Yan Lianke - Dream of Ding Village

The young man took a deep breath and turned to stare at Uncle. ‘You dog, you. .’

Uncle laughed. Lingling heard the sound behind her, but continued bustling around hanging laundry and doing chores, her movements allowing the visitor to fully appreciate her beauty. In every way, Lingling was more than a match for Song Tingting, uncle’s wife. Maybe her rounded face wasn’t quite as easy on the eye as Tingting’s slightly more oval face, but she was young, barely into her twenties, and nubile from head to toe. She had an irrepressible youthful energy that Tingting lacked. The youthful visitor stared at Lingling, lovestruck.

Uncle gave him a swift kick in the behind. The young man blushed, and so did Lingling. Then, remembering the shoulder pole he was carrying, he went into the house to unload Uncle’s things. Lingling poured the visitor a glass of water, but after being caught staring so blatantly, he was too embarrassed to sit down for a drink. He made an excuse about having something to do, and with one last glance at Lingling, took his leave. Lingling escorted him as far as the door, and Uncle accompanied him to the edge of the threshing ground.

‘You’ve got it good here, brother,’ said the young man as they reached the edge of the threshing ground. ‘If I had a woman like Lingling, I wouldn’t care if I got the fever twice.’

‘When you know you’re going to die soon, you grab love while you can, right?’ Uncle smiled.

‘You ought to marry her,’ said the young man earnestly. ‘That way, you can move back into your house and live together properly.’

As Uncle watched his visitor walk off, his smile faded. He seemed lost in thought.

One day, as Grandpa was pottering around his rooms, Uncle came to visit. He had some news: he and Lingling wanted to get married. Uncle planned to divorce his wife, and Lingling planned to divorce her husband: two more bits of news. He had also come to ask a favour.

Uncle and Grandpa, it seemed, had a lot to talk about.

‘Dad, I want to marry Lingling,’ Uncle announced, grinning.

Grandpa stared at him in shock. ‘You’ve got some nerve, coming here.’

It was the first time Uncle had visited Grandpa, or held a proper conversation with him, since he’d moved in with Lingling a fortnight earlier. Although he’d come to discuss a serious matter, Uncle wore the same lazy grin he always had. Even Grandpa’s angry reaction wasn’t enough to wipe the smile off his face.

‘I want to marry Lingling,’ Uncle repeated, leaning casually against the table.

‘You’re just like your brother.’ Grandpa looked askance at his youngest son. ‘You’d both be better off dead.’

Uncle straightened up, the smile fading from his face. ‘Dad, I’m serious. We’re going to get married.’

Grandpa stared in disbelief. After a few moments, he said through gritted teeth: ‘Are you insane? How much time do you think you have left? Or Lingling, for that matter?’

‘What’s so insane about it? And who gives a damn how much time we have left?’

‘You think you’ll live through next winter?’

‘Probably not. That’s why I’m in a hurry to marry her. Every day counts.’

Grandpa’s silence seemed to stretch for an eternity.

‘How can you possibly marry her?’ he asked, after a while.

‘I’m going to go and see Tingting and ask her for a divorce.’ As Uncle spoke, his face lit up with a smug grin, as if he’d just done something very clever or scored some sort of victory.

‘This time it’s me asking her for a divorce.’ His grin widened. ‘And not the other way around.’

Uncle’s face grew serious. ‘But Lingling’s afraid to set foot in her in-laws’ house, so you’ve got to talk Xiaoming and his parents into granting her a divorce.’

For a long time, a very long time, Grandpa said nothing. After a lifetime of silence, a lifetime and then some, Grandpa spoke again through gritted teeth. His words were cold and hard.

‘I won’t do it. I’m too ashamed.’

Uncle left Grandpa’s rooms. On his way out, with a wink and a smile, he said: ‘If you won’t do it, I’ll send Lingling to get down on her knees and beg you.’

Which is exactly what Lingling did.

She came to Grandpa’s rooms and knelt on the ground in front of him.

‘Please, Uncle,’ she said. ‘I’m begging you to help us. I don’t think Ding Liang is going to live through the summer. Even if he does, I doubt he’ll last the autumn or winter. He’s got pus-filled sores all over his crotch. They’re so infected, I have to spend hours every day wiping them down with a hot towel.

‘I doubt I’ll make it through the year, either. Xiaoming and his parents don’t want me, and neither does my family. When I went home, my brother and his wife, even my own parents, avoided me like the plague. But until I’m dead, I have to go on living, right? Wouldn’t you agree? Until the day I die, I have to find a reason to go on living.

‘Tingting wants a divorce, and so does Xiaoming. Even Xiaoming’s parents agree. Since that’s what everybody wants, why not go ahead and do it? Then your son and I can get married. Even if it’s only for a few months, at least we’ll be legally married, and when we die, we can be buried together like decent, respectable people.

‘Uncle, just once before I’m gone, I want to be able to call you “Dad”. And when I’m dead, I want you to bury me next to your son. We love each other, and we should be buried as husband and wife, as family. With me to keep him company, you’ll never have to worry. And if someday you pass away, after living to be a hundred years old, I promise to be a filial daughter-in-law in the afterlife, and take good care of you and your wife.

‘Uncle, please. . Talk to Xiaoming and his parents. As someone who loves your son, as your future daughter-in-law, I’m begging you. . I’m willing to go down on my hands and knees, to kowtow as many times as I have to, if only you’ll help us. .’

With this, Lingling struck her head against the ground, in the ritual kowtow.

Once. Twice. A third time.

She wouldn’t stop until Grandpa agreed to help.

A summer’s evening, cool and pleasant. All across the plain, no one wanted to sleep. It seemed a pity to stay indoors and sleep away such a fine evening. In Ding Village, Willow Hamlet, Ferry Crossing and other villages on the plain, sick and well alike sat in doorways or outside, chatting about things past and present, gossiping about other people’s lives, and generally rambling about this and that as they enjoyed the cool night air.

Uncle and Lingling, too, were enjoying the fine evening. They sat together outside their little mud-brick house on the threshing ground. The village lay in one direction; in the other, the school. The wheat-threshing ground was located about halfway between the two. Separated by less than a mile in either direction, it occupied the tranquil mid-point.

Distant lights in both directions gave off a faint yellow glow, a dusky gleam that seemed brighter, somehow, than the moon or stars. It was only during the wheat harvest that the threshing ground lived up to its name. The rest of the year, it was nothing more than a flat stretch of dirt, an empty yard that no one used.

That night, the moon appeared to be floating right overhead. To the villagers, it seemed to hang directly over their houses. But out on the threshing ground it hung above the plain, flooding the landscape with water-coloured light. Beneath that pale moon, the plain was a vast lake of invisible shores. Flat, tranquil and reflective. When a dog barked in the village, the noise rippled the silence of the plain like a fish leaping from the surface. From the surrounding fields came a faint rustling of wheat, like water trickling through sandy soil.