“What took you so long to get here, Mother?” Pandi asked critically. Mother didn’t give her the satisfaction of responding. Instead she picked up the handles of the cart and led us, goat and all, twisting and turning through the crowd, into a small courtyard ringed by a rammed-earth wall; we suffered no end of curses and complaints as we wound our way through tiny spaces amid the crowd of people. Pandi helped Mother take the little ones off the cart in order to leave the cart and goat outside the courtyard, where the donkeys and horses were tethered. There were no baskets and no hay, so the animals fed on the bark of the trees. We left the cart in the lane, but took the goat inside with us. Pandi gave me a look, but didn’t say anything, since she knew that that goat was my lifeline.
Inside the house, a dark shadow swayed in the bright lamplight. A county official was bickering loudly about something. We heard Lu Liren’s hoarse voice. Armed soldiers were loitering in the courtyard, nursing their sore feet. Stars twinkled in the deepening night. Pandi led us into one of the side rooms, where a weak lantern projected ghostly shadows onto the walls. An old woman, dressed in funeral clothes, lay in an open coffin. She opened her eyes when we entered. “Do me a favor, kind people, and put the lid on my coffin,” she said. “I want this space to myself.” “What’s this all about, old aunty?” Mother asked her. “This is an auspicious day for me,” the old woman replied. “Do that for me, will you, kind people?” “Try to make the best of it, Mother,” Pandi said. “It’s better than sleeping in the street.”
We did not sleep well that night. The bickering in the main room continued late into the night, and the moment it stopped, gunfire erupted out on the street. That disturbance was followed by a blazing fire in the village, the flames licking skyward like red silk banners, lighting up our faces and that of the old woman lying comfortably in her coffin. At sunrise she was no longer moving. Mother called out to her, but she didn’t open her eyes. A check of her pulse showed that she had died. “She’s a semi-immortal,” Mother said as she and First Sister placed the lid on.
The next few days were even harder on us, and by the time we reached the foot of Da’ze Mountain, Mother’s and First Sister’s feet were rubbed raw. Big and Little Mute had both developed coughs, while Shengli had a fever and diarrhea. Reminded of the pills Fifth Sister had given her, Mother took out one and gave it to Shengli. Poor Eighth Sister was the only one who wasn’t sick. It had been two full days since we’d last seen Pandi or, for that matter, any county or district officials. We’d seen the mute once, as he carried a wounded soldier on his back, a man whose leg had been blown off, and whose blood dripped off his torn, useless pant leg. He was sobbing. “Do a good deed, Commander, finish me off, the pain’s killing me, oh dear Mother…”
It must have been on our fifth day on the road when we saw a tall, white, tree-covered mountain rise up out of the north. A little monastery sat on its peak. From the bank of the Flood Dragon River, behind our house, this mountain was visible on clear days; but it had always shown up dark green. Seeing it close up, its shape and clean, crisp smell made me realize how far from home we had traveled. As we walked along a broad gravel-paved road, we met a detachment of troops on horseback coming toward us; the soldiers were dressed the same as those of the 16th Regiment. It was clear, as they passed us, heading in the opposite direction, that our home had become a battlefield. Foot soldiers were the next to come down the road, followed by a detachment of donkeys pulling artillery pieces, the muzzles sporting bouquets of flowers; soldiers perched on the big guns had smug, confident airs. After the artillery detachment passed, stretcher bearers and two columns of wagon troops came down the road; the wagons were loaded with sacks of flour and rice, plus bales of hay. We hugged the roadsides timidly to let the troops pass.
Some of the foot soldiers stepped out of line with their Mausers and asked what was going on. At this point, Wang Chao, the barber, who had joined the procession with his smart-looking rubber-tired cart, ran into trouble, as one of the wooden-wheeled provisions carts broke an axle. The driver flipped the cart over, removed the axle, and examined it closely until his hands were black with grease. His son was no more than fifteen or sixteen, with sores on his face and an ulcerated mouth. He was wearing a shirt with no buttons and a belt made of hemp. “What happened, Dad?” he said. “The axle’s broken, son.” Father and son took the wheel off of the axle. “Now what, Dad?” His father walked to the side of the road and wiped his greasy hands on the rough bark of a poplar tree. “Nothing we can do,” he said. Just then a one-armed soldier in a thin army uniform, rifle over his back and a dogskin cap on his head, stepped out of the line of carts ahead and ran over.
“Wang Jin!” he shouted angrily. “What are you doing out of line? What’s the idea? Are you trying to make our Iron and Steel Company lose face?”
“Political Instructor,” Wang Jin said with a frown, “we broke an axle.”
“You couldn’t let it happen a little earlier or a little later, could you? You had to wait till we were going into battle, didn’t you? I told you to check your cart carefully before we left, didn’t I?” He slapped Wang Jin angrily.
“Ouch!” Wang Jin yelped as he lowered his head; blood trickled out of his nose.
“Why did you hit my father?” the gutsy youngster asked the political instructor.
The political instructor froze. “I didn’t do it intentionally,” he said. “But you’re right, I shouldn’t have bumped him. But if the provisions don’t get there in time, I’ll have you both shot.”
“We didn’t break the axle on purpose,” the youngster said. “We’re poor and we had to borrow this cart from my aunt.”
Wang Jin pulled some ratty cotton filling out of his sleeve and stuffed it up his bloody nose. “Political Instructor,” he muttered, “please be reasonable.”
“Reasonable?” the political instructor said menacingly. “Getting provisions up to the front lines is reasonable. Not getting them there is unreasonable. I’ve had enough of your prattling. You’re going to transport these two hundred and forty pounds of millet up to Taoguan Township if you have to lug it on your backs!”
“Political Instructor, you’re always saying how we need to be practical and realistic. Two hundred and forty pounds of millet… he’s just a boy… please, I beg you…”
The political instructor looked up into the sunny sky, then down at his watch, and surveyed the area. His gaze fell first on our wooden-wheeled cart, then on Wang Chao’s rubber-tired cart.
Wang Chao was a bachelor, a practiced barber who had made plenty of money, some of which he spent on his favorite food, pig’s head. Well fed, he had a square face, big ears, and a healthy complexion. Nothing like a farmer. In his cart he carried a box with his barber’s tools and an expensive quilt wrapped with a dog’s pelt. The cart was made from the wood of a scholar tree, coated with tung oil that made the wood shine. It was a good-looking, good-smelling cart. Before setting out, he’d pumped up the tires, so that the cart bounced lightly on the hard surface of the road, hardly disturbing its contents. A strong man, he was never without a flask of liquor, from which he drank regularly as he moved spryly, singing little ditties and having a grand old time. Among us refugees, he was royalty.
The political instructor’s dark eyes rolled in his head as he headed over to the side of the road with a smile on his lips. “Where are you people from?” he asked pleasantly.
No one answered him. Then his glance shifted to the face of Wang Chao and his smile vanished, replaced by a look as formidable as a mountain and as forbidding as a remote monastery. “What do you do for a living?” he asked, his eyes fixed on Wang Chao’s big, oily face.