Chapter 27

Chen Dayu picked up a spoiled cabbage leaf and started feeding the rabbits too.

"It's your second brother who wants to eat them. He's teasing you."

Chen Yuanyuan nodded. Her second brother wanted to eat them. She wavered. Could he eat something else? She wanted to keep them.

Food cooked in the big pot comes out well. A hard fire of firewood under it, fish stewing in the iron pot with cornmeal cakes baked round the edge, and the smell carried straight out of the house to the eldest brother's side and to Li Guilan's too. This time old Mrs. Chen didn't send any out. Let the family enjoy itself. If people smelled it, well, the third son was home, and couldn't they eat something good for once?

She served it all out into a big basin. She had put in sweet potato noodles and potato noodles made in the village, since there was no shortage of sweet potatoes and potatoes, and the old people all knew how to make them. The village made them together, handed the quota to the commune and shared out the rest. There were bamboo shoots dug on the hill in it as well, and the sliced shoots came out fresher still for the fish, and the noodles took up all the soup, so that one mouthful nearly took your tongue with it.

The Chens hadn't eaten properly in weeks, with the worry of it. Now there was a great basin of food on the table, even if most of it was vegetables.

Old Mrs. Chen was happy too, and without the eldest's wife stirring the house up she wasn't nearly so strict about the sharing out.

Every grown-up got a full bowl. Less fish than vegetable, naturally, which didn't make it any less good.

The older ones could have fish on their own. The little ones couldn't. There were too many bones, and a bone caught in the throat was no joke.

Yao Shangqing ate and fed Chen Shaozhi at the same time. Yuanyuan couldn't manage much.

Old Mrs. Chen gave her all the soft boneless part by the head. The fish was down to Yuanyuan, after all.

Chen Dayu and Chen Xiaoyu hadn't eaten anything this good in a long time, and they went at it.

By the end of the meal nearly everyone had hiccupped.

Zhao Qinhua had made her gruel at home and warmed the buns, and seeing that the two girls had gone over and not come back, she was ready to burst.

Chen Chengzhuang could smell it at home and made a fuss about going over.

Zhao Qinhua wasn't having him go. What if that old woman had turned against him and let him be picked on?

"There, pet. Shall Mum boil you an egg?"

Chen Chengzhuang made a scene, and then he couldn't smell the fish any more, so he settled for the egg.

Chen Youliang sat at the table looking at the food in front of him, and then at Chen Chengzhuang, soothed at last.

"What do you spoil him like that for? If he won't behave, hit him."

Zhao Qinhua bit into her bun. "What's he done? He wanted something nice to eat, that's all. If you were any use, would he be making a fuss about a bit of fish?" She could have died of regret. They shouldn't have split so early. Now her name was no better for it and she got nothing out of anything, and all that swallowing of her pride had been for the money the third brother earned.

That set Chen Youliang off. His whole face went hard. He hated being measured against anyone.

"You shut your mouth." And he threw his chopsticks down on the table.

Chen Chengzhuang, who had only just stopped snivelling, jumped.

Zhao Qinhua wasn't afraid of him. She was on her feet at once. "What? Isn't it the truth?"

Chen Youliang got his temper down slowly, picked the chopsticks up again, and quietly took a mouthful of vegetables.

Zhao Qinhua decided she had won, gave him a glare, took Chen Chengzhuang by the hand and went off to the kitchen. She couldn't understand the chicken and the duck they had been given. An egg every ten days. It wore her out. She had stopped feeding them properly and meant to go to the commune tomorrow and trade for some chicks.

Chen Xiaoyu was ready to go home after the meal, but she saw Chen Dayu go and find their granny, so she didn't follow. She could guess what her sister wanted to say.

Chen Dayu was uneasy. "Granny, I know what my mum and dad do isn't right. I do know it. But I'm small and I can't say anything." She finished with her head down, ashamed, because they were her parents.

Old Mrs. Chen let out a long breath and was about to speak when Chen Yougong came in, not knowing Chen Dayu was there.

"What is it?" He was frowning. What had his brother and his wife done now?

Old Mrs. Chen shook her head. "Dayu and Xiaoyu are good children. I was going to ask you, in fact. Your brother can't afford to send them to school, and your brother's wife, being what she is, won't. What do you say?"

Chen Yougong had nothing to say about it. What grown-ups did had nothing to do with children.

"What's to say? I can earn, so they go to school. If we can pay for it we pay for it. Education's a good thing."

That was old Mrs. Chen's meaning as well. Her own eldest brother had two more years of schooling than anyone, and he still hadn't retired, working in the county factory, though he had cut the family off. Reading is a good thing. It makes a better life, never mind riches. It teaches you your letters and how the world works.

Hearing Chen Yougong, Chen Dayu's tears came down in a rush.

"Third uncle, I'll, I'll write you a note for it, and when I'm grown I'll pay it back." She could hardly get it out for sobbing.

Chen Yougong laughed. "Why have you gone all halting? You sound like Yuanyuan." Having made his joke he turned serious. "What are you crying for? We're one family, and a family holds together. When there's trouble we help each other, or what's a family for? Isn't that right?"

Chen Dayu nodded hard through the crying. She knew, and she would remember it always.

She wiped her eyes and waited a while before going out. She knew her third uncle would never take her money, but she was going to keep count of every bit of it, and remember what he had done for her.

On the way home she quietly told Chen Xiaoyu.

Chen Xiaoyu was glad about it. How fine it would be to be their third uncle's child.

Time came for Chen Shaoyuan and the others to go to school, and once they had gone it was nearly the bell for work.

Chen Yougong was getting ready for the fields as well. A work point was a work point.

And then there were firecrackers going off outside.

Old Mrs. Chen thought something interesting was happening and hurried out to look.

Yue Chuan came along with a great red flower in his hand and several neatly dressed officials behind him, all beaming.

"What's all this?" Old Mrs. Chen looked at him blankly.

Yue Chuan's grin got wider and wider. "Congratulations, auntie. These comrades are from the county. They've come to give Yougong an award."

Old Mrs. Chen narrowed her eyes. An award? What award?

"Yougong, come out here." She shouted it into the yard.

That brought the whole household out.

The firecrackers had brought out everyone in the village who was at home getting ready for work. It had to be a great occasion. Who wastes money on firecrackers otherwise?

"Which of you is comrade Chen Yougong?" asked a man in an army-green jacket.

Chen Yougong nodded. "That's me."

The man smiled and handed him the certificate. "Comrade Chen Yougong, you are a good comrade. You put yourself in danger to help our public security comrades in the struggle against evil forces. This is your award. Take it."

It came to him then and he took it quickly. "Thank you. I only did the first thing that came into my head at the time. I didn't think about it."

The man in the green jacket looked at him with satisfaction. "The first thing that comes into your head is the truest thing. Comrade Chen Yougong is a good comrade with a sense of justice." Then he turned and waved a hand.

The men behind him brought forward what they had been carrying covered up. "This is the county's award to you. Ten jin of oil, thirty jin of pork and fifty jin of white flour."

As he uncovered it, every onlooker there drew breath. Good heavens, the amount of it. The sight of the meat alone made you swallow, let alone the oil, and the white flour. What exactly had the third Chen son done? These officials wouldn't say.

Seeing it made Zhao Qinhua ache. If they hadn't split, a share of that would have been theirs. What a waste.

Wang Fen was in the crowd too, grinding her teeth to powder. She had found a carpentry master and sent eggs and sweets ahead a day in advance, and the day after that the third Chen son had his accident, so she hadn't let her son go. And how long was it before he turned round and became a man who had genuinely earned merit, living up to his name? All she had to show for it was the eggs and the sweets, wasted.

Chen Youliang felt they were all there to enjoy his humiliation. His face burned and he stopped waiting in the gateway and went back inside.

Old Mrs. Chen came to herself and slapped her thigh. "Oh my word. If you hadn't told me, leader, I'd never have known our third son had earned anything. He's a plank with the mouth sawn off, he never tells his family a thing. Why give us all this? It's no more than anyone should do."

The green-jacketed cadre smiled. "You'll be comrade Chen's mother. You raised him well, to have a son like this."

That one sentence left old Mrs. Chen smiling so hard her eyes nearly disappeared.

"Come in, come in and sit down and have some tea." Her voice carried beautifully now. Envy away. This was her son.

"No, no. We hand these out and then we report back. We won't take tea in your house." They had their rules. On official business you didn't sit drinking tea in people's homes.

Old Mrs. Chen didn't know the rules. Yue Chuan did. "That's right, auntie. It isn't done."

That was that. Yue Chuan saw the time, and Chen Yougang and old Mrs. Chen carried the things inside.

Yue Chuan went along to see the men off.

Old Mrs. Chen shut the gate and stood in the yard laughing out loud. After this, who wouldn't think better of the Chens? There was more to look forward to every year. And those dozens of jin of meat with plenty of fat on them would render down into lard, so oil would be no worry for two years.

The whole family was beside itself.

Yuanyuan clapped. She was going to have meat, and her second brother was going to have meat, so nobody would eat her rabbits. Lovely.

Yao Shangqing, though, was worried. Putting himself in danger. If something had happened, what would she and the children have done? She knew what he had done was right, and she couldn't help the fear of it.

"Tell me what happened. I've been so glad since you came back I never thought to ask."

Back in their own room, she started on him.

Seeing the state of her, he explained at once.

Yao Shangqing's heart went out to children too easily. She thought of the ones who had been taken and sold, and let out a long breath.

Chen Yougong knew his wife. "I'll find a time. Shall we go and see your mum and dad?"

The turn was so sharp that it took her a moment, and then she was delighted. The way things were, she had been afraid that her own selfishness would bring trouble on the whole Chen family, and much as she wanted to go, it had been over a year. The last time was when they found Yuanyuan.

"Really? But I'm afraid of what it might bring on the family."

He shook his head and put his arms round her.

"Don't worry, I'll find a way. And it's no more than I should do. They gave me a daughter as good as you, and she's given me three children. I should be thanking them."

It went straight into her. She wiped the corner of her eye.

The two of them talked it through properly in the room.

When the time came, the Chens all went out to the fields.

Old Mrs. Chen stayed at home. Looking at everything that had suddenly appeared in her house made her chest flutter. Where was she going to put it all?

She went round and round the house, which Yuanyuan thought a fine game, so she went round and round after her, copying.

Old Mrs. Chen turned and found Yuanyuan at her heels doing it all properly, and found it so funny that she bent down and swept her up.

"You dear little thing. How are you such good company?"

Yuanyuan nodded, eyes creased up with smiling. "Fun. Eat meat, eat meat." She had been thinking about it.

"You greedy kitten. You're too small, you can't eat much meat." Old Mrs. Chen held her and looked at the great piece of meat in the house.

Yuanyuan was thinking she wouldn't eat it, her second brother could, and then he wouldn't eat the rabbits. It was too long a thought to say.

Old Mrs. Chen set Chen Shao'er to the fire and separated the fat from the lean, then started rendering the fat down, and before long the whole yard smelled of it.

Chen Yuanyuan wouldn't go anywhere else. She stayed in the kitchen. Eat up, second brother.

Old Mrs. Chen poured the rendered lard into the family's oil jar and set the cracklings aside. She would make dough, get some noodles and chives, and wrap cornmeal buns round it, which would smell wonderful.

She was busy all afternoon, and when the others came off work and out of school she was still wrapping buns.

Chen Yuanyuan had been so happy all day, and run so far, that she ate one steamed egg and fell asleep.

When Chen Yougong got home he waited for a quiet moment and told his mother.

"Ma, I'm going to find a time soon to go and see my wife's parents." He watched her face as he said it. Raising it usually put her out of temper.

This time she was perfectly calm. "Pick your time, then, and ask the right people. I'll make something for you to take."

He hadn't expected to get through so easily.

"Thanks, Ma."

She glared at him. "What thanks? Don't talk to me like that."

That evening there was rice soup and the vegetable buns, with cracklings in them, wonderfully good. She made a whole basket and barely a dozen were left.

Chen Yougang and Chen Yougong, two grown men, ate the most.

The Chens ate well that night and went to bed early.

Next door, Zhao Qinhua couldn't sleep. Every time she shut her eyes she saw white fat meat, and oil, and the ache of it was terrible, and regret was no use to her.

Chen Yougong was home barely two days before he went back to work in the county. The county thought very highly of him now. A capable comrade like that was an example to everyone.

At the commune he ran into the brigade leader of the next village, Zhoujia Village. His name was Zhou Jiefang.

Chen Yougong had always gone quietly and in secret to see his wife's parents. Now that he had met the head of their village, he naturally started thinking of another way.