by Ge Fei
“Today, I’m filling Yellowtooth’s vacancy. Yellowtooth’s death left the few hundred residents of Puji without a butcher, and I’ve decided to take up that vocation. Business officially opens today, and I’m offering the Principal a taste of fresh pig’s head and innards.”
In less than two weeks, the academy lost half of its residents. The artisans and beggars from beyond the village, as if by agreement, rolled up their blankets and disappeared together overnight. The worst was the carpenter, who cut down one of the temple doors and carried it off with him. Aside from Lilypad, Sun Waizui, Wang the cook, Tan Si, and the brothers Wang Qidan and Wang Badan, only twenty or so others remained, and they were all shaking their heads and hatching their own plans. But worse news was still to come. Two other organizations in Guantang and Huang village that had promised to act in solidarity with Puji sent emergency messengers to report that government battalions had made surprise raids on their meetings. The heads of many revolutionary leaders had been sent to the court, their bodies chopped into pieces and strung above their village. Hunks of human meat froze in the winter air as they dangled overhead like New Year’s sausages.
Wang Badan had long considered leaving the academy, but he didn’t know how his brother felt. He worried Qidan might laugh at his cowardice. The truth was that his brother was of exactly the same mind.
Though they were twins who spent nearly all their time together, each kept his own counsel and harbored his own private suspicions. The quiet mistrust between them gave the false impression that the other was perfectly satisfied to stay at the academy. But the growing tide of unsettling news, particularly Baldy’s desertion, made it impossible for Wang Badan to uphold their pretense any longer.
One day, when the two were drinking in the village tavern, Wang Badan summoned enough courage in his alcohol to stammer out a tentative question to his brother.
“Hey, you ever think about going back to work at the forge?”
Wang Qidan allowed himself a quiet sigh of relief as this one question washed away months of repressed frustration and suspicion, yet still smiled impassively as he replied to his brother, “You afraid, Badan?”
“Of course not.” Wang Badan blushed and looked askance.
“Well, you might not be afraid but I sure am.” Wang Qidan refilled his brother’s cup, and continued, “It’s now or never. Let’s get out of Puji, and go as far away as we can.”
On the question of where far away they could go, the two held different opinions. Badan believed the best course was to seek out their father’s brother, a cloth merchant, in Meicheng, while Qidan thought they would have better luck with their aunt’s family in Tongzhou. When neither was able to convince the other, they decided instead to go all the way to Nanjing and appeal to Xu Fu.
At the first crow of the rooster the following morning, the brothers slipped out the academy doors and headed for the ferry through a heavy snowfall. Their plan was to cross the Yangtze River to Changzhou, then continue on to Nanjing. They got to the ferry just as Tan Shuijin was raising sail, but when Shuijin saw the brothers, he slid the gangplank back out and waved at them to board. The brothers jumped into the boat to meet a startling scene: Sitting across from them, smoking his pipe, was the academy cook, while another man leaned back with closed eyes against a duffel bag he had propped over the gunwale. That man was Sun Waizui.
Sun Waizui originally came from Taizhou but had lived a wanderer’s lifestyle for many years. He had been one of Zhang Jiyuan’s staunchest allies after the latter came to Puji. He and the other three men all looked at each other in tacit understanding.
The old cook was the first person to break the silence. Opening the front buttons of his jacket, he pulled out a pair of bronze ladles, a small cleaver, and a handful of soup spoons, also bronze. As he looked these items over, he sighed, “Well, after two years at the academy, the monkeys run when the tree falls, and all I’m left with is this worthless stuff.”
The other three laughed.
Sun Waizui admitted that the Principal had treated him well, and in a time like this, when the academy needed people the most, he shouldn’t be running away. But he had received a letter from home only a few days earlier saying that his eighty-year-old mother had been bedridden since last fall and was waiting to see him one last time. So he had no choice but to leave.
Ferryman Tan Shuijin, who sat behind them, working the oar, sighed and added, “Some men run to the cities in the dead of night, some travel home through snow and sleet. Only my own stupid monkey leaves good work at home so he can keep chasing a delusion.”
Of course Shuijin was talking about his own son, Tan Si.
•
By the time Tiger heard about the situation from Lilypad, the New Year was nearly upon them. Lilypad said that except for herself and Tan Si, only fifteen or so people were left at the academy, and most of them were beggars who had fled south from Anhui. Baoshen had been spending all his time preparing for the New Year’s party.
“Why don’t the beggars run?” he asked Lilypad.
“Where would they run to in all this snow? At least there is hot congee and steamed bread for them at the academy.”
Tiger asked, “Why didn’t you run? And what about Tan Si?” But Lilypad merely smiled.
When Tiger’s questions began to irritate her, she poked his nose and retorted, “At your age, you’re still too young to understand what’s really going on.”
He also heard that the Principal’s hopeless situation was actually making her feel better. She spent her days reading inside the garan, or playing go with Tan Si, as if nothing had happened.
A row of winter plums grew by the garan’s outer wall. A sudden dip in temperature plus heavy snowfall caused them to burst into bloom, and the Principal spent hours standing outside, gazing at the flowers. When Lilypad gave her the news of the Wang brothers’ unexpected departure, Xiumi simply smiled and waved a newly cut sprig of plum blossoms in front of Lilypad’s face. “Smell this—they’re sweet.”
It seemed to Lilypad that the Principal’s mood had improved greatly. The darkness in her countenance had disappeared, her skin looked fresher, and she had put on some weight. Even weirder was the time she entered the kitchen unannounced to say seriously to Lilypad, who was cooking, “I can sleep at night now.”
She said she had never felt so carefree at any point in her life, as if she had nothing to fear or worry about. As if she had been locked in a long, dark dream, and was only now waking from it.
“But . . . but . . . but . . .” Tiger protested uneasily, feeling as if the thick snowflakes outside the window, the warm fire in the hearth, Lilypad’s alabaster body, were utterly empty, “how can that be?”
Lilypad slapped his naked behind and laughed. “You’re still too young to understand this sort of thing.”
11
LITTLE Thing stared at his mother’s photograph again.
Oversoaking, sunlight, and the hot air of the stove had made the paper hard and brittle; the image had grayed so much her face was nearly unrecognizable. Little Thing never mentioned his mother to anyone. When others talked about the Principal, he pricked up his ears and listened quietly, his eyes darting back and forth like a squirrel’s. But whenever anyone mentioned the Principal’s illness or called her crazy, he would blurt out, “You’re the crazy one.”
He looked at her photo only when he was alone, as if it were an illicit act. Magpie used to say that though Little Thing didn’t speak much, he knew exactly what was going on. She said she had never known such a clever little kid. Once, Madame Lu overheard her saying this, and the old lady whacked her sharply on the head with a back scratcher. Madame Lu strictly prohibited anyone from saying Little Thing was smart, because she believed the old village wisdom that smart children don’t live long.
New snow fell every day, covering the entire landscape in a sheath of blinding white. Baoshen said he h
ad never seen so much snow in all his years in Puji. With nothing else to occupy his time, he cut a few lengths of fresh bamboo in the courtyard so he could make a New Year’s lantern.
They had finished the holiday shopping early that year. The two legs of pork Baoshen had bought from Baldy, the new butcher, hung along with several fish beneath the eaves, frozen hard as iron. Grandma Meng had sent a basket of walnuts, two pumpkins for the sweet sticky- rice cakes, and a ladleful of sesame seeds. Ding Shuze had sent them two sets of New Year’s couplets, four pairs of peachwood good-luck charms, and a New Year’s wreath made of cut paper. The main thing they needed now was a red lantern.
Baoshen sat by the fire and sighed despondently as he tied the bamboo ribs together. He said he feared this would be his last New Year’s in Puji. He said he would make it the best party ever—they would want for nothing, settle for nothing. Once the old year passed, they would pick up and leave for Qinggang.
After the Principal sold the land to Long Qingtang, Baoshen eventually decided to take Little Thing with him. One day, he called Little Thing over to where he was sitting, pressed him gently between his knees, and said, “Puji, do you want to go with us to Qinggang?”
Little Thing blinked his eyes and tugged at the hairs of Baoshen’s beard without agreeing or refusing. Instead, he asked, “If I went to Qinggang, would I need to be your son?”
Baoshen laughed out loud and rubbed the boy’s head. “Silly child, I’m nearer to being your grandfather than your father.”
Magpie by far was in the worst position, having nowhere to go. She suggested several times to Baoshen that what the hell, she might as well go with the rest of them to Qinggang. Baoshen never responded. He knew she was only saying it; she would need to be married off at some point. Grandma Meng had brought her to the house originally, so she counted as family. Recently, the old lady had sent word to certain matchmakers to find Magpie a husband, but the heavy snows had closed the roads and year-end festivities kept people too busy for a match to be found.
The only thing Magpie could think to do was embroider shoe soles as if her life depended on it. Baoshen joked that she had soled enough shoes already for Little Thing to wear until he died. Then he cursed himself for speaking of ill fortune, spat twice on the ground, and slapped himself on the cheek, which made Little Thing giggle.
Baoshen’s hands shook so much as he tied the lantern frame that he snapped several bamboo ribs in succession. He felt it a bad omen. Mentioning it to Magpie encouraged her own suspicions; she told him that she had punctured her hand several times with her embroidery needle.
“Do you think something’s going to happen over there at the temple? Everybody’s saying that the government’s cracking down on revolutionaries.”
She was thinking about Puji Academy, but Baoshen worried about other things.
As the day before New Year’s Eve arrived with clear skies, Baoshen was covering his holiday lantern with red paper and writing characters on its surface when the sound of singing drifted to his ears from outside the courtyard. The voice sounded like an old woman’s. At first, neither Baoshen nor Magpie paid much attention, and assumed she was a beggar singing New Year’s blessings for money. Baoshen even hummed along for a while, yet the more he listened to the lyrics, the more uneasy he felt. Slowly Magpie stopped her work, and stared blankly at the wall as she listened, a half-stitched sole in one hand. Partly to herself she said, “Why do I feel like she’s singing about actual stuff that has happened to us? Her lyrics seem to be all about our family.”
Understanding dawned on Baoshen’s face. Looking seriously at Magpie, he replied, “Singing? She’s only singing out of one side of her mouth. She’s cursing us, trying to draw blood with every line.”
“How could she know so much about our personal business these past few years?” Magpie asked as she wrapped the remaining thread around the sole. “I’ll give her a couple of buns and send her away.”
Magpie put down her work and went out, only to return a few moments later with the buns still in her hand. She said to Baoshen, “We thought it was a beggar. Guess who it really was?”
“Who?”
“The blind woman!”
“Blind woman from where?”
“Yellowtooth’s blind old mother. I offered her the buns but she wouldn’t take them, just turned around and walked away with her cane without saying a word.”
Baoshen paused, the calligraphy brush still between his fingers, then wondered aloud, “What would she be doing that for?”
As evening neared, Magpie offered to go burn spirit money at Madame Lu’s grave. She said the old woman’s singing had made her anxious; one of her eyelids wouldn’t stop twitching. When Baoshen asked her which eyelid, she replied, “Both of them.”
Baoshen thought for a moment, then said, “Take Tiger with you.” When Little Thing heard that Tiger was going, he whined so much that Magpie had to take him, too. The three were about to leave the estate with a basket of spirit money when Baoshen ran to the front door and called after them, “Burn a few for Zhang Jiyuan, too.”
Little Thing clamored to be allowed to carry the basket; Magpie feared he would get too tired, and told him no. But Little Thing insisted. He yanked it out of her hands, proclaiming, “I can carry it, I’m really strong!”
Holding the basket in both hands, Little Thing plowed through snow that nearly reached his waist, keeping up a decent pace as he blundered along. Hua Erniang complimented him on his strength as he plowed by, spurring him to go faster.
When they reached the grave, Magpie first undid her bandanna and spread it out on the snow, directing Little Thing to kowtow to his grandmother. Then she took the paper money out of the basket, found a place protected from the wind, and struck a match. As she burned the paper bills, she prayed under her breath, as if the mistress really could hear her. Flaming bills made a crackling sound as they fell onto the snow. Tiger heard Magpie say to the grave, “After the New Year, Baoshen is taking everyone to Qinggang; even Little Thing is going with them. And I will need to leave Puji after the year is over.”
“When we’re all gone, who will be left to burn money for you here?” Magpie asked, then began to weep loudly.
They continued on to Zhang Jiyuan’s grave. His grave mound was much smaller and lacked both a headstone and fence. The snow in the daylily field was so soft and loose that Little Thing couldn’t pull his legs out after sinking in.
Magpie said that the mistress was always the one to visit Zhang Jiyuan’s grave; who could have imagined that this year, she would need someone to visit her own? Then she started crying again. Tiger tried to comfort her when he saw Little Thing point into the distance and yell, “Look! What’s that over there?”
Tiger followed his finger to where the sun sank between the two mountains and shimmered like molten iron in a crucible. The high road to Xia village snaked around the side of one mountain and stretched toward them. A western wind kicked up loose snow and blew it around wildly. Tiger heard the sound of galloping horses.
“Magpie, Magpie, look!” Little Thing cried out.
Magpie straightened up and looked out toward the high road. A solid black cloud of military cavalry with rifles on their backs were barreling down the road toward Puji. In a flash, horse after horse flew by them. Every soldier wore robes of black cloth and a conical helmet topped with a bright red tassel that flailed wildly; the soldiers jostled and cursed each other as they urged their horses on down the mountain and toward the riverside.
“Bad news!” Magpie cried as she stared in horror.
Tiger’s heart sank, and a feeling of desperate helplessness overcame him. Rumors of approaching soldiers had proliferated so widely in the village during the last few days that Tiger had gotten sick of hearing them. He didn’t expect that when the soldiers finally did appear, they would still scare the strength from his body. Behind him, he heard Magpie shout
, “Little Thing! Where’s Little Thing?”
She was turning in circles, as if she were looking for a lost needle. The sight of more soldiers than she had ever seen in her life had frightened her into a frenzy of confusion. Tiger turned around and spied Little Thing immediately.
He was bounding over a snow-covered cornfield like a rabbit, headed in the direction of Black Dragon Temple. He had already reached the edge of the high road. Tiger saw him fall face-first into the snow several times, but he picked himself up and kept running.
“Go, go grab him, Tiger, go now!” Magpie wailed.
As Tiger started off, he heard Magpie exclaim, “Huh? My legs—why won’t my legs move?” When he turned back to her, she yelled, “Forget about me! Go catch Little Thing!”
Tiger ran down the mountain. He could hear the pounding of the horses growing closer. By the time he caught up with Little Thing by the temple gates, the boy was so tired he was retching; he heaved a few times without vomiting anything, then said between ragged breaths, “They’ve come to take Mama . . . Go, run as fast as you can!”
Little Thing could barely move his legs. Tiger took his hand and half-led, half-dragged him through the front door of the academy. Fortunately, they ran immediately into Lilypad, who was heading outside with a bucket, perhaps to draw water from the fishpond. “They’re here . . . they’re here . . .” Little Thing cried, and Tiger echoed him, “They’re here . . . they’re here!”