The colt, feeling mischievous, rubbed its flank against the stack, even extracted some chaff with its lips and flung it to the ground in front of them.
“Not here,” he said. “Let’s go down to the trench.”
“I can’t… If you have something to say, hurry up and say it.”
“Not here, I said.” He walked down the edge of the threshing floor, all the way to the trench. Jinju still hadn’t moved. But when he turned to go back for her, she began walking timidly toward him. He threaded his way through the indigo bushes and waited for her at the bottom of the trench, and when she reached the gently sloping side, he took her hand and pulled her to him.
She tried to take her tiny hand, but he cupped it tightly in his and stroked it. “I love you, Jinju,” he blurted out. “Marry me!”
“Elder Brother Gao Ma,” she replied softly, “you know I’ve been betrothed so that my brother can get married.”
“I know, but I also know it’s not what you want.”
She loosened his grip with her free hand and liberated its mate. “Yes it is.”
“No, it’s not. Liu Shengli is a forty-five-year-old man with an infected windpipe. He’s too sickly to even carry a load of water. Are you telling me you’d marry coffin pulp like that?”
She whimpered in reply, the sound hanging in the air for a long moment. “What can I do?” she sobbed. “My brother’s over thirty… a cripple… Cao Wenling is only seventeen, and prettier than me…”
“You’re not your brother, and you’re not required to go to your grave for his sake.”
“Elder Brother Gao Ma, it’s fate. Go find yourself a good woman… Me… next life…” Holding her face in her hands, she turned and broke for the indigo bushes. But he grabbed her, making her stumble and fall into his embrace.
He hugged her so tightly he could feel the heat of her soft belly, but when he tried to find her mouth with his, she covered her face with her hands. Undaunted, he began nibbling her earlobe, as fine strands of hair brushed his face. His chill was replaced by hot cinders deep in his heart. She began to squirm, as if tormented by a powerful itch. Suddenly letting her hands drop, she threw her arms around his neck. “Elder Brother Gao Ma, please don’t nibble my ear,” she begged tearfully. “I can’t bear it…” He moved his mouth back to hers and began sucking on her tongue. She groaned, as hot tears welled up and wetted both their faces. A surge of hot air floated up from her stomach, bestowing on Gao Ma the taste of garlic and fresh grass.
His hands moved roughly over her body.
“Elder Brother Gao Ma, not so rough. You’re hurting me.”
They sat on the slope of the trench in each other’s arms, hands roaming freely. Through cracks in the lush indigo covering they caught glimpses of golden starlight in the deep-blue sky. The crescent moon was sinking. An orbiting satellite tore through the Milky Way, and the air was suffused with the distinctive aroma of indigo.
“What do you love about me?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Everything.”
The night was cooling off. They talked in hushed tones.
“But you know I’m spoken for,” she said with a shiver. “What we’re doing, it’s wrong, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not. We’re in love.”
“But I’m betrothed.”
“You have to register to be legally married.”
“Does that mean we can be together?”
“Yes. Just tell your father you won’t agree to the wedding.”
“No,” she protested, tripping over her tongue. “They’d kill me… I’ve been a burden to them for so long.”
“Does that mean you’d rather marry a dying old man?”
“I’m afraid.” By now she was weeping. “Mother says she’ll take poison if I don’t.”
“Scare tactics.”
“You don’t know her.”
“I know she’s just trying to scare you.”
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you had a younger sister? She could marry my brother and I could be your wife.”
Gao Ma sighed and rubbed her chilled shoulder. He was nearly in tears.
“Elder Brother Gao Ma, we can be secret lovers. Then when he dies, we’ll get married.”
“No!” Gao Ma exploded. He kissed her, and could feel the heat in her belly. A hairy mouth above them touched their heads, as the sound of raspy breathing and the smell of fresh grass settled around their necks. It scared them half to death, until they discovered to their relief that it was only the colt, up to a little mischief.
3.
Jinju showed Gao Ma the fateful wedding contract. She had come to his home at noon, a month after their tryst amid the indigo. They had met nearly every night after that first one-in the trench, then later in the fields, hiding in farmland planted with shallots. They watched the progress of full moon and crescent moon, with or without cloud cover; leaves were dusted with silver, insects chirped and screeched, cool dew moistened the dry earth below. She wept and he laughed; he wept and she laughed. The fiery passions of love made the young couple grow haggard, but their eyes glowed and crackled like hot cinders.
Jinju’s parents had sent an angry message to Gao Ma: there has never been hostility or rancor between our families, and you have no right to interfere with our arranged marriages.
Jinju burst through the door like a whirlwind and looked anxiously over her shoulder, as if she were being followed. Gao Ma led her over to the kang, where she sat down. “They wont come for us, will they?” she asked in a tremulous voice.
“No,” he assured her, handing her a cup of water. But she scarcely moistened her lips before setting the ebony-colored cup down on the table. “Dont worry, no one will come,” he reassured her. “And what if they did? We have nothing to be ashamed about.”
“I brought it.” She removed a folded piece of red paper from her pocket and dropped it onto the table before sprawling out on the kang, burying her face in her arms and bursting into tears.
Gao Ma gendy rubbed her back to get her to stop crying; but when he saw it was futile, he unfolded the sheet of red paper, which was covered with black calligraphy:
On the auspicious tenth day of the six month in the year nineteen hundred and eighty-five we betroth the eldest grandson of Liu Jiaqing, Liu Shengli, to Fang Jinju, daughter of Fang Yunqiu; the second daughter of Cao Jinzhu, Cao Wenling, to the eldest son of Fang Yunqiu, Fang Yijun; and the second granddaughter of Liu Jiaqing, Liu Lanlan, to the eldest son of Cao Jinzhu, Cao Wen. With this agreement, our families are forever linked, even if the rivers run dry and the oceans become deserts. Witness the three principals: Liu Jiaqing, Fang Yunqiu, Cao Jinzhu.
Dark fingerprints were affixed to the paper beside the names of the three men.
Gao Ma refolded the contract and stuffed it into his pocket, then opened a drawer and removed a booklet. “Jinju,” he said, “stop crying and listen to the Marriage Law. Section 3 says, Arranged marriages, mercenary marriages, and all other types that restrict individual freedom are prohibited/ Then in Section 4 it says, ‘Both marriage partners must be willing. Neither they nor any third party may use coercion to force a marriage upon the other party/ That’s national policy, which is more important than this lousy piece of paper. You have nothing to worry about.”
Jinju sat up and dried her eyes with her sleeve. “What am I supposed to say to my parents?”
“That’s easy. You just say, ‘Father, Mother, I don’t love Liu Shengli and I won’t marry him.’ “
“You make it sound so easy. Why don’t you tell them?”
“Don’t think I won’t,” he replied testily. “Tonight. And if your father and brothers don’t like it, we’ll settle it like men.”
It was a cloudy evening, hot and muggy. Gao Ma wolfed down some leftover rice and walked out onto the sandbar behind his house, still feeling empty inside. The setting sun, like a halved watermelon, lent its red to the scattered clouds on the horizon and the tips of the acacia and willow trees. Since there wasn’t a breath of wind, chimney smoke rose like airy pillars, then disintegrated and merged with the residue of other pillars. Doubt crept in: Should he go to her house or not? What could he say when he got there? The dark, menacing faces of the Fang brothers floated before his eyes. So did Jinju’s tear-filled eyes. Finally he left the sandbar and headed south. A lane he had always felt was agonizingly long suddenly seemed amazingly short. He had barely started out, and already he was there. Why couldn’t it have been longer-much longer?