Little Aunt Crane Page 4

  They carried the waif between them to the kang, her legs still curled up under her. Erhai’s mother ran her hands up the girl’s trouser legs, as far as the tops of her thighs, but could find no trace of a bullet wound. She realised belatedly that it was menstrual blood. Relief flooded through her: at least the waif was female.

  ‘Get her some hot tea, see if that won’t help a bit.’ Erhai hurriedly handed his mother a bowl of tea. By now there was no terror or repugnance in his mother’s movements as she leaned the slight body against her own crossed legs, and slowly dribbled the tea into her mouth. Most of it ran out again, moistening the scabs of mud on her cheek, and leaving a smear on Erhai’s mother’s hand. She called to him to pour out a bowl of water, bring a towel and be quick about it. Erhai half filled a basin with hot water from a kettle that had been heating on the kang, and took a towel from the washstand.

  When the tea was all gone, Erhai’s mother moistened the cloth and wiped the mud from the waif’s face, a little at a time. She understood this trick too well: during the Japanese occupation of the northern provinces, a truckload of Japanese soldiers would sometimes come to the copper mine at the north end of the town, and all the mothers of young girls in the village would rub coal dust and river mud into their daughters’ faces.

  Bathing revealed delicate, tender skin, with a touch of soft down below the ears. By the time the basin of water had become a muddy soup, it was possible to get a rough idea of the shape of the face. It wouldn’t have been a bad-looking face, if it had been a bit fatter.

  Erhai was standing to one side, watching his mother wash the mud off this face as one would wash a turnip: two wide eyebrows appeared, and a broad, plump nose. Perhaps because it was too thin, the face had too many teeth and too big eyes, leaving an expression that was close to a grimace.

  Erhai’s mother said: ‘Very nice-looking. Just so long as she’s not a cripple. What do you say, Erhai?’

  Erhai ignored her, picked up the basin and left. He tipped the water away into a ditch, afraid that if he poured it away in the yard it would freeze and his mother would slip on her bound feet and fall. Erhai’s mother followed him out, saying that she would make the girl a drink of egg soup first. You shouldn’t put solid food in a stomach that had been starved for the first day or two. Then she sent Erhai off on a long series of errands, starting with going to the village to buy a few yards of cloth so she could make her a padded jacket. Erhai stuck his hands into his sleeves, and headed for the gate, at which point his mother remembered something and ran over the snow, staggering on her bound feet, to stuff a banknote into his cuff.

  ‘I forgot to give you the money! Get the red flowers on a blue ground!’ The general store in town had just two kinds of patterned cloth, one was a red pattern on a blue background, the other a blue pattern on red. As Erhai made his way towards the gate, Erhai’s mother said: ‘On second thoughts, make it the red one! Blue flowers on a red ground!’

  ‘What are you spending all that money for? She might well be a cripple!’

  ‘Being a cripple won’t get in the way of having children.’ Erhai’s mother waved her son away. ‘Blue flowers on a red ground, you hear me?’

  ‘Xiaohuan will be even more upset.’

  ‘What’s to be upset about? Once she’s had children, turn her out!’

  ‘And how are we going to do that?’

  ‘Put her back in that bag, carry her up the mountain and leave her there.’ Erhai’s mother chuckled, and it was plain to see that she was joking.

  Erhai came back with the cloth to find both his parents at the entrance to the main room, peering inside through a crack in the door. Stationmaster Zhang heard Erhai’s footsteps squeaking in the snow, looked over his shoulder and beckoned him across. His mother hurriedly gave up her place to him. Through the crack in the door they saw that the Japanese girl had got up, leaning sideways towards them, and was looking in the fist-sized mirror on the wall. Now that she was standing up she looked nothing like a female Japanese pirate, or a mother of Japanese pirates. She was pretty much the same height as the girls in the town. Erhai backed away. His mother appeared to be congratulating herself on a bargain.

  ‘You see, does she look like a cripple?’ she said quietly. ‘She was just all cramped from being bundled up in that sack.’

  Stationmaster Zhang lowered his voice and said: ‘If anyone asks, say we bought her to do the cooking.’

  Erhai’s mother jerked her chin at Erhai to come with her. Erhai followed his mother into the kitchen, where he saw a big bowl of sorghum and rice piled high, topped with a heap of pickled cabbage and tofu. His mother said that she had gulped down the bowl of egg soup she had brought so fast that she’d been afraid she’d scald her throat, and ordered her son: ‘Tell her to take her time, there’s more in the pot!’

  ‘Didn’t you say she wasn’t supposed to eat solid food?’ Erhai said.

  ‘How’s she supposed to eat her fill if she doesn’t eat solid food?’ His mother had clearly forgotten her earlier warning in her glee. ‘Tell her to take some water with every mouthful, she’ll be fine.’

  ‘Do I speak Japanese?’ said Erhai. But his feet were already obediently carrying him towards the main room.

  When he pushed open the door, his eyes took in two legs wearing a pair of black padded trousers that belonged to his mother. On raising his gaze slightly, he saw a pair of hands, with short fingers that were still rather childish. There was no need to do more; just by keeping his eyes open and fixed where they were, he could catch a vague glimpse of a waist. The waist shifted backwards slightly, retreating from him. Suddenly, the crown of a head appeared in front of Erhai’s half-closed eyes. Erhai’s heart started banging like a drum again: this was his first time to be on the receiving end of a bow from a Japanese. Very likely the bow was not meant for him, but for the big bowl of rice, cabbage and tofu.

  Panic seized Erhai. His half-closed eyes shot wide open, and at that moment the head in front of him straightened up again. Erhai went red to the ears: he was looking straight into her direct gaze. Her eyes were too large, like a ground squirrel, probably because she had lost so much weight. Erhai felt a surge of both pity and repugnance. He put the big bowl of sorghum rice on the kang table, turned and left.

  After leaving the main room, Erhai fled to his own room. A while later his parents came in, asking if he’d said hello to her. Erhai ignored them, and continued to rummage in the camphor-wood chest. How could making eye contact with that Jap woman just now have got him in such a state? He couldn’t even justify it to himself. His parents, on the other hand, were beaming exultantly with the sly grins of born troublemakers. His mother said: ‘This is no different from taking in a minor wife, we in the Zhang family can easily afford to do this.’ Erhai’s only response was to pretend he hadn’t heard a word of it.

  Stationmaster Zhang told his son not to worry, he and his wife would visit Xiaohuan’s home together to patch things up. Since Xiaohuan couldn’t have children, she wouldn’t dare give them any trouble. In two years’ time Erhai would take over from his father – he would be the new Stationmaster Zhang, and there would be plenty of lovely young girls ready to take Xiaohuan’s place.

  Erhai finally dug out a pair of dogskin ear muffs. His mother asked where he was going. He did not reply. It was not until he had picked up Xiaohuan’s small cotton quilt from the kang, the one she used to cover her legs in the cart, that they realised their son was going to his wife’s home.

  ‘Who goes on a long journey in heavy snow like this?’ said Stationmaster Zhang. ‘Your mother and I will go tomorrow, isn’t that enough?’

  Erhai’s movements as he tied puttees around his legs slowed noticeably.

  ‘It’s a journey of twenty kilometres! Suppose Xiaohuan won’t let you stay the night, and you have to make another twenty-kilometre journey back?’

  ‘All the same, we can’t let Xiaohuan become a laughing stock, people saying that when she’s out of the house, I’m at home with
a Japanese woman …’

  ‘That’s not being a laughing stock.’ Stationmaster Zhang spread both his hands wide.

  Erhai looked at his father.

  ‘That’s the truth!’ Stationmaster Zhang said. ‘What did we buy a Japanese woman for? To have children, whether we say it to Zhu Xiaohuan’s face or behind her back? Bloody hell, son, you’re a grown man of twenty … All right then, off you go, running through the blizzard to your wife’s home. Just see how she praises you for being so pure and noble.’

  Erhai’s mother did not worry in the least. He might speak sweet words to Xiaohuan, but in reality he would do what he was supposed to.

  ‘I can’t just stand by and watch you two bullying Xiaohuan like this!’ Erhai said, slowly untying his puttees.

  The snow fell all night without stopping. Early the next day, Erhai rose and went to top up the coal for the stove, where he found his mother teaching the little Japanese woman to make bricks of coal dust. It seemed that there was nothing wrong with her physically, she was just thin.

  Erhai’s mother turned her head, caught sight of Erhai and called: ‘Erhai, you come and teach her!’

  But Erhai had already left. He felt both queasy and amused; old women always love to pass responsibility on to someone else, he thought. It was in their nature, they couldn’t help it. Any fool with a little muscle could make coal bricks. By the third day the little Jap woman was making coal bricks on her own; she had put on the new padded cotton jacket, red with a blue pattern, which Erhai’s mother had sewn for her, and taken the leftover cloth to tie round her stubbly head, which reminded him of a conker. She had knotted the headscarf in a Japanese style: no matter how you looked at it, this was a Japanese woman. When Stationmaster Zhang came in from work, she knelt at the doorway, dressed in these new clothes, to welcome him home. Before two more days had passed she had figured out Stationmaster Zhang’s work schedule; she would be there very early, kneeling at the door, to tie his shoelaces for him when he left. She did all this with such remarkable composure, solemn eyes staring straight ahead, that neither Erhai nor his mother said a word.

  At last the snow melted. Once the roads had dried out and were passable again, Erhai and his mother took the mule cart to the Zhu family village. Of course Stationmaster Zhang could not go himself, who would be left in charge of the station? Besides, an important personage like a stationmaster could not waste his time on such a trifling matter. When he said he would go to collect Zhu Xiaohuan, he had just been saying the first thing that came into his head, and Stationmaster Zhang said many such things; nobody took them seriously. He sent Erhai and his mother on their way with gifts for their in-laws: two bottles of sorghum liquor, and a piece of ginseng he had been saving for years.

  Erhai’s mother told her son not to worry about the Zhus: everyone in the Zhu family knew how things stood, their only worry would be that the Zhang family was going to put aside their daughter.

  ‘What would I do that for?!’

  ‘Who said we’re going to put her aside? Are we that sort of wicked people? I was just saying that Xiaohuan made the best marriage out of all the four Zhu girls, it’s them who’re scared of us.’

  At the very beginning Erhai had not been at all fond of Xiaohuan. When he married her it had all been done strictly by the book; there had been nothing personal about it at all. For a while, he had even resented her, because the date of birth on her papers had been tampered with. After the wedding, Erhai learned from a classmate who lived in Zhu village that Xiaohuan had been the old maid of the Zhu family, so indulged that no one could do a thing with her; everyone knew she was a troublemaker, so no one dared to marry her. Fearing she would be left on the shelf, the Zhu family had adjusted her age downwards by two years.

  Erhai could not remember exactly when he had first started to become fond of Xiaohuan. She did her duty: by the second month of their marriage she was pregnant. By the fourth month, the town midwife said that you could tell just by looking at Xiaohuan’s midriff that she was carrying a son. From then on not just Erhai but even Stationmaster Zhang and Erhai’s mother all began to tolerate Xiaohuan’s bad temper, enduring it as they praised her with fawning smiles.

  After she lost the baby, Xiaohuan’s temper suddenly improved. The seven-month embryo had been as large and fully formed as a year-old child. Erhai had heard his mother telling the story over and over again to relatives and friends: how Xiaohuan had come across four Japanese soldiers, how she had become separated from her female friends as they fled, how she had climbed onto an ox that was grazing by the side of the road, and how the ox had carried her in a race with the Japanese soldiers. In the end it was hard to say if the Japanese soldiers or the ox should take the blame, but it was the ox that threw Xiaohuan up into the air, to land over three metres away. Xiaohuan went into premature labour.

  Erhai’s clearest memories were of the blood. They had carried out Xiaohuan’s blood by the basinful; the old doctor from the county hospital had been covered in it like a garment. Spreading his two bloody hands wide, he had asked the Zhangs whether he should save the mother or the child: it was up to them, they just had to say the word. Erhai said: Save the mother. Erhai’s mother and father said nothing. Still the doctor did not leave. He glanced at Erhai and told him in a low voice that he could save Xiaohuan’s life but she would not be able to have children afterwards; there was too much internal damage. Now Erhai’s mother spoke up: Then keep the child. Erhai bawled at the doctor’s retreating back: Keep the adult! Save Xiaohuan! The doctor turned round, and told the family to come to a decision. Stationmaster Zhang announced formally on behalf of the Zhang family that if only one life could be spared, then he was to save the grandson and heir. Erhai seized the doctor by the collar: Why are you listening to him?! I’m the child’s father, I’m the head of Zhu Xiaohuan’s family!

  In fact, Erhai had no recollection of having spoken these words. It was his wife who remembered them and recited them back to him later. Xiaohuan said: ‘You really are as stubborn as a donkey – you gave that old doctor such a fright he nearly wet himself!’ Erhai pondered these words afterwards. If he had truly said such things, this must go to show that he loved Xiaohuan. This was no common love: anything that could make him stand up to his parents, and risk cutting off the Zhang family line altogether, must be a strong affection indeed, deeply rooted in his heart and his guts.

  When they entered the Zhu family’s courtyard, Xiaohuan’s parents brought out stools, and invited their in-laws to sit in the sun and have a cup of tea. The Zhu family were one of the more comfortably off families in the village; they owned over five acres of good land and traded in oilseeds. It took a lot of shouting and furious scolding from Xiaohuan’s mother to get her out of the house. She greeted her mother-in-law with a brief ‘Ma’, then turned at once to face her own mother, eyes full of surprise, saying: ‘Who’s this then in a new jacket? Did we invite him? What a thick skin he’s grown!’

  Erhai kept on drinking his tea, as the Zhu parents and Erhai’s mother laughed hollowly together. Erhai felt like a weight had been lifted from his heart: Xiaohuan was treating the matter with good sense and clear understanding, behaving as if this serious grievance were a common-or-garden spat with her husband. He could tell from his in-laws’ expressions that Xiaohuan had not informed them of the true state of affairs.

  Xiaohuan had a round face with permanently flushed cheeks, and a pair of rather narrow eyes, with puffy lids half concealing very thick eyelashes, so that whenever he looked at her she always appeared to have only just woken from sleep. She had a very sharp tongue but a ready smile, and when she smiled a dimple appeared on her cheek, and the corner of her mouth turned up to reveal a gold tooth. Erhai had no time for people who inlaid their mouths with gold, but on Xiaohuan’s face, that tooth glinting in the midst of her smile did not detract from her appearance at all. Erhai did not consider Xiaohuan a beauty, but there was something very appealing about her. She had an intimate, affectionate manner with e
verybody; even when she cursed you there was still something warm about it.

  Xiaohuan’s parents produced a packet of griddle cakes, saying that it should be enough for the three of them to eat for lunch on the road.

  Xiaohuan said: ‘The three of who? Who’s going back with them?’

  Her mother cuffed her around the head, and told her to get on, pack her bags and go home with her husband, for her parents didn’t plan on keeping her. Only then did Xiaohuan shoot him a sideways glance, jerk her head and enter the house. A minute later she was back, with a headscarf and the legs of her padded trousers neatly tied. She had packed her things ages ago, of course; she had got everything ready before she heard Erhai and his mother coming through the gate. Erhai’s lips twitched slightly up. He felt that Xiaohuan had made things very easy for him, first making a scene, then setting things to rights, and all done in the best possible way.

  * * *

  fn1 In Chinese currency one yuan divided into one hundred fen. The jiao is the equivalent of ten fen.

  2

  ONE APRIL MORNING, the Japanese woman ran away. When Xiaohuan got up to go to the toilet, she noticed that the big bar on the main gate was undone. It was barely past dawn; Xiaohuan could not think who would want to be out so early. Yesterday evening’s snow had been very light, covering the ground in a thin grey layer. Xiaohuan could see a line of footprints in the snow, which started in the east room, went into the kitchen and came out again, leading towards the main gate. The Japanese woman and Erhai’s parents slept in the north room.

  Xiaohuan went back to her room, shook Erhai awake, and said to him, ‘That Japanese she-wolf! We fed her up and now she’s run off.’

  Erhai opened his eyes as wide as they would go, to indicate that he thought she was talking nonsense but he wanted her to carry on talking nonsense for now.