by Geling Yan
The neighbours who were playing cards or chess in the corridor looked at the skilled crane operator from the steel factory, with his two children tied to him, one in front, one behind, walking with his sister-in-law all dressed up in her patterned costume, holding the seven-year-old girl by the hand, angling an oil-paper umbrella over Zhang Jian’s head, to keep the sun off him and the two boys.
The people thought, there’s something not quite right about this family group, what is it? But they couldn’t be bothered to think it through, and soon returned to their chessboards and cards.
Zhang Jian took the woman and children on a train to the next station, which was on the banks of the Yangtze River. He had heard the people in the factory mention that there was this historic site here; at the weekend it was full of tourists from Nanjing and Shanghai, waiting in long queues at the snack shops, and even at the outdoor tea stalls you had to wait for a place.
They sat on stone seats, eating the rice balls that Duohe had hurriedly squeezed together for them, each one stuffed with a filling of turnip and soy sauce.
Duohe was chattering away in her incoherent Chinese. Sometimes Zhang Jian did not understand, and Girlie acted as interpreter. The afternoon weather was hot and stuffy, so they walked to a bamboo grove, where Zhang Jian spread out his coat and put the children on it. Duohe was reluctant to spend time with her feet up, and said she wanted to go down to the stones in the river. When Zhang Jian awoke from a doze, the sun was sinking to the west, and Duohe had still not returned. He strapped on Dahai and Erhai, took Girlie’s hand and walked out of the bamboo grove.
The front of the temple was surrounded by many people, all looking at a display of ornamental pot plants. Zhang Jian squeezed in among them, but could not see any sign of Duohe. He was grumbling and swearing to himself: she’d never gone out, but she still had to go and join in the fun, never stopping to consider her own limitations. At this moment he suddenly saw a patterned form through a gap in the crowd: Duohe’s face, transformed by anxiety, looking around her in all directions, her footsteps still awkward.
Without quite knowing how it happened, Zhang Jian avoided her gaze. Thunder seemed to be rolling in his heart, so that his ears were ringing with the noise, as he asked himself despairingly: What are you doing? Have you gone mad? Are you seriously going to do what you said all those years ago, and abandon this woman? Nor could he hear himself applauding: Perfect timing! She’s brought it on herself …
He led the children to a little restaurant, but as soon as he reached for his wallet, he realised with a sinking heart that he had given the one five-yuan note he had on him to Duohe in case she needed spending money. It would appear that he had planned the thing out in advance: by giving her five yuan he could buy himself a few minutes of easy conscience, at least she wouldn’t starve for a few days. When he had seen her nursing, his hand had brushed her nipple, his heart had given a lurch, and at that moment a plan had come to him … or had it?
The sky was getting dark, heavy rain was on its way. The lady in charge of the restaurant was very honest and kind, and poured out cup after cup of hot water for him and the children. Girlie asked a hundred times, over and over again: Where’s Auntie gone?
Zhang Jian left the children in the care of the proprietress, and dashed out into the rain. He ran up the mountain along little winding roads and back down again. The little road leading to the river clung to the side of the mountain. There were whirlpools there, a whole series of them, and once you fell in they would swallow you up, bones and all.
Zhang Jian started to cry. He had not cried since the age of ten; even when the child died in Xiaohuan’s belly he had got by with a lump in his throat and a stinging in his nose. He was crying over how Duohe had never gone outside, or spent a jiao, and the first time she went out, the first time she had five yuan on her, she was abandoned. Did she know how to buy food? She could always let people take her for an idiot or a deaf-mute or someone who wasn’t all there. Would people understand what she said, with her peculiar tones and words all over the place? She would not tell people she was Japanese. She knew how dangerous that would be. Or did she? Zhang Jian was crying for the children who from now on would have no mother of their own. Dahai and Erhai were six months old, and their accustomed food supply had been abruptly cut off. All the same, the children were much better off than he was; at the end of the day they were children and would soon forget, or hopefully they would. By the time the cement was no longer so clean it shone blue, and their clothes no longer carried the scent of starch and toilet water, or bore the marks of being ironed into knife-edge creases, his memories of Duohe would have faded a little.
He was shaking all over, as if soaked through with his own tears. In the place where the road and the river met, there were boats, hooting. He suddenly dropped his head to his knees, and he wept so hard that his chest cavity resounded emptily. How would he ever be able to forget the last smile that Duohe had turned on him? When she heard that he was taking them out, and went back to change her clothes and tidy her hair she had secretly applied some of the children’s talcum powder to her face. Her final smile had been dappled, the baby powder washed away by sweat, and mixed in with dust.
When Zhang Jian returned to that restaurant, it was late, and supper was being served. Girlie was sitting on a bench, and Dahai and Erhai were lying on a bed made of four stools pushed together, asleep. The woman in charge said that Girlie had fed her brothers with steamed bread soaked in water, and had eaten a cold rice ball herself.
‘Where’s Auntie?’ Girlie asked him immediately.
‘Auntie’s gone home,’ he said. Drops of water were flowing down from his hair to his temples.
‘Why?’
‘She … has a stomach ache.’
‘Why? … Why?’
Zhang Jian resorted to his old trick, he simply did not hear Girlie’s words. One of the customers in the restaurant was a middle-aged man, who said he had had a chat with Girlie: she could say her name, the district she lived in, and which building. Zhang Jian strapped his sons to his body, while thanking the middle-aged stranger and the lady in charge.
‘And what about my auntie?’ Girlie asked.
He looked at his daughter. How long would it take for Duohe’s words and expressions to vanish from his daughter’s language?
‘What about my auntie?’ Girlie gestured at the oil-paper umbrella.
He went out holding the umbrella aloft; why get soaked on the way back?
‘Did my auntie take the kishya back home?’ Girlie asked when they got to the ticket window at the train station. He did not have to guess, kishya must mean train. He asked the ticket attendant to be kind, to take his work card and sell him a ticket now, and he would send money to redeem his work card later on. The ticket seller took one look at him and the three children. Their pitiable condition and honesty could be seen at a glance. He led them directly to the ticket sellers’ room, to wait for the slow train at nine o’clock.
On the train it was still very crowded and noisy. People from the big cities who had spent a whole day being tourists and dining on fresh river fish in restaurants now set up tea stalls for themselves on the train, to eat dried strips of tofu, a local speciality. The train’s final stop was Nanjing, and the loudspeakers were playing a comedy in Shanghai dialect about a member of the volunteer army coming home from Korea to get married. Those of the passengers who could understand it kept bursting into peals of laughter. The two boys were sleeping sweetly, but Girlie turned her face to the window, staring at her reflection in the dark glass. Perhaps she was watching her father’s profile reflected in the window. Zhang Jian sat opposite her, with Erhai in his arms, one foot stretched onto the seat opposite to hold down Dahai, who was lying on the seat. Dahai and Erhai were identical to look at, but without knowing why Zhang Jian had a partiality for Erhai.
‘Daddy, did Auntie go home on the kishya?’
‘Mm.’
Girlie had asked this at least ten times. A few minutes late
r, Girlie opened her mouth again.
‘Daddy, tonight I’m going to sleep with Auntie.’
Zhang Jian did not listen. He could feel his eyes filling up again, and he hurriedly distracted himself, smiling at Girlie.
‘Girlie, out of Daddy, Mummy and Auntie, who are you closest to?’
Girlie looked at him with dark black eyes. Girlie was clever, she thought that when her elders asked this kind of thing they were setting a trap, which would always catch you whichever way you answered. Girlie did not reply, but that was what gave her away: if her heart had been more with Zhang Jian or Xiaohuan, she would have come straight out and said it without hesitation. But it was Auntie Duohe she loved the most. Girlie’s feelings for this aunt with her unclear status and strange position were something that even she herself could not measure.
‘Auntie’s gone home on the kishya,’ Girlie said, looking at her father. Zhang Jian could see in her eyes his own expression of curiosity, suspicion or fear.
‘Kishya is what we call a train,’ Zhang Jian said.
Girlie was already in her first year at primary school. How awful it would be if she took to going around saying kishya this and kishya that. But Girlie resisted his teaching, and after a while said again: ‘If she takes the kishya home, Auntie won’t know which building our home’s in.’
‘Kishya is train! Can’t you speak Chinese?’ Zhang Jian’s voice suddenly rose over the jokes of the comedy actors, sending the tofu-munching tourists all around them into docile silence, as they listened to Zhang Jian saying: ‘Train! What the hell do you mean with all this kishya! Train! Repeat it for me three times!’
Girlie looked at him, her eyes becoming rounder, her glance more powerful.
‘Speak Chinese properly!’ Zhang Jian said. An entire carriage-load of people were included in his scolding. His nasal cavity was swollen with tears, his brain tingled and bulged. He did not want to hear Girlie saying kishya every time she opened her mouth; that way there would be no hope that his memories of Duohe would fade.
Girlie was watching him. He could see that her full, tender red lips had hundreds of kishyas shut up inside them. Now the look in her eyes was not his. Was it Duohe’s? It seemed that he had never paid attention. With a shudder, he suddenly saw it. The look in her eyes from her maternal grandfather, or her maternal great-grandmother, or perhaps a maternal uncle or great-uncle. It was a heroic but potentially murderous expression.
Zhang Jian forced his eyes away. Duohe’s shadow could never be cleaned away. His parents had spent seven silver dollars, thinking only to buy a belly that would bear them sons and daughters. Was it that simple? They were really too stupid.
Duohe had wandered off and got lost. This was a ready-made explanation. A half-truth. Or perhaps not quite a half-truth. With Girlie and Xiaohuan, Zhang Jian stuck to his story like grim death: Duohe had wanted to go to that big rock in the river – lots of people went – then she had got herself lost. When Girlie heard these words she cried herself to sleep. A seven-year-old child, she was full of hope: the People’s Police would find Auntie and bring her back in a few days. Daddy and Mummy would find Auntie and bring her back. Auntie would go to the People’s Police by herself. In a seven-year-old heart, there was hope to be found everywhere in the world. So Girlie got out of bed, brushed her teeth, washed her face, ate breakfast and went to school the same as usual. She did not seem to have any suspicions over ‘Auntie getting lost’.
Xiaohuan’s shift had ended at midnight. As soon as she came home and saw him spring, panicked, to his feet with a bawling Dahai in his arms, she understood. She came over, gathered up Dahai and said ‘Pah!’ to him. He asked what she meant by that. She said he had actually gone ahead and done that wicked thing. In the morning, once Girlie had left for school, Xiaohuan told Zhang Jian to phone his section and say he was taking a day’s leave.
‘Have you any idea how much work a group leader has to do? I can’t go asking for leave!’
‘If you can’t ask for leave then resign as group leader!’
‘If I resign who’s going to keep this big family?’
‘If you can’t keep us you know what to do about it. Put us in a sack one by one, go up the mountain, get lost and then dump us.’
‘Bollocks!’
‘The old society’s over, there’s no more people trafficking, otherwise you could put the kiddies and the wife in a sack, weigh ’em, sell ’em, and you needn’t have to earn money with blood and sweat as a group leader. The kids have all fattened up nicely from drinking milk, you could get enough to keep you in rice and fuel for half a lifetime!’
Xiaohuan raised her round face, as she took from a chest the little flowery bag and sun hat that she used when going out.
‘Where the bloody hell do you think you’re going?’
‘Get your shoes on and come with me.’
‘I’m not going to the police station!’
‘No, going to the police would mean turning yourself in, right?’
‘Then where are you planning on going?’
‘Wherever you went to ditch her, that’s where you and I are going.’
‘She ran off by herself! It’s not like she’s never run away! You’re the one who calls her a little Jap she-wolf that no amount of feeding can tame!’
‘A little she-wolf couldn’t fight off a big Manchurian tiger like you.’
‘Xiaohuan, she got in the way in our family, it was uncomfortable. Let her go.’
‘Even if our family isn’t comfortable it’s still a family. However uncomfortable it is, it’s still her home. Can she survive if she leaves here? All over the country they’re arresting American and Kuomintang secret agents, and Japanese spies and reactionaries! We often get plain-clothes police in our guest house, they turn up in the middle of the night to check the rooms, they even check the pit in the toilets. Where’s she supposed to go?’
‘Then who told her to get herself lost?’
Zhang Jian was determined not to relent, or to let his heart soften. This was the time that was going to be the most painful for him, and the first few days would be the hardest. The twins made a fuss at being weaned from their mother’s milk, and turned their noses up at porridge, but by the second meal they were ready to toe the line. Why had he wept so loudly when he was sitting on the stone steps by the side of the river? It was over the chunk of his heart that he had lost for Duohe. He had cried so much that this part of his heart was dead from pain, for better or worse: you had to bury it, and after that you had to go on living, you had to look after the people who were still alive, adults and children both. He was determined never to let his mouth or his heart soften and say: let’s go and look for her.
In any case, even if they did go looking for her, they would not necessarily find her. Unless they went to the police station and filed a report, and if they did that there would be big trouble. The Zhang family had been plain, ordinary, law-abiding folk for generations, they had never had much to do with the law. Buying and selling human beings, forcing a woman to have children and abandoning her … would not all those things bring down death and ruination on the whole family? He did not dare to think any further.
‘Zhang Liangjian, I’m telling you, if you don’t get her back, then it’s murder. You know she won’t be able to survive if you dump her outside. It’s premeditated murder.’ When Xiaohuan was upset she called him by his full name, as if she were reading out his sentence. She had picked up a fair few new words since she had gone out to work, and ‘premeditated murder’ was one of them.
‘Are you going to look for her or not?’
‘I’m not going. We won’t be able to find her.’
‘Won’t be able to find her? I see.’ Xiaohuan was sneering now, and her gold tooth was gleaming with a cold, threatening light. ‘You stuffed her in a sack and put her in the river.’
‘Is she as obedient as that? Throwing herself into a sack! For God’s sake.’
‘You coaxed her into it. Otherwise how wo
uld she go along with you so nicely onto the train, and let herself get carried off by you so sweetly to the rocks by the river?’
‘Zhu Xiaohuan, that’s a damn lie! You know how I feel about you … When the children get older life in our family will be even worse!’ Zhang Jian’s half-closed eyes were so weak and melancholy.
‘Don’t try to push the blame onto me and the children. You laid violent hands on this woman for the sake of this family? How are we supposed to bear that kind of monstrous emotional debt? This isn’t the kind of favour we can accept. If that’s the way you see things, I’ll take the children back home to my mother’s house. It might become a habit – next time you’ll snatch the kids, hide up in some hole, and watch them get themselves lost! You’re quite the pet in the factory right now, you need to be progressive, and those half-Japanese bastards are standing in the way of your mighty progress! Eliminating them isn’t murder, it’s righteous nationalism!’
Xiaohuan stomped her feet into her shoes and walked out of the door. Zhang Jian followed her out. When the two of them reached the riverside it was ten o’clock, but there was not a tourist anywhere. Xiaohuan made enquiries of a custodian: had he seen a woman of twenty-six or twenty-seven, of middling build? Was there anything special about her? She wore her hair coiled up in a great big bun. Anything else? The whites of her eyes are unusually white, and the pupils unusually black, she bows when she talks, and when she’s finished speaking she bows again. Also, when you see her she’s not quite like a typical Chinese female comrade. In what way? In every way.
Zhang Jian pushed his way forward, saying that the woman was wearing a dress with a pattern of red, green and yellow dots on a white background.
The custodian said he had no recollection. How many tourists had there been yesterday? They’d even had five or six foreigners.
Zhang Jian and Xiaohuan wound their way up and down the mountain several times. They encountered people trimming the flowers and trees, sweepers, ice-cream peddlers calling out the wares they carried on their backs, but everybody shook their heads at this woman who was different from Chinese female comrades.
