Dream of Ding Village (29 page)

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.’

‘Who are they for?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘I can guess who one of them is for,’ said Uncle with a roguish grin. ‘He’s got the fever too, hasn’t he?’

Tingting turned her head away and said nothing. There were tears in her eyes.

Uncle couldn’t bring himself to say anything more, so he let the subject drop.

Grandpa went to talk to Xiaoming about the divorce.

When he arrived at the house and found no one home, he went out to the family’s field. Along the way, he ran into his sister-in-law, Xiaoming’s mother. Like a man asking a stranger for directions, he shouted brusquely: ‘Hey, you there! Are you off to water the fields?’

It turns out she was on her way to water the wheat crop. Her family’s field was located east of the village, near the ancient Yellow River path. While she was out there, it had occurred to her that if she mixed some chemical fertilizer into the irrigation water, it would save her the trouble of fertilizing the field by hand. She was just on her way home to fetch a bag of fertilizer when she’d run into Grandpa along the old river path. At first, she had no idea who he was shouting at. She glanced around to see who else was there, but seeing only the waist-high grass that grew along the roadside, realized that his question must have been meant for her.

‘Yes,’ she answered simply. ‘It’s that time again.’

Grandpa planted himself in the middle of the road, blocking her way. ‘I tell you, I could just kill that son of mine.’

‘I was afraid you were here as his matchmaker,’ she said with an icy smile. ‘To talk Xiaoming into giving that slut a divorce.’

Grandpa coloured slightly. ‘The pair of them are a disgrace.’

Xiaoming’s mother gave a snort of disbelief. For a few moments, she stared at Grandpa with disdain, her lip curled in a sneer. Then her expression softened. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ she said, more kindly. ‘Since you and I are in-laws, let me be honest with you. A divorce isn’t out of the question. Xiaoming’s got a fiancée now, a nice little girl – a virgin – never been married. But she’s asked for five thousand yuan to buy bridal gifts. If we can come up with the five thousand, she’ll agree to go ahead with the wedding.’

Xiaoming’s mother glanced around, as if to confirm that no one was lurking in the tall grass, eavesdropping on their
conversation. When she was certain they weren’t being overheard, she continued. ‘Your son is in a hurry to get married and make an honest woman of Lingling before he dies, right? So why not ask the two of them to come up with the five thousand yuan? Then Xiaoming can afford to get married, and those two can make it official, and be buried together when they die.’

Grandpa stood dumbstruck. A gust of wind rushed by, leaving his face and clothes smelling strongly of mugwort. The wheat was high, the fields needed water, and the mugwort was in bloom. It was that time again.

‘The thing is, my son and his girl are both healthy,’ Xiaoming’s mother continued. ‘She even showed him a slip from the hospital proving she doesn’t have the fever. But your son and that slut of his don’t have much time left. There’s no way they can out-wait Xiaoming. But if they can get their hands on five thousand yuan, he’ll agree to the divorce in a heartbeat. Then your son can marry the slut, my boy can marry his girl, and everyone will be happy.’

Grandpa remained rooted to his spot. Xiaoming’s mother brushed past him and continued on her way, hobbling off in the direction of the village. As he watched her leave, Grandpa shouted after her: ‘All the books say it’s a bad idea to put fertilizer in the irrigation water. Half of it evaporates, or ends up fertilizing the weeds, or flows into someone else’s field!’

Xiaoming’s mother walked a bit further before she turned and shouted back. ‘Brother-in-law, you used to be a teacher! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, acting as a matchmaker for those two!’

Grandpa stood tethered to the ground, like a useless wooden signpost along an ancient, dried-up river. A gnarled and withered stump surrounded by lush new fields of green.

It was nearly dusk by the time Grandpa located his nephew. Ding Xiaoming had finished irrigating his fields and was lounging along the old river path, relaxing after a hard day’s work. His mother had gone home to make dinner. The sunset
stained the plain a deep violet, the colour that happens when red sun, blue sky and green fields collide. A hazy violet light hung over the landscape like steam rising from the soil. When Grandpa arrived, he found his nephew smoking a cigarette beneath a scholar tree on the embankment, exhaling plumes of smoke that turned golden in the rays of the setting sun.

‘Where did you pick up that nasty habit, Xiaoming?’ Grandpa chided. ‘You never used to smoke.’

Xiaoming threw Grandpa a look and turned away his head.

Ignoring the insult, Grandpa squatted down on his heels. ‘Don’t you know that smoking is bad for you?’

Xiaoming took another long drag from his cigarette, as if to prove he knew smoking was bad for him but didn’t care less. ‘Too bad I’m not a bigwig county cadre like your son Ding Hui,’ he said. ‘I bet people give him all kinds of fancy liquor and cigarettes, more than he could ever drink or smoke. So I enjoy a pack of cheap smokes now and then. What do you care?’

Grandpa laughed and sat down next to Xiaoming. ‘I know my boys are good-for-nothings,’ he said with a rueful smile. ‘They’d be better off if someone ran them down with a car. But since that doesn’t seem likely, what can you do? It’s not like I’m allowed to strangle them. Besides, I’m too old for that. I haven’t got the strength.’

Xiaoming smiled. A mocking, thin-lipped smile that seemed tethered to the corners of his mouth by two golden threads. ‘So you just let them go on living the good life, huh? Ding Hui’s life is paradise, and he’s not even sick. Ding Liang’s got his paradise, too, at least until he croaks.’

Grandpa gazed at his nephew in silence. His cheeks were flushed, as if Xiaoming had slapped his face and left two angry red marks. Grandpa lowered his head for a moment, then raised it again, offering it up for another slap.

‘Xiaoming, if you want to take out your anger on someone, take it out on me. Go ahead, hit me. Slap me on both cheeks.’

Xiaoming laughed bitterly. ‘That’s very noble of you, Uncle Ding. Professor Ding. But if I ever laid a finger on you, Ding
Hui would probably send his cronies to arrest me, and Ding Liang would pour his blood into my family’s rice cooker and give us all AIDS.’

‘I’d sooner kill myself than let Hui lay a hand on you,’ Grandpa vowed. ‘And if Liang ever dared raise his voice in your presence, I’d chop his head off.’

This time, Xiaoming didn’t laugh or smile. His face was no longer mocking or bitter, but hard and angry, flushed as dark as congealed blood. ‘You certainly know how to talk, Uncle,’ he said quietly. ‘I suppose it comes from all those years of reading books and being a teacher. I always thought you were a reasonable man. But when Liang stole my woman, why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you try to stop him? You should have given him a good thrashing, or at least a good cursing, instead of letting them move in together like that.’

‘Xiaoming. Be honest with your old uncle.’ Grandpa’s tone was gentle. ‘Deep in your heart, do you really want Lingling back? Do you want to spend the rest of your life with her?’

Xiaoming snorted. ‘I wouldn’t touch that piece of trash again, no matter how desperate I was.’

‘Then why not divorce her and let them be together?’

‘Uncle, since you asked me to be honest, I might as well tell you the truth. I’m engaged to someone. She’s younger than Lingling, prettier and taller, and with lighter skin. She’s educated and classy, and she doesn’t want a penny of my money. All she wants me to do is go to the hospital and take an AIDS test to prove I don’t have the fever, to prove I never sold my blood. She’s going to take one, too. That’s our wedding present to each other. Blood tests. We were supposed to get married this month, but now Lingling and Ding Liang are shacked up together, and everyone in the village knows about it. I even hear they want to get married, make it official and all that, so they can be buried together when they die. Now I don’t feel like getting married right away, because I don’t want to give Lingling a divorce. If she and Ding Liang want to get married, they can wait – they can wait until they’re dead!’

Listening to Xiaoming’s angry, wounded talk, his smug and vengeful words, Grandpa realized that the situation was hopeless. When Xiaoming had finished speaking, Grandpa clambered down the embankment and began walking back towards the school.

The sunset reflected off the sandy soil, flooding the landscape with red. The cries of the season’s first cicadas rose from the plain, a collective buzzing like a chorus of tiny cracked bells off somewhere in the distance. After Grandpa had taken a few slow steps, he turned around and saw Xiaoming rise from the embankment as if he, too, were heading home. Their eyes met, and Grandpa halted. From the way Xiaoming was staring at him, it seemed the young man had something left to say. Grandpa stood and waited for him to speak.

‘Let Liang and Lingling wait,’ Xiaoming shouted. ‘Let them wait until they’re dead! Because that’s the day I’ll get married. When they’re both good and dead!’

Grandpa turned and continued on his way.

Further along, on a sandy shoal that had once been surrounded by water, a stand of mugwort grew as tall as pines. Grandpa was reminded of the pagoda pines and cypresses he’d seen in the city of Kaifeng. Mugwort grew wild all across the plain. In some of the other villages, they called it wormwood. Here was a small forest of it, a cluster of wormwood pagodas covered in a profusion of pale green and yellow leaves.

Grandpa followed the narrow path through the mugwort, displacing clouds of grasshoppers that clung to his shoes, trousers and shirt. He walked slowly, silently, through the last rays of the setting sun. The light had nearly faded, and he was about to turn from the path in the direction of the school, when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned to see Xiaoming a few dozen paces away, running to catch up. Xiaoming was sweating and gasping for breath, his face streaked with sand and dirt that he’d kicked up along the way. When he saw Grandpa turn around, he stopped in his tracks.

‘Hey there, Uncle!’ he shouted.

‘Xiaoming? What are you doing here?’