by Yan Lianke
Grandpa called everyone to a meeting in the converted classroom. This seemed appropriate because he was, after all, a teacher. Well, a sort-of teacher. Many of the residents were illiterate, unable to read or write more than a few characters, but those who were able to read had been taught by Grandpa in his days as a substitute teacher. They were, in a sense, his students. Now they were grown men and women, but they were living in the school, a place where Grandpa had always been in charge of things. All of them were sick, and some might die any day now. Grandpa was the only one at the school who didn’t have the fever, and he wasn’t afraid of catching it. It was only natural that they would look to him as a leader. Well, a sort-of leader.
The residents filed into the classroom and began taking their seats. Among them were Ding Yuejin, Zhao Xiuqin, Ding Zhuangzi, Li Sanren, Zhao Dequan and a sprinkling of other villagers, a few dozen in all. The classroom was crowded. There were people everywhere, sitting or standing, some leaning on walls. Everyone seemed relaxed and smiling, just happy to be together. Like students waiting for the start of class, they waited quietly for Grandpa to begin the meeting.
Standing at the front of the classroom on a dais made from three layers of bricks, Grandpa gazed at the villagers like a teacher surveying his class. ‘Settle down,’ he said. ‘Everyone take a seat.’ When those who had been leaning against walls or windowsills had sat down, Grandpa addressed the group in a practised voice.
‘First, I’ve spent my life working in this school, and I suppose you could say I’m halfway to being a teacher. Now that you’re living in this school, you’ll listen to me and do as I say. If anyone has a problem with that, please raise your hand.’
Grandpa eyed the assembled residents and waited. Several grown-up villagers began snickering in their seats like schoolchildren. Grandpa shot them a stern glance.
‘Okay, since no one raised their hand, that’s settled. Number one on the agenda: until we receive the government food subsidy, we’ll have to pool our staple food supplies. Ding Yuejin will be in charge of keeping accounts. Your contributions of flour, rice and grain will be sorted for quality and recorded in your account. If you contribute more than your monthly quota, your contribution for the following month will be reduced. Likewise, if you contribute less than your quota one month, you’ll be expected to make up for it the next.
‘Two: although you won’t be charged for the water you use, we’ll take up a collection for the electricity bill each month. I don’t want to see anyone leaving the lights on all night long. You should try to conserve electricity, just like you would at home.
‘Three: the women will handle the cooking, and the men will do maintenance and other chores around the school. The very sick will have lighter workloads, and those who are healthy will be expected to take up the slack. I’m putting Zhao Xiuqin in charge of the cooking. You ladies can take turns cooking every day, or every three days, or whatever schedule suits you best.
‘Four: I’m in my sixties now, and like most of you, my days are numbered. None of us knows how much time we’ve got left, so let’s be honest with each other. Once we’re dead, other people in this village still have to go on living. One of these days we’ll be gone from this school, and the kids will be back in their classes. So let’s agree that starting today, you won’t go running back home willy-nilly, kissing your wives and kids and spreading the disease to your families.
‘Another thing: now that you’re living in this school, I trust that everyone will respect school property. That goes for everything, including chairs, desks, windows and walls. Don’t go thinking that because these things don’t belong to you, you can do with them what you like. Please treat this school with the same respect you’d treat your home.
‘Five: the reason we’re here is not just to avoid infecting other people, but to make your lives more pleasant, and to enjoy the time you have left. You can play chess or watch television, read or sleep. If you want some special activity or a particular kind of meal, all you have to do is ask. Whatever you want to do, you can do. Whatever you want to eat, you can eat. I want to say one thing to everybody here: I know that the fever feels like the end of the world, but if the world’s going to end anyway, your final days ought to be your happiest ones.’
Here, Grandpa paused and turned to look out of the window at the snowstorm. The snowflakes were as large as pear blossoms, and just as white. As they fell, they transformed the trampled, muddy schoolyard into a clean white expanse.
A rush of cold air came through the door, mingling with the classroom stench of sickness, like clean fresh water swirling into a muddy stream. Outside in the schoolyard, a spotted dog that had most likely followed its owner to the school sat beneath the basketball hoop. It seemed to be staring at the classroom windows, hoping to find its master inside. Now covered in snow, it looked like a little lost sheep.
Grandpa turned his attention back to the classroom. Surveying the crowd of villagers, a sea of sickly faces dotted with dark scabs, he asked, ‘Does anyone have anything to say? If not, let’s get busy cooking. Today is our first meal together, so no matter who cooks, let’s make sure it’s a good one. Since we’re cooking for everyone, you can use the big steel woks we bought for out-of-town students. Stoves are in the student kitchens on the west side of the basketball court.’
And with that, the meeting was adjourned.
Amid much laughter and excited chattering, the villagers clustered around the stove in the middle of the classroom. Others returned to their sleeping quarters to set up beds and unpack their bedrolls and belongings.
Grandpa left the classroom and went outside into the storm, snowflakes clinging to his face like droplets of water. Each gust of wind sent more snow hurling into his face, which was still glowing with the warmth of the classroom. Grandpa felt pleased with the points he’d made in his speech, the rules he had laid out for life in the school.
As the snow melted quickly on his warm skin, it streamed down his face like tears.
A white world. The schoolyard, a vast white plain that crunched beneath his feet as he walked.
‘Dad!’ Grandpa turned around to see that his son had caught up with him.
‘Will I be sleeping in the big dormitory with the others?’
‘Why not stay with me?’ Grandpa suggested. ‘It’s a smaller room, much warmer.’
‘Sure,’ Uncle agreed, sounding relieved. ‘But Dad, why did you have to go and put Ding Yuejin in charge of the accounts?’
‘He was the village accountant. He’s got experience.’
‘Still, you would have been better off with me in charge.’
‘How so?’ asked Grandpa.
‘I’m your son. No matter what, you know you can trust me.’
‘I know I can trust him, too.’
Uncle laughed. ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter who you choose. We’re all going to die soon anyway, so it’s not like anyone’s got a motive to steal.’
They trudged towards Grandpa’s rooms beside the school gate, and were soon swallowed up in the snowstorm.
Their voices carried on the air.
Their outlines melted into snow.
2
After the snow had melted, the sick villagers found that life in the school was better than they had imagined. Even paradise couldn’t measure up to this. When Grandpa shouted that the food was ready, everyone would gather around with their bowls in their hands. You could pick and choose whatever you wanted to eat, and take as much food as you liked. There were many dishes to choose from: savoury or sweet, hearty or light, thick soups or thin, vegetarian stir-fry, fish or meat. When you had finished eating, you rinsed your bowl in the sink and returned it to your assigned shelf, or stored it in one of the many bags that hung everywhere, even from the branches of trees. When someone found a herbal remedy said to cure the fever, the herbs were boiled in a large cauldron and ladled into bowls for everyone to drink. When someone got a treat from home – dumplings, say, or steamed pork buns – they wo
uld be divided among the whole group.
Apart from meals and medicine, there wasn’t much to do. You could bask in the sun or watch television, or round up a foursome for a few hands of poker. Some immersed themselves in two-man games of Chinese chess or Go.
There was nothing to think about, nothing to worry about. You could take long walks in the courtyard or stay in bed all day if you liked. No one would bother you or boss you around. You were as free as a dandelion in a field.
If you got homesick, you could visit your family in the village. If you missed your crops, you could go and check on your fields. If there was something you needed, you could send a message to your family and they would bring it to the school.
For a few weeks, life in the school seemed a paradise beyond compare. But this paradise didn’t last for long.
There was a thief in the school. Like a rat, the thief seemed to be able to get into every nook and cranny. It started when half a sack of rice went missing from the kitchen. Then a whole bag of soybeans disappeared from a corner by the stove. Not long after that, Li Sanren complained that the forty yuan he had stashed under his pillow was gone. The next victim was Ding Xiaoming’s young wife, Yang Lingling. Ding Xiaoming was a cousin of ours on our father’s side. His grandpa and my grandpa were brothers, which made him a first cousin to my father and my uncle. Lingling, who was still in her early twenties, had found out that she had the fever soon after marrying into our village. It turns out that a few years earlier, while living with her parents in her hometown, she had sold her blood. Although she never blamed anyone for giving her the disease, she spent every day silent and worried. She never smiled. The day her husband learned she had the fever, he smacked her hard across the face and shouted: ‘The first time we met, I asked if you’d ever sold blood and you swore up and down that you hadn’t! What do you have to say for yourself now?’
The beating left Lingling’s face swollen, and her spirit bruised. It made her never want to smile again. It made her not want to go on living. Especially after her husband dropped her off at the school to live with the other sick people.
A week after she arrived at the school, Lingling discovered that the brand new, red silk padded jacket she’d hung from her bedpost had disappeared. One evening, when she went to put it on, it just wasn’t there.
The thefts in the school were escalating like an infestation of rats. Something had to be done. Grandpa called everyone to another meeting in the large classroom.
‘At this point,’ Grandpa began in a loud voice, ‘most of you are nearing the end of your lives. Why on earth would you steal money or grain or a brand-new silk jacket? What good is money if you’re not alive to spend it? What good is grain once you’re in your grave? You’ve got stoves and plenty of firewood to keep you warm . . . why would any of you need to steal someone else’s things?
‘Starting today,’ Grandpa continued, ‘no one leaves this school to go back home. I want to make sure that the things that were stolen stay right here. That’s number one. Number two: I’m not going to conduct an investigation into who was responsible, but I expect the thief to return the stolen goods. You can wait until tonight and put them back when it’s dark. I want the grain returned to the kitchen, the money given back to its rightful owner and the jacket hanging on the bedpost where you found it.’
The setting sun inched across the courtyard, filling the classroom with its crimson rays. The winter wind began to howl; a sudden gust sent ash from the classroom stove scattering in all directions. While Grandpa was speaking, the villagers gazed suspiciously at one another, searching each face – some clearly sick, some healthier – for signs of larceny. But stare as they might, it was impossible to tell who was the thief among them.
From the middle of the crowd, my uncle shouted: ‘Search! Search!’ Several of the younger men took up his cry: ‘Search! Search the rooms!’
Grandpa tried to restore calm. ‘There’s no need to search,’ he said from the podium. ‘All I ask is that the things be returned tonight. If you’re too embarrassed to face the owners, you can just leave the items in the courtyard after everyone’s gone to bed.’
With that, Grandpa ended the meeting and dismissed the villagers. There was much grumbling as they left the classroom, mostly from the men, who wondered what sort of greedy bastard would steal half a bag of grain when he was on the verge of dying anyway.
On the way out, Uncle caught up with his cousin’s wife.
‘Lingling,’ he told her, ‘you really should have put your clothes in a safer place.’
‘It was just a jacket. Where else was I supposed to hang it?’
‘I’ve got an extra sweater you can borrow, if you like.’
‘No, thanks. I’m okay. I’m wearing two sweaters already.’
That night, some of the residents were chatting or watching television as usual. Others were in the kitchens and classrooms boiling their own concoctions of herbal remedies. In every classroom, storage room, corridor and stairwell, there were small makeshift stoves and clay pots bubbling with medicinal herbs, the dregs of which the villagers drank as a cure for the fever. Day and night, the pungent, bitter smell filled the school, drifting out of the yard and across the plain. It was as though the little school was a pharmaceutical factory manufacturing herbal remedies.
Once everyone had taken his or her medicine, it was time for bed. One by one, the residents fell asleep. The schoolyard was as silent as the plain, the plain as silent as a desert. All that could be heard was the whistle of the winter wind outside.
In Grandpa’s rooms, Uncle was lying in his bed beneath the window. When he had first moved in, he’d had to clear away piles of old homework notebooks just to make room for his bed. Now that his wife Tingting had left the village and moved back in with her mother, Uncle was worried.
‘Hey, Dad,’ he said, ‘did you ever talk to Tingting about that thing I asked?’
‘What thing?’
‘About not letting her get remarried after I die.’
‘Go to sleep, son.’
There was no more conversation after that. The gloomy winter night made the darkness inside the little room seem thick and oppressive, the air sticky like glue. The hour was late, the night as deep and dark as a well. In the eerie silence, Uncle heard what sounded like footsteps outside. He waited for a moment, listening carefully, then rolled over in his bed and asked, ‘Dad, which one of the villagers is the thief, do you suppose?’
In the silence while he waited for Grandpa to answer, Uncle thought he heard footsteps again. Someone was out there, he was sure of it.
‘Dad!’ he hissed. ‘Are you awake?’
Still no answer.
As there was no sound from Grandpa, Uncle slowly sat up. He thought he might as well go out into the courtyard and try to get a look at the thief. Silently, he crept out of bed and draped his coat over his shoulders. He was nearly out of the door when Grandpa rolled over in his bed.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Oh, I thought you were asleep.’
‘I asked where you were going.’
‘Tingting went back to her mother today, so I’m in no mood to sleep.’
With an effort, Grandpa sat up in his bed. ‘Honestly, boy, I don’t know what’s the matter with you.’
‘Dad, there’s something you don’t know. The truth is, Tingting was engaged to someone else before she married me. His family lives in the same village as her mother. That’s the reason why I’m so worried.’
Grandpa peered up at his son but said nothing. In the darkness, he couldn’t see Uncle’s face, just a shadowy figure looming close to the door. He might just as well be looking at a charred pillar of wood.
After a while, Grandpa asked, ‘Did you take your medicine today?’
‘Don’t bother, Dad. I know there’s no cure for what I’ve got.’
‘Even so, there’s no harm in trying.’
‘Forget it. If the fever can’t be cured, it can’t be cured. I just hop
e I can manage to give it to Tingting, so she can’t get remarried after I’m gone. Then I’ll be able to rest in peace.’
Grandpa recoiled, too stunned to speak.
Uncle opened the door, pulling on his coat as he left, and stepped outside. In the empty schoolyard, pale moonlight covered the ground like a thin layer of ice. Uncle trod carefully, like a man crossing a frozen lake, trying not to break the glassy surface. After a few tentative steps, he stopped and glanced over at the two-storey schoolhouse to the west. The upstairs and downstairs classrooms had been turned into dormitories for the sick, each housing between five and eight adult men and women. The school was now a hospice for people with the fever.
But it was also home to a thief.
Inside the school, everyone was asleep. Uncle could hear people snoring, the sound echoing through the courtyard like a deep rumble travelling through pipes. As Uncle walked towards the darkened building, he thought he saw something, or someone, huddled in the shadows. It looked like the thief, bending down to leave the bag of rice he’d stolen. Uncle quickened his pace.
As he drew closer, he saw that it was a person squatting on the ground. Not just any person, but his cousin’s wife, Lingling, who had married into the village just six months earlier.
‘Who’s there?’
‘Me. Is that you, Ding Liang?’
‘Lingling? What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?’
‘I wanted to find out which of your villagers was the thief. I wanted to see who stole my new silk jacket.’
Uncle laughed. ‘It seems that you and I think alike. I was hoping to get a look at the thief, too, and find out who stole your jacket.’ Uncle squatted on the ground next to Lingling, who moved over to make room for him. Crouched side by side in the shadows, they looked like two sacks of grain leaning against the wall of the building.
The moon cast its light on a stray cat that was chasing after a mouse in the far corner of the schoolyard. The two creatures scurried across the basketball court, their claws scrabbling on the sand-covered ground.
