helped to stabilize him. And so, in the spring of 1959, a strange scene appeared on village roads: the independent farmer Lan Lian pushing a cart with wooden wheels, piled high with fertilizer, his arms bare, his face defiant. The donkey pulling the cart wore a beat-up leather shoe on one leg as he hobbled along, his head drooping low. The cart moved slowly, the wheels creaked loudly. Lan Lian, bending deeply at the waist, pushed with all his might. The crippled donkey pulled with all his might to make his master’s job a little easier. At first, people stopped and stared at this strange team, and a few even covered their mouths to stifle a laugh. But eventually the laughter died out. During the early days of their co-op labor, elementary schoolchildren would fall in behind them; one or two of the bad kids would throw stones at the donkey, but they were invariably punished at home.
In the spring, the earth takes on the quality of leavened dough; in addition to the wheels of our heavily laden cart, my hooves also sank deeply into the ground, making it almost impossible to keep moving. The fertilizer had to be taken out into the fields, so hard work was called for; I pulled with all my might to make the job easier on him. But I hadn’t gone more than a dozen steps when I left the shoe my mistress had made stuck in the dirt. When the exposed stump hit the ground like a club, the terrible pain pushed my sweat glands to the limit.
After he’d unloaded the fertilizer, my master came up and wrapped his arms around my head. He was sobbing so hard he could barely get the words out:
“Blackie… such a good donkey…”
After taking out his pipe and filling it, he lit up and took a deep drag. Then he held the stem up to my mouth.
“Take a puff, Blackie,” he said. “You won’t feel quite so exhausted.”
After following him for so many years, I’d gotten hooked on tobacco. I took a deep drag and blew streams of smoke out of my nostrils.
That winter, after learning that the Supply and Marketing Co-op director, Pang Hu, had been fitted with a prosthetic leg, my master decided that I deserved to be fitted with a prosthetic hoof. To that end, he and his wife, drawing on a friendship forged years before, went to see Pang Hu’s wife, Wang Leyun, and told her what they had in mind. Happy to oblige, she let my master and mistress study Pang Hu’s new leg from all angles. It had been made in a factory dedicated to producing prosthetics for crippled heroes of the revolution, a service obviously denied to me, a donkey. Even if the factory had been willing to undertake the task, my master would not have been able to afford the cost. So they decided to make a prosthetic hoof on their own. Three whole months it took them, through trial and error, until they finally managed to produce a false hoof that looked pretty much like the real thing. All that remained was to strap it on.
They walked me around the yard; the new hoof felt much better than the beat-up shoe, and while my gait was somewhat stiff, my limp was less pronounced. So my master led me out onto the street, head high, chest out, as if proudly showing off. I tried my best to match his attitude and give him the face he deserved. Village children fell in behind us to share in the excitement. Seeing the looks on people’s faces and listening to what they were saying, I could tell that they held him in high regard. Then when we met up with gaunt, sallow Hong Taiyue, he remarked:
“Lan Lian, are you putting on a show for the People’s Commune?”
“I wouldn’t dare,” my master replied. “The People’s Commune and I are like well water and river water – they don’t mix.”
“Yes, but you’re walking on a People’s Commune street.” Hong pointed first to the street, then to the skies above. “And you’re breathing the air above the People’s Commune and soaking up rays of the sun shining down on the People’s Commune.”
“This street was here before the People’s Commune was created, and so were the air and the sun. They were given to all people and animals by the powers of heaven, and you and your People’s Commune have no right to monopolize them!” He breathed in deeply, stomped his foot on the ground, and raised his face to the sun. “Wonderful air, terrific sunlight!” Then he patted me on the shoulder and said, “Blackie, take a deep breath, stomp down on the ground, and let the sun’s rays warm you.”
“You talk like that now, Lan Lian, but you’ll soften up one day,” Hong said.
“Old Hong, roll up the street, blot out the sun, and stuff up my nose if you can.”
“Just you wait,” Hong said indignantly. I’d intended to put my new hoof to use by working several more years for my master. But then the famine came, turning the people into wild animals, cruel and unfeeling. After eating all the bark from trees and the edible grass, a gang of them charged into the Ximen estate compound like a pack of starving wolves. My master tried to protect me by threatening them with a club, but he lost his nerve under the menacing green light that blazed in their eyes. He threw down his club and ran away. I trembled in fear in the presence of that gang, knowing my day of reckoning had come, that my life as a donkey had come full circle. All that had happened over the ten years since I’d been reborn on this spot on earth flashed before me. I closed my eyes and waited.
“Take it!” I heard someone in the yard yell. “Take the independent farmer’s grain stores! Kill! Kill the independent farmer’s crippled donkey!”
I heard sorrowful shouts from my mistress and the children and the sounds of pillaging and fighting among the starving people. A heavy blow on the head stunned me and drove my soul right out of my body to hover in the air above and watch the people cut and slice the carcass of a donkey into pieces of meat.
Book Two: The Strength of an Ox
12
Big-head Reveals the Secret of Transmigration
Ximen Ox Takes Up Residence in Lan Lian’s Home
“Unless I’m mistaken,” I ventured under the wild, piercing gaze of the big-headed child, Lan Qiansui, “you were a donkey that was hit over the head by a starving villager. You crashed to the ground, where your body was cut up and eaten by a gang of starving villagers. I witnessed it with my own eyes. My guess is, your spirit hovered about the scene in the Ximen estate compound for a while before heading back to the underworld, where, after many twists and turns, you were born into the world once more, this time as an ox.”
“Exactly right.” I detected a slightly melancholy tone in his voice. “By describing for you my life as a donkey, I have related about half of what happened later. During my years as an ox, I stuck to you like a shadow, and you are well versed in the things that happened to me, so there’s no point in my repeating them, is there?”
I studied his head, which was so much larger than either his age or his body seemed to warrant; studied his enormous mouth, with which he talked on and on; studied all his myriad expressions, appearing one minute and vanishing the next – a donkey’s natural, unrestrained dissipation, an ox’s innocence and strength, a pig’s gluttony and violence, a dog’s loyalty and fawning nature, a monkey’s alertness and mischievous qualities – and studied the world-weary and disconsolate composite expression, which incorporated all of the above. My memories involving the ox came thick and fast, like waves crashing on the shore; or moths drawn to a flame; or iron filings sucked toward a magnet; or odors surging toward your nostrils; or colors seeping outward on fine paper; or my longing for
