Life, p.2
Life, page 2
Gao Jialin looked up, eager to hear his father’s brilliant idea to punish Gao Minglou.
Gao Yude took another drag on his cigarette and hung his head, his expression thoughtful. After a while, he lifted his wrinkled farmer’s face, looking mischievous, and said to his son, “Listen! You can’t ignore him; instead, when you come across Minglou, you should call him Uncle! Don’t show that you’re upset, just smile. At this point, he should already be aware of what’s happened.” He turned his hoary old head to his wife, who was preparing food: “Mother, listen! If you come across someone from Minglou’s family, just smile! Minglou didn’t plant any eggplant this year, so go pick some from our allotment tomorrow and send a basket over to them. But don’t give them the impression that we’re trying to butter them up. After all, Jialin’s future depends on what Minglou thinks of him. We’re humble people, so we must use this to our advantage . . . Mother, are you listening?”
A sound like a sob came drifting over from the stove.
The tears finally overtook Gao Jialin. He turned quickly and fell onto the edge of the kang, sobbing as if his heart was breaking.
No one knew when the rain might stop, but as long as it pounded the earth and rushed along the riverbed, it seemed that there would be no peace that night for anyone . . .
CHAPTER 2
When Gao Jialin woke up, he had no idea what time it was, though it was almost noon.
Every day of the past month had been the same: he’d go to bed early and get up late, but he didn’t spend a lot of time actually sleeping. He’d spend the whole night, the whole night, with his eyes wide open. From the wildly twisted quilt, one could see he had been suffering, not sleeping. As dawn approached, his parents would begin to grope around, noises would float in from the village, and he would finally rouse himself into a state of half consciousness. He could sort of make out his mother bringing some firewood in from the courtyard and puttering around with the bellows. He also heard his father’s limping walk—a light step, a heavy step—as he moved across the floor to gather his tools before heading out into the mountains. Jialin would hear his father talking to his mother about making something better for dinner tonight . . . then he’d close his eyes, holding in tears, and go back to sleep.
Even though he was seemingly awake, he felt fuzzy-headed. He couldn’t seem to get back to sleep, but he also didn’t want to get up. He fumbled around for the pack of cigarettes next to his pillow and pulled out one of the few left inside. He greedily sucked at it and blew smoke toward the ceiling of the earthen cave. He was craving cigarettes more and more these days, and two of his right fingertips were stained yellow and permanently smelled of tobacco. But he was almost out of cigarettes—or, more precisely, he was out of money to buy them. As a community teacher, he had received a few dollars extra on top of his salary that he would use to support his habit.
After chain-smoking two cigarettes, he was totally awake. He really wanted to smoke another, but there was only one more left in the pack, and he wanted to enjoy that after he had brushed his teeth.
He started to get dressed. After putting on an item of clothing, he’d stare blankly into empty space for a while before putting on the next.
It took him forever to finally get down from the kang. He ladled some cold water from the pot onto a dry towel and used the damp corner to wipe his swollen eyes.
He then ladled some water into a mug and took it to the courtyard to brush his teeth.
The light outside was blinding. He suddenly felt transported to a different world. The sky was so blue it seemed like it had been washed by the rain. Snow-white clouds drifted peacefully across it. Corn spread over the fields like green felt all the way to Old Bull Mountain in the west. The mountains on either side of the road blocked out the view beyond, and the distant horizon was suffused with light-blue mist. The sunnier hillsides were planted with wheat, some of which had already been ploughed, the soil a deep brown. Some hadn’t yet been turned over and were bleached a shining white by the sun, like sheepskin. The millet and buckwheat were already coming up evenly in swaths of very pale green. The villages alongside the river were shaded by jujube trees, the roofs barely visible underneath. The only real signs of civilization were piles of barley straw heaped in the fields on the outskirts of the villages, which from afar looked like golden mushrooms.
Jialin’s eyes focused on a copse of date trees, a faraway pool of green. He was scared to look, but couldn’t help himself. In those green shadows, two lines of stone buildings were faintly visible, dug into the earth. It was the school where he had spent the past three years living and working.
The school was jointly administered by the surrounding villages and enrolled one hundred students with the oldest in the fifth grade. Each year they sent a few students to the commune middle school in a nearby town. Gao Jialin had been the head teacher of the fifth grade and had been in charge of all the math and language classes this past year. He also taught music and drawing to the whole school—he was very well respected. But forget all that now!
Depressed, he turned away. Squatting on the bank, he began to brush his teeth.
The village was extremely quiet. The men had all left for the mountains, and the children were running wild in the fields nearby. The village was already filled with the badabada sound of box bellows and wisps of blue smoke that rose from the roofs of the cave houses. A few efficient women had begun to prepare lunch for their husbands and children. A chorus of irritatingly monotonous cricket chirps rose from the clumps of willows that dotted the riverbank.
While Gao Jialin brushed his teeth, he watched his mother’s stooped back as she pulled up eggplants from the family allotment, her white hair shining in the sunlight. He was gripped with feelings of distress and shame. He quickly pulled the toothbrush out of his mouth and said to himself, I’ve behaved outrageously the past month! How can I mope around at home in a bad mood while my parents toil all day? If I don’t go work in the mountains, all the villagers will laugh at me! Yes, he had already felt the eyes of the villagers on him. They had quickly accepted that Gao Minglou had arbitrarily fired him, but if they thought you were some kind of loafer, they would never let you forget it. The farmers looked down on anyone who didn’t go into the mountains to work. No more of this! Gao Jialin thought painfully. Life is suffering, and he had to accept his station—he was a peasant through and through.
Gao Jialin stood up, still lost in thought, then heard someone behind him call out, “Teacher Gao, are you home?”
He turned to look and recognized Ma Shuan—the leader of the production team from Madian Village, on the other side of the river.
Although Ma Shuan couldn’t read, he was Madian Village’s representative on the school management committee. He often came to school for meetings, and Jialin knew him well. He was honest and good-natured—not rigid or stubborn—and a good farmer, professional in his business dealings.
Ma Shuan, usually plainly dressed, today appeared transformed. He was pushing a brand-new bicycle, its frame covered in multicolored tape and the spokes bedecked with colorful velvet balls. It was all completely tacky. His outfit was just as tasteless: he wore a gray Dacron shirt under a pair of blue polyester overalls in the heat of the day; on his head was a yellow military-style Dacron cap; and on his deeply suntanned arm was a glinting gold-plated watch. He seemed a bit embarrassed by his outfit and laughed awkwardly. Although Jialin was in a bad mood, he couldn’t help smiling at Ma Shuan’s attire and asked, “You look like a bridegroom—what brings you here?”
Ma Shuan’s face turned bright red, and he laughed and said, “I’ve come to see my bride! I’ve been introduced to Liu Liben’s second daughter.”
Then Jialin realized why Ma Shuan looked so different. These days, peasants visiting their betrotheds always dressed this way. He asked, “Is it Qiaozhen?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve plucked the field’s first green shoot! Haven’t you heard everyone say that Qiaozhen is the prettiest flower in these mountains?” Jialin poked fun at him.
“The fruit is good, but I’m not sure I’ll get a taste!” Simple Ma Shuan laughed at his own crudeness.
“How’s it going? Is everything settled?”
“I’ve made the hour-long trek to see them in the city a few times, but the elder members of her family don’t seem very enthusiastic about our match, and they haven’t shown their faces around here even once. They probably think we’re uncultured, with our dark skin. I’m darker than her, but as far as education goes, she’s like me—she can’t read much, but she’s got a good heart!”
“Take it slow, there’s no rush.”
“Right, right, right.” Ma Shuan laughed gleefully.
“Why don’t you come over and have something to eat?”
“I can’t. I already ate my words at my father-in-law’s!”
Now it was Gao Jialin’s turn to laugh. He didn’t know an illiterate peasant could be so funny.
Ma Shuan lifted his watch-clad arm in farewell. He then straddled his bicycle and sped off toward the cart road between the mountains.
Jialin leaned against a date tree on the riverbank and stared at the silhouette of Ma Shuan as it disappeared into the green ocean of corn. He couldn’t resist turning to look at Liu Liben’s house on the other side of the river.
Liu Liben’s nickname was “Double Ace.” He’d never been an official, but all the villagers respected him—Gao Minglou most of all. He was quick to adapt when times changed, and in the past few years he had made a lot of money through speculation and profiteering. Recently, he had earned more than he knew how to handle, and his family was now the richest one in the entire village. Even though Gao Minglou was the village’s “Ace in the Hole,” on the economic front, he couldn’t measure up to Double Ace. Most farmers respect rich people, but the villagers also respected Liu Liben for another reason. Liben’s oldest daughter, Qiaoying, had married Gao Minglou’s oldest son the year before last, so his status in the village had increased even more. Ace in the Hole and Double Ace were now related, and the two families had become the undisputed masters of the village. These families comprised the walls of the village—one at one end, one at the other, one a crouching tiger and the other a hidden dragon. Such was the arrangement of the two great families in this mountain valley.
Frankly speaking, Gao Jialin did not share the other farmers’ admiration and respect for these two families. Although Jialin had been born into a humble family, his father had labored to earn the money to support his son’s education, and Jialin had washed the stink of mud off himself, so to speak. He had what ordinary folks regarded as the unapproachable air of an intellectual. In his opinion, neither Gao Minglou nor Liu Liben were worthy of his respect, and they weren’t inherently any better than the down-on-their-luck farmers. Gao Minglou was hardly upstanding—he used all the power at his disposal to bully those both above and below him, every bit the petty warlord; Liu Liben knew only how to hoard money—he thought reading was a waste of it, so he didn’t let his two older daughters go to school. He finally let his third daughter, Qiaoling, enroll, and now she was about to graduate. Gao Jialin didn’t care much for the sons of these families, either. Gao Minglou had seemingly used up all the personality and ability for the men in the family; his two sons were slow and stupid. If his second son, Sanxing, hadn’t been able to rely on nepotism, he wouldn’t have even gotten through high school. Liu Liben’s three daughters were all beautiful flowers, and clever; it was a shame two of them were illiterate.
Jialin stood on the bank and thought resentfully that although he might look down on these families, what were his own prospects?
A fierce desire for retaliation grew in him, and he ground his teeth: If there was no Gao Minglou, and if Jialin’s fate was to be a peasant, he would probably toil for the rest of his days, with no other thoughts beyond that. But as long as Gao Minglou lived in Gaojia Village, Jialin would be fixated on besting him. To be more successful than Gao Minglou and his ilk, Jialin would have to leave Gaojia Village, since it would be hard to surpass them here. He was determined to prove himself to society and come out on top.
He brought his mug and toothbrush back into the house, looked in his trunk for a shirt, and prepared to go down to the pond next to the nearby field to bathe.
He came across a khaki military shirt, and his eyes suddenly lit up. It was his uncle’s—he had sent it from Xinjiang while he was in the military there. It was so valuable to Jialin that he hardly ever wore it. His father’s only younger brother had always been a soldier, and in the decades since the revolution he hadn’t once returned home. He’d send letters every few months and give them a bit of spending money at the end of the year, but that was the extent of his uncle’s relationship with his family. Jialin had heard his uncle was a deputy political commissar in the army—it was a point of pride in their family—but since he lived so far away, he wasn’t much use to them in their daily lives.
Gao Jialin was picking up his clothes when it occurred to him that he should write his uncle a letter advising him of their current situation and seeing if he could find Jialin a position in Xinjiang. Of course, he thought, he was his parents’ only child, and even if his uncle found him a job out there, his parents wouldn’t let him go. But he was still determined to write his uncle. Jialin longed to leave home for somewhere far away . . . He could convince his parents when the time came.
He leaned over the table and, putting his essay-writing skills to good use, wrote a very moving letter to his uncle and placed it inside the trunk. Tomorrow he would find someone going to the market in the county seat who could mail the letter for him.
This thought comforted him. Immediately he felt calmer, happier.
He put on the khaki shirt and gleefully left home. He walked along the cart path by the river toward the dappled vegetable fields.
In August, the fields looked beautiful against the yellow earth of the plateau. The distant mountains were dressed up in vivid green this time of year, and in the valley, the corn was already as tall as a person, one or two cute little green cobs growing on each stalk, pink tassels bursting from their ends. On the mountainsides, runner beans, adzuki beans, soybeans, and potatoes were all blooming red, white, yellow, and blue, adorning the endless green expanse. The fields had already been weeded twice, and it had poured not long ago, so there was no sign of drought. Everything was damp, green, and dripping with water, and looking at the landscape gave everyone a deep sense of relief.
Gao Jialin walked briskly, all his worries suddenly forgotten, youthful vigor coursing through his veins. He plucked a pink morning glory and twirled the stem in his fingers as he turned through a cabbage field shining pale in the sunlight, then jumped over a few dirt levees and came to the river’s edge.
He stripped quickly and stood on the stony bank of the green pond with his chest puffed up, then crouched. He had already decided that this wouldn’t be a quick wash—he wanted to go for a real swim.
His naked body was toned and beautiful. Although his tall, thin frame bore no trace of physical labor, it looked strong, as though it had seen regular physical exercise. His face was a little suntanned; he had a high-bridged nose, large eyes, and particularly impressive eyebrows, like two swords. His hair was disheveled, not because he hadn’t paid it attention, but rather purposefully so. He was attractive, and exuded a particular sort of masculine good looks when he furrowed his brows, deep in thought.
Gao Jialin limbered up, then dived from the stony bank, his body carving an arc in the air as he elegantly descended into the jade pool. He tried out different swimming strokes, but they all looked roughly the same.
A while later, he climbed to the top of a waterfall and washed himself with soap in the shallow water there. He crawled into a cave to put on his pants, and lay down bare-chested under a peach tree on the riverbank. The peach tree belonged to Old Deshun, a lifelong bachelor. The good-hearted man picked it clean of its fruit, even before the peaches were ripe, to give to the children of the village. Now only a sprinkling of leaves remained on the tree, which didn’t provide much shade.
Gao Jialin laid his jacket on the ground and rested the back of his head in his hands, his body sprawled on the earth. Through cracks between the leaves, he let his eyes wander over the sky above, which was as clear as water. He didn’t feel hungry even though it was well past noon. The river wasn’t far away, but it sounded much farther than it was. It burbled, as pleasant sounding as a violin.
All of a sudden, the sound of a woman singing a xintianyou folk song floated toward him from the cornfield off to his right.
Upstream a goose and downstream a gander
A lovely pair, she gazes bright-eyed at her brother
The voice was sweet and resonant, though it was clear the singer was an amateur. He listened closely, and thought it sounded like Liu Liben’s daughter Qiaozhen. He suddenly remembered Ma Shuan’s problems with his potential in-laws and couldn’t help laughing. He said to himself, Your “brother” came to see you, but you weren’t there. So he left, and now you’re looking for him . . .
As he reflected on the humor in the situation, he heard a rustling sound coming from the cornfield nearby. Damn! It was probably Qiaozhen crossing the road on her way home.
Gao Jialin sat up in a hurry, stuffing his arms into his jacket. He was just about to do up his last button when Qiaozhen appeared in front of him with a basket full of sweet melons.
Liu Qiaozhen didn’t look at all like someone from the countryside. It goes without saying that she was pretty, and there was nothing shabby or vulgar about the way she dressed. She wore grass-green polyester pants and a faded blue work jacket, its broad collar flipped up, framing her lively expression.
