Yan Lianke - Dream of Ding Village

‘Hey, Ding Liang!’ shouted one of the village men. ‘Where are you going with that load of stuff?’

Ding Liang stopped in his tracks. ‘It’s not your stuff. Why should you care?’

That shut the man up. After a while, he mumbled: ‘What the hell. . I was just trying to be helpful.’

‘If you want to be helpful, why not trade places? You take my fever, and I’ll take your health in exchange. That will really lighten my load.’

‘You’re unbelievable.’

‘Oh, yes? How so?’

‘Just go, leave.’

But Ding Liang stood his ground. ‘Why should I be the one to go? It’s not like I’m standing in your living room.’

Seeing that Ding Liang wasn’t going to budge, nor answer any questions about his relationship with Lingling, the other man left. But he didn’t go directly home. Instead, he paid a visit to Lingling’s husband and in-laws. Moments later, Lingling’s mother-in-law emerged from the house, her face angry and her hair dishevelled. She stormed through the village, heading straight for the threshing ground. Clutching a stout wooden stick she had picked up somewhere along the way, she looked like a soldier armed for battle. A crowd of curiosity-seekers, women and children mostly, trailed along behind her.

As she reached the threshing ground, she let loose a torrent of abuse: ‘Lingling, you slut! You’re so loose you could drive a truck between your open legs! Come out here and face me, you whore!’

But it was Uncle, not Lingling, who emerged from the mud-brick house to face the angry mother-in-law. When he was standing a few metres away from her, he stopped, tucked his hands into his pockets, and took up a defiant posture: one foot forward, one foot behind, so that his upper body slouched backwards. ‘If you’re going to curse anyone, Auntie,’ he drawled, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth, ‘if you’re going to beat anyone, it ought to be me. I’m the one who seduced Lingling, and talked her into moving in with me.’

The woman fixed Ding Liang with a stare. ‘No, you tell her to come out here this instant!’

‘She’s my wife now, so if you’ve got a problem with her, you can take it up with me.’

‘Your wife, you say?’ Her eyes widened in disbelief. ‘Until she and Xiaoming are divorced, she’s still his wife, and my daughter-in-law! Look at you, you’re a disgrace! Your cousin is a respectable man, and your father was a teacher. . I honestly don’t know how he ended up with sons like you. You boys are a disgrace to the family name.’

Uncle laughed. ‘Call me a disgrace if you like, Auntie. You can call me names, beat me and curse me all you want, but it’s not going to change the fact that Lingling belongs to me. She’s mine.’

Lingling’s mother-in-law was no longer angry — she was livid. Her face swept through the whole spectrum of anger: shocked white, thunderous grey, furious red, seething purple. It was as if Uncle had delivered her a personal humiliation, or spat right in her face. Her lips and hands trembled with rage. At this point, there was nothing for it but violence and curses. Nothing short of a good, round beating and tongue-lashing could set this straight. The scream that issued from Lingling’s mother-in-law’s lips was incomprehensible, but there was no mistaking her gesture: an arm raised high in the air, brandishing a big stick.

Uncle removed his hands from his pockets, took a few steps forward and squatted on the ground in front of her, penitent.

‘Go ahead, Auntie. Hit me. Beat me to death, if that’s what you want.’

Her arm remained raised, the stick frozen in mid-air. If she wanted to beat him, here he was, squatting on the ground in front of her. But was that really what she wanted, to beat her own nephew? Maybe her curses were just for show, a way to vent her anger and save face in front of the other villagers. If she hadn’t cursed him out, she’d never be able to face people or hold her head high, at least not in this village. But no, she couldn’t bring herself to beat her nephew, not after he’d squatted on the ground, offered himself up like that, and even called her ‘auntie’.

The spring sun flooded the threshing ground with pale translucent light. All around, the wheat was moist and green. In someone’s field, a lonely goat — goats were such a luxury these days, who had the energy or the means to raise them? — nibbled at the tender stalks of wheat.

Baaaaa . . The goat’s thin bleating floated through the air like a ribbon of sound.

Uncle crouched on the ground, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for the blow to fall. But the blow never came. Lingling’s mother-in-law lowered her stick and turned to the villagers. ‘You see that? I don’t know how Ding Liang can still call himself a man, when he’ll squat down in the dirt and take a beating for some filthy whore.’

Then, raising her voice: ‘You saw it, didn’t you? We all saw it. We ought to go to the school right now and bring them down here so they can see what kind of son Ding Shuiyang raised. The kind of man who would humiliate himself for a common slut.’

Still shouting and cursing, Lingling’s mother-in-law turned and began walking towards the village. The crowd of onlookers followed her, throwing backward glances at my uncle, like a lynch mob going back to the village to fetch reinforcements. Uncle slowly rose to his feet and watched them leave.

When they were some distance away, he shouted: ‘All right, Aunt! So you cursed me and made me lose face. But Lingling and I are going to live together, whether you like it or not. If you keep on like this, I won’t be so nice next time!’

From then on, Lingling and Uncle didn’t care what anyone said. Now and then, humming a happy tune, uncle returned to his house to cart odds and ends back to his love nest.

The older villagers, with an insight born of long experience, were openly sympathetic to the young couple. If they happened to meet Uncle on the road, they would gaze at him for a while, and then inquire how they might help. ‘Liang,’ said one elderly man. ‘Is there anything you kids need? If so, I can lend you something from my house.’

Uncle, moved by this kindness, stopped and thanked him for his concern. ‘That’s kind of you, Uncle,’ he said, tears welling up in his eyes. ‘But we have everything we need. Besides, if you helped us, you’d be the laughingstock of the village.’

‘Let them laugh. A lifetime is a lifetime, whether it’s a long one or a short one. When you’re this close to death, I say live and let live.’

Uncle, unable to hold back his tears, began to cry.

If one of the younger villagers happened to see Uncle on his way to the threshing ground, perspiring and struggling under a heavy load of food or furnishings, he would take the pole from Uncle’s shoulders and transfer it to his own. ‘You’re not strong enough to be carting all these things around,’ one young man chided him. ‘If you need something carried, you just give me a shout.’

Uncle laughed. ‘I can handle it. I’m not worthless yet.’

The man smiled and edged a bit closer. ‘So, brother, be honest. . has the fever stopped you and Lingling from, you know, doing it?’

‘Not at all,’ Uncle bragged. ‘We do it twice a night.’

The man carrying the shoulder pole halted in surprise. ‘Seriously?’

‘Of course. Why else would Lingling be willing to ruin her reputation by moving in with me?’

The young man, taking Uncle at his word, shook his head in amazement.

The conversation ended when they reached the threshing ground, but the young man couldn’t keep himself from staring at Lingling, eyeing her from behind when she wasn’t looking. Sure enough, Lingling had a fantastic figure: narrow waist, shapely behind, a broad back and shiny jet-black hair that flowed over her shoulders like water. Noticing that his visitor was staring at Lingling’s hair, Uncle sidled over and whispered in his ear: ‘She lets me brush it.’