As things began to calm down, Mao Zhi abruptly turned and began hobbling back to the village, leaving the township chief, the county chief, and his secretary — together with Jumei and her surtwin daughters — all staring after her in shock.
After a long pause, Chief Liu kicked at a stone and cursed, “Blast your grandma. What’s her problem? I’m the only real revolutionary here!”
CHAPTER 5: FURTHER READING — COLD DEAD DOG
1) Surtwin. In Balou, multiple births of three or more siblings are called surtwins. In the middle of the twelfth month of the gengshen year, nothing particularly noteworthy was taking place in Balou — or in the rest of the country, for that matter. Apart from a Party Assembly being held in Beijing, everything was the same as before. On television and in newspapers, however, that assembly was subsequently compared to Mao Zedong’s founding of the People’s Republic of China thirty-one years earlier. The event lasted for five days, and on the last day Jumei went into labor. Her belly was swollen tight as a drum, and she cried in agony as she delivered three daughters — this being the triple phoenix birth that everyone in Balou had heard about but never before witnessed. Although the babies were no larger than kittens, each was nevertheless a tiny person, able to wail and nurse. As Jumei lay there, her blood flowing down the legs of the bed and her forehead bathed in sweat, Mao Zhi elatedly brought the midwife one bucket of boiling water after another. The midwife washed her hands and placed a hot towel on Jumei’s forehead, asking, Is your belly livening yet? Jumei replied, It hurts, and feels like I’m still having contractions. The midwife was eating a bowl of bean noodles that Mao Zhi had prepared for her, and asked in surprise, You’re still having contractions? I’ve been delivering babies my entire life, but this is the first triple phoenix birth I’ve ever seen. How could there possibly still be a fourth or fifth child in there?
After finishing her noodles, the midwife got ready to leave. Before she left, however, she again felt inside Jumei, then cried out in astonishment: Heavens, there really is another baby in her belly!
Jumei proceeded to give birth to a fourth child.
This was Balou’s legendary surtwin birth. All four of the infants were girls. The eldest was called Tonghua, or “Tung-Oil Tree Blossom”; the second was called Huaihua, or “Pagoda Tree Blossom”; the third was called Yuhua, or “Elm Blossom”; and because there happened to be a moth flying around the room when the fourth was born, she was called Si’e, or “Fourth Moth,” and was nicknamed Mothlet.
3) Little nin. A girl whose growth is stunted. Because Jumei gave birth to quadruplets, each of them was born small, and therefore everyone called them little nins.
5) Wholer. A term of respect used in Liven to refer to healthy people. The term is used to designate those of us who are normal and are neither blind, deaf, mute, nor missing any limbs.
7) Cold dead. DIAL. This was originally used to refer to cold weather, but here it is used to suggest that someone’s heart is as cold and hard as that of a dead man.
There was a reason why Mao Zhi cursed the new county chief like this. The chief’s name was Liu Yingque, and he was once just an ordinary person like us. Prior to the dingji year, he had been a soc-school babe1 in the county seat,and it was from there that he ended up as a temporary worker in the township of Boshuzi. Every day he would sweep the courtyard of the town hall and fill the boilers in the canteen, for which work he was paid twenty-four and a half yuan a month.
During that era, people throughout the land were deeply engrossed in the dance of Revolution, though in remote Balou they were concerned primarily with trying to fill their bellies. The people of Balou eventually came to realize that they needed knowledge and enlightenment, just as the nation needed to develop a socialist education movement, promote soc-ed,3 and emphasize rationality and pedagogy. Personnel were needed to promote soc-ed, so Liu Yingque was summoned. Given that he was young and fit, and was regarded as the soc-school babe, he was sent to Liven a hundred li away to help promote soc-ed and lead the people.
In Liven, Liu asked the villagers if they had ever heard of Wang, Zhang, Jiang, and Yao.
The villagers stared at him blankly.
Liu explained that Wang, Zhang, Jiang, and Yao were the infamous Gang of Four, and asked how it was possible that the villagers didn’t know about them.
The villagers continued staring at him blankly.
Liu then convened a meeting, during which he read from some official documents. He explained that the Gang of Four was comprised of Deputy Party Chair Wang Hongwen, the conspirator Zhang Chuqiao, Chairman Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, and the hooligan Yao Wenyuan. At this point, the villagers nodded and Liu, his work complete, prepared to return to the commune. As he was leaving, however, he happened to notice a wholer walking over from the other side of town. She appeared to be about sixteen or seventeen, and as she walked her braids waved back and forth like a pair of black crows perched on her shoulders.
You can just imagine what it must have been like to hold a meeting in Liven and gaze down from the stage at the crowd of blind, crippled, deaf, and mute people below. In this sea of disabled people, Liu’s eyes would have felt to himself like a pair of lanterns, his legs like flagpoles, and his ears like satellite dishes. Here, he would have felt like a commander in chief, even an emperor — but even so, he wouldn’t have wanted to stay too long; he would have been afraid that if he did his eyesight might begin to fade, his legs might grow weak, and his hearing might deteriorate.
This was the third lunar month. The vegetation was green, flowers were in bloom, and a refreshing fragrance hung in the air. In Liven there was a pair of century-old honey locust trees, whose canopies shrouded the entire village in shade. The village was located in a gorge at the base of a cliff, and consisted of a scattering of houses connected by a road. The region facing the ridge to the west was comparatively flat and populous; most of the inhabitants were blind, but when they went out they didn’t need their canes as long as they stayed close to home. The central region was hillier and less populated; most of the residents were cripples but, since their eyesight was good, if they needed to get around they could hobble along by leaning on their crutches and against a wall. In the easternmost region, meanwhile, the terrain became extraordinarily steep and the road was exceedingly poor. Most of the residents there were deaf-mutes, but since they had good eyes and strong legs they were not particularly concerned over the condition of the road.
Liven’s main street was two li long, and extended from the river to the mountain. The region to the west with the concentration of blind inhabitants was called the blind zone, the region to the east with a preponderance of deaf-mutes was called the deaf zone, and the region in the middle where cripples predominated was naturally called the cripple zone.