To Live (20 page)

I shook my head and said, “Too poor, our family’s too poor.”

The next afternoon I was out plowing the field when someone called me. “Fugui, look over there. It looks like that crooked-headed son-in-law of yours is coming.”

I looked up to see five or six guys pulling a cart down the trail from town. Except for the one in front with the crooked head, they all walked with a sway. With just one glance from far away I
knew it was Erxi—I never imagined he would come back.

When Erxi saw me, he said, “It’s about time you had the straw on your roof replaced. I also brought a cart of lime to whitewash the walls.”

I looked in the cart and saw the lime along with two brushes to paint the walls with. On top of the cart was a small table, and on top of the table was a pig’s head. Erxi was carrying two bottles of white sorghum wine.

It was only then I realized that when Erxi was staring at our house, it wasn’t because he looked down on our poverty. He had noticed everything, even the pile of straw outside our door. I’d been planning to change the straw on our roof for a long time, but I’d wanted to wait until the slow season when some of the other villagers would have time to give me a hand.

Erxi not only brought five people with him, but he brought meat and spirits—he had really thought of everything. When they got to the door they put down the cart, and Erxi walked right in as if he were walking into his own home. Carrying the pig’s head in one hand and the small table in the other, he went in and put them down in front of Jiazhen. Erxi said, “This way you won’t have to worry about cooking.”

Jiazhen was so moved that tears came to her eyes. She hadn’t thought that Erxi would come back either, and never in a thousand years had we imagined that he would bring with him a bunch of guys to replace our roof and prepare a small meal all in the same day.

“Erxi, you’re so considerate,” said Jiazhen.

Erxi and his friends moved our table and stools outside and covered the ground around the tree out front with rice straw. Then Erxi went over to the bed to carry Jiazhen outside. Jiazhen laughed and waved her hands, calling out to me, “Fugui, don’t just stand there and watch.”

I rushed over and let Jiazhen climb onto my back. I smiled at Erxi and told him, “She’s my wife, I’ll carry her. One day you’ll have to carry Fengxia.”

Jiazhen nudged me after hearing that, but Erxi couldn’t stop laughing. I carried Jiazhen over to the tree and sat her on the straw-covered ground with her back against the trunk. I watched Erxi and his friends separate the pile of straw into a number of small bundles. Erxi and one of his friends got up on the roof and started to replace the straw while the other four guys stayed on the ground. As soon as I saw them get to work I
knew that the guys Erxi had brought had a lot of experience doing this kind of work—they were both quick and neat. The four men on the ground used bamboo poles to pass the straw up while Erxi and his friend spread it out. The fact that his head rested on his shoulder didn’t affect his work one bit. When the straw was tossed up he would first kick it up with his foot and then grab hold of it with his hand. There wasn’t a single person in the whole village who had that
kind of skill.

By noon the roof was already finished. I boiled a bucket of tea, and Fengxia poured it for everyone. Fengxia was really busy running back and forth, but she was happy. She couldn’t stop smiling after seeing so many people suddenly coming to help out.

A whole bunch of people from the village came to look.

“You’re so lucky,” one woman told Jiazhen. “Your son-in-law hasn’t even got to the altar yet and already he’s helping out.”

“It’s Fengxia who’s lucky,” Jiazhen replied.

When Erxi came down from the roof I said to him, “Erxi, take a rest.”

Wiping the sweat from his face with his sleeve, he said, “It’s okay, I’m not tired.”

He raised his shoulder so he could look around, and when he saw a patch of vegetables he asked me, “Is that part of our land?”

“It sure is,” I said.

He went inside to get a vegetable knife, then went down to the field to cut some fresh vegetables and brought them back inside. After a while he started to slice the pig’s head. I went over to stop him—he should have left it for Fengxia to do—but he just wiped the sweat from his face and continued.

“I’m not tired,” he insisted.

I had no choice but to go outside and get Fengxia. Fengxia was standing next to Jiazhen, and as I pushed her inside she
kept turning around in embarrassment to look at her mother. Only after Jiazhen laughed and waved for her to go in did she finally go inside.

Jiazhen and I kept Erxi’s friends company, chatting and drinking tea. At one point I popped in for a moment to see Fengxia and Erxi together. One of them was tending the fire while the other was cooking—they looked like a little family. The two of them
kept sneaking glances at each other; neither one of them could stop giggling.

I went out to tell Jiazhen, and she laughed. After a while I couldn’t stand it anymore and had to go in for another peek. But just as I stood up Jiazhen stopped me by whispering, “Don’t go in.”

After we ate, Erxi and the others used the lime to whitewash our walls. As soon as the lime dried the following day, our walls were a brilliant white, just like those brick houses in town. It was still early when they finished the whitewashing, so I said to Erxi, “Why don’t you stay for a while and leave after dinner?”

“No, thanks,” he said.

He proceeded to lift his shoulder in the direction of Fengxia— I
knew he was looking at her. Then, lowering his voice, Erxi asked Jiazhen and me, “Mom, Dad, when can I marry Fengxia?”

As soon as I heard this, as soon as I heard him call Jiazhen and me Mom and Dad, I was so ecstatic that you couldn’t have wiped the smile off my face if you’d tried. After looking to Jiazhen, I said, “Whenever you want. You set the date.”

After that I added quietly, “Erxi, it’s not that I want you to go bankrupt or anything. It’s just that Fengxia’s had a hard life. Let’s make the wedding day special for her. Invite some extra people to make it a real event. It would be good if you called some of the people from the village over, too.”

Erxi said, “Dad, I’ll take care of it.”

That night, Fengxia caressed the cotton print Erxi had brought. She would gaze at it and smile, and after smiling she’d go back to gazing at it. Every once in a while she’d look over at Jiazhen and me. Seeing that we were smiling, too, she’d instantly get nervous and blush. Jiazhen and I were pleased. It looked like Fengxia really liked Erxi.

“Erxi is an honest and trustworthy fellow,” Jiazhen said. “With him caring for Fengxia, I can rest easy.”

We sold the chickens and lamb and brought Fengxia into town to buy her two new outfits plus some household items like a blanket and washbasin. We made sure that Fengxia got whatever the other girls in the village had gotten when they married. As Jiazhen put it, “We can’t let Fengxia feel like she’s different from the other girls.”

The day Erxi came to marry Fengxia, you could hear the crashing of the bells and gongs from far away. All the farmers rushed over to the village entrance to watch. Erxi brought more than twenty people with him, and everyone wore Sun Yat-sen– style tunic jackets. If it hadn’t been for the red flower pinned to Erxi’s jacket, it would have looked just like some big cadre was coming to town. The sound of more than ten gongs beating at the same time along with the thunderous “bong” sound of two drums made all the country folks’ ears ring. But by far the showiest part of the procession was an emerald green cart draped with red sashes, on top of which sat a chair that was painted a matching red and green.

As soon as everyone got to the village, Erxi opened up two cartons of Front Gate cigarettes and stuffed packs into the hands of all the men he saw. He
kept repeating, “Thanks for coming, thank you.”

When other families in the village got married, the best cigarettes they would give out would be Flying Horse, if that. But Erxi gave out pack after pack of Front Gates—nobody could compete with that. As soon as someone got his hands on a pack, he would stick it right into his pocket, afraid that someone else would try to snatch it away. Those lucky enough to get their hands on a pack would stick their fingers deep into their pockets, fishing around for a cigarette. When they would finally manage to pull one out, they’d swiftly stick it between their lips.

The twenty-odd guys who came with Erxi were working hard. Not only were they shaking the heavens with their gongs and drums, but they were screaming with all their might. Their pockets were bulging, and when they saw the village women and children they’d throw them pieces of candy. I was stunned by the extravagance and
kept thinking about how much money they were throwing away.

When they got to my house, they all went in to see Fengxia. They left their instruments outside so the young guys from the village could
keep the music going. Wearing her new clothes, Fengxia looked really stunning. Even I, as her father, had never imagined she could look so beautiful. She was sitting by Jiazhen’s bed, checking each man who came in to see if he was Erxi. When she finally saw him she lowered her head. When Erxi’s friends from town saw Fengxia, they all said, “Wow, this crooked-head of ours really lucked out.”

For years after that, whenever other girls in the village were married off, it would be said that none of their weddings compared to Fengxia’s. That day, when Fengxia was called out of the house, her face was as red as a tomato. Never before had so many people looked at her at the same time, and aside from burying her head in her chest, she didn’t
know what to do. Erxi took her by the hand and led her over to the cart. Even after seeing the chair, Fengxia still didn’t quite
know what to do. A roar of laughter erupted from the people watching when Erxi, who was a full head shorter than Fengxia, picked her up and placed her in the chair. Fengxia laughed, too.

“Mom, Dad, I’m taking Fengxia away,” Erxi told Jiazhen and me.

With that, Erxi started pulling the cart away. The moment the cart began to move, Fengxia abruptly raised her head and turned around, anxiously looking back. I
knew that she was looking for Jiazhen and me. But I was standing right beside her, with Jiazhen on my back. As soon as she caught sight of us, she started to cry. She twisted her body around to look at us through her tears. Suddenly I thought back to when Fengxia was thirteen and that guy had taken her away—she had that same tearful look in her eyes as she had back then. As soon as I thought of that, tears began streaming down my face, and at the same moment I felt moisture on my neck and
knew that Jiazhen was crying, too. But this time it’s different, I thought. This time Fengxia’s getting married. I smiled and said, “Jiazhen, today’s a happy occasion. You should be smiling.”

Erxi had a good heart. While he was pulling the cart he kept looking back at his bride. When he noticed a teary-eyed Fengxia turning back to look at us, Erxi stopped and turned to look at us as well. The more Fengxia cried, the sadder she seemed to get, and her shoulders began to tremble. I could feel my heart tightening up. I yelled to Erxi, “Erxi, what are you waiting for? Fengxia’s your wife now.”

When Fengxia moved to town it felt like our spirits had gone with her—no matter what Jiazhen and I did, we couldn’t help but feel empty inside. We didn’t use to notice Fengxia coming and going all the time, but the moment she left it became so quiet. Jiazhen and I were the only ones left. We just
kept looking around the house as if, after decades of living there, we hadn’t already seen enough. For me it was okay; working in the field, I could get my mind off Fengxia. But it was really hard on Jiazhen. Sitting in bed all day with nothing to do, how could she not feel the loss with her Fengxia gone? She used to stay in bed all day without saying anything, but after Fengxia left she started to feel really terrible. Her lower back was tender and her shoulders were sore. It seemed like no matter what she did she couldn’t get comfortable. I could completely sympathize with her—staying in bed all day is even more exhausting than working in the field. Her body couldn’t even move. At dusk I would carry her piggyback around the village, and when the other villagers saw Jiazhen they would affectionately ask her all about how she’d been doing. Jiazhen would feel much more at ease and, leaning close to my ear, she’d whisper, “They won’t laugh at us, will they?”

“Why would they laugh at us? What’s so funny about me carrying my own wife?” I’d reply.

Jiazhen began to like reminiscing about the past. When we’d get to a certain spot she’d want to tell stories about back when Fengxia and Youqing were children. After going on and on about them, she’d laugh. When we got to the edge of the village, Jiazhen brought up the day I came home. She had been working in the field that day when she heard someone call out to Fengxia and Youqing in a loud voice. She looked up and saw me immediately, but at first she didn’t believe her eyes. When Jiazhen got to this point her laughter mixed with tears. Teardrops ran down my neck as she said, “Once you came home, everything was great.”

According to custom, Fengxia was supposed to come back to visit in a month—we were also supposed to wait at least a month before we went to visit her. So you can imagine our surprise when she came home in less than ten days. One evening, just after we had eaten, someone called from outside, “Fugui, you’d better head down to the village entrance. It looks like that crooked-headed son-in-law of yours is coming.”

At first I didn’t believe him. Everyone in the village knew how much Jiazhen and I missed Fengxia, so I figured they were just playing a joke on us. I remember telling Jiazhen, “It can’t be them, it’s been only ten days.”

But Jiazhen started to get anxious and said, “Hurry up and go take a look.”

I ran down to take a look, and what do you know, it really was Erxi. Lifting his left shoulder, he was carrying a cake; Fengxia was walking beside him. Hand in hand, they were all smiles as they approached me. When the people from the village saw them they all laughed—in those days you’d never see couples holding hands. I told them, “Erxi’s a city boy. Those people in town have got a bit of that foreign flavor.”