Dream of Ding Village (21 page)

The signed and sealed document trembled in Jia Genzhu’s hand. Ever so slightly, but the tremor was there. His face was the colour of storm clouds, his lips taut as strung wire. He eyed Grandpa warily, as if the old man were an ageing bull that hadn’t lost its strength to fight. An old ox who simply refused to die.

Unlike Jia Genzhu, Ding Yuejin showed no sign of anger. His was the helpless expression of a man whose face has just been spat in. For better or worse, Grandpa was still his uncle, and his former teacher, besides. There was very little Yuejin could do in this situation. Instead, he looked to Genzhu, hoping that the other man would do something to get Grandpa to step away from the gate and allow Genbao to leave with the desks. Since it was Jia Genzhu’s brother getting married, and his family who wanted the desks for the wedding banquet, it seemed up to Genzhu to resolve the situation. Everyone knew that Genzhu’s twenty-two-year-old brother had the fever, but since he had never sold his blood, it wasn’t clear how he’d become infected. The only reason Genbao had been able to find a wife – that is, to trick a girl from another village into marrying him – was that the entire population of Ding Village had conspired to hide the truth about his infection from outsiders. Genbao’s fiancée, two years his junior, was a pretty, well-educated young woman who had taken the university entrance exam and failed. She’d failed by just a few marks. A few more marks and she would have passed the exam, entered university and never had to marry Jia Genbao. But she hadn’t passed, and now she was marrying into Ding Village, marrying into the fever.

‘But mother,’ the girl had complained, ‘they say everyone in Ding Village has the fever.’

‘The villagers swore to me that Genbao doesn’t have it,’ her mother had answered. ‘Since he’s not infected, what are you so worried about?

‘I sent you to school for ten years,’ she reminded her daughter, ‘and you didn’t even pass the university exam. I haven’t fed and clothed you for twenty years to see it all go to
waste. You think I’m going to let you live at home until you die an old maid?’

The girl had burst into tears.

Eventually, tearfully, she had promised to marry into Ding Village. The wedding was to take place in a matter of days. Once he was married, Genbao would be a real man, a man who might have descendants to carry on his family name. Because he had the fever, he probably wouldn’t live long enough to get to know his own children, but at least he wouldn’t die with so many regrets. He had been eagerly awaiting his wedding, happily making preparations, and now the only thing left was to find a few tables for the wedding banquet. Genbao never imagined that a few days before his wedding, he’d find Grandpa blocking his path.

Grandpa wasn’t just standing in the way of the desks, he was standing in the way of his happiness. A thin, frail young man, Genbao was still in the early stage of his disease. The initial fever hadn’t faded yet, and it had left him weak and listless. Because he was so small and sick, and because Grandpa was so many years his senior, Genbao could do nothing but look pitiful and hope his big brother would come to his rescue. Genzhu had promised that as long as he was alive and in charge of the school and the village, he would see to it that his family’s future was secure. This included paying for his younger brother’s wedding, making funeral arrangements for his elderly parents and adding a few extra rooms to the house, something they’d hoped to do during the blood boom but had never been able to afford. Yet here was Grandpa, blocking the gate and refusing to let Genbao borrow a few crummy desks. It was pitiful to see the way Genbao looked at his older brother, as if hoping he’d say something to make Grandpa get out of the way and let them leave with the desks he needed for his wedding banquet.

With a half-hopeful, half-embarrassed expression, Genbao stared up at his big brother, waiting for him to speak. After a few moments, Genzhu said calmly, ‘Genbao, take these desks back to wherever you found them.’

Genbao stared at his brother in confusion.

‘Do as I say. Put them back where you found them.’

Sadly, reluctantly, Genbao turned his cart around and began trudging back to the schoolhouse. The wheeled cart, groaning under the weight of so many desks, left a trail of dust in its wake. As they watched the cart move slowly across the schoolyard, the faces of the residents registered disappointment and dismay. They couldn’t understand why Genzhu had backed down, or why the confrontation had come to such an abysmal ending. The sun had shifted to the centre of the schoolyard, and the atmosphere was thick with the scent of early spring. Grass and trees sprouting on the plain filled the air with moisture, like dampness rising from a river.

Grandpa, too, was surprised that things had ended this way. He certainly hadn’t expected Jia Genzhu to be so reasonable, or to give in so easily. He suddenly felt guilty, as if he’d wronged Genzhu somehow, or ruined his little brother’s wedding. Gazing towards the schoolhouse at the frail young man unloading desks from his cart, Grandpa turned to Genzhu. ‘I’ll help you borrow some tables. I can’t believe there isn’t a single banquet table left in this village.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Genzhu answered icily. His words were cold, enunciated, deliberate. As he brushed past Grandpa at the gate, his face was hard and angry, the veins on his neck standing out like pale blue willow branches. Everyone in the crowd saw it: the coldness he directed towards Grandpa as he passed through the gate and began walking towards the village. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Clutching his walking stick, a tree stump with the branches removed, he limped slowly across the plain.

Events were beginning to form rings. First one ring, then another, interconnected like links in a chain.

Jia Genzhu’s return to the village was followed closely by my aunt’s departure: my aunt Tingting sweeping out of the
village and down the road like a whirlwind, making straight for the elementary school. With her mouth twitching, and dragging my cousin Xiao Jun by the hand, she walked so quickly that he had to run to keep up with her, his little feet pounding the dirt.

The plain was an expanse of tender young wheat shimmering in the sunlight. In untilled fields where vegetation grew wild, tiny plants pushed their heads through the soil, reaching up to get a better look at the world. Across the plain, in Two-Li Village and Yellow Creek, those well enough to work were out in the fields, irrigating or tending to their crops. Their figures stood out beneath the distant sky like scarecrows swaying in the wind. And now, blowing in from the village, was another small figure, dragging a child behind her. It was a scene not unlike that night in the school, when Ding Xiaoming had pulled his wife from the storeroom and marched her back home.

It was midday, the hour when the villagers would normally be eating or preparing lunch. But on this day, no one in Ding Village was cooking, much less eating. Housewives who would usually be stoking fires had doused them. Cold water was poured into pots to stop them from boiling. Bowls were left empty on the sideboard. No one knew quite what had happened, but there was a sense that something big was about to take place. A crowd of men and women, young and old, adults and tiny children rolled along behind my aunt like a cavalry, leaving clouds of dust in their wake.

A man standing in a doorway shouted to his wife who had just joined the crowd: ‘Haven’t you meddled enough already? Get back home!’ His wife detached herself from the mob and slunk into the house.

An old woman in the village square grumbled. ‘Haven’t enough people died already? Now you’re going to march over there and hound those poor people to death?’ Her son and grandson stayed where they were and didn’t join in the fun.

But other mothers snatched the bowls from their children’s hands and urged them on. ‘Go on, go and see what all the fuss
is about … Hurry up, you don’t want to miss out on the fun.’ Their sons and daughters scampered off and followed the crowd towards the school.

Ding Village hadn’t seen this much excitement in years. Not since the fever arrived had there been so much drama. It promised to be even more exciting than Ma Xianglin’s big performance. This was something bigger and better: a real-life drama, not someone reading lines on a stage.

At this time of day, the school was quiet. Zhao Xiuqin and her two assistants were cooking in the kitchen. Most of the residents were in their rooms. The schoolyard was as silent and deserted as winter on the Central Plain. That is, until my aunt came rolling through the gate with her son in tow, followed by a large mob of villagers and their cavalcade of footsteps. As they pushed open the school gate, there was a metallic screech loud enough to make the roots of your teeth ache.

Grandpa and Uncle were the first people in the school to hear the noise. They were sitting in Grandpa’s quarters, arguing about what had just happened, and about whether or not Grandpa was right to have treated Jia Genbao the way he had.

‘Dad, you ought to remember that Genbao has the fever, too.’

‘All the more reason not to trick that poor girl into marrying him.’

‘It’s not like she’s from Ding Village. She’s not one of ours … why should you care?’

‘You’re no better than he is,’ Grandpa said angrily, and got up to leave.

But trouble had arrived at the school. Trouble had arrived on his doorstep. As Grandpa stepped into the main room, he saw Uncle’s wife standing at the door.

When their eyes met, they both froze in their tracks, like two speeding drivers screeching to a halt just before impact. Only silently.

Grandpa saw that Tingting’s normally rosy complexion was slightly off colour. He immediately understood what had
happened, and understood what was about to happen. Uncle, cowering behind him, must have understood it too, because he shrank back into the inner room and shut the door behind him.

Grandpa turned around and hollered, ‘Liang! Come out and apologize to your wife!’

Not a peep, not a sound from inside the room. It might as well have been empty.

Grandpa was enraged. ‘You miserable excuse for a son! Get your arse out here and tell your wife you’re sorry!’

This time, not only did Uncle refuse to come out, he barred and locked the door.

Grandpa walked over to the sturdy willow door and began kicking at it, pounding it with his feet. When it wouldn’t open, he picked up a wooden stool and raised it over his head, ready to smash in the door. But at that moment, something caused him to reverse his course. It was Tingting, stepping over the threshold and telling him gently: ‘Dad, stop.’

With those two words, his rage seemed to dissipate, like floodwaters receding, or the disappearing tail of a cyclone. He turned to see Tingting standing in the middle of the room, the anger fading from her face, her colour returning to normal. When she was calm and composed, she glanced at the locked and bolted door, tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear and said: ‘Don’t bother calling him, Dad. He’s too much of a coward to answer.’

Grandpa stood motionless, still holding the stool over his head.

‘It’s probably better this way,’ Tingting continued evenly. ‘I’ve never done anything to let your family down. I can get divorced, move back to my hometown, and not have to worry about him infecting me or Xiao Jun.’

Grandpa lowered the stool slowly, very slowly, until it hung limply at his side, like a puppet tethered by a string.

There was an awkward pause. Tingting blushed a deep crimson, licked her dry lips and said, ‘I’m taking Xiao Jun with me. If you want to see your grandson, you’re welcome to visit
him at my parents’ house. But if Ding Liang shows up, I’ll have my brothers break his legs.’

Then Tingting turned and left the room. She left before Grandpa had a chance to answer.

Uncle’s wife was gone.

After Jia Genzhu returned from the village, he and Ding Yuejin closeted themselves in an empty classroom. When they emerged a while later, they went off in search of Ding Shuiyang, otherwise known as Professor Ding. To me, he was always just Grandpa.

Tingting was gone by the time they arrived at Grandpa’s rooms, but the crowd of onlookers had not dispersed.

‘Move along now, go home,’ Genzhu told them. ‘There’s nothing to see here.’

The villagers, who hadn’t heard about the school coup, seemed confused by Jia Genzhu’s authoritative tone: he spoke like he was a party official.

Ding Yuejin, standing at Genzhu’s side, took it upon himself to explain. ‘You heard the man. From now on, he’ll be making the decisions around here. Genzhu and I are in charge of the school.’

And with that, the two men walked into Grandpa’s rooms. ‘Professor, we’ve got something else we’d like to discuss with you,’ said Ding Yuejin, with a smile.

Jia Genzhu, unsmiling, handed Grandpa a piece of note-paper bearing the official village seal. It was very much like the piece of paper he’d handed him earlier at the gate, but the words were different, the message more alarming. It read:

After a thorough investigation into the matter, we hereby revoke Ding Shuiyang’s credentials as a teacher and caretaker of stuff at the Ding Village Elementary School. From this day forward, Comrade Ding Shuiyang is not
an employee of Ding Village Elementary School, and may not meddle in any matter to do with the school.

Below this, Ding Yuejin and Jia Genzhu had affixed their signatures and the date. Grandpa skimmed the order once, glanced up in disbelief, then read it again more carefully, his wrinkled face twitching with annoyance. He thought about crumpling the paper into a ball and throwing it in their faces, until he noticed several young men standing behind them: Jia Hongli, Jia Sangen, Ding Sanzi and Ding Xiaoyue. All were close relatives of either Genzhu or Yuejin, young men in their late twenties or early thirties who had recently come down with the fever. Some stood with arms crossed, others leaned against the doorway, sneering at Grandpa as if he were a personal enemy who they had cornered at last.

‘You’re trying to get rid of me?’ asked Grandpa.