Little Aunt Crane

by Geling Yan

  Her story had caused his heart to change, and made him disloyal to Xiaohuan.

  So how did he plan to deal with his wife? Would he make her continue as an outsider, living in that tiny flat? She, Zhu Xiaohuan, a leftover bitch? Dog she might be, but Xiaohuan was the best dog at eating shit ever. She had stayed with him in the security office while he made a spectacle of himself, she had stayed with him when he had behaved so badly, bringing shame on the Zhang family’s ancestors.

  Three hours of detention, and the matter was settled by leaving it unsettled. Zhang Jian rode home on his bike, carrying a frostily compliant Xiaohuan. On the road neither spoke, the words had already been used up in the looks that had passed between them. Next would come the penalty, and dealing with the offender. Zhang Jian had no choice but to submit to Xiaohuan’s punishment, and whatever else she had in store for him.

  As they were crossing the railway, Xiaohuan told Zhang Jian to turn to the right. The railway track was lined with wild rice and reeds, and Shanghai workers’ dependants would often come here, whole families, old and young, to cut wild rice for cooking or to take to the market to sell. In the early winter, the leaves of the surviving wild-rice stems were withered and yellow, and rubbed against the big, bushy bulrushes with raspy, brittle sounds. Zhang Jian walked with Xiaohuan, stepping over the sleepers one at a time; it was impossible to push the bicycle along, so he gritted his teeth and carried it on his shoulder. A train was approaching in the distance along the winding track, and it let out a drawn-out hoot. With a wail, Xiaohuan burst into tears.

  Zhang Jian put the bicycle down, and came up to her. Her ever-present shrewishness and willingness to make a scene came on again; she hit and scratched him, refusing point-blank to get off the railway line. The train was shaking the rails, causing them to vibrate and creak. Xiaohuan was crying so hard that she could not catch her breath, but from her disconnected speech he could hear: Whoever dodges out of the way is the bastard son of a turtle! Death is clean! Let the train roll us into mincemeat together, and save us a world of trouble!

  He gave her a slap round the face, and carried her in his arms off the track.

  The train went speeding by, a cup of leftover tea came spilling out of a window, horizontal in the wind, dropping tea and tea leaves in equal proportions onto their faces. It was only when the train had passed that he heard clearly what Xiaohuan was bawling:

  ‘The two of you must have come here, for sure! Oh what fun you had in these reeds! And not afraid of getting a chill or schistosomiasis either! If you got sick you’d come home and pass it on to me and the kids!’

  Xiaohuan’s permed hair had become a tangled black bulrush. Seeing Zhang Jian looking at her in shocked amazement, she grabbed his trouser leg, and ordered him to sit down with her.

  ‘Damn the man, now he’s pretending to be a telegraph pole! When you were having a lovely time here with Duohe she must have been like a wriggling carp, looping and swooping like a kite, like a jade dragon riding the clouds!’

  Zhang Jian sat down close to Xiaohuan. After a while, she turned her face towards him. He had come off the night shift at eight in the morning, and gone to meet Duohe without getting any sleep; now dark was coming on again, and at twelve o’clock the night shift would be waiting for him once more. Winter fog rose up from the reed-filled gully. She saw exhaustion in those camel’s eyes, as if they had passed through a hundred kilometres of desert. The two black circles under his eyes, the two deep hollows in his cheeks, where the beard had been barely touched by the razor. At this moment his face really was not much to look at. Pulling the wool over people’s eyes, cheating and hiding away in holes and corners was truly no easy task, the man was visibly thinner and older. She noticed that her hand was resting again on his hedgehog-like hair. His heart was so full of wild ambitions that he cared for nothing else, and his hair grew as wild as his ambitions. Xiaohuan thought, actually, there had been some change in her heart towards Zhang Jian too. The change seemed to have started after Duohe got pregnant with Girlie. That evening, Zhang Jian, who was still Zhang Erhai at that point, gathered up a pair of shoes, a waistcoat and two battered novels he was fond of, and returned to his and Xiaohuan’s room. He had done what he had to for the sake of the Zhang family, and from now on he would carry on his life with Xiaohuan. When he climbed onto the kang and wormed his way into the quilt, they clung tightly to each other, but Xiaohuan’s body had lost interest. She told herself this was her cherished Erhai, she should not be distant. But her body was no more than painfully polite to Erhai, she denied him nothing, but that was all. From then on her body was just caring, attentive and considerate, but the interest was no longer there. She began to resent herself, look at you, so petty! This is Erhai, isn’t it? But her body refused to fall in with her reasoning, and the more energy she put in, the more at a loss she became. It was then that Xiaohuan secretly wept for herself. She wept for the former Xiaohuan, who only had to lie in Erhai’s embrace to feel fantastic from inside to out, from body to heart; everything she could wish for was hers. This word ‘fantastic’ could not be replaced with any other word. But the days passed, and she felt that she was no longer just a wife to Zhang Jian; gradually, she became a women of unclear status. It seemed that all women’s roles had mixed together and fallen to her: elder sister, younger sister, wife, mother, even grandmother. Her tender love for him was that of all these women. And what was more, her many different statuses had transformed her tender love towards every member of the family.

  She stretched out to take his pipe directly from his pocket, filled the bowl, stretched again, fished out his matches and lit the tobacco. She inhaled several mouthfuls of smoke, and tears welled up again: he did not even sleep or eat, cheapening himself in this way! His hand slowly went to clasp her waist. She reached again to take out a handkerchief from his work overalls. She was too familiar with him, and with the contents of his pockets, she did not have to rummage about. The handkerchief was folded straight and four-square, and still retained the smell of cologne mixed with starch. No handkerchief in the family could escape Duohe’s iron. Any member of the Zhang household, big or small, left the home as flat and smooth as if they had just walked out from under the iron.

  Xiaohuan smoked the pipe of tobacco, then rose to her feet, pulling Zhang Jian with her. She ordered Zhang Jian to take her to a ‘dark corner’, just to see what kind of place it was where you could behave like beasts, like cats and dogs mating out of doors, and how they had gone about their dog-and-cat existence for over two years. Zhang Jian rode his bicycle to the Shanghai snack bar next to the People’s Hospital. From the back window you could see the lake, and the mountain slopes on the far side.

  He led her to a little table at the window. The cheap crocheted tablecloth was spotted all over with dirt. Anything that came to this new, developing city was very soon given a revolutionary makeover, and when that happened, the Shanghai style was no longer Shanghai and Nanjing was no longer Nanjing, everything ended up with the same feel, rough and ready, slapdash and with no attention to detail.

  Xiaohuan thought, Here’s the two of us sitting here, what are we supposed to say? He could understand Duohe’s way of talking well enough, but it hardly made for smooth or easy conversation. In any event it was all just squeezing hands, and rubbing feet, and exchanging languishing glances. His heart had changed, right enough, otherwise how could he, who had never learned to spend money in half a lifetime, be willing to spend so much to sit here and squeeze hands, play footsie and exchange looks? His heart had changed.

  The waiter came up and asked for their order. Without so much as a glance at the menu, Zhang Jian ordered a steamer of soup-filled dumplings. The dumplings arrived, but neither of them could eat. Xiaohuan’s nose was burning with unshed tears again. Zhang Jian told her to hurry up, or the soup in the dumplings would congeal. She said she was parched, too thirsty to eat a thing. Zhang Jian called the waiter again, and asked him what soup this restaurant specialised in. The waiter said
that before the shop was taken into public ownership, its best soup had been chicken and duck blood, but it had been taken off the menu.

  Xiaohuan bit a mouthful of soup-filled dumpling. Zhang Jian told her that in the past the dumplings had only been half the size they were now. Xiaohuan thought he was very familiar with the place: how many meals had he eaten here? When he was due to work all night she would put two steamed mantou bread rolls in his lunch box, but he would often bring them back untouched, still in their wrapper. When drinking wine at home he went from six jiao for a half-kilo to four jiao, and then to three. Afterwards he just went to the free market to buy the peasants’ home-distilled spirits, which was like drinking ethyl alcohol mixed with water. And yet he was prepared to spend money on these tiny dumplings with soup slopping about in the mincemeat. The lakeside view outside the window didn’t come for free either, half of the money spent on these dumplings with no filling went on scenery. Once the heart had changed, what need was there to eat? You could eat your fill and get drunk just looking at the scenery.

  ‘I’ve thought it through. All I can do is pack in my job and go back home,’ Zhang Jian said.

  ‘Give it a rest. Those people in our home town know you bought a Jap woman, if we go back they’ll look on our three kids as Jap devils. The house is old now too, it’s practically falling down.’

  They had recently received a letter from Zhang Jian’s parents. The old couple had finally woken up to their unspoken status as servants, and had gone back to the house in Anping village. The letter said the house had been unoccupied for a long time, that it was empty and on the verge of collapse.

  Zhang Jian looked at the pitch-black surface of the lake outside the window. The silence was stifling.

  Xiaohuan also knew that the three of them had become trapped. Perhaps things would have been a bit easier if Duohe had not told her story. She ground her teeth, and a surge of fierce malice welled up in her heart: why did Duohe have to tell the story of her life? Such wickedness, what the hell did it have to do with her? And what the hell did it have to do with Zhang Jian? Could you even call that heart of Zhang Jian’s a heart? It was as soft as a persimmon in October, cooked to a mush, could it survive being trampled so cruelly underfoot? He had brought Duohe here with its view of mountains and lakes outside the window, and his mushy persimmon heart had turned into a gush of sweet water in front of her. She thought, Oh, my Erhai!

  Her hand caught hold of his under the table. She clutched too tightly, until it turned cold.

  That damnable life history of Duohe’s! That damnable situation of hers, living all alone in the world; if she threw her out Duohe would never survive. It would have been so much better if she hadn’t known her past! She could have kicked her out, and whether she lived or died would have nothing to do with Xiaohuan. Xiaohuan wasn’t useless like Zhang Jian. He looked so big and brawny, but his heart was a mushy persimmon. She, Zhu Xiaohuan, had the courage of a slaughterman. If a woman stole her man from under her nose in the family home, she would take her right out and butcher her; she had been killing chickens since she was small, and was an outstanding killer of rabbits and ducks.

  When the two of them left the restaurant, it was already eight o’clock. Xiaohuan suddenly remembered that Girlie had asked her to go and watch her play the drums. The Great Leader Chairman Mao was coming on an inspection, and students had been selected to form a drum troupe. Today they were having their dress rehearsal in the playground of the Number 3 Primary School. Xiaohuan told Zhang Jian to hurry up and take her there on his bike, even if they just made it for the tail end of the performance. Parents from every family were going, Girlie would be upset if her parents didn’t make it.

  The Number 3 Primary School was identical in every respect to Girlie’s Number 6 Primary: cream-coloured schoolhouse, light coffee-coloured doors and windows. That Soviet architect had drawn up a plan for a school, and built over a dozen identical buildings. It was also one of his plans that had caused several hundred identical residential blocks to rise up under the slopes of the mountains and beside the lake. The four hundred drummers who had been chosen were all wearing white shirts and blue trousers, with a red neckscarf. It was early winter, so the schoolchildren were all wearing padded or lined jackets under their white shirts, and the shirts were wrapped as tightly as bandages around their bodies. They neatly changed the rhythm of their drums as their formation changed its shape, all those little faces daubed with too much rouge; at first sight this was a courtyard full of hopping, prancing, apple-cheeked little folk-tale illustrations.

  Xiaohuan found Girlie in the third row. Girlie’s face immediately split into a grin. Xiaohuan pointed at her stomach, and Girlie glanced down to see the multicoloured belt of her trousers had come loose from underneath her white shirt, and was swishing around flexibly. Girlie’s smile broadened, like an opening flower.

  Zhang Jian squeezed in beside Xiaohuan. The people around them were all parents and guardians, stamping and gesticulating and chatting together. One of them recognised Xiaohuan and asked her in a loud voice: Has your girl been picked to go up and see Chairman Mao? Xiaohuan shot back mercilessly: My girl got lucky, did your son? Another hand reached over to pass Xiaohuan a melon seed. Zhang Jian thought all those visits to the neighbours had been time well spent – wherever she went she would never lack for cigarettes or melon seeds.

  The children came down for a rest. Girlie asked Xiaohuan and Zhang Jian whether her back was hunched. Xiaohuan said she was fine, jumping about so sprightly.

  Girlie said: ‘That old teacher says I’m hunchbacked.’

  Without looking at her, Zhang Jian said: ‘It’s good to be a bit hunchbacked, that means you’re like me.’

  Xiaohuan watched Girlie go back to her classmates. Everyone in this family held it together, and if any of them were to take themselves off, the whole thing would collapse. See how cheerful Girlie was – if anyone left, what would become of her? The family in Girlie’s heart would collapse. Just like if Girlie left, or Dahai or Erhai, Xiaohuan’s family would collapse. Wasn’t it too late now to start dividing up who was who? You could no longer tell them apart.

  She said to herself: Hey, make do, for the sake of the children. But deep down she knew it was not that simple, how could it be? She had said the same thing to Zhang Jian, that she was doing it for the children’s sake. She looked at him. The past years had been so dubious and unclear, so hopelessly stupid and cowardly, that for the people who had become entangled in it, all hopes of escape were in vain. How could he not want to break out, and rip and tear his way to an honest life, even if it left them bleeding?

  7

  THE ORE UNDER the hammer shattered very neatly, breaking into four pieces when she wanted four, three if she wanted three. Duohe thought, you could make both the metal hammer heads and the wooden handles into a part of your own body, and apply your strength just so, all controlled by the nerves. The stones could become familiar too, after an autumn and winter spent sitting there tapping at them, they would split however you wished.

  There was no need for her to ask the group leader for leave any more. Last year she had often written on scraps of paper: ‘I am asking for half a day’s leave, as I have family business to attend to.’ Zhang Jian had come up with the words and phrasing for her. He was afraid that she would write her lies in a way that was harder to understand than other people’s, and he would be left waiting at their rendezvous. He was also afraid that her lies would not be pure Chinese lies, and would attract the team leader’s suspicions regarding her identity. This was not like going to the butcher’s or the grain store. The people who led the dependants to the worksite were all women, key activists whose political sense of smell was much more acute than the proper cadres. These women had exposed two cases of sabotage when Chairman Mao came on his tour of inspection. In one case they had discovered a bust of Chairman Mao in a rubbish bin. It had been smashed, and then bandaged up with sticking plaster. In the other case they had caught a gr
oup in the mines teaching middle-school students how to put together a radio that could receive English and Japanese. Duohe’s group leader now depended heavily on Duohe’s efficiency: she would sit down for a morning or afternoon at a stretch, wordlessly tapping away, and get through enough ore for three. On alternate days when she transported ore, she never took time out there either, and was more reliable than a good machine: pack the stones, onto the bridge, turn round, pull open the bottom of the bucket, straighten up, and the stones would fall into the wagon. By early spring, Duohe had been breaking ore with the other dependants for a full year, and she would still bow deeply when she saw any of them, smiling broadly, as if seeing you was the happiest thing in her day. People whispered to the group leader: Duohe’s different from us Chinese. Chinese people can get friendly enough with you in an hour that you can eat food straight out of their lunch box. She’s just particular about hygiene, that’s all. Then there must be something wrong with hygiene.