by Yu Hua
Every day the team leader would go over a few times to check it out. Each time he removed the wooden lid, the water and steam rushing out would scare him so bad he’d jump back a couple steps and yell out, “It’s hot as hell!”
Waiting until the smoke died down a bit, he would stick a pole down in the vat, poking around to see if the iron had begun to soften. After he was finished poking, he’d curse, “Fuck, it’s still hard as a rock!”
During the time the village was smelting iron, Jiazhen got sick. She got a kind of sickness that made her feel exhausted. At first I thought it was just a symptom of old age that she should start to feel like this. One day I was carrying the goat manure out to fertilize the field, which at the time was dotted with bamboo poles that stuck out of the ground. Originally there were little red paper flags hanging from the ends of these poles, but after a few rains the red flags were gone. All that was left were the bamboo poles with some bits of dangling red paper. Jiazhen also carried the goat manure. She walked and walked, and then her legs suddenly went soft and she had to sit down. The farmers all snickered when they saw this.
“Fugui must have been too rough last night,” they joked.
Jiazhen laughed, too. She stood up and tried to pick her load back up, but her legs began to tremble. They shook so badly that her pants looked like they were being blown by a strong wind. I thought she was probably just tired.
“Take a rest,” I told her.
She immediately sat right back down on the ground. The basket full of manure tipped over, covering her leg. Jiazhen’s face suddenly turned red as she said to me, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
I just thought she needed some sleep and she’d have her energy back the next day. Who would have imagined that from then on Jiazhen wouldn’t be able to carry loads, that she would only be able to do light work in the field? It was a good thing we had the people’s commune; otherwise, I’m not sure how we would have made it through those days. After Jiazhen got sick, she naturally felt bad inside as well. Late at night she’d often whisper to me, “Fugui, I’m sorry for making it more difficult for you.”
“Don’t worry about that,” I’d say. “Everybody gets like that when they get old.”
Up until that time I still hadn’t really given Jiazhen’s illness much consideration; I just thought that ever since Jiazhen married me she had never had a good life. Now that she was getting older, I should give her the opportunity to rest. I was caught off guard a month later when Jiazhen’s illness suddenly took a turn for the worse. As Jiazhen and I were watching over the petrol tank and the smelting iron, she collapsed. Only then did I really get scared, and decided to bring her to the town hospital for an examination.
By then we had been smelting iron for over two months and it was still hard as a rock. The team leader felt he couldn’t let the strongest workers watch over the tank all day and all night, so he said, “From now on we’ll rotate house by house.”
When it was our family’s turn, the team leader said, “Fugui, tomorrow is National Day. You’ll have to make the fire bigger. No matter what, I want to see that iron smelted for tomorrow.”
I had Jiazhen and Fengxia go first thing that morning to wait by the dining hall, so they could bring the food back early. This way, after eating, we could go relieve the people at the smelting cauldron. I was afraid that if we showed up late people would talk. But after Jiazhen and Fengxia came back with the food, Youqing was still nowhere to be seen. Jiazhen stood in the doorway calling him until sweat began to drip down her forehead. I knew that Youqing must have been bringing grass over to the animal pen, so I said to Jiazhen, “You go ahead and eat.”
Heading off to the village livestock shed, I thought to myself, this kid really doesn’t understand how things work in this world. He doesn’t help Jiazhen do any work around the house. All he knows how to do is cut grass for his lambs; he spends every spare second he has on those lambs. When I got to the livestock shed I saw Youqing emptying the grass onto the ground. There were only six lambs left in the pen, and they all rushed over to fight for the grass. Carrying his basket, Youqing asked Wang Xi, “Will they kill my lambs?”
“No way,” replied Wang Xi. “If we eat all the lambs where will we go for fertilizer? The crops won’t grow well without fertilizer.”
Wang Xi, seeing me coming over, said to Youqing, “You’d better hurry home. Your dad’s here.”
As Youqing turned around, I extended my hand and patted him on the head. The sad tone of his voice when he asked Wang Xi about his lambs had quelled my temper. As we walked home, Youqing, seeing I hadn’t lost my temper, happily told me, “They’re not going to kill my lambs!”
“It would be better if they did kill them,” I replied.
That night all four of us watched over the petrol tank and the iron smelting. It was my job to add water to the cauldron. Fengxia used a fan to stoke the flames, and Jiazhen and Youqing collected branches and sticks to feed the fire. We kept working late into the night, beyond when everyone in the village had gone to sleep. After adding water three times, I grabbed a branch and stuck it into the cauldron. The iron was still as hard as a rock. Jiazhen was so exhausted that her face was covered in sweat. When she bent over to throw sticks into the fire, she couldn’t support herself and had to kneel on the ground. I put the wooden lid back on and said to her, “I’m afraid you’re sick.”
“I’m not sick,” replied Jiazhen. “I just feel a bit sore.”
Youqing was leaning against a tree, looking like he had fallen asleep. Because her arms were sore, Fengxia had to keep switching hands as she fanned the flames. I went over and patted her on the shoulder. Thinking I wanted to take over for her, she turned around and shook her head. I pointed to Youqing; I wanted her to carry him home. She nodded and got up. It was then that a “baa, baa” sound coming from the animal pen made its way to Youqing. Still asleep, he smiled when he heard it. Then as soon as Fengxia picked him up he suddenly opened his eyes and said, “Those are my lambs that are crying!”
I thought he had been asleep. Seeing him open his eyes and start up again about this lamb business, I really got mad. I said to him, “They’re the commune’s lambs, not yours!”
Youqing was scared out of his wits. Completely awakened from his nap, he glared at me. Jiazhen nudged me.
“Don’t scare the kid,” she said.
She squatted down beside Youqing and quietly said to him, “Youqing, go to sleep. Sleep.”
Looking at Jiazhen, Youqing nodded his head and closed his eyes. Before long he was in a deep sleep. I picked Youqing up and placed him on Fengxia’s back. Then I gave Fengxia a hand sign telling her to bring Youqing home to go to sleep, and not to come back.
After Fengxia carried Youqing off, Jiazhen and I sat in front of the fire. It was already quite cool out, so it was nice sitting before the warm fire. Jiazhen was so exhausted that she had not a drop of energy left—even raising her arms took more strength than she had. I let Jiazhen lean up against me.
“Close your eyes and get some sleep,” I said.
The moment Jiazhen’s head rested against my shoulder, I also slipped into a light slumber. The first time my head started to droop I straightened right up, but in my tired state I came closer and closer to drifting off. I nodded off again after adding wood to the fire—only that time I didn’t pick my head back up.
I wasn’t sure just how long I’d been asleep when I heard a massive rumbling sound. It scared me so bad that I sprang to my feet. By then it was almost light out, and I saw that the petrol tank had fallen over. The fire spread out like a pool of water, scorching the ground and everything in its path. When I noticed that Jiazhen’s jacket was draped over my shoulders, I was struck with fear. I ran around the petrol vat twice but didn’t see Jiazhen. I was scared out of my wits. I roared, “Jiazhen, Jiazhen!”
I heard Jiazhen’s faint voice coming from the pond. I ran over and saw Jiazhen sitting on the ground, trying with all her might to stand up. As
I helped her up, I discovered that her clothes were soaked.
After I had fallen asleep, Jiazhen had woken up and kept herself awake so she could continue throwing branches into the fire. Then, realizing that there was almost no water left in the cauldron, she grabbed a wooden bucket and headed over to the pond to fetch some. Carrying the bucket, she took only five or six steps before collapsing on the ground. She sat there resting for a while before returning to the pond to fill the bucket back up. This time she rested after each step, but as soon as she got to the pond, she fell down again. Altogether, two buckets of water spilled over her. She sat there on the ground beside the pond, lacking the energy to get back up—she remained there, virtually paralyzed, until that thunderous sound woke me.
Seeing that Jiazhen wasn’t hurt, my anxious heart relaxed a bit. I helped Jiazhen over to the petrol vat. A few flames were still smoldering, and as soon as I noticed that the bottom of the cauldron had been burned out I knew the situation was bad. Jiazhen, seeing what had happened, was also stupefied. She blamed herself right away. “It’s all my fault, it’s all my fault.”
“No, it was me,” I said. “I shouldn’t have fallen asleep.”
I thought I’d better hurry up and inform the team leader. I helped Jiazhen over to a tree. Leaning her up against the trunk, I ran toward the house that was once mine, later Long Er’s and that now belonged to the team leader. When I got to the team leader’s house I yelled, “Team leader, team leader!”
The team leader answered from inside, “Who is it?”
“It’s me, Fugui,” I responded. “The bottom of the cauldron’s burned out.”
“Did you succeed in smelting the iron?” the team leader asked.
“No,” I replied.
The team leader barked back, “Then what the hell are you yelling about?”
I didn’t dare open my mouth again. I just stood there, not knowing what to do. By then it was already light outside. After thinking about it, I figured I’d better take Jiazhen to the town hospital. It seemed like her illness was pretty serious. I would have to deal with this cauldron business later when I got back from the hospital. First I went home and woke Fengxia so she could help me. I couldn’t move Jiazhen alone; I was getting old and feared I wouldn’t be able to carry her the twenty-odd li to the hospital. I had no choice but to take turns with Fengxia.
With Jiazhen on my back and Fengxia beside me, I walked toward the city. From behind Jiazhen protested, “I’m not sick, Fugui, I’m not sick.”
I knew that she was just saying that because she didn’t want to spend the money needed to go to the hospital. I said, “We’ll let the hospital decide whether you’re sick or not.”
Jiazhen didn’t want to go to the hospital, and the whole way there she kept complaining. I was out of energy after walking part of the way, so Fengxia, who was stronger than I was, took over. As she trudged on with her mother on her back, her feet made a peculiar sound. As soon as Fengxia picked her up, Jiazhen stopped complaining and suddenly smiled. Comfortingly, she said, “Fengxia has really grown up.”
Jiazhen’s eyes turned red, and she added, “If only Fengxia hadn’t gotten sick that time.”
“What are you bringing that up for?” I said. “It’s already been god knows how many years.”
The town doctor said Jiazhen had “soft bone disease,”4 adding that there was no one who could cure this kind of illness. He said we should take Jiazhen home and, if we could manage it, get her some more nutritious food. He warned us of the possibility of Jiazhen’s sickness getting worse, and I feared he would be right. Fengxia carried her all the way home; I walked beside them with my thoughts in disarray. Jiazhen had an incurable disease—the more I thought about it, the more terrified I became. How quickly our life was coming to an end. I looked at Jiazhen’s thin and bony face and realized that I hadn’t brought her a single day of happiness since we’d been married.
Jiazhen, on the other hand, was happy. From atop Fengxia’s back she said, “It’s a good thing it’s not curable. Where would we get the money for medicine if it was?”
As we approached the village, Jiazhen said she was feeling better and wanted to get down and walk for herself.
“I don’t want to scare Youqing,” she said.
She was worried that Youqing would be upset if he saw her like this. Mothers always think about these little things. As she got down from Fengxia’s back, we went to support her. She said she could walk by herself.
“Actually, I’m not really sick,” she said.
It was then that the sound of bells and gongs made their way over to us. The team leader and a group of people approached us from the edge of the village. After catching sight of us, the team leader gleefully waved his hand, yelling out, “Fugui, your family has done a great deed!”
I had no idea what he was talking about—what kind of great deed had we done? Only after they got close did I see two young villagers carrying a chunk of clumpy iron. The top of this metal clump was shaped like half a pot, and pieces of iron sheets jutted out from the sides. A red cloth was draped over its top. The team leader pointed to this mosh of worthless metal and said, “Your family smelted the iron just in time for National Day. We’re heading up to the county seat to bring the good news.”
As soon as I heard that, I was shocked. I had been worrying about how I was going to explain to the team leader how the bottom of the cauldron had been burnt out. Who would have guessed that in the meantime the iron had actually smelted? The team leader patted me on the shoulder.
“We’ll be able to make three bombs out of this iron, and all of them are going to be dropped on Taiwan,” he proudly declared. “We’ll drop one on Chiang Kai-shek’s bed, one on his kitchen table and one on his goat shed!”
With that the team leader waved his hand, and about a dozen people started banging on their drums and gongs in excitement. As they passed by, the team leader turned around and yelled through the uproar, “Fugui, tonight at the dining hall we’ll all eat steamed buns and we’ll stuff a whole lamb in each one! It’ll be all meat!”
After they got far off I asked Jiazhen, “Was the iron really finished smelting?”
Jiazhen shook her head—she didn’t know how it got smelted, either. I figured that it must have happened when the bottom of the cauldron burned out. If Youqing hadn’t come up with that stupid idea of his about adding water, the iron would have smelted a long time ago.
When we got home Youqing was inside, weeping so hard his shoulders were shaking.
“They took my lambs and slaughtered them,” he whimpered. “They killed both of them.”
Youqing was depressed for a good couple of days. He woke up early each morning, but there was no longer any need for him to run to school. I watched him pacing back and forth in front of our hut, not knowing what to do. Normally, basket in hand, he would have been off to cut grass. When it was time to eat, Jiazhen only needed to call him once and he would come right in and sit down at the table. After eating he’d put on his backpack and go out of his way to stop by the lamb pen before listlessly heading toward school.
All of the village lambs were slaughtered and eaten. Only the three oxen’s lives were spared because they were needed to plough the fields. Even the grain supply was almost gone. The team leader made several trips to the commune to get some food, each time bringing ten young men with him. The men brought shoulder poles to carry the food back on. Those ten men with their ten poles left ready to carry a mountain of gold back with them, yet each time they returned, all they had in hand were their poles. They hadn’t even gotten their hands on a single grain of rice. After the team leader returned for the last time, he announced, “From tomorrow on, the dining hall will be closed. Everybody better hurry up and go into town to buy pots. It’ll be just like before: Every family will cook for themselves.”
Back when all this had started, all it took was one word from the team leader and we had all smashed our pots, and now with another word from him we all had
to go buy new ones. The dining hall divided up the remaining grain according to how many people were in each family. The grain our family got would be enough for only three days. It was a good thing that the rice in the fields would be ready for harvest in a month. No matter what, we should be able to hold out for one month.
When the other villagers went down to the fields to work, they started to keep track of work points.5 I was considered a strong worker, so they gave me ten points. If Jiazhen hadn’t gotten sick she would have had eight points, but once she got sick she could only do light work and so had to settle for four. It was a good thing that Fengxia had grown up. Compared with the other women, Fengxia was considered very strong, so she was allocated seven points a day.
Jiazhen was upset that she only got half as many points as she could have gotten. She couldn’t get over it. A couple of times she went to the team leader and told him she knew she was sick but she was still able to do heavy labor. She said, “Wait until I really can’t work, and then give me four points.”
After giving her request some thought, the team leader agreed and said to her, “Okay, get back to cutting the rice.”
Jiazhen grabbed her sickle and went down to the rice field. At first she worked really fast, and as I watched I wondered if the doctor could have been mistaken. But then after a swing of the sickle she began to shake. She took a second swing and her movements grew noticeably slower. I walked over and asked her, “Can you handle it?”
Her face covered in sweat, she straightened herself up and grumbled at me, “You do your own work. What the hell did you come over here for?”
She was afraid that my going over would attract other people’s attention.
“You’ve got to take care not to overexert yourself,” I said.
She started to get frustrated and said, “Hurry up and get away from here.”
Shaking my head, I had no choice but to walk away. Not long after I left I heard a thump coming from where she was. Thinking it didn’t sound good, I raised my head and saw that Jiazhen had fallen down. I walked over to her, and although she had gotten up, her legs continued to tremble. When she had fallen she’d grazed her head on the sickle, cutting open her forehead; blood was seeping out. She gazed at me with a forced smile. I picked her up and piggybacked her home without saying a word. She didn’t resist, but after getting part of the way home, Jiazhen began to cry.