Yu Hua: Cries in the Drizzle

I often think of my little brother, who died so young, and his gritty performance that afternoon as he fought for the candies and beans. When Wang Yuejin's sister-in-law came outside, basket in hand, Sun Guangming was not the quickest to react, but he was the first to fall flat on his face. She dumped the basket's contents in front of the assembled children as though she were feeding hens, and a cascade of beans tumbled to the ground along with just a few dozen candies. As my older brother bent down, another boy accidentally kneed him in the face. Always hot tempered, Sun Guangping concentrated on clobbering his assailant, with the result that he missed out on the plunder. With Sun Guangming, it was a different story: he threw himself on the candies and beans and withstood no end of pummeling. Afterward he just sat there, his face streaked with mud, grimacing as he rubbed his head and his ears, and he told Sun Guangping that his legs were covered in bruises.

Sun Guangming came away with seven fruit candies and a full handful of broad beans. He sat there meticulously removing earth and gravel from his booty. Sun Guangping stood off to one side, glaring at the children who gazed enviously at his little brother, deterring them from grabbing the delicacies he had claimed.

Of these items, Sun Guangming allocated to his big brother a small bunch of beans and a single candy. As he took them, Sun Guangping said in an aggrieved tone, “That's all I get?”

Sun Guangming rubbed one of his chafed ears and looked at Sun Guangping uncertainly, then offered an additional candy and a few more beans. When his big brother showed no signs of leaving, in his piping tone he delivered the following threat: “If you ask for any more, I'll cry!”

The bride had entered the village at noon. Though this round-faced, round-bottomed girl kept her head bowed, it was clear from her smile that she was pleased with the match. The bridegroom, buoyed by satisfaction as well, appeared to have forgotten all about his tussle with Feng Yuqing several days earlier, and when he came walking up, brimming with good spirits, he raised his right hand and waved it clumsily in our direction. At that moment I rejoiced: no longer would Wang Yuejin besmirch the Feng Yuqing whom I so worshipped. But when my gaze shifted to the house where she lived, an indescribable distress welled up within me, for I saw that the object of my fantasies had her eyes fixed on where we were. Feng Yuqing was standing in front of her home, disconsolately watching the ceremony in which she played no part. Of all those present only she felt the sting of exclusion.

Later the wedding guests sat out on the drying ground, eating and drinking. My father Sun Kwangtsai had sprained his neck when sleeping, and was sitting there, one shoulder bared, like an outlaw hero of old. My mother, standing behind him, swigged a mouthful of celebratory liquor and spat it onto his back. Kneaded and massaged by Mothers hand until he swayed back and forth, he emitted moans of pain that made him appear touchingly vulnerable, but this didn't get in the way of his doing some serious drinking. As he lifted his chopsticks and transported a large chunk of meat into his mouth, Sun Guangping and Sun Guangming stood off to one side, their mouths watering. Sun Kwangtsai constantly turned his head to shoo away his sons. “Get lost!” he said to them.

They ate from noon straight through to dusk, which was when the climax to the wedding took place. It was then that Feng Yuqing appeared unexpectedly, a rope in her hands. Wang Yuejin didn't see her approach because he was busy clinking glasses with another fellow from the village. By the time somebody tapped him on the shoulder, Feng Yuqing was standing right behind him. He instantly turned pale. I remember how a hush fell over the drying ground, which only seconds earlier had been buzzing with noise. The result was that, even from my distant observation post, I could clearly hear Feng Yuqing's words. “Stand up!” she said.

Wang Yuejin performed a replay of the panic he showed that day Sun Guangping pursued him with the cleaver. He rose to his feet as slowly as an old man. Feng Yuqing walked off with the stool he had been sitting on and set it down underneath a tree beside the drying ground. In full view of the assembled audience she clambered onto the stool. Under the autumn sky she stood tall, her figure, with its upturned curves, unutterably beautiful to my eyes. She tied one end of the rope to a tree branch.

That was when Old Luo yelled, “She's going to kill herself!”

Feng Yuqing, from her elevated perch, looked at him in seeming astonishment, then deftly looped the rope so that it formed a noose big enough to accommodate a human head. She jumped off the stool with a flourish and made a solemn exit.

On her departure, the drying ground once again buzzed with noise. Wang Yuejin, pallid and trembling, began at last to curse, but his outrage lacked conviction. I expected that he would go over and remove the rope, but instead he sat down on a stool that someone lent him and did not stand up again. His bride, who had put two and two together, was at this point distinctly more collected than he was. She sat there, eyes straight ahead, and her only action was to down in one gulp a bowl of spirits while he sneaked furtive glances at both her and the rope. Later his older brother removed this ghastly decoration, but it continued to prey on his mind and things continued in uneasy limbo for some time. The rope had come to the village just like a movie brought by a mobile projection team, introducing itself into the wedding to stunning effect, throttling the life out of the wedding while it was still in its prime.

Before long the bride was drunk. She gave a spine-chilling cry, rose unsteadily to her feet and announced, “I'm going to hang myself!” As she stumbled over to where the rope had once hung, she was firmly held back by Wang Yuejin's sister-in-law, a mother of two. “Hurry up and help her inside,” she shouted at Wang Yuejin.

As the bride was hustled into the house, she continued to yell stubbornly, “I'm going to hang myself!”

It was quite some time before Wang Yuejin and his friends reappeared. No sooner were they out of the house than the bride herself emerged, now brandishing a cleaver, which she pressed against her throat. People couldn't tell if she was crying or laughing, and all they heard was her shout, “Just watch me!”

Feng Yuqing sat on her doorstep, viewing these events from a distance. I will never forget her meditative look, her head slightly tilted, her chin cupped in her right hand, as the breeze blew her hair back and forth in front of her eyes. It was as though she was not so much watching this chaotic scene as looking at herself in a mirror. At that moment Feng Yuqing no longer cared about the wedding she was witnessing; she was perplexed about where her own life was taking her.

A few days later, a peddler appeared. A man in his forties, dressed in gray, he set down his load in front of Feng Yuqing's house. Speaking in an alien accent, he asked Feng Yuqing, standing in the doorway, for a bowl of water.

Village children gathered around in a circle and watched him for a while before dispersing. It must have been sheer happenstance that had brought the peddler into the village, for it was too close to town to be a worthwhile business destination for him. Nonetheless he sat there in front of Feng Yuqing's house until nightfall.

I walked that way several times that afternoon, and each time I could hear him describing wearily, in a hoarse voice, the hardships of his nomadic life; he looked pained even when he smiled. Feng Yuqing sat on the threshold with her chin in her hand and listened raptly to his stories, an opaque expression on her face. Only now and again, as though by accident, did the peddler turn his head to look at her.