Authors: Yan Lianke
She said, “I came to see you.”
He said, “I admitted your daughters into the performance troupe. They will each earn a salary, and you will live comfortably from now on.” He looked at her as he said this, then continued, “You should try to save some money, and after I’ve bought Lenin’s corpse and installed it on Spirit Mountain, there will be a constant stream of tourists coming up along Liven’s mountain ridge road. If you establish a restaurant, hotel, or something along that road, you will be able to enjoy a heavenly existence. Even better than mine.”
Jumei wanted to say a few more things, but after hearing this, she didn’t know what else to say. She looked up again at the three portraits hanging on the wall, glanced at him, then turned and slowly walked out of the guest house.
He hesitated for a moment, then got up from his chair and also looked up at the portraits on his wall. He called out after her, explaining, “These were all hung by my secretary, who was trying to flatter me.”
She slowed down as she walked through the courtyard.
He, however, said, “You can find your way out on your own. I won’t escort you any farther.”
She left the temple courtyard. The sun was shining brightly, generating wave after wave of heat, while a chill emanated from that shady courtyard. Jumei suddenly began to feel somewhat light-headed, as though she were being boiled alive. She didn’t regret having gone to see Chief Liu, and neither was she pleased to have failed to get anywhere with him. But when she turned into the alley leading back to her house, and saw that no one was around, she suddenly began sobbing inconsolably. She stood there a while, bitterly slapping her face and cursing,
“How humiliating! How could I have debased myself in this way?”
After she finished slapping and beating herself, she stopped crying. She stood there for a while longer, then returned home.
Further Reading:
1)
Special skill.
DIAL. An extraordinary skill. Because many of the inhabitants of Liven are disabled, they need some area in which they can compensate for their shortcomings, simply to survive. Blind people, for instance, use their acute hearing, and deaf people use their exquisite sense of touch.
3)
Heavenly fields.
A heavenly field is not a field that is literally in heaven, but rather a field that is as attractive as heaven. Many years earlier, the valley in which Liven was located had fertile soil and abundant water. There were flat fields that could be easily irrigated in times of drought, and hilly ones that could be drained in periods of flood. Regardless of what disability people had, as long as they worked on their family’s land, they would always have something to harvest. All year round, the people of Liven had more grain than they could eat, so they sowed and harvested broadly, and didn’t fear natural disasters. The villagers could always be found in the fields, either busily sowing or leisurely harvesting, and in this way one year followed another. Everything changed, however, in the
gengyin
Year of the Tiger, 1950, when the land was collectivized and this leisurely pattern of existence finally came to an end. As a result, a family’s land was no longer managed in such a leisurely and abundant manner, and the residents of Liven lost a way of life, a dream, and a fantasy. It became one of Grandma Mao Zhi’s goals to continue farming these heavenly fields, and this became a source of direction and sustenance for the entire village.
5)
Overturned days.
Refers to a kind of nostalgia that is closely related to heaven. This is a special mode of existence that only the residents of Liven have experienced or can understand. Its uniqueness lies in its freedom, relaxation, substance, lack of competition, and leisure. The residents of Liven call this sort of halcyon age “overturned days,” “lost days,” or “fallen days.”
C
HAPTER 3:
G
RANDMA
M
AO
Z
HI TUMBLES OVER LIKE
A BUNDLE OF STRAW
Grandma Mao Zhi emerged from her house, the greenish tint in the deep wrinkles on her face resembling frozen mud on the side of the river in the dead of winter. The hospital crutch that she was carrying made a bright and resonant sound each time it struck the ground. She walked briskly and without saying a word, as though she were flowing down a river like a piece of dry and sturdy bamboo. The sun had already begun to move toward the west, and the streets were much calmer than they had been over the previous few days. It seemed as though all of the villagers with special skills who had been anxiously rushing about preparing to leave were now finally ready. Many had borrowed travel bags, and those who hadn’t simply ripped a bedsheet in half and used each half to wrap up their clothing and other belongings. The women who had been rushing around to make new clothes and shoes were once again leisurely doing their regular sewing. The carpenters who had been frantically making new crutches had dropped their axes and saws and begun stretching out their sore backs. Everything became much calmer, as even the dogs and chickens began sauntering aimlessly up and down the street as they used to.
It was only after Grandma Mao Zhi had finally gotten ready to leave the house that she learned that Chief Liu had decided to establish a traveling performance troupe, for which he had recruited sixty-seven of the villagers. Apart from a handful of wholers, the rest of the recruits were all deaf, blind, paralyzed, or crippled. Ten days earlier, Mao Zhi had spit in Chief Liu’s face, but when he, Secretary Shi, and the township chief wanted to stay in the village, she had asked One-Legged Monkey to send someone to straighten up the temple guest house, and to arrange for each household in the village to take turns sending them food. She explained that if a home was clean, the family should cook them the meal and invite them over to eat it; if the house was messy, the family should instead bring soup, steamed buns, stir-fried vegetables, and rice to the guest house.
It occurred to Grandma Mao Zhi that she, too, should cook the guests something, given that Chief Liu was the county chief and was visiting Liven—despite the fact that she bore lifelong hatred toward him. Therefore, she sent One-Legged Monkey to make arrangements. One-Legged Monkey lived just east of Grandma Mao Zhi. He was very quick, and whenever Grandma Mao Zhi had something to announce, she would dispatch him to go door-to-door relaying the information. Alternatively, he would go ring the village bell, stand on a stone, and shout out the news. Grandma Mao Zhi was not a village cadre, but it often seemed as though she must be one. By the same token, One-Legged Monkey was not a particularly significant person within the village, but given that Grandma Mao Zhi was always dispatching him to do things on her behalf, he became an important personage in his own right.
Grandma Mao Zhi had said, “You’ll see to it that Chief Liu and the other visitors get what they need while they’re staying at the temple guest house?”
One-Legged Monkey agreed to look after them.
Ten days later, however, when they were a third of the way into the month, Grandma Mao Zhi suddenly realized that during the ten days One-Legged Monkey had been looking after the guests, she had never once asked how they were doing, and neither had Monkey come over to give her an update. It was as if this were all his responsibility, and there was no need for her to ask about it. It was as if he really were a village or town cadre. Even though her house was separated from his by only a single wall, he nevertheless had not bothered to utter a word to her that the village had decided to establish a traveling performance troupe, or that the following day half of the villagers would go on tour, leaving behind the elderly, the children, and the mentally retarded to farm the land.
Instead, Grandma Mao Zhi learned all of this from Mothlet. Mao Zhi was at home sewing her burial clothing, on her straw mat under a tree in the middle of the courtyard. Using light and heavy silk, black and green fabric, coarse and fine imported fabric, she cut and sewed, making herself one piece of clothing after another. Each time she finished an outfit, she would fold it and place it in the red box at the head of her bed. No one knew how many sets of clothing she had sewn, or how many more she planned to make. Ten years earlier, when she turned fifty-nine, she had prepared a set of burial clothing for herself. Since then, she had sewn herself twelve years’ worth of burial clothing, and whenever she had any spare time she would take the opportunity to sew some more. Given that she didn’t want to see Chief Liu while he stayed in the village, she locked herself at home every day and worked on her burial clothing. This is how she had spent the preceding ten days. As she was about to sew the edge of a black silk burial gown, Mothlet came rushing into the courtyard.
“Grandma, Grandma, come quickly. Mother isn’t letting my sisters join the performance troupe. They are determined to go, but Mother just cried and had a huge fight with them.”
Grandma Mao Zhi paused her sewing, and asked what had happened in the village over the past few days. After she listened to Mothlet, the wrinkles in her face began to resemble frozen mud.
She then walked out of her house.
The pack of dogs saw her angry expression. They were originally going to follow her, but instead they all simply looked at her, stood up, then lay back down again. Grandma Mao Zhi slammed her door shut with such force that even Mothlet—who was accompanying her—was startled. Grandma Mao Zhi walked in front, as little Mothlet fluttered after her. Mothlet initially thought that her grandmother was going to their home, but instead she went to One-Legged Monkey’s house.
“One-Leg, come out. Come and explain to me what’s going on.”
This was one of those houses consisting of a three-room thatched hut, a square adobe courtyard, and a front gate that looked as if it were about to collapse but somehow managed to remain upright. One-Legged Monkey was sitting in the doorway of the main room, using a soft cotton cloth to polish the new crutch the carpenter had made him. When he heard Grandma Mao Zhi calling out to him, he leaned on the crutch and hopped toward the outer gate.
“Grandma Mao Zhi, what on earth are you so angry about?”
“Is it true that Chief Liu recruited sixty-seven villagers to leave Balou and spend all their time performing?”
One-Legged Monkey replied, “It is true. He hired sixty-seven villagers, and the troupe is called the Shuanghuai County Special-Skills Performance Troupe.”
Granny Mao Zhi stared at him as though she didn’t recognize him, and asked, “How is it that you didn’t inform me of such a major undertaking?”
One-Legged Monkey stared back at her as if he didn’t recognize her, and said, “Chief Liu told me not to bother informing you, given that you are not a village cadre.”
Grandma Mao Zhi was momentarily flummoxed, then replied,
“It is true that I’m not a village cadre, but if I don’t give the word, how will that Liu character manage to lead those sixty-seven villagers out of Liven?”
One-Legged Monkey laughed. “How would he
not
lead them out of the village?”
“Are you going?’”
“Of course. I’m the troupe’s cadre and deputy director. How could I not go?”
“If I don’t let you leave the village, would you be able to leave?”
“Grandma Mao Zhi, Chief Liu says that you are old and can no longer manage the village’s affairs. He says that from now on, I should be responsible for everything that goes on in the village. He says that in a few days he will announce that Liven is an administrative village, and will install me as Village Head, meaning that I would be the one giving the order that no one be allowed to leave the village.”
Grandma Mao Zhi stood in shock at the gate of One-Legged Monkey’s house. The searing afternoon heat seemed as though it was leaving a plating of gold on her gray head. She looked as though she had been cast out of gold—both her face and her body seemed somewhat stiff. One-Legged Monkey gazed at her, and suddenly began laughing like a child. He said, “Grandma Mao Zhi, you are already old and sewing yourself a burial outfit. Why don’t you just let me try out the position of village cadre for a few days.” He added, “Once I become a village cadre, everyone’s lives will be vastly improved, becoming even better than those heavenly fields that were planted by our eight hundred forebears.” After saying this, he turned and went back inside, closing the outer gate behind him and slamming the door in Grandma Mao Zhi’s face as though she were just a beggar.
The mountain range and the village suddenly became deathly quiet.
The sound of One-Legged Monkey slamming the door echoed through the village streets like the sound of an awl.
Mothlet stood behind Grandma Mao Zhi, her face pale with shock. She cried out “
Grandma!
” and then ran over to support her, as though afraid her grandmother might collapse like a piece of decayed wood.
But Grandma Mao Zhi stood firm, as stable as a tree. She stared intently at the willow gate outside One-Legged Monkey’s house, fiercely lifting up her crutch and striking it against the willow several times, creating a crack in the tightly sealed gate. She then shouted through the crack, “One-Leg, you’re dreaming! Your fantasy is to die and become a cadre!”