Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (7 page)

Now that I’d heard so many words of praise over my new shoes, I was in a fine mood, and my master was delighted with what the district chief had said. Master and donkey, Lan Lian and I, ran happily through the gold-washed autumn fields. Those were the best days of my donkey life. Yes, better to be a donkey everyone loves than a hopeless human. As your nominal brother Mo Yan wrote in the play
The Black Donkey.

When we reached the village, Lan Lian picked some tender grass and yellow wildflowers from the side of the road to weave into a floral wreath, which he draped over my neck behind my ears. There we met the daughter of the stonemason Han Shan, Han Huahua, and their family’s female donkey, which was carrying a pair of saddlebag baskets; one held a baby in a rabbit fur cap, the other held a white piglet. Lan Lian struck up a conversation with Huahua; I made eye contact with her donkey. The humans had their speech, we had our own ways to communicate. Ours was based on body odors, body language, and instinct. From their brief conversation, my master learned that Huahua, who had been married to someone in a distant village, had come back for her mother’s sixtieth birthday and was now returning home. The baby in the basket was her infant son; the piglet was a gift from her parents. Back then, live animals, like piglets or lambs or chicks, were the preferred gifts. Government awards were often horses or cows or long-haired rabbits. My master and Huahua had a special relationship, and I thought back to when I was still Ximen Nao, how Lan Lian would be out with his cattle and Huahua would be out with her sheep, and the two of them would play donkeys frolicking in the grass. Truth is, I wasn’t all that interested in what they were doing now. As a potent male donkey, my immediate concern was the female donkey with the saddlebag baskets that was standing right there in front of me. She was older than me, somewhere between five and seven, by all appearances, which I determined from the depth of the hollow in her forehead. Naturally, she could just as easily — maybe even more easily — guess my age. Don’t assume that I was the smartest donkey ever just because I was a reincarnation of Ximen Nao — for a time I entertained that very misconception — since she could have been a reincarnation of someone far more important. My coat was gray when I was born, but I was turning darker all the time. If I hadn’t been almost black at the time, my hooves wouldn’t have appeared so eye-popping white. She was a gray donkey, still quite svelte, with delicate features, perfect teeth, and when she brought her mouth up close to me, I got a whiff of aromatic bean cake and wheat bran from between her lips. Sexual emanations poured from her, and at the same time I sensed the heat of passion inside, a powerful desire for me to mount her. It was contagious: an overpowering urge to do just that rose in me.

“Are they caught up in co-op fever where you are?” “With the same county chief leading the charge, there’s no way to avoid it,” Huahua said wistfully.

I walked over behind the donkey, who might have been offering her hindquarters to me. The scent of passion was getting stronger. I breathed it in deeply, and it was like pouring strong liquor down my throat. I bared my teeth and closed both nostrils, in order to keep any foul odors from escaping. It was the sort of pose that pretty much melted her heart. At the same time, my black shaft reached out heroically and nudged itself up against my belly. This was a once-in-a-life-time opportunity, fleeting to boot; just as I was raising my front legs to consummate the deal, my eyes fell on the baby in the saddlebag basket, sound asleep, not to mention, of course, the squealing piglet. Now, if I were to rear up into the mounting position, my newly shod hooves could wipe out those two little lives. And if I did that, Ximen Donkey could pretty much count on spending eternity in hell, with no chance of rebirth as anything. As I pondered my dilemma, my master jerked on the reins, forcing my front hooves down onto the ground as Huahua shrieked in alarm and quickly led her donkey out of “danger.”

“My father instructed me that since she’s in heat, I needed to be especially watchful. I forgot. In fact, he said to be sure and watch out for the donkey belonging to the Ximen Nao family. Can you imagine, even though Ximen Nao has been dead all these years, my father still thinks you’re his hired hand, and he refers to your donkey as Ximen Nao’s donkey.”

“That’s better than thinking that it’s a reincarnation of Ximen Nao,” my master said with a laugh.

I tell you, that shocked me. Did he know my secret? If he knew that his donkey was actually Ximen Nao reincarnated, would that work for or against me? The red ball in the sky was about to set; time for my master and Huahua to say good-bye.

“We’ll talk again next time, Brother Lan,” she said. “My home’s fifteen
li
from here, so I’d better get going.”

“So your donkey won’t make it back tonight, is that it?”

Huahua smiled and said conspiratorially:

“She’s a very clever donkey. After I feed and water her, all I have to do is remove her reins, and she’ll run home on her own. She does it every time.”

“Why do you have to remove her reins?”

“So no one can catch and take her away with them. The reins slow her down.”

“Oh,” my master said as he stroked his chin. “Why don’t I see you home?”

“Thanks,” she said, “but they’re putting on a play in the village tonight, so if you leave now you can see it.” Huahua turned and started off with her donkey, but stopped after a few steps, turned back, and said, “Brother Lan, my father said you shouldn’t be so stubborn, that you’d be better off throwing in your lot with everybody else.”

My master shook his head but didn’t respond. Then he looked me in the eye and said, “Let’s go, partner. I know what’s on your mind, and you nearly got me into a peck of trouble! What do you think, should I take you to the vet and get you fixed?”

My heart nearly stopped and my scrotum constricted; I’d never been so scared in my life. Don’t do it, Master, I wanted to howl, but the words stuck in my throat and emerged as brays:
Hee-haw,
hee-haw
—

Now that we’d arrived in the village, my new shoes sang out crisply on the cobblestone road. Although I had something else on my mind, the image of her beautiful eyes and tender pink lips and the smell of her affectionate urine in my nose nearly drove me crazy. And yet my previous life as a human had made me an uncommon donkey. Misfortunes in the human world held a great attraction for me. I watched people rushing off to somewhere, and from what they spoke of along the way, I learned that a colored, glazed pottery urn filled with riches was on display in the Ximen estate compound, now the Village Government Office, headquarters of the co-op, and, of course, the home of my master Lan Lian and Huang Tong. The urn had been dug up by workers as they prepared an outdoor stage for the play. I immediately imagined the shady looks on the people’s faces when they looked upon riches being removed from the urn, and Ximen Nao’s memories resurfaced to dilute the amorous feelings of Ximen Donkey. I didn’t recall ever hiding any gold, silver, or jewelry in that place; we had hidden a thousand silver dollars in the animal pen as well as a trove of wealth in the walls of the house, but they had been found by the Poor Peasants Brigade in searches during the land reform movement. Poor Ximen Bai had suffered grievously over that.

At first, Huang Tong, Yang Qi, and the others had locked up Ximen Bai, Yingchun, and Qiuxiang for observation and investigation, with Hong Taiyue in command. I was kept in a separate room, out of sight of the interrogations, but well within earshot. Out with it! Where did Ximen Nao hide your family’s riches? Out with it! I heard the crisp sounds of willow switches and clubs banging on tables. And I heard that slut Qiuxiang cry out: Village Chief, Group Leader, good uncles and brothers, I was born to poverty, I was fed husks and rotten vegetables in the Ximen household, they never treated me like a human being, I was raped by Ximen Nao, my legs held down by Ximen Bai and my arms by Yingchun, so Ximen Nao could fuck me! — That’s a damned lie! That was Yingchun shouting. The sound of beating, someone was pulling them apart. — Everything she’s saying, all lies! That was Ximen Bai weighing in. In their house I was lower than a dog, lower than a pig, uncles, elder brothers, I’m an oppressed woman, I’m just like you, I’m one of your class sisters, it’s you who’ve rescued me from a sea of bitterness, I owe you everything, I’d love nothing more than to scoop out Ximen Nao’s brains and hand them to you, nothing would make me happier than to gouge out his heart and liver for you to enjoy with your wine.... Just think, why would they tell me where they hid their gold and silver? You class brothers, you must understand what I’m telling you, Qiuxiang pleaded tearfully. Yingchun, on the other hand, neither cried nor made a scene. She stuck to her simple defense: All I concerned myself with was my chores and raising the children. I know nothing outside of that. She was right, those two did not know where the family wealth was hidden; that knowledge was shared only by Ximen Bai and me. A concubine is just that, not someone you can trust. Unlike a real wife. Ximen Bai kept her silence until she was forced to say something. The family is just an empty shell, she said, which people might have thought was filled with gold and silver, when in fact we couldn’t make ends meet. There was a little money for household expenditures, but he wouldn’t give it to me. I could picture her when she said that: She’d be staring daggers with her big, blank eyes, at Yingchun and Qiuxiang. I knew she despised Qiuxiang, but Yingchun had come with her as a maidservant, and when you break the bones, the tendons stay connected; it had been her idea for Yingchun to become my concubine so I could keep the family line going. And Yingchun had carried out her end of the bargain, producing a pair of twins, a boy and a girl. Bringing Qiuxiang into the house, on the other hand, had been a frivolous idea of mine. Success during good times can turn a man’s head; when a dog is happy with the way things are going, it raises its tail; when a man is happy with the way things are going, it’s his pecker that gets raised. To be sure, it was her seductive charms that got to me: she flirted with her eyes and won me over with her breasts. The temptation was simply too great for Ximen Nao, who was far from being a saint. Ximen Bai made it abundantly clear how she felt about this: You’re the head of the household, she said angrily, but one of these days that witch is going to be your undoing! So, when Qiuxiang said that Ximen Bai held her legs while Ximen Nao raped her, she was lying. Did Ximen Bai ever hit her? Yes. But she also hit Yingchun. Eventually, they let Yingchun and Qiuxiang go, and from where I was locked up, in a room with a window, I saw the two of them walk out of the main house. I wasn’t fooled by Qiuxiang’s disheveled hair or dirty face, because I could see the smug look in her eyes, which were rolling happily in their sockets. Clearly worried, Yingchun ran straight to the eastern rooms, where Jinlong and Baofeng were crying themselves hoarse. My darling son, my precious daughter! I whimpered silently, where did I go wrong, what heavenly principles did I violate to cause such suffering, not just to me, but to my wife and children? But then I reflected that every village had landlords who were struggled against, whose so-called crimes were exposed and criticized, who were swept out of their homes like garbage, and whose “dog heads” were beaten bloody, thousands and thousands of them, and I wondered, Was it possible that every one of them — of us — committed such evil acts that this was the treatment we deserved? It was our inexorable fate; earth and sky were spinning dizzily, the sun and moon trading places; there was no escape, and only the protection of Ximen Nao’s ancestors could keep his head on his shoulders. With the world in such a state, just staying alive was a result of sheer luck; asking for more would have been preposterous. But I couldn’t help worrying about Ximen Bai. If they wore her down to the point where she told them where our riches were hidden, not only would that not lessen my crimes, it would seal my doom. Ximen Bai, my loyal wife, you are a deep thinker, a woman of ideas, and you mustn’t lose sight of what’s important at this critical moment! The militiaman guarding my cell, Lan Lian, blocked my view out the window with his back, though I could hear the interrogation in the main house start up again. This time they really turned up the heat. The screams were deafening as willow switches, bamboo rods, and whips smacked against a table and thudded against Ximen Bai’s back. My dear wife’s shrieks broke my heart and shattered my nerves. — Out with it! Where did you hide your gold and silver? — We have no gold and silver. ... — Ah, Ximen Bai, you’re so stubborn it looks like you won’t open up till we start knocking you around. That sounded like Hong Taiyue, though not completely. Then silence. But only for a moment, before Ximen Bai’s howls erupted, and that made my hair stand on end. What were they doing to her? What could force such frightful howls out of a woman? — Are you going to tell us or not? If you don’t, you’ll get more of the same! — I’ll tell you . . . I’ll tell you . . . My heart felt like it had been rid of a stone. Go ahead, tell them. After all, a man can only die once. Better for me to die than for her to suffer on my account. Out with it, where did you hide it? — It’s hidden, it’s hidden in the Earth God Temple east of the village, in the God of War Temple north of the village, at Lotus Bay, in the belly of a cow. ... I don’t know where it’s hidden, because there isn’t any. During the first Land Reform campaign, we handed over everything we owned!—You’ve got your nerve, Ximen Bai, trying to make fools of us! — Let me go, I honestly don’t know anything. ... — Drag her outside! I heard a man in the main house threaten, someone who was probably sitting in the mahogany armchair I used to sit in. Next to that chair was an octagonal table on which I kept my writing brush, ink stick, ink slab, and paper; hanging from the wall behind the table was a longevity scroll. Behind the scroll was a hollow in which forty silver coins weighing fifty ounces, twenty gold ingots each weighing an ounce, and all of Ximen Bai’s jewelry were hidden. I saw two armed militiamen drag Ximen Bai out of the house; her hair was a mess, her clothes ripped and torn, and she was soaking wet. I couldn’t tell if what was dripping from her body was blood or sweat, but when I saw the shape she was in, I knew that Ximen Nao had not vainly kicked up a row in this world. I suddenly realized that the militiamen who came out with her were meant to be a firing squad. My arms had been tied behind me, so all I could do, like Su Qin carrying a sword on his back, was ram my head into the window frame and scream, Don’t execute her!