by Yu Hua
The boys stopped and pondered this. Song Gang replied, "A fishing rod."
"That's for rod fishing," Song Fanping explained. "For netting fish you need a fishnet, and you need a bamboo basket to catch shrimp."
With his left elbow dangling, Song Fanping cocked his right elbow as if he were holding a bamboo basket, and bending down right in front of the warehouse, he started teaching them how to use a basket to net shrimp. He said that while standing in the river they should be as alert as sentries, placing the basket in the water at an angle, and once shrimp swam in of their own accord, the boys should immediately lift the basket. He stood up, concluding, "So this is how you catch shrimp."
Song Fanping asked them whether they got it. Baldy Li and Song Gang glanced at each other and nodded. Song Fanping said that he would teach them one more time, but when he bent down again, they immediately pointed out his error. Baldy Li said, "You haven't rolled up your pants legs."
Song Fanping chuckled. He bent down again and rolled up both pants legs, then once again demonstrated how to catch shrimp. This time both boys answered in unison, "We got it."
Baldy Li and Song Gang arrived at the river, rolled up their pants, and waded in. The water rushed by below their knees. They placed the basket in the water at an angle, just as Song Fanping had done in front of the warehouse, and waited for the shrimp to swim in. They waited in the river under the summer sun for an entire afternoon, until they were covered in sweat. They were startled to discover that the shrimp in the river skipped as they swam, unlike the fish with their tails wagging. The shrimp skipped, hopped, and swam into the boys’ basket, up to five swimming in at once. The boys were so delighted they started yelping but then immediately covered their mouths when they noticed that they had scared away the little river shrimp, making it necessary for them to change location. Only when the boys sat on the grass by the riverbank counting the shrimp under the glow of the setting sun did they realize they had netted sixty-seven of the little guys.
On this particular evening, the boys’ expressions, their intonation, and their gait—all were the spitting image of those red-armbanders parading around Liu Town. Baldy Li and Song Gang strutted through town with their bamboo basket and their sixty-seven shrimp. Someone spotted the shrimp in their basket and couldn't help harrumphing, saying that these two little bastards really had something going. When Baldy Li heard this, he felt smug, this being the first time he liked being called a bastard. He said to Song Gang, "These little bastards have something going."
After they got home, Baldy Li told Song Gang, "Let's boil those sixty-seven little bastard shrimp."
As the water in the pot started to boil, Baldy Li excitedly pointed out to Song Gang, "Hear that? Do you hear those sixty-seven little bastard shrimp bouncing around in there?"
When there were no more sounds coming from the pot, the boys lifted the lid and saw that the shrimp inside had all turned pink. Remembering what Song Fanping had told them about when the shrimp were done, Song Gang stuck out his tongue for Baldy Li and asked if the shrimp were as pink as his tongue. Baldy Li replied, "They're even pinker."
Baldy Li also stuck out his tongue to show Song Gang. Song Gang said, "They're pinker than your tongue, too."
Together they cried, "Let's eat! Let's eat these little bastard shrimp."
This was the first time they had eaten shrimp that they themselves had caught and cooked. They had forgotten to put salt in the pot, and after taking in a few bland bites, they decided that the taste was somewhat off. Song Gang then had a flash of culinary inspiration and proceeded to pour some soy sauce into a bowl, then dipped the shrimp into the soy sauce before eating them. Baldy Li grinned from ear to ear as he ate, proclaiming that the meat on these little bastard shrimp was dozens of times tastier than those little bastard meat buns. At that moment the boys had no awareness of anything other than the shrimp they were eating. After they finished, they sat there savoring the dish, not having fully emerged from their gustatory ecstasy. Only when Song Gang let out a belch, followed by Baldy Li, did they realize that they had finished off all sixty-seven little river shrimp. The boys wiped their mouths and agreed dreamily, "Let's eat shrimp tomorrow."
In the days that followed, Baldy Li and Song Gang lost all interest in wandering the main streets. They now loved the creek with a passion. They left at dawn every day with their basket to catch shrimp, walking a long, long way down the riverbank and then back again. Their legs were as pale as corpses and swollen from all the soaking, while their faces glowed red like overfed capitalists. Completely on their own, they learned to boil, panfry, and stir-fry the shrimp. They discovered that stir-frying shrimp required soy sauce, but that salt worked better with deep-frying. When good fortune came rushing in, there was no damming it. Once the boys netted more than a hundred shrimp. They fried and fried the shrimp until they had turned black, but when they ate them, they were delighted to discover that the blackened shells were crisp and delicious, with a taste completely distinct from that of the shrimp meat. When they were halfway through and still had more than forty shrimp left, Song Gang suddenly stopped eating and suggested, "Lets take these to Papa."
Baldy Li agreed, "Yes!"
They gathered the remaining fried shrimp into a bowl, and as they were walking out the door Song Gang said that they should get Papa two ounces of yellow rice wine. Song Gang imagined that Song Fan-ping would be so delighted to be drinking wine and eating shrimp that he would laugh with delight. Song Gang opened his mouth and cackled, demonstrating how his father would laugh. Baldy Li said Song Gang hadn't gotten it right and sounded like he was screaming for help. Then Baldy Li showed how he thought Song Fanping would sound— his mouth would be so crammed with shrimp and wine that he would barely be able to get a sound out and instead would just emit a few gurgles of laughter. Song Gang replied that Baldy Li's version wasn't right either, that it sounded more like a yawn.
They brought an empty bowl and went to the store to buy two ounces of wine. The wine vendor caught sight of the shrimp in their other bowl and took a few greedy sniffs. He said that the shrimp smelled so good he could only imagine how tasty they would be. Baldy Li and Song Gang chuckled and confirmed—"Yup, they were even tastier than they smelled." As they turned to leave they could hear the wine vendor swallowing his saliva.
It was dusk, and with Song Gang holding the bowl of wine and Baldy Li carrying the bowl of fried shrimp, the two boys carefully made their way to Song Fanping's warehouse. There they once again ran into the three sweep-kicking middle-schoolers, who walked toward them hollering, "Hey kids!"
Oh no, they thought. If it weren't for the wine and shrimp, they would have already taken off. But now, their hands full with bowls, they could only plop themselves on the ground. Three pairs of sweep-kicking legs encircled them. Baldy Li and Song Gang, still cupping their bowls, looked up at the three middle-schoolers. Song Gang said, not without satisfaction, "We're already sitting on the ground."
Baldy Li thought that they would respond, "Stand up if you have balls." So he jumped the gun and added, "Sweep-kick us up if you have the balls." But the three middle-schoolers hadn't said a word, instead focusing all their attention on the contents of Baldy Li's bowl. Sun Wei, Victory Zhao, and Success Liu all squatted down next to Baldy Li, and Sun Wei took a deep sniff and said, "Smells real good, even better than shrimp from the restaurant."
Victory Zhao added, "Damn. They even have wine to go with it."
Baldy Li's hands started trembling as he realized that they were going to grab his fried shrimp. Sure enough, they said, "Hey, kid. Give us a taste."
Three pairs of hands simultaneously dipped into Baldy Li's bowl. Baldy Li ducked and protected his bowl, hurriedly reminding them, "Blacksmith Tongs already told you, we are the young blossoms of our homeland."
When they heard Blacksmith Tongs name, the middle-schoolers yanked back their hands. After looking around and making sure that Blacksmith Tong was nowhere to be seen and that no one else was paying
them any heed, they reached over again. Baldy Li opened his mouth and prepared to bite down on any invading digits when Song Gang suddenly shouted, "Shrimp for sale! Shrimp for sale!"
As he yelled out Song Gang nudged Baldy Li with his elbow. When Baldy Li saw that Song Gang's hawking had attracted some passersby he too began shouting, "Shrimp for sale! Fragrant fried shrimp!"
A crowd instantly gathered and stared curiously at Baldy Li and Song Gang. The three middle-schoolers were squeezed off to the sides and stood there cursing Song Gang's dad, Baldy Li's mom, as well as all of their ancestors, before finally wiping their lips and going away.
Someone asked Baldy Li and Song Gang, "How much for the shrimp?"
Song Gang replied, "One yuan a shrimp."
"What?" the man exclaimed. "Do you think you are selling gold?"
"Just smell." Song Gang let Baldy Li hold up the bowl. "These are fried shrimp."
Baldy Li raised the bowl over his head. The crowd all caught a whiff of the shrimp and someone said, "They do smell good. But it should really be two shrimp for a cent."
Someone else added, "With one yuan you could buy a golden shrimp. These two little bastards are real profiteers."
Song Gang stood up, retorting, "You can't eat a golden shrimp."
Baldy Li also stood up and said, "Plus, golden shrimp aren't tasty."
Seeing that the three middle-schoolers were no longer around, Baldy Li and Song Gang breathed a sigh of relief and extricated themselves from the crowd of people. Holding their bowls, the boys swaggered away and proceeded down the street and over the bridge until they reached the front gate of the warehouse. The warehouse was still being guarded by the father of long-haired Sun Wei—who had just missed an opportunity to eat Baldy Li's shrimp. Sun Wei's father saw the two boys walking toward him and chuckled, "Hey, you're not dangling your elbows anymore?"
The two boys answered, "Can't dangle ‘em. We're carrying bowls." Sun Wei's father caught a whiff of the shrimp. He walked over to peer down at the bowls, then grabbed a shrimp and started munching on it. He asked, "Who cooked these?"
Baldy Li answered, "We did."
Astonished, he said, "You little bastards, you're top chefs."
As he said this he reached into the shrimp bowl again, but Baldy Li quickly dodged. So Sun Wei's father simply thrust out both hands, demanding both the shrimp and the wine. The children backed away, dodging his grasp. After cursing "Fuck that!" he walked back to the warehouse door and kicked it open, bellowing, "Song Fanping! Get out here. Your sons brought you stuff to eat and drink!"
He lingered on the words stuff to eat and drink, and soon five or six people wearing red armbands rushed out. Looking all about as they hurried over, they asked, "What's there to eat? What's there to drink?"
Their nostrils flared as they sniffed, and they said, "How fragrant, even more fragrant than lard." They had been eating carrots and greens day in and day out, and tasted pork at most once a month. Now that they caught sight of the fried shrimp in Baldy Li's hands, they felt so ravenous that claws seemed to emerge from their mouths. They surrounded the two children like a high wall encircling two saplings. A din of "Lemme try it!" filled the air, and a stream of saliva rained down on Baldy Li and Song Gangs faces. Frightened, the boys cradled their bowls and yelled, "Help! Help!"
Song Fanping walked out with his dangling arm. The boys spotted their savior and cried out, "Papa, come quickly!"
Song Fanping walked over to the boys, and Baldy Li and Song Gang hid behind him. Relieved, they raised their bowls of shrimp and wine and offered them to him. Song Gang said, "Papa, we made you fried shrimp, and we got you two ounces of rice wine to go with it."
Song Fanping's left hand dangled there uselessly, so he accepted Baldy Li's bowl of shrimp with his right. He didn't eat any, however, but instead politely passed it along to those red-armbanded people. He then accepted Song Gang's wine and also extended it to them. They were all still busy munching on the shrimp, so he waited politely with the bowl of wine. There were as many hands on the shrimp as branches on a tree, and in the blink of an eye they were all gone. The red-armbanders then noticed Song Fanping standing to the side waiting politely with the bowl of wine, and so took the wine and passed it around, each one of them downing a big gulp and finishing it off in no time.
Baldy Li and Song Gang wiped at their tears. Their shrimp and wine had been for Song Fanping, but he didn't get a taste of either. Song Gang said, "We were imagining how you would laugh while enjoying our shrimp and wine."
Song Fanping knelt down and, without a word, wiped away their tears. When he smiled, the boys noticed that he too had tears streaming from his eyes.
After finishing the shrimp and wine, the red-armbanders kicked at Song Fanping and bellowed, "Get up, scram! Get back in the warehouse!"
Song Fanping wiped away his tears and patted first Baldy Li's face, then Song Gang's, and said gently, "Now go on home."
Song Fanping stood up, no longer crying. He smiled contentedly at the red-armbanders, then walked heroically toward the front gate. When he reached the gate he turned around and, his dislocated left elbow still dangling at his side, waved to Baldy Li and Song Gang with his right hand. With that wave he looked so confident and magnanimous, like Chairman Mao waving at the parading masses from atop Tiananmen Square.
CHAPTER 15
YEARS LATER, whenever Baldy Li spoke of his stepfather, he only had one thing to say. Raising his thumb, he would sigh and say, "What a real man."
In that warehouse that was in fact a prison, Song Fanping suffered every torment and abuse imaginable. Yet he never uttered a word of complaint, even as his dislocated left arm became increasingly swollen. He also never stopped writing Li Lan. He had written his first letter on the day of his flag-waving atop the bridge. This was the most glorious moment of his life, so his letter was filled with passion and energy. This was the first time Li Lan, sitting in a hospital bed in Shanghai, had ever received a letter from a man, and what a letter it was! Reading it made her feel as though she had been given a shot of adrenaline. Baldy Li's biological father, who had drowned in the public latrine, had never written her, and for him the height of romance consisted of knocking on her window in the middle of the night, hoping to lure her out to the fields for a romp. So when she received her first letter from Song Fanping, she blushed bright red. And as Song Fanping's letters continued coming one after another, her pulse would race each time she received a new one.
By this point, Song Fanping had been thoroughly beaten down, but in order for Li Lan to feel at ease while receiving her treatment in Shanghai, he continued filling his letters with passion and energy. He didn't tell her what had actually happened but instead described how things were getting better and better, so she believed that he was riding the crest of the red waves of the Cultural Revolution. Even after Song Fanping had his left elbow dislocated, he nevertheless continued, using his right hand to embroider his glorious exploits for her, and Baldy Li and Song Gang would mail the letters off for him. The boys would come to the front gate of the warehouse, and long-haired Sun Wei's father would hand them the letters, which they would then take to the post office. When Song Fanping mailed his own letters, he always pasted the stamp in the top right corner of the envelope. But when Baldy Li and Song Gang mailed them, they didn't know where to put the stamp. Once they saw someone else place it on the back of the envelope, so Baldy Li did the same. The next time, when it was Song Gangs turn, he saw that someone had pasted it over the opening, and did the same.
By that point Li Lan was no longer able to continue her treatment in peace. There were struggle sessions every day at the hospital, and one after another every doctor she knew was brought down. Anxious and worried, she was desperate to get home. But Song Fanping tried to dissuade her, urging her to stay in Shanghai to treat her migraines. Each day Li Lan spent in Shanghai seemed like an eternity, and she had read Song Fanpings letters over so many times she knew them by heart— they were her only source of
solace during this period.
She also examined the envelopes many times and noticed that from a certain day onward, the placement of the stamps kept shifting. One time it would be on the back of the envelope, and the next it would be over the opening. And every time she received a letter with a stamp on the back, she told herself that on the next letter the stamp would be over the opening.
Baldy Li and Song Gang took turns placing the stamp on the envelopes and putting the letters in the mailbox. They never went out of turn. This was the source of Li Lan s uneasiness, and this uneasiness increased daily. She started to imagine all sorts of scenarios and to suffer from insomnia, and her migraines became more severe. Li Lan, who typically listened to Song Fanping in all things, for the first time wrote him a firm letter. She told him that because of the Cultural Revolution there were no longer any doctors around, and therefore she had resolved to return home.
When Li Lan had taken the bus to Shanghai to get treatment, Song Fanping had told her that after she was cured, he would come in person to pick her up. To assuage her uneasiness, Li Lan decided to test the waters by asking Song Fanping whether he could come meet her now.
This time Li Lan had to wait more than half a month for a response. Song Fanping had just been whipped with a belt for more than an hour, but even in his imprisonment this good man was determined to keep his word, so without hesitation he promised his wife that he would go to Shanghai to pick her up. He even set a date and asked her to wait for him at noon at the front gate of the hospital.