Yan Lianke - Dream of Ding Village

Lingling leaned into Uncle and gazed up at him, like a pampered child begging for attention. There was a shade of a smile on her face, a hint of anticipation, as if she couldn’t wait to call him ‘Daddy’, or for him to call her ‘Mummy’. She began stroking his skin with her fingertips, licking his flesh with her tongue. Her touch was a moist wind blowing over his skin: tickling, tantalizing, tingling. Uncle squirmed, unable to endure the sensation. He was caught between wanting to laugh and wanting to pin her body beneath his.

‘You temptress.’

‘You demon.’

‘Witch.’

‘Warlock.’

‘Mummy. . I want to do it.’

Lingling froze, as if she hadn’t expected Uncle to really use that word. Mummy. She seemed shocked that he’d said it, and maybe a little frightened. She raised her head to look at him, searching his face to see if he’d really meant it, or if his words were false. But Uncle wore the same easy smile he always had. The same lazy, foolish grin. Rascally, but with a touch of sincerity. Lingling wasn’t certain she liked what she saw there; when Uncle reached out to touch her, she gently moved his hand away. Uncle couldn’t stand it — he had to have her. His smile faded, and his expression grew serious. He gazed at her for a while, then opened his mouth and said it again.

‘Mummy. .’

At first, Lingling didn’t respond. Her eyes filled with tears, but she wouldn’t allow herself to cry. After a few moments, she reached silently for Uncle’s hand, the hand she had just pushed away, and placed it softly on her breast. It was a reward of sorts.

For a long time after that, the room was silent, but for the sounds they made. Sighs and moans. The rhythmic creaking of the bed, and the wood groaning under their weight, as if the bed had broken a leg, or was about to collapse. Neither worried about the bed collapsing. They were each immersed in their own mad passion. Making love with abandon.

Covers got kicked off the bed; clothes got scattered to the floor. They didn’t care, or even notice. By the time it was over, everything was on the floor.

When Lingling awoke, the sun was already high in the sky. It took her a moment to realize she hadn’t died during the previous night’s exertions, a frenzy that had driven her to the brink of exhaustion. It was like dying in a dream and waking up the next morning, shocked to find oneself still alive.

Lingling was awake before Uncle, who was still filling the room with his ragged snores. Thinking about the frenzied madness of the night before — how he had called her ‘Mummy’, and she had called him ‘Daddy’, and all the things they had done, the things they had shouted at each other — Lingling blushed a deep crimson. Lying next to Uncle’s sleeping form, thinking back to the night before, Lingling blushed and smiled. She rose from the bed silently, tiptoed to the door and threw it open. The full force of sunlight hit her head-on, sent her reeling, so that she had to grab the doorframe for support. When she had regained her balance, she saw from the position of the sun in the sky that it must be nearly noon. In the surrounding fields, the wheat was growing tall and lush, filling the air with its rich golden scent.

As usual, Ding Village seemed silent and still. Lingling noticed a knot of people approaching from the opposite direction, a group of villagers carrying shovels, ropes and wooden poles. They seemed to be passing by the threshing ground on their way back to the village. Some were dressed in funeral caps or mourning clothes, their silent, wooden expressions betraying neither grief nor joy. Only a couple of the men laughed and chattered as they walked. Lingling could hear snippets of their conversation, carried on the wind: Don’t be fooled by the nice weather. Sure, the wheat is growing well now, but come autumn, there’s going to be a drought . . What makes you say that? . . It’s in the almanac. It says come the sixth lunar month, there’s going to be a drought . .

As the group of villagers rounded the corner of the threshing ground, Lingling recognized some of them as Ding Xiaoming’s neighbours. They had been her friends and neighbours, too, when she and Xiaoming had lived together. Standing at the door of the little mud-brick house, she hailed one of the older men.

‘Hey, uncle!’ she shouted. ‘Who died?’

‘Zhao Xiuqin,’ the man answered.

Lingling was shocked. ‘But I saw her just a few days ago, carrying a bag of rice from the school into the village!’

‘Well, she got the fever more than a year ago, so she was lucky to make it this far. But that’s why she died, you know, because she brought home that bag of rice. She set it outside the door, and the minute her back was turned, one of the family’s pigs got into the bag and ate it all. You know Xiuqin’s temper. . she got so mad at that pig, she started chasing it around the yard and hitting it, beating it so bad she broke its spine. But it wore her out, it did. She started bleeding inside, coughing up a lot of blood, and the night before last, she died.’

Lingling turned a sickly shade of grey. She could almost feel herself bleeding internally, her own stomach filling with blood. Cautiously, tentatively, she ran her tongue over her lips and found no taste of blood. That was reassuring. But her heart was still racing, pounding in her chest, and she had to grab the wall for support.

‘You haven’t started making lunch yet?’ the man asked her.

‘I was just about to.’

The funeral procession continued on its way. Lingling was just about to turn and go back into the house when she spied her husband, Ding Xiaoming, at the back of the crowd. He carried a shovel, and seemed to be deliberately lagging behind the others. She wanted to rush indoors, but it was too late: he’d already seen her. She would have to say something.

‘Did you come to help with the burial?’ she called out.

Ding Xiaoming stared at her. ‘Xiuqin’s dead, and she had family and friends and people that cared about her. But you’ve got no one, you’re living out here like an outcast. It should have been you!’ He raised his voice. ‘You should have been dead a long time ago!’

Xiaoming’s angry words hit Lingling like a burst of gunfire. Before she could muster an answer, he had passed her and was rushing to catch up with the others.

Lingling stood in shock, watching him disappear in the direction of the village. After a few moments, she turned and slowly walked back into the house. She found Uncle awake, sitting on the edge of the bed getting dressed.

Lingling’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Let’s really do it,’ she said, a sob in her voice. ‘Let’s get married as soon as we can. And let’s move back to the village, okay? Just once before we die, I want us to be a respectable couple. You have to promise me, Daddy.’

Not long after that, Uncle went to ask his wife for a divorce. Tingting was living in her hometown of Song Village, located five or six miles from Ding Village. Uncle and Lingling made the trip on foot, and brought with them a bag of snacks for Uncle’s son, Little Jun. Uncle went into Song Village alone, while Lingling waited for him beneath a shady tree on the outskirts of the village.

When Uncle and his estranged wife were seated comfortably in the living room of her parents’ house, he told her: ‘I think we should get a divorce. To tell you the truth, I’d like to marry Lingling before I die. I just want to spend a few happy days with her before we’re gone.’

Tingting paled. She seemed to be thinking something over. ‘All right,’ she answered after a moment. ‘I’ll give you a divorce if you ask your brother to get me two good coffins. But make sure they’re good ones. . I want the very best caskets, the kind with carvings all over the sides.’