The Dog (2 page)

“You're smarter than I am,” Chen Wei said. “You tell me why he takes more. What difference does it make now?”

She listened to Old Feng and his friends push their chessmen around the board. They were behaving themselves tonight, voices muted but lively, like a clutch of girls passing around a secret. At one point the baby yodeled and Li Yan tensed, but it was just a cry from a dream, and Li Yan settled back into her pillow.

“You should be more confident in life,” Li Yan said.

“Aye, comrade.”

“I'm not kidding. You possess the capacity for improvement. Everybody does. But you're too content.”

“I do what I can. I have what I need.”

“That's not true. Look at Zheng. He is a man of action. Don't you want to act?” It had occurred to Li Yan that those like Zheng—the boors, the idiots, the drooling slobs—in short, those worst-equipped to navigate the slick world of commerce—were somehow the very people who reaped the hugest rewards. People forced to survive on ingenuity and pure will seemed to have luck on their side. She herself could never envy Zheng, but she thought her husband ought to. Zheng was, in a way, a good role model for Chen Wei, who just couldn't seem to figure out how to put his talents to good use. Even at the crematorium he was the number two guy. She wanted him to be a number one guy.

“I do my best, you know,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

“There's more to me than meets the eye,” he said.

“Let's go to sleep,” she said.

“Tired of thinking out loud?”

“Let's go to sleep.”

*   *   *

After work the next evening, Li Yan rode her bicycle to her parents' house. It was usually Chen Wei's duty to pick up the baby after work, but he'd packed a bag that morning and left the house without saying goodbye. She'd given it some thought, and she was glad he was on the train to see Zheng. But when she arrived at her parents' compound, Chen Wei's bicycle was parked outside. She pushed open the heavy door and walked into the dirt courtyard. Chen Wei was bouncing the baby on his knee, and Li Yan's father was puffing thoughtfully on his pipe. They were sitting on sacks of concrete by the clothesline. Wet clothes were piled in a basket, abandoned by her father when Chen Wei showed up, and Li Yan began draping shirts over the line. Both men looked at her, but didn't break the stride of their conversation. Someone was playing basketball nearby. The hollow sound of the ball clanging off the rim echoed through the maze of alleys surrounding the house.

“This is foolish,” her father said. He expelled a bowl of smoke and shook his head. “I know your people are from the North, but this isn't how things are done. It's bad business sense. There must be someone willing to buy the dog.”

“Who wants a racing dog you can't race?” Chen Wei said.

“You're thinking too small,” the old man said.

Li Yan squatted down beside them and wrung out a pair of socks. The water formed muddy blisters on the courtyard floor.

“Everyone on embassy row has a dog,” she said. “Sell it to a foreigner.” Her comment didn't seem to register with the two men.

“Look,” her father said, “you live in the city now. Your own daughter is going to grow up here. Beijingers don't eat dog.”

“Some restaurants in the Yuyuantan are serving it,” Chen Wei said. “It's gaining acceptance.”

“There is a great difference between acceptable behavior and civilized behavior,” the old man said.

“Easy for you to say. Zheng doesn't approach problems the way you or I do.”

“I know that,” Li Yan's father said. “He thinks like a bandit.”

“He's really got me over a barrel this time. That's the trouble with being an investor.”

The old man looked to Li Yan for the first time, as if to ask how she could have brought such a weakling into the family.

“Look, man, you still have a say,” her father said.

Li Yan tossed the socks back into the basket and took her daughter from Chen Wei. “Zheng's selling the dog to a restaurant?” she said.

“Not exactly,” Chen Wei said.

“This should be good.”

“We're going to eat it.”

She stared at him.

Chen Wei shrugged. “He wants to obliterate every trace of the dog. That's what he said.”

“What did you say? You're still his partner,” she said. “Even bandits talk things over.”

“That's uncalled-for,” her father said, but Chen Wei waved it off.

“Zheng's already told the entire family there'll be a feast. You should have heard him. He was furious.”

“What's he taking it out on the dog for?” she said.

“He doesn't react well to resistance. I can't tell him what to do.”

“He's got a screw loose.”

“It's already decided.”

Li Yan studied his face for some sign that he might consider opposing Zheng, but she saw only resignation in his hooded eyes.

“He's family,” Chen Wei said. “We have a long history.”

“Do you want me to call him? I'll give him a piece of my mind,” she said.

Her father sucked on his pipe and mumbled, “Behave like a wife,” but he didn't put much force behind his words.

“No,” Chen Wei said. “I'll deal with it.” But she knew he wouldn't.

*   *   *

Early that Saturday morning, Li Yan, Chen Wei, and their daughter crowded into a hard-seat car of the #44 train to Yulin. Four of the hard-seat cars were reserved for soldiers, young men who moved with dazed absence, as though they had been sleeping in the hot sun for a long time. That left only one hard-seat car for civilians—families traveling to see relatives in the country, merchants transporting goods to provincial markets, businessmen too poor to travel in soft-seat. Bundles the size of refrigerators blocked the aisle. There were no seats for Li Yan or her husband, so they fought their way to the back of the car and squatted by the bathroom door. The car was already filling with the low haze of cigarette smoke as the train pulled out of the West Station. Tinny revolutionary songs squawked from speakers in the corners of the car.

Chen Wei laid a leaf of newsprint on the floor between them and took out the playing cards. Li Yan beat him at Catch the Pig and Struggling Upstream before they finally settled on Looking for Friends, which required less strategy. After their third game, the baby woke and cried some, but Li Yan got her back to sleep with a song. As she sang, a farmer wearing rags emerged from behind a bundle of vegetables. He crouched against the bathroom door and hummed along with her, then clapped when the song ended. Chen Wei shooed him, and the farmer drifted back into the car.

At the Xuanhua Station, they got off and found a bus going to Yulin. They had been in transit two hours already, and it was another hour before they reached Yulin, where they boarded a van traveling into the countryside. The driver's crony tried to gouge them once they were on the road, saying the baby counted as a person and needed a ticket, but the other passengers shouted him down.

One old woman called him a wolf and shook her fist at him.

“I've known him a long time,” she said. “He'd screw his own mother.”

As thanks, Li Yan let her hold the baby until they disembarked at the dirt road leading to the village where Chen Wei had grown up. Hot, their clothes stained with dust and sweat, they arrived at his cousin's house just before noon. Zheng met them at the door and embraced them both. He was a barrel-chested man who looked something like a frog—bulbous eyes and wide lips that seemed barely able to contain his tongue. A cluster of dark hair sprouted from his chin.

“She's really getting fat,” he said, pinching the baby's legs. “She'll make a good side dish.” He spat out a sharp laugh.

Chen Wei laughed, too, but Li Yan could hear the discomfort in his voice. He would never come right out and say it, but she knew he was ashamed of his family's rough manners, their rugged faces and wide brown feet. She looked at his dust-creased face and saw a refugee. In the country, he drank heavily to disguise his shame, but she never chastised him when he was hungover the next day. She leaned close to her husband while Zheng was rounding up the rest of the family and said, “You are a good cousin. Don't worry, we'll be back in Beijing tomorrow night.” He looked puzzled.

Chen Wei spent the afternoon drinking and talking with the men. Aunties floated in and out of the house, an interchangeable cast of thickset women clad in blue cotton who ferried away the baby and left their own children with Li Yan. The children wouldn't stop talking about the dog, acting out great victories they'd heard about from Zheng, scampering in and out of the house on their hands and knees, barking and licking each other on the face. They pestered her to follow them into the backyard to see the dog, but she refused. She wanted to ask the children if they understood the dog would be killed, but couldn't bring herself to ruin their fun. As the afternoon wore on, she felt a dreadful unease set in, misgiving mixed with disdain for her husband's run-down village. Meanwhile, her husband matched Zheng drink for drink, told bawdy jokes he'd heard at work, toasted his uncles, made a spectacle of himself. She could see that he was trying to liquor himself up for the slaughter. Zheng was a hardhearted man whose only goal in life was to become wealthy, but her husband wasn't so naturally equipped for the bloody work that lay ahead.

Late in the afternoon, Zheng rose stiffly and raised his glass in an official toast. “To the Beijing municipal government, which has brought the family together again!” All the men raised their glasses and shouted, “Ganbei.” One of the uncles fell out of his chair. Outside, the aunties had dug a fire pit and assembled a tripod for the cauldron. Everyone moved into the walled yard where the dog was caged. Zheng held out a butcher knife to Chen Wei, who grasped it like a sword, with two hands, stiff-armed. Zheng produced a long carving knife from his belt and swung it overhead.

There was no breeze, and it was the hour before birds and bats come out for insects. The golden grass in the hills around them stood still. Everything was quiet.

“Release the beast,” Zheng shouted. A little cousin rattled the dog's cage, then unfastened the latch. The door swung open and the dog trotted out. It stood outside its cage and wagged its tail. The little cousin slapped the dog's rump and yelled, “Run!”

Either out of shock or compliance, the dog's claws scrabbled over the hard earth, and it was off. The dog ran directly at Chen Wei but at the last second broke left and charged along the wall.

The children made chase, but the dog was too fast for them, cutting a jagged path through several of the older girls and boys who tried to intercept it at the corner. Zheng waited with Chen Wei, still gripping his butcher knife with two hands. Li Yan watched from the doorway. Beside her an auntie rocked the baby in her ropy arms.

The dog outwitted the children at every turn, doubling back and twisting through their small hands, running with a hint of terror, as though it could smell menace on the air. The children wore down, moving now like a school of fish, unable to block the dog's unpredictable path, parting when it doubled back and ran directly at them, going down in a tangle of legs but quickly forming up again. The dog ran a circuit around the yard, its paws whipping up eddies of dust. Once, it appeared to be readying itself to leap clear of the fence altogether, but Zheng bellowed a command and the dog stopped dead in its tracks. Then he shouted, “Go,” and the dog was off again.

Li Yan saw that even though the dog's eyes were wild with terror, it obeyed. It was clear that Zheng took a sporting pride in his control of the animal, but Li Yan watched her husband's face as the dog ran, and knew he was unprepared for this. She knew her husband, and she knew what he was feeling.

Eventually the animal got tired. Its jukes became predictable, its speed was sapped, and it cowered against a corner of the wall, fangs bared, sleek hair spiked the length of its spine. The band of children closed in.

“Don't go any closer,” Zheng said. “We'll take over.” He punctuated this declaration with a slap to Chen Wei's back, and walked toward the children, who scattered, squealing in mock horror as he swung the knife above their heads. “Come on,” he said to Chen Wei. They bore down upon the dog together, their knives raised. The dog snarled. Spittle dripped from its muzzle.

“Sit,” Zheng said. The dog sat.

Li Yan couldn't bear to watch any longer. She leapt from the doorway and forced her way through the children.

“Stop,” she shouted. “Stop.” She was waving her arms over her head.

Zheng turned toward her, his butcher knife still raised, and to someone watching from beyond the fence it might have appeared that he meant to threaten Li Yan's life. But she moved forward, unafraid, until she stood between the two men and the dog. Her husband lowered his knife and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. He tried to slouch like a gunfighter.

“I should have known,” Zheng said.

Li Yan said nothing.

“Move over,” Zheng said.

“I'm sorry, Chen Wei,” she said, but she did not move.

“Chen Wei, tell your wife to stand aside,” Zheng said. The aunties gathered at the edge of the house looked amused. They pinched at each other's sides, and some chuckled under their breath.

Chen Wei shook his head, but he was unable to affect his detached pose while looking his cousin in the eye, so he found a point in the distance and focused.

Zheng scanned the faces ringing the yard. The children were watching him. The aunties were watching him. The uncles were watching him.

He made a fist. “Don't make me use this,” Zheng said to Li Yan. She closed her eyes and presented her chin.

Chen Wei dropped his knife. He drew up his shoulders and moved between his wife and Zheng.