Cunyuan didn't come home for the next two days. I was worried. I knew our parents were worried too. He came back on the morning I was to leave for Beijing. He looked terrible, as if he had not slept for the two days since he'd run away.
Everyone was quiet at breakfast that day. "Take care, be good. Listen to your teachers. See you next year," my dia said to me before he left for work. Soon after, Cunyuan rode off on Dia's bike and told me he would be back in time to take me to the train station.
Nearly two hours later he finally arrived home and handed me a small brown paper package. "You can open it when you're on the train," he said.
I recognised the wrapping paper from the only county department store and I knew he would have ridden all this time to get there and back.
When it was time for me to leave, my niang walked outside to the gate with us. "Write as soon as you arrive or I'll be worried sick!" she said. She turned to Cunyuan. "Be careful, especially on the narrow roads. Just stop if you see a truck coming."
"Why do you care?" Cunyuan muttered under his breath.
"Niang, I'm going now," I said to her, trying to defuse the tension.
She didn't say anything. Tears welled in her eyes. I hesitated. Maybe I should have asked her sewing friends to come.
Cunyuan wanted to leave earlier than was needed, so I sat on the back seat of my dia's bike and waved at my niang, at my brothers, relatives and neighbours. I tried hard to fight back my tears. Maybe it was the distraction of Cunyuan's situation, but I felt slightly easier leaving home this time. Cunyuan rode away as fast as he could as though this would release his anger and frustration.
Once we were on the main road, I asked him how he was. He didn't reply. He just pedalled harder. About halfway to the station he hopped off the bike and said, "Let's talk."
Now I understood why he wanted to leave home so much earlier.
"I'm sorry you had to witness this unpleasantness," he said as he pushed the bike off the road. It had been a crisply cold morning when our dia had left for work, but now it was mid-morning and the sun had made it warmer. The train wasn't scheduled to arrive for at least another two hours and we were about half an hour away. Cunyuan took out a small bag of tobacco, rolled a cigarette and sat crouching against a concrete power pole.
"Are you all right?" I asked, trying to find something to say.
No answer. He puffed his cigarette furiously. I could tell from the movement of his chest that his emotions were like a rough sea. All of a sudden he dropped his cigarette, hid his face in his hands and sobbed. I didn't know how to comfort him, so I just rushed up to him and held his shoulders.
"Why me?" he said. "I should never have been born!"
I felt helpless. There was nothing I could say.
Eventually he lifted his head. "Why won't our parents listen to me and let me go to Tibet? Why won't they let me marry the person I love? What have I done to deserve such treatment? What is my future here? Should I be satisfied to work in the fields for the rest of my life? Tibet is the only opportunity I have to do something with my life. At least I could get a government- sponsored job and see what's out there! Look at our big brother, look at you, and then look at the rest of us!"
"I wish I could give you what you want. Can't you talk to them again?"
He shook his head. "I've tried so hard to convince them both about Tibet and my marriage. They don't want to lose another labourer in our family." He rolled another cigarette, then continued, as though he was talking to himself. "I dived into the dam on the Northern Hill one day last summer. I thought of staying under the water and never coming up. Maybe I will have a better life in another world." He sighed. "Why do we have to live in this world? There is no colour in this life! I wake up early every morning before the sun is up, I go and work in the fields. Under the burning sun, in the pouring rain, in the freezing snow and with an empty stomach, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks of the year, no Sundays off, no free days. I only come home to sleep. My dreams are the only comfort I have and most of those are nightmares. Often I am too tired even to remember my dreams. I'm twenty-four years old! There is no end to this suffering!"
I crouched beside him and listened in shock and with an ever more saddened heart. I wished I'd had a magic cure for all his problems but I knew there was none. Millions of young people were going through the same agony and despair all over China.
"Let's not talk about my situation any more," he said at last. "How are you coping at the academy? Are you happier there this past year?"
"It's getting better. But I still miss home. I even miss the harsh part of life sometimes," I replied.
"But surely there is nothing here you would miss! I'd give anything to be in your position."
"Why don't we swap?" I teased, trying to cheer him up.
"The Beijing Dance Academy would laugh their teeth off if they saw my bowed legs! But to see Beijing would be a great privilege. Go back and work hard. You have the opportunity of a lifetime. Your brothers can only dream of it." After a brief pause, he asked, "Do you still like cricket fights?"
I nodded. Why, suddenly, would he ask me about cricket fights?
"Remember how great you feel when your cricket is victorious. Have you ever put yourself in the shoes of the losing cricket?"
I shook my head.
"Sometimes I feel like I am the losing cricket and I cannot escape. Life is the victorious cricket, chasing me around until it hunts me down and slowly chews me up. Did you ever have this feeling?"
Again I shook my head.
"I always imagined that as long as I could fight, I would be able to find a way out, but I'm not sure any more. I'm fighting against life, the life I was given, but not the life I desire."
I was speechless, silenced by his despair.
We arrived at the station and soon the rattling train slowly rolled towards our platform. A couple of my friends popped their heads out of the windows looking for me, and my brother passed my bag in to them.
It was time to part. We just stood there and looked at each other. There was still much that I wanted to say. I wanted to hug him but I couldn't possibly-it wasn't the thing to do for the opposite sex in China, let alone the same sex. "I'm going now," was all I said as we stiffly shook hands.
As the train moved away I could see him wiping tears from his face. I stuck my head out the window and waved. He just stood there, like a statue, until we moved out of sight.
I squeezed onto the bench seat beside my friends. I answered my friends' questions about my holidays, but my brother's aching voice kept echoing in my ears. Suddenly I remembered the parcel he'd given me. I took it out and untied the brownish strings. It was a box of sorghum sweets with a note attached, roughly written. "These are for your friend Chong Xiongjun's family," Cunyuan had written. "They represent your six brothers' mountain- weight of gratitude and our sincere thanks for their kindness in looking after you… Please forgive me for the last two days. What I want in life can only remain a distant dream. I beg you to forget it…"
I lost control then. I tried to stop the tears but the harder I tried the more they welled up and I covered my face with my handkerchief.
"What's wrong?" Several of my classmates became very concerned.
I didn't know what to tell them. "I just want to be left alone," I said.
I found myself trying to answer Cunyuan's unanswerable questions. I thought of the dying cricket trying to escape from his tormentor with neither the will nor the physical condition to do so. I felt sick. I felt an enormous swell of compassion for my poor, trapped brother.