Chapter 26

Chen Shao'er walked slowly with the basket on his back. That fish was several jin, after all.

Chen Yuanyuan went trotting on ahead. At the gate everyone was crowded round looking in and nobody noticed her. She looked up at the backs in front of her and had to shove her way through. Her dad was home. She was going in first.

Somebody at the back finally saw her and made a gap for her to squeeze through.

Chen Yougong was inside, being polite to everyone. He looked down, saw Yuanyuan, and his smile got wider. He reached out and picked her up.

"That's enough for today. My children are home. We'll talk tomorrow."

The villagers understood well enough. The man had only just got back and they had him blocked in his own gateway before he could say a word to his family, so they went off.

Chen Shao'er and the others came running over too.

"Dad, you're back." Chen Shao'er burst out crying.

Yuanyuan stuck her lip out from her father's arms. Her brother had no shame. She wasn't crying.

Chen Yougong didn't put her down. He reached over and rubbed Chen Shao'er's head hard, then got an arm round it and pulled it against him.

Chen Yuanyuan kicked to be put down.

He didn't know what she wanted, so he set her down.

Once she was on the ground she pushed him towards Chen Shao'er, so he would pick him up.

Chen Yougong laughed out loud.

Chen Shao'er wiped his eyes, embarrassed. He hated crying, and there he was, crying.

Chen Juanjuan came over and called him third uncle too, then ran back into the yard.

Old Mrs. Chen had come home from the fields as soon as she heard. Yao Shangqing and the others hadn't. A while longer out there was half a work point, and the man was safe, which was the main thing.

"Right, stop standing about in the gateway. Come in and talk." Old Mrs. Chen looked at her third son, thoroughly pleased with life, and shut the gate behind them.

Chen Yougong scooped Chen Shaozhi up with one arm. The boy weighed nothing, and he wasn't going to favour one over another. Then he saw the yard and everything about it changed, and wondered, and swallowed it.

Chen Shao'er remembered his basket and ran over to it by the gate, and pulled the grass off the top. "Granny, we found a big fish today."

Chen Yuanyuan was pleased about it as well, and pointed and chortled. "Dad. Eat. Fish."

Old Mrs. Chen came and looked. "My word, how is it that big?" She had expected an ordinary fish at best.

Chen Yougong wondered too. "You got this out of the little river at the foot of the slope?"

Chen Shao'er nodded firmly.

Chen Yougong thought about that river, which was shallow. How could a fish that size be in it?

"It jumped out on its own," Chen Shaozhi added.

Old Mrs. Chen worked out what was what and started muddying the water at once.

"That's the luck of this house, that's all. It knew you were coming home."

Chen Yougong had his doubts and said no more about it.

Old Mrs. Chen put the fish in the water jar by the kitchen door, and it came to life at once. That was no ordinary fish, she thought, still alive after all this time. She gave it one look and let it be.

"Now then. Where have you been this past month and more?" Old Mrs. Chen sat down and asked her son straight out. She had known he would be all right, but what he had been doing was another matter, and she wanted to know.

Chen Yougong frowned, sitting in the main room, looking at the wall that had appeared across the yard.

"Ma, never mind that for a minute. What's this wall? Isn't that the east room? Isn't my brother living there?"

The smile went off her face. "We've split. Your brother wanted it."

One plain sentence, and Chen Yougong knew there was a great deal in it.

"Why?"

Old Mrs. Chen told him what had happened that day, simply, watching his face as she went.

Chen Yougong closed his hands. He hadn't thought his brother would do that. The three of them had come up through hard times together, with their mother raising them alone.

"Never mind. It's nothing. We'll say there's no such person." He sighed after he said it. When disaster comes the birds scatter, except he had never expected his own household to scatter that fast. He had always thought the three of them pulled together.

"That's done with. How did you get through it?" Old Mrs. Chen asked after all.

He told it simply, leaving the dangerous parts out. The driver had swerved to miss an ox cart that day and the cart went into the ditch. Of the two men on it, one was hurt and knocked out and the other ran, and there was a child of seven or eight who said he had been taken and sold, and that there were a great many other children.

So he told the driver to take the child and report it, and went after the man himself for fear he would get too far to be found, and he didn't think about anything else at the time. It turned out the man had a gang, and they caught him, and meant to finish him on the spot, but he had the luck of the devil and got away. There were marks on the road, luckily. It was a long way from the county and hard to send word, which was why it took all those days.

The way he told it, old Mrs. Chen thought, it sounded like nothing much. But her heart shook, and shook again.

The timber business wasn't settled by his coming back, and he would have to go out again. It was only that the county thought he had been through enough for now, and sent him home to rest a while.

"Ma, let's get the food on. I'm starving." Chen Yougong had hurried the whole way to get home early. The commune secretary told him to have breakfast there and he hadn't.

Old Mrs. Chen looked at where the sun was and judged it.

"Shao'er, go and fetch your mum home to cook. She's the best cook." Old Mrs. Chen bellowed it.

Chen Shao'er was off like a shot.

Chen Yuanyuan was outside looking at the rabbits. When were they going to be big? It was worrying.

Chen Shaoyuan came out of school first and ran all the way home, with Chen Dayu and Chen Xiaoyu behind, unable to keep up.

"Dad, Dad, you're home." He was shouting it before he was through the gate.

Chen Yougong was standing in the gateway waiting for somebody, and hearing his son's voice was a small disappointment, but he laughed and caught him up all the same.

Chen Shaoyuan was beside himself and whooped.

The village bell went just then. Yao Shangqing's work lately was the lighter sort and near the village, and fewer work points with it, but Yue Chuan had arranged it all very carefully.

Yao Shangqing came home at nearly a run. Everybody knew the third Chen son was back and nobody thought it strange.

The moment Chen Yougong saw his wife he let go of Chen Shaoyuan and took two steps forward.

Chen Shaoyuan stood there a second, then let it go and went skipping into the yard.

"Brother. Fish, fish." Chen Yuanyuan pointed at the fish in the basin. Old Mrs. Chen had it out already and was cleaning it, ready to cook the moment Yao Shangqing was home.

Chen Shaoyuan was astonished at the size of it too. He dropped his school bag and went to stand with Chen Yuanyuan and watch their granny work.

Yao Shangqing was glad to see Chen Yougong, and then the look he gave her turned her face red, and she went quickly past him into the yard.

Before long Chen Yougang and Li Yue'e were home as well.

The two brothers had a good deal to say to each other.

Chen Youliang and Zhao Qinhua came off work too, and went past the Chen gate.

Chen Yougong carried on as though he hadn't seen them.

Chen Youliang closed his fists and went into his own place without a word.

Zhao Qinhua was pulling faces before she was through the door.

Chen Dayu and Chen Xiaoyu kept out of the way and didn't dare move.

"Did you see him? You're his elder brother and he won't even greet you. Does he want it out in the open?" Zhao Qinhua shut the door and started.

Chen Youliang sat on a stool and said nothing. It was true. The third one had never treated him as an elder brother. He could earn, so he looked down on all of them, and if it weren't for today he wouldn't have seen it. Well then. From now on each of them could go his own road.

"That's enough. Go and cook."

Zhao Qinhua was furious with him and went off to the kitchen with a bad grace.

She was no sooner out of the room than she heard laughing in the yard next door. She listened. Fish? The fish the third brother had brought home?

"Go and ask your granny what they're having over there." Zhao Qinhua looked at Chen Dayu and Chen Xiaoyu.

Chen Dayu stood where she was. She wasn't going. They had split, and their third uncle hadn't spoken to their dad, and now they were to go over there.

Chen Xiaoyu thought quickly. "Mum, we'll go." And she took hold of Chen Dayu and dragged her out.

Yao Shangqing was going to stew the whole fish, with some other vegetables from the house, all in the big pot, which made everything taste good, and cornmeal cakes baked round the edge.

Chen Dayu felt the shame of it. Their third uncle had been so good to them.

Chen Xiaoyu pulled her into the yard.

Old Mrs. Chen was outside sweeping.

"What are you two doing here?"

Chen Dayu kept her mouth shut and wouldn't speak.

Chen Xiaoyu could smell the kitchen. She swallowed, pulled her mouth down and got it out with a sob in her voice. "Granny, we're so hungry. We never get enough at home."

Chen Yougong heard it in the kitchen and came out, and looked at his two nieces.

"Eat here, the pair of you. Don't go back yet." One or two more bowls was nothing to him, and he did feel for them, or he wouldn't have been willing to pay for their schooling. Girls should read more. Reading is a good thing and teaches you how the world works, and he hadn't had much of it.

Old Mrs. Chen saw her son agree and said nothing herself. They were her granddaughters and of course she felt for them too.

There was gladness in Chen Xiaoyu's eyes. It was lucky she was quick, or she would still be at home being shouted at.

Chen Yuanyuan came over on her short legs and took her two sisters by the hand. She loved playing with her sisters.

"Look. Rabbits." Chen Yuanyuan smiled with her eyes narrowed. She was going to take Chen Xiaoyu's hand, then felt something and took Chen Dayu's instead.

Chen Xiaoyu went over smiling as well.

"They've grown fast. You feed them well, Yuanyuan."

Chen Dayu had too much on her mind. She knew her sister meant it, and something about it still felt wrong.

Yuanyuan's head was a bit muddled. Something about Xiaoyu wasn't the same. She tugged at Chen Dayu's hand.

"Look. Rabbit. Grow up. Eat them." Yuanyuan got it out two words at a time.

It took Chen Dayu a moment, then she laughed and rubbed her head. "Who told you we're eating them?"

Chen Yuanyuan pushed her lip out and pointed at Chen Shao'er, drawing in the dirt with a stick by the kitchen door. "Second. Second brother."