by Yu Hua
So acute was her phobia that she would kneel down daily in front of her clay Guanyin, piously begging the bodhisattva to bless the dog with a good long life. Every time Guoqing came home from school, the first question she would ask would be whether the dog was still outside. If he said yes, she would smile with pleasure, for her biggest fear was that the brown dog might die before her. She told Guoqing that it was a very long way to the underworld, and dark and cold to boot; she would need to wear a padded jacket and carry an oil lamp. If the dog died before she did it would wait for her on the way to the underworld. When she got to this point, she would tense up and shake all over. With tears welling up in her eyes, she would say, “You won't be able to help me then!”
This lonely old woman possessed the earnestness and obduracy that were hallmarks of the era. She had been using the same oil bottle for decades, its capacity marked with a line on the outside of the glass. She did not trust the shop assistants, for she said they were always looking somewhere else when they were refilling the bottle. If the clerk overfilled the bottle, she would not be the slightest bit pleased, but would pour some oil out with annoyance. If the clerk failed to fill the bottle all the way up to the mark, then she would not leave until they did. She would stand there for ages, not saying a word, just staring obstinately at the bottle.
It seemed that her husband had gone to his last resting place many years earlier. He had been a strong man, with a strange fondness for snails. He liked to sit in the courtyard in the summer, waving his fan and feasting merrily on snails. During her long widowhood her finest tribute to his memory was not the maintenance of her chastity but rather her punctilious tribute to this predilection of his. When he was alive he claimed all the flesh in the shell, and she happily consumed the unappetizing little muscle at the base. In the several decades since her husband's death she had never once helped herself to snail meat, but contentedly ate the remainders, leaving the flesh to the husband hanging on the wall. For her, habit and remembrance were fused into one.
Guoqing did not like snails, but the old lady would suck them out of their shells with a slurp and lick the juice off her lips afterward, and the more this carried on the more trouble Guoqing had keeping his mouth from watering. His appetite stirring, he tried picking up a piece of snail meat from the table, but the old lady was shocked. She quickly slapped it out of his hand and said menacingly into his ear, “He saw that.”
It was true, in a sense: the dead man on the wall was watching them.
In the spring of the year that I turned twelve, the old lady at last was granted an unbroken slumber. She died in the street outside her house. She and Guoqing had gone out to buy soy sauce, and on her way home her legs seized up. She said she needed to rest a minute, and put her hand against the wall and sat down limply in the sun, clutching the soy sauce bottle to her chest. Guoqing stood next to her, and when she closed her eyes he thought she had fallen asleep. Bored, he looked around for distraction and noticed that grass was sprouting up next to the wall. The bright sun made him squint. At one point the old lady opened her eyes and in a faint voice inquired as to the dog's whereabouts. He saw it lying prone in the middle of the lane, observing them, so he said, “It's right over there.” She gave a deep sigh and closed her eyes again. Guoqing stood for awhile longer, watching with enjoyment as the sunlight played over the wrinkles on her face.
Guoqing told us later that she had lost her way and froze to death. According to him, she had been in too much of a hurry when going to the underworld, and had forgotten the padded jacket and oil lamp. She kept walking and walking along a road so dark you could not see the fingers of your hand, so she lost her way. A cold wind howled in her face, chilling her till she was shivering all over, and when she could not go another inch farther she sat down. That was how she froze.
When he was thirteen, Guoqing finally achieved a degree of personal liberation. He did not want to have to carry his satchel to school and put up with the teacher's endless dronings. When Liu Xiaoqing and the other classmates entered high school, he began to make a living.
By that time I was back in Southgate. As my wretched life at home began, Guoqing was fending for himself, working as a coal deliveryman. Like a real coolie, with a dirty towel hanging from his shoulder pole, his shirt open, grunting with effort, he would carry coal to the doors of his customers. Of his former habits, only the handkerchief in his pocket survived. When he set down a heavy load of coal, the first thing he did was to pull out the handkerchief and swab his lips. Even if sweat was pouring down his face, he just wiped his mouth. A little notebook and a pencil also took up space in his pocket. In his crisp voice, with naive courtesy, he would go from door to door asking if they needed coal. At first his age did not inspire confidence, and scanning his puny frame people would ask, “Can you carry coal?”
A canny smile would appear on Guoqing's face, and he would say, “If you don't let me try, how will you know?”
With his honesty and his careful arithmetic, it did not take long for Guoqing to win the trust of his customers. So vigilant was Guoqing that the shipper at the coal depot found it impossible to take advantage of him when weighing his consignment. In the end, Guoqing's innocent-looking appearance and his tragic circumstances (common knowledge to everyone) led the shipper to develop a soft spot for him, so he always slipped him a few extra pounds of coal. Of course it was the customers who reaped the greatest benefits, and their satisfaction in turn made Guoqing's career blossom. He practically put that rival of his out of business, despite his twenty years of experience in the trade.
I vividly recall Guoqing's fellow professional, for the simple reason that this little man was practically an idiot. Nobody knew what his name was, and he would answer to any name he was called. If he was walking by briskly with a load of coal on his back, he would not respond to our shouts; it was only when he was walking just as quickly, but with empty baskets hanging from his pole, that he would register our greetings earnestly, his head bowed, as we called him by any name we chose. I would call him “Guoqing” or “Liu Xiaoqing,” while they would address him by my name. Off he would go, giving a grunt of acknowledgment, and he never raised his head to look at us. He was always rushing down the street as though he had a train to catch. Once we called him “Toilet” and he answered to that too, reducing us to paroxysms of laughter. Though cavalier about his name, he was meticulous where money was concerned. And his speed in making calculations was astounding: as his customers were just beginning laboriously to compute how much money they owed him, the total was already on his lips. Those figures were the only words that Little-marsh residents ever heard him speak.
Guoqing made fun of him just like the rest of us, never imagining that he himself would wind up in the same line of work. Guoqing's entry into the trade knocked a big hole in the man's rice bowl, and he became less busy than before. This unfortunate fellow began to spend more time carrying empty baskets—still hurrying down the street, but looking more lonesome now that he was less in demand. He seemed not to be the slightest bit jealous of Guoqing, and I suspect he simply lacked the capacity to be so. Devoted to his job, he seldom let a smile appear on his face. After dumping coal into his customer's basket, he would take their broom and dustpan and scrupulously sweep up any coal slack that had fallen on the floor. Then he would lift up his empty pole and walk off, looking very solemn. But once when he saw Guoqing in the street, shouldering a pole identical to his own, he did break into a smile.
Nobody knew how these two became friends, but people began to notice how they would sit, still caked in coal dust, on the opposite sides of a table in the teahouse, drinking tea with smiles on their faces. The man of a million names—or of no name at all— sat like a servant, with both hands resting on his thighs, raising a hand only to lift his teacup to his lips. Guoqing cut a very different figure: he laid a handkerchief next to his cup, and would wipe his lips after every sip. In his tattered and dirty clothes Guoqing looked every inch the young gentlema
n down on his luck. Although they appeared to all the world like bosom pals, nobody had ever heard them have a conversation.
Not long after finding a career Guoqing found love as well. The girl that he fancied may have grown into quite a beauty later, but in those days it was too early to tell. I used to see the girl— Huilan, her name was—before I moved back to Southgate, and at the time Guoqing seemed to think her beneath his notice. Her house was down the same lane where Guoqing lived. Her hair tied into two perky pigtails, she liked to stand in the doorway, calling sweetly, “Brother Guoqing!”
The grapes that grew in her courtyard excited us to no end. One summer Guoqing, Liu Xiaoqing, and I developed an intricate scheme for stripping all the fruit from the vines under cover of darkness. Unfortunately their wall was too high for us to scale. That, however, was not the real reason we could not follow through; instead, it was the fact that none of us could leave our homes at night without the grown-ups knowing (this was before Guoqing's father had left him). When we thought of the fearful punishments lying in store for us, our plan, however sophisticated, remained only a fantasy.
As a result, when Guoqing ended up falling for this chit of a girl, Liu Xiaoqing, now in junior high, thought that he still had his eye on the grapes. He was so tactless as to ask Guoqing, “Shall we bring a few more people into it?” He told Guoqing that he could rope in some classmates from junior high and get hold of a ladder too.
Guoqing was furious. He said to Liu Xiaoqing, “How can you think of stealing my fiancee's grapes?”
Actually the seeds of their romance were sown before my return to Southgate. Now that there was nobody to oversee his activities, Guoqing liked to roam around at will during summer lunchtimes, barefooted, just wearing a pair of underpants. Huilan, two years his junior, joined Guoqing, and together they sneaked out to the countryside, where the two of them practiced skinny-dipping in a pond. Young though she was, Huilan already had an impulse to watch out for Guoqing's well-being. As they headed down the road out of town that day, the flagstones had been baking in the sun till they were scorching hot, and Guoqing could only hop desperately from foot to foot, like a frog. Huilan couldn't bear to see Guoqing suffering this way and took off her own little plastic sandals to offer to him. Guoqing was not yet aware of the importance of being nice to girls. He waved his hand in dismissal and said scornfully, “Who wants to wear girl's shoes?”
When at thirteen he came to court Huilan, Guoqing possessed the style of a more mature young man. Every afternoon Guoqing changed into a clean set of clothes and combed his hair so that it shone; then he waited outside the school gate at the hour that Huilan got out of class. This was the best possible reward he could give himself after a day of exhausting labor. The next thing one saw was Guoqing walking confidently in front with his hands in his pockets, while Huilan, her satchel on her back, trotted along behind.
At such times Huilan would pour out her woes, such as they were, telling him how such and such a boy had put a pinch of dirt in her textbook.
“Dirt? That's nothing.” Guoqing waved his hand airily, like an adult, and told his little sweetheart with pride, “I once put a toad in a girl's satchel.”
Their childish conversation made their romance seem innocent and artless. It was often only when they parted that Guoqing would take a piece of candy from his pocket—placed there carefully earlier in the day—and stuff it into Huilan's happy satchel.
From the look of it, Guoqing really did intend to marry Huilan and start a family; otherwise he would not have treated their relationship as seriously as he did. He was always trying to compensate for his still tender years, with the result that his gravity and earnestness took on comical proportions. Once these two children started going around together in the streets in such a public fashion, they gradually became famous in our little town. Guoqing misjudged grown-ups’ perspective on their relationship. Believing the bond between them to be entirely natural, he thought that other people likewise would take it in their stride.
Huilan's parents were both pharmacists at the hospital. Although they had been aware from early on that their daughter and Guoqing were playmates, they felt that there was nothing untoward about children being close. When other people said that the two children looked as if they were in love, they found this suggestion preposterous. Later it was Guoqing's behavior which made them realize that such reports were well founded.
One Sunday morning, when Guoqing was still thirteen, he bought a bottle of spirits and a carton of cigarettes, inspired by a strange fancy to pay a call on his father-in-law. I have to take my hat off to him for the nonchalance with which he entered the house. When he set the gifts down on the table, he beamed deferentially. Huilan's father, of course, was taken aback and asked Guoqing what this was all about.
“These are for you,” Guoqing said.
The pharmacist waved his hand in polite decline. “You have such a hard life. How could I possibly accept gifts?”
Guoqing had already sat down in a chair. He crossed his legs, but they were too short for his feet to touch the floor and dangled in the air instead. He said to Huilan's parents, “Please don't be so formal. These things are just a little token of respect from your son-in-law.”
This last sentence came as a great shock. It took a few moments before Huilan's mother recovered enough to ask, “What did you say?”
“Mother-in-law.” Guoqing addressed her in a dulcet tone and went on, “What I mean is—”
She did not wait for him to finish and was already screaming, “Who are you calling mother-in-law?”
Guoqing had no time to explain; the girl's father was now bellowing at him to leave their house immediately. Guoqing stood up, flustered, and tried to defend himself, using the formula so commonly recited by progressive couples: “We made this choice for ourselves.”
Huilan's father was so furious his face went completely pale. Seizing Guoqing by his collar, he dragged him out and cursed him roundly. “You little hoodlum!”
Guoqing struggled desperately, repeating another mantra, “This is the new society, not the old one!”
Huilan s father shoved Guoqing out the door and a second later her mother tossed the gifts out after him. The bottle of spirits hit the ground with a crash and spilled everywhere. By this time quite a crowd had gathered outside, but Guoqing did not seem to feel that he had been at all disgraced. Pointing at Huilan's house, he told the onlookers with feeling, “Gosh, her folks have a really bad case of feudal thinking!”
Huilans parents saw their innocent love as simply ridiculous. How could a thirteen-year-old boy and an eleven-year-old girl be engaged in a serious romance? Their daughter's conduct was an offense to public decency, and now they too had become a laughingstock. They could not tolerate this absurd liaison. They began to beat and scold their only daughter, and when Guoqing passed by their window and heard his sweetheart wailing, it is easy to imagine how upset he was. Huilan wilted under all the chastisement, but could not suppress her longing for those joyful moments with Guoqing, though I wonder if what she most hankered after was the candy in his pockets. They still had opportunities to meet, but all the pleasure was gone. Guoqing, moved now more by hate than by concern for Huilan, described to her, in a voice dripping with menace, the vengeance he was planning to exact from her parents. She listened with an expression of terror and tears tumbled from her eyes even before he had finished.
One afternoon Guoqing was passing by Huilan's house. He saw her leaning up against the window, her face dripping with blood, though actually it was just a nosebleed. Sobbing, she called to him, “Brother Guoqing!”
Guoqing was so angry he started shaking. At that moment he truly wanted to kill Huilan's parents. He ran home and then set off again for Huilan's house, this time with a kitchen cleaver in hand. A neighbor just happened to be coming out his door, and seeing Guoqing so strangely accoutered he asked him what he was doing. Seething with rage, Guoqing answered, “I've got some killing to do.”
Guoqing had rolled up his sleeves and his trouser legs. With the cleaver resting snugly against his shoulder, he headed toward Huilan's house, a fierce glint in his eyes. His passage along the lane was completely unimpeded, because none of the adults who saw him took the full measure of his grim belligerence. When he told them he was off to kill people, his juvenile tone and callow manner made them chuckle.
Guoqing entered the courtyard of Huilan's house without difficulty. Huilan's father was busy lighting their coal briquette stove; her mother was squatting on the ground feeding the hens. When Guoqing suddenly appeared on the scene, cleaver in hand, they were dumbstruck. Guoqing did not immediately proceed toward his goal, but first pompously explained why he had to kill them. Then he moved forward, brandishing his cleaver. Huilan's father took to his heels, scurrying behind the house, where he yelled, “Help! Murder!”
Huilan's poor mother was frozen in her tracks and watched in horror as the cleaver approached. The chickens rescued her, for although most of these terrified creatures fled in all directions, two of them spread their wings and ran in front of Guoqing. This gave Huilan's mother time to recover her wits and flee out the courtyard gate.
Just as he was about to give chase, Guoqing noticed Huilan, who stood with her hand on the door frame, her eyes wide with alarm. Forgetting about pursuit, Guoqing hurried over to her, but it displeased him to find that she was shrinking back in fear. “What are you so afraid of? I'm not going to kill you” he said.
His reassurance had no effect. She still looked at him in terror, her eyes so wide they almost looked artificial. Guoqing said heatedly, “If I knew this was how you were going to behave, I wouldn't have gone this far!”
