The Forbidden Game

by Dan Washburn

  Zhou was smoking a cigarette. He took a long drag and stared at the ceiling.

  “You know,” he continued. “All I have wanted was to be able to buy a large apartment so my parents could live with us in the city. Now I have done that. But they don’t want to move.”

  The plan had been to wait until after dinner to start persuading the parents to leave the village. But Fifth Brother, perhaps emboldened by the corn wine, couldn’t wait.

  “Mom and Dad,” he began, “last night, I taught two students to golf, and I charged them 2,500 yuan. It’s very easy for me to make money. We can hire an ayi to do the household chores for you two. You can just enjoy the city life.”

  “I know you love your parents,” Zhou’s father replied softly, “but we are rural people since birth. We have lived in the village for decades. We can’t get used to the city life. And we will cost you a lot of money.”

  Zhou groaned. He’d heard all of this a dozen times before. “I don’t want to talk about this right now,” he said.

  But Fifth Brother continued, loudly. “How much money could the two of you possibly spend per month?” he asked. “To be honest, if every month I buy one less item of clothing, that’s enough for your monthly expenses.”

  Third Brother spoke up, in a more measured tone than his youngest brother. “Dad, you are getting old,” he said. “Who knows how many years you have left? You have five sons, and you and Mom are still working in the fields? Don’t you think the other villagers will think that we don’t support you? Don’t you think that will humiliate us?”

  “But what about our corn?” his father replied with concern.

  “You calculate how much money the corn is worth and I will give you the money,” Fifth Brother shot back.

  “Let’s talk about it after dinner,” Zhou said. “Let’s eat and drink first. After dinner I’ll make the arrangements.”

  But the conversation droned on, different versions of the same arguments that had been made hundreds of times before. Sons tell parents they are old and deserve a better life away from the backwards village; they no longer need to work; they raised successful sons who are able to care for them. Parents tell sons they don’t know what they’d do in the city; they don’t want to be a financial burden to their sons; they fear for their farmland and crops in the village. Again and again, often with multiple people speaking at once.

  Zhou’s father looked confused at times, shifting the rice in his bowl with a wooden chopstick. At other times he looked pensive, painfully so, as though the calculations taking place inside his head were physically hurting his brain. His wife, on the other hand, seemed amused by the proceedings. She leaned on her cane and smiled, happy that three of her sons were seated around her dinner table – together – for the first time in years. She was willing to put up with a little shouting in exchange for that, and she knew the loudness was born out of love. When he wasn’t shouting, Fifth Brother was feeding her larou with his chopsticks.

  Zhou was surprisingly quiet for most of the discussion. But once the dishes were cleared and the neighbors were gone, he began to take a more aggressive approach. This was an intervention. And he wasn’t leaving until he got the result he had come for.

  “You two have already had decades of the tough life in this village in the countryside,” he said to his parents. “What if something were to happen to you? You know that saying, ‘A slow remedy cannot meet an emergency’? What if something happened to you and the weather is like it is today? How could we get you to the hospital?

  “You know, when I was looking for a wife, I didn’t care whether she was ugly or not. Filial piety is the most important thing. And if I can’t find a woman who will treat my parents well, I would have gone to a temple and become a monk.

  “Dad, you started working at the age of twelve, and you have worked hard for almost sixty years. You and Mom had six children, and when Grandpa was still alive, you took care of him, too. The whole family was raised by you two, by your four hands working in the fields.

  “Now I am raising my own son, and I understand what you went through to bring us up. You two need to listen to us. The past thirty or forty years we listened to you – from now on, you need to listen to us.

  “You must come live with us in Chongqing. We will take you to see the experts in the hospital. You both have leg problems now. You know, for a person without legs, life won’t be interesting at all.”

  There was silence. For a moment it seemed that Zhou’s speech had put an end to the back and forth. Then his father responded.

  “What about our corn? Our potatoes?”

  “We already arranged for the crops!” Fifth Brother said, drunk, tired, exasperated. It was past midnight. He leaned against the huolu and held his head in his hands.

  “What’s the arrangement?” Zhou’s mother asked.

  “Third brother will come back for the harvest,” Zhou said.

  “And what about after the harvest?” she asked.

  “We will store it for you,” Zhou said. “And if you come back, you can eat it.”

  “If I cannot do it all on my own, I can ask other people for help,” said Third Brother.

  “Mom, you need to see where I am living now,” Zhou insisted. “After you live with me for a while you won’t want to come back here. You can eat better in Chongqing, too. You can have more nutritious foods – I can give you fresh fruits and vegetables every day.”

  “No, that costs too much money,” Zhou’s mother said.

  “We don’t want you to waste your savings on us,” his father added.

  Zhou looked like he was going to explode. Third Brother doled out another round of cigarettes. Fifth Brother poured another glass of corn wine.

  “Why are you drinking so much tonight?” his mother asked. “Wine is money, too. In Chongqing, you must drink every day.”

  “How could I drink every day?” Fifth Brother shouted. “I need to work to make money to support you two and my girlfriend. Tonight, I came back to my hometown, to remove my elderly parents from the poor village. I am very excited, so I drink more than usual.”

  “Father, you need to go to Chongqing,” Third Brother said. “Growing potatoes is too tiring, too tough for you two. You work the whole year, from the planting to harvest, but you still don’t make any money.”

  “Father, several days ago a friend gave me a bottle of rice wine worth two thousand yuan,” Zhou said. “I was waiting until you got to Chongqing before I opened it. I want to drink it with you.”

  “How could you buy rice wine that expensive?” his father asked. “Such a waste of money.”

  “My friend gave it to me,” Zhou said. “If you don’t come to Chongqing, I will throw it away.”

  “No, no,” his father said. “Don’t do that.”

  While the brothers smoked cigarettes, Zhou’s father puffed on a tiny pipe that had an inch of local tobacco stuffed into its bowl. He sat next to a glass of yaojiu, a local medicinal wine, and occasionally dipped his fingers into the liquid and rubbed it onto his aching knees and ankles.

  “So, this place – this dirty, poor place – you still like it?” Zhou asked. “You want to stay here for the rest of your life? Don’t you get tired of such a remote life? Mom fell down and hurt her leg. No doctors available. Don’t you know to call me?”

  First Brother’s wife joined the conversation. “That’s not the problem,” she said. “This is just the place they are used to. I wanted to call you, but Mother said she is okay. She said, ‘Don’t interrupt their life. Don’t waste their money.’”

  “I am okay now,” Zhou’s mother added quickly. “I just don’t want you to worry about me. Going to the hospital costs a lot of money.”

  “Health is more important than money!” Fifth Brother shouted.

  “You need your money in the city,” she replied. “You need it to start your family and raise your children.”

  “Can’t we just stop quarreling?” Zhou pleaded. “Please, let’s jus
t stop. There are important things we need to do. You should be packing.”

  “But what about our corn?” his father said again.

  “Aren’t you listening to us?” Zhou screamed. “I’ll have people harvest them. I’ll have people put the crops here. If you want them to be sold, they will be sold. If you want to keep them, you can keep them. Okay? I told you I already arranged everything. Do you not trust me?”

  Zhou’s father squinted his eyes. He pursed his lips. He massaged his temples. He tapped the stem of his pipe against his forehead. He made a clicking noise with his tongue and teeth. The wheels were spinning.

  “Listen to me,” his father finally said. “If you have arranged for everything well, I will listen to you and go to Chongqing. We know you want us to have better life and we are very happy that you think about us. But, you know, the corn in the field, and the potatoes. You know, the corn grows very well this year, and the potatoes can fetch three yuan per kilogram…”

  Zhou’s father went on for close to ten minutes about the crops, the harvest. Zhou did not interrupt. Instead, Zhou stared blankly toward the darkness beyond the window and shook off a couple flies. His father still talking, Zhou walked to the door, opened it and spat. He sat back down. His father was still talking. Zhou just stared. He must remain a national model of virtue.

  “Living in the city is already difficult enough,” his father finally said. “I don’t want to be a burden. I just want you to save money. If I could harvest enough food, you wouldn’t have to pay a monthly allowance for my expenses.”

  It was now past 1 a.m. The three brothers were standing. They had their parents surrounded. They pleaded them to leave the village.

  “But what about the corn?” Zhou’s father said, again.

  “Second Brother and Third Brother will sell the corn,” Zhou said. “Don’t talk anymore about your reluctance to go to Chongqing. You must go there. Third Brother, Fifth Brother and I have been talking about this for a long time, and it takes us much time and pain to persuade the two of you.

  “Think about this,” Zhou continued. “Three generations will be living together. Is that not like paradise? Why don’t you want that? Money is not important – what matters most is that the family is all together. Right? We can pay for your food, your hospital fees. You should see the outside world now. It’s quite different than years ago.”

  “Don’t let us go back with a broken heart,” Fifth Brother added. “It’s time for you to enjoy a better life. Hard times are over.”

  “But the crops…”

  “Father, don’t you want to meet your grandson?” Zhou asked.

  It was 2 a.m. The room reeked of tobacco and corn wine. Everybody was exhausted, like prizefighters struggling to stand in the final round of a title bout. Then, suddenly, seemingly prompted by nothing, Zhou’s father threw in the towel.

  “Okay,” he said. “We will go.”

  Nothing more was said. The lights were turned off. And three grown brothers shared a bed for the first time in twenty-five years.

  *

  The next morning, it was raining lightly. Zhou donned his liberation shoes, still wet from the night before, and walked down to the spot where his primary school used to be. Next to it was a piece of flat earth that once served as the village basketball court. It, too, was a thing of the past.

  A woman was feeding pigs near the old basketball court. She smiled at Zhou and invited him to her house for tea.

  “I can’t,” Zhou replied. “This morning I have something to do.”

  He walked on, past the village tobacco kiln, past piles of spent zinc retorts, toward the farmland carved into the mountainside. Another woman recognized Zhou and invited him into her stone home. “Do you want to stop and have a rest?” she asked.

  “No, I have something to do this morning,” Zhou replied.

  He walked on, toward some leafy farmland glistening with the morning rain. It was part of the five or so acres, scattered around the mountainside, that Zhou’s family owned. Zhou came alive. “So many memories,” he said.

  His pace quickened. He spoke like an enthusiastic tour guide.

  Look! That’s tobacco. Have you seen it in the field before?

  Look! Hot peppers. They will soon turn red.

  Look! Jicama. The meat is underground – I ate it as a child.

  Look! A chestnut tree. The spikes protect the nut inside.

  Look! Sunflowers. Have you seen them grow so tall?

  Zhou spun around and took it all in. “This year is going to be a productive harvest,” he said. “That is why my father is reluctant to leave.”

  He had finally arrived at a landing overlooking the overgrown valley. Tall blades of grass filled in the gaps between gray boulders. “This is the place I would graze the cows,” Zhou said simply.

  A mist hovered over the hollow, but he could just make out the white cliff face, which now wore a beard of green, on the opposite side of the valley – where the stone man resided. “Some villagers think the stone man can make their wishes come true,” Zhou said. “They burn papers near him and pray. Maybe I should ask him to help me win a tournament?” He rolled his eyes.

  Some of Zhou’s fondest memories of Qixin took place on this swath of land. The cows were content to feed, leaving their young minders free to play, explore and roast potatoes on an open fire. They played the golf-like game involving bound-up balls of papers, sticks and scythes. Another game, Zhou called it “village bowling,” saw the boys hurling sickles at bundles of tied-up grass. Knock down a grass “pin” and it’s yours; fail to do so, and a day’s worth of reaping goes home with someone else. Zhou and his friends would also scamper up trees and try to catch adult birds. But he had never managed to catch one. “They are so clever!” Zhou said, shaking his head.

  He squatted on a boulder, his back to the valley, and took a piece of grass in his hands. He began to tear it into tiny pieces and stared at nothing in particular.

  “I have a feeling of sadness,” he said after a lengthy silence. “I don’t know how to describe it. This place is so remote, so wild. Look at this muddy and broken road. We have so many villagers here, but they never unite to maintain this road. They are so lazy that they would rather stay at home doing nothing than go out to maintain the road. Once a road is built, cars can drive in easily, and it can fuel the local economy. But there is nobody in charge here. People just live life for themselves.

  “I think the quality of life in the village has actually deteriorated. More than twenty years ago, we could grow anything we want and have enough to eat – vegetables and meat. Now, it’s just the same, but in the city, life has improved dramatically. We are still stuck in the same place. Everyone else is marching ahead, and we are lagging behind.

  “If I ever have lots of money, first I want to build a nice new house here. Then I’d invest some money to maintain this road in winter. I’d like to give the poor villagers some money. But they need to work for it. I think fifty villagers could fix the road in just two months. If you pay every worker one thousand yuan a month, that’s fifty thousand yuan per month. Maybe someday.

  “This is where my roots are, and I won’t forget this place completely,” Zhou said. “I may return here again when time allows. During Qingming Festival, I will return to sweep the tombs of my ancestors.” Qingming Festival, or Tomb-Sweeping Day, took place each year around early April, when the village road was a bit more passable than during the new year celebration.

  He took the muddy path back to the village. Along the way, he bent down and pulled a handful of garlic chives out of the earth. “These will go well with lunch,” he said. “My stomach is calling me home. I am hungry.”

  *

  Third Brother was waiting for him in the courtyard. “Have you decided to leave today or tomorrow?” he asked Zhou. There was unease in his voice.

  “I thought it might be better to leave tomorrow,” Zhou responded.

  “It needs to be today,” Third Brother said. �
��I suggest you leave in a hurry.”

  Third Brother was obviously concerned that Zhou’s parents’ early morning surrender had all the permanence of sidewalk water calligraphy on a summer’s day. He made it clear: the brothers’ mission was not complete until their parents were sipping tea while sitting on Zhou’s sofa in Chongqing.

  His pronouncement set off a flurry of activity. First, the brothers must host an early lunch, a last supper of sorts, that included the five village men who would be responsible for tending to the family farmland in their parents’ absence. As the dishes arrived at the table, Zhou addressed the guests.

  “I know I left the village several years ago,” Zhou said, “and I wanted to express my thanks to all of you for helping look after my family. I wanted to deliver my thanks to you individually, but because time is very tight on this trip, I didn’t have time to walk around and say thank you one by one. In the future, if I have enough time, I hope to catch up with all of my old neighbors.”

  He closed with some abstract words of encouragement: “I think we people have the ability to do things well. But we need people to guide us in our work. If we have the chance to follow a leader, we can do things well, and make money. Solidarity makes things easier – those who fight alone are idiots.

  “Let’s eat!”

  After the lunch everything became a blur – part farewell party, part forced evacuation. Imagine trying to pack up a life in an hour. Then imagine trying to do it with half of a village looking on with curiosity. This was a major event in Qixin. Village elders rarely left. They rarely had anywhere to go.

  Zhou’s parents took the dizzying pace of their departure in their stride. They smiled and laughed as they stuffed their most important belongings into plastic rice sacks and cardboard fruit boxes. They didn’t pack photos or family heirlooms – they had none of these. They packed sugar, preserved pork, heads of garlic, soybeans, dried chili peppers, fresh eggs, white radishes, tobacco and corn wine. These were the possessions they could not leave behind.