Yu Hua - Brothers

Sun Wei's father's final angry roar frightened everyone in the warehouse out of their sleep. Even the red-armbanders were terrified. When they turned on the light, they saw Sun Wei's father slumped against the wall, his eyes staring straight and motionless, and the ground covered with broken shards of brick. At first no one realized that he had killed himself. They didn't know why he was sitting there, and a red-armbander even began to scold him, "Fuck! Get up! Fuck— look how he's staring."

When the red-armbander walked over to kick him, Sun Wei's father's body slid down the wall. Startled, the red-armbander jumped back a few steps and told two other prisoners to go take a look. The two men walked over and squatted near the body. They looked him over and saw all his bruises and wounds but couldn't figure out how he had died. The two men then righted him, and when they lifted him up, they saw that the top of his head was covered in fresh blood. They examined it more closely, feeling around until they finally figured it out: "There's an iron nail here. He drove a nail into his skull."

The unimaginable manner in which Sun Wei's father killed himself rapidly spread throughout Liu Town. When the news reached Li Lan, she was at home — she heard the neighbors talking about it, standing outside her window. Everyone expressed amazement and incredulity: How was it possible to smash a two-inch-long nail into your own skull? They talked about how the nail had been thoroughly embedded in his skull, as if he were making a cabinet, to the point that you couldn't even feel the end of the nail on his scalp. They asked with shuddering voices, "How could he do it? It would be nearly impossible to smash such a nail into someone else's skull, let alone your own." Li Lan listened at the window, and after they walked off, she turned back into the room and smiled sadly to herself. "If a person is determined to die, he'll find a way."

THE STREETS of Liu Town descended into chaos. Almost every day there were beatings among the revolutionary masses. Baldy Li didn't understand why these men, who all wore the same red armbands and waved the same red flags, were beating one another up with fists, flagpoles, and wooden bats, tearing at one another like wild beasts. One time Baldy Li saw them wielding kitchen cleavers and axes, until the electrical poles, the wutong trees, the walls, and the streets were all splattered with their blood.

Li Lan no longer let Baldy Li leave the house, even sealing the window shut so that he wouldn't be able to sneak out. When she left for the silk factory in the morning she would lock him in the house, and the door would remain shut until she returned home in the evening. Thus began Baldy Li's truly solitary childhood. From daybreak to nightfall, his world consisted of two rooms, and so he began his all-out war against the ants and the cockroaches. He would often crouch under the bed with a bowl in his hand and wait for the ants to emerge; when they did, he would first splash them with water and then smush them to death one by one. Once a fat mouse scurried right past his face, and that terrified him so much that he no longer crawled under the bed. Later he began to attack the cockroaches in the armoire, locking himself inside with them in order to trap them. By the light seeping in through a crack in the door, he would chase them and crush them with his shoe. Once he fell asleep inside the armoire and was still dreaming happily when Li Lan got home. Poor Li Lan was so panicked that she hollered for him all over the house and even dashed outside to look down the alley. When he finally emerged, she collapsed to the floor, her face pale and one hand clutching her chest, unable to speak a word.

Just when Baldy Li was at his loneliest, Song Gang made the long journey to come see him. Bringing along five White Rabbits, Song Gang set off in the morning from the village without telling his grandfather. Asking for directions along the way, he arrived at Baldy Li's house around noon and knocked on the window, shouting, "Baldy Li! Baldy Li! Are you in there? It's Song Gang."

Baldy Li was dozing off out of boredom when he heard Song Gangs shouts. Jumping up to the window, he knocked on the glass, shouting,

"Song Gang! Song Gang! I'm in here."

Song Gang responded, "Baldy Li, open the door!"

Baldy Li said, "The doors locked from the outside."

"Open the window."

"The windows been sealed shut."

The two brothers banged on the window and hollered at each other for a long while. The lower panes of the window had been covered over with newspaper, so they couldn't see each other and could only communicate by shouting. Baldy Li then moved a stool over to the window so that he could perch there and look down through the only pane on top that hadn't been papered over. In this way, he finally caught sight of Song Gang, and Song Gang finally caught sight of him. Song Gang was wearing the same set of clothes he had worn to Song Fanping's burial. He looked up and said, "Baldy Li, I've missed you."

Song Gang smiled, a little embarrassed. Baldy Li banged the window with both hands, crying, "Song Gang, I've missed you, too."

Song Gang took out the five White Rabbits from his pocket and lifted them up to show Baldy Li. "See these? I brought them for you."

Baldy Li joyfully shouted, "Song Gang, I see them! Song Gang, you're so good to me."

Baldy Li started drooling immediately, but the window separated him from the candies in Song Gang's hand. He shouted to Song Gang, "Figure out a way to get the candy in here."

Song Gang thought for a moment. "Maybe I can stuff it in through a crack in the door."

Baldy Li hurried down from his perch and went to the door. He saw the candy wrapper pushing through the widest crack on the door but unable to make it in. Song Gang reported, "It won't fit."

Baldy Li anxiously scratched his head. "Think of something else."

Baldy Li heard Song Gang's labored breathing on the other side of the door. After a while he said, "I really can't get it in. Here, take a sniff first."

Song Gang thrust the candy close to the crack in the door. Baldy Li glued his nose to the crack and inhaled as deeply as he could. Finally he caught a whiff of the candy and burst into tears. Song Gang asked from outside, "Baldy Li, why are you crying?"

Through his tears Baldy Li replied, "I can smell the White Rabbits."

Song Gang started giggling. When Baldy Li heard him, he also started giggling, alternating his sobs with his giggles. The two boys then sat on the ground, one inside the house and the other outside, and chatted for a long time. Song Gang told Baldy Li about the countryside: how he had learned to fish, climb trees, plant sprouts, thresh wheat, and pick cotton. Baldy Li told Song Gang about all the things that had happened in town: how long-haired Sun Wei was dead, and how even Mama Su from the snack shop was now wearing a wooden placard. When he described how Sun Wei had died, Song Gang started weeping. "That poor guy"

The boys spoke through the door as if nothing separated them. They chatted all afternoon, but when Song Gang saw that the sun was setting on the alley, he hurriedly stood up and told Baldy Li that he had to get going. It was a long way home, so he had to get on his way. Baldy Li knocked from inside, pleading with Song Gang to stay for a while longer. "Its not dark yet…"

Song Gang rapped back. "But once its dark, I won't be able to find my way."

Before Song Gang left, he hid the White Rabbits under the front stoop, explaining that if he put them on the window ledge someone else might take them. But he came back after taking a few steps, explaining that he was worried that worms under the stoop might eat the candy, so he plucked two wutong leaves, carefully wrapped the candy inside, then put them back under the stoop. He peered through the crack in the wall, took another look at Baldy Li, and said, "Goodbye, Baldy Li."