I’m soaked with sweat, thanks to this little brat.’
Little Treasure fell asleep, holding the nipple in his mouth. His mother held on to him, reluctant to let go.
‘Give him to me.’ Yuanbao said. 'I've got a long way to go this morning.’
The woman slipped the nipple out of the boy’s mouth, which twitched as if the nipple were still in it.
Jin Yuanbao picked up the paper lantern with one hand, his sleeping son with the other, and went out into the lane, which led to the village’s main street. While walking down the lane, he could feel a pair of eyes on his back from the door, and that caused him much emotional distress; but once he was out on the street, the feeling disappeared without a trace.
The moon was still out, turning the blacktop gray. Roadside poplars, their branches bare, looked like gaunt standing men, the tips pale and ghostly. He shivered. The lantern cast a warm, yellow glow, its flickering shadow looming large on the surface of the road. He sniffled as he looked at the waxen tear running down the wick. A dog alongside someone’s wall barked languidly; he looked down at the dog’s shadow, sharing the sense of languor as he heard it scurry noisily into a haystack. When he left the village, he heard crying children, and looked up to see lights burning in the windows of peasant huts; he knew they were doing what he and his wife had done a while earlier. Knowing he’d gotten the jump on them lightened his mood a bit.
As he neared the Earth God Temple on the village outskirts, he took a packet of spirit money out of his pocket, lit it with the lantern, and laid it in a cauldron by the temple door. The flames licked up through the paper like coiling snakes. He looked inside the temple, where the Earth God himself sat for all time, a spirit-wife seated on either side; all three had icy smiles on their faces. The Earth God and his wives had been fashioned by Stonemason Wang, black stone for him, white for his wives. The Earth God was larger than both his wives put together, like an adult between two children. Thanks to the inadequate skills of Stonemason Wang, all three were ugly as could be. In the summer, owing to a leaky roof, moss grew on the statues, leaving a green, oily sheen. As the spirit money burned, the charred paper curled inward like white butterflies, and scarlet-tipped flames shimmered around the edges before dying out. He heard the paper crackle.
Having thus written off his son’s residence registration to the local deity, Jin Yuanbao put the lantern and the little boy on the ground and knelt down to kowtow to the Earth God and his wives. Then he picked up his son and lantern and hurried off.
He reached Salty River by the time the sun rose above the mountain. Salt trees lining the riverbank seemed made of glass; the water was bright red. He blew out the lantern and hid it among the salt trees, then walked to the landing to wait for the ferry to ply its way across the river.
As soon as the boy was awake, he started bawling. Afraid that the energy used for crying might melt off pounds, Yuanbao knew he needed to pacify the child. At his age, he had already begun walking, so Yuanbao took him over to the sandy bank and snapped a branch off a nearby salt tree as a makeshift toy. Taking out his pipe and tobacco, he felt a soreness in his arms when he lifted it to his mouth. By then the boy was smashing black ants in the sand with his toy, which was so heavy it nearly tipped him over when he raised it above his head. The red sun climbing into the sky lit up not only the surface of the river, but the boy’s face as well. Yuanbao was content to let his son play by himself. The river was half a li or so in width, its serene water muddy and turgid. When the sun made its appearance in the sky, it lay reflected in the river like a fallen post on a sheet of yellow satin. No sane person would consider building a bridge over a river like this.
The ferry was still tied up on the opposite bank, bobbing up and down in the shallows and looking very small at this distance. Not a big boat to begin with – he’d ridden it before – it was run by a deaf old man who lived in a rammed-earth hut by the river. Yuanbao saw a thread of greenish smoke rising from the hut, and knew that the deaf ferryman was cooking his breakfast. All he could do was wait.
As time passed, other passengers walked up, including two old-timers and a teenage boy, plus a middle-aged woman carrying an infant. The old couple, apparently husband and wife, sat quietly, staring at the muddy water with eyes blank as marbles. The boy, stripped to the waist and barefoot, wore only a pair of blue shorts; his face, like his nearly naked body, was pale and scaly. After running over to the river’s edge to release a stream of urine into the water, he walked up next to Jin Yuanbao’s son to watch the black ants being pounded into mush by the salt-tree branch. He said something unintelligible to the boy, who, astonishingly, seemed to understand him, since he laughed and flashed his baby teeth. The unkempt hair of the sallow-faced woman was tied up by a white string. She was wearing a blue jacket over black pants, both recently washed. Jin Yuanbao watched with alarm as she held the baby up to pee. A boy! A competitor. But a closer examination showed him to be much thinner than his own son; his skin was dark, his hair a dull brown. Confident that the boy was not in Little Treasure’s league, he felt generous.
‘Sister-in-law.’ he said casually, ‘is that where you’re headed too?’
She looked at him suspiciously and hugged her child closer. Her lips trembled, but she said nothing.
Rebuffed, Jin Yuanbao walked off to gaze at the scenery across the river.
The sun had leaped a good ten feet above the river, which had turned from a dirty yellow to a glassy gold. The ferry remained quietly tethered on the opposite bank, as smoke continued curling up from the ceiling of the hut; no sign of the deaf ferryman.
Little Treasure and the scaly boy had walked, hand in hand, down the riverbank; anxiously, Yuanbao ran after them and scooped Little Treasure into his arms, leaving the scaly boy to look up at him with an uncomprehending stare. Little Treasure started to bawl and struggled to get down out of his father’s arms.
‘Don’t cry,’ his father said to pacify him, ‘don’t cry, now. Let’s watch the old ferryman pole his boat over.’
He glanced again at the opposite bank; as if he had willed it, a man who seemed to glow limped toward the ferry, where several prospective passengers fell in behind him.
Jin Yuanbao held tight to Little Treasure, who soon calmed down and stopped crying. Haltingly, he complained that he was hungry, so his father took a handful of fried soybeans from his pocket, chewed them up, and transferred the pasty mixture to Little Treasure’s mouth. Again the boy started crying, as if to protest the food, which he swallowed nonetheless.
The ferry was about halfway across the river when a tall, bearded man burst from the salt-tree thicket. Carrying a child who was at least two feet in length, he joined the crowd of waiting passengers.
Jin Yuanbao, his mouth smelling like burned nuts, tensed fearfully for some reason as he looked at the bearded man, who was sizing up the people on the riverbank. His eyes were big and very dark, his nose pointed and slightly hooked. The child in his arms – a boy- was dressed in a brand-new red outfit with gold stitching here and there, which made him stand out, even though he curled inward. His hair was thick and bristly, his face soft and white, but his slender eyes looked exceptionally old as they surveyed the scene. Definitely not the eyes of a child. And those ears, so big and fleshy. It would have been impossible not to take note of him, even though he was cradled in the bearded man’s arms.
The bow of the ferry turned upstream as it drew up to the bank. The waiting passengers clustered together, eyes glued to the boat as it reached the shallows. Exchanging his scull for a bamboo pole, the deaf old man maneuvered the boat toward the bank, the bow raising dirty red waves until it was parallel with the land. A motley group of seven people jumped down off the boat after placing small bills or shiny coins in a gourd hanging beside the cabin; the deaf old man stood there, bamboo pole in hand, watching the river as it flowed east.