The Interior - Страница 52

All this seemed very far off the track, but Hulan let Suchee continue for now.

"Very few children in this area go on to high school, because they're needed on the land," Suchee said "But Miaoshan was never much for physical work, and my place is so small that I really didn't need her help every day. Of course, I could have used her hands for watering, but she complained so that I thought she was just like her father. She was born to be a scholar, not a peasant. For her ninth-grade year she was one of only two children from our village accepted to high school. She accomplished that on her own. We didn't need Tang Dan for help, but this didn't stop him from asking if we needed it. Four years later, when Miaoshan graduated, I once again considered accepting Tang Dan's proposal. I don't know if you can understand this, Hulan. When I say he is wealthy, it may not seem so to you by your counting, but he is the first man in our county to become a millionaire."

Hulan told Suchee that Siang had said her father warn't a millionaire.

"Tang Dan isn't going to discuss his business affairs with his daughter," Suchee insisted.

"But he would with you."

Suchee grunted. "I have been alone here for many years. I have relied on no one. I have raised and slaughtered animals. I have bought my own seed and tilled my soil. I have hired people to help me during harvest, but I have sold all of my produce myself. Tang Dan and I understood each other."

"So you discussed his money?" Hulan asked skeptically.

"Liu Hulan, look around you. There is nothing here but hard work. Oh, people can go to the village and watch television in the cafe. Some people, like Tang Dan, even have their own television sets. But what do half-naked American girls bouncing their big breasts in their biji nis have to do with me?" Hulan understood that Suchee was talking about Baywatch, a show very popular in China for its bikini-clad actresses. "For young people like Miaoshan, Tsai Bing, and Siang, they see a paradise that they want to be a part of. For old people like me, I think it only makes people dream of things they can never have."

"You're not old."

Suchee frowned and said, "We are the same age, yes, but look at you. You are just starting your life. I am ending mine."

Hulan could have denied all this; instead she asked, "What about Tang Dan?"

"For many years-since his wife's death and Shaoyi's death-we have met. It has only been talk, and most of that has been about our regrets. Tang Dan and I grew up in the same area, but our lives were almost as different as yours and mine. Even though we had both been born after Liberation, our families had held on to old ways and customs, as was the case in the countryside. As a boy he was well fed and spoiled. As a girl I was seen as merely a visitor to our family home. My father treated me very badly. I wasn't given food or a place to sleep in the house. My mother could do nothing about it, because she had been sold to my father by her father for only a iew yuan during a famine. When the Cultural Revolution came, everything changed."

Having heard Slang's version of these events, Hulan listened carefully for any discrepancies, but the story was still the same. Tang Dan's family had been destroyed, and he'd spent years in a labor camp.

"But for me those early years of the Cultural Revolution were glorious," Suchee continued. "I couldn't imagine being so happy. I was sent to the Red Soil Farm to teach people like you. I was away from the suffocation of the village. I was fed. I remember how the city kids complained about the food, but that was the first time in my life that I'd had three meals in a day, and that happened every day, week after week, month after month. Then everything changed again. By the end of the Cultural Revolution, I was married to someone with a bad record and Tang Dan had his own black mark. So for the first time Tang Dan and I had something very much in common."

Suchee described their lives. The birth of children. The cycling of the seasons. The famines and droughts. The deaths of their spouses. And the never-ending drudgery of eking a living from the soil. But unlike Suchee's farm, Tang Dan's land had flourished beneath his hard work. "I try to keep up with my land," she explained. "The soil is good, but it's hard for me to do the watering alone. Since he got rich, Tang Dan has been able to hire many men to help him with his watering and caring."

All this hadn't stopped the villagers from gossiping about the Tangs. "They said the Tang family hid its gold and only dug it up again when they knew it was safe. What nonsense!" Suchee sniffed indignantly. "I saw him work. The Tsai family saw him work. His wealth comes from his own efforts, but it is something that he doesn't discuss, not even with his own daughter." Suchee hesitated, then added, "Especially with his own daughter."

"Why?"

"For two reasons. First, like so many young people in our village, she has become greedy for the outside world. Tang Dan doesn't want to pay for such foolishness! And second, he has been negotiating with a family for almost two years now over a bride price and dowry. He doesn't want to pay more than he has to."

So many of these customs were outdated, even forbidden, but that didn't stop them from persisting in the countryside far from the watchful eyes of the central government.

"You would have married Tang Dan for love or because he was rich?" Hulan asked.

"Love? I have great respect for Tang Dan and I would have done my woman duty, but the only reason I would have married him was because I thought he would send Miaoshan to English teacher's school or maybe to Beijing University."

Taken aback by this revelation, Hulan asked, "Could she have qualified?"

Suchee went back to fretting the hem of her pants. "She didn't apply. She said she would do it on her own with no help, which was a good thing, because as soon as Miaoshan graduated, Tang Dan no longer asked me to marry him and I couldn't very well ask him."

"But he has asked you again."

Suchee nodded. "Since Miaoshan's death he has asked me several times. He says I shouldn't be alone. He says that once Siang is married away to another village, he will be completely alone too. But I have said no. He says it's okay if we don't have sex. He understands that I grieve for my daughter. But I still said no. Last night when you were here, he said that he would buy my land. That way I could leave this place of unhappy memories. He said he would pay me enough that I could move to Taiyuan City and be comfortable for the rest of my life. I thanked him for his friendship, but I had to say no to that as well. I'm an end-of-the-liner now. All I have left are my memories. The good ones and the bad ones are here, not in Taiyuan City. To leave this place would be to say good-bye to my life."

What was brutally obvious to Hulan seemed invisible to Suchee. During the period that Miaoshan had come home, Tang Dan had probably turned his full attention to her. For whatever reason, she'd rejected him. Now that Miaoshan was gone-and the thought that Tang Dan might have killed Miaoshan for refusing him weighed heavily on Hulan's mind-he once again zeroed in on Suchee. Miaoshan was beautiful and young, and, as Hulan had already said to Suchee, that was reason enough for any man of a certain age. But what was his interest in Suchee? The saying went: A family without a woman is like a man without a soul. But Tang Dan, as a millionaire, could have any woman he wanted. He could even buy a young girl from a neighboring province to prove his virility to the village. Why then would he chose a prematurely aged peasant who didn't have many years left in her? The only answer, it seemed to Hulan, was that Tang Dan wanted something from the Ling family. Hulan decided to tuck this line of inquiry away for now, as she had other, more important questions she needed to ask about Miaoshan.

"Your daughter was trying to organize the women in the factory," Hulan pressed on. "Did you know about that?"

Cicadas whirred about them. The air hung thick as porridge.

"She wanted the women to strike for better conditions," Suchee acknowledged at last. "That-and not some man-is the reason she stayed at the factory on weekends."

"You knew this, but you didn't tell me?"

"I thought if you knew my daughter was a troublemaker, you wouldn't come. It is your job to punish troublemakers, not help them."

Hulan didn't know how to respond to the truth of her friend's statement. Instead she said, "I need to know exactly what Miaoshan was doing."

"I'll tell you what I know. Miaoshan was smart, smart like you. But she didn't have your opportunities. I was proud of her, but that was never enough. 'A mother is supposed to be proud/ she used to say. 'What does it matter if you are proud of me?' Do you know the old proverb, 'He who has a mind to beat his dog will easily find a stick'?"

Hulan hadn't heard it, but she understood the meaning. Miaoshan had been an angry person who had wanted to strike out. But as a poor but intelligent peasant girl, she had little opportunity either to use her brains or to strike out. Knight International gave her the chance.

"She would come home and say things. 'Fight selfishness! Puncture the arrogance of imperialism! Repudiate revisionism! It is right to rebel!' Oh, the slogans I heard! They cut into my heart like shards of glass."

"But those are slogans from the Cultural Revolution. Did you teach them to her?"

"Me? Never! I wanted to forget those days."