As the cock crowed a second time, Mu Du came home, pushing the door open and entering the room. The light was out. He saw a shadow at the rear window and asked, “Darky, is there someone outside the window?”

  Darky was terrified but covered her fear, saying, “What? A ghost?”

  After he undressed and lay on the kang, Mu Du said, “My eyesight is getting poor. I thought something was moving outside the window! It’s said that ghosts do exist. Even if we haven’t seen one, it’s better to shut the window in the evening.”

  Darky replied, “Let the ghost come and keep me company, since you don’t stay at home.”

  Mu Du said, “I hope it isn’t true that when you talk of a ghost it’s sure to come! Let’s go to sleep.” Almost immediately he began to snore.

  6

  Sometimes events surprise us, changing the fate of those involved as well as innocent spectators. Overnight, the credit agent found himself in a tight spot: arrested, tried, and convicted, he was sentenced to prison for fifteen years. He had violated the law: over three years he had embezzled a total of 33,000 yuan from public funds to buy shares in private enterprises and had taken 6,600 yuan through public or private blackmail. The police had hotly pursued and fiercely investigated his crimes.

  The investigation squad from the county stayed in the town for ten days. On the early morning of the tenth day, Darky, sleeping soundly in the back room of the restaurant,
was awakened by ear-piercing bursts from a motor horn. Looking out through the window lattice, she saw a prison van at the gate of the agent’s family. Shocked and frightened, she kicked Mu Du, sleeping on the other side of the kang, and said loudly, “Wake up, the cops are arresting somebody!” When they opened the door, the street was filled with chattering people.

  Darky stepped out and asked, “Who was arrested?”

  A man said, “Didn’t you hear? Good will be rewarded with good and evil with evil—and now it’s time for the credit agent to eat what he has been cooking for himself!”

  Darky was taken aback. When she was the agent’s daughter-in-law, she had feared that he was doing something against the law, but since she left that family she never put her nose in their business. Though she’d expected the day would come when he received his due punishment, her heart softened as she saw a pair of shining handcuffs on the agent’s wrists and his short son, chasing after the prison van, half-dead with weeping. She said to herself, all is over for this family. All is over!

  When Darky returned looking pale, Mu Du asked, “Did you give any evidence to the cops?”

  “They didn’t come to me,” she replied. “Even if they had, what could I tell them?”

  “People are saying you accused the agent of illegal acts in poison-pen letters, that you regarded the family as a deadly enemy and wanted to trap the agent!”

  What that man in the street had said to her began to sink in. Darky said, “They’re just making a bullshit guess! The agent has aroused the wrath of both God and men; naturally somebody would take action against him, even if we wouldn’t!”

  Mu Du sighed. “Life is really unpredictable. Just a short time ago he was a man on the rise, the honorary schoolmaster with red silk draped over his shoulders and a big red flower pinned to his breast. Now he’s a criminal!”

  “You are so innocent,” Darky said, “you would have no idea even if somebody were to hoodwink and eat you. He sponsored the school so as to give himself more leeway. But heaven does not pardon evil men like him!”

  “In that case, his son can’t teach at the school any longer?”

  “Probably not,” Darky replied. She fell silent.

  As expected, the small man was dismissed from the school and once again had to live like a peasant. No longer could he lead students in a basketball game or flit to and fro between parallel bars. He looked like a vegetable blighted by frost, living with disheveled hair and a dirty face. And he had to pay for his father’s crimes. He sold half of the newly built brick building but still owed 800 yuan. It was said he was so depressed that he whimpered in his home all night.

  Lai Shun told Darky about the small man’s recent woes. Darky in turn spoke to Mu Du. “Since his family abused public property, he had to give every penny of it back. But now he is penniless, which is indeed miserable.”

  Mu Du clapped his hands and shouted, “Great, that’s great—he should hang himself!”

  But Darky said, “We can feel good seeing his family get their due punishment, but we are better off now, and he is young and has to support his old mother and wife. Why don’t we send him some money to fill his pit? What do you think?”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Mu Du asked. “You want to invite the mockery of others?”

  Darky said, “Why would others sneer at me? When I got divorced, they laughed at me. Today, if I relieve his distress, they should sneer at his family, not at me!” She was determined, so Mu Du yielded to her.

  Darky called on her former husband. His mother felt so ashamed that she dared not meet Darky and hid in the inner room. The little man sat alone in his own room, where he had nothing but bare walls. All the wardrobes and suitcases were gone. When Darky took out money, he threw himself on the floor to kowtow to her.

  Darky learned that after the credit agent had been caught, the mayor was given a grave disciplinary warning from the Party. He was removed from office and sent to another town government as a minor secretary. Meanwhile, his daughter, the small man’s second wife, bagged all the valuables from their home and went to live with her parents. Before long, there was gossip about the small man’s marriage to the mayor’s daughter. The story was that in the beginning the newlyweds were not only inseparable, but couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Sometimes they even did their bedroom work during the day and were spied on by the students. Later, the woman became fed up and often spent the night elsewhere. Someone saw her hugging and kissing a handsome young stranger at the corner of the wall. This was well known in the town, secret only to the small man. When his wife would not sleep with him, he beat her. After that they slept together, sharing the same bed, but with different minds. Eventually, they supposedly agreed to an animal-like arrangement on Sunday nights. His wife would swallow three sleeping pills after supper and let him do as he pleased while she gradually lost consciousness.

  When Darky heard this story, on the one hand, she took pleasure in the small man’s misfortune; on the other, she was repulsed by his wife’s crudeness.

  The small man did not ask for a divorce—but since his wife never came home, he lived the life of a divorced man. One day, when Mu Du and Darky were busy kneading dough in their restaurant, the small man, sitting under the willow by the restaurant, called timidly, “Brother Mu Du!”

  Mu Du invited him to come in and made tea for him. Soon Lai Shun arrived. The three men started chatting, but each with his own mind. The small man said, “Brother Mu Du, I’d like to work in the coal pit at Tong Guan beyond the mountains. Could you show me the way?”

  Lai Shun said, “You want to work in the coal pit! Can you stand the hardships?”

  The small man sighed. “I need money badly.”

  Mu Du replied, “It may not be a bad idea to go there, but your life will be at risk at all times. If you’re lucky and shed sweat there for several months, you’ll have enough to start a proper business after you come back.”

  Standing motionless in the dim shadows, Darky thought that if the small man had had such ambitions sooner, he would not have fallen into such dire straits. Recalling her own bitter experiences with him, she could not help shedding tears.

  He had been enslaved by money all his life: money was the devil he had to pursue.

  The small man eventually left for Tong Guan. Unfortunately, within two months, a telegram came: he had been smashed to death by a landslide in the coal pit.

  When her ex-husband’s corpse arrived, Darky saw that he was headless, but the flayed and empty skin of his face remained. She fell into a heap and burst into tears. After pulling herself together, she fetched a dry gourd from the restaurant, fit it on the head of the corpse, and pinned the facial skin to it so it resembled a head.

  In the autumn, as social reforms became more and more popular, people from factories in the big cities would come to the town, promoting the sale of goods and purchasing some mountain products. Two new streets were added in the town. The women who had sat on the sides of the street, doing needlework and gossiping, were now running a store where they installed a plank door and slanting windows larger than the door. They arranged shelves full of goods for sale.

  Darky’s restaurant was expanded from one to three rooms, now reaching close to the huge willow in front. They served not only noodles but also a variety of stir-fried meat dishes. They hired a chef, an old man invited from outside the city limits with a salary of one hundred yuan a month.

  Mu Du still wore the same clothes, neither shabby nor neat, and did the heavy manual labor. Darky, with smooth hair and a delicate face, was neatly dressed and in charge of greeting the guests, while an ample and wide-hipped girl washed the dishes and bowls. The girl had no parents and lived with her brother’s family. Darky paid her thirty yuan a month, with meals provided in the restaurant.

  Darky was fond of the fat girl and shared with her good food and drinks. After the restaurant closed at night, Darky would invite her to share the bed, and the two would talk at length about relations
between men and women. The girl was a rough diamond who had already learned about sex between men and women. She asked Darky why she had not seen her employers sleep together since she’d started to work there. Darky would always change the subject.

  Lai Shun often came to the restaurant, chatting and laughing with the boss and workers. But after three cups of liquor, he would become fish-eyed. His blank eyes would fix on the oblique beam of light shining through a hole in the roof. The fat girl could never understand what he was staring at. She saw only innumerable insects sinking and rising in the light. Darky just said, “Do your washing up.” She then seated herself at the table and drank silently.

  At nightfall, Darky asked the fat girl to rest with her at home while Mu Du stayed at the restaurant.

  The old chef asked, “Mu Du, why don’t you go home to sleep with your wife? Don’t you trust me here?”

  Mu Du said, “What’s the difference between sleeping at home or here?”

  “If you stay here, who will warm your wife’s feet?”

  Mu Du chuckled. “We’re a seasoned couple and no longer young!”

  The old man replied, “How old are you? Are you older than me? When I was your age, I wouldn’t go out every night.”

  Mu Du laughed. “Sometimes I go home—and so what? Once or twice a month is enough.”

  “What a man!” The old chef shook his head. “You’re supposed to have pillow talk with your wife. Every evening, couples out in the country go for a walk shoulder-to-shoulder on the riverbank.” Then he sighed. “But I guess there are differences between town and country.”

  One night when Mu Du was sleeping in the restaurant, Darky sent the fat girl to fetch something from the restaurant at midnight. The fat girl came back from the restaurant feeling wronged, but Darky paid no attention.

  On the night of the Midautumn Festival, the moon was bright and round. Families were enjoying their reunion moon cakes, peanuts, and chestnuts at home. There were few customers at the restaurant. That afternoon, after the old chef returned to his home in the town, the fat girl closed the restaurant early and arranged some drinks and refreshments on the stone table before the gate. When she called the couple to come to the table, Darky was nowhere to be found.