Ma Jianhua said, “Just put your knife back and then come in, have a look. You’ve never seen how the young people dance.”
His father replied, “I want to bring the knife with me. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Bring it if you want,” Ma Jianhua said.
The father followed his son into the dance hall. Intoxicated by the music, the young people inside didn’t notice Ma with his knife. The butcher took a seat on a bench, holding the knife in his lap. When the colored lights swept over the hall, the knife, ablaze in color and waves of light, seemed like a natural part of the scene.
A girl with large breasts and a wide bottom came over to Ma Changyi. She was going to ask him to dance; she hadn’t noticed the knife. Unaware that the girl had had an affair with his son, Ma Changyi raised the knife from his lap. He only meant to explain that he wasn’t there to dance, just to have a look. But the girl, seeing the knife reflect a dazzling gleam, screamed and rushed toward the crowd as if chased by a murderer.
Back in the courtyard, Ma Changyi sat beside the step under the house eaves and began sharpening the knife again. After a while, he put his thumb on the blade to feel its sharpness. Then he took the knife to a poplar next to an outhouse in the backyard. He chopped off all the branches of the poplar with the force and speed of a much younger man. He was torturing the knife, as the knife was torturing him.
“You are useless!” he shouted. “What can I do with you?”
Returning to the dance hall, Ma Changyi knew that he’d scared the girl, but his eyes couldn’t help searching for her. He saw her dancing in a man’s arms. The girl was turning round and round, swaying along with the music. He blinked and saw that her clothes had been cast away. Ma’s eyes were filled with the vision of plump nipples and fleshy hips.
He gripped the knife handle tightly, hearing a dull sound in his ears. The girl’s fleshy white body was swaying before his eyes, making him feel dizzy. The sound of the music was at some times like corn stalks crushed under a tractor, and at other times like a pig’s fatty meat being cut away from bone. Colored lights poured down like rain. It felt like what skimmed overhead was not colored light, but countless knives. They were as soft as noodles but still retained their sharpness.
Ma Changyi had played with knives his whole life and had never feared them. Tonight, however, the sensation of all the knives above his head scared him out of his wits. Vaguely he saw one bloody cut after another on his body; he felt pain all over as if needles were piercing his chest. The knife fell to the floor with a loud bang, overwhelming the noise of the music.
Suddenly the music stopped—the dancing was over for the night. Ma Changyi’s thoughts were interrupted by girls’ shouts, laughter, and the footsteps of the crowd heading downstairs. With difficulty he bent down to pick up the knife. Leaning on it with its tip pointed toward the ground, he struggled back into his own old, shabby house.
One day between late summer and early autumn, the villagers found the dead body of the woman beggar. She had been stabbed to death on the edge of a swamp. Curious, Ma Jianhua joined the onlookers.
The woman beggar, her limbs stretched out, lay prone at the foot of the slope leading to the swamp. Her hair hung loosely over her face. There was a large stab wound in her back. She had been wearing her shoes with the back part squashed flat, so that her heels stuck out of them. She was neatly dressed; it looked like she was only sleeping, facedown.
Standing beside the body, the villagers whispered, “Who would stab this woman to death?” Several of them let out a sympathetic sigh. “She looks so nice. What a pity!”
Ma Jianhua squeezed into the crowd to have a glimpse. After seeing the hole in her back, he left, feeling sick.
When he entered the yard, Ma Jianhua could no longer keep from throwing up. Ma Changyi, who sat sharpening his knife, asked his son, “What’s the matter?”
Ma Jianhua answered, “A killing. I have seen a killing.”
“Who was killed?” his father asked.
Ma Jianhua answered, “Someone killed the woman beggar.”
Ma Changyi replied, “Do you think that is worthy of your attention? Haven’t you seen a dead person before?” He sprayed some clean water on the knife and was again lost in his work.
In the afternoon, the body was taken away by the local police. Afterward, two policemen came to the village and went door-to-door in search of clues.
When the policemen came to his door, Ma Jianhua didn’t conceal anything about what he knew.
“Did you know the woman beggar?” asked one officer.
“Yes, I did,” answered Ma Jianhua.
“When did you see her last?”
“About a month ago.”
“Who in the village is most likely to have any hatred toward the woman?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why do you think someone would want to kill a beggar?”
“It couldn’t have been a murder for money. How much money could a beggar have?”
“Do you think she was raped and then killed?” asked the police, scrutinizing his face.
“I suppose someone is so thirsty as to eat snow.” Ma Jianhua smiled.
“Then you don’t think she was raped?”
“Only a guess,” said Ma Jianhua. “Without any evidence I dare not draw a conclusion.”
The policemen spent three days looking into the case in Songling but uncovered no clues about the killer. Since the victim was no more than a beggar, they had little motivation to pursue the investigation. After all, it is difficult to solve a case without any clues.
Just when the police were preparing to put the case aside for the time being, something happened in the village. To the villagers’ surprise and shock, Ma Changyi committed suicide.
For a couple of days prior, Ma Changyi hadn’t sharpened his knife.
At lunchtime that day, Ma Changyi didn’t show up in his son’s restaurant as he usually did. Thinking his father wasn’t feeling well, the son left him alone so he could rest. After lunch, when there were fewer customers, he went into his father’s old house. Ten pairs of shoes were still neatly displayed on top of the cabinet. His father lay on the bed, covered with the quilt from head to toe.
Thinking he was asleep, the son called, “Father!” But his father made no reply. He called again, and still his father remained motionless.
His heart suddenly seized with fear; Ma Jianhua could smell blood and iron. Drawing closer to the bed, he lifted the quilt and saw a pool of blood. Three knives lay beside his father. The butcher had sliced the vein in his arm. His body had already stiffened.
Translated by Zhang Yihong
Li Kangmei
Born in Weinan City, Shaanxi Province, Li Kangmei graduated from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, North-west University, in 1989. Before that, in 1970, he had joined the army and worked as a soldier of 5307 Unit, as a temp at Weinan Fuel Company, and as a professional writer at the Art Institute. He is the fourth standing director of the Shaanxi Provincial Writers Association and chairman of the Weinan Writers Association. He made his literary debut in 1981 and joined the Chinese Writers Association in 1994.
Li Kangmei’s works include the novels Fissura Marginalis, Forever, and Roses Are Still Red; the novellas Chilly Winds and Cold Rains, Family Problems, Thick Soil, Snowfield, Revenge, Battle of Official Career, Go to the Post, and Female County Magistrate; and the TV series Old Circumvallation. His Li Kangmei Corpus is a three-volume opus. His work has won the Shaanxi Double-Five Literature Prize, the China Central Television Best Script Prize, and the Torrent Excellent Works of Henan Province Award.
12
LI KANGMEI
The Portrait of the Ancestor
A true June sun looks down. In its bright light, her extended shadow moves energetically. Solemnly she brandishes the broom as the splashed water soaks into the earth. Her loose, white gown is a lonely cloud floating in the drifting dusty fog, but from the sky it looks like a mass of
rags. The ground is as clean as if it has been freshly wiped by a cloth. A pungent scent rises from the earth.
A bar tightly latches the gate. In the yard, a stripe of white hemp is tied between two pegs, projecting a pitch-black shadow arc against the dark-yellow land.
She trembles with excitement, holding the ancestral portrait with both hands. It seems like the austere ancestor on the long, mounted scroll might blow away with the wind as she wipes, but she doesn’t slacken in her ritual cleansing. This annual ritual causes the ancestor on the ancient rice paper to become haggard and frail. She must be careful not to let his portrait be exposed to the sun nor left in the damp to grow moldy.
First she unfolds the scroll on the kang. The stiff and yellowish underlay sends out a cracking sound like raindrops falling on withered leaves. Carefully intent, she feels her sparse hair damp with sweat and her skin shiny as wet glass. More than once she experiences a leaping-up disturbance of some kind, a sudden tightening in her body. It makes her wonder about this portrait of sitting men whose heroic handsomeness is compelling enough to attract any woman. Though the once-vivid color has faded with time, the central figure’s lifelike gentle, merciful face once again penetrates deep into her imagination. He wears an ancient outfit. His long, thick hair, bound by a stripe of gold, stands tall; a golden belt circles the waist of his mauve robe.
This ancestor, in fact, belongs to all those villagers who respect him as “the grandfather.” A distant conflict among the kindred long ago caused a regretful separation between him and his wife. Those dissatisfied with the local harsh living conditions chose to emigrate stealthily. But surprisingly, during their midnight leaving, they did not take the scroll with the male ancestor’s portrait. Whether they acted out of sympathy or anxiety is not clear. In any case, the scroll is now incomplete—the female portrait is missing, a sad vacancy. Fortunately the portrait of the male ancestor still has the power to hold the pieces of the village together.
In the past, on lunar New Year’s Day, the portrait was unfolded on the wide wall of the ancestral temple before every inhabitant; the forefather in the scroll would sit solemnly upright, receiving the people who made deep bows before him. Even after the temple was rebuilt as a school, the scroll remained at the hall for a couple of New Year’s Days. Only the chief of the village was entitled to keep this precious scroll.
But now, the scroll has been left in the care of an outsider, a middle-aged woman who has never been the chief of the settlements. Her dead father-in-law once was the chief, and her ex-husband succeeded him. But the latter quit the position and now is a contractor in town. He rarely comes back to this home, for he has remarried. They are no longer husband and wife.
The portrait has almost been forgotten by the local villagers.
Her ex-husband did not think to hand the portrait over when quitting as chief. The current chief is a young lad; he called the portrait “the thing” when she offered it from both hands with respect. He allowed his aunt—that’s what he called her—to keep it safe and sound.
She carried the thing under her arm when she went home, with a wild mix of emotions. Thus suddenly honored, she had a sense of irrevocable responsibility. The young chief instructed her to keep the scroll “safe and sound,” smiling trustingly. She knew nothing of the rituals that had been involved prior to her marriage, only the single fact that the keeper would be responsible for accepting all tributes dedicated to the ancestral portrait. Later, the tributes eventually ceased. But she felt that the guardian of the portrait must continue to represent its supreme stature and value in the village.
She remembers how her father-in-law, in the small hours of the first day of the lunar New Year, would ask his wife to take out the portrait from some secret place in the closet. Then, escorted by firecrackers all the way to the school hall, and after the villagers crowded in, he would be the first to worship with three kowtows. He would stand beside the portrait, witnessing as the villagers one by one made their three deep bows of respect. Her family shared the honor of escorting the portrait and kowtowing early because of her father-in-law.
She had memorized all the rules of the ritual before her mother-in-law had left the scene. The portrait was presented twice a year—once on the first day of the lunar New Year, and again on the sixth of June. Her ex-husband had performed the sacred ritual for a few years after her father-in-law’s death. Although the lunar ceremony gradually lost its grandeur, the portrait continued to be faithfully presented twice a year. Then her ex-husband decided with deep regret: no more public display, but we can still hang it at home. Her family continued to be very faithful worshippers.
Now the portrait is left in her care. Her name, Huang Xishou, means “fine hands,” but it can also mean a woman from a different family.
The sunlight passes through the window onto the kang, where the portrait is in half-light and half-dark. After she finishes washing her hands and face in the kitchen, she notes the sunlight shining on half the portrait and turns pale with fright. While she and her husband were still married, he admonished her that the rules must not be broken and the portrait must always be protected from direct sunlight.
She eventually began to put a sheet over the rope holding the portrait. Then another sheet covered the portrait itself. Her ex-husband approved. Today she continues this practice skillfully, pulling the portrait into the shadows gently and then quickly draping a single bedsheet over it.
Unexpectedly, she feels her eyes grow moist. Her hands, busy spreading the sheets, turn rigid. The brand-new sheet is decorated with brilliantly colored pine and a crane: the pine boughs are lush and the white crane, symbolizing health and longevity, dramatically extends its wings. This is a gift from her daughter and has been kept in the bottom of the box. At the end of last year, when her son and daughter paid a visit, her son brought her a variety of foodstuffs, and her daughter, the sheet. She remembers how deeply satisfied she was when she first took it into her hands. Impulsively, as she put the sheet into the box, she thought of asking them to kowtow to the portrait on the first day of the New Year. The memory of that moment excites and thrills her, but her daughter had to go to her husband’s family to celebrate the arrival of the New Year. And her son could not stay either. Already the straw boss of his father, he has to split his filial piety—half to his mother, half to his father while guarding the construction site.
A knock stops the tears in her eyes.
Persuaded by her children, she has changed her living habits in recent years: eating well to lead a happy life, remembering things worth remembering, and forgetting things not worth the bother.
“Who is it?” She walks into the yard.
“Me,” answers a man.
“What is it?” she asks.
“Open the door to talk.” The man remains outside.
“Not today, I’m not going to . . .” She has kept today’s ritual as the main secret of her heart for years, but her secret almost slips out on hearing his voice. She swallows and smiles at herself silently.
A couple of years ago, she was anxious about no one taking over the portrait, but later, she started hoping that the memory of the portrait would disappear gradually among the villagers. When her ex-husband dumped her and started a new family, she was pleased to be left with his ancestor. She long ago decided that the moment before she passed away, she would ask all the villagers to gather around her and would offer them the portrait as a dedicated treasure, leaving all the villagers gaping and in tears.
What kind of honor will that be?
He chuckles outside, then gets close to the door and keeps his voice low: “I’m not going to . . . with you . . . I am going to . . .”
She raises her voice: “Not today, no matter what happens!” Today’s portrait drying is a heavy responsibility. The day has become holy to her, and she must keep herself clean for the sake of her sacred ancestor, resisting the insistent man outside. “You, you . . . you make me anxious!”
“You may be anxious, n
ot me.”
She doesn’t answer.
“OK, OK, I will come tonight.” The footsteps recede.
She stands in the yard for a while, feeling a little guilty. Truthfully, her days would be boring and hard without him. He is an educated man, dealing with everything about her thoughtfully and delicately. For instance, he asked a craftsman to install water pipes for her in the yard, but to others he said: “Huang’s ex-husband is still a good-hearted man—see, he takes care of her life in one way or another, even though they’re not a couple anymore.” And when harvest season approached, he secretly borrowed farming machines to give her a hand in the fields, then told others: “See, though this husband and wife were together for only one night, love lingers on for a hundred.”
Sometimes, she is also grateful to her ex-husband, who gave her the freedom to taste this sweet, destroying her stereotyped notion that every man is the same.
Her ex-husband never valued much about her, such as her fine hands. But her new friend kneads and squeezes her hands from every fingertip, licking and sucking them with his lips and tongue. After every inch of the palms and backs of her hands are caressed, she giggles like a young sweetheart.
The sight of the white hemp rope rescues her from indulgent self-absorption. Drawing her lips together, straightening the edge of her gown and running her fingers through her half-wet hair, she grows calm and again feels a sense of awe, standing before the portrait lying on the kang. She pulls back the sheet, wondering whether the ancestor will glare at her in anger. But his bushy eyebrows and big eyes are as benign as usual, only a little blurred and languid with age.
Then she smells the scent of the mothballs coming from the brand-new sheet.
While taking out the sheet her nose became numb. She is too nervous to breathe, but her conversation with the man in the yard clears her mind as well as her nose. It was her ex-husband who required her to jam in a few protective mothballs, though now she has turned to her mother-in-law’s practice and stuffs in tobacco leaves.
Old Land, New Tales: Twenty Short Stories by Writers of the Shaanxi Region in China Page 28
