The Girl Who Sold Fire-Torch Berries
The morning after we moved into our new home, I went out for a walk. Suddenly I noticed that across the street, above the wall of a house, there was a glowing patch of red. In the morning sun it looked as if it were burning.
“Fire-torch berries!” I cried, hurrying over. “A-Meng, these are the fire-torch berries you ate when you were little.”
My son picked a few and looked at them in his palm. Then he chose one and bit it gently with his teeth.
“Yes, that’s it!”
I do not know the botanical name of this plant. Kunming people call its fruit huobaguo, “fire-torch berries.” Perhaps it is because the ripe fruit is such a vivid red, growing in heavy clusters on the branches like burning torches.
The fruit is small and round. When chewed, it is soft and floury, sweet with a slight astringency. It is not especially delicious. But during the materially deprived years of the Cultural Revolution, it was a snack children loved.
Memories rose again.
One Sunday morning, I was carrying my lunch tin and strolling along the passageway through the workers’ village. At some point, without anyone planning it, a tiny free market had formed there. Nearby farmers brought vegetables grown on their private plots to sell. Mountain people carried bundles of pine firewood down to exchange for a little cash.
Among the stalls, several boys had gathered around a Yi girl. In front of her was a small carrying basket filled with smooth, bright-red fire-torch berries about the size of pearls.
The boys surrounded her and mocked her. Some shouted crude remarks. Whenever she was not looking, one would grab a few berries, another would pinch away several more.
The girl became anxious. She slapped at the hands reaching into her basket and cried, “Don’t do that! Don’t do that! If you want some, it’s five fen a bowl!”
But the mischievous boys ignored her and kept teasing and humiliating her.
Old Zhou, who liked to involve himself whenever he saw something wrong, noticed what was happening. Pointing at them, he raised his voice.
“What are you little devils doing? Bullying somebody’s little girl? That won’t do! If you want to buy, take out your money. If you don’t, get away from here!”
The adults watching also began scolding the boys. Seeing Old Zhou looking fierce, the boys obediently scattered.
My son saw me coming and asked me to buy some fire-torch berries. I gave the little girl five fen. She filled a small porcelain bowl to the top and poured the berries out for me. My son popped them into his mouth one by one.
The girl was perhaps seven years old. She wore the blue homespun cloth woven by the Yi themselves, an embroidered apron around her waist, and on her head a pointed “rooster” cap with two tips.
I thought about how difficult it must have been to gather a whole basket of those berries. They grew in mountain ravines and had to be picked tree by tree. After filling the basket, she still had to walk more than an hour along mountain paths to reach the workers’ village and sell them. It was hard work.
Another time, my wife bought a bundle of firewood from a middle-aged woman, who carried it up to our third-floor apartment. The little girl who sold fire-torch berries followed behind her.
The Yi woman squatted down, loosened the carrying strap from her forehead, and wiped away her sweat, breathing heavily.
“Is this your child? How old is she?” I asked.
“Yes. Eight years old! Her name is Pu Yuxian. She’s in second grade now.”
She took the two yuan my wife gave her for the firewood, then said with some embarrassment, “Shanfu, ni jia—please—could you give me half a jin of grain coupons? The child hasn’t eaten yet.”
At that time, grain coupons were required for any food made from grain. Mountain people did not have them.
My wife thought the little girl was both lovable and pitiful, so she gave the woman half a jin in coupons. The Yi woman thanked her again and again.
After that connection was made, my wife always bought firewood from her. When the woman came down from the mountains, she would sometimes bring a few eggs in a little basket and exchange them with my wife for grain coupons.
The mountain people were poor. They raised chickens, but even the eggs their chickens laid were too precious to eat themselves. They brought them to the city to exchange for grain coupons.
In those difficult circumstances, some of the nutritional supplements our son received depended entirely on what those mountain people supplied us.
When we later left the country, my wife gave this Yi woman some of our old clothes and shoes.
Last year, when I returned to Kunming, I went back to visit the workers’ village where we had once lived. While chatting with Old Huang, he said, “Do you still remember Pu Yuxian?”
“Which Pu Yuxian?” I asked blankly.
Then it came back to me.
“Oh!”
“She works as an accountant at the bank in the workers’ village now. She married Master Liu’s son,” Old Huang told me.
After graduating from an accounting school, Pu Yuxian had been assigned to work at the branch bank. She fell in love with Master Liu’s son and married him. People said she was very capable.
Because of time, I did not get to see her.
*(Originally published in China Daily on December 12; the year is missing in the source.)*