“It's nothing,” he said.
“Where is she?” Yanyan's mother asked loudly.
Someone aimed a flashlight at the tip of a tree, shining it directly on her face. The people heard the top branches rustle, then watched as a dark shadow slipped silently from that tree to the top of another.
“You bastards!” Yanyan's mother cursed. “I know you've killed my daughter and made up a story to trick this old widow and her orphaned son. How could a girl fly like an owl?”
“Calm down, Auntie,” Iron Mountain said. “We wouldn't have believed it if we hadn't seen it with our own eyes. Let me ask you, did your daughter ever study under a master? Learn any unusual skills? Associate with witches? Sorcerers?”
“My daughter has never studied under any master,” Yanyan's mother said, “or learned any unusual skills. And she certainly hasn't associated with witches or sorcerers. I never let her out of my sight when she was growing up, and she did as she was told. The neighbors all said what a nice girl I had. And now this nice girl spends one day in your house and turns into an eagle on a treetop. How did that happen? I won't rest till I find out what you did to her. Give me back my Yanyan or you'll never get Yanghua back again!”
“That's enough bickering, old auntie,” the policeman said. “Keep your eyes on the treetop.” He aimed his flashlight at the shadow atop the tree, then snapped it on, training its beam of light on Yanyan's face. With a flap of her arms, she rose into the air and glided to the top of yet another tree.
“Did you see her, old auntie?” the policeman asked.
“Yes,” Yanyan's mother said.
“Is it your daughter?”
“It's my daughter.”
“We don't want to take drastic measures unless we have to,” the policeman said. “She'll listen to you if you tell her to come down from there.”
Just then, Yanyan's mute brother began grunting excitedly and flapping his arms, as if mimicking his sister's flying motions.
Yanyan's mother was in tears. “What did I do in a previous life to bring this down on my head?”
“Try not to cry, old auntie,” the policeman said. “Concentrate on getting your daughter down from there.”
“She's always been a strong-willed girl. She might not listen to me,” Yanyan's mother admitted sadly.
“This is no time to be shy, old auntie,” the policeman said. “Call her down.”
With mincing steps on tiny, bound feet, Yanyan's mother moved over to the tree where her daughter was perched, tilted her head back, and called out tearfully, “Yanyan, be a good girl and listen to your mother. Please come down. … I know you feel you've been treated badly, but that can't be helped. If you don't come down, we won't be able to keep Yanghua, and if that happens, the family's finished… .”
The old lady broke down and wailed at this point as she dashed her head against the tree trunk. A scratchy sound descended from the treetop, the sort of thing one hears when a bird ruffles its feathers.
“Keep talking,” the policeman urged.
The mute waved his arms and grunted loudly to his sister, high above him.
“Yanyan,” Hong Xi shouted, “you're still human, aren't you? If there's an ounce of humanity left in you, you'll come down from there.”
Yanghua joined in the weeping: “Sister-in-law, please come down. You and I are both sufferers in this world. My brother's ugly, but at least he can talk. But your brother … please come down .. . it's our fate… .”
Yanyan glided into the air again and circled the sky above the people. Chilled dewdrops fell to the ground — maybe they were her tears.
“Move out of the way, give her some space and let her settle to the ground,” Iron Mountain said to the crowd.
Everyone but the old lady and Yanghua stepped backwards.
But things did not turn out as Iron Mountain had hoped, for after circling in the air above them, Yanyan settled back down onto the treetop.
The moon had slipped into the western sky; the night was deepening. Fatigue and cold began to overtake the people on the ground. “I guess we'll have to do it the hard way,” the policeman said.
Iron Mountain said, “Fm worried that the crowd might drive her away from the grove, and if we don't catch her tonight, it'll be that much harder later on.”
“As I see it,” the policeman said, “she lacks the ability to fly long distances, which means it'll actually be easier to catch her if she leaves the grove.”
“But what if her family won't go along with our plan?” Iron Mountain said.
“Let me handle it,” the policeman assured him.
He went over and told some of the youngsters to escort the mute and his mother out of the pine grove. The old lady, having cried herself into a state of lethargy, offered no resistance. The mute, on the other hand, grunted his disapproval, but once the policeman flashed his service revolver, he walked off meekly. Now the only people left at the scene were the policeman, Iron Mountain, Hong Xi, and two young men, one with a pole, the other holding a net.
“A gunshot might alarm the people,” the policeman said. “So let's use a bow and arrow.”
“With my failing eyesight,” Iron Mountain said, “I'm not the one to do it. If my aim was off even a little, I could kill her. Hong Xi should do it.”
He handed the bamboo bow and a feathered, razor-sharp arrow to Hong Xi, who took them from him, but merely stood there deep in thought. “I can't do it,” he said, suddenly realizing what was expected of him. “I can't, I won't. She's my wife, isn't she? My wife.”
“Hong Xi,” Iron Mountain said, “don't be a fool! In your arms, she's your wife, but perched atop a tree, she's some kind of strange bird.”
“You people,” the policeman said with annoyance, “can't you do anything? If you're just going to stand there hemming and hawing, hand me that bow and arrow.”
He holstered his revolver, took the bow and arrow, took aim at the shape at the top of the tree, and let an arrow fly. A muted thud told them he'd hit the mark. The treetop rustled, and the men watched as Yanyan, an arrow embedded in her belly, rose into the moonlight, only to crash into the canopy of a short tree nearby. Obviously, she could no longer keep her balance. The policeman fitted another arrow to the bow, took aim at Yanyan, who was sprawled atop the short pine, and shouted, “Come down here!” The second arrow flew before his shout had died out; there was a cry of pain, and Yanyan tumbled headlong to the ground.
“You fucking bastard,” Hong Xi shrieked, “you've killed my wife….”
People who had withdrawn from the grove came up with their lanterns and torches. “Is she dead?” they asked anxiously. “Are there feathers on her body?”
Without a word, Iron Mountain picked up a bucket of dog's blood and splashed its contents over Yanyan's body.
Iron Child
DURING THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD SMELTING CAMPAIGN, THE government mobilized 200,000 laborers to build a twelve-mile rail line; it was completed in two and a half months. The upper terminus linked with the Jiaoji trunk line at Gaomi Station; the lower terminus was located amid dozens of acres of Northeast Gaomi Township bushland.
Only four or five years old at the time, we were housed in a nursery school thrown up beside the public canteen. Consisting of a row of five rammed-earth buildings with thatched roofs, it was surrounded by saplings some six to seven feet tall, all strung together by heavy wire. Powerful dogs couldn't have bounded over it, let alone children like us. Our fathers, mothers, and older siblings — in fact, anyone who could handle a hoe or a shovel — were conscripted into the labor brigades. They ate and slept at the construction site, so we hadn't seen any of them for a very long time. Three skeletal old women were in charge of our “nursery school” confinement. Since all three had hawklike noses and sunken eyes, to us they looked like clones. Each day they prepared three cauldrons of porridge with wild greens: one in the morning, another at noon, and a third in the evening. We wolfed it down until our bellies were tight as little drums. Th
en after the meal, we went up to the fence to gaze at the scenery outside. New branches of willow and poplar sprang from the fence. Those with no green leaves were already rotting away; if they weren't removed, they sprouted yellow wood-ear fungi or little white mushrooms.
Feasting on the little mushrooms, we watched out-of-town laborers walk up and down the nearby road. They were grubby and listless, their hair a mess. As we searched for relatives among these laborers, tears in our eyes, we asked:
“Good uncle, have you seen my daddy?”
“Good uncle, have you seen my mommy?”
“Have you seen my brother?”
“Have you seen my sister?”
Some of them ignored us, as if they were deaf. Others cocked their heads and cast a fleeting glance, then shook their heads. But some ripped into us savagely:
“Come here, you little bastards!”
The three old women just sat in the doorways and paid no attention to us. The six-foot-high fence was too tall for us to climb over, and the spaces between the saplings were too narrow for us to wriggle through.
From our vantage point behind the fence we saw an earthen dragon rise up out of the distant field and watched hordes of people scramble busily up and down the earthen dragon, like ants swarming over a hill. The laborers who passed in front of our fence said that it was the roadbed for the rail line. Our kinfolk were a part of that human ant colony. From time to time people would suddenly stick thousands of red flags into the dragon; at other times they would suddenly insert thousands of white flags. But most of the time there were no flags. Some time later, a great many shiny objects appeared on top of the dragon. The passing laborers told us those were the steel rails.
One day, a sandy-haired young man came walking down the road. He was so tall we felt he could touch our fence by simply stretching out one of his long arms. When we asked about our relatives, he surprised us by walking up to the fence, squatting down, and cheerfully rubbing our noses, poking our bellies, and pinching our little peckers. He was the first person who had answered our calls. With a big smile he asked:
“What's your daddy's name?”
“Wang Fugui.”
“Ah, Wang Fugui,” he replied, rubbing his chin. “I know Wang Fugui.”
“Do you know when he'll come get me?”
“He won't be coming. The other day, he was crushed while carrying steel rails.”
“Waah …” One of the kids began to bawl.
“Have you seen my mommy?”
“What's your mommy's name?”
“Wan Xiuling.”
“Ah, Wan Xiuling,” he replied, rubbing his chin. “I know Wan Xiuling.”
“Do you know when she'll come get me?”
“She won't be coming. The other day, she was crushed while carrying railroad ties.”
“Waah …” Another of the kids began to bawl.
Before long, we were all bawling. The sandy-haired young man stood up and walked off whistling.
We cried from noon until sunset. We were still crying when the old women called us to dinner. “What are you crying about?” they snarled. “If you don't stop, we'll throw you into Dead Man's Pit.”
We had no idea where Dead Man's Pit was, but we knew it had to be a horrible place. We stopped crying.
The next day, we were back at the fence gazing at the scenery on the other side. At midmorning, several laborers rushed up to us carrying a door on which a bloody person was laid out. We couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, but we could see and hear the blood dripping off the edge of the door and splattering on the ground.
One of the kids started crying, and in no time we were all crying, as if the person lying on the door were our relative.
After finishing our noon porridge, we went back to the fence, where we spotted the sandy-haired young man walking toward us in the custody of two swarthy, husky men armed with rifles. His hands were tied behind his back; his nose and eyes were bruised and swollen; his lips were bleeding. As he passed in front of us, he turned and gave us a wink, as if he couldn't have been happier.
We called out to him as one, but one of the guards jabbed him in the ribs with his rifle and shouted: “Get moving!”
On yet another morning, while we were leaning against the fence, we saw that the distant railway bed was suddenly alive with red flags, and we heard the clang of gongs and the beating of drums. All those people were shouting joyously for some reason. At lunchtime the old women gave each of us an egg and said: “Children, the rail line has been completed. The first train is due today. That means your daddies and mommies will be coming to get you. We've carried out our responsibility to look after you. These eggs are in celebration of the completion of the railway.”
We were ecstatic. Our kinfolk weren't dead, after all. The sandy-haired young man had lied to us. No wonder they'd trussed him up and dragged him away.
Eggs were such a rare treat that the old women had to show us how to peel them first. Clumsily we peeled away the shells, only to find feathery little chicks inside. They chirped when we bit into them, and they bled. When we stopped eating, the old women took switches to us and demanded that we keep eating. We did.
When we were sprawled against the fence the next day, we saw even more red flags on the rail line. Later that afternoon, people on both sides of the tracks began to whoop and holler, as a giant object with thick smoke belching out of its head appeared. It was long and black and very big; it howled as it approached from the southwest. It was faster than a horse. It was the fastest thing we'd ever seen. We felt the earth move under our feet, and we were scared. Then we saw several women dressed all in white appear out of nowhere, clapping loudly and announcing:
“The train's coming! The train's here!”
The rumbling train headed off to the northeast, and we watched it until its tail end had disappeared from view.
After the train passed through, as promised, adults began showing up to pick up their children. Mutt was taken away, and so were Lamb, Pillar, and Beans, until I was the only one left.
The three old women led me out beyond the fence and said: “Go home!”
I'd long forgotten where I lived, and tearfully begged one of the old women to take me home. But she shoved me to one side, turned, and ran back indoors, closing the gate behind her. Then she secured it with a big, shiny brass lock. I stood outside the fence crying, screaming, and begging, but they ignored me. Through a crack in the fence, I watched the three identical old women set up a little pot in the yard, light some kindling under it, and pour in some light-green oil. As the kindling crackled and flames licked upward, the oil began to foam. When the foam dissipated, white smoke rose from the edges of the pot. The old women cracked some eggs open and flipped the feathery little chicks into the pot with makeshift chopsticks. They sizzled and rolled around in the hot oil, releasing the fragrance of cooked meat. The old women then picked the cooked chicks out of the oil, blew on them a time or two, and tossed them into their mouths. Their cheeks puffed out — first one side, then the other — and their lips smacked noisily. Tears flowed from their eyes, which were shut the whole time. They wouldn't open the gate, no matter how I cried or screamed. Soon my tears dried up and my voice failed me. I noticed a puddle of muddy water at the foot of an oily black tree. I went over to quench my thirst. But just as I was about to drink, I spotted a yellow toad beside the puddle. I also spotted a black snake with white dots running on its back. The toad and snake were locked in a fight. I was scared, but I was also very thirsty. So, holding my fear in check, I knelt down and scooped some water up with my hands. It dripped through my fingers. The snake had the toad's leg in its mouth, and a white liquid was oozing from the toad's head. The water was brackish, and slightly nauseating. I stood up, but didn't know where to go. I needed to cry, and so I did. But no tears came.
I saw trees, water, yellow toads, black snakes, fighting, fear, thirst, kneeling, cupping water, rank water, nausea, I cried, no tears… . Hey, what are you crying
for, is your daddy dead? Is your mommy dead? Is everyone in your family dead? I turned my head. I saw the kid who asked me the questions. I saw that he was my height. I saw that he wasn't wearing any clothes. I saw that his skin was rusty. It seemed to me that he was an iron child. I saw that his eyes were black. And I saw that he was a boy, just like me.
He said, What are you crying for, Woody? I said, I'm not made of wood. He said, I'm going to call you Woody anyhow. He said, Woody come play with me over there on the railroad. He said there were lots of good things over there to look at, to eat, and to play with.
I told him a snake was about to swallow a toad. He said, Let it, don't bother it, snakes can suck out a kid's marrow.
He led me off in the direction of the railroad. It seemed so close, but we couldn't reach it. We walked and walked, looked and looked, but the railroad was as far away as ever, as if all the time we were walking, it was too. It took some doing, but we finally made it. By then my feet were killing me. I asked him his name. He said, My name is whatever you want it to be. I said, You look like a piece of rusty iron. He said, If you say I'm iron, then that's what I am. I said, Iron Child. He grunted a reply and laughed. I followed Iron Child up onto the railroad tracks. The roadbed was very steep. I saw that the rails were like two long serpents that had crawled from what must have been somewhere very far away. I imagined that if I stepped on one of them, it would start to wriggle, and that it would wrap its headless wooden tail around my legs. I stepped on one cautiously. The iron was cold, but it didn't wriggle and it didn't swish its tail.
I saw that the sun was about to set behind the mountain. It was very big and very red. A flock of white birds landed next to some water. I heard an eerie screech. Iron Child said that a train was coming. I saw that the iron wheels were red, and that iron arms were turning them. It felt to me as if the air rushing beneath the wheels could suck a person in. Iron Child waved to the train, as if it were his friend.
Hunger began to gnaw at me that night. Iron Child picked up a rusty iron bar and told me to eat it. I said I'm a human, how can I eat iron? Iron Child asked why a human can't eat iron. I'm a human and I can eat it. Just watch if you don't believe me. I watched as he put the iron bar up to his mouth and — chomp chomp — began to eat. Apparently, the iron bar was crisp and crunchy, and, by the looks of it, very tasty. I began to drool. I asked him where he'd learned to eat iron, and he said, Since when do you have to learn how to eat iron? I said I couldn't do it. And he asked me why not. Try it if you don't believe me. He held out the uneaten half of the steel bar and said, Try it. I said I was afraid I'd break my teeth. He said, Why? He said, There's nothing harder than people's teeth, and if you try it, you'll see what I mean. I took the iron bar hesitantly, put it up to my mouth, and licked it to see how it tasted. It was salty, sour, and rank, sort of like preserved fish. Take a bite, he said. I tried biting off a chunk and, to my surprise, succeeded with hardly any effort. As I began to chew, the flavor filled my mouth, tasting better and better until, before I knew it, I had greedily finished off the whole thing. Well? I wasn't lying, was I? No, you weren't, I said. You're a good kid, teaching me how to eat iron like that. I won't need to drink broth with greens anymore. He said, Anybody can eat iron, but people don't know that. I said, If they did, they wouldn't have to plant crops anymore, would they? He said, Do you think smelting iron is easier than planting crops? In fact, it's harder. Be sure you don't tell people how delicious iron is, because if they find out, they'll all start eating it, and there won't be any left for you and me. How come you let me in on this secret? I asked him. He said, I wanted to find a friend, since eating iron alone is no fun.