Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

  “This is the ox I want.”

  “So you’re the independent farmer,” the surprised ox trader said to Lan Lian. “Brother, you’re something special” He studied Father’s face, then mine. “Lan Lian, blue face. He really does have a blue face,” he blurted out. “It’s a deal. A hundred yuan. The young ox is yours!” He bent down, picked the money up off the ground, counted it, and stuffed it in his pocket. “Since you’re from the same village,” he said to Hong Taiyue, “you can benefit from your association with this blue-faced brother. I’ll sell you this female for three hundred eighty, a discount of twenty yuan.”

  Father untied the rope around his waist and put it around the ox’s neck. Hong Taiyue and his entourage put a new halter on the female and returned the old one to the trader. Livestock deals never include the halters.

  “Better come with us, Lan Lian,” Hong Taiyue said to Father. “I doubt you’ll be able to drag your young ox away from its mother.”

  Father shook his head and walked off, the young ox obediently falling in behind him. There was no struggle, even though the mother ox bellowed her grief, and even though her son did look back and call out to her. At the time I thought he’d probably reached the age where he didn’t need her as much as he once had. Now I realize that you, Ximen Ox, were Ximen Donkey, and before that, a man, one whose fate was still tied to my father. That’s why there was instant recognition between them and notable emotion, and why separation was not an option.

  I was about to walk off with Father when the trader’s boy ran up and said furtively:

  “You should know that that female is a ‘hot turtle.’”

  “Hot turtles” were what we called animals that slobbered and began panting as soon as they started working in the summer. I didn’t know what the term meant at the time, but I could tell from the way the boy said it that a “hot turtle” was not a good ox. To this day I don’t know why he thought it was important that I know that, nor do I know what it was about him that made me feel I knew him somehow.

  Father said nothing on the road home. I felt like saying something a few times, but one glance at his face, caught up in his own mysterious thoughts, and I decided not to intrude. No matter how you look at it, buying that ox, one I liked at first sight, was a good thing. It made Father happy, it made me happy too.

  Father stopped on the outskirts of the village to smoke his pipe and get a good look at you. Without warning, he burst out laughing.

  Father did not laugh often, and I’d never heard him laugh like that. It kind of scared me. Hoping he wasn’t suddenly possessed, I asked him:

  “What are you laughing at, Father?”

  “Jiefang,” he said, staring not at me, but at the ox’s eyes, “look at this animal’s eyes. Who do they remind you of?”

  That was not what I expected to hear, and I assumed that something was wrong with him. But I did as I was told. The young ox’s moist, limpid eyes were blue-black and so clear I could see my reflection in them. He seemed to be looking at me as he chewed his cud; his pale blue mouth moved slowly as he chewed, then swallowed a clump of grass that skittered all the way down to his other stomach like a mouse. A new clump then rose to take its place.

  “What do you mean, Dad?”

  “You can’t see it?” he said. “His eyes are an exact replica of our donkey’s eyes.”

  With Father’s help, I tried conjuring up a picture of our donkey, but all I could manage were the sheen of his coat, his mouth, which was normally open in front of big white teeth, and the way he stretched out his neck when he brayed. But try as I might, I couldn’t recall what his eyes looked like.

  Instead of pushing me to try harder, Father told me some tales involving the wheel of transmigration. He told me about a man who dreamed that his deceased father said to him, Son, I’m coming back as an ox. I’ll be reborn tomorrow. The next day, as promised, the family ox delivered a male calf. Well, the man took special care of that young ox, his “father.” He didn’t put a nose ring or halter on him. “Let’s go, Father,” he’d say when they went out into the field. After working hard, he’d say, “Time to rest, Father.” So the ox rested. At that point in his tale, Father stopped, to my chagrin. So what happened? After hesitating for a moment, Father said, I’m not sure this is the sort of thing I should be telling a child, but I’ll go ahead. That ox did a pecker pull — later on I learned that “pecker pull” meant masturbation — and was seen by the woman of the house. “Father,” she said, “How could you do something like that? You should be ashamed of yourself.” The ox turned and rammed its head into the wall and died on the spot. Ahhh — Father released a long sigh.

  13

  A Stream of Guests Urge Participation

  in the Commune

  Independent Farming Gains a

  Distinguished Advocate

  “Qiansui, I can’t let you keep calling me ‘Grandpa.’” Timidly, I patted him on the shoulder. “Just because I’m in my fifties and you’re a five-year-old boy, if we go back forty years, that is, the year 1965, during that turbulent spring, our relationship was one of a fifteen-year-old youth and a young ox.” He nodded solemnly. “It’s as if it was yesterday.” I gazed into the ox’s eyes and saw a look of mischief, of naivete, and of unruliness. . . .

  I’m sure you remember the intense pressure our family was under that spring. Eliminating the last remaining independent farmer was one of the most important tasks confronting the Ximen Village Production Brigade as well as the Milky Way People’s Commune. Hong Taiyue enlisted the help of villagers who enjoyed high prestige and commanded universal respect — Great Uncle Mao Shunshan, Old Uncle Qu Shuiyuan, and Fourth Elder Qin Buting; persuasive women — Aunty Yang Guixiang, Third Sister-in-Law Su Erman, Sister Chang Suhua, and Great Aunt Wu Qiuxiang; and clever, glib students — Mo Yan, Li Jinzhu, and Niu Shunwa. These ten people were the only ones I could recall; there were, in fact, many more, and they all made it to our door, like eager matchmakers or people wanting to display their wisdom and eloquence. The men surrounded my father, the women my mother; the students went after my brother and my sister, but did not spare me either. Smoke from the men’s pipes nearly suffocated the geckoes on our walls; the women’s hindquarters wore out the mats on our sleeping platform, the kang, and the students tore our clothes in the chase. Join the commune, please join the commune, wake up, don’t be foolish. If not for yourselves, do it for your children. I think that during those days just about everything your ox eyes saw and your ox ears heard had to do with joining the commune. When my father was cleaning out your pen, those old-timers barricaded the gate like a troop of loyal soldiers and said:

  “Old Lan, good nephew, join up. If you don’t, your family will be unhappy, and so will your animals.”

  Unhappy? I was anything but. How could they know that I was in reality Ximen Nao, that I was Ximen Donkey, an executed landlord, a dismembered donkey, so why would I want to throw in my lot with my personal enemies? Why was I so reluctant to be away from your father? Because I knew that was the only way I could be engaged in independent farming.

  Women sat cross-legged on our sleeping platform like nosy relatives from some distant village. With slobber building up in the corners of their mouths, they were like the tape recorders in roadside shops that play the same damned stuff over and over. Finally, my anger won out:

  “Big-tits Yang and Fat-ass Su, get the hell out of our house. You make me sick!”

  Angry? Not a bit. With silly grins, they said:

  “Join the commune and we’ll be on our way. Refuse, and our rear ends will take root here on your kang. Our bodies will sprout, grow leaves, and flower; we’ll become trees and knock the roof right off your house!”

  Of all the women, the one I hated most was Wu Qiuxiang. Maybe because she had once shared a man with my mother, she treated her with special enmity:

  “Yingchun, there’s a difference between you and me. I was a maidservant who was raped by Ximen Nao, but you were his precious concubine w
ho gave him two children. Not labeling you a member of the landlord class and sending you out to be reformed through labor is better than you deserve. That’s my doing, since you treated me decently. I had to beg Huang Tong to let you off the hook! But you must keep in mind the difference between dying embers and a blazing fire.”

  The school ruffians, with Mo Yan leading the way, loved to hear themselves talk and had an overabundance of energy, so with village support and encouragement from school, they took full advantage of this opportunity to raise hell. They were as excited as drunken monkeys, and just as sprightly. Some climbed our tree, some jumped up onto the wall and shouted through megaphones, as if our house was a counterrevolutionary bastion and they were signaling the charge.

  Stubborn old Lan Lian is not our friend; independent farming is a true dead end. A single mouse dropping ruins a vat of vinegar. Jinlong, Baofeng, Lan Jiefang, put your hands over your hearts and think hard. Stay with your dad and you’re as good as dead; you’ll keep falling behind and can’t get ahead. Mo Yan made up all those limericks; it was a talent he’d had since early childhood. Oh, was I angry! I hated that damned Mo Yan! He was my mother’s “dry” son, my “dry” brother. Every New Year’s Eve Mother had me take a bowl of dumplings to you! “Dry” son! “Dry” brother! Shit! The word family means nothing to you. So I decided to fight fire with fire. I hid in the corner, took out my slingshot, and fired a pellet at the shiny head of Mo Yan, who was sitting in the crotch of the tree in the yard shouting through his tin megaphone. With a loud shriek, Mo Yan fell out of the tree. But damned if he wasn’t back up there in the time it takes to smoke a pipe, a blood blister on his forehead. He recommenced the shouting:

  Lan Jiefang, you little toad, follow your dad down a crooked road.

  If you dare come after me again, I’ll haul you down to the station house! I raised my slingshot and took aim at his head again. This time he threw down his megaphone and shinnied down the tree.

  Jinlong and Baofeng had no stomach for it. They tried to talk Father around.

  “Why don’t we go ahead and join, Dad?” Jinlong said. “They treat us like dirt at school.”

  “When we’re out walking,” Baofeng said, “people behind us yell, Look there, it’s the independent farmer’s kids.”

  “Dad,” Jinlong continued, “I see the production brigade people out working, and they’re always laughing and having a good time, like they’re real happy. Then look at you and Mom, how much alone you are. What good are a few hundred extra catties of grain, anyway? Rich or poor, everyone shares equally.”

  Dad said nothing, but Mom, who normally went along with whatever Dad said, took the bold step of making her opinion known:

  “The children are making sense,” she said. “Maybe we ought to join.”

  Dad was smoking his pipe. He looked up and said, “I might consider it if they weren’t applying so much pressure. But the way they’re stewing me like I was a bird of prey, I’m not going to give them the satisfaction.” He looked at Jinlong and Baofeng. “You two will soon be graduating from middle school, and under ordinary circumstances, I should be paying your way to high school and college, and then study abroad. But I don’t have the money. The little bit I put aside over the years, well, they stole it all. And even if I found the means to pay your way, they wouldn’t let you go, and not just because I’m an independent farmer. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Jinlong nodded.

  “We understand, Dad. We never spent a day as landlord brats, and we can’t tell you if Ximen Nao was black or white, but his blood runs through our veins and he hovers over us like a demonic shadow. We are youth born in the era of Mao Zedong, and though we had no choice in who we were born as, we do have a choice in which path to take. We don’t want to be independent farmers with you, we want to join the commune. Whether you and Mom join or not, Baofeng and I are going to.”

  “Thank you, Dad, for seventeen years of nurturing,” Baofeng said with a bow. “Please forgive us for our disobedience. With a biological father like that, if we don’t pursue progressive trends, we’ll never make anything of ourselves.”

  “Well spoken, both of you,” Dad said. “I’ve been thinking hard about this lately, and I know I can’t have you following me down the dark path. You—” He pointed to us all. “You join the commune. I’ll farm on my own. I vowed to stick to independent farming, and I can’t turn around and slap my own face now.”

  “If any of us join,” Mom said, with tears in her eyes, “then let’s do it as a family. What’s the point in working alone?”

  “I’ve said it before. The only way I’ll join the commune is if Mao Zedong orders me to. But here’s what he said: ‘Joining a commune is voluntary, leaving a commune is a matter of individual choice.’ What right do they have to bully me into joining? Do our local officials have more say than Mao Zedong? I refuse to give in to them. I’m going to test the credibility of Mao Zedong’s own words by my actions.”

  “Dad,” Jinlong said, a trace of sarcasm slipping into his voice, “please don’t keep referring to him as Mao Zedong. That’s not a name we should use. To us he’s Chairman Mao!”

  “You’re right,” Dad said. “I should refer to him as Chairman Mao. As an independent farmer, I am still one of Chairman Mao’s subjects. This land and this house were given to us by the Communist Party, led by Chairman Mao. A couple of days ago, Hong Taiyue sent someone to tell me that if I didn’t join the commune, they’d have to resort to force. If a cow won’t drink, do you force its head into the water? No. I’ll appeal. I’ll take my case to the county, to the province, even to Beijing, if necessary.” He turned to Mother. “After I leave, you and the children join the commune. We have eight acres of land and five people. One point six acres per person. You take six point four acres with you and leave the rest for me. We have a plow that we were given during land reform. You take that with you. But the young ox stays. There’s no way we can divide up this three-room house. The children are grown, and this place is too small for them. After you join the commune, ask the production brigade for a plot of land to build a house. When it’s ready, you can move in and I’ll stay here. As long as the place is standing, this is where you’ll find me. If it collapses one day, I’ll throw up a tent, but I won’t go anywhere.”

  “Why do you have to do this, Dad?” Jinlong said. “By going against the tide of socialism, aren’t you just looking in a mirror to see how ugly you are? I may be young, but I have the feeling there’s a class war coming. For people like us, with no red roots to fall back on, going with the tide may be the only way to avoid disaster. Going against the tide is like throwing an egg at a rock!”

  “That’s why I want you to join the commune. I’m a hired hand, what do I have to be afraid of? I’m forty years old, a man who never did much of anything. So what happens? I make a name for myself by being an independent farmer. Ha ha, ha ha ha ha.” He laughed so hard, tears ran down his blue face. He turned to Mother. “Put some dry rations together for me,” he said. “I’m going to appeal my case.”

  By this time, Mother was crying. “I’ve stayed with you all these years,” she said. “I can’t leave you now. Let the children join the commune. I’ll stay and work with you.”

  “No,” he said. “With your bad background, joining the commune is your only protection. If you stay with me, they have all the reason they’ll need to dredge up your background, and that’ll just mean more trouble for me.”

  “Dad,” I blurted out, “I want to farm with you!” “Nonsense! You’re a child, what do you know?” “I know, I know a lot. I hate Hong Taiyue, Huang Tong, and that bunch as much as you do. And Wu Qiuxiang disgusts me. Who does she think she is, with her bitchy dog’s eyes and a mouth that looks like an asshole? What gives her the right to come to our house and pretend she’s some kind of progressive?” Mother glared at me. “What kind of talk is that from a child?” “I’m going to farm with you, Dad,” I said. “When you take out the fertilizer, I’ll driv
e the oxcart. With its wooden wheels, it lets everyone know it’s coming — creak creak — I love the sound. We’ll be independents, individual heroes. I envy you, Dad, and I’m going to stay with you. I don’t need to go to school. I never was much of a student. As soon as class starts, I doze off. Dad, half your face is blue, and I’m half a blue face. Two blue faces, how can you separate that? People laugh at me because of my birthmark. Well, let them laugh, they can laugh themselves to death, for all I care. Two blue-faced independent farmers, the only ones in the county, the only ones in the province. That makes me proud. Dad, you have to say okay!”

  He did. I wanted to go with him to appeal his case, but he told me to stay home and take care of the young ox. Mother took some pieces of jewelry out of a hole in the wall and gave them to me. Obviously, there were gaps in the land reform campaign, and she had managed to hold on to some valuables. Dad sold the jewelry for traveling money, then he went to see County Chief Chen, the man who had indirectly destroyed our donkey, and asked for the right to remain an independent farmer. Father argued his case forcefully. In terms of policy, Chen said, you’re free to farm independently. But I hope you choose not to. County Chief, Dad said, in the name of that black donkey of ours, I’d like you to issue me a guarantee that gives me the authority to farm on my own. Once I post that on my wall, no one will dare attack me. Ah, that black donkey... a good animal, the chief remarked emotionally. I owe you for what happened. I can’t give you the kind of pass you want, but I can give you a letter that explains your situation to the Farming Village Labor Bureau of the Provincial Party Committee. So Dad took the letter to the provincial capital, where he was received by the Labor Bureau head, who also tried to convince him to join the commune. Father refused. If Chairman Mao issues an order outlawing independent farming, I’ll join. If not, I won’t. Moved by Father’s intransigence, the Labor Bureau head wrote two lines at the bottom of the county chief’s letter: While it is our wish that all farmers join the People’s Communes and walk the path of collectivization, anyone who refuses to join is within his right to do so. Low-level organizations may not use coercive measures, especially illegal means, to force anyone to join a commune.