Little Aunt Crane

by Geling Yan

Xiao Shi sniffed, and shifted his feet, afraid that he would get frozen into a stalemate.

  ‘Xiao Shi, that’s enough carrying for now. Go and do something for your big sister.’

  ‘What shall I do?’ Xiao Shi had an opportunity to get on Xiaohuan’s good side.

  ‘Go and find Xiao Peng and bring him over. Such lovely snow, and in a while I’ll make something nice to eat for you three brothers, and you can drink some wine.’

  Duohe was looking at Xiaohuan. Xiaohuan whipped off the apron from her waist, and tried to dust off the two coal-black handprints on Duohe’s clothing. Nothing she did could get it clean. Xiaohuan smiled and shook her head.

  Xiaohuan said nothing to Zhang Jian when they went back upstairs. She got rid of the children, then fished out a couple of pickled cabbages from the earthenware pots on the balcony, and put on half a kilo of bean noodles to soak. The skins of the shallots had dried, leaving them soft as water and white as jade inside, so she chopped up a big plateful, and fried them up with eggs. She had dried aubergines and beans in their pods that autumn, and these went into a pot of red-cooked pork. By the time Xiao Peng arrived with Xiao Shi, three big dishes were already on the table.

  Zhang Jian smelled a rat: Xiao Peng had apparently cut himself off from this family without trace (of course he was the only one who knew just how this had come about), and now he had suddenly come back. It would seem that there was a fragile side to Xiao Peng’s character, he would hide himself away without a word, slowly licking his wounds, and not return until he had more or less finished licking. He made no great show of enthusiasm on greeting either of his guests, so that Xiao Peng would not feel that there had been a year-long gap in their relationship.

  Xiao Peng told Duohe to sit down, but Duohe refused point-blank. A year earlier she had told Zhang Jian how Xiao Peng had taken her to the pictures, and Zhang Jian had wept. She remembered how he had squatted down, just the same way his father Stationmaster Zhang used to squat in the winter sunlight, his tears pattering on the ground. She did not know why, but as soon as she thought of him squatting there, forearms resting on his thighs, comfortably crouched there, solid and secure as his tears fell, she thought she had been wrong to blame him for anything. He had always had a deep-seated and long-lasting feeling for her, one that was without embraces, without kissing, without lovemaking. Sometimes Xiao Peng made her feel that it might be possible to forget Zhang Jian, that she might be able to find a different kind of happiness with him, but Zhang Jian squatting and shedding tears had shown her that it was impossible. When a man’s teardrops fell on the ground, fast and hard, any woman would love him for his stubborn way of loving her. This was the reason why she was not willing to sit down with Xiao Peng.

  Xiaohuan jabbed a finger at her head, saying in a light voice: ‘Silly goose! It’s not like we’re stuffing you in a sack for the pair of them to pick up and bolt with – what’re you afraid of?’

  She could not persuade Duohe, so she left her there in the smaller room. Xiao Peng looked at that grey door, drank a mouthful of spirits and looked at the door again. He stared until it was ready to dissolve into cold, grey water with the strength of his longing. Xiaohuan thought that Xiao Peng and Xiao Shi went about their love affairs in such different ways; Xiao Peng would never corner Duohe on the stairs, or grab her with a pair of coal-blackened paws.

  Xiaohuan poured out the wine, and filled everyone’s bowls with food. Xiao Shi’s mouth was never still, mimicking the Shanghai dependants’ stinginess and formality, the way in which when offered oranges to eat they would politely decline each segment in turn: Don’t be polite, try some orange! Have some, do! I’ve peeled them all ready for you!… Help yourself, please help yourself! All this fuss and palaver over a segment of orange! And when they’ve finished one segment, here comes the next one: Don’t be polite, have some orange! He had both Xiaohuan and Zhang Jian chuckling along with him.

  Xiao Peng drank two cups of wine, with a rather fierce look in his eyes. The food in front of him was piled high. Also imitating the Shanghai dependants, Xiaohuan took up a piece of meat in her chopsticks and thrust it towards Xiao Peng’s mouth: ‘Don’t be polite! This pig was killed especially for you!’

  Xiao Peng did not smile. He sullenly downed another mouthful of wine, put the cup straight down and said: ‘Sister Xiaohuan, what have you brought us here to say?’

  ‘Have something to eat first,’ Xiaohuan said.

  It was only then that Zhang Jian understood that it was Xiaohuan who had invited them over. He took a look at the two visitors, then at Xiaohuan, fearing that she would be unlikely to have anything good to say.

  ‘Sister Xiaohuan, say it, we can eat again once you’ve spoken,’ Xiao Peng said.

  ‘Fair enough.’ Xiaohuan was staring at her hands, as they shifted her chopsticks from left to right and back again. She was mentally beating gongs and drums to mark her entry onstage. She raised her head and quirked up the side of her mouth with the gold tooth, a charming and striking pose. ‘You three buddies left for Ma’anshan together, on the same train. And at the station, Xiao Shi, your sister came to see you off. She told me your parents were dead, and she couldn’t come south to take care of you, so I was to be your sister from then on. Do you still remember that, Xiao Shi?’ Xiao Shi nodded his head. ‘So, have I taken good care of you?’ The two men nodded, more vehemently. ‘Now both of you have come to know Duohe’s life story, and you know Duohe’s relationship with our Zhang family. You’re our brothers, it was wrong of me to keep you in the dark, so take today’s food and wine as an apology from me, Zhu Xiaohuan. Now there’ll be no concealing of anything from anyone between the brothers. Isn’t that right?’

  The three men looked at her. Zhang Jian thought, That was rather prettily done.

  ‘Since the three of you are brothers, and we’ve all opened our hearts to each other, from now on we mustn’t go in for underhand tricks, or inform against each other, or anything of that sort. Still, there are blood brothers who fall out and become enemies. If you turn against us, Xiao Shi, and go and inform on us and destroy us, there’s nothing we can do about it, isn’t that right?’

  ‘Hey, am I that kind of person?’ Xiao Shi said indignantly.

  ‘I know! I’m just using you as an example.’

  Xiao Peng downed another two cups of spirits without a word.

  ‘Xiao Peng, don’t you go getting drunk!’ Xiaohuan said. ‘Aren’t you working the night shift?’

  ‘No,’ Xiao Peng said, ‘today I’m taking the night train.’

  ‘Oh, where are you going?’ Xiaohuan asked.

  ‘I’m going to Shenyang on business. And I’m going home for a while since it’s on my way.’

  ‘And everyone’s fine back home …?’

  ‘Not fine at all. My dad’s ordered me home, and he’s going to beat me to death.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘If he manages to beat me to death that’ll be the end of it. If he doesn’t then I’m going to get the divorce settled.’ If he succeeded in getting a divorce he would continue to send maintenance money to his wife and child as before. He had taught himself Albanian, and he could teach evening classes at the technical school and earn a bit of extra income. As soon as he had finished speaking he stood up, and without giving any of them a chance to react, he was already over by the door. He said, as he put on his shoes: ‘If I can’t get a divorce, I won’t see Duohe.’

  Xiaohuan wrapped up two mantou, filled a lunch box with pork fried with dried aubergine and chased out after him. She had a sudden feeling of tenderness for this man: for more than a year he had been shut away who knows where beating himself up, so lovesick that his hair had started to go white.

  ‘I wasn’t getting at you just now,’ said Xiaohuan.

  He looked at her bitterly.

  ‘Did you know that Xiao Shi was up to his tricks with Duohe?’ She lowered her voice. ‘If she didn’t give him what he wanted, he was going to report her as a Japanese spy!’

/>   Xiao Peng was struck dumb for a moment. Then he burped boozily, and raised his head to let the snowflakes fall on his face.

  ‘That’s him all over, not a serious bone in his body,’ Xiao Peng said. ‘He wouldn’t turn her in.’

  ‘And supposing he does?’

  ‘I know him. You won’t catch him doing anything if there’s no advantage for him in it. If he turned her in, he wouldn’t have anywhere to play Chase the Pig.’

  ‘I heard him trying it on with my little sister with my own ears!’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  Xiao Peng pedalled away on his bicycle. The wheels sketched a huge S-shape, then on his way down the slope, he went head over heels, man and bike together, and Xiaohuan cried out and rushed down the hill after him, but he jumped back on and headed off into the distance, leaving a series of S-shaped trails behind him.

  If people spend too much time together, it can be harmful in its own way, as unexpected variables can inexplicably arise. Xiao Peng’s determination to pursue Duohe was one such variable. There seemed to be no malice in him, but Xiaohuan had no way of knowing whether there was evil concealed there. Nobody knew. Xiao Shi was different, his ill intentions had already revealed themselves. Xiaohuan couldn’t say whether her heartfelt words, outwardly gentle but concealing a core of steel, had killed them off. Perhaps there was some great wilderness where no one was in charge, and where there might be a place for Duohe, Zhang Jian, Xiaohuan and the children to live out their lives, asking for nothing. Did this kind of wilderness exist? For the first time, Zhu Xiaohuan, who had loved noise and bustle all her life, found herself starting to detest them both. In these blocks of identical flats, dozens upon hundreds of them, all densely packed with windows and doors, everyone brought their noise and bustle into other people’s lives. Your radio would sing into your neighbour’s home, and when he flushed the toilet it would leak into your home. Carrying coal had become a source of noisy entertainment for dozens of kids too. Could they not have heard Girlie and her brothers’ language, with its Japanese words mixed in? The children would often shout up and down the stairs: ‘What’s your family eating this evening?’ ‘We’re having baozi dumplings!’ What if Dahai and Erhai shouted back in reply: ‘We’re having sikihan’? From now on, slapdash Xiaohuan would be slapdash no longer, she would pay proper attention to the children’s conversation. But wasn’t it too late now? The snow had brought Xiaohuan a chilly clarity of mind.

  She went back inside, to find Xiao Shi flat out on the bed, dead drunk. Zhang Jian exchanged a look with Xiaohuan; they had been thinking more or less the same thing just now. Both of them moved about stealthily, because neither could be certain whether Xiao Shi was truly drunk or putting on an act.

  The door opened with a bang, and the two boys came running in, faces bright red. Xiaohuan bawled: ‘Shoes off, shoes off!’ She had become the sternest upholder of Duohe’s rules. Xiaohuan put herself between the black dog and the inside, because he was covered in water and mud. As Xiaohuan was bending over to give wooden slippers to Dahai, the dog came in, and the first thing he did was to shake himself off, sending droplets of mud flying all over Xiaohuan.

  Xiaohuan hauled the dog into the kitchen, dumped him in the sink, and turned on the tap to hose him down. Xiaohuan did not notice how vigorously she was defending the clean space that Duohe had created. The dog was big and the sink small, and one of his feet kicked out over the edge of the sink, and hit the balls of coal that had just been piled up so neatly. Xiaohuan, cursing, slapped the dog twice on his rump with the flat of her hand. Erhai came rushing in, wanting to snatch the dog away, but Xiaohuan pushed him outside. She put the dog back in the sink. The dog lost his temper in turn; the water was prickling his hair and skin like icy needles, he shouldn’t have to put up with this any longer. He kicked and threw himself about like a mad thing, spraying a fountain of water black with coal dust onto the ceiling, spattering Xiaohuan’s face, and falling into the leftover pickled cabbage and bean noodles in the pot, and into the stewed pork with dried aubergines in the basin.

  Xiaohuan’s brain was suddenly filled with darkness. She grabbed the dog’s front paws and with flying speed carried him across the hallway and into the big room. Behind her, Erhai was shouting: ‘What are you doing? What do you think you’re doing?’ Who could hold Xiaohuan back when the fit was on her? Xiao Shi had sobered up as well, and he went to restrain her, but she had already kicked open the door to the balcony, from where she flung the dog over the railing, and down to the ground.

  Erhai hurled himself at her with a cry, grabbed hold of her hand and bit it.

  The light came on in Xiaohuan’s head, and at that moment she saw everything clearly: this was no son of hers. He did not take her for his real mother, perhaps he never had, because a child’s instinct tells him that, no matter how wrong your true mother is, you can’t sink your teeth into her like that. Zhang Jian and Duohe both came hurrying up, and saw that the ever-present pair of red circles on Xiaohuan’s cheeks had disappeared, leaving her face the colour of wax. Erhai was lying on the floor, and his face was a waxy yellow too.

  Xiaohuan knelt down and gently patted Erhai’s arms and chest, but Erhai did not move or open his eyes; it was like he had fainted dead away. On Xiaohuan’s wrist there was a purple blood bruise, surrounded by a circle of deep teeth marks, and she felt that the teeth marks in her heart were really very deep indeed, and the bruise there a blackish purple, deeper still. She was patting him, saying: ‘My boy, Ma was wrong, wake up, quickly now! Ma has another arm, there, it’s all yours! Have another bite! Wake up …’

  Erhai really did appear to have fainted. Xiaohuan’s tears were flowing across her face in all directions. Her mind was too unsettled today. That person who had thrown the dog down from the fourth floor was not her at all.

  At that moment Dahai said: ‘Blackie!’

  They could hear Blackie’s high-pitched whining outside the door. This was the cry of a dog that had been wronged, accepted its fate and returned whimpering to its master.

  They opened the door and, sure enough, it was Blackie. Just like Erhai, he had fallen from the same height, without harming a hair on his head. Uncertain of his welcome, he stood in the doorway with his head raised, weighing up every person in the family.

  The sunshine returned to Erhai’s face. Slowly, he sat up, turning towards the black dog. The dog, on the other hand, anxious at Erhai’s appearance, cautiously walked closer to him, sniffed at his face, and rubbed himself against his head and licked his neck. It was only then that they noticed that the black dog’s back leg was curled up. When he walked, his leg would touch the ground and shrink in, touch the ground and shrink away.

  The black dog’s broken bone would heal, but that hint of a limp remained. From that day onwards, Erhai never spoke to Xiaohuan. When communication became essential, he would speak through Girlie: ‘Sis, you tell my mum that I don’t want to wear that shirt, it makes me look like a hooligan,’ or, ‘Sis, get my mum to take Blackie for a walk, there’s a school trip today and I won’t be back until after dark.’

  Xiaohuan thought that Erhai’s temper must have been passed on into his blood from his uncle or his grandfather, or a great-grandfather on Duohe’s side.

  It’ll all be better when Xiao Peng is here, Zhang Jian quietly comforted Xiaohuan: Erhai’s bound to listen to Xiao Peng, because the black dog was a present from him.

  But before Xiao Peng returned, Xiaohuan’s misgivings were confirmed. Zhang Jian was in trouble. He had been driving a crane carrying a piece of rolled steel, and it had lost its load, though the crane had been perfectly under control. Loads did occasionally come loose from their hook and fall, but it was a very rare occurrence. Zhang Jian was such a skilled crane operator, but there had been a terrible accident: the rolled steel had come crashing down and crushed a man to death. This man had been dragging an oxygen cylinder, in preparation to cut a piece of steel with a blowtorch: Fourth Grade Welder Shi Huicai.

  When Xi
ao Peng returned to the factory, and heard that Xiao Shi had been killed by a piece of rolled steel from Zhang Jian’s crane, his knees gave way.

  Accidents happened, and Zhang Jian’s explanation held water: Xiao Shi had suddenly emerged from behind a pile of rejected steel ingots, how could anyone have avoided him? But Zhang Jian was suspended from his work, and went home to await his punishment.

  Xiao Peng felt that this whole business had become like a swamp of filthy mud; there was no longer any way to work out the rights and wrongs of it. He had endured a heavy beating from his father, and submitted the petition for divorce to the law court. When his wife heard that Xiao Peng would continue to send the maintenance just as before, not a penny less, she cried for a while and then agreed. But now he was free, Xiao Peng suddenly did not want to give up that freedom he had won. He suddenly became proud of his probity and self-control over this whole business with Duohe, Xiao Shi and Zhang Jian. It was a filthy swamp, and he was not about to go and roll in it.

  Zhang Jian was back at work in the factory, having been demoted two grades to a common worker. If Xiao Peng saw him from a distance, he would go out of his way to avoid him.

  One day he came out of the bathhouse, and saw Duohe’s back in a crowd of female workers. These women carved Arabic numerals and Chinese characters such as ‘Made in China’ in a temporary shack made of matting. These would be stamped onto steel ingots, which were shipped to Vietnam, Albania and Africa.

  He took several steps towards her, but in the end he came to a halt. The waters of that swamp were just too murky; once he set foot in it, would he be able to draw back again? He turned, and set off for the unmarried men’s dormitory. Best to wait a while for the mud and sand to settle.

  Just at that moment, Duohe felt a blast of heat from behind her. They were tapping out the steel again! Steel poured out at dusk was a scene that Duohe could never tire of watching. She stood there, looking up. The sky had become a golden-red colour, and she felt the air all around her twitch slightly, seeming to throb with a gigantic, invisible pulse. Slowly, she lowered her tired eyes, turned round and continued on her way. She had been so engrossed in watching the scene that she had failed to notice Xiao Peng walking away into the distance.