daze, didn’t realise that one of her tiny feet was peeking out from beneath the curtain; the sight of that incomparably delicate, lovely thing nearly drove the souls out of the bearers’ bodies. Yu Zhan’ao walked up, leaned over, and gently – very gently – held Grandma’s foot in his hand, as though it were a fledgling whose feathers weren’t yet dry, then eased it back inside the carriage. She was so moved by the gentleness of the deed she could barely keep from throwing back the curtain to see what sort of man this bearer was, with his large, warm, youthful hand.
I’ve always believed that marriages are made in heaven and that people fated to be together are connected by an invisible thread. The act of grasping Grandma’s foot triggered a powerful drive in Yu Zhan’ao to forge a new life for himself, and constituted the turning point in his life – and the turning point in hers as well.
The sedan chair set out again as a trumpet blast rent the air, then drifted off into obscurity. The wind had risen – a northeaster – and clouds were gathering in the sky, blotting out the sun and throwing the carriage into darkness. Grandma could hear the
The holdup of Grandma’s sedan chair by a highwayman at Toad Hollow occupies an important place in the saga of my family. Toad Hollow is a large marshy stretch in the vast flatland where the soil is especially fertile, the water especially plentiful, and the sorghum especially dense. A blood-red bolt of lightning streaked across the northeastern sky, and screaming fragments of apricot-yellow sunlight tore through the dense clouds above the dirt road, when Grandma’s sedan chair reached that point. The panting bearers were drenched with sweat as they entered Toad Hollow, over which the air hung heavily. Sorghum plants lining the road shone like ebony, dense and impenetrable; weeds and wildflowers grew in such profusion they seemed to block the road. Everywhere you looked, narrow stems of cornflowers were bosomed by clumps of rank weeds, their purple, blue, pink, and white flowers waving proudly. From deep in the sorghum came the melancholy croaks of toads, the dreary chirps of grasshoppers, and the plaintive howls of foxes. Grandma, still seated in the carriage, felt a sudden breath of cold air that raised tiny goosebumps on her skin. She didn’t know what was happening, even when she heard the shout up ahead:
‘Nobody passes without paying a toll!’
Grandma gasped. What was she feeling? Sadness? Joy? My God, she thought, it’s a man who eats fistcakes!
Northeast Gaomi Township was aswarm with bandits who operated in the sorghum fields like fish in water, forming gangs to rob, pillage, and kidnap, yet balancing their evil deeds with charitable ones. If they were hungry, they snatched two people, keeping one and sending the other into the village to demand flatbreads with eggs and green onions rolled inside. Since they stuffed the rolled flatbreads into their mouths with both fists, they were called ‘fistcakes’.
‘Nobody passes without paying a toll!’ the man bellowed. The bearers stopped in their tracks and stared dumbstruck at the highwayman of medium height who stood in the road, his legs akimbo. He had smeared his face black and was wearing a conical rain hat woven of sorghum stalks and a broad-shouldered rain cape open in front to reveal a black buttoned jacket and a wide leather belt, in which a protruding object was tucked, bundled in red satin. His hand rested on it.
The thought flashed through Grandma’s mind that there was nothing to be afraid of: if death couldn’t frighten her, nothing could. She raised the curtain to get a glimpse of the man who ate fistcakes.
‘Hand over the toll, or I’ll pop you all!’ He patted the red bundle.
The musicians reached into their belts, took out the strings of copper coins Great-Granddad had given them, and tossed these at the man’s feet. The bearers lowered the sedan chair to the ground, took out their copper coins, and did the same.
As he dragged the strings of coins into a pile with his foot, his eyes were fixed on Grandma.
‘Get behind the sedan chair, all of you. I’ll pop if you don’t!’ He thumped the object tucked into his belt.
The bearers moved slowly behind the sedan chair. Yu Zhan’ao, bringing up the rear, spun around and glared. A change came over the highwayman’s face, and he gripped the object at his belt tightly. ‘Eyes straight ahead if you want to keep breathing!’
With his hand resting on his belt, he shuffled up to the sedan chair, reached out, and pinched Grandma’s foot. A smile creased her face, and the man pulled his hand away as though it had been scalded.
‘Climb down and come with me!’ he ordered her.
Grandma sat without moving, the smile frozen on her face.
‘Climb down, I said!’
She rose from the seat, stepped grandly onto the pole, and alit in a tuft of cornflowers. Her gaze travelled from the man to the bearers and musicians.
‘Into the sorghum field!’ the highwayman said, his hand still resting on the red-bundled object at his belt.
Grandma stood confidently; lightning crackled in the clouds overhead and shattered her radiant smile into a million shifting shards. The highwayman began pushing her into the sorghum field, his hand never leaving the object at his belt. She stared at Yu Zhan’ao with a feverish look in her eyes.
Yu Zhan’ao approached the highwayman, his thin lips curled resolutely, up at one end and down at the other.
‘Hold it right there!’ the highwayman commanded feebly. ‘I’ll shoot if you take another step!’
Yu Zhan’ao walked calmly up to the man, who began backing up. Green flames seemed to shoot from his eyes, and crystalline beads of sweat scurried down his terrified face. When Yu Zhan’ao had drawn to within three paces of him, a shameful sound burst from his mouth, and he turned and ran. Yu Zhan’ao was on his tail in a flash, kicking him expertly in the rear. He sailed through the air over the cornflowers, thrashing his arms and legs like an innocent babe, until he landed in the sorghum field.
‘Spare me, gentlemen! I’ve got an eighty-year-old mother at home, and this is the only way I can make a living.’ The highwayman skilfully pleaded his case to Yu Zhan’ao, who grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, dragged him back to the sedan chair, threw him roughly to the ground, and kicked him in his noisy mouth. The man shrieked in pain; blood trickled from his nose.
Yu Zhan’ao reached down, took the thing from the man’s belt, and shook off the red cloth covering, to reveal the gnarled knot of a tree. The men all gasped in amazement.
The bandit crawled to his knees, knocking his head on the ground and pleading for his life. ‘Every highwayman says he’s got an eighty-year-old mother at home,’ Yu Zhan’ao said as he stepped aside and glanced at his comrades, like the leader of a pack sizing up the other dogs.
With a flurry of shouts, the bearers and musicians fell upon the highwayman, fists and feet flying. The initial onslaught was met by screams and shrill cries, which soon died out. Grandma stood beside the road listening to the dull cacophony of fists and feet on flesh; she glanced at Yu Zhan’ao, then looked up at the lightning-streaked sky, the radiant, golden, noble smile still frozen on her face.
One of the musicians raised his trumpet and brought it down hard on the highwayman’s skull, burying the curved edge so deeply he had to strain to free it. The highwayman’s stomach gurgled and his body, racked by spasms, grew deathly still; he lay spread-eagled on the ground, a mixture of white and yellow liquid seeping slowly out of the fissure in his skull.
‘Is he dead?’ asked the musician, who was examining the bent mouth of his trumpet.
‘He’s gone, the poor bastard. He didn’t put up much of a fight!’
The gloomy faces of the bearers and musicians revealed their anxieties.
Yu Zhan’ao looked wordlessly first at the dead, then at the living. With a handful of leaves from a sorghum stalk, he cleaned up Grandma’s mess in the carriage, then held up the tree knot, wrapped it in the piece of red cloth, and tossed the bundle as far as he could; the gnarled knot broke free in flight and separated from the piece of cloth, which fluttered to the ground in the field like a big red butterfly.
Yu Zhan’ao lifted Grandma into the sedan chair. ‘It’s starting to rain,’ he said, ‘so let’s get going.’
Grandma ripped the curtain from the front of the carriage and stuffed it behind the seat. As she breathed the free air she studied Yu Zhan’ao’s broad shoulders and narrow waist. He was so near she could have touched the pale, taut skin of his shaved head with her toe.
