Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh (21 page)

The period after Liberation, owing to improvements in living standards and hygiene, saw a significant drop in the occurrences of abandoned children. But the numbers began to rise again in the 1980s, when the situation grew very complicated. First, there were no boys at all. On the surface, it appeared that some parents were forced into acts of inhumanity by rigid family planning restrictions. But upon closer examination, I realized that the traditional preference for boys over girls was the real culprit. I knew I couldn't be overly critical of parents in this new era, and I also knew that if I were a peasant, I might well be one of those fathers who abandoned his child.

No matter how much this concept tarnishes the image of the People's Republic, it is an objective reality, one that will be difficult to eradicate in the short term. Existing in a filthy village with foul air all around, even a diamond-studded sword will rust. So, it seems, I awakened to the Truth.

All night long it rained, but as dawn broke, a ray of sunlight — blood-red, wet and hot — split the dark clouds. I carried the baby over to the bed and asked my wife to watch her. Then I went outside to slosh through the muddy puddles of rainwater and to cross the river on my way to the township government office to ask for help. As I entered the lane, I saw that the sorghum stalk fence had been blown down by gusty winds, leaving lush morning glories to soak in the water. Purple and pink blossoms had turned to face the clearing sky, as if offering a sorrowful complaint. Now that the collapsed fence was no longer a barrier, a clutch of half-grown chickens, their feathers still growing, rushed into the yard to peck frantically at large heads of cabbage.

The river's floodwater all but submerged the little stone bridge, sending spray high into the air when it crashed against the stones. I twisted my ankle when I jumped off the bridge, and as I hobbled along the dike, I couldn't help but think that this was not a good sign, that this trip to the township office might not solve my problem. But I kept hobbling as best I could toward the row of tiled buildings.

Rain had washed the government compound until everything was clean and fresh. Red bricks and green tiles, and the surrounding thickets of green bamboo, sparkled wetly. There were no human sounds in the compound. A pointy-eared mongrel watchdog with a missing tail lay on the concrete steps staring at me warily, before narrowing its eyes. A check of wooden signs above a series of doors led me to the office I was looking for. I knocked — three times. Suddenly I heard a rustling behind me, just before I felt a sharp pain in my leg. I looked down, but by then the damned watchdog, which had just bitten me on the calf, had already returned to the step and was sprawled out lazily. It didn't make a sound as it lay there licking its chops; it even flashed me a friendly smile. How could I help but feel a fondness for a dog like that, even though it had just bitten me? You might think I'd hate it, but I didn't hate it. In my view, it was one terrific dog. But why had it bitten me? It was not a random act, so there must have been a reason. In this world, there is no love without reason or cause; nor, for that matter, hatred. Most likely the bite was intended for me to reach a sudden awakening through pain. True danger never comes from the front, always from the rear; true danger is not embodied in a mad dog with bared fangs, but in the sweet smile of, say, a Mona Lisa. I'd have missed that fact if I'd not been forced to think about it; once the thought struck me, I was startled into awareness. Thank you, dog, you with the pointy snout and a face drenched in artistic colors!

My pant leg felt sticky, and hot. That must have meant blood. Anytime I bled for someone, the person who'd drunk my blood would curse me, “Your blood is rancid! Get the hell out of here!” I wondered if this abandoned child I'd rescued might also curse me for having rancid blood.

The door, whose green paint had begun to peel and chip, was flung open, and there in front of me stood a dark-skinned mountain of a man. After sizing me up, he demanded, “Who are you looking for?”

“The Township Head,” I said.

“That's me. Come in, have a seat. Hey, your leg's bleeding. How'd that happen?” “Your dog bit me.”

The dark-skinned man's face twisted into anger. “Damn! Would you look at that! I'm sorry. It's all Scarface Su's fault. The People's Compound isn't some landlord's mansion, so why keep a watchdog around? Is that a hint that the People's Government is afraid of the people? Or that we're in favor of having vicious dogs rupture the flesh-and-blood ties with the people?”

“That doesn't rupture ties,” I said, pointing to my injured leg, “it molds them.”

By then the blood had dripped from my calf down to the heel of my shoe, and from there to the brick floor, where it was soaked up by a long cigarette butt. I saw the brand name — it was Front Gate, the tobacco strips the color of yellow chrysanthemums.

“Little Wang!” the dark-skinned man shouted. “Come in here!” The man rushed into the room and stood with his arms at his sides, waiting for instructions. “Take this comrade soldier over to the clinic for treatment,” the dark-skinned man said. “And bring a receipt back for reimbursement. Then go borrow a rifle from Supply Department Head Xia, and shoot that damned dog!”

I stood up. “Chief, that's not why I'm here to see you,” I said. “I want to report something important. I can take care of the injury to my leg myself, and I'd rather you let the dog live. He's quite a dog, and I'm in his debt.”

“I don't care. We were going to have to shoot that dog sooner or later anyway! It's a menace! You couldn't know, but it's already bitten twenty people! You're the twenty-first. If we don't put the thing down now, it might really hurt somebody someday. There's enough chaos around here already. We don't need any more.”

“Please don't kill it, Chief,” I said. “It's got its reasons for biting people.”

“All right,” the dark-skinned man said with a wave of his hand, “all right. What is it you want to see me about?”

I fumbled in my pocket for a cigarette, which I handed to him. “I don't smoke,” he said with an emphatic wave.

Somewhat embarrassed, I lit one for myself and stammered, “Chief, I found an abandoned girl.”

His eyes lit up like torches; he snorted.

“It was yesterday, about noon, in the sunflower field east of Three Willows. A girl, wrapped in red satin, along with twenty-one yuan.”

“Here we go again!” he blurted out, annoyed. “I couldn't just let her die!” I said.

“Did I say you should have? What I said was, here we go again! Here we go again! You have no idea of the pressure I'm under. Once the peasants got their land, they saw themselves as free men, who were also free to have as many kids as they wanted. One after another, that's all they did, at least until they got the sons they wanted.”

“Don't we have a one-child policy?”

He smiled a wry smile. “One child? Two kids, three kids, four, even five, I've seen it all. One-point-one billion people? That's a laugh. I'll bet we're up to one-point-two by now. There isn't a township anywhere that doesn't have at least two or three hundred unregistered kids. And they'll all rot right here in China!”

“I thought they could be fined.”

“That's right. Two thousand for the second child, four thousand for the third, and eight thousand for the fourth. And so what? People with money don't care if you fine them. You're from East Village, aren't you? Do you know Two-Toothed Wu? He's got four kids. No land, a run-down three-room house, one big cook pot, a water jug, and a rickety three-legged table. So we fine him, and he says, ‘I don't have any money, so I'll give you kids instead. You want one? Take one. You want two? Take two. They're all girls anyway’ So tell me, what are we supposed to do?”

“Forced sterilizations … hasn't that been done?” I asked cautiously

“It sure has. It's the hottest policy these days. But those people can smell us out better than a hound dog. As soon as they're tipped off, they light out for the northeast, where they cool their heels for a year. By the time they're back in the spring, they've got another kid to raise. If I had access to reinforcements, shit, I'd be in fine shape! Pricks that'll do stuff like that aren't human. I don't dare go out walking at night anymore. I'm afraid of getting mugged.”

My dog-bit leg twitched.

He laughed contemptuously.

I could see the hound dog through the open door; it was sprawled comfortably and, apparently, safely on the steps. Department Head Xia of the Supply Department probably didn't have a gun at his house.

“What about the girl I found?”

“There's nothing I can do,” the dark-skinned man said. “You found her, so she's yours. Take her home and raise her.”

“What kind of attitude is that, Chief? She's not mine, so why should I raise her?”

“You don't expect me to raise her, do you? The Township Government isn't an orphanage.”

“Not me, I can't raise her.”

“Then what do you suggest? The government didn't force you to take the kid home.”

“Then ITI put her back where I found her.”

“That's up to you. But if she starves to death in the sunflower field, or is torn apart by dogs, you'll be charged with infanticide.”

I choked, then coughed as tears welled up in my eyes.

He looked at me sympathetically and poured some tea in a glass coated with half an inch of crud. I sipped the tea and gazed at him.

“Go ask around,” he said. “Maybe there's a widow or widower somewhere who's willing to take in a child. If not, then just take her home and raise her yourself. Do you have family in the village? Including a child? If so, and you take this one into your home, that'll make two kids. We'll have to fine you two thousand.”

“Damn you!” I jerked my glass of tea up into the air, but then laid it down gently. With tears clouding my eyes, I said, “Tell me, Chief, does justice exist anywhere in this world?”

He just grinned, showing his strong, yellow front teeth.

My leg itched terribly, and when I saw drops of liquid on the floor, I shuddered. I figured it had to be rabies. Even my gums began to itch, and I had a powerful urge to bite somebody. From behind me, the dark-skinned man said, “Don't worry, somebody will take her. And we'll help any way we can.”

All I wanted to do was take a bite out of him!

Six days passed. The baby went through the sack of powdered milk, had six healthy bowel movements, and peed a dozen or more times into four diapers I'd begged from my wife, changing them as often as necessary. I must say that she was reluctant to “lend” me the diapers, since she was saving them for our future son. After washing and folding them neatly, she'd stacked them in a chest like handkerchiefs. She did not hide the look of deep disapproval when she handed them to me.

The baby had an enviable appetite and a strong pair of lungs, as her cries proved. She didn't seem at all like a newborn baby. I hunkered down next to her as she lay in the winnowing basket and fed her from the bottle, gripped by a gray chill as I watched her swallow the nipple and observed the fierce look on her face when she gulped the milk down in a frenzy. She frightened me, for I sensed that she presented a constellation of calamities for me. I often asked myself why I'd picked her up in the first place. My wife took pleasure in reminding me that her own parents hadn't given a damn about her, so why should I be the do-gooder? Squatting down beside the winnowing basket, I was often taken back to that sun-drenched field of sunflowers, where flowery heads drooped of their own weight to roll mechanically and clumsily around the stalks, sending so much fine golden pollen raining to the ground like teardrops that it even swamped anthills.

My nose told me that the skin around the dog bite had begun to rot; flies were already circling the infected area, their bellies packed with microscopic maggots, like a fully loaded bomber. I figured the infection would probably spread until the whole rotten limb was stiff as a frozen gourd. I wondered what this little girl would think of me after the leg was amputated and I had to walk with crutches, lurching back and forth like the pendulum of a clock. Would she be as grateful to me as ever? No way. Not on your life. Any time I made a major sacrifice for anyone, all I ever got in return was deep-seated loathing and vicious curses, unparalleled in their savagery. My heart was deeply scarred, pierced all the way through. And whenever I offered it to someone, fully marinated in soy sauce, all they ever did was piss on it. I loathed humanity, in all its hideousness, from the depths of my soul, and that included this gluttonous baby girl. Why had I rescued her in the first place? I could hear her reproachful voice: Why did you rescue me? Did you expect gratitude? If not for you, I'd have long since departed this filthy world, you perverse blundering fool! What you deserve is another dog bite.

As my thoughts ran wild, my attention was caught by a mature smile creasing the baby's face, sweet as beet sugar. She had a tiny dimple, the skin between her eyebrows had begun to flake, and her elongated head had gotten rounder. No matter how you looked at it, she was a lovely, healthy baby. In the face of this warm, sincere life, splendid as a sunflower — there I was, thinking about sunflowers again — I refuted all my absurd thoughts. Maybe I was wrong to loathe people, and now it was time to love them. The philosophy teacher reminded me that pure hate and pure love are both ephemeral and should coexist. So be it: I would loathe and love people at the same time.

The twenty-one yuan I'd found in the swaddling clothes had barely paid for one sack of milk powder, and I'd made no progress in my search for a new home. My wife's constant mutterings rang in my ears. And my parents, well, they were like marionettes, often going the whole day without saying a word, a perfect complement to my gabby wife. Our daughter was fascinated by the new baby, often sitting beside me as I squatted by the winnowing basket and stared at the little girl lying inside it. Anyone seeing us might have thought we were captivated by some strange tropical fish.

If I couldn't find somewhere to dispose of the baby very soon, and if she ate up the twenty-one yuan her parents had left with her, I knew what was in store for me. So off I went, dragging my injured leg behind me as I visited every one of the dozen or more villages in the township, begging for help from every childless family. The answer was virtually the same every time: We want a son, not a daughter. Up till then, I had always considered my township to be a special place with upstanding people, but a few days of traveling from one end to the other quickly changed that opinion. The place was teeming with ugly little boys, all of whom stared at me with eyes like dead fish, deep wrinkles creasing their foreheads, the expressions on their faces those of long-suffering, hateful impoverished peasants. They shuffled along when they walked, their backs were already stooped, and they coughed like old men. The sight intensified my sense that mankind was in worse shape than ever. To me, they were living proof that the villages in my township were filled with “little treasures” who should never have been born in the first place. Despairing for the future of my hometown, I forced myself not to think of the posterity these males who were old before their time might produce.