Ha Jin - Waiting

"No, I won't sell it at that price," Lin said to Bensheng after dinner.

"Fine. Tomorrow when Second Donkey comes to my store, I'll tell him that. By the way, how much would you ask?"

"Four thousand."

"Keep in mind he can pay cash. He made a killing on cabbages last fall and on potato noodles this spring. His fish pond is a money cow. Few men in our village can come up with three thousand yuan at the moment. "

"That's too low," Lin said firmly.

Though Lin turned Second Donkey down, he couldn't feel at ease because he might not have enough time to wait for a reasonable offer.

The next afternoon he talked with his daughter and found out that she did have a boyfriend. He was unhappy about it, believing she was too young to understand love, but he didn't blame her. While she was helping him pack up Shuyu's clothes, he continued to ask her about the young man. "Does Fengjin live in a nearby village?" he said.

"No, he's in the navy now, in Jiangsu Province."

"How did you get to know him?"

"We used to be classmates." She blushed almost to the ears, kept her eyes low, and went on folding a pair of her mother's pants.

"How serious is it between you and him? I mean, do you know him well enough to love him?"

"Yes," she replied confidently.

He was amazed by her answer, wondering how an eighteen-year-old could truly understand her feelings. Could love be so simple and so easy? Didn't it take time to achieve mutual understanding and trust? Maybe she just had a crush. She couldn't really love him, could she?

"Does he know you're going to have a new job?" he asked her. " Yes, I wrote to him. He wants me to go to the city with you too. "

"So that he can join you in Muji someday?"

"I think so." She nodded.

"Does Uncle Bensheng know you have a boyfriend?"

"Yes, but he's not happy about it."

"Why?"

"He said I should find a college graduate instead, because soldiers are not fashionable anymore."

Lin smiled. Then mixed feelings rose in his mind about her boyfriend. On one hand, he was pleased that Fengjin encouraged Hua to seize the opportunity to go to the city; on the other, the young man was undoubtedly a practical fellow, who knew how to use her to improve his future — because if Hua stayed in the village, he might have to come back to the countryside when he left the army. Lin was afraid her boyfriend might just be using her, but he didn't say a word about his suspicion. For the time being he would be satisfied if he could take her away without a hitch.

Outside the window a goose honked, which reminded him that he should get rid of all the poultry, the goat, and the sow within two or three days.

"Dad, do you think my mother can wear this? It's the only silk thing she has." Hua displayed a red tunic against her chest. "No, it's too large for her. Have you ever seen her wear it?" "No, I haven't."

He remembered that a relative of his had sent the tunic to Shuyu as a wedding present two decades before, but it had never fit her. Neither had she ever tried to alter it, always saying, "This is too fancy for me." That was why the tunic still looked new. Before he set out for the country, Shuyu had told him to give anything she couldn't wear to her brother's wife. He said to Hua, "Pack it in."

Bensheng came home with good news for Lin that evening. Second Donkey accepted the price, though he would pay only two thousand in cash initially and he would hand over the other half by the end of next year, after his son's wedding. Lin was suspicious of this way of being paid, knowing well that once the house was occupied, the new owner could delay giving him the rest of the pay ment forever, and that he might never receive the other two thousand yuan at all. Furthermore, Bensheng was Second Donkey's friend and might eventually get hold of the money without passing it on to him. That would be a good way to avenge his sister. Perhaps the two men had purposely worked out such an arrangement to take advantage of him. No, this wouldn't do. He had to forestall the trouble.

Without further consideration, Lin made up his mind to collect all the cash he could, and not to leave any balance behind.

That night he and Bensheng went to Second Donkey's home and clinched a deal. After a brief haggle, the buyer agreed to pay 3,200 yuan in cash on the spot. Lin hadn't seen Second Donkey for seven or eight years and was surprised that he had not aged much and that only his large eyes were no longer as bright as before. His long teeth were still strong, tea-stained along the gums; his donkeylike face remained smooth and even less swarthy, with just a few wrinkles. How he can take care of himself, Lin thought.

Second Donkey, his feet tucked up underneath him, went on saying, "We're all neighbors. I don't mind spending a bit more." He was drinking beer from a glass, which was so greasy that the liquid resembled peanut oil. Lin wouldn't touch the beer poured for him.

Second Donkey called in his son Handong to help draw up a contract. To Lin's amazement, the slender lad, who had an effeminate face and sensitive eyes, placed on the dining table a sheet of letter paper and a lumpy inkstone, which contained freshly ground ink. He climbed on the brick bed, sat cross-legged, and began to write with a small brush made of weasel's hair, which few people could use nowadays. From time to time he turned smiling eyes toward Lin. His posture, manners, and handwriting all appeared to be scholarly. In every way he didn't look like a son that the thickset, illiterate Second Donkey could father. Later, Lin heard from Ben-sheng, who thought a great deal of Handong, that the lad was a col lege graduate and a teacher in Wujia Middle School. Actually his father had given dinners and gifts to the commune leaders, who then had him elected for college as a worker-peasant-soldier student.

Besides the house and the furniture, the contract also included the shack in the backyard, the pigsty, the grinding stone, the vegetable garden, the eleven elm and jujube trees, the water well, the cauldron, and the latrine. Having read it through, Lin pressed his personal seal on the paper, beneath his name. Second Donkey did the same. Next, the buyer went into the inner room, in which his wife was shelling chestnuts, and came back with three bundles of cash, each consisting of a hundred ten-yuan bills. Then from a small envelope lying on a red chest, he pulled out forty brand-new fivers and put them together with the three thousand yuan on the dining table.

"Count this, please," he said to Lin, who was impressed, never having met a wealthier man.

Lin started counting the money, now and then pulling out a bill with a missing corner. Meanwhile Second Donkey poured another glass of beer for Bensheng, who frowned at Lin's white fingers.

All together Lin found seven damaged ten-yuan bills. "No store will accept these," he said to the buyer.

Second Donkey chuckled and said, "Smart man." He went into the inner room again and returned with seven intact tenners.

The transaction was completed, and Lin left Second Donkey a key to the house. Then he and Bensheng put on their caps, said good-bye to the father and son, and went out into the starless night.

On their way home, Lin gave the seven ten-yuan bills to Ben-sheng, who took the money but didn't look happy. A rooster crowed in the south. "Crazy. It's not midnight yet," Bensheng said. "They should kill or geld that damn cock who just confuses people, only makes noise and never lays an egg."

The next day Lin went to the village office and called his brother, telling him to come with a horse cart tomorrow afternoon to fetch things for his family. He had decided to give all the animals to Ren Kong. He told Hua of his decision, and she promised not to reveal a word to Uncle Bensheng, knowing her father had already given him seventy yuan and meant to leave him all their farm tools and the family plot.