Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

  Another accomplishment of the Great Cultural Revolution! Big-head Lan Qiansui said coldly. His fingers were bleeding profusely. I handed him the medicine I’d prepared beforehand. He rubbed it on his fingers, stopping the bleeding at once.

  — Her face reddened and her chest swelled, and I knew exactly what that was all about. While she may not have been secretly in love with Ma Liangcai, seeing him cozy up to my sister upset her. I’m not going to worry about you now, I said. I’ll take care of you later, you tramp. Falling for my brother — No, he’s no longer my brother, hasn’t been for a long time, he’s just Ximen Nao’s bad seed. So’s your sister, she said. That stopped me. My throat felt like it was clogged by a hot sticky pastry. They’re different, I said finally. She’s decent and gentle, good-hearted, red-blooded, humane. She’s my sister. — She has almost no humanity left. She smells like a dog. She’s the bastard offspring of Ximen Nao and a mongrel bitch, and you can smell it on her every time it rains, Huzhu said, clenching her teeth. I turned my spear around. During the revolutionary period, the people had the power to execute individuals. The Jia Mountain People’s Commune passed the execution authority down to the village level, and Mawan Village had killed thirty-three people in a single day, the oldest eighty-eight, the youngest thirteen. Some were clubbed to death, and some were sliced in half with hay cutters. I aimed my spear at her chest. She threw out her chest to meet the tip. Go ahead, kill me if you’ve got the guts! I’ve lived long enough already. Tears sprang from her lovely eyes. Something strange there, something I couldn’t figure out. Huzhu and I had grown up together. We’d played together on the riverbank, naked as the day we were born, and she developed such a special interest in my little pecker that she ran home in tears, telling her mother, Wu Qiuxiang, that she wanted one. How come Jiefang has one and I don’t? Wu Qiuxiang stood under the apricot tree and really chewed me out: Jiefang, you little thug, if you take ever advantage of Huzhu again, I’ll cut your pecker off when you’re not looking. It seemed like only yesterday, but now, suddenly, Huzhu had become as enigmatic as a river turtle. I turned and ran. A woman’s tears always rattle me. As soon as a woman starts to cry, I get nose-aching sad. I get lightheaded. I’ve suffered over that sign of weakness my whole life. Ximen Jinlong dumped red paint in my dad’s eyes, I shouted back, and I have to find my sister to save his eyesight. . . Serves him right. Your family, dog eat dog . . . Her hateful comment chased me down. I guess you could say I’d broken free from Huzhu at that moment, though my growing hatred for her was tempered by the same amount of lingering fondness. I knew she had no feelings for me, but at least she’d told me where my sister was.

  The elementary school was located at the west end, near the village wall. It had a large yard encircled by a wall made of bricks from gravesites, which ensured that there would always be spirits of the dead hanging around, coming out at night to wander. A large grove of pine trees beyond the wall was home to owls whose chilling screeches struck fear into anyone who heard them. It was a miracle those trees hadn’t been cut down as fuel during the iron- and steel-smelting campaign, something that can be attributed to a single old cypress tree that actually bled when they tried to chop it down. Who’d ever seen blood from a tree before? It was like Huzhu’s hair, which bled if it was cut. By all appearances, the only things that were preserved were the unusual ones.

  I found my sister in the school office. There was no romanticizing with Ma Liangcai; she was treating a wound on him. Someone had hit him, opening a gash in his head, and my sister was wrapping a bandage around it, leaving exposed only one eye so he could see where he was going, his nostrils so he could breathe, and his mouth so he could eat and drink. To me he resembled the Nationalist soldiers we’d seen in movies after they’d been beaten bloody by Communist forces. She looked like a nurse, but totally devoid of expression, as if carved out of cold, polished marble. All the windows had been smashed, and all the shards of broken glass had been scooped up by children who had taken them home to their mothers, mostly for use in peeling potatoes. People had put the larger pieces in papered-up window frames so they could see outside and get some sunlight. Late August evening winds blew in from the pine grove, carrying the smell of pine tar, blowing papers off the office desktop onto the floor. My sister took a little vial from her reddish brown leather medical satchel, poured out a few tablets, and wrapped them in a piece of paper she picked up off the floor. Two at a time, three times a day, she told him. After meals. He forced a smile. Don’t waste them, he said. There’s no before or after meals, I’m not going to eat. I’m going on a hunger strike as a show of resistance against the savagery of those Fascists. I come from three generations of poor peasants, red to our roots, so why did they beat me? My sister gave him a sympathetic look and said softly: Teacher Ma, don’t get upset, it’ll make your injury worse. . . . He thrust out his hands and grabbed hold of my sister’s hand. Baofeng, he said almost hysterically, Baofeng, I want you to like me, I want you to be mine. ... All these years, I think of you when I’m eating, when I’m sleeping, when I’m out walking, I don’t know what to do with myself, I’m in a daze. I don’t know how many times I’ve walked into a wall or a tree, and people assume I’m thinking about my studies, but I’m really thinking about you. ... I found all that lovesick claptrap emerging from a little hole in the bandages preposterous; his eyes were strangely bright, like wet lumps of coal. My sister struggled to free her hands; she drew her head back and shook it from side to side to get away from the hole in the bandages that was his mouth. Don’t fight me, he said, do it my way. . . . Ma Liangcai was beginning to rant. The guy was unscrupulous. Sister! I shouted as I kicked open the door and ran into the room armed with my spear. Ma Liangcai abruptly let go of my sister’s hands and stumbled backward, knocking over the basin stand and spilling water all over the brick floor. Kill! I shouted as I jammed my spear into the wall. Ma Liangcai lost his balance and sat down hard on the pulpy wet newspaper, obviously scared witless. I pulled the tip of the spear out of the wall and said to Lan Baofeng, Sister, Jinlong had people brush red paint into Dad’s eyes. When I left he was rolling on the floor in agony. Mother sent me to get you. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Gome with me and keep Dad from going blind. She picked up her medical satchel, cast a fleeting glance at Ma Liangcai shaking in a corner, and ran out with me, so fast I couldn’t keep up. Her satchel swung back and forth, banging noisily against her backside as she ran. The stars were out; in the western sky Venus shone brightly alongside a crescent moon.

  My dad was still rolling around in the yard, and no one could hold him down. He kept rubbing his eyes and crying out in pain, sending cold shivers down people’s spines. All my brother’s toadies had slipped away, leaving only him and his protectors, the four Sun brothers. My mother and Huang Tong were each holding one of my dad’s arms to try to keep him from rubbing his eyes. But he was too strong for them, and his arms kept slipping out of their grasp, like slippery catfish. My mother, gasping from exertion, kept cursing: Jinlong, you unconscionable beast, he may not be your biological father, but he raised you from childhood. How could you be so savage?

  My sister charged into the compound like a savior from the heavens. Lan Lian, Mother said, stop struggling, Baofeng’s here. Baofeng, help your father, don’t let him go blind. He may be stubborn, but he’s a good man, and he was especially good to you and your brother. . . . Night had not fallen completely, but the red throughout the compound and on Dad’s face had turned dark green. The smell of paint hung in the air. Bring me some water, and hurry! My sister was still out of breath. Mother ran into the house and came out with a dipper full of water. That’s not enough! I need lots of water, the more the better! She took the dipper, took aim at Dad’s face, and said: Close your eyes, Dad! Actually, they’d been closed all along, since he couldn’t open them. She splashed the dipper full of water into his face. Water! she screamed hoarsely. Water! Water! I was shocked to hear a sound like that from my gentle sister. Mother came out of the house
with a bucket of water, stumbling toward us. Astonishingly, Huang Tong’s wife, Wu Qiuxiang, a woman whose only fear was that things would go smoothly, who wished terrible afflictions on absolutely everyone, came out of her house also carrying a bucket of water. Darkness had fallen. From the shadows my sister cried out: Throw it all into his face! One dipper full of water after another splashed into Dad’s face, creating the sound of crashing waves. Bring me a lantern! she demanded. My mother ran into the house and came back with a small kerosene lantern, walking cautiously and shielding the flickering flame with her hand. A breeze blew by and put it out. Mother lost her footing and lay sprawled on the ground. The lantern must have sailed a long way away; I detected the smell of kerosene wafting from a distant corner of the wall. I heard Jinlong say to one of his toadies in a low voice: Go light the gas lamp.

  Outside of the sun, the brightest source of light in Ximen Village at the time was a gas lamp. Though only seventeen, Tiger Cub Sun was the village expert on that lamp. He could light it off in ten minutes, whereas it took others half an hour. They invariably broke the wicker filament; he never did. He’d stare at the filament, so white it hurt the eyes, and listen to the hiss of the gas, mesmerized. The compound was black as ink, but a light was beginning to glow inside the house, as if a fire were spreading. Surprised looks appeared on people’s faces as Tiger Cub Sun emerged from the Ximen Village Red Guard headquarters with a gas lamp on a pole, like bringing out the sun to invest the red wall and red tree with radiance, fiery, blindingly red. Every face in the crowd was immediately visible: Huang Huzhu, standing in the doorway of her house, fingering the tip of her braid like the spoiled daughter of a feudal family; Huang Hezuo, standing under the apricot tree, casting looks all over the place, her boyish haircut starting to grow out, bubbles oozing from between her teeth; Wu Qiuxiang running around, as if there were so many things she wanted to say, but no one to talk to; Ximen Jinlong, hands on his hips in the middle of the yard, a somber look in his eyes, his brows furrowed as if he were pondering weighty questions; three of the Sun brothers fanned out around Ximen Jinlong like a pack of running dogs; and finally, Huang Tong, who was busy splashing water into my dad’s face. The water: some of it splashed back into the radiant light and some of it dripped down my father’s face; by then he was sitting up, hands on his stretched-out legs, his face raised to receive the water bath. He was calm: no more violent thrashing, no more cries of anguish; most likely my sister’s arrival had eased his mind. My mother was crawling on the ground and mumbling, My lantern, where’s my lantern? Covered in mud, she looked terrible, especially in the glaring light of the gas lamp, which showed her hair to be silvery white. She looked much older than her age of not quite fifty, and my heart ached for her. It appeared as if the paint on Dad’s face had thinned out a bit, but it was still bright red, and beads of water rolled off it like raindrops from a lotus leaf. Gawkers had gathered outside the compound, until the gateway was black with people. My sister stood there as calmly as a battlefield general. Bring the lamp over, she said. Tiger Cub Sun carried it up, taking very small steps. The second Sun brother — Tiger — came flying out of the headquarters with a bench, probably acting on orders from my brother, and set it down a couple of yards from my dad so his brother would have something to set the lantern on. My sister opened her satchel and removed some cotton and a pair of tweezers. Picking up a piece of cotton with the tweezers, she soaked it in water and cleaned the area around Dad’s eyes; after that, she cleaned his eyelids. She worked with great care and speed. When that was done, she filled a syringe with water and told my dad to open his eyes. He couldn’t do it. Who’ll come over and pry his eyes open? my sister asked. Mother crawled up, bringing all that mud with her. Jiefang, my sister said, come pry Dad’s eyes open. I shrank back. Dad’s red face was terrifying to me. Hurry up! she said. So I stuck my spear in the ground and went up to her, tiptoeing like a chicken in the snow. I looked at her, looked at the syringe in her hand, and tried to pry one of Dad’s eyes open. His agonizing shriek cut into me like a knife, and I jumped way back from sheer fright. What is it with you? my sister asked angrily. It’s okay with you if your dad goes blind, is that it? Huang Huzhu, who had been standing in her doorway, walked nimbly up to us. She was wearing a red-checked coat over a gaily patterned blouse, with both collars turned up. Her braid rolled back and forth along her spine. I can still see it after all these years. The distance from her doorway to our ox shed was about thirty paces. In the bright light of the gas lamp, those thirty paces were a wonderful show of their own, projecting shadows of a beautiful woman. All eyes were on her, but none more intensely than mine. After all the terrible things she had said about my sister, here she was, boldly walking up to be her assistant. I’ll do it! she said in a loud voice that arrived on the air like a robin redbreast. The mud didn’t deter her; so what if her pretty white-soled shoes were badly soiled? Everyone knew what a clever, deft young woman she was. The insoles my sister embroidered were lovely, but not as lovely as Huzhu’s. When the apricot tree was in bloom, she’d stand under it, eyes on the flowers, fingers flying as she transferred the flowers to the insole, making them more beautiful and fragile than those on the tree. She kept those insoles in little piles under her pillow, and I wondered who she was going to give them to. Braying Jackass? Ma Liangcai? Jinlong? How about me?

  Her eyes shone in the extraordinary glare of the gas lamp, as did her teeth. She was, undeniably, a beauty, with a nicely rounded bottom and pert bosom, and I, in my single-minded dedication to follow my dad in independent farming, had completely overlooked the beauty right beside me. In that brief moment, the time it took to walk from her doorway to our ox shed, I fell hopelessly in love with her. She bent over, extended her long delicate fingers, and pried open one of my dad’s eyes. He cried out in agony, but I heard a little popping sound when the eyelid was unstuck, like bubbles released by fish from the bottom. The eye socket looked like an open wound from which bloody fluids flowed. My sister took aim with her syringe and squirted a slow silvery stream of water, controlling the force so the irrigation would be effective without damaging the eye. Once in the eye, the water turned to blood and then streamed down his face. Dad groaned in agony With the same degree of accuracy and the same speed, my sister and Huzhu, mortal enemies who had reached a silent agreement to work together, irrigated my dad’s other eye. They then washed them clean — left, right, left, right — over and over. Finally, my sister put eye drops in both eyes and covered them with a bandage. Jiefang, she said, take Dad in the house. I ran over and lifted him up by his armpits. Getting him to stand was like pulling a turnip out of muddy ground.