by Yan Lianke
She said, “I’ve already beaten your brother. What more do you want?”
Third Daughter said, “Ma, I want a husband. I dream of having a husband, like my two sisters, to hug when I sleep.”
Fourth Wife You stared at her in shock.
Her husband also stared in shock.
Standing next to the pile of corn, Fourth Wife You looked at her daughter, who was a full head taller and half a body wider than she, whose breasts were as large as mountains. She suddenly realized that her daughter was already twenty-eight years old. By the time she herself was twenty-eight, Fourth Wife You had already given birth to four children, and it was also when she was twenty-eight—when Fourth Babe was six months old—that her husband decided to blow out his own flame. That day, she carried her son to the township clinic, and it was the clinic’s doctor who blew out the final flame of the You family lamp.
Fourth Wife You was seventeen when, humming a line of opera, she married into the You family. She got pregnant a year later, and proceeded to have another child every eighteen months or so. After her first child, she lay on the postpartum bed and enjoyed having her husband wait on her, and hummed continuously for an entire month. What she didn’t know was that her eldest, second, and third daughters would all turn out to be idiots. At the age of six months, their eyes grew dull and their pupils shrank. They didn’t learn to speak until they were three or four, and at the age of five or six they were still playing with pig shit and horse urine on the ground. Even as teenagers, they were wetting their beds and soiling their pants. After seeing three children in a row turn out to be idiots, Fourth Wife You and her husband didn’t dare have any more, and they didn’t dare sing a single line of opera. But after several years of not having children, they decided they wanted a son and, full of hope, the couple set to work. In the end, Fourth Wife You gave birth to a son. By six months he could already speak, and by eight or nine months he could run around. Thinking that she had finally given birth to a bright one, she and Stone You would sometimes recite to their son several lines from a play. When the child was eighteen months old, however, he came down with a fever. This initially appeared to be an ordinary illness, but the fever continued overnight. When his parents examined him the next morning, they found that his mouth was crooked and his eyes were slanted. He could no longer speak, and couldn’t even hold a rice bowl. He giggled and stared into space, and didn’t seem to be aware of anything.
Everyone in the village was astonished by this development. Fourth Wife You and Stone You’s faces and bodies—and their rooms and courtyard—all turned black and then white from the devastating news.
The villagers told them to go quickly to the clinic. So, they went.
The doctor asked, “How many brothers does the boy have?”
Fourth Wife You said, “He has three older sisters.”
The doctor asked, “Are his sisters all right?”
Fourth Wife You replied, “Their minds … are not all there.”
The doctor paused and looked intently at Fourth Wife You for what seemed like an eternity. He asked whether there was anyone else in her family who suffered from this illness. Fourth Wife You said no, there wasn’t, and added that both of her parents were wholers. The doctor asked about her grandparents, and she said that they were wholers as well. The doctor asked about her great-grandparents, and Fourth Wife You replied that she had not met them but her father had told her that her great-grandfather could still do the lion dance at the age of eighty-two, and that her great-grandmother could still belt out opera at the age of seventy-nine. As the doctor continued his questions, he shifted his gaze to Stone You.
“How about you?” he asked.
Stone You fell silent.
Fourth Wife You tapped her husband on the shoulder and said, “He’s asking you.”
Only then did Stone You stammer, “My father had epilepsy, and when I was three years old he had an episode while plowing the ridge, and fell into a ravine and died.”
Fourth Wife You’s face hardened.
The doctor sighed and said, “You should return home. This illness can skip a generation, and there is no cure. You have four children and all four are idiots. You could have eight, and you’d have eight idiots. If you were to have a hundred children, they would all be idiots as well. You should go home and think hard about how you’ll care for your four children for the rest of their lives.”
The parents left without saying a word, and returned to their village in the depths of the Balou Mountains. On the way home, Stone You carried their son as he followed his wife. After leaving the clinic they exchanged a few words, but as the sun began to descend in the west, they stopped speaking. They were both exhausted, and the child on Stone You’s shoulders drooled as he slept. As they approached the banks of Thirteen Li River just below the village, Stone You glanced at the flowing water, then back at the child on his shoulders. His son seemed to be grinning at him in his sleep. Suddenly, he began to tremble, and his eyes rolled back into his head. The sight startled Stone You, but the child’s unnatural appearance quickly disappeared as he fell back asleep—half-crying and half-laughing.
Stone You continued standing next to the river, staring intently at his idiot son’s face.
Stone You’s wife—who by this point had already walked away—turned and shouted, “Come … quickly … otherwise the heat will be the death of us.”
He said, “Why don’t you carry our son over to the tree up ahead, to rest in the shade? I’ll get a drink and then catch up with you.”
Fourth Wife You took the child to a chinaberry tree and waited beneath it. She waited for what seemed like days, like months, like years, until dusk fell and the earth grew dark, but still there was no sign of her husband. She walked along the river, shouting, “Father of our child … father of our baby … where have you gone? Where have you gone, father of our child?” She walked several hundred steps and then, next to a pool, she saw Stone You, the father of her four idiot children. After he jumped into the river and drowned, his corpse had floated up to the riverbank like an old log. She sprinted down to the water’s edge and dragged him to shore. She placed her hand under his nostrils to see if he was breathing and then, after a long pause, she sprinted down to the village to report his death.
Her man had killed himself, terrified of the future.
After her husband died, the light vanished from Fourth Wife You’s life. When she was working in the fields there was no one to bring her shovels and sickles, and when she was resting there was no one to chat with. When the cistern froze over and cracked in the winter and she needed to bind it with wire, she had no choice but to do it herself.
During that year’s harvest, Fourth Wife You tied her four idiot children to a tree at the head of the field as though they were dogs, then placed some grasshoppers, sparrows, stones, and tiles in front of them to play with while she was harvesting the wheat. She worked from dawn until noon, at which point she returned to the tree to rest—and discovered that her children had pelted the grasshoppers and sparrows with stones, pounding the sparrows on the tiles like crushed garlic until their heads were shattered and their blood was everywhere. The children were eating the sparrows’ legs, wings, bodies, and heads, and their own mouths and faces were smeared red. Everything reeked of sparrow blood.
Fourth Wife You stared in horror. Eventually, she began sobbing—sobbing as though there was no tomorrow. Facing the mountain ridge where she had buried her husband, she cursed, “Stone You, you should have been tortured to death, but you’ve gone off to enjoy yourself, leaving me and our children to suffer in this world alone.”
She added, “You call yourself a man? You’ve ruined me, and ruined our four children.”
She continued, “Did you think that death would be the end of it? That you’d be able to rest in peace? I’m telling you, I won’t let you rest until our children have their own families and their own jobs.”
She continued, “Come back here! You’ve abando
ned us in this world and gone off somewhere else.”
She continued, “Come back here and kneel in front of me—kneel down and see your four children, then see how much wheat I harvested all by myself.”
As Fourth Wife You cursed her husband, her voice grew weak and hoarse as her expression changed from one of fury to one of resignation. She dissolved into silence, but continued staring at an empty space in front of her. In an open space right between the wheat fields and the mountain ridge, there was an area that resembled a reed mat, full of rocks and weeds. Weeds grew out of the cracks between the stones, completely covering them with vegetation. Sure enough, her husband was kneeling in the clearing, crushing the wild grass beneath him. His gray shadow, thin as a cicada’s wing, swayed between the green grass and the yellow stones. The other villagers who were out harvesting had already returned to the village to have lunch and sharpen their scythes, and then they would leave the village again, heading toward their own fields. Some of them were spreading the freshly harvested wheat to dry in the sun. Her husband knelt there, at first looking up at her, and then down at the ground.
He said, “My entire life, I’ve never disappointed anyone as badly as I disappointed you.”
He said, “I left you behind to endure pain and exhaustion.”
He said, “Come what may, you must raise our children. When they have families and jobs, life will be easier for you.”
As Stone You mentioned their children, Fourth Wife You looked behind her. Her four idiot children were still eating raw sparrows and grasshoppers, and her look of pain gradually faded and the color returned to her face. She picked up her scythe and began beating her husband like a madwoman, striking his head, his face, and his arms—whatever she could. The mountainside was filled with the sound of her blows, echoing from one side to the other. The sunlight was sliced into pieces by her blade, as was the long, cool breeze into burning hot segments.
The following year, she harvested the summer wheat but was unable to plant the autumn crops. Other families’ autumn crops had already begun to sprout, but her own fields were bare. Each family’s plow oxen worked endlessly day and night, and Fourth Wife You had no choice but to take advantage of the moonlight to hoe her field. She placed a mat on the ground, where her four idiot children could sleep, then took off her shirt and proceeded to hoe the field from one end to the other and back again. The freshly hoed soil had a moist and earthy smell that resembled dark crimson. The wheat sprouts gleamed in the moonlight, producing a warm and alluring white aroma. The red and white odors mixed together in the night air, like smoke and fog, and the sound of her hoeing and the sound of her snoring children trickled lazily through the watery moonlight. Fourth Wife You continued working until she was exhausted, but as soon as she sat down on the cool earth to rest, someone approached from the mountain ridge. It was a middle-aged man from a neighboring village, who came over and stuck his shovel in the ground at the head of the field. He looked at the topless Fourth Wife You and said, “Haven’t you finished hoeing yet?”
Fourth Wife You quickly reached for her shirt.
The man laughed, and said, “No need to put it on. There’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” Fourth Wife You sat back down, her face and breasts both facing the man.
The man said, “Do you want some help?”
Fourth Wife You replied, “Sure.”
The man asked, “What would I get in return?”
Fourth Wife You asked, “What do you want?”
The man said, “I’ll hoe this entire field better than an ox could plow it, and break up the dirt as though I were milling grain. But you’ve got to sit there at the head of the field, so that whenever I turn around I can see your bare chest.”
Fourth Wife You said, “Go ahead.”
The man said, “When the field has been hoed, I’ll plant your autumn crops. All I ask is that tonight you and I sleep together on that ridge.”
Fourth Wife You said, “Don’t waste time talking. Get to work.”
The man leaned over and began hoeing. He did, in fact, hoe much better and much faster than she. He brought the hoe down vigorously and pulled it back and forth, then turned the earth over, the scent of fresh soil wafting over the field. At one point, the man looked up and stared at the topless Fourth Wife You, and asked, “You don’t know how good your breasts look, do you?” He hoed some more, then looked up again and said, “I’ve been watching, and you’ve got the best breasts of anyone in the villages around here. Even after four children, they’re still nice and firm.” He hoed some more, then looked up again and said, “It’s getting chilly. You can put your shirt back on, but don’t button it.” Fourth Wife You draped her shirt over her shoulders and covered her children with a sheet, then returned to where she had been sitting, with her breasts and chest facing the man.
He continued hoeing, walking backward along the field while periodically glancing over at Fourth Wife You’s pert breasts. In order to see them more easily, he didn’t hoe the field from one end to the other, but rather returned to the head of the field and hoed it again in the same direction as before. Every time he looked up, he said something sweet to Fourth Wife You. She didn’t reply, and instead merely sat there with her breasts exposed and her arms either on her knees or resting at her side, permitting the man to watch her as he repeatedly approached and drew away. The mountain ridge was as quiet as a sleeping herd of cattle. Fourth Wife You’s husband, Stone You, sat down behind her.
He said, “Don’t you know who this man is? He is an ass from a neighboring village.”
Fourth Wife You ignored him.
He said, “Mother of our children, I never imagined you could be so shameless. If the children woke up and saw you like this, and didn’t open their idiot mouths to eat you right up, well, they would be no children of mine.”
It was only then that Fourth Wife You turned and looked at him in the moonlight. With a “Pah!” she spat on the ground in front of him and said, “If you have any pride at all, go turn the earth yourself, like that ass.”
Stone You said nothing more, and stood behind her, muttering. Fourth Wife You heard him begin to weep, but didn’t say anything else and didn’t look at him again. She just sat motionless, like a statue made of wood or clay, and remained there until only a narrow patch of land was left to be hoed, like a gray ribbon running along the edge of the ravine. By this point, the man was tired and had something else on his mind.
He said, “Let’s sleep for a while. Then I’ll finish.”
Fourth Wife You replied, “Finish what you started, and the sleep will be all the sweeter.”
The man said, “That triangular bit at the front, too?”
Fourth Wife You said, “That, too. I can grow forty or fifty stalks on it.”
In the end, the white wheat stubble in the gully became invisible, and the ground appeared dark red under the now moonless, nearly starless night, as soft as if it were laid with a thick layer of crimson flowers. There was dew on the tips of the grass at the head of the field.
The eldest daughter sat up and, without opening her eyes, peed on the ground next to her youngest brother’s feet, then lay back down. Her brother, finding his feet in a pool of steaming urine, pulled them away, rolled over, and murmured, “Ma, Ma! Who’s boiling my feet in a pot?” Fourth Wife You went over to cover her children with the sheet, and said, “Go back to sleep. No one’s boiling your feet.”
At that point, the man walked over excitedly, treading on the soil he’d just hoed. He had broad shoulders and walked with vigor, each step making a small depression in the loose earth. Fourth Wife You watched him approach, and moved away from her children. In a flash, she had her arms in the sleeves of her shirt and was buttoning it up.
The man tossed his spade to one side, and asked, “Why are you buttoning your shirt?”
Fourth Wife You glanced at him.
“Do you plan to marry me? If you don’t plan to marry me, then don’t think of touching me.” The man stare
d in surprise.
“But we agreed—we agreed that if I hoed the entire field, we would spend the night together on this ridge.”
Fourth Wife You said, “You also said you would help me plant the autumn crops. Have you done that?”
The man grabbed his spade angrily.
“I worked all night, and now it’s almost dawn. If you won’t sleep with me I’ll split your head open with this spade.”
Stone You turned pale and dropped to his knees before the man.
Fourth Wife You looked at Stone You, at the man’s upraised spade, then at his furious expression. She calmly walked several steps toward the spade, squatted down beneath it, and said, “Then go right ahead and strike me down. I’m burdened with these four idiot children, and long ago lost my desire to live. Strike me down and you won’t even need to pay with your life. Just raise my four children for me.”
The man turned to look at the reed mat on the ground, and saw that the four children had all woken up and were rubbing their eyes, staring at him and Fourth Wife You. He lowered his spade and planted his foot on Fourth Wife You’s chest, saying, “Fuck, I might as well just rape you.”
Fourth Wife You wiped the dirt from her chest and replied, “If you rape me, then I’ll hang myself in your doorway. You still won’t have to pay with your life, you’ll just need to raise my four children until they all have families and jobs of their own.”
The man stood there for a while, then walked away furiously.
The dawn came creaking in, interrupting the footsteps of the man in the distance, as well as the look Fourth Wife You exchanged with her husband.
And so Fourth Wife You got her field hoed, planted, fertilized, weeded, and harvested. Then, she moved on to the next season. One season followed another, just as night follows day—propelling her forward and propelling her children into adulthood. Her hair went gray, and she grew visibly older.