Dream of Ding Village (19 page)

‘Xiaoming!’ Grandpa shouted.

Lingling’s husband stopped and turned around.

‘Lingling is very sick,’ Grandpa pleaded. ‘Can’t you show her some mercy?’

Xiaoming did not reply straight away, but nor did he stay silent for long. He squinted into the light, trying to see Grandpa’s face, then spat on the ground. Taking a few steps forward, he spat again, this time at Grandpa’s feet.

‘Mind your own business,’ he said coldly. ‘And control that son of yours!’

With that, Xiaoming turned and left, dragging his wife behind him.

It wasn’t right. All the residents milling about the schoolyard were in agreement. It wasn’t right that things had turned out this way. Such a promising drama really deserved a better ending. Disappointed, they gazed after Xiaoming as he
dragged his wife across the schoolyard and out through the front gate. Long after he had disappeared, they remained motionless, as if unsure about what had just happened.

Maybe they were confused. Or maybe they simply didn’t want to leave the schoolyard and the site of the drama. So they just stood blankly and stared. Stupidly. People with nothing better to do.

Then they remembered my uncle. It took two to commit adultery, and although the woman had gone, the man was still there. The villagers turned around to look, but discovered that while they had been watching Xiaoming drag away his wife, my uncle had slipped out unnoticed. They saw him sitting on the threshold of the storeroom, with his head hung low and his hands on his knees, like a guilty child who couldn’t bear to go into the house and face his parents, a naughty boy who was starting to get hungry, but was too afraid to go in for dinner. To their disappointment, he was fully dressed. He was even wearing his padded coat, the buttons done up neatly to the neck.

The villagers looked eagerly from Grandpa to Uncle, from father to son, wondering what would happen next.

Grandpa made the first move. Taking a step forward, he lifted his leg and aimed a good swift kick at his son. ‘Go to your room! Haven’t you humiliated yourself enough for one day?’

Uncle stood up and began walking back to Grandpa’s rooms. As he passed the crowd of villagers, they saw that he was smiling, a little smirk he couldn’t manage to hide. ‘All right, you’ve had your fun, your little joke,’ he told them. ‘But whatever you do, please don’t tell my wife. I know I’m going to die soon anyway, but I’m afraid of what she’d do if she found out.’

Uncle was almost halfway across the schoolyard when he turned back and shouted: ‘Seriously, everyone, I’m begging you … don’t let my wife find out about this!’

The next day, Ding Yuejin and Jia Genzhu paid a visit to Grandpa. They had plotted their visit well in advance …

The day began the same as any other. The sun came up over the plain, banishing the last dregs of winter and flooding the schoolyard with warmth. The first signs of spring had appeared. The cottonwoods and paulownia were tinged with green: dark, furry buds and bell-shaped blossoms that couldn’t have been there the day before. They seemed to have appeared overnight, as if Uncle and Lingling’s night of stolen passion had ushered in the spring.

A fresh scent drifted through the school, the faint perfume of grass and tiny plants that had begun to sprout from the crevices between the school walls. Translucent, pale yellow and green leaves shimmered in the sunlight like golden offerings. Spring had tiptoed in with hardly a whisper. Because of the stolen pleasures that had taken place in the schoolyard, the season had arrived there first, banishing the cold and wintry atmosphere and setting life in motion.

The residents of the school were still asleep, weary after a long night of excitement and drama. Most of the other villagers had risen with the sunrise, throwing open their pig pens and chicken coops to the promise of the first day of spring. But though the sun had been up for hours, the residents in the school were only just entering the land of dreams. The snorers had just begun their rumbling. The sleep-talkers had just begun their whisperings.

While all around them people slept, Jia Genzhu and Ding Yuejin got down to business. They slept in the same second-floor classroom on the east side of the schoolhouse. Jia Genzhu had risen first, awakened by the sunlight spilling through the window and on to his bed, warming his face. As soon as he opened his eyes, he went over to the window, saw that the day was already growing late, and hurried to the bed opposite to shake Ding Yuejin awake.

Ding Yuejin sat up groggily. After his head had cleared, he remembered the day’s important errand, dressed quickly and left the classroom with Jia Genzhu.

The two men went downstairs and crossed the schoolyard, heading for the little building next to the gate. When they reached Grandpa’s quarters, they peeked in through his window before knocking on the door. Almost as soon as they knocked, they heard a voice behind them, and turned to find Grandpa standing there.

Uncle was still fast asleep in bed, exhausted from his eventful evening. He had fallen asleep almost immediately after a brief fight with Grandpa, an argument they’d carried out in whispers.

‘I’m disappointed, son,’ Grandpa had told him. ‘I never thought you’d do something so shameful.’

Uncle hadn’t answered.

‘If you go on like this,’ Grandpa continued, ‘you’ll come to no good end.’

‘What does that mean, no good end? The fever is going to kill me anyway.’

‘What about your wife? Do you think you’re being fair to Tingting?’

‘You want to talk about fair? She wasn’t even a virgin when we got married, and she never even apologized for it.’

‘Well then, do you think you’re being fair to your son?’

‘I’m tired, Dad. I need to sleep.’

‘How can you sleep?’

Uncle stayed quiet and tried to concentrate on falling asleep.

‘What if Tingting or your in-laws find out?’ Grandpa asked.

‘How are they going to find out?’ Uncle rolled over and tried to fall asleep. Moments later, he was snoring quietly. His exertions of the previous evening – and, of course, being caught in the act – had sapped him of his strength. Like an exhausted runner who has just finished a marathon, Uncle needed his rest.

But Grandpa, torn between anger and worry, could find no rest. He sat up in bed, wide-awake, listening to his son’s irregular snoring and wishing he could strangle him in his bed. He would have strangled him, too, if only he had the strength.

Fully dressed, wrapped in his quilt, Grandpa allowed his mind to wander. He thought of many things yet found himself thinking about nothing at all. The idle droning in his head continued far into the night. By the time the sky grew light, his mind was a blank, a vast and desolate blank. He wanted to hate his son, but couldn’t; he wanted to pity him, but he couldn’t do that, either. He hadn’t enough of either emotion.

As the first rays of morning filtered through the window, Grandpa’s eyelids were heavy but he was no closer to sleep. He rose from his bed and moved towards the door. On his way out, he passed Uncle’s bed. It would be so easy to lean down and strangle him. Grandpa leaned down, but only to pick up a corner of the quilt that had fallen to the floor and place it over his son’s shoulders. As he did so, he noticed several new spots on Uncle’s shoulder, four or five swollen red lumps the size of large peas.

Grandpa ran his fingers over the lumps, examining them carefully.

Then he left the room, left the school and went out for a walk in the fields.

When Grandpa returned, he found Ding Yuejin and Jia Genzhu knocking on his door. Coming up behind them, he asked: ‘What’s the matter, boys?’

The matter turned out to be something unexpected, something Grandpa hadn’t foreseen. It was as unexpected as the sun rising in the west and setting in the east, or waking up one morning to find that a mountain had risen from the plain.
As unforeseen as a field of ripe summer wheat in the dead of winter; or waters raging through an ancient riverbed that had lain dry for centuries.

When they heard Grandpa’s voice, the young men wheeled around to find him standing behind them, just a few feet away. Grandpa looked haggard and exhausted, the whites of his eyes covered with spidery red veins. Caught off guard, the two young men glanced at each other and tried to decide what to say.

Ding Yuejin spoke first. ‘Uncle, have you been up all night?’

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Grandpa answered with a rueful laugh.

Jia Genzhu gave Ding Yuejin a meaningful look, then cleared his throat. ‘Professor Ding, there is something we want to discuss with you.’

‘Sure. Go ahead.’

Genzhu tilted his head towards the gate. ‘Let’s talk over there.’

‘Anywhere is just the same to me.’

‘We wouldn’t want to wake Ding Liang,’ Yuejin explained.

They retreated to the school gate, taking up a position under the eaves of an adjacent building. The two young men stared at each other, as if trying to decide who should speak first. Finally, Genzhu nodded at Yuejin. ‘Go ahead.’

‘No, it’s better if you start.’

Genzhu allowed his eyes to rest on Grandpa’s face for a few moments. Then, setting his mouth in a straight line and licking his lips, he spoke. ‘Professor, Yuejin and I aren’t going to be alive much longer. We’ve been thinking it over, and there’s something we need to get off our chests.’

Grandpa waited.

‘We’re the ones who locked Ding Liang and Lingling in the storage room,’ Genzhu admitted with a smile.

Grandpa’s expression changed: he turned pale and looked confused, even a little frightened. Caught between anger and fear, he seemed like a man about to lose his grip and fall tumbling to the ground. He looked to Ding Yuejin, expecting that he, at least, would hang his head or look apologetic. But
there was no hint of contrition in the young man’s face. Head held high, Yuejin wore the same smile as Genzhu, the same shameless grin that Grandpa had so often seen on the face of his own son, Ding Liang. The two young men said nothing, as if they were waiting to see how Grandpa would react.

Grandpa, astonished by their attitude, simply stared.

‘We might as well tell you the whole truth,’ Genzhu continued. ‘After we locked them in, we sent someone to give Lingling’s husband the key.’

Yuejin added, ‘Genzhu wanted to give your daughter-in-law a key, too, until I stopped him.’

Genzhu shot his friend a look. ‘I didn’t do it for your sake, Professor. I was thinking of you, not your son.’

‘Uncle, there’s something else we want to discuss with you. We know you don’t want your son’s wife to find out about his affair. So we’ve come to you with a proposition. Nothing bad will happen as long as you agree to it. Everything will be fine, once you agree.’

‘Agree to what?’ Grandpa asked.

‘Genzhu, you tell him.’

‘It doesn’t matter who says it.’

‘Still though, you tell him.’

‘All right, I will.’ Genzhu turned to face Grandpa. ‘Now, Professor, don’t get angry when you hear this. We were afraid you might, which is why we came to talk to you in person. We know that you are a reasonable man, and we can discuss this calmly. If it were anyone else, say Li Sanren when he was alive and still the village mayor and party secretary, we would have just gone ahead and done it without even asking.’

‘What on earth are you two boys trying to say?’

‘What we’re saying,’ answered Genzhu, ‘is you don’t need to be in charge of things at the school any more, or take care of the sick villagers. From now on, Yuejin and I will handle all that.’

‘That’s right,’ Yuejin chimed in. ‘Just consider us the new school principals, the leaders of all these sick people. Act like we’re the village mayor and party secretary, and do
whatever we say. Because if you listen to us, so will everyone else.’

Grandpa laughed. ‘Oh, so that’s all you came to tell me?’

‘That’s all,’ answered Genzhu, straight-faced. ‘We want you to call a meeting and announce that from now on, the two of us are in charge of everything at the school, including the government food subsidies. We also hear that Ding Hui has the official village seal. We want you to get it from him and hand it over to us. You can consider us your new mayor and party secretary.’

Grandpa stared at them in silence.

‘All you need to do is make the announcement,’ said Yuejin.

‘And if you don’t,’ Genzhu added, ‘we’ll tell Tingting all about your son’s affair, and it’ll break up his marriage and destroy the whole family.’

‘Don’t worry, Professor. With the two of us in charge of the school and the village, what could possibly go wrong?’

‘And we promise to do a better job than you did,’ said Genzhu. ‘Everyone knows Ding Hui has been selling off the coffins he got free from the government. We hear he’s trying to raise money to move his family out of the village, either to Kaifeng or the county capital. And Ding Liang not only cheated on his wife, he did it with his own cousin’s wife! With kids like that, you think you’re still qualified to manage this village or this school?’

‘Professor, we’re asking you to do this for your own good, and for the good of your family. But if you don’t,’ Genzhu sneered, ‘we’ll tell your daughter-in-law how we caught her husband sleeping with Lingling. Then you’ll find yourself in a real mess, and your family will be ruined.’

The two seemed to have worked out their good-cop bad-cop routine in advance, trading lines like a straight man and a fall guy in an amateur comedy show. It was the sort of thing Ma Xianglin might have performed on stage, when he was still alive. Now Grandpa was the audience, watching and listening under the hot sun. His face had turned pale and beads of
perspiration had formed on his forehead. In that moment, Grandpa seemed terribly old. Every hair on his head had gone white. His silvery-white head bobbed up and down beneath the eaves of the building, like one of the mylar balloons they sold in the city. Were it not tethered to his neck, it might have floated up into the air, or landed on a metal spike atop the schoolyard gate.

When the two young men had finished speaking, Grandpa stared at them, slack-jawed and wide-eyed as he had been throughout the entire conversation. Here was his kinsman and nephew Ding Yuejin, and Jia Genzhu from the village. He’d known both of these boys since the day they were born – he’d even taught them in school – but now they were strangers, textbook illustrations he couldn’t make sense of, two mathematical problems that didn’t compute.