‘I want to see him.’
‘Let’s go together. The little bastard. Be careful, don’t fall off the bridge.’
Juzi sensed that the mason was close; she could hear his heartbeat. They walked and walked, and as her head tilted to the side, it came to rest on his powerful shoulder. She leaned back and was immediately embraced by a muscular arm. He reached over, cupped the little mound of her breast with his big hand, and stroked it. Her heart beat frantically beneath that breast, like a fluttering pigeon. They walked steadily toward the floodgate. When they entered the circle of light, she removed his hand from her breast and, sensibly, he let his arm drop.
‘Hei-hai!’ she shouted.
‘Hei-hai!’ he echoed her.
The young blacksmith looked at both of them with his good eye; his cheek twitched. The old blacksmith was sitting on his bed, holding his pipe in both hands, as if it were a pistol. He glanced at Juzi — dark red — and then the mason — pale yellow — and said in a weary but kindly tone, ‘Sit down and wait, he’ll be right back.’
Empty water bucket in hand, Hei-hai climbed up the levee.
When the workday had ended earlier that day, the young blacksmith had stretched lazily and said, ‘I’m famished. Hei-hai, take a bucket to the north field. Dig up some sweet potatoes and pick some radishes for a late-night snack.’
Sleepy-eyed, Hei-hai looked at the old blacksmith, who was sitting on his bed, looking like a defeated rooster with its feathers ruffled.
‘What are you gawking at, you little son of a bitch?’ the young one demanded, straightening up and stretching his neck. ‘Do as I tell you.’ His good eye swept across his master, collapsed on his bed. Pain shot through the burn on his arm, but the pleasure that arm had brought him overcame the pain, and the temperature was just right, absolutely wonderful.
Hei-hai shuffled off with his empty bucket. As he emerged from the bridge opening it was as if he’d fallen into a well with a thump; he was enshrouded in such utter darkness that hazy lights flared in his eyes. He crouched down fearfully and shut them. When he opened them again, the sky had changed — now starlight fell warmly upon him and on the dark grey ground all around.
On the levee, branches of the river locusts stretched and intertwined. He reached up to part them with one hand, then hunched his shoulders and walked up the slope. His hand brushed against the full, ripe seedpods on the damp tips of branches; the pungent scent of the branches assailed him. His foot bumped into something soft and warm, and he heard a chirp. Before he realised that it was a bamboo partridge, the bird had flapped its way out of the brush and landed in a jute field like a dark stone. Feeling somewhat guilty, he touched the spot where the bird had been resting with his foot. It was dry, a clump of dry grass that still retained the bird’s warmth. From where he stood on the levee he heard the woman and the mason shout his name. He banged on the side of his bucket, and the shouts stopped. He heard the river rushing forward brightly, and the screech of an owl on a tree somewhere in the village. His stepmother was afraid of two things: thunder and the screech of an owl. He wished there were thunder every day, and a screeching owl at his stepmother’s window every night. The dew on the river locusts wetted his arms, which he wiped dry on his shorts as he crossed the levee road and started down the other side. By then he’d gotten used to the dark and could see clearly, could even distinguish the subtle difference between the brown of the soil at his feet and the purple of the sweet potato leaves. He crouched down, pulled up one of the sweet potatoes and tossed it into his bucket, where it rattled around. He dug some more, until he felt something drop off his finger, and heard it bounce off a sweet potato leaf. Feeling his left hand with the right, he discovered that the damaged fingernail had fallen off. By now his bucket was heavy, so he stood up and headed north. When he reached the radish field, he picked six in a row, twisted off the leafy tops, threw them to the ground and tossed the radishes into his bucket.
‘What have you done with Hei-hai?’ the mason demanded of the young blacksmith.
‘What are you worried about? He’s not your son, is he?’
‘Where is he?’ Juzi asked, boring her eyes into the blacksmith’s.
‘Just hold on.’ he said amiably. ‘He’s out scrounging sweet potatoes. Stick around; we’ll bake some when he gets back.’
‘You sent him out to steal?’
‘What do you mean, steal? It’s not stealing if he doesn’t take them home,’ the blacksmith explained.
‘Then why didn’t you do it?’
‘I’m his mentor.’
‘That’s horseshit!’
‘So what if it is?’ the blacksmith said as his eye lit up. ‘Where the hell did you go for sweet potatoes, Hei-hai?’ he shouted out of the bridge opening. ‘Albania?’
Hei-hai, his shoulders askew, staggered in carrying his bucket with both hands. He was covered with mud, as if he’d rolled around in the dirt.
‘Hey, my boy,’ the blacksmith complained loudly, ‘I sent you out for a few. Who told you to bring back a bucketful? Take the radishes over to the pond to wash off the mud.’
‘No,’ Juzi said. ‘Quit giving him orders. You bake the potatoes while I go wash the radishes.’
The blacksmith stacked the sweet potatoes next to the forge and calmly lit a fire. Juzi returned with the radishes and laid them out on a dry rock. One dropped to the ground, where it rolled to the mason’s feet, quickly getting coated in iron filings. He leaned over to pick it up.
‘Here, I’ll go wash it again.’
‘No need. Five large radishes is plenty,’ the mason said as he laid the errant radish on the anvil.
Hei-hai walked up and took the bellows handle from the blacksmith. The blacksmith glanced at the woman before saying to him, ‘You need a rest, you little shit. Do your palms get itchy when you’re not doing something? Take the bellows, just don’t say I didn’t warn you. Take it slow, the slower the better. Otherwise you’ll burn them.’
The mason and the woman sat against the western wall of the bridge opening, while the young blacksmith sat behind Hei-hai. The old blacksmith sat on his bed on the north side, looking south; the tobacco in his pipe had burned out, but he still held the bowl in both hands, resting his elbows on his knees.
The night deepened. Hei-hai continued gently working the bellows, the emerging air sounding like a sleeping baby’s breathing. The sound of flowing water grew clearer, as if it had both shape and colour, that it could be smelled and seen. Barely visible shadows on the levee looked like small animals chasing each other. The sound of their claws in the sand as minute as fine animal hair pierced the bright river music like long, thin, silver threads. Jute plants near the floodgate brushed against each other, creating a sustained rustle. Only one gas lamp remained lit on the worksite. After a moment of confusion, the light-seeking insects that had surrounded the other two lamps swarmed toward the forge. In their frantic search for light, they peppered the glass shade of the remaining lamp with their bodies. The mason went to the lamp and pumped it with a clacking sound. A single cricket forced its way in through a crack in the lamp glass and knocked over the asbestos mantle, casting the bridge into darkness. It took them all a moment to make out faces. The air from Hei-hai’s bellows made the fire in the forge ripple like soft red silk. The bridge opening was filled with the scent of baked sweet potatoes, which the young blacksmith turned over with his tongs. The aroma thickened. At last, their hands full of radish and sweet potato, they ate. Steam rose from the peeled sweet potatoes. Then one bite cold, one bite hot, one bite devoured, one bite savoured — chomp, slurp — beads of sweat on nose tips. The young blacksmith ate one radish and two sweet potatoes more than the others. The old blacksmith did not eat; he sat rigid as a statue.