Li Lan slowly slid down the door frame, her wooden expression suddenly transforming into one of anguish. She lay on the floor, legs spread and fingers digging into the ground. Beads of sweat covered her forehead, and her eyes opened wide to take in the crowds of people around her. Someone noticed that there was blood coming from between her legs and screamed, "Look, look, she's bleeding!"
A woman who had had a child recognized what was happening and shouted, "She's giving birth!"
CHAPTER 4
BALDY LI'S birth marked the beginning of Li Lan s migraines. For as long as Baldy Li could remember, his mother wore a scarf wrapped around her head, like a peasant woman in the fields. The dull, steady ache and the sudden onslaughts of sharp pain caused her to weep all year long. She often rapped her head with her knuckles, and her knocks grew ever crisper and louder, like the steady drum of a temple clanger.
After losing her husband, Baldy Li's mother then lost her mind. But as she gradually recovered she felt no pain or fury, just shame. Baldy Li's grandmother came from the countryside to help take care of them. During Li Lan s three-month maternity leave from the silk factory, she never once left the house. She didn't even want to stand near the window for fear of being seen by someone. After the third month, Li Lan finally had to return to work. Trembling all over, her face pale, she opened the front door and stepped out as if she were about to jump into a vat of boiling oil. But she had no choice and so timidly walked into the street, her lead lowered to her chest. While hugging the sides of the buildings as closely as she could, she felt that the stares of people on the street were like needles stabbing her all over her body. An acquaintance called out her name, and she reacted as if she had been shot, nearly falling to the ground. Heaven knows how she managed to walk into the silk factory. How she managed to work the silk shearing machines all day. And how she managed to walk down the street to return home. From that point on she became mute, and even in her sealed-off house she scarcely spoke, even with her own mother and son.
The infant Baldy Li also became the object of the town's derision, and whenever his grandmother carried him outside, people would point and stare at him and say horrible things. They said that Baldy Li belonged to that man who drowned in the latrine while peeping at women's butts. Their comments were completely illogical, seeming to implicate the baby in the episode. They would say that this little rascal was just like his father, often dropping the "just like" and saying instead that the two of them were actually identical. This made Baldy Li's grandmother turn both pale and livid and left her unwilling to take him out again. Occasionally she would carry him to the window to let him get a bit of sunlight, but if anyone passed by outside, she would quickly move away. As a result, Baldy Li's once cherubic face became gaunt and sallow from spending day after day in a dark room.
After her husband died so shamefully, Li Lan never again lifted her head to look at anyone and never cried out — the head-splitting pain of her migraines audible only through the anguished grinding of her teeth and her soft groans as she slept. Whenever she held her son in her arms and saw his pale face and thin limbs, she would weep abjectly. Even so, she lacked the courage to walk outside with him during the daytime.
After more than a year, Li Lan finally took Baldy Li outside on a clear moonlit night. Her lowered head tight against her son's face, she walked quickly along the sides of the buildings. Only after having made sure that there were no other footsteps did she slow down and lift her head to look at the clear moon in the sky, enjoying the cool night breeze. She liked standing on the deserted bridge, gazing into the water and the steady waves of moonlight reflected on its surface. When she lifted her head, she saw that the trees by the river were still, as if they were asleep, their tips painted with moonlight and swaying slightly like the water. There were also the fireflies leaping and darting in the dark night, like an undulating melody.
Li Lan held her son on her right side and with her left hand pointed out the water under the bridge, the trees by the river, the moon in the sky, the dancing fireflies, explaining to him, "This is a river, this is a tree, this is the moon, these are fireflies…"
Then she sighed contentedly. "The night is so beautiful."
From that point on, sunlight-deprived Baldy Li would bathe in the moon's rays every night, wandering the streets while all the other children in town were sound asleep. Late one night, without realizing it, Li Lan walked until they reached the edge of town, to the south gate, where the fields under the moonlight seemed to extend forever. She let out a soft gasp. Now that she had become familiar with the peaceful silence of the houses and streets in moonlight, she was caught by surprise at the majestic beauty of the wide open fields under the same moonlight. In her arms Baldy Li also became excited, reached his arms toward the wide expanse of field, and uttered a mouselike eek.
Many years later, when Baldy Li would become Liu Towns premier tycoon and decide to take a tour of outer space, he would close his eyes and imagine himself high in orbit peering down at the earth below, whereupon this impression from his infancy would miraculously return. When he imagined the beauty and majesty of Earth, it was the same as the sight of the endless fields under the moonlight, the time his mother first took him down to the south gate. The infant Baldy Li's gaze passed over the scene like a Russian space shuttle.
So it was under the cool, bright moonlight that Baldy Li learned from his mother what a street was, what a house was, what a sky was, and what a field was. Baldy Li was not yet two, and he gazed out with wonder at this cool, bright world.
Once when Li Lan was walking in the moonlight with him, she ran into Song Fanping. As Li Lan walked with her son in her arms along the deserted street, she saw a family chatting and walking in the other direction. This was Song Fanpings family, and the tall Song Fanping was leading his son, Song Gang, who was a year older than Baldy Li. His wife was holding a basket in her hand, and their voices rang clearly through the quiet night sky. Upon hearing Song Fanpings voice, Li Lan suddenly lifted her head, recognizing instantly who this tall man was — he was the man who had carried her husband back to her, all the while covered in filth. At the time Li Lan had merely leaned dazedly against the door frame, but she had always remembered the sound of the man's voice and how he used the well water to rinse down not only himself but also her dead husband. So now she lifted her head, her eyes perhaps flashing when she saw him. Then, when she saw him pause and say something to his wife in a low voice, Li Lan lowered her head again and scurried away.
Li Lan ran into Song Fanping twice during those late-night strolls with Baldy Li. Once he was with his entire family, and the other time he was alone. The second time Song Fanping suddenly used his large figure to block the mother and son's path. His big, rough hands touched the child's upturned face, and he said to Li Lan, "This child is too thin. You should let him get more sunlight, since there are vitamins in sunlight."
Poor Li Lan didn't even dare to lift her head to look at him. She trembled as she held Baldy Li, and Baldy Li was jostled in her arms as if by an earthquake. Song Fanping smiled and walked away, brushing past them. This particular night Li Lan didn't linger to enjoy the moonlight, instead hurrying home with Baldy Li. The grinding noise from her teeth sounded different than usual, because perhaps this time it didn't come from her migraines.