Colors of the Mountain

by Da Chen

  My friends’ faces lined up at the gate of my mind. I thought of how lucky bowlegged Yi was, sitting in his office somewhere, crossing out each item on the inventory sheet and having juicy meat for lunch. He would no doubt be brewing his bitter tea there. Then there was Siang, probably smoking his Flying Horses at his penthouse home, where there was always a breeze even in the motionless summer noon, when the whole universe seemed to be frozen by the white heat. That lucky dog. I wished a long life to his old revolutionary grandpa, who had made it all possible. Then images flooded my mind of Sen being chased by his mom with a huge stick, while he ran like a dog, one hand holding his pants, the other carrying the bowl of lard he had just stolen. Mo Gong was probably ogling beautiful girls passing by his dad’s shoe stand. He leered at anything that moved. His famous saying was there was always something to look at on a girl’s body, it didn’t always have to be a pretty face.

  My thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a huge mother of a green frog. She stared at me, flickering her long tongue. Her head looked like a turtle’s, and her skin was like that of a grass snake. Her eyes were popping kind and curious, rolling within teary sockets. A white pouch of skin hung under her neck, and her thighs looked meaty enough to decorate tonight’s dining table. We stared at each other for a good long minute before I threw the sickle at her. The silly thing jumped like a world champion and landed on my chest. The frog’s wet webs and sticky skin sent chills down my spine, but I grabbed it and wrapped it up in my discarded shirt. It weighed at least half a pound. I could already smell the fragrance of its juicy thighs getting sautéed with fine soy sauce, fresh garlic, and plenty of ginger to kill the fishiness. I would give my brother half the meat to go along with the bottle of liquor he had every night before sleep. He needed it to calm his bones, Mom said.

  The sun hung high above my head, and my back felt hot. Even the wet mud in the field was lukewarm, and the proud rice stems began to droop beneath the blaze, tired and sleepy. The day was only half done, but I was totally exhausted. My back hurt, my legs trembled, my face was covered with cuts, and my hands were a mass of raw blisters. I was so miserable I even didn’t feel the walls of my stomach rub against each other. There was a burning in my throat that would take a whole fire brigade to snuff out. I felt angry, belittled, and pathetic. I could not beg to get out of my duty. It was just not done in the Chen family. We all worked hard together and played together. Mom and Dad would never approve of my giving up in the middle of my task. I hung on a few more yards, then the blisters burst. The raw flesh looked red and stung like needles. I heard my sister call my name.

  “Little brother, come eat.”

  I saw my mom stumbling along the edge of the field, carrying our lunch on a long bamboo pole. Her face was red beneath her straw hat. I was so grateful to see her.

  “Come wash your hands and eat, young farmer.” Mom smiled at me as I dragged my feet toward her. The beautiful smile on her face was the highest praise she could give us. My sisters and brother gathered around Mom, who was pouring water from a bucket and passing out wet towels.

  “You’re not doing too bad at all. With your help, we will finish before dark.” My brother beamed, slapping my back.

  I screamed before I could stop myself.

  “What’s the matter? Did you burn your back?” Huang asked.

  I was silent.

  “I told you to leave your shirt on,” she said.

  “It was wet.”

  They looked at me.

  “Let me see your hands,” Jin said. I held them out. The blisters continued to ooze. “Pack up and go home after lunch, okay? I’m sorry, it must hurt like hell.”

  Mom and my sisters were upset. My mother hurriedly cleaned my bloody hands with a wet towel.

  “I’m sorry, guys. But I can finish my share.”

  “No, go home and take care of your hands.”

  I was ashamed, feeling like a defector.

  “It happened to me too, when I started out.” Jin extended his hands. “Now look at them. They feel like iron. Go home and try to be a good student. Maybe someday you’ll go to college and won’t have to do hard work like this anymore. You can still shoot for it. The rest of us are too old for that.” He looked at my sisters.

  On our way home, I trailed behind Mom in silence, holding both my hands gingerly stretched out.

  “Do you still want to be a farmer?” Mom asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Then study hard. You can choose your future, your sisters and brother can’t. You’re lucky. If they had blisters like yours, they would still have to be there till the last stem was harvested. It’s their life.”

  Mom’s words stayed with me for a long time.

  The smell of soil and a vague scent permeated the endless, brutal fields. I wouldn’t miss it if I were never to return. The beauty of nature and the muddy fragrance at harvest used to fill me with emotion. Now it looked like a graveyard, filled with hungry ghosts that grabbed at my arms and legs. I didn’t want to have my youth and future buried here.

  As I followed Mom home, I felt a strong desire to start lessons with Professor Wei, to go back to school. There was a future somewhere for me other than hoes and sickles. There should be no hardship at school that I couldn’t overcome. I was never more determined than at that moment. I felt fortunate. As Mom and Jin had said, I still had a chance. The pain in my back and hands throbbed, but all I felt was gratitude for my family and a desire to succeed at school.

  After I failed at filling the spot for Si, Dad thought of another option. I was sent off to work Si’s job at the canned food factory for the rest of the summer while she returned home for the harvest.

  I happily rode a borrowed old bike, carrying a small saddlebag of rice and a larger one of sweet potatoes. A few changes of clothes were packed in another bag that I carried on my back. The road to Han Jian was narrow, and ran along the curvy Pacific Coast. White waves chased up the beach like a large serpent’s tongue, stretching out and curling back rhythmically. You could occasionally see sails, glistening in the sun. The fresh breeze carried a salty tang. I loved the deserted, lonely sea.

  The old bike rattled along the rough surface, which had been left bumpy by torrents of rain, then baked dry by the sun. The footprints of various shoes and bare feet that had struggled through the rain remained imprinted like miniature models of high mountains and deep valleys. I stopped at midpoint in Bridge Town, which lay between Han Jian and Yellow Stone, two hours’ travel time each way. It was a small, lonesome village, perched at the tip of the bay overlooking the sea.

  On the narrow cobbled street, clustered with a dozen little white houses, a few women moved slowly, baskets on their heads, looking suspiciously at me. Some toddlers were playing in the dirt with empty shells, while a couple of old women dozed beside them. I looked around, but didn’t see a man in sight. No wonder people called this fishing village “Widows’ Town.” The men spent weeks and months on their fishing trips. Some came back; others never did.

  I got off the bike and pushed it along the short street. I passed the barbershop. Not surprisingly, inside there was a lady zapping away at another lady. A cat sat on an empty chair meant for customers. I passed the fish store next. It was empty, manned by a lady smoking a water pipe that bubbled like a brook. A large wooden sign at the door read FRESH CRABS, OYSTERS, CLAMS. MORE WILL COME AFTER THE TIDE IS OUT.

  The lady with the pipe smiled at me, her hair bound up in clouds of smoke.

  It was a funny town, with narrow gaps between each house that offered slices of the sea in the background. At the end of the street, my front wheels brushed by and scared a few roosters that gargled at me before running off to perch on a dead tree. Those were the only living male creatures I encountered. Bridge Town ended at an ancient archway. Beyond it was a stone bridge that stretched over the now-muddy Dong Jing River. The virgin Dong Jing had lost its chastity somewhere along the way and changed its color after being seduced by the sea. It f
lirted, tangoed, and winked at the powerful waves before finally burying its head in the strong embrace of the Pacific, not knowing its fate. The bridge was about eighty years old. As a child, Grandpa used to catch a ferry to cross the Dong Jing at this point, collecting rents and lease payments for the farmland we had owned along the delta area.

  At the head of the bridge stood two lines of stone sculptures of heavenly guardians, wearing ancient war robes and holding fighting swords. They stood fifteen feet tall, gazing at the sea, aloof and mute. One of the stone men had lost his head during the air bombings by the Japanese in World War II. The guy next to the headless fellow was leaning against his neighbor, toppled by the Red Guards during the height of the Cultural Revolution because they symbolized blind, superstitious worship. They had wanted to throw them all into the sea, but that day a jumpy Red Guard was squashed to death when the stone man fell on his neighbor. The rest of the Red Guards fled the site, not wanting to come near the giants again. Silently, they had beaten the Japanese and the Red Guards. They were our gods of the sea and land.

  I parked my bike against the foot of one stone man and sat on his toe, fishing out a piece of rice cake from my bag. I was right at the spot Grandpa had told me about, the third man from the left, looking to the east. It was the best place from which to see one of the twenty-four supreme sights of Putien, known as “The Morning Sun at Sea.” Local folklore had it that on one particular clear morning in May, the sun, in the form of a fireball, jumped a few times on the horizon before its ascent. At present, that part of the sea appeared to be red.

  Ancient scholars had made trips to all corners of Putien, writing poetry about their favorite spots, leaving the following generation to wonder what had been in their crazy minds at that moment. Grandpa confessed that he had come here each year with his friends, following the seasons. None of the places matched up to the poetry meant to portray them. Surely none of his companions had seen the sun jump, he would say with a chuckle. He said he only came to this spot for the fresh oysters dipped in vinegar, and the clams served on seaweed.

  As I looked at the sea, I thought about the fabled mirage and the many sunken boats that had belonged to the men of Bridge Town. Seagulls echoed the lonely tune of the village. Two rice cakes later—I guessed it to be around three in the afternoon, for the sun had cast a shadow over the shoulder of the stone man and the sea breeze had begun to gather speed—I picked up my old bike and tailed a biker with a tall pile of dry hay on his backseat, who sheltered me from the wind.

  Han Jian was a seaport town with two long intertwining streets. The tail of the town was on the hill while its head dipped into the water. From a distance, it looked like two snakes reaching down to drink from the sea. It wasn’t the county capital like Putien. The atmosphere was relaxing and commercial. Wealthy retirees from Hong Kong and South Asian countries roamed the streets, fanning away the summer heat with large coconut-leaf fans. The men wore colorful polyester shirts, unbuttoned, revealing their drooping nipples, and swapped stories across the narrow crowded streets, speaking in their accented Putien dialect. Some said speaking Cantonese had ruined their accents, but Dad said they had stayed too long in the wealthy capital of Hong Kong so that they talked as though they had silver coins in their mouths.

  As I pedaled among the pedestrians, bikers, hawkers, kids, and trucks loaded with fruits and food heading for the seaport, excitement began to build. I was going to live near this town for the whole summer, free from the watchful eyes of my family and able to do what my heart wished. I stopped by a cigarette kiosk and bought a pack of Flying Horse, which I would smoke later in the leisurely manner of a man with a salary.

  Si met me at the gate to her factory on the edge of town. I hadn’t seen her for two months. She was wearing an attractive short hairstyle.

  “The city look,” I said, smiling at her.

  “You like it?” Si asked.

  I nodded, patting my own hair before entering the grand entrance of the factory.

  Guards with rifles slung over their shoulders patrolled the gates. They checked my sister’s badge and we were let in.

  “Why the rifles?” I asked.

  “People steal things all the time. The general manager was a military man.”

  A group of young people on bikes flew by us, yelling and screaming my sister’s name.

  “Who were they?”

  “Friends, getting off work.”

  When we reached her division, water treatment, her manager and her best friend greeted me with enthusiasm. The manager was a stocky man with a missing arm. The story was that it had been sawed off and dropped into a burning stove while he helplessly watched it burn. Her best friend was a fat boy of twenty, with hair on his face like a wolf. He smiled at me and both his eyes became two lines beneath his thick eyebrows. He pinched my ears and slapped my back.

  “Why are they so nice to you?” I asked Si after we left the office.

  “Fatty is a buddy, loyal but stubborn. And I had just bought two cartons of Flying Horse for the boss. That will be good for a month or so, then you’ll need to buy him another carton. It’s a corrupt place. Bribery is the only way to make your job safe. Everyone does it, from the general manager to the division head and team leader.”

  She showed me where I would be staying, a tiny bed in a tiny, windowless cubicle behind a boiler room. There were no toilets and the light in the hallway had a nasty habit of blinking and resting whenever it wanted to. The dark smoke-colored ceiling was covered with webs. I didn’t have to stretch my imagination far to think of rats, roaches, and nasty hungry cats lurking behind those old barrels and bits of abandoned machinery.

  Si told me that occasionally there was another girl who stayed overnight in the room opposite ours. The occasionally prompted me to walk the surroundings outside the wobbly house. The ground was overgrown with tall grass and mangy weeds, the kind that hid all sorts of unspeakable evils and ruined the beauty of the neighborhood. I could just imagine myself alone, huddled beneath a flimsy blanket as wind and lightning clashed outside on dark nights.

  Si knew I wasn’t the bravest when it came to being alone in the dark. When I was younger, Grandma had to stay with me until I fell asleep in my cot in order to keep the headless blue ghosts away from me. There wasn’t a single ghost story I hadn’t heard or read. The sad part was I believed them all. Darkness invited all these characters back into my mind, until I was cowering under the sheet, sweating and trembling.

  Si said that she had been lucky to find a free place to live, and that I could bunk with Fatty if I needed to. She had to hurry to catch a truck from the factory that was heading for Yellow Stone on its delivery route. The price for the ride had been a pack of Flying Horse to the driver. As I saw her off, I couldn’t help admiring her social skills. She seemed prettier and much more capable away from Yellow Stone. People listened to her and liked her. I couldn’t believe that she used up more Flying Horses than I did. It was a Flying Horse society here. Long live Flying Horse!

  The next day I reported to the drab water-treatment office. The manager wasn’t there. Fatty was playing cards with a couple of girls. He stood up and brought me over to join their poker game.

  “I’m here to work, Fatty,” I protested.

  “This is work, you farm boy,” Fatty said, smiling. “We wait here, watch the water tower outside, and take the measurement of the water every hour, rain or shine. That’s it.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nope. You just need to come here and sign your name. Once a week you work overnight and sleep here. The factory gives you free food for the night.”

  “Gee, this is heaven,” I said.

  They all laughed.

  I soon came to know that the office was staffed with people from important families. Fatty’s dad was an old revolutionary who had fought in the mountains of Fujian. His mom was his third wife and his father was often mistaken for his grandpa. The short girl, Ying, was married to an army veteran who was now the dep
uty party chief of Han Jian. The comely girl, Ning, had a habit of sitting by the door of the office every morning waiting for the mail to come, then disappearing and reappearing red-faced whenever she got an airmail letter from her lover in Hong Kong.

  They sat around gossiping about their men, knitting sweaters. They hummed lullabies out of tune, while I rotted with boredom in the corner, staring at the traffic outside the window. I volunteered to run up the water tower and check for them even when it wasn’t my turn.

  “I’m so bored,” Ning said one day, arching her slender back. “Hey, I heard you play the flute. Is that true?”

  “Not too well,” I said.

  “If you play for us for twenty minutes, we’ll let you go out and play for the whole morning.”

  “Wouldn’t I get into trouble for doing that?”

  “What trouble? For entertaining us?”

  “Isn’t there some sort of rule against it?”

  “We make the rules here. If anyone doesn’t like it, we’ll turn off their water.”

  So from then on I played my flute, doing the songs they picked. Then I got to go out around town with Fatty on his bike, and see movies. Even the manager would slouch in his chair behind the empty desk, sip his tea, and tap his finger on the table to the beat of the music.

  One day he took me aside and told me that my sister had been gone too long, and he didn’t think he could cover for us much longer. The factory would never allow a fourteen-and-a-half-year-old to work here, and he could get into trouble.

  After I went back to my cubicle, I checked my calendar, depressed. It had been a month, and it was Flying Horse time.

  I went to town, bought him another carton, and dropped it off at his residence, saying that he had forgotten it in the office. It worked. The next day he took me aside again and said that he would be willing to have me for as long as Si needed to work back in our commune.