Wild Fruit

by Keyi Sheng

  My grandfather pinched a piece of ‘cat ear’ between his long fingers as he talked about a place called Anhua, which sounded far away and mysterious, like my grandfather’s past. For a while, his story caught my attention, so I asked, ‘What happened then?’ But it was just for show.

  Half of the liquor had disappeared inside my grandfather by that point, turning his cheekbones blood-red. He opened the wooden box, pulled out a well-thumbed-through book, and took out an old picture. It was a woman with hair coiled at the back of her head, revealing her forehead. Though the face was faded by this time, I could still see how delicately pretty and elegant she was.

  My grandfather stared at it for some time, then sighed, put the photo back into the book, and carried on drinking.

  When he started to recite poems and sing, I decided I had had enough to eat and abandoned him.

  My sister Li Chuntian’s house was like a wild mushroom growing on a hillside, and later, a small mushroom sprouted next to it. My sister was very capable. During the weeks that she was building the house, as soon as she finished nursing the baby, she would start carrying mortar, then put down the shoulder pole to cook, still managing to find time to move a few bricks while the fire was burning out. Everyone said she came and went like the wind, but was as silent as a tree. The trees rustled loudly when the wind blew. As if gunpowder had been ignited, smoke filled my sister’s mouth when she chewed on matchsticks. Now that she had rid herself of my father, she worked happily in her own home. This happiness was a sort of revenge on my father.

  Once my sister married, she never returned to her girlhood home. When she had her child, my father did not go to visit, and my mother did not go to help. . . Of course, my mother did not have time for that. If she were away from home, those of us left at home would not even know where to find the oil or salt jars. And why would my father go to visit, since the newborn beast would not bear the surname Li? And anyway, he did not like the plum wine and Torch brand cigarettes, customary gifts during celebrations, the ‘black mule’ gave him – he liked to call Chuntian’s husband that. He was almost fed up enough with my brother-in-law’s offerings to throw them away right in front of the fellow.

  My mother, on the other hand, had a better way of handling things. She re-gifted, passing the gifts on to the master worker in the field. After the master had drunk the plum wine and smoked the Torch brand cigarettes, he ploughed the fields deeper than a foot, even digging up the fertile soil of past centuries. The seedlings were so full of nutrients that the leaves were big, fat, and dark, but the grains were like old breasts, half-shrivelled. Of course, this account was not the master’s responsibility, nor was it on the black mule’s head. My father was the only one to blame. Chasing the dreams he harboured in his head of 3000 jin per mu of land, he secretly put many times more fertiliser than anyone else on his field. At harvest time, my father cursed over and over while he worked the mill. Most of the grain fell in front of the mill, with only a small portion of it ending up in the basket. What dropped in front of the mill was considered slop fit for pig feed. When there was a food shortage between harvests, we mixed the bran in with rice and shared with the pigs, too.

  While she was building the house, my sister’s appendix started to hurt. She had to lie down to rest several times, making her in-laws unhappy. The black mule dragged my sister to work, thinking it better for her to finish building before going to the hospital. This rationalisation received great praise from all, aside from the still nursing infant, who could not yet voice his opinion. My sister understood the fact that the truth lay in the hands of the majority, so she could not break the truth with one kick. The good temperament she had acquired in her maiden home was put to good use at this time.

  When Chuntian finally collapsed and was unable to pull herself up from the ground, the majority, who determined the truth, finally sent her to the hospital. They were not the least bit concerned about my sister’s intestinal problems, but they were extremely worried about how much it would cost to cut out the useless little appendix. It did not matter to them that this rotted bit of gut nearly cost my sister her life; they felt the delay in the work on the house was the biggest loss.

  This experience led my sister to better understand life’s truths, but she did not share her experience with anyone. The sun rose as usual. There was no deviation from their daily routine until one day, when their son was two years old, the boy fell into the ditch and drowned. It happened in a flash. There was so little water in the ditch that no one had thought to be concerned about the possibility of an accident. The truth was once again held in the hands of the black mule’s family, and they decided my sister was to be condemned as a sinner through all the ages. They did not even allow her to shed a tear, and the black mule slapped her so hard he drew blood. My sister had to swallow her blood together with her tears.

  Our family knew nothing of this. It was only after I graduated from university that I heard my sister mention it, even though it happened before my second brother started university. I remember my sister once came home, like a returning cat that has wandered as a stray for many years, dishevelled and eager for a hot bath and a hot meal. But my sister ate very little. She shared my bed that night, and I saw that her mouth was no longer stubbornly puckered like a chicken’s arse, but her brow was furrowed – this was when I discovered that she had started chewing matchsticks again as she convulsed silently. She stayed one night, then left the next day without a word.

  My father cursed into the air, complaining that it was inappropriate for a woman to come back to her maiden home empty-handed. Then he cited examples of so-and-so’s daughter giving her parents living expenses after her visit.

  I despised my father.

  One year during the summer holiday, my second brother, Li Xiazhi, and I cycled to our sister’s place to visit her. My brother, then in his third year of university, wore glasses and spoke in an extraordinary language. We chatted as we cycled, him saying he was a product of our father’s tyranny and violence. It was our father who had pressed my brother’s nose to the grindstone during his school days, taking away all his joy in growing up and depriving him of freedom. He liked to write poetry, and he wanted to major in Chinese, but my father forced him to choose science, not wanting another whiny poet like our grandfather in the family. My brother told me to not take orders, as he had done, and said he would support me.

  I did not believe him. The previous year, I had relied on my brother’s presence to speak up against our father, and it had resulted in the riling up of a hornets’ nest. My father picked up the carrying pole which lay nearby, but my brother snatched it away. It was the first time anyone had stood up to my father so blatantly and so, determined to suppress this evil air, my father went into the kitchen and charged out with a glinting meat cleaver. Scared out of his wits, my brother ducked to one side and hid.

  I later said, ‘If I hadn’t run fast, who knows which part of my body might now bear a scar from that knife.’

  My brother stopped his bicycle and said, ‘Under those circumstances, I was right to hide, and you were right to run. Father had gone completely crazy, but we can only reason with a normal person.’

  I said, ‘Father’s never normal.’

  My brother replied, ‘I still need to talk to him. If not, no matter how far we fly, we can only be kites in his hand. We need an enlightened monarch.’

  My brother had a great deal to say about the ‘monarch,’ spending half the journey going on about it. He was our father’s favourite, but he did not want my father’s affection.

  I said, ‘Why don’t we rebel against our father?’

  He replied, ‘Before long, he will be against himself.’

  I didn’t understand what he meant.

  The mushroom on the hillside appeared in our view, with smoke rising from the roof. My sister really was cooking. When she saw us, she smiled from ear to ear. She reached into the chicken coop and pulled out a few eggs, then went to pluck several peppers
from the garden to fry with slices of pork, and picked a few stalks of amaranth, too.

  Chuntian had separated and lived apart from the family. Xiazhi and I took liberties. He scooped some water from the cistern and drank directly from the ladle, asking after her husband, Liu Zhima. My sister said he was out of town selling mosquito nets, and one trip took him away for anywhere from ten days to a month. My brother commented that it was the ‘rush harvesting and planting’ season, and yet Zhima left the house. Chuntian said this was the worst season for mosquitoes, so it was the best time to sell mosquito nets. Xiazhi and I thought this did not sound right.

  Chuntian’s house was quite empty, with nothing worth seeing. The only decent furniture was what had been sent as dowry, and even the wardrobe’s paint was fading. My sister opened the door and pulled out a drawer. She reached in to grab something, then pushed the drawer back. The door was out of shape and could not be closed properly, so she had to lift it, close it, then slap it shut. My sister pressed a few crumpled notes into my hands so I could buy myself something to eat and need not envy my classmates. She knew I loved to eat. I was very happy, except that I could see she had aged. In fact, she looked like our mother. She did not share naughty jokes with my brother and me anymore. It was like an invisible veil had fallen between us.

  As the years passed, my father was no different from other farmers. He was keen to talk about his crops, and the first thing he did early every morning was to take a turn around his fields. He always came back carrying a bunch of barnyard grass, which he threw on the ground for the chickens to peck at. When he was free, he took his hoe and dug in the back garden, planting vegetables in every inch of wasteland, even planting soybeans and building bamboo frames for sponge cucumbers and bitter gourds to climb, placing them beside the pond. The pumpkin vines crept up the big earth grave, with the fruits hidden under the broad leaves. My father took on a rosy tanned look. His hands did not look like they had once been fed by the government. The produce grew so wildly we could even hear the jolting sound of the bones of his hands in the night. Every other day, my mother had to carry a load of vegetables into town and sell them cheap. If she made it in time for the morning market, she could sell them for a good price, so she had to set off before the sun came out. She often asked me to go with her, since she was afraid to walk while it was dark. I was always happy to eat the noodles, fried buns, pancakes, rice tofu, or some such thing in town, so it was my belly that benefitted from this arrangement.

  The money from the sale of our produce often went to pay for my second brother’s living expenses. He loved to eat meat, but he painfully sacrificed money set aside for it so he could buy school books. University changed him into a young man with a serious expression. His glasses were so thick each lens looked like the bottom of a bottle. Once, he put away his glasses when he came home and pretended to have good eyesight, but he ended up putting his chopsticks into my rice bowl.

  The rhythm of my brother’s speech changed drastically. Even more, he learned to play with pauses and employ the art of silence. My father was not sure how to take him.

  Xiazhi spoke to me privately saying that the following year our elder brother, Shunqiu, would be home, and he himself would graduate and go to work. ‘We need to concentrate our firepower and have a long talk with Li Jiaxu. A harmonious, warm family should be democratic, and we should also talk about the status of women. Chuntian – our own sister – is still living under the old society’s rules.’

  My brother called my father by his name. It made our father seem just like an ordinary member attending a meeting, immediately making us equals.

  Once, Xiazhi brought several classmates home with him, both men and women. At night, they went out to catch frogs, steal melons and dates, and throw nets into the river to fish. It was just like the time when our elder brother, Shunqiu, had got in trouble. The difference was when they closed in on their prey, they hopped about as lively as the fish, yelling and squealing. It had been five years since the ‘crackdown’, and people were no longer forced to eat a bullet or were sent to jail because of a bit of fish poaching. But just as the dead do not rise again, no sentence was ever overturned. When Xiazhi and his friends mentioned this, they raised their voices against injustice. They also talked of corruption and the rigidity of the system. They debated, criticised, and bullshitted. The female students raised their eyebrows in anger because of this, saying that once changes had been made, a solution would emerge, and if there was no reform, the path only led to death. My brother felt that if the root was damaged, reform was of no use. He went on to say that the patriarchy and the stifling of individual rights could only lead to an illusion of peace, but a plant would always grow in the direction of the sun. My father had no idea what my brother did at school. In fact, he published a good deal of poetry and was one of the main forces behind the literary society.

  In the evening, they recited poetry under the bitter Chinaberry tree. When the wind blew, the purple Chinaberry flowers, as fine as grains of rice, floated down one after another. Some leapt into their teacups, and others hid in their hair. The flora and fauna around our village were playful like that. Later someone took out a guitar and a book full of musical scores and lyrics and started playing and singing. The head of the literary society, Yu Shuzong, sang through three songs all in one breath, his hair standing up straight like a hedgehog’s quills. The onlookers gathered under the Chinaberry tree, so full of envy as they looked on that they were practically drooling. Xiazhi was tone deaf, so could do nothing more than sit and listen silently while he rubbed the the Chinaberry flowers. The guy playing the guitar wore glasses and his hair covered his ears, making him look as docile as a lamb. He sang ‘Walking on a Path in the Countryside’, from time to time looking up at the rural scene around him. His eyes occasionally lingered on my face for a brief moment. I clearly remember that night as my first experience of puppy love. He was called Tang Linlu.

  I was in my second year of Junior College, studying in town. It was late May and the school was suddenly half-empty. Students everywhere were copying what was going on in Beijing in the spring and early summer of 1989, skipping classes to take to the streets in protest. The atmosphere was restless, so the teacher cancelled classes and dispersed us. My mother was surprised to see me, thinking I was expelled from school because I had done something bad. My father always watched the news, so he knew of the situation that was spreading. He was only worried my second brother would do something outrageous, and even said he would break Xiazhi’s legs if he made trouble. My father was always making such cruel threats, but he never thought of setting out personally to look for my brother and confront him face to face.

  My father stopped all work and remained glued to the television. Voices chattered non-stop on the black and white television set. The host said there had been riots in Beijing. Burning cars and dead bodies appeared on the screen, along with tanks and troops in action. My mother came over and assumed she was watching a war film. She could not stand watching. I too went into my room. We felt it was all so far away from us, and that it had nothing to do with us.

  A week later, as I got ready to go to school, Tang Linlu graced our house with his presence. When I saw that docile lamb’s head, my heart stopped instantly. The news he brought struck me even harder. Xiazhi went to Beijing ten days ago, angry at someone or other, and he sat in the square not eating or drinking. He could not be persuaded to leave or be chased away. All night he slept under the open sky with countless other students, refusing to move even when it rained.

  As he went on, Linlu’s face grew paler, as if he was frightened out of his soul by what he was going to say. He paused, then said, ‘Xiazhi disappeared. We later found him in the crematorium, with his student identity card hidden in his pocket. His whole body was in ruins.’

  My parents’ expressions were blank, as if they did not understand what had been said.

  Linlu said, ‘I brought Xiazhi home.’

  He placed a wooden
box on the table. A strange aura surrounded it.

  We sat in silence for some time. No one dared to touch it. Finally, my mother’s voice broke the silence, uttering a shocking sound.

  Autumn brought with it a look of lamentation. The sky was like a swath of grey cloth, and a blackbird uttered a shrill cry, shooting like a sharp arrow through the fabric, but the rip immediately patched itself up. The field was a centenarian’s face. The ponds and ditches were frozen into thin ice, and withered yellow leaves of vegetables drooped on the bare soil, painted with autumn frost. Withered vines were tightly wrapped around the empty melon shed. Chilli plants stood like skeleton specimens, with a few shrivelled red peppers hanging from their branches. The wilted grass dyed with frost became as fluffy as a dog’s tail.

  My father burned everything belonging to my second brother, not even leaving a single scrap of paper behind. He was ashamed of Xiazhi’s participation in the riots, saying it was even more humiliating than Shunqiu’s imprisonment. My father’s rage was greater than his sorrow. If my mother cried, he started to yell, coughing and spitting, and dusting off dirt from his body. I was staying in school then, and only returned home for a couple of reasons. One, was because I missed my mother, and the other was the lack of funds for boarding expenses; occasionally both reasons brought me home at the same time. Once, the son of some rich family in the village was getting married, and my mother gave me twenty yuan and told me to put it in the wedding money book. She asked me to eat and drink as much as I wanted at the feast. I skipped the wedding feast and put the money in my pocket. My mother was willing to give other people this much money in one go, but was not that generous towards me, and that did not please me. That day, the men in the village drank half the night, and the women were dressed up in pretty clothes. After sipping a bit of strong liquor, their cheeks turned a festive red. Even the skinny folk were looking prosperously complacent.