5on her sixteenth birthday, my grandma was betrothed by her father to shan bianlang, the son ofshan tingxiu, one of northeast gaomi township’s richest men. as distillery owners, the shansused cheap sorghum to produce a strong, high-quality white wine that was famous throughout thearea. northeast gaomi township is largely swampy land that is flooded by autumn rains; butsince the tall sorghum stalks resist waterlogging, it was planted everywhere and invariablyproduced a bumper crop. by using cheap grain to make wine, the shan family made a very goodliving, and marrying my grandma off to them was a real feather in great-granddad’s cap. manylocal families had dreamed of marrying into the shan family, despite rumours that shan bianlanghad leprosy. his father was a wizened little man who sported a scrawny queue on the back of hishead, and even though his cupboards overflowed with gold and silver, he wore tattered, dirtyclothes, often using a length of rope as a belt.
grandma’s marriage into the shan family was the will of heaven, implemented on a day whenshe and some of her playmates, with their tiny bound feet and long pigtails, were playing beside aset of swings. it was qingming, the day set aside to attend ancestral graves; peach trees were infull red bloom, willows were green, a fine rain was falling, and the girls’ faces looked like peachblossoms. it was a day of freedom for them. that year grandma was five feet four inches tall andweighed about 130 pounds. she was wearing a cotton print jacket over green satin trousers, withscarlet bands of silk tied around her ankles. since it was drizzling, she had put on a pair ofembroidered slippers soaked a dozen times in tong oil, which made a squishing sound when shewalked. her long shiny braids shone, and a heavy silver necklace hung around her neck – great-granddad was a silversmith. great-grandma, the daughter of a landlord who had fallen on hardtimes, knew the importance of bound feet to a girl, and had begun binding her daughter’s feetwhen she was six years old, tightening the bindings every day.
a yard in length, the cloth bindings were wound around all but the big toes until the bonescracked and the toes turned under. the pain was excruciating. my mother also had bound feet,and just seeing them saddened me so much that i felt compelled to shout: ‘down with feudalism!
long live liberated feet!’ the results of grandma’s suffering were two three-inch golden lotuses,and by the age of sixteen she had grown into a well- developed beauty. when she walked,swinging her arms freely, her body swayed like a willow in the wind.
shan tingxiu, the groom’s father, was walking around great-granddad’s village, dung basketin hand, when he spotted grandma among the other local flowers. three months later, a bridalsedan chair would come to carry her away.
after shan tingxiu had spotted grandma, a stream of people came to congratulate great-granddad and great-grandma. grandma pondered what it would be like to mount to the jingle ofgold and dismount to the tinkle of silver, but what she truly longed for was a good husband,handsome and well educated, a man who would treat her gently. as a young maiden, she hadembroidered a wedding trousseau and several exquisite pictures for the man who would somedaybecome my granddad. eager to marry, she heard innuendos from her girlfriends that the shanboy was afflicted with leprosy, and her dreams began to evaporate. yet, when she shared heranxieties with her parents, great-granddad hemmed and hawed, while great-grandma scoldedthe girlfriends, accusing them of sour grapes.
later on, great-granddad told her that the well-educated shan boy had the fair complexion ofa young scholar from staying home all the time. grandma was confused, not knowing if this wastrue or not. after all, she thought, her own parents wouldn’t lie to her. maybe her girlfriends hadmade it all up. once again she looked forward to her wedding day.
grandma longed to lose her anxieties and loneliness in the arms of a strong and noble youngman. finally, to her relief, her wedding day arrived, and as she was placed inside the sedan chair,carried by four bearers, the horns and woodwinds fore and aft struck up a melancholy tune thatbrought tears to her eyes. off they went, floating along as though riding the clouds or sailingthrough a mist.
grandma was lightheaded and dizzy inside the stuffy sedan chair, her view blocked by a redcurtain that gave off a pungent mildewy odour. she reached out to lift it a crack – great-granddad had told her not to remove her red veil. a heavy bracelet of twisted silver slid down toher wrist, and as she looked at the coiled-snake design her thoughts grew chaotic and disoriented.
a warm wind rustled the emerald-green stalks of sorghum lining the narrow dirt path. dovescooed in the fields. the delicate powder of petals floated above silvery new ears of wavingsorghum. the curtain, embroidered on the inside with a dragon and a phoenix, had faded afteryears of use, and there was a large stain in the middle.
summer was giving way to autumn, and the sunlight outside the sedan chair was brilliant. thebouncing movements of the bearers rocked the chair slowly from side to side; the leather liningof their poles groaned and creaked, the curtain fluttered gently, letting in an occasional ray ofsunlight and, from time to time, a whisper of cool air. grandma was sweating profusely and herheart was racing as she listened to the rhythmic footsteps and heavy breathing of the bearers. theinside of her skull felt cold one minute, as though filled with shiny pebbles, and hot the next, asthough filled with coarse peppers.
shortly after leaving the village, the lazy musicians stopped playing, while the bearersquickened their pace. the aroma of sorghum burrowed into her heart. full-voiced strange andrare birds sang to her from the fields. a picture of what she imagined to be the bridegroomslowly took shape from the threads of sunlight filtering into the darkness of the sedan chair.
painful needle pricks jabbed her heart.
‘old man in heaven, protect me!’ her silent prayer made her delicate lips tremble. a lightdown adorned her upper lip, and her fair skin was damp. every soft word she uttered wasswallowed up by the rough walls of the carriage and the heavy curtain before her. she ripped thetart-smelling veil away from her face and laid it on her knees. she was following local weddingcustoms, which dictated that a bride wear three layers of new clothes, top and bottom, no matterhow hot the day. the inside of the sedan chair was badly worn and terribly dirty, like a coffin; ithad already embraced countless other brides, now long dead. the walls were festooned withyellow silk so filthy it oozed grease, and of the five flies caught inside, three buzzed above herhead while the other two rested on the curtain before her, rubbing their bright eyes with blackstick-like legs. succumbing to the oppressiveness in the carriage, grandma eased one of herbamboo-shoot toes under the curtain and lifted it a crack to sneak a look outside.
she could make out the shapes of the bearers’ statuesque legs poking out from under looseblack satin trousers and their big, fleshy feet encased in straw sandals. they raised clouds of dustas they tramped along. impatiently trying to conjure up an image of their firm, muscular chests,grandma raised the toe of her shoe and leaned forward. she could see the polished purplescholar-tree poles and the bearers’ broad shoulders beneath them. barriers of sorghum stalkslining the path stood erect and solid in unbroken rows, tightly packed, together sizing one anotherup with the yet unopened clay-green eyes of grain ears, one indistinguishable from the next, asfar as she could see, like a vast river. the path was so narrow in places it was barely passable,causing the wormy, sappy leaves to brush noisily against the sedan chair.
the men’s bodies emitted the sour smell of sweat. infatuated by the masculine odour,grandma breathed in deeply – this ancestor of mine must have been nearly bursting with passion.
as the bearers carried their load down the path, their feet left a series of v imprints known as‘tramples’ in the dirt, for which satisfied clients usually rewarded them, and which fortified thebearers’ pride of profession. it was unseemly to ‘trample’ with an uneven cadence or to grip thepoles, and the best bearers kept their hands on their hips the whole time, rocking the sedan chairin perfect rhythm with the musicians’ haunting tunes, which reminded everyone within earshot ofthe hidden suffering in whatever pleasures lay ahead.
when the sedan chair reached the plains, the bearers began to get a little sloppy, both to makeup time and to torment their passenger. some brides were bounced around so violently theyvomited from motion sickness, soiling their clothing and slippers; the retching sounds frominside the carriage pleased the bearers as though they were giving vent to their own miseries. thesacrifices these strong young men made to carry their cargo into bridal chambers must haveembittered them, which was why it seemed so natural to torment the brides.
one of the four men bearing grandma’s sedan chair that day would eventually become mygranddad – it was commander yu zhan’ao. at the time he was a beefy twenty-year-old, apallbearer and sedan bearer at the peak of his trade. the young men of his generation were assturdy as northeast gaomi sorghum, which is more than can be said about us weaklings whosucceeded them. it was a custom back then for sedan bearers to tease the bride while trundlingher along: like distillery workers, who drink the wine they make, since it is their due, these mentorment all who ride in their sedan chairs – even the wife of the lord of heaven if she should bea passenger.
sorghum leaves scraped the sedan chair mercilessly when, all of a sudden, the deadeningmonotony of the trip was broken by the plaintive sounds of weeping – remarkably like themusicians’ tunes – coming from deep in the field. as grandma listened to the music, trying topicture the instruments in the musicians’ hands, she raised the curtain with her foot until shecould see the sweat-soaked waist of one of the bearers. her gaze was caught by her own redembroidered slippers, with their tapered slimness and cheerless beauty, ringed by halos ofincoming sunlight until they looked like lotus blossoms, or, even more, like tiny goldfish that hadsettled to the bottom of a bowl. two teardrops as transparently pink as immature grains ofsorghum wetted grandma’s eyelashes and slipped down her cheeks to the corners of her mouth.
as she was gripped by sadness, the image of a learned and refined husband, handsome in hishigh-topped hat and wide sash, like a player on the stage, blurred and finally vanished, replacedby the horrifying picture of shan bianlang’s face, his leprous mouth covered with rottingtumours. her heart turned to ice. were these tapered golden lotuses, a face as fresh as peachesand apricots, gentility of a thousand kinds, and ten thousand varieties of elegance all reserved forthe pleasure of a leper? better to die and be done with it.
the disconsolate weeping in the sorghum field was dotted with words, like knots in a piece ofwood: a blue sky yo – a sapphire sky yo – a painted sky yo – a mighty cudgel yo – dear elderbrother yo – death has claimed you – you have brought down little sister’s sky yo –.
i must tell you that the weeping of women from northeast gaomi township makes beautifulmusic. during 1912, the first year of the republic, professional mourners known as ‘wailers’
came from qufu, the home of confucius, to study local weeping techniques. meeting up with awoman lamenting the death of her husband seemed to grandma to be a stroke of bad luck on herwedding day, and she grew even more dejected.
just then one of the bearers spoke up: ‘you there, little bride in the chair, say something! thelong journey has bored us to tears.’
grandma quickly snatched up her red veil and covered her face, gently drawing her foot backfrom beneath the curtain and returning the carriage to darkness.
‘sing us a song while we bear you along!’
the musicians, as though snapping out of a trance, struck up their instruments. a trumpetblared from behind the chair:
‘too-tah – too-tah –’
‘poo-pah – poo-pah –’ one of the bearers up front imitated the trumpet sound, evoking coarse,raucous laughter all around.
grandma was drenched with sweat. back home, as she was being lifted into the sedan chair,great-grandma had exhorted her not to get drawn into any banter with the bearers. sedan bearersand musicians are low-class rowdies capable of anything, no matter how depraved.
they began rocking the chair so violently that poor grandma couldn’t keep her seat withoutholding on tight.
‘no answer? okay, rock! if we can’t shake any words loose, we can at least shake the piss outof her!’
the sedan chair was like a dinghy tossed about by the waves, and grandma held on to thewooden seat for dear life. the two eggs she’d eaten for breakfast churned in her stomach, theflies buzzed around her ears; her throat tightened, as the taste of eggs surged up into her mouth.
she bit her lip. don’t throw up, don’t let yourself throw up! she commanded herself. you mustn’tlet yourself throw up, fenglian. they say throwing up in the bridal chair means a lifetime of badluck.?.?.?.
the bearers’ banter turned coarse. one of them reviled my great-granddad for being a money-grabber, another said something about a pretty flower stuck into a pile of cowshit, a third calledshan bianlang a scruffy leper who oozed pus and excreted yellow fluids. he said the stench ofrotten flesh drifted beyond the shan compound, which swarmed with horseflies.?.?.?.
‘little bride, if you let shan bianlang touch you, your skin will rot away!’
as the horns and woodwinds blared and tooted, the taste of eggs grew stronger, forcinggrandma to bite down hard on her lip. but to no avail. she opened her mouth and spewed astream of filth, soiling the curtain, towards which the five flies dashed as though shot from a gun.
‘puke-ah, puke-ah. keep rocking!’ one of the bearers roared. ‘keep rocking. sooner or latershe’ll have to say something.’
‘elder brothers?.?.?. spare me?.?.?.’ grandma pleaded desperately between agonising retches.
then she burst into tears. she felt humiliated; she could sense the perils of her future, knowingshe’d spend the rest of her life drowning in a sea of bitterness. oh, father, oh, mother. i havebeen destroyed by a miserly father and a heartless mother!
grandma’s piteous wails made the sorghum quake. the bearers stopped rocking the chair andcalmed the raging sea. the musicians lowered the instruments from their rousing lips, so thatonly grandma’s sobs could be heard, alone with the mournful strains of a single woodwind,whose weeping sounds were more enchanting than any woman’s. grandma stopped crying at thesound of the woodwind, as though commanded from on high. her face, suddenly old anddesiccated, was pearled with tears. she heard the sound of death in the gentle melancholy of thetune, and smelled its breath; she could see the angel of death, with lips as scarlet as sorghum anda smiling face the colour of golden corn.
the bearers fell silent and their footsteps grew heavy. the sacrificial choking sounds frominside the chair and the woodwind accompaniment had made them restless and uneasy, had settheir souls adrift. no longer did it seem like a wedding procession as they negotiated the dirtroad; it was more like a funeral procession. my grandfather, the bearer directly in front ofgrandma’s foot, felt a strange premonition blazing inside him and illuminating the path his lifewould take. the sounds of grandma’s weeping had awakened seeds of affection that had laindormant deep in his heart.
it was time to rest, so the bearers lowered the sedan chair to the ground. grandma, havingcried herself into a daze, didn’t realise that one of her tiny feet was peeking out from beneath thecurtain; the sight of that incomparably delicate, lovely thing nearly drove the souls out of thebearers’ bodies. yu zhan’ao walked up, leaned over, and gently – very gently – held grandma’sfoot in his hand, as though it were a fledgling whose feathers weren’t yet dry, then eased it backinside the carriage. she was so moved by the gentleness of the deed she could barely keep fromthrowing back the curtain to see what sort of man this bearer was, with his large, warm, youthfulhand.
i’ve always believed that marriages are made in heaven and that people fated to be together areconnected by an invisible thread. the act of grasping grandma’s foot triggered a powerful drivein yu zhan’ao to forge a new life for himself, and constituted the turning point in his life – andthe turning point in hers as well.
the sedan chair set out again as a trumpet blast rent the air, then drifted off into obscurity. thewind had risen – a northeaster – and clouds were gathering in the sky, blotting out the sun andthrowing the carriage into darkness. grandma could hear the shh-shh of rustling sorghum, onewave close upon another, carrying the sound off into the distance. thunder rumbled off to thenortheast. the bearers quickened their pace. she wondered how much farther it was to the shanhousehold; like a trussed lamb being led to slaughter, she grew calmer with each step. at homeshe had hidden a pair of scissors in her bodice, perhaps to use on shan bianlang, perhaps to useon herself.
the holdup of grandma’s sedan chair by a highwayman at toad hollow occupies an importantplace in the saga of my family. toad hollow is a large marshy stretch in the vast flatland wherethe soil is especially fertile, the water especially plentiful, and the sorghum especially dense. ablood-red bolt of lightning streaked across the northeastern sky, and screaming fragments ofapricot-yellow sunlight tore through the dense clouds above the dirt road, when grandma’s sedanchair reached that point. the panting bearers were drenched with sweat as they entered toadhollow, over which the air hung heavily. sorghum plants lining the road shone like ebony, denseand 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 themelancholy 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 goosebumpson 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 whoeats fistcakes!
northeast gaomi township was aswarm with bandits who operated in the sorghum fields likefish in water, forming gangs to rob, pillage, and kidnap, yet balancing their evil deeds withcharitable ones. if they were hungry, they snatched two people, keeping one and sending theother into the village to demand flatbreads with eggs and green onions rolled inside. since theystuffed 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 tracksand stared dumbstruck at the highwayman of medium height who stood in the road, his legsakimbo. he had smeared his face black and was wearing a conical rain hat woven of sorghumstalks and a broad-shouldered rain cape open in front to reveal a black buttoned jacket and a wideleather 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 deathcouldn’t frighten her, nothing could. she raised the curtain to get a glimpse of the man who atefistcakes.
‘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-granddadhad given them, and tossed these at the man’s feet. the bearers lowered the sedan chair to theground, 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 tuckedinto his belt.
the bearers moved slowly behind the sedan chair. yu zhan’ao, bringing up the rear, spunaround and glared. a change came over the highwayman’s face, and he gripped the object at hisbelt 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 pinchedgrandma’s foot. a smile creased her face, and the man pulled his hand away as though it hadbeen 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. hergaze travelled from the man to the bearers and musicians.
‘into the sorghum field!’ the highwayman said, his hand still resting on the red-bundled objectat his belt.
grandma stood confidently; lightning crackled in the clouds overhead and shattered her radiantsmile 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 hereyes.
yu zhan’ao approached the highwayman, his thin lips curled resolutely, up at one end anddown 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 toshoot from his eyes, and crystalline beads of sweat scurried down his terrified face. when yuzhan’ao had drawn to within three paces of him, a shameful sound burst from his mouth, and heturned and ran. yu zhan’ao was on his tail in a flash, kicking him expertly in the rear. he sailedthrough the air over the cornflowers, thrashing his arms and legs like an innocent babe, until helanded in the sorghum field.
‘spare me, gentlemen! i’ve got an eighty-year-old mother at home, and this is the only way ican make a living.’ the highwayman skilfully pleaded his case to yu zhan’ao, who grabbed himby 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 clothcovering, 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 hestepped 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 feetflying. the initial onslaught was met by screams and shrill cries, which soon died out. grandmastood beside the road listening to the dull cacophony of fists and feet on flesh; she glanced at yuzhan’ao, then looked up at the lightning-streaked sky, the radiant, golden, noble smile still frozenon 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 gurgledand his body, racked by spasms, grew deathly still; he lay spread-eagled on the ground, a mixtureof 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 leavesfrom 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 knotbroke free in flight and separated from the piece of cloth, which fluttered to the ground in thefield like a big red butterfly.
yu zhan’ao lifted grandma into the sedan chair. ‘it’s starting to rain,’ he said, ‘so let’s getgoing.’
grandma ripped the curtain from the front of the carriage and stuffed it behind the seat. as shebreathed the free air she studied yu zhan’ao’s broad shoulders and narrow waist. he was so nearshe could have touched the pale, taut skin of his shaved head with her toe.
the winds were picking up, bending the sorghum stalks in ever deeper waves, those on theroadside stretching out to bow their respects to grandma. the bearers streaked down the road,yet the sedan chair was as steady as a skiff skimming across whitecaps. frogs and toads croakedin loud welcome to the oncoming summer rainstorm. the low curtain of heaven stared darkly atthe silvery faces of sorghum, over which streaks of blood-red lightning crackled, releasing ear-splitting explosions of thunder. with growing excitement, grandma stared fearlessly at the greenwaves raised by the black winds.
the first truculent raindrops made the plants shudder. the rain beat a loud tattoo on the sedanchair and fell on grandma’s embroidered slippers; it fell on yu zhan’ao’s head, then slanted inon grandma’s face.
the bearers ran like scared jackrabbits, but couldn’t escape the prenoon deluge. sorghumcrumpled under the wild rain. toads took refuge under the stalks, their white pouches popping inand out noisily; foxes hid in their darkened dens to watch tiny drops of water splashing downfrom the sorghum plants. the rainwater washed yu zhan’ao’s head so clean and shiny it lookedto grandma like a new moon. her clothes, too, were soaked. she could have covered herself withthe curtain, but she didn’t; she didn’t want to, for the open front of the sedan chair afforded her aglimpse of the outside world in all its turbulence and beauty.