Then the two children would no longer be orphans of a stubborn rich peasant but adopted children of a poor peasant family. I breathed a sigh of relief, my guilt subsiding.
“You will plant more wheat. The whole of the plain will be a splendid sea of golden wheat!”
“I don’t care how it looks. It will feel good here.” And Sun’s wife patted her flat stomach and smiled. “Will you put in a good word for me?”
“I hope that everything will end well,” I answered her in a roundabout way.
We parted and walked in opposite directions. She went to join the peasants in the field. I walked straight to Wang Sha’s office. Before I made the proposal in Mrs. Sun’s favor, I wanted to know what he thought about it.
Wang Sha was seated at the table, tapping with his pencil on the boards, deep in thought.
Without lifting his eyes to look at me, he said, “Cheng and I are going to Ma Li’s village.”
“Oh, good. Can you pass a message on to Liao for me?” At that he looked up, but immediately dropped his head again.
“Tell him, when he has time, to come here and see the boys dancing and correct their movements. When the work here is done, they and the girls are going to put on their first concert as part of the celebrations.” With a giggle, I added, “Tell him that Chu Hua will be here to supervise the girls. Then he’ll be sure to come.”
Wang Sha didn’t even smile. He heaved a sigh, opened a matchbox, and started building up something with the matches.
“I’ve just had a brainstorm,” I went on. “They can compose a dance drama for the children to perform.” Still getting no response from him, I continued undaunted. “I can add my bit to it—you know, not the dance, but the story line.”
The matches fell apart and, as if his mind wasn’t aware of what his hands were doing, he patiently put them together again.
I rattled on. “I want to pick your brains before I talk to Liao and Chu Hua. It may be only a little thing, but why not try out some new ideas in dancing? Why not …”
Looking blankly across his pagoda of matches at me, Wang Sha knocked one match out and the whole stick structure collapsed.
“Now, look at what you’ve done!” I exclaimed.
“Ling-ling,” he finally got out, “Liao has been murdered.”
“What?” My arms dropped to my sides. I said in a hushed voice, “No, I can’t believe it.”
“Did you hear me?” And he repeated his words.
I was appalled. “So finally they’ve really hit back at us.”
“Cheng and I are going to his village to help the cadres and activists there investigate. You must stay here and keep things going until we return.”
“How long will you be away?”
“A day or two.”
“Let me go with you. I don’t want to be left alone here. What’s happening to this place? Hatred, hatred everywhere. Where will it end?”
Wang Sha ignored my agonized questions. “While we prepare to go, you write out a short report asking permission for Ma Li to be transferred here. She must leave that place as soon as possible. The county leadership can send some other cadre there. Send the report by messenger to the county town.” He turned away hastily.
“Take me with you,” I cried again.
He stopped for a moment at the door. But he left the office without looking back. His head was bowed so low that his chin rested on his chest.
19
Vacillation
By twilight the next day neither Wang Sha nor Cheng had returned. I paced uneasily up and down the narrow space of the township office, which was now our headquarters. I could neither sit nor stand still. I felt as if the ground beneath me might open at any moment and swallow me up. Liao—naive, agile, loving Liao—dead! I kept looking through the door and down the road in the hope that Wang Sha would suddenly appear and allay my fears and worries.
At the end of the village road not far from the office was a dried-up pond. Along its eastern bank a footpath ran obliquely up and down a mound. Returning to the village of an evening after work, the peasants, shouldering their mattocks, took this shortcut. When they reached the top of the slope, for a moment they were outlined against the sky. As they continued down on the near side to enter the road, their legs, bodies, and heads gradually disappeared into the shadow, so that for a time the mattocks were seen as though moving by themselves. Anyone entering the village from this side would normally take this footpath. To be sure of meeting Wang Sha or Cheng at the earliest possible moment, I walked to the top of the mound and scanned the path beyond. It was empty. I waited, undecided.
At the turn of the path into the cart track, the figure of a man in cadre’s uniform suddenly appeared in the dusk. Wishing, hoping that it was Wang Sha, I ran forward. The figure stopped. I recognized Cheng. Wary because of the recent bloody events, he looked around, ready to put up a fight.
“It’s me,” I cried out. “It’s Ling-ling.”
“You gave me a fright,” said Cheng.
“Where is Wang Sha?”
“He went to the district center to consult with the deputy Party secretary of the county.”
“Did you see Liao? His body? Did you bury him?”
Cheng blinked his eyes and shook his head in an embarrassed way as if he wished I wouldn’t continue.
“Did you see him?” I persisted.
He opened his mouth as if to reply, but he only put out his tongue and licked his dry upper lip. He locked his mouth shut, his lower lip curled over his upper like a child about to cry.
“What on earth is the matter?”
“Don’t ask me.” He threw his arms out. “His head—was—as—his head had been twisted round, as if somebody wanted to wrench it off. It was horrible.” He told me that Wang Sha would not soon return. He was himself directing the investigation of Liao’s murder.
Cheng’s distraught look stopped my further questions. We spoke no more about the murder as we walked back to the village. As he left me he took an envelope out of his pocket.
“I met the mailman on the way and he gave me this letter for you. It’s from Hong Kong, sent on to you by someone in Shanghai. It’s got your aunt’s name on it, but the return address is the old Shanghai one.”
The letter was full of Hong Kong gossip and the difficulties of furnishing the new house to her satisfaction. She ended, “Look after yourself. Eat well and keep yourself warm. Don’t get your feet wet. And keep out of trouble.”
I returned home exhausted after a full day’s work in the fields and the neighboring hamlets. Seeing how tired I was, Da Niang told me to lie down and take a rest. She would watch out for Wang Sha, she said, and would call me as soon as she saw him.
I lay on the kang with my back propped against my pillow and a folded quilt. Looking out through the doors into a corner of the courtyard, I could see Da Niang’s son squatted there against the wall, his head lowered between his knees. Da Niang had trained him to do certain things. If a neighbor’s hen made the mistake of trespassing on Da Niang’s terrain, he would throw stones at its tail. It was believed that if a hen’s bottom were hurt, it would stop laying eggs. But his twisted mind had composed variations on this theme. When a goat strayed into the yard, he cut off its tail and enjoyed the bloodletting. If there was no war on between Da Niang and these trespassers, he would pounce on a mouse and beat it to death with a stick. It was a horrible sight. I was afraid that one day he might try his gimmick out on people, and I never felt safe when he was around. Fortunately he was seldom home. Even at night he would loaf around, and he would fall asleep wherever he happened to be.
I wondered why he loitered in the yard now. He raised his head. His eyes were dull, and saliva trickled out of the corner of his mouth. His two big hands clenched and unclenched as if strangling something.
Later I was writing at my rickety table when my pencil snapped and I couldn’t find my pencil sharpener.
“Da Niang,” I called. “Can you lend me a small knife? I
want to sharpen my pencil.”
“Yes, but it’s blunt.”
“Let me see.” I took the knife from her hand. “It won’t do much good.”
“What are you writing?”
“I’m copying an urgent report. It says that investigations in other areas have turned up many cases of sabotage.” I paused for a moment and looked at her. “Here in Longxiang we know that there must be similar trickery going on behind our backs, but it baffles us that we haven’t discovered a single instance of the most common kind of such trickery—fake land deeds.”
“What is a fake land deed?” she asked innocently.
“Haven’t you ever heard about them?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s like this. In order to cover up their real holdings, some landlords have hurriedly deeded land to poor peasants. They ‘give’ a few mu of choice land to an accomplice who, when the land registration starts, will declare this to be his property.” The pencil point broke again. “Drat. And just when I’m in a hurry too.”
“And later, the landlords will take back the land? Will they?” She seemed seriously concerned. “That’s our trouble, the poor people’s trouble. We are so easily deceived!”
“The landlords are not stupid. They won’t take back the land. Later on, when the land reform is over, they hope to get a large part of the harvest from this land. They will let the peasant they have duped keep just a bit more of the harvest than the former tenant had been entitled to keep.”
She frowned and brooded for a minute. “If that peasant refused to go along with the landlord, he could get his own land in the land reform and then he needn’t share his harvest with any landlord.”
“But he got hooked up with the landlord before the work team arrived and he doesn’t believe he will be pardoned if he confesses. All in all he trusts his old master more than he does us.” I finished the sentence for her.
“He is stupid. However, I think you’re right. Stupid people are always stubborn.” She pursed her lips in an indignant sneer.
“What shall I do with this pencil? We want to turn in this report as soon as possible and get the county leadership to send someone to strengthen our work team. Actually, I already know who will come. She is a really smart girl.”
“Smarter than you?”
“Smarter and tougher. She’ll leave no stone unturned, until she finds out everything.”
She gave me a slow, ambiguous glance and asked, “Have you got another pencil?”
“Yes.”
“You go on copying with that one. I’ll sharpen the knife first and then sharpen this pencil for you. I can sharpen the pencils by turns. Will that help you to finish copying the report more quickly?” She was delighted with her solution and gave me a heartening smile. I went on writing.
Some time later I jumped to my feet when I heard Da Niang talking to someone. But it was Xiu-ying, her hair in disarray, her face tearful and drawn. Her hands nervously fingered the hem of her jacket.
“I’m in terrible trouble. I want your advice,” she cried.
I already had more worries than I could cope with. How could I attend to all this at once?
“I came in late last night after the meeting. Now Father is furious. Ling-ling, he is arranging to marry me off! He says that he can’t control me, so he wants my future husband to beat me, tame me, and make me bear children. After that, he says, I will behave as a decent girl should.”
The murder had reactivated all that was feudal and backward in the village. A number of peasants, terrorized, were beating a retreat. Xiu-ying’s father felt the ill wind blowing and was borne along by it.
“Xiu-ying, it depends entirely on you, yourself. The new marriage law states that you and only you have the right to decide whom you will marry. If you give in, your father can say that you agree with his arrangements. But once you say no, it’s against the law to marry you off against your will. Make that clear to your father.”
“I could never accuse my own father of wrongdoing,” she cried in distress. Her eyes filled with tears. “Father gave me my life. He worked and sweated like a slave to rear me. I am grateful to him. To accuse him in public.… No. I could never do that.”
“Xiu-ying, I don’t know what’s at the back of your father’s mind. You’ll have to puzzle that out yourself. What does your mother say?”
“Mother wants to consult relatives and friends. She’ll find out whether the young man is a decent sort or not. Mother says now that I’m a cadre with some education I can make a better marriage, even though I have no dowry.”
“Xiu-ying, use your own judgment.”
“Mother says that I have only one pair of eyes and that I won’t be able to see through sham. They’ve got many pairs of eyes, so they can rightly size up any young man at a glance.”
“That could be true,” I said feebly.
She turned her face to me, looking for advice, for reassurance, for support. But what advice could I give her? Should I tell her truly that this was only the beginning of her troubles? The more she strove for her ideal, the more problems she would have.
Xiu-ying took a deep breath and then blurted out, “Mother has already consulted our relatives and friends. The young man’s family owns a shop in the county town. He’s had a few years of education and is going to find a job in Xian where his eldest brother is working in a factory. Several families have sent go-betweens to make inquiries, but his family has turned them all down. They want a daughter-in-law who has had some modern education.”
I uttered an annoyed exclamation. Was it Xiu-ying’s father or mother who was planning to cash in on her new career? A new, unfamiliar silence came between us.
“I’ve met him.” Her voice was almost inaudible. “No, not alone. His uncle and aunt and my parents were present too.” Her face burned red with embarrassment.
“So you’re engaged!”
“No. I asked a few questions about the new ways of living. His answers were not as much to my liking as I had hoped. I told him he’d have to wait while I thought things over.”
It was hard to tell if Xiu-ying was being very modern or if she was using feminine wiles and playing coy. She was making the most eligible bachelor in the village await her pleasure.
“He will be your stepping-stone to Xian,” I commented flatly.
Xiu-ying took a hesitant step towards the door.
Though I made no move to stop her, she sensed that there was more to say. She squatted down by the door. Her arms held her knees and her chin rested against them. She gazed at the toes of her own slippers, speechless and motionless.
“Xiu-ying, can you hold out until after the land has been shared out? You’ll have more time then to handle your problem.”
“Last night I came home late. It wasn’t the first time. Father was afraid for me—” She didn’t finish the sentence, but raised her eyes and looked at me appealingly. “He wants me to stay at home, and as long as necessary pretend that I am ill. But I don’t want to leave you people in the lurch.”
I gnawed on my thumbnail. I would go to the district town myself to seek out Wang Sha and get advice on our next move. This sally by Xiu-ying’s father was no accident. Something weighty had to be done to restrain the gathering counterattack of the landlords and all who wanted the old ways preserved.
When Xiu-ying had gone, I told Da Niang, “I’m going to the district center.”
She shook her head in disapproval. “You shouldn’t run around so by yourself. My dear child, I’m like an ant in a deep, hot pot, knocking about right and left when you don’t come home in time. It’s too far—more than ten miles. Do you know, in all my life I have been there only twice.”
“Da Niang, something is on your mind.” I had caught more than she had meant to convey in her words. I spoke in a low voice to show that I would respect her confidence.
She looked at me with her one sound eye. It was directed to my face, but it was seeing something else. A moment later, she woke as if from
a dream and asked softly and dreamily, “What did you say?”
“Do you trust us?” I asked her. “Do you trust us?”
“They are brutal …” she stuttered.
“Who are they?” I asked, leaning forward to catch her words.
“The landlords.”
“Landlord Chi?”
“No, no. My old master is not too bad.”
“Da Niang, from now on you have no old master.” Why did she hasten to defend Chi?
“The worst of them are not in our village. But if you go to town you may run into them,” she said urgently. “Don’t go.” She would say no more.
I ignored her warning; indeed, now I felt it was even more important that I contact Wang Sha as soon as possible.
Midway on the road I met Shen. He was coming from the district town office but hadn’t seen Wang Sha or gotten any word from him. Strange. I grew more apprehensive. I told him about Xiu-ying’s troubles and urged him to be vigilant.
“Who do you think is behind this change of feeling in the township?” I asked him.
For answer he raised his head and, just when I thought he was going to say something enlightening, gave a prodigious sneeze.
“Wrap yourself up warmly,” he said. “The weather is treacherous.”
It was late afternoon by the time I reached the outskirts of the district town. The street stalls had packed up for the day. Only a few shops were still doing business. Not much had changed openly since I had first seen it three months before. The only spot of bright color came from the new bookshop. A naked electric bulb shone a glaring light on its neat green-painted shelves packed tight with pamphlets, magazines, and books. It also threw its light across the entrance of the wineshop next door.
A man stepped out of the dimly lit wineshop. He opened a pack of cigarettes with a flourish, took one out, and lit it with a match, cupping his hands around it to shield it from the light breeze. The little finger was missing from his left hand. So that was why Da Niang was worried about me! Landlord Chi was here.
The Dragon's Village: An Autobiographical Novel of Revolutionary China Page 24