I hurried to the commune clinic. The old Red Army man was lying on the bed; a woman doctor was giving him an injection. His face was sallow. The sight of me brought a glimmering light to his eyes; his mouth twitched a bit and he whispered to me, “It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. Live to work and die without regret. We are just little dewdrops and nothing more. Go to your work. Don’t delay!”
Luihua went to the grain shop to exchange food stamps. The doctor told me that because the old man had suffered from diarrhea for some time, he was seriously dehydrated. Because he was elderly, she was afraid that . . . She trailed off.
A cold shudder passed through me.
Liuhua came back from the grain shop. She flopped down, dejected. The grain shop would not buy back her food stamps. They only exchanged food stamps for corn and millet.
I resolved to visit the stubborn unit and go through the procedures. As I was preparing to leave, the doctor glanced at Liuhua and made a signal with her lips. “I’m afraid the old man won’t pull through.”
I was shaken. Dear God! Could it be that the old veteran was passing as if being blown away by a gust of wind?
5
The Red Army man was buried at the foot of the Great Wall, beneath the grassland where the wildflowers blossomed, under his beloved land where he’d left his footprints and to which he had dedicated his life.
No pursuit, no ambition.
Even on his deathbed, he’d held the hands of Director Wang and mumbled, “Don’t spend the country’s money on me. I’m just a little drop of dew. I haven’t done anything. Don’t trouble the Party. Please find Liuhua an honest peasant for a husband.”
After the Red Army man was buried, his identification problem was resolved—but it was too late. Director Wang held the piece of paper in his hand and bent his head in bitter mourning.
Soon afterward, it was arranged that Liuhua would work as an assistant in the shop of the supply-and-marketing cooperative in the neighboring village. Commune Director Wang came to meet Liuhua in person on a small tractor.
The atmosphere was joyful in the little yard of the donkey shed. Liuhua came out of the small room and approached the tractor through a throng of villagers.
Yet she did not get on to the tractor at once. Instead, she looked around at the donkey shed. Look! The long-eared donkeys were craning their necks to gape at Liuhua.
At that instant, the donkey bells rang out clearer and louder than ever, and a naughty gray foal leapt to Liuhua’s side and nuzzled her with its white nose.
Liuhua stood there as if rooted to the spot, stroking the pointed ears of the foal. The little donkey shook its head, and the bell jingled merrily.
Liuhua looked up and asked the leader of the production brigade, “Who will take care of the donkeys after I leave?”
The leader replied, “Don’t worry, there’s someone to take over.”
Liuhua didn’t move. She frowned and murmured, “But it’s already time for someone to graze the donkeys.”
Director Wang was anxious. “Hurry, Liuhua. Leave them. You’ve got a job—that’s the important thing. Maybe when you’re settled in Liang Village you and Junhai can be together. Let’s go.”
Liuhua was stunned at these words. She quickly turned her head and stared at Wang. Her black eyes shot out a sharp, cutting light. In an instant, she turned and went back into her father’s small room. She threw down her small bundle and picked up the herding stick. Coming back out with it, she said coldly, “I’m not going to Liang. I’ll stay here and graze the donkeys.”
6
It was dusk. Liuhua wasn’t back yet. I sat on the battlement of the Great Wall, gazing into the vast desert and grassland. Around me grew the same green grass and wildflowers. But now the scene included a small mound of yellow soil at the foot of the Wall: the grave of the Red Army man. The sunset cast a russet-golden light upon the grassland and shone on the long, curving form of the Wall extending eastward to the sea.
There was the same stillness. The sky seemed higher above; the clouds were paler. The earth looked expansive and immense. This was the real Great Wall, I thought to myself. It wasn’t as grand here as at Badaling, which attracts so many tourists. It was modest and true. This part of the Wall had been scoured by time and the turmoil of war for over two thousand years, and only a weathered mass remained. Nonetheless, it was solid and high. The flesh and blood of countless anonymous heroes like the Red Army man had brought it into existence. Their effort created this unadorned backbone of iron traversing the land from Shanhaiguan—the eastern “pass between the sea and mountains”—to the desert. Untouched by the world’s cares, it traveled from the Qin Dynasty into the world’s future.
I sat on the battlement of the ancient Great Wall and watched the sunset glow in the western sky over the grasslands and yellow sand. I was still conceiving my painting in my heart. But somehow, I could not help but be concerned about Liuhua, and I longed to see the donkeys she cared for. Yet stretching before me were only the vast sea of sand and the verdant plain. Nothing more could be seen. Where was she?
Suddenly the evening breeze carried the familiar jingle of donkey bells. They seemed far off and the sound was dim, but their music reached me clearly. It was always peaceful along the Great Wall, and yet that tranquil line carried an intrinsic power that overwhelmed me. At that moment I felt that the Great Wall was alive and that it smiled. Oh, you sleepless soul! What message do you whisper to our motherland and the posterity of China?
Translated by Liu Danling
Feng Jiqi
Born in Qishan County, Shaanxi Province, Feng Jiqi is a CPC member who studied writing in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Northwest University, graduating in 1990. He has worked as a correspondent and station-master at the radio station of Beiguo Town, Qishan County; editor and director of the editing office in the Chinese and Foreign Documentary Literature Magazine Company; and director of the editing office in the Yanhe River Magazine Company. He made his literary debut in 1983 and joined the Chinese Writers Association in 1994. Now he writes full time, working for the Shaanxi Provincial Writers Association.
His works include the prose collections Tell Your Life to Yourself, People’s Testimony, and Nothing Retained; short story collections Thirty Short Stories and My Farmer Parents; and the novels Season of Silence, Under the Big Tree, Knocking at the Door, Knife, and Village. His works have won first prize for the Galaxy Documentary Literature of Shaanxi Province, the Shaanxi Double-Five Literature Prize for a Collection of Stories, the Shaanxi Double-Five Literature Prize for a Collection of Essays, and the Nine-Headed Bird novel award.
11
FENG JIQI
The Butcher’s Knife
The old butcher Ma Changyi was using a grindstone to sharpen his knife in his courtyard. The grindstone was set on a stair under the eaves of his house, which saved him from bending down when he sat on a stool by the stairs. The knife could be made sharp only on a grindstone like this one, deep pea-green in color and fine in quality. The knife, used to kill pigs, was shaped like a willow leaf; it was one foot three inches long and three inches wide, with a smooth, oil-covered handle. Ma Changyi was sharpening all three of his knives in turn: two willow-leaf knives and a chopper.
With his right hand tightly gripping the handle, and three fingers of his left hand pressing, like a Chinese doctor taking a patient’s pulse, against the body of the knife, Ma Changyi waved his arms to and fro. He appeared to be careless and absentminded, but in fact he gave great attention to the amount of pressure he used so that the blade would not become blunted. The knife was double bladed; after he finished one blade, he switched the handle to his left hand and continued with the other.
Above the grindstone on another stair there was a china bowl of clear water, from which he took out a tuft of cloth to sprinkle water on the knife. The water scattered across the edge and then ran down the blade.
The springtime sun was pleasant. Rays of sunshine, as intimate
and cordial as the knife itself, seemed to be sliced by the leaf-shaped knife. The walls, the doors, and the windows of his house all glowed with happiness when the courtyard was turned white by the gleam of the knife. On the grindstone the sunlight, as thin as muslin, sparkled with every movement of the blade. The light seemed liquid, flowing in all directions.
Ma’s perfectly focused attention followed each long and short stroke of the knife on the grindstone. His ears were sensitively attuned to the sound made between knife and grindstone. The sound, as soft as a waving wheat stalk, was reserved and restrained, not the least bit wild or insolent.
The old butcher Ma Changyi had always sharpened his knives this way. The courtyard had a soft, warm atmosphere, with a slight sweet smell from the heated metal. Ma Changyi was as calm as the knife he was sharpening, but there was a trace of subtle joy in his stern face.
As he worked, Ma’s hands left the knife. The knife, however, continued moving back and forth, controlled by invisible hands. Ma Changyi moved his stool a little distance away from the step and fixed his eyes on the knife. Like a mechanical gear in a lathe, the knife was moving with the same rhythm it had followed in Ma’s hands a moment before. Ma Changyi showed no surprise; this was just what he expected to see. Like a painter, he was appreciating his newly completed work.
Ma Jianhua, the butcher’s son, came in and out through the gate several times. He said nothing when he saw his father sharpening the knife; it had become the older man’s daily routine. Five years had passed since his father had stopped working as a butcher, but he’d never stopped playing with his knives.
As a young man, Ma Changyi, the butcher, had been well known in Songling Village and throughout Nanbao County. He could skillfully kill a pig and, step by step, make it clean and white.
When the pig was lifted onto his table, he’d remove his coat or jacket and work wearing only a vest, open at the top so that his hairy chest showed through. He’d take up the rope that was used to bind up the pig, wrapping it around his own waist, and begin his work.
With the knife held tightly between his teeth, he’d use his right leg to press heavily upon the pig’s belly, his left foot placed solidly on the ground. His right hand grasped the pig’s front hip while his left hand held the pig’s snout. Once the butcher was in position, his left hand jerked the pig’s head back with a sudden force; the pig was unable to utter a sound. Taking up the knife in his right hand, he stabbed it at a slant into the pig’s neck. The whole action was finished in the blink of an eye. It was like a match being struck.
The butcher seemed to stab with great force, but in fact he used precisely enough pressure to pierce the pig’s heart, and not a bit more. When he pulled out the knife, he caught hold of the belly and squeezed. The pig’s blood ran into a basin through the cut in the neck. Thanks to the butcher’s agility, once the pig was dead its blood was almost immediately drained from its body. Then the skin became very white and bright.
The next step was to remove the pig’s hair in boiling water. The key was to mix cold water into boiling water so that the water was just the right temperature. If the water was too hot, it would damage the skin; if the water was too cold, the hair couldn’t be removed. To check the temperature of the boiling water, Ma Changyi would plunge three fingers into the water and immediately pull them out again. To cool it down he would add a bucket of cold water and then another three ladles of cold water. Now he knew the water’s temperature without touching it.
Once the pig was submerged in the mixed water, Ma Changyi would roll up his sleeves and plung his arms into the water. In a short time, the pig’s hair had been removed. Then the pig was put back on the table, and Ma Changyi would begin to demonstrate his knife skills.
First he would use his willow-leaf-shaped knife to scrape the pig’s body, twice. Before finishing, he would cut a hole near one back leg. With a skewer he’d stab into the pig’s body along the inner side of the skin. After inhaling a long and deep breath, as if drawing magical powers from somewhere between heaven and earth, Ma Changyi blew on the knife, his mouth nearly touching the blade. At this moment his emotions were aroused and his desire burned deep inside; his four limbs became as stiff and vigorous as the skewer. With his mouth seemingly welded to the pig, he would blow on the blade with a short breath; his cheeks bulged and his eyes opened wide. He’d alternate a long and deep breath with a short and light breath.
This blowing ritual was so rhythmic, enjoyable, and wonderful that he could blow thirty-two times on one inhale. His eyes lit up; he was fully enjoying his work, reveling in it. Women watching would hold their own breath, their eyes wide; some shed warm tears. Ma Changyi would lift his eyes from the pig and sweep them over the women’s peach-blossom faces. A nearly indiscernible smile made his brow crease lightly.
Ma’s mouth soon left the knife. His hands tightly holding the pig’s leg, he’d exhale a long breath. His expression would be self-contented. Sweat would run down his face.
After he’d bound up the opening with flaxen twine, he’d begin again to scrape the pig’s whole body with great force, all the way from neck to tail.
The knife took away all the dirty, filthy matter with a rustling sound. He used just enough strength to remove the remaining hair, but not so much as to damage the pig’s skin. His feet beside the table seemed to be dancing rhythmically to the knife’s every movement. The knife was singing and speaking, too.
At this point Ma Changyi was like a drunkard, intoxicated with his work: shaking his head, waving his arms, and moving his feet in small, fast steps. His face held an intense expression, almost bitter looking, scrunched up as if in great pain, but his eyes glowed with happiness.
In Ma Changyi’s hands, the knife bloomed like a flower, proud as the sun, bursting into laughter like a madman. After the butcher scraped the whole pig from left to right, he’d again scrape from top to bottom. The second time, Ma Changyi would hold the handle in his right hand and the knife in his left hand, but after several strokes he’d gradually loosen his grip. The knife moved obediently over the pig’s body with exactly the proper strength. It worked more freely now, scraping away all the remaining hair tucked into the wrinkled crevices of the pig’s head. The scraping sound was as clear and melodious as a person tapping his fingers on a drum. Squatting down beside the pig, Ma Changyi watched the movement of the knife with a smile on his face.
The crowd of onlookers was startled to see the knife perform for Ma Changyi without his controlling it.
When the pigskin was scraped clean, Ma Changyi moved to cut open the pig’s belly. He placed the knife’s tip gently, just on the line formed between the pig’s belly and its anus. He pressed the blade lightly and a line appeared, like a masterful brushstroke on a piece of white paper. Abruptly, he stilled the knife. His right hand held the handle lightly, while his left hand suddenly hit a spot on the handle not covered by his right. The belly, like two doors, opened with a clang, and the tripe and intestines poured out.
Laying down the knife, the butcher grasped a two-foot-long, smooth, oiled stick to prop the belly open, allowing a stream of hot air to burst out. At this moment, he’d shout in a low voice, “Get away!” As the crowd shrank back, he would quickly grab a handful of cottonlike steaming grease from inside the belly and put it into his mouth. He’d tilt his head back and promptly dispatch the grease to his stomach. Often, women would spontaneously utter an amazed “ah!” Ma Changyi didn’t look at them at all; he took up the knife again and continued his work.
The willow-leaf-shaped knife was an amazement to the villagers. They couldn’t help sighing and gasping in surprise. Some young women, in particular, exclaimed, “The knife, the knife!” They gazed at Ma Changyi in admiration.
Ma Changyi appeared untouched by their gaze, though he certainly knew what their eyes meant. Sometimes a flirtatious woman would pat him on the shoulder, saying, “Brother Ma, tell me what magic you have performed.”
Turning around for a glimpse at the woman, he’d re
ply casually, “It’s not magic, but skill from my years of practice.”
Some thought the knife a monster; when Changyi put it down, a curious man would take it up and test its sharpness by cutting his own hair. The man would loosen his grasp to see if the knife would move on its own, but the knife always refused and would fall to the ground, nearly slicing off the man’s foot. The villagers sensed the strangeness of the knife, but they couldn’t figure out why the same knife would move automatically like a machine in Ma’s hands.
Now, on his stairs under the eaves, Ma Changyi turned to see a woman standing before him. She was a beggar and had made a living in Songling for a long time; all the villagers knew her. She was in her forties or a bit younger, known to be a native of Wudu County in Gansu Province.
Without a word, the woman fixed her eyes on the knife moving automatically on the grindstone, free of Ma’s touch. Her mouth half-open, she blinked at the back-and-forth movement of the knife. The knife had captured her gaze as well as her heart. She seemed nervous; one hand was clenched in a fist and the other grasped a corner of her clothing.
Ma Changyi took the knife from the grindstone. The beggar relaxed and nodded as if to show her admiration. The butcher took out ten yuan from his pocket and gave the money to the beggar.
The woman said, “The knife, your knife?”
Angrily Ma Changyi bent down and picked up his knife. It gleamed. The beggar suddenly trembled, and her face turned pale. Ma Changyi said impatiently, “You are not to come here anymore!”
The beggar turned and quickly disappeared. Ma Changyi glanced at the woman’s back, finding it upright and her hips plump, not sullen and loose.
Ma Changyi, now retired these past five years, continued to sharpen his knives. Then, as he always did, he took the knives and walked toward the gate.
At the passage between the new building and his own house, he encountered two girls who worked at his son’s restaurant. Thanks to a custom granted by Fengshan County, dozens of households ran catering businesses. But Ma Jianhua’s building was located just beside the highway, giving his business an advantage. In his building, the first and second floors were occupied by the restaurant, and the third floor was a dance hall. On Sundays, many city dwellers from Xishui City and the provincial capital would tour Zhougong Temple; from there they would come to the village to rest and dine.
Old Land, New Tales: Twenty Short Stories by Writers of the Shaanxi Region in China Page 26
