Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin [7]
“He is not home yet!” I replied, frightened, but relieved she was alive.
She sighed. “Help me up.”
I was too small to be of much help. I held one of her hands to support her but after a few wobbling steps she crashed to the ground again. I felt useless.
“I’m going to have a little rest here,” she said. “Go home and see if your dia or any of your brothers are back.”
I flew home. No one was there. I rushed around trying to find help. Eventually I saw a man riding his bike home. “Da … Ye! Are you in a hurry?” I stuttered.
“Not particularly. Why?” he replied, puzzled.
“My niang fainted on the Northern Hill and can’t get home. Please help her. She is dying! Please! I beg you!”
“Don’t worry, leave it to me.” He hopped onto his bike and pedaled off as fast as he could, with me running behind. He reached my niang and was already on the way down with her, propped on the back of his bike. I quickly gathered up all the clothes but had nothing to carry them with. I wrapped all the long pieces around my neck, waist, and arms, and carried the small pieces against my chest on the wooden washing-board. Those muddy clothes were extremely heavy but I managed to get everything home.
By the time I arrived, my fourth aunt and some other women had already begun to put cold wet towels over my niang’s forehead.
That was the first time I ever saw my niang ill. She couldn’t get out of bed for nearly a week. The “barefoot doctor” in our village gave her medicine she had to take three times a day with warm water. The barefoot doctor was one of Mao’s inventions, a product of the Cultural Revolution. They were supposed to live among the peasants, live like peasants. Their precious shoes wouldn’t be useful in the muddy fields, and that is why they were known as barefoot doctors. By the early 1970s, facing a severe shortage of doctors and nurses in the countryside, Mao ordered clinics and hospitals to train as many people as possible and send them to the countryside. He criticized the medical profession for avoiding the communes.
Despite the barefoot doctor’s medicine, my niang’s fever wouldn’t break, and she kept having dizzy spells. I often placed my hands onto the frosted window and then onto my niang’s burning forehead to help cool her down.
That week, my dia had to cook, wash, clean, and get my brothers ready for school. Dinner was always late since he had to finish his day’s quota before he could come home. My dia’s cooking was very basic but nobody complained. We knew how serious my niang’s illness was. I was so frightened my niang might die. “Look after your dia if I don’t make it,” she said. “Maybe I will die young, like my mother.”
Everyone in the family, all the way down to five-year-old Jing Tring, was expected to pull his weight. My niang was worried that my dia might get sick from overworking: we would not survive if he got sick. But he never showed any signs of fatigue though he was very quiet.
Over the next few weeks, my niang gradually recovered. Exhaustion and starvation were the likely causes of her illness. Her health was never quite the same; she suffered from dizzy spells ever after. My dia wanted her to stop working in the fields, but the reality was that our family couldn’t live on my dia’s wage alone. Eventually he agreed to my niang working in the fields part-time, to ensure our survival.
Every day except Sunday, my dia would ride his old bike to work in the town of Laoshan. It was a good half-hour away. He had paid someone in the flea market ten yuan for that beloved second-hand bike. It was so precious to him that we were never allowed to touch it. He had to carry all kinds of heavy materials—huge grain sacks, big pieces of stone—as part of his job. He was also the driver’s righthand man: when the truck had to reverse he would guide the driver, sitting alongside. I was very proud of him. A truck was impressive—most transport was still done by horse and cart in the communes. His job was considered one of the better-paid jobs in the county and many