by Yu Hua
After the team leader drove the others out he got up to close the door. Then, without even trying to chum up to us, he turned right around and said, “Fugui, Jiazhen, if you’ve got something good to eat, let me in on it.”
Jiazhen and I looked at each other. The team leader was normally pretty nice to us, and now here he was begging. How could we not help him out? Jiazhen reached into her clothes and took out that little rice bag. She gave the team leader a small handful, saying, “Team leader, that’s all I can give. Take it home and cook some rice soup.”
“That’s enough, that’s enough,” the team leader repeated.
The team leader had Jiazhen put the handful of rice in his pocket. Then, clasping his pocket with both hands, he laughed out loud and went out the door. As soon as the team leader left, tears fell from Jiazhen’s eyes—she was crying for that handful of rice. Seeing Jiazhen weeping, I could only sigh deeply.
The days went on like this all the way up until after the rice harvest. Although it wasn’t a very strong harvest, at least we finally had some grain, and things suddenly started to look up. But who could have known that Jiazhen’s illness would continue to get worse? By the end, she couldn’t walk more than a few steps. It was that terrible year that had ruined her health like this. But Jiazhen still wouldn’t resign herself to her condition. Even though she couldn’t work in the field, she insisted on doing housework. Leaning against the wall, she’d make her way around the hut to dust and sweep. Then one day she fell down, and no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t get back up. When Fengxia and I got home from working in the field, she was still lying there with an open scrape on her face. I carried her to bed, and Fengxia got a towel to wipe the blood from her face.
“From now on you’d better stay in bed,” I told her.
Jiazhen lowered her head.
“I don’t know why I couldn’t get up,” she whispered.
I guess you could say Jiazhen was tough. Even at a time like that she didn’t utter a single complaint or cry out in despair. While she was bedridden, she had me bring every piece of beat-up old clothing over to her.
“I’ll feel better if I have some work to do,” she said.
She unraveled the fabric and made new clothes for Fengxia and Youqing, and after the kids put them on, they really did look new. It was only later that I discovered she had also unraveled her own clothes. When I discovered what she had done I got mad, but she just smiled and said, “Clothes don’t last long if you don’t wear them. I’ll never wear those clothes, so what’s the point of them rotting away with me?”
Jiazhen said she’d make an outfit for me, too, but who’d have known that before she could finish she would be too weak to lift even a needle? At the time Fengxia and Youqing were asleep, but under the light of the kerosene lamp Jiazhen was still sewing my outfit. She was so exhausted that sweat dripped from her face. I kept telling her to get to sleep, but she would only sigh and shake her head, insisting she was almost done. After a while she dropped the needle, and as she reached for it her hand began to tremble. I saw her struggling to pick it up and bent over to get it for her. I handed it to her, but she dropped it again. Teardrops trickled down from Jiazhen’s eyes; this was the first time she had cried since getting sick like this. She thought she would never be able to work again.
“I can’t even get out of bed. What am I supposed to do with myself?” she asked in despair.
I wiped her tears away with my sleeve. She was so skinny that her bones were protruding from her face. I told her that it was just exhaustion, that even a healthy person wouldn’t be able to do the amount of work she’d been doing. I tried comforting her by telling her how Fengxia had already grown up and was earning more work points than even Jiazhen used to. I told her that from now on there would be no reason for us to worry anymore about money.
“But Youqing is still young,” said Jiazhen.
Jiazhen’s tears didn’t stop that whole night. She kept telling me, “When I die, don’t wrap me in a gunnysack. You have to use a fast knot to tie gunnysacks, so I won’t be able to undo it when I get to the other world. Just use a clean piece of cloth and that’ll be fine. And before you bury me, remember to give me a bath.”
Jiazhen continued, “Fengxia’s already grown up. See if you can find her a husband—that way I’ll be able to rest in peace. Youqing’s still small. There’s a lot of things he doesn’t understand, so make sure you don’t hit him too much and scare him.”
After hearing her go through all this, my heart felt wave after wave of sadness. I said to her, “Actually, I probably should have died long ago. So many people died during the war, but somehow I survived. Every day I told myself that I had to stay alive so I could come home and see you. And now you’re just going to abandon us?”
My words must have had some effect on Jiazhen, because the next morning when I woke up I saw her staring at me.
“Fugui,” she whispered, “I don’t want to die. All I want is to be able to wake up every day and see you and the kids.”
After a few days resting in bed, Jiazhen gradually started to get her strength back. Before long she could sit up in bed, and she said she felt much better. She was happy and said she wanted to try going back to the fields, but I wouldn’t let her.
“From now on you can’t risk wearing yourself out,” I said. “You’ve got to save your strength—we’ve still got a long road ahead of us.”
That year Youqing was in the fifth grade. There’s a common saying that “Calamities never come singly.” With Jiazhen as sick as she was, I was hoping that Youqing would grow up quickly. His grades were terrible, and I thought I’d better not force him to go to middle school. After he graduated from elementary school, I’d let him go with me out to the fields to earn work points. How could I have known that just as Jiazhen was starting to feel better, something would happen to Youqing?
That afternoon, Youqing’s principal, the wife of the county magistrate, lost a lot of blood giving birth in the city hospital— they said she had one foot in the grave. The teachers from Youqing’s school immediately called all fifth graders to the track and sent them to the hospital to donate blood. As soon as the kids heard that the blood was for the principal, they were so happy you would have thought it was a holiday. A few of the boys even rolled up their sleeves right there, ready to donate on the spot. As soon as they left the school gates, Youqing took off his shoes and, clutching them in his hands, started running toward the hospital with four or five other kids. My son was the first one to get there, and was first in the line that formed once the other students arrived.
“I was the first one here!” Youqing proudly told his teacher.
After which his teacher dragged him aside and gave him a lecture about abiding by the rules. Youqing had no choice but to stand off to one side watching as, one by one, the other kids pressed up against one another on their way in to have their blood type checked. More than ten kids were tested, but not one had the same blood type as the principal. Youqing grew increasingly anxious as he watched them. He was afraid he’d be the last one and that by then they wouldn’t even need his blood. He walked over to his teacher and said shyly, “Teacher, I realize I made a mistake.”
The teacher just grunted but didn’t answer him. He waited until two more kids had gone in to have their blood checked. That was when a doctor wearing a gauze mask emerged from the delivery room, shouting over to the man doing the blood tests, “The blood? Where’s the blood?”
The man responsible for checking the blood said, “None of them has the right blood type.”
“Quick, send the rest of them in!” the doctor yelled. “We barely have a heartbeat on the patient!”
Youqing once again walked over to his teacher and asked him, “Is it my turn?”
The teacher looked at Youqing and waved his hand. “Go in.”
Only when they got to Youqing did they find a match. My son’s face turned bright red, he was so ecstatic. He ran over to the door a
nd yelled to his friends outside, “They’re gonna take my blood!”
If they wanted to take some blood, they should have taken only a little. But to save the magistrate’s wife, the people in the hospital wouldn’t stop taking Youqing’s blood—they just kept extracting more and more. When his face turned white, Youqing didn’t say anything. Only after his lips turned white did he finally say, “I’m dizzy.”
The guy doing the blood work said, “You always get dizzy when you donate blood.”
Youqing had already given more than his body could take, but out came another doctor saying there still wasn’t enough blood. The fucking asshole doing the blood work extracted almost every drop of blood from my son’s body. Youqing’s lips turned blue, but the guy still didn’t stop. Only after Youqing’s head slumped and fell to one side did he finally begin to panic. He called a doctor over, who squatted down and listened with a stethoscope.
“I can’t get a heartbeat,” muttered the doctor.
The doctor didn’t seem to think it was a big deal. He just scolded the blood technician. “You’re really an idiot.”
He then went back into the delivery room to save the magistrate’s wife.
That evening as dusk fell, when I was just getting ready to pack it in for the day, a kid from one of the neighboring villages, a classmate of Youqing’s, came running over. He rushed right over to me and shouted at the top of his voice, “Is Xu Youqing’s father here?”
My heart jumped. It was getting late, and I had just begun to worry that something might have happened to Youqing. Before I had a chance to respond, the kid yelled again, “How about his mother?”
I quickly answered, “I’m Youqing’s father.”
Wiping his nose, the kid looked at me and said, “I was right, it’s you. You’re the one who came to our classroom.”
My heart felt as if it was going to jump out of my chest, and then he finally said, “Xu Youqing’s almost dead. He’s in the hospital.”
My vision instantly went blurry. I asked the kid, “What did you say?”
“Hurry up and get to the hospital,” he repeated. “Youqing’s dying.”
With my thoughts in disarray, I threw down my hoe and ran toward town. It just didn’t make sense. Youqing had been fine that morning when he went to school, and now they were saying he was almost dead. My head buzzed wildly as I ran to the town hospital. As soon as I saw a doctor I stopped him and asked, “My son?”
The doctor looked at me and laughed, “How would I know your son?”
As soon as I heard this I was stunned. I thought, perhaps they made a mistake—how wonderful it would be if it was all just a mistake.
“They said my son was dying and that I should go to the hospital,” I said.
Just as he was getting ready to walk away, that doctor suddenly stopped and looked at me.
“What’s your son’s name?” he asked.
“Youqing,” I replied.
He extended his arm and pointed toward the room at the end of the hall. “Go ask over there.”
I ran down to the room he had pointed toward and saw a doctor sitting there, in the middle of writing something. My heart was pounding as I walked over to ask, “Doctor, is my son still alive?”
The doctor raised his head and looked at me for a long time before asking, “Do you mean Xu Youqing?”
I quickly nodded my head.
“How many sons do you have?” the doctor asked.
Immediately my legs went soft. Standing there trembling, I said, “I only have one son. I beg you, please, save my son.”
The doctor nodded his head to let me know that he understood, but then he asked, “How come you only had one son?”
How was I supposed to answer this? I got anxious and asked him, “Is my son still alive?”
He shook his head and said, “He’s dead.”
Suddenly I could no longer see the doctor—my mind went blank and my head began to spin. All I felt were the tears pouring down my face. Only after what seemed like an eternity did I ask the doctor, “Where’s my son?”
Youqing was lying alone in a small room on a bed made of bricks. When I went in, night had not yet fallen, and I could see Youqing’s small, frail body lying there. He was wearing the new outfit Jiazhen had made for him. My son’s eyes were tightly closed, as was his mouth. “Youqing! Youqing!” I kept calling to him. Only after he didn’t move did I know that he was really dead. I went to hug my son, but Youqing’s body was stiff and cold. That morning when he had gone to school he was alive and well; by evening he had become stiff and cold. I couldn’t understand it—the body before me seemed like a different person from the one I’d seen that morning. I looked at Youqing and caressed his skinny shoulders—it was really my son. I cried and cried, not even noticing the arrival of Youqing’s gym teacher. When he saw Youqing, he cried too, as he kept repeating to me, “How could it be? I can’t imagine . . .”
The gym teacher sat down next to me, and we cried together. I caressed Youqing’s face; so did he. After a while I suddenly realized that I still didn’t even know how my boy had died. I asked the gym teacher, and only then did I learn that he had died from having too much of his blood extracted. At the time I wanted to kill somebody. I put my son down and rushed out. Charging into the patient ward, I grabbed hold of the first doctor I saw—I didn’t care who he was—and hit him in the face. That doctor fell to the floor and started screaming for help.
“You killed my son!” I barked at him.
I lifted my leg to kick him, but someone grabbed me from behind. Turning around, I saw Youqing’s gym teacher.
“Let me go!” I demanded.
The gym teacher said, “Don’t do anything crazy.”
“I’m going to kill him,” I said.
With the gym teacher restraining me, I couldn’t get loose from his grip. Crying, I begged him, “I know you’ve always been good to Youqing. Please let me go.”
But no matter what, the gym teacher wouldn’t let go. All I could do was elbow him, but he still wouldn’t loosen his grip. He gave the doctor time to get up and run away, and by then a whole crowd had surrounded us. I saw that there were two more doctors in the crowd and said to the gym teacher, “I beg you, please let me go.”
The gym teacher was really strong—with him holding me I couldn’t move a muscle. I kept trying to elbow him, but he didn’t seem at all afraid of getting hurt. He just kept saying, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
It was then that a man wearing a Sun Yat-sen–style tunic suit walked over and told the gym teacher to let me go. He asked me, “Are you Xu Youqing’s father?”
I ignored him, and as soon as the gym teacher let me go I rushed over to pounce on one of the doctors. The doctor immediately turned and ran. I heard someone address the guy wearing the tunic suit as the county magistrate and I thought, oh, so he’s the county magistrate—it was his wife who took my son away. I raised my leg and kicked the magistrate in the stomach. He let out a groan as he fell to the ground. Youqing’s gym teacher grabbed hold of me again and yelled, “That’s Magistrate Liu!”
“The magistrate’s just the person I want to kill!” I said.
I raised my leg to kick him again when the magistrate suddenly asked me, “Aren’t you Fugui?”
“I’m going to kill you!” I screamed.
The magistrate got to his feet and said, “Fugui, it’s me, Chunsheng.”
As soon as he said that I went numb. I gazed at him for a while, and the longer I looked at him the more he resembled the Chunsheng I once knew. I said, “Chunsheng, is it really you?”
Chunsheng took a step closer and looked me over.
“Fugui, it’s you,” he said.
Seeing Chunsheng seemed to quell my anger. Through my tears, I told him, “Chunsheng, you’ve gotten tall and gained weight.”
Chunsheng’s eyes also turned red.
“Fugui, I thought you were dead,” he said.
I shook my head. “I survived.”
&n
bsp; “And all this time, I thought you’d died the same way as Old Quan,” Chunsheng added.
As soon as he mentioned Old Quan the two of us began to cry like children. After crying for a while I asked Chunsheng, “Did you ever get your hands on that flatbread?”
Wiping away his tears, Chunsheng said, “No, you still remember that? Just as I went out to look for some I was taken prisoner.”
“Did you get to eat steamed buns?” I asked him.
“I sure did,” he smiled.
“I did, too,” I said.
Saying that, we both laughed. We laughed and laughed until I remembered my dead son. I wiped my eyes and began to cry again. Chunsheng put his hand on my shoulder.
“Chunsheng,” I said, “my only son is dead.”
Chunsheng heaved a deep sigh, saying, “How could it have been your son?”
I thought of my son lying all alone in that little room—the pain was unbearable. I said to Chunsheng, “I want to see my son.”
No longer did I want to kill anyone. Who could have guessed that Chunsheng would suddenly appear? I took a few steps and turned around to say to him, “Chunsheng, you owe me a life. You’ll have to repay me in your next lifetime.”
That night I carried Youqing home. I kept stopping from time to time on the way. When my arms got tired from carrying him, I’d put him on my back for a while. But each time I placed him on my back I’d instantly start to panic, so I’d hold him again in front of me. I couldn’t help but look at my son. When I saw I was approaching the village, it got more and more difficult to go on— what was I supposed to say to Jiazhen? Jiazhen was already so sick. I knew that once she found out Youqing had died she wouldn’t be able to go on much longer. I sat down on the ridge just outside the village with Youqing resting on my leg. As soon as I looked down at him I couldn’t hold back the tears. After crying for a while, I started to think about how to break the news to Jiazhen. After going through everything in my head, I decided I should keep Youqing’s death a secret from her for the time being. I put Youqing down on the ridge and snuck home to get my hoe. I then picked Youqing back up, headed over to my parents’ gravesite, and started digging a hole.