Border Town

by Shen CongWen

  “This is no place to wait for him. Come up to my house, over there where the lamps are lit. You can wait for him there. How about that?”

  Cuicui mistook his good intentions in inviting her to his home. Recalling the revolting things the sailors had said about that woman, she thought the boy wanted her to go up into one of those houses with the singing girls. She’d never cursed before, but she was on edge, having waited so long for her grandfather. When she heard herself invited to go upstairs to his home, she felt insulted and said, softly,

  “Damned low-life! You’re headed for the executioner!”

  She said it under her breath, but the boy heard it, and he could tell from her voice how young she was. He smiled at her and said, “What, are you cursing me? If you want to wait here instead of coming with me, and a big fish comes up and bites you, don’t expect me to rescue you!”

  Cuicui answered, “If a fish does bite me, that’s nothing to you.”

  As if aware that Cuicui had been insulted, the yellow dog began barking again. The boy lunged at the dog with the duck to scare him, then walked off toward River Street. The dog wanted to chase him, having now been insulted himself, when Cuicui yelled, “Hey, boy, save your barks for when they’re needed!” Her meaning seemed to be, “That joker isn’t worth barking at,” but the young man thought he heard something else, to the effect that the dog should not bark at a well-meaning person. He was wreathed in smiles as he disappeared from view.

  A while later, someone came over from River Street to fetch Cuicui, bearing a torch made from leftover rope and calling her name. But when she saw his face, Cuicui didn’t recognize him. He explained that the old ferryman had gone home and could not come to retrieve her, so he’d sent a message back with a passenger for Cuicui to return home at once. When Cuicui heard that her grandfather had sent the man, she went home with him, skirting the city wall and letting him lead the way with his torch. The yellow dog sometimes went in front, sometimes in back. Along the way, Cuicui asked the man how he’d known she was still there by the river. He said No. 2 had told him; he worked in No. 2’s household. When he got her home, he’d have to return to River Street.

  Cuicui asked, “How did No. 2 know I was there?”

  Her guide smiled and said, “He was out on the river catching ducks and he saw you by the dock on his way home. He asked you, innocently enough, to go home and sit a while in his house until your grandpa came, but you swore at him! And your dog barked at him, having no idea who he was!”

  Surprised at this, Cuicui asked, softly, “Who is No. 2?”

  Now it was the worker’s turn to be surprised: “You’ve never heard of No. 2? He’s Nuosong! We call him No. 2 on River Street. He’s our Yue Yun! And he asked me to take you home!”

  Nuosong was not an unfamiliar name in Chadong!

  When Cuicui thought of her curse words a while ago, she felt stunned and also ashamed. There was nothing she could say. She followed the torchbearer silently.

  When they’d rounded the hill and could see the lamplight in the house across the stream, the ferryman spotted the torchlight where Cuicui was. He immediately set out with his boat, calling out in his hoarse voice, “Cuicui, Cuicui, is it you?” Cuicui didn’t answer her grandpa, but only said, under her breath, “No, it’s not Cuicui, not her, Cuicui was eaten by a big fish in the river long ago.” When she was in the boat, the man sent by No. 2 left with his torch. Grandpa pulled on the ferry cable and asked, “Cuicui, why didn’t you answer me? Are you angry at me?”

  Cuicui stood in the prow and still said not a word. Her irritation at her granddad dissipated when she got home across the creek and saw how drunk the other old man was. But something else, which had to do with her and not her grandfather, kept Cuicui in silence through the rest of the night.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Two years passed.

  It happened that during neither of those years’ Mid-autumn Festivals, when the moon should have been at its fullest, was there any moon to be seen. None of the exploits of young girls and boys singing love songs to each other all night under the moonlight, customary in this border town, could take place. Hence the two Mid-autumn Festivals had made only a very faint impression on Cuicui. But during the last two New Year’s celebrations, she could see soldiers and villagers put on lion dances and processions of dragon lanterns on the parade grounds to welcome in the spring. The sound of the drums and gongs was exciting and raucous. At the end of the festival on the evening of the fifteenth of the first month, the garrison soldiers who had frolicked inside the lions and dragons traveled all over, bare-chested, braving the fireworks. At the army encampment in town, at the residence of the head customs inspector, and in some of the bigger establishments on River Street, everyone cut thin bamboos or hollowed out palm tree roots and stems, then mixed saltpeter with sulfur, charcoal, and steel powder to make thousand-pop firecrackers. Daring and fun-loving soldiers, stripped to the waist, came waving their lanterns and beating their drums as packs of little firecrackers dangling from poles sent sparks down their backs and shoulders like rain showers. The quickening beat of drums and gongs sent the crowd into a frenzy. When the bursts of firecrackers were over, the crowd fired rockets from great tubes anchored to the feet of long benches, setting them off with fuses that extended into an open field. First came a white light with a sizzle. Slowly, slowly, the sizzle changed into a great howl, like a frightening clap of thunder and the roar of a tiger, as the white light shot up two hundred feet into the air. Then it showered the whole sky with multicolored sparks thick as droplets of rain. The soldiers brandishing lanterns went around in circles, oblivious to the sparks. Cuicui witnessed this excitement with her grandfather and it made an impression on her, but inexplicably, it was not as sweet and beautiful as that left by the day of the dragon boats two years before.

  Unable to forget that day, Cuicui had gone back to River Street with her grandpa the year before and watched the boats for some time. Just when everything was going fine, it suddenly began to rain, soaking everyone to the bone. To escape the rain, grandfather and granddaughter, with the yellow dog, had gone up into Shunshun’s stilt house, where they crowded into a corner. Someone passed by them carrying a stool; Cuicui recognized him as the man with the torch who had led her home. She said to her grandfather:

  “Grandfather, that’s the man who brought me home last year. Walking along the path with a torch like that, he was just like a highwayman!”

  At first Grandpa said nothing, but when the man turned his head and approached, the ferryman grabbed him and said, grinning widely,

  “Hey, there, you old highwayman, I asked you to stay for a drink but you wouldn’t stay put! Were you afraid of poison? Did you think I dared to slay a true-born Son of Heaven?”

  When the man saw that it was the ferryman, and then caught sight of Cuicui, he grinned. “Cuicui, how you’ve grown! No. 2 said a big fish might eat you if you stayed by the riverbank, but our river doesn’t have any fish big enough to swallow you now!”

  Cuicui said not a word. She puckered her lips and smiled.

  She heard this old highwayman speak No. 2’s name, but the boy was nowhere to be seen. From the conversation between her grandfather and the other elder, Cuicui gathered that No. 2 was spending the Dragon Boat Festival two hundred miles downstream, at the Qinglang or Green Foam Rapids of the River Yuan. But this festival she got to see No. 1 and also the famous Shunshun. The old ferryman praised a fat duck that No. 1 brought home after catching it on the river, praised it twice, so Shunshun told him to give it to Cuicui. And when he learned how hard up their household was—too poor to wrap their own zongzi dumplings for the festival—he gave them a big lot of the three-cornered treats.

  While that notable of the waterways conversed with her grandfather, Cuicui pretended to be looking at the events in the river, but really she was taking in every word. The other man said that Cuicui had grown quite beautiful. He asked her age, and whether she was promised to anyone. Her grandfather
gleefully bragged about her, but seemed reluctant to broach the topic of her marriage prospects. He didn’t breathe a word about that.

  On the way home, Grandpa carried the white duck and other goods, while Cuicui led the way with a torch. The two made their way along the foot of the city wall, between the wall and the river. Grandpa said: “Shunshun is a good man, extremely generous. No. 1 is like him. The whole family is quite fine!” Cuicui asked, “Do you know everyone in the family?” Grandpa didn’t see what she was driving at. The day had raised his spirits so much that he went ahead and asked, smiling, “Cuicui, if No. 1 wanted to take you as his wife and sent over a matchmaker, would you agree?” Cuicui replied, “Grandfather, you’re crazy! Keep on like this and I’ll get angry!”

  Grandpa said no more, but clearly he was still mulling over this silly and inopportune idea. Cuicui, aggravated, ran up ahead, swinging the torch wildly from side to side.

  “Don’t be angry, Cuicui, I might fall into the river. This duck might get away!”

  “Who wants that old duck?”

  Realizing why she was angry, Grandpa began singing a shanty the oarsmen used to speed their rowing while they shot the rapids. His voice was rasping, but the words were clear as could be. Cuicui kept going as she listened, then suddenly stopped and asked:

  “Grandfather, is that boat of yours going down the Green Foam Rapids?”

  Grandpa didn’t answer, he just kept on singing. Both of them recalled that Shunshun’s No. 2 was spending the holiday on a boat at the Green Foam Rapids, but neither knew what the other was implying. Grandfather and granddaughter walked home in silence. As they neared the ferry, the man tending the boat for them brought it to the bank to await their arrival. They crossed the stream to go home, then ate the zongzi. When it came time for the man to go back to town, Cuicui was quick to light a torch for him so he could see his way home. As he crossed over the hill, Cuicui and her grandfather watched him from the boat. She said,

  “Grandfather, look, the highwayman has gone back into the hills!”

  As he pulled the boat along the cable, his eyes trained on the mist that had suddenly come up from the stream, Grandpa acted as if he’d seen something and softly sighed. He quietly tugged the boat toward home on the opposite bank and let Cuicui go ashore first, while he stayed by the boat. It was a festival day. He knew that country folk would still be returning home in the dark after seeing the dragon boats in town.

  CHAPTER SIX

  One day the old ferryman got into an argument with a passenger, a seller of wrapping paper. The one refused to accept money proffered and the other insisted on paying. The old ferryman felt a little bullied by the merchant’s attitude, so he put on a show of anger and forced the man to take back his money—pressed the coins right back into his hand. But when the boat reached the shore, the traveler jumped up onto the dock and cast a handful of coppers back into the boat, smiling gleefully before hurrying off on his way. The old ferryman had to keep steadying the boat till the other passengers made it ashore, so he couldn’t pursue the merchant. Instead, he called out to his granddaughter, who was up on the hill:

  “Cuicui, grab hold of that cheeky young paper-seller and don’t let him go!”

  Cuicui had no idea what was going on, but she went with the yellow dog to block the way of the first passenger off the boat. He laughed and said,

  “Let me pass!”

  As he spoke, a second merchant caught up with them and told Cuicui what it was all about. She understood and held on to the paper merchant’s gown for dear life, insisting, “You can’t go, you can’t!” To show his agreement with his mistress, the yellow dog, too, began barking at the man. The other traveling merchants were blocked for a while, but they all had a good laugh. Grandpa came up in an angry huff, forced the money back into the man’s hand, and even stuck a big wad of tobacco leaves into the merchant’s load. He rubbed his hands together and beamed: “Go on, now! Hit the road, all of you!” And at that, they all went on their way, chuckling.

  “Grandfather, I thought you were quarreling with that man because he’d stolen from you!” Cuicui said.

  Her grandfather replied,

  “He gave me money, a lot of it. I don’t want his money! I told him that and still he bickered with me about it. He just wouldn’t listen to reason!”

  “Did you give it all back to him?” Cuicui asked.

  Grandpa shook his head and pouted. Then he winked and smiled knowingly, taking out from his belt the lone copper he had stuffed there. He gave it to Cuicui and said,

  “He got some tobacco from me in return. He can smoke that all the way to Zhen’gan town!”

  The pounding of faraway drums could be heard, and the yellow dog pricked up his ears. Cuicui asked Grandpa if he could hear it. He strained his ears and recognized the sound.

  “Cuicui, the Dragon Boat Festival has come around again. Do you remember how last year Master Tianbao gave you a fat duck to take home? This morning First Master went off on business with his crew to East Sichuan. On the ferry he asked about you. I’ll bet you forgot all about the downpour last year. If we go this time, we’ll have to light a torch again to come home. Do you remember how the two of us came home, lighting our way with a torch?”

  Cuicui was just then thinking about the other Dragon Boat Festival, two years ago. But when her grandfather asked, she shook her head, slightly annoyed, and said, pointedly: “I don’t remember it, not at all. I can’t remember anything about it!” What she really meant was, “How could I have forgotten?”

  Knowing full well what she really meant, Grandpa added, “The festival two years ago was even more interesting. You waited for me alone by the riverbank. It got dark and you were just about lost. I thought a big fish must have eaten you all up!”

  Recalling this, Cuicui snickered.

  “Grandfather, are you the one who thought a big fish might eat me? It was someone else who said that about me, and I told you! All you cared about that day was getting that old man from town to drink all the wine in your gourd! Some memory you have!”

  “I’m old and my memory is completely gone. Cuicui, you’ve grown up now. You’ll have no trouble going into town alone to see the boats race. No need to worry about a fish eating you.”

  “Now that I’m older, I ought to stay and mind the ferryboat.”

  “It’s when you get really old that you stay with the ferryboat.”

  “When you get old, you deserve a rest!”

  “Your grandfather isn’t so old! I can still hunt tigers!” Grandpa said, flexing his biceps and making a muscle to show how young and strong he still was. “Cuicui, if you don’t believe me, see if you can bite through this!”

  Cuicui cast a sidelong glance at her grandpa, whose back was slightly hunched. She didn’t reply. Far away, she heard the sound of suona horns. She knew what that meant. She could tell the direction it was coming from. She asked her grandpa to get in the boat with her and go to the other side, where their house was. To get a look at the bride’s palanquin at the earliest point, Cuicui climbed the pagoda out back and looked over from above. Soon the wedding procession arrived: two men playing suonas, four strong peasant lads carrying an empty palanquin to collect the bride, a young man decked out in new clothes, who looked to be the son of a militia captain, two sheep and a young boy leading them, a vat of wine, a box of glutinous rice cakes, and a gift-bearer. When the troop boarded the ferryboat, Cuicui and her grandpa joined them. Grandpa tugged the boat line, while Cuicui stood by the ornately decorated bridal sedan chair, taking note of all the faces in the procession and the tassels on the palanquin. When they got to shore, the one who looked like the militia captain’s son drew a red envelope with money in it from his embroidered waist pouch and gave it to the old ferryman. That was the custom in this locality, so Grandpa could not refuse the gift. But having the money in hand, Grandpa asked the man where the bride was from, her family name, and how old she was. When he had all this information and the suona players began their
haunting melodies again after landing, the file of men crossed over the hill and went on its way. Grandpa and Cuicui remained in the boat, their emotions following the sounds of the suonas far into the distance.

  Weighing the red money packet in his hand, Grandpa said, “Cuicui, the bride is from the Song Family Stockade and she’s only fourteen.”

  Cuicui understood his meaning, but paid him no heed. She began quietly to pull the boat across.

  When they reached the side where their house was, Cuicui rushed home to get their little twin-pipe bamboo suona. She asked Grandpa to play her the tune “The Mother Sees Her Daughter Off to Marriage.” She lay down with the yellow dog in a shady spot on the bluffs in front of the house, where she could watch the clouds in the sky. The days were getting longer now. Before anyone noticed, Grandpa fell asleep. So did Cuicui and the yellow dog.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was the day of the festival. Grandpa and Cuicui had already decided three days before that he would tend the boat while Cuicui and the yellow dog would visit Shunshun’s stilt house to enjoy the excitement. Cuicui hadn’t agreed at first, but later she came around. Yet, a day later, Cuicui changed her mind again, insisting that they must both go to the races or stay with the ferryboat. The ferryman understood; she was at war with herself, torn between her own desire for fun and her love of him. But it wouldn’t do at all if she missed the fun that was her due just because she was tethered to him! Grandpa said, with a smile, “Cuicui, what’s wrong? Going back on your word is not what one expects of a Chadong girl. We stick to our promises, we don’t give in to second thoughts. My memory’s not so bad that I forget your promises to me as soon as you make them!” So he said, but Grandpa obviously was prone to see things however she saw them. Yet because he doted on her, her change of heart saddened him, too. Seeing her grandpa fall silent, Cuicui asked him, “If I go, who will stay with you?”