Dream of Ding Village (33 page)

Lingling noticed that Uncle’s eyes were closed.

‘Did you doze off, Daddy?’

‘My eyelids feel heavy.’

‘Is the pain any better?’

‘Yes, it’s like it’s gone. Doesn’t hurt at all.’

‘Then close your eyes again and go to sleep, and everything will be better in the morning. Tomorrow we’ll have a lie-in, maybe stay in bed all day. We’ll sleep until the sun is shining on our backs, and then we’ll have breakfast for lunch.’

As she was talking, Uncle’s eyes fell shut again, as if they were weighted down with bricks. She thought he might be asleep, until he mumbled: ‘It doesn’t hurt, but I feel hot all over, like my chest is on fire.’

‘What should I do?’

‘Maybe you could wipe me down with a wet towel.’

Lingling dipped a towel in a basin of tepid water and used it to wipe Uncle’s chest and back. ‘Is that any better?’ she asked when she was finished.

‘My chest is still burning,’ Uncle answered, without opening his eyes. ‘Maybe you could get me some icicles.’

Although it was the middle of the night, Lingling went out to the village well and drew some icy cold water. When she came back, she soaked the towel in the cold water and used it to moisten Uncle’s skin. ‘Feeling any better?’ she asked.

‘A little,’ answered Uncle, opening his eyes. But soon the towel grew warm, heated by the contact with his skin. Uncle rolled over peevishly and curled up into a ball again.

‘I’m burning up. Please, get me some icicles.’

Lingling thought for a moment, then stripped off her light summer clothes, hung them from the bedpost and went outside with the damp towel. It was well after midnight, and the chill was rising from the ground, seeping in from the fields. A bitter wind swirled through the courtyard, turning it as cold as a deep, dark well. The moon was nowhere to be seen, leaving only the stars overhead and a distant haze that hung over the western plain. The chill silence of the village seeped into the courtyard, piling up against the walls. Standing stark naked in the centre of the courtyard next to the bucket of water, Lingling began to ladle water over her body. Again and again, she poured the cool water over her skin, until she was drenched and shivering with cold. Shaking uncontrollably, she towelled herself dry, stepped back into her slippers and raced into the house. She got into bed next to Uncle and pressed her cold flesh to his burning flesh, like a human icicle.

‘Does this feel better, Daddy?’

‘You’re so nice and cool.’

Lingling held Uncle as he slept, allowing his heat to be absorbed into her cool flesh, siphoning away his fever. When the heat from his body had been transferred to hers, he began to complain that he was burning up again. Lingling ran into the courtyard, doused herself with cold water until she was coughing and shivering, towelled off and rushed back to the bedroom to press her body against Uncle, taking in all his heat and fire. Again and again, she hopped out of bed, raced into the courtyard, doused herself with water and got back
into bed, shivering and coughing. By the sixth time, the fever seemed to have left Uncle’s body and he fell into a peaceful slumber, snoring loudly.

Uncle was snoring like a bellows. His snores muddied the room like run-off from a farmer’s field. It was late morning, and the sun had been up for hours. When Uncle awoke from his dreams, his fever was gone and his body felt limp and tender, as if he’d just emerged from a hot shower after a long day’s work in the fields. He opened his eyes and saw that Lingling was not sleeping next to him. The last thing he remembered, she’d been lying close to him, her nude body as smooth and pleasantly cool as a pillar of jade. He’d fallen asleep embracing her coolness, but when he awoke, she wasn’t in bed.

She wasn’t in bed because she hadn’t slept in the bed. She was lying, fully dressed, on a straw mat on the floor.

The night before, after Uncle had dozed off, Lingling had spread a brand-new straw mat on the floor and selected a nice outfit to wear: a pale blue skirt, a light pink cotton blouse and, although it was midsummer, a pair of silk stockings. She had got dressed and combed her hair neatly, as if she were getting ready to go out. The flesh-coloured stockings, moon-coloured skirt, and her blouse the shade of a winter sunset were well-chosen and well-matched, fresh and cool and pleasing to the eye. Pleasing to Uncle’s eyes, which is why she had chosen them.

Fully dressed, Lingling had lay down on the straw mat and fallen asleep. She had died in her sleep. Even in death, she looked as if she were sleeping. Her features were contorted, but only slightly, as if she’d suffered only a little bit. For the most part, her face looked serene and peaceful.

When Uncle sat up in bed and saw Lingling lying on the floor, he called her name. When she didn’t respond, he called
her ‘Mummy’. When she still didn’t respond, he leaped out of bed, kneeled beside her and began shouting for her to wake up. His heart skipped a beat when he realized she couldn’t hear him. Fearing that she was already dead, he tugged at her hand, cradled her head in his arms and howled. ‘Mummy … Mummy …’

When Uncle took Lingling in his arms, she did not stir. Her head remained slumped against his chest. She was like a girl who couldn’t wake up. Although there was still a bit of pink in her cheeks, her lips were dry and cracked, as scaly as the wings of a dragonfly. He realized that she must have been running a very high fever when she died, a fever brought on by dousing herself in freezing water so many times the night before.

As one fever raged, another even worse fever had rushed in and claimed her, taken her from this world against her will. Taken her from Ding Village and from Uncle. Knowing she was going to die, but not wanting to disturb Uncle from his sleep, she’d got out of bed, put on her nicest clothes, lain down on the floor and let the fever claim her.

The fever had burned her alive. Her parched lips looked as if they’d been charred. And yet they were frozen in a faint smile, one of satisfaction for what she’d done for Uncle, and for what she’d done in life. A smile with no regrets.

By the time Grandpa arrived at the house, Uncle had already plunged the knife into his thigh, releasing a fountain of blood. The day before, after he’d fallen in the courtyard, the pain had nearly killed him. But the gash in his leg would finish the job. It was his turn to die. Lingling was lying on the ground, waiting for him to join her, and Uncle was eager to catch up.

Grandpa showed up like the wind at the door, like a character out of a dream. He had struggled out of his dream and somehow made his way to Uncle’s house. When he arrived, his son was already dead. Uncle had won his race with death, and caught up with Lingling.

He died at about noon. The village was as warm and silent as it had been the day before, and the villagers were taking their midday nap. Inside the school, the sick residents searched for a bit of shade where they could lie down and rest. Grandpa was napping in his dream. In his half-muddled state, he imagined he heard Lingling’s voice shouting: ‘
Daddy
…
Daddy
…
Daddy
…’, her cries slicing through the air like bright shiny razors. Thinking she was calling to him, Grandpa sat up in bed and looked around the room, but Lingling was nowhere to be found. He lay down again and let the cicadas buzzing outside his window lull him to sleep. Again he heard the piercing cries, a confusion of sound ringing in his ears. Grandpa knew that he was dreaming, but he allowed the dream to wash over him, let himself be carried on the tide,
moving past the school, across the plain, into the village and towards Lingling’s voice …

Grandpa saw Uncle step out of the house and into the courtyard. Lingling was on the ground behind him, clinging to his leg and crying. ‘Daddy, you can’t do this! You don’t want to end up like me
…
’ Grandpa couldn’t understand why Lingling was calling her husband Daddy, instead of by his name
.

Mystified, Grandpa stood in the courtyard and observed them shouting and struggling, as if he were watching a performance on stage. He saw Lingling clutching Uncle’s leg, trying to prevent him from leaving, but she was too weak and frail to hold him back. Uncle began crossing the courtyard, dragging Lingling along behind him
.

The courtyard was the same as it had been before Uncle and Lingling had moved in. There were the paulownia trees, with their thick canopies of green. Dazzling sunlight streamed through gaps in the leaves, leaving scattered pools of light on the cool, shady ground. There was the same washing-line strung between two trees, their trunks deeply scarred by the metal wire wrapped around them. There were rusted shovels and hoes propped against the outside wall, and a pig trough right outside the kitchen door. Tingting and her pigs were gone, but the disused trough remained. Hardly anything had changed. The only difference was an aluminum bucket, half-f of water, which someone had carelessly left in the middle of the courtyard, where anyone might stumble over it. When the bucket wasn’t being used, it was always kept in the kitchen. Grandpa guessed that someone had used it to wash on a hot summer day and had neglected to return it to the kitchen
.

As Uncle passed through the courtyard, he stopped and stared at the bucket for a few seconds before limping into the kitchen. Lingling was still clinging to his leg. When Uncle picked up a knife from the cutting board and raised it over his head, Grandpa assumed that he meant to stab Lingling. He
was about to rush forward and stop him when he saw his son raise his left leg, place his foot on the cutting board and plunge the knife into his thigh
.

As the knife entered his flesh, Uncle screamed: ‘You fucking bastard, your wife’s dead – why are you still alive?’

At Uncle’s cry, Grandpa froze. He saw a flash of something white, sunlight glinting from the blade, and then a stream of blood as Uncle pulled the knife from his leg. Blood spurted from the wound like water from a public fountain, a mushroom-shaped projection that spattered the ground with droplets of blood, shining red pearls. A ray of sunlight pierced the kitchen window, transforming the fountain into a translucent pillar of blood, a shaft of clear red glass stuck sideways into Uncle’s leg. The blood rose at an angle and arched through the air before splashing to the ground, or streaming down Uncle’s leg. Droplets of blood littered the ground like grains on a threshing-room floor
.

Lingling, who had been kneeling on the floor and weeping, suddenly fell silent. Her skin was ghastly pale, her face wet with tears
.

‘Oh Daddy,’ she moaned. ‘How could you be so stupid? You’re the one who’s always saying we should take every day we can get. Why are you in such a hurry to join me?’

Uncle smiled down at Lingling. It was a weak and sickly sort of smile, as if he didn’t have the strength. It didn’t stay on his face for long. A sudden burst of pain rocketed through his body, causing him to drop the knife and clutch his leg, wrapping both hands around the gash that went through his flesh and down to the bone. Doubled over, he crouched next to the cutting board, his forehead covered with pellet-sized beads of perspiration
…

Wrenching himself from his dream, Grandpa leaped out of bed and raced towards Uncle’s house, taking every shortcut he knew. When he burst through the gate, he saw the shiny white aluminum bucket standing in the middle of the courtyard, just as it had been in his dream. The bucket was half-filled with
water, and a ladle bobbed on its surface like a tiny boat. Cicadas buzzed in the paulownia trees, their cries dropping from branches like pieces of overripe fruit. Among the pools of sunlight, Grandpa saw a trail of blood leading from the kitchen into the house, a long red string snaking across the courtyard. The air was filled with the stench of blood. Grandpa stared around him in a daze, then raced into the house and burst through the bedroom door. As soon as he saw Uncle lying on the ground beside Lingling, Grandpa knew that his boy was dead, that both of them were dead. Ding Liang and his new bride lay face-up, side by side on a straw mat. The hem of her skirt, soaked with his blood, bloomed with bright-red flowers.

Funerals were all about keeping up appearances. Sometimes they were a way of rehabilitating one’s reputation, or settling old scores.

As it happened, the bodies were piling up. Ding Yuejin’s younger brother, Ding Xiaoyue, passed away on the same day as Uncle; and Jia Genzhu lost his little brother, Jia Genbao, on the same day that Uncle lost Lingling. Four deaths in less than two days. Four bodies to bury, but not enough hands to go around. When Grandpa went into the village to ask for help digging the grave, he found that Ding Yuejin and Jia Genzhu were a step ahead of him. Everyone Grandpa approached gave variations on the same answer:

‘Sorry, but I already promised Director Jia [or Director Ding] I’d help him.’

‘If you can wait a few days until we’ve buried Xiaoyue and Genzhu, I’ll be glad to help.’

‘Maybe you can set the bodies aside until we’ve got time to bury them.’

‘Genbao died before Lingling, and Xiaoyue beat Liang by a few hours. You know how burials are … first-come, first-served.’

When Grandpa went to Jia Genzhu’s house to ask if he could spare a few men, Genzhu stared at him for a long time without speaking. ‘Why don’t you ask your son?’ he said at last. ‘I hear the higher-ups are giving nice coffins to the heads of all the village task forces, to reward them for their hard work. Yuejin and I are directors of the Ding Village task force. Why don’t you go and ask your son where our coffins are?’

When Grandpa went to ask his nephew Ding Yuejin for help, the young man raised his chin and stared at the sky. ‘You tell me, Uncle … all the other village cadres got free coffins from the higher-ups. How come Hui hasn’t given us ours?’

Grandpa trudged back to Uncle’s house in disappointment. He sat beside the bodies of his son and his wife, gazing at the sky, staring at the floor, and waiting for his son Hui to return from his business in the city.