of his grey hair and the oozing chilblains on his ears. I thought back to the times he and I had gone to the threshing ground, where he'd priced the cattle, and to the times he'd taken me to Aunty Wild Mule's house, where I'd been fed plenty of meat, and I was filled with mixed emotions. I turned my back to him to keep from crying.
Then, out of the blue, I was reminded of our mortar. ‘Dieh,’ I said, ‘we have nothing to fear, no one will ever pick on us again, because we've got a big gun.’
I ran to the side room, ripped away the carton paper, picked up the heavy base, and, straining mightily, stumbled out into the yard with it in my arms. I set it down carefully in front of the door.
Father walked out, followed by his daughter.
‘Xiaotong, what's this?’
Without stopping to answer, I ran back into the side room, picked up the heavy tripod, carried it into the yard and laid it beside the base. On my third trip, I carried out the sleek tube, then assembled the whole thing, quickly and expertly, like a trained artilleryman. Then I stepped back and proudly declared: ‘Dieh, you're looking at a powerful Japanese 82 mm mortar!’
He walked up cautiously to the mortar, bent down and examined it carefully.
When we'd first accepted the heavy weapon, it had been so rusted it had looked like three hunks of scrap metal. I'd attacked the rust with bricks, knocking off the biggest chunks, then switched to sandpaper and removed it from every inch of the metal, even inside the tube. Finally, I rubbed on several coats of grease, until it recaptured its youth, regained its metallic sheen; now it squatted open-mouthed on the ground, like a lion, ready to roar.
‘Dieh,’ I said, ‘look inside the tube.’
Father turned his attention to the tube as a glare lit up his face. When he looked up, there was a sparkle in his eyes. I could see how excited he was. ‘This is something,’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Really something. Where'd you get it?’
I shoved my hands into my pockets and pawed the ground as nonchalantly as possible.
‘From an old guy and his wife, who brought it on the back of an old mule.’
‘Have you fired it?’ he asked as he turned his attention back to the tube. ‘I'm sure it'll fire, this is the real thing!’
‘I was planning on going to South Mountain Village in the spring to look up that old man and his wife. They must have shells. I'll buy every one they've got, and the next person who picks on me will see what this thing can do to his house!’ I looked up at Father and, with an ingratiating look, said, ‘We can begin by blasting Lao Lan's house!’
With a bitter smile, Father shook his head but said nothing.
The girl had finished her baked bun. ‘Daddy,’ she said, ‘I'm still hungry.’
Father went back inside and came out with the charred buns.
The girl was shaking. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I want a biscuit.’
Father looked at me, obviously embarrassed. I ran inside, picked up the packet of biscuits Mother had tossed down by the stove and held them out to her. ‘Here,’ I said, ‘eat.’
She reached out to take them but Father swept her up in his arms like a hawk taking a chicken.
She burst out crying.
‘Be a good girl, Jiaojiao,’ he said, wanting her to stop crying. ‘We don't eat other people's food.’
That unexpected comment chilled my heart.
He shifted the girl, who would not stop crying, onto his back and patted me on the head with his free hand. ‘Xiaotong,’ he said, ‘you're a big boy now, and you'll do better than your dieh ever did. Now you've got this mortar, and I know I won't have to worry about you.’
With his daughter settled on his back, he turned and walked to the gate. I struggled to hold back my tears as I ran after him.
‘Do you have to go, Dieh?’
He cocked his head to look at me. ‘Be careful with that mortar. Use it only when you have to, and don't use it on Lao Lan's house.’
The hem of his overcoat slipped through my fingers. After bending forward to make it easier for his daughter to hold on, he walked down the frozen road in the direction of the train station. He'd taken only a dozen steps or so when I shouted. ‘Dieh—’