by Yu Hua
Baldy Li hesitated, unwilling to spare them. Outside Song Gang continued, "I'm starving. Just let me have one."
Baldy Li nodded and said, "Why don't you have four of them. Just save me one."
Song Gang shook his head. "Ill just have one."
Song Gang took one of the candies out of his pocket, examined it, then brought it up to his face and sniffed for a while. Baldy Li didn't hear any chewing, only sniffing, so he asked, "Why does your chewing sound like sniffing?"
Song Gang giggled. "I'm not eating. I'm just sniffing."
Baldy Li asked, "Why aren't you're eating?"
Song Gang swallowed his drool, saying, "I'm not going to eat it. They're all for you. I'll just take a few sniffs."
Right then Li Lan came home. From inside Baldy Li first heard his mother's shout of surprise and delight, then her rapid footsteps; then he heard Song Gang cry out, "Mama!" Li Lan ran up to the house and scooped Song Gang up in her arms, all the while chattering nonstop like a machine gun. Baldy Li, meanwhile, was still locked inside. He banged at the door with all his might, shouting and crying, but it took a while before Li Lan registered his cries and opened the door.
Baldy Li and Song Gang finally saw each other again in person. The two boys grabbed each other's hands and bounced up and down, hooting and hollering, until they both worked up a headful of sweat and the snivel from their noses dribbled into their mouths. They jumped about for more than ten minutes before Song Gang remembered the White Rabbits in his pocket. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he rooted around for the candies, counting out "one, two, three, four," and "five," as he placed them one by one into Baldy Li's hands. Baldy Li put four of them in his pocket but unwrapped the last one and popped it into his mouth.
Li Lan had suffered through a whole day of struggle sessions at the silk factory and was worn down and weary as she approached home. But the moment she saw Song Gang, her face lit up with excitement. This was the first time since Song Fanping's death that she had been this happy. She exclaimed that she was going to give the two boys a good meal to celebrate Song Gang's visit, and, taking them both by the hand, she set off for the People's Restaurant to get noodles. As they walked along the streets at dusk Baldy Li felt as if he had not been outside for years. He was so joyful that he no longer walked but skipped, and Song Gang did likewise. Li Lan led them with a broad smile, and her happiness infected the boys as they skipped along even more cheerfully.
As they reached the bridge they saw Mama Su from the snack shop standing there with a wooden placard around her neck. Her daughter, Missy Su, stood by her side, clutching her shirttail. Song Gang walked up to Mama Su and asked, "Why would someone as kind as you have to wear a wooden placard?"
Mama Su, her head bowed, did not respond, but Missy Su wiped her tears upon hearing Song Gangs words. Li Lan also stood there with her head bowed, whispering to Baldy Li and giving him a gentle nudge to share a candy with Missy Su. Baldy Li gulped, fished out a White Rabbit from his pocket, and painfully surrendered it to Missy Su, who reached out a tear-dampened palm and accepted it. Mama Su then looked up and smiled at Li Lan, and Li Lan smiled back. Li Lan stood for a while, then tugged at Song Gangs hand. Song Gang knew it was time to go. He said to Mama Su, "Don't worry. You will be rewarded in the next life."
Mama Su responded in a low voice, "You're a good boy. You will also be rewarded."
Mama Su then looked at Baldy Li and Li Lan and added, "You will all be rewarded."
Li Lan led Baldy Li and Song Gang to the People's Restaurant. The boys had not been there for a long time, the last time having been with Song Fanping, right after his flag-waving atop the bridge, when all of them were in heightened spirits. That time, everyone in the restaurant had gathered around as they ate their noodles, and the cook had even served them a special meat broth. Now the restaurant was nearly deserted. Li Lan ordered two bowls of plain noodles for the boys but didn't get anything for herself, explaining that she still had leftovers at home. As Baldy Li and Song Gang slurped down their bowls of steaming hot noodles, their noses were almost dripping into their soup. The noodle soup seemed to be as delicious as before. When the cook who had served them the last time saw that no one was paying attention, he came over and whispered, "I gave you the meat broth."
Li Lan led the two boys by the hand and walked along the street for a very long time. They passed by the basketball court that had once been all lit up. The three of them sat on stones next to the court and gazed out at the vast, empty ball court under the moonlight. Li Lan remembered how this space had once been brilliantly illuminated and how Song Fanping had outshone everyone in that fierce game. She particularly remembered that awesome dunk of his, how the crowds momentarily fell silent, then exploded in gasps and cheers. Li Lan smiled to herself and told the boys, "Now that your father has passed away, there's no one in the world who can dunk a basketball like he could."
Song Gang stayed for two days at Baldy Li's place, but on the third morning his grandfather came, carrying a pumpkin on his back. He declined to come inside, preferring to stand outside, head bowed. Li Lan greeted him warmly, calling him Father and leading him inside by the sleeve. The old landlord blushed and shook his head. There was nothing Li Lan could do to persuade him, so she brought a stool outside and invited him to sit down. The old landlord declined and instead continued to wait patiently for Song Gang to finish his breakfast, moving only to place the pumpkin beside the door. When Song Gang emerged, his grandfather took him by the hand and, bowing slightly to Li Lan, led him away.
Baldy Li ran to the door and sadly watched Song Gang depart. As he walked Song Gang kept looking back sadly at Baldy Li, then he raised his arm above his his head and waved, and Baldy Li waved back.
After this, Song Gang came to town about once a month. He no longer came alone but, rather, accompanied his grandfather when he came to peddle vegetables. The two of them would set out for town before it was light, while Baldy Li was still sound asleep. As they entered through the southern gate Song Gang would run along the dark streets to Baldy Li's house, carrying with him two heads of fresh greens. Quietly leaving the greens at the door, he would run back to the market and sit by his grandfather's side, calling out, "Fresh vegetables!"
Song Gang and his grandfather would often finish with their peddling just as the sun was coming up. His grandfather, with empty baskets, would lead Song Gang by the hand and circle back to Baldy Li's house, where the two of them would stand quietly outside the door, listening for any stirring inside and wondering if mother and son had woken up yet. Li Lan and Baldy Li would invariably still be asleep, the two heads of greens still waiting by the door. So Song Gang and his grandfather would silently take their leave.
During that first year, every time Song Gang came to town he would bring Baldy Li a few White Rabbits, wrapping them in wutong leaves and leaving them under the stone stoop in front of the door. Baldy Li had no idea how many White Rabbits Li Lan had given Song Gang, but during that first year Baldy Li almost always had White Rabbits to look forward to.
After rising and opening the door, Li Lan would spot the dew-misted vegetables waiting outside and call out to Baldy Li, "Song Gangs been here!"
Baldy Li's first action would always be to flip over the stone and retrieve the candy, and then he would dash out into the street. Li Lan knew that Baldy Li wanted to see Song Gang, and therefore she wouldn't try to stop him. After finding no trace of Song Gang at the market, Baldy Li would immediately turn around and run toward the southern gate. A few times the brothers actually caught sight of each other there. Baldy Li would spy Song Gang in the distance, walking behind his grandfather and his baskets, and Baldy Li would shout at the top of his lungs, "Song Gang! Song Gang!"
Hearing him, Song Gang would turn around and shout, "Baldy Li! Baldy Li!"
Baldy Li would stand there, continuing to call out Song Gang's name. As he walked Song Gang would repeatedly look back at Baldy Li, waving and calling out his name. Baldy Li called out until
he lost sight of Song Gang, and even then he continued calling out, "Song Gang! Song Gang!"
With every shout, he would hear echoes in the distance: "Gang … Gang … Gang …"
CHAPTER 24
TIME DRIFTED silently and unnoticed past Liu Town, and before anyone realized it seven years had gone by. In Liu Town, a widow was not supposed to wash her hair for a month after her husbands death, and sometimes the custom would be extended to half a year. Li Lan stopped washing her hair altogether following Song Fan-pings death. For seven years she didn't wash it, instead slicking it down with oil. She would neatly comb her black, greasy hair and proudly walk down the main street with the kids of Liu Town trailing behind, taunting, "Landlords wife, Landlords wife …"
Li Lan never shed her proud smile. Though she and Song Fanping had spent only fourteen months together as husband and wife, for Li Lan it meant more than if it had been a lifetime. Seven years of not washing her hair, combined with the layers upon layers of oil she applied, resulted in a foul odor emanating from her head that grew increasingly noxious. At first it was just the house, which would smell like worn socks the moment she returned home; then the odor grew so strong that everyone would smell it as she walked down the street. Everyone in Liu Town now ran away from her. Even the kids who used to call her "Landlords wife" would cover their noses and run away, yelling, "That stinks, stinks …"
Li Lan s hair became her badge of honor. She wanted everyone to think of her always as Song Fanping's wife. After Baldy Li entered school, each time he had to fill out his fathers name, she always made him write "Song Fanping," after which he had to write "landlord" in the Family Class Background box. As a result, Baldy Li was maligned and abused at school, and his classmates all took to calling him Little Landlord. Aside from Li Lan and Song Gang, who would occasionally visit him from the countryside, no one else seemed to know his name was Baldy Li, and in the end even the teachers used his class designation to address him, as in "Little Landlord, stand up and read that passage."
When Baldy Li turned ten, he remembered that he had a birth father—the one who had drowned in the latrine while ogling women's bottoms. Baldy Li resolved to use his birth fathers name so he could escape the bad luck of being called a landlord. When he once again had to fill out a name for the blank under Father, he decided to resist and asked his mother, "What should I write?"
Li Lan, who was in the middle of cooking, was taken aback by Baldy Li's question. She looked at her son in confusion, then answered, "Song Fanping."
Baldy Li lowered his head. "I mean my other dad…"
Li Lan gave him a withering look and replied firmly, "You have no other dad."
Li Lan lived her identity as a landlords wife with pride—it kept Song Fanping alive in her heart. Her pride lasted seven years, until the year Baldy Li turned fourteen. That was the year Baldy Li was caught spying on women in the toilet. Li Lan immediately fell apart, and later, when once again Baldy Li had to fill out a form, she erased Song Fan-pings name and substituted a name that was entirely foreign to Baldy Li—Liu Shanfeng—and also changed the Family Class Background box from "landlord" to "poor peasant." After Li Lan handed the revised form to Baldy Li, she noticed he again erased "Liu Shanfeng" and "poor peasant" and replaced them with "Song Fanping" and "landlord." Fourteen-year-old Baldy Li no longer cared that he was a little landlord. Grumbling as he erased his birth fathers name, he said, "Song Fanping's my dad."
Li Lan stared at her son as if he were a stranger. His words shocked her. When he raised his head to look at her, she immediately looked down, mumbling, "Your birth fathers name was Liu Shanfeng."
"What Liu Shanfeng?" Baldy Li tossed out the words with contempt. "If he were my dad, then Song Gang wouldn't be my brother."
Ever since Baldy Li had become notorious for peeping in the women's toilet, he was no longer called Little Landlord and became known instead as Little Buttpeeper. His birth father, who had long been forgotten, together with his own notorious deed, was now ubiquitous again, like an excavated relic, and referred to by Baldy Li's classmates as Old Buttpeeper. Even the teachers adopted Baldy Li's new nickname, saying, for instance, "Hey, Little Buttpeeper, go clean the toilets."
Li Lan was once again trapped in her shame, just as she had been when her first husband had drowned in the public latrine. All the pride that Song Fanping had granted her suddenly dissipated. She no longer walked down the street with her head held high but instead became as fearful and timid as she had been fourteen years earlier. Now every time she went out she walked with her head bowed and turned toward the wall, feeling as though all eyes were upon her. She no longer wanted to go outside; even when she was home, she locked herself in, sitting on her bed like a bump on a log. Her migraines also returned, and her teeth once again chattered from dawn until dusk.
Baldy Li by this time was busy peddling the secrets of Lin Hongs bottom, and his face glowed with health from having downed countless bowls of house-special noodles, along with an occasional bowl of plain noodles.
Baldy Li strutted down the street like a celebrity, not minding at all being called Little Buttpeeper. The folks who called him that didn't know a thing. As for those who were in the know—folks like Victory Zhao, Success Liu, Little Scissors Guan, and others, basically everyone who had done business with him over the secrets of Lin Hongs bottom—they all called him King of Butts. By this time Victory Zhao was Poet Zhao and Success Liu was Writer Liu, and it was these two Men of Talent who had come up with Baldy Li's new nickname. He was quite satisfied with King of Butts. Gotta tell it like it is, he thought.
The teenage Baldy Li and the two young men Poet Zhao and Writer Liu were best pals for a few months. What they had in common was the study and discussion of Lin Hong's beautiful backside. Liu Town's two Men of Talent racked their brains to come up with myriad literary phrases—graphic, lyrical, descriptive, metaphorical, clinical, and analytical—and they laid them all at Baldy Li's feet for him to choose the ones that most accurately captured the wonders of what he had seen. But once they had exhausted all possible ways of discussing the matter, their friendship with Baldy Li came to a natural conclusion. Several times in the dark of night, the two Men of Talent went to pilfer books from a room that was filled with tomes confiscated during the Cultural Revolution while Baldy Li served as their lookout. Many of the wondrous and poetic phrases that they came up with to describe Lin Hong's bottom were discovered in these stolen books.
Blacksmith Tong was the only one among those in the know who did not refer to Baldy Li as King of Butts. He had wanted to use a cheap bowl of plain noodles to obtain Baldy Li's secrets, but the boy had not fallen for it. Therefore, Blacksmith Tong, out a bowl of noodles and with nothing to show for it, would curse Baldy Li every time he saw him: "Little Bastard Buttpeeper."
Baldy Li took absolutely no offense, instead reasoning with him, "You might as well call me King of Butts like everyone else."
Sometimes Baldy Li would run into Lin Hong on the street. She was eighteen then, and at the height of her beauty. All the men stared slack-jawed as she walked by, but only Baldy Li had the guts to greet her enthusiastically, as if she were an old flame of his. "Lin Hong, its been a long time! What have you been up to?"
Lin Hong blushed in fury and shame. She couldn't believe that this little fifteen-year-old Peeping Tom of a hoodlum was actually sidling up to her. Completely ignoring the shocked and mocking glances of the passersby, Baldy Li continued warmly, "How is everyone in your family?"
Lin Hong said through gritted teeth, "Just go away!"
Hearing this, Baldy Li looked behind him and waved off the people around them as if she had been speaking to someone else. Then he volunteered his protective services to Lin Hong, who by this point was furious to the point of tears. He asked, "Where are you headed? I'll escort you."
Lin Hong couldn't bear another moment of this and screamed loudly, "Go away! Jerk!"
Baldy Li again looked behind him, whereupon Lin Hong pointed directly a
t him. "I'm telling you to go away!"
Amid the laughter of the crowds, Baldy Li watched as Lin Hong walked off. Smacking his lips regretfully, he told the onlookers, "She's still mad at me."
Then he shook his head and sighed ruefully. "I shouldn't have taken that wrong turn in life."
Reports of Baldy Li's various misdeeds trickled down to Li Lan's ears, causing her to bow her head even farther. She had borne her first husband's scandal, and now she had to bear her son's notoriety. She, whose face had once been bathed in tears daily, now had no more left to shed. But she didn't say a word to Baldy Li about his doings, because she knew that she had no control over him. Often she would be awakened in the middle of the night by her migraines and would lie there, wondering what was to become of Baldy Li. She spent one sleepless night after another asking in distress, "Dear God, why did I have to give birth to such a demon?"
As Li Lans spirit collapsed, her health also faltered. Her migraines became more and more severe, and then her kidneys started failing. While Baldy Li was enjoying his meals of house-special noodles and fattening himself up, Li Lan was no longer going to work, having taken a long sick leave to rest at home. Her complexion had become waxy and sallow, and when she went for her daily shots at the clinic, the doctors and nurses could smell the sour, foul odor emanating from her even through their surgical masks. They turned their heads away as they spoke with her or gave her shots. Her illness eventually worsened to the point where she tried to check into the hospital. They told her, "Go wash your hair before checking in."
Li Lan hung her head in shame the entire way home and spent the next couple of days holed up in misery. During that time she thought of nothing but Song Fanping, his smile and his words; she felt that washing her hair would be a betrayal of him, the love of her life. Ultimately she concluded that she did not have much longer to live and would soon be going to the netherworld to be reunited with Song Fanping, and perhaps even he might be bothered by the foulness of her hair. So one Sunday afternoon she placed a set of clean clothes in a basket and pulled Baldy Li aside just as he was leaving the house. After hesitating for a moment, she said, "I don't think I will be getting better, so I'd like to clean myself before dying."