Bronze and Sunflower Read online

  Bronze suggested that he could take Sunflower.

  “Good idea!” said the adults.

  Nainai toasted some sunflower seeds, and stuffed them into their pockets, to eat while they were watching the show.

  “You must look after Sunflower,” said Nainai.

  Bronze nodded.

  That evening the family ate much earlier than usual, then Bronze and Sunflower joined a crowd of other children from the village, and walked the five kilometres to Daoxiangdu.

  “We’re off to see the circus! We’re off to see the circus!”

  The children chattered and laughed all the way, and every so often the villagers could hear their voices in the distance.

  It was dark by the time they reached Daoxiangdu and a crowd was already gathering on the threshing ground where the show would take place. Bronze and Sunflower were a long way from the stage. The four paraffin lamps hanging from the beam above the stage were so bright they hurt their eyes. They walked around the threshing ground, but all they could see were people shuffling from one leg to the other. Bronze held Sunflower’s hand tightly. He was hoping to squeeze through the crowd and get closer to the stage, but there were no gaps – it was like trying to break through a wall of steel. There were so many people that the air was stifling. Bronze and Sunflower began to sweat, and had to back away from the crowd to get some air.

  More and more people were arriving. People were getting separated in the crowd. Brothers and sisters were calling out to each other, and they could hear one little girl left behind in the fields, sobbing and screaming for her brother.

  Sunflower gripped Bronze’s hand tighter than ever. He wiped the sweat from her forehead with his sleeve.

  There was no room in the trees around the threshing ground. They were already filled with children, perching on the branches like enormous birds. Bronze and Sunflower carried on walking.

  Then a branch snapped, and two children crashed to the ground. There were cries and wails. People in the crowd turned to look, but no one rushed to help. They didn’t want to lose their places.

  Bronze and Sunflower walked round another couple of times. They still couldn’t find a good place. So they went a little bit further out, and looked for something they could stand on to get a better view. In the dark, they found a stone roller lying in a grassy patch not too far from the threshing ground. It was the kind that a buffalo would pull over the threshing ground to remove the husks from the wheat and rice. Bronze was excited, and surprised that no one else had seen it. He pulled Sunflower with him, and they perched their bottoms on it to claim it. They sat there for a while, looking left and right, until they were sure no one would snatch it from them. Then they began to push the stone roller towards the threshing ground. They had to use all their strength just to get it to move. They leant their bodies into it, shifting it forward inch by inch. It was slow, but it worked.

  The other children looked at them enviously. Bronze and Sunflower glanced around anxiously, worried that someone might try to take their prize from them. As soon as they had pushed the stone roller onto the threshing ground, they sat down on it. Sweat dripped from their foreheads and stung their eyes. For a while, they struggled to see.

  Suddenly, there was movement on the stage, and it looked as though the show was about to start. Bronze stood up, and pulled Sunflower up too. Standing on top of the roller they had a clear view of the stage. Sunflower looked round and saw children still wandering about, trying to break through the crowd. She couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. Bronze nudged her, directing her gaze towards the stage. There was a performer preparing to come on. Sunflower stood as close as she could to Bronze and opened her eyes wide.

  There was a beating of drums and a clashing of gongs. The crowd cheered, then settled down. The performer waved to the audience as he walked onto the stage with a monkey. The monkey looked wary at first, but it had done this performance many times before, and immediately started its tricks. It leapt about, full of life, jumping onto its master’s shoulders, then down to the ground. It blinked constantly, drawing attention to its big, round, shiny eyes.

  Then, following its master’s instructions, this wiry, agile monkey began a hilarious routine that had the audience laughing out loud.

  Another child fell out of a tree – he’d laughed so much he’d forgotten where he was. The children still perched in the branches roared with laughter. It was hard to tell if they were laughing at the monkey, or at the child on the ground, who was clenching his teeth and rubbing his buttocks.

  Suddenly, something whacked across Bronze’s legs. He turned and saw a boy who was a full head taller than him, and stockier. He was holding a stick and glaring. Behind him were more boys, looking equally menacing.

  Sunflower was scared. She grabbed Bronze’s hand.

  “Whose roller is this?”

  Bronze shook his head.

  “So you don’t know whose it is, but you’re standing on it anyway?”

  Bronze tried to explain with his hands. “My sister and I …. we found it in the grass and pushed it over here. It was hard work.”

  The boys didn’t understand. Then their leader’s lip curled in contempt. “Hey, he’s a mute!” He banged his stick against Bronze’s leg again. “Come on! Get down!”

  “But we pushed it all the way here!” protested Sunflower.

  He looked her up and down, then from side to side. “That’s not good enough.”

  Then a boy at the back asked, “Where are you from?”

  “Damaidi,” said Sunflower.

  “Well, this is Daoxiangdu and this is our roller. Why don’t you go back to Damaidi and fetch one of your own!”

  Bronze edged himself between Sunflower and the boys. He wouldn’t let them spoil their evening. They had a good view of the stage. They could see the monkey performing. With a little straw hat on its head and a little hammer in its hands, it looked like an old man heading off to work in the fields. The audience howled with laughter.

  Bronze and Sunflower burst out laughing. Then Bronze felt the full force of the stick across his ankle. Pain seared through his body. He looked round at the leader.

  The boy stared back at him. “What? Want to fight?”

  All Bronze wanted to do was stay on the roller so that Sunflower could enjoy the circus. The pain brought him out in a sweat, but he gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to get off the roller and fight.

  “Are you OK?” asked Sunflower.

  Bronze nodded, and told her to watch the show.

  But the boys weren’t going to go away. Bronze could see it in their faces.

  He scanned the crowd, looking for other children from Damaidi who might come over and help him. But he couldn’t see any, except for Gayu, and he didn’t want to ask him. He wasn’t sure if Gayu would help them anyway. Bronze was going to have to deal with the boys alone.

  The gang was dying to see what was happening on the stage. The audience seemed to be having such fun! When the crowd burst out laughing again, they couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Are you going to get off or not?” yelled the boy, brandishing the stick.

  Bronze glared at him. He was not going to give in.

  The boy pointed at Bronze with the stick. “Pull them off!” he told the boy behind him.

  The gang swarmed round. Sunflower was stunned to find herself watching the stage one minute, and on the ground the next. It took her a moment to realize what had happened. Bronze clapped the dust off his hands, helped Sunflower to her feet, led her to a safe place and told her to stay there. Then he turned and made his way back to the gang.

  “Bronze!” cried Sunflower.

  But Bronze didn’t look back. He found the boys crammed together on top of the roller, thoroughly enjoying the show. Bronze stood with his legs apart, tucked his chin into his chest, spread his arms and charged, just like his buffalo would do. The boys were sent flying.

  Bronze climbed back onto the roller and stood there, ready to fight for
his life. The boys stared blankly at their leader. He was on the ground, waiting for them to help him up. Eventually a few of the boys realized what he wanted and went over, but he was so annoyed now that as soon as he was on his feet, he swept them aside with his arm. They looked ashamed.

  The boy started slapping the stick against the palm of his hand. He walked around the roller, and all of a sudden raised the stick and brought it crashing down on Bronze. Bronze managed to dodge it – instinctively he turned to one side, and put his arms up to protect himself. The next time the stick came slashing through the air, he leapt up and wrestled the boy to the ground. The two of them rolled over and over, like the roller that everyone seemed to have forgotten about.

  But Bronze was no match for this boy, who was on top of him now, pressing him to the ground. Panting, the boy motioned for the others to pass him the stick that had fallen from his hand. He tapped it very lightly on Bronze’s forehead. “You need to show me some respect, mute! Otherwise, I’m gonna hurl you and that kid into the river.”

  Bronze struggled, but he couldn’t break free.

  Meanwhile, Sunflower, who had stayed where he left her, was in tears, worrying that something terrible might have happened to him.

  “I want to go home,” she sobbed. “I want to go home…” She waited a little longer for Bronze to return, then ran back towards the roller. When she saw the gang dragging Bronze by his arms to the threshing ground, she charged forward, screaming his name and punching at the boys. They didn’t fight back – they didn’t fight girls. They carried on dragging Bronze, and dodging Sunflower’s gentle blows.

  The gang dumped Bronze in a grassy area beside the threshing ground, then ran back to the roller. Sunflower crouched beside her brother and helped him to sit up. Bronze wiped the blood from his nose and staggered to his feet.

  “Let’s go home, Bronze. We’ve seen enough of the circus,” she said, helping him to move away from the crowd. Bronze would have fought for the roller, but Sunflower’s safety came first. He swallowed his pride and walked towards the road.

  Another peal of laughter rang through the crowd. Sunflower couldn’t help taking a look.

  The villages in this area were so remote and so poor that life was usually very quiet. The villagers often had to travel up to ten kilometres or so just to see a film or a show. So whenever there was an event, the children were so excited. When they’d heard that the travelling circus was in Daoxiangdu, they could think of nothing else.

  Bronze took a few steps, then stopped, grasped Sunflower’s hand and headed back to the threshing ground.

  “Let’s go home, Bronze, we’ve seen enough,” said Sunflower, afraid that he might try and snatch the roller back from the gang.

  In the light of the moon, Bronze gestured with his hands, “I’m not going to fight them. Honestly, I’m not going to fight them.” He set off again, pulling her with him. They found a place that was not too crowded. Bronze bent his knees and crouched down. He patted his shoulders, telling her to climb up.

  Sunflower didn’t move. “Let’s go home,” she said again.

  But Bronze was insistent. He would only get up if she did as he asked. He kept patting his shoulders, until she finally put her hands in his and slid her legs over his shoulders.

  As Bronze stood up, he placed his hand on the back of the man in front for support. The man turned round, but didn’t mind at all. Bronze could see it in his eyes. He even leant forward to offer more support. As Bronze pulled himself up to full height, Sunflower rose higher and higher. She saw the upper back of the kind man in front, then the back of his head and finally the bright lights of the stage. What’s more, there was a nice fresh breeze blowing over the heads of all these people.

  A black bear was performing now. Sunflower had never seen one before and couldn’t help feeling a little scared. She gripped Bronze’s hand tighter. The bear was a greedy so-and-so, and would only perform when he was given food. Otherwise, he’d just lie on the ground and sulk, which had the children in stitches.

  For a while, Sunflower was captivated by the performance. All her attention was on the stage. She felt comfortable and secure on Bronze’s shoulders, and kept steady by holding on to his ears. She watched the bear, then a little dog, then a big dog, then a little cat, then a big cat. She watched the big cat and dog playing together, then a girl on horseback came riding in. One act followed another, delighting the audience. A dog jumping through a ring of fire, a cat riding on a dog’s back, a man on horseback balancing a stack of plates on his head… In moments of excitement Sunflower clapped her hands against Bronze’s head, completely forgetting that she was on his shoulders.

  Bronze held on to Sunflower’s legs. At first he stood very still, but as he grew tired, he began to sway. He gritted his teeth. There were people packed in close in front of him and more behind, so there was little fresh air circulating. He felt stifled. He wanted to take Sunflower away, but he couldn’t find a route through the crowd. Sweat was dripping off him.

  And then everything went black.

  The threshing ground, Sunflower, the circus … it all slipped from his mind. He was on a little boat at dawn. In the misty light of the early morning, a breeze was blowing over the river, rippling the water. The waves rocked the boat, and as the boat rocked, the riverbanks started to sway, and then the villages and trees along the river began to sway too. A little bird appeared, a black bird that he’d met when grazing the buffalo in a remote stretch of reeds. He looked at the bird, and the bird looked at him. It was like a dark spirit, here one minute and gone the next. He saw a spider, spinning its big web between the mulberry and the melia trees at the back of the house. A beautiful spider, deep red in colour. When it rested on its web, it was like a little safflower. Tiny dew drops hung from the gossamer threads, and as the sun rose the web glistened and sparkled…

  As Bronze drifted in the dark, his thoughts floating, his body weightless, he somehow managed to stay on his feet.

  Meanwhile, Sunflower hugged Bronze’s head with the same contentment she felt when hugging the big tree by the river as she watched the waterbirds in spring. As circuses go, this one was quite rough and ready, but she thought it was magical. It was one of the happiest evenings of her life.

  Bronze felt a cool wind on his forehead. He was still light-headed. Although things were blurry, he could see that the crowd was beginning to disperse. He could hear voices shouting. They roared in his ears like waves on the sea. Some people walked in front of him: the Damaidi children, and Gayu. Still dazed, Bronze started to follow them.

  As they left, Sunflower’s thoughts were still on the circus. It had given her such pleasure. She rested her chin on Bronze’s head. “What did you like best?” she asked him. “The black bear? One of the dogs? Maybe the black dog?”

  Silence.

  “I liked the black dog; it was so clever it could read! Did you see the dog leaping through the ring of fire? Were you scared? I was scared it wouldn’t make it and its fur would catch fire.”

  Bronze rocked from side to side as he walked. In the fields, in the dark of night, there were paraffin lamps and torch lights everywhere. It was like being in a dream.

  “What did you like best, Bronze?”

  Then the questions stopped and Sunflower went quiet. She remembered that she’d been sitting on his shoulders. Standing on the threshing ground, he hadn’t seen a thing. And she hadn’t given him a thought.

  And it wasn’t just this evening. He’d been carrying her on his shoulders for years now.

  She looked at the dark fields ahead of them, and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.

  “That’s the last time we go and see the circus,” she said, as one tear after another landed in his sweat-soaked hair.

  The family had borrowed money to build the house, and they had to pay it back by the date that had been agreed. Bronze’s father was a man of his word. Fortunately, they’d got a good price for the lotus root they’d cut in the pond. They’d got m
ore or less what they expected from the beet. And they still had the arrowhead corms to collect from their paddy field.

  Baba had been spending a lot of time in the paddy field recently. Arrowhead was one of the things that people of that region ate at New Year, along with sweet potato and water celery. Arrowhead leaves were shaped like arrowheads, but it was really the corms that were special. They were tubers that grew in the mud but, when washed, looked as round and white and smooth as mushrooms. If Baba waited until just before New Year and took the “lucky mushrooms” to Youmadi, he was bound to get a good price for them. He would put some of the money towards the debt, but the adults also wanted to buy material to make new clothes for Bronze and Sunflower for New Year. They had spent days and nights working out how they might afford it.

  Baba pushed his hands into the slimy mud and felt the corms. They were round and smooth, and getting bigger by the day. He couldn’t bear to pull up a single one, not just yet. He wanted to keep them all in the ground for a bit longer. When the time was right, he’d drain the land, pick them out of the mud, lay them out on a bamboo tray and rinse off the dirt. He pictured himself walking across the fields, the yoke across his shoulders, taking his top-quality arrowhead corms to Youmadi. He could imagine people saying, “There’s money in those baskets!” and “Now that’s what we call lucky mushrooms!” But it wasn’t just Baba, the whole family was depending on that field of arrowheads.

  One day, on his way home from inspecting the arrowhead field, Baba noticed a flock of ducks on the river. Why had it never occurred to him that the ducks might go into the arrowhead field? Ducks loved arrowhead corms and gobbled them up whenever they could. Their tails would go up in the air as their beaks plunged deep in the mud. With their long flat beaks, a flock of ducks could clear this field in no time! The thought of it brought him out in a cold sweat. Thank goodness it hadn’t happened already.

  When he got home, he made scarecrows to stick in the field. He took some rope and marked out the boundary, winding it around one tree and then the next. Then he hung bundles of grass from the rope, and watched them sway back and forth in the wind. But Baba was not convinced this was enough. From now on the family would take it in turns to watch the arrowhead field, until the very last corm had been harvested.