Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

He took the money out of an inner pocket and held it out to the ox trader.
    “You can have them both for five hundred,” the man replied. “I’m not going to repeat myself. Either buy them or be on your way. I don’t have time to argue.”
    “I said I only have a hundred.” Father laid the money at the trader’s feet. “I want that young one.”
    “Pick your money up!”
    Father was on his haunches in front of the young ox, intense emotion suffusing his face. He stroked the animal. Obviously, he hadn’t heard the trader’s remark.
    “Go on, Uncle, sell it to him . . . ,” the boy said.
    “Keep your opinions to yourself!” the man said as he handed the mother ox’s tether to the boy. “Take her!” He walked up and pushed Father away from the young ox so he could lead it over to its mother. “I’ve never seen anybody like you,” he said. “Don’t get any ideas about taking it without my approval.”
    Father was sitting on the ground, looking dazed.
    “I don’t care,” he said, as if possessed. “This is the ox I want.”
    Now, of course, I understand why he was so insistent on buying that particular animal, but at the time I didn’t know that the ox was the latest incarnation of Ximen Nao — Ximen Donkey. What I thought was, Father was under such pressure owing to his perverse insistence on remaining an independent farmer that he wasn’t himself mentally or emotionally. Now I’m convinced there was a spiritual bond between him and that ox.
    In the end we bought the ox. It was inevitable, all previously arranged in the underworld. When nothing had yet been settled between Father and the ox trader, the Party branch secretary of the Ximen Village Production Brigade, Hong Taiyue, the brigade commander, Huang Tong, and some other people entered the market. They saw the mother ox and, of course, the young animal. Hong deftly opened the mother’s mouth.
    “The teeth are all worn down. This one belongs at the knackers.”
    “Elder brother,” the ox trader said with a sneer, “nobody says you have to buy my animals, but you can’t talk about them like that. How can you call these teeth worn down? I tell you, if the brigade wasn’t so short of money, I wouldn’t sell her for any amount. I’d take her home to mate and have another calf next spring.”
    Hong stretched his hand out of his wide sleeve to negotiate price in the tried and tested tradition of livestock markets. But the man waved him off.
    “None of that. Here’s the deal. Both for five hundred, the one and only price.”
    Father wrapped his arms around the young ox and said angrily:
    “This is the ox I want, I’ll pay a hundred yuan.”
    “Lan Lian,” Hong Taiyue mocked him. “Save yourself the trouble. Go home, get your wife and kids, and join the commune. If you’re so fond of animals, we’ll assign you the job of tending them.” Hong cast a glance at Brigade Commander Huang. “What do you say to that, Huang Tong?”
    “Lan Lian,” Huang Tong said, “your stubbornness has won us over. Now it’s time for you to join the commune, both for the sake of your family and to enhance the reputation of the Ximen Village Production Brigade. Every time there’s a meeting, the question invariably arises: Is that Ximen Village farmer still working as an independent?”
    Father ignored them. Starving members of the People’s Commune had killed our black donkey and eaten him, and they’d stolen all the grain we’d stored up. I might be able to understand that sort of abominable behavior, but the wounds on Father’s heart would not be easily healed. He often said that he and that donkey were not linked by the traditional master-livestock relationship but were almost like brothers, joined at the heart. Despite the fact that he could not possibly have known that the black donkey was the reincarnation of the man for whom he had worked, he unquestionably sensed that he and the donkey were fated to be together. To him the comments of Hong Taiyue and the others were nothing but platitudes. Father couldn’t even muster the interest to respond. He just held on to the ox’s neck and said:
    “This is the ox I want.”
    “So you’re the independent farmer,” the surprised ox trader said to Lan Lian. “Brother, you’re something special” He studied Father’s face, then mine. “Lan Lian, blue face. He really does have a blue face,” he blurted out. “It’s a deal. A hundred yuan. The young ox is yours!” He bent down,