Dream of Ding Village Read online

  Grandpa got out of bed, turned on the light and searched around until he found a willow twig. He whittled one end to a sharp point, wrote on a piece of paper My son Ding Hui deserves to die, and wrapped the paper around the twig. Under cover of darkness, he snuck into the village and buried the twig behind our house.

  After returning to his rooms, Grandpa quickly undressed, got back into bed and fell fast asleep.

  Despite Grandpa’s willow-twig curse, my dad remained alive and well.

  Zhao Dequan, however, was knocking on death’s door. He wouldn’t last the spring, the season when all living things prospered. Normally, if you had a serious illness, some life-threatening condition, all you had to do was make it through the cruel winter months and into spring. If you could hold out until then, you’d get a new lease of life, and maybe live to see another year.

  But there wasn’t much hope for Zhao Dequan. The day he’d carried the old blackboard with the heavy elm frame from the school into the village, he’d had to stop many times along the road to rest. When he’d reached the village, he’d got a lot of teasing questions from the villagers: ‘Hey, Dequan, what’s with the blackboard? You teaching classes now?’ Some of them, like Grandpa, had been opposed to the sick removing the items from the school. ‘Who’d have thought when all you sick people moved into the school, you’d start divvying up public property?’ ‘Good heavens, you’re even taking the blackboards?’

  Unable to answer these questions, Zhao Dequan increased his pace and hurried from the west end to the east end of the village without once stopping to rest. He turned into a narrow lane, entered his front gate, propped the blackboard up against a wall and collapsed right there in the middle of the courtyard.

  Before Zhao Dequan got sick, he could easily lift 200lbs – a load of stones, say, or several sacks of rice – and carry it for miles without getting winded. But now, carrying a blackboard that couldn’t have weighed more than 100lbs, probably a lot less, for several hundred yards across the village, he was exhausted. Drenched in sweat, wheezing like the wind through cracks, he lay paralysed on the ground, unable to get back up.

  ‘Why on earth would you carry a blackboard all the way home?’ asked his wife.

  ‘Because they gave it to me . . . to make my coffin,’ Zhao Dequan gasped, his face deathly pale. He tried to say something more, but his throat seemed to be blocked: he could hardly breathe, much less speak. As he coughed and gasped and tried to spit something up, his face flushed beet red. The spots on his face seemed to bulge from his skin, dark purple lumps in a blaze of red. His wife rushed over in alarm and began thumping him on the back. Zhao Dequan managed to spit something out, a ball of phlegm mixed with blood, before keeling over on the ground.

  Zhao Dequan had carried his blackboard all the way home, but he would never again return to the school.

  Several days later, his wife went to the school to speak to Jia Genzhu and Ding Yuejin. ‘Chairman Jia. Chairman Ding. When my husband first came to this school, he was able to walk and move around without any trouble. Now he’s lying in bed at home, breathing his last! You know the poor man is dying . . . why on earth would you give him a big heavy blackboard, when everyone else got desks and chairs? I’ve been in this village a long time, and I’ve seen other men beat and curse their women. But in all the years we’ve been married, my husband never raised a hand to me, never spoke an unkind word. Now he’s dying, and I don’t even have a coffin to bury him in. He sold his blood to support his family, and to build a nice house for me and the kids . . . the least we can do is make sure he has a decent coffin.’

  Jia Genzhu and Ding Yuejin told Zhao’s wife that she was free to go through the school and take any items she fancied, provided they could be used to make a coffin. Later, as they led her through the empty rooms and deserted classrooms, she saw that the school had been picked clean. All the desks and chairs were missing. The blackboards and blackboard stands, teachers’ beds, footlockers and storage chests were all gone. Even the mirrors had been stripped of their frames. The teachers’ quarters were empty. Ransacked. The floor was strewn with old exam papers, homework books and tattered socks. The classrooms, too, were bare, littered with scraps of paper, dust and broken bits of chalk. Other than the personal belongings of the residents and the bags of food in the kitchen, there was nothing left in the school.

  They’d given everything away. They’d robbed the place clean.

  The metal basketball frame stood desolate in the schoolyard, its wooden backboard missing. The residents now used it for drying their laundry. As the sun dipped towards the west, Zhao Dequan’s wife and the two chairmen stood forlorn in the schoolyard, trying to decide what to do. They had completed their tour of the school and come up empty-handed.

  ‘I’ll give you my chair, if you like,’ Ding Yuejin offered.

  ‘Forget it,’ said Jia Genzhu. ‘Let’s go and talk to that hound Ding Hui, and see if he’ll give her a coffin.’

  Accompanied by a posse of other sick villagers, they paid a visit to my dad.

  The scene at my family’s front gate was not a friendly one. The crowd buzzed with anger, accusations and hearsay about my dad selling coffins in other villages. They shouted that they knew he’d been selling coffins that were meant for them, coffins that the government had provided free for people dying of the fever. My dad let them shout and argue and work themselves into a frenzy, while he said nothing. Finally, Jia Genzhu raised his voice: ‘Would everyone shut up!’

  As the villagers fell silent, Jia Genzhu pulled Ding Yuejin to the front of the crowd. ‘We’re the ones who helped you get those government coffins in the first place,’ Jia Genzhu told my dad. ‘So just answer us this: is it true you’ve been selling them?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Dad answered. ‘So what?’

  ‘Who have you been selling them to?’

  ‘To whoever wants them. If you want coffins, I’ll sell you some, too.’

  Dad disappeared into the house and emerged with a brown paper envelope, from which he produced a small booklet identifying him as ‘Comrade Ding Hui, vice-chairman of the Wei county task force on HIV and AIDS.’ He then pulled out a sheaf of documents, all written on government letterhead and bearing official-looking red seals. There were letters from the party committees of Wei county and Henan province, as well as from various departments of city, county and provincial government. One document was titled ‘An Urgent Memo Regarding the Prevention of Dissemination of Information Regarding “Fever Villages” (or “AIDS villages”)’. It bore the large red seals of the provincial governor and the party committee of Henan province. Another, certified by the Henan Provincial Task Force on HIV and AIDS, read: ‘A Notice Regarding Funeral Arrangements and Subsidized Low-Price Coffins for Fever Patients’. The city and county documents, marked with the seals of the city and county task forces on HIV and AIDS, were mainly memos about memos, notices about notices, all sent down from higher levels of government.

  After my dad had showed the documents to Jia Genzhu and Ding Yuejin, he asked: ‘Are you the co-chairmen of the Ding Village task force on HIV and AIDS?’

  The two men stared at my dad and said nothing.

  Taking their silence as an affirmative, my dad smiled and said: ‘Well, I’m the vice-chairman of the county task force, which means I’m in charge of coffin sales and government subsidies for fever patients in this whole county. I’m the one who approved your request for ten pounds of grain, ten pounds of rice and a cash subsidy for everyone in Ding Village with the fever . . . Didn’t you see my signature on the form?

  ‘Now,’ my dad continued. ‘The regulations say that these government-subsidized coffins can’t be sold for less than two hundred yuan each, but seeing as we’re all from Ding Village, I think I can pull a few strings and get you coffins for only a hundred and eighty each. If you submit your requests right now, I’ll have someone deliver the coffins tomorrow.’

  As the sun sank in the west, a red glow settled over the village. The sweet scen
t of spring drifted in from the fields and dissipated through the village streets. Standing on the top step of his doorway like a political leader atop a rostrum, my dad scanned the crowd of villagers and addressed them in a loud voice:

  ‘These coffins are not very cheap, actually. It would cost about the same to make your own. If they were such a great bargain, don’t you think I’d have told you about it earlier?

  ‘Honestly, I wouldn’t sell one to my own brother, not if he asked. The wood is not even dry yet . . . In a couple of days, these coffins are going to start showing cracks as wide as your finger.

  ‘You’d be better off buying wood and building a coffin yourself. Then you could make whatever kind you wanted.

  ‘We’re all friends and neighbours here . . . There’s no need to get all worked up, or turn this into some kind of confrontation. Because if it comes to that . . .’, pointing at Jia Genzhu and Ding Yuejin: ‘You two might be in charge of the village task force, but I’m the guy in charge of the county . . . and who do you think wins? Who has the final say? If this turned into a fight or got ugly, one word from me and the higher-ups would have the police and public security here so fast it would make your head spin. But nobody wants that, am I right? What kind of a neighbour would I be – what kind of a person would I be – to do something like that?’

  After that, nothing more was said.

  After that, there was nothing more to be said.

  The crowd of villagers dispersed and began heading back to the school. The setting sun hung red and heavy in the sky, like a ball of glowing red-vermilion ink. Like lead. It slowly sank towards the horizon, dragged to earth under its own leaden weight. The western border of the central plain appeared to be a swathe of fire; you could almost hear the flames, popping and crackling like a wildfire raging through a grove of cypress trees.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1

  Ding Village elementary was silent, sleeping the sleep of the dead. That day, the sky had been so clear it was as if you could see right through it, to a deep and bottomless blue heaven. But now, in the middle of the night, the sky was overcast, as damp and dark as a freshly dug grave. In the silence of the school, a deep well of silence, you could almost hear the clouds bumping against each other. Everyone was asleep. Even Grandpa was asleep.

  Thump. Thump. Someone was knocking at Grandpa’s window. The late-night visitor must have come in through the unlocked school gate. Since Genzhu and Yuejin had confiscated Grandpa’s keys, no one bothered to lock up at night. People came and went at all hours, so the gate was always open. Anyone could walk right in and creep up to Grandpa’s window, unheard. Thump, thump . . . The sound continued, steady as a drumbeat.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Grandpa called.

  ‘It’s me, Professor,’ the visitor wheezed. ‘Open up.’

  Grandpa opened the door to find Zhao Dequan standing on the threshold. In the few days since Grandpa had last seen him, Dequan had changed beyond recognition. Where he had been skin-and-bone before, now he was just bone. What flesh he had left hung limp from his skeletal frame, dark and discoloured, a patchwork of dry, hardened scabs; the sockets of his eyes, two deep, dark pits. One look at him and Grandpa could see that death was dancing in Zhao Dequan’s body. His eyes were dull, bereft of light. He stood at Grandpa’s door like a cadaver in shabby clothes. Under the electric lights, his shadow seemed more lifelike than his person, a dark silhouette flickering on the wall like a funeral shroud ruffled by the breeze.

  When Grandpa opened the door, Zhao Dequan broke into a smile, a sickly grin that seemed to cost him a good deal of effort.

  ‘Professor Ding,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking it over, and I decided that while I’m still well enough to walk, I ought to return the blackboard. I don’t want to end my life by doing something so low. It’s a blackboard, not a coffin. Once the fever is gone, the kids will be back in school, and their teachers will need something to write on. I’d rather be buried without a coffin,’ he sighed, ‘than leave those kids without a blackboard.’

  Grandpa looked out and saw the blackboard loaded on a hand-cart parked beside the gate.

  ‘I can’t lift it myself,’ said Zhao Dequan. ‘Can you help me carry it inside?’

  With a lot of clunking and clattering, Grandpa and Zhao Dequan managed to carry the blackboard into the room.

  ‘Careful you don’t hurt yourself,’ Grandpa said, as they leaned the blackboard up against a wall.

  ‘No matter. I’m going to be dead soon, anyway. If Genzhu and Yuejin see the blackboard, you can blame it on me . . . Tell them I’m the one who brought it back here.’

  Zhao Dequan stood panting, trying to catch his breath. The same sickly smile was glued to his face like a sticking plaster. After he had helped Grandpa lean the blackboard against the wall and wiped the dust from his hands, Grandpa expected him to leave, but instead Dequan sat down on Grandpa’s bed, still smiling his silent, cardboard-cutout smile.

  Grandpa waited for him to say something, but it seemed the man had nothing to say. When Grandpa offered him a drink of water, he waved it away. When Grandpa poured him a basin of water so he could wash his hands, he ignored the basin and said: ‘Professor, I’m fine. But if it’s okay with you, I’d just like to sit here for a while.’

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Grandpa asked, taking a chair opposite the bed. ‘If so, you can tell me.’

  Zhao Dequan’s smile faded. ‘It’s nothing, really.’

  The two men sat quietly, as still as the night around them. Silence lay thick across the plain. Now and then, a chirp or a cry broke the stillness. Some tiny insect managing to make itself heard. Then there was silence, and after that, more silence.

  ‘You ought to move back into the school,’ said Grandpa awkwardly, trying to make conversation.

  Zhao Dequan stared. ‘Don’t you see the state I’m in? I doubt I’ll live more than a few days.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ Grandpa tried his best to be reassuring. ‘You’ve made it through the winter and into spring. I bet you’ll live at least another year.’

  Zhao Dequan smiled wryly, unconvinced. As he shifted position on the bed, his shadow flickered over the walls like a black silk funeral shroud. It was clear that he was having trouble moving, but his shadow remained active. It was as if his spirit had already left his body and was hovering nearby.

  Grandpa realized that Zhao Dequan was right: he really was going to die soon.

  ‘Do you have a casket yet?’ he asked, deciding he might as well be direct. ‘Even if it’s not the best quality, you’ve got to be buried in something.’

  Zhao looked embarrassed. ‘Jia Genzhu and Ding Yuejin gave my wife permission to cut down one of the paulownia trees to make my coffin.’

  Zhao gripped the edge of the bed for support, as if he were getting ready to stand up and leave. But instead of leaving, he spoke again. ‘Professor, that’s really what I came here to tell you. Genzhu and Yuejin gave my wife special permission to cut down a tree for my coffin, but now everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, chopping down the paulownia and cottonwoods. And some of those people don’t even need coffins. They’re cutting down all the trees in the village . . . I’m afraid that by morning, there won’t be any left.

  ‘You’ve got to do something, Professor. Once all the trees are gone, this village won’t be the same. Even if I don’t get my coffin, I don’t care. The only thing I want to do before I die is give my wife the red silk jacket I promised her. Anyway, what use is a coffin when you’re already dead? It’s not worth cutting down every tree in the village.’

  2

  Grandpa stepped out of the school gate, hesitated for a moment, and began walking towards the village. Darkness blanketed the plain like a vast black lake. There was no moon or stars, only vague, flickering shadows. The road to the village was swallowed up by the darkness, making it easy to stumble over its uneven surface or stray into the fields on either side. Grandpa had to tread carefully, using the patches and points of
light in the distance to gauge his direction. As he drew closer to the village, the dark night air was filled with the fresh scent of sawdust. At first, it was just a faint whiff coming from the direction of the light. Then the smell seemed to coalesce into something more solid: waves of it sweeping in from the west end of the village, rolling in from the north and south, washing in from the alleyways to the east. With it came a tide of sound: the buzz of saws slicing timber, the thud of axes chopping trees, the babble of human conversation. It reminded Grandpa of years long ago, when everyone in the village had laboured day and night smelting steel in backyard furnaces or constructing massive irrigation works.

  Quickening his step, Grandpa walked in the direction of the nearest lights. He found Ding Sanzi and his father working at the edge of their wheat field, digging up the roots of a large cottonwood tree. By the light of their lanterns, Grandpa could see that they’d dug an enormous room-sized pit, exposing the root system of the tree. Ding Sanzi’s father, stripped down to his underpants and covered in sweat, was using an axe to sever the last two connected roots, each the circumference of a large bowl. As he swung his axe, bits of dirt and wood flew through the air and stuck to his sweaty skin, making it look as if he’d been splattered in mud. Some distance away in the middle of the field, Ding Sanzi was trying to pull down the cottonwood by tugging on a heavy rope tied to a fork of the tree. Using all his strength, he yanked the rope, causing the tree to sway. There was a tremendous snapping and creaking of roots, and for a moment it seemed that the huge cottonwood might topple. When it refused to fall, Ding Sanzi shouted: ‘Dad . . . come over here and help me pull!’

  ‘Wait until I chop this last root, then it’ll fall!’

  As the older man raised his axe, Grandpa hurried over to block his way. ‘Hey, who said you could chop down this tree?’

  His axe frozen in mid-swing, Sanzi’s father stared at Grandpa. After a moment, he laid down the axe and called to his son.