Iron and Silk by Salzman Mark

Author:Salzman, Mark [Salzman, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307814234
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2011-12-20T16:00:00+00:00

I had walked along the river many times since meeting the fisherman that day in winter, but I did not see him again until spring. It was late afternoon, and I had bicycled to a point along the river about a mile downstream from where we had met, hoping to find a deserted spot to draw a picture. I found a niche in the sloping floodwall and started drawing a junk moored not far from me. Half an hour passed, and just as I finished the drawing, I heard someone calling my Chinese name. I looked down to see Old Ding scrambling up the floodwall, his boat anchored behind him. I noticed that he limped badly, and when he got up close I could see that one of his legs was shorter than the other and set at an odd angle. Such was his balance and skill in the boats that I only saw his deformity when he came ashore. He squatted down beside me and explained that he had just returned from a long fishing trip on Dong Ting, a sprawling lake in North Hunan. “Big fish up there,” he said, gesturing with his arms. Then he asked me what I was doing. I showed him the drawing, and his face lit up. “Just like it! Just like the boat!” He cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled something in the direction of the junk, and right away a family appeared on deck. “Let’s show it to them!” he said, and dragged me down to the water. He exchanged a few words with the family, and they leapt into action, the women going into the sheltered part of the junk to prepare food and the men rowing out to meet us in one of two tiny boats lashed to the side. We got in the little boat and returned with them to the junk. We ate a few snacks of different kinds of salted fish, had tea, and then I showed them the drawing. They seemed delighted by it, so I tore the sheet out of my block. I handed it to the oldest member of the family, a man in his sixties, who opened his eyes wide with surprise and would not take it, saying, “How can I take this? It is a work of art; what do I have to offer you in return?” I laughed, saying that it was only a drawing, and I would be happy if he would take it just for fun. But he was serious; when at last he accepted it, putting it down carefully on the bed, he began negotiating with Old Ding to choose an appropriate gift for me.

Fifteen minutes of vigorous discussion, all in dialect, produced a decision: they would give me one of the rowboats. I looked at Old Ding and said that that was absolutely ridiculous, that of course I would not take a boat from a poor fisherman’s family in return for a charcoal sketch.

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