Little Aunt Crane

by Geling Yan

  On his return to the factory, a letter came from his father saying that his wife was pregnant. He became even more ferocious towards himself. He ground his teeth, closed his eyes tight, beat the left side of his chest, saying again, as if reciting a curse: ‘I’ll give you pain! I’ll give you pain!’

  He had told no one about his marriage, not even Xiao Shi.

  The only time when Xiao Peng could forget his pain was when he saw that photo of himself with the Great Leader. It had been taken when Chairman Mao came to the mouth of the furnace, and addressed the factory leaders, saying that this newly arisen city was the hope of the nation. Behind Xiao Peng’s back were gleaming sparks of molten iron, and although he was right at the edge of the picture, it was all so full of youthful vigour and romance. They were going to build up this little town into a new-style enterprise of iron and steel. The nation depended on people like Xiao Peng. Chairman Mao waved his hand, just like Lenin and Stalin had waved. This majestic poetic feeling was the only thing that Xiao Peng could use to kill the pain. His own hand gripped the hand of the Great Leader, a real hand with a temperature of 36.5 degrees and a pale pink palm. His hand had passed on the body temperature of the Great Leader to over a hundred people. As soon as anyone arrived for the night shift, they would shake Xiao Peng’s hand. A hand which had shaken that of the Great Leader would bring him mighty, almost supernatural powers. How could there be room in such greatness for this trivial pain of his?

  Another summer came. Xiao Peng, wearing the sailor shirt that Duohe had mended for him, rode his bicycle from the single men’s dormitory outside the factory. Dogs had started to appear on the streets again. By the look of things, the dogs had sniffed out that they were living in somewhat safer times, they were no longer liable to end up in someone’s cooking pot. When he reached the doorway of the department store, sounds of singing and beating drums came drifting over. A few dozen beggars from the poorer part of the province north of the Huai River had organised a Fengyang flower-drum troupe and were putting on a performance. A black dog held a battered straw hat in its mouth, standing in front of the audience, and then sitting down. There was no money in the straw hat. It was packed with buns and heavy, and the dog’s neck stretched upwards desperately in order to prevent the food in the hat from tumbling out. When the straw hat was full, a woman came over, took down the hat, and shared out the wotou and mantou buns between a dozen or so children who were sitting or lying around. The dog stood quietly to one side, its shrunken belly twitching rapidly, a big slab of tongue hanging out. The woman passed the empty hat to the dog, and the dog went back in front of the audience, sitting up and begging.

  A boy’s voice came from the audience: ‘Give some to the dog!’

  Xiao Peng looked in the direction of the sound. The speaker was Erhai. His head was wrapped in a bandage, and he was carrying an iron hoop on his shoulders. During the summer holidays, Erhai was never without a collection of war wounds. Dahai, half a head taller, was standing next to him. Xiao Peng thought, Let me not see Duohe!

  But sure enough, she was there. Erhai ran into the circle of people, picked out a chunk of sweet-potato bun from the straw hat the dog was holding in its mouth, and held it beside the dog’s muzzle. Duohe darted out from the crowd to pull him back. Completely unmoved by Erhai’s largesse, the dog tossed his head and carried on with his task. An old man from the flower-drum troupe walked over, pointing to the black dog with the flute in his hands. The dog immediately stood up and set down the hat; the old man pointed again, and it suddenly ran over to Erhai. Duohe hugged him close with a cry of ‘Ah!’ The dog rolled on the floor, four paws pointing skywards. The old man told Erhai that he could feed the dog now.

  Erhai put the sweet potato in front of the dog, it turned round, stood up, and swallowed the sweet potato in two gulps.

  ‘Is this dog for sale?’ Erhai said.

  ‘Can you afford it?’ the old man asked.

  Xiao Peng saw Duohe dragging Erhai out of the crowd. At eight years old, Erhai was not a tall boy, but his little legs were all muscle. Those legs were kicking on the ground, and it took Duohe ten seconds to drag him a single step. Dahai was standing behind Duohe, hoping that people would not take the two of them for twins.

  Xiao Peng walked over, smiling broadly. ‘Erhai, do you want this dog? Your uncle Xiao Peng will buy it for you.’

  A lock of Duohe’s hair had fallen onto her face; she took out her hairslide, pulled it open with her teeth and smoothed her hair behind her ears. Xiao Peng did not look directly at any of these actions, but he felt that Duohe was performing them for his benefit, striking all these different postures for him.

  Without another word, Erhai broke free of Duohe and, pulling Xiao Peng’s hand, went back into that crowd of flower-drum beggars. A policeman had just arrived, saying that those places north of the Huai River were really such a nuisance. The three years of natural disasters were over, but still they sent these beggars to spread their lice and fleas!

  The beggars gathered their bundles, picked up their children, led the dog away and scattered. They were used to playing hide-and-seek with the police, and they would be back as soon as they were gone. There were three identical new-style department stores in the town, all with air conditioning; when the beggars staged a performance there it was the next best thing for them to a holiday somewhere cool.

  Duohe bowed to Xiao Peng and said: ‘Have you come off work?’

  Everybody greeted each other like this: ‘Going to work?’ ‘Coming off work?’ But Duohe used the greeting in a way that was decidedly peculiar. Xiao Peng half-jokingly sketched a bow in return. ‘Off for a walk?’

  Duohe pointed to Erhai’s head, to show that this was the reason for their outing: they had just changed his bandages. Hers was the powerless smile of a gentle mother, a mixture of love and irritation. She was still wearing the previous year’s shirt with its fine blue-and-white checks, only it was even older, the blue checks all washed away. If she had not been so fond of cleanliness, it would not have been fit to wear. He found it strange: where had his pain got to? He was simply overjoyed. He had not seen her for a year, and just standing together like this, saying a few inconsequential words, and watching the beggars’ song and dance was enough to make him cheerful.

  Music was drifting out once more from the door at the back of the department store. Erhai dragged Xiao Peng over.

  Xiao Peng took out fifteen yuan which he had set aside to send to his wife and child, and looked for the old man they had just met. On seeing the money, the old man removed the flute from his mouth and said: ‘Fifteen yuan, and you think you can buy my dog?’

  ‘So how much do you want?’

  ‘This dog of mine belongs to the god Erlang.’

  ‘Never mind whose dog it is, are you selling or not? This boy of mine wants it – it’s only worth a dogskin quilt for my bed.’

  ‘This dog is worth more than two girls who can sing and play flower drums.’

  ‘Who’s buying your girls?’

  Duohe tugged his arm, pulling him away.

  ‘Fifteen yuan? That’s not even enough for a dogskin quilt!’

  Xiao Peng took out another five yuan from a different pocket. He had bought two months’ worth of meal coupons for eight yuan, all he had left was this five yuan.

  ‘Twenty?’ The old man looked at Xiao Peng’s pocket, considering whether he could wring any more profit from it.

  ‘Don’t push your luck. Twenty yuan can buy one hundred kilos of rice!’ Xiao Peng said.

  ‘We don’t eat rice,’ the old man said.

  Duohe’s hand continued to tug at his arm. Even once she had pulled him away, her hand still lingered. Erhai was lying in a despairing heap on the ground in a puddle of rainwater, pounding his fists and drumming his feet, shouting: ‘I want the inu!’ over and over again.

  Xiao Peng asked Dahai: ‘What’s an inu?’

  Dahai said: ‘Dog, of course.’

  Duohe said something quietly to Erha
i, which sounded like coaxing mingled with threats, but Xiao Peng did not understand her words. After a while of this, she looked at Xiao Peng with a wry face, as if to say: ‘See what you’ve started.’

  Xiao Peng shot into the department store and bought four sweets, ran out and gave them to Dahai and Erhai, and also promised Erhai that he would definitely buy him that black dog. At the beginning of September, Xiao Peng bought a black puppy in the outskirts of the city and kept it in the dormitory while he trained it to stand, sit and carry a hat in its mouth. His three room-mates became fed up with it, and threatened to put the dog in a stew, and Xiao Peng along with it. By the end of the year, the black puppy had grown as big as the flower-drum beggars’ dog. He got on his bicycle, leading the dog, and arrived in triumph at the Zhang home.

  The family were eating supper. They had put a coal stove in the corridor, and on it sat an iron pot, with tofu and preserved vegetables bubbling away inside. People were clustered all around it, adults sitting, children standing, all eating until their eyes and noses were streaming. Xiao Shi was sitting beside Duohe, adding a green-bean cake to the mix.

  Xiaohuan pointed to Xiao Peng, saying, ‘Who’s this person? Do we know him?’

  Xiao Peng moved aside, to reveal the dog that was following him.

  Erhai threw down his chopsticks and came running over, both arms outspread, then he knelt in front of the dog and hugged it close. Duohe and Xiao Peng exchanged glances.

  Xiaohuan said: ‘Aiyo, we don’t see hide or hair of you for over a year, and now you come bringing meat? Perfect, dogmeat to eat at the start of winter, and a dogskin quilt thrown in!’

  Erhai grabbed a mantou, tore off half and held it out to the black dog. The dog did not move. Xiao Peng took the mantou from him, and presented it again, and only then did the dog eat. When it had finished, Xiao Peng told it to stand up, run in a circle, sit and beg. Erhai wanted to feed it another mantou, but Xiaohuan rapped on the pot with her chopsticks. ‘We’ve only just started to get proper food for people to eat, and now we’re feeding a dog?’

  Duohe glanced at Xiao Peng. Xiao Peng knew that she wanted him to stand up for Erhai, and give him some support.

  Zhang Jian finally opened his mouth. He said: ‘We can’t keep it.’

  Xiaohuan added: ‘There’s no room. The twins are still sharing a bed with their auntie, they kick her black and blue in a single night! Even if we don’t kill it, we’ll have to give it away after a couple of days!’

  ‘If anyone tries to kill my dog, they’ll have to get past me first!’ Erhai suddenly said, in a choked voice. He was down on one knee, shielding his dog’s head with both hands.

  Xiao Peng had never before noticed how wild this boy’s eyes could be. He had observed his character, and how his passions were always more extreme than ordinary people; if he loved something he would bring such ardour to that love, if he hated something he hated with a scorching heat.

  ‘Mummy, let’s each of us have a mouthful less food,’ Girlie said.

  Only Dahai ate his dinner without a sound. He was a child that never gave them any worries; at most he would go to the neighbours to borrow a basketball, and bounce it up and down the communal walkway to hone his skills.

  Xiaohuan came to a decision. They would keep the dog for now, and if they really could not cope they would give it back to Xiao Peng. Xiaohuan sent Xiao Peng to the kitchen to get himself a bowl and chopsticks. She added a big scoop of pork fat, and a generous pinch of salt.

  After supper Xiao Peng and Xiao Shi cycled back to the dormitory together.

  ‘What’s all this? It’s been over a year, and you start a second offensive?’ Xiao Shi said.

  ‘What about you then? General offensives without a pause, only they get beaten back every time.’

  ‘Huh, you think she’s that hard to get to grips with?’

  Xiao Peng’s heart skipped a beat. ‘You haven’t –’

  ‘Her skin, her flesh, like flour for rice balls, delicate and sticky –’

  Xiao Peng jumped off his bicycle to throttle Xiao Shi on the spot. ‘You’ve touched her?’ His voice did not change, but there was a stab of agony in his heart.

  ‘Don’t believe me? Try it yourself if you don’t!’

  ‘I tried ages ago!’

  Xiao Shi rode the bike away with a rush, and then swerved violently back towards him, whistling as he went. The sound was piercing and sweet.

  ‘Oh my …!’ Xiao Shi said. ‘That flavour … can I tell you? You’ve really tried?’

  Xiao Peng did not dare to look in Xiao Shi’s direction. As soon as he looked there would be trouble. He would knock him down with his bike, that short-arse with his doll’s face, whom all women liked but none took seriously, and then he would find something to bash his brains out with. The railway line was just ten metres ahead of them, and the train was whistling as it rounded a bend a kilometre or two away: a heaven-sent opportunity for Xiao Peng to grind that doll’s face into mincemeat. That bastard had got the upper hand; now even if Xiao Peng did get Duohe, he would only be catching Xiao Shi’s dirty water a bit further downstream. Zhang Jian and Xiao Shi were both pissing on his head. And there he was, still hoping that the Great Leader Chairman Mao’s hand and the sparks of iron that filled the sky might relieve his pain.

  One clear autumn afternoon, Xiao Peng came to the road leading to Duohe’s home. The great famine was over now, but the Zhang family’s great famine had yet to be relieved. The two boys’ capacity for food was astonishing, and while one was eating to grow taller, the other was eating to grow an ever wilder nature. So Duohe still had to go to the state-run vegetable market at the close of business to buy up pumpkins that were more than half soft, greenish potatoes and cabbages gnawed to nets by insects. Everyone knew her in the vegetable market, they could see that she was civilised and polite, never any shouting or fuss, and would keep back a pile of rubbish specially for her, which she would gather with a shovel into the wooden bucket she carried to sort through at her own pace. Xiao Peng followed her through that reeking market, and he saw her go into the butcher’s shop where she added rubbish from the butcher’s to the rubbish from the market: a handful of pork bones that had been shaved white. By the time she had walked out of the fishmonger’s, a cloud of flies had started to pursue her, and there was not enough space on the wooden bucket for them all to alight, so they came to rest on Duohe’s hair.

  Now she was walking into a little restaurant, emerging moments later with a paper packet in her hands, from which oil was seeping. She had gathered up the leftovers and chewed bones from the restaurant, taking them back to feed Erhai’s beloved black dog. The flies landed on her shoulders, and on her back.

  She is such a clean, pretty, quietly elegant beggarwoman, he thought.

  ‘Duohe.’ Xiao Peng caught up with her as she came out of the eating house.

  As soon as she saw him, she came running up, bringing with her a body’s worth of flies. That there should be a woman anywhere in the world who knew so little of how to hide her happiness! Then came another deep, deep bow.

  That little shit Xiao Shi, even he had got his hands on her. But he, Xiao Peng, with more compassion in his heart, had played his hand a step later, and all he got for his pains were leftovers.

  How was Duohe to know that at this moment his heart was like an oil cake turning over and blistering in a wok of boiling oil, as she chattered and smiled in a way that made her seem not quite mistress of her tongue, about how Erhai adored the black dog and how touched she was by Xiao Peng’s generosity? He felt that he was going through the motions with her: A dog? Just a small thing, hardly worth mentioning! She continued to chatter away, thanking him for understanding the child – Erhai was very unhappy.

  Erhai was unhappy? Now that she had pointed it out, he could see that this was the case. When he’d fallen from the fourth floor three years ago, he hadn’t damaged so much as a hair on his body, but his joy had been lost as he fell. So Duohe’s sudden warmth towards him,
quite the reverse of her usual silence, nattering on at him in a display of friendliness in her odd language, was all because of Erhai. Xiao Peng would never be able to guess who Duohe was close to, or why, and the more he was unable to guess, the less he could bear to accept it; the less he could bear it, the more pressing he became in his pursuit, and the more neurotic he became towards her as a result.

  ‘I just came to tell you that I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow,’ Xiao Peng said.

  Duohe’s smiling face stretched forward briefly, then pulled back again.

  ‘You owe me a film.’ Xiao Peng’s face was stern and blank, giving her nothing to guess at, and nothing to escape from. ‘You must come and see a film with me.’

  Two gleaming circles of tears formed once again in her black, limpid eyes, which moved back and forth.

  Damn it all, this woman was really cheap! Treat her properly, like a decent human being, take her somewhere as elegant as a cinema, and she felt so hard done by as to shed tears. If that low-down wretch Xiao Shi had lured her into his dog kennel, kneading her like glutinous rice cakes, then she should let him have a knead too.

  ‘Are you and Xiao Shi courting?’

  Her eyebrows wrinkled, her gaze focused on something, her lips slightly parting and coming together. It was like she was silently turning his words over in her mind. Her eyebrows suddenly shot up, and the two glistening circles of tears promptly disappeared. She said over and over again: ‘I didn’t!’

  ‘What’s wrong with courting?’

  ‘I didn’t!’

  ‘He’s told me everything.’

  She looked at him. He could feel Girlie, Dahai and Erhai all surveying him through her eyes, to see when he would let down his guard and burst out laughing, bringing this joke to an end.