The Years, Months, Days Page 3

  Between dawn and dusk, that ring of mats surrounded the corn sprout like a small garden in front of the house of a wealthy peasant. The solitary sprout stood there like a flagpole. It was able to enjoy a privileged existence, drinking water and absorbing nutrients, and at midday it was shaded by the reed mats. The sprout grew crazily, and after a week or so it had already reached the top of the enclosure.

  The problem was that the sun kept reappearing, and the well would inevitably dry up. The Elder returned to the village every day to fetch some water, and each trip he would have to lower the bucket into the well more than ten times, but even then would end up with half a bucket of sand and murky water. A feeling of terror began to rise out of the well, permeating the Elder’s entire being. Finally, one day he lowered the bucket, using the entire length of the rope, but only managed to bring up the equivalent of a small bowl of water. He then had to wait for a long time before another bowlful of water seeped into the bottom of the well.

  The well was almost dry, like a tree that had lost all its leaves.

  The Elder came up with an idea—before nightfall he lowered his quilt into the well, let it sit there overnight, then the next morning he hauled it up and was able to wring out half a bucketful of water. He then lowered the quilt back into the well, and took the water to the field. He also took the water from washing dishes, from washing his face, and from occasionally washing his clothes—and used it to irrigate the corn sprout. In this way, he managed to make do, and his water supply did not appear excessively limited. As he was again wringing the water from the quilt into the bucket, clouds of steam wafted out. The Elder battled the sun over the right to the steam, exclaiming, I’m already seventy-two years old. Is there anything I haven’t experienced? Do you think I can be defeated by a dried-up well? As long as there is water underground, I’ll figure out a way to find it. Sun, if you have the patience, you can try to dry up the water underground.

  In the end, the Elder won the battle.

  One day, the Elder dug in his nephew’s field continuously from dawn till dusk, but only ended up with half a bowl of corn seeds. The next day he went to another family’s field, but didn’t manage to find even half a bowl. Over a span of three days, the Elder and the dog had to shift from eating three times a day to eating only twice, and in place of corn soup they instead had to settle for dilute broth. The Elder realized that the situation was becoming quite desperate, but what he couldn’t understand was—if each family had sowed their fields with corn seeds that never sprouted—why wasn’t the soil full of seeds? Upon seeing the dog’s ribs poking out, the Elder broke into a cold sweat. He touched his own cheeks, and found that he could pull his skin several inches from his face, as though his skin was but a piece of cloth draped loosely over his skull. He felt completely drained, and while hauling the quilt up from the bottom of the well he repeatedly had to stop and rest. The Elder thought, I can’t let myself starve to death like this.

  The Elder said, Blindy, I have no choice but to scale a courtyard wall and break into someone’s house.

  He added, Let’s just think of it as borrowing. I’ll return everything after there’s a harvest.

  The Elder took a sack and staggered back to the village. The dog silently followed him. The Elder curled his toes, so that he was walking on his heels and the tips of his toes, while keeping the arches of his feet elevated so as not to touch the hot ground. The blind dog, meanwhile, would stop every few steps and lick its paws. It seemed as though it took the two of them a year to make it to the village, and when they finally reached a cattle pen near the front of the village, the Elder huddled in the wall’s shadow, removed his shoes, and massaged his feet.

  The dog also sat in the shade, panting, then peed a drop of urine against the wall.

  The Elder said, Let’s borrow some grain from this household. He removed an axe from his sack and proceeded to smash open the lock on the front entrance. Then he pushed the door open and went inside. He went directly to the doorway leading to the main room, and smashed that lock as well. When he stepped into the main room, he saw that the table was covered with a thick layer of dust, and there were cobwebs everywhere. Between the dust and the cobwebs, there was a memorial tablet, and a portrait of an old man. The figure in the picture was wearing a robe and a mandarin jacket. He had bright eyes that cut through the dust, and his gaze seemed to come to rest on the Elder.

  The Elder stared in shock.

  This was old Baozhang’s house. Old Baozhang had died only three years earlier, and his gaze still appeared sharp and lively. The Elder wondered, Blindy, are you really blind? How did you know to pee at the entrance of Baozhang’s home? He leaned his axe against the doorway, knelt down and kowtowed three times, then bowed three more times. He said, Baozhang, the Balou Mountains are several hundred li wide, but now the entire region is in the grip of a once-in-a-millennium drought. All the other residents—including men and women, young and old—have fled, and Blindy and I are the only ones left in the village, or even the entire world. We stayed behind to look after the village, but it has been three days since we had a real meal. Today, we have come to your house to borrow some food, but next year we will definitely return everything. Furthermore, Baozhang, you need not mind us—I already know where each family hid the grain they kept in reserve in case of drought. Upon saying this, the Elder got up, dusted the dirt from his knees, then carried his grain sack into one of the inner rooms, where he looked in all of the jugs and jars. They were completely empty, but the Elder was not discouraged. It seemed as though he knew that the family’s grain wouldn’t be stored in such an obvious place. Next, he looked under the bed. Using the light that was coming in through the window, he carefully inspected the area beneath the bed in the eastern room, and thought, When everyone fled the famine, would they have left their grain in the open for thieves to find? If it were me, I would have hidden mine under my bed. But, other than a porcelain urine basin, the area under Baozhang’s bed was completely empty, without even a speck of dirt. The Elder then moved the empty jugs and jars out of the way, to look under the table and inside the cabinet. The sound of him moving things around echoed through the three-room house. He rummaged about for a long time, until he was covered in dust and cobwebs, but still couldn’t manage to find a single grain of wheat.

  The Elder dusted off his hands and said, Baozhang. Ah, Baozhang. When you were still alive, I never did you wrong, and even though I’m six months older than you, I’ve always called you Elder Brother. If there wasn’t any leftover grain in your house, you should have just said so! Instead, you’ve made me spend half the day looking for nothing, as though I had limitless energy—as though, if I were to leave your house, I wouldn’t be able to find any grain elsewhere.

  Baozhang, of course, didn’t respond.

  When Baozhang didn’t respond, the Elder tossed him a glance, and added, Yes, it’s true. You made me kowtow and bow to you for nothing. Afterward, he patted the head of the blind dog, who was lying in the entranceway, and said, Let’s go. I’m sure we’ll have better luck elsewhere.

  The Elder closed the door and hung up the broken lock—leaving the door the way he had found it—then proceeded to enter one house after another. He went to seven houses in a row—and each time he broke the lock on the front door, went inside, and searched their grain jars and jugs, in and around their cabinets, under their beds and tables. He searched each house with a fine comb, but in the end he was unable to find even a single speck of grain. When he emerged from the seventh house, the Elder took a food scale and a horse whip—this family had a horse-drawn carriage, and the Elder had previously helped them drive it—then he went out into the street and stood there at a loss. He dropped the scale and the whip on the side of the road, and asked himself, Why do I need a scale? If I could find enough grain to weigh on a scale, in the future I could return the correct amount of grain to its owner, but where in the world am I going to find any grain? He said, What do I need a whip for? Although I cou
ld use a whip like a gun to protect myself—the Elder had once used a whip to kill a wolf—the animals in the mountains have all fled and now there isn’t even a single rabbit left. Isn’t this whip completely useless? As the sun shone through the cracks in each door, every house was illuminated more brightly than before. The Elder glanced up at the sky, and saw that the sun was already at its zenith. It was lunchtime, but he hadn’t smelled the faintest hint of grain. A feeling of desperation surged in his heart. He told the blind dog to sit down in the street, saying, You should wait here. Since you are completely blind, you wouldn’t be able to see where everyone has hidden their grain. Then he headed over to another alley, where he selected several houses with plenty of sunlight, and broke into them. Yet even after he had entered three more residences, his grain sack remained completely empty. When he reemerged from the alley, the bright sunlight made him appear pale, and a sense of acute sorrow coursed through the deep furrows of his face. The Elder was holding a salt shaker that had half a pinch of salt inside, and he put a single grain of salt into his mouth, then went to put one into the dog’s mouth as well.

  The dog looked at him inquisitively with its blind eyes, seeming to ask, Could it be that you didn’t find any food?

  The Elder didn’t answer. Instead, he picked up the whip, stood in the middle of the road, and began whipping the sun. The thin leather whip writhed through the air like a snake, producing a series of sharp, explosive cracks. The Elder whipped the sun until its fragments fell to the earth like pear petals, covering the ground with shattered sunlight, and the entire village seemed to be filled with the sound of New Year’s fireworks. Only after the Elder was exhausted and covered in sweat, did he finally put away the whip.

  Deeply disappointed, the blind dog stood in front of the Elder, as its eye sockets grew moist.

  The Elder said, Blindy, don’t be afraid. In the future, whenever I have a bowl of grain, I’ll give you half. I would rather starve than let you die of hunger.

  The blind dog’s eyes filled with tears. The teardrops fell to the ground, creating two bean-like depressions in the earth.

  Let’s go. The Elder picked up the salt shaker, as well as the whip and the scale. He said, Let’s return to the hill and dig for more seeds.

  After they had only walked a couple of steps, the Elder came to an abrupt halt. He saw a swarm of rats, each of which was round and fat, as though it were a year with a bumper harvest. The rats waited under the shade of the wall, staring uneasily at the village, the Elder, and the blind dog. Suddenly, it was as if a door in the Elder’s mind had swung open.

  The Elder laughed.

  This was the first time the Elder had laughed since the other villagers fled, and his crackling laugh was hoarse and brittle, like slow-roasted soybeans. The Elder said, You can starve the sky and you can starve the earth, but you certainly can’t starve this old man.

  The Elder led the blind dog over to the terrified rats, and said, Blindy, do you know where all the grain is hidden? I do. I know.

  That night, the Elder dug up three rat nests and collected a sheng of corn seeds. The Elder spent the first half of the night sleeping lightly in the shed, then around midnight—under the stars and the bright moon, and as the ground was covered with a bright sheet of moonlight—the Elder told the dog to stand guard by the corn sprout while he went to the center of the field, where he sat down and held his breath. He stayed this way for a while, until he was able to hear rats rustling around. This was not the sound of rats playing happily, but rather they were fighting over food. The Elder pressed his ear to the ground, confirming where exactly the sounds were coming from, then used a stake to mark the spot. Next, he went back to fetch his hoe and began digging. Sure enough, three feet from the stake and one foot down, he found a rat’s nest in which there was the equivalent of half a bowl of corn seeds. The Elder didn’t leave a single seed behind, even scooping up the rat droppings along with the grain. Then he went to a second spot, and followed the same process.

  The Elder’s days were busy. In the morning he would wake and go to the village to haul the water-soaked quilt up from the well. After returning to his field and eating breakfast, he would pick out the rat droppings from the grain, and then put the grain in a bowl. After the bowl was full, he would bury it next to the corn sprout. After lunch, he would need to take a nap, and although the sun shone brightly into the shed, it wasn’t as sweltering as it was outside, and sometimes a cool breeze would even blow through. He would sleep soundly, and when he woke up the sun would already be over the western mountains. He would then go back to the village to wring another half a bucket of water from the quilt, after which dusk would arrive as usual. He would have dinner and then would sit with the dog by the corn sprout in the cold fear and solitude of the night. He would ask the dog and the sprout some questions that had been troubling him, such as, Why do crops grow one leaf at a time? Neither the dog nor the sprout was able to offer an answer, so the Elder simply lit his pipe, took a long drag, and said, Let me tell you. It’s because they are crops, which is why they have to grow one leaf at a time. And because others are plants, they grow two leaves at a time. Some nights, the wind would blow as usual, and the Elder would ask the dog and the sprout even more profound questions, such as, You knew? When old Baozhang was still alive, a scholar once came to the village and said that this earth was spinning around, and each time it spun around once, this was a day. You tell me, wasn’t this scholar simply farting in the wind? If the earth were spinning, then why aren’t we knocked out of our beds when we sleep in the village at night? Why does water not spill out of the water jugs, or stream out of wells? Why do people always walk with their heads pointed toward the sky? The Elder added, Based on what that man said, the earth must be sucking us in, so that we don’t fall out of our beds at night. But just think, if the earth were sucking us in, then how would we be able to lift our feet when we walk? As the Elder was discussing these sorts of questions, which were as deep and murky as a dark hole, he would stop smoking his pipe and assume a very solemn expression. Finally, he laid out all of his questions in front of the dog and the sprout, then fell to the ground, such that his face was now parallel with the sky. He let the moonlight wash over him, and said, I was too polite to that scholar, and was too concerned with trying not to make him lose face. He stayed in the village for three days, but I didn’t ask him about any of this. I was afraid that if he were unable to answer my questions, he might lose face in front of the entire village. The Elder added, To eat and survive, that scholar relied on his learning, which I couldn’t bring myself to shatter.

  The cornstalk continued growing smoothly. Its leaves were now as wide as a man’s palm, extending layer after layer from the ground up to the reed mats, and beyond. By now the stalk was already twice as high as the mats, and the sound of it growing at night had become a dull roar. In a few more days, the stalk would reach its full height. In order to make it easier to enter the enclosure, the Elder cut open one of the mats. Seven days earlier he had gone in to compare his height with that of the stalk, and found that the stalk already reached his neck, and two days later it was up to his forehead. Within half a month, the stalk should start producing ears, and after three months the corn should be ripe. The Elder thought about how, in this barren and desolate mountain range, he would have succeeded in growing an ear of corn, and how he would collect a bowlful of corn, with each grain being as precious as a pearl. Eventually, the rains would finally come, the villagers would return to the village, and they would be able to use this bowl of corn seeds for sowing. In this way, the mountain range could once again be covered in endless fields of green corn. The Elder thought, After I die, they should erect a plaque reading BOUNDLESS BENEFICENCE in front of my grave.

  The Elder continued talking to himself, saying, I am indeed full of beneficence, and as he was saying this, he slipped into a dream. Later, still asleep, he climbed down from his shed, went over to the cornstalk, and hoed around it. In the quiet night, th
e rhythmic and resonant sound of his hoeing was like a melodic line in a folk music performance. Throughout the mountain range, the sound spread far and wide. After he finished hoeing, the Elder didn’t return to bed, and instead he took his hoe to another location, where he again held his breath to listen for signs of a rat’s nest filled with corn seeds. When he woke up the next morning, he discovered that his bowl, which had been empty, was now full of corn and rat droppings. He stood next to the bowl for a long time, staring in shock.

  There was a grain sack hanging from one of the shed posts, and it was already half full of corn. Three days earlier, at around noon, the Elder had been sleeping and the blind dog had run over and tugged at him until he woke up. The dog then dragged him out to the corner of a field located several dozen steps away. When they arrived, the Elder discovered a rat’s nest full of corn. When the Elder took the corn back and weighed it, he found that it was about four or five qian. So, it turned out that the blind dog could find rat nests as well. The dog would run around a field, sniffing the ground, and whenever it found a nest, it would start barking.