Dream of Ding Village (7 page)

Ma Xianglin performed well-loved songs, extracts from his favourite plays and bits from operas. Not only was it his first time performing for the villagers, it was the first time he’d played on a real stage. It was his first proper performance, and perhaps his last. For all these reasons, and because Grandpa had gone to so much trouble to arrange the concert, Ma Xianglin put forth all the passion and concentration he could muster. He stood straight and tall, his head held high. He sang with half-closed eyes, seeing no one, completely immersed in his music. As the fingers of his left hand danced up and down the strings of his fiddle, he drew the bow in his right hand back and forth. Although his voice was a bit raspy, its coarseness was like a pinch of salt in a pot of pork-bone soup: it only made the broth seem tastier.

He sang in the local dialect and his audience could understand every word. He sang about generals and rebels, robbers and heroes, and real-life characters from Chinese history, all of whose names were known to most of the villagers, at least the older ones, and whose faces often decorated colourful Chinese New Year posters. Although these characters had lived hundreds, even thousands of years ago, their adventures were as familiar to the villagers as if they’d happened yesterday. For those who knew the stories already, hearing Ma Xianglin perform was like eating from only the finest dishes at the banquet. For teenagers and children who didn’t know the background to the stories, watching Ma Xianglin’s gestures and expressions was enough.

As Ma Xianglin bobbed his head in time to the music, his forehead began to perspire, giving his face an even ruddier glow. Beads of sweat flew from his face, spattering the people sitting nearest. The rhythmic tapping of his feet on the willow planks of the stage sounded like someone striking a wooden fish-drum over and over. When he reached a particularly exciting passage, he would begin stomping on the boards with his right foot, like he was pounding a gigantic drum.

Although the schoolyard was filled with music and song, the evening was eerily silent. No one in the audience made a sound. The moon and stars above were milky-white; they cast a stark, radiant light over the plain. From distant fields of wheat, now blanketed in pale-green seedlings, came the whisper of new life, a sound as imperceptible as a cloud of feathers drifting through the air. In fields that had been allowed to go fallow – for some of the villagers, there seemed little point in planting this season – rows of withered stalks gleamed pale beneath the moonlight, giving off a whiff of futility and decay. Closer still, from the ancient path of the Yellow River, the smell of sand: as if the grains had been heated over a fire and then doused with water. The scents converged in the schoolyard, mingling with the cool night air and touching the proceedings with a different kind of
atmosphere, something peaceful and hypnotic, set to the strains of Ma Xianglin’s music.

Ma Xianglin smiled and nodded, bobbing his head in time to the beat. Like a maestro giving the performance of his career, he was so immersed in his singing that he scarcely noticed when his voice grew hoarse. The villagers were equally rapt. Watching Ma Xianglin’s impassioned performance, it was easy to forget that they were just like him: that they too had the fever and that any day might be their last. His passion was infectious. It was so easy to forget about everything. To think about nothing but the music, losing themselves in Ma Xianglin’s singing, the sound of his three-stringed fiddle and the rhythmic tapping of his feet on the boards of the stage.

That was all there was. Nothing else mattered.

A strange deathly silence had settled over the schoolyard. An audience of nearly 300 people, as quiet as an audience of one, listening to Ma Xianglin’s voice:

With sword in hand
,
Xue Rengui marched west
For days and nights and hundreds of miles
His men and mounts withstood the test
Exhausted and outnumbered
,
Through hamlets, villages and towns
They felled a mighty army
And struck their enemies down
.

Suddenly, the schoolyard was not as silent as before. It started with whispers, which turned into loud conversations. Some of the villagers began turning to look behind them. Although it wasn’t clear what they were looking at, others followed suit. In the midst of all this looking and pointing, whispering and talking, Zhao Xiuqin and her husband Wang Baoshan stood up from the audience and shouted: ‘Professor Ding … Professor Ding!’

The music and singing came to an abrupt halt. Grandpa rose from his place near the front of the stage. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Are there really new medicines that can cure the fever?’ Zhao Xiuqin asked loudly, looking at Grandpa. ‘And don’t lie to me like you’ve been lying to the whole village.’

‘I’ve been a teacher all my life,’ answered Grandpa. ‘Have you ever known me to tell a lie?’

‘But your son Ding Hui is sitting back there,’ Wang Baoshan took up his wife’s argument, ‘and he says there is no such thing. He says he’s never heard of these new medicines that are supposed to cure the fever.’ He turned to look towards the back of the schoolyard.

As if on cue, everyone in the audience swivelled their heads to look.

There, standing at back of the crowd with my sister Yingzi, was my dad. No one had imagined that he would actually show up at the concert. But he hadn’t wanted to be left out, so had come to join in the fun, to listen to the music and stories just like the rest of the villagers. And while he was there listening, he had apparently told someone that there weren’t any new medicines that could cure the fever.

That was what had caused the ruckus, and the trouble that followed.

By now, all of the villagers were staring at my dad. They waited for him to speak, as if his words might hold the cure they had been hoping for.

Ma Xianglin was no longer singing. He stood on stage, watching the events below. The silence that followed was deafening. The sort of silence one hears after the fuse has been lit on a bundle of dynamite or a keg of gunpowder. The villagers seemed to be holding their breath, as if the slightest exhalation might set off an explosion. They stared at Dad and Grandpa and waited to see what would happen. They waited for the explosion, and the aftermath.

My dad spoke first. ‘What’s the point in lying?’ he shouted over the heads of the crowd. ‘Why don’t you just tell them the truth? There aren’t any new medicines.’

Once again, all eyes turned to Grandpa.

Grandpa said nothing.

He stood stiffly, staring back at the villagers. Then, skirting the edge of the audience, he began walking towards my dad. He moved slowly and deliberately, threading in and out of the crowd, struggling under the weight of its gaze, until he had reached the back of the schoolyard and was standing face to face with his son. In the yellow glare of the light bulbs, Grandpa’s face was a mottled blue and purple; his eyes, two angry red orbs bulging from their sockets. As he glared at his son, he clenched his fists unconsciously and chewed at his lower lip, raking it with his teeth.

Dad stared back at Grandpa, his face impassive, daring him to do his worst. Father and son stared at each other coldly, stubbornly, neither willing to back down. With so many villagers watching, the schoolyard seemed to have as many pairs of eyes as trees in a forest; the atmosphere was as dense as the sandstorms that blew across the plain. The looks that passed between father and son were cold as ice, as sharp as daggers. Looks that could kill.

The moments stretched on. Grandpa was still clenching his fists, perspiration dripping down his back. The corner of his mouth began to twitch as if being tugged by an invisible string. There was another involuntary twitch, and then, with a loud cry, Grandpa attacked. Arms outstretched, he lunged forward and grabbed my dad by the neck, throwing him off balance. Before anyone could react, Grandpa had wrestled Dad to the ground and had both hands wrapped around his throat, and was choking him.

‘How would you know there aren’t any new medicines?’ Grandpa shouted. ‘How would you know? … I’ll teach you to buy people’s blood! I’ll teach you a lesson you won’t forget!’

Still shouting and cursing, Grandpa dug his thumbs into my dad’s throat, expertly cutting off his airway. Dad lay sprawled on the ground where he had fallen, flailing his legs and trying to push Grandpa away, but Grandpa was now straddling his chest, thumbs pressing down hard on his Adam’s apple. With a sickening crunch, Dad’s windpipe collapsed, and his eyes rolled back in his head, bulging from their sockets. His kicking
slowed; his feet pedlled the ground a few times and then stopped. His hands grew weak, then fell away from Grandpa’s chest.

It happened quickly, like a thunderstorm from a clear blue sky. Moments before, there hadn’t been a cloud in sight, then Grandpa had begun to strangle the life out of his son. There was no going back. This couldn’t be undone. And yet Grandpa was my father’s father, and Father was my grandpa’s son: flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, father and son trying to kill each other, fighting to the death. But that is exactly what it was: a death match.

Watching from the sidelines, my sister Yingzi was in tears, crying out first for her daddy, then for her grandpa.

Everyone else seemed to be in shock. Maybe it was shock, or maybe it was something else. None of the villagers clustered around the two men had made any attempt to stop the fight. No one had spoken. It was the rapt silence of a crowd watching two bulls lock horns, the silence of spectators at a bullfight or a cockfight, the suspenseful waiting to see which side would win.

The whole village waited to see whether or not Grandpa would strangle the life out of his son.

‘Daddy, Daddy, no … !’ My sister’s screams broke the silence. ‘Stop it, Grandpa, stop it!’

Grandpa reacted to Yingzi’s cries as though he’d been struck with a blow to the back of the head. He loosened his grip on my father’s throat. His hands went slack, and then he just … let go.

It ended as quickly as it began. A passing thunderstorm; a sudden shower.

Like a man awakening from a bad dream, Grandpa shook his head and struggled to his feet. He seemed confused by the crowd of people, dazed by the glare of lights overhead. As he stared at his son sprawled on the ground, he muttered to himself in a voice too low for anyone to hear: ‘All I asked you to do was apologize … Would it have killed you to say you’re sorry?’

My dad lay on the ground, struggling to catch his breath. He lay there for a long time before he finally managed to sit up. His breathing was ragged, his skin mottled red and white. He looked like someone who had scaled a mountainside and finally reached the top, exhausted. Dad loosened his collar to get some air and unzipped his grey autumn jacket, revealing two thumb prints that stood out on his neck like angry red burns. His eyes watered, but he didn’t even bother to wipe away the tears. Nor did he speak; he couldn’t have if he’d tried. The noise coming from his throat sounded like the wheezing of an asthmatic.

After a while, the wheezing subsided and my dad rose to his feet. He glared at Grandpa – a cold, hate-filled look – then reached out and slapped my sister across the face.

‘I told you we shouldn’t have come here,’ he roared. ‘But you insisted! You should have listened to me! Next time you’ll listen!’

Dad glowered at Grandpa – oh, if looks could kill – before turning his gaze on the villagers, the same people who had stood by and watched him being strangled by his own father. Not one of them had tried to stop the fight, not one of them had stepped in to save him. Dad wheeled around, grabbed Yingzi by the hand and stomped off, dragging my weeping sister behind him.

Grandpa watched my father walk away until he was just a blur in the distance, a shrunken figure at the school gate.

Then, his face covered in perspiration, Grandpa began retracing his steps to the stage, stopping only when he stood face to face with Ma Xianglin. The musician seemed not to have moved at all: he was rooted to the same spot on the stage. Grandpa turned to the villagers, likewise frozen in their places. He gazed at them for a moment before falling to his knees with a thump. In a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, Grandpa proclaimed, ‘As you can see, I’m not a young man. I kneel before you now, in my sixtieth year, to apologize to everyone on behalf of my oldest son, Ding Hui. I know a lot of you got infected from selling him your blood, and he is to
blame for that. But please remember that my youngest boy has the fever too, and my twelve-year-old grandson died after being poisoned. Seeing as how it is come to this, I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive us.’

Leaning forward, my grandfather knocked his head against the boards of the stage. ‘Please accept my apology. I beg you not to hold a grudge against our family.’

Thwack. Grandpa struck his head upon the stage a second time. ‘I know I let everyone down. I was the one who told you that blood is like a natural spring, that the more you take, the more it flows.’

Thwack. The third and final kowtow. ‘I also want to apologize for helping the government organize the trip to Cai county. The trip that started everyone selling their blood, and sold you into the sickness you are suffering from today.’

After the first apology, several of the villagers jumped on the stage and tried to lift Grandpa up. ‘There’s no need for this,’ they told him. ‘There’s really no need.’ But Grandpa managed to shake them off and perform the final two kowtows, thus completing the ritual. When he was finished, he rose to his feet like a man who had fulfilled a vow, or made good on a long-overdue promise.

Grandpa gazed at the large crowd of villagers like a teacher surveying a classroom full of students. They looked back at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to announce the start of class.

‘Beginning tomorrow,’ Grandpa announced in his most professorial tone, ‘anyone who is sick can come and live in the village school. Now, I know the village hasn’t had a cadre in years, but if you’re willing to put your trust in me, I promise that I’ll take care of you. You’ll be fed and housed at the school. I’ll make an appointment with the higher-ups to ask for a food subsidy. Just say the word and I’ll get you anything you need. And if you don’t think I’m working hard enough on your behalf, you can go to my sons’ houses and poison their pigs, their chickens, and any children they have left.’