Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

important tasks kept a smile on Mother’s face, but when she saw me take my ox out to graze all by myself, she heaved a long sigh. I was, after all, her son too.
    Well, that’s enough meaningless chatter for now. Let’s talk about Hu Bin, a small man with an accent that marked him as an outsider. Onetime head of the commune’s post office, he’d been engaged in an illicit relationship with the fiancee of a soldier and was sentenced to a period of hard labor. When his sentence was up, he settled in our village. His wife, Bai Lian, a village switchboard operator with a big, round, plump face, red lips, nice white teeth, and a cheerful voice, had a cozy relationship with many of the commune cadres. Eighteen telephone wires on a China fir pole all fed into the window of her home and were connected to a unit that resembled a dressing table. When I was in elementary school, I could hear her singsong voice drift into the classroom: Hello. What number please? Please hold — Zheng Village on the line. We kids used to sprawl outside her window and look through tears in the window paper to watch as she nursed her baby with one arm and, with her free hand, effortlessly plugged the pegs into or pulled them out of the switchboard. To us, this was both a mystery and a wonder, and not a day passed that we didn’t hang around there, until a village cadre shooed us away. But we’d be right back as soon as he left. We not only watched Bai Lian at work, but were also treated to plenty of scenes that were unsuitable for children. We saw her and the village’s commune representative carry on flirtatiously, even get physical, and we saw Bai Lian scold Hu Bin in that singsong voice of hers. And we learned why none of Bai Lian’s children looked alike. Eventually, the paper in her window was replaced by glass and a curtain, and there were no more shows. All we could do was listen to what went on inside. Even later, the wires were buried underground after being electrified. Mo Yan got zapped by a hot wire outside her window one day and peed his pants as he screamed pathetically. When I tried to pull him away, I got zapped too, but I didn’t pee my pants. After this episode, we stopped hanging around outside her window.
    Sending Hu Bin, who wore a felt cap with earflaps, miner’s goggles, a tattered uniform under a grimy army greatcoat, with a pocket watch in one pocket and a code book in the other, to tend livestock was an insult. But someone should have told him to keep his pants zipped. My brother told him to round up the strays, but he’d just sit on the riverbank in the sunlight to flip through his code book and read aloud, until tears fell and he’d begin to sob. Then he’d raise his voice to the heavens:
    “What did I do to deserve this? One time, that’s all, not even three minutes, and now I have nothing to look forward to!”
    The brigade’s oxen spread out across the riverbank, all so underfed you could count their ribs. Even though their coats were peeling, this taste of freedom injected life into their eyes; they looked pleased with their lot. I held on to your halter so you wouldn’t mix with the others and tried to lead you over to where the grass was more nutritious and tastier. But you balked and dragged me back to the riverbank, where the reeds had grown tall the year before, with white-tipped leaves like knives, a spot where the brigade oxen walked in and out of view. You were so strong, I was helpless in trying to lead you, even with the halter. You just dragged me wherever you wanted to go. By then, you were a fully grown ox, horns sprouting from your forehead like new bamboo, glossy as fine jade. The childish innocence in your eyes had been replaced by a shifty, somewhat gloomy, look. You dragged me over to the reeds, getting closer and closer to the brigade oxen, which were pushing the reeds back and forth as they nibbled on dead leaves. They raised their heads to chew, crunching so loud it sounded like chewing on iron, giving them the appearance not of oxen but of giraffes. I saw the Mongol ox, with her twisted tail, your mother. Your eyes met. She called out to you, but you didn’t reply; you just stared at her as if she were a stranger or, even worse, a bitter foe. My brother snapped his whip to vent his frustration. We hadn’t spoken since he joined the commune, and I wasn’t about to start now; if he tried to start a conversation, I’d ignore him. The fountain pen in his pocket sparkled, and I