4

Grandma Hui went outside to her backyard and sat on a bench next to the well, which was surrounded by shiny flagstones. This was where she did her laundry and washed vegetables, and it was also her refuge whenever Qiangtuo made her upset or angry. Today was a little different; it was Grandpa Yu who'd made her angry, with his talk about clever mothers who raise stupid sons. How could that not be a jab at her, and at Qiangtuo? Thinking of Qiangtuo, tears of sadness mixed with the old, slow disappointment began to fall down her cheeks. Drying her eyes, she thought about how Qiangtuo only had one skill in life, and that was selling the sweat off his back; working hard, manual jobs, mostly making bricks at a local kiln, never earning anything more than a few hardship pennies. He'd never been interested in studying, and in this respect, his children, one son and one daughter, took after their father. They both went away to be migrant laborers when they were around fifteen or sixteen. His wife had left many years ago, unable to accept her family's poverty. Qiangtuo left for work at dawn and came home late, so Grandma Hui spent most of her time alone in the house.

Sitting by the well, she listened to the bugs chirp. They weren't as loud as normal this year, or maybe there just weren't as many as before. She remembered Grandpa Yu telling her "days" ago that if in a bug's life, a day is as long as a year is to humans. But then, what difference is there really, between a human life and the life of a bug? The sun and rain come in turns, we reproduce, we raise our young, we grow old and sick, our eyes close, and we die. And no one in Water Village even really knew what her name was, her name, the one she'd had from birth. They only knew her as You Hui's wife. It was his name they called her by, and it was in relation to his age, his generation status, not hers, that they addressed her as Grandma, Auntie, or Sister. When she was young, she was terrified of bugs. The sight of a fat green grasshopper sitting on a cotton tree branch made her skin crawl. Another time, there was especially loud chirping in the night. The next day, she found a dead bug on the stove. Asking her husband if it was the same bug that made all the noise the night before, he replied:

"Of course! What else would have made the noise? Look, it's a cricket!"

Grandpa Yu happened to be in their house at the time, and, as knowledgeable about insects as he was about, he took issue with his friend's insect - identification skills:

"I can tell without even looking at it it's not a cricket! What you're looking at is a kitchen louse!"

But You Hui was a stubborn old man, and hated to be contradicted:

"You Yu, I'll admit you're a better craftsman than me, but I know the difference between a cricket and a kitchen louse!"

Grandpa Yu laughed:

"Your problem, You Hui, is that you don't think these differences are important or worth thinking too much about. To you, a horse and a donkey are pretty much the same thing. That's why only your wife believes you when you claim to know about these things!"

Grandpa Yu knew straight away he'd made a mistake —You Hui was easily offended. The room fell into silence, and the two men busied themselves with their tobacco pipes, shrouding their heads in smoke. After a while, Grandpa Yu said:

"If you don't believe it's a louse, I'll go catch a cricket and show you!"

Grandpa Yu loved watching bugs when he was a young boy, and spent half his childhood kneeling or lying down on the ground, getting the perfect vantage point. But he was a grown man now, and it wouldn't be proper for him to be seen sprawled in the dirt, and besides, he was a little out of practice. Instead, he rustled around between plants and rocks at the side of a field, under a hot midday sun. It's easy to hear crickets, but surprisingly difficult to find them. Still, he was easily able to focus on hunting for them while also using his brain to do other things, like working out how much of his life he'd spent listening to crickets. Crickets are active three months out of each year, which means that if you live to be seventy or eighty, you will have spent about twenty years listening to crickets. That's the same length of time roughly as one human generation. Everyone who lived in Water Village all spent several months every year listening to the crickets, but only a handful had ever seen one, not because they're rare or even elusive, but because to most people, seeing a cricket didn't even register as an event worth remembering or thinking about; so, they effectively go through life without ever seeing a cricket. Very few people take the time to study the finer details of life, and there's never enough time, especially when almost every moment of most people's waking life is preoccupied with the "Big Things."

He caught one eventually, and returned, cricket in hand, to You Hui's house, who as it turned out, had already forgotten about the whole cricket - kitchen louse debate, and was unimpressed anyway.

"Humph, not exactly a high - level skill, catching crickets."

What are you supposed to say to that? Grandpa Yu didn't know — it had all got a little too embarrassing. He looked over at Grandma Hui, perhaps looking for reassurance, and the cricket, seeing its chance, hopped out of his hand. Grandma Hui's face flushed red, as she anxiously tried to defuse the situation:

"Please don't take it the wrong way, Brother Yu. You know about You Hui's bad temper."

Grandpa Yu laughed:

"It's OK. I think we're both a little too old to hold a grudge over something as childish as crickets!"

You Hui started laughing too, and just like that, the tension broke. You Hui passed him the tobacco and motioned that he should load the big water bong. Bong loaded, Grandpa Yu began to smoke, and between puffs told a story about a special method he used as a boy to catch cicadas. In summer in Water Village, there is no game more fun than hunting cicadas. It wasn't easy — first, listen, then, follow the sound to the source, which involves climbing sneakily up a tree, and pounce with cupped palms coming together perfectly so as to catch the bug without crushing it.

"I was different when I was a boy," Grandpa Yu was saying, "I didn't bother with all that tree - climbing nonsense. Instead, what I did was find a good long piece of bamboo, then make a grid of broken bits of bamboo bark that I tied to the end of the stick, and draped it with spider - web. Then, when I saw a cicada, I just stuck out my pole, and bam, got it!"

You Hui laughed so hard he choked on the bong - smoke:

"It wasn't just you who did that, you know!"

Grandpa Yu wasn't finished:

"Alright, let me ask you this: with cicadas is it the male or the female that chirps?"

You Hui, uninterested, just said:

"So what, what difference does it make when you're catching them anyway?"

"You don't know, do you! Let me tell you — animals and people are opposites. With people, it's the women who are beautiful, but with animals, the males are better - looking. Just think about chickens, or peacocks! It's the same with cicadas — only the males make noise, the females just sit around silently. And crickets are the same again —whenever you hear crickets at night, it's the males singing songs for their women."

You Hui chuckled:

"What about you, Brother Yu? When you play your flute at night, are you playing for the cricket women?"

Grandma Hui glared at her husband:

"Would it hurt to say something nice for once? Why do you always have to be so harsh?"

That conversation changed something inside Grandma Hui. Starting from then, she was able to feel compassion for every insect that flew in the air or crawled in the ground. Butterflies, yes, but also ants and spiders. What brought about this change in her was the idea that insects have their own sexes, male and female, they court each other, they give birth, and they spend their lives enduring hot sun and hard rain. It was around that time that Grandpa Yu's wife gave birth to Wangtuo and Fatuo. Their daughter, Qiao'er, would still have to wait a few more years before making her appearance on the earth. It was also around that time that Grandma Hui, not yet a mother, started to think seriously about having a child or two of her own. Grandpa Yu said to Grandma Hui: "Nobody will believe what you are saying but your wife." that made Grandma Hui was unhappy.

Grandma Hui was not a Water Village native. The story of how she came there was an unusual one, and much retold and enjoyed among the other villagers. It started one day when the young You Hui didn't have anything much to do and so decided to make a day trip to the city. He was seen walking back into Water Village before dark, and following behind him with her head bowed down to the ground was a seventeen - year - old girl wearing a satin cheongsam, and carrying a makeshift cloth travel bag. One of the villagers asked him:

"Hey, You Hui, who's that you've got with you?"

His answer was short:

"Mind your own damn business!"

She went into his house, and that was it. There was no ceremony, no wedding feast, and they certainly didn't kneel together to pay respects and receive blessings of heaven and earth, as every other married couple in the village had. You Hui's parents died a long time before, and there were no other senior family members to be righteously outraged.

That was how, without any effort (and he was a notorious slacker) You Hui got married to the most beautiful woman in Water Village, with none of the usual help from matchmakers or family connections. Everyone in Water Village remembered and talked about the details of the day of Grandma Hui's arrival for a long time afterward. Some liked to talk about her beautiful cheongsam — it was the kind of thing you'd only normally see a young, rich man's wife wearing. Then there was her hair; black, shiny, tied in a bun with a fancy silver clasp. She wasn't an ordinary country girl — one look at her pale white skin told you that. Nobody heard her speak until several days after she arrived, but when she began to talk with her new fellow villagers, her accent was unfamiliar, so she was not only from some kind of wealthy background, but she was also practically a foreigner.

All in all, no one was under any illusions that You Hui convinced her to marry him without some kind of trickery. The troubling part was, you'd think she was an idiot to have fallen into his trap, but she wasn't, not at all. Quite the opposite, she could actually read, which was more than could be said for almost the entire village of Water Village! Added to that, You Hui was far from bright. It didn't make any sense! Grandma Hui didn't talk much to start with, let alone go around making a show of her literacy, but everyone remembered the first time it revealed itself in full. One of those occasions was when a Communist Party official from northern China was visiting the village. He'd called a village meeting and was reading to the villagers from a newspaper. The article was about the Korean War, and when he read out the words "Yalu River" as in the river on the China - North Korea border, he slightly mispronounced the "lu" sound, obviously because he misread the Chinese character that corresponded with it, so it became "Yalew." Grandma Hui tried hard to suppress a titter. The official asked her what she was laughing about, and eventually she had to break it to him that he'd made a mistake reading the newspaper. But the official would simply not be corrected.

"I know what I'm saying. It's pronounced 'lew', like the 'lew' in 'wearing a green hat '." Grandma Hui blushed. But she wasn't finished — she still had to educate the official on the differences between "support" and "volunteer", which have very similar pronunciations in the standard Mandarin of the newspapers. Regrettably, the official was unrepentant:

"You say the article isn't talking about the Chinese People's 'support army,' but what else could it be? Isn't our army, the Chinese People's Support Army, supporting North Korea right now fighting against American imperialism?"

Grandma Hui got the last word:

"No, it should be the Chinese People's Volunteer Army. Maybe you don't know what 'volunteer' means. It means to do something of your own free will."

Everyone was astounded by Grandma Hui's performance —it was as if an immortal had descended from the sky and landed in Water Village. Who'd have thought there was a woman (a woman!) living in Water Village who knew more words than a Communist Party official!

The official, who became known as "the green official," seemed even more interested in Grandma Hui than the villagers were. Straight after that first meeting, he asked some of them whose wife she was, but they didn't understand him — his standard, northern Mandarin was alien - sounding to them. Later, Grandma Hui ended up explaining the words they didn't know. The green official found out she was married to You Hui, and soon began trying to get You Hui to enlist in the army and join the war in Korea.

You Hui refused bluntly:

"My wife told me that it's a volunteer army, and she also said 'volunteer' means you have to want to and be willing. Well, I'm not willing!"

It wasn't just You Hui who the green official was trying to enlist to the army — he was in the village to recruit as many soldiers as possible, but that became much more difficult when everyone realized they didn't have to go. Still, a few of the villagers took the green official's side, and often hung around with him gossiping, mostly about You Hui's supposed bad character.

Emboldened, the green official approached You Hui again one day:

"Have you reconsidered? No? Well, this is about more than just you. By dragging your hind legs, you're holding everyone else back."

You Hui didn't know what the green official meant by "dragging your hind legs," since that was a northern Chinese expression. Looking for clarification, he said:

"What do you mean 'hind legs?' Everyone I know only has one pair of legs! You might not like me, but I'm a person too, not a pig, or a cow!"

"The root of the problem is your wife," the green official explained: "Her holding you back is what's making you hold everyone else back, you see?"

You Hui cocked his head to one side, like a cockerel ready to fight:

"I won't have you talking about my wife! She knows just as well as me people only have one pair of legs! You might not know the difference between people and swine, but she does!"

The green official clenched his fists:

"I want you to be clear with me; who are you calling a swine?"

"Anyone who tries to force me to join the army, I'll call a swine!" You Hui roared.

The green official grabbed You Hui's shirt and asked him one more time who he was calling a swine.

Just then, Grandpa Yu turned up to break up the fight:

"No need to fight over a little misunderstanding," he urged the green official, "You Hui just doesn't understand your northern words. No one in the village does! And he was not calling you a swine!"

Grandpa Yu stopped the fight, but behind You Hui's back, the gossip continued. Someone claimed that his wife lived in a cathouse before coming to Water Village, and that must be how she'd managed to learn to read a few words — the men at the cathouse taught her!

Talk like this dragged on, until one day, the green official was in the street with a few village men telling them about different ways of saying "cathouse."

"In the north, " he was saying, "people call them brothels, and in the cities, whore houses. The women who work there, we call prostitutes, or whores if you're in the city. What do you call them down here? Ah, right, hookers! You know, when a hooker's seen too many men, they can't have children! Don't take my word for it, just wait and see, I can tell you she'll never have children!"

The green official was excited now, bits of spit shooting from his mouth as he talked. In his excitement, he spoke too loudly. Grandpa Yu was walking by and heard every word he said. He stopped, threw his hoe on the ground, and said:

"Who said that? Did I just here a cow fart, or was that actually a man speaking? It didn't sound like something any decent man from around here would say."

The gossiping men all stood up, except the green official who stayed seated on the ground.

Now he spoke directly to the green official:

"You want to know who the swine is around here? I'll tell you. Anyone who talks about a man's private, family business behind his back, that person is no better than swine. No wonder everyone calls you 'the green official' behind your back!"

A circle of people quickly formed around the two men. The green official stood up, a little shakily, patted the dust off his trousers, and finally said, not very confidently:

"Why are you so angry? It's not like I was talking about your wife."

That was a mistake. Grandpa Yu grabbed his hoe and swung it back, ready to attack, but before he could strike, some of the village men grabbed him and held him back.

One of them said to him, trying to calm him down:

"It's not worth it. You'd just be sinking to his level!"

You Yu shook free from the hands restraining him:

"You're all Water Village men — Water Village men never talk like that, like a gossiping woman! You should know, without me having to tell you!"

Shame - faced, the village men looked at the ground, scratching their heads uncomfortably.

Grandpa Yu stabbed a finger at the green official:

"You! Don't think just because you walk around with a gun on your belt everyone's scared of you! No one here has broken the laws. No one else except you wants to stir up that ... filth! There are no dishonest women here in Water Village! If you think this is a joke, I swear I'll take a knife to your dirty mouth!"

One day a while after Grandpa Yu stood up to the green official, You Hui invited him to his house to share some rice wine. Grandpa Yu was surprised, since in Water Village people only usually drink at special occasions, mainly New Year's.

"It can't be New Year's yet, can it?" Grandpa Yu joked.

You Hui replied, solemnly:

"I got the wine out specially for you, to say thank you. We both want to thank you, me and my wife."

So Grandpa Yu followed You Hui inside, where he saw a meal already laid out on the table.

"Where's Sister Hui?" Grandpa Yu asked, looking around.

"She'll eat in the kitchen. We'll stay in here and drink.

"Seriously?" Grandpa Yu asked, "you know things aren't how they used to be. Wouldn't it be a little ... strange, for her not to eat at the table with us just because she's a woman?"

"Not today. She said so herself. She wants us to have a talk, a proper talk, as brothers."

Grandpa Yu didn't ask any more questions. The two men got down to drinking, mixing rice wine with small talk. Once they'd drunk the appropriate amount, more or less, You Hui said:

"So, last night, I waited outside for the green official, jumped out on him and gave him a little once - over!"

Grandpa Yu's first reaction was to be scared:

"I heard someone jumped him, that was you?"

You Hui chuckled:

"Yes, but you could also ask who it was first said his mouth was full of shit."

Grandpa Yu's tone grew stern:

"Since that's the case, there are a few things I should tell you, as a brother. Real men don't do their dirty work in secret. If he says something wrong, you should go talk to him about it, up front. There's nothing honorable about sneaking up on someone in the dark!"

"But he has a gun!" You Hui protested.

Grandpa Yu's eyes widened. He put his chopsticks down, and said:

"That didn't stop me! Like I told him, as long as we don't break the laws, there's nothing he can do to us. I told him he was swine, right to his face, and what did he do? Nothing! He was too scared even to let out a little cowardly fart, let alone pull his gun!"

You Hui's face turned blank. He picked up his wine glass, and said:

"Alright, let's not talk about this anymore."

"Yes," Grandpa Yu replied, "let this be the end of it. From what I heard, the county's sending people to do an investigation here. They say there's someone in Water Village who's plotting to kill an official. If they catch you ... you'll end up in prison! This is serious — just don't go around bragging about how you beat up the green official, OK?"

A pause, then:

"Brother Yu, did you know that when you play your flute in the evening, my wife can't help tapping along with her hand?"

"I think you might have had too much to drink, brother."

"No, no, I'm not drunk yet. Brother Yu, to tell you the truth, I found her in the cathouse. That's where she came from."

Grandpa Yu banged the ends of his chopsticks on the table.

"Enough! Brother, why would you say that?"

"Don't be angry, Brother Yu. I ... in the past, I let myself down. I didn't have much money, but I made a few coins working odd jobs. Everything I earned, I spent in the cathouse. That was where I met my wife. Actually, I met her several years before she became my wife. But the world has changed since then, the law has changed — so, no more cathouses. The year of the revolution, I bumped into her on the street. I asked her where she was going, and she just cried, said she didn't know. Then I said, she could come live with me if she wanted, I told her it was only me in the house anyway."

Grandpa Yu swigged from his wine cup, recklessly. Then, he said:

"Brother, if there is one thing you've done right in your life, it was bringing her into your home. She is a brilliant woman. If you do what she says, learn from her, listen to her well, I promise you and your family will do well in this life yet!"

You Hui sighed, shaking his head:

"I wasn't born with a good brain, but she's different, she's got this ... intelligence. When you play your flute, I feel nothing, it's like I'm made of wood. But for her, she can understand it, it has meaning. That's why her hands start tapping without her even meaning to."

"You don't need to say anymore, brother. I'm never going to play the flute again, starting from today. There, it's settled."

"What do you mean? People like to hear you play. Anyway, if she likes to listen to your flute, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just, her world is bigger than mine, because she knows so many things. She knows about places far away from here and ancient things as well, ancient people. I mean, she can even read and write! I don't understand how I ended up being the one she's married to. Must be good karma from some other life long ago."

Grandpa Yu smiled:

"Everyone in Water Village talks about how you're one of those people who's lazy but lucky. I guess you could say, a blessed slacker. Just make sure to be thankful for your good karma. I think, it must have been many lifetimes in the making."

Grandpa Yu paused, then said: "You know that old Water Village saying? 'When a prostitute changes her ways, her worth is more than a goddess.' I think, this perfectly describes Sister Hui. She's a good, decent person, and I'll fight anyone who so much as hints at the word 'prostitute' in the same breath as her name!"

For many years after that night, Grandpa Yu didn't touch his flute. Sometimes, at night, he missed it, but he never allowed himself to play it, for fear that Grandma Hui would hear. Around the time that You Hui teased him about playing his flute as a love - song for female crickets, he played it while lying on the grass outside at night, to escape the summer heat. But that was only a few times. As soon as You Hui mentioned it, he stopped, and put it back in its hiding place. Gradually, he forgot where he'd put it, until one day, when Fatuo was three years old, he found it while rifling through his cupboards looking for things a toddler might enjoy playing with. When Grandma Yu saw Fatuo using the flute as a drumstick, she snatched it away, scolding the young boy:

"That's your father's flute, and look, you nearly broke it!"

Fatuo began to cry, and once he started there was no stopping him. Eventually, in an effort to calm him down, Grandpa Yu picked up his flute and played a few notes. The crying stopped immediately, but Fatuo was very insistent that his father kept playing. His pestering paid off, and Grandpa Yu started playing the same way he'd always played — no song or tune in his head, just playing what he felt like playing, making it up as he went. Soon, his eyes closed, and he felt himself drifting into the forest outside his house, birds singing, wind making beautiful noises in his ears, stream - water caressing his feet, fish nibbling at his toes.

The next day, he visited You Hui in his house. As You Hui passed him the tobacco bong, he said:

"I heard you playing your flute again last night. Can't leave the cricket women alone, eh?"

Grandpa Yu's face turned bright red. In his mind, he told himself: May the gods strike me down if I ever play that flute again. bZTReR+fKQdllBV9hZEeTM38jmiteavWFGvOIA58/crGihr+PdcHk6DiERLd780g