Under the Red Flag (12 page)

The nurse took off her robe and handed it to Jia. “Put this on, Uncle,” she said.

“Thanks, thanks.” He wrapped himself up immediately.

They moved into the street and hurried east. Jia walked and ran continually while the doctor and the nurse were striding behind him. It was damp and foggy. Jia was fluttering along like a ghost in white on the street of the sleeping town.

Lei had measles. On hearing the diagnosis, both Jia and Ning felt relieved; they had thought it must have been something like smallpox. The nurse gave Lei an injection of penicillin, and the doctor, whose surname was Cui, told them not to worry about the rash, which would continue to spread over the boy’s body but would disappear in a few days. The fever would go down every day, and a nurse would be assigned to come to give Lei the injection four times a day. In the meantime, they must let the boy rest well, drink more water, and eat liquid food.

When Dr. Cui and Nurse Liang were about to leave, Jia handed back the white robe and said with an awkward smile, “Thanks. I was so scared.” He scratched his sparse hair.

“Next time, remember to wear your pants,” the young man said and laughed. The nurse took back the robe, tittering.

After they left, Jia and Ning didn’t go to bed. Instead they spent the small hours talking about the boy and watching his blotchy cheeks bulging out and sagging down, and they also
rubbed him with a wet towel time and again. They smiled at each other, remembering how Lei had called the Moon Goddess on the wall his bride, how he had nodded his head when they asked him whether he would give them money when he grew up, how he had promised to give his mother a hundred yuan, his father a hundred, Ning a hundred, Jia a hundred, his Moon Bride a hundred, and himself a hundred, how he had wanted his picture-story books to be placed by his pillow when he went to bed, how he had passed water on the floor and cried heartbroken when Ning swept the mess away because he thought a small river of his was gone, how he had stepped on the feet of the baby boy of the Mings, then given him a candy when the boy was about to cry …

Beyond the windows roosters crowed, one after another. Dawn was approaching. How short was the night. They could have talked and talked for many more hours.

Three days later Lei’s mother came to see him. He had almost recovered but still had brownish scales on the skin. She thanked the Jias for looking after Lei so well and then took him with her to spend the Sunday in their apartment. Though the Jias knew Lei would be back by the evening, they felt restless, as if they had not known where to put their own bodies. Jia didn’t speak much, sitting in the backyard and pulling away on his pipe.

The day before, he had received a short letter from his mistress, who asked him to see her that Sunday. She said: “If you don’t come this weekend, you mustn’t see me again.” Without much thinking, Jia wrote her a note which ended with these words: “I’m too busy on Sundays. Sorry, I cannot come. I really have no time. Too tired.”

Aunt Zhang stopped by and chatted with Ning. She laughed when she heard Jia’s night expedition to the army’s clinic. “I have an idea,” she said to the Jias. “Since you like the boy so much, why not take him as your nominal son? That will tie him to you forever, at least in name. I’m sure his parents won’t mind. I can talk to them. That may make them feel more secure about leaving the boy with you.”

Jia beamed and looked at his wife. Yes, why not?

But Ning frowned a little and said, “I’ve thought of that, Aunt Zhang. I don’t think we should take Lei as a nominal son. You see, I’m an unlucky woman. If I’m fated to be childless, I shouldn’t have one. Lei is a bright boy with a good future; I can’t let my bad luck stand in his way and block his fortune. No, he’s too good for us.”

Aunt Zhang looked at Ning with amazement.

Jia stood up and walked away silently. He felt sad, but he believed Ning was right. The boy was too good to be their own. It was enough to know Lei would come back in the afternoon and to wait for him here when he stepped in. He would be happy if he could wait for him like this every Sunday. He knew that in a few years Lei would leave them for school in a bigger place and then go into the large world, but someday the boy might come back to this small town to see them, as a friend.

Emperor

We were playing horse ride in the afternoon on Main Street, which was a noncombat zone for the boys in Dismount Fort. The fourteen of us were in two groups. Seven were riding on the backs of the others, and we wouldn’t switch roles until one rider’s feet touched the ground. It was hot, though a breeze came now and then.

“Look at that,” our emperor Benli said, pointing to a horse cart coming up the street. The harness bells jingled listlessly while the horses’ hooves thudded on the white gravel. The cart was loaded with a mountain of beehives.

“Let’s hit him,” Bare Hips said. He referred to the cart driver, who looked tipsy and was humming a folk song.

Benli ordered, “Get ready.”

We set about gathering stones and clods and hiding ourselves in the ditch along the road. About fifty paces behind us stood five latrine cleaners, resting in the shade of locusts. Ten buckets, filled with night soil, were reeking. Amused, the latrine cleaners watched us preparing to ambush the enemy’s vehicle.

“Give me that brick, Grandson,” Hare Lips said.

“No,” Grandson said timidly, hiding the fragment of a brick behind him.

“Got a problem, eh? Refusing your grandpa?” Hare Lips slapped him on the face and grabbed the brick away from him.

Grandson didn’t make a peep. He had another nickname, Big Babe, because he looked like a girl with curved brows, round eyes, a soft face, and a pair of plump hands with fleshy pits on the knuckles. He was too timid to fight anybody and every one of us could beat him easily. That was why he became our Grandson.

The cart was coming close, and the driver’s voice was clear now:

Square tables I ordered four,
Long benches we have twelve,
Meat and fish course by course,
My brothers, help yourselves—

“Fire!” Benli shouted.

We started throwing stones, bricks, wooden grenades, and clods at the horses and the driver. He sat up with a start and turned his small egg-shaped face to us. Then he swung his long whip to urge the horses on. The lash was cracking like firecrackers while our missiles hit both the man and the horses, which were startled and began galloping. The latrine cleaners laughed noisily behind us.

Suddenly the whiplash touched the top of the load. A beehive tumbled down the other boxes, fell off the cart, and crashed to the ground. Bees poured out from all the hives. In a few seconds the cart was swathed by a golden cloud ringing madly.

“Oh Mother! Help!” the driver yelled.

The horses sprang up and plunged into the ditch on the other side of the road. The cart careened, turned over, and scattered the hives everywhere. Most of the bees were swarming to the struggling horses and the man; some were flying to us.

“Help! Help!” the driver screamed, but none of us dared move close. Even the latrine cleaners were too scared to go over, though one of them was running away to the Commune Clinic, which was nearby, to get help. Stunned, we dropped our weapons and watched speechlessly.

The three horses disentangled themselves and ran off with long neighing. The spotted shaft horse was charging toward us, and we all went behind the thick trees. It dashed by with a loud fart and kicked down two buckets of night soil. The street at once smelled like a compost heap.

“Help,” the man groaned in the ditch, his voice very small. We couldn’t see him. Over there only the swarm of bees was waving and rolling in the breeze.

Half an hour later most of the bees had flown away, and the medical people rescued the cart driver. He had stopped breathing, though we were told that his heart was still alive. His face was swollen, covered with blood and crushed bees, and his fingers looked like frozen carrots. They carried him on a stretcher, rushing back to the Commune Clinic.

Then Zu Ming, the head of town police, arrived and ordered everyone not to move, including the latrine cleaners. He must have heard that we had thrown things at the cart, for promptly he questioned us about who had started it. If we didn’t tell him,
he said, he would lock us up in the police station for a few days. We were scared.

“You,” Zu pointed at Sickle Handle, “you hit a beehive with a stone, didn’t you?” Zu’s face was dark and long, so long that people called him Donkey Face.

“No, I didn’t.” Sickle Handle stepped away.

“How about you?” Zu pulled Benli’s ear.

“No, not me.” Our emperor grimaced, a thread of saliva dribbling from the corner of his mouth. “Oh, let me go, Uncle. It hurts.”

“Then tell me who started it.” Zu twisted Benli’s ear harder.

“Ouch! Not me.”

“Tell me who did it.” A cigarette bobbed around the tip of Zu’s nose as two lines of smoke dangled beneath his nostrils.

“He did it,” Benli moaned.

“Who?”

“Grandson.”

“Louder, I can’t hear you.”

“Grandson.”

“Who is Grandson?” Zu let Benli go and looked around at us. Our eyes fell on Big Babe.

“No, I just threw one clod,” Grandson said, his face turning pale.

“All right, one is enough. You come with me.” Zu went up to Grandson, who was about to escape. Grandson had hardly run a step when Zu caught him by the neck. “You piglet, where are you going?” He threw him on his broad shoulder and carried him away to the police station.

“Fuck your mother!” Grandson yelled at Benli.

We all followed them to see what would happen to him, while the latrine cleaners laughed with their heads thrown back, pointing at Grandson, who was kicking in the air. Then they shouldered their loads of night soil and set out for Elm Village, where they lived. One of them carried two empty buckets with his pole.

“Stop it!” Zu whacked Grandson on the back, who stopped kicking instantly.

“Fuck all your grandmas!” Grandson shouted at us, wailing and sniffling.

We didn’t swear back and followed them silently. The hot sun cast our slant shadows on the whitish road; cicadas were hissing tirelessly in the treetops. We hated Zu Ming, who only dared to bully us children. Two months ago he had gone to Dalian City with a truck from the Harvest Fertilizer Plant. There they had been caught by the gunfire of the revolutionary rebels. The driver, Squinty’s father, was hit by a bullet in the leg, but he managed to drive the truck out of the city. Though nothing touched Zu, he was so frightened he messed his pants. The whole town knew that.

The blue door of the police station closed behind them. Bang, we heard Zu drop the boy on the floor.

“Oh! My arm,” Grandson cried.

Immediately we rushed to the windows to watch. “Take this. I’m going to break your legs too.” Zu kicked Grandson in the hips and stomach.

“Don’t kick me!”

Two policemen came in, and Zu turned to them to explain what had happened. Fearing they might detain Grandson for
some time and hurt him badly, Benli told Hare Lips, “Go tell his uncle that Big Babe is in trouble here.”

Grandson’s parents had died seven years before in a famine, so he lived at his uncle’s. One reason we would make fun of him was that all his cousins were small girls. We could beat him or do him in without worrying about being caught by a bigger brother.

“Did you overeat, huh? Have too much energy?” Shen Li shouted, clutching Grandson’s neck. Shen was a squat young man, like a Japanese soldier, so we called him Water Vat.

“Don’t. You’re hurting me!” Grandson cried.

“How about this?” A slap landed on his face.

“Oh!”

“Tell us why you did that.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You still don’t admit it. All right, let your grandpa teach you how to be honest.” Shen punched him in the flank.

“Ouch!” Grandson dropped to the floor, holding his sides and yelling, “Help! They’re killing me.”

“Shut up!” Zu ordered, and pulled him to his feet. “Now tell me, did you do it or not?”

Grandson nodded.

“Sign your name here then.” Zu took him to a desk and pointed at a sheet of paper.

We were restless outside, having never seen how the police handled a child criminal. We were also anxious to get him out.

Finally Grandson’s uncle came, wearing blue work clothes spattered with paint. We stepped aside to let the tall man go in. A few of us even ventured to enter together with him, but Water Vat pushed us back and shut the door.

We thought Grandson’s uncle would be mad at the police, but to our surprise he cursed his nephew instead. “How many times did I tell you not to cause trouble on the streets, huh? Young rabbit, I’d better kill you or starve you to death.” He slapped him on the face.

The policemen took both of them into another room. Since we couldn’t see them anymore, we left the windowsills, cursing the police and their families. We swore we would whack Zu’s oldest daughter once she started her first grade.

A few minutes later the door opened and Grandson and his uncle came out, the three policemen following behind. “Liu Bao,” Zu said aloud, “keep a good eye on your boy. You see, that cart driver could have been killed. We don’t want the youngster to commit homicide.”