Proofreader: happyBuddha
You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavour, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
You are the light of the world. A city that is set on
a hill cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket,
but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
–Matthew 5:13-15
Brrrring!
The cranky, bald math teacher, Mr. Ma, was still
screaming from his spot behind the podium when the bell rang.
“I only made the test harder by a tiny, weeny bit, and
everyone fails! The lowest mark was nine! NINE! Is this even possible for a
student your level?! Huh?! Even a blindfolded pig would score higher than this!
You think you’re still in kindergarten? You’ll be taking the junior high
entrance exam this year! You won’t get into a good senior high if you don’t get
into a good junior high, and if you don’t get into a good senior high, you
won’t get into a good university! And if you don’t get into a good university?
Hah! I’ll be frank with you, your life will be O-V-E-R, over!”
Xu Ping raised his right hand.
“WHAT?!” Mr. Ma yelled.
“The bell rang, Mr. Ma,” Xu Ping stood up
and said.
The classroom went silent and the entire class turned
their eyes to the boy.
Ma Guozhong slapped the podium. “Are you implying I’m
deaf?! So what if the bell rang? You all have to sit there in your seats until
I dismiss you!”
Xu Ping replied very calmly, “But, sir, I can’t sit
down, my butt hurts. I have to go home and take a shit.”
The class burst out in laughter.
Ma Guozhong was so angry his lips were shivering. He
flipped through the papers on the desk, planning to pick on Xu Ping next. But,
when he found the boy’s examination, he saw that Xu Ping had scored
seventy-six, a high score in the class. There were only maybe four or five kids
who had higher scores than he did. Unable to express his rage, he became even
more furious.
Then, someone sneered. “Take a shit? You mean go
looking for that retard in the outhouse?”
The laughter soon died down as everyone sneaked nervous
glances towards Xu Ping.
It was then that Ma Guozhong recalled this class’s
homeroom teacher telling him about a student whose brother had gone missing.
The family was going through a tough time and she had asked him to look out for
the student.
Xu Ping turned around and answered indifferently,
“That’s right, everybody knows! My brother’s a retard who was kicked out of
school. He can barely remember the way home. My mom died and my dad has a tough
job, so I have to go looking for my brother as soon as school ends. We don’t
have any other family. He might be a retard but I can’t just leave him, can I?”
The classroom fell silent. Every student’s face burned
with a strange sense of shame that made them uncomfortable in their own seats.
Even Mr. Ma started to feel bad. He tidied the papers
and his books while spitting, “Just you wait till tomorrow.” Then, he left out
the door.
After Xu Ping packed his own bag, he looked up to find
quite a few eyes on him. He cracked a smile at them and they all whipped their
faces around as though burned by his gaze. No one dared look him straight in
the eyes.
Almost every single student in this class had
badmouthed Xu Ping’s retard brother. Now that his brother was missing, the
gossip became evil curses and Xu Ping’s smile became spiked with judgement.
As he was leaving, Lu Jia was coming back in from the
bathroom with a bucket of water since he was on cleaning duty. The two met in a
standoff at the stairwell.
Xu Ping stuck his right hand into his pant pocket
where he had the folding knife that he used to sharpen his pencils.
He looked at Lu Jia from the corner of his eye with an
indifferent expression as though waiting for the other boy to react first.
Lu Jia wanted to snort and call him a piece of shit
like he had done before, but for some reason, his hairs stood on end. There was
something different about the skinny boy, but Lu Jia couldn’t put his finger on
it.
A leg stuck out from nowhere and the bucket tumbled
down the stairs, splashing water everywhere.
Lu Jia turned and screamed, “Who the fuck was that?!”
Beside Xu Ping was a tan, burly boy with a buzz cut
who looked at him with a nasty sneer, “Me. Got a problem with that?!”
Lu Jia’s gaze bounced between He Zhi and Xu Ping
before finally nodding. “I see how it is. Just you wait.” Then, he went
downstairs to get his bucket.
He Zhi gave a scoff and wanted to give chase, but Xu
Ping stopped him.
He Zhi spat on the ground in disgust. “Asshole.”
Xu Ping nudged him before heading downstairs himself.
“Relax. I don’t need you to stick up for me, okay?”
He Zhi rushed after him. “I don’t know what I saw in
that guy. I’d thought he was a good friend.”
Xu Ping didn’t respond.
Then, He Zhi kept babbling to Xu Ping all the way
until the school entrance. Xu Ping asked, “What can I do for you, Da-Zhi?”
He Zhi scratched his head. “I thought I’d go looking
for your brother with you.”
Xu Ping was touched, but he still refused. “You know
what my brother looks like? Alright, just drop it. The police are on it,
anyway.”
He Zhi looked at the other boy like he had something
else to say, but Xu Ping interrupted him impatiently. “I’ll see you later
then.”
All He Zhi could get out of his mouth in the end was
“okay.”
His friend seemed to have changed into a different
person in the past few weeks. Like a water bottle refilled with erguotou,
it appeared transparent like the water that was previously present but it was
bound to explode sooner or later.
As he watched the other boy shrinking into the
distance, he suddenly shouted, “Ping-zi!”
Xu Ping didn’t look back and only waved his hand
half-heartedly.
Xu Ping paid five cents for a local newspaper from a street vendor.
He shook out the pages as he stood on the street. He
skipped over the headlines, the international events on page two and the
economy section on page three to the local news.
“House caught fire this morning. One dead, three
wounded.”
“Regular bus pickpocket arrested by undercover officer
while passengers cheered.”
“Free admissions at Beijiao Zoo in accordance with
October 4th International Animal Day attracted numerous visitors.”
After skimming everything, he found nothing on missing
children or child trafficking. Xu Ping went through the ad section slipped in
between the other sections and found the “Missing Person” ad that his dad had
been posting for the last three weeks.
“Xu Zheng. M. 8yo. Last seen Tieshan Dist., City of X,
Sept 8th 1983, wearing red tank top, blue shorts. Reward for persons
with info. Pls contact Xu Chuan.”
Below it was a black and white photo of Xu Zheng and
the address and phone number of his dad’s workplace.
The newspaper flapped loudly in the cool autumn
breeze. Xu Ping folded the newspaper back neatly and put it in his bag.
Autumn was right around the corner.
The poplar leaves had turned gold and gently floated
down to the ground along with the refreshing west wind. The apparel on the
streets was no longer white tank tops but blue Mao suits that had four square
pockets on the front. There was the occasional soldier wearing green army
attire, too. Street vendors began to sell baked sweet potatoes and fried
chestnuts, the rich, sweet scent of which could be smelled from a ways off.
Xu Ping stood on the street watching the people
walking to and fro.
Reporting to the police, posting ads, putting up
flyers on power poles….
They had done all that could be done, yet Xu Zheng
still had not returned.
Dad asked for a month-long break and went out
searching every day. Xu Ping did not want to go to school either, but he got
scolded by his dad when he brought it up.
Suddenly, Xu Ping’s hand darted out for a kid who
walked past him. The kid jumped in fright and turned around with a startled
expression, but the small eyes and thin brows were as different from Xu Zheng
as could be.
Xu Ping let go of the poor child. “Sorry, wrong
person.”
The kid’s friends pushed him along their way while grumbling under their breaths.
The old man selling newspapers asked, “Looking for
someone?”
“Yes,” Xu Ping replied, “I’m looking for my brother.
He’s missing.” Meanwhile, he took out the newspaper he had just put away and
pointed at Xu Zheng’s photo. “Have you seen him, sir?”
The man put on his glasses and squinted before shaking
his head. “No, ‘fraid not.”
Xu Ping thought he would be disappointed, but perhaps
the disappointment so far had been too much. He just nodded as though he had
expected the answer. “Thank you.”
The old man pitied him. “Ya called the police yet?
Times are a-changin’, I tell ya. My boy was sixteen when he joined the Great Linkup and went all the way to Guangzhou, and he came back safe
and sound. A lotta traffickers nowadays, y’know, and when they see a nice
lookin’ kid they grab ‘em and sell ‘em out in the boondocks. They don’t care if
the family’s sad or not.”
Xu Ping wanted to say something back but he couldn’t
find his voice.
He remembered that the police came knocking one night
saying that they had fished the corpse of a child from the river and they
wanted Xu Chuan to go into the station to check. Xu Chuan rushed off and didn’t
come back until late in the night. When he did, he collapsed on the weave chair
and stayed there for a long time. Xu Ping clung to the door frame and his legs
were weak and trembling by the time Xu Chuan spoke with a sigh.
“It wasn’t your brother.”
Xu Ping said goodbye to the old man and wandered
around, grabbing anyone who looked like Xu Zheng from behind. Several times he
saw the parents holding hands with the child, but he still rushed forward with
a tiny spark of hope.
He had always hoped that he didn’t have to go home
after school and accompany Xu Zheng to the sandbox, but now he had lost the
reason to go home. He was too scared to even look under the table whenever he walked
by the living room – his brother’s red bucket was under it. Seeing it made him
think of Xu Zheng waiting for him every day with his legs tucked in on the
chair, and this tortured Xu Ping so much he was racked with pain.
The sun was setting when he finally headed home.
It was the same Xinmin Road, the same comic book stand.
Xu Ping walked past it indifferently; he did not want to read that stuff
anymore.
A thousand heroes could not compare to that stupid
brother of his.
He paced into the courtyard of the Cultural Troupe’s
complex with his head down only to bump into a familiar someone wearing black
square-framed glasses and a grey jacket.
It was Zhang Jinmin running in such a rush that his
glasses were slipping off his ears. He rejoiced when he saw Xu Ping.
“Where have you been?! I’ve been looking for you for
ages! Hurry! Come home with me now! The police found your brother!”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
For more information:
The Great Linkup (page 41)
More on Mao pop culture
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
ayszhang: Xu Zheng's back!!!....or is he?!
WE NEED PROOFREADERS!!! If you have received formal education in English (the more the better!) or are adept at prescriptive grammar, please email Dairytea at chinesebl(at)yahoo.com. It takes me a lot of time to read over my own translations multiple times to find mistakes, so please pitch in if you can! <3 Thank you!
Nine
Brother - English Translation by ayszhang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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