"Yeah, right, so look where you ended up! Here-with us-at the mercy of your fellow villagers' evil spirits after all." He forced a smile, looking straight at Junni. "I always thought there'd be a day with banging gongs and a big red sedan chair, when I could marry you the proper way."
"Oh, Jiming," she sighed, lowering her gaze. "I got myself dirty a long time ago."
"Nobody at home knows that."
"Nobody at home, maybe, but heaven and earth know." She pressed his head to her breast. The cold wind carried the smell of death in their direction, wave after wave of air so thick that it was impossible to breathe. Jiming pushed her away gently and, with his hand on his head wound, lay down on the ground, sinking into the heap of overcoats rank with blood and smelly shoes. Before he dozed off, he heard what sounded like Junni urinating and buried his head even deeper.
On January 7, 1949, the thirty-eighth year of the republic, snowy winds whipped across the plains of Xuhuai. At about three-thirty in the afternoon, the frozen and hungry militia camped between Chenguanzhuang and the Lu River awoke, stunned by sudden attack. [1]
As artillery shells whined overhead, Jiming tossed aside the coat covering him and jumped up but fell right back to the ground.
The bombing grew louder, as if the shells were about to drop on their heads. It was a gray, wintry day, and evening had set in imperceptibly, the low clouds illuminated only by the explosions. Out on the field, voices called out, soft and feeble. It seemed almost that several hundred thousand soldiers had all perished, leaving behind only these three civilians.
"There's no fucking way out tonight," said Jiming.
Sonny lay on his back, inert, lifting his head from time to time to watch the bursts of light. He knew in his heart what the others were thinking: "Don't run; there's no point."
"It'll be a lot worse for us if we get taken back to Daweiwu by the Communists."
"Who can say what will happen? Let's wait and see."
All three lay there, at the bottom of the crater, no longer speaking. The sound of shelling moved slowly eastward; the sky, red and black, smoked and suffocated till it could no longer support itself. Perhaps it would come crashing down and crush everything beneath it.
Softly, as if to herself, Junni said, "When I first got to the whorehouse, all I could think about was murdering somebody. Then I was going to hang myself."
The others did not reply. Sonny began to sob silently.
"But then I thought, What am I doing? They were soldiers far away from home, so lonely and sad, without very much time to live. Why should I go around killing people-why not give a little pleasure?"
Li Jiming sat up suddenly and turned to Junni. "Huh? Is that what you think? You were better off at the whorehouse? Where there's pleasure!"
Junni pushed herself up to her feet and, forming her words slowly, said, "Don't get all worked up. Look, if we're going to die, why not die happy?" She pulled at Li Jiming. "Come on, Big Brother. You first."
Jiming jumped up from the pile of clothes. "What are you saying? 'Me first!' You stinking whore!" He ran over to the far side of the crater and, opening the pocket of one of the coats, pulled out a hand grenade. "Goddamn it, I went through hell to save a fucking whore like you!"
In no time, Sonny was on his feet, too. "Just calm down; let's talk things over. Don't be messing with a fucking grenade." He was trembling.
"Slow down, Sonny. Your brother didn't mean anything," Junni said.
Sonny walked over to try to take the grenade away, but Jiming wouldn't let go. The two of them rolled around against the wall of the crater, covering themselves with snow and mud.
When the grenade rolled to the ground, Junni picked it up and put it to the side. "What the hell are you boys doing? That's not how brothers act!"
Jiming, weakened by his injury, was soon pinned beneath Sonny, who bound his brother's hands behind his back with one of the coats. Jiming cursed between gasps for air. But the two stopped suddenly at the sight of Junni, who had begun to undo her buttons. They watched her remove the soiled jacket, the flashes far in the distance irradiating her breasts, fine and white. It was as if her body did not belong to this blood-spattered field.
"Don't let the fact that I'm a little dirty bother you. Let me take good care of you one last time." She leaned over, straightened the coats the men had scattered during their scuffle, and then sat down, covering her lower half with an old quilted jacket. "Jiming, come lie down next to me."
Li Jiming's mouth dropped. After a moment, he stammered, "I wanted you to be my fucking wife."
Junni smiled. "I never said I'd marry you. What's the point of bringing that up again. Now is now." She turned around and pulled at Sonny's leg. "Sonny, I'll take care of you first. You've been to a whorehouse before, right? You're not an old hen like your brother."
Sonny nervously turned to look at Li Jiming, then quickly unbuttoned his tattered shirt, revealing his smooth, slight frame. He crawled under the pile of clothing.
A sudden burst of fire; the action was getting closer by the minute. Li Jiming, who had wrestled himself free of the coat, leaned against the crater wall, dully looking in the direction of the clothes. Occasionally a leg appeared, or an arm, and then he heard a rapid panting and Junni's voice: "All right, Sonny, go get your brother. It's his turn."
Sonny was silent. Junni emerged from under the pile and walked over to Li Jiming. "Stop standing around in your underwear, torturing yourself. Come on, I can take care of you both."
As her warm body clung to his, Li Jiming smelled a woman's sweat, something that he had never noticed on her before. He followed Junni to the ground.
A shell landed very near, stirring up clouds of dust. Two or three people screamed at the top of their lungs, a sound terrible and numbing.
After a long while, Junni said, "Sonny, was it OK for you?"
"It sure was."
"Jiming, are you content?"
"Hmm," said Li Jiming, still catching his breath. He felt a warmth he had never known boring up through his body all the way to his head, making him dizzy, as if he were about to melt.
"All right, then," Junni said. "I'm feeling really good, too. We're all content."
She reached over for the ice-cold grenade and held it tightly.
Neither the troops retreating across the fields of Chenguan-zhuang nor the troops advancing in the same direction paid any attention to the shell hole. Three days later, after the sulfurous smoke had dissipated, the corpses littering the field began to emit a stench that could not be ignored, and a civilian clean-up crew moved in. What they found in the hole was not easy to collect-all severed limbs and pieces of flesh-so a decision was made to dump in the frozen bodies from the surrounding area. Before long, the hole was full.
When it was dark, the crew wiped their hands on clods of dirt and, on the newly flattened earth, proceeded to build a fire and prepare dinner.
Translated By Susan Mcfadden
Su Tong – The Brothers Shu
The story of Fragrant Cedar Street is legendary among people in my hometown. In the south of China, there are lots of streets just like it: narrow, dirty, the cobblestones forming a network of potholes. When you look out your window at the street or at the river's edge, you can see dried meat and drying laundry hanging from eaves, and you can see inside houses, where people are at the dinner table or engaged in a whole range of daily activities. What I am about to give you isn't so much a story as it is a word picture of life down south, and little more.
The brothers Shu Gong and Shu Nong lived on that particular street.
So did the Lin sisters, Hanli and Hanzhen.
They shared a building: 18 Fragrant Cedar Street, a blackened two-story structure, where the Shu family lived downstairs and the Lins above them. They were neighbors. Black sheet metal covered the flat roof of number 18, and as I stood at the bridgehead, I saw a cat crouching up there. At least that's how I remember it, fifteen years later.
And I remember the river, which intersected Fragrant Cedar Street a scant three or four feet from number 18. This river will make several appearances in my narration, with dubious distinction, for as I indicated earlier, I can only give impressions.
Shu Gong was the elder son, Shu Nong his younger brother.
Hanli was the elder daughter, Hanzhen her younger sister.
The ages of the Shu brothers and Lin sisters can be likened to the fingers of your hand: if Shu Nong was fourteen, then Hanzhen was fifteen, Shu Gong sixteen, and Hanli seventeen. A hand with four fingers lined up so tightly you can't pry them apart. Four fingers on the same hand. But where is the thumb?