Even if I said I’d do it, what would she—
Gugu interrupted me: You don’t have to worry about that. She’s been with me so long I know what she’s thinking. I’ll tell you the unvarnished truth: It’s you she’s in love with, and if Renmei hadn’t left us, Little Lion would stay single all her life.
Let me think this over for a few days, Gugu, I said. The dirt on Renmei’s grave is still damp.
Think what over? A long night brings many dreams. If Renmei’s spirit is up there somewhere, she’ll be clapping her hands in approval. Why? Because Little Lion is a good woman, and it would be Renmei’s good fortune for her daughter to have such a stepmother. Not only that, government policy would allow you and Little Lion to have a child, and I’d be wishing for twins. Xiaopao; you will have benefited greatly from misfortune.
5
The date for my wedding was set.
Gugu took care of the arrangements. I felt like a floating piece of rotting wood kept moving by gentle nudges.
Little Lion and I were alone together for only the second time when we registered to be married at the commune office.
Our first private meeting had been in the dormitory room shared by Gugu and Little Lion. It had been a Saturday morning. Gugu ushered us into the room and left, shutting the door behind her. A pile of dust-covered newspapers and a couple of books on obstetrics sat atop a three-drawer table between the two single beds. Bees swarmed around a dozen or so sturdy, pollen-laden sunflowers just outside the window. After pouring me a glass of water, she sat on her bed. I sat on Gugu’s bed. The air carried the fragrance of hand soap. Soapy water half filled a Red Lantern washbasin. Gugu’s unmade bed was an impossible mess.
Gugu is totally devoted to her work.
I know.
I feel like I’m dreaming.
Me too.
You know all about Wang Gan, don’t you? He’s written to you five hundred times.
Gugu told me.
Any thoughts about that?
Not really.
I’ve been married before and I have a daughter. Does that bother you?
No.
Do you want to talk this over with your family?
I have no family.
Later, she rode on the back of my bicycle to the commune offices. I had trouble controlling the bicycle over the bumpy road, only recently paved with shards of brick and tile. She sat with her shoulder pressed against my back. I could feel her weight. Some people ride well on the back of a bicycle, some don’t. Renmei rode well, Little Lion did not. I was pedalling so hard the chain broke. My heart sank. That was a bad sign. Did it mean that now we would not grow old together? The broken chain lay on the road like a dead snake. I picked it up and looked around. We were surrounded by cornfields where women were spraying insecticide. The spraying machines hummed like air raid sirens. The women had draped plastic over their shoulders and were wearing hospital masks over their mouths and bandanas on their heads. It was brutally hard work, but the green mist rising above the cornstalks invested it with an almost poetic air. I thought about Wang Renmei. She’d been fearless. Unafraid even of snakes, she’d pick them up by their tails, much the same way I’d picked up the bicycle chain. She’d also sprayed insecticide after being dismissed from the school in the wake of her breakup with Xiao Xiachun. Her hair had reeked of insecticide. I don’t have to wash it, she’d joked, since it’ll ward off fleas and mosquitoes. But she did wash it, and I stood behind her and poured water over her head; she laughed the whole time. I asked what she was laughing about, which made her laugh so hard she knocked over the washbasin. I couldn’t help but feel guilty as I thought about Renmei. I looked at Little Lion out of the corner of my eye. She was wearing a new, red-checked short-sleeve shirt with a turned-up collar and a glistening digital watch on her wrist. She was full-figured. She’d powdered her face with fragrant Pearl or another brand of face powder, which lessened the effects of acne.
We’re still three li from the commune. I’ll have to walk the bicycle.
We met Chen Bi outside the slaughterhouse gate. He was carrying Chen Er on his back.
He blanched when he spotted us. The look in his eyes made me ashamed. He turned his back on us.
Chen Bi! I decided to greet him.
Oh, I thought it was some big shot, he replied with biting sarcasm. He glared hatefully at Little Lion.
They let you out, did they?
The girl’s sick, she has a fever, he said. To be honest, I didn’t want to leave. The food inside was so good I could spend my life there.
Little Lion went up to feel Chen Er’s forehead.
Chen Bi spun away.
Take her to the hospital for an IV, Little Lion said. Her temperature must be at least thirty-nine degrees.
Is that a hospital you’re running? Chen Bi fumed. Or an abattoir?
I know you hate us, Little Lion said, but there’s nothing we can do.
Nothing you can do? There’s plenty you can do.
Chen Bi, I said, don’t use your child to vent your anger. Come on, I’ll go with you.
Thanks, pal, he said with a sneer, but I don’t want to keep you from whatever it is you’re doing.
Chen Bi… what can I say?
You don’t have to say anything. I used to think you were a good guy, but now I know you’re not.
Say what you like, I said as I stuffed some bills into his pocket. Now take her to the hospital.
Chen reached in, took out the money, and flung it to the ground. This is blood money!
He turned and walked off proudly with his daughter.
I gazed blankly at his back as he strode off. I bent down, picked up the money, and put it back in my pocket.
He’s prejudiced against you both, I said.
He has only himself to blame, Little Lion said indignantly. Who can we pour our bitterness out to?
I was supposed to have had a letter from my unit to register for marriage, but Lu Mazi, the civil administration clerk laughed and said, No need for that. Your aunt has already talked to us. Wan Xiaopao, my son is a soldier in your unit, he said. He enlisted last year. He’s a smart boy and is quick to learn. Keep an eye on him for me, okay?
I paused when I was about to put my fingerprint in the marriage register, because I was reminded of having done the same thing with Wang Renmei in the same register in the same room with the same Lu Mazi. I’d left a bright red print in the book. Ah! Renmei said, showing her happy surprise. It’s a whorl!
Lu Mazi looked at me, then at Little Lion and said with a phoney smile, Wan Zu, you’re a lucky man. You’ve managed to marry the commune’s number one beauty. He pointed to the registry. Put your finger here. What are you waiting for?
Lu Mazi’s comments sounded a lot like ridicule — in essence, that’s what they were — Damn it, to hell with him. Okay, no more stalling! Life is short, I said to myself, and many things are determined by fate. Better to row with the flow than against it. Besides, things are too far along for me not to do it. What would that do to Little Lion? I’ve already ruined one woman’s life; I can’t ruin another’s.
6
At the time I was under the impression that Gugu was so caught up in arranging the wedding that she’d forgotten about Wang Dan. I’d thought she might have relented a bit and would use the wedding as an excuse to let enough time to pass for Wang Dan to have her baby. I’d soon realise, though, that Gugu’s sense of loyalty to her work had taken on maniacal proportions. She was obsessed with carrying out her tasks. I had no reason to doubt her good faith in bringing Little Lion and me together, for she was convinced that we were meant to be a couple. But her extravagant preparations for our wedding, her release of Chen Bi and his daughter from detention, and her announcement that the villagers no longer had to search for Wang Dan were all part of a smokescreen designed to lessen the vigilance of Wang Dan and whoever was hiding her. For Gugu it was a two-birds-with-one-stone strategy. What she hoped to achieve was to see a follower who was like her own daughter be married to her nephew and have a place to call home, and, at the same time, for Wang Dan to be taken into custody and the criminal foetus in her belly taken out and destroyed before it was too late. Using this sort of language to describe Gugu’s work may seem inappropriate, but I can’t come up with anything better.