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By Root 1369 0

they could, they could only write their own names and read a few numbers. It was the same with all the country folks. They all walked a road which others had made for them; they had only to follow in those ancient footsteps. Because it was such an old, well-trodden road, it saved them a lot of trouble. The new road that Ah-Fat had taken, however, had to be hacked out by Ah-Fat alone, and it had been a gruelling process. He had left his youthful vigour behind on the railroad in Canada. At thirty-one years old, he bore the scars of his ordeal all over his body, and he was halfway to being an old man. At his age, the village men were grandfathers, while he was not yet even a father. He had lived a tough life and what he needed now was a woman who would nestle close to him and lick his wounds. Any woman could do that, no matter whether she could read or write—and that was the reason why he had finally agreed to his mother’s choice of wife for him.

He just wanted an honest wife who could endure hardship and who would serve his mother as a dutiful daughter-in-law should.

Or so he repeatedly tried to persuade himself. But he still had lingering regrets. They niggled like a tiny muscle in his back which every now and then gave him a twinge, but which did not stop him working or walking.

Ah-Fat had seen not a soul in the village. The only sound was the scuffing of his footsteps on the stony surface of the lane. The sun gradually rose higher and the wind got up, making his long gown flap around his legs. The earth felt as hard under his feet as it always did at the end of winter yet he also had the feeling that under that solid surface, there was a world of creatures marshalling themselves for spring. As he passed the old well, he spotted a child squatting on the ground having a crap. “Where’s everyone got to?” said Ah-Fat. The child looked scared. After a long pause, he said: “Market … it’s market day, isn’t it?” Of course, it suddenly dawned on him that today was the eighteenth of the first lunar month—a big market day. Everyone would have gone there.

Half a dozen hungry strays snarled around him and snapped at his trouser cuffs. From the front opening of his jacket, he got out a lotus-leaf dumpling stuffed with sausage and rice, left over from his journey, and threw it down. The dogs forgot him straightaway and scrambled for the dumpling. Ah-Fat laughed: “Sonofabitch, Ginger!” He suddenly realized that he had shouted the name of another dog—one he had never forgotten in all these years, the one who had saved all of them in the tent, who had actually licked his hand with his last breath. After Ginger, he had never beaten a dog that came begging for food.

It took him only thirteen paces today to get from the road to their house. He must have grown in the years since he left. The old stone lions still stood by the door. His father had bought them from a Fujian stonemason at the time he had the house built. Carved on the back of the lions’ ears were the mason’s name and the year the work was finished. When he and Ah-Sin were children, they often used to ride these lions as if they were horses, eventually making a shiny patch on the back of each beast. When their father smoked his opium, and was in a good mood, he would call for a boy to bring out a reclining chair so he could lie in the entrance, sunning himself as he watched his sons riding the lions and shooting sparrows in the trees with their toy bows and arrows.

Ah-Fat gave the lions a rub. They seemed smaller and somehow less fierce. There was a fine crack along the back of one.

The stones have got old too, thought Ah-Fat.

The main entrance was shut tight. The brass rings of the door knockers seemed like two eyes peering shyly at him. The door was still painted in vermilion red, although it was not the same vermilion he remembered. The old red had known his father, his brother, Ah-Sin, and his sister, Ah-Tou, and had seen many things happen to the family. But this fresh red had wilfully covered everything up. It knew nothing of tears and death and was utterly superficial.