by Geling Yan
And Dr Suzuki had arrived on the small train. He wore snow-white gloves, an inky-black top hat and a purplish-blue Western suit. When he walked, his cane took one step for every two taken by his legs, and neither the two legs nor the cane got in the way of any of the others, as he walked the country paths, transforming them into the colourfully lit boulevards of Tokyo and Osaka. Soon she learned that Dr Suzuki had four legs if you counted his cane – he had an artificial leg fitted to his left leg below the knee. It was only because he had all those legs to keep in order that he had retired from the front line. Duohe believed that Tokyo and Osaka must be very fine, because Dr Suzuki was fine just like them. All the girls had felt that way about Dr Suzuki: even after losing a leg in the fighting he was still so fine. In the final days of Shironami village, Dr Suzuki’s real legs, false leg and cane were falling over each other in their agitation; he went from house to house, urging the inhabitants to get on the train with him and leave for Japan via Busan. He said that the Soviet Union had suddenly palled up with Britain and America, and was sweeping its way through Siberia, right at their backs. Everyone went with him to Yantun station, yet they watched the train carry Dr Suzuki away, so furious that even his hair was bristling with rage. Duohe thought that his final glance had fallen on her face. Duohe believed that the rather mysterious doctor could see other people’s thoughts as clear as day. He must have known how much Duohe had wanted to leave.
Duohe was starting to feel chilly. The sun was already behind the mountain. A gang of children came down from the summit, with triangular red scarves at their necks. One child was holding up a triangular flag. He asked Duohe something in a loud voice. Duohe shook her head. There were too many of them talking at once. She noticed that all of them were carrying either clubs or nets. They asked her something several times more, but she continued to shake her head. She did not understand this tianshu, tianshu they were talking about. She knew the three characters on the triangular flag, but she could not see what they might mean when put together: ‘Eliminate the Four Pests!’
The children ran on past her, down the slope. Every one of them shot her a sidelong glance, trying to work out just what was not right about this woman.
When Duohe stood up to head down the mountain, her foot slipped, and she slid downhill for several metres. Finally a stone blocked her way. She heard water gurgling, and turned her head to the side to see muddy yellow floodwater rushing past in a stone gully. She was afraid of taking another tumble, so she took off both her shoes. She had learned how to make these cloth shoes from Xiaohuan, but they were nearly worn out now, loose and slippery. A spasm of bellyache hit her, and she gripped her stomach tightly with both hands. Her belly was as hard as iron, distended and tense. She realised that at some point she had sat down on the ground, pressed on to the surface of the earth by her big belly, which felt like a small mountain. The pain in her belly spasmed chaotically for a short while, but very soon it found its direction, surging its way out to exit between her legs.
Duohe saw that in the murky yellow floodwater in the gully, red-gold flowers were tumbling.
She knew that she still had some time between the pains, she could shuffle her way home slowly. Having given birth to two children, she thought she already knew how to have a baby. At present the sky was clear, so blue it was tinged with purple, with the sun sinking behind the mountains, and the air was full of the calls of birds returning to the woods for the night. Once the contraction had passed, she would step over the gully and head in the direction of home. But the pain became more and more ferocious, tearing downwards at all her organs. She put her hand to her belly, she had to deliver this child safe and sound, she couldn’t die. She had to give birth to lots of relatives for herself. After that she would never again be a friendless woman with no kin, alone in a strange land.
The bluish-purple sky pulsed dark and then light again in front of her eyes. The pain passed, her face was icy cold, beaded with sweat like a layer of rain. She looked at the gully beside her. To step over that rushing, noisy water would be like striding over the Yangtze River.
This was the time when people finished work for the day. The small roads at the foot of each building led to the main road to the factory, and every day high tide would come to the main road, and streams of people would go pouring forward. All were workers, dressed in canvas overalls, with towels tucked tightly round their necks. Duohe had never heard so many bicycle bells ringing all at the same time. This crowd separated out at the smaller roads in front of the buildings, where all the men in canvas overalls locked their bicycles at the entrance to the buildings. After that the bald, cement-built staircases would echo with the sound of men’s heavy footsteps. This was the moment when Zhang Jian, returning home from the factory, would discover that Duohe was not there. Run off again? He would rouse his exhausted body, turn round and head straight downstairs.
When Zhang Jian came to this new city of iron and steel from Anshan, he was transferred to the recently built steel plant, and after several months’ training, he was now a crane operator. All of this was what Duohe had overheard him telling Xiaohuan. Duohe always made a mental note of the words she heard, and would turn them over in her memory in spare moments, slowly piecing together meaning from them. Where would Zhang Jian look for her this time? He knew she had never gone beyond the door of the flat, she had not been anywhere.
Another paroxysm of pain overtook her. She cried out. At the bottom of the slope the lamps were already lit. She cried out again. It comforted her a little. Her every cry went in the same direction as the urge. She was not very clear herself what she was calling out. At that moment she hated everybody, and most of all the Chinese man who had somehow impregnated her. Duohe did not like this man, and he did not like her. She was not after this man’s affection, survival was all she wanted. It had been pretty much the same for her mother and grandmother. Their true family had been the people they gave birth to themselves, or who had given birth to them; all those birth canals were the secret passages by which family feeling was passed on. Sometimes when she and Girlie looked at each other, they would share a hidden smile, Xiaohuan had no part in it, not even Zhang Jian got his share.
She cried out, again and again. There was something in her mouth. It was her own hair, and she twisted her face to one side, and bit down on the hair that had fallen loose around her shoulders. Her mother had given birth to her, her little brother and sister, and then there was her grandmother who had given birth to her mother, and all the kin that had emerged from her birth canal: this was a gang that nobody else could get into. Because of this, her mother had not lost her mind when the notification that her father had been killed in action was opened out in front of her. It was for this moment that she had given birth to her family: when her husband left never to return, a crowd of child relatives at her knees showed her that she was not finished yet; every one of these little relatives could be a turning point that led you to better things.
Duohe was going to give birth to this tiny relative. She wanted to give birth to children until they made up the majority of the family, then let Xiaohuan try to lord it over them all! They would be like Girlie, watching for a chance to share a smile, a smile that was like a code which nobody apart from a blood relation could decipher.
She cried aloud, again and again.
Someone in the distance called back: ‘Duohe!’
Duohe immediately stopped crying.
The person was holding an electric torch and carrying a tatty padded jacket. The light of the torch shone first on Duohe’s face, then at once moved to illuminate her crotch. She heard them cry out.
Duohe had no time to wonder why it was Xiaohuan who had come, and not Zhang Jian. Xiaohuan’s face pressed close to hers in a guff of tobacco, so that she could squeeze an arm in under Duohe’s neck, and lift her up. Duohe was fatter than Xiaohuan, and the pregnancy weighed her down like a small mountain. Xiaohuan knew as soon as she tried that this was a vain hope. She told Duohe to
bear up for a few minutes longer, she would go down the mountain and call Zhang Jian. With one bound Xiaohuan leapt over the gully, but before she had even caught her balance she jumped back. She covered Duohe with the tattered jacket, and told her to take the torch. If she lost her bearings, Duohe could signal to them with it. She jumped over the gully again with a kick of her legs. She had not got very far when Duohe cried out. Xiaohuan was terrified out of her wits by the sound, neither human nor ghost.
‘That’s your punishment for the evil you’ve done in this life! Running off up the mountain to look for your real mum and dad and your granny too …?’ Xiaohuan let her temper go as she crossed the gully again with a bound.
Duohe’s posture had changed. Her head was now facing the peak, with her feet towards the bottom of the mountain, her two hands propping up her body so she was half sitting, knees bent, and her legs spread very wide apart.
‘Turning into a female wildcat! Dropping your litter here …’ Xiaohuan went to drag Duohe, who seemed to weigh at least five hundred kilos. Recently her appetite had been outrageous, even Girlie saved a mouthful for her.
Xiaohuan made another effort, but not only did she fail to move Duohe, she was dragged over instead. As she picked up the torch, the light flashed briefly between Duohe’s legs to reveal a bulge in the crotch of her trousers. Xiaohuan yanked the trousers away: in the light of the torch, a ball-shaped mass of soaking-wet black hair had already emerged. Xiaohuan immediately stripped off her own jacket to make a pad beneath Duohe’s body. It was no use, the blood and waters had soaked into the mud, which was already plastered all over Duohe’s body.
Xiaohuan heard her say something incomprehensible, though she knew that it was Japanese.
‘Good, say whatever you like! … Push! … Say whatever’s on your mind, I’m listening! … Push!’ No matter how she knelt Xiaohuan could not get a purchase; one leg was pushing hard at the root of a tree, to prevent her from sliding down the mountain.
In fact, Duohe herself did not know what she was saying. If there had been someone with a knowledge of Japanese beside them, they would have understood from these disconnected fragments of words and sentences that she was pleading with someone, a woman called Chieko. Duohe spat out each word through clenched teeth, begging her not to kill Kumi, to let Kumi live another day, Kumi was only three, if she was still not over her illness by tomorrow, there’d be time enough to kill her then. Just let her carry Kumi on her back, she didn’t mind, she wouldn’t be in the way …
‘Fine! Good!’ Xiaohuan replied to Duohe, all agreement, cupping that hot, damp little head in the palm of one hand.
Duohe’s voice had already changed into another person’s, she was begging in a low, husky, ghastly voice. Her voice sank lower and lower, and became an incantation. If that speaker of Japanese had bent over close to her mouth, they would have heard her cry out in a hoarse voice from deep within her chest: Don’t let her catch up, don’t let her kill Kumi! … She’s a child killer!
‘Fine, anything you say, say what you like, let it all out …’ Xiaohuan said.
By now, Duohe was barely human. The entire mountain had become her birthing chair; she half sat, half lay, one hand gripping a pine tree, her wild hair veiling her body, her legs open very wide, pointing directly at the foot of the mountain: the tall chimney belching smoke, the train going past, the flaming red expanse of sky where a blast furnace was being tapped at the steel factory. From time to time Duohe arched her back, her great belly rose and then fell again. That little black-haired head was aimed straight at the countless lights at the mountain’s foot, but it would not come out, despite both women’s frantic efforts.
Duohe’s flesh was all broken. In just this way, her mother had brought her into the world, willingly enduring a pain worse than death.
Xiaohuan was weeping, great, noisy howls. Duohe’s appearance made her weep, she couldn’t say why. The torch shone on Duohe’s deathly face, her eyes open wide. What suffering could make a woman so ugly? What kind of extraordinary suffering could this be?
Little by little, the tiny head broke away from Duohe, into the palm of her hand, and after that came little shoulders, arms, legs and feet. Xiaohuan let out a great burst of breath, and bit through the umbilical cord with her gold-wrapped tooth. The little creature’s wails rang through the forest like a miniature trumpet. Xiaohuan said: ‘Duohe, a son! We have a son again!’
But Duohe’s posture had not changed, and neither had the size of her belly. The pine tree she was clutching in her hands shook, rustled and hissed, her legs shifted upwards, then found their footing. Xiaohuan laid the sticky, slippery child down, and aimed the torch between Duohe’s legs: sure enough, another little head had emerged! Xiaohuan screeched: ‘It’s twins! Aren’t you amazing? Two in one go! …’ She did not know what to do with herself, she was too shocked, and too delighted. How could it have fallen to her, Xiaohuan, to deal with something as huge as this?
Duohe pulled on two pine trees and bore downwards, then she sat up by herself, with a head that was already more than half out cupped in her hands. Xiaohuan held the crying child with one hand, and with the other she came to restrain Duohe. She was not clear why it was necessary for her to restrain her, perhaps she was afraid she would roll down the mountain slope, or it might be to help correct her birth posture – childbirth should take place lying down. But something hit her very hard, and she nearly fell into the gully. Several seconds later it dawned on Xiaohuan that the blow had come from Duohe. Duohe had kicked her.
The torch had been flung to who knows where. Xiaohuan was holding the first baby, who was wriggling like a fleshy worm. The lights at the bottom of the mountain were like a wave of fire in Xiaohuan’s swimming eyes.
The second child came out by itself. Duohe gently supported his head and shoulders in her hands, he knew the way now, and followed it out like a familiar road.
‘Duohe, did you see that, two of them! However did you do it?’
Xiaohuan took off her own trousers too, and wrapped the two children tightly. Her frantic flailing gradually subsided, and some effectiveness returned to her movements. As she bustled about she told Duohe not to move an inch, just lie where she was, she would carry the children home, and then get Zhang Jian to carry Duohe down the mountain on his back.
The voice of the wind in the pine trees changed to a howl, and a long whistling sound. Xiaohuan looked at Duohe, who was practically at her last gasp, and suddenly thought of wolves. She did not know if wolves would come to the slopes of this little mountain. Let Duohe not become meat for the wolves now.
Xiaohuan stood still by the gully. Goose pimples burst out all over her body. They were not from the wind, but from fright at this thought she had not acknowledged. This thought that she did not dare acknowledge. Xiaohuan had lived for over thirty years – how many wicked thoughts had been born in her heart, and been extinguished there? More than she could count, but none of them had made her hair stand on end like this one. That thought was drenched in blood: a pack of hungry wolves fighting over a meal, all pulling in different directions, and once they were done there was no kinless, friendless orphan Duohe in this world. The timing could not have been better; a pair of sons had just come into the world.
Xiaohuan stood on the side of the rushing flood drain, listening to her own wicked thoughts flowing past, flowing away.
She walked slowly back to Duohe, and sat down beside her. The two babies had been tightly swaddled, and were no longer crying with fear at the boundless, empty expanses of the world. Xiaohuan took Duohe’s hand. It was like the hand of a corpse, the palm rubbed dry and coarse by the branches of the pine tree. She told Duohe that she could not leave her alone for the wolves. No one could say for sure whether there were wolves in these mountains.
Duohe’s breathing was slow and even, as though Xiaohuan had set her mind at ease. Xiaohuan did not know whether she had understood what she had just said. She told Duohe not to worry, neither of them would go, and Zhang J
ian would come looking for them. Girlie had told Xiaohuan that Auntie must have gone up the mountain to pick flowers; Auntie had asked ever so many times what the flowers on the mountain were called.
Then Xiaohuan saw the moving light of torches. There were at least twenty people walking up from the bottom of the mountain.
Xiaohuan yelled: ‘Over here! Help!’
The two newborn sons, scared out of their wits by the huge, unwieldy world, bawled out to each other in turn, two little trumpets, loud and shrill.
It was a group of policemen who had come to search the mountain. Zhang Jian had come banging at the window of the duty room of the local police station at ten o’clock, saying that two women from his home had vanished together. One was his spouse. And the other one? He came close to saying that she was also his spouse, but when the words came to his lips he said it was a female relative. Female relative? His sister-in-law. By the time the police had assembled all their people it was already close to eleven o’clock, and they sent a few men to the train station and the long-distance bus station, while the remainder went to search the mountain according to the leads provided by Zhang Jian. The uniformed police did not like this part of the mountain; when someone went missing in the pine forest no good came of it. People who had dabbled in corruption, people sick with love, couples who had quarrelled, all would take themselves off to the pine woods to hang themselves. Now they were flashing torches in all directions, far and near, asking why these two women had colluded to disappear together. Zhang Jian felt that every sentence he said in reply must be all wrong. His two spouses had run off together. It had taken him a very long time to get accustomed to the word spouse, but after he had heard it many times over he no longer felt that there was anything unrespectable about it. Right now he felt that this form of address was particularly well suited to his family, which in truth was not entirely respectable.
