Cries in the Drizzle Read online

As a matter of fact, Sun Guangping never harbored much resentment against the widow, and actually felt some gratitude.Those nights he made his way in and out of her rear window left him on tenterhooks for a long time afterward, and it was his nervousness on this score that explains why he could be no more than a spectator to my father's misdeeds and never once interfered. The widow, as it turned out, told no one about their affair, but this may simply be because she had no idea which young man it was who was sneaking in to see her. She was not in the habit of questioning the men who had designs on her body and could identify her visitors only in cases like that of Sun Kwangtsai, who bedded her in full daylight.

  By the time Sun Guangping graduated from high school and returned home to work the land, his self-confidence had sunk to a new low. In the first few days he often just lay in bed, staring into space. His dazed look told all. Given my own mood at the time, I had no trouble figuring out that his most ardent wish was to leave Southgate and start a new life. More than once I saw him stand at the edge of a field, gazing as though in a trance as an enfeebled old man, his face lined with wrinkles, his body caked in mud, trudged across the farmland. I noted the misery in my brother's eyes. This grim sight struck a chord in him, making him wonder about the latter stages of his own life.

  Once he had come to terms with reality, Sun Guangping soon became aware of a vague but persistent craving for a woman. It was a need quite distinct from that which the widow had satisfied. What he needed now was a woman who would stand by him and take care of him, a woman who could put an end to those nights of restless agitation and bring him contentment and peace of mind. So he got engaged.

  The girl was quite average in looks. She lived in a two-story house in a village nearby; below the rear window of her house flowed the river that had claimed my little brothers life. As her family had been the first in the area to put up a house of more than one story, reports of their wealth had spread far and wide. Sun Guangping did not have his eye on their money for it was just a year after the house went up, and he knew that they still had loans to pay off and would not be in a position to offer an impressive dowry. Rather, this match was a gift presented by the village matchmaker, a woman who despite her bound feet hopped about as briskly as a flea. That afternoon when the matchmaker came walking over, her face wreathed in smiles, Sun Guangping knew what was about to happen, and knew too that he would agree to whatever was proposed.

  My father was excluded from the negotiations preceding the engagement, and it was the widow, not Mother, who informed him of the outcome. On hearing the news, he realized at once that it was his responsibility to conduct an inspection. “What does she look like, this girl who's going to be sleeping with my son?” he asked.

  Sun Kwangtsai set off at a brisk pace that morning, beaming happily as he walked, leaning forward with his hands clasped behind his back. He could see the fiancee's imposing home from quite some distance away, and the first thing he said to her father was, “He's a lucky bastard, that Sun Guangping.”

  My father sat down in the girl's house as relaxed and at ease as if he was sitting on the widow's bed. Coarse language flowed from his lips as he conversed with her father. Her brother slipped out, bottle in hand, and brought it back full to the brim with spirits. Her mother set to work in the kitchen, and the noise of her preparations made my father's juices flow. He had already forgotten that the purpose of his visit was to inspect my future sister-in-law. Her father, however, had not.

  He raised his head and called a name that Sun Kwangtsai forgot as soon as he heard it. The daughter, my might-have-been sister-in-law, called back from the second floor, but she was clearly reluctant to show herself. Her big brother ran up the flight of stairs and returned a few moments later with a smile on his face. He told Sun Kwangtsai, “She won't come down.”

  My father showed himself to be a broad-minded man, saying airily, “That's all right, no big deal. If she won't come down, I'll go up.”

  He poked his head into the kitchen for a moment and then went up to view the young lady. I think I can say with certainty that he tore himself away from the kitchen only with great reluctance. Not long after he had gone upstairs, the family down below heard a bloodcurdling shriek. Father and son remained glued to their seats in astonishment while the lady of the house rushed out of the kitchen in alarm. As they puzzled over what could possibly have precipitated that scream, Sun Kwangtsai came down the stairs with a big grin on his face, muttering, “Not bad. Not bad at all.”

  From upstairs could be heard sobs so muffled it was as though they had been buried under a deep layer of cotton.

  My father sat down unconcernedly by the table and as the girl's brother dashed upstairs Sun Kwangtsai said to her father, “Your daughter is really well put together.”

  His host nodded uneasily, at the same time scanning Sun Kwangtsai's face with suspicion. “Sun Guangping is so damn lucky!” my father went on.

  No sooner did he say that than the girl's brother careened down the stairs and with one enormous blow knocked Sun Kwangtsai to the ground, along with the chair he was sitting on.

  That afternoon Sun Kwangtsai returned to the village with his face all black and blue, and the first thing he said to Sun Guangping was, “I canceled that match for you.” My father was outraged. “Those people are so unreasonable!” he cried. “I was just trying to look out for my son and make sure the girl was in good health. Can you believe how bad they beat me up?”

  The reports that came from the neighboring village offered a different interpretation of the incident, according to which my father's first gift to his future daughter-in-law had been a breast massage.

  My mother spent the whole day after the visit sitting by the kitchen stove, wiping away tears with the hem of her apron. Sun Guangping did not, as the locals were expecting, come to blows with Sun Kwangtsai, and his reaction was simply not to speak to anybody in the village for several days in a row.

  In the two years that followed, my brother was never again to see the matchmaker approach him, her face wreathed in smiles. During that period he would think of his father only in bed at night, gnashing his teeth. Sometimes, as dawn approached, his thoughts would turn to his brother, far away in Beijing. I would often receive letters from him in those days, but they said nothing of substance and their vacuous contents made me realize how empty he felt.

  When he turned twenty-four Sun Guangping married a Southgate girl. Yinghuas only family was her father, confined to bed after a stroke. The pond played a role in their union. Late one damp afternoon Sun Guangping looked out through the rear window and saw Yinghua washing clothes there. She was crouched down in her patched clothes, so overwhelmed by the hardships of life that she had constantly to wipe her tears away. The sight of her shivering in the chilly winter breeze triggered the same kind of heartache that his own plight inspired in him. The couple reached an understanding without the help of the matchmaker, who made a point of ignoring them.

  Sun Guangping's marriage took place a year or so after he glimpsed Yinghua at the pond. The wedding arrangements were so skimpy that the older villagers were reminded of how a landlord s hired hands used to get married in the old days. Though meager, the wedding was not without its comic aspects, since the bride waddled about with a big belly. Before sunup the next morning Sun Guangping borrowed a flatbed cart and took Yinghua to the obstetric ward in the town hospital. For newlyweds, morning in the bridal chamber is normally a time of blissful cuddles, but Sun Guangping and Yinghua had to brave the piercing cold and rush into town to tap on the doors and windows of the hospital, still locked tight at that hour of the day. Two o'clock that afternoon, protesting furiously, a boy later to be named Sun Xiaoming came into the world.

  Sun Guangping had entangled himself in a web of his own design. After his marriage he was duty bound to provide for his bedridden father-in-law. At this point in time, Sun Kwangtsai had not yet completed his career as a deliveryman, but to his family's relief he had restrained some of his impulses
and was no longer in the habit of ostentatiously transferring property from our house to the widow's home. He did, however, reveal a new talent, an aptitude for pilfering things on the sly. Sun Guangping's financial and domestic difficulties continued for some years before his father-in-law—embarrassed, perhaps, at being such a burden—closed his eyes one night and never opened them again. For Sun Guangping, the greatest challenge was not his father-in-law's infirmity or his father's thievery but the period following Xiaoming's birth. During that time he was seldom seen just walking around the village, for he was in a blur of constant motion, scurrying from the fields to Yinghua's house, then to his own home, as nervous as a rabbit.

  His father-in-law's death came as a relief to Sun Guangping, but a peaceful life remained far out of reach. Not long afterward Sun Kwangtsai was up to his old tricks again, reducing Yinghua to tears for a full three days.

  This was in the summer of the year that Xiaoming turned three. As my father sat on the threshold and watched Yinghua fetch water from the well, he saw how the flowers imprinted on her shorts tightened and then loosened over her fleshy buttocks, and how her thighs gleamed in the sunlight. Worn out by the widow and by his advancing years, my father now had as little vitality as the dregs of an herbal medicine, but Yinghua's robust figure triggered in him a recollection of his exuberant energy of yore. This memory was not summoned up through mental effort as much as by a quirk of his withered body, which suddenly saw a revival of his once so irrepressible lust. As Yinghua walked over, bucket in hand, my father flushed and gave a loud cough. Although villagers were walking by not far away, the incorrigible lecher put his hands on the big red flowers on Yinghua's shorts and on the flesh underneath. My nephew heard his mother give a shocked screech.

  Sun Guangping had gone to town that day, and when he came home he found his mother hunched up on the doorsill, tears streaming down her face, muttering to herself, “Such a sin!” The next thing he saw was Yinghua perched on the edge of the bed, sobbing, her hair in disarray.

  Sun Guangping did not need to be told what had happened. As the blood drained from his face, he marched into the kitchen and emerged with an ax glinting in his hand. He walked over to where Yinghua was weeping and said to her, “You're going to have to look after Ma and the boy.”

  When the meaning of this sank in, Yinghua burst out into wails of anguish. She clutched at his jacket and said, “No, don't! Don't do that!”

  My mother threw herself on her knees in the doorway, stretching out both arms in an effort to block his way. Eyes wet with tears, she said gravely to Sun Guangping in a hoarse, wavering voice: “If you kill him, it's you who'll suffer.”

  Her expression brought tears to his eyes. “Get up!” he shouted. “If I don't kill him, how can I ever show my face in the village again?”

  My mother remained stubbornly on her knees and tried a different tack: “Think of your little boy. It's not worth it, going that far.”

  He gave a bitter smile and said to her, “I can't think of any other way out of this.”

  The outrage suffered by Yinghua made Sun Guangping feel that he had to have it out with Sun Kwangtsai once and for all. For years now he had been putting up with the losses of face that his father had inflicted upon him, but Sun Kwangtsai's latest affront had forced them, he knew, into a collision course. In his rage he saw with total clarity that if he failed to take a stand it would be impossible to hold his head up among the neighbors.

  Everyone in the village was milling around outside that afternoon. In the dazzling sunlight and the glowing eyes of the spectators, Sun Guangping recovered the bravado he had exhibitedas a fourteen-year-old. Ax in hand, he strode toward my father.

  Sun Kwangtsai was standing under a tree in front of the widows house, and he watched, perplexed, as Sun Guangping approached. My brother heard him say to the widow, “Can this joker really be out to kill me?”

  Then he shouted at Sun Guangping, “Son, I'm your dad!”

  Sun Guangping maintained a grim silence and a look of determination. As he came ever closer, a note of alarm crept into Sun Kwangtsai s voice. “You've got only one dad. If you kill him, that's it.”

  By this time Sun Guangping was almost upon him, and Sun Kwangtsai could only mutter in panic, “He really does want to kill me!” So saying, he took to his heels, crying out to nobody in particular, “Help!”

  A hush fell as my father, now in his sixties, set off on a run for his life. He grew increasingly exhausted as he ran along the narrow road into town, with Sun Guangping, brandishing the ax, hot on his tail. Sun Kwangtsai gave incessant cries for help, but his voice sounded so different from normal that Old Luo, standing at the entrance to the village, asked other onlookers, “Is that Sun Kwangtsai yelling?”

  It was quite an achievement for my father to maintain such a blistering pace at his age. But he slipped and fell as he was crossing the bridge, and ended up sitting down there and bursting into tears, crying as lustily as a newborn babe. This was the shocking sight that greeted Sun Guangping when he reached the bridge. Tears had made my father's face as gaudy as a butterfly, and snot dribbled down his lips. He cut such a sorry figure that my brother suddenly felt that chopping his head off made no sense at all. Usually so decisive, for once he was rendered irresolute. But with the throng of villagers around him he knew he had little choice but to put the ax to use. I am not sure what led him to pick my father's left ear, but there in the afternoon glare he grabbed hold of this appendage and lopped it off as cleanly as one might snip through a bolt of cloth. My father's blood spilled out and within a few seconds it encircled his neck like a crimson kerchief. Sun Kwangtsai was so immersed in his own loud weeping that he did not realize the nature of his injury. Only when he grew alarmed by how many tears he seemed to be shedding and stretched out a hand to wipe his face did he see his own blood. He gave a cry of horror and fainted.

  As my brother walked home that afternoon, his body was rent with shivers. On this sultry summer day he clutched his arms as tightly as if he was exposed to subzero temperatures. When he threaded his way through the crowd of villagers, they could clearly hear his teeth chatter. My mother and Yinghua blanched as they watched him approach, and both women saw black spots in front of their eyes, as though a horde of locusts was descending. Sun Guangping smiled faintly and went inside. He rummaged through the storage cabinets, looking for his padded jacket. By the time Mother and Yinghua were back in the house, he had already put it on. He was sitting on the bed, his face streaming with perspiration, while the rest of his body continued to shake uncontrollably.

  A fortnight later, Sun Kwangtsai, his head swathed in bandages, had a scribe in town write a letter and send it to me in Beijing. This missive, along with much flattery and many endearments, emphasized his role in rearing me and closed with an injunction to seek redress on his behalf from the top officials in Zhongnanhai. The absurdity of this idea left a deep impression on me.

  In fact, when my father wrote to me, Sun Guangping had already been arrested. As he was taken away, my mother tugged at Yinghua and blocked the policemen's path. She burst into tears and cried out to them, “Take us instead! Two of us for one of him—isn't that a better deal?”

  Sun Guangping served two years, and by the time he came home Mother was already ailing. On the day of his release, Mother stood at the entrance to the village with five-year-old Sun Xiaoming. When she saw Sun Guangping and Yinghua walking toward her, all of a sudden she spat blood and fell to the ground.

  After this, Mother's condition deteriorated and she tended to wobble as she walked. Sun Guangping wanted to take her to the hospital for treatment but she flatly refused, saying, “I am going to die anyway. The money's not worth spending.”

  When Sun Guangping insisted on carrying her into town piggyback, Mother wept tears of rage and pounded his back with her fists, saying, “I'll hate you till the day I die!”

  But Mother calmed down after they had crossed the wooden bridge, and as she clung to Sun Guangping's s
houlders a girlish, bashful look began to appear on her face.

  Mother died shortly before the Spring Festival that year. One winter evening she began to cough blood, and once it started, it wouldn't stop. When she first felt her mouth fill with blood, she did not spit it out, unwilling to soil the floor and give Sun Guangping more work. Though normally unable to rise from her bed unassisted, Mother still managed to get up and grope around in the darkness for a basin to set next to her bed.

  The following morning, when Sun Guangping came into her room, he noticed that Mother's head was drooping over the side of the bed and that dark red blood had accumulated in the basin, leaving the sheets untouched. When he wrote to me later, he said the air outside was thick with driving snow. Her breath reduced to the merest wisp, Mother spent the last day of her life in bitter cold. Yinghua held vigil at her bedside the whole time, and Mothers expression as death grew near seemed peaceful and serene. But in the evening, this woman, hitherto so taciturn, began to rave with startling vigor. Sun Kwangtsai was the target of all her expostulations. Although she had not offered the slightest protest when he was shifting our household property into the widow's possession, her deathbed rants revealed that she had taken these losses very much to heart. In her final moments she cried over and over again, “Don't take the chamber pot away, I need it!” Or, “Give me that basin back!” She listed every one of the items that he had filched.

  Mother's funeral was somewhat more lavish than my little brother's had been. She was buried in a coffin. Throughout the whole proceedings my father was assigned the same position that I had once occupied, banishment outside the family circle. Just as I had earlier been the object of reproach, Sun Kwangtsai became the butt of criticism because of his lack of involvement in the funeral, even though his relationship with the widow was now tacitly accepted. When he saw the coffin being carried out of the village he asked a villager in confusion, “The old woman is dead?”