Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (20 page)

We were not alone in suffering a shortage of animal feed: the production brigade also had to take its twenty-four oxen, four donkeys, and two horses out into the wild to graze, tended by the herder Hu Bin and Jinlong. My half sister, Baofeng, had been sent to train at the county health department; she would return as our first formally educated midwife. Both she and her brother were given important tasks as soon as they joined the commune. Now you might assume that midwifery was an important task, while tending livestock was not. But Jinlong was given the added responsibility of recording work points. Every evening he went to a small office, where he calculated the daily work activities of each commune member in a ledger. If that isn’t an important task, I don’t know what is. Seeing her children given such important tasks kept a smile on Mother’s face, but when she saw me take my ox out to graze all by myself, she heaved a long sigh. I was, after all, her son too.

Well, that’s enough meaningless chatter for now. Let’s talk about Hu Bin, a small man with an accent that marked him as an outsider. Onetime head of the commune’s post office, he’d been engaged in an illicit relationship with the fiancee of a soldier and was sentenced to a period of hard labor. When his sentence was up, he settled in our village. His wife, Bai Lian, a village switchboard operator with a big, round, plump face, red lips, nice white teeth, and a cheerful voice, had a cozy relationship with many of the commune cadres. Eighteen telephone wires on a China fir pole all fed into the window of her home and were connected to a unit that resembled a dressing table. When I was in elementary school, I could hear her singsong voice drift into the classroom: Hello. What number please? Please hold — Zheng Village on the line. We kids used to sprawl outside her window and look through tears in the window paper to watch as she nursed her baby with one arm and, with her free hand, effortlessly plugged the pegs into or pulled them out of the switchboard. To us, this was both a mystery and a wonder, and not a day passed that we didn’t hang around there, until a village cadre shooed us away. But we’d be right back as soon as he left. We not only watched Bai Lian at work, but were also treated to plenty of scenes that were unsuitable for children. We saw her and the village’s commune representative carry on flirtatiously, even get physical, and we saw Bai Lian scold Hu Bin in that singsong voice of hers. And we learned why none of Bai Lian’s children looked alike. Eventually, the paper in her window was replaced by glass and a curtain, and there were no more shows. All we could do was listen to what went on inside. Even later, the wires were buried underground after being electrified. Mo Yan got zapped by a hot wire outside her window one day and peed his pants as he screamed pathetically. When I tried to pull him away, I got zapped too, but I didn’t pee my pants. After this episode, we stopped hanging around outside her window.

Sending Hu Bin, who wore a felt cap with earflaps, miner’s goggles, a tattered uniform under a grimy army greatcoat, with a pocket watch in one pocket and a code book in the other, to tend livestock was an insult. But someone should have told him to keep his pants zipped. My brother told him to round up the strays, but he’d just sit on the riverbank in the sunlight to flip through his code book and read aloud, until tears fell and he’d begin to sob. Then he’d raise his voice to the heavens:

“What did I do to deserve this? One time, that’s all, not even three minutes, and now I have nothing to look forward to!”

The brigade’s oxen spread out across the riverbank, all so underfed you could count their ribs. Even though their coats were peeling, this taste of freedom injected life into their eyes; they looked pleased with their lot. I held on to your halter so you wouldn’t mix with the others and tried to lead you over to where the grass was more nutritious and tastier. But you balked and dragged me back to the riverbank, where the reeds had grown tall the year before, with white-tipped leaves like knives, a spot where the brigade oxen walked in and out of view. You were so strong, I was helpless in trying to lead you, even with the halter. You just dragged me wherever you wanted to go. By then, you were a fully grown ox, horns sprouting from your forehead like new bamboo, glossy as fine jade. The childish innocence in your eyes had been replaced by a shifty, somewhat gloomy, look. You dragged me over to the reeds, getting closer and closer to the brigade oxen, which were pushing the reeds back and forth as they nibbled on dead leaves. They raised their heads to chew, crunching so loud it sounded like chewing on iron, giving them the appearance not of oxen but of giraffes. I saw the Mongol ox, with her twisted tail, your mother. Your eyes met. She called out to you, but you didn’t reply; you just stared at her as if she were a stranger or, even worse, a bitter foe. My brother snapped his whip to vent his frustration. We hadn’t spoken since he joined the commune, and I wasn’t about to start now; if he tried to start a conversation, I’d ignore him. The fountain pen in his pocket sparkled, and I experienced a feeling that was hard to describe. Staying with my father as an independent farmer had not been a choice I’d made after careful consideration. It was actually something I’d decided in the heat of the moment, sort of like watching a play in which one of the roles is missing and deciding to go up onstage as a stand-in. A performance requires a stage and an audience; I had neither. I was lonely. I stole a look at my brother, who had his back to me as he sent the tips of reeds flying every which way with his whip, like a sword. The ice on the river had begun to melt, cracks revealing the blue water below and reflecting blinding rays of light. The land on the other side of the river belonged to the state-run farm. Rows of modern buildings with red roofs created a stark contrast with the rammed-earth, thatch-roofed farmhouses in the village. A deafening roar came our way from across the river, and I knew that the spring plowing was about to get under way; the farm equipment teams were testing and repairing the machinery. I could even see the ruins of primitive ovens they’d used to smelt steel some years earlier; they looked like un-tended graves. My brother stopped snapping reed tips with his whip, stood up straight, and said coldly:

“You shouldn’t be doing his dirty work!”

“You shouldn’t be so proud of yourself!” I had to give him tit for tat.

“Starting today, I’m going to hit you every day until you bring your ox into the commune.” He still had his back to me.

“Hit me?” He was so much bigger and stronger than me that I had to hide my fear with bluster. “Hah, try it! I’ll beat you so badly there won’t be enough of you left to bury.”

He turned and faced me.

“Fine,” he said with a laugh. “Now’s your chance.”

He reached out with the butt of his whip, picked my hat off my head, and laid it gently on a clump of weeds.

“I don’t want to make Mother angry by dirtying your hat.”

Then he rapped me on the head with the butt.

It didn’t hurt much; in school, I banged my head on the door frame a lot and the other kids frequently hit me with chips of brick and tile, and all that hurt much more. But nothing made me as mad. Explosions of thunder in my head merged with the roar of machines on the far side of the river, and I saw stars. Without a second thought, I threw down the halter and rushed him. He jumped out of the way and kicked me in the pants on my way by. I wound up spread-eagled in the weeds, where a snakeskin almost wound up in my mouth.

Snakeskin, also known as snake slough, has medicinal properties. One year, a boil the size of a small saucer on his leg had Jinlong screeching in pain. Mother was told to fry some snake slough with eggs, so she sent me out to look for some. When I couldn’t find any, Mother said I was worse than useless. So Father took me back out, where we found a six-foot-long black snake with a fresh layer of skin, which meant it had recently molted. The snake’s black forked tongue licked out at us from very close. Mother fried the slough with seven eggs, a golden plateful that smelled wonderful and made me salivate. I tried to keep from looking at it, but my eyes slanted that way on their own. What a good brother you were then. Come on, you said, let’s share. I said, No, none for me, you need this to get better. I saw tears in your eyes . . . now you’re beating me. I picked the skin up with my teeth and imagined myself to be a poisonous snake as I rushed him again.

This time he didn’t manage to get out of the way; I wrapped my arms around him and stuck my head up under his chin to push him over. But he adroitly slipped his leg between mine, grabbed me by the shoulders, and hopped on one leg to keep from falling. My eyes accidentally fell on you, the bastard offspring of a Simmental ox and Mongol ox, standing off to the side, just standing there quietly, looking despondent and sort of helpless, and I have to admit I was disappointed in you. I was fighting someone who’d bit off part of your ear and bloodied your nose; why didn’t you come help me? To knock him over, all you had to do was give him a gentle nudge in the small of his back. Put a little more into it, and he’d sail through the air, and when he landed, I’d pin him to the ground. I win, he loses. But you didn’t move. Now, of course, I understand why — he was your son, while I was your best friend. I brushed your coat, I chased away the gadflies, I cried for you. It was hard for you to choose one over the other, and I believe that what you wanted was for us both to stop, separate, shake hands, and go back to being loving brothers. His legs kept getting tangled up in the weeds, nearly causing him to fall, but as long as he could hop he could keep his balance. My strength was ebbing fast and I was panting like an ox; the pressure on my chest was becoming unbearable. All of a sudden, sharp pains struck both my ears; he’d taken his hands from my shoulders and was pulling on my ears. Hu Bin’s shrill voice rose beside us:

“Good! Great! Fight! Fight!”

He was clapping his hands. With the pain killing me, Hu Bin’s shouts distracting me, and your refusal to come to my aid disappointing me, I felt his leg wrap around mine; he flipped me onto my back and piled on, digging his knee into my belly. That hurt so much I think I peed my pants. Still holding my ears, he pressed my head into the ground. I saw white clouds and a bright sun in the blue sky above, and then I saw Ximen Jinlong’s long, skinny, angular face, with a downy mustache above his hard, thin lips, a high nose bridge, and eyes that held a menacing glow. There’s no way he had pure Han Chinese blood; maybe, like my ox, he had a mixed racial background, and by looking at his face I could imagine his likeness to Ximen Nao, a man I’d never met, but whose appearance had become the stuff of legend. I felt like cursing, but he was pulling my ears tightly, stretching the skin around my cheeks and mouth so taut that even I couldn’t make sense of what came out of my mouth. He lifted up my head and slammed it into the ground, once for each word:

“Are — you — going — to — join — or — aren’t — you?”

“No . . . never join . . .” My words emerged bathed in spittle.

“As I said, starting today, I’m going to beat you every day until you agree to join the commune. Not only that, each day will be worse than the one before!”

“I’ll tell Mother!”

“She’s the one who told me to do this!”

“I’ll see what Dad says,” I said in a more accommodating tone.

“No, you have to join before he returns. And not only you, the ox comes with you.”

“He was always good to you. Is this how you repay him?”

“I’m bringing you into the commune to repay him.”

Hu Bin was circling us the whole time. In near ecstasy, he was pulling at his own ears, rubbing his cheeks, clapping his hands, and chattering nonstop. Hovering around us, the black-hearted cuckold in his green hat who thought so highly of himself, and loathed everyone, though he didn’t dare actually oppose anyone, took great pleasure in seeing two brothers fight; in fact, he took pleasure from anyone else’s misery and pain. And at this point, you showed what you were made of.

The ox lowered his head and drove it into Hu Bin’s backside, sending him sailing through the air like a cast-off coat, six feet off the ground, before gravity worked its magic and drove him into the reeds at a fateful slant, where he announced his landing with a screech that was as crooked as the tail of the Mongol ox. Clambering to his feet, Hu Bin careened off tall reeds that bent low with a loud rustle. The ox charged again, and Hu Bin was once again in flight.

Ximen Jinlong immediately let go of me, jumped up, raised his whip, and brought it down on the ox. I got to my feet, wrapped my arms around him, and flipped him to the ground, landing on top of him. How dare you hit my ox! You’re a landlord’s kid with no sense of friendship, someone who repays kindness with hatred. A dog has eaten your conscience! The landlord’s kid arched upward and flung me off his back. Then he got to his feet, hit me with his whip, and ran over to rescue the whining Hu Bin, who was flailing and stumbling as he tried to escape from his reedy surroundings, like a beaten dog. It was a sight to behold! The evil man had gotten what he deserved, at last; justice had been served. It would have been perfect if you’d punished Ximen Jinlong before dishing out retribution to Hu Bin. But of course now I realize that you were being true to the notion that a mighty tiger will not eat one of its own, so that was understandable. Your son Ximen Jinlong went in pursuit with his whip. Hu Bin was running away — no, I shouldn’t say running. Buttons on his tattered army greatcoat, the emblem of his glorious history, were popping off as his coat flapped in the wind like the broken wings of a dead bird. His hat had fallen off and was trampled into the mud by the ox’s hooves. Help . .. ! Save me ... ! Actually, that wasn’t what I heard, but I knew that the sounds that emerged from his mouth contained a plea for someone to come to his rescue. My ox, brave, embodying human traits, was in hot pursuit. He kept his head low as he ran; red rays spurting from his eyes and penetrating the span of history appeared before me. His hooves kicked up white alkaline soil that sliced into the reeds like shrapnel, that peppered my and Ximen Jinlong’s bodies, and, farther off, that pelted the liberated water in the river like hailstones. The smell of clean water filled my nostrils, that and the odor of melting ice and the aroma of once frozen mud, plus the stink of female ox piss. The smell of an animal in heat signaled the arrival of spring, the rebirth of countless beings; the season for mating was nearly upon us. Snakes and frogs and toads and all manner of insects that had slept through the long winter were awakening. Infinite varieties of grasses and edible greens were jolted out of their slumber; vapors imprisoned in the soil were released into the air. Spring was coming. That day the ox chased after Hu Bin, Ximen Jinlong chased after the ox, and I chased after Ximen Jinlong. We were bringing with us the spring of 1965.