The Dragon's Village: An Autobiographical Novel of Revolutionary China (29 page)

I pulled at Sun's sleeve to get him to leave, but he ignored me. By this time several men around us had gotten into the conversation.

“If you want to know whether a woman can make a son or not before you marry her, you must listen to her shitting. If the sound is resonant, her womb is fertile,” a drunkard put in. He spoke matter-of-factly, entirely without lasciviousness. The cigarette between his lips bobbed up and down as he spoke, punctuating his words of wisdom. “Isn't that so?” He turned to the photographer deferentially.

Women were the photographer's favorite subject. He believed he was a lady-killer and he acted the role. He inhaled and puffed out smoke in a debonair way, waiting to join the discussion.

“Not only that. You also have to see how her hips sway,” the photographer responded in the same businesslike manner.

“Your wife has come to us with complaints against you,” I interrupted him loudly so as to make sure that he understood what I implied: His position was not as secure as he thought it was. “Wives who have been wronged can bring their husbands to court and obtain a divorce if they wish. In that case it will be her right to share half of the family's joint property. If brutal treatment is proved against the husband, he may be sent to jail.”

At first the photographer had scowled, but then he switched tactics and was all smiles. He knew I was speaking the truth. He half rose from his stool as if bowing to me. “Yes, yes. I'll gladly accept any criticism. Which of us doesn't make a mistake sometimes. We should be glad to be told about them. Still, I should point out that I'm a law-abiding citizen, a citizen with full civil rights. I bought my
concubine before the new Republic was established. I didn't do anything against the law.”

Sun seemed to be oblivious of our arguing. He wailed on, following his own train of thought. “I am a man without a son. What will become of me when I get old? Who will look after me? I am honest, decent, and hardworking. Why does Heaven punish me so?” he whimpered.

“Sun, we have said that every pregnant woman should come to register her unborn child, because it too will get its share of land in the land reform. Why didn't you come to our meetings?”

“She is carrying a girl. How can I be so shameless as to ask a portion of land for her?” A teardrop collected at the corner of each eye and slowly trickled down his cheeks.

“Sun, talk sense. You have no one to blame but yourself. You won't join the literacy class. You cannot read, so you don't know what is in the land reform law. But we keep on inviting you and your wife to our meetings. We can explain it to you item by item. You don't want to come. You won't let your wife come or even talk to us. So now you're making a fool of yourself.”

I had more than Sun as an interested audience.

“The land reform policy states plainly that girls have equal rights with boys. Every girl will get her own portion of land—and listen carefully—in her own name. Your baby is being born at this very moment. I don't know if it is a boy or a girl, but whatever it is, it and its mother will be given the best land in the village. Since you are in the same family, naturally your portion of land will be in the same area and as good as theirs. But remember this, you will share their honor, not they, yours.”

“Are you sure?” The Broken Shoe surveyed me with a swift, flashing glance.

“Yes.”

She wrinkled her nose, trying to puzzle out whether she should believe that I spoke with authority.

“There is Old Cheng. He probably knows more about the whole arrangement. Why don't you go ask him?” The photographer now spoke to Sun in the assertive tone of a sophisticated man giving himself face. By his stress on the
“him,” he insinuated that my woman's words did not carry too much weight. Then, to placate me, he turned to me and spoke in an obsequious, barely audible voice: “Sun is feudal-minded and he prefers to deal with a man. I know that Old Cheng must agree with you. I'll tell Sun to go to Old Cheng to let him find out himself that a woman's word is as good as a man's.”

Another drunkard was not aware of the photographer's secret truce with me. Rising to his feet he addressed the whole room in an offensively rude manner: “Please allow me to walk out. The air in here has become a little sour,” he sniggered.

Sun's bigotry had been reinforced by their goading; that and a few drinks on an empty stomach had befuddled his brains more than usual.

“What a world,” he wailed. “Women are rising against men; servants against masters; children against parents; sons against their ancestors. The temples of the ancestors are used indecently,” he blabbered on, sniveling and banging his forehead against the table.

“They are used for people to study and work in,” I protested.

“Pah, I don't buy that kind of garbage. When men and women mix together like that—” He spat on the ground. “It dirties my mouth to say it. Worst of all, now monks and nuns want to get paired up!”

“Those monks and nuns were put in the monasteries when they were children. They didn't know what they were doing. Now they want to be happy like other men and women.”

“They were happy until you people came and put ideas into their heads. You have turned things upside down. The Heavens will be angry. We'll see blood flow yet. We'll come to grief. Oh, what misery!”

I was astounded by Sun's besotted rage. I looked hard at his drunken, tear-streaked face and felt a twinge inside. What was I rushing into? If the political climate changed, wouldn't he and his kind gladly hand me over to his masters?

The wineshop keeper could see that I was thinking over
Sun's wild words and he looked around uncomfortably. It was not wise to make an enemy of a land reform work team cadre at such a time and rave about shedding blood to boot. Although he had been told to do so, he had not yet removed from his wall the half-legible, half-torn strip of paper left over from the old warlord days. It said, “Don't talk politics!”

“Sun, don't talk nonsense,” he remonstrated in an affectedly reproachful tone. “These comrades are really kind to come here and help us.”

“If they really want to be kind they should leave us in peace.” Sun stopped short. He was not so drunk that he couldn't see the wineshop keeper's upraised hand and the warning in his eyes. The photographer had even half risen to his feet and leaned towards the hapless Sun.

I couldn't stand their presence any longer.

I turned away swiftly and stormed out of that cesspool. The photographer raised his wine cup in my direction, motioning Sun to follow me out. The habitués of the wineshop compared notes in hushed voices. The “frog” behind the counter busied himself with his bottles and wine cups and grumbled to himself. Just as we got beyond earshot I could hear him shouting at the Broken Shoe.

17
  

The day before the voting, Xiu-ying's mother was as busy as anyone working for her daughter's election. But while most of the Longxiang peasants shrewdly suspected that influence and money were still the best allies of a candidate, Xiu-ying's mother had her own ideas. She was certain that only a good, full meal would give her daughter the courage and stamina she needed to carry the day.

“Only a man with a full stomach can make himself heard,” was the way she put it. The peasants of Longxiang ate two meals a day. The election would be held at noon after the first meal. The logic was obvious.

Xiu-ying's mother had raised a hen and, no matter how sparse the meal, always shared her bowl of millet gruel with it. In return, it occasionally laid an egg, though without good feed this was usually no bigger than a dove's. Most of the eggs were sold; a very few were kept for a special dish on important occasions such as the Spring Festival at the Lunar New Year. Now she decided to kill the hen to make a special meal for her daughter. Her husband vehemently disapproved of this sacrifice, but tyrant though he was, he knew the limits of his power.

“A girl going to be an official! The world is turned upside down,” he grumbled.

Xiu-ying's mother had once thought as he did, but now she said to me, “It breaks my heart to think that Xiu-ying
might be doomed as I am. She's as good as anyone. Perhaps this really is a way out.”

Her face was a study in split-second metamorphoses: A pathetic look passed from it to be succeeded by the gloom of despair, and then all dissolved in a look of hope and happiness. This first attempt by her to defeat fate, however naive, elated me and made me more eager than ever to see Xiu-ying elected.

It was not for financial reasons only that Xiu-ying's father wanted to keep the hen. I believe he was a bit awed as well as astonished at the thought of his daughter becoming an official. In all his experience, in all history as he knew it, no woman had ever become an official. He was appalled by the idea and grasped at anything that might prevent it from becoming reality. To keep the hen alive might do the trick. Like his wife, he believed a man who had enough to eat could not fail, and perhaps the same held true for women.

But the mother this time seemed to pay no attention to his objections as she set about the task of sacrificing the scrawny bird. Perhaps she was wavering in the face of her husband's objections or perhaps she just loved the hen too well. Her hand went weak as she brought the chopper down on its neck; its neck was broken, but its head was not severed. The intractable bird squawked and fluttered from her nerveless hands. It flapped its wings and flew all over the room, spilling feathers and throwing us all into a panic. Xiu-ying's mother rushed to close the door and then dashed back to protect the food with her apron from the falling feathers and the rising dust. I seized a carrying pole and chased the luckless hen in circles. The old man quite forgot his faked nonchalance and thrashed around, adding to the general confusion. Finally, with Xiu-ying and her brother's help we caught the hen. The mother, setting her teeth, resolutely wrung the chicken's neck. The election had to be won.

For the past week, Xiu-ying had grown too nervous to sleep. Blue circles appeared around her eyes. Now, as she chopped the vegetables you could see her lips moving wordlessly, reciting her acceptance speech.

“Let me say it once again.” She pressed the paper into my hand. “Word for word, now.”

She had learned it by heart already, and if she had been more relaxed she could have spoken it perfectly. But she faltered and stuttered and sometimes stopped short in mid-sentence.

“Why do I always get stuck at the same sentence?” Her face clouded over. She bit her lips to choke down her tears.

“Xiu-ying, where is my new scarf?” her mother called from her room.

“I don't know,” Xiu-ying replied crossly. She was engrossed in her task, puckering her brow, sucking her thumb in concentration.

“You spoiled brat,” her mother nagged. After a while, she raised her voice in triumph. “I've found it!”

“So what? Why yell?” Xiu-ying was annoyed to have her thoughts interrupted. Her mother chattered on.

“I bought it after your brother was born. Was it a year later or at the end of the same year? I've got it all mixed up now. Anyway it was about seven or eight years ago.” She came in holding up the grey scarf for us all to see. “I only used it a few times. It still looks new. Xiu-ying, it's yours now.”

Xiu-ying stopped her worrying for the moment and was delighted.

“But the color is too subdued for a festival,” I said doubtfully. “Let's dye it.”

“Dye it red,” suggested Xiu-ying. So she did think there would be a reason for celebration!

When she gave the money to her brother to buy the dye, she looked up at the sky. “It may rain tomorrow. The sky is reddish with small clouds.” She was worried again and stamped her feet. “The election is in the open air. The rain will keep people away and mess everything up.”

“It's hard to tell whether it will rain or not,” I said truthfully, scrutinizing the sky.

Every now and again, in mid-sentence, Xiu-ying put her head out the door to study the portents of the sky.

I stayed with Xiu-ying that night. As we prepared to sleep, she begged, “Just before I fall asleep, read my speech into my ear. Then I'll be able to learn it in my dreams.”

“Will that work?”

“Why, yes!” She had already put one leg in the folded quilt, but leaped up again, dashed to the door, and took one final look at the sky. “The stars are twinkling. It looks like a fine day tomorrow!”

“Xiu-ying, do you really believe you can learn your speech in your dreams?”

“Of course.” There was no hint of doubt in her voice. “Once when my brother was hungry and we didn't have anything in the house to eat, my mother whispered in his ear just before he fell asleep. She described his favorite dish, so he dreamed about it and wasn't hungry.”

“What is his favorite dish?” I asked.