him back.
“Not so hard,” Dad said. “Pull slowly.”
But the overeager ox was set on taking big strides. His muscles bulged, the plow shuddered, and great wedges of mud, shimmering in the sunlight, arced to the sides. Dad adjusted the plow as they went along to keep it from getting stuck. As a onetime farmhand, he knew what he was doing. What surprised me was that our ox, tilling a field for the first time, moved in a straight line, even though his movements were somewhat awkward and his breathing was, from time to time, irregular. Dad didn’t have to guide or control him. Our plow was being pulled by a single ox, the production brigade’s plows by teams of two, yet we quickly overtook their lead plow. I was so proud I couldn’t contain my excitement. As I ran back and forth, our ox and plow created the image of a sailing vessel turning the mud into whitecaps. I saw the production-brigade plowmen look over at us. Hong Taiyue and my brother walked up, stood off to one side, and watched with hostility in their eyes. After our plow had reached the end of our land and turned back, Hong walked up in front of our ox and shouted:
“Stop right there, Lan Lian!”
With fire in its eyes, the ox kept coming, forcing Hong to jump out of the way in fright. He knew our animal’s temper as well as anybody. He had no choice but to fall in behind our plow and say to Dad:
“I’m warning you, Lan Lian, don’t you dare so much as touch land belonging to the collective with your plow.”
Dad replied, neither haughtily nor humbly:
“As long as your oxen don’t step on my land, mine won’t step on yours.”
I knew that Hong was trying to make things difficult, because our three-point-two acres were a wedge in the production brigade’s land. Since our plot was a hundred yards long and only twenty-one yards wide, it was hard not to touch theirs when the plow reached the end or went along the edges. But when they plowed the edges of their land, it was just as hard to avoid touching ours. Dad had nothing to fear.
“We’d rather sacrifice a few feet of plowed land than step foot on your three-point-two acres!” Hong said.
Hong could make that boastful statement since the production brigade had so much land. But what about us? With the few acres we worked, we couldn’t sacrifice any. But Dad had a plan. “I’m not going to sacrifice even an inch of my land,” he said. “And you still won’t find a single one of our hoofprints on collective soil!”
“Those are your words, remember them,” Hong said.
“That’s right, those are my words.”
“I want you to keep an eye on them, Jinlong,” Hong said. “If that ox of theirs so much as steps on our land-” He paused. “Lan Lian, if your ox steps on our land, what should your punishment be?”
“You can chop off my ox’s leg,” Dad said defiantly.
What a shock that gave me! There was no clear boundary between our land and that belonging to the collective, nothing but a rock in the ground every fifty yards, and keeping a straight line by walking was no sure thing, let alone an ox pulling a plow.
Since Dad was employing the cleft method of plowing – starting from the middle and working his way outward – the risk of stepping on their land was minimal for a while. So Hong Taiyue said to my brother:
“Jinlong, go back to the village and prepare the bulletin board. You can come back and keep watch on them this afternoon.”
When we went home for lunch, a crowd had gathered around the bulletin board on our wall. Two yards wide and three yards long, it served as the village’s center for public opinion. In the space of a few hours my talented brother had made it a feast for the eyes with red, yellow, and green chalk. On the edges he had drawn tractors, sunflowers and greenery, commune members behind steel plows, their faces beaming, and oxen pulling the plows, their faces beaming as well. Then in the lower right-hand corner, in blue and white he’d drawn a skinny ox and two skinny people, one adult and one child – obviously, me, my dad, and our ox. In the middle he’d written in ancient block letters: spring plowing: people are happy, oxen are lowing. Below that in regular script he’d added: “A clear- cut comparison between the bustling activity of the People’s Commune and State-Run Farm as, bursting with energy, they engage in spring plowing, and the village’s obstinate independent farmer Lan Lian and his family, who tills his land with a single ox and plow, the ox with its head lowered, the farmer looking crestfallen, a solitary figure looking like a plucked chicken, his ox like a stray dog, miserable and anxious, having come to a dead end.”
“Dad,” I said, “look at the way he’s made us look!”
With our plow over his shoulder and leading the ox behind him, he wore a smile as cold and brilliant as ice.
“He can write what he wants,” he said. “That boy has talent. Whatever he draws looks real.”
The onlookers’ gazes snapped around and fell on us, followed by knowing smiles. Facts spoke louder than words. We had a mighty ox and our blue faces glowed, for, thanks to a good morning’s work, we were in high spirits and very proud of ourselves.
Jinlong was standing off a ways observing his masterpiece and its spectators. Huang Huzhu was leaning against her door frame holding the tip of her braid in her mouth, her eyes fixed on Jinlong, the dazed look in her eyes proof that the stirrings of love had grown strong. My half sister, Baofeng, came up the street toward us from the west, a leather medical satchel with a red cross painted on it slung over her back. Now that she had learned midwife skills and how to give injections, she was the village health worker. Huang Hezuo rode up unsteadily from the east, apparently having just learned how to ride a bike, and finding it hard to steer. When she spotted Jinlong leaning against the wall, she shouted, Oh, no, watch out! as she careened toward Jinlong, who stepped out of the way and grabbed the wheel with one hand and the handlebars with the other; Huang Hezuo nearly landed in his lap.
I looked over at Huang Huzhu, who jerked her head around so hard her braid flew; red in the face, she spun on her heel and stormed into the house. I was sick at heart, feeling nothing but sympathy for Huzhu and loathing for Hezuo, who had cut her hair short and combed it with a boy’s part, a style that was a current fad among middle- school students in the commune. The barber Ma Liangcai, an expert Ping-Pong player who was also pretty good on the harmonica, was responsible for all those haircuts. He went around dressed in a blue uniform that had been laundered nearly white, had a thick head of hair, deep black eyes, and a case of acne, and always smelled like hand soap. He had a thing for my sister. He often brought his air gun into our village to shoot birds, and was always successful. At first sight of him and his air gun, the village sparrows flew to spots unknown. The village health clinic was located in a room just east of the Ximen estate main house. What that means is, any time that fellow showed up at the local clinic, reeking of hand soap, he was lucky if he could escape the gazes of members of our family, and if he somehow managed that, he’d fall under the scrutiny of members of the Huang family. The fellow never passed up a chance to get close to my sister, who would frown and try not to make her feelings of disgust obvious as she reluctantly chatted with him. I knew that my sister was in love with Braying Jackass, but he had left with the Four Clean-ups team and vanished like a weasel in the woods. Since my mother could see that this marriage was anything but assured, outside of sighing in frustration, all she could do was try to reason with my sister.
“Baofeng, I know what you’re feeling, but are you being realistic? He grew up in the provincial capital, where he went to college. He’s talented and good looking, and has a bright future. How could someone like that fall for you? Listen to your mother and give up such thoughts. Lower your sights a bit. Little Ma is a teacher on the public payroll. He’s not bad looking, he’s literate, he plays the harmonica, and he’s a crack shot. He’s one in a hundred, if you ask me, and since he has his eye on you, why the hesitation? Go on, say yes to him. Take a good look at the eyes of the Huang sisters. The meat is right in front of you, and if you don’t eat it, someone else will…”
Everything Mother said made sense. To me, Ma Liangcai and my sister were well suited for one another. Sure, he couldn’t sing like Braying Jackass, but he could make his harmonica sound like birds singing and could rid the village of its sparrows with his air gun, both virtues Braying Jackass lacked. But my sister had a stubborn streak, just like her father; Mother could talk till her lips were cracked, and her reply was always:
“Mother, I’ll decide whom I marry!”
We returned to the field that afternoon. Jinlong, a metal hoe over his shoulder, followed us step for step. The glinting blade of his tool was so sharp he could sever an ox’s hoof with one swing if he felt like it. His attitude of forsaking friends and family disgusted me, and I took every opportunity to let him know how I felt. I called him Hong Taiyue’s running dog and an ungrateful swine. He ignored me, but each time I blocked his way, he threw dirt in my face. When I tried to retaliate, Dad stopped me with an angry curse. He seemed to have eyes in the back of his head and invariably knew what I was up to. I reached down and picked up a dirt clod.
“Jiefang, what do you think you’re doing?” he roared.
