Brothers

by Yu Hua

  "Gone?" the crowds asked. "Where did she go?"

  "She's gone to the countryside."

  Victory Zhao and Success Liu were perhaps the last people to see her leave. That afternoon they were pissing on the wooden bridge outside the southern gate when they caught sight of Sun Wei's mother. She had once again been clothed, Mama Su having quietly dressed her in a shirt and slacks one night, but as she walked out the gate she had lost her pants again and was menstruating. The sight of blood trickling down her legs as she walked over the wooden bridge had shocked Victory Zhao and Success Liu into silence.

  On the day that his son died, Sun Wei's father was locked into the warehouse that was really a prison cell. He once had guarded Song Fanping here, but now it was his turn; it was said that he slept on what was once Song Fanping's bed. His sons ghastly death had made him temporarily lose his mind and caused him to beat up some armband-wearing rebels. From the first night the red-armbanders locked him inside the warehouse, they started to torture him. They bound his arms and legs and then placed a feral cat down his pants. The pants were fastened tight on either end, so that the cat tried to scratch and bite its way out, causing him to cry out all night in unbearable pain. Everyone else locked in the warehouse shuddered at the sound, and a few of the more cowardly ones even wet their pants.

  The next day these red-armbanders switched to a new form of punishment: They had him lie facedown on the ground while they rubbed the soles of his feet with a metal brush. Pained and tickled, he started to thrash his arms and legs as if he were swimming. The red-armbanders watching him broke out into guffaws, asking, "Do you know what this is called?"

  Though his entire body was in spasms, Sun Wei's father still had to answer. Through his tears he stammered, "I-I-I don't know…"

  A red-armbander smiled. "You know how to swim, don't you?"

  Sun Wei's father was now completely out of breath, but still he had to answer. "I do, I do…"

  "This is called ‘a duck paddling in water.'" The red-armbanders were laughing so hard they bent over. "Now you're a duck paddling in water."

  The third day the red-armbanders had more in store for Sun Wei's father. They lit a cigarette, inserted it upright in the dirt, and commanded him to take his pants off. Even the act of removing his pants made Sun Wei's father grimace in pain, and his teeth knocked together as loudly as Blacksmith Tongs hammer and anvil. The feral cat had shredded the skin on both his legs, and the pants legs had stuck to the bloody wounds. When he took off his pants, he felt as though he were skinning himself as pus and blood trickled down his legs. The red-armbanders then ordered him to sit down on the cigarette, and he tearfully complied. One of them crouched down on the ground to have a closer look; he directed the father's butt this way and that until the lit end of the cigarette was aimed straight at his asshole. Then the man commanded, "Sit down!"

  Sun Wei's father sat down on the lit end of the cigarette. He could feel it burning his anus, and he heard a crackling sound. By this point he no longer felt any pain. He only smelled the odor of burning flesh. That red-armbander still commanded, "Sit down! Sit down!"

  His bottom reached the ground, and the cigarette was crushed inside his anus. He lay on the ground as if dead while the red-armbanders guffawed, asking him, "Do you know what this is called?"

  Completely spent, he shook his head. "I don't know."

  "This is called ‘smoking through your asshole.'" The red-armbander threw him a kick for emphasis. "Will you remember that?"

  His head lowered, he responded, "I will remember ‘smoking through your asshole.'"

  Sun Wei's father was tortured continuously. His legs became swollen, continued to ooze pus, and began to smell increasingly foul. Every time he defecated he was in unbearable agony. He didn't dare wipe himself, since each wipe brought on searing pain. As his feces stuck to his burnt flesh, his anus started to rot. The man was rotting all over, and he was in pain when he stood, when he sat, when he lay down, when he moved, even when he remained motionless.

  He was in a state worse than death, and each day brought new tortures. Only deep in the night did he have a moment of peace. As he lay in bed, racked with pain, the only part of him that didn't hurt was his thoughts. He thought over and over again of his son and wife and kept wondering where his son had been buried. He imagined over and over a beautiful landscape of green hills and lakes, and he imagined his son buried somewhere amid this landscape. At times he felt that this beautiful place seemed very familiar; at other times he didn't recognize it at all. Then he would dwell obsessively on how his wife was doing. He imagined her heartbreak at losing their son, thinking of how she would have lost a lot of weight and would be staying at home all day, waiting for his return.

  Every day he thought of suicide, and only by thinking constantly of his son and his helpless wife did he manage to survive each new day's torture. He imagined his wife walking to the front gate of the warehouse every day, hoping to see him; so whenever he heard the warehouse gate open, he would anxiously glance outside. Finally he couldn't bear it any longer and knelt down, kowtowing and begging a red-armbander to let his wife see him if she came by. That was when he learned that his wife had gone mad and had been wandering the streets without a stitch of clothing.

  The red-armbander cackled and called over a few others. They told him that his wife had long since lost her mind. They stood in front of him, taunting him with a description of his wife's body, saying that she had huge tits but too bad they were droopy, and that she had a thick bush but too bad it was so filthy, with pieces of hay sticking to it…

  Sun Wei's father fell to the ground motionless, so heartbroken that he could no longer cry. When night fell and he lay on his bed, racked with pain, he realized that now it even hurt to think. It was as if there were a meat grinder inside his head, grinding his brain into bits. Around two o'clock that morning he had a moment of clarity. This is when he made up his mind to take his life, and the decision instantly cleared the pain in his head, making him completely lucid. He recalled that there was a long iron nail under the bed. About a month earlier he had his first thought of suicide when he discovered this nail, and now his final thought of suicide returned to it. Getting out of bed, he knelt on the ground and searched for a long time until he found it again. Using his shoulders to lift the bed frame, he pulled out one of the bricks propping up the bed and then sat down by the wall. At this moment he no longer felt any of his pains and bruises, as if he had already left them behind. Breathing in deeply twice, he held the nail with his left hand and pointed it down on his skull. With his right hand he raised the brick and thought of his dead son. Smiling, he said softly, "I'm coming."

  As his right hand smashed the brick down on the nail, it seemed as if the nail drilled into his skull, but he could still think clearly. He raised his right hand to smash it down a second time. He thought of his wife, who had gone mad, and the thought of how she was now going to be all alone made him weep. Softly he said, "I'm sorry."

  The second time he smashed down, the nail drilled farther and seemed to reach his brain. His mind was still active, and his last thought was of the vicious armband-wearing bullies. Suddenly he was filled with hatred and anger, and his eyes bulged as he conjured up those red-armbanders in the dark of the night. Crazily he bellowed, "I'm going to kill you all!"

  With all the life that was left in him, he smashed the big metal nail straight into his brain. This time it went in completely, and the brick smashed into smithereens.

  Sun Wei's father's final angry roar frightened everyone in the warehouse out of their sleep. Even the red-armbanders were terrified. When they turned on the light, they saw Sun Wei's father slumped against the wall, his eyes staring straight and motionless, and the ground covered with broken shards of brick. At first no one realized that he had killed himself. They didn't know why he was sitting there, and a red-armbander even began to scold him, "Fuck! Get up! Fuck— look how he's staring."

  When the red-armbander walked ove
r to kick him, Sun Wei's father's body slid down the wall. Startled, the red-armbander jumped back a few steps and told two other prisoners to go take a look. The two men walked over and squatted near the body. They looked him over and saw all his bruises and wounds but couldn't figure out how he had died. The two men then righted him, and when they lifted him up, they saw that the top of his head was covered in fresh blood. They examined it more closely, feeling around until they finally figured it out: "There's an iron nail here. He drove a nail into his skull."

  The unimaginable manner in which Sun Wei's father killed himself rapidly spread throughout Liu Town. When the news reached Li Lan, she was at home—she heard the neighbors talking about it, standing outside her window. Everyone expressed amazement and incredulity: How was it possible to smash a two-inch-long nail into your own skull? They talked about how the nail had been thoroughly embedded in his skull, as if he were making a cabinet, to the point that you couldn't even feel the end of the nail on his scalp. They asked with shuddering voices, "How could he do it? It would be nearly impossible to smash such a nail into someone else's skull, let alone your own." Li Lan listened at the window, and after they walked off, she turned back into the room and smiled sadly to herself. "If a person is determined to die, he'll find a way."

  CHAPTER 23

  THE STREETS of Liu Town descended into chaos. Almost every day there were beatings among the revolutionary masses. Baldy Li didn't understand why these men, who all wore the same red armbands and waved the same red flags, were beating one another up with fists, flagpoles, and wooden bats, tearing at one another like wild beasts. One time Baldy Li saw them wielding kitchen cleavers and axes, until the electrical poles, the wutong trees, the walls, and the streets were all splattered with their blood.

  Li Lan no longer let Baldy Li leave the house, even sealing the window shut so that he wouldn't be able to sneak out. When she left for the silk factory in the morning she would lock him in the house, and the door would remain shut until she returned home in the evening. Thus began Baldy Li's truly solitary childhood. From daybreak to nightfall, his world consisted of two rooms, and so he began his all-out war against the ants and the cockroaches. He would often crouch under the bed with a bowl in his hand and wait for the ants to emerge; when they did, he would first splash them with water and then smush them to death one by one. Once a fat mouse scurried right past his face, and that terrified him so much that he no longer crawled under the bed. Later he began to attack the cockroaches in the armoire, locking himself inside with them in order to trap them. By the light seeping in through a crack in the door, he would chase them and crush them with his shoe. Once he fell asleep inside the armoire and was still dreaming happily when Li Lan got home. Poor Li Lan was so panicked that she hollered for him all over the house and even dashed outside to look down the alley. When he finally emerged, she collapsed to the floor, her face pale and one hand clutching her chest, unable to speak a word.

  Just when Baldy Li was at his loneliest, Song Gang made the long journey to come see him. Bringing along five White Rabbits, Song Gang set off in the morning from the village without telling his grandfather. Asking for directions along the way, he arrived at Baldy Li's house around noon and knocked on the window, shouting, "Baldy Li! Baldy Li! Are you in there? It's Song Gang."

  Baldy Li was dozing off out of boredom when he heard Song Gangs shouts. Jumping up to the window, he knocked on the glass, shouting,

  "Song Gang! Song Gang! I'm in here."

  Song Gang responded, "Baldy Li, open the door!"

  Baldy Li said, "The doors locked from the outside."

  "Open the window."

  "The windows been sealed shut."

  The two brothers banged on the window and hollered at each other for a long while. The lower panes of the window had been covered over with newspaper, so they couldn't see each other and could only communicate by shouting. Baldy Li then moved a stool over to the window so that he could perch there and look down through the only pane on top that hadn't been papered over. In this way, he finally caught sight of Song Gang, and Song Gang finally caught sight of him. Song Gang was wearing the same set of clothes he had worn to Song Fanping's burial. He looked up and said, "Baldy Li, I've missed you."

  Song Gang smiled, a little embarrassed. Baldy Li banged the window with both hands, crying, "Song Gang, I've missed you, too."

  Song Gang took out the five White Rabbits from his pocket and lifted them up to show Baldy Li. "See these? I brought them for you."

  Baldy Li joyfully shouted, "Song Gang, I see them! Song Gang, you're so good to me."

  Baldy Li started drooling immediately, but the window separated him from the candies in Song Gang's hand. He shouted to Song Gang, "Figure out a way to get the candy in here."

  Song Gang thought for a moment. "Maybe I can stuff it in through a crack in the door."

  Baldy Li hurried down from his perch and went to the door. He saw the candy wrapper pushing through the widest crack on the door but unable to make it in. Song Gang reported, "It won't fit."

  Baldy Li anxiously scratched his head. "Think of something else."

  Baldy Li heard Song Gang's labored breathing on the other side of the door. After a while he said, "I really can't get it in. Here, take a sniff first."

  Song Gang thrust the candy close to the crack in the door. Baldy Li glued his nose to the crack and inhaled as deeply as he could. Finally he caught a whiff of the candy and burst into tears. Song Gang asked from outside, "Baldy Li, why are you crying?"

  Through his tears Baldy Li replied, "I can smell the White Rabbits."

  Song Gang started giggling. When Baldy Li heard him, he also started giggling, alternating his sobs with his giggles. The two boys then sat on the ground, one inside the house and the other outside, and chatted for a long time. Song Gang told Baldy Li about the countryside: how he had learned to fish, climb trees, plant sprouts, thresh wheat, and pick cotton. Baldy Li told Song Gang about all the things that had happened in town: how long-haired Sun Wei was dead, and how even Mama Su from the snack shop was now wearing a wooden placard. When he described how Sun Wei had died, Song Gang started weeping. "That poor guy"

  The boys spoke through the door as if nothing separated them. They chatted all afternoon, but when Song Gang saw that the sun was setting on the alley, he hurriedly stood up and told Baldy Li that he had to get going. It was a long way home, so he had to get on his way. Baldy Li knocked from inside, pleading with Song Gang to stay for a while longer. "Its not dark yet…"

  Song Gang rapped back. "But once its dark, I won't be able to find my way."

  Before Song Gang left, he hid the White Rabbits under the front stoop, explaining that if he put them on the window ledge someone else might take them. But he came back after taking a few steps, explaining that he was worried that worms under the stoop might eat the candy, so he plucked two wutong leaves, carefully wrapped the candy inside, then put them back under the stoop. He peered through the crack in the wall, took another look at Baldy Li, and said, "Goodbye, Baldy Li."

  Sadly Baldy Li asked, "When will you start missing me again?"

  Song Gang shook his head. "I don't know."

  Baldy Li listened as Song Gang walked off, his nine-year-old footsteps as light as a chick's. Baldy Li kept his eyes glued to the crack in the wall, guarding his milk candies like a hawk. Whenever anyone walked by, Baldy Li's heart would beat wildly, afraid they would flip over the stone stoop. He hoped that dusk would come quickly so that Li Lan would come home and open the door, allowing him to finally get his hands on the White Rabbits.

  Song Gang quietly walked to the end of the alley and onto the main street. He looked all about him as he walked, seeing familiar houses and trees, and people fighting, crying, and laughing. Some of the people seemed to know him, and so he smiled at them, but no one paid him any heed. A bit disappointed, he walked down the two main streets, over the wooden bridge, and out the towns southern gate. He lost his way at the first fork in
the road after leaving the main gate and merely stood there, not knowing which way to turn. He could see that on one side were fields and houses, while the other side stretched out to the horizon. Song Gang stood at the intersection for a long time until he saw a man walking down the road. He cried out, "Uncle, uncle," and asked the man how to get to his grandfathers village. The man shook his head, saying that he didn't know, and then walked off. Song Gang stood amid the fields under the endless expanse of sky, becoming increasingly terrified. After letting out a few sobs, he wiped his tears and walked back through the southern gate into Liu Town.

  Even after Song Gang left, Baldy Li's eyes remained glued to the crack in the door. His eyes were tired and blurry when he suddenly saw Song Gang walking back toward him. Baldy Li thought that Song Gang had started missing him again already and had walked back to see him. He pounded the door happily, shouting, "Song Gang, did you start missing me again?"

  Song Gang shook his head. "I'm lost. I don't know the way home and don't know what to do."

  Baldy Li chuckled and rapped on the door, comforting Song Gang. "Don't worry. Just wait till Mama gets home. She knows how to get to your house, so she could take you back."

  Song Gang decided that Baldy Li had a point, so he nodded and peered at Baldy Li before settling himself back down on the ground. Baldy Li also sat down. The two boys resumed their chatting, their backs against each other, separated by the door. This time it was Song Gang who told Baldy Li all the things that were going on in town, all the people he had seen on the street who were fighting and crying and laughing. As Song Gang spoke he suddenly remembered the White Rabbits, so he hurriedly lifted the stone stoop and retrieved them. He said, "That was close"—the worms had just eaten through the leaf wrappers but fortunately hadn't gotten to the candy. He carefully put the five pieces of candy into his pocket and then placed his hand protectively over it. After a while Song Gang said softly, "Baldy Li, I'm really hungry. I didn't have lunch. Could I have the candies?"