Dream of Ding Village (25 page)

Ding Village elementary was silent, sleeping the sleep of the dead. That day, the sky had been so clear it was as if you could see right through it, to a deep and bottomless blue heaven. But now, in the middle of the night, the sky was overcast, as damp and dark as a freshly dug grave. In the silence of the school, a deep well of silence, you could almost hear the clouds bumping against each other. Everyone was asleep. Even Grandpa was asleep.

Thump. Thump. Someone was knocking at Grandpa’s window. The late-night visitor must have come in through the unlocked school gate. Since Genzhu and Yuejin had confiscated Grandpa’s keys, no one bothered to lock up at night. People came and went at all hours, so the gate was always open. Anyone could walk right in and creep up to Grandpa’s window, unheard. Thump, thump … The sound continued, steady as a drumbeat.

‘Who’s there?’ Grandpa called.

‘It’s me, Professor,’ the visitor wheezed. ‘Open up.’

Grandpa opened the door to find Zhao Dequan standing on the threshold. In the few days since Grandpa had last seen him, Dequan had changed beyond recognition. Where he had been skin-and-bone before, now he was just bone. What flesh he had left hung limp from his skeletal frame, dark and discoloured, a patchwork of dry, hardened scabs; the sockets of his eyes, two deep, dark pits. One look at him and Grandpa could see that death was dancing in Zhao Dequan’s body. His
eyes were dull, bereft of light. He stood at Grandpa’s door like a cadaver in shabby clothes. Under the electric lights, his shadow seemed more lifelike than his person, a dark silhouette flickering on the wall like a funeral shroud ruffled by the breeze.

When Grandpa opened the door, Zhao Dequan broke into a smile, a sickly grin that seemed to cost him a good deal of effort.

‘Professor Ding,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking it over, and I decided that while I’m still well enough to walk, I ought to return the blackboard. I don’t want to end my life by doing something so low. It’s a blackboard, not a coffin. Once the fever is gone, the kids will be back in school, and their teachers will need something to write on. I’d rather be buried without a coffin,’ he sighed, ‘than leave those kids without a blackboard.’

Grandpa looked out and saw the blackboard loaded on a hand-cart parked beside the gate.

‘I can’t lift it myself,’ said Zhao Dequan. ‘Can you help me carry it inside?’

With a lot of clunking and clattering, Grandpa and Zhao Dequan managed to carry the blackboard into the room.

‘Careful you don’t hurt yourself,’ Grandpa said, as they leaned the blackboard up against a wall.

‘No matter. I’m going to be dead soon, anyway. If Genzhu and Yuejin see the blackboard, you can blame it on me … Tell them I’m the one who brought it back here.’

Zhao Dequan stood panting, trying to catch his breath. The same sickly smile was glued to his face like a sticking plaster. After he had helped Grandpa lean the blackboard against the wall and wiped the dust from his hands, Grandpa expected him to leave, but instead Dequan sat down on Grandpa’s bed, still smiling his silent, cardboard-cutout smile.

Grandpa waited for him to say something, but it seemed the man had nothing to say. When Grandpa offered him a drink of water, he waved it away. When Grandpa poured him a basin of water so he could wash his hands, he ignored the
basin and said: ‘Professor, I’m fine. But if it’s okay with you, I’d just like to sit here for a while.’

‘Is something wrong?’ Grandpa asked, taking a chair opposite the bed. ‘If so, you can tell me.’

Zhao Dequan’s smile faded. ‘It’s nothing, really.’

The two men sat quietly, as still as the night around them. Silence lay thick across the plain. Now and then, a chirp or a cry broke the stillness. Some tiny insect managing to make itself heard. Then there was silence, and after that, more silence.

‘You ought to move back into the school,’ said Grandpa awkwardly, trying to make conversation.

Zhao Dequan stared. ‘Don’t you see the state I’m in? I doubt I’ll live more than a few days.’

‘How can you say that?’ Grandpa tried his best to be reassuring. ‘You’ve made it through the winter and into spring. I bet you’ll live at least another year.’

Zhao Dequan smiled wryly, unconvinced. As he shifted position on the bed, his shadow flickered over the walls like a black silk funeral shroud. It was clear that he was having trouble moving, but his shadow remained active. It was as if his spirit had already left his body and was hovering nearby.

Grandpa realized that Zhao Dequan was right: he really was going to die soon.

‘Do you have a casket yet?’ he asked, deciding he might as well be direct. ‘Even if it’s not the best quality, you’ve got to be buried in something.’

Zhao looked embarrassed. ‘Jia Genzhu and Ding Yuejin gave my wife permission to cut down one of the paulownia trees to make my coffin.’

Zhao gripped the edge of the bed for support, as if he were getting ready to stand up and leave. But instead of leaving, he spoke again. ‘Professor, that’s really what I came here to tell you. Genzhu and Yuejin gave my wife special permission to cut down a tree for my coffin, but now everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, chopping down the paulownia and cottonwoods. And some of those people don’t even need coffins.
They’re cutting down all the trees in the village … I’m afraid that by morning, there won’t be any left.

‘You’ve got to do something, Professor. Once all the trees are gone, this village won’t be the same. Even if I don’t get my coffin, I don’t care. The only thing I want to do before I die is give my wife the red silk jacket I promised her. Anyway, what use is a coffin when you’re already dead? It’s not worth cutting down every tree in the village.’

Grandpa stepped out of the school gate, hesitated for a moment, and began walking towards the village. Darkness blanketed the plain like a vast black lake. There was no moon or stars, only vague, flickering shadows. The road to the village was swallowed up by the darkness, making it easy to stumble over its uneven surface or stray into the fields on either side. Grandpa had to tread carefully, using the patches and points of light in the distance to gauge his direction. As he drew closer to the village, the dark night air was filled with the fresh scent of sawdust. At first, it was just a faint whiff coming from the direction of the light. Then the smell seemed to coalesce into something more solid: waves of it sweeping in from the west end of the village, rolling in from the north and south, washing in from the alleyways to the east. With it came a tide of sound: the buzz of saws slicing timber, the thud of axes chopping trees, the babble of human conversation. It reminded Grandpa of years long ago, when everyone in the village had laboured day and night smelting steel in backyard furnaces or constructing massive irrigation works
.

Quickening his step, Grandpa walked in the direction of the nearest lights. He found Ding Sanzi and his father working at the edge of their wheat field, digging up the roots of a large cottonwood tree. By the light of their lanterns, Grandpa could see that they’d dug an enormous room-sized pit, exposing the root system of the tree. Ding Sanzi’s father, stripped down to
his underpants and covered in sweat, was using an axe to sever the last two connected roots, each the circumference of a large bowl. As he swung his axe, bits of dirt and wood flew through the air and stuck to his sweaty skin, making it look as if he’d been splattered in mud. Some distance away in the middle of the field, Ding Sanzi was trying to pull down the cottonwood by tugging on a heavy rope tied to a fork of the tree. Using all his strength, he yanked the rope, causing the tree to sway. There was a tremendous snapping and creaking of roots, and for a moment it seemed that the huge cottonwood might topple. When it refused to fall, Ding Sanzi shouted: ‘Dad
…
come over here and help me pull!’

‘Wait until I chop this last root, then it’ll fall!’

As the older man raised his axe, Grandpa hurried over to block his way. ‘Hey, who said you could chop down this tree?’

His axe frozen in mid-swing, Sanzi’s father stared at Grandpa. After a moment, he laid down the axe and called to his son
.

Sanzi came in from the field, took one look at Grandpa and snorted. Then he went over to a pile of clothes lying on the ground, took a folded letter from one of the pockets, and showed it to Grandpa
.

The letter, written on Ding Village party committee stationery, was brief: ‘Ding Sanzi has permission to cut down the big cottonwood next to his field west of the village.’ Below this were the official village seal and the signatures of Jia Genzhu and Ding Yuejin
.

Reading the letter in the light of the lanterns, Grandpa realized exactly what it meant: permission to fell the trees of Ding Village. He clutched the letter and stared at the two men, wondering whether or not he ought to stop them from cutting down the tree. As Grandpa was trying to make up his mind, Ding Sanzi snatched the letter from his hand and walked away. After he had folded the letter and put it back into the pocket of his clothes, he said calmly: ‘Your son Ding Hui sold off our coffins, and now you won’t even let us cut down a tree to make our own.’

Ding Sanzi, still strong despite being infected with the fever, walked back into his field, picked up the rope and continued trying to pull down the big cottonwood. Grandpa stood by helplessly for a while, then decided to go into the village and see what was happening there. He had not gone far when he heard a loud crack behind him, the splintering of wood. The sound reverberated through his chest, as if there were some acute ache in his heart. In that moment, Grandpa was once again consumed with the desire to strangle his eldest son with his bare hands. He could almost feel his palms sweating, and the ageing tendons in his hands flexing
.

Grandpa entered the village and followed the glow of lanterns to a large willow tree. Plastered to the tree trunk was a notice nearly identical to the one Ding Sanzi had shown him. It was written on the same letterhead, and had the same two signatures and village seal. It read: ‘Jia Hongli has permission to cut down the old willow tree at the northwest corner of the intersection on the west end of the village.’

Grandpa scrutinized the paper pasted to the tree trunk as if it were an official government poster on a bulletin board. He was speechless. Apparently, the chopping down of trees was now perfectly legal and above-board. Grandpa stood in a daze, staring up at the lantern hanging from a branch of the willow tree. In the pool of light, he could make out Jia Hongli perched high in the tree, hacking at the branches. After pondering for a few seconds, Grandpa shouted up at him
.

‘That looks dangerous, Hongli! Aren’t you afraid you’ll fall?’

Hongli paused and shouted back, ‘So what? I won’t live long, anyway.’

Grandpa tried appealing to Hongli’s father, who was standing below the tree. ‘Jia Jun, you’re not going to let your son risk his life over a tree, are you?’

The older man smiled and pointed to the notice stuck to the tree trunk. ‘It’s all right. We’ve got permission to cut it down, see?’

Grandpa shook his head and continued on his way. As he walked through the village, he saw that every tree large enough to be used as timber had been marked for demolition: there were notices pasted to every elm, honey locust, paulownia, toon and scholar tree he passed. In every lane and alleyway, in every corner of the village, he found people chopping down trees by the light of lanterns, kerosene lamps or candles. Some of the trees and exterior walls were strung with electric lights connected to long grey extension leads (known in the village as ‘rat-tail cords’) that snaked into nearby houses. Nearly every other house was brightly lit, turning Ding Village into a blaze of light, as dazzling as the daytime sun. It looked as if every tree in the village had been served with an execution order. The night air filled with the ceaseless clamour of chopping and sawing, and the pungent scent of fresh-cut wood mingled with tree sap
.

Ding Village seemed revived: the residents prowled the streets with hatchets and saws, searching for the trees they’d been given permission to chop down. The sick villagers had, of course, been given the trees most suitable for making coffins: the willows, cottonwoods and paulownia. But because the trees were public property and everyone was entitled to his or her share, even the healthy villagers were allowed to chop down trees. They had been given the toons, chinaberries and scholar trees, whose timber was prone to rot and insects, and so ill-suited for making coffins. But they were fine for making furniture, beds and tables and chairs that could be given to sons and daughters as wedding gifts
.

Each family in the village, with the exception of ours, had been given one tree to use as timber. So it was that on this spring night, the whole of Ding Village was hard at work chopping down trees and dragging them back to their homes
.

God only knows where they got so many hatchets and saws. It was as if the whole village had known in advance about the great tree-felling, and had bought in supplies of tools beforehand. The clash of metal rang through the night, punctuated by the snapping and cracking of tree branches
.
Sounds from the east end of the village could be heard on the distant western plain, and noise from the west end of the village carried to the alleyways in the east. Ding Village was a hive of noise and activity, seething with rare excitement. There was the constant thud of footsteps, carts rumbling through the streets and the sound of voices, as villagers compared the quality of their timber with that of their neighbours. Looks of envy swirled around every pool of dazzling light, and followed in the wake of every glowing lantern being carried down the street
.

Even the faces of villagers too sick to work glowed with the excitement of cutting down trees. The healthy villagers worked with enthusiasm, as if it were the big planting or harvest season. All night long, the village was filled with the sound of people working and the sweet scent of timber and sawdust. The conversation that accompanied all this coming and going and hustle and bustle followed more or less the same basic pattern: