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

by Chen Zhongshi

  Old Mo blushed and waved his hand repeatedly: “It’s my turn to have a holiday today. I just came out to take a walk.”

  “No wonder I didn’t see you in the dining hall.” Sister Yinxiu spoke boldly, blushing as soon as she did.

  “Even if I were there, you wouldn’t have noticed me in that crowded kitchen,” Old Mo said.

  “Your forehead and voice would make you conspicuous in any crowd,” Sister Yinxiu murmured in a gentle, low voice.

  “So you paid attention to me?”

  “Who would do that?”

  As they bantered, a large group of people entered the factory grounds through the gate, and Sister Yinxiu turned to leave.

  “Let me help you carry that load,” said Old Mo, reaching for the carrying pole.

  “It will make your clothes dirty.”

  “Why can’t you wash them for me?”

  “Our village is far away and it will waste your time.”

  “I’m going to the village to buy some vegetables for our dining hall.”

  Sister Yinxiu was amused; she knew that large dining halls got their vegetables from supply companies, not from the village markets. And even if they did, the cooks themselves would not have done the buying.

  Sister Yinxiu realized that Old Mo had been here waiting for her today. She did not let on, but she felt pleased and happy. She didn’t protest when Old Mo took over the carrying pole, and she did not consider the appropriateness of his doing so.

  How broad was the view in the open country in late spring; the bright sunshine lit up the light-blue sky. A few puffs of white clouds drifted by, looking as soft and light as goose down. In the fields, crops were beginning to show promise. Every shade of green was visible, punctuated by highlights of pink, along with lavender sweet-potato blossoms, favorites among the buzzing bees. With the songs of larks and warm breezes, the scene was no less than intoxicating.

  Sister Yinxiu and Old Mo walked shoulder to shoulder on the track in the fields, with Old Mo turning from time to time to chat with her. The picturesque landscape, the pleasant spring breeze, and that subtle feeling sprouting in their two hearts made Sister Yinxiu feel a kind of fresh, sweet happiness that she had never felt before.

  Generally speaking, when a thirty-year-old woman who has been married and has a son meets a man, calm reason should triumph over emotional impulse. What caused in Sister Yinxiu this first-love-like emotion, the giddiness of a young maiden, had something to do with her family background and her past.

  Ah, beyond this green field, in the valley of the dark-blue mountain, was the place where she had lived in her maidenhood. She had pulled pigweed, brought up her siblings, and washed clothes—and then picked tea, planted rice shoots, raised vegetables, and plowed the fields, taking the place of her mother, who had many children and many illnesses. As if the beauty of her homeland had been incarnated in her, she grew up to be a capable and pretty maiden, attracting the gazes of passersby and young lads. Later, go-betweens came to her home. That was the era of the Great Leap Forward, when peasants traded in the cooking utensils of private households and instead ate in public mess halls, believing this to be the lifestyle of paradise.

  “Oh, haven’t you heard of Wu Guifang,” a go-between said, “head of our commune, a woman well known in the entire province, a model figure? She has an equal footing with the secretary of the Party committee of our county! The son of such a woman is certainly good! It’s difficult to find such a family, eh?”

  Good! After hearing the go-between’s introduction, how could a common peasant family demand more?

  Having met only twice, in the atmosphere of that era when even killing flies and mosquitoes had to be done in a Great Leap Forward way, Sister Yinxiu and the son of the well-known woman got married at a Great Leap Forward speed, as if getting married was as casual as buying an ordinary garment or having a simple meal. Even for quite a while after the wedding, Sister Yinxiu and her husband had few words with each other. Only at night did he display his frenzied passion, which was hard either to accept or reject, as he never seemed to care whether she was ill or felt well, much less how she felt about his advances.

  Her husband’s stubbornness and foolhardiness was as famous as her mother-in-law’s prestige and influence in the village. Having attended little school and being the son of a cadre leader in a family used to taking the lead in everything, Sister Yinxiu’s husband knew nothing but hard work, swinging a pick from morning to evening. In his eyes, even using a cart instead of a carrying pole to fetch manure from the fields was deceitful. He required Sister Yinxiu to work hard every day for the village. She was expected to carry water, clean the pigsty, feed the pigs, and do the cooking at home. She grew as exhausted as a pack animal, with pains in her loins and back. She could find no one to tell her grievances to; she simply endured.

  That kind of life lasted for nearly ten years, until one December day. After weeks of carrying large stones for a river dam, her husband became ill and lay in bed at home. The diagnosis was liver disease caused by exhaustion. Even though she had been a party to her husband’s nocturnal passions, and even though she had borne him a son, she became a widow without knowing the sweetness of conjugal life—only the pain and the sorrow.

  No wonder Sister Yinxiu felt somewhat intoxicated now as Old Mo was carrying the burden for her. Was she afraid of carrying a burden? Ha! Sister Yinxiu could carry even more. But only she herself knew how this scene compensated for many longings in her dreams.

  It was getting dark and, ahead of them, Sister Yinxiu and Old Mo could see village women returning home with loads of pigweed and spring bamboo shoots on their backs. As usual, after returning from work, their husbands were going to meet them. Sister Yinxiu’s husband had never done this; he did not have the habit of caring for women. As one woman stretched her aching neck, her husband could be heard playfully saying, “Do you want to carry back the entire mountain?”

  Understanding her husband’s special way of showing love, the woman explained happily: “Once I went there, I wanted to bring back more . . .”

  The delightful scene aroused envy, hope, and longing in Sister Yinxiu’s heart. She had never experienced such a moment. She had had only sorrow and tears, which had made her eyesight dim.

  But now, Old Mo was indeed carrying the burden for her.

  It’s good to be seen by others, Sister Yinxiu thought before she suddenly returned from her daydream and blushed, stumbling over some creeping wildflowers. To hide her true feelings, she quickened her steps to walk at Old Mo’s side, saying, “Let me carry the scraps . . .” She was about to say, “. . . for fear people might see this”—but she changed the words to, “I have been used to carrying them. You should have a rest.”

  But Old Mo quickened his own steps, as if he were afraid Sister Yinxiu would snatch the carrying pole from him. Waving his hands, he said: “Let me carry; let me carry. We are the same.”

  It was clear that Old Mo also felt very excited now.

  Odd things often happen in our lives: Sometimes an excellent man readily passes up many outstanding women. Eventually he will be charmed by an ordinary woman who is new to him, enjoying being caught up in a love affair that others cannot understand. Such was the case with Old Mo. An orphan from a village in Sichuan, he had joined the army as a teenager. After serving as an army cook for seven or eight years, he was transferred to the factory to do the same work.

  At the beginning, many warmhearted people acted as go-betweens for this simple, honest, passionate, and capable young man, introducing him to many prospective marriage partners—a shopgirl, a restaurant accountant, the driver of a store trailer who was a bit older than him. All of these young ladies were good, but Old Mo either had little to say to them or he was late for their dates. Ultimately he remained single when he was nearly forty years old. However, at the first sight of Sister Yinxiu, middle-aged Old Mo was struck deeply by her slender figure, her gentle temperament, and the timid and lonely expression on her fac
e. He felt excited, exhilarated, restless. It seemed surprising, but communication between two souls has always been a mystery that is so complex and subtle it cannot be understood by an outsider.

  Old Mo was carrying the two buckets of pig food with the pole on his shoulders, walking neither too slowly nor too fast at the side of Sister Yinxiu. At first he felt nervous—due perhaps to spending all his time cooped up in the smoky, greasy kitchen, or to the broadness and freshness of the open country, or to his being alone with the object of his affection for the first time. Gradually, though, he calmed. They passed seedlings under the warm sunlight, stirred by the spring breeze; a gurgling stream running over tiny pebbles; fences and tile-roofed cottages half-hidden in the shade of trees and bamboo forests—all sights that reminded Old Mo of his hometown on the flatland of western Sichuan Province. The landscape there was exactly like that of southern Shaanxi Province, now spread out before him.

  Suddenly he recalled a scene from his past, one hidden in the far corners of his memory. On a similar track through similarly green fields, similarly carrying two baskets of pig food on his shoulders with a pole, Old Mo had gone to a sweet-potato field as a smokelike mist began to rise. He’d gone there to help a maiden who raised pigs. He would carry back two baskets of pigweed for her. He thought now of how Sister Yinxiu resembled that girl, who had herself been sold like a pig when her parents had financial troubles! In what other ways did Sister Yinxiu resemble the maiden from his past? Was it their similarly slender figures, or their similarly kind and gentle temperaments, or their similarly timid and lonely facial expressions? Old Mo couldn’t tell. His love, which had been buried for a long time, stored away like good wine left to age, now made him drunk. He began to stagger . . .

  “We’re home,” said Sister Yinxiu. “Put down your burden, and wipe off your sweat.” She handed Old Mo a handkerchief, awakening him from his reverie. Wiping the sweat from his broad forehead, he surveyed the scene: a thriving patch of alfalfa; a few twisted willow trees; two rows of low, tile-roofed houses; a nearby ditch; and endless fields not far away. How similar this piggery was to the one in his memory! He could not help saying, “It must be comfortable to settle down here.”

  Sister Yinxiu felt flirtatious, but she responded forthrightly. “Don’t make fun of us country folks. How can you like the simple cottages here when you live in a grand, tall building!”

  “Everyone has his own taste.”

  “I don’t believe it,” she replied. “What could you like about this place?”

  “You don’t understand?”

  “You . . .”

  “What?”

  Then both of them stopped and looked at each other with shy smiles. Each saw instantly in the other’s eyes what they had been seeking for a long time.

  After that, they met alone together again and again, using as a pretext Sister Yinxiu’s favorite black-and-white she-piglet, which could not stand up and needed bone powder to strengthen its weak legs. Old Mo collected all the bones in the dining hall, and together he and Sister Yinxiu smashed and ground the bones into powder and fed the concoction carefully to the lovely black-and-white piglet, treating it like their own child. The piglet entered into the act, raising its head to snort for food and licking Sister Yinxiu’s and Old Mo’s ankles. The intimate, familial atmosphere was seductive. It was as if warm springs had trickled out of Sister Yinxiu’s and Old Mo’s hearts and rushed forward, washing away the withered branches and dead leaves that had accumulated along the way. Gradually, the piglet was able to stand up.

  A wilting fruit tree that suddenly begins sprouting new leaves and producing good fruit can hardly go unnoticed. And so it was with Sister Yinxiu. She underwent obvious changes, exuding vigor and arousing surprised glances from her neighbors.

  When she fed the pigs, she wore a white apron around her waist. How slender and graceful her figure was! With a handkerchief covering her head, she swept and tidied the pigsty. How handsome and warm her face was! As she cut alfalfa with a sickle, anyone seeing her from behind would have mistaken her for a young maiden.

  And Old Mo? Now his face was always clean-shaven and he had his hair cut twice a month. He began dressing more tidily and spoke even louder, as if giving voice to his newfound hope and joy.

  At this stage, it was time for them to consider their next steps; after all, they were no longer young. Of course, Old Mo had nothing to lose, since he had no family. However, Sister Yinxiu had to consider many things.

  Though she had the right to remarry, as a widow, she still had to consider the opinions of her child, her mother-in-law, the elders of her clan, her own parents, and especially her brother, who had just been transferred to the commune to work as a pig-purchasing agent. She would have to consult with all of them.

  Besides, what would the villagers think about this? In the past, a similar case in the village had aroused terrible gossip. Remembering it, Sister Yinxiu now imagined she’d seen glances of contempt from eyes behind many doors and windows, pointing fingers of blame behind her back, and mean spitting from people walking past her. She could not help trembling, realizing that the situation was more complex than she’d believed. Her enthusiasm began to fade. She knew she had to think it over.

  Indeed, the circumstances were even more insidious than she had imagined. Since the first time Old Mo and Sister Yinxiu had come to the piggery together, gossip had begun to spread like the black wings of a bat, which always fly in dark places. Thanks to her mother-in-law’s prestige as a leader in the community and to Sister Yinxiu’s own youth and beauty, the widow had attracted quite a few unmarried elderly men in the village. Father Xiayao, for example, always loafed about the piggery, pretending to pick up manure. He’d look Sister Yinxiu up and down from different angles, as if he were examining the teeth and legs of a specimen of livestock. Because of Guifang’s prestige, no one dared to act as a go-between for Father Xiayao. But that prestige didn’t stop anyone from talking about Sister Yinxiu and Old Mo. They were the objects of extraordinary attention. Busybodies with varying intentions were constantly speculating, voicing their observations. In fact, the village was so filled with gossip it seemed that even the rice in the fields was aware that something was going on between Sister Yinxiu and Old Mo.

  With so much gossip, how can I live on in the village? At first she was furious, her eyes brimming with tears. But when she calmed down, she began to ponder: wasn’t there always something happening in the village to spark gossip? As time passed, surely people would forget her and Old Mo. The stories about them would be replaced by newer incidents sooner or later. So, without regret, she looked to a practical solution: for this issue, what is important is to get the consent of my mother-in-law.

  However, in thinking about how to approach the issue with her mother-in-law, Sister Yinxiu became worried and afraid. Her mother-in-law cared about her, she knew, treating Sister Yinxiu the way any older person treated her own children. “You come before me since I am old,” Guifang would say to her. “I don’t matter anymore.” The words often made Sister Yinxiu feel warm in her heart.

  Her mother-in-law had also become widowed at an early age, but somehow she’d remained single, which contributed to her prestige, along with the fact of being a clan elder and for many years the director of the women’s federation. Whenever a request was made in the village, as long as someone said, “Grandma Guifang said so,” everyone would obey as if induced by an invisible power.

  Yinxiu’s mother-in-law was very proud of this. “Without a man, I can still support the family and serve the public well!”

  Thinking about it, a dark shadow appeared in Sister Yinxiu’s heart.

  Sister Yinxiu still had a heavy heart as she and Guifang sat together in the yard one night in the middle of autumn. The two women were meditating and watching the moon beyond the fence entwined with creeping vines. The lonely feminine atmosphere finally made Sister Yinxiu pluck up her courage and speak her thoughts, confessing her new love. Afterward she lowered
her head uneasily, her heart beating fast as if she were on trial.

  “Is he the man who helped you carry pig food?”

  The question made Sister Yinxiu uneasy, as if all of her “crimes” had been exposed.

  Her mother-in-law’s tone was as calm as when she dealt with daily disputes among the women in the village—but the calm tone of voice masked the older woman’s anger. She had remained a widow from the day when she had been called Sister Guifang to the day when she was called Grandma Guifang. She believed that only women like her could be considered righteous and moral. She wished that all people in the world, especially widowed women, would follow her example.

  And now Sister Yinxiu wanted to remarry! Guifang’s own daughter-in-law! It was like stabbing Guifang in the heart. Her prestige would be damaged. How would she give lessons to other women after this? The recent gossip in the village had annoyed her, but she had not expected that it was true. She was angry, and she wanted to give her daughter-in-law a good scolding. But as director of the women’s federation she had dealt with people of many personalities, and she knew that scolding would not help the situation.

  “Alas, if only Lude were still alive . . .” Grandma Guifang began to speak of her son, weeping in genuine grief. Sister Yinxiu’s eyes turned red, too, and she tried to comfort her mother-in-law, knowing that it was not suitable to mention her personal issue again. Thus, the issue was laid aside.

  In the first month of the next year, when Sister Yinxiu saw men and women visiting relatives in pairs, her heart stirred. Plucking up her courage, she mentioned her secret hope again to her mother-in-law, but Grandma Guifang had made up her mind: she would allow her daughter-in-law anything but a marriage to Old Mo! She asked Sister Yinxiu in retort: “Does your mother-in-law mistreat you?”

  After a long interval, with the encouragement of Old Mo and the rising call from her own heart, Sister Yinxiu could not endure it anymore. Once again she resolutely put forward the issue.