‘“Five cents,” he said. Just like that … I could hardly believe it. I started nodding, like a hen pecking at rice. And he threw the bone into my wicker basket. That’s right, we still used wicker baskets. Where did ours get to? Everyone talks about the government’s shopping basket programme but it’s all plastic bags these days … ’
‘What are you going on about?’ she asked, impatient. ‘Get to the point.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Well, I grabbed my basket and was about to set off when the butcher shouted: “The money!”’
‘“Oh, I forgot. I completely forgot,” I said, panic-stricken. We were nearly done for. If he thought I was trying to leave without paying, that would have been it, wouldn’t it? We’d have been done for. As quick as I could I pulled out my money and handed it over — I think I gave him a bit too much. But he handed me back the correct change. He didn’t spot the fake sick note and he didn’t overcharge me. We’d done it. A successful heist. I went off with my basket, my gourd bone and a wad of notes. As if I’d robbed a bank. I turned round and smiled at you.’
‘I was watching, I was so worried,’ she said.
‘I know, I know,’ he said.
‘It was amazing,’ she said. ‘There was someone standing beside me, looking at me very strangely. I thought he must be a policeman, a plain clothes one. I hid behind a pillar and peered out. Then I strolled over to the vegetable stall opposite, acting like nothing was up, going from this pillar to that one, until I finally lost him. I was all ready to start running. If anything had happened to you, I’d have been right over, protecting you, helping you get away.
‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘But if you’d been arrested, what then?’
‘What would they arrest me for? I hadn’t broken any law, I’d done nothing.’
‘You were my accomplice,’ he said. ‘I was the main offender, but you were my accomplice.’
‘Well, maybe I was,’ she said, looking uncommonly roguish for a former teacher.
He laughed out loud. ‘You’re a bad woman.’
‘And what about you?’ she said. ‘If you hadn’t been bad, we wouldn’t be here today, we’d have starved to death.’
She tapped the side of the bowl before them, full to the brim with soup she had just made. The bowl rang out, the broth rippling to reveal rib bones. Rib bones, not gourd bones. Their faces fell. They’d wangled a fake sick note and scared themselves silly to get hold of them in the old days, but now gourd bones were worth nothing at all. Now they were discarded as if they were only rubbish.
‘Let’s go and steal some,’ she said.
‘What?’ She wasn’t joking.
It was as if he hardly knew her, as if she was a stranger — just like the first time he set eyes on her. He’d really fallen for her, would have gone to hell and back at her command. So they’d go and steal some gourd bones. At least that way the bones would be worth something.
8
The market where they’d bought the gourd bones 20 years before had been pulled down, burying their memories under a tide of urban development, so they found another covered market built in the old style. Walking among the forest of pillars, it was as if they were putting together a dramatic reconstruction of their old crime.
They’d brought along a wicker basket, though they had trouble getting hold of that as well. Eventually they found one in a theatrical shop. The owner asked what play they were putting on. They smiled but didn’t answer.
The market was crowded, the food piled high for New Year. With just one more day to go before the festivities, people were spending as if it was the end of the world. But New Year meant nothing to my parents as they shuffled lonely through the frenzy of the market. Or perhaps it meant everything — they had to steal a gourd bone to make it through another year.
A strong westerly blew through the pillars. She stroked her husband’s sleeve.
‘I told you to put a jumper on, but you wouldn’t listen,’ she said.
‘I’m not cold,’ he answered. He never used to wear many clothes back then, partly because he was a tough lad, but partly because he couldn’t afford them.
‘You never give up,’ she said. ‘Even though you’ve been treated badly your whole life.’ She was getting into her stride. ‘We both have … and what for? What was the point of earning all this money?’
She took his hand. He didn’t care if people laughed at them, holding hands like pair of teenagers. People had always laughed at them. Let them laugh.
‘I don’t like wearing too many clothes,’ he said.
‘What do you like, then?’
He couldn’t think what to say.
‘I’d like to be a beggar,’ he declared.
‘Haven’t we been beggars all our lives? And never given a fair chance. And now we have to start stealing things.’
Besides, a voice cried in their ears, this isn’t stealing, this is resisting. The words seemed to blast at them from loudspeakers, just like they did 30 years ago on their first action as Red Guards. They had burst into a teacher’s house with all the others and ransacked it from top to bottom, with the loudspeakers blaring: ‘This is revolution! The revolution is justified! It’s right to rebel!’
They spotted three gourd bones on a butcher’s stall, lying right at the end of the counter. There was a crush of people around the stall, the stall-holder chopping up the meat and totting up the money at lightning speed. Every now and then, he raised his head to look for his wife, grumbling that she had been off delivering meat to a hotel for ages. This was their moment. My mother dodged behind a pillar. My father elbowed his way to the counter and held the wicker basket underneath, out of the stallholder’s sight. All he needed to do was reach out his hand and sweep the gourd bones towards him. He turned to smile in her direction and reached towards them. But just then the butcher’s wife came back.
He quickly drew back his hand.
Now there were two pairs of eyes. He looked around again for my mother. She was stamping her feet with worry. But tomorrow was New Year’s Day. It was now or never.
Suddenly the stallholder shouted: ‘We’re out of change!’ His wife grabbed a hundred-yuan note and rushed away. My father looked around again at my mother.
He nodded.
He reached out and swept the bones off the counter. They landed in the wicker basket with a clatter that seemed to echo around the market. The butcher whirled round. My father went white as a sheet, his eyes full of panic, then turned and fled. The stallholder yelled and leaped from behind the counter, knocking over his stand and the till with it. Remembering the part she had played all those years ago, my mother blocked the butcher’s path and watched as my father leaped forwards through the crowds like a man much younger than his years. Like the young man he was when he was courting her. But the stallholder cut in where there were fewer people on the right-hand side, and was right on his heels.
‘This way!’ she shouted, launching herself towards him and grabbing the basket.
Off she ran, the basket clasped in her arms. What teamwork. The bystanders stood gaping, astonished either by their shop-lifting skills or their age, moving back to let them through, then closing in behind them to get a proper look after they had passed. Caught in the crowds the butcher howled in frustration until someone shouted: ‘Call the police! Call the police!’
9
The police wound up calling me. Not because they’d arrested my parents, but because my parents refused to walk free. As soon as he found out that the only things they’d taken were some worthless gourd bones, the sergeant wanted to let them go.
‘Then why did you arrest us in the first place?’ said my mother.