Dad was a purebred, Mom a mongrel, which made us mongrels. No matter how different we might look when we were grown, you could hardly tell the difference between any of us when we were first born. Yingchun was probably the only person who knew which of us came when.
When your mother brought out some steaming broth with a soup bone for our mother, snowflakes circled her head like white moths. My eyesight hadn’t sharpened to the point where I could see her face clearly, but I had no trouble picking up her unique odor, that of toon tree leaves rubbed together. Not even the smell of the pork bone could overwhelm it. My mother cautiously lapped up the broth while your mother swept the snow off our roof. That let in plenty of daylight and plenty of cold air. Wanting to do something good for us, she’d actually managed to do just the opposite. Having come from peasant stock, how could she not know that snow is a blanket that keeps wheat sprouts warm? She had rich experience in raising children, but was woefully ignorant about nature. But then when she saw that we were nearly frozen to death, she carried us into the house and laid us down on the heated kang.
“You poor little darlings,” she said.
She even brought our mother inside, where Lan Lian was feeding kindling into the kang opening. His skin was bronze, and golden lights shone off his white hair. Wearing a thickly padded jacket, he was smoking a pipe like a very contented head of household. Now that peasants had been given land, everyone was an independent farmer, just like the old days. So your father and mother once again were eating together and sleeping together.
The kang was so warm it quickly drove the chill from our nearly frozen bodies, and as we started moving around, I could tell by looking at my canine brothers and sister what I must have looked like. The same thing had happened back when I’d been reborn as a pig. We were clumsy, covered with fuzz, and cute as hell – I guess. There were four children on the kang with us, all about three years old. A boy and three girls. We were three males and a female.
“Would you look at that!” your mother exclaimed in happy surprise. “The exact opposite of the children!”
Lan Lian snorted noncommittally as he took the charred remains of a mantis egg capsule from the kang opening. He cracked it open; inside were two steaming mantis eggs that smelled bad. “Who wet the bed?” he asked. “Whoever did it has to eat these.”
“I did!” Two of the boys and the girl answered in unison.
That left one boy who said nothing. He had fleshy ears, big eyes, and a tiny little mouth that made him seem to be pouting. You already know that he was the adopted son of Ximen Jinlong and Huang Huzhu. Word had it that he was the biological son of a pair of high-school students. Jinlong was rich enough to get anything he wanted, and powerful enough to back his wishes up. So a few months before the deal was made, Huzhu began wearing padding around her middle to fake a pregnancy. But the villagers knew. The boy was named Ximen Huan – they called him Huanhuan – and he was the pearl in their palm.
“The guilty party keeps his mouth shut, his innocent brothers and sister can’t confess fast enough!” Yingchun said as she passed the hot mantis eggs from one hand to the other while blowing on them. Finally, she held them out to Ximen Huan. “Here, Huanhuan, eat them.”
Ximen Huan took them from his grandmother and, without even looking at them, flung them to the floor. They landed in front of our mother, who gobbled them down without a second thought.
“That child, I don’t know what to say!” Yingchun said to Lan Lian.
Lan Lian shook his head. “You can always tell where a child comes from.”
All four children looked curiously at us puppies and reached out to touch us.
“One apiece, just right,” Yingchun said.
Four months later, when buds began to appear on the old apricot tree in the front yard, Yingchun said to the four couples – Ximen Jinlong and Huang Huzhu, Ximen Baofeng and Ma Liangcai, Chang Tianhong and Pang Kangmei, and Lan Jiefang and Huang Hezuo:
“It’s time for you to take your children home with you. That’s why I asked you here. First, since we don’t know how to read or write, I’m afraid that keeping them here will slow their development. Second, we’re getting old. Our hair is white, our eyesight dimmed, and our teeth are loose. Life has been hard on us for many years, and I think we deserve a little time for ourselves. Comrades Chang and Pang, it’s been our good fortune to have your child with us, but Uncle Lan and I’ve talked it over, and we feel that Fenghuang ought to start kindergarten in town.”
The moment had arrived with all the solemnity of a formal handover ceremony: four little children were lined up on the eastern edge of the kang, four little puppies on the western edge. Yingchun picked up Ximen Huan, kissed him on the cheek, and handed him to Huzhu, who cradled him. Then Yingchun picked up the oldest puppy, rubbed his head, and put him in the arms of Huanhuan. “This is yours, Huanhuan,” she said.
She then picked up Ma Gaige, planted a kiss on his cheek, and handed him to Baofeng, who cradled him. She picked up the second puppy and put him in Ma Gaige’s arms. “Gaige,” she said, “this is yours.”
Yingchun then picked up Pang Fenghuang and lovingly gazed at her pink little face; with tears in her eyes, she kissed her on both cheeks, then turned and reluctantly handed her to Pang Kangmei.
“Three bald little boys aren’t the equal of one fairy maiden.”
Yingchun picked up the third puppy, patted her on the head, rubbed her mouth, stroked her tail, and put her in Fenghuang’s arms.
“Fenghuang,” she said, “this is yours.”
Finally Yingchun picked up Lan Kaifeng, half of whose face was covered by a blue birthmark, which she rubbed. With a sigh, her face now streaked with tears, she said, “You poor thing… how come you’re also…”
She handed Kaifeng to Hezuo, who held her son close. Because a wild boar had taken a chunk out of her rear end, she now had a hard time keeping her balance and often leaned to one side. You, Lan Jiefang, reached out to take the third generation of blue-faced boy from her, but she refused.
Yingchun picked me, the runt of the litter, up from the kang and put me into Lan Kaifang’s arms.
“Kaifang,” she said, “this one’s yours. He’s the smartest.”
All the while this was happening, Lan Lian rested on his haunches beside the dog kennel, where he covered the bitch’s eyes with a piece of black cloth and rubbed her head to keep her calm.
38
Jinlong Raves about Lofty Ideals
Hezuo Silently Recalls Old Enmities
I just about jumped out of the wicker chair, but managed to hold back. I lit a cigarette and slowly puffed on it to calm down. I stole a glance at the eerie blue eyes of Big-head Lan, and in them I saw the cold, hostile look of the dog that accompanied my former wife and my son for fifteen years. But then I discovered it was similar to the look of my deceased son, Lan Kaifang: just as cold, just as hostile, just as unforgiving toward me.
I’d been assigned as head of the Political Section at the County Supply and Marketing Cooperative, and no matter how you look at it, I was one of those people who amused himself by writing florid little essays for the provincial newspaper.
By that time, Mo Yan had already been sent to help out at the Reports Section of the County Committee Propaganda Department, and even though he held a peasant household registration, his almost fanatical ambition was known throughout the county. He wrote day and night, never combing his hair; his clothes, which reeked of cigarette smoke, were only washed when it rained and he could hang them outside in time. My former wife, Huang Hezuo, was so fond of this slob she never failed to lay out tea and cigarettes when he dropped by, while my dog and my son seemed hostile to him.