Yu Hua - To Live

After a pause, Youqing continued, “My teacher wanted me to tell you that he criticized me today. He said that I can’t sit still and that I’m not studious.”

As soon as I heard that, my temper flared. We had given Fengxia away and he still didn’t study hard. I slammed my bowl down on the table, and he started to cry. Through his tears he said, “Dad, please don’t hit me. It was because my butt hurt that I couldn’t sit still.”

I quickly pulled down his pants to look. His bottom was all black-and-blue from my hitting him that morning. How could anyone be expected to sit still with a bruised bottom like that? Seeing my son trembling made my heart break and my eyes well up.

A few months after Fengxia was taken away, she came running back. She returned in the middle of the night. Jiazhen and I were both in bed when we heard someone knocking on the door. First she knocked very lightly, but after a while she knocked a couple more times. I wondered who it could be so late. I crawled out of bed, and when I opened the door I saw Fengxia standing there. In my surprise I forgot that she was deaf and quickly said, “Fengxia, hurry up and come in.”

As soon as Jiazhen heard me she jumped right out of bed and ran over to the door without even putting on her shoes. The second I pulled Fengxia inside, Jiazhen, in tears, embraced her. I gave her a little push so she wouldn’t go on like that.

Fengxia’s hair and clothes were soaked from the dew. We brought her over to the bed so she could sit down. She pulled my sleeve with one hand and Jiazhen’s clothes with the other. Her body trembled, as she was choked with tears. Jiazhen wanted to fetch a fresh towel to dry Fengxia’s hair, but Fengxia wouldn’t loosen her grip on Jiazhen’s clothes. Jiazhen had to settle for caressing her daughter’s hair with her hands. Only after a long time did Fengxia finally stop crying and relax her grip on us. We took our hands back and looked her over. We wanted to see whether that family had worked her like an animal. After looking her over carefully we couldn’t really tell; she’d already had those thick calluses on her hands before she left. Only after I looked again at her face and saw there were no marks or scars did I feel a bit at ease.

After Fengxia’s hair was dry, Jiazhen helped her out of her clothes and let her go sleep with Youqing. When Fengxia lay down she looked at her sleeping brother for a while and secretly smiled; only then did she close her eyes and go to sleep. When Youqing turned over he put his hand on Fengxia’s mouth and it looked as if he was slapping his sister in the face. After Fengxia fell asleep she looked like a motionless little cat, quiet and good.

When Youqing woke up in the morning and saw his sister, he frantically rubbed his eyes and took a second look to see if it was really Fengxia. Before he even put on his clothes he leaped out of bed and yelled, “Sis! Sis!”

Youqing had the giggles all morning long. Jiazhen told him to hurry up and eat; he still had to get to school. As soon as he heard this he stopped smiling; he stole a glance at me and quietly asked Jiazhen, “Is it okay if I don’t go today?”

“No way,” I said.

He didn’t dare say anything else, but as he put on his backpack to go out the door he stamped his foot a few times in anger. Then, fearing I’d lose my temper, he quickly scurried off. After Youqing left, I had Jiazhen prepare a set of clean clothes to send Fengxia back in. When I turned around there was Fengxia holding a basket and sickle, waiting for me by the door. Seeing the pleading look in Fengxia’s eyes, I didn’t have the heart to send her back. I turned to Jiazhen, and it seemed as if her eyes were pleading with me also.

“Let’s let Fengxia stay another day,” I said to her.

After dinner I took Fengxia back. She didn’t cry; she just sadly gazed at her mother and then her little brother. Then, holding on to my sleeve, she walked back with me. Youqing was behind us crying and making a scene, but since Fengxia couldn’t hear anyway, I just ignored him.

That trip was really difficult. I wouldn’t let myself look at Fengxia; I just kept walking forward. We walked until it got dark, with the wind blowing against my face and down my neck. Fengxia continued holding on to my sleeve with both hands and didn’t make a sound. After nightfall, she stumbled on some rocks and fell over. I squatted down to rub her feet, and she placed her two hands around my neck. Her hands were so cold — they were almost lifeless. I carried Fengxia the last part of the way. We got to town, and, seeing we were getting close to that family’s house, I stopped under a streetlight, put Fengxia down and looked her over again. Fengxia was a good kid, and even then she didn’t cry. She just opened her eyes up wide and looked at me. I extended my arm to caress her face, and she also caressed mine. As soon as I felt her touch my face, I was no longer willing to see her off to that family. I picked Fengxia up and carried her back home, her tiny arms holding on to my neck. Part of the way home she suddenly hugged me with all her strength. She knew I was taking her home.

Seeing us arrive home, Jiazhen looked shocked. I said, “I’m not sending Fengxia back, even if it means our whole family has to starve to death.”

A gentle smile appeared on Jiazhen’s face — she smiled and smiled until tears began to appear.

When Youqing was about ten years old and had been going to school for two years, our life finally seemed to be going a bit better. Fengxia would work with us in the field, and she was at the point where she could carry her own weight. We were raising two lambs, and Youqing was in charge of cutting grass to feed them. Every morning, as the first glimmer of dawn shone through, Jiazhen would wake up Youqing. He would throw his sickle in a basket and make his way out of the house to go cut grass, carrying the basket with one hand and rubbing his sleepy eyes with the other. He looked pathetic, being at just that age when kids never want to get up. But what could we do? If Youqing didn’t go cut grass, our two lambs would starve. By the time Youqing got back from carrying his basket of grass, he would almost be late for class. Stuffing a bowlful of rice down his throat, he would still be swallowing as he ran off to school. When he came back in the afternoon, he had to cut more grass, and only after he fed the lambs would he himself eat. Of course he would be late again for his afternoon classes. Youqing was then only ten years old, yet every day he had to run over fifty li to school and back.

Running around like that, it was only natural that Youqing would wear out his shoes. Jiazhen, having been born into a well-to-do family in town, felt that a student like Youqing mustn’t go barefoot to school, so she made him a pair of cloth shoes. I myself felt that as long as you studied hard at school it really didn’t matter much if you had shoes or not. After he had worn his new shoes for only two months, I saw Jiazhen knitting a pair of soles. I asked whom she was making them for, and she said Youqing.

The work in the field already exhausted Jiazhen to the point where she had no energy, and now Youqing was going to push her over the edge. I picked up Youqing’s two-month-old pair of shoes to have a look. What kind of shoes were these? The soles were worn so thin that they were almost unwearable, and the laces and front part of one shoe had completely fallen off. When Youqing came back carrying his basket full of grass, I threw the shoes over to him and pulled him by his ear to show him, “Have you been wearing these, or gnawing on them?”

Youqing rubbed his sore ear, grimacing with pain. He wanted to cry but didn’t dare.

“If you keep wearing them like that, I’ll cut off your feet!” I warned him.