Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

you’re also . . .”
    She handed Kaifeng to Hezuo, who held her son close. Because a wild boar had taken a chunk out of her rear end, she now had a hard time keeping her balance and often leaned to one side. You, Lan Jiefang, reached out to take the third generation of blue-faced boy from her, but she refused.
    Yingchun picked me, the runt of the litter, up from the kang and put me into Lan Kaifang’s arms.
    “Kaifang,” she said, “this one’s yours. He’s the smartest.”
    All the while this was happening, Lan Lian rested on his haunches beside the dog kennel, where he covered the bitch’s eyes with a piece of black cloth and rubbed her head to keep her calm.

38

Jinlong Raves about Lofty Ideals
Hezuo Silently Recalls Old Enmities
    I just about jumped out of the wicker chair, but managed to hold back. I lit a cigarette and slowly puffed on it to calm down. I stole a glance at the eerie blue eyes of Big-head Lan, and in them I saw the cold, hostile look of the dog that accompanied my former wife and my son for fifteen years. But then I discovered it was similar to the look of my deceased son, Lan Kaifang: just as cold, just as hostile, just as unforgiving toward me.
    I’d been assigned as head of the Political Section at the County Supply and Marketing Cooperative, and no matter how you look at it, I was one of those people who amused himself by writing florid little essays for the provincial newspaper.
    By that time, Mo Yan had already been sent to help out at the Reports Section of the County Committee Propaganda Department, and even though he held a peasant household registration, his almost fanatical ambition was known throughout the county. He wrote day and night, never combing his hair; his clothes, which reeked of cigarette smoke, were only washed when it rained and he could hang them outside in time. My former wife, Huang Hezuo, was so fond of this slob she never failed to lay out tea and cigarettes when he dropped by, while my dog and my son seemed hostile to him.
    Anyway, soon after I was transferred over to the County Supply and Marketing Cooperative, Hezuo was assigned to the restaurant at the co-op’s bus station, where her job was to fry oil fritters. I never said she was a bad woman, and I’d never go public with any of her shortcomings. She cried when I told her I wanted a divorce and asked me: What is it you don’t like about me? And my son asked: Papa, what did Mama ever do to you? My parents were less generous: You’re no big shot, son, so what makes you think you’re too good for her? My inlaws were the bluntest of all: Lan Jiefang, you bastard son of Lan Lian, take a piss and look at yourself in the puddle. Finally, my superior assumed a somber tone when he heard the news: Comrade Jiefang, you could use a little self-awareness! Yes, I admit it, Huang Hezuo did nothing wrong, and she was easily my equal, or better. But I, well, I simply didn’t love her.
    The day that Mother returned the children to their parents and handed out the puppies, Pang Kangmei, then deputy head of the County Committee Organization Department, had her driver take a group photo of the four couples, four children, and four puppies under the apricot tree in the family compound. To look at the photo, you’d think we were one happy family, whereas in fact dark schemes rested in all our hearts. Copies of the photo hung in six homes, but probably none of them has survived.
    After the picture was taken, Chang Tianhong and Pang Kangmei offered to take us home in their car. While I was trying to make up my mind, Hezuo thanked them but said she wanted to spend the night at Mother’s house. Then, as soon as the car drove off, she picked up our son and the puppy and said she wanted to go; nothing anyone said could change her mind. Just then the puppies’ mother broke free of Father’s grip and ran outside, the blindfold having slipped down around her neck and looking like a black necklace. She went straight for my wife before I could stop her and sank her teeth into Hezuo, who shrieked and was only able to keep from falling by sheer force of will. She insisted we leave immediately, but Baofeng ran inside for her medical kit and tended to Hezuo’s injured buttock. Jinlong took me aside, gave me a cigarette, and lit one for himself. Little clouds of smoke veiled our faces. In a tone of voice that was somewhere between sympathy and ridicule, he said:
    “Can’t take it anymore, is that it?”
    “No,” I replied