Yan Lianke - Dream of Ding Village

Uncle squeezed through the crowd to plead the boy’s case. ‘Dad, it’s not like the desks belong to us. Why bother yourself?’

‘Shut your mouth,’ Grandpa snapped. ‘If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be in this mess.’

Uncle smiled and said nothing. Still smiling, he melted back into the crowd, adding: ‘All right, all right, I’ll stay out of it. I suppose it’s none of my business.’

Zhao Xiuqin was the next to step forward. ‘Professor Ding, you can’t be that short-sighted. I don’t see your name written on any of these desks.’

‘How would you know, Xiuqin?’ Grandpa retorted. ‘You wouldn’t even recognize your own name.’

Zhao Xiuqin’s mouth fell open, but no sound emerged. For once, she was speechless.

Now it was Ding Yuejin who elbowed his way through the crowd, pushing people aside. ‘Professor, I gave Genbao permission to take those desks. Get out of the way and let him through.’

‘Oh, just because you gave permission, that makes it okay?’ Grandpa pushed his face so close to Yuejin’s that it seemed he might swallow him up.

Yuejin, unafraid of Grandpa, stared right back at him. ‘Jia Genzhu and I both gave permission,’ he declared loudly. ‘We talked it over and decided to let his brother take the desks.’

Grandpa stiffened and stared up at the sky, ignoring Jia Genzhu and Ding Yuejin. Then, with a quick glance at the crowd of villagers, he raised his chin and said: ‘If you want to get past this gate, you’ll have to drive right over me.’

Grandpa yanked the metal gates on either side of him shut, so that his body was trapped in the middle. It was as if he were soldered to the gate, and no amount of pushing, pulling or punching on the part of Genzhu or Yuejin was going to separate him from it.

The situation had reached a deadlock. The atmosphere had turned to ice. No one in the crowd said a word. They looked from Jia Genzhu to Ding Yuejin to Grandpa, waiting to see how the three men would break the impasse. By now, everyone realized that Grandpa’s refusal to let the desks leave the school had nothing to do with desks, or with the affair between Uncle and Lingling. It was a struggle for control of the school. . and everything in it.

And so, silently, they waited. A black mood prevailed over the three men. Despite the early spring sunshine, the atmosphere sent a chill through everyone in the schoolyard.

The signed and sealed document trembled in Jia Genzhu’s hand. Ever so slightly, but the tremor was there. His face was the colour of storm clouds, his lips taut as strung wire. He eyed Grandpa warily, as if the old man were an ageing bull that hadn’t lost its strength to fight. An old ox who simply refused to die.

Unlike Jia Genzhu, Ding Yuejin showed no sign of anger. His was the helpless expression of a man whose face has just been spat in. For better or worse, Grandpa was still his uncle, and his former teacher, besides. There was very little Yuejin could do in this situation. Instead, he looked to Genzhu, hoping that the other man would do something to get Grandpa to step away from the gate and allow Genbao to leave with the desks. Since it was Jia Genzhu’s brother getting married, and his family who wanted the desks for the wedding banquet, it seemed up to Genzhu to resolve the situation. Everyone knew that Genzhu’s twenty-two-year-old brother had the fever, but since he had never sold his blood, it wasn’t clear how he’d become infected. The only reason Genbao had been able to find a wife — that is, to trick a girl from another village into marrying him — was that the entire population of Ding Village had conspired to hide the truth about his infection from outsiders. Genbao’s fiancée, two years his junior, was a pretty, well-educated young woman who had taken the university entrance exam and failed. She’d failed by just a few marks. A few more marks and she would have passed the exam, entered university and never had to marry Jia Genbao. But she hadn’t passed, and now she was marrying into Ding Village, marrying into the fever.

‘But mother,’ the girl had complained, ‘they say everyone in Ding Village has the fever.’

‘The villagers swore to me that Genbao doesn’t have it,’ her mother had answered. ‘Since he’s not infected, what are you so worried about?

‘I sent you to school for ten years,’ she reminded her daughter, ‘and you didn’t even pass the university exam. I haven’t fed and clothed you for twenty years to see it all go to waste. You think I’m going to let you live at home until you die an old maid?’

The girl had burst into tears.

Eventually, tearfully, she had promised to marry into Ding Village. The wedding was to take place in a matter of days. Once he was married, Genbao would be a real man, a man who might have descendants to carry on his family name. Because he had the fever, he probably wouldn’t live long enough to get to know his own children, but at least he wouldn’t die with so many regrets. He had been eagerly awaiting his wedding, happily making preparations, and now the only thing left was to find a few tables for the wedding banquet. Genbao never imagined that a few days before his wedding, he’d find Grandpa blocking his path.

Grandpa wasn’t just standing in the way of the desks, he was standing in the way of his happiness. A thin, frail young man, Genbao was still in the early stage of his disease. The initial fever hadn’t faded yet, and it had left him weak and listless. Because he was so small and sick, and because Grandpa was so many years his senior, Genbao could do nothing but look pitiful and hope his big brother would come to his rescue. Genzhu had promised that as long as he was alive and in charge of the school and the village, he would see to it that his family’s future was secure. This included paying for his younger brother’s wedding, making funeral arrangements for his elderly parents and adding a few extra rooms to the house, something they’d hoped to do during the blood boom but had never been able to afford. Yet here was Grandpa, blocking the gate and refusing to let Genbao borrow a few crummy desks. It was pitiful to see the way Genbao looked at his older brother, as if hoping he’d say something to make Grandpa get out of the way and let them leave with the desks he needed for his wedding banquet.

With a half-hopeful, half-embarrassed expression, Genbao stared up at his big brother, waiting for him to speak. After a few moments, Genzhu said calmly, ‘Genbao, take these desks back to wherever you found them.’

Genbao stared at his brother in confusion.

‘Do as I say. Put them back where you found them.’

Sadly, reluctantly, Genbao turned his cart around and began trudging back to the schoolhouse. The wheeled cart, groaning under the weight of so many desks, left a trail of dust in its wake. As they watched the cart move slowly across the schoolyard, the faces of the residents registered disappointment and dismay. They couldn’t understand why Genzhu had backed down, or why the confrontation had come to such an abysmal ending. The sun had shifted to the centre of the schoolyard, and the atmosphere was thick with the scent of early spring. Grass and trees sprouting on the plain filled the air with moisture, like dampness rising from a river.

Grandpa, too, was surprised that things had ended this way. He certainly hadn’t expected Jia Genzhu to be so reasonable, or to give in so easily. He suddenly felt guilty, as if he’d wronged Genzhu somehow, or ruined his little brother’s wedding. Gazing towards the schoolhouse at the frail young man unloading desks from his cart, Grandpa turned to Genzhu. ‘I’ll help you borrow some tables. I can’t believe there isn’t a single banquet table left in this village.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Genzhu answered icily. His words were cold, enunciated, deliberate. As he brushed past Grandpa at the gate, his face was hard and angry, the veins on his neck standing out like pale blue willow branches. Everyone in the crowd saw it: the coldness he directed towards Grandpa as he passed through the gate and began walking towards the village. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Clutching his walking stick, a tree stump with the branches removed, he limped slowly across the plain.