by Keyi Sheng
The river was flowing, and snow fell on the centre of the river, where it disappeared without a trace. Boats covered in snow were at rest on the bank, but there were no people. My sister faced the middle of the river and stood staring at the snowy sky, as if she was absorbed in the sight, but also as if she saw nothing at all, but simply stood there considering a difficult problem. In fact, she no longer had difficult problems. She did not need to worry about her daughters, and Zhima was also gone. She had let go of everything, and had nothing left to do.
The north wind blew, turning my sister’s dark face red. She puckered her lips as tightly as a chicken’s arse, then occasionally stretched them wide, smiling knowingly at the river. She had reconciled herself to many things in life, and she did not have to listen to anyone else’s orders anymore. As she walked, she looked but didn’t see anything. Spring, summer, autumn, winter, the fickleness of human nature, changes of fortune – none of it had anything to do with her. She walked, looking at the sky and clouds, and watching the busy people who passed her by. She was quite satisfied with her way of life. There was always a smile on her face, as if she meant to share her contentment with others.
The sky cleared. There was a clearing in the city square, and snow lay at the roots of the trees. A passionate soprano voice floated from the speakers. Women danced along to the rhythm, waving red fans and wiggling their hips. They stomped to the left and stomped to the right, holding their hands upward, then downward, raising and lowering their fans in a great red tide. Chuntian walked into this patch of the sea, walking into a maze, and could not find her way out. She turned circles inside, like an instructor reviewing the choreography. She avoided their fans, their buttocks, their legs, stumbling about as if she had been kicked here and thrown there.
‘Chuntian, dance with us,’ one woman cried.
She ignored them. Ever since she had heard the news of Yihua’s death, she stopped communicating with humans, even her colleagues at the hotel. She refused to accept that Yihua, too, was gone.
She was excreted from the dancing crowd like a turd, rolling to one side. The sun on the snow was dazzling. With eyes half-closed, she smiled, her expression kind.
The sun drew shadows of trees on the snowy ground. A dog dug at the snow with its front paws, digging up mud and grass roots.
Seeing her, Sun Xiangxi walked toward my sister. Her eyes swept past him as if he were a tree.
‘Hey, Chuntian!’ he called.
She ignored him. She had long ago stopped noticing other humans.
‘What’s wrong?’ Sun asked, following. ‘Chuntian?’
She continued to smile. She stripped the snow off the holly tree, tearing off a fat green leaf, shredding the outer layer of the leaf as she walked, leaving a stem mesh as thin as the wings of a cicada.
The juice from the leaves stained her frostbitten hand green.
Momentarily surprised, Sun had lagged behind. He caught up now. He did not speak, but continued to follow Chuntian, eventually even entering her small room.
Still, she ignored him, standing and reading the newspapers plastered to her wall. She read slowly, taking half a day to move to the next line.
It was even colder inside the house than outside, and the light was dim. There were a few pieces of rickety furniture, looking like they might fall apart any minute.
The papers plastered to the wall were always new. She pasted new leaves every time she found them. When Sun supported himself with his hand against the wall, he felt the softness of it.
Just then, the landlord came in. She looked sad. Sighing, she said, ‘Chuntian, I’ve already let you stay here rent-free for a month. If you can’t pay, I can’t help you. Oh! If I were rich, I would let you stay. Poor woman. . . If it were me, I don’t know how I’d go on.’
Sun was surprised again.
The landlord sighed again. ‘I thought I was miserable. I didn’t know there was a woman even worse off than me.’
Sun pondered for a moment, then said, ‘In future, you can look for me and I’ll pay Li Chuntian’s rent. And if you’ll look after her, I’ll cover the expenses.’
My brother looked more and more like my father as he got older. He spoke little, keeping his mouth tightly shut. He did not lift his head from his work, and started chasing chickens and kicking dogs. The villagers pitied him, and those who were soft-hearted shed some sympathetic tears. They patted his shoulder, gave him cigarettes, and said a few words of comfort, or sometimes offered unspoken comfort. Their sympathies only reminded Shunqiu of his failures in life, and his flawed fate. My poor brother tried to forget the past, but the villagers would not allow it. They would not give up if they could not completely dilute their compassion. Shunqiu had to hide from them, just as he had done when he just got out of prison, using his hat to create a sort of safety zone for himself. When he saw anyone coming, he turned and walked the other way.
My life has nothing to do with any of you. It’s best you don’t take me as a place to perform your virtuous acts. . . When I was on trial in the village, you all stood around as spectators watching with interest, not saying a word. No one stood up and spoke for me. . . You all remained silent. Your silence makes you accomplices.
He had never been so sick of everything in this village. Ever since he came back from prison, he had worked hard to be a normal person, marrying and having a child, and living a life approved by everyone. He had a wife and child. Being a husband and father had gradually weakened the hold the past had over him. He thanked Buddha for this just compensation. There was an image of Mao Zedong in the central room of our house. Shunqiu had prayed to it every time he came home, and had taught Xianxian to do the same. To his way of thinking, prayer did no harm and nobody would complain about someone being too polite, and the gods liked it. He was full of gratitude towards life then, and even wanted to pray to the tree stumps. But the reality was that prayer did no good either. If Shui Qin was alive, she was nowhere to be found; if she was dead, her corpse was nowhere to be seen. There was no news at all of Xianxian.
My parents’ hair had turned grey, and their faces were creased. My mother’s hearing had weakened, and her responses got slow. She was showing early signs of dementia. Every day at dawn she stood at the corner of the house, watching some imagined distant figure draw near the house and trying to determine if it were one of her own family members.
My grandfather looked at the dwindling number of family members in the house, thinking they did not like to come home and must be more comfortable living elsewhere. Some bored people would occasionally stop by and chat with him, and he would express this sentiment to them. Sometimes naked, he would carry a bucket of water to the terrace and take a shower there, or sit on the bricks of the wall and play with himself, frightening the village girls and women. He was like a child, arguing with my father, complaining about the food being too hard to chew, asking for new shoes, and moaning that the bed was too hard and his mouth had no sense of taste, but he wanted to eat crispy biscuits.
*
On the first day of the Spring Festival, according to our old tradition, my father placed a few big tree stumps in the central room and burnt them until the whole house was brightly lit. The stumps were sizzling with white smoke, and the water bubbles on the surface of the bark exploded softly, giving off a thick sticky fragrance of wood. We sat together around the fire. At dawn, the winter’s third snow fell, coming in starts and stops. The sky was darker than usual, as if it wanted to collapse at any moment. My brother constantly stirred the tree stumps with tongs, knocking down the parts which had already burned through, adding them to our grandfather’s small stove. My mother was cooking pig’s trotters in the pressure cooker, and it was making sizzling sounds. In years past, when Xianxian, Yihua, and Yicao smelled the trotters cooking, they would yell in excitement as they ran about the house. They would put several glutinous rice cakes onto the fire to roast, then fight over who got to eat them.
Our family listened silently to the sou
nd of the pressure cooker now and watched the tree stumps burn. No one spoke. My father got up and brought in more stumps and stacked them at the corner of the house, but we all knew we would not be able to burn so many.
Chuntian had bathed and put on new clothes. She smiled quietly at the flames, as if listening to them talk.
My father busied himself for a while, then sat down by the fire, spreading his fingers before it. He was not very comfortable. He stood up, made one round of the shed, pig pen, and vegetable garden, then carried a piece of dry wood, added it to the fire and went on stoking the flames.
A northerly wind came in through a crack in the door. My father did not have much hair, but the few remaining tufts were blown about his head.
My sister stood up and took a couple of steps. Like a little child, she dawdled to my father’s side and carefully touched his white hair, her lips counting, ‘One strand. . . Two. . . One. . . Two. . . Huahua. . . Caocao. . . Huahua. . . Caocao. . .’
The flames leapt and warm light in the house glistened. My father did not move. Tears glistened in his eyes.
Chuntian continued laughing and counting my father’s white hairs.
My grandfather was standing on the terrace, leaning on a cane. Snow fell on his brown beret. In two months, he would be 100 years old.
‘It’s cold this year. Aren’t Xianxian and the others coming back to celebrate New Year?’ my grandfather mumbled to himself. He pinched a few cards in his hand. ‘I don’t see Yihua or Yicao either. . .’ he said, craning his neck as he looked inside the house. Snow fell on the back of his neck.
There was much smoke from the tree stumps. It was trapped in the house, causing everyone to wipe their watering eyes constantly.
By the time the cole flowers were in bloom and the bees were buzzing, my grandfather could not get out of bed, and could not recognise anyone. He had no appetite, but he clasped all his earthly possessions in his hands, all 1020 yuan, as he lay silently, while his right hand kept grasping the air, pushing it back and forth. At intervals, he would shout, ‘My money! Where’s my money? Who took my money?’
We would dig his money out from his right hand and place it in his left. Then after a while, he would shout again, ‘Zhang owes me 500 yuan, and I owe Li 300. Tell them to return it.’
We would then take the money from his hand once again and stuff it back.
My grandfather was filled with joy, revelling in the wealth of a constant flow of money, as he engaged in unrestrained gambling in his confused state. He would yell, ‘Sixty thousand.’ ‘Hold!’, or ‘Ninety.’ He jumbled up a variety of cards and called out in confusion, looking like he was squandering gold like dirt.
In times of clear-headedness, my grandfather would look for his brown beret. He did not want other hats. He would pass three or four days like this, then his voice would grow hoarse, his energy gradually sapped, and he would become quieter. His eyes remained closed, while his hands grasped at the air solemnly, as if selecting cards from a hand only he could see. He rubbed his thumb and fingers slowly, as if staking everything on a single throw, pledging everything of value in an attempt to win back the capital. At this point, his face was turning green, his cheeks were sunken, and his eyes were covered with a layer of white mist.
People who had experienced such things said, ‘He’ll be 100 years old in ten days. Looking at his condition, it doesn’t look like he’ll see his birthday.’
My father had a lot to say, but controlled himself. He spat at him non-stop, but still harboured an overflow of bad feelings.
The colours of spring were all around us. The brilliant sun was warm, and the wildflowers were blooming. The willow trees by the pond swayed lazily, while the ducks moved up and down happily.
My grandfather suddenly called, ‘Shufen! Is Shufen here?’
Shunqiu was cleaning his body, changing his wet, soiled clothing. My grandfather caught his hand and said, ‘Go call her!’
‘Who is Shufen? Where do I go to call her?’ my brother asked.
My grandfather shook his head, his mouth shrunk, and he cried like a baby bird, ‘I want my mama.’
We bought the coffin and set it on the terrace. Several people helped us paint it, black on the outside, red inside, with the character for ‘blessings’ affixed at the top of the casket. The smell of new wood came from the coffin. The onlookers stood around laughing and chatting, talking about the ridiculous things my grandfather had done in his life. It was a festive atmosphere.
At three that afternoon, my grandfather suddenly stood by the door. He looked outside with unseeing eyes and said, ‘I want to sit in the sun.’
Those standing around helped him to a chair. He sat with his head drooping. His body gradually looked like it was sun-dried, curled into a ball in the chair, and he was barely breathing.
That was a momentary recovery of consciousness just before death. Afterwards, my grandfather lay on his bed and never spoke again.
My father only focused on preparing for my grandfather’s death. He had prepared everything, no matter how big or small. He was simply waiting for the final breath so he could get things underway.
It was like my grandfather was teasing my father, refusing to die, suspending that one breath.
The villagers told my father it was because father and son had been fighting their whole lives, and it was time for my father to acknowledge his wrongs and let my grandfather go in peace.
We waited a couple more days. It was my grandfather’s birthday. My father brought a bowl of hot water and cleaned my grandfather’s waxen face. As he washed, he said, ‘Ba, I’m sorry for the things I’ve done wrong in the past. Please forgive me.’
My grandfather did not respond.
‘I’ve thought through that matter clearly. I was wrong. . . No matter what, Shufen was your own daughter. . .’
My father helped my grandfather put on his brown beret, then stroked the old man’s face. ‘I’ll call her right away and ask her to come. Don’t worry, Ba.’
A tear escaped from the corner of my grandfather’s eye and disappeared in the creases on his face. He stopped breathing.
When the funeral was over, my grandfather’s memorial tablet hung high, his two eyes spying on everything.
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ONE
I
Her. Right there. That’s Qian Xiaohong, from Hunan province.
A little over a metre and a half tall, sporting short black hair with just a hint of a curl, her round-faced look is pretty much that of a model citizen, good and decent. She’s just the sort of girl a guy wouldn’t mind taking home to meet his parents. However, her breasts – through no fault of her own – are much too large for civilised, polite society. Such breasts could not help but invite the same suspicion and groundless gossip normally saved for young widows.
Xiaohong’s breasts, to put it bluntly, are gorgeous! Even observed through clothing, it’s easy to imagine their consistency. To touch them must be heavenly. To simply gaze upon them is to fall under their seductive power. The problem is that same unavoidable difficulty that always arises in tight-knit communities. When everyone is cast from the same mould, the person who stands out for any reason at all is sure to be seen as something of a maverick. And so, Xiaohong’s full figure has always made her just a little too striking in the eyes of those around her.
Xiaohong’s mother died of cirrhosis of the liver at a young age. Her chest was as flat as could be so it’s clear the child gained nothing by inheritance. From then on, Xiaohong was brought up in the shelter of her paternal grandmother’s bosom.
Her grandmother, a widow for fifty years, passed away at the age of eighty. She was the only one who knew the secret behind Xiaohong’s well-endowed physique, but she went to the grave without ever breathing a word of it.
Ever since Xiaohong was in year five of school, rumours had surrounded her. There was always a stinging word hissed in her direction, ever a pointing fi
nger trailing in her wake. All the other girls in the village dutifully hunched forward, guarding their chests under loose-fitting clothing, doing all they could to prevent their breasts from giving the slightest impression of sluttiness. Only Xiaohong allowed her twin bulging mounds to appear as openly and ominously as storm clouds descending upon an unsuspecting city. It was a rare gift she had, the way she carried that pair, and no one could deny that it required courage for her to do so.
At the ripe old age of thirteen, Xiaohong lost all interest in her studies. As soon as she finished middle school, she dropped out, preferring to take life easy and hang around the village.
Her father’s work regularly took him away from home for weeks at a time. When he was back, Xiaohong would run and sit on his lap like a little girl, cuddling up to him, cheek to cheek. The villagers would look at them askance. Clearly the affection between father and daughter made them uncomfortable. He worked as a contractor and, with his earnings, built a two-storey house with suites on each floor. Both the interior and the exterior of the house had a more cosmopolitan air than anything in the city. Xiaohong chose for herself a room on the upper floor with a private staircase running up the outer wall.