I stare at Kwan. I stare at Big Ma. I think about what Du Lili has said. Who and what am I supposed to believe? All the possibilities whirl through my brain, and I feel I am in one of those dreams where the threads of logic between sentences keep disintegrating. Maybe Du Lili is younger than Kwan. Maybe she’s seventy-eight. Maybe Big Ma’s ghost is here. Maybe she isn’t. All these things are true and false, yin and yang. What does it matter?
Be practical, I tell myself. If the frogs eat the insects and the ducks eat the frogs and the rice thrives twice a year, why question the world in which they live?
17
THE YEAR OF NO FLOOD
Why question the world, indeed? Because I’m not Chinese like Kwan. To me, yin isn’t yang, and yang isn’t yin. I can’t accept two contradictory stories as the whole truth. When Kwan and I walk back to Big Ma’s house, I quietly ask, “How did Du Lili’s daughter die?”
“Oh, it’s a very sad story,” Kwan answers in Chinese. “Maybe you don’t want to know.”
We continue in silence. I know she is waiting for me to ask again, so finally I say, “Go ahead.”
Kwan stops and looks at me. “You won’t be scared?”
I shake my head while thinking, How the hell would I know if I’m not going to be scared? As Kwan begins to speak, I shiver, and it is not due to the cold.
Her name was Buncake and we were five years old when she drowned. She was as tall as I was, eye to eye, her quiet mouth to my noisy one. That’s what my auntie complained, that I talked too much. “If you let go with one more word,” Big Ma would warn, “I’ll send you away. I never promised your mother I’d keep you.”
Back then, I was skinny, nicknamed Pancake, bao-bing—“a flimsy piece of fritter,” Big Ma called me—always with four scabby bites on my knees and elbows. And Buncake, she was plump, her arms and legs creased like a steamed stuffed bao-zi. Du Yun was the one who found her on the road—that was Du Lili’s name back then, Du Yun. Big Ma was the one who named Buncake Lili, because when she first came to our village, lili-lili-lili was the only sound she could make, the warbling of an oriole. Lili-lili-lili, that’s what came out of the pucker of her small red mouth, as if she had just bitten into a raw persimmon, expecting sweet, tasting bitter. She watched the world like a baby bird, her eyes round and black, looking for danger. Why she was like this nobody knew except me, because she never talked, not with words at least. But in the evening, when lamplight danced on the ceiling and walls, her little white hands spoke. They would glide and swoop with the shadows, soar and float, those pale birds through clouds. Big Ma would watch and shake her head: Ai-ya, how strange, how strange. And Du Yun would laugh like an idiot watching a play. Only I understood Buncake’s shadow talk. I knew her hands were not of this world. You see, I also was a child, still close to the time before this life. And so I too remembered I had once been a spirit who left this earth in the body of a bird.
To Du Yun’s face, everyone in the village would smile and tease, “That little Buncake of yours, she’s peculiar, ah?” But outside our courtyard, they would whisper rotten words, and these sounds would drift over our wall and into my ears.
“That girl is so spoiled she’s turned crazy,” I heard neighbor Wu say. “Her family must have been bourgeois-thinking. Du Yun should beat her often, at least three times a day.”
“She’s possessed,” another said. “A dead Japanese pilot fell from the sky and lodged in her body. That’s why she can’t speak Chinese, only grunt and twirl her hands like a suicide plane.”
“She’s stupid,” yet another neighbor said. “Her head is as hollow as a gourd.”
But to Du Yun’s way of thinking, Buncake didn’t speak because Du Yun could speak for her. A mother always knows what’s best for her daughter, she’d say, isn’t that true?—what she should eat, what she should think and feel. As to Buncake’s shadow-dancing hands, this was proof, Du Yun once said—genuine proof!—that her ancestors had been ladies of the court. And Big Ma replied, “Wah! Then she has counterrevolutionary hands, hands that will be chopped off one day. Better that she learn how to press one finger to her nostril and blow snot into her palm.”
Only one thing about Buncake made Du Yun sad. Frogs. Buncake didn’t like springtime frogs, green-skinned frogs as small as her fist. At dusk, that’s when you could hear them, groaning like ghost gates: Ahh-wah, ahh-wah, ahh-wah. Big Ma and Du Yun would grab buckets and nets, then wade into the watery fields. And all those frogs held their breath, trying to disappear with their silence. But soon they could not hold in their wishes any longer: Ahh-wah, ahh-wah, ahh-wah, even louder than before, wailing for love to find them.
“Who could love such a creature?” Du Yun used to joke. And Big Ma always answered, “I can—once it is cooked.” How easily they caught those lovesick creatures. They put them in buckets, shiny as oil in the rising moonlight. By morning, Big Ma and Du Yun were standing by the road, calling, “Frogs! Juicy frogs! Ten for one yuan!” And there we were, Buncake and I, seated on upturned buckets, chins resting on palms, nothing to do but feel the sun rise, warming one cheek, one arm, one leg.
No matter how good the business, Big Ma and Du Yun always saved at least a dozen frogs for our noon meal. By mid-morning, we trudged home, seven buckets empty, one half-full. In the courtyard kitchen, Big Ma would make a big hot fire. Du Yun would reach into the bucket and grab a frog, and Buncake would hurry behind me, hiding. I could feel her chest heave up and down, fast and hard, just like that frog squirming in Du Yun’s hand, puffing its throat in and out.
“Watch closely, ah,” Du Yun would say to Buncake and me. “This is the best way to cook a frog.” She would turn the frog on its back and—quick!—stick the sharp end of a pair of scissors up its anus— szzzzzzzz!—slicing all the way to its throat. Her thumb would dip under the slit, and with one fast tug, out slid a belly full of mosquitoes and silver-blue flies. With another tug, at the frog’s throat, off slipped the skin, snout to tail, and it hung from Du Yun’s fingers like the shriveled costume of an ancient warrior. Then chop, chop, chop, and the frog lay in pieces, body and legs, the head thrown away.
While Du Yun peeled those frogs, one after another, Buncake kept her fist wedged hard between her teeth, like a sandbag stopping a leak in a riverbank. So no scream came out. And when Du Yun saw the anguish on Buncake’s face, she would croon in a mother’s sweet voice: “Baby-ah, wait a little longer. Ma will feed you soon.”
Only I knew what words were stuck in Buncake’s screamless mouth. In her eyes I could see what she had once seen, as clearly as if her memories were now mine. That this tearing of skin from flesh was how her mother and father had died. That she had watched this happen from a leafy limb, hidden high in a tree where her father had put her. That in the tree an oriole called, warning Buncake away from her nest. But Buncake would not make a sound, not a cry or even a whimper, because she had promised her mother to be quiet. That’s why Buncake never talked. She had promised her mother.
In twelve minutes, twelve frogs and skins flew into the pan and crackled in oil, so fresh some of the legs would leap from the pan— wah!—and Du Yun would catch them with one hand, her other hand still stirring. That’s how good Du Yun was at cooking frogs.
But Buncake didn’t have the stomach to appreciate this. By the dim lamplight, she watched as we greedy ones ate those delicious creatures, our teeth busy searching for shreds of meat on bones as tiny as embroidery needles. The skins were the best, soft and full of flavor. Second best I liked the crunchy small bones, the springy ones just above the feet.
Often Du Yun would look up and urge her new daughter, “Don’t play now, eat, my treasure, eat.” But Buncake’s hands would be flapping and flying, soaring with her shadows. Then Du Yun would become sad that her daughter wouldn’t eat the dish she cooked best. You should have seen Du Yun’s face—so much love for a leftover girl she had found on the road. And I know Buncake tried to love Du Yun with the leftover scraps of her heart. She followed Du Yun’s footst
eps around the village, she raised one arm so her new mother could hold her hand. But on those nights when the frogs sang, when Du Yun picked up her swinging buckets, Buncake would run to a corner, press in tight, and begin to sing: Lili-lili-lili.
That’s how I remember Buncake. She and I were good little friends. We lived in the same house. We slept in the same bed. We were like sisters. Without talking, we each knew what the other was feeling. At such a young age, we knew about sadness, and not just our own. We both knew about the sadness of the world. I lost my family. She lost hers.
The year Du Yun found Buncake on the road, that was a strange year, the year of no flood. In the past, our village always had too much rain, at least one flood in the springtime. Sudden rivers that swept through our homes, washing the floors of insects and rats, slippers and stools, then retching all this into the fields. But the year Buncake came— no flood, just rain, enough for crops and frogs, enough for people in our village to say, “No flood, why are we so lucky? Maybe it was the girl Du Yun found on the road. Yes, she must be the reason.”
The following year, there was no rain. In all the villages surrounding ours, rain fell as usual, big rain, small rain, long rain, short rain. Yet in our village, none. No rain for the spring tilling. No rain for the summer harvest. No rain for the fall planting. No rain, no crops. No water to cook the rice that no longer grew, no chaff to feed the pigs. The rice fields cooked hard as porridge crust, and the frogs lay on top, dry as twigs. The insects climbed out of the cracked ground, waving their feelers toward the sky. The ducks withered and we ate them, skin on bones. When we stared too long at the mountain peaks, our hungry eyes saw roasted sweet potatoes with their skins broken open. Such a terrible year, so terrible that people in our village said Buncake, that crazy girl, she must be the reason.
One hot day, Buncake and I were sitting in the hull of a dusty ditch that ran alongside our house. We were waiting for our imaginary boat to take us to the land of fairy queens. Suddenly we heard a groan from the sky, then another groan, then a big crack—kwahhh!—and hard rain fell like pellets of rice. I was so happy and scared! More lightning came, more thunder. At last our boat is going, I shouted. And Buncake laughed. For the first time, I heard her laugh. I saw her reach her hands toward the flashes in the sky.
The rain kept gurgling—gugu-gugu-gugu—rolling down the mountains, filling their wrinkles and veins. And the hollows couldn’t gulp fast enough, there was that much water. Soon, so quick, this friendly ditch-boat became a brown river, pushing against our legs. White water-tails grabbed our little wrists and ankles. Faster and faster we tumbled, arms first, then feet first, until the water spat us out into a field.
Through whispered talk, I later learned what happened. When Big Ma and Du Yun took us out of the water, we both were pale and still, wrapped in weeds, two soggy cocoons with no breath bursting through. They dug the mud out of our nostrils and mouths, they pulled the weeds out of our hair. My thin body was broken to pieces, her sturdy one was not. They dressed us in farewell clothes. Then they went to the courtyard, washed two pig troughs that were no longer needed, broke off the seats of two benches for lids. They put us in these poor little coffins, then sat down and cried.
For two days, we lay in those coffins. Big Ma and Du Yun were waiting for the rain to stop so they could bury us in the rocky soil where nothing ever grew. On the third morning, a big wind came and blew the clouds away. The sun rose, and Du Yun and Big Ma opened the coffins to see our faces one last time.
I felt fingers brushing my cheek. I opened my eyes and saw Du Yun’s face, her mouth stretched big with joy. “Alive!” she cried. “She’s alive!” She grabbed my hands and rubbed them against her face. And then Big Ma’s face was looking down at me too, searching. I was confused, my head as thick as morning fog.
“I want to get up.” That’s what I first said. Big Ma jumped back. Du Yun dropped my hands. I heard them howl: “How can this be! It can’t be!”
I sat up. “Big Ma,” I said, “what’s the matter?” They began to scream, loud screams, so terrible I thought my head would burst from fright. I saw Big Ma running to the other coffin. She flung open the lid. I saw myself. My poor broken body! And then my head whirled, my body fell, and I saw nothing more until evening came.
When I awoke, I was lying on the cot I once shared with Buncake. Big Ma and Du Yun were standing across the room, in the doorway. “Big Ma,” I said, yawning. “I had a nightmare.”
Big Ma said, “Ai-ya, look, she speaks.” I sat up and slid off the cot, and Big Ma cried, “Ai-ya, look, she moves.” I stood up, complained I was hungry and wanted to pee. She and Du Yun backed off from the doorway. “Go away or I’ll beat you with peach twigs!” Big Ma cried.
And I said, “Big Ma, we have no peach trees.” She clapped her hand to her mouth. At the time, I didn’t know that ghosts were supposed to be scared of peach twigs. Later, of course, I learned that this was just superstition. I’ve since asked many ghosts, and they all laugh and say, “Scared of peach twigs? No such thing!”
Anyway, as I was saying, my bladder was about to burst. I was anxious to pieces, hopping and holding myself in. “Big Ma,” I said, more politely this time, “I want to visit the pigs.” Next to the pen we had a small pit, a plank of wood on each side for balancing yourself while doing your business, both kinds. That was before our village went through reeducation on collective waste. And after that, it was no longer enough to give your mind, body, and blood to the common good—you had to donate your shit too, just like American taxes!
But Big Ma did not say I could visit the pigs. She walked up to me and spit in my face. This was another superstition about ghosts: Spit on them and they’ll disappear. But I did not disappear. I wet my pants, a warm stream dribbling down my legs, a puddle darkening the floor. I was sure that Big Ma would beat me, but instead she said, “Look, she’s pissing.”
And Du Yun said, “How can that be? A ghost can’t piss.”
“Well, use your own eyes, you fool. She’s pissing.”
“Is she a ghost or isn’t she?”
They went on and on, arguing about the color, the stink, the size of my puddle. Finally they decided to offer me a little something to eat. This was their thinking: If I was a ghost, I would take this bribe and leave. If I was a little girl, I would stop complaining and go back to sleep, which is what I did after eating a little piece of stale rice ball. I slept and dreamed that all that had happened was part of the same long dream.
When I awoke the next morning, I again told Big Ma that I had suffered a nightmare. “You’re still sleeping,” she said. “Now get up. We’re taking you to someone who will wake you out of this dream.”
We walked to a village called Duck’s Return, six li south of Changmian. In this village lived a blind woman named Third Auntie. She was not really my auntie. She was auntie to no one. It was just a name, Third Auntie, what you call a woman when you should not say the word “ghost-talker.” In her youth, she had become famous all around the countryside as a ghost-talker. When she was middle-aged, a Christian missionary redeemed her and she gave up talking to ghosts, all except the Holy Ghost. When she was old, the People’s Liberation Army reformed her, and she gave up the Holy Ghost. And when she grew very old, she no longer remembered whether she was redeemed or reformed. She was finally old enough to forget all she had been told to be.
When we entered her room, Third Auntie was sitting on a stool in the middle of the floor. Big Ma pushed me forward. “What’s wrong with her?” Du Yun asked in a pitiful voice. Third Auntie took my hands in her rough ones. She had eyes the color of sky and clouds. The room was quiet except for my breathing. At last, Third Auntie announced: “There’s a ghost inside this girl.” Big Ma and Du Yun gasped. And I jumped and kicked, trying to rid myself of the demon.
“What can we do?” Du Yun cried.
And Third Auntie said, “Nothing. The girl who lived in this body before doesn’t want to come back. And the girl who lives in it now can’
t leave until she finds her.” That’s when I saw her, Buncake, staring at me from a window across the room. I pointed to her and shouted, “Look! There she is!” And when I saw her pointing back at me, her puckered mouth saying my words, I realized I was looking at my own reflection.
On the way home, Big Ma and Du Yun argued, saying things a little girl should never hear.
“We should bury her, put her in the ground where she belongs.” This was Big Ma talking.
“No, no,” Du Yun moaned. “She’ll come back, still a ghost, and angry enough to take you and me with her.”
Then Big Ma said, “Don’t say she’s a ghost! We can’t bring home a ghost. Even if she is—wah, what trouble!—we’ll have to be reformed.”
“But when people see this girl, when they hear the other girl’s voice . . .”
By the time we reached Changmian, Big Ma and Du Yun had decided they would pretend nothing was the matter with me. This was the attitude people had to take with many things in life. What was wrong was now right. What was right was now left. So if someone said, “Wah, this girl must be a ghost,” Big Ma would answer, “Comrade, you are mistaken. Only reactionaries believe in ghosts.”
At Buncake’s funeral, I stared at my body in the coffin. I cried for my friend, I cried for myself. The other mourners were still confused over who was dead. They wept and called my name. And when Big Ma corrected them, they again wept and called Buncake’s name. Then Du Yun would begin to wail.
For many weeks, I scared everyone who heard my voice come out of that puckered mouth. No one talked to me. No one touched me. No one played with me. They watched me eat. They watched me walk down the lane. They watched me cry. One night, I woke up in the dark to find Du Yun sitting by my bed, pleading in a lilting voice. “Buncake, treasure, come back home to your ma.” She lifted my hands, moved them near the candlelight. When I yanked them back, she churned the air with her arms—oh, so clumsy, so desperate, so sad, a bird with broken wings. I think that’s when she started believing she was her daughter. That’s how it is when you have a stone in your heart and you can’t cry out and you can’t let it go. Many people in our village had swallowed stones like this, and they understood. They pretended I was not a ghost. They pretended I had always been the plump girl, Buncake the skinny one. They pretended nothing was the matter with a woman who now called herself Du Lili.