Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

perfectly innocent and simple relationship. Given his natural melancholy, Lan Jinlong remained more or less aloof. Lan Jiefang and the Huang twins were best friends, with the girls always calling the boy Elder Brother Jiefang; as for him, a boy who loved to eat, he was always willing to save some of his sweets for the girls.
    “Mother, Jiefang gave his candy to Huzhu and Hezuo,” Baofeng told their mother on the sly.
    “It’s his candy, he can give it to anyone he wants,” Yingchun said to her daughter with a pat on the head.
    But the children’s stories haven’t really begun yet. Their dramas won’t take center stage for another ten years or more. So for the time being, they’ll have to stay with their minor roles.
    Now is the time for a very important character to come on stage. His name is Pang Hu, which, interestingly, means Colossal Tiger. He has a face like a date and eyes like the brightest stars. He’s wearing a padded army cap and a crudely stitched jacket on which a pair of medals is pinned. He keeps a pen in his shirt pocket, a silvery watch on his wrist. He walks on crutches; his right leg is perfectly normal, but his left one ends at the knee, his khaki pant leg knotted just below the stump. He wears a new leather shoe, with the nap on the outside, on his good leg. The moment he came through the gate, everyone in the compound — adults, children, even me — was awestruck. During those days, men like that could only have been heroic members of China’s volunteer army who had returned from the fighting in Korea.
    The battlefield hero walked up to Lan Lian, his crutches thudding against the brick path, his good leg landing heavily at each step, as if putting down root, the empty cuff on the other leg swaying back and forth.
    “If I’m not mistaken,” he said, “you must be Lan Lian.”
    Lan Lian’s face twitched in response.
    “Hello, there, volunteer soldier,” Lan Jiefang, the chatterbox, ran up to greet the stranger, oozing reverence. “Long live the volunteer soldiers!” he said. “You’re a war hero, I just know it. What do you want with my father? He’s not much of a talker. I’m his spokesman.”
    “Shut up, Jiefang!” Lan Lian barked. “This is adult business, stay out of it.”
    “No harm done,” the war hero said with a kindly smile. “You’re Lan Lian’s son, Lan Jiefang, am I right?”
    “Do you know how to tell fortunes?” Jiefang sputtered, unable to conceal his surprise.
    “No,” the war hero said with a crafty smile, “but I know how to read faces.” That said, he turned serious once more, tucking one crutch under his arm and offering his hand to Lan Lian. “Glad to meet you, my friend. I’m Pang Hu, new director of the district Supply and Marketing Co-op. Wang Leyun, who sells farming implements in the sales department of the production unit, is my wife.”
    Lan Lian, at a momentary loss, shook hands with the war hero, who saw in his perplexed look that he was in a bit of a fog. Turning around, the man shouted:
    “Gather round, all of you!”
    Just then a short, rotund woman in a blue uniform, a pretty little girl in her arms, strode in the gate. The white-framed eyeglasses she wore told everyone that she was not a farmer. Her baby had big round eyes and rosy cheeks like autumn apples. Beaming from ear to ear, she was the perfect example of a happy child.
    “Ah,” Lan Lian exclaimed happily, “so this is the comrade you’re talking about.” He turned toward the western rooms and called to his wife. “Gome out here, we have honored guests.”
    I recognized her too. The memory of something that had happened the previous winter was still clear. Lan Lian had taken me to the county town to get some salt, and on the way back we’d met up with this Wang Leyun. She was sitting by the side of the road, heavily pregnant and moaning. She was wearing a blue uniform then too, but the bottom three buttons were undone to accommodate her swollen belly. Her white-framed eyeglasses and fair skin marked her immediately as a government worker. Her savior had arrived, as she saw it. Please, brother, help me, she said with considerable difficulty. — Where are you from? What’s happened? — My name is Wang Leyun. I work at the district Supply and Marketing Co-op. I was on my way to a meeting, since I didn’t think it was time, but. . . but. . . Seeing a bicycle lying nearby in the bushes, we knew at once the predicament she was in. Lan Lian walked around in