One Man Page 31

  42

  The old date tree outside the window had lost all of its leaves, and the bare thorny branches were poking into the leaden sky. Another tree, a tallow tree, had a few trembling purple leaves left on its slender branches. It was early winter when he received a reply from Qian; she said she would come to see him as soon as the village primary school went on winter vacation. It was a simple letter with spare sentences, written in neat characters amounting to just over half a page. There was nothing in the letter about coming to live with him, but she had finally decided to come, so he presumed that she had considered his proposal. Seeing some hope, he went on to turn it into concrete plans.

  The late crop of rice had been harvested, dried, threshed, and stored in the production team granary, and the paddy fields had been drained and sown with grass seeds for green fertilizer so that in spring it could be ploughed into the soil to nourish the rice seedlings. Work in the paddy fields had finished for the year, and the peasants were attending to their own affairs, going into the mountains to chop wood and mending their pig enclosures. If earthen walls were put up or houses built, usually it meant there was a marriage or brothers were establishing separate households. He, too, needed to get some things done to prepare for Qian's arrival. He had to wait until after summer for the mud walls to dry right through before he could whitewash them, so, apart from filling in any gaps around the door, windows, and rafters, there was nothing else he could do. When Qian came, she, of course, would sleep in the same bed with him, and to the villagers that would mean they were married. He would have to spread the news in advance, so that the villagers would know that he was going to get married. It would be simple if Qian agreed. They would only need to go to the commune office for a marriage certificate, and there was no need for a banquet, as was the custom in the village. In any case, old customs had all been abolished. The only problem was that Qian's letter did not actually say if she was coming to get married.

  The bus station was at the edge of the village, two buildings on the site of the old monastery that had burned down some years ago, and every day a bus came from the county town and immediately went back. He could not remember very clearly what Qian looked like, but, when the bus pulled in, he instantly recognized her, because unlike the locals getting off, she was carrying a travel bag. She had her hair in two short plaits, and her face was tanned. It seemed as if she had put on weight, but it could have been that she was wearing a lot, because it was winter. He went up, took the bag from her, and asked, "Did everything go well on the trip?"

  Qian said that from such-and-such a place to such-and-such a place, she had to change long-distance buses, then get on a train, then change trains, before getting the long-distance bus here. Luckily, Rong had bought her a bus ticket and was waiting for her at the bus station, so she was able to get on the bus from the county town right away. Qian heaved a sigh as she said, "This is my fourth day on the road!"

  Qian was nonetheless in good spirits and appeared relaxed. On the embankment between the paddy fields into the village, she walked leaning close to him, as if they had been sweethearts for many years, as if she were his wife. The young woman would soon be living with him, be his wife, they would rely on one another for life, were any other explanations needed?

  Qian sat on the straw mattress on the plank bed, the most comfortable place in the house. He sat facing her on the only chair in the house, and said, "Take off your shoes, if you're tired you can prop yourself up on the bedding and have a rest."

  He made Qian a cup of new-season green tea, the best local produce in this mountain village.

  Qian looked at the lumpy walls and the roof tiles without a ceiling. He said he would whitewash the walls after summer and he could buy some timber for a ceiling, he could also get a carpenter to make some furniture, and she could arrange it however she liked. Qian said her cave dwelling also had earthen walls, but it was very dry. Her village was much poorer than this village, it was an expanse of brown loess with scarcely a tree. That season, even corn stalks were chopped up and burnt for firewood, there was not a patch of green anywhere. The primary school she was at was not too bad and there were three teachers altogether; the other two were locals. Village cadres of the production brigade administered the school, and it wasn't easy getting a position in such a school in a big village with over two hundred families. However, the school was one hundred and fifty kilometers from the county town, and buses didn't go there. To get to the county town, she had to get one of the peasants to give her a lift in a mule cart. He said the primary school in town was starting classes again, and he could speak to the commune and county cadres about getting her relocated. Qian was agreeable, she had no illusions and was very practical.

  They went to an old teahouse, the only all-day restaurant in the county town, and ordered two sautéed dishes. During the big market festivals on the first and fifteenth day of every month, there was a rowdy din upstairs and downstairs, as peasants from the four villages filled the ten or so square tables to rest their feet, drink tea, and eat. However, usually-and on this particular afternoon-the place was empty. There were only the two of them, and they walked across the creaking floor upstairs to look down from the window onto the small narrow street paved with black cobblestones. The upstairs windows faced the windows on the opposite side, and downstairs there were shops. There was a meat shop, a bean curd shop, and a haberdashery shop; a general store that sold rope, lime, enamel ware, oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar; and an oil-and-grain store that also served as a factory for pressing oil and milling rice. There was a wood, bamboo, and metal cooperative that also sold bath soap, buckets, and hoes. And there was a traditional medicine shop that also sold Western medicines. The commune block was located here, too, and had a veterinary clinic, health clinic, savings bank, and a police station with one policeman in charge of the surrounding villages of the commune. Daily necessities were available in the commune block, as well as the most basic level of political authority, which issued marriage certificates stamped with the portrait of the Great Leader.

  After eating, they walked the length of the little street in two minutes. He asked Qian if she wanted to buy anything, but she didn't say either yes or no. Anyway, he took her back to the haberdashery shop and bought her a round mirror with a nickel-plated wire stand. He also bought a double-bed sheet that required cotton fabric coupons, and a pair of nylon-and-cotton blend pillowcases that were expensive but did not require coupons. Qian didn't object and helped him to choose these. The few sheets in the shop had big red flowers on them, and the pillowcases all had the word for wedded bliss, "double happiness," embroidered on them; these items were bought by the villagers only for trousseaus, and there was nothing else to choose from. Qian let him buy these without objecting.

  When they got back to his mud hut in the village, he closed the back window. There was a pond outside, with duckweed floating on it. Alongside the pond were smooth flagstones, where, morning and night, the village women did their washing, pounding it with wooden rods. In the summer the men also washed their feet and scrubbed down here. It was early winter, and there was no croaking of frogs to be heard.

  Qian said she was tired, so he made up the bed with the sheet he had just bought, and Qian helped him. He also took out the pair of "double-happiness" pillowcases. He only had one pillow, so he stuffed a woolen pullover into the other one. Qian took some clothes from her bag and also stuffed them in.

  Qian lay down first, while he sat on the bed and took her hand. Qian suggested putting out the light.

  He remembered only her body. Everything else was unfamiliar, she was a woman about whom he knew nothing. There were only those few letters, in which she had either appealed to him for help or expressed her grief. The two of them were alike in having been exiled to some remote place, and, sharing the same hardships, sympathized with one another. Did he love her? He thought he did, but what about Qian? He had no way of knowing, but she had traveled thousands of kilometers to see him.
Surely she had come to find someone to rely on? She gave herself to him, let him do what he wanted to her, but without any excitement or resistance, and without saying anything. Then she fell asleep, or, at least, he thought she had fallen asleep. He had a woman, a real woman who belonged to him, a wife he could establish a shared life with. Later on, they would come to have a shared language and rely on one another. In any case, he could never marry a village girl. In the village, the women bared their breasts to nurse their babies in the summer, and when they had rest breaks, they would start fights with the young men. He couldn't stand all the crude sexuality, coarse language, and total irreverence. He had, of course, learned to engage in verbal banter with the village women, but he always kept his distance. He didn't get embroiled in fighting with the women like the local village men did. The men would brawl so that they could enjoy themselves fondling the women, but when several women charged at a man and groped in his trousers, there would be noisy swearing and laughing as he sneaked away holding his trousers up. In the village, the farm work was never ending, year in and year out, and there was nothing else to do for fun. This was one of their few joys. The married women said to him, "Hey, why don't you like our local girls? The city girls aren't as juicy as our girls are here. Take a look at Maomei's skin, she's a peach that will ooze with a poke! And, what's more, she's good at any farm work. She's not clumsy like you, and she will save you all the hassle of finding yourself a sexy girl!" This talk had Maomei pouting, and she grabbed someone by the shirt and hid behind the person. He certainly liked this sexy girl, but, having seen these village women in action, he knew what she would be like later on. This was not the life he wanted.

  Early in the morning, when Qian opened her eyes, the color had returned to her face and she was smiling. And he was definitely very happy. Qian was not beautiful, but she was cute. She snuggled against him, saw him looking at her, and closed her eyes again. He took her breasts in his hands and began fondling them. Qian was yielding and let his fingers wander over her body, her bent legs parted. He wanted her again but stopped himself. He shouldn't be in such a hurry to satisfy his lust, they were going to live together and there was plenty of time. He kissed her, and Qian's soft parted lips responded, so did her tongue. For the first time, he felt she was trying to make him happy. He thought Qian loved him, and had not simply come to him because of her own predicament.

  "Should we go and register?" he asked Qian.

  Qian's soft body snuggled right into his arms, and he was deeply moved when she nodded.

  "Get up! We're going to the commune right now!"

  He wanted to have a home with her, to establish their love as husband and wife. He wanted to show that he loved her by immediately registering their marriage, then thinking of how to get her transferred. They would settle down in peace and security in this mountain village, not worry about what was happening elsewhere, and simply live out their own insignificant lives.

  Qian had brought with her a certificate issued by her commune, stating that she was not married, so, before coming, she must have given the matter some thought. The cadres at the commune all knew him, and he did not need to produce any documents. The two of them signed their names on the form, filled in their dates of birth, had it stamped by the secretary, and paid for the cost of the sheet of paper. This procedure took one minute.

  Passing a meat stall with half a carcass hanging on a metal hook, he bought a whole leg of pork. Meat coupons were not needed in the village, production was good, and normally no one would starve to death. However, during the years of the Great Leap Forward, because of a single command from the Party, even grain rations were handed over to the commune and there were cases of whole villages starving to death. The villagers had learned from that experience. Every household had a vegetable garden where they grew sesame or rape, so that the seeds could be pressed for oil, and every household kept pigs, so that the villagers were able to eat the meat they themselves had salted. They lacked only money. He said later on they could also raise pigs. Qian glared at him, not understanding his joke.

  Their first day as newlyweds was very happy. He lit the charcoal stove and, when the hot charcoals had stopped smoking, took it inside the house and put a big pot of pork on to stew. Qian started to sing softly, it was an old song from before the Cultural Revolution. He urged Qian to sing it loudly, and he sang along with her. Qian sang well, and her voice resonated. This was a discovery for him. Qian laughed and said, "I've had training, I'm a soprano."

  "Really?" He got quite excited.

  "What's so special about that?" Qian spoke without enthusiasm, but her voice was sweet and lovely.

  "It's very important. We will be able to get through the days with you singing like this!"

  This was something they had in common. He said, "Sing something for me!"

  "What do you want to hear? You choose." Qian was pleased, and, with her head tilted to one side, she looked very beautiful.

  "How about singing the Italian folk song 'Come Back to Sorrento '!"

  "That's for a tenor."

  "Sing 'The Drinking Song' from La Traviata!"

  "It would be bad if people heard the words," Qian was hesitant.

  "It won't matter in this village. Who would understand? You could sing it without the words," he said.

  Qian stood up, took a deep breath, but then stopped and said, "It would be best for me not to sing foreign songs."

  For a while he couldn't think of what was all right for her to sing.

  "I'll sing 'Thirty Li Inn,' that old folk song!" Qian said.

  As the sound of her singing spread, Qian's eyes shone. Outside the window a crowd of children appeared, and, afterward, a few women. The singing stopped and there was an exclamation outside the window, "What wonderful singing!"

  Maomei had said this; she was there among them. The women started chattering.

  "Where does the bride come from?"

  "She'll be staying for a while, won't she?"

  "She should just stay!"

  "Where was she born?"

  He opened the door and, inviting everyone inside, introduced her, "This is my wife!"

  However, they all stayed crowded outside the door, and wouldn't come in. He took out a big bag of hard fruit-candies that he had bought in town and handed them out, saying, "Everything's been revolutionized. Marriage is now done in a new way, I'm married!"

  At this point, he took Qian to visit in turn the homes of the Party secretary, then the head and the accountant of the production team. They were followed all the way by a troupe of children with sweets in their mouths. One woman said, "Quick, go and catch an old hen for them!"

  People wanted to give them eggs, and a few old folks said, "If you want vegetables, come and get some from my garden!"

  "It all sounds great, but when you offer to pay, they say no, no. After they refuse and you offer several times, they then accept. I can't owe them anything for their friendship, but I do have their friendship, I'm not an outsider here!" he said to Qian, feeling quite pleased. He added, "With your wonderful voice, all the schools in the village will want you. When you come here, you won't need to stand soaking in the mud of the paddy fields in rain or scorching sun all year long. And, of course, you will sing your songs for me."

  With such a life they should be happy and contented. That night was sheer pleasure for him. Qian was not as passionate, as engaging, as lustful, or as beautiful as Lin, but he was embracing his own lawful wife. Indulging in this basic human pleasure, he no longer needed to be anxious or worried that the walls had ears, or be afraid of being spied on through the window. Listening to the sound of the wind and rain on the roof, he thought, in the morning when the rain stopped, he would take Qian into the mountains for an outing.

  43

  "You're just using me, this isn't love." Qian lay on the bed, expressionless, but she had said this quite clearly.

  He was sitting at his desk by the window and put down his pen to turn to her. For years, he h
ad written nothing, apart from copying Mao's Sayings for the investigation, but that was before he had fled the cadre school. They had spent most of the day walking in the mountains, but on the way back got completely soaked when it started raining. The charcoal fire was burning, and steam was coming from their wet clothes that were drying on a bamboo basket.

  He got up and went over to sit on the edge of the bed. Qian was lying under the bedcovers, her eyes staring.

  "What are you saying?" he said without touching her.

  "You've killed me," Qian said. She remained lying on her back, not looking at him.

  What she said hurt him. He didn't know how to respond and just sat there.

  In the gully by the mountain, Qian was fine, she was in good spirits and started singing. They went up the slope to where the bushes were withered and no one was in sight, so he got Qian to sing as loudly as she wanted. Her clear voice swept through the gully and faint echoes were borne on the wind. The lower part of the slope was a tangled growth of grass and shrubs, and the clumps of rice stalks in the terraced paddies, still to be plowed in after harvest, made it look even more desolate. In spring, the slope would be covered in bright red azaleas, and the flowering rape in the fields would have turned into an expanse of golden yellow. But he preferred this early autumn scene of decay and desolation.

  On the way back, it had started raining. By a creek, she picked some daisies that were still flowering and some dark-red branches of little-leaf box, and these were now in a bamboo penholder on the desk.

  Qian was weeping wretchedly, but he couldn't work out why. When he tried to put his arms around her, she resolutely pushed him away.