A Bullet Never Fired: excerpts
By Ding Ling
Translated by T. M. McClellan

……

‘THAT’S nonsense, Child! There’s no need to be afraid, you can tell me the truth, I’m just an old widow, what harm can I do you?’

A toothless old woman, a few strands of her thin white hair escaping from her black headscarf to hang loosely over her forehead, wearing ragged old padded clothing and leaning on a walking stick made from a branch, was looking warmly and kindly at the child standing before her in panic and alarm, dressed in tatters and without even a hat. The woman’s puckered lips quivered into life again as she said with a smile, ‘You’re… uh-huh, I know….’

The child was about thirteen years old, his clever bright eyes darting around as he hesitated, watching the old woman’s face, thinking she looked friendly and honest. Then he looked again across the boundless plain: not a soul, not so much as a tree could be seen. The sun had already gone down and wisps of evening mist were gently rising from the horizon, obscuring the high road as it stretched far off, endlessly. This high road carried his hopes, too, far into the distance, and now they too were becoming misty. He turned round again and measured the old woman with his eye once more. Then he repeated his question again: ‘You really know nothing at all?’

For the first few years after his return to the city, Ma Rong would always lay out an extra pair of chopsticks and a flask of liquor on that day; he would light incense, face the Northern sky and offer a toast to Niu Ben. Later he couldn’t be bothered any more, but he didn’t think Niu Ben would mind.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘I haven’t heard any gunfire, and I haven’t seen anyone either. It was back in the spring that the Red Army passed this way. Now those comrades were really good. They stayed three days and sang songs and told us stories. We killed three goats and they insisted on giving us eight dollars, silver ones, so shiny they were! Then the Manchurian army came along…. As for them, ai-ai…’ She shook her head and turned her gaze from the sky back to the boy’s face. ‘Come on, you’d better come back with me. It’s dark, where are you going to go? What if you fell into the hands of the other lot, huh?…’

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