Country Driving [136]
The computer also examined the boy’s birth date and concluded that of the five traditional elements, water was the one most lacking. I didn’t need a machine to tell me that—pretty much everybody I knew in China was dehydrated. In any case, the computerized solution was to give the boy the character Song, which is the name of a river near Shanghai. Xiao means “little.” That was his new name: Little Song River.
Cao Chunmei’s response was to wash her hands of the whole affair. “Wo bu guan,” she said. “I don’t control that. I don’t much like the name, but it’s not my business. It’s Wei Ziqi’s business.”
We had dinner together on the weekend of the name change. It was Sunday night, and Wei Ziqi had driven down to the valley with another Party member for some mysterious meeting. It had something to do with the upcoming elections—often they met away from the village to avoid drawing attention. Wei Jia had finished his homework, and in the afternoon he read a book about dinosaurs. He was a fourth-grader now, and his reading was good; he still excelled at school. But every time somebody mentioned the new name he became very quiet. I had to ask about it several times before he answered.
“Bu hao,” he finally said. “It’s no good.”
I asked Wei Jia why the name was no good, and he answered in a voice so low it was almost a whisper.
“Bu hao ting,” he said. “It sounds bad.”
And that was all he said—he refused to expand on the topic. At dinner we ate fish and dumplings, and I could tell that Cao Chunmei was distracted. After the meal she made a phone call; she must have been trying to reach Wei Ziqi’s cell phone, but somebody else picked up. She listened for a moment and then cut in impatiently. “He’s drunk, isn’t he?” she said. “Is he coming back tonight? He has to go to Huairou tomorrow morning. Tell him to call me!”
She brooded at the table for most of an hour. Wei Jia seemed oblivious—he was in good spirits, and after dinner we played a game with his chess pieces. He had a bad cough; for a week now he had been struggling with another cold. Finally the phone rang. Cao Chunmei went to the next room to answer it, but I could hear her words.
“You need to come home tonight,” she said sharply. She told him there was a village meeting tomorrow morning at seven o’clock. “Do you understand? You have to come back tonight!”
If Wei Jia heard anything, he gave no indication. We read a couple of his books, and then I told him I’d be back in the morning, to take him to school. On the way out of the house I was surprised to find that Wei Ziqi had returned. He was in the front room, leaning against a table; all the lights were off. When I flicked a switch I realized that the man was so drunk he could hardly stand.
“Are you OK?” I said. But he couldn’t speak either. He slumped against the table, eyes unfocused. Cao Chunmei had followed me into the room. I asked her how he had gotten home.
“Somebody drove his car back,” she said.
“Will he be all right?”
“It’s fine,” she said.
The next morning it was still dark when I picked up Wei Jia. His parents were asleep on the kang, and the boy got ready for school in the family dining room. The place was a mess; a bag of sunflower seeds had been scattered across the floor. I asked him what had happened.
“Dad was drunk,” he said matter-of-factly. “He was trying to pour some water and he spilled it and then he got mad and knocked those seeds everywhere.”
Wei Jia had already dressed in his school uniform and now he