“That's enough bickering, old auntie,” the policeman said. “Keep your eyes on the treetop.” He aimed his flashlight at the shadow atop the tree, then snapped it on, training its beam of light on Yanyan's face. With a flap of her arms, she rose into the air and glided to the top of yet another tree.
“Did you see her, old auntie?” the policeman asked.
“Yes,” Yanyan's mother said.
“Is it your daughter?”
“It's my daughter.”
“We don't want to take drastic measures unless we have to,” the policeman said. “She'll listen to you if you tell her to come down from there.”
Just then, Yanyan's mute brother began grunting excitedly and flapping his arms, as if mimicking his sister's flying motions.
Yanyan's mother was in tears. “What did I do in a previous life to bring this down on my head?”
“Try not to cry, old auntie,” the policeman said. “Concentrate on getting your daughter down from there.”
“She's always been a strong-willed girl. She might not listen to me,” Yanyan's mother admitted sadly.
“This is no time to be shy, old auntie,” the policeman said. “Call her down.”
With mincing steps on tiny, bound feet, Yanyan's mother moved over to the tree where her daughter was perched, tilted her head back, and called out tearfully, “Yanyan, be a good girl and listen to your mother. Please come down… I know you feel you've been treated badly, but that can't be helped. If you don't come down, we won't be able to keep Yanghua, and if that happens, the family's finished…”
The old lady broke down and wailed at this point as she dashed her head against the tree trunk. A scratchy sound descended from the treetop, the sort of thing one hears when a bird ruffles its feathers.
“Keep talking,” the policeman urged.
The mute waved his arms and grunted loudly to his sister, high above him.
“Yanyan,” Hong Xi shouted, “you're still human, aren't you? If there's an ounce of humanity left in you, you'll come down from there.”
Yanghua joined in the weeping: “Sister-in-law, please come down. You and I are both sufferers in this world. My brother's ugly, but at least he can talk. But your brother… please come down… it's our fate…”
Yanyan glided into the air again and circled the sky above the people. Chilled dewdrops fell to the ground – maybe they were her tears.
“Move out of the way, give her some space and let her settle to the ground,” Iron Mountain said to the crowd.
Everyone but the old lady and Yanghua stepped backwards.
But things did not turn out as Iron Mountain had hoped, for after circling in the air above them, Yanyan settled back down onto the treetop.
The moon had slipped into the western sky; the night was deepening. Fatigue and cold began to overtake the people on the ground. “I guess we'll have to do it the hard way,” the policeman said.
Iron Mountain said, “Fm worried that the crowd might drive her away from the grove, and if we don't catch her tonight, it'll be that much harder later on.”
“As I see it,” the policeman said, “she lacks the ability to fly long distances, which means it'll actually be easier to catch her if she leaves the grove.”
“But what if her family won't go along with our plan?” Iron Mountain said.
“Let me handle it,” the policeman assured him.
He went over and told some of the youngsters to escort the mute and his mother out of the pine grove. The old lady, having cried herself into a state of lethargy, offered no resistance. The mute, on the other hand, grunted his disapproval, but once the policeman flashed his service revolver, he walked off meekly. Now the only people left at the scene were the policeman, Iron Mountain, Hong Xi, and two young men, one with a pole, the other holding a net.
“A gunshot might alarm the people,” the policeman said. “So let's use a bow and arrow.”
“With my failing eyesight,” Iron Mountain said, “I'm not the one to do it. If my aim was off even a little, I could kill her. Hong Xi should do it.”
He handed the bamboo bow and a feathered, razor-sharp arrow to Hong Xi, who took them from him, but merely stood there deep in thought. “I can't do it,” he said, suddenly realizing what was expected of him. “I can't, I won't. She's my wife, isn't she? My wife.”
“Hong Xi,” Iron Mountain said, “don't be a fool! In your arms, she's your wife, but perched atop a tree, she's some kind of strange bird.”
“You people,” the policeman said with annoyance, “can't you do anything? If you're just going to stand there hemming and hawing, hand me that bow and arrow.”
He holstered his revolver, took the bow and arrow, took aim at the shape at the top of the tree, and let an arrow fly. A muted thud told them he'd hit the mark. The treetop rustled, and the men watched as Yanyan, an arrow embedded in her belly, rose into the moonlight, only to crash into the canopy of a short tree nearby. Obviously, she could no longer keep her balance. The policeman fitted another arrow to the bow, took aim at Yanyan, who was sprawled atop the short pine, and shouted, “Come down here!” The second arrow flew before his shout had died out; there was a cry of pain, and Yanyan tumbled headlong to the ground.
“You fucking bastard,” Hong Xi shrieked, “you've killed my wife…”
People who had withdrawn from the grove came up with their lanterns and torches. “Is she dead?” they asked anxiously. “Are there feathers on her body?”
Without a word, Iron Mountain picked up a bucket of dog's blood and splashed its contents over Yanyan's body.
Iron Child
DURING THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD SMELTING CAMPAIGN, THE government mobilized 200,000 laborers to build a twelve-mile rail line; it was completed in two and a half months. The upper terminus linked with the Jiaoji trunk line at Gaomi Station; the lower terminus was located amid dozens of acres of Northeast Gaomi Township bushland.
Only four or five years old at the time, we were housed in a nursery school thrown up beside the public canteen. Consisting of a row of five rammed-earth buildings with thatched roofs, it was surrounded by saplings some six to seven feet tall, all strung together by heavy wire. Powerful dogs couldn't have bounded over it, let alone children like us. Our fathers, mothers, and older siblings – in fact, anyone who could handle a hoe or a shovel – were conscripted into the labor brigades. They ate and slept at the construction site, so we hadn't seen any of them for a very long time. Three skeletal old women were in charge of our “nursery school” confinement. Since all three had hawklike noses and sunken eyes, to us they looked like clones. Each day they prepared three cauldrons of porridge with wild greens: one in the morning, another at noon, and a third in the evening. We wolfed it down until our bellies were tight as little drums. Then after the meal, we went up to the fence to gaze at the scenery outside. New branches of willow and poplar sprang from the fence. Those with no green leaves were already rotting away; if they weren't removed, they sprouted yellow wood-ear fungi or little white mushrooms.
Feasting on the little mushrooms, we watched out-of-town laborers walk up and down the nearby road. They were grubby and listless, their hair a mess. As we searched for relatives among these laborers, tears in our eyes, we asked:
“Good uncle, have you seen my daddy?”
“Good uncle, have you seen my mommy?”
“Have you seen my brother?”
“Have you seen my sister?”
Some of them ignored us, as if they were deaf. Others cocked their heads and cast a fleeting glance, then shook their heads. But some ripped into us savagely:
“Come here, you little bastards!”
The three old women just sat in the doorways and paid no attention to us. The six-foot-high fence was too tall for us to climb over, and the spaces between the saplings were too narrow for us to wriggle through.