Brothers (7 page)

When Song Gang heard Baldy Li's nickname, he broke out into
peals of laughter as he stared at the younger boys shiny bald head. "Your name is Baldy Li? That's hilarious!"

But suddenly Song Gang started to bawl as a man burned his arm with his cigarette. When Baldy Li saw Song Gang bawling, he was amused and almost laughed out loud, until another mans cigarette burned him on the neck and he started bawling as well.

At that point the game began. Under the brilliant lights of the court and amid the cyclones of sound, Song Fanping shone. Li Lan was astounded by his height, strength, jumps, and skills. She yelled until she was hoarse and her eyes were bloodshot. Every time Song Fanping made a basket, he would run past them, his arms extended as if he were flying. Once he even dunked the ball. In his entire life he managed to dunk only once, and this was that time. For the thousand spectators crowded around the court, this was also the first and only time they witnessed a dunk. The deafening roar suddenly died away, and people stood slack-jawed, looking at one another as if trying to confirm what they had just witnessed. Then the waves of human voices roared back all around the court. It hadn't been this loud even back when the Japanese invaded.

Stunned by his own dunk, Song Fanping stood frozen for a moment under the net. After he realized what he had accomplished, he ran toward Li Lan and the kids, flushed and wide-eyed. He spread his arms and lifted Song Gang and Baldy Li high into the sky, then he ran with them toward the basket and would have joyfully tossed them in if they hadn't been crying so loudly. Fortunately, he eventually recalled that they weren't basketballs and, chuckling, ran back and set them down. Still lost in the moment, he then lifted Li Lan. In front of a thousand people, he lifted her up as waves of laughter washed over them. Every variety of laugh could be heard: bellows, titters, shrieks, chuckles, guffaws, cackles, dry and wet laughs.

In those days, to see a man embracing a woman was tantamount to watching an adult film today. After Song Fanping put Li Lan down, he ran with arms extended back into the game. Now that she had starred in her adult film, Li Lan was perceived in a completely different light, and for the rest of the game half the spectators watched the match while the other half stared at her curiously. They recalled the man who had died while peeping at women's naked bottoms, and they pointed out that she had been his wife. Li Lan, meanwhile, was lost in her own happiness. Tears in her eyes, lips trembling, she no longer cared what anyone else said.

After the game, Song Fanping removed his sweat-soaked jersey and Li Lan held it up to her breast, as if it were something precious. The four of them then walked over to a soda shop. By the time they were seated, the sweat from Song Fanping's jersey had soaked through Li Lan's white blouse, but she was blissfully unaware that her breasts were now completely visible. Song Fanping ordered two bowls of mung bean ice and two bottles of soda. Baldy Li and Song Gang both dug in. Song Fanping opened the cold bottles of soda and passed one to Li Lan as he gulped down the other. Li Lan didn't drink hers but instead pushed it back to Song Fanping, who paused for a second, then picked it up and gulped it down, too. The two of them sat gazing at each other, no longer paying any attention to their children. Song Fanping couldn't help staring at Li Lan's breasts, and she kept looking at his bare chest—his wide shoulders and cut muscles making her blush.

Baldy Li and Song Gang didn't pay attention to them either. This was the first summer the two kids had enjoyed this sort of icy treat. Previously, the chilliest thing they had tasted was a bowlful of well water, but now they were eating an icy mung bean treat, with sugar sprinkled on top like snowflakes. They lifted their bowls, and the mere chill of the bowls was more pleasurable than drinking well water. With the sugar on top dissolving like melting snow, each spoonful was sheer ecstasy. After the first few bites, their mouths became revved-up engines that couldn't be shut down. They slurped mouthful after mouthful of the ice-cold treat, freezing their tongues and lips. They would pause and let their mouths open as if they had been scalded, and then would start up again, rolling the icy mung beans around on the tips of their tongues. Eventually they finished their bowls and licked them clean, then continued licking, savoring the lingering chill of the bowl. They licked until their bowls were warmer than their tongues, and only then did they reluctantly put them down. They raised their heads, looked at Song Fanping and Li Lan, and asked, "Could we come back again tomorrow?"

Song Fanping and Li Lan answered in unison, "Sure!"

CHAPTER 6

B
ALDY LI
and Song Gang didn't realize that their parents were getting married in a few days. Li Lan bought two pounds of hard candy from Shanghai, roasted a big pot of fava nuts and another of watermelon seeds, and then poured everything into a barrel and mixed it together. When she was done, she gave a handful of the mixture to Baldy Li, who spread it out on the table and counted: only 12 fava nuts, 18 watermelon seeds, and 2 pieces of hard candy.

On the day of the wedding, Li Lan got up before dawn. She put on her new blouse, her new pants, and a pair of shiny new plastic sandals. She sat on the edge of the bed and watched the darkness outside her window dissipate as the rosy dawn light shone in. Her teeth were chattering. This time, though, it wasn't because of a migraine but, rather, because she was breathless and flushed at the prospect of another wedding. Li Lan hated the darkness with all her heart, and as the dawn arrived, she became more and more worked up, making her teeth chatter louder and louder and waking Baldy Li from his dreams three times. The third time he woke up, Li Lan didn't let him go back to sleep but told him to hurry up and get out of bed, brush his teeth, wash his face, and put on his new shirt, shorts, and plastic sandals. As she knelt in front of Baldy Li to fasten his sandals she heard the rumbling of a cart outside her door. She leapt up and dove to open the door and found Song Fanping, who was pulling the cart, standing there beaming, and Song Gang, who was seated on top, laughing and calling out, "Baldy Li!"

Song Gang chuckled and said to his father, "That name is hilarious."

Li Lan s neighbors gathered around them. They watched with surprise as Song Fanping and Li Lan loaded the cart with assorted housewares. Among the neighbors were three middle-school students. One, Sun Wei, had a headful of long hair, while the other two were Liu Town's future Men of Talent, though back then they were only a couple of students named Success Liu and Victory Zhao. After becoming Writer Liu and Poet Zhao, they would parade the Peeping Tom Baldy Li through the streets of Liu. These three students
crowded curiously around the cart. They nudged one another, chuckling, and leered at Li Lan, saying, "Are you getting married again?"

Li Lan, blushing bright red, went over to her neighbors and started passing out handfuls of fava nuts, watermelon seeds, and hard candy. Song Fanping also left the cart and followed behind Li Lan, handing out cigarettes to the men in the neighborhood. The neighbors munched on nuts, seeds, and candy and laughed as they watched Song Fanping and Li Lan load her possessions onto the cart.

Then they started pulling the cart along the summer streets. This was a cobblestone street, and when the wheels of the cart rolled over them, the stones would shift and the wooden electrical poles would creak. The cart was full to the brim with clothes and blankets from Li Lan's house, as well as tables and chairs, washbasins, pots and knives, and spoons and chopsticks. Baldy Li's mother and Song Gangs father walked in front, and the tagalong children followed behind.

Li Lan grabbed two handfuls of nuts, seeds, and candy and stuffed them into Baldy Li's and Song Gang's hands. The boys followed behind with their hands full of treats. Their mouths were watering in anticipation, but since they didn't have a third hand to open the candy wrappers and crack the seeds, their mouths remained empty.

A few hens and roosters trailed the two boys. Clucking as they fought over the nuts and seeds that slipped through fingers, they passed through the boys’ legs and flapped their wings, trying to reach the treats. As the boys tried to avoid them, they dropped more and more of the nuts and seeds in the process.

Song Fanping pulled the cart and Li Lan held the wooden barrel and walked along the increasingly crowded streets. The two of them were beaming. Many people who knew them stopped in their tracks and looked curiously at this couple and the two boys trailed by chickens. They pointed and asked, "What is this?"

Periodically, Song Fanping would put down his cart and hand out cigarettes to the men, while Li Lan distributed handfuls of nuts and candy to the women and children. Flushed and beaming, they explained in tremulous voices that they were getting married, to which everyone nodded and said,
"Ohhh."
They looked at Song Fanping and Li Lan, then at Song Gang and Baldy Li, and chuckled: "Getting married.
Ohhh,
getting married…"

Song Fanping and Li Lan walked along, smiling and telling the
passersby about their wedding as everyone along the street smoked their auspicious wedding cigarettes, chewed their auspicious candy gnawed on their auspicious nuts, and cracked their auspicious melon seeds. But Baldy Li and Song Gang didn't even get an auspicious fart, so busy were they protecting the treats in their hands while being chased by the chickens. Their mouths watered as they watched everyone else eat, but they could do nothing but gulp down their own drool.

All along the street, people pointed at Baldy Li and Song Gang, debating which of the kids would be considered the proverbial
excess baggage
in the new family. After much discussion, they eventually concluded, "Both of them are excess baggage."

Then they said to Song Fanping and Li Lan, "You two make a real good match."

Finally, the newly melded family arrived at Song Fanpings house, and with that the wedding parade reached its destination. Song Fanping moved the stuff on the cart into the house while Li Lan stood at the door with her wooden barrel, passing out handfuls of treats to the neighbors. Not much was left in the barrel, and Li Lan s handfuls became progressively smaller.

Baldy Li and Song Gang both rushed inside and dumped all the treats in their hands onto the bed. The fava nuts and melon seeds were all soggy with sweat, but the boys were so famished that they immediately stuffed their mouths full of nuts, seeds, and candy until their cheeks were round like buttocks. Finally, unable to move a muscle, they discovered that they couldn't eat another bite. From the living room, Song Fanping called out for the boys. A crowd had gathered outside, and now that they had examined the second-time-around newly-weds, they wanted to examine the two sons.

Baldy Li and Song Gang rushed outside, their mouths stuffed so full that their eyes squinted and their cheeks puffed out, making everyone burst out laughing. "What treasures do you have in there?"

The boys first shook and then nodded their heads, but they couldn't utter a word. One man said, "Don't think that just because their mouths are as full as balloons they won't be able to stuff more in."

The man walked into Song Fanpings house and rummaged around until he found two white porcelain teacup lids. Then he made Baldy Li and Song Gang latch onto the nibs on their lids as if they were nipples. The kids did indeed manage to latch on, prompting everyone to burst
out laughing again. They laughed until their bodies shook, producing tears, snot, saliva, and even an occasional fart, remarking on how it looked like the boys were latching onto Li Lan s nipples. Li Lan blushed furiously as she turned to look at her new husband. Appearing completely discomfited, Song Fanping walked up to the two boys, removed the lids from their lips, and suggested, "Why don't you go back inside?"

Baldy Li and Song Gang returned to the room and climbed up once again onto the bed. They exchanged despairing glances—their mouths were full of treats, but they couldn't swallow. Baldy Li was the first to think this through and quickly started to dig out a bit at a time from his mouth. Song Gang followed his lead. They spread out the newly extracted nuts, seeds, and hard candy on the bedsheet. The treats were gummy and sticky and glistened like snot, and they made an absolute mess of their parents’ bed. Having had their jaws propped open for too long, the boys now found that they couldn't shut them. They stared at each other's cavelike mouth, both at a complete loss. Meanwhile, they could hear Song Fanping and Li Lan outside calling for them again.

Li Lan's old neighbors had brought along their children and had walked through the alleys looking for Song Fanping's home. When they showed up, Li Lan felt a wave of pleasure that lasted only as long as a sneeze and then immediately fell into disappointment. It turned out that the neighbors weren't here to congratulate them on their marriage but, rather, to look for their missing chickens. The birds had trailed Baldy Li and Song Gang through the streets, but after that no one had any idea where they had gone. The neighbors started making a ruckus, cursing at Li Lan and Song Fanping: "What about our chickens? Where are our goddamn chickens?"

The newlyweds had no idea what they were talking about. "What chickens?"

"Our chickens…"

In a hubbub, they tried to describe what their chickens looked like. They said that lots of people had seen the chickens follow Baldy Li and Song Gang into the street. Song Fanping was perplexed. "Chickens aren't dogs. Why would they follow people into the street?"

The neighbors insisted that lots of people had seen Baldy Li and Song Gang dropping a trail of seeds and nuts, and the chickens had followed behind them and ended up in the street. Song Fanping and Li
Lan called out to the boys and asked them, "Chickens? Did you see any chickens?"

Their jaws still locked open, the boys could only shake their heads.

The chicken search party consisted of a trio of men, a trio of women, and a trio of middle-school students, as well as a couple of boys slightly older than Baldy Li and Song Gang. The eleven of them surrounded Song Gang and Baldy Li, clucking at them angrily, "Where are our chickens? Did they follow you?"