by Cao Wenxuan
As the high riverbank came into view, a clamour of crows rose up. Their raucous caws took him by surprise, and as he looked up, down it fell – a glob of white, sticky liquid – and landed on his face. He put down the pole and managed to keep his balance as he crouched in the boat, scooped up some water and washed his face. He was just about to dry his face on his sleeve when he saw it – a tornado spinning towards him from the far end of the river.
Judging by all the dry leaves and sand that were whirling inside, the tornado must have come from over the fields, sucking up everything in its wake, including a large bird, which was thrashing about madly. The monster descended and hit the river like a drill, shooting a vortex of water three metres into the air, sending spray in every direction and driving a channel through the water as it spun towards him. Sunflower’s father shook in terror. The tornado was heading straight for the little boat.
It didn’t slice the boat in half as he feared. Instead, the waves hit the prow and whipped his folder of paintings up into the air, where a blast of wind caught it and wrenched it open. The cardboard folder flapped like the wings of a giant bird and released his paintings to the sky. The painted sunflowers fluttered briefly, then floated down, one by one, onto the water. One yellow flower after another, they landed face upwards, drifting on a river of jade. As the golden sun filled the sky, casting its brightness far and wide, he felt intoxicated, invigorated, liberated.
Forgetting that he was on the little boat on the river, he bent down and reached out as far as he could to grab the nearest sunflower. The boat rolled over. As he struggled in the water, his eyes were fixed on the riverbank. He wanted so badly to see his daughter. But there was only the old elm tree.
The sunflowers drifted in the sunlight. A man travelling in another boat had been watching from the distance. He pulled on the mainsail and steered his boat towards the scene. He found the upturned boat half underwater and the folder, paintings and materials floating on the surface. Everything was still. The river flowed on and a few waterbirds circled above. The boatman searched the water, then yelled as loud as he could, “Man overboard! Man overboard!”
On both sides of the river people heard his shouts. The news spread, from one man to ten, from ten to a hundred. They came running to see what had happened, and soon both banks were lined with people, shouting and jostling for space.
“Who is it? Who is it?”
No one knew who had fallen in, until the people from the Cadre School saw the easel and the paintings.
Sunflower had been at the Cadre School fish pond watching Bronze catch river crabs. When they saw the adults running to the river, they ran after them and found the shore crowded with people. Some men had jumped in and were swimming, their heads in the water. The moment she saw the sunflowers floating on the water, Sunflower knew.
“Baba!” she screamed, running through the crowd. She scanned the faces for news. “Baba!”
Someone caught her and held her tight. She fought to break free, waving her arms furiously in the air.
“Baba! Baba…!”
There was no answer.
Some women hurried her away from the river and back to the Cadre School. They didn’t want her to see any more. They tried to comfort her, but she was too upset. She cried and howled, and tears poured down her face.
Bronze watched from a distance.
Eventually, Sunflower’s throat was dry with exhaustion. Icy teardrops ran down her nose, past the corners of her mouth, and down her neck. She stretched her hands out to the river, convulsed with sobs.
Bronze stood by the wall of the Cadre School and did not move.
There were a dozen or more boats out on the river, and too many people to count. They searched and searched, but by nightfall, Sunflower’s father had not been found.
The search continued all week, but still they couldn’t find him. They found no body either. It was a mystery.
While the hunt continued, the women in the Cadre School, Sunflower’s “aunties”, took it in turns to look after her. She had stopped crying, but her face was pale and the life was gone from her eyes. When she cried out for her father in her sleep, the women had to wipe away their tears.
A week after her father fell in the river, Sunflower disappeared. The Cadre School people searched every corner. They widened the search to three kilometres beyond the Cadre School, but still there was no sign of her. Perhaps she’d gone to Damaidi? Someone crossed the river to ask, and when the villagers heard the little girl was missing, they sprung into action and joined the search. They scoured the entire village, inside and out, but they couldn’t find her either.
They were about to give up hope when Bronze had a flash of inspiration and leapt to his feet. He threw himself onto the buffalo and charged through the crowds, then raced off down the road out of the village and on past the reed marsh. There they were – field upon field of sunflowers, basking in the midday sun, a forest of gold, bees and butterflies hovering overhead.
Bronze jumped down from the buffalo, threw the rope to the ground and ran into the sunflowers. The stalks grew so close together, he could barely see where he was going. But on he ran, panting loudly, sweat dripping from his brow.
He spotted her deep in the sunflowers, lying on her side in a little hollow in the ground. She seemed to be asleep. He ran to the nearest hill and waved his arms until people in the village saw him and, hoping for good news, hurried over to the sunflower fields. Bronze led them to Sunflower.
They watched her quietly for a while, not wanting to disturb her. No one knew how she had crossed the river, or how she had got to the sunflower fields. When one of the men lifted her from the ground, she opened her eyes slightly and mumbled, “I saw him. He’s here in the sunflower fields.”
Her cheeks were bright red. The man put his hand on her forehead. “It’s burning!”
They took her straight to the hospital. As they pounded along the dust road, their footfall sent shudders across the land.
That afternoon, a dark cloud moved in front of the sun. A fierce wind picked up and a heavy rainstorm set in. In the evening, when the sky calmed, the fields of golden sunflowers were gone. Flower heads hung from their stalks, staring at the petals on the ground. Their dazzling beauty was no more.
The Old Tree
The people in the Cadre School had travelled thousands of kilometres to come to these reed marshes. They had come to work, to do hard physical labour. The people of Damaidi, who had been doing it – and dreaming of not doing it – for generation after generation, couldn’t understand this. Why didn’t these city people stay where it was nice and comfortable instead of moving to this bleak wilderness where life was hard? What was the attraction of physical labour? The villagers had no choice; their lives were bound to this land. Surely these city people, who enjoyed good lives, had other options. How strange it was. So often the villagers packed up their tools at the end of the day and saw the Cadre School people still hard at work. So often they were woken by the Cadre School people singing and shouting as they laboured long into the night. “They’re mad!” muttered the villagers, rolling back to their dreams.
The stronger the wind and the rain, the harder these crazy people worked. And they didn’t seem to be able to keep themselves clean like the villagers. There was always mud on their clothes.
Little did they know that the Cadre School people had no choice.
And working as hard as they did, what were they going to do with the little girl who kept running off to the sunflower fields? They couldn’t spare anyone to look after her. Her parents had been only children, and there were no relatives who could take her in. The situation couldn’t continue for long. The Cadre School managed for two or three weeks, then they contacted the village to see if a family in Damaidi might be willing to take her in. They had a good relationship with the village: among other things, they’d let the villagers use their tractor, and had helped build a new bridge. The villagers would probably be willing to help.
“Better for her to grow up with a family in Damaidi. It’s only across the river, and if anything happens, we can be here for her.”
The night before they took Sunflower across the river, the head of the village made an announcement over the loudspeaker. He repeated the information three times. Representatives from the Cadre School would bring the little girl to the big tree at the end of the village at half past eight in the morning. He sincerely hoped that all the villagers would come.
Bronze was inside eating his supper when the loud-speaker broadcast the solemn message. He might have been mute, but there was nothing wrong with Bronze’s ears. He heard every word. He put down his bowl, leaving the rest of his supper untouched, went outside, took the buffalo and headed off into the night.
“Where are you going?” his father asked, but Bronze didn’t look back.
All the villagers knew that Bronze was intelligent but that he could behave very strangely. He felt the four emotions like all the other children – happiness, anger, grief and joy – but he expressed them in his own way. A few years ago, if something upset him, he’d take himself deep into the reeds and wouldn’t come out, no matter how much they called him. Once, he was there for three days, and was as thin as a monkey when he reappeared. Nainai had cried so much she almost ran out of tears. When he was happy, he’d climb to the top of the windmill, look up at the sky and laugh, all by himself. And up until he was ten, when he was really excited he’d take off his clothes and leap around naked.
The villagers remembered one winter’s day when nine-year-old Bronze had got very excited about something (although they rarely knew what excited him), stripped down to his pants and run outside. The snow was deep on the ground and it was snowing heavily. Everyone rushed out to see what was happening. Bronze was thrilled to see all these people looking at him, and ran about even more wildly. His parents and Nainai chased after him, telling him to stop. But he wouldn’t. He ran around and around, then took off his pants, threw them aside and pranced off like a young colt through the falling snow. Some young men chased after him and eventually managed to catch him. Then his mother had to force his arms and legs back into his clothes.
The villagers had no idea what had set him off that time. They struggled to guess what could capture his imagination like this. Mostly, it was little things that excited him. Once when he was grazing the buffalo, he found a nest full of shiny green eggs in a mulberry tree. For days afterwards he hid behind the reeds and watched two birds with gorgeous plumage take turns at sitting on the eggs. Then, one day, the birds weren’t there. Bronze became worried. When he went to check the nest, he found that the eggs had turned into skinny little chicks and he was beside himself with joy. Another time, he was cutting grass by the river, close to a willow tree that had been dead for years. When he looked up and saw two tiny green leaves growing on one of the branches, quivering timidly in the cold wind, he was overcome with emotion.
Bronze did his own thing, lived in his own little world. He was very different from the other children in the village. He could spend hours by the river, gazing through the clear water, watching a crab creep imperceptibly along the bottom. He would fold reed leaves into boats, ten or more at a time, and watch them race down the river, feeling sad for the ones that the wind or the waves pushed over. There was something about him, something quite mysterious.
The villagers saw him catch fish – big ones in ponds where they thought there were none. He would go to the reed marsh, stand by the water and clap his hands until a dozen or so birds flapped out of the reeds, circled above him, then flew down to land on the water. The villagers had never seen such beautiful birds before.
It seemed that Bronze didn’t much like playing with the village children, and wasn’t particularly bothered whether they wanted to play with him or not. He had the river, the reeds, the buffalo and more plants, flowers, birds and insects than he could count, or name. One child said he’d seen Bronze walking through a patch of grass that was wilting, and when he passed by, holding out his hands with the palms facing down, the grass straightened up again. No one believed him.
“But it’s true,” he said. “I swear it’s the truth.”
The villagers still didn’t believe him. But when they saw Bronze in the fields, walking along holding a willow branch strung with fish, they had to admit there was something extraordinary about him.
That evening Bronze appeared on the long main street, riding on the buffalo.
“What’s he doing now?” the villagers wondered.
No one knew where Bronze and the buffalo were going. Bronze didn’t know either. He let the buffalo lead the way. He’d go wherever it wanted. He just needed to be outside, to have time to think.
Bronze looked lost in his thoughts. If he was aware he was riding on the buffalo, he was surely unaware of the curious faces peering out of the doorways at him. The buffalo waddled along, rocking Bronze from side to side like a boat on the waves. He was looking not at the village but at the sky, the late-summer, early-autumn sky, dark blue and twinkling with the thousands and thousands of stars of the Milky Way. The buffalo’s hoofs clattered on the bricks of the empty street.
The buffalo walked through the village and on through the fields. Bronze saw the river. It seemed bigger at night, so much longer and wider. He saw the Cadre School on the other side and the lamps flickering in the reeds. In the morning, the little girl from the Cadre School would cross the river and arrive at the old tree at the end of the village.
Moonlight spilled over the river and the land. Cicadas screeched in the grass. Startled birds rose from the reeds, cried out and flew away. There was a chill in the air. Bronze jumped down from the buffalo and stood barefoot in the grass. It was wet with dew. The buffalo looked up at the moon, its eyes shiny as jet. Bronze looked at the moon too. Its light was soft that night.
When the buffalo lowered its head to graze, Bronze knelt in the grass and spoke to it with his hands. He was always talking to the buffalo with his eyes and his hands, and he believed that the buffalo understood him.
“Do you like Sunflower?” he asked the buffalo.
It chomped away at the grass, but Bronze heard its answer.
“Shall we bring her home, then?”
The buffalo looked up. Again, Bronze heard its answer.
He patted it on the head, and wanted to throw his arms around its neck and hug it. He didn’t think of it as a buffalo. In fact, they all treated it like a member of the family. Bronze’s parents and Nainai talked to it too. Sometimes they told it off, just as they would a child, and the buffalo would look at them with its kind, gentle eyes.
“Then we’ll say yes.” Bronze patted it on the head again, and climbed onto its back.
The buffalo took him back to the village, and stopped by the stone slab under the old tree. In the morning, Sunflower would sit there and wait for one of the families to take her in. Bronze pictured her, a cloth-wrapped bundle by her side, her head down, staring at the ground.
The moon moved above the old tree and threw shadows everywhere.
At half past eight exactly, the representatives from the Cadre School brought Sunflower to the old tree.
The aunties had gone to a lot of trouble to make her look nice. They had brushed her hair into a plait and tied it with a red ribbon. Not a hair was out of place. She was a clean, tidy and presentable little girl.
She sat perfectly still on the stone slab, her cloth bundle by her side. Her big black eyes and her thin little face gave her a timid look.
For days, the aunties and uncles at the Cadre School had been preparing her for this. They had explained what would happen.
Sunflower didn’t cry. She told herself not to.
Some of the aunties stayed with her. They brushed away the specks of dus
t or dirt that landed on her clothes, and stroked her head. One of them noticed a tear stain by her ear and went to the river, dabbed a handkerchief in the fresh water and carefully wiped it away.
They looked at the villagers. “She’s such a good little girl!” was the message in their eyes.
A crowd was gathering, and more people were on their way. “Where is she? Where is she?” they muttered as they drew closer, but as soon as they reached the old tree and saw little Sunflower, they fell silent.
People kept on coming – men and women, young and old. They filled the clearing as though arriving at market. But the hubbub of a market was missing; there was just a low murmur from the crowd.
Sunflower raised her head bashfully, but when she saw all those people looking at her with kindly faces, she forgot for a moment about her situation. For a while, it was Sunflower who was looking at them. Then, remembering why she was there, sitting on the stone slab, she looked down at her feet again – in the new shoes and socks that the aunties had bought for her.
The autumn wind blew and yellow leaves fluttered down from the old tree. A few landed in Sunflower’s hair. She didn’t know they were there, and when the aunties leant in to blow them away, she flinched at the touch of their breath. The crowd saw this tiny movement and it touched their hearts.
The sun rose higher and the autumn sky grew bigger and brighter.
But still no one said a word. Not a single family had stepped forward and expressed an interest in taking Sunflower in. Most of the villagers already had children. The women were healthy and strong – they had fresh air and sunshine, fresh fish from the river and fresh rice from the paddy fields – and had no trouble getting pregnant.
“Zhuguo has been married for years, and still hasn’t any children. He should take her.”
“Says who? His wife’s pregnant right now. You should see the size of her belly!”