His father, Chen E (Forehead), with the style name Tianting (Middle of the Forehead), was theonly man in the village with two wives. A well-educated man, he came from a family that had farmeda hundred acres of prime land, run a distillery, and owned a business in Harbin before theestablishment of the People’s Republic. Chen’s first wife, a local, had borne him four daughters. Hefled north just before Liberation, but was brought back from the northeast in the custody1 of YuanLian and a pair of militiamen around 1951. He had fled alone, leaving his wife and daughters at homein the village, but brought another woman back with him. This woman, who had brown hair and blueeyes and looked to be in her early thirties, was called Ailian. She carried in her arms a spotted2 dog,and since she and Chen E had married before Liberation, it was perfectly3 legal for him to have twowives. Poor, unmarried village men were upset that Chen had two wives and half jokingly asked himif they could share one of them. Chen could only grin in response, a look somewhere betweenlaughing and crying. The two Chen wives lived in the same house at first, but since they fought likecats and dogs, Chen received permission to put his junior wife up in two rooms next to the school,given that the school buildings had once housed his family’s distillery, which meant that the tworooms counted as his property. He reached an agreement with the women that he’d divide his timebetween them. The dog the light-haired woman had brought with her was tormented4 to death byvillage mongrels, and not long after Ailian buried it she gave birth to Chen Bi. People liked to saythat he was a reincarnation of the spotted dog, which might explain his ultra keen sense of smell. Bythat time, my aunt had returned from the county seat, where she’d gone to learn the newest methodsof midwifery. She became the first professional midwife in the entire township. That was in 1953.
In 1953, villagers were adamantly5 opposed to new midwifery methods, thanks to rumours6 spreadby old midwives, who said that children born through these methods were prone7 to be arthritic8. Whywould they spread such rumours? Because once the new methods caught on, they’d be out of work.
Delivering a baby at the mother’s home meant a free meal, a pair of towels, and a dozen eggs.
Whenever these women entered the conversation, my aunt – Gugu – ground her teeth in anger. Shecould not begin to calculate how many infants and pregnant women had died at those old witches’
hands. Her descriptions of their methods were chilling: they grew long fingernails, their eyes emittedgreen will-o’-the-wisp-like glimmers9, and their breath stank10. She said they pressed down on themother’s belly11 with rolling pins and stuffed rags in their mouths to keep the foetuses from coming outthere. They knew nothing about anatomy12 and were totally ignorant of a woman’s biological make-up.
When they encountered a difficult birth, according to Gugu, they crammed13 their hands up the birthcanal and pulled with all their might, sometimes actually wrenching14 the womb out along with thefoetus. For the longest time, if I’d been asked to compile a list of people most deserving to be linedup and shot, I’d unhesitatingly say: the old midwives. Gradually I came to understand why Gugu wasso prejudiced against them. Crude, ignorant old midwives certainly did exist, but experienced oldmidwives who, through their own experience, had a keen grasp of the secrets of a woman’s body,existed as well. Truth be told, my grandmother was one of those midwives, one who advocated apolicy of interfering15 as little as possible into the process. Her approach could be characterised as ‘themelon will fall when it is ripe’. In her view, the best midwives simply offered encouragement as theywaited for the foetus to emerge, then cut the umbilical cord, sprinkled on some lime, wrapped thechild, and that was that. But she was not a popular old midwife, considered by some to be lazy. Thosepeople seemed to prefer women whose hands were constantly busy, who kept running in and out ofthe room, shouting and carrying on; those old midwives perspired16 as much as the woman in labour.
My aunt was the daughter of my great-uncle, who had served as a doctor in the Eighth RouteArmy. He’d entered the army as a specialist in traditional Chinese medicine, but then had been taughtWestern medicine by the Canadian Norman Bethune, whose subsequent death from blood poisoninghit him so hard he fell desperately17 ill. He told his superior he wanted to see his mother before he died,a request that was granted so he could recuperate19. Gugu’s grandmother was still alive at the time, andthe minute he walked through the door he was greeted by the familiar smell of mung bean soup. Hismother had washed the pot and started a fire to make the soup, and when her daughter-in-law cameup to help, she pushed her away with her cane20. My great-uncle sat in the doorway21 waitingimpatiently. Gugu said she was old enough then to remember such things, and when she was told togreet her father, she ran behind her mother to peek22 at him from there. She’d often heard her motherand grandmother talk about her father, whom she was now meeting for the first time, and to her hewas a stranger. She told us how he sat in the doorway, sallow-faced, his hair long, fleas23 crawling uphis neck, tufts of cotton wadding peeking24 out through tears in his tattered25 lined coat. Gugu’sgrandmother – my great-grandmother – was in tears as she worked at the stove. When the soup wasfinally ready, Great-Uncle eagerly picked up a bowl and began slurping26, despite the mouth-burningheat. Son, his mother said, slow down. There’s more in the pot. Gugu said his hands were shaking.
He ate a second bowl, and his hands stopped shaking. Sweat ran down the sides of his face. Signs oflife showed in his eyes as the colour returned to his face. Gugu said she could hear his stomachrumble, the sound of a millstone turning. An hour or two later, Gugu said, her father went to theouthouse, where he emptied his bowels27, almost taking his intestines28 along with the loose mixture.
That’s when his recovery began, and within two months he was his old, vigorous self again.
I told Gugu I’d read something like that in The Scholars. The what? she asked. I told her it was afamous classical novel. She glared at me. If things like that happen even in classical novels, thatproves it was true.
Now that he was fully29 recovered, my great-uncle made preparations to rejoin his troops on MountTaihang. Son, his mother said, I can’t live much longer. Wait to go till after my funeral. And therewas another matter his wife found hard to bring up, that was left to Gugu. Father, she said, Motherdoesn’t mind if you go, but she’d like you to leave me a little brother before you do.
Soldiers from the eastern Shandong military district of the Eighth Route Army showed up at Great-Uncle’s house to recruit him, as a follower30 of Norman Bethune, reminding him of his fine reputation.
I already belong to the Shanxi-Chaha’er-Hebei arm, he said. But we’re Communists, just like theyare, the Shandong representative said. It doesn’t matter where you work. We really need someonelike you, Old Wan18, and we’ll do whatever is necessary to keep you here. Commander Xu said if aneight-man sedan chair won’t do the trick, he’d hogtie him and take him under escort to a banquet inhis honour. That is how Great-Uncle wound up staying home in Shandong, where he founded theXihai Underground Hospital.
The hospital had underground passages that linked the wards31 and other rooms, including asterilisation room, a treatment room, an operating theatre, and a recovery room, all of which remainin Zhu Family Village, which is part of Yutong Township in the Laizhou Municipal area, and are stillwell maintained. An old woman of eighty-eight, Wang Xiulan by name, who was Great-Uncle’snurse back then, is still alive and well. Several of the recovery rooms lead directly to a well. One dayback then, a young woman went to the well for water, and was surprised when her bucket stoppedbefore reaching the bottom. She looked down, and there in a hollow in a wall, a young, woundedEighth Route soldier looked up and made a face at her.
Talk of Great-Uncle’s superb medical skills quickly made the rounds. It was he who removed theshrapnel lodged32 near Commander Xu’s scapula. He also managed to save both Political CommissarLi’s wife and her child during a difficult birth. Word had even spread to Pingdu city, which wasunder the command of an officer named Sugitani, whose warhorse had stepped on a land mine duringa mop-up operation. He had taken off on foot, leaving the horse behind. Great-Uncle performedsurgery on the horse, and after it recovered it became the mount for Regimental Commander Xia. Butbefore long, the horse was so homesick it bit through its tether and ran back to Pingdu. Sugitani wasso happy to see his horse again, with its wounds healed, he told his Chinese collaborators to find outwhat had happened. He learned that the Eighth Route Army had established a hospital right under hisnose, and that the medical skills of its director, Wan Liufu, were responsible for saving the life of hishorse. Commander Sugitani, who himself had received medical training, was impressed by Great-Uncle’s skills and summoned him to surrender. To do so, Sugitani adopted a scheme from theclassical novel Three Kingdoms, which was to secretly infiltrate33 our hometown to kidnap my great-grandmother, my great-aunt, and my aunt, and take them back to Pingdu, where he sent a letter toGreat-Uncle, telling him they were being held hostage.
After reading Sugitani’s letter, my great-uncle, a dedicated34 Communist, wadded it up and threw itaway. The hospital commissar retrieved35 the letter and delivered it to district headquarters.
Commander Xu and Commissar Li wrote a joint36 letter to Sugitani, denouncing him as a petty manand threatening to throw the entire weight of the Shandong Eighth Route Army against him if heharmed a hair of any of the three members of Wan Liufu’s family.
Gugu said that she and her mother and grandmother were well treated during the three months theyspent in Pingdu. According to her, Sugitani was a fair-skinned young man who wore white-framedglasses and had a moustache. Quiet and bookish, he spoke37 fluent Chinese. He called my great-grandmother Aunt, called my grandmother Sister-in-law, and called Gugu Niece. She did not have abad opinion of him. Of course, she only said that privately38 to members of the family. To others shesaid that all three were victims of Japanese brutality39, subjected to coercion40 and bribery41, though theyremained steadfast42.
Sensei, I could talk about my great-uncle for three days and nights and never exhaust the subject.
We’ll continue this some other day, but I must tell you about how he died. Gugu said he was gassedwhile performing surgery in the underground hospital. That is how his death is listed in historicaldocuments prepared by the county consultative congress, but a private source claimed that he rode hismule into Pingdu with eight hand grenades on his belt, determined44 to single-handedly rescue his wife,his daughter and his ageing mother, but unfortunately struck a land mine placed by the Zhao FamilyTrench militiamen. The source of this account was Xiao Shangchun (Upper Lip), a stretcher-bearerfor the Xihai Hospital. A quirky individual, Xiao served as the commune granary watchman after1949, where he invented a pesticide45 that was a potent46 rat poison, for which he was extolled47 in thelocal newspaper, which changed his name from the chun that meant ‘lip’ to the one that meant‘purity’. Later it was discovered that the main ingredient of his rat poison was a banned highly toxicpesticide. He and Gugu were bitter enemies, which makes his account highly unreliable. He once saidto me that my great-uncle disobeyed orders by neglecting his patients in favour of playing the hero,and that he’d fortified48 himself before setting out by drinking two jin of potato liquor, winding49 up sodrunk that he stumbled on one of their own land mines. A gloating Xiao Shangchun flashed a yellow-toothed grin as he continued: Your great-uncle and the mule43 he was riding were blown to bits, bothcarried back to the hospital in boxes, bones and hooves all mixed up, and dumped into a coffin50. Not abad coffin, though, one confiscated51 from a wealthy family in Lan Village.
When I repeated his story to Gugu, her eyes grew wide and she gnashed her silver teeth. One ofthese days, she said, I’m going to cut that bastard’s balls off!
Boy, she said staunchly, you can forget about everything else, but the one thing you must believe isthat your great-uncle was a hero of the resistance and a revolutionary martyr52! His body rests in amausoleum on Martyrs53 Hill, his scalpel and leather shoes are part of the display in Martyrs Hall.
They are English shoes, bequeathed to him by Norman Bethune on his deathbed.
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1
custody
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| n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留 | |
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spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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adamantly
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| adv.坚决地，坚定不移地，坚强不屈地 | |
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rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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arthritic
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| adj.关节炎的 | |
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glimmers
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| n.微光，闪光( glimmer的名词复数 )v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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stank
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| n. (英)坝，堰，池塘 动词stink的过去式 | |
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belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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anatomy
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| n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织 | |
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crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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wrenching
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| n.修截苗根，苗木铲根（铲根时苗木不起土或部分起土）v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的现在分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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perspired
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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recuperate
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| v.恢复 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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peek
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| vi.偷看，窥视；n.偷偷的一看，一瞥 | |
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fleas
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| n.跳蚤( flea的名词复数 )；爱财如命；没好气地（拒绝某人的要求） | |
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peeking
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| v.很快地看( peek的现在分词 )；偷看；窥视；微露出 | |
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tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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slurping
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| v.啜食( slurp的现在分词 ) | |
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bowels
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| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
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intestines
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| n.肠( intestine的名词复数 ) | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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follower
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| n.跟随者；随员；门徒；信徒 | |
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wards
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| 区( ward的名词复数 )； 病房； 受监护的未成年者； 被人照顾或控制的状态 | |
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lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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infiltrate
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| vt./vi.渗入，透过；浸润 | |
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dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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retrieved
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| v.取回( retrieve的过去式和过去分词 )；恢复；寻回；检索（储存的信息） | |
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joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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coercion
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| n.强制，高压统治 | |
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bribery
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| n.贿络行为，行贿，受贿 | |
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42
steadfast
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| adj.固定的，不变的，不动摇的；忠实的；坚贞不移的 | |
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mule
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| n.骡子，杂种，执拗的人 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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pesticide
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| n.杀虫剂，农药 | |
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potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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extolled
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| v.赞颂，赞扬，赞美( extol的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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50
coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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51
confiscated
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| 没收，充公( confiscate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52
martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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53
martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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