《Be someone people like.》艮下

2、Chapter Two – Star of the Long-Johns and Applause from the Pit of Night

　　On the seventh night of her coughing, Wang Cuihua was suddenly possessed by a craving for sour pears. Tie-Dan stuffed his phone into his pocket and ran to the shop at the village head, pounding the shuttered door like a drumskin. Boss Zhao the Lame threw open the door wrapped in a padded coat and cursed: “You blockhead, it’s the hour of the dead—reincarnating?” Tie-Dan thrust forward a five-yuan note, crumpled and smeared with pig-dung fingerprints: “Uncle Zhao, Ma’s cough is tearing her lungs. She needs sour pears.” Zhao squinted at the bill, sighed, and handed over the last frozen bag of yellow pears from the shelf. Then he shuffled back inside and produced half a bottle of cough syrup: “Take it, and don’t call me stingy.”

　　Tie-Dan hugged pears and syrup to his chest and sprinted home. His foot skidded on the new-laid night-soil heap beside the path; the world tilted, and he landed flat in the manure pit. Shards of ice and warm excrement poured down his collar. His first instinct was not to save himself but to hoist the mobile phone high—Chen Zhiyuan had bought it with factory wages; it must not crack. The pit was shallow, yet the more he thrashed the deeper he sank, until finally he crouched, steadied his breath, and lobbed the pears and the bottle onto the bank. Then, both arms raised like a priest elevating the Host, he inched outward step by step. Under the moon he looked a duck newly braised in soy, dripping and glistening.

　　When he reached the doorway, Wang Cuihua beheld a silhouette of night-soil, arms cradling a spotless phone, the sour pears rolling in the snow like white pebbles. A clot of blood-tinged phlegm tore from her throat, yet she laughed: “My courier comes steaming-hot—special delivery.”

　　That night Tie-Dan crouched before the stove, boiling kettle after kettle, scrubbing himself three times until his skin glowed scarlet. Propped against quilts, Wang Cuihua ate one pear, coughed less, and began to babble: Tie-Dan’s father had not truly died; he had simply turned into a donkey grazing reeds on the eastern riverbank. Tie-Dan nodded: “Tomorrow I’ll lead the donkey home to pull your grindstone.” His mother laughed until tears sprang: “Silly child, the donkey has long since been reincarnated along with your father.”

　　Next morning Chen Zhiyuan drove from town and took her to the county hospital. The doctor slapped the CT film onto the desk like a losing card: “Terminal—two months at most. Let her eat whatever she fancies.” Tie-Dan understood only the word eat; he began to tick off fingers: “Ma wants sour pears, and chicken stewed with glass noodles—I’ll go buy them now.” The doctor glanced at Chen Zhiyuan: “Arrange the funeral affairs, don’t torment the patient.” Chen nodded, but Tie-Dan had already spread every coin in his pocket—thirty-seven yuan fifty—across the cashier’s counter: “Auntie, give my mother two months.” The cashier slammed the window shut in disgust.

　　Wang Cuihua refused to stay; the hospital reeked of sterilised ghosts, she said—she wanted home. On the ride back she leaned against the van window, watching snow tuck the wheat seedlings into immaculate blankets, and murmured: “Son, when I go, don’t copy people and weep—the moment you cry, the world laughs louder.” Tie-Dan answered “Mm,” turned back, and stretched his lips into a grin that trembled like wind-blown grass: “Ma, I won’t cry; I’ll tell you jokes.”

　　Chen Zhiyuan parked at the village entrance; Wang Cuihua had fallen asleep. Tie-Dan carried her on his back through the snow, each step creaking. He spoke the while: “Ma, yesterday I posted a new clip—me falling into the manure pit. Another hundred thousand likes. When I’m famous I’ll buy you a television fifty inches wide, wider than your quilt.” His mother made no answer; her head rocked against his shoulder as when, years ago, she had lulled him to sleep.

　　That night she woke and called him to the kang. From beneath her pillow she drew a plastic bag stuffed with notes: the largest five yuan, the oldest torn in half and mended with tape. She pressed the wad into his palm: “Money earned washing long-johns in winter—three thousand four hundred sixty-seven. Don’t despise it; it’s enough for a wife.” Tie-Dan shook his head: “I don’t want a wife; I want Ma.” She glared: “Nonsense. A wife can cook for you; can a mother stay forever?” His face reddened until he burst out: “Then I’ll give the money to Brother Chen and ask him to keep you in hospital another two months—will that do?” She lifted a hand to strike him, but it fell softly, as on a kitten: “Remember—never spend it all at once. Spend slowly, and the money lasts a lifetime.”

　　On the twenty-third of the twelfth lunar month, the Little New Year, Wang Cuihua coughed until a rib snapped. Tie-Dan went to town for painkillers; the pharmacy was shuttered. He squatted opposite, rubbing frozen hands, and saw in the new bridal-shop window a white gown whose hem billowed like fresh-spun candy floss. He wiped a patch of glass clean with his sleeve, photographed the dress, and sent it to Chen Zhiyuan: “Brother, would Ma look pretty in this?” Chen replied with a single character: “Mm.”

　　New-Year’s Eve afternoon brought a sudden lucidity. She demanded a bath. Tie-Dan scoured the iron basin until it shone, then hauled bucket after bucket of hot water; steam filled the room. She soaked, thin as kindling, and told him to cut her hair straight. His hand shook; one snip left the fringe slanting like a dog’s bite. She regarded herself in the mirror and smiled: “Good—saves me from being recognised in the next life.”

　　At eleven that night firecrackers overlapped. Tie-Dan boiled dumplings and carried them to the kang; she ate half, shook her head, then clutched his hand, nails biting his flesh: “Cup… cupboard.” He opened the kang-chest; at the bottom lay a pair of pink trousers—her wedding dacron, thirty years faded to the colour of bone. She wheezed like broken bellows: “Dress… Mother.” He lifted her; the trousers snagged on her jutting hips. Sweat blinded him; finally he slit the waistband with scissors and forced the button closed. She smoothed the seam, exhaled as though someone had lifted a weight from her back, and grew light in his arms.

　　Tie-Dan felt the hand slacken; the room was suddenly hollow, echoing only with distant crackers. For half a minute he stood motionless, then stuffed the remaining dumplings one by one into his mouth, chewing until his jaws ached, tears mingling with the filling and falling into the bowl where oil beads floated like tiny moons. He remembered her injunction against weeping, tilted the bowl, drank the soup to the last drop, and wiped his mouth: “Ma, I didn’t cry—I was just adding vinegar.”

　　Outside, the midnight bell tolled. He tucked her hand beneath the quilt, squatted on the threshold, and filmed a clip: the camera rose to the sky where fireworks burst into shattered constellations, then drifted down to his own face, wet yet grinning: “Happy New Year, everybody. Today my ma wore her pink trousers—pretty, eh? She… she thanks you for watching. Don’t laugh at me any more—I didn’t fall on my face today.”

　　He posted the video, switched off the phone, and sat hugging his knees while snow accumulated on his shoulders like white armour. Far off, Chen Zhiyuan hurried over with a string of firecrackers. Seeing the dark hump on the threshold, he slowed, then hung the crackers on the old locust tree and lit them one by one. The flare played across Tie-Dan’s face, carving a smile that at last broke open, releasing a sound half whimper, half lullaby—the same tuneless air Wang Cuihua once hummed while patting his back to sleep, now rising into the crackling dark like sparks ascending to become, perhaps, a new, indifferent star.