which made her nervous.
We had no trouble finding where you were living, and when we knocked at your door, we were greeted by looks of shame and shock. You glared angrily at me; I barked twice out of embarrassment. What I wanted to convey was: Please forgive me, Lan Jiefang, but since you left home, you’re no longer my master. That role has been taken over by your son, and it’s my duty to do as he says.
Fenghuang took the lid off a little metal bucket and splashed the contents – paint – all over Chunmiao.
“You’re a whore, Aunty,” Fenghuang said to Chunmiao, who stood there dumbstruck. Then she turned to your son and, like a commanding officer, waved her hand in the air and said: “Let’s go!”
I accompanied Fenghuang and your son over to the township Party office, where she located Du Luwen and said – ordered is more like it:
“I am Pang Kangmei’s daughter. I want you to call for a car to take us back to the county town.”
– Du Luwen came over to our paint-spattered Eden and stammered:
“In my humble opinion, I think you two should get as far away from here as possible.”
He gave us some clean clothes and an envelope containing a thousand yuan.
“This is a loan, so don’t say no.”
Chunmiao just looked at me, wide-eyed and helpless.
“Give me ten minutes to think this over,” I said to Du as I offered him a cigarette. We sat down to smoke, but my cigarette had barely burned down halfway when I stood up and said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d pick us up at seven o’clock tonight and drive us to the Jiao County train station.”
That night we boarded the Qingdao-Xi’an train. It was 9:30 when we reached the Gaomi station. Pressing our faces up against the grimy windows, we gazed out at all the waiting passengers, most carrying their heavy belongings on their backs, and a smattering of station personnel with blank expressions on their faces. Lights in the distant city sparkled, while in the square in front of the station, drivers waited by their illegal taxis amid the shouts of food vendors. Gaomi, will we ever be able to return as proper citizens?
In Xi’an we went to see Mo Yan, who had taken a job as a journalist for a local newspaper after graduating from a special writer’s workshop. He set us up in the run-down room he rented in the Henan Villa, saying he could bed down in his office. With a wicked grin, he handed us a box of Japanese extra-thin condoms and said:
“I’m afraid this is all I have, but it’s a gift from the heart. Please take it.”
Over the summer holidays your son and Fenghuang again ordered me to follow you, so I led them to the train station and barked in the direction of a train heading west: the scent, like those railroad tracks, stretched far off in the distance, too far for my nose to be of any use.
51
Ximen Huan Tyrannizes the County Town
Lan Kaifang Cuts His Finger to Test Hair
By the summer of 1996, you’d been on the run for five years. During that time, Mo Yan, who had risen to the position of editorial director of the local newspaper, gave you a job as an editor and found work for Pang Chunmiao in the dining hall. Your wife and son were aware of these developments, but had, it seemed, forgotten all about you. She was still frying oil fritters, her taste for which was as strong as ever; your son was a studious first-year student in the local high school. Pang Fenghuang and Ximen Huan were in the same grade as he. Neither of them had grades that could compare with your son’s, but one of them was the daughter of the highest-ranking official in the county, the other the son of the man who created the Jinlong Scholarship Fund with half a million yuan of his own money; the school gate would have been open to them if they had scored zero on their exams.
Ximen Huan had been sent to the county seat for his first year in middle school, and his mother, Huzhu, came along to look after him. They lived with you, instilling some life into a cheerless, long-deserted house – a little too much life, some would say.
Ximen Huan was not student material; he’d caused more trouble and created more mischief during those five years than anyone could count. The first year he was relatively well behaved, but then he took up with three young hooligans, and in time they became known by the police as the “Four Little Hoods.” Beyond being involved in all the antisocial behaviors one normally associated with his age, he was guilty of a good many adult crimes. But to look at him you’d never believe he was a bad boy. His clothes – name brands only – were neat and clean, and there was always a good smell about him. He kept his hair cut short and his face clean; he sported a thin, dark mustache to show he was past childhood, and even his boyhood cross-eyed look had vanished. He was friendly to people and kind to animals, his speech was replete with fine words and honeyed phrases, and he was especially polite in his dealings with your wife, as if she were his favorite relative. So when your son said, “Ma, send Huanhuan away, he’s a bad kid,” she spoke up for him:
“He seems like a good boy to me. He has a way of taking care of things and dealing with people, and he’s well-spoken. I admit he doesn’t do well in school, but he’s just not gifted that way In the future he’ll probably do better than you. You’re just like your father, always moping around as if the world owes you something.”
“You don’t know him, Ma. What you see is all an act.”
“Kaifang,” she said, “even if he is a bad kid, as you say, if he gets into trouble, his dad can bail him out. Besides, his mother and I are sisters, twins in fact, so how could I tell him to leave? You’ll just have to put up with him for a few more years. Once you’re out of high school, you’ll go your own ways, and even if we wanted him to stay with us then, he probably wouldn’t want to. Your uncle is so rich he can build a mansion for him in town without missing the money at all. The only reason he’s staying with us is so we can all look after one another. That’s how your grandparents want it.”
Nothing your son could say could win out over your wife’s practical arguments.
Huanhuan may have been able to get away with his shenanigans with your wife and his mother, but my nose knew better. By then I was a thirteen-year-old dog, and though my sense of smell was feeling the effects of age, I had no trouble differentiating the smells of people around me and the traces they left elsewhere. I might as well tell you that I’d already given up my chairmanship of the County Dog Association. My successor was a German shepherd named Blackie, owing to the color of fur on his back. In the county canine realm, German shepherds enjoyed undisputed leadership roles. After stepping down, I seldom attended the gatherings in Tianhua Square, since the few times I did go they had little to offer. My generation had celebrated the gatherings with singing, dancing, drinking, eating, and mating. But the new breed of youngsters were engaged in unusual and, to me, inexplicable behaviors. Here, I’ll give you an example: Blackie once urged me to go so I could be part of, according to him, the most exciting, most mysterious, most romantic event imaginable. So I showed up in time to see hundreds of dogs converge from all directions. No shouts or greetings, no flirting or teasing, almost as if they were all strangers. After crowding around the newly replaced statue of Venus de Milo, they raised their heads and barked together, three times. Then they spun around and ran off, including their chairman, Blackie. They’d appeared like lightning and immediately disappeared as if swept away on the wind. There I was, alone in the moon-washed square. I gazed up at Venus, whose sculpted body gave off a soft blue glow, and wondered if I was dreaming. Later on, I learned that they’d been playing a game of Flash, which was all the rage, very cool, at the time. They called themselves a “Flash mob.” I was told they did all sorts of other goofy things, but I refused to join in. I couldn’t help feeling that Dog Four’s party days were over, just as a new age dawned, one characterized by unfettered excitement and wild imagination. That’s how it was with dogs, and for the most part, with humans as well. Pang Kangmei still held her county position, and word had it that she would soon be appointed to a high position in the provincial government. But before that happened, she’d be accused by the Disciplinary Committee of the Party of “double offenses,” and would subsequently be tried by the Procuratorate and condemned to death, with a two-year reprieve.
After your son tested into high school, I stopped accompanying him. I could have stayed home and slept or occupied myself with thoughts of the past, but that had no appeal to me. It could only speed up the aging process, body and mind, and your son wouldn’t have needed me anymore. So I began tagging along behind your wife when she went to work in the square. While I was there watching her fry and sell oil fritters, I picked up the scent of Ximen Huan in notorious hair salons, backstreet inns, and bars. In the mornings he’d walk out of the house with his
