Little Aunt Crane

by Geling Yan

  Xiao Peng said, through gritted teeth: ‘Did that gang of dog fuckers rob the munitions depot or what? How can they have enough ammunition?’

  They fought until dawn, when both sides ceased fire. After a brief inspection, Xiao Peng ascertained that there had been no casualties, and even Duohe was as calm and peaceful as usual. Now she could not leave. Their date had become a drama of life and death, and the emotions that came with them. How much longer would they be together? Staying on this bald rooftop with nothing to eat and nothing to drink, two locusts tied by the same piece of string, or two plants linked at the root, kicked into the mud by a cow’s hoof, where they would have to struggle on slowly together. Xiao Peng felt that so long as they were not shot dead by a bullet from the other side, this assignation was the kind of thing you could only find on a stage.

  ‘Are you thirsty?’ Xiao Peng asked Duohe.

  Duohe hurriedly looked all around her; the big bucket of water that had been brought up had already been completely drained.

  ‘I was asking you!’ Xiao Peng thought to himself that she really was a good woman, thinking at once about his thirst.

  Xiao Peng very quickly became immersed in preparations for a new battle. Duohe kept looking at him, hoping he would notice that her worst discomfort was not hunger or thirst, but the need to relieve herself. When he had made all the arrangements as best he could, Xiao Peng beckoned to her. She ran after him, their backs bent, to the edge of the building, where there was a shallow, concave trough for rainwater to drain away. Xiao Peng ordered his subordinates: ‘Close your eyes, all of you, and turn your faces away!’ His own eyes were squeezed tight shut, but he did not avert his face. He squatted in front of her, and held open a set of overalls.

  Her face was scarlet to the neck.

  Right up until the opposition faction withdrew its troops, Xiao Peng continued to make temporary toilets for Duohe. After a time they did not run to the edge of the building, Xiao Peng just used a set of overalls to shield Duohe’s lower half, and the thing was done. It was just as well that there was nothing to eat or drink, so this embarrassing event only took place once every seven or eight hours.

  One after the other, the peasants recalled that the rice in their paddy fields would be ripe soon, and they had to go to let the water out. Some of the peasants’ wives and children came looking for them, saying that if they got themselves killed in battle the family would lose a source of work points, and who would foot the bill? The peasants’ great attack on the city came to an end early in the morning of the third day.

  The iron ladder was welded back into position, and Xiao Peng and his allies retreated one by one back down from the roof. As they were withdrawing it started to rain heavily, soaking the cement, which was well on the way to becoming a permanent fortification. Xiao Peng told all the others to leave first, and he and Duohe remained until the very last.

  The rain hissed down, flowing onto both of their faces. Xiao Peng looked at Duohe looking at him as if this was more romantic than any action.

  ‘Thank you.’

  She did not understand what he was thanking her for.

  ‘Thank you for the peanuts.’ For two days and two nights he had directed the campaign with verve and energy, struggling to save a dangerous situation. Had all this depended on a handful of peanuts? He did not know himself.

  She also said: ‘Thank you?’

  ‘What are you thanking me for?’

  Through a curtain of rainwater he saw her face blush scarlet again.

  Xiao Peng had matters of vital importance to attend to, and when they came down from the building he and Duohe parted company.

  When Zhang Jian and Xiaohuan saw Duohe staggering home, they both came downstairs to meet her. What had become of her in the fighting? She looked terrible – what had happened?

  Duohe just said that she had been trapped on the roof of the factory headquarters with no food. She had never properly reconciled with them after their quarrel, and the conversation for the most part was Xiaohuan answering her own questions: ‘What’ve you been doing to yourself? Nothing to eat for two days? For sure you’ve not eaten! And not washed your face either? How could you have, stuck in that place?!’

  Afterwards Xiaohuan said to Duohe that she too had more or less eaten nothing for two days. She thought that Duohe had been laid low by a bullet in some hole or other, and who knew what she was going through! One moment she was pushing and shoving Duohe, the next dragging her, and at the kitchen window of every family they passed, no matter whether the window was open or shut, she would announce her good news to those inside: ‘She’s back! Right as rain!’

  When she came across an open window, a reply would come from inside: ‘His sister-in-law’s back? Well, that’s good!’

  Some neighbours passed the three Zhangs in the stairwell, and they all had questions about Auntie Duohe’s escape from danger. By the time they were disappearing from view, each neighbour was thinking: Well, you’re not keeping this business from us all. So how come you’re not giving us a clear answer on Girlie? For all we know she’s caught some shameful disease!

  Xiaohuan knew they owed the neighbours an explanation with regard to Girlie. But she faced down the eyes that seemed to be pursuing her, cracking jokes and cursing the same as usual. Whatever they owed, they would have to keep on owing. Zhang Jian had been back for a good few months, looking dark and thin, before he had told her and Duohe the truth. Girlie had already been withdrawn from the gliding school. She was not willing to face the questioning neighbours who lined the way home, so Zhang Jian had taken her back to his old home in the North-east. Thanks to Stationmaster Zhang’s connections, he had found her a job in the county town without too much difficulty. When Xiaohuan heard this she almost came to blows with Zhang Jian, and told him to go at once to bring Girlie back. She had never heard of any shame in the world that could crush people to death. Zhang Jian told her that Girlie had said that if he forced her to return she would beat her head against the wall until she bashed her brains out.

  The day after Xiaohuan had learned where Girlie had gone, a cadre from the Neighbourhood Committee asked her: ‘I hear Girlie was talking Japanese in the air force school, and she got expelled?’

  Xiaohuan, who had been chattering away idly with several old ladies in the Neighbourhood Committee, continued in the same bantering tone: ‘Yes, and your mum’s been expelled too! It was our little girl who expelled the air force. That’s the air force’s loss!’

  When she left the Neighbourhood Committee she did not go home, but went up the mountain. She had never climbed up there: why would a lover of noise and bustle like Xiaohuan take herself off up the mountain? She found a place to sit out of the wind, and suddenly she felt like she could see for miles. What did Girlie and Zhang Jian know? So afraid of people whispering in each other’s ears, nudging each other with their elbows. Let them whisper, let them nudge, no shame could last for long. Other people will get into some new trouble soon enough, then they’ll have a new shame, and once there’s a new shame, the old shame will die down, like nothing had ever happened.

  When she came back down she brought this vision with her, along with a brain full of cool, clean mountain wind. At supper she announced to Dahai, Erhai, Duohe and Zhang Jian that she was going to take action, and bring Girlie home herself.

  ‘Even thieves and loose women have the face to carry on living, and eat three square meals a day!’ Xiaohuan said. ‘Look at the counter-revolutionary in this building, doesn’t he spend all day at the market in his white counter-revolutionary’s armband, buying vegetables for his wife?’

  Dahai’s dark, heavy eyebrows wrinkled up into a bunch.

  ‘Dahai, what’re you doing?’ Xiaohuan rapped with her chopsticks on Dahai’s bowl.

  ‘What am I going to tell my classmates? That my big sister was talking Japanese in her sleep, and she faked her identity to boot …? My classmates even clubbed together to buy her a diary as a gift!’

  ‘
Tell them just that!’ Xiaohuan said.

  ‘Tell them what?’ said Dahai. ‘Say my sister was punished by a military court?’

  ‘Oh, so when your sister was glorious you shared her glory, but when your sister’s punished she’s not your sister?’

  ‘I never said she wasn’t.’ Dahai ate a mouthful of porridge, and through the slurping added: ‘If it was me, I’d fake my identity too.’

  ‘Why?’ Zhang Jian asked.

  Dahai kept quiet.

  ‘He said he’d make up a family background too. Our family’s not good enough for him!’ Xiaohuan said. ‘He’d prefer to make up a family background, say his dad drags a stick around begging for his dinner. Even that’s better than our family!’

  Dahai sunk his teeth deep into Duohe’s pickled cucumbers, and said: ‘Too right!’

  Xiaohuan was just about to put him in his place, when it suddenly hit her that he and Girlie were the same; willing to choose a family that was even poorer, and parents who had still less to boast about. All too likely, she and Dahai had sensed from a very young age that there was something dark, tangled and messy concealed in their family, a tangle whose threads could never be set in order again, and they had been born right into the middle of it. That was when everything had only just begun to be a mess; Uncle Xiao Shi’s death had also been a turning point, and Uncle Xiao Peng’s disappearance was another. The adults had always been evasive about the true relationship between them and they had guessed that there was something not entirely clean about these two women and this one man.

  There was a persistent feeling of awkwardness. Poor Girlie, you would think she was so cheerful, with her rosy cheeks that showed nothing but happiness, and a mouth that was always smiling or laughing, whether open or closed. Yet inside she was so timid, and full of self-contempt. In all likelihood, from when she first began to make sense of the world, she had been waiting with extreme caution for some disaster or tragedy to befall this family. Because of this she felt so inferior that all she wanted was to be a peasant girl from some remote, backward village. None of the adults had noticed her continual state of fear and worry, or all the mental suffering she had endured. Perhaps she had even guessed her own bloodline: who was to say that she hadn’t unconsciously noticed Duohe’s hands, with their stumpy fingers and rounded joints, each chubbier than the last … the same in every detail as her own? Who could say that she hadn’t seen her Aunt Duohe’s expression shining out of her own camel’s eyes, so like her father’s, as she looked in the mirror? And noticed the baby-fine hair that grew on the back of her neck below her hairline, so that whenever she wore a high collar, furry wisps were squeezed outside? Had Girlie realised that this baby hair was identical to that of her aunt? And when she realised, had she broken out in a cold sweat? Girlie had never cried or made a fuss. Ever since she was very small, she had been an undemanding child, but all along she had soundlessly, wordlessly taken in everything with her eyes and ears. All the adults’ trouble and scheming had been for nothing. Don’t think you could hide anything from her.

  That day Xiaohuan sat in front of the table, her heart full of that baby Girlie, wrapped in a cherry-red cloak. As the young Xiaohuan carried her about in her arms, wherever she went, she would always hear people say ‘Girlie’s got a lucky face!’ and the young Xiaohuan would forget that she had not given birth to Girlie herself. At such times, she would never have believed that Girlie would grow up to have such bitterness in her heart. That the moment she started to understand the world would be the moment she started to live in fear, to bear a burden of shame.

  Dahai finished his meal, wiped his mouth and got up, saying: ‘Humph. All over the nation, the people are waging revolution. If there’s anything wrong, best to come clean while there’s still time.’

  The three adults did not move a muscle. They listened to him leaving them behind, squeezing himself into the crowded ranks of the populace of the entire nation.

  In the two days when Duohe had vanished without trace, a great many terrifying thoughts had passed through Xiaohuan’s mind: perhaps someone had informed on Duohe, and she’d been taken directly from the workshop, taken away to some place that never saw daylight. She had also thought that since the quarrel, Duohe had become estranged from her and Zhang Jian, never speaking to them, and if she had something to say she would say it through Erhai and Dahai. Perhaps she had finally had enough of this kind of life, and put an end to it herself. This was a great age for suicide. And Duohe came from a race that glorified taking their own life.

  Now Duohe only had Erhai to talk to. Sometimes Xiaohuan heard him next door, replying to her in a few short sentences. She did not know what Erhai said that caused Duohe to give a gurgle of laughter. Erhai was not popular, he was prone to use his fists before he opened his mouth, so there was no one for him to talk to outside either. Often people came to the door to complain, saying that Erhai had been wrestling, and had brought his opponents down so heavily that they could not get up again. Now and again Erhai would leave Blackie at home, so Duohe would talk to the dog, in the same language she had used with the children in their infancy, half Japanese, half Chinese, heavily interspersed with words that only the most barbaric spirits could understand.

  12

  THE FACTORY CEASED production again.

  In the increasingly sultry days, gunshots would ring out from time to time, silencing the pigeons and cicadas. At such times a hush would fall over everything; you would hear the gunshots and echoes pile up, then fall away. Soon the pigeons only dared to circle round their own rooftops.

  The neighbours had heard that Director Peng of the Revolutionary Committee had been captured by the opposition, which was now back in power. Several months passed, then Director Peng’s faction rescued him, returning power once more into his hands.

  The army dispatched a division to garrison the city. They put all the factories under martial law, and then the factories went back to work.

  The new hut for the serial-number cutting was erected at last. With great reluctance, Duohe took her leave of the sky-blue tent. After work resumed she was always hoping to encounter Xiao Peng’s grey Volga again, but the chance had not yet come.

  Just as Xiao Peng had predicted, those two days on the roof six months earlier had become a unique experience in both their lives, and this experience naturally gave Duohe much to think about. Whenever she sat alone, facing the workbench, she saw Xiao Peng’s silhouette in the night: he had led her to the edge of the building, ordering his subordinates to turn their faces away and shut their eyes. Xiao Peng was half squatting, neck and shoulders curled in, spreading out those work overalls for her, in fact he cut almost as sorry a figure as she did. At first, Duohe did not dare to think about this embarrassing predicament, but later she started to enjoy her recollections of the scene. She seemed to remember that Xiao Peng had hurriedly turned back in the misty light to give her a fleeting smile. Just like a man and a woman who had had no secrets between them, only he (or she) could serve this unromantic physical need. She felt that all sound had vanished, even the words that he had been shouting without a pause were silent. There was only the sound of her relieving herself, like rain beating urgently on the concrete. Xiao Peng had been closest to that sound. Xiao Peng could even hear her involuntary long sigh of release. He had just held up the work overalls to hide her shame – whose overalls? Were they his own? She had no way to find out. He had shut his eyes tightly. Were they shut tightly? What if they weren’t? Then what could he see? He would not have been able to see anything on such a dark night. Duohe would not have cared even if he could. Her relationship with Xiao Peng had changed in a single night.

  Every time Xiao Peng held open the overalls, half squatting on the edge of the roof, his life was in fact under threat. He was not behind the barricade, which left him exposed to any sniper’s bullet. For this reason the people inside the fortifications with their faces turned away and eyes shut were hurrying him along in hoarse voices: ‘Director Peng! It�
�s not safe! Hurry up, come back!’

  She now thought that Xiao Peng, curling up his body to make a temporary screen for her out of the overalls, had not cut a sorry figure at all, he was deeply romantic.

  Xiao Peng’s Volga appeared. Duohe’s workbench had been carried into the new mat shed, directly facing a window. Outside there was a stretch of wild grass, and on the far side was the road that led to the main gate. Xiao Peng’s grey Volga drove past, reducing its speed, as it prepared to park on the stretch of level ground outside Duohe’s window. Duohe waved to the car. The roadbed was a lot higher than this row of reed huts, and the wheels were just level with the top of the window frame, making her invisible to anyone sitting in the car.

  The grey Volga stopped briefly, and then drove away again. Not long after, the workshop director said to Duohe: ‘Director Peng of the Factory Revolutionary Committee phoned just now, he wants you to go and see him.’

  Duohe carefully washed the steel filings from her hands, took off her cap, considered for a moment and put it back on again. She had been wearing the cap all day, and her hair was certain not to be up to much, better to keep the cap safely on.

  As soon as Director Peng saw Duohe, he said to her: ‘Go to the hot-water stove outside the back gate and wait for me. I’ll be there soon.’

  An assignation in a boiler room?

  Duohe had already seen Xiao Peng use his extensive powers to call the wind and summon the rain, a little assignation would certainly be even more thoroughly planned and executed. Duohe overcame a moment’s hesitation, and walked towards the back gate of the factory. She had only just reached the shop that sold hot water, when the Volga braked to a stop beside her. It was Xiao Peng himself who was driving.

  He asked her where she wanted to go for a stroll.

  Overwhelmed by the unexpected favour, she shook her head with a smile.