Little Aunt Crane

by Geling Yan

  The film ended, the audience departed, and Zhang Jian and Duohe left too, giddy, as if walking on air. When they reached the lobby, Zhang Jian saw a door to their right, which seemed to be leading backstage. He shot her a glance, and she ducked through after him. Inside it was very dark, with backdrops from the workers’ amateur dramatics group lying around everywhere, some showing trees and mountains, others showing city streets. There were cracks in the curtains from which faint rays of sunlight cut through the darkness; the contrast between light and shadow gave the place a spooky air.

  The smell of mildew went straight to their heads. Duohe missed her footing, her hand clutched at a curtain, and the mildewed silk crumbled away in her hand. Clearly, the workers’ theatre troupe had not been active here for a very long time.

  Zhang Jian arranged the sets, and spread out his overalls. His hands lacked accuracy and efficiency, his movements were both fast and clumsy, the actions of a fool in the grip of an excessive joy. He had not been so tense on his first night with Duohe. It was almost too black. Too much darkness is not a good thing, it takes the eyes a very long time before they can see the shapes of people and things. That first time it had not been so dark, there had been a little bit of light coming in from the back window.

  Outside the back window, the snow on the slope was like a mirror for the moon that shone in. That night was his first night with a woman of another race. He saw the shadow of the Japanese girl, very small, yielding to her misfortunes. It was precisely the kind of daintiness and meek submission that men all over the world found unendurable; a complaisance that would melt as you took it into your arms. The muscles in his calves were clenching over and over, any minute now he would get cramp. He hated himself for being so useless: it wasn’t like he had no experience of women. He wanted to reach out for the lamp in the dark, but halfway there his hand changed its mind and groped for his pipe. He needed the lamplight to see to untie his belt, which had got caught in a granny knot. But if he lit the lamp wouldn’t he scare her to death? And scare himself to death as well. With a burst of effort he snapped the string of his trousers. Sure enough, she was meek and yielding, never making a sound, and as soon as he took her in his arms she dissolved. He knew she was crying, but her tears as she gave herself up to her fate did not trouble him at all. The palm of his hand passed once over her face, he had meant to wipe away the tears, but it suddenly became more than he could bear, his palm could cover her entire face, all he had to do was apply a little pressure and he would smother her. His calf was still rock hard, any minute now the cramp would start. How could he be so useless?

  It was no longer dark backstage. They could see one another clearly. At this moment, the hunger that they had provoked in each other during the film was tremendous. The two of them rolled on the work overalls, as if they were both dying to swallow the other whole.

  When it was over, he started to talk of what he called their first night. She immediately pressed her palm over his mouth. All her memories of that night were dark.

  There were no lamps, there was no light. The dry heat of the room could not circulate in the blackness. His body was a guff, and as he removed his clothes one at a time, the smell became stronger, and hotter. After that he became one dark movement after another. One of the movements was to seize hold of her wrist. His two big hands grasped tightly, as though he was still afraid she would struggle, even this far along. She said: I’m scared. He did not understand. She was afraid of changing from a girl into a woman in this thick darkness, where he would take from her the thing that she would only lose once in a lifetime. She said again: I’m scared. He wrapped his arms securely around her narrow waist … she started to cry, the tears ran down to her ears, and he made no attempt to wipe them away.

  Now she could not remember clearly whether he had wiped away her tears or not. He said he had, she said he had not. Could they not even remember this? Best not to remember too clearly, they could remember it any way they wanted now. They dragged themselves up, and realised that they were ravenously hungry. It was only then that they recalled the dates, fizzy drinks and melon seeds, none of which they had taken with them. Never mind, let’s go to a restaurant for a bite to eat. He had not yet taken her out for a meal. Lovers always feel that wine should be drunk today, with no thought for the morrow, and at this moment Zhang Jian and Duohe, who had never spent much money, would have squandered the fortunes of the entire family without caring a straw for it.

  There were several small restaurants opposite the club. They were in no mood to be picky, and sat themselves down in the closest. Zhang Jian ordered two dishes: fried slivers of pork and fried slivers of potato, with a five-ounce bottle of white spirits. Duohe asked for a cup too. When they had downed the wine, the couple’s eyes could not leave each other’s faces, and their hands could not leave the other’s hands. The two of them were oblivious to the reproaches and shock of the other patrons: public displays of affection were unheard of in the workers’ area. Their ears were deaf to all remarks. It would appear that going to a little restaurant for an ounce or two of wine had taken on a new meaning, and brought them a new excitement.

  From then on, every so often Zhang Jian would take Duohe to the cinema and have a meal in a restaurant. Their rendezvous was now generally backstage at the club. Even if the big screen was up and a film was showing it did not interfere with their pleasures. They arranged the stage sets into something rich and magnificent, a spacious castle covered in ivy, a chaise longue like Westerners used. They were constantly on adventures and treasure hunts behind the stage, they kept unearthing new material, and so their trysts became ever more classical and dramatic. Once as they were lying on their chaise longue they heard thunderous slogans. A meeting had started up onstage without them noticing. On emerging from behind the scenes, they discovered it was a commendation ceremony: the central Party leaders had commended Zhang Jian’s factory for producing superior-quality steel, from which a tank had been built.

  The great sums of money consumed by their assignations gradually became a hole that Zhang Jian could not possibly fill, try as he might. More overtime, more night shifts, drinking less, giving up smoking were all to no avail. His debts in the factory became heavier and heavier. Before, he had taken two mantou every time he went on night shift, now he even dispensed with that. He would only splurge on tasty food and drink when he and Duohe could enjoy them together.

  One day he and Duohe were sitting in a snack shop run by a Shanghainese. Duohe said she had overheard Xiao Shi and Xiao Peng discussing how Zhang Jian owed a lot of money at the factory.

  Zhang Jian let go of her hand.

  She asked him how much he owed.

  He did not speak.

  She said from now on there would be no more eating out.

  He said he just owed two or three hundred yuan, he could soon pay it back if he just put his nose to the grindstone.

  She said they would not be watching any more films either.

  He raised his head, his forehead a great pile of wrinkles. He told her not to keep on about it, he was going to take her to Nanjing to stay in a hotel too. This was the first time in their two years of trysts that he got fierce with her.

  When the Neighbourhood Committee came to recruit workers’ dependants to engage in labour, Xiaohuan said once again with a cheeky grin that her children were too small, her liver, spleen and lymph glands were all enlarged, and that she couldn’t possibly go. Duohe walked out of the small room. She was willing to go and crush ore, to earn that wage of five fen an hour.

  This was an age that disdained leisure. Ten-year-old Girlie was always dashing in and out; every day she would run a very long way to collect waste iron, wearing two pairs of shoes to rags in a month. Duohe took a truck with a big crowd of dependants to the quarry, where she hit the ore with a hammer, or tipped it out into an empty railway wagon. Duohe worked with a towel round her head and a straw hat over it, the same as all the other dependants. What made her different was that sh
e wore no oversleeves like the rest of them, she had a loop made of elastic crossed over her chest to form two loops at either end which held the sleeves in place on her upper arms, revealing her snowy white forearms. The women of Sakito and Shironami villages all mulched the fields, raked the soil, ground corn and fed the livestock with two arms exposed in colder weather than this. The women were divided into two teams; one pounded ore, the other carried it. The two teams would swap shifts once a day. The hardest part was walking up a single-plank bridge, to tip the processed ore into the wagons, and it was easy to slip. Duohe very quickly became a noticeable figure about the place: she carried the ore on her back in a wooden bucket with a movable bottom operated by a lever, and would walk to the topmost point of the single-plank bridge, where she would turn round so her back was to the wagon, give the lever a tug, and the bottom of the wooden bucket would open up, dropping the ore straight into the goods truck.

  The dependants asked Duohe where she had picked up this innovation. Duohe gave a little smile. This was an invention of her Shironami village. The dependants thought that the Zhangs’ young sister-in-law was not afraid of hard work, she never gossiped, and her moral character was first-rate. Too bad that she was daft as a brush.

  Duohe handed over the money she earned to Zhang Jian. Zhang Jian looked at her in such a way that it felt like he was planting kisses all over her face. They had not had an assignation for a very long time now. When they did occasionally meet it was like a second honeymoon, made all the sweeter by absence. Their favourite place for trysts was still behind the stage at the Workers’ Club. Some new sets had been added backstage; the workers’ amateur dramatics group had just put on a new play, with a bed and a big wardrobe. At nine o’clock in the morning, the cinema was showing a film, and they bought tickets, but squeezed their way backstage. Silently and stealthily, they built up their nest. In their frequent visits here, they had unearthed two more doorways behind the stage, both leading to open country.

  In the damp cold of deep autumn, two warm bodies must clasp each other close in order to survive. Swept away by the intoxicating feeling of coming together after a long absence, he actually spoke words that he would normally scorn – ‘I love you!’ He did not just say it once, he kept saying it until Duohe even believed it. Duohe had never heard this phrase, did not know that it had become a cliché, and she was so moved she felt like she was about to die.

  He embraced her tightly. This encounter was so perfect, perfect in every way. He took a rest, and slid down by her side, his chin filling up the hollow of her throat.

  A beam of light from a torch suddenly stabbed inside.

  ‘Who’s that in there?’

  There was a rushing sound in Zhang Jian’s head. Keeping his back to the source of the torchlight, he somehow found himself clutching Duohe to his chest, enveloping her completely.

  ‘Get out of here!’ Zhang Jian’s voice was low, deep and malevolent.

  ‘You get out! If you don’t come out I’ll shout for help!’

  Zhang Jian’s brain was turning with lightning speed; there had been no interruption to the sounds of the film from onstage, the cinema would not lightly cut short a film to deal with a matter of this kind, as that would throw all the later screenings into confusion. A cinema would not lose good money in this way. Though the audience might not mind stopping the film for a good show of catching fornicators in the act. He could feel that Duohe had shrunk into a small, tight ball, and one gently quivering, ice-cold hand was clutching at his shoulder.

  ‘Turn off the torch, or I’ll chop you with a knife!’ Zhang Jian’s voice was full of certainty. While he was bluffing, he found himself wondering how he could have come up with ‘chop you’. Had his mind turned to a row of swords and spears among the props on realising that he was cornered?

  The voice wavered slightly: ‘I’ll call for help!’

  Still covering Duohe with his body, Zhang Jian rolled them both from the bed to the floor, saying, ‘You just try it then – call!’

  ‘You come out!’

  ‘Turn off the torch!’

  They lay face down on the ground, making a much smaller target for the torchlight. Zhang Jian shifted towards the stage spears in their rack. Then he stretched out his long leg, enough to fetch over a lump of iron covered in cloth. When the light of the torch caught up with him it was too late, Zhang Jian already had the lump of iron grasped in his hands.

  ‘Turn off the torch!’ he said.

  ‘If I don’t turn it off what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Then don’t – just try it.’ As he spoke, the light glanced off the lump of iron in his hands.

  The torch immediately went out. The speaker obviously thought that there was no need for him to risk his life to test what his next insane move might be, for a dog can jump a high wall when cornered, and even a rabbit can bite. There were quite a few members of the steel factory’s militia who were handy with a gun or a knife, and they often held shooting or bayonet-fighting contests with the militia from other factories.

  ‘Come out! Or I really will shout for help!’

  Zhang Jian shoved Duohe’s clothes at her, and gave her a push. Her hand still clutched, uncomprehending, at his shoulder. Speaking softly in her ear, he told her to leave quietly by the back door on the north-west side, he would catch up with her very soon.

  She took it for the truth. The film onstage was playing lyrical, beautiful music, and Duohe fled on the wave of that rising melody. Time passed, and Zhang Jian knew that it was no longer just one person waiting for him. But he had not expected to find the entire staff of the club, all except the projectionist who was showing the film. On the screen, the actors were still living out their happy lives.

  A button on Zhang Jian’s work clothes was fastened askew, his peak cap was pulled down very low, and long shoelaces were trailing from his suede boots. In the eyes of the indignant people in front of him, he was a classic villain. He knew it too. And yet to his surprise he did not feel remotely like a villain, rather, he felt like a hero in a tragedy. He had sacrificed himself to safeguard his beloved, and if he was not tragic then who was?

  ‘Where’s the other one?’ the man holding the torch said. He was not afraid of Zhang Jian now. Even if he did decide to chop somebody, there were seven or eight people to share the danger.

  Zhang Jian thought Duohe was quick on the uptake. She would already have run into the thicket of elms that were just shedding their leaves. She would be waiting for him now, neatly dressed. A woman with a past like Duohe’s would not have survived until today if she was not quick.

  ‘The other what?’ It was like Zhang Jian could barely be bothered with him at all. Those camel’s eyes were outstanding for showing derision. Sure enough, the workers were outraged by his looks of proud disdain. If this big North-easterner did not surrender by himself, taking him down would probably be hard work.

  ‘Stop playing stupid! We’re asking about that fancy woman of yours!’ said one of the northerners in that little cluster of people, who the club workers called Director Xie.

  ‘Who’s my fancy woman?’

  ‘I saw it all! Don’t think you can get out of it!’ The one holding the torch was a southerner of forty or fifty.

  ‘Why ask if you saw the whole thing? You call her to come out!’ Zhang Jian said.

  ‘Then you admit she’s your fancy woman?’

  Zhang Jian ignored them. He wished he hadn’t got into a debate with them. The reason why he had been tight-mouthed from a very young age was because early on he had observed that people were not worth paying attention to – if you went along with their train of thought, and started to bandy about with them, you would very soon find yourself on the receiving end of their crude, unpleasant words. His feelings for Duohe had become carrying on with a fancy woman – Duohe, a fancy woman? They had dirtied her just by mentioning her! Zhang Jian could bear hardship, exhaustion or pain, but he could not bear to be dirty.

  Some of the
people went off to search in the maze of scenery, while the others kept watch over Zhang Jian. A member of staff reported back: the back door was not locked, the fancy woman might have run off that way. That fellow must be covering her escape. He’s a depraved, cunning old fox. If they had not received notification that the Great Leader was coming to the steel factory on a tour of inspection, who would go checking those dark corners? And there they were thinking that special agents from the US or Chiang Kai-shek had buried a bomb here or something, when all the time it was a man and a woman in a tryst!

  Zhang Jian’s section had been sweeping and tidying every day too, putting up red paper flowers and great pompoms of red silk ribbon to welcome the inspection by the Great Leader Chairman Mao. But in the past people had also said that the provincial head or the mayor was coming, and no such person had ever appeared beside the blast furnaces. So this time the workers hadn’t really believed it. Hearing people in the club talking like this now, Zhang Jian thought, means the Great Leader really is coming. The club was under the direct control of the factory headquarters, so their news was up to date and reliable.

  The searchers returned in dribs and drabs. They had set off in pursuit from that back door in the north-west corner, but they had failed to catch up with the loose woman. Director Xie said eloquently that it would seem she was fleet of foot as well. It made no difference – now they’d caught this one, she wouldn’t fly very far.

  Zhang Jian was taken to the factory headquarters. In the corridor he bumped into Xiao Peng. Xiao Peng’s eyes flew open in astonishment at the sight of a group of people escorting Zhang Jian, some clearing the way, some acting as armed guards. He asked one of the club employees who was part of the armed escort what had happened. He was carrying on with a loose woman! Director Xie promptly asked Xiao Peng whether he was on familiar terms with this degenerate element of the factory. Xiao Peng kept silent, but shot a glance at Zhang Jian’s looming back, and saw his shoelaces swinging back and forth, dragged into two muddy ropes. Xiao Peng’s Russian studies had been cancelled halfway through the course, and he had been sent to the factory headquarters to do any work that came to hand while waiting to be reassigned. He followed the group into the security section, the door closed, and he joined the crowd of secretaries, typists and cleaners which was blocking the door, their bodies all half tilted to hear the interrogation that was going on inside.