by Yu Hua
Once three middle-school students happened to walk by—the same three who had fought Song Fanping on the day of his wedding. They stood next to the bridge watching Baldy Li curiously and asked, "Hey, kid, what'cha doing?"
Baldy Li flipped himself over and answered, panting, "When I rub like this, my weenie gets hard and it feels good."
The students were dumbfounded by his response. Baldy Li proceeded to coach them, explaining that you could also hug the wooden electrical pole, but you were more likely to get tired standing up, so it was better to do it lying down. He concluded, "When you go home, you could just rub yourself on a bench."
The students started howling in amazement, "This kid has hit puberty!"
At that point Baldy Li had an epiphany: He finally understood why his rubbing felt so good while Song Gang's didn't. After the middle-school students walked off, he said to himself, So I've hit puberty.
Then he smugly told Song Gang, "Your father and me—we've hit puberty, but you haven't yet."
While Baldy Li and Song Gang were roaming the streets, they would often go to the west side of town, where things were busiest. The blacksmith, tailor, knife sharpener, and dentist's shops were all there, and a popsicle vendor named Wang walked up and down the street, banging on his icebox and hawking his goods.
One day as usual, the boys first stood in front of the tailor s shop and watched as Liu Town s legendary Tailor Zhang took a leather tape measure and measured a woman's neck, chest, and hips. His hands were all over the woman, but instead of getting angry, she merely giggled.
After watching Tailor Zhang for a while, the boys went over to watch the Guan father and son in the knife sharpeners shop. Old Scissors Guan was then in his forties, and Little Scissors Guan was fifteen. The two of them sat on low stools around a wooden basin filled with water. There were two whetting stones in the basin, and as the two sharpened their knives they made a scraping sound like a heavy rain.
The boys then went over to check out the shop of the town s dentist, Tooth-Yanker Yu. Yanker Yu didn't actually have a shop—he sat on the street at a table under an oilcloth umbrella. On the left side of the table was a row of tooth extractors of different sizes, and on the right were a few dozen extracted teeth, used to attract customers. Behind the table was a stool, and beside it was a rattan recliner. When a customer came by, he would lie down on the recliner, and Yanker Yu would sit on the stool. When there were no customers, Yanker Yu would lie down on the rattan chair himself. Once, as Yanker Yu was just getting comfortable he saw Baldy Li out of the corner of his eye and reflexively leapt up and started aiming for Baldy Li's mouth with an extractor. Only when Baldy Li screamed in terror did Yanker Yu realize he had mistaken the boy for a customer. He grabbed Baldy Li and tossed him out. "Damn you, with your baby teeth. Scram!"
Blacksmith Tongs shop was the kids’ favorite destination. Blacksmith Tong had his own cart, which was hugely impressive—much more so than owning a truck nowadays. Every week Blacksmith Tong would go to the junkyard and bring back scrap metal. Baldy Li and Song Gang liked to watch him pound the metal, turning scrap copper into mirror frames and iron into scythes and hoes. The flying sparks made the kids squeal with excitement, and Song Gang asked Blacksmith Tong, "Are the stars in the sky also made out of metal?"
"Yup," answered Blacksmith Tong, "I pounded ‘em myself."
Song Gang held Blacksmith Tong in the highest regard. He marveled to his brother that all the stars in the sky turned out to have been forged in Blacksmith Tongs shop and then launched into the sky! Baldy Li didn't believe this and said that Blacksmith Tong was bullshitting them, that all the sparks from Blacksmith Tongs pounding ended up as ashes right outside his door.
Even though Baldy Li knew that Blacksmith Tong was full of it, he still liked to watch him work. After learning from the middle-school students the scientific explanation for his love of rubbing, he felt justified in lying down on the bench in the blacksmiths shop. Previously, he would sit there alongside Song Gang and watch Blacksmith Tong, but now he took the bench for himself and made Song Gang stand to one side. Baldy Li spread his hands and shrugged. "Sorry, I need the space. I've hit puberty."
While watching the sparks fly off the anvil, Baldy Li wiggled and panted heavily, crying out along with Song Gang, "Stars, stars, so many stars …"
Back then Blacksmith Tong was still a young fellow in his twenties who hadn't yet married the woman with the fat buttocks. Thickset, with tongs in his left hand and a hammer in his right, he watched Baldy Li while pounding his metal. He knew what the boy was up to and marveled that such a little bastard would be getting off. He suddenly lost his concentration and almost smashed his own hand. Spooked, he threw away the tongs and cursed as he put down his hammer, asking Baldy Li, who was panting away on the bench, "Hey, how old are you?"
Baldy Li panted, "Almost eight."
"Damn," Blacksmith Tong swore. "You little bastard, you're not even eight and you already have a sex drive."
That was how Baldy Li learned what a sex drive was. He felt that Blacksmith Tong explained things better even than the three middle-schoolers. Blacksmith Tong was, after all, far older than they. Baldy Li no longer announced that he had hit puberty but, rather, used this new term. He smugly announced to Song Gang, "You don't have a sex drive yet, but your father does, and so do I."
Baldy Li refined his technique of rubbing the wooden electrical poles. Once he had rubbed himself until he was red in the face, he would start climbing up the pole. When he reached the top, he would then slide back down again. When he reached the bottom, he would sigh with contentment and say to Song Gang, "It feels so good!"
One time, just as he had climbed to the top of the pole he saw the three middle-school students walking toward him and hurriedly slid down. This time he didn't bother telling Song Gang how good it felt, because he called out to the three students, correcting them, "You got it all wrong. Its not because I've hit puberty that my weenie gets all hard from the rubbing. It's that I feel my sex drive coming on."
CHAPTER 8
AFTER THEIR tempestuous honeymoon, Song Fanping and Li Lan s life became a slow stream of contentment. They left the house together to go to work, then came back together at the end of the day. The school where Song Fanping taught was close to home, so after work he would walk to the bridge and wait for three minutes until Li Lan arrived. Smiling, they would walk home shoulder to shoulder. They bought groceries together, cooked together, washed clothes together, slept together, and woke up together. There was hardly any time when they were apart.
After a year, Li Lan s migraines returned. The bliss of newlywed life had temporarily suppressed this old problem of hers, but now it was as if the pain had been accruing interest—when it struck again, it was more agonizing than before. Li Lan would no longer just whimper; instead, tears of pain would gush from her eyes. With a white cloth wound tightly around her head, she would rap her temples with her fingers all day like a monk striking his prayer counter. The knocking could be heard throughout the house.
Song Fanping became seriously sleep deprived. Often in the middle of the night he would be awakened by Li Lan s cries of pain. He would get up and bring a pail of water from the well, then soak a towel in the icy water, wring it, and place it on her forehead. This provided Li Lan with some relief. Song Fanping attended to her as though she were a patient running a high fever, getting up several times a night to bring her cool washcloths. However, he was convinced that she should enter a hospital and get treatment. He was completely dismissive of area doctors, so he sat at the dining table and wrote his elder sister in Shanghai. He would write a similar letter almost every week, urging her to help find a suitable hospital there. He peppered his letters with countless phrases like extremely urgent and dire emergency, and each time he would conclude with a string of exclamation points.
Two months later his sister finally wrote back, announcing that she had located a hospital but would need a referral from a local clinic. This news f
urther increased Li Lan s awe of her husbands abilities. Song Fanping requested a half days leave from school and accompanied Li Lan to the silk factory at the end of her lunch break. He wanted to talk to her factory director and ask his permission for Li Lan to go to Shanghai to treat her migraines. Li Lan was the sort who did not even dare ask for a single day off, and therefore, after leading Song Fanping to the directors office, she told her husband that she didn't dare go in and pleaded with him to go in alone. Smiling, Song Fanping nodded and, as he walked in, told her to wait outside for the good news.
Song Fanpings earth-shattering dunk had made him a legend in Liu Town. As he introduced himself the director interrupted, saying, "No need, no need, I know who you are. You're the dunker." Then the two began chatting like old pals. They talked for more than an hour—so long that it seemed as though Song Fanping had forgotten that his wife was waiting outside. Li Lan was entranced by this conversation, and even much later, whenever she thought of her husband, she would sigh and think, He had such a gift for gab!
Song Fanping walked out with the director, who not only agreed to let Li Lan go to Shanghai to see a doctor but repeatedly told her, "Don't worry about anything after you get to Shanghai. Just get better. If you encounter any difficulties, let us know, and the factory will solve them for you."
Song Fanping then took his impressive gift of gab and worked the same magic at the hospital. He and a young doctor there chatted about everything from astronomy to geography, jumping from one topic to another and somehow finding agreement on everything. The two chatted until their spittle flew and their faces were flushed while Li Lan sat to one side, dumbfounded, forgetting even the pain of her migraines. She gazed upon Song Fanping with delight, having had no idea that the man she had lived with for the past year had such talents. After giving them the referral, the young doctor followed them all the way to the front door, gripping Song Fanpings hand and saying he had finally met his equal. He said they had to find time to get a jug of wine and some snacks and shoot the breeze all night long.
All the way home Li Lan was filled with joy. She would gently tug at Song Fanpings hand, and when he looked over at her, he saw that her eyes were blazing like hot furnaces. When they got home, Li Lan pulled him into the inner room and shut the door. She gripped him tightly, her head on his broad chest and tears of happiness soaking his shirt.
After her first husband had drowned in the latrine, this timid woman had become accustomed to living in shame, all alone. Now Song Fan-ping was giving her a happiness that she could not have dreamed of. She had someone to depend on, and what a wonderful mountain of support he was! She felt that she no longer had to walk with her head down. Song Fanping allowed her to raise her head proudly and face the world.
Song Fanping didn't understand why Li Lan had become so emotional. Laughing, he pushed her aside, asking what was the matter. Li Lan shook her head and didn't say a word. She just held on tightly, not loosening her grip until they heard Baldy Li and Song Gang hollering outside, "We're hungry! We're hungry!" Song Fanping asked her why was she crying, but she bashfully turned away and walked quickly out of their room.
Li Lan took the bus to Shanghai the next afternoon. The whole family put on clean clothes and set off at noon. Song Fanping was carrying a gray travel bag that he had bought in Shanghai during his first marriage. On one side of the bag was the word SHANGHAI in dark red. A year earlier, on the day after their wedding, Song Fanping had wanted to get a family portrait, but since his face was swollen at the time, they didn't take the photo. He had forgotten all about it, but now that Li Lan was going away to Shanghai to get treatment, he thought again of getting the portrait, so they set off for the photography studio.
When they arrived there, Song Fanping again exceeded his wife's estimation of him. He seemed to know everything, directing the photographer to adjust the lights until no shadows would be cast on any of their faces. The photographer followed his orders, shifting the lights about and nodding at his directions. After the photographer had finished setting up the lights, Song Fanping went over to the camera to take a look and then had him adjust the lights a bit more. Then he directed the boys on how to tilt their heads and how to smile. He had Baldy Li and Song Gang sit in the middle, with Li Lan next to Song Gang and himself next to Baldy Li. He told them to watch the photographer's raised hand, then even did the counting himself: "One, two, three, smile!"
The photographer clicked the shutter, and their bright smiles were preserved in a black-and-white photo. After paying, Song Fanping carefully folded the blue receipt and placed it in his wallet. He turned to the boys and told them that they would be able to see the photo in a weeks time. Then he took up the gray travel bag and led his wife and children to the bus depot.
In the waiting room, they sat in a row. Song Fanping described over and over again to Li Lan what his sister looked like. He told her that his sister would be waiting by the left exit of the Shanghai bus depot and that he had asked her to be holding a copy of Liberation Daily. As he chattered on, a man came by hawking sugarcane, leading Baldy Li and Song Gang to look up to their parents pleadingly.
Li Lan was usually so frugal that she was loathe to spend even a cent to feed herself. But thinking that she was about to leave the boys for a while, she bought an entire sugarcane stalk for them. The children watched as the man shaved off the outer layers of the stalk and chopped it into four segments, then didn't hear a single thing their parents said after that, so absorbed were they in gnawing on the sugarcane.
When it came time to board the bus, Song Fanpings gift of gab was again displayed in all its splendor. He persuaded the ticket collector to allow the entire family to accompany Li Lan onto the bus. Once aboard, Song Fanping had Li Lan sit in her seat and then placed the gray travel bag on the luggage rack. He even asked a young man to help Li Lan get it down once they reached Shanghai. Song Fanping then got off with Baldy Li and Song Gang, and they stood together under Li Lans window. Li Lan lingered over their three figures, nodding at everything Song Fanping said. Finally he asked her not to forget to bring the boys something when she came back. Their mouths full of sugarcane, Baldy Li and Song Gang immediately hollered out, "White Rabbit candy!"
Their parents assured the boys that there were still some White Rabbits left at home. Baldy Li and Song Gang were so terrified, they stopped chewing on the sugarcane, but fortunately just then the bus started up. As it was leaving the station, a tearful Li Lan turned to look at them once more. Song Fanping waved at her, smiling, not knowing that this would be the last time he would ever see his wife. His last impression of Li Lan was of her in profile, wiping away her tears. Baldy Li and Song Gang remembered only the billowing dust as the bus pulled away.
CHAPTER 9
AFTER LI LAN left for Shanghai, the Cultural Revolution arrived in Liu Town. Song Fanping left the house early for school and returned late. Baldy Li and Song Gang also left early and came home late, spending the whole day wandering the streets, now filled with crowds of spectators. Every day there would be parading troops, and more and more red sashes appeared on people s arms, Mao badges on their chests, and copies of Mao's Little Red Book in their hands. More and more people walked along the main streets singing and barking like a pack of dogs, yelling revolutionary slogans and singing revolutionary songs. Layer upon layer of big-character posters thickened the walls, and when a breeze blew, the posters rustled like leaves on a tree. Some people started appearing with paper dunce caps on their heads or big wooden placards around their necks. There were even people who clanged on pots and pans, shouting, "Down with ourselves!" as they walked along. Baldy Li and Song Gang knew that these dunce-cap-wearing, placard-sporting, pot-clanging folk were what everyone called class enemies. Anyone could reach over and slap their faces, kick them in the stomach, throw snot at them, or piss on them. They were tormented but didn't dare say a word and were afraid to look up. Some passersby demanded that these class enemies slap their own faces and yell out slogans condemning th
emselves, and after they were done with themselves they should curse their ancestors. This was an unforgettable summer for Baldy Li and Song Gang. They didn't understand that the Cultural Revolution had arrived or that the world had changed around them; they only knew that now Liu Town had become as festive and rowdy as if every day were a holiday.
Baldy Li and Song Gang wandered through town like a couple of stray dogs. They followed one brigade after another, repeatedly yelling "Long live!" after one and "Take down!" after another. They shouted until their tongues were parched and their throats were raw and swollen. Meanwhile, Baldy Li seized the opportunity to violate each of the town's wooden electrical poles several times over. Whenever this barely eight-year-old boy happened upon a pole, he would pleasure himself until he was red in the face, all the while enthusiastically watching the parading crowds on the street. While his body rubbed up and down and his little fists pumped up and down, he wouldn't stop yelling, "Long live!" and "Take Down!"
When passersby happened to spot Baldy Li humping a pole, they would snicker to each other. They knew what he was up to, and though they didn't say anything aloud, they would be laughing secretly inside. There were, of course, those who didn't get it. When the woman who had started a snack shop next to the bus depot walked by and saw Baldy Li vigorously rubbing away, she asked him with surprise, "What are you doing, kid?"
Baldy Li glanced over at this woman, whom everyone called Mama Su, but didn't answer. Preoccupied with trying to hump the pole and shout slogans at the same time, he was simply too busy to respond. At that moment, the three middle-schoolers walked by. They pointed at him humping the pole, then up at the wires overhead, and exclaimed, "The kid is generating electricity."
Everyone who heard them broke out into guffaws. Song Gang, who was standing to one side, was also giggling away, though he didn't quite know why. Baldy Li was displeased, so he stopped his rubbing, wiped the sweat from his brow, and said dismissively, "You wouldn't understand."
