Little Aunt Crane

by Geling Yan

  It was another Sunday, and Xiaohuan was the last one out of bed. Once she had bathed, she took the three children out. She said she was going to take them on a boat to pick water chestnuts, but it was obvious to Zhang Jian that she was giving him some space for a few hours of domestic bliss with Duohe.

  Through the half-closed kitchen door, he could hear the scratchy, hissing noise of an iron hitting damp clothing, and with the sound, a smell of starch laced with cologne came rushing out. He pushed open the door.

  Duohe looked at him through the white steam. It was early October, her broad-sleeved shirt was looped up with two elastic bands, showing most of her upper arms. Those arms had never rounded out again. Perhaps she would never recover her former appearance: round, white, tender and childish.

  ‘I’m going out to buy grain. Do you want me to pick anything up while I’m out?’ he asked, drooping his eyelids in his usual way.

  She was nonplussed: when had he learned to ask for instructions from a woman? And asking him to ‘pick something up’ was unheard of. Sometimes Xiaohuan would go to browse the shops, and drag Duohe along. The two of them would go empty-handed and return empty-handed, all they wanted was to fondle all the silks and satins and cottons in the shops, and having compared them in front of the mirror, to discuss which ones they would buy when they had the money. It was all Xiaohuan debating with herself in front of the mirror: Is that red or not? It’s called date red, it wouldn’t look all that alluring on me, eh? And how many more years will I be able to wear red? Just the next year or two. When I’ve saved up five yuan I’ll come and buy some, would it take a whole five yuan? Four’s plenty. She would drag Duohe in front of the mirror, take this length of cloth or that one and hold it up against her: You need a good strong blue, look how delicate the pattern is, would four yuan be enough for a padded jacket or a smock? Let’s wait and save the money a bit at a time. To save money was the Zhang family’s greatest goal. Once they had saved the money they would bring the grandparents over from Jiamusi. The Zhangs’ daughter-in-law was an army doctor, she had remarried the previous year, and she could not keep her former father-and mother-in-law living with her forever. But it would take them a while to save up for two tickets.

  Duohe shook her head, and buried herself in her ironing once more. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Zhang Jian’s back, clad in blue overalls, faded from frequent washing, gathering his resolution for a while, then he turned round and walked away. The grain shop was ten minutes’ walk from where they lived; Zhang Jian could be there and back in five minutes on his bicycle. He poured the grain into the wooden chest under the kitchen range, and produced a small paper bag from his pocket, his long, thick fingers fumbling with embarrassment.

  ‘This … is for you.’

  Duohe opened the paper bag. Inside were two sweets wrapped in sparkling, multicoloured cellophane. She watched those long, thick fingers retreat and clench into a fist, as if hating themselves for courting a snub. Just as he withdrew his hand, Duohe was reaching for the iron from the stove, she seemed to have burned him. She immediately set down the iron, and took his hand in both her own.

  ‘It didn’t burn me,’ he said. In fact he had burned the tip of his finger.

  She examined it carefully. She had never looked so closely at this man’s hands. There were thick calluses on the palms, and the joints of the fingers were very big, the fingernails strong. A pair of handsome, dignified hands, but a tiny bit foolish too.

  Without quite knowing how it happened, Zhang Jian had already taken her in his arms. Xiaohuan was right, this was the best way to make peace. Duohe’s grievances had found an outlet at last. She cried silently, as if her whole body was made of tears. Xiaohuan had said, you wanting her will be more of a consolation than anything else. He wanted her several times, one after the other. Xiaohuan had really acted selflessly, taking out all three children by herself, just in order to give them a few hours together. He could not let Xiaohuan down after she had been to all that trouble.

  Duohe kept her eyes closed throughout, her short hair plastered to her face with tears and snot. She mumbled that she was going to give him more children, maybe ten or more, like she was reciting a charm, taking an oath, trying to placate him.

  At the beginning he did not understand what she was saying. When he finally did understand, his ardour immediately vanished. If she got pregnant again, where would they hide her? And even if they managed to keep her hidden, how could they afford another child? Their present large family was already a huge amount of work, and he could not bring himself to touch any of his subsidies, overtime payments or night meal expenses, already for the night meal he only ate cold mantou bread brought from home. He had nothing left to wring from himself as it was.

  Duohe really was a piece of fertile ground, seeds scattered there never went to waste. She stood at a distance at the junction that Zhang Jian had to pass on his way home from work, where a mound of gravel was piled. She saw Zhang Jian’s bicycle coasting down the slope from the railway, and stood on the pile of gravel, calling out to him. Zhang Jian stopped the bicycle, and she came sliding down with a rattle and a rush, staggering with a mad happiness.

  ‘I … Sanhai!’ She was so happy that her language had lost all rhyme or reason.

  ‘Sanhai?’

  ‘Sanhai, third boy, in stomach!’ Her red nose, half transparent from the cold, had fine wrinkles on it, and that childish smile had returned.

  Zhang Jian drew in a breath of cold, dank early-winter air. She walked up to him, inclining her head upwards from time to time, as if he were from an older generation, and she, his junior, was owed a few words of praise from him. Zhang Jian’s head was full of numbers, thirty-two yuan a month: even with overtime, night meal allowances, and all the subsidies added in, that would mean forty-four yuan at most. Would they still be able to eat red-cooked aubergine? Soy sauce was as costly as gold. All around him, people kept greeting him: ‘Are you done for the day?’ He didn’t reply to their greetings, ignoring even those glances that rested briefly on him and flew over to Duohe. He suddenly thought of something Xiaohuan had said: whatever your life’s like you still have to muddle your way through it.

  ‘Come on!’ He patted the back seat of the bicycle.

  Duohe sat down, and held onto the sides of his canvas work overalls with both hands. She was an unremarkable-looking woman, but that stomach of hers truly was a prime piece of fertile land, children loved it in there! His father and mother had taken a blind chance, but they had drawn themselves a winner when they picked that sack.

  In the evening Xiaohuan leaned against the wall smoking, ruffling his hair with one hand, and told him not to worry. Even if they had to eat bran and vegetables they would bring up the child somehow. However many came they would raise them all. More sons meant more wealth, they’d never heard of anyone complaining of too many children! Duohe would be pregnant in the winter and spring, and when she started to show, they’d rent a house nearby in the countryside, and hide out there for the birth. Country people were easily dealt with, a note or two of money would stop their mouths. Zhang Jian turned over: Do we have two notes? Does money come that easily?

  Xiaohuan did not make a sound, but her hand continued to ruffle Zhang Jian’s hedgehog-like hair over and over again, as though she had a plan all prepared in advance.

  But Duohe miscarried. Just before Spring Festival the three-month-old foetus shook itself loose from her body as she was going up the stairs. She dragged herself up to the fourth floor, leaving a pool on every concrete step. As soon as she made it through the door she heard neighbours discussing it: Has somebody died? How come there’s blood everywhere? The gossip came to the Zhang family’s door: Oh, how dreadful, something’s happened in Zhang Jian’s home! Half the walkway was blocked with people beating on the door, pushing at the window and shouting. Duohe lay quietly in the steaming hot pool of blood. Wondering whether she would still be able to have a Sanhai, or a fifth child, or a sixth. Whether sh
e would be able to birth herself a crowd of relatives, to see in their eyes the father, uncle, grandfather and grandmother from whom she was parted forever, and the village scenes, the fields and the flowering cherry trees …

  The number of people concerned about the family grew and grew. Someone pulled open the kitchen window, the way Xiao Peng and Xiao Shi did; someone else was yelling: Go and borrow a stool! Another person shouted: Is Sister Xiaohuan there?

  Xiaohuan had just decided that her stroll with the two boys had gone on long enough, and as she came close to the entrance of the building, she saw a big rump with a patch sewn on squeezing through her kitchen window. She raised her smoke-singed voice to ask whose bum that was, and who was pinching her family’s gold bars and silver dollars in broad daylight? They’d just had a brand-new radio go missing from her home!

  People were leaning on the railings of the common walkways, all talking at once about bloodstains on the stairs.

  Xiaohuan promptly abandoned the pushchair, and dashed up the staircase, a boy under each arm. She knew at once that something had happened to Duohe, and what that might be. By the time she had reached her own front door, she was past caring to ask who that bum belonged to, and who had had such a nerve. She opened the door, and shot out a hand behind her back, closing it tightly. The blood on the floor had already become puddingy. Duohe was in the small room, lying on the bed, an elliptical patch of dark red beneath her. Xiaohuan set Dahai and Erhai down, and hurriedly returned to the small room.

  She rubbed away the sweat on Duohe’s forehead with the palm of her hand. Neither spoke. What need was there to speak? Xiaohuan grabbed the boys’ nappies from the balcony, wadded them up, and shoved them into Duohe’s trousers. Duohe looked at her, and she looked back. With that first look, Xiaohuan knew she would be all right, she was just tired, and to speak more would only exhaust her.

  Xiaohuan went to the kitchen, and stoked the fire in the stove. The people outside the window were still worrying. Let them worry, she had to brew some hot water with sugar for Duohe as quickly as she could. It was not until Duohe was clutching a big jar of sugar water in both hands that Xiaohuan remembered she had dumped the pushchair at the bottom of the stairs. She ran down, to find the pushchair gone. It had been made by Xiao Peng and Xiao Shi; the body of the carriage was two wooden chairs fastened together, with a horizontal bar that could be opened and closed to hold the boys in. The carriage was made with ball bearings, it was unusually attractive and easy to use.

  Xiaohuan scattered coal ash on the bloodstains, and swept everything clean from one floor to the next, all the while cursing the neighbourhood at large: Steal our kids’ pushchair to sit your own brats in, would you? Well, I hope your kids get great big ugly boils from sitting on it, I hope their bums are covered in poisonous carbuncles, each one with eight heads, flowing pus and dripping blood until they drown in it! So you see that a woman in our family’s not well, and think you’ll come up and pick on her? I’ll splash that woman’s blood on your doorstep! I’ll give you bad luck for the rest of your life! Let you have sons without a pizzle, daughters with no eyes!

  Xiaohuan cursed with blazing eyes and head held high. The neighbours’ children came out one by one holding their dinners, standing on the common walkways, forming an attentive audience. Xiaohuan had been a public curser of some note in the Zhu family village. The children were eating, watching and listening, and from time to time they would offer a few suggestions: Auntie Xiaohuan, it’s a bum full of big fat maggots, not poisonous carbuncles! Or: Auntie Xiaohuan, why don’t you say a stomach of bad offal?

  When Zhang Jian heard that Duohe had miscarried he let out a secret sigh of relief. But more than a month later, Duohe had still not stopped bleeding. Zhang Jian and Xiaohuan both started to be afraid, and discussed calling a doctor. Xiaohuan helped Duohe to a privately run women and children’s hospital. After the diagnosis Duohe went straight to the operating theatre, the miscarriage had been incomplete. After the operation, Duohe stayed in the hospital.

  Every day at dusk, Xiaohuan brought the three children to see her. On the afternoon of the third day, Xiaohuan entered the ward, and found it empty apart from Duohe. She was asleep, her hair sticking out all over the place. Xiaohuan dipped a comb in water and tidied it for her.

  Duohe suddenly said that she had saved a little girl, saved her from the hands of her own mother, who had been trying to strangle her. The little girl’s name was Kumi, and she had been three years old at the time. So how old was Duohe then? Sixteen. Why did the mother want to kill the little girl? At that time many mothers had killed their own children. Why? Because … because killing them themselves was at least better than having someone else kill them. Who would kill them? These were people from a country defeated in war, anyone would kill them. The head of Sakito village had got a sharpshooter to kill all the villagers, several hundred of them.

  Xiaohuan did not move. She sat down. It was a fine day, with the scents of early spring drifting in through the window. After all these years living here, it was only now that her yearning for her old home in the North-east faded somewhat. How long would it take Duohe, who had lost her village, her parents, her brothers and sister, before she would be able to let her longing fade? She listened as Duohe described with difficulty how she had watched the suicides of the people of Sakito village, and how the people of Shironami and the other Japanese villages had set off on the road of no return. Duohe’s Chinese was far from adequate to describe such a terrifying, devastating story, in some places Xiaohuan had to rely on guesswork to piece the meaning together. It was as well that she could not describe it fully and freely, otherwise Xiaohuan would not have been able to carry on listening.

  A nurse came in, and Duohe stopped her tale. Xiaohuan could see that her hands were shaking in a frightening way, like those of an old woman. After the nurse left, Duohe continued to talk. The Japanese that remained had barely seemed human. The children who had not been killed by their mothers starved or froze to death one by one – they had already walked from autumn into winter. The fast horses of the bandits came charging up, they seized the girls, nobody was able to struggle, or call out. There was just one old man – the only old man to have survived – who said: The gun! Pick up the gun and shoot the girls! But the gun had been lost long since …

  Xiaohuan marvelled at the pain in her heart: the cruelty and ghastliness of this story did not belong in this world. How could the Japanese have such a passion for death? How could a village headman send the people of an entire village to their deaths? Or a mother take charge of her child, sending him to his death?

  By the time she had heard Duohe’s story to the end, her mind was a blank, and remained so until she was back home, where she found Zhang Jian sitting at the table, pouring himself wine and drinking it alone. Her tears immediately flooded out.

  Zhang Jian asked several questions, but could make nothing of the answers. Girlie was scared stiff. At first she said: Mummy, have something to eat, the food’s all gone cold. Later she did not dare to make a sound. She had never seen Xiaohuan cry so painfully; she was the kind of person who makes other people cry. Xiaohuan cried for a while, then took up Zhang Jian’s wine cup, drained off two cups of pure sorghum liquor, blew her nose and went into the big room to lie down. She did not tell Zhang Jian Duohe’s story until he had come to bed.

  When he heard of Duohe running with three-year-old Kumi in her arms, pleading with her executioner of a mother, he pounded a tattoo on the bedboard, and cried out: ‘Aiya!’

  That night Zhang Jian and Xiaohuan did not sleep. The two of them were both propped up there smoking. After smoking for a while, Zhang Jian would recall this or that detail of the story, and ask Xiaohuan again; after Xiaohuan retold the detail, he would say he felt he had lost all hope: it really was that horrible a tragedy. Some details he asked for several times over, and with every confirmation he became even more upset. But he still continued to ask without pause, hoping that he had misheard.

&nb
sp; Zhang Jian did not get to sleep until nearly dawn. In the morning he went to work dizzy and with a throbbing head; anyone in his group who made the slightest mistake he dealt with severely, accepting no excuses. Duohe, a girl of just sixteen, had experienced such horrors. The way Duohe had looked when she first came out of the sack appeared like a ghost in front of the crane, in front of his lunch box, in his clothes locker, in the spray of the shower. He hated his parents: they went and spent seven silver dollars on a girl, and now look, her story was driving him close to madness. If they had told him her life story when they first bought her, that would have been much better. He would have resolutely pushed her out. And who would she have gone to then? If he had known her history a bit earlier, he would have changed the attitude with which he treated her. But how would he have changed it?

  6

  THE DAY BEFORE Duohe came home from hospital, Zhang Jian went to Jiamusi. Stationmaster Zhang, who had always been in rude health, had suffered a stroke, and was lying half paralysed in his former daughter-in-law’s home. Their daughter-in-law the army doctor was a good daughter, she said that the old couple had better stay with her. When Zhang Jian went back home and said all this to Xiaohuan, she said knowingly: ‘Your dad’s paralysed, so he can be half a maid, while your mum cooks, washes the clothes and sweeps the floor. In the army when there’s one more person in the household they allocate more rations, so she gets both money and labour. See what a fine bargain she’s got herself!’