Dream of Ding Village (38 page)

As Grandpa walked along Cottonwood’s grand-sounding streets – Sunshine Boulevard, Harmony Avenue, Prosperity Lane and Happiness Road – he noticed that their surfaces were cracked and crumbling, littered with potholes and chunks of concrete. The houses lining the streets were exactly the same as in Ding Village: most had padlocks hanging from their metal gates, or white funeral scrolls pasted on the lintels. There were old and new scrolls with various poetic couplets, some of them poignant: ‘Grey-hairs bury their black-haired young / Saplings die, while old trees stay green.’ Others were resigned: ‘The dead are in a better place / but for the living, nothing’s changed.’ A few displayed a sense of gallows humour: ‘In hell you roast, in heaven you feast / but the food on earth is bittersweet.’ Some of the scrolls were plain white, while others had large circles where each ideograph would be. These new-style ‘blank couplets’ were made by inking the round base of a ceramic bowl, then pressing it against the paper. The vertical scrolls to the left and right of each door had seven large circles, and the horizontal scrolls above each door had four circles in a line. Everywhere Grandpa looked, the circles stared forth from doorways, like empty eyes
.

Grandpa continued walking towards the centre of the village. When he came to Longevity Boulevard, he saw that the door of the social club was wide open. The place where the villagers had once watched television and played ping-pong, chess and mahjong seemed to have been abandoned. One of the door panels was missing, maybe stolen, and the other had two gaping holes. The courtyard was a shambles. It
looked like a battle had taken place there. Doors and windowpanes were smashed, the dirt was littered with broken glass and piles of rubble, and the ground was overgrown with weeds. In the moist shade of the courtyard, the weeds grew tall and green, offering shelter to grasshoppers, frogs, moths and flying insects. The setting reminded Grandpa of a graveyard in an old ancestral shrine
.

Further down the street, Grandpa came to an abandoned flour mill. Severed power lines hung like vines from the ceiling, and rats scampered across rows of disused machinery. The machines for grinding, milling and rolling oats had once been painted bright green, but now they were covered with a thick layer of rust
.

Next to the mill was a structure that looked like it had been either a stable or a cowshed. Now that the villagers had stopped raising horses and cows, the structure was empty. Its thatched roof was gone, replaced by a weathered straw mat nailed to the wooden frame. Inside, there was a battered wooden feeding trough with a wide crack running down the centre. An old man and a little boy, probably his grandson, were playing near the trough and catching crickets
.

Grandpa greeted the man like a long lost friend. ‘How’s your family? Are they well?’

‘His dad died,’ the man answered, pointing at the little boy. ‘And his mother remarried, but other than that, the family’s fine.’

Saddened by this news, Grandpa shook his head and sighed
.

‘I’m looking for someone,’ Grandpa told the man, ‘and I wonder if you’ve seen him. Do you know a cadre named Ding, visiting from Wei county?’

‘Are you talking about Ding Hui, the chairman of the county task force?’ the old man asked
.

‘Yes, yes, that’s him. He’s the one I’m looking for.’

‘Oh, Ding Hui is a great man, a wonderful man!’

The old man began telling Grandpa about all the wonderful things my dad had done for Cai county and for the village of Cottonwood. No matter that my dad was a Wei county cadre
,
he had provided low-cost coffins to the people of Cottonwood, which meant the dead had one less thing to worry about. Now he was giving solace to the living with his matchmaking service for the dead. The families of Cottonwood would never again have to worry about their unmarried relatives being lonely in the afterworld. My father had even found a match for the village idiot, a man who had sold a lot of blood while he was alive but never managed to hook a wife. Now that he was in his grave, my father had paired him with an eighteen-year-old city girl who had died in a car accident. For a dowry of only 5,000 yuan, the man’s mother was able to bury her son with a fever-free, virgin bride
.

There was another village girl, a student at the best university in Beijing, who found out she had the fever, came home to Cottonwood and died a few weeks later. Although she was educated and pretty, when her parents began searching for a posthumous match, they didn’t ask for a penny of dowry money. All they wanted was to find a scholarly young man, someone who was their daughter’s intellectual equal, to keep her company in the afterworld. When a search of all the villages within a thirty-mile radius failed to turn up an appropriate match, they began to fret that they had let their daughter down. Then my dad arrived in Cottonwood with his stack of photos and files. He showed them a photo of a handsome young man who’d died of the fever while studying at a university down south. Within minutes, the two families had agreed to the match. They even held a big, fancy wedding banquet to celebrate the marriage of their dead children
.

‘And it’s cheap!’ the man exclaimed. ‘The government only charges 200 yuan for each match, and it’s a huge relief for the families.’

Grandpa stared at the man for a few moments. ‘Do you know where this Ding fellow is now?’

‘Oh, sure,’ the man answered. ‘He’s doing business in Red Star Square. Just go up the street until you reach the crossroads.’

Grandpa said goodbye and continued walking along Longevity Boulevard. Ten years ago, the paved concrete
boulevard had been smooth, but now its surface was cracked and pitted. There were gaping potholes filled with dirt and weeds, and dry grass sprouting from the cracks in the pavement. Even the smooth sections were covered with a thick layer of dirt, raising clouds of dust as you passed. The restaurants, food stalls, clothing shops and kiosks lining the boulevard were shuttered, their owners gone to who knows where. Longevity Boulevard, like the other streets of Cottonwood, was deserted. You rarely saw any passers-by, and when you did, they were either very young or very old. All the villagers in their thirties and forties seemed to have disappeared. The few that Grandpa saw reminded him of Jia Genzhu: skeletally thin, covered with blisters and sores, with the shadow of death on their faces
.

Grandpa knew that Cottonwood had prospered during the blood boom, but like Ding Village, it had been destroyed by blood, sold into ruin. People were dying, and villages were turning into ghost towns. Pretty soon, children and old people would be the only ones left
.

Grandpa followed the dead, silent boulevard until he came to the crossroads marking Red Star Square, where the village blood station used to be. There had been a large, circular flower bed in the square, but the flowers were gone and the soil was trampled flat. This was where my dad and his helpers had set up shop, arranging marriages for the young, unmarried dead of Cottonwood. There were a few dozen villagers crowded around the tables, asking questions about this and that. Some were there to sign up dead sons, daughters, brothers or sisters for the matchmaking service, while others had come to check if there was any news on a suitable match
.

A middle-aged man handed my dad a photograph of a smiling, handsome teenage boy. After scrutinizing the photo, my dad looked up at the man, taking in his tattered, dirty undershirt and mildewed, sun-bleached straw farmer’s hat
.

‘Handsome boy. Was he your son?’

The farmer, gratified, nodded and smiled
.

‘How old was he?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘When did he die?’

‘Three years ago.’

‘Did he go to school?’

‘Until junior high.’

‘Was he ever engaged?’

‘Yes, but when she found out he had the fever, she married someone else.’

‘Are you looking for any particular type of girl?’

‘No, just someone close to his age.’

My dad passed the photo to one of his assistants, a slightly effeminate young man, with the cryptic comment, ‘Mid-range.’

The young man flipped through a stack of several dozen photos until he came to one of an average-looking girl. After reading the biographical information printed on the back of the photo, he looked up at the farmer
.

‘How about this one? Twenty years old, grade-school education, and no special requirements, just a dowry of 4,000 yuan.’

‘Four thousand?’ The farmer sounded shocked.

‘That’s about as cheap as it gets.’

‘Maybe you could look again,’ the farmer forced a smile, ‘and find us something under 2,000 yuan. That’s all my family can afford.’

Embarrassed, the young man began flicking through a larger stack of photos. He pulled out a photo of a woman holding a baby, and showed it to the farmer. ‘This one’s only 2,000 yuan.’

The farmer glanced at the photo. ‘But my son was just a boy,’ he said with the same forced smile. ‘She looks too old for him.’

After a bit more searching, the young man came up with a photo of a wide-eyed girl, slightly on the chubby side
.

‘How about her? The family says they’ll settle for 3,000 yuan.’

She wasn’t a bad-looking girl, the farmer thought, and if he could borrow another 1,000 yuan, the price was within reach
.
After a few more questions about the girl’s age, name, home-town and family situation, he nodded in agreement and handed over 200 yuan for the matchmaking fee
.

‘How soon can we do the wedding?’ the farmer asked
.

‘You’ll have an answer within three days.’

‘When you talk to the girl’s family, can you tell them my son was a high-school graduate?’

‘Not unless you have a diploma proving he was.’

‘But he’s so much better-looking than her. If they were alive, he’d be out of her league.’

‘But her family owns a brickworks, and their business is booming. They’ve got more money than they can spend.’

‘If they’re so rich, why do they need a 3,000 yuan dowry?’

‘That’s not the point!’ The young man lost his patience. ‘It’s about return on investment. They didn’t spend all that money raising a daughter, just to give her away for free.’

The farmer thought for a moment. ‘My son was such a sweet-tempered boy. If you ever met him, you’d know. He’ll treat that girl like a princess, every day of her life.’

The farmer was so earnest that the young man had to smile. ‘Don’t you worry, sir. We’ll present a strong case to the family, and do everything we can to talk them down on the price.’

Grinning happily, the farmer stepped away from the table. The next customer was a middle-aged woman looking for a match for her daughter. After my dad had introduced the woman to his young assistant, he handed him a picture of the daughter and told him to find a photo of a man about twenty-five years old
.

At this point Grandpa, who had been watching some distance away, stepped forward, coughed and said, ‘Hui?’

When my father heard his name, he turned around in surprise. ‘Dad! What are you doing here?’

Grandpa pulled my father to one side so that they could talk privately. They stood at the edge of the trampled flower bed, near the entrance to a building that had once been the village blood bank. Grandpa noticed that the bright-red cross above
the doorway looked new, as if it had been painted yesterday. He could almost smell the fresh red paint, and the thick red stench of blood
.

Standing under that red cross, Grandpa told my dad about his meeting with Jia Genzhu, and about how the man had threatened to kill him if he ever came into the village again
.

‘That’s why I think it’s best if you don’t come back to Ding Village,’ Grandpa said
.

When my dad heard this, a smile blossomed on his face. His lips curled back like flower petals. ‘Jia Genzhu is a nobody,’ he told Grandpa. ‘I’ve got so much clout in the city now, that if I so much as stamp my foot, I can bring down the rafters of his house!’

‘But son, now that he’s dying, he’s got nothing to lose. He’s not afraid of anything.’

‘You go back to Ding Village’ – my dad was still smiling – ‘and ask him if he wants a posthumous marriage for his cousin Hongli. You ask him if he wants his parents to go on living happily after he dies. Because if he does, he’d better mind his own business and keep his nose out of mine.’

At this point, somebody called my dad’s name. He turned and walked back to the crowd, leaving my grandpa alone outside the abandoned blood bank
.

Grandpa didn’t return to Ding Village that night. He drove back into the city with my dad, and went out for dinner with my parents and sister. At a four-storey restaurant strung with colourful lights, my dad treated the family to a first-class meal of roasted chicken, Peking duck, and a kind of soup my grandpa had never heard of before. The thick soup, served in very small bowls, was made of transparent slices of something that might have been shark fin, and garnished with coriander leaves and shredded ginger. It had an odd fishy odour, and seemed to have a cooling effect. After Grandpa drank it, he
felt a slight chill pass through his body, as if he had just given blood. The second their bowls were emptied, they were cleared away by one of the gorgeous waitresses. My father looked at Grandpa expectantly
.

‘Did you like the soup?’

‘It seemed very fresh.’

‘It costs 220 yuan per bowl, about the same as a coffin.’ My father watched to see how Grandpa would react
.

When he heard the price, Grandpa’s jaw dropped and his face went pale. He wanted to say something, but he couldn’t seem to get the words out. After they finished dinner, my parents and sister decided to take Grandpa on a tour of the city. As they left the brightly lit restaurant, Grandpa kept asking my dad how much the meal had cost, but my dad refused to say. ‘Don’t worry about the price,’ he told Grandpa. ‘I can afford it. That’s all you need to know.’