Yan Lianke - Dream of Ding Village

‘Genzhu, you tell him.’

‘It doesn’t matter who says it.’

‘Still though, you tell him.’

‘All right, I will.’ Genzhu turned to face Grandpa. ‘Now, Professor, don’t get angry when you hear this. We were afraid you might, which is why we came to talk to you in person. We know that you are a reasonable man, and we can discuss this calmly. If it were anyone else, say Li Sanren when he was alive and still the village mayor and party secretary, we would have just gone ahead and done it without even asking.’

‘What on earth are you two boys trying to say?’

‘What we’re saying,’ answered Genzhu, ‘is you don’t need to be in charge of things at the school any more, or take care of the sick villagers. From now on, Yuejin and I will handle all that.’

‘That’s right,’ Yuejin chimed in. ‘Just consider us the new school principals, the leaders of all these sick people. Act like we’re the village mayor and party secretary, and do whatever we say. Because if you listen to us, so will everyone else.’

Grandpa laughed. ‘Oh, so that’s all you came to tell me?’

‘That’s all,’ answered Genzhu, straight-faced. ‘We want you to call a meeting and announce that from now on, the two of us are in charge of everything at the school, including the government food subsidies. We also hear that Ding Hui has the official village seal. We want you to get it from him and hand it over to us. You can consider us your new mayor and party secretary.’

Grandpa stared at them in silence.

‘All you need to do is make the announcement,’ said Yuejin.

‘And if you don’t,’ Genzhu added, ‘we’ll tell Tingting all about your son’s affair, and it’ll break up his marriage and destroy the whole family.’

‘Don’t worry, Professor. With the two of us in charge of the school and the village, what could possibly go wrong?’

‘And we promise to do a better job than you did,’ said Genzhu. ‘Everyone knows Ding Hui has been selling off the coffins he got free from the government. We hear he’s trying to raise money to move his family out of the village, either to Kaifeng or the county capital. And Ding Liang not only cheated on his wife, he did it with his own cousin’s wife! With kids like that, you think you’re still qualified to manage this village or this school?’

‘Professor, we’re asking you to do this for your own good, and for the good of your family. But if you don’t,’ Genzhu sneered, ‘we’ll tell your daughter-in-law how we caught her husband sleeping with Lingling. Then you’ll find yourself in a real mess, and your family will be ruined.’

The two seemed to have worked out their good-cop bad-cop routine in advance, trading lines like a straight man and a fall guy in an amateur comedy show. It was the sort of thing Ma Xianglin might have performed on stage, when he was still alive. Now Grandpa was the audience, watching and listening under the hot sun. His face had turned pale and beads of perspiration had formed on his forehead. In that moment, Grandpa seemed terribly old. Every hair on his head had gone white. His silvery-white head bobbed up and down beneath the eaves of the building, like one of the mylar balloons they sold in the city. Were it not tethered to his neck, it might have floated up into the air, or landed on a metal spike atop the schoolyard gate.

When the two young men had finished speaking, Grandpa stared at them, slack-jawed and wide-eyed as he had been throughout the entire conversation. Here was his kinsman and nephew Ding Yuejin, and Jia Genzhu from the village. He’d known both of these boys since the day they were born — he’d even taught them in school — but now they were strangers, textbook illustrations he couldn’t make sense of, two mathematical problems that didn’t compute.

High up in the branches of the paulownia trees, the sparrows were singing, their song falling through the silent schoolyard like rain. The three men stood quietly beneath the eaves, searching one another’s faces. Theirs was a stubborn silence, a deathly silence that no one wanted to be the first to break. At last, Jia Genzhu, who had always been impatient, even as a boy, cleared his throat. ‘Well, Professor? Do you understand what we’re telling you?’

Grandpa stepped aside, just as he had been told to do. He made the announcement during lunch. Without going into too much detail, Grandpa said that he was getting old, and that his two sons were a disappointment and a disgrace. Seeing as how they had made him lose face in front of everyone, it didn’t seem right that he remain in charge of the school or the sick residents, much less the entire village. Better that he step aside and turn things over to Jia Genzhu and Ding Yuejin. With their youth and enthusiasm, Grandpa said, it was better that they be in charge.

The residents of the school squatted on the sunny ground outside the kitchen and storeroom, eating their lunch. Recalling how Uncle and Lingling had been trapped in the storeroom, caught in flagrante delicto, they had to agree that Grandpa seemed to have lost his mandate. How could he manage other people’s lives when he couldn’t even control his own kids? Some in the crowd began craning their necks, looking around for Uncle. They noticed him squatting against the east wall of the kitchen, as far away from the storeroom as possible. When he saw them staring, he flashed them a rascally grin, as if getting caught with Lingling was not a big deal. As if his father losing his mandate and handing over power to Jia Genzhu and Ding Yuejin was not a big deal. It was hard to tell if his grin was fake — maybe he was just putting up a front — or if he really wasn’t at all embarrassed about the previous night’s scandal. As the villagers puzzled over the meaning of his smile, someone near the kitchen shouted: ‘Hey, Ding Liang! Did you score some last night?’

My uncle shouted back a reply. ‘When you’re dying, every day counts. You’ve got to score wherever you can.’

Ding Yuejin and Jia Genzhu didn’t hear this exchange, nor did they see Uncle’s grin. While Grandpa was making his announcement, they set their bowls on the ground and listened attentively. As soon as he was finished, they unfurled a large red poster and began pasting it to the trunk of a cottonwood tree opposite the kitchen door.

Solemnly, silently, Ding Yuejin and Jia Genzhu plastered their poster to the tree, then stood back to admire their work. The residents, crowding around the tree for a closer look, saw that it was a list of rules and regulations:

1. Every month, all residents of the school must contribute a certain quota to the communal food supply. Anyone who tries to cheat or comes up short can go fuck their grandmother, and may their whole family die of the fever.

2. All government donations of grain, rice, cooking oil and medicine will be administered by the school. Anyone who gets greedy or takes more than their share can go fuck their ancestors, and may all their descendants die of the fever.

3. Jia Genzhu and Ding Yuejin will be in charge of distributing coffins donated by the government, whenever we get them. Anyone who doesn’t follow orders will not receive a coffin, plus we will tell the whole village to go fuck that person’s ancestors and curse their descendants.

4. No one is allowed to embezzle school property or take it for their personal use without the express permission of Jia Genzhu and Ding Yuejin. Thieves and embezzlers will die a horrible death and their graves will be plundered.

5. All matters, big or small, pertaining to the common welfare must first be approved by Jia Genzhu and Ding Yuejin. Any business conducted without their written permission or without a stamp from the village party committee will be considered null and void. Anyone who disobeys will die young, lose their parents and have their kids crippled in car accidents.