Shaogong, han - A Dictionary of Maqiao.html

by A Dictionary of Maqiao (lit)

  He also said: "Man lives a lifetime, the grass for an autumn, what does money count for? People should just try to be happy."

  Quite the philosopher, he was.

  As he kept grinding his teeth, I ended up pushed beyond the limits of endurance and had to chase him out into another shed. He didn't have anything much to move: no quilt, no trunk, no bowl, no chopsticks either, he didn't even have his own carrying pole and hoe. No one in any of the work sheds was willing to take him in, due to his calculating lack of possessions: even his same-pot cousin begrudged him not having a straw bed-mat and wouldn't share a bed with him. Several days passed without him finding a nest to shelter in. This was no great problem to him: by day, he scraped by just like other people. Once night fell, the black night intensified his ability to take advantage. He'd wash his face, feet, and hands as hard as he could, grin as winsomely as he could and call on work shed after work shed, quietly honing in on his target, searching, groping, and clambering into an empty bed whenever he saw one. Drop your defences for an instant and he'd burrow into a corner of the bed. One more hesitation and he'd be faking a whistling snore. However much you thumped and swore at him, however much you yanked at his hair and ears, he wouldn't open his eyes, wouldn't budge.

  You could've beaten him to death.

  He had a small frame, wiry as a shrivelled toad's. Asleep on the corner of the bed, he resembled a tiny clenched fist; with his spine curled and feet tucked up, he didn't actually take up much space.

  If on any one day the resistance was universally stiffer than usual and he couldn't in fact find a crack through which to squeeze himself, then he'd lay a couple of carrying poles down somewhere sheltered out of the wind and pass the night fully dressed on the poles. This was a unique skill of his. He even possessed talent at sleeping on one carrying pole: he could sleep like this for hours on end, not moving a muscle, not falling off-that spine of his would have astonished even tightrope walkers.

  He preferred to give his carrying pole skill a showing every night rather than return home to fetch a straw bed-mat. The funny thing was that he slept in frost and dew without ever getting ill-he remained, in fact, as perky and chipper as a little cockerel. Whenever I woke up, he was already busy as a bee, twisting some grass rope or sharpening a piece of hoe in the hazy early morning light. By the time I turned up at the construction site, sleepy and bleary-eyed, he'd always worked up a sweat. When the sun came out, burning up the boundless expanses of mist that lay over the ground, it gilded Shortie Zhao's whole body with a reddish-gold glow. I remember his digging action as having a particular grace: it was as if the heavy harrow wasn't lifted by him but flew up voluntarily, descending in line with his steps, rising and falling with precision. The instant in which the harrow fell, a flick of the wrist deftly turned it, the head shattering the clods of earth with instantaneous economy. His feet stamped in perfect rhythm, in an action that lacked any trace of sloppiness, that wasted not a moment of time nor ounce of energy. His actions couldn't be analyzed separately, the one from the other: all his actions, in fact, were indivisible, were as one, were realized as a unity in which form followed thought, followed a smooth and easy progression, like a dance with no trips. Head lowered, he performed his dazzling, sublime dance in the gleaming orange mist.

  This work machine, of course, got the most work points of all: if tasks were being timed, he'd often do in one day what took me two or three days, leaving envious incredulity in his wake. And yet he spent his nights on a carrying pole. I found out afterwards he often slept like this at home-with the seven or eight kids he had to raise, the tattered quilts on the two beds covered his kids but never stretched to him too.

  When the family planning movement began, he was a prime target for a vasectomy. He was most unhappy about this: the Communist Party already governed heaven and earth, how come they wanted to govern the inside of his crotch as well?

  But when the time came, off he trotted obediently to the commune clinic. There were various explanations as to why it was him and not his wife who went to be sterilized. He said his wife wasn't well and couldn't be sterilized. Other people said he was worried his wife would have affairs and that after being sterilized she'd cheat on him left and right. What crap, others said, everyone who got sterilized received a standard government reward of two packets of grape candy and five catties of pork; Shortie Zhao had never eaten grape candy, so he fought to go under the knife just to taste it once.

  Ten or so days later, he re-emerged to come back out to work, his face clean-shaven and his complexion much rosier: grape candy, it would seem, could work miracles. The young men laughed at him and said only women went to be sterilized-when did you ever hear of a man going? Once you'd had the chop, didn't you become a eunuch? Deeply agitated, he said the government had guaranteed that wouldn't happen. Seeing the disbelieving faces massed around him, he pulled his pants down to give everyone a viewing, to clear his name of this slur.

  Master Black, who still bore a grudge over the soap business, wouldn't let the matter lie: it may look the same, he said, but who knows if it still works?

  "Just call your Miss Xia over, m'boy," said Zhaoqing, "then you'll know if it still works."

  Miss Xia was a female Educated Youth, being courted at the time by Master Black.

  Master Black reddened: "That no-good turtle-spawn hooligan!"

  Shortie Zhao slowly tied his pants, "So, your heart aches at the mention of your Miss Xia? Those round buttocks of your Miss Xia, strike me down if…"

  Before he'd finished his sentence, Master Black charged and threw him over his back with a Mongol-style wrestling move. When he raised his head, his whole face was covered with mud.

  Muddy-faced, he clambered up and ran a long way away, swearing and yelling: "I've got grandsons watching the oxen, I've just had an operation, I'm a sick man just out of the hospital, even Commune Head He sent his regards and said I'd contributed to the nation, how dare you beat me, you little bastard? How dare you?"

  He went back home cradling his stomach, managed to gasp out the beating had given him an internal injury and spent five or so yuan on herbal medicine. He'd walked off with a hoe belonging to Master Black, mortgaged for the time being for three yuan, a towel made up another half a yuan-Master Black had better return him the two-odd yuan he still owed him.

  His vasectomy operation henceforth gave him justification for putting a premium on everything he did, became his proof of entitlement to preferential treatment wherever he went. Today he'd want to plough the fields (there were a lot of work points in ploughing) because he'd had a vasectomy; tomorrow he wouldn't want to plough (there were even more work points in pressing oil), also because he'd had a vasectomy; tomorrow he'd want the scales to be tipped (when the team head was allocating grain), because he'd had a vasectomy; today he'd want the scales to slip (when delivering manure to the team head), also because he'd had a vasectomy. He always got this to work for him, actually, and even tried his luck outside of Maqiao. When he went into the county with Fucha to buy seeds, they got on a bus at Changle. He absolutely refused to buy a ticket. He had the money all right, public family money, it wasn't earned by his own blood and sweat. But he had an instinctive, bitter, virulent aversion to parting with cash and grumbled endlessly and indignantly about any ticket price: "1.2 yuan? What d'you mean 1.2 yuan? For this hop and a skip? Should be two jiao at most!"

  He wouldn't budge.

  The ticket seller gave as good as she got: "Who asked you to get on the bus? You want a ride, this is what it costs, don't want a ride, get off right now!"

  "Three jiao, how about three jiao7. Four jiao7. Four and a half?"

  "This is a public bus, I can't bargain with you!"

  "Funny that, business without bargaining-when we buy a bucket of manure we'll always talk terms."

  "You go and buy manure, then, no one asked you to get on this bus."

  "What kind of talk is this from a young girl?"

  "Get a move on, one yuan two jiao
, get your money out."

  "You-you-you what're you wanting so much money for? I just don't believe it: do the tires on a bus as big as this, with all these people on, really need to turn so much?"

  "Get off, get off." His adversary impatiently pushed him down the steps.

  "Help! Help!" Zhaoqing hung onto the bus door for dear life, plunking his bottom down onto the floor, "I've just had a vasectomy and the commune cadres all sent their regards to me, how dare you throw me off the bus?"

  Neither the driver nor the conductor could get him to understand and the passengers crowded onto the bus were starting to yell agitatedly at the driver to hurry up and get driving. Starting to feel a bit alarmed, Fucha hastily dug out the money to buy the ticket.

  Zhaoqing's face was not a pretty sight after all that: poking at the bus window, tugging at the cushions, spitting with fury, he wouldn't get off at their stop; even when, called several times by Fucha, he discovered he was the last person on the bus, he still only slouched off grudgingly. "Barbarian parts are full of crooks. For the cost of a catty of meat, you get to ride in a bus for about as long as it takes to have a piss."

  Followed by a stream of filthy abuse.

  On his return from the county, he said whatever happened he'd never ride on a bus again, he raged at all buses: when he spotted one on the street, a stream of "stinking whores," "fucking thieves," studded with constellations of spit, would chase at lightning speed after the bus. In the end, all buses became targets for his loathing, for his ferocious glares. That time he went to Huang City, he came upon a jeep that had run over and killed a peasant's duck and whose browbeating driver was refusing to compensate the owner of the duck-nothing to do with Zhaoqing at all. Possessed by a towering rage that came from nowhere, he pushed out of the crowd of onlookers and before anyone had time to put up any objections, with one punch toppled the driver over backwards onto the ground, face-up with a bloody nose. Although sympathetic all along with the owner of the duck, the onlookers had cowered in the face of the driver's bullying tactics and hadn't dared say anything. Now they'd seen someone else take the lead, a mass of yells and blows erupted, following which the driver and his companion paled with fright and hastily dug out some money to prevent further trouble.

  The jeep screeched off in panic. The owner of the duck was brimming with gratitude toward Zhaoqing: this driver, he said, was in the county government, was a famous bully who'd often come by here in the past; he'd not only been refusing to pay compensation for the duck, he'd even accused the duck of obstructing him in his war duties. If it hadn't been for Zhaoqing's sense of justice, the driver might well have taken him off to the county government.

  Zhaoqing took no notice of the gratitude and admiration of bystanders, nor of the weighty import implied by mention of the county government: he was still muttering regretfully that the jeep had slipped away so quickly-if he'd known that was about to happen, he'd have found a carrying pole to pry off the tires.

  He and Fucha went on their way: despite their attempts to get a lift with a tractor going the same way as them, driver after driver refused and they had no choice but to walk along the steaming highway. As the sweat dripped off Fucha's face while he walked, he couldn't help complaining: "Anyway, it was the team leader who gave us the bus money, why d'you insist on saving it? You're just making life difficult for yourself!"

  "Cost of those tickets, the people ought to protest!" Zhaoqing was referring to the ticket price: "I'll put up with eating and wearing less, but I just can't swallow my temper."

  Road sign after road sign they passed. So thirsty their throats and eyes were starting to smoke, they came across a little stand at the roadside selling tea for one cent a bowl. Fucha drank two bowls and told Zhaoqing to have a drink too. Without saying a word, Zhaoqing turned up his nose and just curled up under the shade of a tree to sleep. Braving the sun once more, they finally came across a well after another ten li, at which Zhaoqing borrowed a bowl from a roadside shack and drank eight bowls without pause, drank until his burps rumbled, his eyes glazed over, saliva hung down off his chin and his breath almost choked him. He gave Fucha a smug piece of advice: "You must be awakened, boy, you can't've grown hair around your dragon yet-don't you know how hard life is? People like us can't earn money for other people, we can only earn money for ourselves."

  The team leader gave people traveling on business a five jiao meal subsidy. Zhaoqing starved himself throughout one whole day of walking, went home with the full amount and gained a bowl from the shack at the roadside.

  *Purple-Teeth Soil

  : Purple-teeth soil is the soil you see everywhere in Maqiao, so it shouldn't take too much explaining here. It is, in a nutshell, hard, acidic, and extremely infertile. It's different from metallic loam in that metallic loam is pure white, while purple-teeth soil is deep red with white streaks, a bit like tiger skin. The thing is, though, if you don't know about purple-teeth soil, then you can't know that much about Maqiao. For a long, long time, this has been the soil Maqiao people have had to face every day, the soil that has made countless harrows tremble, the soil that has transformed countless hands into rolls of blood blisters, into bloody pulps, soil that destroys metal faster than skin, soil that soaks your pants with sweat that runs down to the feet and congeals into salty stains, soil that leaves people dizzy and disoriented, half-alive, half-dead, soil that deletes consciousness of time, that leaves you panting so much that all desires are obliterated, soil that makes every day-the blazing heat of the summer sun, the freezing cold of serious winter-feel the same, soil that drives men to insanity, women to desperation, that leaves children prematurely aged in no time at all, soil that is eternal, inexhaustible, soil that drives people to hate, to argue, to blows, to knives, soil that multiplies hunchbacks, limps, blindness, miscarriages, imbecility, asthma, backache, and deaths, soil that drives people into exile, to suicide, soil that turns life into a daily grind, soil that, regardless of whatever form of upheaval or suffering might be occurring, remains soil upon soil upon soil upon soil upon soil upon soil.

  This layer of soil rolls out from the Luo River, from the even more distant eastern mountains of Hunan, coming to an abrupt halt below Tianzi Peak, then meanders toward the villages down south. It had coagulated like a flood of molten iron, a vast, blazing sea of fire that still tortures people throughout their lives.

  Zhaoqing's first son was buried alive in this soil. He'd been helping to repair the water reservoir, removing earth to build a dam, and he did what the other public laborers did to get his duties in the earthworks finished a bit faster: first he'd scoop out the soil from underneath to a certain depth, then let the upper soil cave in. This was called releasing the "fairy soil," and was a more efficient way of working. But Shortie Zhao wanted just a bit too much: having scooped out the soil to a depth of three metres, he calculated the purple-teeth soil was too solid to bring the overhanging fairy soil down right away. As he scooped up his bamboo hat, a sudden crashing noise erupted behind him and he turned to see clod upon great clod of red tumble and collapse, somersault and avalanche before his eyes, leaving not a trace, not a whisper of his son.

  His son had been playing over there, just a moment ago.

  He hurled himself over there, digging, digging, digging red, then more red, digging red, more red red red, digging till all his fingers bled, still without digging out even a scrap of cloth. This was his favorite son, the one who'd been able to say all sorts of things just after his first birthday, who after his second birthday had been able to recognize his own family's chickens and chase his neighbors' chickens out of the house. He'd had a large black mole on his forehead.

  *Floating Soul

  : Zhaoqing's death has always been a riddle to me. The very day he disappeared, I'd gone with him to Zhangjia District to help dig a tea plantation. Hearing there'd be meat to eat at midday, he brought his kid son Kuiyuan with him, stuffing a pair of chopsticks into his hands a long time in advance; then as soon as it was time to eat, father
and son strode at great speed to the front of the crowd, heading, dashing straight for the kitchen, for the sound of meat sizzling in the pot. The kid hadn't been counted in the total of mouths to feed, but his gaping jaws were very plain to everyone present. People had teamed up in groups of six, with each group entitled to a bowl of meat. No one wanted to accept an extra uncounted mouth hanging on Zhaoqing's tail, and wrangled away till Shortie Zhao flared up. "How much can one slip of a boy eat? Have you no conscience, haven't you got kids yourselves? Are you all going to be destitute old men, without descendants to look after you?"

  After this, not everyone could very well continue to put up resistance, and one group was forced, rather grudgingly, to allow father and son to jostle their way in and to listen to their glugging and crunching. They also had to tolerate Zhaoqing rushing forward at the key moment to pour out meat broth for his kid first of all, into a great big ceramic bowl that was tipped bottom-up to the heavens, completely obscuring his little face.

  As there was no food left in his own bowl, Shortie Zhao cadged a little green pepper from his son's.

  Kuiyuan was the most important person in the world to him, and he'd never neglect to bring along this glugger and cruncher whenever there might be a meat-eating opportunity. Not long before this, I'd heard he'd dreamt at night that while messing around on the mountain Kuiyuan had had a piece of baba cake stolen by a figure dressed in white; even after waking from the dream he'd been still too angry to calm down, had snatched up a grass sickle and gone off to the mountain to settle scores with this figure in white. I couldn't credit it: what kind of a spirit was Old Forder that he had to recover baba cakes lost in a dream?

  I didn't really believe this had happened. When we got into the fields, I couldn't stop myself asking him about it.