Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

out of a large, coarse china bowl. The water, it seemed, turned immediately to sweat, giving off a peculiar smell that was the essential odor of the handsome, innocent, hardworking boy’s being. “That’s some white-hoofed donkey,” the old blacksmith said with a sigh. Where I was standing, just outside the tent, not far from the road that led to the county town, I looked down and saw my snow-white hooves for the first time.
    The boy put down his bowl. “They’ve got two new hundred-horsepower East Is Red tractors over at the state-run farm, each one as powerful as a hundred horses. They attached a steel cable to a poplar tree so big it takes two people to wrap their arms around it, hooked it to one of those tractors, and it yanked the tree right out of the ground, roots and all. Those roots were half a block long.” “You know everything, don’t you!” the old blacksmith scolded the boy. Then he turned to my master. “Old Lan,” he said, “it may only be a donkey, but it looks like you’ve got a good one. Who knows, some high official might get tired of riding a fine horse one day and decide it’s time to ride a donkey. When that day comes, Lan Lian, donkey luck will be yours for the asking.” The boy smirked at that, then burst out laughing. He stopped laughing as abruptly as he’d started, as if the laughter and the expression that flashed onto his face and immediately vanished were private business. The old blacksmith was clearly shocked by the boy’s bizarre laughter. “Jin Bian,” he said after a moment, “do we have any horseshoes?” As if he’d been waiting for the question, Jin Bian replied, “We have a lot, but all for horses. We can put them into the forge, heat them up, and change them into donkey shoes.” And that is what they did. In the time it takes to smoke a pipe, they had turned four horseshoes into four donkey shoes. Then the boy moved a stool outside and put it on the ground behind me, so the old blacksmith could lift up my legs and trim my hooves with a pair of sharp shears. When he was finished, he stepped back to look me over. Again he sighed, this time with deep emotion. “This really is a fine donkey,” the blacksmith said. “It’s the best looking one I’ve ever seen!” “No matter how good-looking he is, he’s no match for one of those combines. The state-run farm imported a bright red one from the Soviet Union. It can harvest a row of wheat in the blink of an eye. It gobbles up the wheat stalks in front and shoots the kernels out the back. In five minutes you’ve got a bagful.” All this the boy said with breathless admiration. The old blacksmith sighed. “Jin Bian,” he said, “it sounds like I won’t be able to keep you here for long. But even if you leave tomorrow, today we’ve got to shoe this donkey.” Jin Bian came up alongside me and lifted one of my legs, hammer in hand and mouth full of nails. He fitted a shoe on my hoof with one hand and hammered it on with the other, two strokes per nail, never missing a beat. One down. All four shoes took him less than twenty minutes. When he finished, he threw down his hammer and walked back inside the tent. “Lan Lian,” the blacksmith said, “walk him a bit to see if there’s a limp.” So my master started me walking, from the supply and marketing co-op over to the butcher shop, where they were just then butchering a black pig. White knife in, red knife out, a terrifying sight. The butcher was wearing an emerald green old-style jacket, and the contrast with the red was eye-popping. We left the butcher shop and walked to the District Government Office, where we met with District Chief Chen and his bodyguard. The opening-day ceremony for the Ximen Village Farming Co-op must have ended. The district chief’s bicycle was broken; his guard was carrying it over his shoulder. One look from District Chief Chen and he couldn’t keep his eyes off me. How good-looking and powerful I must have been to catch his attention like that! I knew I was an intimidating donkey among donkeys; maybe Lord Yama had given me the finest donkey legs and the cream of donkey heads out of an obligation to Ximen Nao. “That’s a wonderful donkey,” I heard Chief Chen say. “His hooves look like they’re stepping in snow. He’d be perfect at the livestock work station as a stud.” I heard his bicycle-toting guard ask my master, “Are you Lan Lian from Ximen Village?” “Yes,” my master replied as he slapped me on