As for me, I followed my two dog brothers in a look around Ximen Village. I’d left home as a puppy and had virtually no impressions of the place outside of the Ximen family home, but this was the village where I was born; in the words of Mo Yan in one of his essays, “hometowns are tied to a person by blood.” So as we strolled down the streets and scoped out the village in general, I was deeply moved. I saw some familiar faces and detected many unfamiliar smells. There were also a lot of familiar smells that were somehow absent – no trace at all of the strongest smells of the village back then, of oxen and donkeys. Many of the new smells were of rusted metal emanating from yards we passed, and I knew that the mechanization dream of the People’s Communes had not been realized until land reform and independent farming were once again the backbone of agricultural policy. My nose told me that the village was awash in feelings of excitement and anxiety on the eve of major changes. People all wore peculiar expressions, as if they thought that something very big was about to happen.
We returned to the Ximen house, followed by Ximen Jinlong’s son, Ximen Huan, who was one of the last to arrive. I had no trouble spotting him by his smell, even though he reeked of fish and mud. He was naked but for a pair of nylon bathing trunks and a brand-name T-shirt thrown over his shoulder. He was carrying a line of silver-scaled little fish. An expensive watch glittered on his wrist. He spotted me first, dropped what he was carrying, and ran up to me. Obviously, he saw me as a ride, but no self-respecting dog was about to let something like that happen. I moved out of the way.
His mother, Huzhu, came running out of the house.
“Huanhuan!” she shouted. “Where have you been? And why are you so late? I told you your aunt and cousin Kaifang were coming.”
“I was fishing.” He picked up the line of fish to show her. “How could I not greet such honored guest without fish?” he said in a tone of voice that belied his young years.
Huzhu scooped up the shirt he’d tossed to the ground and said, “Who do you think you’re greeting with guppies like this?” She reached up and brushed the mud and scales out of her son’s hair. “Huanhuan,” she blurted out, “where are your shoes?”
He smiled. “I won’t lie to you, dear mother, I traded them for these fish.”
“What? You’re going to be the ruination of this family if you keep this up! Your father had someone bring those shoes from Shanghai. They were Nikes, a thousand yuan a pair. And these few guppies are what you got for them?”
“There are more than a few, Mama,” Ximen Huan said earnestly, counting the fish for all to see. “There are nine here. How can you say there are only a few?”
“See, everybody, what a foolish son I’m raising?” Huzhu took the line of fish from her son and held them high. “He went down to the river early this morning,” she said to the people crowding into the main house, “saying he was going to catch some fish for our guests. This is what he brought back after all that time. And he had to swap a pair of brand-new Nike sneakers to get them. Wouldn’t you say foolish is a good description?” In a blustery move, Huzhu smacked his shoulder with the line of fish and said, “Who’d you give the shoes to? I want you to go get them back.”
“Mama,” he said, looking at her out of the corner of his slightly crossed eye, “you don’t expect anyone worthy of respect to go back on his word, do you? It’s just a pair of sneakers. Why not just buy another pair? Dad’s got plenty of money!”
“Shut up, you little imp!” she said. “Who says your father has plenty of money?”
“If he doesn’t, then no one does,” he said with a sideward glance. “My father is a rich man, one of the richest anywhere!”
“Now you’re showing off, and showing how foolish you are,” his mother said. “I hope your father raises welts on your bottom when he gets home!”
“What’s going on?” Ximen Jinlong asked as he stepped out of his Cadillac. The car glided ahead silently. He was dressed for leisure. His head was shaved as clean as his cheeks, and he had a bit of a potbelly. Cell phone in hand, he was the prototypical big-time businessman. After hearing what Huzhu had to say, he patted his son on the head and said, “In economic terms, trading a pair of thousand-yuan Nikes for nine little guppies makes no sense. But from a moral perspective, willingly sacrificing a thousand-yuan pair of sneakers for some fish to greet visitors is unquestionably the right thing to do. So, based solely on this incident, I’ll neither praise nor punish you. But what I will praise you for”-at this point, Jinlong thumped his son on the shoulder -“is your adherence to the principle of ‘my word, once spoken, even a team of four horses cannot bring it back.’ Once the trade was made, you could not go back on your word.”
“What do you think of that?” Ximen Huan said to his mother, pleased with himself. He picked up the fish. “Grandma,” he said loudly, “take these and make some fish broth for our honored guests!”
“The way you’re spoiling him,” Huzhu said to Jinlong under her breath, “I hate to think how he’ll turn out.” She spun around and grabbed her son by the arm. “Go inside, little ancestor, and change your clothes. How can you think of greeting guests looking like this?”
“What a fine animal!” Ximen Jinlong remarked with a thumbs-up as soon as he saw me. Then he said hello to all the people who had walked outside to greet him. He sang your son’s praises: “Worthy nephew Kaifang, I can see you’ve got talent. You’re no ordinary young man. Your father is a deputy county chief, but you’ll be a provincial governor when you grow up!” Then he consoled Ma Gaige: “Stand up straight and proud, young man, there’s nothing for you to fear or worry about. You’ll never go hungry as long as your uncle has food on his table.” Then he turned to Baofeng. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. Don’t forget, no one can bring back the dead. You’re sad, well, so am I. Losing him was like losing my right arm.” He turned and nodded to the two elderly couples. Finally, he said to your wife, “I’d like to drink to my sister-in-law. At noon the other day, when I gave a celebratory banquet for the passage of our reconstruction plans, Jiefang was the one who suffered. That old scalawag Hong Taiyue may be stubborn, but you have to love him, and I hope a little jail time will teach him a lesson.”
At supper that afternoon your wife maintained the proper attitude – not too cold and not too hot – of a deputy county chiefs wife. As enthusiastic host, Jinlong made it clear who was the head of this family. But Ximen Huan was the liveliest person at the table, and the way he dealt with banquet etiquette showed what a sharp-witted boy he was. Since disciplining his son was not a concern of Jinlong’s, Ximen Huan remained out of control. He poured himself a glass of the liquor and then another for Kaifang. “Here, Cousin Kaifang,” he said with a stiff tongue, “drink this. I want to talk to you about something-”
Your son looked over at your wife.
“Don’t look at her – we boys make up our own minds at times like this. Here, to you, a toast!”
“That’s enough, Huanhuan,” Huzhu said.
“Go ahead and touch it with your lips,” your wife said to your son.
So the two boys clinked glasses. Huanhuan tipped his head back and drained his glass, then held the empty glass out to Kaifang, and said:
“Drink out of… out of respect.”
So Kaifang touched his lips to the liquor and set down his glass.
“You… that’s not how a pal does things-”
“That’s enough,” Jinlong announced as he tapped his son on the head. “Stop there. Don’t try to force people to do something they don’t want to do. Trying to get somebody to drink doesn’t make you a man!”