The whole village waited with bated breath for the returnees to finish their slow, first meal back. They were waiting impatiently for them to clear away their meal, stand, and show themselves in the square. Sangdan was first. No one knew her exact age, but it was the village's unanimous opinion that she must still be young, in other words, under forty. However, her once silky black hair was now completely white. The strange thing was, her face was still as rosy and smooth as if she were a young girl. Now that she was outside her house, she acted as if she'd never left; first she cast an uninterested glance out into the square, as if sizing it up. Then she untied her braids and began to comb her hair.
When Gela came out, he picked up the wood plank door from the ground and pushed it back into its frame. He threw his whole bodyweight at the door in his efforts to jam it into place, but after a few attempts it was clear that he wouldn't succeed.
He tried one last time, but his stick-thin arms finally could take no more, and the door clattered heavily back to the ground. Following the door's lead, Gela lay down on top of it. Before long, the men of the village approached him, circling around his prone body.
Enbo reached out a hand.
Gela reached out his hand.
Enbo hauled the boy to his feet with only the most cursory effort. The men around them began to laugh, while Enbo just showed his snow white teeth, without laughing. Gela too showed his full mouth of white teeth, and after a pause he began to chuckle.
With everyone lending a hand, the door was quickly installed in its frame. Then, Enbo produced a bunch of nails, which he held in his mouth while hammering them one by one into the door, standing with his bald head gleaming under the sun. Now the door had a brand new, sturdy latch. Gela sat nearby in silence, watching the older man.
Enbo turned his head to look at Gela, who was not much older than his own son, and said to him:
"Alright, no need to sit there like an idiot. Get the lock."
Gela twisted round and picked up the lock.
"Try it," Enbo said.
So Gela locked the door.
Sangdan, hearing the click of the lock, suddenly took an interest. She turned her head and said:
"Don't bother with the lock, we're not going anywhere."
Gela undid the lock, and repeated under his breath:
"Yes, we're not going anywhere."
Enbo spread one of his big hands wide and rested it on Gela's pointy head. He cleared his throat a few times, and with obvious difficulty, opened his mouth to speak:
"Child …"
But Gela just made a small happy noise, and ran off. This was because he'd seen Bunny come out of the wicker courtyard gate of his family's house. Gela ran full-tilt at his friend, who still had the same long, slender neck, and the same blue vein on his forehead that still jumped around alarmingly. Gela pulled Bunny into his arms, lifting him from the ground by his waist. Reunited, the two children began chuckling.
Enbo laughed, and then everyone in the square laughed. The leader of the production team chose that moment to open his throat and bellow:
"Out to the fields!"
The primary school bell rang out, clear and crisp.
People drained out of the square in every direction, leaving it empty except for Sangdan, who was still seated and engaged in the combing of her lustrous white hair, which glistened like dewdrops.
Jamcan Gonbo was the last to leave. The old, secularised lama stood in silence, holding a hoe with the same poise with which a monk's staff would be held, watching Sangdan until the final, careful stroke of her hair brush. Then she lifted her perpetually youthful face and flashed him a dazzling smile. Only then did Jamcan Gonbo turn away and walk off towards the western edge of the village. The sun was behind him, so he could see the shadow cast by his body and the hoe over his shoulder on the ground in front of him.
"Evil-doer," he said to himself.
He followed his shadow a little further down the road, and then turned his head to look back at bright white-haired Sangdan; she was still following him with her eyes.
"Where there is life in the dust of this corrupted world, evil-doing follows" , the old man muttered.
Seven
Gela and Sangdan left the year before last, in the summer. They were gone all through the next summer. Just as the third summer was about to arrive, that was when they returned.
In the nearly two years that they were gone, life carried on as normal in Ji village, except that everyone had a feeling the days were passing more slowly than before. The creaking of time was felt especially keenly in Enbo's household. If you simply observed time without trying to feel it, you'd think that day gave way to night and that night gave way to day in much the usual way, but as soon as you allowed yourself to feel it, it would suddenly CLUNK, like a whirring machine that goes like clockwork right until the moment it jams. Many evenings at dusk, the thought of the disappeared mother and child would suddenly burst into Enbo's head, and his heart would CLUNK in the same way. It pained him, and his pain was the kind that can't be spoken about. In his world, the pain settled over the mountain tops, which were a shade of light blue at dusk, and it settled over the dim, grey village. The days were just like a pair of legs with a coil of rope wrapped tight around them; they were unable to move forward.
So, when Gela and Sangdan returned, a festival atmosphere broke out in Enbo's house. Boiled meat sat at the ready, while alluring odours wafted from the cooking pot: peas and silverweed stewing in beef broth. He even traded two dippers of grain for a jug of wine from a neighbour. When the meat was done, Grandma Er Chiang piled it in large chunks on a serving plate. She blew on her fingers; it was hot. Positively beaming, she announced:
"It's time to go get our guests."
Enbo and Bunny both made for the stairs.
"I want to go too, I want to go get big brother Gela!" Bunny couldn't contain his excitement.