by Yan Lianke
Sanzi came in from the field, took one look at Grandpa and snorted. Then he went over to a pile of clothes lying on the ground, took a folded letter from one of the pockets, and showed it to Grandpa.
The letter, written on Ding Village party committee stationery, was brief: ‘Ding Sanzi has permission to cut down the big cottonwood next to his field west of the village.’ Below this were the official village seal and the signatures of Jia Genzhu and Ding Yuejin.
Reading the letter in the light of the lanterns, Grandpa realized exactly what it meant: permission to fell the trees of Ding Village. He clutched the letter and stared at the two men, wondering whether or not he ought to stop them from cutting down the tree. As Grandpa was trying to make up his mind, Ding Sanzi snatched the letter from his hand and walked away. After he had folded the letter and put it back into the pocket of his clothes, he said calmly: ‘Your son Ding Hui sold off our coffins, and now you won’t even let us cut down a tree to make our own.’
Ding Sanzi, still strong despite being infected with the fever, walked back into his field, picked up the rope and continued trying to pull down the big cottonwood. Grandpa stood by helplessly for a while, then decided to go into the village and see what was happening there. He had not gone far when he heard a loud crack behind him, the splintering of wood. The sound reverberated through his chest, as if there were some acute ache in his heart. In that moment, Grandpa was once again consumed with the desire to strangle his eldest son with his bare hands. He could almost feel his palms sweating, and the ageing tendons in his hands flexing.
Grandpa entered the village and followed the glow of lanterns to a large willow tree. Plastered to the tree trunk was a notice nearly identical to the one Ding Sanzi had shown him. It was written on the same letterhead, and had the same two signatures and village seal. It read: ‘Jia Hongli has permission to cut down the old willow tree at the northwest corner of the intersection on the west end of the village.’
Grandpa scrutinized the paper pasted to the tree trunk as if it were an official government poster on a bulletin board. He was speechless. Apparently, the chopping down of trees was now perfectly legal and above-board. Grandpa stood in a daze, staring up at the lantern hanging from a branch of the willow tree. In the pool of light, he could make out Jia Hongli perched high in the tree, hacking at the branches. After pondering for a few seconds, Grandpa shouted up at him.
‘That looks dangerous, Hongli! Aren’t you afraid you’ll fall?’
Hongli paused and shouted back, ‘So what? I won’t live long, anyway.’
Grandpa tried appealing to Hongli’s father, who was standing below the tree. ‘Jia Jun, you’re not going to let your son risk his life over a tree, are you?’
The older man smiled and pointed to the notice stuck to the tree trunk. ‘It’s all right. We’ve got permission to cut it down, see?’
Grandpa shook his head and continued on his way. As he walked through the village, he saw that every tree large enough to be used as timber had been marked for demolition: there were notices pasted to every elm, honey locust, paulownia, toon and scholar tree he passed. In every lane and alleyway, in every corner of the village, he found people chopping down trees by the light of lanterns, kerosene lamps or candles. Some of the trees and exterior walls were strung with electric lights connected to long grey extension leads (known in the village as ‘rat-tail cords’) that snaked into nearby houses. Nearly every other house was brightly lit, turning Ding Village into a blaze of light, as dazzling as the daytime sun. It looked as if every tree in the village had been served with an execution order. The night air filled with the ceaseless clamour of chopping and sawing, and the pungent scent of fresh-cut wood mingled with tree sap.
Ding Village seemed revived: the residents prowled the streets with hatchets and saws, searching for the trees they’d been given permission to chop down. The sick villagers had, of course, been given the trees most suitable for making coffins: the willows, cottonwoods and paulownia. But because the trees were public property and everyone was entitled to his or her share, even the healthy villagers were allowed to chop down trees. They had been given the toons, chinaberries and scholar trees, whose timber was prone to rot and insects, and so ill-suited for making coffins. But they were fine for making furniture, beds and tables and chairs that could be given to sons and daughters as wedding gifts.
Each family in the village, with the exception of ours, had been given one tree to use as timber. So it was that on this spring night, the whole of Ding Village was hard at work chopping down trees and dragging them back to their homes.
God only knows where they got so many hatchets and saws. It was as if the whole village had known in advance about the great tree-felling, and had bought in supplies of tools beforehand. The clash of metal rang through the night, punctuated by the snapping and cracking of tree branches. Sounds from the east end of the village could be heard on the distant western plain, and noise from the west end of the village carried to the alleyways in the east. Ding Village was a hive of noise and activity, seething with rare excitement. There was the constant thud of footsteps, carts rumbling through the streets and the sound of voices, as villagers compared the quality of their timber with that of their neighbours. Looks of envy swirled around every pool of dazzling light, and followed in the wake of every glowing lantern being carried down the street.
Even the faces of villagers too sick to work glowed with the excitement of cutting down trees. The healthy villagers worked with enthusiasm, as if it were the big planting or harvest season. All night long, the village was filled with the sound of people working and the sweet scent of timber and sawdust. The conversation that accompanied all this coming and going and hustle and bustle followed more or less the same basic pattern:
‘Wow, you got an elm!’
‘Well, we needed a beam for the roof, so we asked for an elm.’
‘Those pieces of wood look pretty short. What are you going to use them for?’
‘Can’t you tell? They’re the perfect size for shelves.’
Another conversation went like this: ‘Did you hear? Li Wang’s family got the big toon tree at the west end of the village.’
‘Li Wang? I can’t believe it.’
‘Would I lie? It’s because his daughter’s engaged to Ding Yuejin’s cousin, that’s why.’
And so it went. The speaker would whisper some mysterious bit of information, the listener would ‘ooh’ or ‘aah’ in understanding and the two would go their separate ways, eager to pass on the gossip to others.
Grandpa walked the streets dejectedly, pausing before this tree and that, as if paying his last respects before they were all chopped down. He couldn’t help but be reminded of his dream of Ding Village: flowers on the surface, and gold beneath the soil. He wandered the village in a daze, peering around him in confusion. When he reached the village centre, he was surprised to see that even the venerable old scholar tree – so large that it would take three or four people to encircle its trunk – was also marked for demolition. Zhao Xiuqin and her husband Wang Baoshan stood by as her brothers, two stout young men from another village, removed the heavy bell that hung from one of the branches. After they had taken it down and hung it from a smaller tree nearby, one of the brothers scaled a ladder and began sawing at the branches, while the other began digging up the roots.
The last time Grandpa had passed the old scholar tree, it had been safe and sound. Now, in the short time it had taken him to make one circuit around the village, it was besieged by people hacking and sawing and trying to chop it down. Moving closer, Grandpa passed under an extension lead that stretched from a nearby house into the branches of the old tree. In the glow of a 200-watt light bulb, the area around the tree, once the site of village meetings, was as bright as day.
‘Xiuqin, are they really letting you cut down this tree?’ Grandpa called out.
Zhao Xiuqin, sitting in the circle of light beneath the scholar tree, raised her head and blushed u
ncomfortably. She seemed quite embarrassed that her family had been caught chopping down the oldest, largest and most venerable tree in the village.
‘I never expected Chairman Jia and Chairman Ding to be so grateful,’ she answered with a nervous laugh. ‘I was just doing my job, cooking their favourite meals and making sure they had whatever food or liquor they wanted. But when I mentioned that all the big trees had already been cut down and that this was the only one left, they told me I could have it!’
Amidst the cacophony of trees being felled, Grandpa stood forlornly, remembering his dream of flowers on the plain and gold beneath the surface.
3
It happened just like Zhao Dequan said it would.
The trees of Ding Village disappeared overnight.
All the mature trees were gone. At first, it seems, there had been some discussion about only felling trees of a certain size, those with trunks as broad as a bucket, say. But when morning came, the villagers woke to find that even the smaller trees in and around the village were gone. Anything that had a trunk the size of the circumference of a bowl had been chopped down for timber. Discarded notices from the village party committee littered the streets like fallen leaves after a windy evening. The spring sun shone warm as usual, but without foliage or the shade of trees, the village felt scorching and unpleasant.
All the mature elms, scholar trees, paulownia, chinaberries, toons, cottonwoods and persimmon trees had been felled, leaving only saplings with trunks barely as thick as a man’s arm. Even these were scarce, as rare as wheat seedlings in an abandoned field. From the moment the sun rose, it began beating down upon the village, scorching people’s flesh.
In the days to come, the villagers would wake from their beds, stand at their doors and gaze with blank surprise at the world outside. They would gaze at the barren landscape and wonder what had happened.
‘Good heavens, would you look at this place?’
‘How did it come to this?’
‘So it’s finally come to this . . .’
4
The trees were gone. So was Zhao Dequan.
He passed away at about noon, on the day after the big tree-felling. The evening before he died, Grandpa asked Uncle: ‘Do you think you could go to Lingling’s parents’ house and get her red silk jacket? I want to give it to Zhao Dequan.’
Uncle agreed to travel to Lingling’s hometown, a distance of six or seven miles from Ding Village. He could have made the round trip that same evening, but he decided to stay overnight, and didn’t return until the next day. When he got back to Ding Village at around noon, Zhao Dequan was still alive. As he watched Uncle hand his wife Lingling’s red silk bridal jacket, Zhao Dequan smiled, closed his eyes, and quietly passed from this life.
He was still smiling when they put him in the coffin.
Zhao Dequan was buried with his red silken-jacket smile.
VOLUME 5
CHAPTER ONE
1
Uncle and Lingling moved in together.They lived as husband and wife, brazenly, in plain sight of everyone in the village.
They were like water and sand, seed and soil, yin and yang; like positive and negative magnetic poles. They were water flowing, being absorbed by sand; seed scattered by the wind, taking root in soil; yin and yang coming together as one; two magnets clinging to each other, unable to deny their attraction.
After the incident at the school, Lingling got a beating from her husband, a cursing from her in-laws, and was sent packing back to her mother’s house. As soon as she was gone, Ding Xiaoming’s family set about finding him a replacement wife. Everyone felt that the beating was justified, and that Lingling had deserved it: not only had she brought the fever into her husband’s household, she had cheated on him with his own cousin. It was only fitting that Xiaoming, still in his mid-twenties and uninfected, should kick her out and start looking for a new wife. If he could find a suitable match, he could remarry after Lingling died, or ask her for a divorce and remarry even earlier. Lingling’s parents were sensible people; when they came to Ding Village to pick up their daughter, they apologized to Xiaoming’s parents: ‘We’re sorry we didn’t do a better job of raising our daughter. It’s probably best for everyone if Ding Xiaoming gets remarried. And if you need help paying for the dowry, we’ll give back Lingling’s wedding gifts.’
And so Xiaoming’s parents began trying to find a new match for their son.
Lingling’s parents, grumbling and cursing, brought their daughter home.
But spring had come early that year, and summer was right on its heels. The weather grew warm, then hot; padded winter coats were replaced by spring jackets, then by shirtsleeves. By the time it was warm enough for a single layer, Lingling returned to her husband’s home in Ding Village to fetch her summer clothes. As she was walking out of the door with her bundle of belongings, her mother-in-law eyed the bulging bundle and asked: ‘Are you sure you haven’t taken anything that doesn’t belong to you?’
‘I’m sure,’ Lingling answered.
‘It’s only a matter of time before Xiaoming finds a new wife,’ her mother-in-law continued. ‘If you’re still alive when he does, you must come back and give him a divorce.’
Lingling said nothing. Once she was through the door, she turned back to gaze at the house, with its gleaming white porcelain-tiled walls. The seams between the tiles were as straight and black as if they’d been painted on with ink. After a few moments, she left the house and began walking out of the village.
She came to the concrete road outside the village. A straight line cutting through the fields, it was raised about half a foot above the surrounding soil, with drainage ditches on either side. The rows of cottonwood trees that had once lined the ditches were gone, chopped down by the villagers. The ditches were now filled with weeds and wild grass that rustled in the wind. At this time of year, the wheat plants – having raised their heads and steeled their spines – stood tall, and the fields were filled with people irrigating their plots.
Walking down the treeless main road under the blazing midday sun was like passing through a corridor of fire. The spots on Lingling’s face started to itch in the heat, but she didn’t want to scratch them, for fear of breaking the skin. She stroked her face with the tips of her fingers, softly, as if she were caressing the face of a newborn child. She walked along slowly, aimlessly, stroking her face, her eyes fixed on the pavement in front of her. Suddenly she heard her name being called: not loudly, not softly. The sound seemed to fall from up above.
‘Lingling . . .’ It was Uncle’s voice.
She stopped and raised her head. Uncle was standing by the side of the road, only a few steps away. He looked just the same as she remembered. Slightly paler, perhaps; a bit closer to death. For a moment, they just stared at each other. Then Lingling, remembering where she was, looked behind her nervously.
‘We’re alone,’ said Uncle. ‘But even if we weren’t, there’s nothing to be scared of.’
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.
Uncle sat down at the side of the road. ‘I heard you were back, so I waited for you here.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Sit by me.’
Lingling seemed to hesitate.
‘Tingting left me and went back to her hometown,’ Uncle explained.
Lingling sat down beside him, shoulder to shoulder.
After an awkward silence, Uncle spoke. ‘So you came back for your summer clothes?’
‘Um-hum,’ Lingling murmured, jiggling the bundle in her arms.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘About the same.’
‘Me, too,’ said Uncle. ‘I made it through the winter and most of the spring, so I think I should be able to live through summer, maybe longer.’
Their conversation exhausted, the two were silent for a while. Then Uncle smiled and took Lingling’s hand in his. It was not long after Zhao Dequan’s death, not long after Uncle had visited Lingling at her parents’ ho
use to pick up her red silk jacket, but they acted like two people who hadn’t met in years: hand in hand, gazing into one another’s eyes, their silent thoughts unspoken. Uncle turned over Lingling’s hand, examined the dried scabs on her wrists and hands, and then lightly, tenderly, scratched them. Lingling shrank back. Her eyes filled with tears and she pulled her hand away.
‘Don’t leave,’ Uncle said. Linging looked up in surprise. ‘Tingting wants a divorce, and so does Xiaoming. That means we can be together.’
Lingling was silent.
‘Neither of us has much time left.’ Uncle’s eyes were moist. ‘Everyone says that after this winter, the fever’s going to explode. No matter what happens in this life, at least we can be together in death. They can bury us side by side, and we’ll keep each other company.’
Lingling raised her head again, teardrops glistening in her eyes like big bright pearls.
‘What is there to cry about?’ Uncle asked, wiping away her tears. ‘We’re going to die anyway, so who gives a damn what other people say? We should move in together. I’d like to see them try to stop us. Let’s move in together and show them all. Tingting, Xiaoming. The whole village . . . we’ll show the lot of them.’
Uncle smiled through his tears. ‘So Tingting and Xiaoming want to divorce us? Let’s move in together and sue them for divorce.
‘If you go back home, your parents and brother will feel sorry for you, but what about your sister-in-law? She knows you’ve got the fever, so you know she’s going to give you the cold shoulder.
‘You can move into my house. Or if you don’t want to be around Tingting’s stuff, we can live outside the village, in the building beside the threshing grounds. I’ll bring some pots and pans and cookware, and it’ll be just like home.’
And so Uncle and Lingling moved in together.
They lived together brazenly, like husband and wife. Like a pair of young lovers. Like a couple of fools.