by Yan Lianke
There was a chorus of protest. Everyone seemed to agree that living in the school was better than sitting around at home, waiting to die.
‘Well, then,’ said Grandpa impatiently. ‘Let’s go.’
But no one made a move to leave. They stared at the pile of rocks and bricks as if it represented a great personal loss.They seemed rooted to the spot, unable to move.
‘If you’re not moving into the school, you might as well go back to your homes,’ Grandpa said at last. The villagers remained silent.
‘But if you are,’ he added hopefully, ‘let’s get a cart and bring this food to the school.’
Sitting and standing, hands tucked in their sleeves or stuck in their pockets, the villagers traded silent glances. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement that they shouldn’t leave things this way. That this never should have happened in the first place. As the deadlock wore on, the setting sun fell towards the western horizon like a dying comet, giving off one final burst of heat.
Seeing that no one else was going to move or speak, Grandpa turned to Ding Yuejin. ‘How heavy are these bricks and stones?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Yuejin said. ‘Why don’t we weigh them?’
Jia Genzhu and Zhao Dequan loaded the stones, bricks and tiles into baskets so that Ding Yuejin could weigh them with his scale. When each basket had been weighed, the total came out to just over 100lbs. Grandpa then asked how many people were moving into the school, and how much extra each person would have to pitch in to make up for the shortfall. Before Grandpa could finish his sentence, Jia Genzhu interrupted. ‘Professor Ding, there is no way that I am going to pitch in more than I already have. If you don’t believe me, just ask Ding Yuejin . . . I gave only the best-quality rice and flour. Every grain of rice was perfectly white, as big as baby teeth, and the flour as fine as foam on a river.’
When Jia Genzhu had finished speaking, Zhao Dequan, who had parked his backside on a sack of flour and was muttering under his breath, spoke up. ‘I’m, uh . . . I’m not going to pitch in, either.’
The others joined in, protesting that they, too, had already given enough.
Grandpa stood for a few moments, thinking to himself. Then, without a word of explanation, he left the villagers and began walking east. He walked east until he came to New Street. The villagers had no idea where Grandpa had gone or what he was up to, but they waited for him anyway, milling around the village centre like drought victims hoping for rain. A short while later, as the sun finally set, Grandpa returned. With him was my dad, pushing a bicycle laden with two large sacks of flour. As father and son trudged towards the village square, they were greeted by silence and stares of disbelief from the villagers. The silence was broken only by the clanging of my dad’s bicycle chain. As they drew closer, the villagers saw that the sacks on his bicycle contained expensive Grade-A flour from the state-owned mill. Only the finest-quality flour would do for our family, the same as people in the city ate.
When he and Grandpa had first set out from the house with the bags of flour, my dad had worn a look of disgust: the disdain he felt for the villagers was written all over his face. But as he approached the crossroads, where the villagers could see him, he put on a broad magnanimous smile, all lips and teeth. Glancing around at the crowd, he noticed Ding Yuejin, Jia Genzhu, Zhao Xiuqin and several of the others who had come to his house to argue about coffins.
‘What’s a measly hundred pounds of flour among old friends and neighbours?, said Dad. ‘With everyone so sick, it’s hardly worth quibbling over. Am I right?’
With a glance at the large pile of bricks and stones, my dad unloaded the two sacks from the back of his bicycle and placed them next to the other sacks of donated food. Dusting the flour from the back seat of his bicycle, he proclaimed: ‘That’s a hundred pounds of the highest quality flour. The same kind as they use in the city. Please accept it as a small token of my regard.’
As he wheeled his bike around and prepared to leave, he said in a harsher tone of voice: ‘I want you to remember this, and remember that I’ve never treated you unfairly or done anything to let you down. If anyone in this village has been treated unfairly, it’s me.’
With that parting shot, Dad hopped on his bike and pedalled off.
That seemed to settle the matter. The more the villagers thought about it, the more they felt they’d been unfair to my dad, and unfair to the whole Ding family. For a while, their suspicions about my dad were laid to rest. It would be some time before they began to suspect him again.
Later that night, everything had returned to normal. The villagers were back in the school, fast asleep in their beds. Uncle was sleeping in Grandpa’s quarters, just as before.
After they turned out the lights, Uncle and Grandpa lay in their beds talking. ‘Shit,’ said Uncle.
‘What?’ asked Grandpa.
‘I put one little rock in a bag of rice, and my brother ends up donating two sacks of flour.’
Grandpa sat up in bed and stared at his youngest son.
‘So, Dad, who do you think put the bricks into the flour?’
Grandpa didn’t answer.
‘I bet it was Ding Yuejin,’ said Uncle. ‘He was weighing the flour, so he’s the only one who could have put in twenty pounds of bricks without anyone noticing. And another thing . . . just before New Year, when his wife died, I heard he bought a load of bricks to build her grave.’
As Uncle was speaking, there were noises outside the window: a muffled cough, the shuffling of feet, footsteps fading into the distance. Uncle paused to listen for a moment before continuing his conversation. A while later, telling Grandpa he was going out to the toilets, Uncle pulled on his clothes, left the room and followed in the direction of the footsteps.
3
A few weeks later, the school was in an uproar: someone had locked Uncle and Lingling in the grain-storage room next to the kitchen. Grandpa had been roused from his bed, and the residents of the school were gathered around the storeroom door, waiting. Everyone had got dressed and turned out to watch the excitement, the drama of forbidden lovers caught in the act.
The night was cool and bright; moonlight spilled like water into the schoolyard. The crowd milled outside the storeroom, shouting for someone to unlock the door and let Lingling and Uncle out, but no one seemed to know where to find the key.
Locked inside the storeroom, Uncle heard the scuffle of footsteps outside. A stampede moving closer, then silence. He had the feeling that the crowd had crept up to the window and was listening for sounds inside. ‘Come on, have a heart!’ he yelled through the window. ‘We’re all dying . . . none of us has much time left. How can you do this to us?’
Zhao Xiuqin stepped from the crowd, opened the kitchen door and turned on the light so that it shone on the adjacent storeroom. The lock on the storeroom door was brand new, its black-painted surface still shiny. ‘Ding Liang,’ she shouted. ‘I knew something was going on between you and Lingling, but I never breathed a word to anyone. My lips are sealed as tight as this door. But it’s not my padlock on there. Someone must have brought the lock from home so they could catch you two together.’
There was a moment of silence before Uncle spoke again. ‘So what if they did?’ He sounded peevish. ‘You could take me out and shoot me and I wouldn’t care. A lot of us have died already. I cheat death every day . . . what do I care if I get caught cheating with someone else’s wife?’
The crowd darkening the door fell silent. There was really nothing they could say. Whoever had locked Uncle and Lingling in the storeroom had made a mistake. A big mistake. Uncle and Lingling’s stolen pleasures now seemed justified. Legitimate, even. The residents crowded outside the storeroom stared at one another and wondered what they ought to do next.
Zhao Dequan, one of the older and wiser villagers, peered at the faces gathered under the lamplight. ‘Will someone please open the door?’ he pleaded.
Jia Genzhu shot him a look. ‘But who has the key?’
Z
hao Dequan squatted back down on the ground, as silent and immobile as an old wooden post.
Ding Yuejin stepped forward, examined the padlock and turned back to the crowd. ‘Who locked this door?’ he demanded. ‘We’re all going to die any day now, and you’re running around like the morality police? If they can have one more day of happiness, why can’t you just let them enjoy it?’
‘Seriously,’ he continued, ‘Ding Liang is a better man than his brother. He doesn’t deserve this. Unlock the door.’
Jia Genzhu had also come forward and was examining the lock. ‘Someone please open this door,’ he begged. ‘Ding Liang and Lingling are only in their twenties, and as long as they’re alive, they still have to be able to face people. Whatever happens, we can’t let this get back to the village or their families. They’d be ruined.’
A few of the other residents made the same appeal, but no one seemed to know who had locked the door or who had the key. By now, Lingling was huddled in a corner of the storeroom, crying. Her sobs seeped through the cracks in the walls like a draught of chill air. Everyone felt sorry for her: she’d married into the village young, and been struck with the fever almost before the honeymoon was over. They couldn’t be sure if she’d rushed into marriage knowing she was sick, or if she’d found out she was sick only after the wedding, but either way, she’d brought disaster on her husband and in-laws. No matter what the story was, she’d shattered the family’s peace like a pane of glass, and left them to pick up the pieces. It was no wonder she’d become a pariah in her own household, given the cold shoulder – and even colder words – by her husband and his relatives.
Now Lingling was worse then sick, she was an adulteress. If her husband ever found out, there would be hell to pay. The fact that her lover was Ding Liang, her husband’s first cousin, made the situation even worse. For Lingling, there was nothing for it but to weep. Everyone who heard her desperate sobs was moved to pity. Meanwhile, Uncle was rattling the doors and windows of the storeroom, trying to find a way out. Grandpa had heard the noise and emerged from his rooms to see what was the matter. It was only then that he realized all those times his son had left in the middle of the night, saying he was going to talk to someone or drop in for a game of chess, he had been secretly meeting Lingling.
When the villagers saw Grandpa storming towards them, they quickly stepped aside to clear him a path. The crowd fell silent, waiting to see how Grandpa would handle the situation. The only sound was my uncle’s plaintive voice from inside the storeroom. ‘Dad? Dad . . . is that you?’
‘You’re going to be the death of me,’ Grandpa growled as he reached the door. ‘You and that brother of yours.’
‘Open the door first, Dad, then we’ll talk.’
Grandpa said nothing.
‘Just open the door. We can talk about this later.’
Turning back to the crowd, Grandpa asked that whoever had the key to come forward and unlock the door. There was an uncomfortable silence. The residents looked around at each other, not knowing who had locked the door or who held the key. By now, Lingling had stopped crying and was standing next to Uncle, waiting for someone to unlock the door and let them out. But no one came forward with the key, or admitted to having seen anyone lock the storeroom door.
Outside the school, the late winter chill was rising, coming over the schoolyard wall like water over a levee. In the silence, you could hear the cold air sweeping across the plain. There were the occasional croaks and chirps that one hears on bitter winter nights, but it was impossible to tell where the insect sounds were coming from. Perhaps it was from the ancient path of the Yellow River, or from some far corner of the plain. As the silence deepened, the sounds became clearer.
‘Someone please give me the key,’ Grandpa said. ‘If you like, I’ll kneel down right now and apologize on behalf of Lingling and my son. Come what may, we’re all neighbours, and none of you has long to live.’
‘Dad!’ Uncle shouted from inside the storeroom. ‘Just smash the lock!’
The villagers began hunting for things they could use to break the lock. Rocks, hammers, cleavers from the kitchen, whatever was handy. But just as they were about to try to force the lock, everyone stopped in their tracks.
There was no point in breaking the lock or forcing open the door. Lingling’s husband was coming through the school gate. Ding Xiaoming, my uncle’s cousin, was walking into the schoolyard.
Unlike his wife, Ding Xiaoming didn’t have the fever. He didn’t get the fever because he hadn’t ever sold his blood. His own father had sold blood, but the fever had killed him years ago, putting an early end to his suffering. Ding Xiaoming was still young, strong and healthy, and now he was bounding through the schoolyard, heading straight for the storeroom.
Someone shouted: ‘Look! Isn’t that Lingling’s husband?’
Of course, everyone turned their heads to look.
It was Lingling’s husband, and he was bounding towards them like a panther. Taking huge leaps like a tiger on the hunt. Grandpa saw him, too, and the colour drained from his face. Grandpa, of course, knew Ding Xiaoming well: the man was his nephew. Xiaoming’s father had been Grandpa’s brother, younger by just two years. After the blood-selling started, the two families had become estranged by wealth: my father had built a two-storey house with a white-tiled exterior and my uncle had built a house with a tiled roof. Xiaoming’s family, on the other hand, was still living in a mud-brick house with a thatched roof. After Xiaoming’s father suddenly passed away, things got even worse. One day, his mother had pointed to my uncle’s house and said: ‘That’s not a tile-roofed house. It’s the village blood bank!’ Then, pointing to our house: ‘Those walls aren’t white tiles. They’re made with our bones!’ Once these words reached my father and uncle’s ears, the families kept their distance, meeting only at the gravesides of their common ancestors.
After the fever hit and I was poisoned, word of my death spread quickly throughout the village. When Xiaoming’s mother heard the news, she said: ‘It’s retribution, that’s what it is, divine retribution.’ Of course, this got back to my mother, who rushed over to their house and caused such a scene that our families broke off all contact.
After that, our two families were as strangers. Not like relatives at all. And now, because of my uncle’s illicit affair with Lingling, Ding Xiaoming was rushing into the school like a tiger. Before he even reached the crowd, the villagers had cleared a path for him, scurrying to get out of his way. It was hard to see his face in the moonlight, but he was obviously enraged. As he marched towards the storeroom, the villagers edged away from him. In the dim light coming through the kitchen door, their faces seemed drained of colour. Even the dark spots that were the mark of their disease seemed to have faded into nothingness, their faces bloodless and pale.
Before the door, Grandpa stood frozen. Everyone stood frozen. Even the insect sounds on the plain seemed to have died out; everyone was silent.
The crowd stared as Ding Xiaoming advanced towards the storeroom. What no one had expected, what no one had anticipated, was that Xiaoming would have the key to the padlock. But he was the one who had had it all along. Taking up a stance before the door, Xiaoming produced a small silver key and tried to insert it into the lock. But the padlock wouldn’t open, because he’d got the key in upside down.
Then he turned the key the other way around. The padlock sprang open.
The door opening was like the cruel onslaught of a storm on a summer’s day. There was a burst of noise – a clash and clang, as the door burst open – but it only lasted for a second. The moment the door was open, Xiaoming grabbed his wife by the hand and pulled her out. It was as if she’d been waiting on the other side of the door for him to reach in and grab her.
Xiaoming was a strong man. He was not what you would call tall, but he was stocky, a few stone overweight. He seized his wife by the collar and began dragging her away like a tiger carrying off its prey. Lingling’s face was frightened and pale, her hai
r dishevelled. Her feet barely touched the ground, as if she were being lifted up and dragged along by her hair. Xiaoming was silent, his face livid. He brushed past Grandpa without a word, and retraced his steps through the crowd. As the villagers edged away to give him room, they caught a glimpse of Lingling – her face a ghastly shade of white, flashing by like lightning. Grandpa said nothing when Xiaoming passed him; he was still in shock. But as he turned to watch Xiaoming stalking through the crowd, dragging his wife behind him, Grandpa took a few steps forward, as if to follow him.
‘Xiaoming!’ Grandpa shouted.
Lingling’s husband stopped and turned around.
‘Lingling is very sick,’ Grandpa pleaded. ‘Can’t you show her some mercy?’
Xiaoming did not reply straight away, but nor did he stay silent for long. He squinted into the light, trying to see Grandpa’s face, then spat on the ground. Taking a few steps forward, he spat again, this time at Grandpa’s feet.
‘Mind your own business,’ he said coldly. ‘And control that son of yours!’
With that, Xiaoming turned and left, dragging his wife behind him.
It wasn’t right. All the residents milling about the schoolyard were in agreement. It wasn’t right that things had turned out this way. Such a promising drama really deserved a better ending. Disappointed, they gazed after Xiaoming as he dragged his wife across the schoolyard and out through the front gate. Long after he had disappeared, they remained motionless, as if unsure about what had just happened.
Maybe they were confused. Or maybe they simply didn’t want to leave the schoolyard and the site of the drama. So they just stood blankly and stared. Stupidly. People with nothing better to do.
Then they remembered my uncle. It took two to commit adultery, and although the woman had gone, the man was still there. The villagers turned around to look, but discovered that while they had been watching Xiaoming drag away his wife, my uncle had slipped out unnoticed. They saw him sitting on the threshold of the storeroom, with his head hung low and his hands on his knees, like a guilty child who couldn’t bear to go into the house and face his parents, a naughty boy who was starting to get hungry, but was too afraid to go in for dinner. To their disappointment, he was fully dressed. He was even wearing his padded coat, the buttons done up neatly to the neck.