Under the Red Flag by Jin Ha

Author:Jin, Ha [Jin, Ha]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, CCL, Short Stories (Single Author)
ISBN: 9780820319391
Google: VEXzDJ3KJp0C
Amazon: 1581950063
Goodreads: 33563
Publisher: Zoland Books
Published: 1997-06-15T07:00:00+00:00

Fortune

Blind Bea, a locksmith, used to be a street fortune-teller in the old days. Though his practice was banned in the New China, people in Dismount Fort had never stopped seeing him in secret. Whenever there was a wedding or a funeral, they would go to him beforehand and ask about a lucky day or a good burial place. Because of his poor sight, Bea seldom went out, but he knew what was happening in town. Some people believed he was a kind of scholar who could fathom the mysteries between heaven and earth without stepping out of his threshold. Blind Bea lived well. Except for the children who often watched him through the back window of his hovel, nobody was jealous of his eating large white bread at lunch and dinner.

Tang Hu of Sand Village heard that a month ago a peasant had lost a horse and gone to the fortune-teller to ask its whereabouts. After reading the bamboo slips, Blind Bea raised his knotted hand and boomed out, “He carried his balls to the poplar woods in the east.” The owner of the horse said it was a mare, but Bea told him to forget male or female and just go search the woods. A few men went there and found the horse.

These days Tang had been thinking of visiting Blind Bea, because he had been dogged by bad luck for the past few years. The summer before last he lost two litters of piglets, and last fall a flood ruined his cabbages and turnips. Then he had acute appendicitis and could have died if a truck hadn’t happened to be passing the village and carried him to the Commune Clinic in time. Nonetheless, the doctors opened his stomach, and Tang lost all the original wind his parents had put in him. He wondered whether these misfortunes had been caused by the graves of his ancestors which faced east instead of south.

Tang pulled up his horse cart before the locksmith’s and went inside. Blind Bea crouched over a vise filing the copper switch of a flashlight. At the sight of Tang he put down the rasp and returned to the armchair covered with a roe deer’s skin.

“Take a seat,” Bea said.

Tang sat down and explained what was on his mind. Blind Bea asked his name and the hour and date of his birth. Then he closed his eyes and sat back, mumbling something to himself while fingering a string of green-jade beads. Tang rolled up a cigarette and lit it. A dragonfly was fluttering on the wire gauze of the window, struggling in vain to get out.

“I don’t see any problem here,” Bea said three minutes later.

“Not because of my ancestors’ graves?”

“No. According to the Diagram, you should have a mighty life. You were born to be a big general. Those graves can’t stop you at all.”

“Really?” Tang was surprised. “You say I’m going to be a general?”

“Maybe. Although the Diagram says you were born to decide the life or death of thousands, it depends on whether you can realize your destiny.

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