Yu Hua: Boy in the Twilight: Stories of the Hidden China

After the cloud of dust had passed, he saw an urchin in dirty clothes in front of the stall, watching him with dark, gleaming eyes. As he returned the boy’s gaze, the boy put a hand on the fruit, a hand with long black fingernails. When he saw the nails brush against a shiny red apple, Sun Fu raised his hand to wave him away, the way he would swat away a fly. “Clear off,” he said.

The boy withdrew his grubby hand and swayed a little as he shuffled off, his arms hanging slack at his sides. On such a skinny body his head looked oversized.

Others were now approaching the stand, and Sun Fu turned to look. They stopped on the other side of the stall and threw him a glance. “How much are the apples?” they asked. “How much for a pound of bananas?”

Sun Fu stood up, weighed apples and bananas on his steelyard, and took their money. Then he sat down and put his hands on his knees. The boy had come back. This time he was not standing directly in front, but off to one side, his glowing eyes fixed on the apples and bananas, as Sun Fu watched him with equal attention. After gazing at the fruit for a while, the boy looked up at Sun Fu. “I’m hungry,” he said.

Sun Fu was silent. “I’m hungry,” the boy repeated, a note of urgency creeping into his voice.

Sun Fu scowled. “Clear off.”

The boy’s body seemed to give a shiver. “Clear off,” Sun Fu said again, more loudly.

The boy gave a start. His body swayed hesitantly before his legs began to move. Sun Fu took his eyes off the boy and switched his attention to the highway. A long-haul bus had come to a halt on the other side of the road, and the people inside stood up. Through the bus windows, he could see a column of shoulders crowding toward the doors; a moment later, passengers poured from both ends of the bus. Then, out of the corner of his eye, Sun Fu saw the boy dashing off as fast as his legs could carry him. He wondered why, and then he saw the boy’s flailing hand: it was clutching something, something round. Now he recognized what it was. He leapt to his feet and set off in chase. “Stop thief!” he shouted. “Stop that thief there.”

It was afternoon now. Dust flew as the boy fled along the highway. He heard shouting behind him, and looked round to see Sun Fu in hot pursuit. He floundered on desperately, gasping for breath, and when his legs began to go soft he knew he had no more reserves of energy. Looking back a second time, he saw Sun Fu still on his tail, yelling and waving his arms furiously. All hope gone, the boy came to a stop and turned around, panting heavily. He watched until Sun Fu was almost on top of him and then raised the apple to his mouth and took a big bite out of it.

Sun Fu swung his arm and struck the boy, knocking the apple out of his hand and connecting so firmly with the boy’s chin that he collapsed on the ground. He shielded his head with his hands, all the time chewing vigorously. Sun Fu, incensed, seized the boy by the collar and hauled him to his feet. The boy’s throat was so constricted by the tight collar that it was impossible for him to chew; his eyes began to goggle and his cheeks swelled, some apple still inside. Gripping the collar with one hand, Sun Fu squeezed the boy’s neck with the other. “Spit it out! Spit it out!” he yelled.

A crowd was gathering. “He’s still trying to eat it!” Sun Fu told them. “He stole my apple and took a bite out of it, and now he’s trying to swallow it!”

Sun Fu slapped him hard on the face. “Come on, spit it out.”

But the boy simply clenched his mouth all the more firmly. Sun Fu put a hand on his throat and started throttling him once more. “Spit it out!” he cried.

As the boy’s mouth opened, Sun Fu could see chewed-up bits of apple inside. He tightened his viselike grip on the boy’s throat, until his eyes began to bulge. “Sun Fu,” somebody said, “look, his eyeballs are practically popping out of his head. You’re going to strangle him.”

“Serves him right,” Sun Fu said. “It serves him right if he’s strangled.”

Finally, he loosened his hold. “If there’s one thing I hate,” he said, pointing at the sky, “it’s a thief. Spit it out!”

The boy began to spit out the apple piece by piece. It was a bit like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube, the way he spat bits onto his shirt front. After he closed his mouth, Sun Fu levered it open again with his hand, and bent down to look inside. “You haven’t spit it all out,” he said. “There’s still some left.”

The boy spat again — practically all saliva this time, but with a few crumbs of apple here and there. The boy spat and spat, until in the end there was just a dry noise, no saliva anymore. “That’ll do,” Sun Fu said.

He saw many familiar faces among the people who had gathered to watch. “In the old days we never locked our doors, did we?” he said. “There wasn’t a family in the whole town that locked its doors, was there?”

He saw people nodding. “Now, after locking the door once, you have to use a second lock as well,” he continued. “Why? It’s because of thieves like this. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a thief.”

Sun Fu looked at the grimy-faced boy, who watched spellbound, as though fascinated by what he was saying. The boy’s expression stirred an excitement in him. “If we follow the old ways,” he said, “we ought to break one of his hands, break the hand that did the stealing …”

Sun Fu looked down at the boy. “Which hand was it?” he shouted.

The boy shivered and hastily put his right hand behind his back. Sun Fu grabbed the hand and showed it to everybody. “It was this hand. Otherwise, why would he try to hide it so quickly?”

“It wasn’t that hand!” the boy cried.

“Then it was this hand.” Sun Fu grabbed the boy’s left hand.

“No, it wasn’t!”

As he said this, the boy tried to pull his hand away. Sun Fu gave him a slap on the face that made him teeter. After a second slap, the boy stood still. Sun Fu grabbed him by the hair, jerking his head up. “Which hand was it?” he yelled, staring into his face.

The boy’s eyes widened as he looked at Sun Fu, and after a moment he stretched out his right hand. Sun Fu took hold of the boy’s wrist, and with his other hand gripped the middle finger of the boy’s hand. “If we follow the old ways,” he said to the bystanders, “we should break this hand. We can’t do that anymore. Now we emphasize education. How do we educate?”

Sun Fu looked at the boy. “This is how we educate.”

He pressed down hard with both hands. There was a sudden crack as he broke the boy’s middle finger. The boy screamed with a cry as sharp as a knife. Looking down, he saw the broken digit flopping against the back of his hand and slumped to the ground in shock.

“That’s the way to deal with thieves,” Sun Fu said. “If you don’t break one of their arms, at the very least you need to break a finger.”

Saying this, Sun Fu leaned down and hauled the boy to his feet. He noticed the boy’s eyes were clamped shut with pain. “Open your eyes!” he yelled. “Come on, open them.”

The boy opened his eyes, but he was still in agony and his mouth was twisted into a strange shape. Sun Fu kicked him in the legs. “Move it!”

Sun Fu grabbed him by the collar and shoved him along the street until they were back in front of the fruit stand. He rummaged around in a carton for some rope and tied him to the stall. “Shout,” he said to the boy, when he saw people watching. “Shout ‘I’m a thief!’ ”

The boy looked at Sun Fu. When he failed to comply, Sun Fu seized his left hand and took a tight grip on the left middle finger. “I’m a thief!” the boy cried.

“That’s not loud enough,” Sun Fu said. “Louder.”