To Live

by Yu Hua

  Erxi urged me, “The two of us can’t both stay up like this. After Fengxia gives birth, someone is going to have to take care of her and the baby.”

  I realized that what Erxi said made sense, so I told him, “Erxi, you get some sleep first.”

  The two of us kept going back and forth, and in the end neither one of us got any sleep. By the time the sun had come out there was still no sign of Fengxia, and we began to get scared again. All the women who had come in after Fengxia had given birth and gone home already. How were Erxi and I supposed to sit still? We pressed up against the door to listen to what was going on inside. Only after I heard a woman’s voice screaming did I relax.

  “Poor Fengxia,” said Erxi.

  But after a while I realized something was wrong: Fengxia was mute—she couldn’t scream. I mentioned this to Erxi, and his face instantly turned pale. He ran up to the delivery room door, yelling, “Fengxia, Fengxia!”

  Two doctors came out and, glaring angrily at Erxi, yelled, “What the hell are you screaming about? Get out!”

  Erxi was wailing like a baby.

  “How come my wife still hasn’t come out?” he asked.

  Someone else in the waiting room told us, “Some deliveries are fast, and some are slow.”

  Erxi and I looked at each other, thinking maybe this guy was right. We sat back down, but my heart was still pounding. Before long a doctor came out to ask us, “Do you want the big one or the little one?”

  Her question left us both utterly stupefied.

  “Hello, I’m talking to you,” she said.

  Erxi fell at her feet. Kneeling before her, he pleaded through his tears, “Doctor, please save Fengxia. I want Fengxia.”

  Erxi was on the ground crying uncontrollably. I helped him up and tried to get him to calm down, telling him to take it easy or he was going to hurt himself.

  “Just as long as Fengxia pulls through everything will be okay,” I told him. “You know there’s a saying: ‘As long as the green mountain remains, there’s no reason to worry about firewood.’ ”

  Erxi was still crying as he said, “My son’s gone.”

  So was my grandson. I lowered my head and began crying uncontrollably. But around noon a doctor came out and said, “She delivered. It’s a boy!”

  The second Erxi heard this he got anxious. Leaping forward he yelled, “I said I didn’t want the little one!”

  The doctor said, “The big one’s okay, too.”

  Fengxia was okay. I suddenly began to feel dizzy—I was getting older, and my body couldn’t take this kind of stress anymore. Erxi was as happy as could be. He sat down beside me with his body shaking. He was shaking because he was laughing too hard. I said to Erxi, “Now we can finally relax. I’m going to get some sleep. I’ll be back in a while to take your place.”

  But who could have guessed that the moment I left, something would happen to Fengxia? Just a few minutes after I went out the door, a whole army of doctors ran into the delivery room, some of them even carrying oxygen tanks. After Fengxia gave birth she started hemorrhaging and lost a lot of blood—before dusk she was gone. My two children both died during childbirth—Youqing during someone else’s delivery, Fengxia during her own.

  The snow was especially heavy that day. After Fengxia died her body lay in that tiny room. I went to see her, and as soon as I saw the room I couldn’t bring myself to go in. Ten years earlier, Youqing had died in that same room. I stood in the heavy snow, listening to the echoes of Erxi’s voice calling Fengxia. The pain in my heart was so great I had to squat down on the ground. I could barely see the entrance to the room with the heavy snowflakes falling. All I could hear was the wrenching sound of Erxi’s cries. Only after I called Erxi a few times did he finally respond. He came to the door and said to me, “I wanted the big one, and they gave me the little one.”

  “Let’s go home,” I said. “This hospital and my family have a score left over from another life. Youqing died here, and now so did Fengxia. Erxi, let’s go home.”

  Erxi lifted Fengxia onto his back, and the three of us headed home. By then it was completely dark out. The road was covered in a thick blanket of snow, and there was not a soul in sight. When the western wind blew, snowflakes beat against our faces like pellets of sand. After getting part of the way home, Erxi raised his voice, which had grown hoarse from his constant crying.

  “Dad, I can’t go on,” he said.

  I told him to give Fengxia to me, but he wouldn’t let me take her. Then after walking a few more steps he squatted down, saying, “Dad, my back’s so sore I can barely take it.”

  That was because of his crying. He had cried so hard that he had hurt his back. When we got to Erxi’s place, he put Fengxia down on the bed and sat on the edge of it gazing at her. Sitting there, Erxi’s body looked like it had shriveled into a little ball. I couldn’t look at them; just seeing their shadows on the wall was unbearable. Their looming shadows were dark and large. One was lying while the other looked like it was kneeling. Neither moved. The only things moving were Erxi’s tears—I kept seeing those large black drops falling from one shadow to the other. I went into the kitchen to boil some water to warm up Erxi. By the time the water had boiled and I’d brought it out, Erxi had dozed off—now they were both asleep.

  That night I sat in Erxi’s kitchen until dawn. The wind outside howled, and for a time sleet pattered wildly against the doors and windows, but there wasn’t a sound from Erxi and Fengxia sleeping in the other room. The cold winter wind snuck in through the crack in the door, bringing a draft that made my knees feel cold and sore. There was a numbness inside of me like ice. Just like that, my two children had left me. I wanted to cry, but there were no tears left. I thought of Jiazhen, who was at home, probably with her eyes glued to the door waiting for me to bring the news. When I left she kept reminding me over and over to hurry home as soon as Fengxia gave birth to tell her if it was a boy or a girl. But how was I to tell her that Fengxia was dead?

  When Youqing died, Jiazhen almost went with him. Now that Fengxia was gone, how would she be able to bear it? The next day, carrying Fengxia on his back, Erxi went home with me. It was still snowing, and Fengxia’s body was almost completely shrouded in white, as if it were covered in a blanket of cotton. When we got home I saw Jiazhen sitting in bed, her head leaning against the wall and her hair a mess. The moment I saw her like that I knew she understood that something bad had happened to Fengxia. It had already been two days and two nights since I’d left home. My tears came down in waves, and Erxi, who had already stopped crying once, couldn’t hold himself together either. The moment he saw Jiazhen’s baby-like tears, he called out, “Mom, Mom . . .”

  Jiazhen’s head was no longer resting against the wall, but it didn’t move. Her eyes remained fixed on Fengxia draped over Erxi’s back. I helped Erxi put Fengxia down on the bed, and Jiazhen lowered her head to look at her. Jiazhen’s gaze was so intense, it was as if her eyes were going to pop out of their sockets. I never imagined Jiazhen would have that kind of reaction. She stopped crying and just stared at Fengxia, caressing her face and hair. Erxi was crying so hard that he had to stoop down and rest against the side of the bed. I stood to one side looking at Jiazhen, not knowing what she would do next. That day Jiazhen didn’t cry or scream; from time to time she’d just shake her head. The snow on Fengxia’s body slowly melted, soaking the whole bed.

  Fengxia was buried alongside Youqing. The snow stopped falling, the sun beamed down from the heavens and the western wind grew even fiercer, its whistling roar almost completely drowning out the sound of the rustling leaves. The wind was blowing so hard that after we buried Fengxia, Erxi and I had to hold on to our hoe and shovel to keep our balance. The ground was covered with snow, and under the sun the white radiance was almost blinding. The plot of land where Fengxia was buried was the only area in sight free of snow. Staring at that patch of damp earth, neither Erxi nor I was willing to walk away. Erxi pointed to an empty plot of land beside Fengxia�
��s grave and said, “Dad, when I die, bury me there.”

  I sighed as I told Erxi, “This spot is for me. Besides, no matter what happens, I’ll die long before you.”

  After we buried Fengxia we went back to the hospital to bring the baby home. Erxi carried his son over twenty li to our hut. When he arrived he put the baby down on the bed. The boy opened his eyes, looking all around, and frowned. I wondered just what he was looking at. Seeing the kid like that, both Erxi and I laughed. Jiazhen was the only one who didn’t smile—her eyes remained fixed on the child, with her hand resting beside his face. She looked at the child with the same expression she had when she looked at her dead Fengxia. At the time I was really worried. The look on Jiazhen’s face was scaring me; I didn’t know what was wrong with her. Erxi looked up, and the second he saw Jiazhen, he, too, stopped laughing. With his arms lowered, he stood there not knowing what to do. After a while he quietly said to me, “Dad, you give the kid a name.”

  It was only then that Jiazhen opened her mouth. When she spoke her voice was hoarse and rough.

  “This child has been without a mother from the moment he entered this world. Let’s call him Kugen, ‘Bitter Root,’ ” she said.

  Less than three months after Fengxia died, Jiazhen also passed away. In the days just before she died, Jiazhen would often say to me, “Fugui, you buried both Youqing and Fengxia. Thinking that it’ll also be you who buries me, I can rest at ease.”

  She knew that she was going to die soon, but she was very much at ease. By then she didn’t even have the energy to sit up in bed; she’d just lie down and close her eyes. But her hearing was still keen—as soon as I’d come through the door after work she’d open her eye and begin to move her mouth, and I’d know that she wanted to talk to me. During those last days she especially loved to talk. I’d sit on the bed and lean over to listen to her— Jiazhen’s voice was as faint as a heartbeat. No matter how many hardships and difficulties people face in life, they always find a way to console themselves when they get close to death. Jiazhen also found a way; she kept telling me, “This life’s almost over for me. Knowing how good you’ve been to me, I’m content. I bore you a pair of children, which I guess you could say was my way of repaying you. I hope that I’ll be able to spend my next life together with you again.”

  The moment Jiazhen said she was willing to be my wife again in the next life, my tears trickled down onto her face. After blinking her eyes twice she smiled and said, “Even though Fengxia and Youqing both died before I did, I can still rest easy. I don’t need to worry about them anymore. No matter what, I’m still a mother. Our kids were good to me when they were alive, and just for that I should know contentment.

  “You’ve got to keep on living,” she told me. “There’s still Erxi and Kugen to take care of. Actually, Erxi is also our child, and when Kugen grows up he’ll listen and be just as good to you as Youqing was.”

  Jiazhen died in the afternoon. After I got back from working I saw her eyes opened wide, but as I passed by her on my way to the kitchen to make her some porridge I didn’t hear her say anything. When I sat down next to her with the porridge, Jiazhen, with her eyes closed, suddenly grabbed hold of my hand. I was shocked. I never imagined she had so much strength. I couldn’t pull my hand away. I quickly put the bowl of porridge down and used my other hand to feel her forehead. Only when I realized she was still warm did I relax a bit. Jiazhen’s face looked peaceful, as if she were asleep; it didn’t look like she was in any kind of pain. But who could have known that before long the same hand that had just grabbed me would begin to grow cold? I felt Jiazhen’s arms, and one at a time they too became cold; by then her legs went cold, too. Her whole body was cold; only a small area around her chest remained warm. I kept my hands on Jiazhen’s chest, where I could feel the warmth from her heart escaping through the cracks between my fingers. Finally her grip loosened, and her hand, which had been holding mine, fell lifeless against my arm.

  “It was really nice the way Jiazhen died,” Fugui said. It was late afternoon, and the people working in the fields began heading up to the ridge in small groups. The sun, hanging in the west, wasn’t as hard on the eyes. It now looked more like a red wheel in the sky, spreading out amid the layers of glowing crimson clouds.

  Fugui looked at me with a smile. The light from the setting sun made his face look especially spirited.

  “It was really nice the way Jiazhen died,” he said again. “When she died it was all so simple, so peaceful. There wasn’t anything left up in the air, unlike with some of the other women in our village, whom people would go on gossiping about long after they’d died.”

  Hearing this old man sitting across from me talk like this about his wife, who had passed away over ten years ago, created an almost indescribable feeling of warmth deep within me. Like a blade of grass swaying in the wind, I caught a glimpse of the movement of a distant tranquillity.

  After everyone around us left the fields, an atmosphere of unfolding emerged, which seemed so broad, so vast, so boundless. The setting sun was like a pool of water giving off ray after ray of light. Fugui’s hands were resting on his legs, and his eyes squinted as he looked at me. He didn’t look like he was ready to get up, so I knew he still hadn’t finished his story. I thought I’d encourage him to finish his story while he was still resting. And so I asked him, “How old is Kugen now?”

  A strange look appeared in Fugui’s eyes—I couldn’t tell if it was sadness or a kind of joyful gratification. His eyes drifted over my head into the distance, and then he said, “If you’re going according to years, he should be seventeen.”

  After Jiazhen died, all I had was Erxi and Kugen. Erxi hired someone to make a backpack that would allow Kugen to spend the whole day on his dad’s back. But this made work even more exhausting for Erxi. As a porter, he had to pull a cart filled with supplies and carry Kugen at the same time. Erxi would always be huffing and puffing, completely out of breath. He’d have to carry another bag with him, too—Kugen’s diaper bag. Sometimes when the weather was overcast the diaper wouldn’t dry, and because Erxi only had one diaper for his son he had no choice but to tie three bamboo sticks to his cart, two horizontal and one upright, and hang the diaper on top to dry. The city people would all laugh when they saw this. But Erxi’s coworkers knew how difficult things were for him, and as soon as they saw people laughing they’d yell, “What the fuck’s so funny? You keep at it and I’ll really give you something to laugh about!”

  Kugen would be in his backpack, and the moment he’d cry Erxi would know whether he was hungry or had dirtied his diaper.

  “If he cries for a long time, then he’s hungry,” Erxi told me. “If it’s just for a short time, then he’s uncomfortable down there around his butt.”

  It was true: if Kugen peed or messed his pants he’d go “uh, uh”—when I first heard it I thought he was laughing. A little guy like that and he already knew how to cry in different ways. That was because he loved his dad—he could make things easier on Erxi by letting his dad know right away what to do.

  When Kugen was hungry, Erxi would put down his cart and look for a woman breast-feeding her child. When he found one he’d hand her one mao and gently ask, “Please, could you give him some?”

  Erxi wasn’t like other fathers who simply watched their children grow up. Carrying him on his back, he would feel Kugen getting heavier, and that way he knew that Kugen was getting bigger. As a father he was naturally ecstatic.

  “Kugen’s getting heavier,” he would boast to me.

  When I went into town to visit them I’d often see Erxi, covered in sweat, pulling his cart down the street. Kugen would be in his backpack with just his little head sticking out, bopping from side to side as Erxi walked. Erxi appeared beyond the point of exhaustion. I tried to convince him to let me bring Kugen to the country and take care of him for a few days, but Erxi wouldn’t let me.

  “Dad, I can’t bear to be apart from Kugen,” he said.

  It was
a good thing that Kugen grew fast. Before we knew it he was walking, and that made things much easier for Erxi. While Erxi was loading and unloading he’d let Kugen play off to one side, and when it was time to go he’d pick Kugen up and put him in the cart. When Kugen got a little bigger he figured out who I was. After hearing Erxi call me Dad enough times, it stuck with him. Every time I’d go into town to visit them, little Kugen, sitting in his dad’s cart, would immediately look up at Erxi and scream in that sharp voice of his, “Dad, your dad’s coming!”

  While he was still on his dad’s back, Kugen had learned how to curse. When he was angry, his face would turn bright red, and his little mouth would make all kinds of strange sounds, “pssh, pssh, paaa, paaa.” No one could understand what he was trying to say. Only when bubbles of saliva flew out of his mouth would Erxi realize what was going on.

  “He’s cursing somebody,” Erxi explained to me.

  Once Kugen could walk and had learned a few words, it got even better. As soon as he saw the other kids playing with something that looked fun, he’d giggle and wave them over with his hand. “Come, come, come!” he’d repeat, all the while frantically waving his hand.

  When the other children came over he’d reach out and try to steal their toys. If they refused to hand them over, Kugen would lose his temper and push the other children away, saying, “Go, go, go!”

  Erxi never got over the loss of Fengxia. He was never a man of many words, but as soon as Fengxia died he spoke even less. Other people would say things to him, but he’d just grunt and that would be it; only when he saw me would he open up a bit. Kugen became the core of our lives. But the bigger he got the more he resembled Fengxia and the more he resembled Fengxia, the harder it was for us to look at him. Sometimes after Erxi looked at Kugen for a while, tears would begin to trickle down Erxi’s face. As his father-in-law, I would try to console him: “It’s been a while since Fengxia died. You should try to forget her if you can.”