The Past and the Punishments

by Yu Hua

  The two women of the house, immersed in a sorrow that ebbed and crested throughout the day, suddenly realized The Death of a Landlord 251

  DEATH Page 252 Thursday, January 24, 2002 2:48 PM

  with alarm that the landlord had not come home. It was well past dusk, and moonlight sparkled down from the night sky. The two women hobbled on their bound feet across the fields to the village gate, calling for the landlord.

  When no response came, they began to sob his name. Their voices flew across the field like the twittering sobs of night birds. By the time they had arrived by the side of the night soil vat, the landlord’s body lay lifelessly twisted across the ground.

  252 yu hua

  PRE Page 253 Thursday, January 24, 2002 2:49 PM

  Predestination

  now

  The sun was bright that day, and wind whistled

  outside the window. Spring had arrived. Liu Dongsheng sat by the eighteenth-floor window of a high-rise building, listening to the blind cries of children playing in the schoolyard below. The songs of this innocent flock of children bothered him. He saw the soft green treetops lining the banks of the city moat, saw a jumble of taxis and trucks jockey past them on the avenue. In the distance, the Ferris wheel in the amusement park revolved slowly and almost imperceptibly through the air.

  It was just then that an envelope, the return address printed in boldface type, landed in his hands, startling him from his reverie. There was no need to open it. The boldface type clearly and unmistakably told him that his best friend was dead. The corner of the envelope read: Chen Lei Funeral Committee.

  The wealthiest of all his childhood friends had been murdered, and another old friend had organized a funeral committee for the millionaire so as to testify to the wealth and power that had been his before he was killed. The committee had posted an unsettling funeral notice all over the small town where they’d grown up. Apparently, this flurry of three or four hundred posters had blanketed the dull provin-cial town like a layer of snow. The people who lived there had never known passion and seldom been afraid. Suddenly to bombard them with hundreds of funeral notices was really a little cruel. The residential lanes where they lived were plastered with the notices. Posters were pasted to the fronts of their houses. Even their doors and windows were 253

  PRE Page 254 Thursday, January 24, 2002 2:49 PM

  covered with the inauspicious news of his friend’s murder.

  The poster was no longer a simple notice of his death. Instead, it seemed like an invitation – come on over to my place.

  The indignation and alarm of the townspeople had naturally bubbled over into action. The night after they had been posted, every single one of the memorial notices had been torn down. But the people’s torment wasn’t over even then. On the day of the funeral, a sound truck snaked slowly through town, broadcasting funereal music at an appalling volume. The sound truck seemed more like it was advanc-ing into battle than making its way toward the crematorium outside of town.

  Over the next two weeks, Liu Dongsheng received a

  steady stream of letters from the committee three hundred miles away. Each of the letters contained updates as to the circumstances surrounding Chen Lei’s death and the progress of the subsequent murder investigation.

  Chen Lei had been the richest man in town. He had

  owned two factories. He had opened the fanciest hotel in town. Later, he had bought what had always been considered the most elegant residence in the area, the old Wang family house. When Liu Dongsheng had gone back to town for Spring Festival five years earlier, the old Wang house was being refurbished after years of unoccupied neglect. Liu Dongsheng had run into another childhood friend – now clad in a police uniform – and asked him where he could find Chen Lei. The man had replied: “You’ll find him at the old Wang house.”

  Liu walked all the way across town, but when he should have arrived at a bamboo grove, he discovered that it had been torn down to make way for five new apartment buildings. He continued on alone to the old Wang house. The house was swaddled with scaffolding, and about a dozen workers were scattered across the property. As soon as he walked into the courtyard, a brick fell just in front of his 254 yu hua

  PRE Page 255 Thursday, January 24, 2002 2:49 PM

  feet, and one of the workers in the scaffolding yelled, “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  The yell brought him to a halt. He stood and looked at the bits of broken brick around his feet. Then he carefully backed out of the courtyard and took a seat on a pile of neatly stacked bricks outside the door. He sat for a long time before he finally caught sight of Chen Lei riding toward him on a motorcycle.

  Chen Lei stopped the bike, propped it up on its kick-stand, fished for a cigarette from the pocket of his black leather jacket, and lit it. It was only then that he seemed to notice that someone was sitting on the brick pile. He turned and rapidly made his way toward the courtyard. A few steps later, he glanced back in Liu Dongsheng’s direction. This time, his mouth twisted in a chuckle of recognition. Liu Dongsheng, rising from his perch on the brick pile, laughed with him. Chen Lei walked over to the brick pile, threw his arm around Liu’s shoulders, and said, “Come on, let’s go get a drink.”

  Chen Lei was dead now.

  From the committee’s letters, Liu Dongsheng knew that Chen Lei had been alone that night. His wife and children had left the old Wang house to visit their grandmother in a village about ten miles outside of town. Someone had beaten him to death with an iron hammer as he slept. He was riddled with little holes from his head down to his chest.

  Chen Lei’s wife had returned to the old Wang house two days later. The first thing she had done was to call the company office and ask where he was. The assistant manager told her that he had been wondering the same thing.

  Startled and worried, she had made her way into the bedroom to look for clues. The pitiful sight of Chen Lei’s battered corpse brought a stream of urine sliding down the inside of her pants leg and onto the carpet. There wasn’t even enough time to scream. She fell in a faint.

  Chen Lei had always loved collecting cigarette lighters.

  Predestination 255

  PRE Page 256 Thursday, January 24, 2002 2:49 PM

  When the police arrived at the scene of the crime, they soon discovered that nothing was missing. Nothing, that is, except his collection of over five hundred different kinds of lighters.

  The assailant had taken every single one of them, from the cheapest disposables to the rarest and most valuable works of craftsmanship.

  Reading through the committee’s letters at three hundred miles’ remove, Liu learned that the police had been unable to come up with any leads. Even so, the letters overflowed with speculation. There were even descriptions of possible suspects. Although the letters didn’t divulge the suspects’ names, Liu Dongsheng could tell who several of them were. But he wasn’t really interested in any of that. He had his own ideas about the death of the man who had been his best friend. He began to remember what had happened thirty years before.

  thirty years ago

  The flagstone pavement gleamed dark and wet in

  the sun after the downpour. So did the plastic tarps slung over the bamboo clotheslines. There were about as many feet walking on the flagstones as insects crawling across the tarps. The eaves of the houses on either side of the street seemed to be connected in an unbroken line. Sheets and clothes protruded out from under the open windows of the houses. Electrical lines ran above them. They swayed gently up and down when a few twittering magpies alighted on the wires.

  A child named Liu Dongsheng leaned against a window, chin pressed against the whitewashed sill as he gazed down at the street. Finally, he saw a child called Chen Lei emerge from a house across the street. Chen Lei moved dejectedly between the legs of the grown-ups filling the street, glanc-256 yu hua

  PRE Page 257 Thursday, January 24, 2002 2:49 PM

  ing back and forth as he went. He stopped in front
of a little grocery store a few doors down the street, fumbled in his pocket for something, and put whatever it was on his tongue. Then he walked over to the door of the blacksmith shop. A grown-up’s voice emerged from amid the clamor of metal hammering on metal: “Go on. Get out of here.”

  His head turned helplessly back to the street, and he slowly ambled away.

  It was the same every day. After he heard his parents click the front door lock resoundingly into place on their way out to work, Liu Dongsheng ran to the window to watch Chen Lei follow his parents out of the house across the street.

  Chen Lei always craned his neck to watch his parents lock the front door. And each morning before his parents left for work, they always yelled: “Don’t go play by the river.”

  Chen Lei always gazed up at them without a word until one of them added: “Chen Lei! Did you hear me?”

  Chen Lei replied, “I heard you.”

  By then, Liu Dongsheng’s parents had already walked down the stairs and into the street. They glanced back up at him, scolding, “Don’t lean against the window!”

  He scurried away from the window. His parents continued: “And don’t you dare play with fire inside the house!”

  Liu Dongsheng muttered something in response. When

  he was sure that his parents were already well on their way, he once more took up his place by the window, but by then Chen Lei was already gone.

  But this time, Chen Lei was still standing on a flagstone in the middle of the street. Suddenly, his body rocked violently to one side, pushing the edge of the flagstone into the soft ground underneath. A stream of muddy liquid squirted out from underneath the stone, soiling the pants leg of one of the grown-ups walking by. The man stopped and grabbed Chen Lei’s arm with his outstretched hand:

  “You little motherfucker.”

  Predestination 257

  PRE Page 258 Thursday, January 24, 2002 2:49 PM

  Chen Lei was so scared that he squeezed his eyes shut and covered his face with his free hand. The bearded man released his arm and said in a menacing tone: “You better watch out, or I’ll kill you.”

  The man swaggered off, leaving Chen Lei in a daze. Arms hanging limp at his sides, he stood and watched the grown-ups passing by until he was sure that none of them had noticed what he had just done. Then his little frame began to thread its way through the grown-ups until he had reached his own front door. He sat with his back pressed up against the door, stretched his arms out in front of him, and rubbed his eyes. He yawned. When he had finished yawning, he looked up at a window across the street. Another child was staring at him from the window.

  When Liu Dongsheng realized that Chen Lei had finally noticed him, he smiled and called out, “Chen Lei.”

  Chen Lei’s voice rang back in response, “How do you know my name?”

  Liu Dongsheng giggled. “I just know.”

  The two children started to laugh. They looked at each other for another moment before Liu Dongsheng asked,

  “Why do your mom and dad lock you out of the house?”

  Chen Lei said, “They’re afraid I’ll play with fire and burn the house down.”

  Chen Lei asked, “Why do your mom and dad lock you

  inside the house?”

  “They’re afraid I’ll go play by the river and drown.”

  The children looked excitedly at each other.

  Chen Lei asked, “How old are you?”

  “I’m six,” Liu Dongsheng answered.

  “I’m six, too.” Chen Lei said. “I thought you were older than me.”

  Liu Dongsheng laughed, “That’s cause I’m standing on a stool.”

  The road stretched toward the next intersection, where a crowd of people suddenly surged together in a circle. A few 258 yu hua

  PRE Page 259 Thursday, January 24, 2002 2:49 PM

  people sprinted past the children in the direction of the crowd. Liu Dongsheng asked, “What’s going on over there?”

  Chen Lei stood up from his perch and said, “I’ll go check.”

  Liu Dongsheng, head hanging out over the street, watched as Chen Lei ran toward the corner. The crowd of screaming people surged around the corner and down the next street, where Liu’s eyes could no longer follow. Then Chen Lei disappeared around the corner in pursuit.

  A moment later, Chen Lei came panting back and, in

  between gasps, yelled up toward the window, “They’re fighting. One of their faces is all bloody. Lots of people’s clothes got all ripped up. There’s even a lady fighting, too.”

  A frightened Liu Dongsheng asked, “Did anyone die?”

  Chen Lei shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Awed by this sudden outburst of violence, the two children fell silent.

  It was only after a long time that Liu Dongsheng broke the silence with a sigh. “You’re so lucky!”

  Chen Lei said, “What do you mean?”

  “You can go wherever you want to. I can’t go anywhere.”

  “I’ve got it bad, too.” Chen Lei replied. “I can’t go inside when I get sleepy.”

  Liu Dongsheng continued, even more heartbroken than before, “I might not ever see you again. My dad said he’s going to nail the window shut ’cause I’m not allowed to stand here in case I fall down and die.”

  Chen Lei looked down at the ground and traced imaginary lines back and forth across the ground. Then he looked up and asked, “Can you hear me from here?”

  Liu Dongsheng nodded.

  Chen Lei said, “I’ll stand here every day and talk to you.”

  Liu Dongsheng smiled and said, “Promise?”

  Chen Lei said, “If I break the promise then . . . then I hope to heaven I’ll be eaten alive by a mad dog.”

  Chen Lei continued, “Can you see the tops of the houses from up there?”

  Predestination 259

  PRE Page 260 Thursday, January 24, 2002 2:49 PM

  Liu Dongsheng nodded, “I can see them.”

  “I’ve never seen the top of a house,” Chen Lei explained, his voice tinged with a hint of sorrow.

  Liu Dongsheng said, “The tippy-top of the house looks like a string. Then the two sides slant down to the ground.”

  That was how the friendship between the two children began. Every day they told each other about the things that the other child couldn’t see. Liu Dongsheng would talk about things that came from the sky, and it was up to Chen Lei to describe anything that happened on the ground. This went on for a whole year. But, one day, Liu Dongsheng’s father accidentally left a set of keys in the house. Liu Dongsheng threw the keys down to Chen Lei, who ran up the stairs and unlocked the front door.

  That was the day Chen Lei led Liu Dongsheng all the way across town, past a bamboo grove, and onto the grounds of the old Wang family house.

  The old Wang family house was the grandest thing in town, and over the past year it was the place that Chen Lei had spent the most time describing for his friend.

  The two children stood outside the sealed-off wall of the deserted estate watching gusts of magpies hover above the arched tile roof of the mansion within. The whitewashed wall was still in one piece in those days, and it gleamed in the sunlight. The cylindrical roof tiles that stuck out over the eaves of the house were hollow, with all kinds of patterns carved inside them.

  Liu Dongsheng, deeply absorbed in his contemplation of the mansion, heard Chen Lei say, “There are lots of swallows’ nests inside those tiles.”

  As he spoke, he gathered a handful of rocks and started to throw them at the eaves. After several tries, he finally scored a bull’s-eye. A little swallow emerged from the hollow tile and flitted back and forth through the air, twittering in alarm.

  260 yu hua

  PRE Page 261 Thursday, January 24, 2002 2:49 PM

  Liu Dongsheng picked up his own handful of rocks and began to throw them at the eaves.

  That afternoon, they circled the house, rousting each and every one of the swallows from their nests. The une
asy cries of alarmed swallows continued unbroken throughout the afternoon. When the sun finally began to sink toward the horizon and the air filled with the shouts of peasants on their way home from the fields, the exhausted boys sat down on a little embankment across from the house, watching the swallows return to their nests. A few lost swallows, returning to the wrong nests and repeatedly ousted by the rightful occupants, circled dolefully through the air until bigger swallows came and escorted them home.

  Chen Lei said, “Those big ones are their moms and dads.”

  As the sky gradually grew darker, the children, oblivious to the fact that they really ought to be on their way home, sat talking about whether they should try to climb over the walls and into the mansion itself.

  “Do you think anyone lives there anymore?” Liu Dongsheng asked.

  Chen Lei shook his head. “Nah, no one lives there. Don’t worry. No one’s going to chase us away.”

  “But it’s getting dark.”

  As Chen Lei watched the darkness descend, his determination ebbed rapidly away. He fumbled in his pocket for a moment and finally put something in his mouth.

  Liu Dongsheng swallowed and asked, “What are you

  eating?”

  Chen Lei said, “Salt.”

  As he spoke, his hand fumbled once more in his pocket.

  Then he put a single grain of salt on Liu Dongsheng’s tongue.

  But, just at that moment, they thought they heard a child scream.

  “Help!”

  They were so scared that they leapt to their feet. They Predestination 261

  PRE Page 262 Thursday, January 24, 2002 2:49 PM

  stared wide-eyed at each other for a second before Liu Dongsheng whispered, “Was that you?”

  Chen Lei shook his head.

  “Wasn’t me.”

  As soon as his reply had faded into silence, a voice identical to Chen Lei’s rang out once more from within the dark walls of the mansion: “Help!”

  Liu Dongsheng went pale. “That was your voice.”

  Chen Lei stared at Liu Dongsheng, eyes wide with fear.

  After a second, he said, “It wasn’t me. I didn’t say anything.”

  When the voice rang out for the third time, the children were already running down the road through the swirling darkness.