Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

the rump to get me moving faster. But Chief Chen stopped us and patted me on the back. I reared up. “He’s got a temper,” he said. “You’ll have to work on that. You can’t work with an animal that’s easily spooked. An animal like that is hard to train.” Then, in the tone of an old hand, he said, “Before I joined the revolution, I was a trader in donkeys. I’ve seen thousands of them, I know them like the palm of my hand, especially their temperament.” He laughed long and loud; my master laughed along with him, fatuously. “Lan Lian,” the chief said, “Hong Taiyue told me what happened, and I wasn’t happy with him. I told him that Lan Lian is one tough donkey, and you have to rub him with the grain. Don’t be impatient with him, or he might kick or bite you. I tell you, Lan Lian, you don’t have to join the co-op right away. See if you can compete with it. I know you were allotted eight acres of land, so see how much grain you harvest per acre next fall. Then check to see how much the co-op brings in. If you do better, you can keep working your land on your own. But if the co-op does better, you and I will have another talk.” “You said that,” my master said excitedly. “Don’t forget.” “Yes, I said it, you’ve got witnesses,” the district chief said, pointing to his bodyguard and the people who had gathered around us. My master led me back to the blacksmith shop, where he said, “He doesn’t limp at all. Every step was perfect. I’d never have believed that someone as young as your apprentice could do such an excellent job.” With a wry smile, the blacksmith shook his head, as if weighed down with concerns. Then I spotted the young blacksmith Jin Bian, a bedroll over his shoulder — the corners of a gray blanket sticking out from under a dog-skin wrapping — walking out of the shop. “Well, I’ll be leaving, Master,” he said. “Go ahead,” the old blacksmith replied sadly. “Go seek your glorious future!”

5

Ximen Bai Stands Trial for Digging Up Treasure
The Donkey Disrupts Proceedings and Jumps a Wall
    Now that I’d heard so many words of praise over my new shoes, I was in a fine mood, and my master was delighted with what the district chief had said. Master and donkey, Lan Lian and I, ran happily through the gold-washed autumn fields. Those were the best days of my donkey life. Yes, better to be a donkey everyone loves than a hopeless human. As your nominal brother Mo Yan wrote in the play The Black Donkey.
    Hooves felt light with four new shoes,
Running down the road like the wind.
Forgetting the half-baked previous life
Ximen Donkey was happy and relaxed.
He raised his head and shouted to the heavens,
Hee-haw, hee-haw —
    When we reached the village, Lan Lian picked some tender grass and yellow wildflowers from the side of the road to weave into a floral wreath, which he draped over my neck behind my ears. There we met the daughter of the stonemason Han Shan, Han Huahua, and their family’s female donkey, which was carrying a pair of saddlebag baskets; one held a baby in a rabbit fur cap, the other held a white piglet. Lan Lian struck up a conversation with Huahua; I made eye contact with her donkey. The humans had their speech, we had our own ways to communicate. Ours was based on body odors, body language, and instinct. From their brief conversation, my master learned that Huahua, who had been married to someone in a distant village, had come back for her mother’s sixtieth birthday and was now returning home. The baby in the basket was her infant son; the piglet was a gift from her parents. Back then, live animals, like piglets or lambs or chicks, were the preferred gifts. Government awards were often horses or cows or long-haired rabbits. My master and Huahua had a special relationship, and I thought back to when I was still Ximen Nao, how Lan Lian would be out with his cattle and Huahua would be out with her sheep, and the two of them would play donkeys frolicking in the grass. Truth is, I wasn’t all that interested in what they were doing now. As a potent male donkey, my immediate concern was the female donkey with the saddlebag baskets that was standing right there in front of me. She was older than me, somewhere between five and seven, by all appearances, which I determined from the depth of the hollow in her forehead. Naturally, she could just as easily — maybe even more easily — guess my age. Don’t assume that I was the smartest donkey