Wild Fruit

by Keyi Sheng

  Seeing it, my father booed and spat, squeezing ugly words out between his teeth. He said to my grandfather, ‘You bastard, shamelessly awarding yourself with silk banners. You’re so pretentious, as if you know no shame.’

  There seemed to be some complex truth hidden in my father’s abusive words, proving that my grandfather was not quite the persona he flaunted.

  My grandfather’s actions also lacked self-confidence. Not daring to talk back, he just waited until my father moved sufficiently far away, then turned toward me and said, ‘What do you know? Who are you to teach me? Shunqiu didn’t break the law, and now that he’s out, you should go to his work unit and see what the situation is and try to think of ways to reinstate him to his previous position. Now only his registered residence is in the city, but he doesn’t have a job there. Being registered in the city, he doesn’t even get a share of a third of the land that rural people are allotted. He’s losing out at both ends, and not settled anywhere, but you’re not the least bit worried. Now that’s being a bastard!’

  As my grandfather poured the remaining ink back into the bottle, his hand trembled and some ink spilt. He used his palm to clean the bottle, then placed it on the windowsill among others.

  While we were eating, a puffy-faced woman came to our house. She was one of my grandfather’s many goddaughters. She was very zealous, coming to see my grandfather on his birthday every year and bringing the crispy snacks he loved to eat. As she chatted happily with him, their laughter occasionally floated out the window.

  My grandfather’s voice was especially loud at this time, as if intentionally letting my parents overhear. ‘As for me, I’m as good as dead, but not quite buried. I won’t live long. There is no flavour to my food, and I can’t sleep at night. Each night seems longer than the one before. I don’t care about anything and, you can be sure, nobody cares about me.’

  The puffy-faced woman used the term for ‘godfather,’ saying, ‘Gandie, you’re wrong. I couldn’t bear to lose you. You must take care of yourself. I want you to live to be a hundred!’

  ‘Shufen didn’t come?’ my grandfather said, suddenly calling another girl’s name.

  ‘She’ll be here soon,’ said the puffy-faced woman, comforting him. Smiling, she came into the house and put down two packets of dried lychees. She greeted my parents and called them brother and sister-in-law, making goose flesh come out all over their bodies.

  ‘Gandie is always asking these days, “is Shufen coming?”. Who is Shufen?’ the woman with the puffy face asked.

  ‘His mind is not clear, and he’s always talking rubbish.’ My father didn’t like the puffy-faced woman, convinced that she had fooled my grandfather out of no small amount of wealth. He was cold towards her.

  Shui Qin poured more tea, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

  The puffy-faced woman talked about her ‘Gandie’ with affection. ‘Gandie is looking healthy.’ ‘Gandie still sits up quite straight.’ Later, she helped Gandie over to the dinner table.

  As the woman went on with her prolonged performance at our house, my father quite magnanimously gave my grandfather face, enduring all the different gestures of that puffy-faced goddaughter.

  My grandfather sat proudly at the head of the table, looking at everyone arrogantly. Urged on by the flattery, he announced to everyone that he planned to live to be a hundred. He went on to say, ‘When I die, wrap me in a summer sleeping mat, dig a hole and bury me, and plant a pine and a cypress over me.’

  My father said, ‘You just want others to talk behind my back for not going through all the elaborate formalities.’

  My grandfather said, ‘I can write it down as evidence.’

  My father said, ‘That’s no use. The one who others curse will be me.’

  The woman with the puffy face said, ‘Today is Gandie’s birthday. Don’t say those inauspicious things.’

  My mother said, ‘Yes, let’s just eat. The food is getting cold.’

  Shui Qin handed my grandfather a bowl of soup. Shunqiu scooped a few vegetables into his bowl with his chopsticks and went into the back garden. Taking the bowl, he moved to a remote spot, squatted, and ate, as he was accustomed to doing in the reform prison.

  My grandfather still had a few teeth. When his pursed lips moved, it was like he was chewing with his lips. He looked like a lonely, regurgitating cow, his eyes completely blank. He was actually no match for a chicken drumstick now, but for the sake of his efforts to live to be a hundred, he puffed up his cheeks, doing his best to destroy it.

  Oil dripped from his wrist, dirtying his shirt. He strenuously dug out the chicken meat stuck between his remaining teeth, looked at it, then stuffed it back into his mouth.

  ‘How come Shufen didn’t come for dinner?’ My grandfather mentioned that name again.

  The puffy-faced woman’s mouth was full of rice. She stopped chewing, her mouth half-open, and stared at my father.

  A housefly buzzed around the table. My father shooed it away with his chopsticks and said, ‘Eat.’

  My brother got married over the May 1 holiday. I was in high school at the time. When I returned for his wedding, I did not bring any sort of gift. My family did not observe such formalities and, furthermore, I was a student on a tight budget. I had met Shui Qin twice before and had a fairly good impression of her, going so far as to feel my brother gained something by the attachment to her, if I analysed it carefully. Of course, on the emotional side, it was harder to say. That was not something that could be measured. It wasn’t some commodity whose shape or size was clearly visible.

  This day was also a big day for my grandfather. For once, my father was unable to restrain him, as he was perfectly justified in hanging the couplets he had written all over the house. They were generously affixed to the door frame and lintel of our house, and his own place was not spared either. He explained the content of the couplets to everyone he saw, white foam gathering and drying at the corners of his mouth, breathing hard as he sat down. My father always looked upon my grandfather’s couplets with distaste, but he knew he could not heap abuses on the old man at a time like this, so he resorted to ridicule. Even so, his ridicule lacked its usual cruelty. There was even an element of goodwill in it, and perhaps a desire to show off my grandfather’s talent a little.

  The back garden had turned into an extensive kitchen, with the cooks chopping meat in unison. It sounded like a great host of firecrackers exploding.

  Yihua and Yicao were running in an unruly mess. My sister roared at them, first at one child, then at the other. But of course, she was most concerned that they do not touch the silk wedding quilt.

  Everyone had heard the couple’s bedroom was decorated in a very Western style. They squeezed into it to have a look, pointing and exclaiming over various things. I could read the words in their eyes – how Shui Qin knew how to live life like people in the city. They noted the good technique evident in her sewing, and felt that, for a convict, this was really just plain dumb luck. They also felt that Shui Qin did not lose out in marrying Shunqiu, since Shunqiu had a permanent urban residence and she was, after all, a spinster. Country people were like that. They thought of a couple as a pair of shoes, and they ran their worldly eyes over the two to see whether they might be mismatched. They even went further, taking note in their record books so they could broadcast them at various later occasions.

  After a while, the bridal procession appeared on the embankment, a long, colourful parade. Somebody on the terrace cheered, ‘They’re here!’ It got slightly rowdy, with those setting off firecrackers going forward to meet the bridal party, following it and popping firecrackers all the way to the door. The silk quilt, piled in towering layers, was bright and beautiful. Some people reached out to touch it, praising it for its exquisiteness. Shui Qin’s relatives stepped through the noise of the firecrackers and over the threshold, taking their seats in the living room and starting to sip ginger sesame tea and munch on peanuts, melon seeds, and sweets. My parents were also dressed
modestly, sitting beside them and chatting. This was the first time the two families met and, I hate to say, the only time in their lives both showed so much restraint or attention to etiquette. They were constrained and elegant, with nothing but a spirit of festivity hidden away in each crease on their faces.

  Shunqiu and Shui Qin had just finished toasting the guests and were about to sit down and have a bite when someone came over to congratulate them. It was my brother’s former partner in crime, Li Ganzi. Shunqiu almost did not recognise him. He used to be thin and tall, and his back straight. The prison had bent him, and when he talked, his body leaned forward like he wanted to please people.

  My brother said, ‘You’re back.’

  Li Ganzi said, ‘Yes, I’ve been back for a week.’

  ‘Here, let’s have a couple of drinks,’ my brother replied.

  ‘I followed the smell of wine here.’

  ‘Next time we’ll be toasting you.’

  ‘When pigs fly.’

  Seeing Ganzi, everyone at the table made their way over and asked how everything was going. They toasted, and before long, it grew quite raucous.

  The party stayed up until late in the night drinking wine. My brother did not know how to decline drinks when they were offered to him but at the same time, he could not tolerate much alcohol. Inevitably, he was forced to drink more than he could handle and before long, got quite drunk and disappeared. The nuptial chamber crashers customary at Chinese weddings were not able to find him, and so all dispersed, each going on their way.

  Shui Qin waited half the night in that deserted room. As dawn drew near, my brother finally crept into the bridal chamber. Shui Qin’s expression was darker than the night sky.

  My brother said, ‘I’ve had a lot to drink. I didn’t want to puke on the new bed, so I didn’t dare come into our new room. I fell asleep on my grandfather’s bed.’

  Shui Qin said, ‘You should see that Li Ganzi less. He reeks of bad luck.’

  My brother was a little uncomfortable. Perhaps he was allergic to all the new things in the house. He sneezed, sniffed at the quilt, then said it all smelt of new money. Finally, he was so uncomfortable he left the room, then went out of the house, desperate for a cigarette.

  *

  The sun set across the river, turning the water into glinting fragmentary ripples. The heads of the swimmers were like buoys, floating in the centre of the river. Against the backlight on the bank sat two figures silhouetted with a golden lining, completely unmoving, aside from the occasional lifting of a hand, which was soon returned to its original place. My brother and Ganzi were smoking.

  Shunqiu said, ‘Eventually, Minister Cai got a promotion because of our case. He was transferred to the Public Security Bureau to serve as Deputy Secretary.’

  Ganzi spat, ‘We went to hell, and they ascended to heaven. God, I’ve thought since early on that when I got out, I wanted to settle the score with that old turtle Cai.’

  Shunqiu sighed. ‘How can you settle a score with him? Do you want those ten years back? You won’t get them. Why look for trouble?’

  Ganzi said, ‘Anyway, I’m a convict. What am I afraid of?’

  My brother said, ‘He’s got all the power. It’s like an egg fighting a stone . . . Honestly, get over it.’

  Ganzi said, ‘How? How do I get over it? My face has “convict” etched into it. That’s all the capital I have now.’

  Shunqiu said, ‘This is reality.’

  Ganzi was silent for a moment, then said, ‘You used to have an air gun. Let me use it for a while.’

  My brother said, ‘I can’t provide you with the tools to commit a crime.’

  Ganzi laughed and said, ‘You think I want to kill someone? Kill, my arse. He would have his retribution for sure. I’m just bored, and I’d like to shoot some birds.’

  He really did go out to shoot birds every day, but he was a poor marksman. With each shot, he only managed to scare the birds, never even knocking a single feather off, but it did not dampen his enthusiasm. Each morning he wiped down the gun, no expression on his face, then loaded it and set out to spend the day shooting at turtledoves. He did nothing at home. A group of children often trailed behind him. If he hit a bird, he gave it to them, and he taught them how to shoot fowl. For instance, he showed them how to aim accurately to hit the fatal point on a turtledove. If they were not confident hitting a one yuan coin from twenty metres away, then he said they should aim for the chest. They were never to shoot it in the back, because the feathers on the back of a turtledove were smooth and slippery, making the bullet feel like nothing more than a massager.

  After playing with the air rifle for some time, Ganzi got bored and enlarged the air chamber of the gun to increase its power. Whenever he was at home, he was grinding bullets.

  One day Ganzi suddenly returned my brother’s gun, saying, ‘The old turtle’s dead.’

  Shunqiu stared at him, waiting for him to spit out the rest of the story.

  Ganzi said, ‘The bastard was killed in a car accident seven years ago.’

  Shunqiu said, ‘So you did go to the county to look for him.’

  Ganzi said, ‘I’ve practised my marksmanship in vain. That old turtle never even gave me the chance for a shot at him.’

  Shunqiu spat roughly and said, ‘You keep the gun.’

  Shui Qin seldom went into the fields. She was too afraid she would get dark with too much exposure to the sun, or that she would be bitten by leeches. When it was the busiest season in rural areas, what we called ‘the rush-harvesting and rush-planting period,’ she would unwillingly put on a show, wearing long trousers and sleeves that kept her tightly covered all over. She even sewed an additional sun screen onto the brim of her hat, making her look like an alien as she walked through the fields. Only when she lifted the screen could you see her face. She grinned happily and seemed to be in a festive mood, with her chest puffed out as she walked. It was as if she had not gone out into the fields to work at all, but instead was on her way into town to shop. Shui Qin arranged everything according to a plan. She was not even pregnant, but she bought books on how to care for a baby, and she continually reminded my brother that she would need to eat more fruit and drink more milk when that time came, so that the baby would be born with soft, fair skin. Shui Qin’s deepest regret was her dark skin. She put a great deal of effort into finding out how she could produce white-skinned offspring, including learning what foods she could eat to bring about the desired result. My brother only had one thing to say: If the child was like him, its skin would be naturally pale. He was just telling the truth, but Shui Qin thought his words were a sort of sarcastic barb at the efforts she was making. At any rate, when it came to the issue of having a child, she really didn’t want any more participation from my brother than was necessary – certainly nothing beyond planting the seed. So she turned off the lights early each night, leaving only the table lamp on, giving off a weak orange halo to light the way for my brother’s labours.

  During the day, Shui Qin looked like an entrepreneurial woman, clear-minded and organised, with a tongue as sharp as a blade, making each cut clean and neat. Her tailoring business went quite well, but she did not wish to work hard at the sewing machine – sometimes she did not even wish to accept orders – so she would just laze about and read. We could not find another woman in the village who was a reader like her, just as no one else spread a tablecloth over the dining table and put a bottle of wildflowers in the centre.

  *

  The first thing Shui Qin did after she was married was to separate the house between her and my parents, employing a method she had learned from city folks. My brother often felt he had entered someone else’s house, and he felt like a stranger there. The conflict between Shui Qin and my parents started with the division of the family assets. The division itself was not a big problem, since my family had little of value, the house itself being just sufficient for our needs. But Shui Qin brought up the idea of splitting the back garden, building
herself a sewing room, a space to hang clothes, and a space to store fabrics. The back garden was my father’s favourite part of the house. Shui Qin’s failure to note this basic fact was a major oversight. She regarded this failure as a mark of shame on her record. From then on, she clearly divided up what was hers and what was theirs, and she no longer spent her idle moments sewing new clothes for them. At any rate, she was now too busy for that, since she soon got pregnant and became my brother’s queen.

  Shui Qin was a calculating person, and she was very seldom in error. She very rarely stumbled and fell in her calculations.

  Now that Shui Qin had become the queen mother and was making my brother wait on her hand and foot, my father and mother were quite unhappy, but because they were also looking forward to enjoying the fruit of her womb, they put up with it. My mother occasionally made soup for her, asked after her, and shared her own life experiences with her daughter-in-law. It was obvious that my mother’s experience was useless, since Shui Qin’s ideas were so different from hers. My mother had not paid much attention to things when we were small, and the four of us were like wild fruit falling from a tree. Shui Qin, on the other hand, was taught in the city fashion, even choosing precisely when she wanted to be pregnant, and practised early prenatal care, rubbing her belly as she spoke to the foetus. Finding herself of no use, my mother increased her efforts in stew preparation, making Shui Qin a real fatty. She put on forty pounds of flesh, even though the foetus was only around five pounds. When my mother saw that the stew she prepared for her grandson was going to fatten Shui Qin, just the same way the foodstuff she had sent for her son in prison never got to him, she was angry. But even then, she kept a rein on her tongue, saying nothing.

  The baby girl that was born was pink and delicate. On the second day, she opened her eyes and laughed, looking quite adorable. My grandfather and father both chose names for her, but Shui Qin used neither. She had taken the college entrance exam four times, and she had a strong self-reliant streak, so she expected no charity from her elders. She chose the child’s name herself, and no one dared oppose her. She had considered it carefully throughout her pregnancy. If she had had a son, he would have been Li Yongqi. She named her daughter Li Xianxian.