Border Town

by Shen CongWen

  “No. 2, No. 2, wait up, I have something to tell you. You know that part about you being a fool? You were no fool—it was your counterpart who went into a foolish rapture because of your songs!”

  The young man paused a moment, but he said, softly: “That’s it. Enough of this. Don’t talk about it anymore.”

  The old ferryman continued, “No. 2, I heard that you’d rather tend a ferryboat than a grain mill. Horseman Yang told me so. Was he right?”

  The young man said, “And what if I did want the ferryboat?”

  Suddenly cheered by the look on No. 2’s face, the old ferryman couldn’t resist loudly shouting for Cuicui to come down to the stream. But luck was not with him. He waited a long while and still there was no sign of her, and no response. She had either gone off or was purposely staying inside the house. No. 2 waited for a while in silence, watching the expression on the old ferryman’s face, before smiling and striding off with a porter who was bearing loads of bean starch noodles and refined sugar.

  Once they passed the low mountain called Green Creek Hill, the two took a winding path that skirted a bamboo grove. The porter spoke what was on his mind:

  “Nuosong, I can tell from his look that this ferryman has really taken a liking to you!”

  When No. 2 didn’t answer, the man said:

  “No. 2, he asked if you preferred the mill or the ferry. Are you really going to marry his granddaughter and take over his beat-up ferryboat?”

  No. 2 laughed. The other man went on:

  “No. 2, if it were my choice, I’d take the grain mill. There’s a future in that. It’ll make you three pints of rice and ten times that in bran.”

  No. 2 responded: “When I get back, I’ll put in a word for you with my father. He can make you a match with those people in Middle Stockade, so you can have your mill. As for me, I’d be fine with that ferryboat. But the old man is too cunning by far. He’s the one who led No. 1 to his demise.”

  The old ferryman was disconsolate to see No. 2 go on his way. Still Cuicui had not come out. He went to the house for a look and Cuicui was not there. A while later, Cuicui emerged from behind a hill, carrying a basket. He realized that Cuicui had been out all morning, digging up bamboo shoots.

  “Cuicui, I called for you for the longest time! You must not have heard.”

  “What did you call me for?”

  “There was a passenger on the ferry—someone we know. We got to talking about you. I called you, but you didn’t answer!”

  “Who was it?”

  “Guess, Cuicui. He wasn’t a stranger, you know him!”

  Cuicui thought of the conversation she had inadvertently heard while in the bamboo grove just before. She blushed and for a long time remained quiet.

  The old ferryman asked, “Cuicui, how many bamboo shoots did you gather?”

  Cuicui turned her bamboo basket upside down. Besides a dozen or so little bamboo shoots, there was a big clump of saxifrage.

  The old ferryman shot her a glance. Her cheeks flushing scarlet, Cuicui hurried away.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  As another month passed quietly by, the heartaches of all concerned seemed cured by the long summer days. The weather grew so hot that everyone was preoccupied with their sweating and they ate their fermented glutinous rice in cold water. There was no place left in their lives for heartaches and worries. Every afternoon, Cuicui took a nap on the shady side of the pagoda. It was very cool on that elevated spot. The soothing songs of bamboo finches and other birds came from the bamboo stands of the mountains on either side. The birds were such a numerous flock that in her dreams the mountain birdsong lifted her up into the air and brought her the most fantastic dreams.

  There was no sin in that. Poets could spin out books of poetry from a small incident. Sculptors could carve the living image of a person in a piece of stone, and painters could turn out one magical painting after another from streaks of green, red, and gray. Who among them was not inspired by the memory of a smile, or a frown? Cuicui could not use writing, or stone, or colors, to transfer her heart’s passions of love and hate into a work of art, she could only let her heart race ahead with the most absurd thoughts. This secretiveness often brought her an excitement both shocking and elating. A wholly unknowable future was shaking her emotions to their foundations, and she could not completely hide these passions from her grandpa.

  As to Grandpa, one could say that he knew everything, but in fact he was wholly ignorant. He understood that Cuicui was not displeased with the No. 2 son, but he could not comprehend the young man’s own disposition. He had met with rebuffs from both the fleetmaster and No. 2, yet he failed to be discouraged.

  “If I can fix things up a little better, it will turn out all right, if only fate allows!” In that frame of mind, he mused that the course of love was never easy. The visions he dreamed with his eyes wide open were even more fantastic and unfettered than those of his granddaughter, Cuicui.

  He inquired about the lives of No. 2 and his father from every local person who took his ferry, as solicitous about the River Street people as if they were family. Yet, strangely enough, this made him all the more fearful of actually running into them. When he did, he couldn’t think of a thing to say. He rubbed his hands together nervously, as was his habit, having completely lost his composure. No. 2 and his father knew what he was up to, but the departed son, to use a cold expression, was chiseled into their hearts. They went about their business as the days passed by, acting as if they didn’t know what the old ferryman was about.

  Early in the morning, when it was obvious that he had not dreamed a single dream the night before, Grandpa would say,

  “Cuicui, Cuicui, last night I had a simply awful dream.”

  “What awful dream?” Cuicui asked.

  Then, pretending to be remembering his dream, he would scrutinize Cuicui’s slender face and long eyebrows while telling her of a wonderful daydream he’d imagined at another time. Needless to say, none of these dreams were so fearsome after all.

  All streams flow to the sea eventually. Although the conversation took a quite different direction to start, in the end it always came back to those matters that made Cuicui blush. Only when it became evident that Cuicui was displeased, her expression betraying embarrassment, did the old ferryman pretend that he was upset and hurry to explain himself, using small talk to cover up his intentions in bringing up these matters.

  “Cuicui, that’s not what I meant, not at all. Your grandfather is old and muddled, full of crazy talk.”

  But sometimes Cuicui quietly listened to Grandpa’s crazy talk and muddled thoughts, to the point where she found herself smiling to herself.

  She might suddenly blurt out:

  “Grandfather, you really are mixed up!”

  Hearing that, Grandpa would stop speaking. He meant to go on to say, “There are a lot of things on my mind,” but before he could speak, he was summoned by a ferry passenger.

  It was hot, so when ferry passengers from far away arrived bearing eighty-pound loads on their shoulder poles, they would rest and cool off by the creek. Squatting under the cliffs by the keg to enjoy a cool drink of tea, they passed their long “puffer” tobacco pipe between them while drawing the ferryman into their conversation. Thus did all sorts of baseless rumors, from the heavens above to the earth below, reach the old ferryman’s ears. Sometimes the passengers would take advantage of the clean stream waters to wash their feet or bathe. The longer they stayed, the more gossip passed between them. Grandpa passed some of the talk on to Cuicui, and she learned a good deal in the process: the rise and fall of commodity prices, the going rate for riding a sedan chair or a boat, how to steer a timber raft down the rapids using its rudders, what it was like to look for a prostitute on an opium sampan, how ladies of the night with unbound feet boiled the opium—just about everything.

  Nuosong, No. 2, returned to Chadong with his goods from East Sichuan. It was almost dusk and very still out on the stream. Grandpa an
d Cuicui were in the vegetable garden, inspecting the turnip sprouts. Cuicui had napped a little too long that day and was feeling a little forlorn, so when she thought she heard a hoarse voice summon the ferry, she was the first to go down to the landing. As she went down the bank, she saw two men standing by the pier. She could recognize them clearly in the light of the setting sun, though their backs were to her: it was Nuosong, No. 2, and the family servant! Startled, like a little wild animal encountering a hunter, Cuicui ran back into the bamboo grove on the hill. But the two men at the stream turned around at the sound of her footfall and saw everything. They waited a while and still no one came, so the servant shouted again for the ferry in his raspy voice.

  The old ferryman heard him very clearly, but continued squatting in the garden, counting his turnip sprouts. He found it amusing. He’d seen Cuicui take flight and knew it must be because she recognized someone at the landing. He purposely kept on squatting under the high cliffs, ignoring the men. Cuicui was young and not in charge; when she didn’t respond to the men who wanted to cross, they had no recourse but to keep straining their voices to summon the ferry. After several more shouts, the hired man rested his tired voice and asked No. 2, “What’s this all about? You don’t suppose the old man is down sick and has left the ferry to Cuicui all by herself?” No. 2 answered, “Let’s wait, we’re in no hurry!” So they waited awhile. Because the passengers had fallen quiet, the old ferryman in the garden thought to himself: “Could it be No. 2?” As if afraid of annoying Cuicui further, he kept on squatting there and didn’t make a move.

  But not long after, the shouting for the ferry resumed, and this time it sounded a little different. It was No. 2’s voice. Was he angry? Tired of waiting? Had there been an argument? Frantically trying to size up the situation, the old ferryman raced down to the stream bank. When he got there, he saw the two men already aboard the boat, and one of them was No. 2. The old ferryman shouted out, anxiously,

  “Hey there, No. 2, you’re back!”

  Showing his displeasure, the young man answered, “Yes, I’m back. What’s wrong with you folks at the ferry? We waited forever and no one came for us!”

  “I thought it was—” he looked all around and there was no trace of Cuicui, but just then the yellow dog ran out of the bamboo grove on the mountain, so he knew she had gone up there. He changed his drift and said: “I thought you had already crossed over.”

  “Already crossed over? Who would dare launch the boat without you?” said the servant. As he spoke, a waterfowl skimmed over the water. “That jade-green bird is headed toward its nest. We have to hurry back home in time for supper!”

  “You’re in time, you’ve got plenty of time to get to River Street.” The old ferryman had already jumped into the boat. “Don’t you want to inherit this ferryboat for your own?” he thought, as he pulled on the cable and the boat left the shore.

  “No. 2, it must have been a tiring trip!”

  As the old ferryman spoke, No. 2 listened without letting on how he was feeling. When they reached the shore, the young man and his servant shouldered their loads and crossed over the hill without saying a word. The old ferryman took note of their coolness. He shook his fist at them behind their backs, shook it three times. He cursed them under his breath and pulled the boat back to his side.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Cuicui’s flight into the bamboo grove and the old ferryman’s long delay in coming down to the landing suggested to Nuosong that his prospects here were not good. Although the old ferryman was constantly intimating that Nuosong “had a chance for success in this,” the old man’s hesitant explanations were very inept; they made No. 2 think of his elder brother, and he misinterpreted them. He felt a little aggrieved and a little angry. On his third day back home, someone arrived from Middle Stockade to sound him out. During an overnight stay in Shunshun’s house on River Street, the man asked Shunshun where No. 2 stood—did he still want the new mill or not? Shunshun referred the question to No. 2 himself.

  No. 2 answered, “Papa, if this is for you—if adding a mill and a woman to the household would make you happy, then you give the go-ahead. If this is for me, then I need to think it over and wait a few days before answering. I still don’t know if I ought to take the mill or the ferryboat; perhaps my fate will only allow me to operate the boat!”

  The man who’d come to sound them out marked these words and set out for Middle Stockade to report on his mission. When he came to the ferry at Green Creek Hill and saw the old ferryman, he recalled No. 2’s words and couldn’t help smiling to himself. On learning that the man was from Middle Stockade, the ferryman asked him what business he had in town.

  The Middle Stockade man knew enough to be circumspect in his words:

  “Nothing much, I just went to Fleetmaster Shunshun’s house on River Street and sat a spell.”

  “They say one doesn’t go to the Temple of the Three Buddhist Treasures without a good reason. If you sat down there you must have had something to say!”

  “We did exchange some pleasantries.”

  “What did you talk about?” The other man said nothing further, so the old ferryman went on: “I hear that someone from Middle Stockade wants to give away a mill by the riverside, together with his daughter, to Shunshun down on River Street. Has there been any progress in that matter?”

  The man from Middle Stockade grinned. “It’s a done deal. I asked Shunshun. He’s quite willing to join families with the man from Middle Stockade. Then he asked the young man…”

  “And how did he feel about it?”

  “He said: ‘A mill and a ferryboat lie before me. Originally I wanted the ferry, but now I’ve decided on the mill. A boat is always on the move, whereas a mill stays in place.’ That fellow has a head on him.”

  This man from Middle Stockade was a rice broker, good at weighing his words. He well knew what the “ferryboat” referred to, but he didn’t let on. When he saw the old ferryman start to speak, the Middle Stockade man broke in first:

  “Everything depends on fate. Human actions hardly have a hand in it. It’s too bad that Shunshun’s No. 1—such a handsome lad—had to drown in the river!”

  This stabbed the old ferryman right in the heart. He swallowed the words he was about to speak. After the man from Middle Stockade had come ashore and gone on his way, the old ferryman stood dejectedly in the prow of his boat, dazed. Ruminating about how distant No. 2 had been the time before, he felt very upset.

  Cuicui was quite happily occupied under the pagoda. She went up to the high bluffs, wanting Grandpa to sing to her from below, but he paid her no attention. She went down to the stream, sulking, until she saw that Grandpa for some unknown reason looked very dispirited. When Cuicui approached and Grandpa saw her dusky, happy face, he put on a semblance of a smile. But there was someone transporting goods awaiting the ferry on the other side, so Grandpa said nothing. He pulled the boat south across the stream in silence, until midway he broke out loudly into song. After ferrying the passenger, Grandpa jumped up on the dock and went up to Cuicui with a wry smile on his face again. He wiped his forehead with his hand.

  Cuicui said,

  “What’s the matter, Grandfather, are you suffering from heatstroke? Lie down and rest in the shade! I’ll take care of the boat.”

  “Yes, you take care of it. Fine. Excellent, this boat is yours to take care of!”

  He felt like he really did have heatstroke. He was sick at heart. Though he put up a strong front before Cuicui, when he was alone in the house he found a piece of broken porcelain, cut himself in a few places on his arms and legs to let out some blood, then lay down to sleep.

  Taking up her post on the boat, Cuicui felt strangely euphoric. She thought: “If Grandfather won’t sing for me, I’ll sing myself.”

  She sang a good many songs. Lying in bed with his eyes shut and listening closely, the old ferryman grew anxious. But he knew that this illness would not be the end of him; he would still be able to get up tomo
rrow. He decided to go to town the next day and look around on River Street. He also mulled over many other matters.

  When the morning came, however, though he left the bed, his head still hung heavy. Grandpa was truly ill. Cuicui, knowing just what to do, boiled up a pot of fever-breaking herbal medicine and made Grandpa drink it. She also went out back to the garden to pick sour garlic sprouts for steeping in rice broth, as a cure. She frequently took time out from minding the boat to return home and look in on Grandpa and ply him with questions. But he had nothing to say; a secret pained him. Yet, after three days in bed, he was well. He seemed strong as ever as he paced in front and back of the house, but something was worrying him, so he prepared to journey to River Street. Cuicui couldn’t understand what could be so important as to make Grandpa go to town so soon. She begged him not to go.

  The old ferryman rubbed his hands together, wondering whether he ought to tell her what his business was. Standing before Cuicui, with her bright eyes and dark, oval face, he had to sigh.

  “I have something important to do,” he said, “and I have to go today!”

  Cuicui smiled disdainfully: “What’s so urgent? Surely it’s not…”

  The old ferryman knew his granddaughter’s temper; he could hear the unhappiness in her voice, so he stopped insisting on going. Laying on the table the bamboo tube and embroidered cloth shoulder bag he’d prepared for the trip, he said, with a fawning smile, “All right, I won’t go. Since you’re afraid I might fall down dead, I won’t go. I thought I’d go to town in the morning, before it got too hot, and finish my business—but I don’t have to go. I can go tomorrow!”

  Cuicui replied, softly and gently, “Yes, tomorrow will be fine. Your legs are still weak! A day’s rest will do you good.”