Lenin's Kisses (56 page)

What kind of solutions did the villagers come up with? While everyone was in the process of dividing the land into lattice fields, there was a blind man’s household in which the father took a pickax in the middle of a snowstorm and began digging. He caressed his fourteen-year-old blind son’s face, then took the hand of his wife—who was paralyzed, but not blind—and told her he needed to go to the latrine. His wife followed him, directing him to turn east. He, however, deliberately turned west and plunged into the ravine, taking his own life.

As a result, the revolutionary exempted the woman and her family from having to build more lattice fields, and told them to return to the Balou mountains to bury the father.

There was another household in which the entire family suffered from polio. There were five family members in all, and the legs of all three children were shriveled from the disease. One day, their father went to an ironworks shop on the hillside to forge a pickax, and on his way there he hanged himself by the side of the road. The revolutionary also permitted his family to return to the village to bury him.

There was a family of wholers who were assigned to build lattice fields. The family didn’t have a man in the household, and instead there was only a mother with her thirteen- and fifteen-year-old daughters. One day the mother smiled and asked her daughters,

Do you want to return to the village to rest?

Yes.

Then get ready to return home tomorrow.

The daughters thought she was joking. That night they slept in the lattice fields, in an area shielded from the wind, and when they woke up the next morning they discovered that their mother had drunk rat poison and died in her sleep. The revolutionary cursed her, but still let her daughters return their mother’s corpse to the village for burial.

That winter, there were thirty-nine households in Liven who, with their red booklets, went to build lattice fields, but thirteen heads of household died holding those same red booklets. In the end, the revolutionary became enraged. He told all of the disabled villagers to return to Liven, but instructed all of the wholer households to stay behind. However, when he went out to conduct a survey, he discovered that there wasn’t a single household consisting entirely of wholers, and consequently he had no choice but to deploy his revolutionary humanism and allow them all to return to Liven.

These were the black disasters and red difficulties that were brought on by the black and red booklets. Many years later, only the older villagers understood what Grandma Mao Zhi was referring to when she spoke of the black disasters, the red difficulties, or the black and red crimes. As a result, it was only those older villagers with a good memory who, in the Lenin Memorial Hall, left their fingerprints on that white cloth.

15)
Shadows.
DIAL. These refer not to people’s actual shadows, but rather to people who, after withdrawing from society, no longer have any status or certification, no proof of existence.

Further, Further Reading

1)
Squat melons.
DIAL. Refers to pumpkins.

3)
Path of fate.
DIAL. Refers to one’s fate.

5)
Earnuts.
DIAL. Refers to peanuts.

7)
Lattice fields.
The term is not from the local dialect, but rather is a specialized historical term. On one hand, the term refers to a series of flat fields that, like a latticework, are each one level higher than the previous one. On the other hand, the term may also be used to refer to that special period during the “Learn from Dazhai” Movement, in which a revolutionary style was expressed through labor.

C
HAPTER 5:
S
UMMER REVERTS BACK TO WINTER, AND SPRING IS RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER

Not only did Chief Liu fail to arrive, and not only did the villagers discover that they had been the victims of a great theft, but in the final days of the
wuyin
Year of the Tiger, an earth-shattering event took place.

In theory, this should have been the dead of winter, but the summer heat skipped right over the spring and arrived all of a sudden in the Balou mountains. The seasons were truly in a state of mad confusion. Although it had been warm on the mountain ridge during the preceding half month, this could still be regarded as merely a winter warmth; but after that night the sun went from pale yellow to searing white. The forest had begun to turn green, but had not yet fully burst into bud. The fields also turned dark green, and between the branches and leaves there was the sound of countless cicadas, together with the chirping of sparrows. Up on the mountain, between the distant peaks and the nearby ridges, a cloud of white mist billowed forth.

Summer had arrived.

It arrived silently, but with a bang. The first person in Liven to wake up was little Polio Boy. The previous night, after he’d pulled the smashed bottle from his foot, he wiped off the blood, bandaged his foot, then whimpered in pain half the night. Eventually he was able to fall asleep, but as soon as he woke, he found himself extremely thirsty, and his lips were as dry as summer sand. And that’s why he woke up before everyone else.

There was a buzzing sound in the room. It was a mosquito that, right on schedule, was flying in from somewhere into summer.

The boy rubbed his eyes, and felt a jolt of pain in his shriveled leg, as though he had been stung. The initial pain was followed by numbness, but this was more or less normal for him. Feeling very thirsty, he wanted to get some water, but when he lowered his hand from his eyes, he saw the sun shining in through the glass window, making the entire room appear as though it were on fire. The walls were painted white, but now looked as though they were covered in smoke. The air was full of the sort of dust that you normally see only under the summer sun, and there was a faint burning odor that you normally smell only in the summer.

The boy was confused. The previous night, the villagers in the side rooms had been sitting in a daze, bewailing their stolen money and cursing the theatrical higher-ups—saying that they would definitely go complain to the political higher-ups and to the county chief. They were all deeply discomfited and unable to sleep. But now when the boy looked around, he saw that the room was full of naked villagers, all sleeping soundly. The sun was already high in the sky, but they were still snoring loudly, as though they had stones wedged in their throats. Furthermore, they had all thrown off their covers and were lying there buck-naked. Some of them were covered by a thin sheet, while others just had a shirt draped across the stomach, covering the belly so as not to catch a chill.

Summer had really arrived. The boy was so thirsty he felt as though his throat was burning. He got out of bed and went to fetch some water from a side room where there was a pump. He brought the lever down to its lowermost position, but discovered that there wasn’t a single drop inside.

He tried a different pump, but found that there wasn’t a drop left in that one either.

He came out of the side room, and just as he was about to go into the main hall to look for some water, he discovered that the massive red doors were locked. Normally they would be latched from the inside, and once you unlatched and pulled them, they would immediately swing open. This time, however, he tried pulling the pair of doors several times, but couldn’t get them to budge. He was just a child, and didn’t realize that not only had winter disappeared and summer skipped right over spring, but furthermore everything was upside down, as if there had been a change of dynasties. He pounded on the door and shouted angrily,

“Open the door! I’m dying of thirst in here!
. . .
Open the door! I’m dying of thirst in here!”

An adult wholer standing outside kicked the door and shouted into the room,

“Who’s awake in there?”

The boy replied, “I’m dying of thirst.”

The man outside asked, “Is anyone else awake?”

The boy replied, “Not yet. Open the door, I’m dying of thirst!”

The man asked, “You’re just thirsty? You’re not hungry?”

The man laughed coldly. He had a hoarse voice, and sounded like that husky driver who drove the truck carrying the troupe’s performance props. The driver had a rocklike physique, with virtually no fat and shoulders as broad as a door. He could pick up one of the truck’s tires with a single hand, and could kick a box of theatrical props out of the trunk with his foot. Once the boy recognized the driver’s voice, he said, “Uncle, I’m thirsty. Please open the door.”

The driver said, “You want some water? Go call Grandma Mao Zhi.”

The boy went to the second side room across from the crystal coffin to look for Grandma Mao Zhi. She had also just woken up, while her four granddaughters, together with the paralyzed woman who helped cook for the troupe, were all still sleeping soundly, just like the men in the other room. They had kicked off their sheets and were lying there uncovered. The boy saw that Grandma Mao Zhi’s body looked like a bundle of kindling, and the paralyzed woman was so fat that as she slept she looked like a big clump of weeds. He saw Tonghua, Yuhua, and Mothlet all lying in a row, their budding breasts like buns straight out of the steamer. He suddenly understood why breasts were sometimes called “sweet buns,” and immediately felt his throat go dry with hunger and thirst. He had a sudden urge to crawl onto those breasts and drink passionately from them.

More important, he saw that Huaihua was sleeping beneath the window, at the end of the room and apart from everyone else, as though she were afraid someone would get too close to her. Her bedroll was covered in a bright red sheet, and she was lying in the sunlight that was streaming in through the window. She was wearing just a pair of underpants and the kind of pointy, curved white bra that only city girls wore. Apart from that, she was completely naked, displaying her fish- and snakelike body for everyone to see. The boy could smell her willowy fragrance, and saw that her legs, belly, and face were all as white as jade and as tender as an oriole that had just emerged from the nest. He had an urge to caress and kiss her pale body. He wanted to call her “sister” and hold her hand, but then Grandma Mao Zhi sat up and looked around the bed for her summer dress as she mumbled, “This weather, this weather!” She pulled a green shirt out from under her pillow and put it on, whereupon she suddenly noticed the boy standing by the door.

She asked, “Your leg doesn’t hurt?”

“I’m very thirsty.”

“Drink some water.”

“The door is locked from the outside. The driver asked for you to go over—he’s waiting outside the door.”

When Grandma Mao Zhi heard this, she appeared confused. She squinted at the boy, then appeared to remember something. She abruptly turned pale, as though something had just been confirmed to her. She got up and followed the boy through the main hall containing the crystal coffin, then she pulled at the big red doors, her face as white as a cloudy sky.

She shouted through the crack in the door, “Hey, who are you? If you have something to say, then open the door and say it.”

Hearing no response, she called out again, “I am Grandma Mao Zhi. Please open this door.”

Eventually, they heard movements outside the door. First, there were footsteps of people walking up the kowtow steps, followed by several people waiting quietly on the other side of the door, and finally the gruff voice of the driver of the troupe’s props truck. He said, “Grandma Mao Zhi, do you know who I am? I believe in doing everything aboveboard. I am the driver who has been traveling with you and the troupe for the past six months, and with me are the managers of the memorial hall.” He said, “I’ll be frank—we’ve locked the door from the outside because we want the troupe’s money.” He said, “I know about how the troupe was robbed, but that was done by some blasted higher-up cadres and motherfucking cadres working for the theater. Just as you were in the middle of your next-to-last act, they went into action, and before you left the theater they took advantage of the confusion to ask me to drive the truck down the mountain. They thought I didn’t know what was going on, and therefore when they were dividing up the money they didn’t give me a cent; Grandma Mao Zhi, I assure you, I really didn’t get a cent from them. As we were heading down the road, I told them that the truck was having engine problems and I had to stop and get it fixed. As soon as they left, however, I immediately drove back here. We won’t be as greedy as they were, and instead we just ask that you give each of us eight or ten thousand yuan. So that it won’t be in vain that I’ve been your driver for the past six months, or that my buddies have been watching over the memorial hall this entire time, not leaving it unattended for even an instant.”

At this point, someone else in the memorial hall woke up—Deafman Ma. He couldn’t hear any of what was going on, and when he went to the latrine he washed up, then peeked over and returned to the side room. Perhaps it was already almost noon. The sunlight that streamed into the hall through that enormous window appeared dark red, like hot coals. In the summer, this massive hall would stay quite cool, but because this year summer had followed immediately after winter, all of the windows remained tightly shut, leaving the hall so hot and stuffy that the villagers felt as though they were locked inside a tightly sealed chest.