Dream of Ding Village Read online

A middle-aged man handed my dad a photograph of a smiling, handsome teenage boy. After scrutinizing the photo, my dad looked up at the man, taking in his tattered, dirty undershirt and mildewed, sun-bleached straw farmer’s hat.

  ‘Handsome boy. Was he your son?’

  The farmer, gratified, nodded and smiled.

  ‘How old was he?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘When did he die?’

  ‘Three years ago.’

  ‘Did he go to school?’

  ‘Until junior high.’

  ‘Was he ever engaged?’

  ‘Yes, but when she found out he had the fever, she married someone else.’

  ‘Are you looking for any particular type of girl?’

  ‘No, just someone close to his age.’

  My dad passed the photo to one of his assistants, a slightly effeminate young man, with the cryptic comment, ‘Mid-range.’

  The young man flipped through a stack of several dozen photos until he came to one of an average-looking girl. After reading the biographical information printed on the back of the photo, he looked up at the farmer.

  ‘How about this one? Twenty years old, grade-school education, and no special requirements, just a dowry of 4,000 yuan.’

  ‘Four thousand?’ The farmer sounded shocked.

  ‘That’s about as cheap as it gets.’

  ‘Maybe you could look again,’ the farmer forced a smile, ‘and find us something under 2,000 yuan. That’s all my family can afford.’

  Embarrassed, the young man began flicking through a larger stack of photos. He pulled out a photo of a woman holding a baby, and showed it to the farmer. ‘This one’s only 2,000 yuan.’

  The farmer glanced at the photo. ‘But my son was just a boy,’ he said with the same forced smile. ‘She looks too old for him.’

  After a bit more searching, the young man came up with a photo of a wide-eyed girl, slightly on the chubby side.

  ‘How about her? The family says they’ll settle for 3,000 yuan.’

  She wasn’t a bad-looking girl, the farmer thought, and if he could borrow another 1,000 yuan, the price was within reach. After a few more questions about the girl’s age, name, hometown and family situation, he nodded in agreement and handed over 200 yuan for the matchmaking fee.

  ‘How soon can we do the wedding?’ the farmer asked.

  ‘You’ll have an answer within three days.’

  ‘When you talk to the girl’s family, can you tell them my son was a high-school graduate?’

  ‘Not unless you have a diploma proving he was.’

  ‘But he’s so much better-looking than her. If they were alive, he’d be out of her league.’

  ‘But her family owns a brickworks, and their business is booming. They’ve got more money than they can spend.’

  ‘If they’re so rich, why do they need a 3,000 yuan dowry?’

  ‘That’s not the point!’ The young man lost his patience. ‘It’s about return on investment. They didn’t spend all that money raising a daughter, just to give her away for free.’

  The farmer thought for a moment. ‘My son was such a sweet-tempered boy. If you ever met him, you’d know. He’ll treat that girl like a princess, every day of her life.’

  The farmer was so earnest that the young man had to smile. ‘Don’t you worry, sir. We’ll present a strong case to the family, and do everything we can to talk them down on the price.’

  Grinning happily, the farmer stepped away from the table. The next customer was a middle-aged woman looking for a match for her daughter. After my dad had introduced the woman to his young assistant, he handed him a picture of the daughter and told him to find a photo of a man about twenty-five years old.

  At this point Grandpa, who had been watching some distance away, stepped forward, coughed and said, ‘Hui?’

  When my father heard his name, he turned around in surprise. ‘Dad! What are you doing here?’

  Grandpa pulled my father to one side so that they could talk privately. They stood at the edge of the trampled flower bed, near the entrance to a building that had once been the village blood bank. Grandpa noticed that the bright-red cross above the doorway looked new, as if it had been painted yesterday. He could almost smell the fresh red paint, and the thick red stench of blood.

  Standing under that red cross, Grandpa told my dad about his meeting with Jia Genzhu, and about how the man had threatened to kill him if he ever came into the village again.

  ‘That’s why I think it’s best if you don’t come back to Ding Village,’ Grandpa said.

  When my dad heard this, a smile blossomed on his face. His lips curled back like flower petals. ‘Jia Genzhu is a nobody,’ he told Grandpa. ‘I’ve got so much clout in the city now, that if I so much as stamp my foot, I can bring down the rafters of his house!’

  ‘But son, now that he’s dying, he’s got nothing to lose. He’s not afraid of anything.’

  ‘You go back to Ding Village’ – my dad was still smiling – ‘and ask him if he wants a posthumous marriage for his cousin Hongli. You ask him if he wants his parents to go on living happily after he dies. Because if he does, he’d better mind his own business and keep his nose out of mine.’

  At this point, somebody called my dad’s name. He turned and walked back to the crowd, leaving my grandpa alone outside the abandoned blood bank.

  2

  Grandpa didn’t return to Ding Village that night. He drove back into the city with my dad, and went out for dinner with my parents and sister. At a four-storey restaurant strung with colourful lights, my dad treated the family to a first-class meal of roasted chicken, Peking duck, and a kind of soup my grandpa had never heard of before. The thick soup, served in very small bowls, was made of transparent slices of something that might have been shark fin, and garnished with coriander leaves and shredded ginger. It had an odd fishy odour, and seemed to have a cooling effect. After Grandpa drank it, he felt a slight chill pass through his body, as if he had just given blood. The second their bowls were emptied, they were cleared away by one of the gorgeous waitresses. My father looked at Grandpa expectantly.

  ‘Did you like the soup?’

  ‘It seemed very fresh.’

  ‘It costs 220 yuan per bowl, about the same as a coffin.’ My father watched to see how Grandpa would react.

  When he heard the price, Grandpa’s jaw dropped and his face went pale. He wanted to say something, but he couldn’t seem to get the words out. After they finished dinner, my parents and sister decided to take Grandpa on a tour of the city. As they left the brightly lit restaurant, Grandpa kept asking my dad how much the meal had cost, but my dad refused to say. ‘Don’t worry about the price,’ he told Grandpa. ‘I can afford it. That’s all you need to know.’

  Instead of splurging on a fancy meal, Grandpa thought they’d have been better off having noodles or turnip and vermicelli stew at home, but of course he didn’t say it out loud.

  When they turned from the narrow lane on to a broad boulevard, Grandpa was shocked by what he saw. In the year since he had last visited the county seat, it had grown into a big city to rival the metropolis of Kaifeng. Forests of high-rise buildings and apartment blocks towered over a boulevard broad enough for seven or eight large trucks to pass abreast. Although it was night, the boulevard was as bright as day, illuminated by bunches of tiny white lights that hung like grapes from lampposts. Flashing green and red lights winked from lampposts and the trunks of trees. The city seemed unaffected by water shortages or dry spells. While drought had turned the countryside pale, here the grass, trees, flowers and shrubs were the colours they were meant to be. The trees lining the boulevard were so lush and green that they looked almost fake. The men and women Grandpa passed looked different, too. Not long ago, they had seemed a bit rustic, as if soil from the fields still clung to their skin. Compared to someone from Ding Village, they were city folk, but if you put them next to someone from a big city like Kaifeng, they would still look like villagers
. But now you’d never know the difference: there wasn’t a trace of the countryside to be seen.

  Despite the hot weather, all the young men seemed to be sporting thick-soled white trainers and had long, bleached hair. Female hairstyles, on the other hand, had got shorter. Some of the girls even wore crew cuts, which made it easy to mistake them for boys. But their short shirts and blouses were a reminder that they were girls, the kind of girls who weren’t embarrassed to bare their bellies to male passers-by, or show their navels to the world. Grandpa saw bellies decorated with brightly coloured tattoos of butterflies, dragonflies and birds. Some of the girls had piercings, too: sparkly gold and diamond jewellery that winked from their navels.

  Although it had only been a year since Grandpa’s last visit to the county seat, it seemed like decades. The city had changed so much. As he trailed along behind my father, staring at the bright lights and tall buildings, he felt as if he’d stepped into a different world. Music blared from every shop and restaurant, making his heart race. Grandpa began to feel dizzy, so he asked my dad if they could go home. My dad led them away from the brightly lit boulevard and down a long, narrow alleyway hemmed in by high-rise buildings and paved with slabs of grey stone. After a while, they came to a large grove of trees. There were cypresses with thick trunks that a grown man couldn’t have put his arms around, and several gingko trees surrounded by protective metal railings. The gingkos were so enormous that it would have taken several people with outstretched arms to encircle them. Suddenly, through the trees, Grandpa saw a row of single-storey courtyard homes with grey brick walls and tiled roofs. All the homes were identical, and looked to be at least several hundred years old. The elaborately tiled rooftops had soaring eaves decorated with stone figures of lions, dragons and mythical beasts. When they came to the last house, they stopped and my mother unlocked the gate.

  ‘You live here?’ Grandpa asked, surprised.

  ‘This is where all the county cadres live,’ my dad answered.

  Grandpa saw that my dad was smiling broadly, grinning from ear to ear. It was the same smile he had worn on his wedding day, the same smile he’d worn when his blood bank first turned a profit. As Grandpa stepped into the courtyard, he felt a rush of cool, moist air and the fresh damp scent of plants and trees. It was a scent that had all but disappeared from Ding Village, one that had been missing from the plain for months. In the centre of the courtyard was a large gingko tree with a thick crown of leaves that shone green under the moonlight. Judging by the size of the courtyard, Grandpa guessed that the house must sit on one mu of land, more than 5,000 square feet. The courtyard was paved with slabs of dark stone, and the rooms around it were fashioned from brick, with rooftops of glazed ceramic tiles. Although the house had an antique air about it, the scent of freshly baked tiles straight from the kiln made Grandpa realize that it had been built only recently. It was not a Ming or Qing dynasty courtyard home, but a cleverly wrought reproduction. Looking up at the gingko tree that shaded most of the courtyard, Grandpa couldn’t help but think of Uncle and Lingling’s coffins, which had been made of the same rare type of wood.

  Grandpa followed my dad into the house, and was surprised by the understated decor. There was none of the sumptuous tackiness of the restaurant they had been to, nor anything remotely modern or flashy. Rather, it looked like a grand old family home of centuries past. All the furnishings were Ming or Qing dynasty pieces made from expensive red sandalwood or yellow pear. Richly grained tables, chairs, chaises and bookcases gleamed deep red or muted yellow in the light of frosted glass lamps, and the air was thick with the fragrance of wood. Standing in the spacious main room, Grandpa felt as if he’d stepped into some sort of temple. After my mother had served the tea, and my sister had left to do her homework, father and son sat down for a long, face-to-face chat.

  My father motioned to a chair. ‘Have a seat, Dad.’

  But Grandpa remained standing, staring at the walls of the room. While the exterior walls were grey brick designed to look old, the interior walls were newly painted, white as snow.

  ‘Did you build this house yourself?’ Grandpa asked.

  ‘Not just this house,’ my dad answered proudly. ‘I paid for the whole complex.’

  Grandpa sat down. He no longer seemed surprised. With the air of a man confirming a long-held suspicion, he asked: ‘Did you pay for it with the money you earned selling coffins?’

  Dad shot Grandpa a look. ‘That was about helping people. Those coffins were a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.’

  ‘And did the money go to you, or to the government?’

  ‘If it all went to me,’ my dad grinned, ‘I’d own half this city by now.’

  ‘What about this new matchmaking scheme? Do the fees go to you, or to the higher-ups?’

  The smile faded. ‘Like I said, it’s about helping people. The county pays me a salary, and I arrange matches for people who need them.’

  After that, there was no more conversation. Darkness began to seep in from the courtyard, bringing with it a hint of rain. Grandpa went to the door and raised his head to the sky. Through the leaves of the gingko tree, he saw that the sky was crowded with stars: tomorrow would be another sweltering day. What Grandpa had mistaken for rain was nothing more than the night scent of the gingko.

  It was after midnight, and time for bed. Dad led Grandpa to a bedroom in the south wing of the courtyard. It was smaller than the main room, but besides a large wooden bed, the decor and furniture were exactly the same.

  As Grandpa was getting ready for bed, my dad surprised him by asking: ‘Dad, you’re not going to try to strangle me again, are you?’

  Grandpa, caught off guard by this question, wasn’t sure how to answer. The hand that had been unbuttoning his shirt froze, and a blush rose to his cheeks.

  Noting Grandpa’s embarrassment, my dad laughed. ‘I’m happy to let you stay in my house, as long as you don’t try to strangle me in my sleep. After all, it’s just one night. It’s the least I can do, as a filial son.’

  My dad walked past Grandpa to a wooden door, painted the same stark shade of white as the walls. Grandpa hadn’t noticed the door before, because it blended in with the wall and was half-covered by an ink-brush portrait of the god of wealth. My dad pressed a latch, hidden beneath the portrait, and the door slid back, revealing a small inner room. He flipped on the light switch, and the room was suddenly as bright as day, as dazzling as a big-city street. To Grandpa, it was as dazzling as a dream, because the entire room was filled with cash. There was a large table heaped with something and covered with a white sheet. My dad pulled aside the sheet, revealing a tabletop piled with cash, 100-yuan bills bundled into 10,000-yuan stacks and secured with red rubber bands. These had been bundled into medium-sized bricks of 100,000 yuan, then into larger bricks of a million yuan, each neatly secured with a length of red silk ribbon tied into an elaborate butterfly knot. All the bills seemed to be brand new, and gave off a pungent scent of ink. Red silk ribbons and red, green, yellow and orange bills littered the table like brightly coloured pressed flowers. Grandpa couldn’t imagine why his son hadn’t put the money away somewhere safe, instead of leaving it lying around on a table. He was just about to ask, when my dad walked over to a chest of drawers and opened it. Every drawer was stuffed with cash. He threw open the cabinets and drawers, revealing even more stacks of cash. Everywhere you looked, there were bricks and stacks and piles of cash. Mountains of money in every colour of the rainbow.

  The smell of ink was so strong you could choke on it. All that money made it hard to breathe. Between the bundles and bricks of money, my dad had stuffed mothballs and cloths to absorb moisture and prevent rot. The needle-sharp stench of lime, naphthalene and camphor irritated the nostrils, and mingled with the musty smell of the room that hadn’t been aired in days.

  The clash of smells and colours made the room seem monstrous and bizarre. Being inside it was as unpleasant as standing at the edge of a septic pit before sunrise. My dad seeme
d used to it, as if he had been born and raised in just such a room, but Grandpa felt his throat growing tight, making it hard to breathe. He forced himself to breathe through his nostrils, and rubbed his nose to rid himself of the stench. Gazing around the room again, Grandpa wondered if he were dreaming. He knew he was prone to dreaming, so he tried pinching himself on the thigh, a method he had used before to wake up from his dreams. Usually he’d find himself in bed in his room at the school, but this time when he pinched himself, all he felt was a searing pain. Instead of waking up in his bed, Grandpa found himself still standing with my father in a tiny space more like a bank vault or a national treasury than the annexe of a guest bedroom. He felt as if he were drowning in a sea of cash, being suffocated by mountains of money. In addition to the smells he had noticed before, there was also a hint of rain wafting in from the courtyard, a scent he now recognized as gingko leaves. Maybe he wasn’t dreaming at all. Maybe he was awake and standing with his son amidst piles of ill-gained cash.

  ‘How much is there?’ Grandpa asked.

  Dad smiled. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘What do you need with all this money? It’s more than you could spend in a lifetime.’

  My dad seemed embarrassed. ‘Is it my fault this fever never ends? If it keeps on like this, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I just opened five new factories for the county, and we still can’t make enough coffins to keep up with demand. All the trees on the plain are gone, so I have to ship timber in from the northwest. And this month, I sent a dozen matchmaking teams into the villages to gather statistics and arrange posthumous matches. It’s been two weeks, and we’ve only managed to find matches for a third of the families who signed up.’

  ‘And this matchmaking business is more of your philanthropy?’

  ‘I’ve spent my whole life doing philanthropy,’ my dad smiled.

  Grandpa turned away and was silent for a moment. ‘And the other cadres who live here, do they all have vaults like this?’

  Dad nodded.

  ‘Filled with this much money?’