The Five Brothers' Dream

After Xinde entered the Provincial Foreign Trade Administration, by reason, he should have grown closer to his eldest brother Rende and his family.
After all, this job, after winding around several turns, had finally come through an avenue asked about by Rende’s father-in-law, Deputy Mayor Guo. His parents understood this in their hearts, and Xinde himself understood it too. Although what ultimately made the work unit nod was also his Fudan education, his steady temperament, and his fine handwriting, he could not pretend not to know who had knocked at the door, and who had passed the words inside. This account of human favor could not be erased.
Yet strangely, the more this layer of kindness existed, the more uncomfortable he felt.
Rende worked at Canton Hospital, and his sister-in-law Jiawen was also in the television news system. Their home was not very far from Xinde’s. At first, his mother Youlan often said over the telephone, “Your eldest brother is in the same city. When you have time, go see him. They helped you; you must know how to behave properly.”
Xinde agreed readily. “I know, Mother.”
But when the weekend truly came, he always found reasons. Either the unit had matters to handle, or dormitory colleagues had invited him to eat, or else he had to wash clothes, write materials, or organize books. It was not that he failed to remember his eldest brother’s kindness, nor that he did not wish to be close. It was only that as soon as he thought of going to the hospital family compound, thought of the disinfectant smell in hospital corridors, the smell of medicine, and the lowered voices in the wards, there arose in his heart an indescribable resistance.
Since childhood, he had disliked hospitals. White walls, white bed sheets, the sound of nurses pushing carts, the anxious faces in outpatient halls, the sudden crying from the far end of a corridor—all made him feel that life was too fragile and human dignity too thin. Rende had spent years in the hospital and had long since grown used to it, even able to discuss surgery, illness, and death while eating. Xinde could not bear to hear such things. Once, when Rende casually spoke of a patient whose rescue had failed, Xinde’s face changed. Rende laughed at him. “You study philosophy, and you are still afraid of life and death?”
Xinde forced a smile. “When philosophy speaks of life and death, it is in books. When the hospital speaks of life and death, it is right beneath one’s nose.”
Rende paid it no mind. “You are too sensitive.”
Those words, “too sensitive,” were like a small thorn. Xinde did not refute them, but from then on he went even less often.
There was also another layer: the feeling of owing something.
Each time he saw Rende and Jiawen, he felt as though he were a person who had received charity. His sister-in-law Jiawen had never said anything openly to his face, but her nature was direct, and sometimes her words carried an edge. Once, while eating, she said as if joking, “Xinde is doing well now. A provincial office, an iron rice bowl, good benefits—much better than television.”
Others heard this as ordinary praise, but Xinde’s heart tightened. He smiled and said, “It was also luck.”
Jiawen added, “Luck also needs someone to push it from behind.”
For an instant, the table fell quiet. Rende’s hand paused as he picked up food. His mother Youlan quickly said, “Yes, yes, relatives helping one another is only proper.”
Jiawen seemed to realize that her words had been somewhat heavy, and smiled. “I did not mean anything else. Xinde was excellent to begin with.”
But the words had already been spoken. Xinde lowered his head and ate, suddenly feeling that the soup tasted a little salty. From then on, he visited Rende’s home even less often. Kindness could have drawn people closer, but if one constantly felt indebted, it became instead an invisible thread tightening around the person, making him afraid to approach.
And Rende’s home was not peaceful either.
After Jiawen gave birth to a daughter, her temper became much stronger than before. The child cried at night, and she could not sleep well. During the day, she was tired from work, and after returning home she still had to worry about milk powder, diapers, bathing, and vaccinations. Rende was busy at the hospital, often on duty, gone for an entire night at a time. Jiawen did not say it aloud, but in her heart she felt she was carrying too much alone. She had originally been a daughter raised in comfort. Her father was a deputy mayor, her family circumstances were good, and from childhood she had not suffered much hardship in daily life. Only after becoming a mother did she discover that one tiny infant could wear down a person’s patience until almost nothing remained.
For a time, Youlan came from their hometown to Canton to help care for the child.
She truly loved her granddaughter, and also loved her eldest son and daughter-in-law. When she first arrived, Jiawen was grateful too. She called her sweetly, “Mother,” and said, “With you here, my heart feels steady.” Youlan was delighted to hear this and immediately rolled up her sleeves to work. She washed diapers, cooked porridge, patted the child to sleep, carried the child around the room in circle after circle. Elderly people had their old methods of caring for children; her patience was sufficient, and her hands were steady.
Yet meeting is easy; living together is hard.
Youlan was accustomed to frugality, while Jiawen was accustomed to fastidiousness. Youlan felt that as long as the child’s clothes were washed clean, there was no need to change everything new each day. Jiawen felt that an infant’s skin was tender, and the child’s things had to be washed separately and scalded with boiling water. Youlan liked to put a little salt in porridge, saying that children ate better when there was some taste. When Jiawen heard this, she grew extremely anxious. “Mother, the doctor said we cannot randomly add salt!”
Youlan felt wronged in her heart. “I raised several sons, and did they not all grow up well? How is it that once I am here with you, I understand nothing?”
Jiawen too felt wronged. “Times are different. A child cannot be raised by the old ways.”
Even smaller matters could stir waves.
Youlan rose a little after five in the morning. She felt that it was good for an elder to be diligent, and began washing clothes, chopping meat, and boiling water. Jiawen had just been tormented by the child at night and had finally fallen asleep, only to be woken by the noises in the kitchen. After enduring it for several days, she finally said, “Mother, could you start later? I truly cannot sleep many hours.”
When Youlan heard this, her expression changed. “I get up early to do things, and now I have become someone who disturbs you?”
Jiawen tiredly supported her forehead. “That is not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean? I came here not to enjoy life, but to help you care for the child. If you dislike my noise, I will simply stop working.”
Once words had reached this point, they could no longer soften.
Rende was caught between them, and it was hardest for him to be a person. When he returned from work, often as soon as he entered the door, he could feel the atmosphere was wrong. His mother sat on the sofa without speaking; Jiawen was in the room soothing the child and also did not speak. At the dinner table, Youlan brought out the dishes and said evenly, “Eat.” Jiawen came out carrying the child and said, “I am not hungry.” Rende sighed and urged his mother, “Mother, Jiawen’s unit is busy, and she is in a bad mood. Please be more tolerant.” Then he urged his wife, “My mother means well too. Do not speak so sharply.”
These words pleased neither side.
Youlan heard them, and her heart turned sour. “I came thousands of miles to help you care for your child, and in the end I must be the one to be tolerant.”
Jiawen heard them too, and her eyes reddened. “You only know your mother is tired. Am I not tired? When the child cries at night, I am the one who holds her. Milk powder and diapers are my concern. When you are on duty and not at home, whom do I speak to?”
For a moment, Rende had no words.
Once, the child had a fever. Jiawen insisted on going to the hospital. Youlan felt that children often became feverish, and they should first wipe her with warm water, not run to the hospital at the first sign of trouble. The two began to argue. Jiawen’s voice rose. “She is my daughter. I am responsible!”
Youlan froze at once. Those words, “my daughter,” were like a wall shutting her outside the door. She set down the towel and said in a low voice, “Yes, yes, she is your daughter. I, the grandmother, am an outsider.”
Jiawen also knew her words were heavy, but in that moment her temper had risen, and she stubbornly refused to bow her head. When Rende returned, his mother had already packed her bag and said she was going home.
“Mother, what are you doing?” Rende grew anxious.
Youlan said, “I am old. I cannot raise city children properly. Hire a nanny. I will go home and be comfortable.”
Rende tried to persuade her for a long time. Jiawen stood to the side, her face pale, but did not say a word to ask her to stay. At that moment, everyone was waiting for someone else to soften first, yet no one softened. The next day, Youlan truly went back.
Later, Jiawen hired a nanny.
Once the nanny came, the household seemed peaceful on the surface. She worked for wages, followed instructions, did not argue, and brought no old ideas. Jiawen felt somewhat more relaxed, and Rende too had less embarrassment from being caught between his mother and his wife. But something deeper had been hurt. After Youlan returned home, she said with her mouth that there was nothing, yet in her heart there was still a knot. She said to her husband, “City daughters-in-law are hard to serve. This old woman cannot put in a hand.” Her husband advised her, “Say a little less. Young people have their own ways of living.” Youlan was unconvinced. “Was I not doing it for their good?”
On the other side, Jiawen also felt wronged. She said to Rende, “After your mother went back, everyone thinks I was the bad one. But who knows how tired I was during that time? It is not that I did not want her help. It is that we truly could not get along.”
Rende was silent. He knew his mother had worked hard, and he also knew his wife had not had it easy. But knowing was knowing; the distance inside the heart had already been born. Between husband and wife, some words, once spoken open, are no longer only about the matter of that moment. They draw out many old accounts. Jiawen felt Rende always leaned toward his mother. Rende felt Jiawen did not understand gratitude. As time passed, there was less warmth in their words. After the child fell asleep, the room was often excessively quiet. Jiawen watched television; Rende turned through medical records. Neither was willing to speak first.
The two families’ elders also gradually visited one another less.
Originally, with Deputy Mayor Guo’s relationship, the Ma family should have gone to visit frequently. But whenever Youlan thought of the anger she had suffered in Canton while helping with the child, she was unwilling to go. On the Guo family’s side, they also felt their daughter had suffered after giving birth, and that the husband’s family had perhaps not been considerate enough. The elders had not openly fallen out, yet they performed the courtesies a little more shallowly. During festivals, they sent a few things; over the telephone, they exchanged a few greetings. The words were polite, but the hearts were separated by a layer.
Caught in the middle, Xinde knew even less how to conduct himself.
He knew his own job had received kindness from the Guo family, and he also knew that his mother and sister-in-law had had an unhappy falling-out. If he went to Rende’s home, he feared Jiawen would feel he had come to sponge off them. If he did not go, it seemed he had forgotten kindness. If he went to the hospital to see his eldest brother, he himself disliked that smell. If he invited his eldest brother out to eat, he feared Rende would be too busy. Thus, as the days lengthened, true brothers in the same city instead seemed to be separated by several rivers.
Once, Rende asked him over the telephone, “Have you been very busy lately?”
Xinde heard the faint dissatisfaction in his eldest brother’s words and could only say, “There are many matters at the unit.”
Rende was silent for a moment. “No matter how busy you are, you can still come sit at home for a while. Your sister-in-law sometimes asks about you.”
Holding the telephone, Xinde felt guilty. “I am afraid of disturbing you.”
Rende gave a light laugh, but it did not sound much like laughter. “We are family. What is there to disturb?”
Xinde had no words.
After hanging up, he sat by the bed in the Huangsha dormitory. Outside, he heard his colleagues laughing over cards, but his heart felt somewhat empty. He thought that estrangement between people often did not arise from hatred, nor from great events, but from one small thing left unexplained, one sentence not properly answered, one visit that should have been made but was not, one bowing of the head that should have happened but did not. Days move forward; everyone is busy; no one deliberately hurts anyone. Yet distance grows slowly like this, like moss at the corner of a wall—silent, unnoticed, and by the time one sees it, a green patch has already spread.
He too had thought of going to Rende’s home, having a proper meal, buying a toy for the child, saying thank you to his sister-in-law, and telling his eldest brother that he had worked hard. But each time the thought rose, it was pressed down by an indescribable awkwardness. Indebtedness, embarrassment, the smell of the hospital, the aftershocks of discord between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law—all tangled together, making him unable to take the step.
Meeting is easy; living together is hard.
Within a family, it is even more so. Blood can bring people to sit at the same table, but it cannot automatically make them understand one another’s difficulties. A mother has a mother’s grievances; a daughter-in-law has a daughter-in-law’s hardships; an eldest brother has the suffering of being caught in the middle; Xinde has his sense of owing. Everyone feels he has done nothing wrong, and everyone has also been hurt a little.
Only much later did Xinde understand that family affection is not always a bowl of hot soup. Sometimes it cools too; sometimes oil floats on the surface; sometimes, because there is too much salt or the heat is wrong, it does not go down so smoothly. Yet after all, it is still family affection. As long as it has not been completely poured away, there will still be a day when it can be warmed again.
Only at that time, Xinde was too young, Rende too exhausted, Jiawen too proud, and Youlan too wronged.
Everyone was waiting for someone else to speak first.
And so those words that originally could have been explained clearly scattered little by little in the damp air of Canton.