Zhang, however, refuses to take her bait. He turns to Pillar to ask, “Did you ever tell Plantain? Does she know?”
“No, I never did,” Pillar replies softly. “Simpleminded Plantain is not at all aware of it. We never uttered a word, for fear that an improper past would hurt her chances for a happy life.”
Feeling neglected, Pillar’s Wife hastens to cut in. “Uncle Zhang, suppose Nan does convince us that she’s the birth mother. She’s not likely to convince our daughter so easily. Plantain will most likely hate Nan and bitterly reject her. Don’t you see that?”
“My wife is right, Uncle Zhang. Plantain is hard to convince—of anything. There’s no guarantee that she’ll be willing to accept Nan. Before you tell Duckweed the truth, perhaps you should go first to Plantain and try to sound her out on the matter. If Plantain is willing to meet Nan, then it’s OK with us. Otherwise, you’d be wise to tell Duckweed to go home without revealing any more secrets.”
“Pillar, you are right to say so,” Zhang agrees. Exhausted, he manages to stand up, with more than a little effort.
Pillar turns gently to his wife. “Why don’t you go out to the celebration and enjoy yourself?”
“I’m not feeling well. You go,” his wife whispers.
The celebration in front of the school is nearing its end. Lunchtime approaches, and a great feast is laid out. People are eating and drinking around the stone table. Dates, potatoes and sweet potatoes, corn, squash porridge—everything is served with joy. Kids are running in twos and threes with corncobs in their hands, making a noisy scene.
A bell rings, and the pupils return to their classroom. The grounds are suddenly half-empty and far quieter. Men smoke in groups or drink tea, while the women chat about their own affairs.
Duckweed sets a carton of cigarettes on the table, inviting people to help themselves. Then she picks up the camera and resumes filming the villagers. Afterward, she enters the school and continues shooting portraits of each and every child.
The children are hard at work in their classroom. The day’s text is entitled Little Hero Yulai. The teacher reads it first, followed by a group reading out loud:
I am a good child;
I love the Chinese Communist Party.
The children’s voices merge in a sweet, clear sound, full of life and vigor.
“These are the cabins built for the educated young people from Beijing,” Nan declares before her video camera, “funded by the Beijing government. Now they have become the classrooms of the Little Clear Creek school. When I arrived, the lovely students were already in class.”
Retreating sadly, Nan climbs the hillside, gaining a bird’s-eye view of the village. While she speaks, Literate Li takes up the video camera to film her commentary.
“This is Little Clear Creek, an ordinary village in northern Shaanxi Plateau. I lived in this place for three years as a younger woman, and it is here that I left my . . . my . . . past.”
Nan chokes on her words, unable to speak. She takes the camera from Li, turns it off, and then hands it back to him. Leaning against a big tree, she begins sobbing, tears streaming down her cheeks.
After a while, she hears someone calling her from behind. “Duckweed, Duckweed! Do you recognize my voice?”
Wiping away her tears, she turns to see a surprisingly young-looking man.
“Pillar! You look just the same as before. You haven’t changed!”
“I was working on the hillside when I heard people shouting your name, and I ran like a hurricane to come see you.”
Behind him trails Hillock Zhang, who has taken notice of Nan’s distress, saying, “Let’s go back, it’s too high and cool here.”
On their way down, Duckweed hangs back and confides to Uncle Zhang, “I feel depressed. I need a good cry.”
“Go ahead, my child. Nobody will laugh at you. It will be a release for you.”
“Are there any clues yet?” she asks tentatively.
“Hard to say.” Zhang scratches his head, glancing at Pillar a few steps ahead.
Evening approaches and the sun begins to set. Duckweed knows she has to tear herself away from the village, so she travels from door to door saying her good-byes.
Women—young and old, married and unmarried—tug at her sleeve, saying good-bye with sorrowful voices. Duckweed is bathed in tears. No one is willing to let her go, so they walk hand in hand for a long stretch.
Duckweed confides to the women that with her three years of experience in the village, she believes she will be more satisfied, more content, in the long run. She learned a lot, she says, and owes so much to those three years. Tempered by hard country life, she is now able to deal with any difficulty—whether in the army, in an office, or working as a business manager, as she has in recent years, on leave with pay suspension. She is her own boss.
She tells them with great seriousness that she has a good plan to supply some money to the village, so that they can build a date-processing factory. Two problems should be considered, she advises: one, the market, and two, technique. She will be responsible, she says, for creating a market. The technique problem can be addressed by inviting an expert to visit the village and write up a feasibility report.
She adds that she would like to bring the video recording she’s made to her colleagues, but that she will send a copy back to Little Clear Creek.
The villagers have nothing comparable to offer their dear daughter in return, other than their best dates, squash, and buckwheat flour. They fill a large bag for Duckweed, but she struggles under the weight of their generosity. Since she’s not strong enough to carry the gift, Zhang steps in to offer a solution. “I have an assistant,” he shouts. “Li the Literate—he can carry your gifts for Duckweed.”
All the offerings create a heavy burden on the shoulders of Li, who protests that he serves simply as a beast of burden!
Hillock Zhang looks back as the tractor starts to sputter. He catches sight of Pillar’s Wife standing in front of her cabin, drying her tears. She, too, is seeing them off.
The three-wheeled tractor booms away down the path, leaving the village behind in the distance. Silence settles there in the dark, the only sound the retreating hum of the tractor. No one utters a word, but excitement still lingers in their hearts.
The next morning, Duckweed gets up later than usual. Her habit of rising early, carefully cultivated in the army, has been forsaken this morning.
She seats herself at a table in the dining hall, her droopy eyes betraying a sleepless night. It’s as if she’s in a trance. Overexcited and still exhausted, she is not quite back to herself, even after a night in bed.
“A remote, small, mountainous village . . .” She can’t help humming this familiar song. The tune begins to energize her, and she considers how right she was to come and visit the village, even aside from her personal reasons. Twenty years have already passed, and she has returned to this place of growth only once. She silently chides herself for not having come sooner.
The waitress brings a bowl of buckwheat noodles in mutton soup. It’s Duckweed’s favorite food. In their twenties, she and her friends would enjoy this soup whenever they came to town, if for no other reason than for the nutrition, which was severely lacking in those days.
But today the mutton soup doesn’t taste as good as her memories. Duckweed isn’t sure whether the difference is in the soup or in herself. Probably the latter, she decides charitably, for the pace of any such change in mountain life is quite sluggish.
The waitress offers her more soup, and adds some with a spoon at Duckweed’s gesture. The waitress is named Plantain, Duckweed recalls.
Here Plantain stands before her, short and buxom, just shy of five feet tall. Her official uniform indicates that at least one of her family members is serving in the army. Her hair is thick and black, plaited into two braids down her back. Her chest swells from inside her jacket, suggesting a womanly figure despite the shapeless army garb. Duckweed imagines how strong Plantain’s chi
ld must be, considering the mother’s form. The name of Plantain’s daughter suddenly comes to her: Qiong Qiong.
Plantain seems nervous. Seeing Duckweed watching her so closely, she turns away self-consciously and rushes off.
Pushing the empty bowl aside, Duckweed considers her plan to visit Hillock Zhang, who probably has something to tell her after yesterday. Of course, as her elder, Zhang must also be visited out of courtesy, out of respect.
She heads outside. Qiong Qiong is playing on the doorstep; she casts the child a hearty smile. She is so lovely, Duckweed thinks.
“Legs in flood; lips in blood,” the little girl chants when she sees Duckweed. She’s poised to run the moment someone approaches to scold or strike her.
Duckweed is in an especially fine mood and is not at all annoyed at the child’s taunting. She smiles at her lovingly.
“Qiong Qiong, would you come walk with me for a while? I have candy to share with you.” To add credence to her claim, Duckweed produces several candies from her handbag.
The effect on the girl is obvious; she instantly warms up to Duckweed in the face of this temptation. Duckweed removes a candy wrapper and puts a sweet morsel into the girl’s little mouth.
Within minutes, Qiong Qiong is as tame as a puppy.
“Auntie!” she calls to Duckweed in her sweetest voice. Duckweed takes her by the hand, walking toward the mediator’s office.
The newly appointed auntie and niece walk along and take in the view. They stop in several shops along the way. When they finally arrive at the mediator’s office, Duckweed learns that Uncle Zhang has gone to the guesthouse to see her. He must have a reason for going there instead of waiting for me, she thinks. So she and the girl turn around and head back to where they came from.
Perhaps overly spoiled by her mother, Qiong Qiong quickly grows tired from their long walk, and she begins pestering her auntie to carry her almost the entire way. Duckweed, who has had no child to carry ever since she gave her baby up to the woods, is not inclined to give in to the girl. And besides, this little child looks like she needs the exercise. So Duckweed just ignores the girl’s pleas.
Halfway home, Qiong Qiong absolutely refuses to take another step. She begins yelling at her newfound auntie and rolling around on the ground in a childish tantrum. Duckweed has little choice but to bend down and, dusting the child off, pick her up and carry her the rest of the way to the guesthouse. She quietly regrets taking this naughty child with her.
Duckweed struggles to keep her balance along the path as she maneuvers Qiong Qiong in her arms. Then suddenly her eye is drawn to a pendant around the child’s neck.
It is something like a locket, a kind typically worn by a child from the time he or she is one month old until the age of thirteen. But the one before her eyes is not typical; it is a Chairman Mao badge, once very popular during the Cultural Revolution but now rarely seen. Here its function has been transformed into a traditional one, serving as a good-luck charm in true country fashion. Duckweed recalls the taxis in Beijing that have Mao badges hanging inside to serve as talismans for luck and safety.
With highlighted cheeks and swept-back gray hair, Mao’s image on the badge is so familiar to Duckweed that she recognizes instantly that she was once the owner of this badge.
How could that be? But certainly it is true. It was her second winter in northern Shaanxi; Duckweed received the pendant during the provincial meeting for agricultural-education activists from Dazhai. In a flash, her memories flood back to her. The badge had been pinned on the Red Guard uniform she’d used to cloak her poor child—her own flesh and blood, whom Duckweed wrapped tenderly before giving to her friends to abandon in the woods.
In the thrill of discovery, Duckweed grabs for the badge and turns it over. Oh! She finds a line of words: Shaanxi provincial meeting for agricultural-education activists from Dazhai, 1970.
“Don’t touch that! Mom said it’s Grandpa’s!” Qiong Qiong resents her aunt for this intrusion.
“Let’s go and find your mother, my child.” Her voice trembles with delight. Pressing Qiong Qiong closer to her breast, she quickens her pace.
With Qiong Qiong’s help, Duckweed finds Plantain’s home and stops just outside her small room. She can hear two voices conversing, a woman’s and a man’s.
First, Plantain’s voice pleads with Uncle Zhang: “Uncle Zhang, this must be some sort of cruel joke! A strange woman appears and declares she is my mother from who knows where, for no reason—someone I’ve never seen or heard of. I say, you tell her to keep her hands off me and out of my life. I’ll never accept her as my mother.”
Zhang is annoyed. “Nan comes all the way by air and bus to see you because she’s trying to make things right. Don’t you see she did this out of love? She made a mistake in the past and did not treat you well, and now she’s trying to atone for what she did. Can’t you see that?”
“No. I really don’t see that. Can you find a drugstore where a remedy for horrible mistakes is sold? If my father had not picked me up from outside the village, I would have become a square meal for a wolf in the wilderness. Is that something she can atone for?”
“How can you say these things? How can you insult your own mother? It’s a blessing to have her as a mother. Don’t you see?”
“I don’t care. I would happily do without that kind of blessing, if you insist on calling it that. Uncle Zhang, perhaps you want a mother like that. Tell that woman that I have only one mother, and she is in Little Clear Creek. I’d rather go begging with her my whole life, until even she pushes me away!”
“What a wild child!” wails Zhang, feeling particularly old.
“Mommy, Mommy!” cries Qiong Qiong, her little hand patting at the door.
Plantain opens the door. Nan enters, hesitant. Plantain sees Qiong Qiong in Nan’s arms, and she freezes. Then she takes her child from Duckweed, yelling, “Shame on you, Qiong Qiong! How can you let your beautiful dress touch that woman’s arms? You dirty-bones!”
“Plantain, please, watch your language!” Zhang tries to calm her.
Duckweed looks at Plantain, tears welling in her eyes. She says to Zhang, “Uncle Zhang, do not blame Plantain. Let her pour out her complaints at me. It will be a relief to me. No matter what insults she hurls at me, I can withstand it!”
At this gesture of calm tolerance from Nan, Plantain stands dumbfounded, speechless. Her lips tremble.
The air feels like it will explode. Zhang plays the part of a mediator, saying, “Plantain got the news just a moment ago, and she’s still trying to wrap her mind around all of this. I’m sure she’ll grow more comfortable with the facts in a couple of days. Am I right?”
Holding her child tightly in her arms, Plantain remains silent for a while and then releases a sudden loud cry. Duckweed, too, begins crying without restraint. Knowing that he should give these emotional women their privacy, Zhang leaves the room.
It’s a sunny autumn day, and a golden wind caresses the faces of those outside. Nan is walking happily along a street of Good Luck Town with Qiong Qiong warm in her arms. After some shopping, Qiong Qiong has a new look. She is now a city girl, in leather shoes and smart trousers with suspenders. She clutches a piece of candy in one hand.
“Auntie, are you one of us? Are you from Good Luck Town?” she asks Nan.
“No, I’m just passing through. I leave in a couple days. Work is waiting for me in Beijing.”
“Is Beijing far, far away?”
“Yes, far, far away. You’d go by plane.” She looks up into the air.
“Auntie, I want to go with you. I would have a new dress and candy every day. I’d fly in the air, on an airplane!”
“Oh, now.” Nan is amazed by the intensity of her feelings for this little one. Warmth permeates her body. Is this maternal love? She cannot tell. She sets Qiong Qiong down on her feet, giving the girl a gentle kiss.
Zhang catches sight of the exchange as he approaches from the other end of the street. The older man is de
eply touched.
“Qiong Qiong, you are so pretty!” he says. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”
The child does not hide her joy at being complimented. “Auntie bought this for me. She’s going to take me into the air on an airplane!”
“Qiong Qiong, you could call her ‘Grandma’ instead of ‘Auntie.’ How would you like that?”
“‘Grandma’! Auntie, should I do that?”
Duckweed nods her consent slowly, a bit uneasy at the suggestion.
“Grandma.” The child’s voice is sweet.
The little one shakes herself free of her grandmother’s hand and runs off to play.
“Perhaps I’ve been too self-conscious even to imagine it,” says Duckweed, “but I never dreamed of having someone call me ‘Grandma.’ I still feel like a young girl myself—I am one in my memory, just a girl in a Red Guard uniform with two braids, jumping and laughing and playing around. It feels like just yesterday!”
“Yes,” says Zhang. “But the youngest of the cadres’ generation is now around forty, or fifty, or even more. And twenty-five years have passed for those who came here in the winter of 1968 or spring of ’69. City people don’t show their age, but those who live a country life are already clearly grandparents!”
“Aging occurs everywhere, for everyone. I’m no exception. Time and tide wait for no man!”
Hillock asks how Asiatic Plantain is doing now with the news of her birth.
Duckweed recounts for him how Plantain kept crying the previous night, saying nothing. But, Duckweed says, she recognizes that this is radical news for Plantain. She owes Plantain a great deal, and so she doesn’t want to demand too much from her. Now that she has learned her grown daughter’s whereabouts and has spent time with her in person, she’s satisfied.
Zhang says that the news seems to have put Plantain into a state of shock. “Just give her time to get through it. Patience is your job now.”
Duckweed nods her agreement.
Old Land, New Tales: Twenty Short Stories by Writers of the Shaanxi Region in China Page 16
