When the narrow gate opened, the crowd immediately tried to squeeze through. Parrot Han, cage in hand, stood beside the ticket-taker. “You see, aunty,” he said. “How can anyone dispute the poor quality of the Chinese? All they know how to do is push and shove, even when that actually slows things down.” “The only thing your Northeast Gaomi Township can produce is bandits and highwaymen, a bunch of savages,” she said. “I wouldn’t advise you to try to catch all the fish in the river with one net, aunty. There are some good people there. Take, for instance —” He stopped in midsentence as he saw Shangguan Jintong walking bashfully toward him from the end of the line.
“If I’m not mistaken,” he said, “you’re my little uncle.”
Timidly, Jintong replied, “I … I recognized you too.”
Parrot Han grabbed Jintong’s hand and shook it eagerly. “You’re back, Little Uncle,” he said, “finally. Grandma has almost cried herself blind thinking about you.”
The bus was by then so packed that some people were actually hanging out the windows. Parrot Han walked around to the rear of the bus and climbed the ladder up to the luggage rack, where he drew back the netting, secured the caged parrots, and then reached down for Jintong’s traveling bag. Somewhat fearfully, Jintong followed his bag up to the luggage rack, where Parrot Han pulled the netting over him. “Little Uncle,” he said, “hold tight to the railing. Actually, that’s probably unnecessary. This bus is slower than an old sow.”
The driver, a cigarette dangling from his mouth and a mug of tea in his hand, walked lazily up to the bus. “Parrot,” he shouted, “you really are a birdman! But don’t blame me if you fall off there and wind up as roadkill.” Parrot Han tossed a pack of cigarettes down to the driver, who caught it in the air, checked the brand, and put it in his pocket. “Not even the old man in the sky can handle someone like you,” he said. “Just drive the bus, old-timer,” Parrot Han said. “And do us all a favor by not breaking down so often!”
The driver pulled the door shut behind him, stuck his head out the window, and said, “One of these days this beat-up old bus is going to fall apart. I’m the only one who can handle it. You could change drivers if you wanted, but then it wouldn’t even leave the station.”
The bus crept out onto the gravel road to Northeast Gaomi Township. They met many vehicles, including tractors, coming from the opposite direction, carefully passing the slow-moving bus, the wheels sending so much dust and gravel into the air that Jintong didn’t dare open his eyes. “Little Uncle, people say you got a raw deal when they sent you up,” Parrot Han said, looking Jintong in the eye. “I guess you could say that,” Jintong said mildly. “Or you could say I deserved it.” Parrot handed him a cigarette. He didn’t take it. So Parrot put it back in the pack and glanced sympathetically at Jintong’s rough, callused hands. “It must have been pretty bad,” he said, looking Jintong in the face again. “It was okay once I got used to it.” “There have been a lot of changes over the past fifteen years,” Parrot said. “The People’s Commune was broken up and the land parceled out to private farmers, so everyone has food on their table and clothes on their back. The old houses have been torn down under a unified program. Grandma couldn’t get along with that damned old lady of mine, so she moved into the three-room pagoda that used to belong to the old Taoist, Men Shengwu. Now that you’re back, she won’t be alone.”
“How … how is she?” Jintong asked hesitantly.
“Physically she’s fine,” Parrot said, “except for her eyesight. But she can still look after herself. I’m not going to hide anything from you, Little Uncle. I’m henpecked. That damned woman of mine comes from a hooligan proletarian family, and doesn’t know the first thing about filial piety. She moved in, and Grandma moved right out. You might even know her. She’s the daughter of Old Geng, who sold shrimp paste, and that snake woman — she’s no woman, she’s a damned snake temptress. I’m putting all my energy into making money, and as soon as I’ve got fifty thousand, I’m kicking her ass out!”
The bus stopped on the Flood Dragon River bridgehead, where all the passengers disembarked, including Jintong, with the help of Parrot Han. His eye was caught by a line of new houses on the northern bank of the river, and by a new concrete bridge not far from the old stone one. Vendors selling fruit, cigarettes, sweets, and the like had set up their stalls near the bridgehead. Parrot Han pointed to some buildings on the northern bank. “The township government moved its offices and the school away, and the old Sima family compound has been taken over by Big Gold Tooth — Wu Yunyu’s asshole son — who built a birth control pill factory, and makes illicit liquor and rat poison on the side. He doesn’t do a damned thing for the people. Sniff the air,” he said, raising one hand. “What do you smell?” Jintong saw a tall sheet-metal chimney rising above the Sima family compound, spewing clouds of green smoke. That was the source of the stomach-churning smell in the air. “I’m glad Grandma moved away,” Parrot Han said. “That smoke would have suffocated her. These days the slogan is ‘Eight Immortals Cross the Sea, Each Demonstrating His Own Skills.’ No more class, no more struggles. All anyone can see these days is money. I’ve got two hundred acres of land over in Sandy Ridge, and plenty of ambition. I’ve set up an exotic bird breeding farm. I’ve given myself ten years to bring all the exotic birds in the world here to Northeast Gaomi Township. By then, I’ll have enough money to secure influence. Then, with money and influence, the first thing I’m going to do is erect a pair of statues of my parents in Sandy Ridge …” He was so excited by his plans for the future, his eyes lit up blue and he thrust out his scrawny chest, like a proud pigeon. Jintong noticed that when they weren’t selling something, the vendors on the bridgehead were watching him and Parrot Han, who never stopped gesticulating. His feelings of inferiority returned, accompanied by regrets that he hadn’t gone to see slutty Wei Jinzhi the barber for a shave and a haircut before leaving the labor reform camp.
Parrot Han took some bills out of his pocket and stuffed them into Jintong’s hand. “It’s not much, Little Uncle, but I’m just starting out and things are still pretty tight. Besides, that stinking old lady of mine still has a string tied to my money, and I don’t dare treat Grandma the way she deserves, not that I could. She nearly coughed up blood raising me. Things couldn’t have been harder for her, and that’s something I won’t forget even when I’m old and my teeth fall out. I’ll make things right for her once I carry out my plans.” Jintong put the bills back into Parrot Han’s hand. “Parrot,” he said, “I can’t take that.” “Not enough?” That embarrassed Jintong. “No, it’s not that…” Parrot put the bills back into Jintong’s sweaty hand. “So, you look down on your useless nephew, is that it?” “After what I’ve become, I don’t have the right to look down on anyone. You’re special, a thousand times better than your absolutely worthless uncle …” “Little Uncle,” Parrot said, “people don’t understand you. The Shangguan family is made up of dragons and phoenixes, the seed of tigers and panthers. Too bad the times were against us. Just look at you, Little Uncle — you’ve got the face of Genghis Khan, and your day will come. But first go home and enjoy a few days with Grandma. Then come see me at the Eastern Bird Sanctuary.”
Parrot walked over and bought a bunch of bananas and a dozen oranges from one of the vendors. He put them into a nylon bag for Jintong and told him to take them to Grandma. They said good-bye on the new bridge, and as Jintong looked down at the glistening water, he felt his nose begin to ache. So he found an isolated spot, where he put down his bag, and went to the river’s edge, where he washed the dirt and grime off his face. He’s right, he was thinking. Since I’m home, I’ve got to grit my teeth and make my mark — for the Shangguan family, for Mother, and for myself.
Calling upon his memory, he made his way back to the old family home, where so many exciting events had occurred. But what spread out before him was a vast stretch of open land, where a bulldozer was just then knocking down the last remnants of the wall that had encircled the
house. He thought back to what Parrot had said while they were on the top of the bus: the three counties of Gaomi, Pingdu, and Jiaozhou each gave up a tract of land for a new city, the center of which was to be the town of Dalan. So the spot where he was standing would soon become a thriving city, and his house was planned as the site for a seven-story high-rise that would house the Dalan Metropolitan Government offices.
Streets had already been widened, paved with gravel over clay, and bordered by deep ditches, in which workers were in the process of burying thick water mains. The church had been razed, and a sign that read “Great China Pharmaceutical Company” hung above Sima’s house. A fleet of beat-up old trucks was parked on the onetime church grounds. All the millstones from the Sima family mill house were lying here and there in the mud, and on the spot where the mill had once stood a circular building was going up. Amid the rumbling of a cement mixer and the biting odor of heated tar, he passed by teams of surveyors and gangs of laborers, most of them drunk on beer, as he walked out of a construction site that had once been his village and onto the dirt path that led to the stone bridge over the Black Water River.
As he was crossing the bridge to the southern bank of the river, he spotted the stately seven-story pagoda on the hill; the sun was just setting, and its fiery red rays seemed to set the bricks ablaze and turn the bits of straw between them to cinders. A flock of doves circled the structure, a single column of white smoke rose from the kitchen of the hut in front. The fields lay in a deathly silence broken only by the roar of heavy equipment at the work site. Jintong felt as if his head had been pumped dry, except for the hot tears slipping into the corners of his mouth.
In spite of the pounding of his heart, he forced himself to walk toward the sacred pagoda. Long before he reached it, he saw a white-haired figure standing in front of the pagoda, leaning on a cane fabricated out of an old umbrella handle and watching his progress. His legs felt so heavy he could barely put one foot in front of the other. His tears continued to flow unobstructed. Like the straw in the building, Mother’s white hair looked as if it had caught fire. With a muffled shout, he fell to his knees and pressed his face up against her bony knees, deformed from a lifetime of physical labor. He felt like a man at the ocean bottom, where sounds and colors and shapes ceased to exist. From somewhere deep in his memory, the smell of mother’s milk rose, overwhelming all his senses.
2
Not long after returning home, Jintong fell seriously ill. At first, it was only a weakness in his limbs and soreness in his joints. But that was followed by vomiting and diarrhea. Mother spent all she’d accumulated over the years by collecting and selling scrap to pay doctors from all over Northeast Gaomi. But none of the injections or medicines made any difference in his health. One day in August, he took her hand and said, “Mother, all my life I’ve brought you nothing but trouble. Now that my life is about over, you won’t have to suffer any longer…”
She squeezed his hand. “Jintong, I won’t permit you to talk like that! You’re still young. I may be blind in one eye, but I can still see good days ahead. The sun is bright, the flowers smell like heaven, and we have to keep moving into the future, son …” She spoke with all the energy she could muster, but sad tears had already dripped onto his bony hand.
“Mother, talk all you want, but it won’t do any good,” Jintong said. “I saw her again. She had stuck a plaster over the bullet hole in her temple and was holding a piece of paper with her and my names on it. She said she’d gotten our marriage certificate and was waiting for me to marry her.”
“Dear daughter,” Mother said through her tears to the empty space before her. “Dear daughter, you did not deserve to die, I know that, and you’re like my very own daughter. Jintong spent fifteen years in prison over you, and his debt has been paid in full. So I beg you to show some mercy and forgive him. That way this lonely old woman will have someone to look after her. You’re a sensible girl. As the saying goes, life and death are different roads, and you must take one or the other. Forgive him, dear daughter. This blind old woman begs you on her knees …”
As his mother prayed, Jintong saw Long Qingping’s naked body in the sunlit window, her ironlike breasts covered with rust. She opened her legs wantonly, and out came a clump of round, white mushrooms. But when he looked closer, he saw that it was a cluster of rounded infant heads, not mushrooms, and that they were all joined together. Each tiny head had a complete face and was covered with downy yellow hair: tall noses, blue eyes, paper-thin earlobes, like the skin of beans soaked in water. All the infants were crying out to him, the sound soft and weak, but clear as a bell. Daddy! Daddy! The sound struck terror in his heart, so he closed his eyes. The infants broke free and rushed toward him, landing on his face and body, where they tugged at his ears, stuck their fingers in his nose, and clawed at his eyes, all the while calling out Daddy. He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter, but that did not block out the sight of Long Qingping scraping her rusty breasts with sandpaper, the sound grating on his ears. She stared at him with a mixture of melancholy and rage, still scraping her breasts until they looked as if they’d been turned on a lathe, shiny and brand-new, emitting a cold glint that gathered around the nipples and, like freezing rays, bore straight into his heart. He shrieked, and passed out cold.
When he regained consciousness, he saw a candle burning on the windowsill and an oil lamp hanging on the wall. Gradually, the tortured face of Parrot Han materialized in the flickering light. “What happened, Little Uncle?” The voice seemed to come from far away, and he tried to answer, but couldn’t make his lips move. Wearily, he shut his eyes to block out the candlelight.
“Take my word for it,” he heard Parrot say. “He’s not going to die. Not long ago, I read a fortune-telling book. Little Uncle has the face of someone for whom wealth and good fortune await, someone who will live a long life.”
“Parrot,” Mother said, “I’ve never begged for anything in my life, but now I’m begging you.”
“Grandma, when you talk like that you might as well be cursing me.”
“You know lots of people, so I’m asking you to get a cart and take your uncle to the county hospital.”
“There’s no need for that, Grandma. Our town facilities enjoy big-city standards. Local doctors outshine those at the county hospital. Since Dr. Leng has already seen him, there’s no need to go anywhere else. He graduated at the top of his class at the Union Medical College and studied abroad. If he says there’s no cure, then there’s no cure.”
With a look of dejection, Mother said, “Parrot, we don’t need your fine words. You’d better go. If you’re late getting home, you’ll have to answer to that wife of yours.”
“Sooner or later I’m going to be free of those shackles. Here, Grandma, take this twenty yuan and buy something Little Uncle would like to eat.”
“Keep your money,” she said. “Now go. There’s nothing your Little Uncle wants to eat.”
“Maybe he doesn’t, but you need to eat. Raising me to manhood took a lot out of you, Grandma. We suffered under government oppression and were so poor we barely got by. After they took Little Uncle away, you put me on your back and went out begging, knocking on doors all over Northeast Gaomi. Thoughts of what you had to do cut into my heart like a dagger and I can’t help but weep. We were the lowest of the low. If not, I’d never have married that shrew. Don’t you agree, Grandma? But those hellish days are about to come to an end. I’ve requested a loan for my Eastern Bird Sanctuary, and the mayor has approved it. If this works out, I have my cousin, Lu Shengli, to thank. She’s manager of the Dalan Bank of Industry and Commerce. She’s young and talented, and what she says goes. Grandma, don’t worry, I’ll go talk to her. If she won’t help us with Little Uncle’s illness, who will? She’s another family member you raised to adulthood. Yes, I’ll go talk to her. She’s made quite a name for herself. She has a car and a driver, and she eats like a queen: two-legged pigeons, four-legged turtles, eight-legged crabs, curvy prawns, pric
kly sea cucumbers, poisonous scorpions, and nonpoisonous crocodile eggs. That cousin of mine can no longer be bothered by duck and chicken and pork and dog meat. I know it may sound bad, but the gold necklace around her neck is as thick as a dog leash. She wears platinum and diamond rings on her fingers and a jade bracelet on her wrist. Her eyeglasses have gold frames and natural crystal lenses, she wears Italian designer fashions and French perfume whose fragrance will stay with you the rest of your life
“Parrot, take your money and go!” Mother cut in. “And don’t go talk to her. The Shangguan family doesn’t rate a rich relative like that.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Grandma. I could take Little Uncle to the hospital in a cart, but getting anything done these days depends on contacts. The difference in treatment between a patient I bring in and one my cousin brings in is night and day.”
“That’s the way it’s always been,” Mother said. “Whether your uncle lives or dies is in the hands of fate. If luck is with him, he’s bound to live. If not, even if the magical doctors Hua Tuo and Bian Que came back to Earth, they couldn’t save him. Now go on, and don’t upset me.”
Parrot had more to say, but Mother angrily banged the tip of her cane on the floor and said, “Parrot, please do as I say. Take your money and go!”
Parrot left. Jintong, still in a sort of half-sleep, heard Mother outside the house wailing. A night wind rustled the dry grass on the pagoda. A bit later, he heard her busying herself at the stove, sending the odor of herbal medicine into his room. It seemed to him as if his brain had shrunk down to a mere sliver, and the medicinal odor squeezed its way into that sliver, as if through a sieve. Ah, that sweet taste is cogongrass, the bitter taste is soul-returning grass, the sour taste is clover, the salty taste is dandelion, the spicy taste is Siberian cockle-bur. Sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and spicy, all five tastes, plus purslane, pinellia tuber and Chinese lobelia, mulberry bark, peony skin, and dried peach. Apparently, Mother had gotten nearly every herbal medicine available in Northeast Gaomi and was cooking it all in a big pot. The combined odor, with its mixture of life and of soil, poured into his brain as if from a powerful faucet, washing away the filth and slowly opening up his mind. He thought about the lush green grass outside, the flower-covered open fields, and cranes that roamed the marshland. A cluster of golden wild chrysanthemums summoned pollen-laden bees to them. He heard the heavy breathing of the land and the sound of seeds dropping to the ground.