Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

everything to me. All it’ll take is money, three hundred thousand, half a million, a million, whatever it takes. There isn’t a goddamn woman alive who’d pass up money like that. Then you send for Pang Ghunmiao, and the two of you live like a couple of lovebirds. Truth is,”—he paused—“this isn’t the way we wanted to do it, since it’s a lot of trouble. But I am your brother, and she is her sister.”
    “Thank you,” I said, “for your wise counsel. But I don’t need it, I really don’t.” I walked to the door, took a few steps back toward him, and said, “Like you say, you are my brother, and they are sisters, so I advise you not to let your appetites grow too big. The gods have long arms. I, Lan Jiefang, am having an affair, but, after all, that’s a problem of morality. But one day, if you two aren’t careful . . .”
    “Who are you to be lecturing me?” He sneered. “Don’t blame me for what happens! Now get the hell out of here!”
    “What have you done with Ghunmiao?” I asked him dispassionately.
    “Get out!” His angry shout was absorbed by the leather padding on the door.
    I was back on Ximen Village streets, this time with tears in my eyes.
    I didn’t even turn my head when I walked past the Ximen family home. I knew I was an unfilial son, that both my parents would be gone before long, but I didn’t flinch.
    Hong Taiyue stopped me at the bridgehead. He was drunk. He grabbed my lapel and said loudly:
    “Lan Jiefang, you son of a bitch, you locked me up, an old revolutionary! One of Chairman Mao’s loyal warriors! A fighter against corruption! Well, you can lock me up, but you can’t lock up the truth! A true materialist fears nothing! And I’m sure not afraid of you people!”
    Some men came out of the public house from which Hong had been ejected to pull him away from me. The tears in my eyes kept me from seeing who they were.
    I crossed the bridge. The bright, golden sunlight made the river look like a great highway. Hong Taiyue’s shouts followed me:
    “Give me back my ox bone, you son of a bitch!”

49

Hezuo Cleans a Toilet In a Rainstorm
Jiefang Makes a Decision After a Beating
    A category-nine typhoon brought an almost unprecedented rainfall at night. I was always listless during spells of wet weather, wanting nothing more than to lie down and sleep. But that night, sleep was the furthest thing from my mind; both my hearing and smell were at their peak of sensitivity; my eyesight, owing to the constant streaks of powerful blue-white light, was dimmed, though not enough to affect my ability to discern each blade of grass and drop of water in every corner of the yard. Nor did it affect my ability to spot the cowering cicadas among the leaves of the parasol tree.
    The rain fell nonstop from seven until nine o’clock that night. Streaks of lightning made it possible for me to see rain flying down from the eaves of the main building like a wide cataract. The rain came out of the plastic tubing on the side rooms like watery pillars that arced downward onto the cement ground. The ditch beside the path was stopped up by all sorts of things, forcing the water up over the sides, where it swamped the path and the steps in front of the gate. A family of hedgehogs living in a woodpile by the wall was driven out by the rising water; their lives were clearly in danger.
    I was about to sound a warning to your wife, but before the bark emerged, a lantern was lit beneath the eaves, lighting up the entire yard. Out she stepped, shielded from the rain by a conical straw hat and a plastic rain cape. Her thin calves were exposed below her shorts; she was wearing plastic sandals with broken straps. Water cascading off the eaves knocked her rain hat to one side, where the wind blew it off her head altogether. Her hair was drenched in seconds. She ran to the west-side room, picked up a shovel from the pile of coal behind me, and ran back into the rain. Pooling rainwater swallowed up her calves as she ran; a bolt of lightning smothered the light from the lamp and turned her face, to which strands of wet hair clung, ghostly white. It was a frightening sight.
    She carried the shovel into the alley through the south gate. Crashing sounds came from inside almost at once. It was the dirtiest and messiest part of the yard, with decaying leaves, plastic bags blown in on the wind, and cat droppings. The sound of splashing water emerged; the level of standing water in the yard was lowering,