In the Lap of the Gods

by Li Miao Lovett

  “I see. You have a lot of balls to be in this business, if you are who you say. Tell you what, let’s draw up a deal, shall we, with the chief financial officer at Dalong. You’ll like each other. He’s the son of an old capitalist bull, like you.” Chairman Jiang chortled. He snapped his fingers, and the secretary ushered Fang out of the office.

  Within a month, Fang had secured three sizable investors and a handful of small players who shored up the construction funds for the Gaoshanlu Dam. But when he brought up the money for compensating the villagers, the chairman cast him a blank stare, denying a deal had ever been made. That was the part he rubber-stamped, he said; there were people higher up in the government who controlled the purse strings.

  Fang was infuriated that Chairman Jiang had taken advantage of his good will and offered nothing in return. In fact, the chairman claimed to be doing his investor friends a favor, as the affected counties, and indeed the rest of Sichuan province and China, were starved for new sources of power for their growing cities. The old broker had encountered someone more wily than himself. In the unspoken ethics of wheeling and dealing, here was a man with the scruples of a two-headed snake.

  His original desire to see Chu Sulin face-to-face had not been realized, so at this point, Fang decided to take a different tack. He was not about to speak to more committee chairmen and bureau chiefs, Party secretaries or their underlings, as each could simply pass the responsibility on to another. How simple it had been, in all his years of money-moving schemes, to allow the murky waters to run their natural course. Each of his deals deposited a rich layer of silt on bureaucratic shores, smoothing the way for the next. Fang could not admit he had been stumped, but an extra 3000 yuan for each peasant meant little to the power brokers and traders. It was simply less padding for their pocketbooks.

  CHU LONGSHAN HAD GOTTEN INVOLVED IN THE INTERVILLAGE Council for Relocation Affairs, which, in spite of its formal name, was a scrabble of incensed peasants from the various townships, who met once a week in the abandoned sorghum liquor factory to discuss their plight.When Fang approached him about attending the next meeting, Longshan was quite surprised. “You’re going to great lengths to warm up to my sister,” he said.

  “It’s more than that,” insisted Fang. “That Chairman Jiang is a slippery bastard. If I can’t trap a weasel by the paw, then I’ll get him from the rear by his tail.”

  Twenty-six men gathered that night, sitting on stone benches in the courtyard of the old factory. Spring filled the air with fragrant blossoms, and a gentle breeze rippled through the nearby laurel trees. A full moon beamed down, illuminating the pockmarked surfaces of stone like ancient tablets. Chu Longshan spoke in a clear, resonant voice, his torso rocking forward into the light. The others listened attentively.

  “Comrades, we can’t allow ourselves to be strung along like this. They tell us we’ll have land as good as what we’ve got right now. Can we believe the bureaucrats? I think we’re too smart to fall for hearsay.We ought to demand a visit to the new site. Get the officials out there, perhaps a reporter from the Zhongxi News.”

  A hush fell over the crowd, and the crickets seemed to fire up their chirping to fill the void.

  “I’d like to go.” A peasant with a canine jaw and big teeth spoke up. “But I don’t know about the press. That might send the wrong message, you know.”

  “Yes, but if the officials are up to no good, we’ve got somebody to document this,” another man replied. “Look at us. Who are we but a bunch of sniveling farmers to those big shots? I tell you. We gotta keep them honest.” He pumped his fists in the air, his lumber-jack arms swinging as if they could fell a tree.

  Heads nodded in agreement, and then a scratchy, thin voice rose above the murmuring. “Now I know we’ve got our best intentions here, and me, I’ve got grandchildren who farm the land. We’ve got to move carefully, yes we do. Don’t think for a moment the government’s become soft on us lao bai shing.”

  The elderly peasant coughed a little, and then continued. “I was only a boy during the revolution that created the People’s Republic. I remember when soldiers showed up at the village, ragtag as us kids, snot running down their noses, too. My mother, good soul that she was, bandaged their wounds with a poultice of wild herbs.They had nothing to lose then.They were fighting for a cause and if they lost the shirts on their backs, they still had two arms and their wits. If they lost an arm, they could steal the enemy’s weapons and fight until there was nothing left but a bloody torso.

  “Folks, it isn’t like that now. The government’s got everything to lose; they know when they’ve failed and they won’t say, but they refuse to fail now, to give anything up. And to them, this land is rightfully the property of the State. We’re the ragtag soldiers now, you see, but we’ve got nothing to arm ourselves with. They won’t stand for us staking a claim to this land, and demanding fair payment for it. No, sir. If we try to stir up too much attention now, you bet they’re gonna put us down. I say we see what kind of land we’re offered, no reporters, and if it’s decent, we live with it.”

  “And if not?” the buck-toothed man asked.

  “We petition to Beijing,” Longshan declared. “In the meantime, I think the old man’s right; we shouldn’t cry foul now. But I still think somebody should take notes on this trip, if we ever need to take it so far as Beijing.” Longshan glanced at Fang. “I have an old comrade here from back in the commune days. He is the best educated among us. What do you say, Ol’ Fang? Can you be our scribe?”

  Fang appeared to be uncomfortable with the idea, shifting his weight until the shadows obscured him in the pitch of night. “I’m not a reporter, you know. I’m a businessman.”

  “You need not do anything except keep your eyes and ears open, jot down some notes afterwards. I’ll help you. And I’ll handle things from there.”

  Chu Longshan gazed intently at Fang, and his eyes said the unspoken. Your help will come with its rewards. At last, Fang nodded his head, and the peasant with the overgrown teeth slapped Longshan’s friend on the back, offering him a cigarette from a leather pouch rank with sweat from the day’s labor.

  ON THE NIGHT BEFORE THEIR VISIT TO THE NEW HOMESTEAD, Fang had to make do with the lean provisions of Chu Longshan’s home. Standing over a wooden bucket in the yard, he scrubbed his stubbly face with a coarse washcloth. Flecks of skin fell into the inky pool like rice husks. Goose bumps swelled alongside the spider veins on his arms. He thought of those days spent on that commune in the Sichuan mountains. How young and headstrong he had been. Perhaps he could not have survived the scalding summers and cold winters, the blistering journeys to fetch firewood up in the mountains, if it had not been for the grit and sheer ignorance of his youth.

  In the morning, Mrs. Chu shoved firewood under the stove and offered Fang a mug of tea, wiping away the soot of her fingerprints with a rag. She coughed, heaved, and spat into the ashes. Fumes from the stove leaked into the sky through an opening in the roof, their tendrils dark and coiled like serpent tails.

  Fang gathered with the village representatives by the bridge on the eastern banks of the Songdu River, where a van arrived to take them to the new site. As their vehicle bounced across mountain roads, he watched the river undulating below, smooth as dragonfly wings along the wide stretches, frothy and venomous in places narrow enough for a boy to leap across. Chu Longshan sat beside him, fingering a set of papers detailing the resettlement.

  When the river disappeared from view, Fang settled back in his seat and lit up his pipe. “How long till we get there?”

  “Another hour and a half. We’ll meet up with a busload from three other villages, and a car with some officials from the county.”

  Chu Longshan paused before adding, “My sister will be there.”

  Fang turned toward his friend, his sit bones creaking. A light sweat collected on his forehead. “Your sister. She lives two villages away. It can’t be a coincidence. Chu—”

  “Don’t say anything. She doesn
’t know yet. I simply told her I was getting involved in negotiating this thing, and she should come along.”

  “Chu, you sneaky devil.” Fang slapped his thighs and chuckled. And yet, he had to admit he felt a little anxious.

  When the sun had nearly reached its zenith, the van stopped by the edge of the mountain road, and the villagers disembarked to wait outside.The harsh, dry air chafed the corners of his mouth, but the smile remained safely tucked inside Fang’s breast.

  The wind rumbled across the ridge, and as it whistled through green foxtail and goat grass, it seemed to whisper that this land could not be tamed. Across the road, a grassy incline led up to slopes as yet invisible, where the villagers would get a first glimpse of their new homestead. The grass grew in scrawny tufts, like an adolescent boy’s stubble, and low shrubs clung tenaciously to the soil. To the east, terraced fields draped the surrounding hills like the flags of foreign nations. An inky, threatening nimbus cloud hovered over the rice paddies.

  Longshan pointed to the runoff trickling down a nearby slope. “Must have rained recently. I’ll bet that dribble of water is pulling good soil away. It’s brown as a mule’s ear.”

  Fang nodded, half listening. It was much colder at this elevation, and his teeth chattered as he stared at the empty road, his eyes trained on the slightest movement.

  A half hour passed, and when a van lurched to a stop in front of the villagers, Fang felt a flutter in his chest. He had waited this long to see Chu Sulin. Thirty-five . . . no, thirty-six years, to be exact. Now that the moment had arrived, he wondered what he would say, what he had to offer her. A hint of the old passions? An apology for the trouble she’d endured? A gesture of goodwill? I mean you no harm, he would say, if she should back away when he approached her.

  A dozen men got off the bus before she appeared. Her hips were wider than he remembered, her steps sturdy as a mare’s, and she grimaced as the wind struck sideways. She stepped forth as if she could vanquish that wind with a defiant kick. Her broad face had changed little, although it was framed by a speckle of gray, and her once-large eyes had receded somewhat, tassled by fine crow’s feet.

  Those eyes danced in surprise. Chu Sulin’s gaze alighted on Fang, then flickered over to her brother.

  Longshan rushed over in an attempt to head off a spontaneous combustion. “Sister, my old friend Fang Shuping—”

  “Your old friend,” said Sulin.Those eyes flared with old embers, as it were, of anger. “I never thought I would see you again, Fang Shuping.”

  “The pleasure is mine.” Fang spoke in measured, genteel tones. He felt lightheaded suddenly; it was all he could do to keep from crumbling at her feet. “It’s been many years; you haven’t changed.”

  “And perhaps you haven’t either,” said Sulin. Turning to her brother she added, “Now why did you really bring me here?”

  Chu Longshan assured his sister that this visit was of paramount importance. His friend had taken an interest in the case, and had the means to advocate on their behalf.

  Sulin shot a skeptical glance at her brother. When the officials’ car arrived, Longshan reminded Fang to take note of the landscape and the exchanges between the parties, so that he could write down his observations later.

  Fang nodded, but for the rest of the excursion, he could not help but fix his attention on Chu Sulin. From the road, the group scrambled up the steep hillside for an hour, using a small clump of white pines as a beacon to keep them moving toward the new site. The wind threatened to carry them away, swelling up the villagers’ clothing like useless fins. As Fang plodded uphill, a secret hope emanated from his breastbone, invigorating his cranky old limbs.

  At length, the group reached the top, although a few officials lagged, plowing their sedentary bellies onward, spitting and cursing under their breaths.

  “The houses will be constructed on a north-south axis,” said one official, who appeared to be the leader.

  “Where will our water come from?” asked Longshan. “It looks pretty dry up here.”

  “There is a spring several hundred yards to the west.”

  “So we’ll have to fetch our water. At least there aren’t any more trees to chop down for firewood, ease the burden on our women.”

  Fang missed the irony in Longshan’s remark, and the official’s mumbled reply. All he could think of was Sulin, thirty-six years younger, her sleek lines interrupted by a massive bucket poised on her shoulder, the glow of recognition when she saw Fang, her fingers releasing the wood handle, clasping his, the whisper of his breath on her hands, her cheekbones, her bosom close to his. It had only been in the quietest hours of the day, in the woods along the lengthy trek to the commune’s wells, that the two could be with one another, unwatched and undisturbed.

  On these unforgiving slopes, far from anyone’s home, the land was too open to dredge up old secrets. And his lover’s bosom remained closed. Fang attempted to walk close to Sulin, assisting her as they crossed a gully to take stock of the land. She resisted his help, said little in reply to his questions.

  When Fang asked her, exasperated, “Why do you hate me, Sulin? So many years have passed... ,” she turned her broad, still-beautiful face toward him, with lips that trembled slightly.

  “I fought hard for you, Fang. And when I thought I’d won the battle, I was forced to destroy what we had.” She flashed him an angry look.

  “Because you were promised to someone else?” Fang asked.

  Chu Sulin would say no more. She turned away, leaving Fang to clutch at her words like desiccated leaves. All the while, spring was already easing toward summer, infusing the land with the brilliant promise of citrus blossoms.

  23

  LIU STUMBLED OVER TO THE LITTLE SINK, CAREFUL NOT TO wake up Mei Ling and the baby. This morning he would have to take a mini-bus down the hill, as his legs could not carry him fast enough to meet Mr. Wu’s first load of passengers.

  Rose had been crying in the night, and the agony of new teeth breaking through her gums roused the adults, filling their dreams with phantom echoes of her pain. Liu was weary from lack of sleep, and in his haste he cut his lip shaving. A nick from the day before had scabbed over, but was still painful to the touch. Just like that last fight with his wife, he thought ruefully.

  “You always dote on that child when you should be saving up for us to move out of this cramped apartment,” Mei Ling had said.

  “I am watching our money,” Liu insisted. “It’s just a lot easier for guys like Mr. Wu to get ahead, when they ride on the backs of workers like me.”

  “That goes for your friend Tai, too. The old prune hasn’t given me a raise since I started. And I still manage to take home most of what I earn.”

  “To your father, you mean?” Liu knew he had struck a nerve, and regretted it as soon as he said those words.

  Mei Ling had lashed back with angry, incoherent syllables, then called him a hypocrite, among other things, before retreating into a bitter silence that lasted well into the next day.

  When Liu arrived at the dock, Mr.Wu glared at him and hustled him aboard.The boat was already filled with the morning’s passengers. Liu hunkered down at the stern of the boat, preoccupied by his troubles at home. He craved a cigarette, but had been admonished not to light up, as this was a group of hippy Americans who expected clean air along with spectacular scenery.

  An hour later, Mr. Wu docked the boat on a jut of land leading to a flock of vendors.The white awnings and brilliant flags fluttered in the autumn breeze, and the tourists were easily lured ashore. Liu stayed on board while they shopped. When the group returned, he had dozed off in the sun, lulled by the rhythmic swaying of the boat.

  As the stragglers boarded with hawkers still nipping at their pocketbooks, Liu clambered onto the makeshift dock and began to untie the ropes anchoring the boat. He could hear the engine sputtering to life like a phlegmatic old man, but a stubborn hitch prevented him from releasing the line.

  “Just hold on, Mr. Wu,” he called
out, his throat scratchy from slumber. Liu lowered one leg into the boat. One more tug; the knot unraveled. And then the skiff broke away from shore with an accelerated roar of the engine.

  “Wait!” Liu screamed. His body, straddling water, was wrenched from the dock. He clawed wildly at the air as his free leg sank into the waves gushing behind the skiff. Torso followed leg, and Liu somersaulted into the depths of the slack river. He grasped for the rope, but it snaked away in the boat’s wake.

  In the span of two heartbeats, the accident had unfolded, and it took another protracted beat before the passengers responded.They, too, had their wits dulled by the morning’s excursion. One alert man sprang up, throwing a lifejacket to Liu and hollering to Mr. Wu, who had been deaf to Liu’s cries. The others only rattled their jaws and craned their timid necks toward the commotion.

  Liu’s attempts to dog paddle had failed; the freefalling leg had turned to stone, and if it had not been for the orange lifejacket, he would have succumbed to the river’s irresistible grasp. He coughed and spluttered, his shaky hands clutching the slick fabric. Soon the boat drifted back toward him. The quick-footed passenger pulled Liu safely back on board.

  WITH HIS LEFT LEG BOUND IN A COCOON-LIKE CAST, LIU WAS confined to his bed for weeks. He kept his cigarette stash in easy reach, along with the painkillers and an ashtray piled high on the wooden stand. A memory of exquisite pain haunted him, but Liu felt a strange numbness in his torso, as if the frigid waters of the Daning still possessed him.

  When Rose tried to climb over that white mound, a sizzle of pain shot up into his hip. He pushed her away, whereupon she burst into aggrieved wails.

  Too clouded in his mind by painkillers, Liu could barely mumble her name. “Rose, little monkey, stop.”

  “Little monkey stop, little monkey stop,” she prattled.