The April 3rd Incident

by Yu Hua

  “Lin Gang!” Wang Hongsheng emerged from another shelter.

  “I just want to die!” Lin Gang cried from inside.

  She turned to look at her husband. Wu Quan had raised his head as though anticipating further cries, but all he heard was the clamor of wind and rain and the insistent drip of water on the tarps. So he bowed his head once more.

  “Wang Hongsheng!” A woman’s sharp voice.

  Her husband’s bare chest, she now saw, was covered with red spots. The spots ascended his body, scaled his neck, and climbed his face. As evening arrived, she heard the hum of mosquitoes. They flew into the shelter as the rain poured down and made more noise than she could ever have imagined.

  “Stay in the shelter!” It was Wang Hongsheng’s voice.

  “Why should I?” His wife.

  “It’s for your own good.”

  “I can’t take it anymore, either.” She began to sob. “Why did you leave me and go back to the house by yourself?”

  “It’s for your own good!” He’d begun to yell.

  “Get out of the way.” More yelling. Maybe he was dragging her back.

  She heard a sharp whack—he must have clipped her over the ear, she thought.

  “So that’s the way you want it!” There was wailing and shouting and more hitting.

  She turned and saw her husband again raising his head.

  The loud slam of a door, and then a crash as it was kicked.

  “I don’t want to go on living—”

  Much crying. Sobs and wails pierced the darkness. The woman seemed to have collapsed on the floor. Fierce bangs on the door.

  Listening closely, she guessed the woman was butting the door with her head.

  “I—don’t—want—to—go—on—living.”

  The crying suddenly became staccato. “You—bastard!” The wife was cursing her husband.

  “Wang Hongsheng, open the door!” Someone else was shouting.

  The crying grew fitful; it was interspersed with spatters of rain. She heard a door being thrown open and guessed that Wang Hongsheng must be standing in the doorway.

  Flute music issued from Zhong Qimin’s window. Its notes lingered long, as though blown along a river by the morning breeze. That fool was constantly playing his flute. “Fool” was the label conferred on him by Wang Hongsheng and the others. Lin Gang had been standing underneath his window one day, and Wang Hongsheng was chuckling off to one side. “Fool!” Lin Gang called, and to their delight Zhong Qimin poked his head out.

  “Dawei,” Li Ying called, “have you seen Xingxing?”

  Dawei seemed to have been gone a long time, and his answer was weary. “I couldn’t find him.”

  Li Ying sobbed despairingly. “What on earth do we do?”

  “Somebody saw him a couple of days ago.” Dawei’s voice was low and feeble. “They said he had a piece of paper over his eyes.”

  The flute music broke off.

  How could it stop? These past three years, it had been such a regular part of life. Like the rain, it constantly twined around them. On those clear, mild evenings, Wu Quan’s snores would drift out the open windows while the strains of Zhong Qimin’s flute drifted in. She had slept so soundly then, at ease between these two familiar sounds.

  “He was walking down the street with paper over his face,” Dawei said.

  “What are we going to do?” Li Ying sobbed weakly.

  She turned to find her husband, head bowed, scraping dead skin off his hands. The skin had crinkled from being wet so long, and he was scraping away the pale top layer, one shred after another. He had done this several times already and once he got started there was no stopping: his hands were a terrible sight. She looked at her own dropsied hands: they too looked as though they had been soaked overlong in water, but she had not scraped off the dead skin. If she had, her hands would be just like his.

  A house centipede was inching its way along the bed frame toward her husband’s leg, its plump midriff curving in a smooth, supple way with each forward movement. It leaned its head against his leg, then climbed on top, crawling along the leg in a series of stretches and contractions. A shiny trail extended along the bed frame and onto his leg, connecting the two.

  “A centipede,” she called softly.

  Wu Quan lifted his head blankly and looked at her.

  “Centipede,” she said again, pointing at his left leg.

  He stretched out his hand and tried to catch the centipede between his fingers, but it was too slippery. He changed his mind, flicking it away with his forefinger. The centipede rolled into a ball and fell off his leg, and soon it was swept away by the rainwater.

  He stopped scraping his skin. “I want to go back to our house,” he said.

  She looked at him. “Me too.”

  “You can’t.” He shook his head.

  “No,” she persisted. “I want to be with you.”

  “You can’t,” he objected. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “That’s why I want to be with you.”

  “No.”

  “I want to go there.” Her tone was mild.

  “You need to think of the child.” He pointed at her swollen belly.

  She said nothing more and watched as he wearily pulled himself up, put one foot into the water, ducked his head, and stepped outside. He stood there for a moment as the rain fell on his upturned face, and his eyes narrowed to slits. Then she heard splashes receding into the distance.

  Zhong Qimin’s flute could now be heard once more. His piping tune, long and sinuous as the wind itself, blew in through the window as Wu Quan entered his house. He took care not to lie down in bed, for he was really too tired—just talking was enough to exhaust him.

  “Dawei, go and look one more time, will you?” Li Ying begged, with tears in her eyes.

  The best thing to do was to move a chair to the doorway and sit there. He could manage that.

  Dawei tramped off through the rainwater.

  There was the sound of a door opening, and then Lin Gang’s despondent voice. “It’s unbearable indoors, too.”

  Lin Gang splashed his way back toward the shelters.

  Wu Quan, sitting in his house, found it equally unbearable. Tension seized him: it felt as though the corners of the room were shaking.

  Wu Quan reappeared at the entrance to the shelter and his pallid face turned toward hers. “It’s shaking again.”

  2

  Late at night the trill of Zhong Qimin’s flute drifted in the rain, like a sail wending its way across an ocean, floating in the dark distance. Rain continued to beat upon the tarps, and the sound of lapping water rose up from the ground as wind whistled through. Swarms of mosquitoes flew around inside the shelter. They landed on Wu Quan’s bare chest, then took flight again in a jumble of legs and wings, and in their humming he detected sounds of panic and disarray. His wife was already asleep, her breathing like ripples on the surface of a lake, pulsing off into the far distance—or that’s what it would have been like in the past, on those rainless evenings when moonlight shone through the window. Now the din of mosquitoes drowned out his wife’s breathing. The straw mat underneath him gave off a whiff of warm, decaying dampness, the furry odor of rice that has gone bad, different from the odor of rotten fruit or putrid meat. When rice goes bad, it takes on a color between blue and yellow.

  When he sat up in bed, his wife did not react. There was a flurry of mosquitoes as they vacated his body with a tumultuous hum. He put his foot into the flowing water and a chill rose quickly all the way up to his chest. He gave a shiver.

  When they fished He Yongming out of the river in the middle of a sweltering summer day, his body was chalk-white and swollen. After they laid him in the shade of a tree, a swarm of mosquitoes flew over fr
om the shrubs to stake their claim, and soon countless spots appeared on his distended body. When someone approached, the mosquitoes hastily abandoned the corpse and flew around in confusion, just like now.

  I want to go back to my house.

  He sat like that for a while, longing to be home. It felt as though a mosquito had flown into his mouth just as he was taking a breath, and he wanted to spit it out, but it was too difficult. When he stood up, he knocked against the tarp, and it was cool to the touch. The rain fell on his bare shoulders, refreshing but also a little chilly. He saw someone standing in the rain smoking. He seemed to be holding an umbrella, and the cigarette blinked on and off. There was no light in Zhong Qimin’s window, but flute notes drifted outside like specters. Rain fell fiercely.

  I want to go back home.

  He took a step toward his house. The door was open and inside was dark—darker even than other places. But there was nothing to stop him from going there, although the water lapped around his feet, obstructing his passage, and it was heavy going.

  I’m home now.

  He stood in the doorway for a moment. One corner of the room was in utter darkness and to his eyes looked completely bare. It had twisted and cracked in the earthquake, and now there was nothing there at all.

  Why am I standing in the doorway?

  He felt his way forward. A chair blocked his way and he pushed it aside and continued on. He groped and found the banisters that led toward the bed on the second floor. He followed the stairs up. It seemed as though something was about to happen; people outside had been talking about it for a long time. It seemed to be important, but what was it, exactly? How could he not remember what it was? Not long ago he used to know—and he had even talked about it. But now he couldn’t remember at all. There were no more stairs, so no more need to raise his feet—that was really too much effort. The bed was on the north side, and this was the right way to get there. Here’s the bed, it sure feels hard. Now you can sit down, it feels soft when you do that, so let’s get the shoes off and lie down. How come I can’t get my shoes off? Oh, they’re off already. It’s all right now, you can lie down. How come there’s no sound of water on the floor, could it be you just didn’t hear it? Now I can hear it, the water lapping all around, and the wind is fierce, blowing the tarps so they shake back and forth. The rain is hitting the tarps, deedeedada—such a familiar sound. A swarm of mosquitoes flew over, humming away. They landed on his chest and then flew off again. The mat underneath him channeled damp air toward his face. The rotten smell is warm, the furry smell that develops after rice goes bad, different from the odor of rotting fruit or putrid meat. When rice goes bad it turns a color between blue and yellow. I want to go back home. My limbs can’t move and my eyes won’t open. I want to go home.

  3

  In the early morning the raindrops grew sparse. Zhong Qimin sat by the window, listening to the sounds that came from nature. The wind casually fluttered in the air, coming from the fields in the far distance, ruffling the surface of the three ponds it passed, shaking the tree leaves so they rustled incessantly. One morning he had heard a band of children quarreling in the distance, and the leaves swaying in the morning breeze had the same freshness as those children’s voices. Children’s cries and early morning: there’s a connection there. Wind—nature’s most sustained sound—blew in through the window.

  This kind of morning was not such an ordinary event. Reports of an impending earthquake had long been circulating, but then the rains had come, and after that a quiet morning like this—the kind of morning that rules out coughs and footsteps and the scratching of a broom on a concrete floor.

  “He must have been in a total panic,” Wang Hongsheng said. He gave a cough or two. “Jumping from the second floor shouldn’t kill you.”

  “He must have jumped headfirst and hit his head on a flagstone.”

  They were always standing around and babbling away underneath the window. They would never understand that sound cannot be so casually squandered, because music would never be born amid such nonstop chatter—music would sooner flee. But at least their constant chatter was milder than the women’s grating squabbles. Whenever they came on the scene, it was like a flock of sparrows and a flock of ducks passing at the same time, and their bickering was always remorseless and unending.

  Dawei headed off toward the street in a dark raincoat. Three days earlier Xingxing had put on his paper glasses, then gone out and not come back. Dawei would now go off each morning, back hunched, and later he would return in just the same dejected state. Li Ying stood in the rain watching as he walked away. She did not open her umbrella but just let the rain fall. This morning she had suddenly stopped crying.

  He saw Wu Quan’s wife emerge from the open door of her house and waddle clumsily past his window.

  “What’s she up to?” Lin Gang asked.

  “Looking for a man, maybe.” It was Wang Hongsheng who answered.

  They went on standing there.

  Morning calm is always elusive. But one morning he had lain on the banks of the Daning River and in the silence all around he had heard with utter clarity the flow of the river, the sounds of nature.

  When she returned, she was pushing a cart. She pushed it all the way to her front door and then she went inside. Her extra weight made her every movement look onerous, and when she came out again her strength faced an even sterner test, for now she was carrying someone in her arms. But somehow she could manage it. A couple of people went over to lend a hand, and together they put the person on the cart. She went back inside as the others stood around, and through the morning drizzle he could see that the man on the cart was Wu Quan. His face had lost all expression, and it was as though his features had been cobbled together with children’s building blocks. When she came out, she covered Wu Quan with a white cloth, and then a tarp on top of that. Someone tried to push the cart, but she waved him away and began to push it herself. As it passed beneath his window, Wang Hongsheng and Lin Gang went over as though to offer help but again were waved away. Drops of rain fell on her upraised face and matted her hair. He had a clear view of her, and it made him think of a song called “Shall I Tell You What Is Heartbreak?” As she pushed the cart on toward the street, her body swayed awkwardly and her legs strained with effort because of the child she was carrying. Her unborn child was with her in the rain.

  Before long a new child would appear in that courtyard, bracing himself against the wall and waddling as he walked, a bit like his mother now. The child would grow up quickly, until he was as big as Xingxing, when he too would sneak over and sit quietly at his feet as he played the flute.

  As she went, she splashed water in all directions and the raincoat she was wearing was as bright as morning. Her walking was labored, yes, but it was not crude. A woman and a cart advanced through the boundless rain.

  In a little town on the banks of the Fuchun River, he had glimpsed a solemn funeral procession. The line of wreaths was as long as the street, and thirty horns pointed to the sky, wailing long and loud, and weeping fluttered through the sky like a banner.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  1

  Amid the rain, red fruit were gleaming and the grass was waving. That was the view from the window of the little house at the north end.

  Down on street level, the water that had accumulated on the sides of the road was sloshing back and forth. Rain cast a shroud, disconnecting the red fruit from the grass at the north end of the playing field. The fruit gleamed beside the road that Bai Shu was walking along, its redness standing out in a scene otherwise dominated by darkness and rain.

  Four days earlier, the street had undulated like a river when he and Wang Ling were sitting on the steps of the theater and the earthquake unleashed scenes of panic and alarm. He had rushed back to the little house in the northernmost corner, but the monitor had not shown any sign of a
bnormal activity. Later, as the rain grew heavier, Gu Lin and the others had accosted him.

  It happened here, by the dying plane tree. His head had knocked against this very tree.

  Gu Lin and the others had blocked his path. “Admit it.” Gu Lin spoke in anger. “You’ve been making things up.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “How about you repeat what you said, that there wouldn’t be any earthquake?”

  He said nothing.

  “Are you going to say it?” He watched as the palm of Gu Lin’s hand struck his face a heavy blow. Then his chest took a fist—the work of Chen Gang.

  “We’ll let you off if you just admit you were fabricating rumors,” Chen Gang said.

  “The monitor reading has been normal the whole time. I didn’t make up any rumor.”

  For that he received a clip on the ear.

  “Then say there’s not going to be an earthquake,” Gu Lin said.

  “I’m not going to say that.”

  Gu Lin did his best to sweep his feet from under him, and he swayed back and forth but did not fall. Chen Gang pushed Gu Lin aside. “I’ll teach him.”

  Chen Gang kicked him fiercely in the leg. When he fell on the ground, water splashed everywhere, and his head knocked against the plane tree.

  At this spot four days earlier he had clambered up out of the water as Gu Lin and the others went off laughing raucously. He’d wanted to tell them that the monitor would definitely have detected the earthquake, it was just that he had not been in the little house at the time, and so he had no way of knowing in advance that the earthquake was coming. But he did not say that, and after Gu Lin and the others had gone some distance they turned around and waved their fists in his direction. He had not been there, and so he could not have said.

  A tree leaf was stirring in the water on the street. The table in the monitoring station was covered with water droplets, like a tree leaf in the rain. For four days the monitor had detected no abnormal activity. Now he was walking toward the County Revolutionary Committee headquarters.