Brothers by Yu Hua Page B

Liu Town, and everyone called it the Light Court. That evening, Liu Town was playing a neighboring town, and more than a thousand men and women shuffled in in their slippers to form concentric circles around the court, looking like mounds of dirt around a giant ditch. The men were smoking, and the women were cracking watermelon seeds. The nearby trees were full of screaming children, while foul-mouthed men crowded the wall behind. There wasn't a spare spot along the entire wall as the people below struggled to climb up and the people on top kept kicking them back down.
    It was here that the two boys spoke to each other for the first time. Song Gang was wearing a white sleeveless shirt and blue shorts, had a runny nose, and was holding on to Li Lan s clothes. Li Lan caressed the top of his head, his face, and his slender neck, looking as though she wanted to eat him up. Then she pulled the two kids together and chattered on and on, but it was so noisy the boys couldn't make out a thing she was saying. Watermelon seeds and cigarette smoke were flying everywhere, and a fight had broken out over by the wall, where one of the tree branches had snapped and dumped two kids to the ground. Li Lan was still chattering at them, and finally they were able to make out what she was saying.
    Li Lan pointed at Song Gang and said to Baldy Li, "This is your older brother. His name is Song Gang."
    Baldy Li nodded to the boy and repeated, "Song Gang."
    Li Lan then pointed at Baldy Li and said to Song Gang, "This is your younger brother. His name is Baldy Li."
    When Song Gang heard Baldy Li's nickname, he broke out intopeals of laughter as he stared at the younger boys shiny bald head. "Your name is Baldy Li? That's hilarious!"
    But suddenly Song Gang started to bawl as a man burned his arm with his cigarette. When Baldy Li saw Song Gang bawling, he was amused and almost laughed out loud, until another mans cigarette burned him on the neck and he started bawling as well.
    At that point the game began. Under the brilliant lights of the court and amid the cyclones of sound, Song Fanping shone. Li Lan was astounded by his height, strength, jumps, and skills. She yelled until she was hoarse and her eyes were bloodshot. Every time Song Fanping made a basket, he would run past them, his arms extended as if he were flying. Once he even dunked the ball. In his entire life he managed to dunk only once, and this was that time. For the thousand spectators crowded around the court, this was also the first and only time they witnessed a dunk. The deafening roar suddenly died away, and people stood slack-jawed, looking at one another as if trying to confirm what they had just witnessed. Then the waves of human voices roared back all around the court. It hadn't been this loud even back when the Japanese invaded.
    Stunned by his own dunk, Song Fanping stood frozen for a moment under the net. After he realized what he had accomplished, he ran toward Li Lan and the kids, flushed and wide-eyed. He spread his arms and lifted Song Gang and Baldy Li high into the sky, then he ran with them toward the basket and would have joyfully tossed them in if they hadn't been crying so loudly. Fortunately, he eventually recalled that they weren't basketballs and, chuckling, ran back and set them down. Still lost in the moment, he then lifted Li Lan. In front of a thousand people, he lifted her up as waves of laughter washed over them. Every variety of laugh could be heard: bellows, titters, shrieks, chuckles, guffaws, cackles, dry and wet laughs.
    In those days, to see a man embracing a woman was tantamount to watching an adult film today. After Song Fanping put Li Lan down, he ran with arms extended back into the game. Now that she had starred in her adult film, Li Lan was perceived in a completely different light, and for the rest of the game half the spectators watched the match while the other half stared at her curiously. They recalled the man who had died while peeping at