Under his breath Wang Gan said that the master sat trancelike like that every day, and sometimes didn’t climb onto the kang to sleep at night. Yet, like a machine, he kneaded the clay at regular intervals, making sure it never stopped being soft and well formed. Sometimes he’d sit all day long without making a single child; but when he began, he worked remarkably fast. I sell the master’s products and am responsible for his day-to-day living, Wang Gan said. At last I’ve found my calling, just as he’s found his.
The master’s needs are minimal. He eats what I place in front of him. Of course, I make sure it’s the most nutritious food I can provide. He’s the pride of the whole county, not just Northeast Gaomi Township.
I woke up late one night, Wang Gan said, and discovered that the master was not in bed. I immediately lit a lantern but didn’t find him at his workbench or in the yard. Where could he be? I broke out in a cold sweat, thinking that something had happened to him, and what a loss that would have been for Northeast Township. The county chief has brought the heads of the cultural and tourism bureaus here on three separate occasions. You know who the county chief is, don’t you? None other than the son of Yang Lin, the one-time county Party secretary who suffered so badly here and who had a tangled relationship with Gugu. Yang Xiong is a talented young man with penetrating eyes and neat white teeth, and who carries the smell of expensive cigarettes around on him. Word has it he studied in Germany. On his first visit he declared that the livestock-feeding building would not be torn down; the second time he invited the master to a banquet in town, but the master wrapped his arms around one of the tethering posts and held on like a man refusing to go in for a vasectomy; on the third visit, the county chief brought the master a plaque and a certificate proclaiming him to be a folk artist. Wang Gan reached into the cattle trough and brought out a gold-plated plaque and a certificate in a blue fleece cover to show us. Sure, he said, Hao Dashou has one of these plaques and a certificate, and the county chief also invited him to a banquet in town. He didn’t accept the invitation either. He wouldn’t have been Hao Dashou if he had. Well, these reactions had the county chief viewing the two Northeast Gaomi Township individuals in a new light. Wang Gan reached into his pocket for a stack of business cards, and selected three for us. See here, he said, he gives me one of these every time he visits. Lao Wang, he said to me, Northeast Gaomi Township has hidden talent just waiting to be discovered, and you’re part of that. I’m a down-and-outer, I said, with a notorious record. Outside of an infamous romantic escapade, I’ve been a complete cipher. These days I get by hawking somebody else’s clay dolls. Guess what he said to that? Anyone who can devote half a lifetime’s energy to the pursuit of a romantic vision is a legendary figure in his own right. Your township has produced its share of unusual and eccentric people, and you’re one of them. I tell you, the fellow’s part of a new breed of officials, nothing like the ones we used to know. I’ll bring you over to meet him the next time he comes to visit. He gave me the job of taking care of the master, responsible for safeguarding his welfare. So when I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t find him anywhere, I panicked. What would I say to the county chief if something happened to the master? I sat in a sort of trance in front of the stove until moonlight flowed into the room. A pair of chirping crickets behind the stove invested the room with a sense of foreboding. Then I heard some chilled laughter emerge from one of the horse troughs. I jumped to my feet and looked down into the trough, where the master was lying on his back staring into the sky. The trough was too short for him, so he had to curl his legs yoga-fashion, while his hands were folded on his chest. He wore a peaceful look and a broad smile. I could tell he was fast asleep; the laugh was part of his dream. I’m sure you know that these geniuses, the pride of the township, all suffer from debilitating insomnia, and though I’m only half a genius, I too suffer from insomnia. How about you two? Any sleep problems?
Little Lion and I exchanged a glance and shook our heads. No problems for us. We’re snoring away as soon as our heads touch the pillow. I guess that proves we’re not in the genius category.
Not everyone who suffers from insomnia is a genius, Wang Gan said, but all geniuses are insomniacs. Gugu’s insomnia is known to everyone. In the deep of the night, when silence is king, you can sometimes hear the husky sound of someone singing out in the fields. That’s Gugu. While she’s out walking at night, Hao Dashou is home making clay dolls. Their insomnia is cyclical; it follows the waxing and waning of the moon. The brighter the moon, the worse their insomnia. They manage to sleep when the moon is on the wane. That’s why our talented county chief named Hao Dashou’s creations ‘Moonlight Dolls’. He sent people from the county TV station to document the making of Hao Dashou’s moonlight dolls with the moon shining overhead. You probably haven’t seen that documentary, and there’s no reason to beat yourselves up if you haven’t. It was part of a series called Uncanny Individuals of Northeast Gaomi Township. Hao Dashou’s moonlight dolls kicked off the series. Next came ‘The Master in a Horse Trough’, the third was ‘An Uncanny Poet’, and the fourth ‘Singing amid a Chorus of Croaking Frogs’. If you want to see them, I’ll have the station send over a DVD — the unedited version. I’ll also suggest that they do an episode on you. I’ve already got a title: ‘The Prodigal Son’.
Another glance passed between Little Lion and me. We both smiled. We knew that he’d drifted into an artistic mindset, and we saw no reason to call his attention to that. Why should we? Better to let him talk on.
After suffering from insomnia all those years, Wang Gan said, the master used the horse trough as his bed, where he slept the untroubled slumber of a baby, just like that infant that floated down the river in a wooden trough all those years before. My eyes filled with tears of emotion. Only an insomniac knows the agony of sleepless nights, and only an insomniac knows the joy of a good night’s sleep. I maintained a silent watch over the trough, keeping my breathing shallow so as not to startle the master out of his sleep. Gradually my tear-filled eyes grew bleary, and a road seemed to open up before me, passing through lush countryside where flowers bloomed in profusion, with a riot of colours and a mist of uncommon bouquets, where butterflies flitted and bees buzzed. A sound up ahead was calling to me, a woman’s nasal voice, somewhat muffled, but pleasantly intimate. The sound led me along. I could see her lower body only: a nicely rounded bottom, long, shapely legs, bright red heels, which left shallow footprints in the soft, wet mud, so clear they provided perfect imprints of her soles. I followed behind her, on and on, as if the narrow road would never end. Little by little I sensed that I was walking side by side with the master, though I knew not when or from where he had joined me. We followed the red footprints until we reached a distant marsh, where the smell of mud and decay came to us on the wind from somewhere deep inside. We stepped on clusters of nut sedge and saw in the distance reedy marshes and patches of sweet flag, plus many kinds of strange, nameless plants and flowers. The sound of children’s laughter and shouts came from deep in the marsh. The woman with only her lower body visible shouted towards the marsh in an alluring voice: Daguai, Xiaoguai, Jinpao, Yudai, repay kindness with kindness, clear away debts owing and owed — Before she could finish what she was saying, a jumble of little children, naked but for red stomachers, came shouting out of the marsh; some had single braids pointing to the sky, others had shaved heads, and the hair of still others was formed into three tufts. The children seemed to be on the heavy side, the marsh looked to be covered by a springy membrane on which they ran, springing up with every step, like kangaroos. The boys and, of course, girls surrounded the master and me, some holding on to our legs, some jumping up onto our shoulders, some tugging on our ears, some grabbing our hair, some blowing air on our necks, some spitting in our eyes. We were wrestled to the ground by the boys and, of course, girls. The boys and, of course, girls rubbed mud all over us, and, of course, the boys did likewise to themselves… afterward, just how long after I can’t say, the boys and, of course, girls abruptly quieted down and sat down and formed a semicircle, lying, sitting, and kneeling in front of us, some propping their heads with their hands, some chewing their nails, and some with their mouths hanging open… all in all, a lively bunch in every imaginable pose. My god, they were posing as models for the master. I saw that he’d already started working. With his eyes fixed on one child, he picked up a handful of mud and began working it until the child came to life in his hands. Finishing one, he turned to another and repeated the process, over and over…