Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (52 page)

When I reached the one-point-six-acre plot belonging to Lan Lian, I planted my hooves in the ground, having chased the moon westward to my destination. I looked off to the south, where Ximen Village Production Brigade land surrounding Lan Lian’s tiny strip was blanketed with mulberry trees, under whose lush foliage women were picking mulberries in the moonlight, and the sight stirred my emotions. I could see there were changes in farming villages following the death of Mao Zedong. Lan Lian was still planting an old variety of wheat, but the mulberry trees all around him were sapping the soil of nutrients, having an obvious effect on at least four rows of his cultivated land, with anemic stalks and tassels as tiny as houseflies. Maybe this was another scheme Hong Taiyue had dreamed up to punish Lan Lian: Let’s see how an independent farmer deals with this. By the light of the moon I saw the bare back of someone digging a ditch beside the mulberry trees, waging a battle against the People’s Commune. He was digging a deep, narrow ditch on the land between his and the mulberry plots belonging to the production brigade and chopping off the yellow mulberry roots that crossed that line with his hoe. That could have been a problem; on your own land you could dig as you wanted. But cutting the roots of brigade trees was considered destruction of property belonging to the collective. My mind was a blank as I gazed at old Lan Lian, bent over like a black bear clumsily digging away. Once the mulberries on both sides were tall, mature trees, the independent farmer would be the owner of a tract of barren land. But I soon learned how wrong I was. By this time, the production brigade had broken up and the People’s Commune existed in name only. Agricultural reform had entered the land-parceling phase, and the land surrounding Lan Lian’s plot had been distributed to individual farmers, who could decide on their own whether to plant mulberries or wheat.

My legs carried me to the Apricot Garden Pig Farm. The apricot tree was still there, but the pigpens weren’t. The spot where I had once sprawled lazily to daydream was now planted with peanuts. I rose up on my hind legs and rested my front hooves on branches of the tree I’d practiced on every day as a young pig. It was immediately clear that I was a lot heavier and clumsier than I’d been back then, and I was obviously out of practice where standing upright was concerned. In sum, as I roamed the ground of the onetime pig farm, I couldn’t help feeling nostalgic, which in itself was a sure sign that I was well ensconced in middle age. Yes, I’d experienced a great deal of what the world had to offer a pig.

I discovered that the two rows of buildings that had served as dormitories and workplaces for personnel who prepared our food had been converted to the task of raising silkworms. The sight of all those bright lights told me that Ximen Village had been added to the national electricity grid. And there, in front of a wide array of silkworm racks, stood Ximen Bai, her hair white as snow. She was bent over, the willow basket in her hands nearly filled with mulberry leaves, which she was spreading over the white silkworm beds. Crunching noises rose into the air. Your wedding suite, I noted, had also been converted to silkworm raising, which meant that you’d been given new quarters.

I stepped onto the road that ran through the center of the village; only now it was paved and probably twice as wide as before. The squat rammed-earth walls on either side had been taken down and had given way to rows of identical buildings with red-tile roofs. North of the road stood a two-story building fronted by an open square in which a hundred or more people — mostly old women and children — were watching an episode of a TV drama on a twenty-one-inch Matsushita Japanese television set.

I observed the crowd of TV watchers for about ten minutes before continuing on, heading west. You know where I was going. But now I needed to stay off the road. Causing the death of Xu Bao had made me a household name throughout Northeast Gaomi Township, and there’d be hell to pay if they spotted me. I wasn’t worried that I couldn’t hold my own if it came to that, but I wanted to avoid anything that might involve innocent bystanders. In other words, I was afraid, not of them, but of causing trouble. By staying in the shadows of the buildings south of the road, I was able to make it unobserved to the Ximen family compound.

The gate was open; the old apricot stood there as always, its branches covered with fresh blossoms that filled the air with their fragrance. I stayed in the shadows and gazed in at eight tables with plastic tablecloths. A light that had been strung outside and hung from a branch of the apricot tree lit the compound up like daytime. I knew the people who were sitting at the tables. A bad lot, all of them. The onetime puppet security chief Yu Wufu, the turncoat Zhang Dazhuang, Tian Gui the landlord, and the rich peasant Wu Yuan were seated at one table. Seated at one of the other tables were the onetime chief of security Yang Qi and two of the Sun brothers, Dragon and Tiger. The tables were littered with the leavings of a banquet; the guests were already good and drunk. I later learned that Yang Qi was in the business of selling bamboo poles — he’d never been much of a farmer — which he purchased in Jinggangshan and transported to Gaomi by train and from there to Ximen Village by truck. He sold his entire first load to Ma Liangcai, who used the poles to build a new school. Almost overnight Yang Qi became a wealthy man. Sitting there as the village’s richest man, he was dressed in a gray suit with a bright red tie. By rolling up his sleeves, he was able to show off his digital wristwatch. He took out a pack of American cigarettes and tossed one to Dragon Sun, who was gnawing on a braised pig’s foot, and another to Tiger Sun, who was wiping his mouth with a napkin. He crumpled the empty pack, turned, and shouted toward the east-side room:

“Boss lady!”

The boss lady came running outside. What do you know, it was her, Wu Qiuxiang! Would you believe it, Boss Lady? That was when I noticed that the wall just east of the compound gate had been whitewashed to accommodate a sign in red: Qiuxiang Tavern. Wu Qiuxiang, the proprietress of Qiuxiang Tavern, ran up to where Yang Qi was sitting. Her smiling face was heavily powdered; she had a towel over one shoulder and a blue apron around her waist — obviously a shrewd, competent, enthusiastic, professional innkeeper. This was a different world — reforms and openings to the outside world had brought profound changes to Ximen Village. Qiuxiang was all smiles as she asked Yang Qi:

“What can I do for you, Boss Yang?”

“Don’t call me that,” Yang said with a glare. “I’m just a peddler of bamboo poles, not the boss of anything.”

“Don’t be modest, Boss Yang. At ten yuan apiece, the sale of ten thousand makes you a wealthy man. If you’re not a boss, then there can’t be a soul in Northeast Gaomi Township worthy of the title.” Matching her exaggerated compliment with a touch on Yang’s shoulder, Qiuxiang continued. “Just look at how you’re dressed. What you’re wearing had to cost at least a thousand.”

“You women, open your bloody mouths and out comes the flattery At this rate, you’ll won’t be happy until I explode like one of those bloated dead pigs back on the pig farm.”

“Okay, Boss Yang, you’re not worth a thing, a pauper, does that sound better to you? You close the door on me before I have a chance to ask for a loan. Now then,” Qiuxiang said with a pout, “what can I get for you?”

“Huh? Are you mad at me? Don’t pout like that, it gives me a hard-on.”

“To hell with you!” Qiuxiang fired back, slapping Yang Qi on the head with her greasy towel. “Now tell me, what do you want?”

“A pack of cigarettes. Good Friends.”

“That’s all? What about liquor?” With a quick glance at the red faces of Tiger and Dragon Sun, she said, “These brothers look to be in dire need of a drink.”

“Boss Yang is buying today,” thick-tongued Dragon said, “so we ought to drink less.”

“Is that an insult directed my way?” Yang Qi exclaimed as he banged his fist on the table. “I may not be rich,” he said with feigned anger, “but I won’t go broke buying a few drinks for you two.” He reached out and pinched Qiuxiang on the rear and said, “Okay, two bottles of Black Vat.”

“Black Vat? Too low-class. For friends like this, the least you can do is treat them to some Little Tiger.”

“Damn, Qiuxiang, you sure know how to take a hint and run with it,” Yang Qi said with a note of resignation. “All right, make it Little Tiger.”

Lan Jiefang, I’m painting a detailed picture of what was going on in the Ximen family compound, describing what I heard and saw as a pig at the gate, in order to bring the conversation around to a very important individual, Hong Taiyue. After a new office building was built for the production brigade, the original headquarters — the five rooms belonging to Ximen Nao — were taken over by Jinlong and Huzhu as their living quarters. And there’s more. Immediately after announcing the rehabilitation of the bad elements in the village, Jinlong announced that he was changing his name from Lan to Ximen. All this held considerable meaning, and the loyal old revolutionary Hong Taiyue was greatly puzzled.

Following his retirement, Hong began acting more and more like Lan Lian, cooped up at home during the day, and out the door as soon as the moon climbed into the sky. Lan Lian worked his land under moonlight; Hong roamed the village like an old-time night watchman, up and down all the streets and byways. Jinlong said: The old branch secretary’s level of consciousness is high as always — he’s out there every night protecting us. That, of course, wasn’t what Hong intended. He had a heavy heart over the changes that had occurred in the village and didn’t know what to do about it. So he walked and he drank out of a canteen people said had belonged to the Eighth Route Army. He wore an old army jacket over his shoulders, a wide leather belt around his waist, and straw sandals on his feet, topped by army leggings. The only thing that kept him from total resemblance to an Eighth Route soldier was the absence of a repeater rifle slung over his back. He’d take a couple of steps, then a swig from his canteen, and finally utter a loud curse. By the time the canteen was empty, the moon would be low in the western sky and he’d be falling-down drunk. On some nights he made it back to his bed to sleep it off; on other nights he’d simply bed down by a haystack or on an abandoned millstone and sleep till sunrise. He was spotted sleeping by a haystack by early-morning market goers, his brows and beard coated with frost, his face nice and ruddy, with no sign of feeling the cold. He’d be snoring away so peacefully no one wanted to wake him from whatever he was dreaming. Sometimes he’d head out to the fields on a whim and start a conversation with Lan Lian, but not by stepping on Lan Lian’s plot of land. No, he’d stand on somebody else’s property and engage the independent farm in a verbal battle. But since Lan Lian was busy working, he had little time for idle chatter, so he just let the old man talk, which he was only too happy to do. When Lan Lian did open his mouth, though, a pointed comment as hard as a rock or as sharp as a knife emerged and shut the old man up on the spot, so enraging him he could hardly stand. During the “Contract Responsibility System” phase, for instance, Hong Taiyue said to Lan Lian:

“Isn’t this the same as bringing back capitalism? Wouldn’t you say it was a system of material incentives?”

In a low, muffled voice, Lan Lian replied: “The best is yet to come, just you wait and see!”

Then when that led to the phase of a system of “household responsibility for production,” Hong stood alongside Lan Lian’s plot of land and jumped up and down, cursing:

“Shit, are they really giving up on the People’s Commune, ownership at the three levels of commune, brigade, and production team levels, with the production team as the base, from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs, all that?”

“Sooner or later, we’ll all be independent farmers,” Lan Lian said coldly.

“Dream on,” Hong said.

“You just wait and see.”

Then when the subsistence system went into effect, Hong got roaring drunk and came up to Lan Lian’s land, wailing and cursing angrily, as if Lan Lian himself were the person responsible for all the earth-shaking reforms:

“Lan Lian, you motherfucker, it’s just like you said, you bastard. This subsistence system is nothing but independent farming, isn’t it? After thirty hard, demanding years, we’re right back to the days before Liberation. Well, not for me. I’m going to Beijing, right up to Tiananmen Square, and I’ll go to Chairman Mao’s Memorial Hall and weep to his spirit. I’ll tell Chairman Mao I’m going to file a complaint against all of you. Our land, the land we fought for and turned red, and now they want a new color. ...”

Grief and anger drove Hong out of his mind, and as he rolled on the ground, he lost sight of boundaries. He rolled onto Lan Lian’s land just as Lan was cutting down beans. Hong Taiyue, rolling on the ground like a donkey, rolled into the bean lattice, crushing the pods and sending beans popping and flying all over the place. Lan pressed Hong to the ground with his sickle and said unsparingly:

“You’re on my land! We struck a deal many years ago, and now it is my right to sever your Achilles tendon. But I’m in a good mood today, so I’m going to let you off.”

Hong rolled right off of Lan Lian’s land and, by holding on to a scrawny mulberry tree, got to his feet.

“I refuse to accept it. Old Lan, after thirty years of struggle, you still wind up the victor, while those of us of unquestionable loyalty and hard, bitter work spend thirty years of blood and sweat, only to wind up the losers. You’re right and we’re wrong. . . .”

“In the land distribution, you got yours, didn’t you?” Lan asked in a less confrontational tone. “I’ll bet you got every inch you had coming. They wouldn’t dare shortchange you. And you still receive your six-hundred-yuan cadre-level pension, don’t you? And will they take away your monthly army supplement of thirty yuan? Not hardly. You have nothing to complain about. The Communist Party is paying you for everything you did, good or bad, every month like clockwork.”

“These are two different matters,” Hong replied, “and what I won’t accept is that you, Lan Lian, are one of history’s obstacles, a man who was left behind, and here you are, part of the vanguard. You must be proud of yourself. All Northeast Gaomi Township, all Gaomi County, is praising you as a man of foresight!”