Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

by Mo Yan

  Blackie, I can’t help feeling that you’re the reincarnation of that donkey, that fate has brought us together!

  I couldn’t see my dad’s face in the shadows, only his hands resting on the feed trough, but I could see the ox’s aquamarine eyes. The ox’s coat, chestnut colored when we first brought him home, had darkened until it was nearly black, which is why Dad called him Blackie. I sneezed, startling Dad. Flustered, he slinked out of the shed.

  “Oh, it’s you, son. What are you doing standing here? Go back inside and get some sleep.”

  “How about you, Dad?”

  He looked up at the stars.

  “All right,” he said, “I’ll go with you.”

  As I lay there half asleep, I could sense Dad crawling quietly out of bed, and I wondered why So as soon as he was out the door, I got up, and once I was out in the yard, the moonlight seemed brighter, almost like undulating sheets of silk above me — immaculately white, glossy, and so cool I felt I could tear them out of the sky and fold them around me or roll them into balls and put them in my mouth. I looked over at the ox shed, which had grown bigger and brighter, obliterating all the darkness; the ox dung looked like white steamed buns. But, to my amazement, neither Dad nor the ox was in the shed. I knew I’d been right behind him and had watched him enter the shed, so how could he have simply vanished? And not only him, but the ox as well. They couldn’t have been transmuted into moonbeams, could they? I walked over to the gate and looked around. Then I understood. Dad and the ox had gone out. But what were they doing out there in the middle of the night?

  There were no sounds on the street. The trees, the walls, the ground, all silver; even the propaganda slogans on the walls were dazzling white: “Ferret Out Those in Power within the Party Who Are Taking the Capitalist Road,” “Pursue the Four Clean-ups Campaign to its Conclusion!” Ximen Jinlong had written that one. What a genius! I’d never before seen him write a slogan, but he’d walked up that day carrying a bucket filled with black ink and an ink-saturated brush made of twisted hemp fibers, and written that one on our wall. Every stroke was vigorous, every line straight and even, every hook powerful. At least as big as a pregnant goat, each character drew gasps of admiration from anyone who saw them. My brother was the best-educated and most highly respected youngster in the village. Even the college students who made up the Four Clean-ups Brigade and other brigade workers not only liked him, they were his friends. He was already a member of the Communist Youth League and, or so I heard, had submitted his application to join the Party. An active participant in Party activities, he drew as close as possible to Party members in order to help his case. Chang Tianhong, a talented member of the Four Clean-ups Brigade, and a former voice student at the provincial art academy, taught my brother elements of Western styles of singing. There were days during that winter when the two of them sang revolutionary songs, dragging the notes out longer than a braying donkey; their duets became a standard opening before meetings of the brigade members. My brother’s friend, whom we called Little Chang, was often seen entering and leaving our compound. He had naturally curly hair, a small, pale face with big bright eyes, a wide mouth, stubble that looked blue, and a prominent Adam’s apple. A big young man, and tall, he stood out from all the other young villagers. Many of the envious young fellows gave him a nickname: “Braying Jackass,” and since my brother studied singing with him, his nickname was “Junior Jackass.” The two “jackasses” were like brothers, so close their only regret was that they couldn’t both fit into the same pair of pants.

  The village Four Clean-ups campaign created torment in the lives of every cadre: Huang Tong, the militia company commander and brigade commander, was removed from his positions over the misappropriation of money; Hong Taiyue, the village Party secretary, was removed from his position for roasting and eating a black goat that was being raised in the brigade goat nursery. But they were back at their posts in short order; not so fortunate was the brigade accountant, who stole horse feed from the production brigade. His dismissal was permanent. Political campaigns, like stage plays, are spectacles, events incorporating clamorous gongs and drums, wind-blown banners, slogans on walls, with commune members working during the day and attending meetings at night. I was a minor independent farmer, but noise and excitement appealed to me too. Those were days when I desperately wanted to join the commune, so I could follow behind the “two jackasses” and see the sights. The cultured behavior of the “two jackasses” did not go unnoticed by the young women; love was in the air. Watching with cool detachment, I could see that my sister, Ximen Baofeng, had fallen for Little Chang, while the twins, Huang Huzhu and Huang Hezuo, had fallen for my brother. No one fell for me. Maybe in their eyes I was just a dumb little boy. How could they know that love burned in my heart? I was secretly in love with Huang Tong’s elder daughter, Huzhu.

  Well, enough of that. So I went out into the street, and still found no trace of my dad and the black ox. Gould they have flown to the moon! I conjured up an image of Dad on the back of the ox, hooves pounding the clouds, tail moving back and forth like a rudder as they levitate, higher and higher. It had to be an illusion, because Dad wouldn’t fly to the moon and leave me behind. So I knew I had to keep my feet planted on earth and look for them in the same realm. I stood still, concentrating all my energy. First, I sniffed the air, nostrils wide open. It worked. They hadn’t gone far; they were southeast of where I was standing, in the vicinity of the decrepit village wall, at one of the dead-infant sites, a spot where villagers used to discard children who had died in infancy. Later on, fresh dirt was brought in to level the ground and turn it into the brigade threshing floor. Perfectly flat, it was surrounded by a waist-high wall, alongside which some stone rollers and stone mills had been left. It was a favorite place for children to play. They chased each other around, dressed only in red stomachers, their bare bottoms fully exposed. I knew they were actually the ghosts of dead children who came out to play when the moon was full. So cute, those spirit-children, as they lined up and jumped from the stone rollers to the stone mills and from the stone mills back to the stone rollers. Their leader was a little boy with a vertical pigtail who had a shiny whistle in his mouth, which he blew rhythmically. The other children echoed his whistle each time they jumped, in perfect cadence, a treat for the eyes. I was so mesmerized I nearly felt like joining their number. When they tired of jumping from the stone rollers to the stone mills, they climbed the wall and sat in a straight line, legs hanging down as they pounded the wall with their heels and sang a ditty that moved me so much I stuck my hand in my pocket and took out a handful of fried black beans. When they reached out, I placed five beans in each hand, on which I saw fine yellow hairs. They were captivating children, with bright eyes and lovely white teeth. From the top of the wall rose the crunching of beans and an alluring scorched aroma. Dad and the ox were performing drills out on the threshing floor as more red children than I could count appeared on the top of the wall. I put my hand over my pocket. What would I do if they all wanted black beans? Dad was wearing skin-tight clothes with a green lotus-shaped piece of cloth on each shoulder and a tall horn-shaped piece of tin plate on his head. He had painted the right side of his face with red grease paint, creating a stunning contrast with the blue birthmark on the left side. He was barking unintelligible commands as he drilled; to me they sounded like curses, but I was sure the red children on the wall understood every word, because they clapped rhythmically and thumped their heels against the wall and whistled; a few even took little horns out from under their stomachers and tooted along, while others brought drums up from the other side of the wall, placed them between their knees, and pounded away. At the same time, our family ox, sporting red satin cloth on his horns and a big red satin flower on his forehead, which made him look like a jubilant bridegroom, was running around the outer edge of the threshing floor. His body glistened, his eyes were bright as crystal, his hooves like lit lanterns that carried him in a graceful, smooth, and easy g
ait. Each time he passed by the red children, they pounded their drums and shouted their approval, producing waves of cheers. In all, he circled the floor ten times or more before joining Dad in the center, where Dad rewarded him with a chunk of bean cake. Then Dad rubbed his head and patted him on the rump.

  “Watch the miracle!” he sang out in a more resonant voice even than Braying Jackass.

  Big-head Lan Qiansui gave me a puzzled look, and I knew he was having trouble believing my narration. You’ve forgotten after all these years; or, maybe what I saw that night was a fanciful dream. But dream or no dream, you played a role; or maybe I should say that, without you, there’d have been no such dream.

  As Dad’s shout died out, he cracked his whip on the ground, producing a crisp little explosion that sounded as if he’d hit a plate of glass. The ox reared up until he was nearly vertical, supported solely by his hind legs. That is not a difficult maneuver for an ox, since it replicates the mating posture of a bull. What was not so easy was how he kept his front legs and body up straight with nothing to help him keep his balance but his hind legs; then he began to walk, one awkward step at a time, but remarkable enough to cause stupefied gapes from anyone who saw him. That a massive ox could actually stand up and walk on his hind legs, and not just four or five steps, or even nine or ten steps, but all the way around the outer edge of the threshing floor, was something I’d never imagined, let alone seen with my own eyes. He dragged his tail along the ground, his front legs curled in front of his chest, like a pair of stunted arms. His belly was completely exposed, his papaya-sized gonads swung back and forth, and it was almost as if the sole function of the spectacle was to show off his maleness. The red children on the wall, normally eager to make noise, were silent. They forgot to toot their horns and beat their drums, they just sat there slack-jawed, looks of disbelief on their little faces. Not until the ox had made a complete revolution and once again had all four hooves on the ground did the red children regain their composure and once again hoot and holler, clap their hands, beat their drums, blow their horns, and whistle.

  What followed was even more miraculous. The ox lowered his head until it was touching the ground, then, straining hard, he lifted his hind legs off the ground, very much like a human headstand, but infinitely harder to manage. It didn’t seem possible that an animal weighing 800 or more catties could support all that weight on his neck alone. But our family ox did just that. — Allow me to once again describe those papaya-sized gonads: stuck up all alone against the skin of his belly, they appeared somehow redundant. . .

  You went out to work the next morning for the first time — plowing the field. Our plow was made of wood, its blades, which had been forged by a blacksmith in Anhui, shiny as a mirror. Wooden plows like ours were no longer being used by the production brigade; they had been replaced by Great Harvest brand steel plows. Deciding to stick to tradition, we shunned those industrial tools, which reeked of paint. Since we had chosen to remain independent, Dad said, it was important to keep a distance from the collective in every respect. And since Great Harvest brand plows were tools of the collective, they weren’t for us. Our clothes were made of local fabric, we made our own tools, and we used kerosene lamps and flints for fire. That morning, the production brigade sent nine plows out, to compete with us, it seemed. On the east bank of the river, the state-run farm’s tractors were also out in the fields, their bright red paint making them look like a pair of red devils. Blue smoke billowed from their smokestacks as they set up a deafening roar. Each of the production brigade’s nine plows was pulled by a pair of oxen working in a flying geese formation. They were being driven by highly experienced plowmen, all driving their teams with hard-set faces, as if participating in a solemn ceremony, not plowing fields for crops.

  Hong Taiyue, in a brand-new black uniform, arrived at the edge of the field, looking much older, his hair turned gray, his cheek muscles slack, the corners of his mouth sagging. Jinlong followed behind him, carrying a clipboard in his left hand and a fountain pen in his right, sort of like a reporter. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what he was going to record — not every word uttered by Hong Taiyue, I hoped. After all, even with his revolutionary history, Hong was merely the Party secretary of a small village, and since grassroots cadres of those days were all the same, he shouldn’t have postured so much. Besides, he’d cooked and eaten a goat belonging to the collective and had nearly been cashiered during the Four Clean-ups campaign, which meant that his political consciousness was less than ideal.

  With unhurried efficiency, Dad lined up the plow and checked the harness on the ox, leaving nothing for me to do but look on excitedly, and what stuck in my mind were the stunts I’d watched him and his ox perform on the threshing floor the night before. The sight of the powerful figure of our ox reminded me what a difficult maneuver it had been. I didn’t ask Dad about it, wanting it to be something that had actually happened and not something I’d dreamed.

  Hong Taiyue, hands on his hips, was giving instructions to his subordinates, citing everything from Quemoy and Matsu to the Korean War, from land reform to class struggle. Then he said that agricultural production was the first battle to be fought against imperialism, capitalism, and independent farmers taking the capitalist road. He brought the experience he’d cultivated during his days of beating his ox hip bone into play, and even though his speech was peppered with mistakes, his voice was strong, his words hung together, and the plowmen were so intimidated they stood frozen in place. So did the oxen. I saw our ox’s mother among them — the Mongol — immediately identifiable by her long, crooked tail. She seemed to be casting glances our way, and I knew she was looking at her son. Hey, at this point I can’t help but feel embarrassed for you. Last spring, when I was fighting with my brother on the sandbar after I’d taken you out to graze, I saw you try to mount her. That’s incest, a crime. Naturally, that doesn’t count for much with oxen, but you’re no ordinary ox — you were a man in your previous life! There is, of course, the possibility that in her previous life she was your lover, but she’s the one who gave birth to you — the more I ponder the mysteries of this wheel of life, the more confused I get.

  “Put those thoughts out of your mind, right now!” Big-head said impatiently.

  All right, they’re out. I thought back to when my brother Jinlong was down on one knee with his clipboard on his other knee writing at a frantic pace. Then Hong Taiyue gave the order: Start plowing! The plowmen took their whips off their shoulders, snapped them in the air, and shouted as one: “Ha lei-lei-lei—” It was a command readily understood by the oxen. The production brigade plows moved forward, creating waves of mud to both sides. With mounting anxiety, I said softly: Dad, let’s get started. He smiled and said to the ox:

  “All right, Blackie, let’s get to work!”

  Without recourse to a whip, Dad spoke softly to our ox, who lurched forward. The plow dug deep and jerked him back.

  “Not so hard,” Dad said. “Pull slowly.”

  But the overeager ox was set on taking big strides. His muscles bulged, the plow shuddered, and great wedges of mud, shimmering in the sunlight, arced to the sides. Dad adjusted the plow as they went along to keep it from getting stuck. As a onetime farmhand, he knew what he was doing. What surprised me was that our ox, tilling a field for the first time, moved in a straight line, even though his movements were somewhat awkward and his breathing was, from time to time, irregular. Dad didn’t have to guide or control him. Our plow was being pulled by a single ox, the production brigade’s plows by teams of two, yet we quickly overtook their lead plow. I was so proud I couldn’t contain my excitement. As I ran back and forth, our ox and plow created the image of a sailing vessel turning the mud into whitecaps. I saw the production-brigade plowmen look over at us. Hong Taiyue and my brother walked up, stood off to one side, and watched with hostility in their eyes. After our plow had reached the end of our land and turned back, Hong walked up in front of our ox and shouted: