3
Three days after Mother’s funeral, according to custom, friends and family turned out to ‘circle the grave’. There we burned paper replicas of horses and people, as well as a paper TV set. Mother’s grave was only ten metres from where Renmei was buried. Bright green wild grass was already growing over her grave. I was told by a family elder to circle Mother’s grave with raw rice in my left hand and unhusked millet in my right. Three counterclockwise revolutions were followed by three clockwise revolutions, during which I let the rice and millet drop slowly from my hands as I intoned: A handful of millet, a handful of rice, we send the dear departed to Paradise. My daughter followed me, tossing grain to the ground from her tiny hands.
Gugu took time out of her busy schedule to come. Little Lion, medical kit over her back, walked behind her. Gugu was still hobbling, and, in the months since I’d last seen her, she seemed considerably older. She knelt at the foot of Mother’s grave and wailed. We’d never seen Gugu cry like that, and it shook us to our core. Little Lion stood off to the side, her eyes tear-filled. Women came up to console Gugu; they lifted her up by her arms, but the moment they let go, she fell back to her knees and wept even more bitterly. Affected by the display of Gugu’s grief, women who by then had stopped crying fell to their knees and began to keen along with her.
I bent down to help Gugu to her feet, but Little Lion said softly, Let her cry. She’s been holding this back for a very long time.
The look of compassion on Little Lion’s face gave me a warm feeling.
When she finally stopped crying, Gugu got to her feet, dried her eyes, and said to me: Xiaopao, Chairwoman Yang phoned me to say that you want to leave the army.
Yes, I replied. I’ve already handed in a request.
Chairwoman Yang has asked me to talk you out of it. She’s made arrangements to reassign you to the planning section, where you’ll work directly under her, with a promotion to the rank of deputy battalion commander. She thinks highly of you.
That means nothing to me now, I said. I’d rather go back and collect manure than work in family planning.
That’s where you’re wrong, she said. Family planning is Party work, important work.
Phone Chairwoman Yang and thank her for her concern. But I’m coming home. I don’t know how the very old and very young will get by if I don’t.
Don’t be so firm, she said. Give it more thought. You really should stay in the army. Fieldwork is hard on a person. Look at Yang Xin and then look at me. We’re both involved in family planning, but she has a leisurely life and it shows, with her nice complexion and all. And me? Scurrying here and hopping there, blood one moment and tears the next, until I look like this.
4
I confess, fame and fortune meant a lot to me. Though I said I wanted to leave the army, when I heard that I could look forward to a promotion and that Chairwoman Yang regarded me highly, I wavered. Back home, when I talked it over with Father, he too thought that leaving was a bad idea. Years ago, your great-uncle healed an injury to Commander Yang’s leg and cured his wife’s illness, putting them in his debt. Now he’s a high-ranking officer, and your future will be assured by having a connection with him. I voiced my objection to what Father was saying, but deep down that’s what I was thinking. We were ordinary people, common citizens, and I could be forgiven for wanting to curry favour with people of power and influence, society’s dragons and phoenixes. So the next time Gugu came to see me, my attitude had changed. And when she suggested a marriage between me and Little Lion, though I brought up Wang Gan’s decade-long infatuation with Little Lion as an excuse, even that argument began to crumble.
I’m childless, Gugu said, and Little Lion has become like a daughter to me. She’s a woman of fine character, has a heart of gold, and is fiercely loyal to me. How could I ever let her marry Wang Gan?
Gugu, I said, I’m sure you know it’s now been twelve years since Wang Gan wrote that first letter to Little Lion. In that time he’s written more than five hundred letters. He told me so. And that’s not all. One of the ways he expressed his love for her was to report his own sister. Of course, he reported Yuan Sai and Renmei too. How else would you have known about Yuan Sai’s illegal removal of IUDs, and how else would you have known that Renmei and Wang Dan were pregnant in violation of family-planning policy?
The truth is, Little Lion never read any of those disgusting letters, since I intercepted every one of them. I told Postal Director Ma to send me all his letters.
But he helped you in your work, I said, ever since his father had his vasectomy. In this latest contribution, he handed you his own sister.
One absolutely cannot marry a person like that, she said angrily. How dependable can someone who would sell out his friends, even his own sister, over a woman be?
But he still helped you.
Those are two different matters. Remember this, Xiaopao, she said earnestly, a person can be anything, anything but a traitor. There is no reason, however lofty, that excuses that. From ancient times to the present, betrayers have always come to grief. That includes Wang Xiaoti. He may have been given five thousand ounces of gold, but I’m willing to bet that he will die badly. If you were to defect to the KMT today for five thousand ounces of gold, would you then defect to another political party that offered you ten thousand? So the more Wang Gan reports on others, the lower he is in my eyes, and in my heart he is nothing but a pile of dog shit.
But what if you hadn’t intercepted his letters, Gugu? Is it possible that Little Lion would have been moved by what he wrote? Maybe even be married to him by now?
Impossible, absolutely impossible. She has lofty ambitions, and Wang Gan isn’t the only one who’s been smitten by her in recent years. There have been a dozen at least, including cadres and workers, but none has impressed her.
I shook my head. But, I said sceptically, she’s not really very good—
Hah! Gugu replied. How short-sighted can you be! Some women look good at first glance, but the more you look, the more flaws you see. What about Little Lion? At first glance you’d think she isn’t much to look at, but look long enough and you’ll see just how attractive she is. You’ve probably never taken the time to do that, have you? I’ve spent my whole life around women, and I know exactly what makes a woman a prized creature. Do you recall the time you were just promoted to cadre status, how I tried to get you and her together? But you’d fallen for Renmei, and even though I opposed the match, given the freedom to marry whom one pleases in the new society, as your aunt I had no choice but to go along. Now, of course, she’s left a void — don’t get me wrong, I’m not happy she died and wish she’d had a long life — as the heavens have willed it, and the heavens have also willed that you and Little Lion be together.
Gugu, I said, no matter what you say, Wang Gan and I were childhood friends, and everyone — adults and children — knows how he feels. If I were to marry Little Lion, I’d drown under the spittle the masses would send my way.
You’re wrong again, she said. His love for her is a one-sided affair, like a barber’s carrying pole — only the pail on one end is hot. Little Lion never once expressed any interest in him. If she married you, it would be a case of ‘the firebird knows which perch to choose’. Besides, this thing called love has nothing to do with loyalty among friends. Love is selfish. If Little Lion were a horse that Wang Gan had his eye on, then you could let him have her, no problem there. But Little Lion is a human being, and if you fall in love with her, you’ll have to take her for your own. You’ve been out in the world for several years and have seen many foreign movies, so how can you be so inflexible?