Tales of the Huai River: The Riverbed

Winter, 1958. Father spat blood and was left paralyzed after an argument over river works. The Wang family’s backbone was broken. The eldest son, like a sail catching the wind, passed his teacher-training exams and went far away, becoming a “respectable man” who sent money home every month. Mother was shrewd and calculating. The daughters married young, and when they came home, all they left behind were cheap gifts and loud sobs.

At eleven, Shouren became a silent riverbed. From then on, his life was confined to the bedside where his father lay ill. His dream of taking the college entrance exam was shattered by reality. He picked up his chisel and axe, and the flying wood shavings became his silent protest. He married Xiulan, who asked for no bride price, and started a family in a leaky shack. When Father was critically ill, he begged his sisters for help, but all he got was humiliation and two yuan. In the end, Xiulan sold her only silver bracelet.

After Father died, he squeezed onto a green train heading north. Dust, sweat, and green money orders made up his entire life. Coughing blood, he built a three-room brick house, brick by brick, and paid off every debt. At last, like a lamp burned dry, he was coughed back to his native soil by fate. Then Mother fell ill, and the family’s last vestige of respectability was torn to shreds. Once again, Xiulan took everything upon herself.

Spring Festival, 2018. His children and grandchildren filled the house. Lying in the home he had built, he held Xiulan’s hand. In his palm were the few cold copper coins Father had hidden in a crack in the wall before he died. The Huai River flowed silently outside the window, carrying away calculation, illness, and death. All it left behind was him: a riverbed that had borne everything, silent as an ink line.