Old Man Xinjiang

Old Man Xinjiang

Old Man Xinjiang began to pack up his stall. It was still early. The sun, a dull yellowish–white lump of curd, had only just begun to move into the west. A breeze stirred the ochre earth and made the dead leaves rustle, bringing with it the smell of autumn. Old Man Xinjiang packed his fruit away then started on the eggs. His stall was nothing more than two baskets and two pieces of cardboard. The eggs were piled on one of these, the other held the pears, each one of them soft to the touch, thin-skinned and – when you bit into them – running with a sweet cold juice which was good for coughs. Eggs and pears … that was all he had, simple to lay out and equally simple to pack away. He bought the fruit by the pound, paying 40 cents and selling them for 45; the eggs he bought for 20 cents each, selling them at 22 cents apiece. He could scrape a living from it, no more than that.

Old Man Xinjiang hoisted the carrying pole with a basket at each end onto his shoulder and headed off towards the east end of the village. He was a tall, thin man and he cast a long shadow which seemed to crawl beside him like a giant millipede. He scuffled quickly along, his eyes shining bright. The villagers watched him. 'Where are you going, old man?' someone asked. 'To hers,' he answered. They didn't ask who 'she' was. 'To give her money?' A grunt of assent. 'And you'll get your leg over in return, will you?' The others laughed. Embarrassed, Old Man Xinjiang tried to leave but he was surrounded. 'You're still up to it, are you?' Old Man Xinjiang lowered his baskets to the ground and thumped his aching back. 'Don't talk nonsense. I'm an old man.' There was a burst of laughter. 'You're never too old if you put your mind to it,' said one. And another added: 'If the tool's bust, what's wrong with a hand job? A bit of rubbing should do you nicely!' That was too much for Old Man Xinjiang; he shouldered the pole again and made off as fast as he could, hopping along like a rabbit.

'Hers' was a dilapidated shack with bits of plaster flaking off the back wall like diseased skin. When he arrived, the woman was busy filling in a ditch, her clothes and face covered in dust. She put down the wooden spade and slapped the dust away. They greeted each other briefly. The old man went inside. The paper window coverings let in little light and it was very dim. There was a mud-brick bed, heated by a flue from the cooker. An old man with reddened eyes sat there, a pipe in his hand. He lit a touchpaper from the oil lamp, stuck it in the pipe bowl and breathed in till it flamed and smoke came out of his nostrils. He shifted when he saw Old Man Xinjiang and grunted a greeting. Old Man Xinjiang took a low stool and hunkered down, sitting very still.

'It's been another bad harvest this year,' said old Red-Eyes.

'Very bad,' agreed Old Man Xinjiang.

'What'll next year be like?'

'Who knows?'

'That's life, eh?'

The woman came in, slapping the dust from her clothes.

'Are you cold?' she asked, looking at him.

'Not really.'

'You should be wearing your winter jacket.'

'Yes, I should.'

'And your bedding needs a wash.'

'It does.'

'I'll dig those vegetables tomorrow, then I'll wash it for you the day after.'

'I'll do the vegetables,' said old Red-Eyes. 'You wash his bedding. You can't tell what the weather's going to do.'

'Stay and eat with us,' said the woman. 'I'm going to make noodles.'

But Old Man Xinjiang said: 'No, I won't stay. I'm off to the doctor's for a jab. I've caught a chill.'

'You should be wearing your winter jacket.'

'I should,' agreed Old Man Xinjiang and, picking up his carrying pole, he left. The old couple did not bother coming to the door.

Outside in the chill wind, his nose began to itch and he sneezed. He had the odd feeling there was a bug in his nostrils trying to squirm its way out. He needed that jab, he thought, wiping his nose. But it was just a cold – he couldn't complain, he hadn't been ill this year. He gave another loud sneeze.

There was hardly anyone at the doctors, just two men and a child. He picked out one of the pears, gave it to the child, and sat down. He waited for the men to say something but they sat silent, watching the child eating the pear and slurping dribble and juice. He wouldn't give away his pears to them, he thought, that wouldn't do at all. But the men helped themselves from his basket anyway, first one, then the other.

'Help yourselves!' Old Man Xinjiang said, 'Ripe pears are good for fever!'

When it was his turn, he said to the doctor: 'I want a jab. Give me penicillin, will you? That's the only one I know.'

The doctor smirked. 'You should be resting when you've got a cold. No more running after women or you'll exhaust your yang and that'll be the end of you!'

Old Man Xinjiang went red. 'What nonsense! You're an educated man, Doctor, not a pig–ignorant villager …'

'Is it true you haven't been getting any?' asked the doctor, composing himself.

'How could I? When a woman's married to someone else, it's wrong!' Old Man Xinjiang felt a bead of sweat at the end of his nose. 'What counts in this life is loyalty to your friends.'

The doctor looked at him as he felt his pulse: 'But she was your wife first. There'd be nothing wrong with sleeping with her.'

'She …she …' Old Man Xinjiang stuttered, turning pale in his agitation.

'How old were you when the press–gang got you?'

'Twenty.'

'Was it really the morning after your wedding night?'

'Uh–huh.'

'And you really made it all the way back from Xinjiang on foot? You didn't get a ride?'

'Uh–huh.'

Old Man Xinjiang did not feel inclined to say anything more. He'd been asked the same questions hundreds of times, by this person and that, he was fed up with it. Yes, he was twenty, or perhaps a bit more. It was all so long ago – his memories had gone hazy, like a dream. What he did remember was that Xinjiang was very far away, and he'd been forced to go. There had been so many of them, they hadn't even roped them together. Press-gangs really did come and drag you out of your house and take you to the army camp. He'd been on the march for years … When people asked 'What's Xinjiang like, then?' he just said: 'I don't know. All I thought about was my wife.' He hadn't even had time to see her face properly, but she was still his wife. So he deserted. The first few times, he'd been caught and flogged half to death. At the fifth attempt, he'd made it back home. How far was that? He had no idea. He just remembered how he'd kept going, day and night, half-asleep sometimes. He might have been a month on the road, or it might have been a year. He couldn't remember and what did it matter anyway? When he got home, his wife had married another man. His elder brother couldn't afford to keep her and thought he was dead. So he sold her, and now Old Man Xinjiang's wife belonged to another man. Old Man Xinjiang hadn't had any money to buy her back again so that was that. The other man was well off in those days so she went with him, hoping for a better life. That was that. But people kept on asking, on and on …

'That was really hard on you,' said the doctor, 'Just getting one go with her.'

Old Man Xinjiang smiled and thought to himself, I didn't even get that. She had her period.

'Aren't you angry with your brother?'

'What's the point in being angry? You take what life throws at you.'

'Why didn't you marry again?'

'Why bother? You take what life throws at you.'

Old Man Xinjiang squinted at the sky outside the window, at the trees under the sky, and the yellow leaves blowing down in the autumn wind. His face might have been carved out of wood. As if this whole story had nothing to do with him.

The doctor took a look at his arm. 'Undo your trousers,' he said. Old Man Xinjiang pulled his trousers down, revealing a pair of skinny buttocks.

'Give me the jab into the flesh,' he said. 'Last time you hit the bone and I couldn't sit down for a week.'

The doctor laughed. 'You haven't got any flesh,' he said. 'I can only get hold of a few inches of skin, that's all there is. You should feed yourself better, instead of giving every cent you get to her. She's married to someone else. Why are you bothering with her?' Old Man Xinjiang said nothing. 'You take too much on yourself,' the doctor went on. 'It's not doing you any good.'

'There you go again,' Old Man Xinjiang said. 'And you, an educated man …' The doctor pinched the skin and injected him. 'It went into the flesh this time,' said Old Man Xinjiang. 'It only hurt a bit.'

The doctor laughed and slapped his rump as if he were a horse: 'You can get up now, but mind you don't crack the bed boards with those sharp bones of yours.'

'Ah-ya,' complained Old Man Xinjiang, 'that hurt.'

'Huh,' said the doctor, 'Those old bones of yours ring like a monastery bell.'

Old Man Xinjiang got home and put down his baskets. They were considerably lighter now, and he felt a twinge of annoyance. But he shook it from his head. That's just how it was. You needed to be smart in this life, he thought to himself.

His house was small. There was a bed and a mud-brick stove, and a tall narrow window. The beams and walls were blackened with smoke, the paper covering the window was yellowed with age and the room was dark. That was the way he liked it. He lived alone. It was cosy and he could shut out the world just by shutting the door. A warm feeling stole over him. This house was good. It kept out the wind and the rain, and there was no one to pester him with questions. He was afraid of their questions. After all these years, he'd put it all behind him. Their questions brought back the memories and the distress.

Old Man Xinjiang poked the fire, rinsed a yam and cut it into pieces on his chopping board. Yams were good. A few minutes in the pan and they were soft – he could swallow them easily. His teeth had all gone years ago. Chewing other sorts of vegetables was hard work and gave him indigestion. He chopped the yam into largish pieces so they would soften quickly but would be easy to pick up with his chopsticks. His hands did not shake but they were getting clumsy.

The chopping board was a small one, only five inches across. He'd had it for half a lifetime and was used to it. Fruit wood was really good. You could cut anything on it without leaving marks. Chen the carpenter had wanted to make him a new one but he didn't see why he needed another. He was on his own and this one was enough. Over the years, other people changed their chopping boards, but he'd stuck with this one. Yes, fruit wood was really good. After all these years, it had only got a little thinner. That was good too. It made it lighter. Small though it was, it had been heavy. Now he was old, he was glad it was lighter.

When he had finished chopping the yam, he had a look at the stove. These mud–brick stoves were easy to use, they fired up quickly. He put a small pan on top and took out the can of oil. He wrapped the chopsticks in a rag, dipped them and oiled the bottom of the pan. It gave off a good smell. This was sesame oil, which he liked better than rapeseed oil. Though when he had no sesame oil, he'd use the rapeseed oil and it smelled just as good. And if that was gone, he did without oil. He always had noodles and yams, so that was all right. Apart from the Three Years of Famine, when they hadn't had yams, or anything else, and he'd had to live on sow thistles. Anyway, the good thing was that he hadn't starved to death. So many had. He was lucky. Very lucky. He'd come through without any major illness or other disaster. But then, you take what life throws at you, good or bad …

The house was quite still, the only noise his occasional mumbles. The bits of yam sounded good as they went into the pan. It was a nicer sound than the songs that came over the village loudspeakers. Not that there was anything wrong with those women's voices, but what he really liked was Shaanxi opera, with its high–pitched singing and fiery rhythms. He'd never bought a radio of his own so he hadn't listened to it for years. But the hissing sound of the hot yam sounded good too. Pity it didn't last long, then you had to add the water.
Old Man Xinjiang ladled out a potful of water. That was all he used at each meal. It wasn't a big pot, the size of a bowl, but that amount of water was enough for one meal. It floated in the water-jar all day, bobbing gently from side to side apparently at whim. This was something else he'd had for decades. It had no lip, but that was all right. It had started out with a lip but one day he'd had it on the stove-top to heat some water and the cat with the white nose had sent it flying. It was still useful though, as a ladle. His bowl was no good for that because you couldn't get it through the neck of the water jar. But the lip-less pot was fine. It was hard to explain things in this life; a lip-less pot was good for some things and a lipped pot was good for others. And who was to say which use was more important?

The water soon came to the boil. Old Man Xinjiang began to make noodles. He got out a big china bowl. It was thick, heavy and sturdy. You couldn't buy bowls like that in the market any more. Sturdy things had many uses, and he used this bowl both to eat out of and to mix noodle dough in. It saved him buying a special mixing bowl. He put in a scoop of flour and some water and rubbed in the flour. He gave it a quick knead and brought it together in a lump the size of his fist. Then he flattened it onto his chopping board and cut it into long strips with his knife. One by one, he rubbed each strip between his hands to thin it. It was quick work. Simple food never took long to prepare.

He'd eaten like this for many years.

He was old, really old, and rich food gave him indigestion. He liked plain food with plenty of soupy liquid. You didn't need money for the good things in life. Like a simple meal, like fetching a stool and sitting down to look at the stars and the moon. Old Man Sun came up and went down, the leaves of the trees started green and went yellow. They were the good things in life and no one could take them off him.

It was dusk and the darkness crept up on him. Old Man Xinjiang's dinner was cooked and he carried his bowl to the doorway and sat down. He picked out a morsel with his chopsticks and offered it to the guardian spirits. Then he began noisily slurping his noodles. Steam rose from the bowl and up over his head. There was another bowl in front of him on the ground with the same food in it, prepared for a friend. Just then, the black dog turned up, having made its leisurely way from the woman's house on the east side of the village in the pale moonlight. Noiselessly it lapped its dinner, then raised its head in greeting. This was the time when Old Man Xinjiang felt most contented. He could forget himself, and the dog, and all the villagers.