“See how I do it? You try!” She suddenly broke into a peal of laughter. Her eyes lit up and she gazed beyond the cottage walls.
“It’s a—what is that word that means very, very happy? I can’t remember.” She was vexed at herself. “What a poor memory.”
“What word? Oh, don’t bother with that now.” I changed the subject. “Now we’ve got the election to think about.”
She looked down her nose pensively. After a while she exclaimed, pointing her finger upward at nothing in particular, “Oh, I remember: ‘blissful.’ ” She laughed and flushed with joy. She carefully intoned every word: “You—live—a—blissful—life.”
“It’s too soon to be thinking about a blissful life. There’s too much to be done right now.” I brushed aside her further questions, laughing. “We must get going. It’s our job to get everyone to vote,” I reminded her.
We walked up the main street between two rows of cottages. Villagers gathered there exchanged the latest news. As she passed, Xiu-ying called out greetings to her friends and neighbors as she usually did, but there was a subtle difference in her manner. The election was evidently very much on her mind. She was no longer greeting just neighbors but constituents. With a mixed sense of amusement and disquiet, I watched her move through groups of people, engaging them in animated conversation like a seasoned campaigner.
When we finally reached the crossroads at the end of the lane, we parted, she to visit a group of women who had not yet registered to vote, I turning right along the path that led to the cottage of Old Tian with the wispy goat’s beard, Malvolio Cheng’s friend. He was sweeping his courtyard, and a layer of dust covered his naked feet like brown suede slippers. He greeted me cheerfully. By now his old attitude to me had completely changed. I was no longer just a woman or a girl, but a “cadre,” one of the new neuter gender that the revolution had created.
“Come and have a drink of water with Old Gao and me,” he offered.
I was pleased with this cordial invitation and stepped through the gate. His crony sat on the stone steps which led into the house. By no means accidentally, Old Tian’s voice rose higher, warning Gao that I was coming into the courtyard. They apparently had been discussing something they didn’t wish me to hear.
“Good morning,” I answered Old Tian. “You start the day early.”
“You started even earlier. I saw you with Xiu-ying.” And he shook his head disparagingly. “She was showing off again, huh?”
“Grandfather Tian, why do you say that? She isn’t in show business.”
“Well, she might be, the way she carries on. She doesn’t walk any more. She dances.”
I smiled because it was partly true. Xiu-ying walked with a confident spring in her step, not like the village girls of old, always prepared to take second place.
“She’s working very hard because it’s getting near election time.”
“Election?” There was a shrewd twinkle in Tian’s eye. His attention roused, he rested his chin on his hands cupped over the end of the handle of his “broom,” a whisk of twigs tied to a pole. A small smile creased his face.
I could read his every thought. When you come down to it, he was thinking, the local rulers have always been appointed by the higher-ups. From time immemorial, it had always been so. Before, the higher-ups were landlords like Chi and the old Bai. Now there might be different people, but the election would still be staged to cover the deals behind the scenes. He was grinning from ear to ear as if to say, “You can’t fool me. I know the rules of the game.” The old fox.
“Grandfather Tian,” I said politely, “I hope you’ll join one of the voters’ small group meetings to name and discuss the candidates. The small groups will recommend fifteen candidates and put them up for general consideration by the voters.” Then I added with a smile which I hoped would be meaningful enough to drive the point home: “Do you know what the young people are saying? They bet that you won’t take part in the election. But I said you will.”
“I don’t go in for a lot of talking.” Tian’s voice showed that he couldn’t be caught so easily. “But I am plain-spoken. I say what I mean.”
I saw that I had touched a raw spot. His face grew red and the veins in his temples stood out. He threw down the broom, took one step away, paused, took another step, and then halted. He thought for a moment, then with a stride as agile as a youth’s he marched into the cottage. He picked up the piece of board that served as his dustpan and began furiously sweeping chicken droppings onto it.
“Please don’t be angry about what they say. They are young and full of pranks,” I apologized.
“Have you heard that old saying, ‘Don’t trust the judgment of a man with a beardless chin’?” he said to me sharply.
“Well … um … I told them that there were different kinds of old people. Some grow senile, but others become braver and wiser with age.”
“What did they say to that?”
“They laughed, I’m sorry to say.”
“Let’s see who has the last laugh.” He swept up the dung so vigorously that it overshot his dustpan.
“It’s interesting that you’re telling him about the election,” said Gao. “I was just urging him to come to our discussion meeting. He knows so much about everything and everybody around here. His words carry weight.”
Gao was campaigning for himself, that was clear, and his chances were good. But he had enough skeletons clanking in his closet to worry him. One story going the rounds about him concerned the notorious death of a goat. Several years ago he had rented a goat to mate with his ewe. He had paid a fee for a single mating, but when he brought the goat back to its owner he practically had to carry it through the gate into the goat shed. At that time the owner just thought that Gao was being extra careful with the animal. But the goat died soon after, and suspicions crept in. A rumor went around that the poor animal died of exhaustion. Gao, of course, denied any responsibility. And now interest in the matter had revived.
Gao himself now brought up the subject. “About the goat, you know … I don’t like to talk about myself.”
“That’s right,” interjected Tian. “It wasn’t his fault. If he made a mistake, it’s because he’s bighearted. When he had the goat in his pen, some poor guys brought their ewes along to be mated. They begged him with tears in their eyes. He didn’t have the heart to refuse. Is he to be punished for helping poor peasants? Why make such a fuss about that goat? One goat died. Five goats were born. Isn’t that a good thing? Why make a fuss about that goat? I know.” Old Tian waved a crooked finger to press the point home. “Jealousy! Yes, jealousy. Old Gao has a few more mu of land so they think he’s not as good as a poor peasant. Poor is not always good. Do you know why some people here in this village are poor? Not virtue. Just laziness—”
“Grandfather Tian,” interposed Gao. “Just a few of them are lazy, not many.” Gao needed the votes of conservatives like Tian, but he had no wish to antagonize the poor peasants.
“I had to work for my few mu of land. I was poor once. Very poor. Let me tell you something. This happened only about seven years ago. I didn’t even have a hen to hatch my chicks. My only hen died. Why, I don’t know.” He paused dramatically, his face clearly signifying suspicion of foul play.
“Why should that hen die suddenly without cause?” Tian stroked his wispy beard to emphasize his point.
“Yes, it was strange, now I look back on it,” continued Gao. “It died just before it was time to sit and hatch those eggs. I had a cock too then. My neighbor had a hen but no cock. You know my neighbor?” He mentioned a name.
I did; he was a poor peasant candidate.
Gao continued: “I lent him my cock. With no cock around there would be no chicks for him from the eggs his hen laid. In return, he agreed to let his hen hatch my chicks. But he forgot until I asked him point blank—”
“He forgot? How could that be? He has a good memory,” exclaimed Tian indignantly. “He never forgets even a pinch
of salt that he lends to others and he must get it back even if he has to hound them to death.”
“Um … Well, that is what he told me. I’m a simple fellow. I took him at his word. I only asked that his hen should hatch four eggs for me. I drew red circles on my eggs so they wouldn’t be confused with his. Well, to cut a long story short, his chicks came out of their shells one day earlier than mine. If he had taken his chicks and put them out of sight of the hen for a day or two, my chicks would have hatched out all right. But no. He let his chicks go chirping around. Can you blame the hen for wanting to look after her own brood? She left my four eggs in the coop. I could even hear one or two of them moving, almost ready to break their shells. My wife wept, worried to distraction that the chicks still in their shells would stifle to death if they couldn’t come out soon enough. She put them in her bosom and covered them with my winter jacket. It was late spring and already warm.”
“The summer came early that year. It was really hot,” added Tian.
“Yes, you are right. It was hot and my wife sweated under that jacket. Only two chicks survived. Was that fair? Why did no one criticize him for acting in that way? Just because he is a poor peasant?”
“Why didn’t you speak out about all this at the time?” I asked.
“He’s too generous and openhearted for his own good,” answered Tian with a gesture of his arms deploring these traits in his friend.
Gao, seemingly unable to bear such praise, turned his eyes away with a look of long-suffering resignation.
“We really need good people on our township council,” urged Tian. “Old Gao has real merit. Not only honest, but a fine farmer too. Look here.” He squatted down and plucked a weed up out of the ground to demonstrate for me. “Everybody knows how to plant, but very few know how to plant to get the best yield possible. See how I place the roots and bury them, packing the earth around them and leaving a basin round it to collect the moisture. And there’s much more to it than that. Not everybody knows these secrets. Old Gao does.”
Clearly I was not the first recipient of Gao’s and Tian’s explanations. They were campaigning like veteran politicians.
After I left Tian and Gao, I stopped over at the township office. I was curious to know if Shen was really campaigning as Xiu-ying had described, so I sat down on the wide stone step in front of the building. With my back leaning against the wall and the door half open I could hear most of what was said inside. If anyone accused me of eavesdropping I could say that I was just enjoying the warmth of the noonday sun.
“A year ago I took the lead in coming down here to set up the township office.” Shen’s voice was clear. “But do you know what some of those young people are saying? ‘Shen is doing nothing.’ Why last night I was so busy I hardly had time to sleep. Sometimes I don’t even go home but sleep right here on the kang.”
“Some of those young people are so busy they’ve set everything in a whirl. You are levelheaded. We will vote for you so as to balance them out.” It was an old man’s voice speaking.
Several voices now spoke at the same time. They seemed to be considering a plan to get Shen to help them back another candidate. Then the conversation wandered off in a new direction: Would Shen take on the job of supervising the division of the surplus property of the landlords, the things confiscated in the searches of their houses? Someone sighed that his whole family had used the same quilt for twenty years. Another grumbled that he had no money left to buy even two cakes of soap and two towels to complete his daughter’s dowry.
Suddenly they dropped their voices as if they had gone into secret session. As I moved nearer to the door, an old woman’s voice interjected crossly, “Shen isn’t listening. He’s dozed off.”
“He said he hadn’t slept last night. So he’s tired.” The old man spoke again. “People always doze off when you go to ask them for a favor. Even the Buddha is no exception. Look at him in the temple at the county town. His eyes are just slits. He can hardly keep his eyelids open. But you know he hasn’t missed a word you’ve said.”
15
Shattered Jade
The first time I saw Xiao Yu, Little Jade, Landlord Wu’s daughter, I was passing the half-open gate of her house and caught sight of her in the courtyard. Seated on a low stool, with her head bent over her embroidery, she looked like a beauty in an ancient Chinese painting come to life. I was struck by the loveliness of her face, the sheen of her black hair pulled tightly at the nape of her neck into a single, long braid, a pink bow fluttering like a butterfly on the side of her head.
I saw her again when we went to search her father’s house. She stood motionless beside her mother, paler and thinner now, in a bulky dark blue jacket and trousers that accentuated her fragility. When the peasants shouted and pushed her parents around, they took care not to touch her. Her quiet dignity fenced her off and commanded their respect and compassion. But for how long, I wondered. Her distant beauty was a provocation.
My forebodings were justified. A week before the election she was raped in the middle of the night. As soon as we learned of this, early the next morning, Wang Sha sent me to investigate.
Landlord Wu’s house was a wreck of its old self even before our search. After Wu’s father died, five years before, the family fortunes rapidly declined. The courtyard was unkempt. A broken moon gate draped with dead ivy was partly visible through the washing hung on a long bamboo pole supported on one side by a forked tree and on the other by a nail driven into one of the columns of the verandah fronting their main building. As I turned into the gate of the courtyard I glimpsed Da Niang’s idiot son lumbering along in a grove of trees on the opposite side of the road. I stopped and glared at him, and, discomfited, he skulked away.
No one was in the courtyard and the door of the main house was ajar. I knocked and called. Landlord Wu, holding the broken frame of his spectacles in one hand, peered out at me as he opened the door wider. He was a thin stick of a man with a sickly paleness to his face like that of an opium addict. His wife, a big, dumpy woman with bound feet, scrambled on to the kang as if trying to hide something behind her. Seeing it was only a girl, Landlord Wu let me in. I went to the kang.
“It’s just me,” I said reassuringly. “That idiot has gone.”
Little Jade lay inert, her arms lifeless at her sides. It seemed to me that she had lost the will to live; to die in that dark room would end at once the shame and terror that she would have to face in the bright light of day outside.
“Our home is no longer what it was,” her mother mumbled. “Our daughter is no longer what she was. She has lost virtue. Even the idiot knows that.” She rocked her body back and forth and pressed the back of her hand against her mouth to prevent herself from crying out.
“Now tell me from the beginning,” I said.
“Three men broke in last night. We could not see who they were. They hit us. I fainted, but he didn’t.” She nodded with her head towards her husband. “He could have done something to save our daughter. But he is not a man. He is spineless. He has never been able to take care of us. Everybody steals from him. We have lost money, land, and now our only child. He is a landlord because his grandfather and father passed their land down to him. He never robbed anyone, but he has been robbed right and left. What have we done to deserve this?”
Landlord Wu stood listening shamefacedly, too crushed to defend himself.
I asked him why he hadn’t run out and shouted for help. He took a long breath. The tip of his nose turned red and he blinked his watery eyes.
“Who would help us? Besides, I was afraid to do anything to provoke them. They might have killed us.”
“They might just as well have killed us and her too,” interjected his wife. “If they had killed her she would at least have saved her reputation.”
“What could she do? How could she have put up a fight against three strong men?” I retorted.
“No matter. Now people will say that she asked for it. The gossip will kill her.”
>
“Do you have any idea who those men were?” I asked them.
A vacant look came into Landlord Wu’s eyes. He murmured, “No. I don’t really know.”
“You don’t really know, but at least you have some idea?” Suppressing my exasperation, I spoke quietly and tried to encourage them not to be afraid to accuse the criminals.
Landlord Wu stood irresolute, rubbing his arms and body, twisting his head around in an agony of fright and confusion. He looked from me to his wife. She took the hint; sometimes a woman might dare what a man would not.
“Who do you suspect?” I asked again. “You may not know for sure, but you must suspect someone. Whoever did it certainly knew your house—did you recognize a voice? Is it someone you know?”
Landlord Wu’s wife murmured ambiguously, “They could be any young men …” and then hastened to add, “perhaps from another village.”
“Young men?” I echoed. I tensed up: This is what I was afraid of—that some young, poor peasants, excited by their newly acquired power, might have raped the girl. Wu might believe that this was part of their new privilege, just as a landlord had had the right to buy a poor peasant girl like a slave, even to rent her from a desperate husband, or simply to take her by force. Why shouldn’t these privileges work the other way, now that the rest of society was turned upside down?
I knew then that I had to reassure the two parents doubly if I expected them to confide in me.
“You must understand,” I spoke calmly, emphasizing every word. “They have attacked a girl. That is against the law. Committing such a crime, especially now, is against the land reform.”
I waited for this to sink in, then asked, “Why did you say that they might have come from another village? How could they know your house if that were so?”
I sensed a little less constraint in Wu’s voice when he answered, “I used to hire farm hands from other villages.”
“Could you recognize any of them? Do you remember their names?”
The Dragon's Village: An Autobiographical Novel of Revolutionary China Page 19