by Geling Yan
‘I thought there was something wrong with you, sitting there like you were sick!’ Xiao Shi said, following after him. ‘You were going to lie down on the railway line for a woman? That’s a bit much, don’t you think?’
‘To hell with your bit much! Piss off!’
Xiao Shi knew he was grateful: in that moment he had not only hauled back Xiao Peng’s life, he had also recovered his soul.
In the evening the two of them went to the public baths. As they came out Xiao Shi said that he was going to take some pork to Zhang Jian’s family. A pig had died at the canteen, and all the meat had been handed out for free to the workers. He had grabbed a portion, to give to the kids to take the edge off their hunger.
‘Can you give the children meat from a sick pig?’
‘Oh, you just boil it a bit longer! Nobody’s going to die of poison from that!’
‘Look, the meat’s gone blue, the blood’s all blocked up inside. It looks horrible – and absolutely filthy!’
‘Don’t eat the blue bits then, it’ll be fine! When the Jap devils were starving, they ate blue meat too. They ate raw sweetcorn and raw sorghum, they fished out worms from the rivers and ditches and put them straight into their mouths!’
‘Did Duohe tell you that?’ Xiao Peng asked. Duohe had told him that she had eaten worms on the road when she was a refugee.
Xiao Shi was struck dumb for a moment. The two of them stood there in the early-winter evening, moisture steaming from their freshly washed hair.
‘She told you too?’ Xiao Shi said.
‘If you hadn’t heard her tell of those miserable things, you’d think that all Japanese grew up drinking wolves’ milk. And that Japanese women were all female wolves, who raised those monsters to murder, loot and destroy. I used to … to her … well, never mind. Once I’d heard her talking about those awful things, I really didn’t want to hurt her any more.’
Xiao Shi listened in silence. After a while he opened his mouth to say in a casual voice, ‘How come she didn’t go back to Japan?’
‘She doesn’t have anyone in Japan.’
‘Then how come we didn’t lock her up here in China? There’s loads of Japanese spies – haven’t they all been rounded up?’
In an instant, Xiao Peng freed himself from his melancholy, romantic feelings, took a breath, and saw this short man for what he really was. He’d been had. The short-arse had tricked Duohe’s story out of him.
You’re swindling me, you sod! Xiao Peng thought.
Xiao Shi was laughing heartily. He struck up a defensive posture, and retreated out of reach of Xiao Peng’s violent attack. ‘You tell me how soft she is? Japanese tofu?’
‘Bastard!’
‘So what if I am? Bastards can tell the difference between their own people and the enemy.’ He was prancing and throwing punches like a monkey, three paces away, ‘It takes a bastard with patriotic feeling not to eat Japanese tofu.’
‘You’ve got fuck-all patriotic feeling!’
‘And you don’t even have that much!’
Xiao Peng knew that the more Xiao Shi teased the more carried away he would become; all he could do was put his towel on his head and return to the dormitory on his own. By the time he was opening the door to his room, he could hear Xiao Shi’s whistle echoing in the dark stairwell. There would be no peace for Xiao Peng that evening until Xiao Shi had learned everything there was to know about Duohe.
In the end the pair of them ate the blue meat. They borrowed a kerosene stove, scrubbed out a washbasin and stewed up a meaty soup. With six ounces of spirits, to wash down Duohe’s cruel history. They kept drinking until Xiao Shi threw up all over Xiao Peng’s bed, and no sooner had Xiao Peng cleaned up the mess than Xiao Shi had crawled onto his Sichuan room-mate’s bed and vomited all over that too. Xiao Peng tended to Xiao Shi, cursing him for a ‘bastard’ with every breath, thinking to himself that this bastard had been shaken when he heard the story too, shaken until every organ in his body was turned upside down.
* * *
fn1 A reference to the novel Tracks in the Snowy Forest, published in the 1950s. This novel describes the Communists’ fight to stamp out bandits (including remnants of the old Nationalist government), and includes a lovely young female orderly called Xiao Bai Ge (Little White Dove). Translator’s note.
fn2 A reference to the novel The Song of Youth, the tale of a young woman, Lin Daojing, set in the 1960s, who is trying to find a path in life, and finally turns to the Revolution. Jiang Hua is a revolutionary comrade who becomes more than a friend to her. Translator’s note.
9
A HEAVY SNOWFALL was a one in a thousand years’ event in these parts. Xiaohuan leaned on the balcony railing and looked on, spellbound. The pine trees on the mountains had all turned white, and at first glance it might have been that mountain slope in the Zhu family village. She had gathered pine cones and picked hawthorn berries and wild grapes on that mountain since she was old enough to walk; she had lain on her stomach with her father in the snow, waiting for a fox to come out of its hole. The snow of China’s North-east was wonderful stuff, it was warm, and when her father had built her a den, it had been so cosy inside. Since her parents had been classified as Rich Peasants in the Land Reform, she had only gone back to Zhujiatun twice in all these years, once for her father’s death, once for her mother’s. Her mother had said in the last few days of her illness that her eldest girl Zhu Xiaohuan was the one it hurt the most to leave behind, she had been spoiled by her in-laws and her husband until there was no doing anything with her, and what would become of her in old age? When all was said and done the children were not her flesh and blood; when they knew the true state of affairs, what kind of old age would Xiaohuan have at their hands? Her mother left reluctantly, her mind full of worries and concerns.
This was a fine, cheerful fall of snow, burying the filthy rubbish, and the racket from family quarrels and the loudspeakers that battered constantly against the ears. The children did not yet know that their block of flats was covered by heavy snow, as they were sound asleep. Xiaohuan hardly ever gave in to sentimentality like this, but now a powerful wave of nostalgia suddenly hit her. On her deathbed her mother had asked: Are the children close to you? Do they believe that you are their real mother? Is that Jap woman stirring up the children behind your back, driving a wedge between them and you? Xiaohuan told her mother to go in peace, Xiaohuan and Xiaohuan alone had the whip hand of the lot of them, children and adults alike. Her mother knew that her oldest daughter had become too accustomed to having the upper hand, and at one time this had worried her, but just before she closed her eyes, it was this flaw of Xiaohuan’s that eased her mind the most.
In fact when she was having her last talk with her mother, Xiaohuan’s confidence was just a front. The children had never suspected who their birth mother was, coming home from school they would still call ‘Ma, Ma’ as they came in through the door. ‘Ma, I’m starving to death!’ ‘Ma, I’m bursting for a pee!’ ‘Ma, Erhai’s been fighting again!’ ‘Ma, let me tell you something, I laughed myself silly …’ Xiaohuan would reply: ‘Starving to death? There’s no point in feeding someone who’s starved to death, he’s already dead!’ ‘If you’re desperate for a pee can’t you go at school? Are you saving up fertiliser for home?’ But they were getting bigger every day.
From a young age, Xiaohuan had been an avid collector of ghost stories. On Saturday evenings when Zhang Jian was on the night shift, they would all snuggle up to her, listening to her spooky tales, never the same one twice. The children were not only close to her, they admired her: because of Xiaohuan no one had ever picked on them, for fear that she would go storming and swearing to their door, cursing so vilely that they would have to escape out of the back window. Xiaohuan had a far-reaching network of contacts, she had friends in each of the dependants’ residential blocks, so there was no way she could lose. The children were proud of her too; every time there was a parent–teacher meeting, Xiaohuan put on a frock – the only one she
possessed – combed her permed hair into layers of waves, and wore a watch bought at a second-hand stall. Their classmates would say: ‘Your mum’s like someone from a Huangmei opera troupe’ – the children’s highest standard of beauty – or ‘How much did your mum’s watch cost?’ The children were always very proud, and never let slip that their mother’s gold watch did not actually work.
Of all the children, it was Girlie that Xiaohuan loved the best. Girlie was fifteen now, and could read people’s expressions very well; Xiaohuan only had to be a little upset, and she would always ask quietly: ‘Ma, who’s made you cross? Ma, have you got a stomach ache again?’
Inside the flat, the radio started up. The first thing Zhang Jian did on waking was to turn on the radio. This new habit had replaced his former one of having a smoke on waking. During the three years of famine Zhang Jian had given up his bad habits of former years: namely smoking and drinking. He had had a pay rise the previous year, and immediately bought a radio.
When Xiaohuan came back after her father’s funeral, Duohe and Zhang Jian noticed her making secret enquiries, in an attempt to ferret out any sign of the old flame reigniting. She would ask the children with feigned casualness, Did your auntie sleep with you every night? The look in her eye finally started to get on Zhang Jian’s nerves, he told her that he just wanted the family to live their days out in peace together, beyond this, his heart was dead as a pool of stagnant water. Was she satisfied now? Did that put her mind at rest? Next time she went back to Zhujiatun there’d be no need to enlist the children as spies. Zhang Jian’s unlucky words were soon fulfilled; two months after her father’s death, Xiaohuan’s mother took to her bed with her final illness. On her second return home, Xiaohuan saw that new arrangements had been made in the flat: Zhang Jian and his two sons were sleeping in the big room, while Duohe, Xiaohuan and Girlie had the small room. Xiaohuan asked Zhang Jian, What did you go and move everything about for? He said with a smile that from that day forth they would be divided into male and female dormitories, nobody need harbour dire suspicions of anybody else.
The song from the radio woke the whole family. The children ran to the balcony in their shirts, scooped up handfuls of snow, squeezed them into snowballs and threw them at each other in the room. Afterwards they ran out again to pick up more snow. Xiaohuan was shouting: If you’re not wearing your padded coat you’re not to go on the balcony!
Duohe said a few words to Dahai and Erhai in a low voice. The boys gave a cheer, and went to whisper to Girlie, who also started cheering. Girlie was starting to get curves in all the right places, but when she was in one of her crazy moods it was like she was six or seven years old again. There was a Japanese word in the sentence they were whispering, the word for glutinous rice balls with red-bean filling. Yesterday evening Duohe had spent several hours making two big steamers of rice balls. There was no granulated sugar in the shops, so Duohe had used blocks of low-quality brown Cuban sugar and saccharine pills for the red-bean paste filling. Whenever someone bit into a rice ball she tensed up, saying, ‘Not good, better to be a bit sweeter.’
Whenever Duohe made a lot of dumplings, Xiaohuan would put a few on a tray to take to the neighbours’ homes, so they could try her sister’s handiwork. Duohe also cooked shrimps or fish in soy sauce, or cicada grubs the children had dug up: this little dish was a speciality of Shironami village. Xiaohuan would take these to the neighbours too, one dish for every family, a diplomatic strategy that always stood her in good stead, upstairs and down.
Erhai ate and ate and suddenly said: ‘Save one for Uncle Peng.’
‘Uncle Peng isn’t coming,’ Xiaohuan said. ‘You have it.’ Xiao Peng had not come for a long time. It was Xiao Shi who was still their guest at weekends.
Every time Xiao Shi came by now, he was always rather sneaky and furtive. What did he take Xiaohuan for? From the very beginning it had been clear to her what Xiao Shi and Xiao Peng had in mind. The pair of them could see Duohe, keeping herself pure, neither girl nor wife, and were overcome with outrage on her behalf, they both wanted Duohe to lose her purity at their hands. Xiao Shi had even stopped all his japes recently; every time he came he would bring a bag of crispy walnut biscuits, or some sesame oil, or four pig’s trotters. Although Level Four Worker Xiao Shi had no family to keep, no parents or children, if he kept on coming to the Zhang family to play the rich uncle he would end up a pauper. One time, Duohe was scrubbing the floor, and Xiao Shi was staring in a trance at her bottom. Xiaohuan saw the blue veins in Zhang Jian’s hands bulge out. Zhang Jian’s precious darling was being stripped naked by a pair of dirty eyes. From that moment on Xiaohuan understood a great many things, that the time Zhang Jian and Duohe had shared could not be broken off, the feelings had just been set aside. Perhaps it had been wrong to cut it off while it was still alive, for that had helped it put down roots. As with all children’s games, you should never stop while there is still life in it, it had started out as just a game, born of itself and destroying itself, but once you broke it off there would be pain, and it would become something that never changed until death. Xiaohuan could see through most human behaviour, but she had missed her step in the matter of Zhang Jian and Duohe. On seeing the back of Zhang Jian’s hands as they held the newspaper, those veins standing out like tree branches, she got up, walked in front of Duohe, and found an excuse to send her out of the house. Xiaohuan took over the scrubbing brush, squatted down and scrubbed with a harsh scraping sound. In all these years, the Zhang family, young and old, had come to feel that the noise of that coarse brush on wet concrete was mellow and pleasing to the ear. Xiaohuan wondered if that floor was no longer scrubbed to a mirror-like smoothness, if the clothes were no longer ironed smooth, and those shrimps, whitebait and cicada grubs in soy sauce and red-bean paste dumplings were gone, whether the Zhang family could carry on living. Duohe had told Xiaohuan in fits and starts about her childhood and youth: Sakito and Shironami villages, flowering cherry trees, the Shinto temple; she had spoken many times of her mother, and of how the thing that the children saw most was her bent back: scrubbing floors, washing and ironing clothes, praying to the gods, bowing to her seniors, her husband and son … In the course of more than ten years, Duohe had brought the villages into their home, one piece at a time.
When breakfast was over, the children took the black dog out on the lead to play in the snow. Girlie had arranged with a few of the girls in her class to go together to watch the People’s Liberation Army military skills competition – which was going ahead despite the heavy snowfall. Zhang Jian had changed onto the night shift, he could not sleep during the day, so he picked up some woodwork he had started earlier. He was making a desk for Dahai and Erhai.
A whistle sounded at the foot of the building. It was the little truck from the coal shop with a delivery of coal. Zhang Jian and Duohe collected baskets and buckets and ran downstairs, where they saw that Xiao Shi had just arrived, and had already taken off his padded jacket, borrowed an old iron bucket from a neighbour and started to fill it with coal.
The children in the block all gathered up buckets and basins to help the Zhang family carry coal. In this building, if any family had a delivery of coal, all the children would pitch in and help, and afterwards they would say to the grown-ups: ‘This is what Uncle Lei Feng has taught us!’ Then they would proceed to write letters about each other to the teacher, praising classmate so-and-so for learning from the selfless young soldier Lei Feng’s example and helping the neighbours with their coal. The stairs were covered in dropped fragments, children were colliding with each other in the rush up and down the stairs, and slipping over them, until they were all human-shaped lumps of coal themselves.
Finally Duohe slipped and fell too. Xiao Shi hurriedly put down his coal bucket and helped her up. They were on the second floor, and the children were all drinking sugar water made by Xiaohuan. Xiao Shi’s back was facing the stairs to the third floor. Suddenly, he kissed Duohe.
Duohe stared at him in surprise.
She had hurt her knees in the fall, but now she promptly recovered, and she scurried straight down the staircase. Xiao Shi chased after her, put his arms round her waist from behind, and his mouth came up again. Duohe was just about to call out, when Xiao Shi said: ‘Shout, if you dare! If you shout I’ll shout too, I’ll shout catch the Jap devil!’
Duohe was looking at his doll’s face, but after ten years of looking at him, she could not tell whether he was really cunning and treacherous or just joking.
Xiao Shi took another mouthful of this Japanese delicacy. ‘You’re coming with me to the factory this afternoon.’
She did not move an inch, or react in any way.
‘Or else I’ll report on your relationship with Zhang Jian.’
Duohe’s lips were moving slightly; Xiao Shi heard her repeating almost soundlessly ‘report, re … port’.
‘Don’t you understand report? Don’t you Japanese report on people? We Chinese can’t get enough of it. Especially when we’re reporting Jap devils.’
Duohe nodded her head. She grasped what he meant, even though she did not fully understand any of the individual words.
‘You Jap devils caused enough destruction and havoc in China, so now I’m taking revenge for them.’
Duohe was still looking at him. The corners of his mouth continued to twitch, as if he was teasing her, and also like he was threatening her again.
‘How about it, Jap devil? Are you going with me or not?’
‘Where d’you want her to go?’ Xiaohuan’s voice came floating down the stairwell as she came towards them. In fact she had been listening for some time.
‘Aiyo, Sister Xiaohuan, what’re you doing downstairs? Quick, don’t you go getting your hands dirty!’ Xiao Shi said.
‘Where are you taking my sister off to?’
‘I was just having a laugh!’
‘Talk of Jap devils is no laughing matter.’
