Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

leaving Wu Yuan to load the stones back onto his cart. They were to be delivered to the Ximen compound on orders from the Ximen Village branch of the Golden Monkey Red Guard faction commander, Ximen Jinlong. I ran smack into Huang Huzhu. Most of the village girls had cut their hair short, with a part, like the boys, exposing the skin on their scalp and neck. She alone stubbornly clung to her braid, which she tied off at the end with a red ribbon: feudal, conservative, diehard, an attitude that easily rivaled that of my dad, who stubbornly refused to abandon independent farming. Before long, however, that braid served her well, for when the revolutionary model opera Red Lantern was staged, she was a natural for the role of Li Tiemei, who wore a braid just like that. Even actresses in the county opera troupe who were assigned the role of Li Tiemei had to wear fake braids. Our Li Tiemei had the real thing, every strand of hair firmly attached to her scalp. I later learned why Huang Huzhu was so dead set on keeping her braid. That was because of all the fine capillaries in her hair; if she’d cut her hair they’d have oozed blood. Her hair was thick and lush, a quality rarely seen. Hu Zhu, I said when I bumped into her, have you seen my sister? She opened her mouth, as if she wanted to say something, but immediately shut it again. She was cold, scornful, absolutely off-putting. I couldn’t let her expression bother me. I asked you, I said in a very loud voice, have you seen my sister? Pretending she didn’t know, she asked me: And just who is your sister? You fucking Huang Huzhu, are you telling me you don’t know who my sister is? If you don’t know that, then you must not even know who your own mother is. My sister, Lan Baofeng, health worker, a barefoot doctor. Oh, her, she said with a slight and very contemptuous twist of her mouth. Outwardly proper, but dripping with jealousy, she said. She’s at school, entangled with Ma Liangcai. Go now, or you’ll miss it, two dogs, a mutt and a bitch, one more aroused than the other, they’ll be coupled any minute! That threw me. I never expected coarse language like that from someone as old-fashioned as Huzhu —
    Another accomplishment of the Great Cultural Revolution! Big-head Lan Qiansui said coldly. His fingers were bleeding profusely. I handed him the medicine I’d prepared beforehand. He rubbed it on his fingers, stopping the bleeding at once.
    — Her face reddened and her chest swelled, and I knew exactly what that was all about. While she may not have been secretly in love with Ma Liangcai, seeing him cozy up to my sister upset her. I’m not going to worry about you now, I said. I’ll take care of you later, you tramp. Falling for my brother — No, he’s no longer my brother, hasn’t been for a long time, he’s just Ximen Nao’s bad seed. So’s your sister, she said. That stopped me. My throat felt like it was clogged by a hot sticky pastry. They’re different, I said finally. She’s decent and gentle, good-hearted, red-blooded, humane. She’s my sister. — She has almost no humanity left. She smells like a dog. She’s the bastard offspring of Ximen Nao and a mongrel bitch, and you can smell it on her every time it rains, Huzhu said, clenching her teeth. I turned my spear around. During the revolutionary period, the people had the power to execute individuals. The Jia Mountain People’s Commune passed the execution authority down to the village level, and Mawan Village had killed thirty-three people in a single day, the oldest eighty-eight, the youngest thirteen. Some were clubbed to death, and some were sliced in half with hay cutters. I aimed my spear at her chest. She threw out her chest to meet the tip. Go ahead, kill me if you’ve got the guts! I’ve lived long enough already. Tears sprang from her lovely eyes. Something strange there, something I couldn’t figure out. Huzhu and I had grown up together. We’d played together on the riverbank, naked as the day we were born, and she developed such a special interest in my little pecker that she ran home in tears, telling her mother, Wu Qiuxiang, that she wanted one. How come Jiefang has one and I don’t? Wu Qiuxiang stood under the apricot tree and really chewed me out: Jiefang, you little thug, if you take ever advantage of Huzhu again, I’ll cut your pecker off when you’re not looking. It seemed like only yesterday, but now, suddenly, Huzhu had become as enigmatic as a river turtle.