Binu and the Great Wall of China Read Online Free PDF Page B

madwoman?’

    ‘I’m cleaning a gourd,’ she said.
    ‘I see that,’ said Xiaozhuo, ‘but you’re supposed to cut it in two and throw the two halves into the water vat to be used as ladles. So why clean it?’
    ‘People have cut up all the other gourds, but this one is mine, and it will not be turned into ladles.’
    ‘What right do you have to let other gourds be cut in two, but not this one?’ Xiaozhuo shouted derisively. ‘Is it the king of all the gourds?’
    Binu said, ‘Xiaozhuo, have you forgotten that I was a gourd in a previous life? Haven’t you heard that I am going to the north and will die on the road? Well, when I die, I do not want to be cut in two to float in other people’s water vats. I must make myself clean and then bury my namesake whole in Peach Village. Once that is done, I can set out with peace of mind and can save Qiliang from worries.’
    Sensibly Binu used the last remaining water in the vat, first to clean her gourd, then to wash Xiaozhuo’s hair. However badly the boy treated her, she was, nonetheless, fond of him. But she could not stand his filthy head, nor its sour stench. When she finished washing his long hair, there was not enough water left for her to wash her own, so she dipped her comb in the little water that remained; but before she had finished combing out herhair, she ran outside, hairpin in her mouth, to see what time it was. The sombre look on her face gave everyone to believe that she was planning something. Later, when her neighbours recalled her final moments in Peach Village, they remarked that her immense calm had been more memorable than her madness. They watched her hair billow out like a black cloud as she led Xiaozhuo up the slope, dripping water along the way. She was still carrying her gourd, the top half covered by a not-quite-new silk handkerchief, a red thread pendant hanging from the bottom half. Seeing the villagers’ disdainful gazes, Xiaozhuo wore a look of sheer embarrassment, but Binu held his hand tightly. ‘Madwoman!’ he shouted. ‘Where are you going to bury that gourd?’
    Binu gazed up at North Mountain, where her mother and father were buried. ‘I would like to bury it next to my mother and father but, since I am married to Qiliang, I belong to him and will not be able to attend to the Jiang family gravesite.’
    ‘Then why gaze up at North Mountain? Let’s bury it in Qiliang’s ancestral tombs.’
    ‘Qiliang is an orphan, like you. But you are better off than he is, because he has no ancestral tomb in Peach Village.’
    ‘So, where will you go?’ cried Xiaozhuo impatiently.‘Just find a spot anywhere. After all, you’re burying a gourd, not yourself.’
    ‘Burying a gourd,’ said Binu, ‘is the same as burying myself. I need to find a good spot, a place with a tree, so that the vine can climb. It may be all right to suffer above ground, but not below. The terrain on this slope is high and dry, with daily sunlight, but too many people pass by; a wicked person might come along, dig up the gourd and make ladles out of it.’
    ‘Then bury it lower down.’
    Unsure what to do, Binu examined the slope. ‘This is no good either,’ she said. ‘It is where Sude lets his pigs feed, and if one of his rooting pigs were to dig up this gourd, that greedy Sude would take it home.’
    Xiaozhuo’s patience had run out. ‘This place is no good, that place is no good, so forget about burying it,’ he said. ‘Toss it into somebody’s water vat instead.’
    Binu pushed Xiaozhuo away in a fit of pique and walked the slope alone until she reached an old willow tree, where she saw the frog again. Now that Xiaozhuo was seemingly not around, it had returned, hiding timidly under the willow tree, thinking human thoughts. With the arrival of the frog, Binu once again saw the gaunt shape of the drowned mountain woman, dressed in black and wearing her straw hat. The woman wascrouched under the willow tree waiting for Binu; the woman’s ghost