Read Online The Diary of Ma Yan by Ma Yan - Free Book Online Page B

get my luggage out through the window, which is hard enough in itself.
    On the street, the sun burns. It’s hard to open my eyes. My back is running with sweat, as if it had been drenched with a bucket of water. I don’t know whether it’s because of the burning sun or because I’m carrying too much luggage.
    At the market I finally find a tractor from my village. I put all my things on it and go off once more to look for my father. Idon’t find him, but I bump into my third uncle. He asks me if I’ve eaten. When I say no, he invites me to have something to eat a little way farther along the road. We come across two young women. Both of them suggest that we come into their restaurants. We go into one, and right away the other woman starts to swear at us.
    The woman whose restaurant we’re in points at me and asserts, “This girl eats here often.”
    I’m very surprised to hear that. I’ve never eaten there this term. After the meal I feel bad. Is it because she’s poor that she has to lie like this? If her business was doing better, she wouldn’t have to make up such stories.
    Wednesday, July 4
    This afternoon my mother and I go and visit my paternal grandparents. When we arrive, my grandfather is sitting on the doorstep. He’s watching over my fifth uncle’s children.
    We ask Grandpa where Grandmother is. He answers that she’s in the big cave my uncle dug near his house. I run over there imagining that my grandmother is busy preparing a good meal. Once I’m inside, the first thing I see is her white hair, then her clothes, all soiled. She’s turning the hay. I ask her what she’s doing. She says the donkey has no food left and she’s getting fodder for him.
    I lower my head and wonder what use we are in this world. Those who have work can make a contribution toward the country. Those who don’t only sleep and eat. My grandmothercame into this world some eighty years ago. Why has she never known any happiness in her life? Did she annoy the heavens in some way? Or is her fate just a bad one?
    Her mother died five months after she was born. She was raised by her maternal grandmother. Then she married my grandfather and led this difficult life.
    Friday, July 13
A fine day
    This afternoon, after cutting the wheat, my mother washed her hands and started making the bread we would take with us into the fields tomorrow.
    My father is sitting on the threshold. He’s rolling cigarettes. I’m off to wash my hair. My two brothers are spreading a plastic sheet outside because it’s too hot to sleep indoors. We’ve been spending nights in the open air.
    My mother finishes steaming the bread. She calls my father to the table. I come in after him. I take a bowl of black rice and swallow it down. The bowl empty, I want to get some more, but there’s none left. My brother has eaten it all. I ask my mother whether I can have one of her rolls, but she says, “No. It’s for tomorrow.” She doesn’t even let me nibble at a tiny one.
    I go outside to sleep. I lie looking up at the stars and think, Is it because I haven’t passed the entrance exam for the girls’ senior school that my mother is so angry with me? * I begin to resent her. She won’teven let me eat my fill before sleeping. My tears start to flow. But I also think she probably has her own reasons for being upset. Why does she take so much trouble over everything? It’s always for our studies, so that we can succeed in life, have happy families of our own.
    I have to study hard. Even if I haven’t got through the entrance exam this time, in three years, I’ll do it.
    Saturday, July 14
Good weather
    This afternoon, just after I’ve woken from my nap, someone comes to visit. It’s the son of one of the village’s rich men. His father is called Ma Zhanchuan. The villagers have given him the nickname of Lao Gan, or Old Prune, because