Mister Quiet

OMBRE_CHINOISE_BUFFLE

“Today is the day you start to become a man, Mr. Quiet,” Old Man Wei told his son one early summer morning in 1964.

“Okay,” the boy said. Normally he wouldn’t have spoken at all, but one of his father’s rules was that the boy must answer when spoken to. All the other rules were about farm work.

“Now they can’t take this,” the father said, pulling open the door to the granary shed. The silage fumes rolled out like a rancid storm. “But also, you can’t eat it. So you better make sure it works. It’s like gold right now, see?” The boy muttered another okay and shook his head. Old Man Wei pulled a folding knife from his pocket and cut into the plastic. “You cut high up here, see? Like this. If you cut low it will spill out on the ground.” The father arched his eyes, asking a question without speaking. The boy did not answer, and so the father said, “What happens then, Mr. Quiet?”

“Gold on the ground,” the son said.

“That is correct,” his father said smiling, “gold on the ground.” He pulled a stool and placed the boy on it, showing him how to pull the hay into the bag. After a couple of scoops together, the boy was working well on his own. “You’re a natural,” Old Man Wei said after the boy was done. “No one lives forever and you have to know how to do this. Your mother would be proud.”

The boy’s head left the granary shed as he was placed on the ground and they began to walk. His head found his mother. The way his father talked, it was like she was already dead. Which she wasn’t, not in body anyway. She was inside, putting away the tools of breakfast and getting ready to join them in the field. But for a year she had recoiled from any emotional involvement towards the family. She was a robot, Little Wei thought, a science-fiction creature without soft corners that ate electricity. That’s the way Old Liu told it, anyway, and he seemed like a smart man. Old Liu knew things from outside of Stonefield, and even from outside of China.

“Do you think you know how to do it?” Old Man Wei asked his son when they made it to the ox. “I know you’ve seen it before, but do you think you can do it?”

“Okay,” the boy said.

His father took the feedbag off his own shoulder and handed it to his son. The boy was unnaturally strong for a six-year-old, able to hold it in front of him with both hands. Old Man Wei watched, ready to intervene at the sight of danger. He had seen people die from this, even people that did it for a while. Sometimes it was just a mean ox, but mostly it was because they forgot. The approach mattered most. If you came straight on at the beast it could take a bite at you. That was usually survivable. What was more dangerous was to come straight up from behind. Get there with an ox in a bad mood and it would kick you. That was often fatal but in times like this almost certainly so. Much of what rice they raised nowadays was requisitioned for the state, though not as bad as before. Someone with a broken arm or leg, out of work for a couple of months, that person would draw down the little food left for everybody. It was like blowing a hole in the life raft.

But the boy needed no correction. He approached from the side. And not just that, he was smart about it. Little Wei was careful not to move too fast and make a splash in the water. When he made it to the ox, he did not throw the feedbag on either, not right away. First contact was to rub an ear. Then he slid his hand behind the ear and scratched. The ox rubbed towards the scratch, a good sign, and let off a whisper of a whinny. When his wife still had it together, Little Wei’s father had a thousand arguments with her about the proper raising of a child. His mother argued that the boy must be raised hard, for hard times were ahead, but the father never agreed. Now it seemed his argument was winning out, the softness paying off. The feedbag was connected without problems and the ox ate.

Old Man Wei kept the boy beside him as the ox pulled along through the morning. He even let the boy grab the reins, although not hold them all on his own. It was important he understand the feel of it without getting dragged or breaking an arm. The life raft. As the sun rose from behind Sun Hill and the fog dissipated, the father spoke only to give instructions. Little Wei never answered for none of them were questions. It worried the father that the boy never talked now. He used to. Up until about a year ago he talked as much as any kid, but then the death of his big brother had ended all that. It was unknowable if the boy’s quietness were something he took after his mother or if it struck them both at the same time. Old Liu, a neighbor, gave the boy the nickname. Although his father wasn’t sure if making light of it were the right thing, he knew that Old Liu meant well. There was a softness in that man that only Wei and him possessed. So when the name stuck, even Little Wei’s father started using it.

Noon found them on the levee with the Liu family. A light wind picked up, blowing the steam from their bowls of porridge. Old Liu pointed with his chopsticks at the ox. He said, “How was he this morning?”

Old Man Wei nudged his boy sitting next to him. The boy said, “Not bad.”

“How do you think he will work for us this afternoon?” Old Liu asked. His eyebrows were thick as fat fingers. They bobbed up and down as he spoke.

Little Wei did not wait for the nudge this time. He said, “Not bad.”

“A man of few words. I respect that,” Old Liu said and laughed. He added, “Mr. Quiet.”

“I saw you put the feedbag on today,” said Old Liu’s son. The boy was rail thin. His elbows shot out like knives as he held up his bowl to his face. He had the same eyebrows as his father. “Was it hard?”

“Not bad,” Little Wei said.

Old Liu was about to make another comment when they heard singing, distant but beautiful. All heads turned figuring on finding a woman, but were surprised to find a small girl. Their mistake was understandable, though, because she was humming through her nose. She swung her fists as she walked, making a left face at the intersecting portion of the levee and heading towards them. They recognized the old the army song as she approached. Their confusion was born of the fact that she sang in such an upbeat way.

“Who is that?” Little Wei’s mother said. This caused all the heads to turn back towards her. It was the first question they could remember her asking in a year.