Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

died on the spot. Ahhh — Father released a long sigh.

13

A Stream of Guests Urge Participation
in the Commune
Independent Farming Gains a
Distinguished Advocate
    “Qiansui, I can’t let you keep calling me ‘Grandpa.’” Timidly, I patted him on the shoulder. “Just because I’m in my fifties and you’re a five-year-old boy, if we go back forty years, that is, the year 1965, during that turbulent spring, our relationship was one of a fifteen-year-old youth and a young ox.” He nodded solemnly. “It’s as if it was yesterday.” I gazed into the ox’s eyes and saw a look of mischief, of naivete, and of unruliness. . . .
    I’m sure you remember the intense pressure our family was under that spring. Eliminating the last remaining independent farmer was one of the most important tasks confronting the Ximen Village Production Brigade as well as the Milky Way People’s Commune. Hong Taiyue enlisted the help of villagers who enjoyed high prestige and commanded universal respect — Great Uncle Mao Shunshan, Old Uncle Qu Shuiyuan, and Fourth Elder Qin Buting; persuasive women — Aunty Yang Guixiang, Third Sister-in-Law Su Erman, Sister Chang Suhua, and Great Aunt Wu Qiuxiang; and clever, glib students — Mo Yan, Li Jinzhu, and Niu Shunwa. These ten people were the only ones I could recall; there were, in fact, many more, and they all made it to our door, like eager matchmakers or people wanting to display their wisdom and eloquence. The men surrounded my father, the women my mother; the students went after my brother and my sister, but did not spare me either. Smoke from the men’s pipes nearly suffocated the geckoes on our walls; the women’s hindquarters wore out the mats on our sleeping platform, the kang, and the students tore our clothes in the chase. Join the commune, please join the commune, wake up, don’t be foolish. If not for yourselves, do it for your children. I think that during those days just about everything your ox eyes saw and your ox ears heard had to do with joining the commune. When my father was cleaning out your pen, those old-timers barricaded the gate like a troop of loyal soldiers and said:
    “Old Lan, good nephew, join up. If you don’t, your family will be unhappy, and so will your animals.”
    Unhappy? I was anything but. How could they know that I was in reality Ximen Nao, that I was Ximen Donkey, an executed landlord, a dismembered donkey, so why would I want to throw in my lot with my personal enemies? Why was I so reluctant to be away from your father? Because I knew that was the only way I could be engaged in independent farming.
    Women sat cross-legged on our sleeping platform like nosy relatives from some distant village. With slobber building up in the corners of their mouths, they were like the tape recorders in roadside shops that play the same damned stuff over and over. Finally, my anger won out:
    “Big-tits Yang and Fat-ass Su, get the hell out of our house. You make me sick!”
    Angry? Not a bit. With silly grins, they said:
    “Join the commune and we’ll be on our way. Refuse, and our rear ends will take root here on your kang. Our bodies will sprout, grow leaves, and flower; we’ll become trees and knock the roof right off your house!”
    Of all the women, the one I hated most was Wu Qiuxiang. Maybe because she had once shared a man with my mother, she treated her with special enmity:
    “Yingchun, there’s a difference between you and me. I was a maidservant who was raped by Ximen Nao, but you were his precious concubine who gave him two children. Not labeling you a member of the landlord class and sending you out to be reformed through labor is better than you deserve. That’s my doing, since you treated me decently. I had to beg Huang Tong to let you off the hook! But you must keep in mind the difference between dying embers and a blazing fire.”
    The school ruffians, with Mo Yan leading the way, loved to hear themselves talk and had an overabundance of energy, so with village support and encouragement from school, they took full advantage of this opportunity to raise hell. They were as excited as drunken monkeys, and just as sprightly. Some climbed our tree, some jumped up onto the wall and shouted through megaphones, as if our house was a counterrevolutionary bastion and they were signaling the charge.
    Stubborn old Lan Lian is not our friend; independent farming is a true dead end. A single mouse dropping ruins a vat of vinegar. Jinlong,