Brothers

by Yu Hua

  Blacksmith Tong said, "Oh," and added, "I would have never pegged you, little bastard, for a filial son."

  Baldy Li smiled modestly. He gave the drip bottle a few swirls and observed, "There's somewhere between half an ounce and an ounce of glucose nutrition in there."

  Blacksmith Tong said generously, "Well, seeing that you're being such a filial son, I'll lend you the cart."

  Baldy Li thanked him repeatedly. He then patted the long bench and waved Blacksmith Tong to sit down next to him. Baldy Li said mysteriously, "I won't just borrow your pullcart with nothing in return. Good deeds are to be repaid in kind, as they say."

  Blacksmith Tong didn't understand. "What do you mean, repaid in kind?"

  Baldy Li whispered, "Lin Hong's butt…"

  "Oh!" Now everything became clear.

  Intrigued, Blacksmith Tong sat next to Baldy Li as the latter began to divulge the secrets of Lin Hong's butt with the most florid of descriptions. Just as he was getting to the most exciting part, Baldy Li's lips ceased moving. Blacksmith Tong waited patiently for him to start up again, but when he did he no longer spoke of Lin Hong's bottom but, rather, of how Poet Zhao nabbed him at that critical moment. Blacksmith Tong was crushed. He stood up, rubbing his hands and pacing about back and forth, then broke out in curses: "That bastard Poet Zhao…"

  Though he had gained only the faintest glimpse of Lin Hong's bottom, Blacksmith Tong was still filled with goodwill toward Baldy Li. When he lent Baldy Li his pullcart, he told him, "Whenever you need the cart, just give me a holler and take it away."

  Baldy Li stashed his pilfered glucose drip in his pocket and pulled Blacksmith Tongs cart up to Yanker Yu's stand. He now had his eyes on Yanker Yu's rattan recliner. He planned to tie the recliner onto Blacksmith Tongs cart so that Li Lan could ride lying down all the way to the countryside.

  When Baldy Li walked up, Yanker Yu was himself stretched out on the chair, napping. Baldy Li set the pullcart down with a resounding thump. Yanker Yu woke up with a start, but when he opened his eyes and saw it was merely Baldy Li with a pullcart and that neither of them was a customer, he promptly shut his eyes again. Baldy Li inspected everything with the air of a visiting officer. Hands clasped behind his back, he examined the dental tools and teeth displayed on the table.

  It was already the tail end of the Cultural Revolution, and the revolution was no longer a roaring tide but more like a trickling stream. Yanker Yu no longer had to display his class loyalty with an exhibit of mistakenly extracted healthy teeth; on the contrary, they now threatened to hurt his reputation as a dentist. Tacking to the political winds, Yanker Yu had hidden away his healthy-teeth display behind his cash. He figured that after flowing west for a while the river might begin flowing east again, and the revolutionary stream could again turn into a tide, so he might as well save the healthy-teeth display for another cycle.

  Baldy Li examined the table for a while but didn't spot any healthy teeth. He rapped the table and loudly asked, "What about the healthy teeth? Where are the healthy teeth?"

  "What healthy teeth?" Yanker Yu opened his eyes in annoyance.

  "Those healthy teeth you pulled." Baldy Li pointed at the table, "They used to be sitting right here."

  "Shut your trap," Yanker Yu said angrily. Sitting up, he insisted, "I've never pulled a single healthy tooth. I only pull them out when they're rotten."

  Baldy Li hadn't expected Yanker Yu to get so riled up, so he immediately smiled ingratiatingly, changing course as smoothly as Yanker Yu had. Baldy Li slapped his forehead, saying, "Yes, yes, you have certainly never extracted a good tooth. I must have remembered wrong."

  As he spoke Baldy Li pulled up a stool next to the recliner and started to flatter Yanker Yu just as he had done with Blacksmith Tong, saying, "You, Yanker Yu, are the premier tooth extractor within a hundred miles. You could pull a rotten tooth out with your eyes closed."

  Yanker Yu's fury transformed into satisfaction, and he smiled. "Now, that's the truth."

  Feeling that Yanker Yu was now ripe for the plucking, Baldy Li began, "So you have been here for some twenty years. You must have seen all the young ladies in Liu Town, right?"

  "Young ladies?" Yanker Yu bragged, "I've seen them all—even the not-so-young ones. Throughout Liu Town, I know right away whenever a young lady gets married or an old lady gets buried."

  "So, in your opinion," prodded Baldy Li, "who is the prettiest young lady in Liu Town?"

  "Lin Hong," Yanker Yu replied without hesitation. "Without question, it would be Lin Hong."

  "So"—Baldy Li chuckled—"who among all the men in Liu Town has seen Lin Hongs bare butt?"

  "You, of course." Yanker Yu pointed at Baldy Li and laughed heartily. "You little bastard."

  Baldy Li nodded and then leaned in closer and whispered, "So would you like to hear about it?"

  Yanker Yu's laughing face immediately became solemn. He sat up from his recliner and peered about the alley. When he saw that no one was around, he whispered to Baldy Li, "Tell me!"

  Yanker Yu s eyes glittered, and his mouth hung wide open as if he were waiting for a dumpling to drop down from heaven. But Baldy Li, a master of calculation, chose this very moment to fall silent. What the men in Liu Town said about him was true: This fifteen-year-old little bastard played a better game than a career card shark in his fifties. Yanker Yu saw Baldy Li's lips sealed tightly shut and anxiously prodded, "Well, go on!"

  Very deliberately, Baldy Li ran his hand over Yanker Yus rattan recliner. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly as he said, "Loan me this chair for a day, and I'll map out every millimeter of Lin Hong's bottom for you."

  When Yanker Yu heard that Baldy Li wanted to borrow the recliner, he immediately shook his head. "I can't do that. How can I pull teeth without this recliner for customers to lie down on?"

  Baldy Li reasoned with him patiently, "You'd still have your stool. Given your world-renowned skills, they could be standing up and you'd still manage."

  Yanker Yu cackled a couple times as he did a quick mental calculation of the pros and cons of the arrangement. Perhaps losing the recliner for a day in exchange for the secrets of the beautiful Lin Hong's bottom would not be such a bad deal at all. He nodded in agreement, then raised a finger, saying, "Okay, but just for one day."

  Baldy Li already had his lips up to Yanker Yu's ear as he launched into a vivid narration. Having worked through fifty-six bowls of housespecial noodles, and with the literary embellishments from Poet Zhao and Writer Liu, Baldy Li by now had a story burnished to a high sheen. Lin Hongs bottom could not have been made more bewitchingly captivating. Yanker Yu listened, rapt with emotion. He tensed up as if listening to the thrilling climax of a ghost story, then Baldy Li's lips suddenly stopped moving. He gazed over at Yanker Yu's oilcloth umbrella, and Yu became so anxious he cried out, "Go on!"

  Baldy Li smacked his lips and pointed at the umbrella. "I want to borrow the umbrella for a day, too."

  "You're asking for too much," replied Yanker Yu angrily. "First you borrow my recliner and now my umbrella—all I'll have left is this table. My stand will look as bare as a newly plucked chicken."

  Baldy Li shook his head. "Perhaps you'd be bare tomorrow, but you'd have your feathers back the very next day."

  Yanker Yu burned with anxious curiosity. He felt as if he had been reading a serialized novel and had just reached a cliff-hanger, so he couldn't do anything but agree to loan out his umbrella as well. Baldy Li went on for a few more sentences on Lin Hong's bottom, but what Yanker Yu heard next was all about Poet Zhao's hand. Dumbfounded, he took a little while to recover enough to ask, "What happened? How did Lin Hong's bottom turn into Poet Zhao's hand?"

  "I can't help it." Baldy Li sighed. "That bastard Poet Zhao ruined my moment, and yours, too."

  Now Yanker Yu fell into a blind rage, all of it directed toward Poet Zhao. Gritting his teeth, he snarled, "That bastard Zhao, I swear I'm going to pull out one of his good teeth."

  With Blacksmith
Tongs pullcart and Yanker Yu's recliner and umbrella in tow, Baldy Li then stopped by the warehouse of the town's department store. There he sweet-talked and peddled the secrets of Lin Hong's bottom yet again and managed to borrow a pile of rope. Now his mission was accomplished and, whistling a revolutionary tune and pulling the cart noisily behind him down the main street, he returned home victorious.

  By this point it was dark and Li Lan had already gone to bed. In anticipation of the long road ahead the next day, she had eaten and retired early. Ever since Baldy Li had become notorious all over Liu Town, Li Lan had felt that she had completely lost control of this son of hers. He often returned home late at night, and she could do nothing but sigh.

  When Baldy Li arrived home, he saw that the lights were out, so he knew his mother had gone to bed. He set the cart down lightly and crept into the house, where he turned on the light and sat at the table to wolf down the dinner his mother had set out for him. Then he got to work. By the light of the rooms lamp and the moon outside, he first placed the recliner on top of the pullcart, securing it tightly with the rope. There was an opening for a cup in the chairs armrest, so Baldy Li stuck the umbrella handle through it and then used the rope to fasten it securely in place.

  By that point it was well past midnight, but Baldy Li did another careful inspection of the rig, reinforcing various parts with rope. When he was finally done, he circled the cart twice more, his hands behind his back. He couldn't stop grinning. He felt that the cart, chair, and umbrella were as firmly bound together as arms and legs on a torso. Satisfied, he let out a huge yawn and went in to go to bed. Once he was lying down, though, Baldy Li discovered that he couldn't fall asleep, so worried was he that someone would steal his masterpiece. So he grabbed his blanket and went outside. He crawled up onto Blacksmith Tongs cart and lay down on Yanker Yu's recliner. Now feeling secure, he started snoring the moment he shut his eyes.

  Li Lan woke up at daybreak to find Baldy Li's bed empty and his blanket missing. Unable to figure out what had happened, she shook her head and opened the front door, then gasped when she saw the odd contraption sitting outside with her son sleeping on top.

  Li Lan's gasp woke Baldy Li from his dreams. Seeing his mother's astonished expression, he rubbed his eyes, climbed down from the cart, and proudly explained that the pullcart belonged to Blacksmith Tong, the recliner and the oilcloth umbrella were Yanker Yu's, and the hemp rope binding it all together was borrowed from the department store's warehouse. Baldy Li exclaimed, "Ma, now you can travel in comfort!"

  Li Lan regarded her demon of a son and wondered, How in the world could a fifteen-year-old pull off a feat like this? She felt that she really didn't know him at all, this son who seemed to be able to whip something out of his bag of tricks every other day.

  Mother and son had breakfast, and Baldy Li then lifted their hot-water thermos and carefully poured water into the glucose bottle. "There's somewhere between half an ounce and an ounce of nutritious glucose in here," he told Li Lan, adding that it was in case she got thirsty on the road.

  Baldy Li thoughtfully placed his neatly folded blanket over the chair, explaining that it was going to be a bumpy ride but the padding should do the trick. With his left foot holding down one of the pullcart's handles, he gently helped Li Lan climb onto the cart and lie down on the chair. She cradled the basket with the paper ingots and coins and looked up at the oilcloth umbrella over her head, realizing that it was to keep the sun and rain off her. Baldy Li then handed her the bottle with the hot water and glucose mixture. As Li Lan accepted the bottle tears rushed down her face. Baldy Li saw that she was weeping and asked, astonished, "Ma, what's wrong?"

  "Nothing at all." Li Lan dabbed at her eyes, then smiled. "Son, lets get going."

  That morning Li Lan took a ride on the most luxurious pullcart Liu Town had ever seen. The cart wound its way down the main street with Baldy Li at the fore. The crowds stared, mouths open in astonishment. They simply couldn't believe their eyes; never in their wildest dreams having imagined such a contraption. Someone called out to Baldy Li, asking him how he had managed to put this thing together.

  "This thing?" Baldy Li smugly replied. "This thing is my mom's exclusive-use cart."

  Everyone was befuddled. "What's an exclusive-use cart?"

  "You've never heard of an exclusive-use cart?" Baldy Li asked, then continued proudly: "The jet that Chairman Mao flies in is his exclusive-use jet, the train compartment that Chairman Mao travels in is his exclusive-use compartment, and the car that Chairman Mao rides in is his exclusive-use sedan. Why? Because no one else can use them. My mom's cart is her exclusive-use cart. Why? Because no one else can ride in it."

  Everyone broke out into knowing laughter, and even Li Lan couldn't help but laugh out loud. With myriad emotions Li Lan watched as her son proudly pulled her exclusive-use cart through the streets. This son, who had once shamed her as deeply as her first husband, Liu Shan-feng, now filled her with a pride akin to what she had felt with Song Fanping.

  The women in Liu Town thought that Li Lan's cart resembled a wedding sedan. Giggling nonstop, they called out to Li Lan, "Are you getting married off today?"

  "No, no," Li Lan replied, blushing. "I'm going down to the countryside to sweep my husband's grave."

  Baldy Li pulled Li Lan's exclusive-use cart out the southern gate. When she heard the creaking of the wheels, Li Lan guessed that they had just gone over the wooden bridge and were now bumping along down the dirt road. She could smell the country air as a fresh spring breeze wafted past her; she raised herself, holding on to the umbrella pole, and looked out to a field of golden greens glistening in the sun. She watched the winding paths that framed each paddy, the various details of houses and trees at a distance, the ducks flying over the nearby pond and their reflection in the water, together with the sparrows flying by the road. This was the last trip that Li Lan would take along this dirt road; despite its bumpiness, she fully enjoyed the beautiful spring day while riding along on the cart.

  Li Lan looked down at her son pulling the cart with all his strength. Baldy Li was now bent over and constantly wiping the sweat from his brows. Feeling sorry for him, she urged him to take a rest, but Baldy Li shook his head and replied that he wasn't tired. Li Lan tried to get him to pause and drink from the drip bottle, but he again shook his head. "That glucose water is nutrition for you."

  When she saw how good her son was to her, Li Lan wept tears of joy. Sobbing, she said, "Good son, please, I'm begging you, take a rest and have some water."

  Just then Baldy Li caught sight of Song Gang in the distance, standing at the entrance to the village. He saw that Song Gang's grandfather was seated on the ground and leaning against the tree. Every year at Qingming, Song Gang and his grandfather would wait at the village entrance for their arrival. Song Gang spotted a very odd cart coming toward him, but he didn't dream that it would be Baldy Li pulling Li Lan. When Baldy Li saw Song Gang, his bent-over body straightened out a bit and he broke into a run, jostling Li Lan back and forth. Baldy Li yelled out at the top of his lungs, "Song Gang! Song Gang!"

  When Song Gang heard Baldy Li's cries, he ran toward them, arms waving, and shouting, "Baldy Li! Baldy Li!"

  CHAPTER 26

  UPON RETURNING from her trip to Song Fanping's grave, Li Lan lay down on her bed to think things over. She felt that she had completed all the necessary preparations, and so the next day she could check into the hospital without worries. As she had expected, her illness became much graver once she arrived in the hospital, and it became clear that she would never check out again. Within two months, she was reduced to voiding her bladder through a catheter, ran an unabated high fever, and spent most of her days asleep.

  As Li Lan s condition deteriorated Baldy Li stopped going to school and instead began spending every day at her bedside. Deep into the night, each time Li Lan woke from her stupor she would see her son asleep next to her, head leaning against the bed railing. Weeping, she would muster the energy to u
rge him to go home and rest.

  When Li Lan felt that the end was approaching, she began to desperately miss her other son. She asked Baldy Li to lean over, and, with a voice as weak and soft as a mosquito's buzz, she asked him again and again to bring Song Gang back from the countryside.

  The road to the countryside was long, and it would take at least half a day to get there and back. Baldy Li set off to fetch Song Gang but, worried about his mother in the hospital needing his care, paused at the wooden bridge outside the southern gate. He waited on the bridge for two hours, and whenever he spotted a peasant leaving through the gate, he would ask him what village he was from. He asked more than a dozen people but didn't find anyone from Song Gang's village. Finally an old man with a hog approached. By that point Baldy Li had pretty much given up hope and was preparing to run like a marathoner all the way to the countryside. When the old man replied that he was from Song Gang's village, Baldy Li leapt down from the bridge railing and almost gave the man a hug. Shouting, he asked the man to send word to Song Gang urging him to rush to town. "It's an emergency. Tell him to come find Baldy Li."

  It was dawn by the time Song Gang arrived. Baldy Li had spent another night at the hospital and had just gotten home and fallen asleep when Song Gang knocked on the door. Drowsily, Baldy Li opened the door, and Song Gang, who by this time was a head taller than he, nervously asked, "What's going on?"

  Baldy Li rubbed his eyes. "Mama doesn't have much longer and wants to see you. Quick, go to the hospital."

  Song Gang burst into tears, and Baldy Li said, "Don't cry now, just get going. I'll sleep a bit more and then come join you."

  Song Gang turned around and rushed off to the hospital. Baldy Li shut the door behind him and went back to sleep. He had planned to nap only for a short while, but his accumulated exhaustion got the better of him and he slept until noon. By the time he arrived at the hospital, he was astonished by the sight that greeted his eyes: Li Lan was actually sitting up, and her voice sounded much stronger than it had been the day before. Song Gang was sitting on the edge of the bed, telling her about events in the village. Baldy Li wondered whether it was the sight of Song Gang that made her instantly better. He didn't realize that she was temporarily in remission, enjoying a sudden burst of energy at the end of her life's journey. She even smiled when she spotted Baldy Li entering the room, saying, "You've lost so much weight."