The Ancient Ship

“Can do,” Li replied. So, by putting their heads together, the three men came up with a workable plan. Now all that remained was to build and install the machinery. Belatedly, it occurred to them that they needed Zhao Duoduo’s approval before anything could be done. So Sui Buzhao went to see him.

At first Zhao said nothing. But after thinking it over, he said, “Go ahead, mechanize one of the mills. We’ll give it a try.”

Li Zhichang and Sui Buzhao were thrilled, as was Technician Li. They went right to work. Any parts they needed they had made in the town’s metalwork shop, billing the factory for the costs. The last item was the motor. Zhao Duoduo gave them the least workable diesel pump in the factory. Now the question was, which mill should they target for the new equipment? Sui Buzhao recommended the one run by his nephew. Baopu, who seemed pleased by the news, called his ox to a stop, unhooked the tether, and took it out of the mill.

Work began. For days the mill was the scene of bustling activity, observed by crowds of local residents. Sui Buzhao was in perpetual motion. One minute he’d be bringing oil or a wrench, the next he’d be moving the gawkers back. Finally, the motor sputtered to life, and when it was running at full speed, the millstone began to turn. The rumble was louder than usual, as if thunder had drawn near. They added a conveyor belt to feed the soaked mung beans into the eye of the millstone at a constant rate. The liquid poured out and flowed down the revamped passage into the sediment pool. It was immediately obvious to everyone that the age of feeding the beans with a wooden ladle had come to an end. But someone was still needed to spread the beans evenly on the belt, so Baopu continued sitting in the old mill, as before.

Now, however, it was no longer possible for him to enjoy the quiet solitude, since a steady stream of town residents dropped by to see how the motor did its job and were reluctant to leave. The praise was practically unanimous. The sole exception was an odd old man named Shi Dixin, who was generally opposed to anything new and unfamiliar and, for added measure, was feuding with Sui Buzhao; he was particularly unhappy about anything accomplished with Sui’s participation. He watched for a while and then spat angrily on the rumbling motor before storming off.

Women from the processing room were frequent visitors; that included Naonao, who stood there sucking on a piece of hard candy and smiling. When she was around, the motor noise didn’t seem as loud as at other times, since it was nearly drowned out by her shouts. If she was in a good mood curses flew from her mouth. She cursed the millstone; the millstone did not curse back. She cursed people; they just smiled. She ran around, touching this and rubbing that, and sometimes stomping her foot for no apparent reason.

One day she reached out to touch the conveyor belt; Baopu ran up, wrapped his arms around her, and dragged her over to a corner, where he pushed her away as if singed by her touch. Naonao looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. Then, in a shrill voice, she said, “Shame on you, how dare you.” Turning to look at him one last time, she ran out of the mill. Everyone present laughed, but Baopu, acting as if nothing had happened, went back to his stool and sat down.

As time passed, fewer people came around. Then one day, as Baopu sat alone looking out the window, he saw Xiaokui, basket in hand, and her undersized son, Leilei, standing on the riverbank and gazing at his place. He faintly heard the boy ask his mother, “What’s a machine?” That sent a charge through Baopu, who jumped up and shouted through the window, “Come over here, boy, the machine’s right here!” There was no response.

Whenever Sui Jiansu returned from making a delivery he went into the mill to keep his brother company. Maybe because he was so used to driving his cart all over the landscape, he simply could not understand how a healthy young man could sit quietly all day long, like an old codger. His brother wouldn’t say a word, almost as if he had no interest in anything that occurred outside that room. So Jiansu sat and smoked his pipe awhile before walking back outside, feeling he’d carried out his sibling responsibilities. When he gazed at Baopu’s broad back, it looked as heavy as a boulder. What was stored inside that back? That, he figured, would always remain a mystery. He and Baopu had the same father but different mothers, and he did not think he’d ever understand the eldest son of the Sui clan.

When he returned from the drying floor that day Jiansu told Baopu how Zhao Duoduo had yelled at Hanzhang and Xiaokui. Baopu didn’t stir. “Just you wait and see!” Jiansu said callously. “The Sui family will not carry their whip forever.”

Baopu glanced at his brother and said, more to himself than anything, “Making glass noodles is what we do, it’s all we do.”

Jiansu cast a cold glance at the millstone and said, “Maybe, maybe not.” What he wanted more than anything was to get Baopu out of that hard-luck mill and see that his brother never stepped foot inside it again. Baopu may have been born to make glass noodles but not to sit on a stool and watch a millstone turn.

Everyone agreed that Baopu was the best glass noodle maker in town. What no one knew was who he had learned the art from, and they all figured that it was the Sui clan’s natural calling. A few years earlier, when they had suffered a spoiled vat, Baopu had left a lasting impression on the people. On that unfortunate morning, a strange smell emanated from the processing room, after which the starch produced no noodles. Eventually, some finally emerged, but in uneven thicknesses that broke up when they touched cold water. Finally, even the starch stopped coming out. The shop losses were substantial, and up and down Gaoding Street, the village area within the confines of Wali, shouts of “Spoiled vat! Spoiled vat!” were heard. On the fifth day, a master noodle maker from the other side of the river was sent for at great expense. As soon as he entered the room he frowned. Then, after tasting the paste he threw down his fee and ran off. The Gaoding Street Party secretary, Li Yuming, an honest, decent man, was so upset by this development that his cheeks swelled up overnight. At the time, Baopu was sitting in the mill woodenly feeding mung beans into the eye of the millstone. But when he heard there was a spoiled vat he threw down his ladle and went into the processing room, where he hunkered down in a corner and smoked his pipe, observing the looks of panic on the people there. He saw Secretary Li, whose face was distorted—thin above and thick below—attach a piece of red cloth to the door frame to ward away evil spirits. Unable to keep crouching there, Baopu knocked the ashes out of his pipe, got up, and went over to the sediment vat, where he scooped out some of the liquid with a spoon. Everyone stopped and gaped at him. Without a word, he scooped the liquid out of one vat after another. Then he went back to his corner and crouched down again. Later, in the middle of the night, he started scooping again. Someone even saw him drink a few mouthfuls of the starch. The diarrhea hit him at daybreak, when he held his hands against his belly, his face a waxen yellow. Nonetheless, he went back and crouched in the corner. That is how it went for nearly a week, when suddenly a familiar fragrance emerged. When people went looking for Baopu in his corner, he was no longer there, and when they tried to strain the noodles they saw that everything was back to normal, with Baopu sitting in his usual spot in front of the millstone.

Jiansu found it impossible to understand how anyone could be so stubborn. Given the man’s talents, why didn’t he become a technician? It would mean a doubling of his wages and prestige, not to mention a more relaxed job. But Baopu shook his head every time the issue came up. Quiet was too important to him, he said, although Jiansu found that hard to believe.

The day after Jiansu told his brother about what had happened at the drying floor, he drove his cart back onto the gravel road to the port city. As it bumped and rattled along, he held his whip close to his body and was reminded of what he’d said: “The Sui family will not carry their whip forever.” Angered by the thought, he lashed out at the horse. The round trip took four or five days, and on the road home, as he neared town, he spotted the riverbank line of “fortresses” and the old city wall. The sight energized him.

The first thing Jiansu did after bringing his cart to a halt was go see his brother. He heard a rumble when he was still quite a distance from the mill, and when he walked in the door he saw the gears of the machinery and the converor belt. He was dumbstruck. With a tightening in his chest, he muttered in a shaky voice, “Who did this?” Baopu told him it was Li Zhichang and their uncle. Jiansu cursed, then, without another word, sat down.

Over the next several days, Jiansu stayed away from the mill so as to avoid the confusing sight of those spinning gears. He predicted that before long, all the mills and processing rooms would be mechanized, which would be a boon for the Zhao clan. He paced back and forth on the sunset-drenched riverbank, staying as far from the mills as possible. The distant strains of a flute came through the mist, played by the bachelor everyone called Gimpy, a shrill, jumpy sound. Jiansu stood looking down at the shallow water and thinking about his uncle, who had helped Li Zhichang in the project; nearly cursing out loud, he cracked his knuckles.

Coming down off the riverbank, he rushed over to see his uncle.

Sui Buzhao lived a fair distance from his niece and nephews in a room outside the compound, where he’d lived ever since leaving the sea behind him. No lamps had been lit and the front door was open. Pausing in the doorway, where the smell of liquor was strong, Jiansu heard the sound of a bowl banging on the table and knew that his uncle was home. “Is that you, Jiansu?” Sui Buzhao asked.

“Yes,” Jiansu replied as he stepped inside.

Sui Buzhao was sitting on the kang in the dark with his legs crossed, dipping his bowl into a liquor vat. “Drinking in the dark is the way to go,” he said, offering a cup to Jiansu, who took it and drank. Buzhao wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He slurped his liquor; Jiansu never made noise when he drank. Sui Buzhao had often eaten raw fish aboard ship, washing it down with strong liquor to smother the fishy smell. Jiansu, who seldom drank, accompanied his uncle for nearly an hour, with grievances and anger burning inside him.

Suddenly Buzhao’s bowl fell to the floor and shattered, the sound causing Jiansu to break out in a cold sweat. “Jiansu,” his uncle asked, “did you hear Gimpy play that flute of his? You must have. Well, the damned thing keeps me awake at night. I’ve spent the last few nights wandering through town, and I feel like I’m ready to die. But how could I expect you to know?” He grabbed his nephew’s shoulder; Jiansu wondered what was troubling his uncle as Buzhao drew back his hand and massaged his knees. Then, without warning, he put his mouth up to Jiansu’s ear and said loudly, “Someone in the Sui clan has died!”

Jiansu stared blankly at his uncle. Even in the dark he could see two lines of shiny tears running down the old man’s face. “Who?”

“Sui Dahu. They say he died up at the front, and it might be true…I’m the only person in Wali who knows.” The old man’s voice had a nasal quality. Though a distant younger cousin, Sui Dahu was still a member of the Sui clan, and Jiansu took the news hard. The old man went on: “What a shame, he was quite a man. Last year, before he left, I went over to drink with him. He was only eighteen, didn’t even have the hint of a moustache.” Shrill notes from Gimpy’s flute came on the air, sounding as if the player’s tongue was a frozen stick. With the flute music swirling around Jiansu, the hazy image of Dahu floated up in front of him. Too bad! Dahu would never again set foot in Wali. As he listened to the icy strains of flute music, Jiansu had a revelation: We’re all bachelors, and Gimpy’s flute plays our song.

Sui Buzhao was soon so drunk he fell off his kang, and when Jiansu picked him up he discovered that the old man was wearing only a pair of shorts; his skin was cold to the touch. Jiansu laid him out on the kang as he would a misbehaving child.

Not until three days after his ferocious drinking bout did the old man finally wake up. Even then he spoke gibberish and kept tripping over his own feet. So he propped himself up against the window and informed anyone who would listen that a large ship had pulled up to the pier, with Zheng He himself at the tiller, and he wondered why he was still in the town of Wali. Jiansu and Baopu watched over him; Han-zhang cooked for him three times a day. When Baopu began sweeping the floor and removing cobwebs from the window, his uncle stopped him. “No need for that. I won’t be here long. I’m getting on that ship. Come with me, and we’ll sail the seas together. Or would you rather die in a dead-end town like this?”

Nothing Baopu said could change his uncle’s mind, so he told him he was sick. “I’m sick?” the old man shouted, his tiny gray eyes opening wide. “It’s this town that’s sick. It stinks. Can’t you smell it?” He crinkled up his nose. “At sea we deal in nautical miles, which equal sixty li, although some stupid bastards insist it’s only thirty. To test the depth, measured in fathoms, you drop a greased, weighted rope into the water, it’s called a plumb…” Baopu stayed with his uncle and sent Jiansu to get Guo Yun, a doctor of Chinese medicine.

Jiansu left and returned with Guo Yun.

After feeling the old man’s pulse, Guo Yun left a prescription that would bring him around in three days. Hanzhang sat at the table watching, and when Guo Yun stood up to leave, he turned, spotted her, and froze. Her brows looked penciled on, two thin black lines. Her dark eyes shone, though her gaze was cold. The skin on her face and neck was so fair, so snowy white, it was nearly transparent. The elderly doctor stroked his beard, an uncomprehending look on his face. He sat back down on the stool and said he’d like to feel Hanzhang’s pulse. She refused.

“You’re not well, I’ll bet on it,” he said as he turned to Baopu. “In nature growth is inevitable, yet moderation is essential. Without growth there can be no maturation, and without moderation growth is endangered.” Baopu could make no sense of that, but he urged Hanzhang to do as the doctor said. Again she refused. Guo Yun sighed and walked out the door. They watched his back until it disappeared.

THREE

In the end Sui Jiansu quit his job at the factory, surprising many people, since a Sui had never before given up the calling. For him, however, it was an easy decision. After visiting the commerce office and checking with the Gaoding Street Party secretary, Li Yuming, and Luan Chunji, the street director, he received permission to open a tobacco and liquor stall. A month later he found an empty building just off the street, ideally located to expand his business into a shop. He went to the mill again to talk his brother into joining him in the venture, but Baopu shook his head. “Well, then,” Jiansu said, dejected, “since your calligraphy is so good, will you paint a shop sign for me?”

The old millstone rumbled. Baopu took the writing brush. “What’s it called?”

“The Wali Emporium.”

So Baopu laid a sheet of paper on the stool, but his hand shook uncontrollably when he dipped the brush into the ink, and he could not write the sign.

Ultimately, Jiansu was forced to ask the elementary school principal, Wattles Wu, to write it for him. The principal, a man in his fifties who had layers of loose skin on his neck, refused to use bottled ink; instead he had Jiansu make traditional ink on his long ink stone. It took Jiansu an hour to liquefy the ink block, after which the principal picked up a large, nearly hairless brush, soaked it in the ink, and began writing on a sheet of red paper. Jiansu watched as three thick veins rose on the back of the man’s slender hand, and when they retreated, the words “Wali Emporium” appeared on the paper. The characters for the word “emporium” were truly unique and, for some strange reason, conjured up the image of rusted metal. After Jiansu pasted it over the doorway he leaned against the door frame to look up at the sign. This was going to be an unusual shop, he was thinking.

The first week he was open, Jiansu sold only three bottles of sesame oil and a pack of cigarettes. Sui Buzhao was the first customer to step through the door of his nephew’s shop, but he merely looked around. On his way out, he recommended that Jiansu sell snacks to go with cups of liquor straight from the vat. He also urged him to paint a large liquor vat on the wall. Jiansu not only accepted his uncle’s suggestions, he went further by pasting posters of female movie stars on the outside wall. All Wali elders had been in the habit of going over to the local temple to drink, and the painted liquor vat invited nostalgia. As a result, most of his early customers were older, but the younger folks weren’t far behind. The place quickly became a hub of social activity.

One day, after business had started taking off, an elderly woman, Zhang-Wang, who coupled her maiden name with that of her deceased husband, entered with a request for him to begin stocking her handicrafts.

By “handicrafts,” she meant things like homemade sweetened yam-and-rice balls on sticks, clay tigers, and tin whistles, things she had been making and selling for decades, even during difficult times. She also told fortunes, some openly, others on the sly, to make a little extra money. Already in her sixties, she was a chain-smoker; the corners of her mouth were sunken, making her look older than her years. She had a thin neck and a pointed, turned-down chin, and her face was forever dirty. Her back was bent, her legs shook, and she made constant noises even when she wasn’t speaking. But the things she made were of the highest quality. Take, for instance, her clay tigers. She fashioned them so they had the same down-turned mouth as she, giving them an elderly yet proud, kind and gentle appearance, like their maker. And she kept making them bigger and bigger, until some were the size of pillows, toys that needed to be shared by two children at a time. She suggested that they be displayed on top of the Wali Emporium counter on consignment.

With a broad smile, Jiansu stared at the dust that had gathered on her thin neck and chatted with her casually, while she removed cigarettes from a rack and smoked them one after the other, never taking her eyes off Jiansu. He was by then in his mid-thirties, with slick black hair and a pimple here and there. He possessed a long, handsome face, an alert, vigilant face that showed a bit of cunning. Needless to say, he was a favorite of the women. But he was still unmarried, primarily a result of his clan’s situation; no one wanted to marry their daughter to either of the Sui brothers, him or Baopu. Baopu had once been married to the daughter of the family’s handyman, but she had died of consumption early on. He had not remarried.

Zhang-Wang, who knew that Jiansu was neither as open nor as guileless as his older brother, smirked as she looked at him, revealing blackened teeth. He blushed and urged her to say what was on her mind, even jokingly calling her an ugly old woman. When she took a few clay tigers out of her pockets and placed them on the counter, the similarity of their faces made him laugh. Reaching out to touch his bicep and chest, she said, “Aren’t you the strong boy!” When he wouldn’t stop laughing, she reached around and spanked him lightly. With a frown, she said, “You should be more serious when you’re talking to your old grandma!”

“Um,” Jiansu grunted, and stopped laughing. So they began negotiating the price and split for the handicrafts, and while they hadn’t reached an agreement by the time he lit the lamp, the deal was struck before she left.

From then on, Zhang-Wang came to the shop every day to move her clay tigers around on the counter. Sales were up: Many women bought the toys for their children, and if the children themselves came, she taught them new ways to play with them, with a little tiger attacking a big one by banging its head. But, they said, that would quickly lead to cracked heads. “Then what?” “Come buy new ones,” she’d say. As time passed, there was more business than the two entrepreneurs could handle during the day, so they started lighting a lamp and staying open longer. One night a group of old men sat beside the liquor vat drinking and snacking till the middle of the night.

Jiansu often slept with his head down on the counter, and Zhang-Wang delighted in blowing cigarette smoke at his red lips. In his eyes, she was a good assistant, and part of the shop’s success was her doing. “The tigers are our protectors,” she said. He gave the clay figurines, with their downturned mouths, a doubtful look. “Tigers are mountain spirits,” she added. When business was slow they talked about all manner of things, but his uncle, Buzhao, was one of her favorite topics. She’d laugh and show her dark teeth. “That old man is skin and bones, but he still won’t behave himself. When he was younger plenty of pretty girls got their taste of those old bones, including me. He’s never had an unskinny day, but he’s always been good at what he does.

“Do you know why he and Shi Dixin are mortal enemies?” she asked one day. Jiansu stared at her curiously and shook his head. So she took a cigarette from the rack, lit it, and told her story.

“Well, it was all on account of something really small. Back then, before your time, there was a lot more going on in Wali than now. And whenever you find a lot going on you’ll also find men who behave badly. Keep that in mind. When they’re ill mannered, they expend what energy they have on women’s bodies, leaving none for the things they ought to be doing. Men like your uncle, for instance, couldn’t even carry a lump of bean flour weighing three catties; they’d trip all over themselves and drop it, turning it into a pile of snow. Everyone always had a big laugh over that. And those sailors, well, the minute they stepped ashore they were like wolfhounds, their eyes bright red, throwing a fright into anyone who saw them, but once you got to know them they were all right. Your uncle learned how to treat people from those sailors, and that means that the Sui clan has at least one man who doesn’t follow the straight and narrow. That said, he did wind up doing one thing that benefited the people in town. What was that? He brought a dirty, black object to town from a ship. It had a smell somewhere between fragrant and stinky. Some people said it was from a musk ox, with something added. If a local girl’s belly started to grow, your uncle held whatever that was up to her nose a couple of times, and she immediately lost fluids from both ends, which restored her to the way she was before. You can see how much trouble that saved. But damned if Shi Dixin, that big phony, didn’t find out about it and take out after your uncle, who ran straight to the pier, with Shi on his heels. One fleeing, one chasing.”

Zhang-Wang lit another cigarette and blew the smoke out through her nose. “Shi ran like crazy and still he couldn’t catch him. So heaven intervened. Just as your uncle was about to reach the pier, his legs got all tangled up and he crashed to the ground. Weird old Shi ran up and twisted his leg. Your uncle threw sand in Shi’s face and received a second twist in return. Back then there was more sand on the riverbank than there is now, and your uncle’s face was all bloody from scraping on the ground. Curses flew from his mouth, but Shi didn’t say a word. He just picked up a rock and smashed your uncle’s hand with it, which gave him the chance he was looking for to grab that thing. Now, that’s when the real fighting started. They were both covered in blood. Shi Dixin predicted that sooner or later that thing would bring down the town of Wali, but the town’s young men all thought it was great. A knock-down, drag-out fight was inevitable. But then, when Shi felt his strength about to go, he flung the damned thing into the river, and that brought the fight to an abrupt end. The two men, battered and bloody, just stood there glaring at one another…”