“Please tell my Aunt Mother Knife that I’m here.”
He knelt down to reach her height, and then he noticed that one of the albums was a foreign record. He looked into the little girl’s face which seemed, somehow, obscured by dust. He knew the words on the album were in German, and he recognized the ones that mattered, J.S. Bach. Sparrow looked at her again, unwilling to believe he could recognize this grieving, destitute child.
“Tell my aunt,” she said firmly.
But it was unnecessary because his mother had come out into the courtyard, a quilt thrown over her shoulders, and was now standing behind him. His mother cried out and pulled the child into her arms. “Zhuli!” she said. “Where’s your Ma?” Panicking, she pushed past Sparrow into the laneway, staring all around.
“Swirl,” Big Mother shouted, and kept shouting. The alley was empty, not a single person, nothing but rubbish and wind.
Sparrow flew down the lane, all the way to Beijing Road. But his Aunt Swirl and Wen the Dreamer were not there, not under the welcoming archway, and not on the street. Finally he used the few coins in his pocket to buy a half-dozen roasted sweet potatoes and a paper bag of steamed bread, then he stormed back across the intersection, dodging bicycles, leaping between pedestrians. Back home, he found Zhuli seated across the table from his mother. The child was wearing Flying Bear’s clothes and the small, familiar shirt (it had once belonged to Sparrow) draped over her like a tent. When Sparrow set the food in front of her, she ate without looking up, breathing through her nose as she tried to shove as much as possible into her mouth. Big Mother watched in silence.
When Zhuli finished eating, she went, of her own accord, to the bedroom that Sparrow shared with his brothers. She found another shirt and pulled it on over the one she was already wearing. Then she climbed into the bed and asked Sparrow to lie down, too. Confused, he did as the child asked. Zhuli, who seemed to be growing smaller every moment, crept into his arms, closed her eyes and fell asleep.
—
Late that night, a sealed envelope was slipped through the front gate. It was addressed to “Mrs. Song of the People” and Mr. and Mrs. Ma had accidentally trampled it as they passed to the east wing. Mr. Ma gave it to Big Mother Knife who tore it open but, unable to make out the words with her good eye, thrust it at Ba Lute. The letter said that Swirl and Wen the Dreamer were guilty of counter-revolutionary crimes and sentenced to eight years of hard labour. They had already been transported to separate re-education camps in the Northwest. No matter how many times Big Mother heard the words, the letter made no sense. The letter continued: “The mother of Comrade Wen has died of illness. As there is no one in Bingpai with whom to entrust the child, I have taken the liberty of bringing her here. You will find the necessary paperwork and residence permits enclosed. Long live our motherland! Long live Chairman Mao!” There was a crushed, melted White Rabbit candy in the envelope.
“You know how it is,” Ba Lute said at last. “Sometimes the local revolutionary committee gets carried away. I’ll take care of it. A sentence like this won’t get carried out immediately. Swirl and Wen must still be in Bingpai.” But he wouldn’t look her in the face, examining instead the empty cigarette pack in his hand.
All night, Ba Lute tossed and turned. The more Big Mother tried to see the room’s outlines, the more the walls seemed to fold around her. Her husband cried out in his sleep, and she whacked his arm until he quieted. In Big Mother’s own fevered dreams, her sister appeared, but Swirl was a small child again. They were fleeing Shanghai, trying to outrun the Japanese army.
When Big Mother next woke, Zhuli was asleep beside her.
They remained in bed while Ba Lute and the boys got up. They listened as schoolbags rustled open and closed, loudspeakers bellowed the national anthem, and bells and clappers rattled through the laneways. When Big Mother opened her eyes again, she was momentarily confused and thought that she and Swirl were lying in their parents’ bed, her sister’s gleaming hair flowing across the pillows. Her sister was the great love of her life. When their husbands had disappeared into the war, she and Swirl had survived together, and Big Mother had never let her sister down. She swiped at her tears, but she could not make them stop falling.
She had a vague sense, a disturbance, of people struggling up, people rushing over one another, and on and on these people climbed and fell and pulled each other down, in a large and sickening silence. But for what crime? In the re-education camps of the Northwest, her sister and Wen the Dreamer would undoubtedly be separated from one another. Surely they would be released soon, any crimes they had committed must certainly be small mistakes. But what was a small counter-revolutionary crime? Big Mother had never yet heard of one. The little girl sat up. As if her aunt’s tears scalded her, Zhuli crawled out from under the covers and walked out of the room.
—
That night, Ba Lute boarded the bus for Bingpai. He drowsed, thinking of gamblers and the smoke at Swirl’s wedding, of birds and music, and of the slow churning of Chairman Mao’s newly formed wartime orchestra, and when he woke, the bus was tilting over a mountain pass, attacking a hairpin curve. He gripped the seat in front of him. It was miserable outside. Within and without, Ba Lute felt an enveloping sense of danger and deception. This foreboding was so strong that, when dawn came, he was taken aback to find the bus rolling across a delicate landscape. The green-gold fragility of the surrounding fields, the silvery bicycles and low lines of birds rising and lifting as one confused him. Banners proclaimed, “Serve the People!” and “Dare to think, dare to act!” The early summer had been unbearable, with bouts of thunder and unrelenting heat. His shirt felt glued permanently to his back.
Arriving in Bingpai, Ba Lute walked to the Party office, a meek little building with a very short door.
Inside, he was surprised to see an electric fan wobbling from the ceiling, funnelling the warm air down. The office had its own generator. Once Ba Lute had made himself known, he was welcomed by the village head with a very large piece of cake. Banishing his anxiety, he stretched himself out so that he was lordly and unassailable, and spoke in a bellowing voice. When Ba Lute mentioned Swirl and Wen the Dreamer’s names, the grinning official in his over-warm jacket turned pink and damp. The fan pushed droplets of sweat across his bald head.
“One moment please, Comrade,” the man said, and fled the room.
More cake appeared. A worker entered, singing, “Good day, Comrade!” He presented a cup of tea, wiped the already clean surface of the table and hobbled out. “Long live our Great Leader!”
“Well?” Ba Lute said, when the village head returned. “Where are they? I’m very eager to see them.”
The dishevelled man looked as if he had been to Moscow and back. “Well, of course,” he began, “they’re registered here–”
“Yes, yes.”
“–but, this morning, or, more accurately, at the present hour–”
“Comrade Wen is a greatly admired lyricist, a book of songs, as the saying goes. We can have no other for our concert. General Chen Yi himself insists!”
The man looked up, startled. “Respects to Chen Yi! A brave general and faithful servant to Chairman Mao himself. A twelve-barrel hero! Long may he–”
Ba Lute took a gulp of tea and slapped the cup on the table. “Comrade Wen and his wife must present themselves immediately. I’m ready to press on.”
“Brother Comrade, life goes in unexpected spirals. That is to say, there are many unexpected places to which a man returns–”
“Your poetry confuses me, Comrade.”
The man blushed. “Let me begin again. Elder brother, the truth of the matter is, they are not here.” The man shifted uncomfortably.
“Speak freely, please.”