Radish Read online

  Juzi’s heart was in her throat, her mouth half open, her lashes seemingly frozen on her face as she gazed at the old blacksmith’s expressive face and his long neck, on which the Adam’s apple slid up and down like a bead of mercury. The plaintive, brooding melody battered her heart like an autumn rain, but just as she was about to cry, the song turned spirited and expansive, and her heart fluttered like willow branches tossed in the wind. A tingling spread from her spine to the top of her head, and she instinctively leaned against the mason’s shoulder, taking his large, callused hand in hers, her eyes moist with tears as she was enveloped in the old blacksmith’s song, in his mood. His gaunt face burned with radiance, and she saw in it a future for her, much like that in his song.

  The mason wrapped his arm around her, and again rested his large hand on her firm breast. The young blacksmith, sitting behind Hei-hai, began to squirm. He heard his master bray like an old donkey; a harsh, ugly sound. But soon he was deaf even to that. He rose up on his haunches and cocked his head; his left eye seemed to rise up with him, its gaze like a claw that scratched and gouged the woman’s face. When the mason had tenderly placed his hand on the woman’s breast, a fire was kindled in the young blacksmith’s gut. Flames flew up into his throat and burst from his nose and mouth. It felt to him as if he were crouching on a taut spring, that if he let go he would shoot into the air to crash against the floodgate’s steel and concrete surface. He held on, grinding his teeth.

  Hei-hai grasped the bellows handle with both hands. The fire in the forge had weakened, and a blue and a yellow flame danced on the lumps of coal. Occasionally, the flow of air lifted the tongues of fire high above the forge bed, where they floated in the air before being brought down by human movement below. The boy, oblivious to the others, tried to train one eye on each of the tongues of fire, one yellow and the other blue, but could not manage to split his gaze into two. Disheartened, he moved his gaze from the fire and looked from side to side before fixing it on the anvil crouching in front of the forge like an enormous beast. For the first time, his mouth opened wide, and he released a sigh of emotion (a sound drowned out by the old blacksmith’s song). His eyes, big and bright to begin with, now shone like searchlights as he witnessed a strange and beautiful sight: a soft blue-green light suffused the sleek surface of the anvil, on which rested a golden radish. In shape and size it was like a pear, though it had a long tail, every fibre of which was a strand of golden wool. Glittering and transparent, exquisitely limpid, its golden skin revealed a swirling silvery liquid inside. Its contours were clean and elegant; golden rays spread out from its beautiful curves, some long, some short – the long rays like beards of wheat, the short like eyelashes – and all were gold in colour.

  The old blacksmith’s song was pushed far into the distance, like the buzzing of a fly. Hei-hai floated past the bellows, a shadowy figure, and stood in front of the anvil. His hand, coated with coal dust, scarred and burned, trembled as he reached out . . .

  The hand was but inches away from the radish when the young blacksmith raced up and kicked over a water bucket, spilling water on the ground and soaking the old blacksmith’s bedding. He snatched up the radish, his good eye bloodshot. ‘You fucker! Dumb dog! Lousy bitch! What makes you think you can eat a radish? I’ve got a fire in my belly and smoke in my throat, and this is just the thing to quench my thirst!’ He opened his mouth, exposing two rows of blackened teeth, and was about to take a bite when Hei-hai, with a rare burst of speed, stuck his rail-thin arms under the man’s elbows, lifted him off his feet, and then let him slide down. The radish fell to the ground. The blacksmith landed a kick on Hei-hai’s behind, sending the boy into the arms of the woman. The mason reached out to catch him.

  The old blacksmith stopped his hoarse singing and slowly stood up. The woman and the mason stood as well. Three pairs of eyes were fixed on the young blacksmith. Hei-hai’s head was reeling, everything was spinning. He shook his head to clear it and saw the blacksmith pick up the radish and put it in his mouth. Hei-hai threw a lump of coal at him. It sailed past his cheek, hit the flashboard and landed on the old blacksmith’s bed.

  ‘I’ll beat the shit out of you, motherfucker!’ the blacksmith roared.

  The mason stepped between them. ‘You’re not going to do anything to the boy,’ he said.

  ‘Give him back the radish,’ the woman said.

  ‘Give it back? Hell no!’ The blacksmith ran out from under the bridge and threw the radish as hard as he could. It flew with a whooshing sound; after a long moment came a sound as if a rip had been made in the river’s surface.

  A golden rainbow arced in front of Hei-hai’s eyes. He crumpled to the ground between the mason and the woman.

  Chapter Four

  The golden radish splashed into the river, floating on the surface for a moment before settling to the riverbed, where it rolled around until it was buried in golden sand. A heavy mist rose above the spot where it had torn the surface of the river.

  In the early morning hours, the mist covered the valley; the river sobbed beneath it. Early rising ducks on the riverbank stared mournfully at the rolling mist. One of the bold ones waddled impatiently toward the water, but the curtain of mist over reeds at the water’s edge blocked its way. Craning its neck left, right and straight ahead, it retreated from the spongy mist, quacking its displeasure. Eventually the sun rose and carved lanes and tunnels in the mist, through which the ducks saw an old man carrying his bedding and heavy tools over his shoulder, following the river westward. His back was badly bent, the load weighing down his shoulders and forcing his neck out ahead, swan-like. Once he was out of sight, a dark, bare-chested and barefoot boy came into view. A drake passed a meaningful look to the female next to it: Remember? It was him that time. The bucket bounced into a willow tree and rolled down to the river. He sprawled like a dog on the ground, and then went down to the river to get the nearly empty bucket; it could have killed that no-good sheldrake . . .

  The female replied, Right, right, that damned sheldrake is always following me around, saying filthy things. Too bad it didn’t kill him . . .

  Hei-hai paced slowly along the riverbank, trying to see through the mist. He could hear ducks quack-quacking noisily on the opposite bank. He crouched down, rested his large head on his knees and wrapped his arms around chilled calves. The rising sun burned his back as if it were a forge.

  He’d spent the night under the bridge instead of going home. When the cock crowed he heard the old blacksmith speaking loudly in the bridge opening. Then quiet had returned. Unable to go back to sleep, he’d gotten up and walked across the chilled sand to the river’s edge. Seeing the old blacksmith’s hunched back, he’d started walking toward him but slipped in the sand and fell on his rear. By the time he was back on his feet, the old man had disappeared in the mist.

  Now he was on his haunches, watching the sun cleave the mist like a knife through bean curd. Across the river, ducks cast superior looks his way. The water came into view as a bright, silvery expanse, but to his disappointment, he could not see the bottom. There was a commotion at the worksite – Director Liu was fuming: ‘Shit, something crazy happened at the forge. The old bastard rolled up his bedding and took off without a word to anyone. The little bastard is gone too. What happened to organisational discipline?’

  ‘Hei-hai!’

  ‘Hei-hai!’

  ‘Isn’t that him crouching by the water?’

  Juzi and the mason ran over and picked him up by the arms.

  ‘Why are you crouching here, you poor thing?’ she asked as she picked straw from his scalp. ‘It’s too cold to be doing that.’

  ‘There are sweet potatoes left over from last night. Get old one-eye to bake them for you.’

  ‘The old blacksmith’s gone,’ Juzi said sombrely.

  ‘He is gone.’

  ‘Now what? Should we let him stay with the other one? What if he mistreats him?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, the boy can take anything.
Besides, we’re here, so he won’t do anything stupid.’

  They dragged Hei-hai over to the worksite. At each step he turned to look back.

  ‘Walk properly, you little dope,’ the mason said. ‘What’s there to see in the river?’ He squeezed Hei-hai’s arm.

  ‘I thought the old guy kidnapped you, you little shit,’ Liu Taiyang said before turning to the young blacksmith.

  ‘And you, since you squeezed the old guy out, make sure you keep up the work. If you don’t fix the chisels for us, I’ll gouge out your good eye.’

  The young man smiled arrogantly. ‘Wait and see, old Liu,’ he said. ‘But I get his wages and grain rations, or you can look for someone else.’

  ‘We’ll wait and see. If you do good work, fine. If not, you can fuck off.’

  ‘Light a fire, son,’ the blacksmith ordered Hei-hai.

  Hei-hai was like a zombie all morning. His actions were erratic, his work sloppy. Sometimes he shovelled in too much coal, filling the opening with black smoke, other times he laid the chisels back end first, heating the wrong end.

  ‘Where the fuck is your head?’ the blacksmith cursed angrily. He was working up a sweat, excitement over his own skills seeping out through his pores. Hei-hai watched as he stuck his hand into the water bucket before quenching the steel. A rag covered the burn on his upper arm, which gave off a rank fishy odour. A pale cloud seemed to obscure Hei-hai’s vision; he was downcast.

  After nine o’clock the sunlight was beautiful; a single ray lit up the western wall of the dark bridge opening, filling the space with light. The blacksmith took the tempered chisels and personally delivered them to the masons for inspection. Hei-hai tossed away the tool in his hand and tiptoed out of the opening. The sudden brightness was just as dizzying as sudden darkness. He froze for a moment before breaking into a run, and was standing at the river’s edge within seconds. The ridged dog-turd grass eyed him curiously. Purple water lilies and the brown caps of nut grass greedily sniffed the smell of coal dust on his body. The subtle aroma of water plants and the light stink of silver carp floated over from the river. His nose twitched, his lungs expanded like a turtledove’s wings. The river was white, shot with black and purple. His eyes stung, but he kept staring, as if to penetrate the quicksilver sheen on the surface. Then he hiked up his shorts, tested the water and sort of danced in. At first the water came up only to his knees, but it quickly reached his thighs. He hiked his shorts all the way up, exposing his grape-coloured buttocks. He was now standing in the middle of the river. Sunlight from all directions rained down on him, painted his body, bored into his black eyes and turned them the colour of green bananas at the dam. The river flowed swiftly, each wave striking him in the legs. He was on hard sand, but soon the water washed it out from under his feet and he was standing in a hollow, his shorts soaked, half stuck to his legs and half floating behind him, dyeing the water around him black from coal dust. Sand churning at his feet caressed his calves. Two amber-coloured drops of water hung on his cheeks, and the corners of his mouth twitched. He walked around in the water, feeling the bottom with his feet, seeking, searching.

  ‘Hei-hai! Hei-hai!’ The mason was calling him from the bridge opening. ‘You’ll drown out there, Hei-hai.’

  He heard the blacksmith come up to the riverbank, but didn’t turn to look. All the man could see was the boy’s green back.

  ‘Come out of there!’ the blacksmith said, picking up a dirt clod and throwing it; it sailed over Hei-hai’s head, brushing the tips of his hair before falling into the water to create oval ripples. A second clod hit him in the back. He fell forward, his lips touching the water. He spun around and, huffing and wheezing, waded fitfully toward the river’s edge. He stood in front of the blacksmith, dripping wet. His shorts stuck to his skin, his little pecker sticking up like a silkworm chrysalis. The blacksmith raised his bear-like paw to slap him, but suddenly felt as if a cat’s claw had scored his heart. The boy’s eyes never left his face.

  ‘Go stoke the fire. My chisels are as good as the old guy’s,’ he said proudly, patting Hei-hai on the nape of his neck.

  During an idle moment at the forge, the blacksmith put the sweet potatoes from the night before into the forge to bake. A light wind blew in from the jute fields. Sunlight shone straight into the arched openings. The blacksmith singing as he turned the sticky potatoes over with his tongs.

  From Beijing to Nanjing, I’ve never seen anyone string up an electric light in their pants.

  ‘Have you ever seen that, Hei-hai? How about your adopted mother’s pants?’ That reminded him. ‘Run over and pick some radishes,’ he said. ‘When you bring them back, I’ll give you a couple of potatoes.’

  Hei-hai’s eyes lit up, and the blacksmith saw his heart leap in the space between his ribs. The boy took off like a jackrabbit before the man could say another word. As he clambered up the levee, Hei-hai heard Juzi call his name in the distance. He turned to look, but was blinded by the sun. He ran down the other side and into the jute field. The plants were scattered across the field, no columns or rows. Where more seeds had landed, the stalks were thin, like fingers or pencils; where there were fewer plants, they were as thick as sickle handles or arms. But they were all the same height. Looking out from atop the levee, it was like gazing at a gently rippling lake. Now he parted the plants as he moved, suffering the onslaught of thorns and sending mature leaves to the ground. Quickly arriving at a spot parallel to the radish field, he turned and headed west. When he neared the field, he fell to his hands and knees and began to crawl; in no time, he spotted dark green radish tassels. Sunlight shone through the tassels upon an expanse of red radish tops. He was about to emerge from the jute field when he quietly shrank back after seeing an old man crawling along a ridge in the radish field, taking wheat seeds from a sack and planting them one at a time in the furrows between the ridges. The autumn sun proudly shone down on his back. A light wind stirred up dust that landed on his sweat-soaked white jacket and turned it brown along the wet spots. Hei-hai crawled backwards a few metres and flattened out, resting his chin in his hands so he could see the radishes through the jute stalks. Great numbers of red eyes looked back at him from the field, and the tassels were transformed into black hair that fluttered like bird feathers.

  A red-faced young man strode over from the sweet potato patch and stopped behind the old man. ‘Hey!’ he said abruptly. ‘Did you say we had a thief last night, old man?’

  The old man scrambled to his feet and stood with his hands at his sides. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘he stole six radishes and left the tassels behind, plus eight sweet potatoes, but he didn’t take the vines.’

  ‘Probably one of those assholes working on the floodgate. Keep an eye out. Wait a while before coming in for lunch.’

  ‘That’s what I’ll do, brigade commander,’ the old man said.

  Hei-hai and the old man watched the red-faced man climb the levee. The old man sat down in the radish field, directly facing a panicky Hei-hai, who backed up some more. Now the dense jute plants blocked his view.

  ‘Hei-hai!’

  ‘Hei-hai!’

  Juzi and the mason were on the crest of the levee calling to him in the jute field. The sun was behind them, shining on workers leaving the site.

  ‘I saw him slip into the jute,’ she said. ‘I think he went in to piss.’

  ‘I wonder if the one-eyed ogre was abusing him again,’ he said.

  ‘Hei-hai!’

  ‘Hei-hai!’

  Two voices, one female, the other male, swept over the tips of jute plants like gliding swallows; the house swallows skimming after grey moths flew off in fright, and did not land for a long while. The blacksmith stood in front of the bridge opening, his good eye on the man and woman standing shoulder to shoulder; he felt his stomach begin to swell. Moments earlier, when the woman and the mason had come looking for Hei-hai, the way they talked and acted, a stranger would have thought they were looking for their own child. ‘Just wait,’ he fumed unde
r his breath, ‘you damned lowlifes!’

  ‘Hei-hai! Hei-hai!’ Juzi called out. ‘He probably crawled into the jute field and fell asleep.’

  ‘We should go look for him, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t know, should we? Yes, let’s do.’

  They walked hand in hand into the jute field. The blacksmith ran up the levee and watched the wave-like motion of jute leaves as the stalks rustled, hearing one male and one female voice calling out ‘Hei-hai’, the sound seeming to come from underwater.

  Tired of crawling, Hei-hai sighed and rolled over, looking up at the sun. He lay on a bed of dry sand, thinly covered with jute leaves, pillowing his head on his hands, his belly seeming to cave in; a yellow leaf with red spots floated down and covered the coal dust in his navel. He looked up at the sky and saw blue sunbeams of varying widths filtering down through the leafy canopy. The jute leaves were like a flock of golden sparrows in an aerial dance. At other times the golden sparrows seemed like moths, the spots on their wings dancing happily, like the brown film over the young blacksmith’s eye.

  ‘Hei-hai!’

  ‘Hei-hai!’

  The familiar sounds brought him out of his dream state. He sat up and bumped a thick jute stalk with his arm.

  ‘That boy, he must be asleep.’

  ‘I don’t think so, not the way we’ve been calling him. He probably slipped away home.’

  ‘The little imp . . .’

  ‘It’s really nice here . . .’

  ‘Yes, it is . . .’

  Their voices grew softer, like fish blowing bubbles on the surface. Hei-hai felt a faint electrical current pass through him and became nervous. Up on his knees, he shifted his ears and adjusted his sight until his gaze slipped past all obstructions and he saw his friends, their bodies split and sectioned by the jute stalks. A breeze set the leaves of stilled jute plants in motion, but not the stalks. A few more leaves fell to the ground, and Hei-hai heard them stir the air. He was surprised and puzzled to see a crimson bandana float down onto the jute plants, where it was caught on thorns, a silent banner. Then the red checked jacket was on the ground. The jute plants rushed toward him like surging waves. Slowly he got to his feet, turned his back, and started walking, a strange feeling crashing over him.