Ha Jin - The Crazed

“Rest assured, there’s no problem with Wanmin Fang,” Hao said about Banping’s uncle, and put down the pen on the desk. “He’s from a poor peasant family, always active in political movements. He’s a Party member too.” He told me this probably because he assumed I also belonged to the Party. I nodded to show my appreciation.

Having stuck the letter into a manila envelope without sealing it, he handed it to me and said, “You’re all set.”

I picked up the glue bottle on the desk and sealed the flap of the envelope. He rose to his feet, took an earthenware teapot from the windowsill, and poured some tea into a ceramic mug. “Here, have some tea. You must be thirsty.” He placed the mug before me.

“Thanks.” I lifted the tea, which looked thin and brownish, and took a gulp. Yech, what tea is this? It tasted bitter, a bit oily, like a medicinal decoction.

Hao saw the surprise on my face and smiled with some embarrassment. “It’s pomegranate tea, good against the summer heat,” he explained.

“Er. . thanks.”

Many years ago I had heard that some country people were so poor they couldn’t afford to drink tea, so they used some kinds of tree leaves instead. Call this stuff whatever you liked, it wasn’t tea at all. They might just want the brown color from pomegranate leaves. Heaven knew whether this substitute actually could help relieve internal heat like real tea. What astonished me was that never had I imagined that people here still drank this stuff. I tried to appear unsurprised, lifting the mug and taking a sip again.

“How’s Old Fang’s nephew doing?” Hao asked me.

“Banping’s fine.”

“The Fangs used to be one of the poorest clans in this area. That boy had no shoes to wear for school when it snowed. Every winter his hands were frostbitten, swollen like rotten taters.”

“They were that poor?”

“Yes, in the year when the locusts came and ate up all our crops, his whole family had only one jacket. Whoever was going out put it on.”

It was incredible that Banping had lived through that kind of hardship. No wonder he was so tough and phlegmatic. I said, “He’s doing well now, quite rich actually. His wife just bought a Flying Pigeon bicycle. He’ll start to work at the Provincial Administration next month.”

“You don’t say so! Who could tell he’d go to college and become a big official? A phoenix hatched in a chicken coop indeed. He’s really something.” Hao kept shaking his stubbled head, a bald patch on his crown. “That boy was smart, a quick hand at the abacus.”

“Really? I didn’t know that.”

“He was very good at numbers. No matter how poor the Fangs were, they wouldn’t take him out of school. In those days schooling was free, you know. After middle school, he became our accountant and didn’t have to go to the fields like the others. That’s how he got the time to study for the college exams. ‘Education, education is the thing,’ I always tell my younger brothers this.”

I felt hungry, so I fished out of my bag half a corn bun, left over from breakfast, and began chewing it. I meant to appear natural in front of him. “Do you mind if I’m eating while we talk?” I asked, intending to show how I enjoyed the food they ate every day.

“No, go ahead. I should’ve invited you to lunch, but all the folks have gone to the shooting.”

“What shooting?”

“You don’t know? Some people came here and want us to take part in a movie they’re making. I’ve no idea what it’s about, though.”

The clock struck two. The door opened and in came a woman holding a toddler, a boy with a runny nose. She wore a fuchsia shirt that was so soiled it looked almost purple. One of her blue cloth shoes had a hole in its front, her big toe peeping out. The baby was wearing a clean bib that carried on its front the large words LOVE PEACE. His hand held a chunk of black bun like a stone.

“This is my wife, Fulan,” Hao introduced.

“How do you do? I’m Jian,” I said and almost stretched out my hand. She looked at least ten years older than her husband, as if in her fifties; but seen closely, she must have been in her early thirties, without a single gray hair. In spite of her leathery face and flat chest, she had thick arms, muscular like a man’s.

“Welcome,” she said in a shy voice. I realized that women in the countryside usually were not addressed formally by a male stranger.

Meanwhile, the baby boy fixed his watery eyes on the corn bun in my hand. “Yellow cake,” he cried, his hooked fingers pointing to my bun. “Yellow cake, Mama, I want yellow cake.”

“Don’t be naughty. I’ll bake you a big yellow cake this evening. Be a good boy.” She rocked the child from side to side to stop him.

“No, I want yellow cake now.” He looked at me ravenously.

“All right, let’s trade.” I got up and put the corn bun into his hand and took his black chunk away. “How’s that?” I smiled at him.

He nodded assent, then started munching the bun.

“Thank Uncle,” his mother ordered, smiling with curvy eyes.

“Thank you,” he mumbled.

“What a good boy,” I said and put the piece of black bun into my bag. “Old Hao, please don’t let Wanmin Fang know I came. I was told to keep this secret.”

“Sure, I won’t tell him. It’s the Party’s rule, I understand.” He grinned.

Although I had said good-bye, Hao walked me outside of the yard. I had told him several times not to come farther; still he wouldn’t turn back, accompanying me all the way out of the village. He seemed to enjoy talking with me.

On the distant hillside the boy was still crying, his voice fierce like the buzz of cicadas. I saw a few goats grazing almost motionlessly on the slope, but I couldn’t see the child. Why did he scream without stopping? I asked Hao, “What’s wrong with that boy?”

“What boy?”

“Don’t you hear him crying over there?” I pointed to the hillside in the northwest.

“Oh, he may’ve been stung by a scorpion.”

“What? A scorpion can make him cry for hours nonstop?”

“It can make a man cry too.” The corners of his mouth stretched aside as if he had just been stung.

“Why don’t his parents help him? They can at least cover the sting with some ointment or give him a sleeping pill, just stop him from screaming in the heat.”

“Easier said than done. Where can his folks get the drug and the ointment? We have no money for those fancy things. Many kids are hurt by scorpions when they look after sheep on the mountain. My daughter got bitten last fall. Oh, she hollered her head off, hoarse for a month afterward.”

“How long will he cry?”

“He’ll be all right before dark. Don’t worry.”

This meant the boy would continue to scream for another few hours. My heart sank, but I kept silent. As we went out of the village, a hen burst into cackling behind us, triumphantly announcing that she had just laid an egg. Ahead of us, about five hundred yards away in the south, stretched a barren slope narrowing into a valley between two knolls. Many people were gathered there, some standing and some sitting on yellowish boulders.

Hao said, “They’re shooting the picture there. Why don’t we go have a look?”

“All right, let’s go.” I realized why he had accompanied me all the way here — he wanted to see the shooting.

Up on the slope the two men who shared my room at the guesthouse were busy working on their camera. This was indeed an ideal setting for an earthquake scene. The slope was strewn with boulders and rocks, and there were no trees anywhere. Only a little grass spread on the edges of some dried ditches. The tops of the two knolls were plantless too, baring patches of granite. Farther up in the valley, at the foot of the eastern hillock, sat a small temple, before which stood a flagpole, whose upper half was missing. Around the temple, nearly all the gravestones had toppled over, as if an earthquake had just struck this area and tossed everything into a mess.