THE LEPER

A year ago, I met a medical doctor named Sun outside Shimenkan, a village in the mountainous region of Yunnan Province. Dr. Sun used to have a cushy practice at a government-run hospital in Beijing, but in the midnineties he joined China's underground Christian movement, and his religious beliefs eventually cost him his job. Since then, he has been traveling around Yunnan preaching Christianity and offering medical help.

About two years ago, while visiting a tuberculosis patient in Shimenkan, he came across a dilapidated hut hidden in the woods on the slope of the mountain. Intrigued by this lonely dwelling far from town, he decided to find out who lived there. His local guide tried to prevent him, saying that this was the residence of the village leper. Dr. Sun ignored his advice. The hut's thatched roof was blackened by decay, several parts of the clay walls had collapsed, and on a bench outside there sat an elderly couple, astonished at the sight of a visitor. The man's name was Zhang Zhi-en and the woman was his wife. Dr. Sun told me their story and I decided to interview them. After hours of driving on a winding, red-dirt mountain road, I found Zhang sitting in his yard, dozing off in the sun.

LIAO YIWU: How old are you?

ZHANG ZHI-EN: I was born in the year of the sheep. So I should be seventy-five this year. This is my new wife. She is a horse—seventy-six years old.

LIAO: How long have you lived here?

ZHANG: Oh, for many years. I used to live down in Shimenkan at the foot of the mountain. But the village people didn't allow me to get close to them. They said I was contagious. So I just moved up here. Before Dr. Sun visited us, we hadn't talked to a living person for years.

LIAO: How did you contract leprosy?

ZHANG: My bad luck started when I accidentally killed a snake. I don't remember what year it was. I think it was before Deng Xiaoping came to power and began to give some land back to peasants from the collective farms.

LIAO: Deng's economic reform started in the late seventies.

ZHANG: OK. Early one morning I went to the mountain to dig some herbs so I could sell them at the local market. I used to make my living that way. As I was climbing, one of my feet caught on a piece of rock and I fell. While I struggled to get up, I spotted a wild azalea near my foot. The azalea root is a type of rare herb and it can sell for big bucks. So I took a berry hoe out of my backpack and carefully dug around the plant. It turned out the root was quite fat, worth a lot of money. While I was lost in happy thoughts, a snake darted out from the bushes and wrapped its body around the azalea root. It had rough brownish skin, and I saw that it was what we called a Ma snake. I was startled and began to shake. Before the snake had a chance to attack, I hacked at it with the hoe. I missed its head the first time but cut its tail off. The snake's tongue darted out and it writhed in pain. I aimed my hoe at its head and whacked it a couple more times. When I was sure the snake was dead, I dug out the azalea root and went home.

Soon after, I began to be haunted by the experience. My skin itched and I felt cold all the time. I wore a cotton-padded coat even in the middle of summer. I tried all sorts of herbs, hoping to find a cure for myself. Nothing worked. One day, I went to buy some salt at the nearby market and bumped into the head of the collective farm. When he saw that I was shivering with cold in the summer sun, he asked what was wrong. I said I was possessed by the spirit of the Ma snake.

He was shocked and his face turned ugly. Those Ma snakes are holy creatures. They're dragons on earth! It's a taboo to kill them. You're doomed.

LIAO: Doomed?

ZHANG: The collective-farm leader began to spread all sorts of rumors about my disease. Since Ma snakes sound similar to leprosy, mafengbing in Chinese, he told people that I was suffering from leprosy. He contacted the local leprosy clinic, but their damn doctor didn't even want to get close to me. He examined me from five feet away and said I was suffering from leprosy. I tried to argue with him. He said, Look at your face. It's as pale as ashes. If you don't have leprosy, what else can it be?

Several militiamen from the village put on face masks and gloves and dragged me to the local leprosy sanatorium. I went through several tests and everything seemed to be normal, but they wouldn't allow me to leave. Instead they assigned me to work in the kitchen, where I ended up cooking for other patients for four years. Eventually the director of the hospital realized that it was against Party policy to lock a healthy person inside a leprosy hospital. So they let me out.

LIAO: Did you have any contact with leprosy patients while you worked there?

ZHANG: Of course. We hung out together all day long. It was no big deal. Nothing happened to me. When I got home, the world had changed. Chairman Mao had already died, and Deng Xiaoping had taken over. The commune no longer existed. They'd had a public meeting and distributed all the land to individual households. Since I wasn't around, they didn't leave me anything, not even a piece of dirt. Even if I had been around, they would have told me that I wasn't eligible because I was a leper. So I became homeless overnight—no land and no home. But I didn't give up, and I began to petition the local government. I told those officials: I come from generations of poor peasants. Didn't Chairman Mao say that poor people are the pillars of the Communist society? Why should I have to put up with this shit?

The government offices didn't know what to do about me. Finally, a leader from my village made a proposal: since I was a bachelor and was way past marriage age, he promised to fix me up with a girl from another county. In this way, I could move out of the village and get a wife and some land in another county. Why not? That didn't sound too bad. So I accepted. The girl's name was Xu Meiying. Neither of us was picky. Soon after we met, I thanked the matchmaker, held a wedding banquet, and moved out of Shimenkan. As you know, in the rural areas, women normally move in with the guy's family after marriage. I did the opposite. The locals called me a relocated son-in-law.

LIAO: Did your wife know about your past at the leprosy sanatorium?

ZHANG: She had stayed at the same leprosy sanatorium for a while and was also released, like me, because her test results came back negative. Even so, people were afraid to be around her. That was probably why they fixed us up together. Even now, people here are scared of leprosy. If they think you might have it, they'll immediately lock you up in an isolated ward. Over the years, many healthy people have been sent to the hospital because fellow villagers suspected they had leprosy. So Xu Meiying and I turned out to have a similar history. Before me, she had several boyfriends. None of them had a good reputation. None of them made an honest living on the farm. They were either petty thieves or scoundrels. Compared with the other guys, I was a much better catch.

I moved in and we began to sleep in the same bed. She was about three years younger than I was. When we first lived together, they had just started building this road. That shows you how long ago it was. We farmed together and life was OK.

LIAO: Did you have kids?

ZHANG: No. My wife was sick for many years.

LIAO: I was told that they burned her to death. When did that happen?

ZHANG: I don't remember exactly. I think it's been ten years. She had met an evil dragon and was possessed by its spirit, and we couldn't find a cure. It all started in the spring. As I was plowing the field, another Ma snake jumped out at me. I didn't want to kill it, but the snake looked so menacing. I was scared and smashed it to death. Soon after that was the Qingming festival, when everyone in the village goes to visit the cemeteries and pays tribute to the dead. My wife visited her mother's tomb on that day. After she came back, we had a guest—a relative of hers from Fumin County. She stayed with us for over three months. This relative gave her some colorful new cloth. My wife made a quilt out of it.

LIAO: Wait, I'm lost. Let's go back to the evil dragon.

ZHANG: That night, there was a terrible thunderstorm. Pouring rain. Right before dawn, a big clap of thunder struck. Our whole house shook. Suddenly, the evil dragon appeared along with the thunder, coming down like the lid on a big cauldron. I could see the head of the dragon half-hidden inside the cloud, its tail wagging back and forth over the village cemetery. My wife opened the window and tried to peek at what was going on outside. As soon as she opened the window, I heard a loud scream. I ran in and found her collapsed on the floor. Her eyes were closed and she couldn't say anything. Suddenly she jumped up, screaming like a devil, saying that her head was killing her. Then she lost her eyesight. She also became deaf.

I was terrified and took her to see many local doctors. I spent all of our savings. I forced her to drink every kind of herb that the doctor had prescribed, but she kept getting worse. Nobody knew what had caused her illness. I almost went crazy. News about her illness started to spread all over the village. The stories became more and more dramatic and weird. Everyone in the village began to believe that my wife's illness was an act of retribution for my killing of two Ma snakes. They said I had upset the dragon, and that it had used its magic power against my family as revenge.

I invited the local Taoist monk to set up an exorcism. But the spirit of the dragon was too powerful for him. Then someone introduced me to a blind fortune-teller. He asked me to take him around the house. He sniffed here and there and then left without a word. I never heard from him again. I could tell that Xu Meiying wouldn't be able to live long. I went to talk with her older brother, and then he discussed her illness with the village chief. They both insisted that my wife was suffering a relapse of leprosy. Some older folks in the village even told me that her mother had died of leprosy.

LIAO: I didn't think leprosy was hereditary. Is it?

ZHANG: How would I know? I had no idea what to do. I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. When Xu Meiying's elder brother showed up, he wouldn't come into the house. He called me outside, and I saw he'd gathered quite a group of people there, including the village chief. Her brother told me that they had come up with a solution that would be good for me. Then, like a school of fish, the village people came to shake my hand, one after another. They all said the same thing: This will be good for you in the long term.

LIAO: What were they talking about?

ZHANG: I had no clue. As a relocated son-in-law, I really didn't have much say in village affairs. If I had tried to argue with them, they would have drowned me with their spit.

Anyway, the next morning the whole village showed up. They called me outside and asked me to stand apart and not to move. They took the door off, placed Xu Meiying on the door, and carried her away. Her brother told her that they were going to take her to a hospital. She was too weak to respond. He yelled at everyone to step aside, and they carried her out of the courtyard and down to the foot of the mountain. According to tradition, every household in the village contributed a bundle of wood until they formed a big pile. They tied Xu Meiying to the door with ropes and then put her and the door on top of the pile. Someone poured kerosene, making sure the wood was fully soaked. Then they lit the fire.

LIAO: Did you do anything to stop them?

ZHANG: Several guys held me back. All I could see was a plume of black smoke shooting up into the sky until it blocked the sun. Then the flames got really strong. I didn't want to look, but curiosity got the best of me. I craned my neck and stood on my toes. All I could see was a wall of fire. Xu Meiying's body was like a piece of skin that began to curl up. Its color kept getting darker and darker.

LIAO: I can't believe they set her on fire while she was still alive. Didn't she react?

ZHANG: She was blind and deaf. She hadn't eaten for days and she was probably already in a coma. Even if she had been awake, it would have been only seconds before she died. The flames were so strong that I could feel the heat from several feet away. The pile collapsed and her body sank into the fire. Then all the young guys threw their wooden sticks into the fire.

LIAO: What wooden sticks?

ZHANG: In case Xu Meiying tried to jump up and run away. If she had, they would have beaten her back into the fire.

LIAO: What a lawless mob.

ZHANG: What are you talking about?

LIAO: I'm talking about the people who killed your wife.

ZHANG: They did it because they were afraid of leprosy. They had no other choice. The fire lasted for over two hours. No matter how emaciated the person is, it takes that long to melt a human body.

LIAO: Were you sad? Did you cry?

ZHANG: No. Some villagers told me that they saw the tail of the evil dragon coiling around the flames.

LIAO: Do you believe what they said?

ZHANG: Yes, I do. After Xu Meiying's death, I continued to use the quilt she had made. One night I had a nightmare in which a snake as thick and round as a big rice bowl wrapped itself around my body. I couldn't breathe. So I raised my berry hoe and kept hacking at it until my arms were sore and there was blood all over. When I woke up, I found myself on the floor. I had fallen out of the bed. It was so spooky. I didn't dare go back to sleep. The next day I dragged the quilt out into the field and set fire to it. Guess what? The flames shot up as if it were soaked in oil. It smelled like burned flesh. The dragon must have been hiding in there. After the quilt was burned, I buried the ashes. Since then, my house has been ghost-free.

LIAO: Did you collect your wife's remains and bury her?

ZHANG: Xu Meiying's elder brother collected her bones and buried them near the White Sand Hill. But that was not the end of the ceremony. I had to host a banquet to thank the villagers who had helped.

LIAO: They burned your wife and you had to feed them as a gesture of gratitude. Didn't you find that ridiculous?

ZHANG: What they had done was for my own good. I had no complaints against them for eating my food. I couldn't shortchange them. I wanted everyone at the banquet to eat until their stomachs could no longer take any food. As long as they were happy, I was happy. I gave them the food and they did the cooking. The village chief led a couple of guys into my house, took a pig from the pen, and slaughtered it. They also grabbed the dried meat that was hanging under the eaves. They put a pot on top of the stove and began to boil the meat, even before the smoke from my wife's body was gone. They made a huge pot of rice. It was quite festive. Soon it was dark. Villagers, with torches lit, carried big rice bowls and gathered near my house, waiting for the banquet to begin. There were about thirty households in the village. Each family sent its breadwinner to the banquet. I ended up spending all my savings, and it was still not enough—I had to borrow some more. I didn't have enough rice to feed that many people. The village chief pitched in. He said I could pay him back after the fall harvest.

LIAO: Burning a live person to death is a violation of the law. Did you report it to the police?

ZHANG: Why? They were helping me out.

LIAO: You still believe that?

ZHANG: Yes. Everyone in the village thinks that too.

LIAO: Things have changed a lot in other parts of China. I don't see any changes here.

ZHANG: Oh, there are quite a lot of changes here. They built a road some years ago and now it's been widened. People are allowed to do business. Everyone is busy making money. I raise pigs, dogs, and chickens. I'm too old to farm so I leased my land to other people. My current wife and I don't need a lot. So we're OK.

LIAO: How long have you been with your new wife?

ZHANG: About five years. She used to live on the other side of the mountain. None of her children wanted to take care of her. Someone brought her over to me for companionship.

LIAO: Does she know about Xu Meiying?

ZHANG: She's never asked and I'm not going to tell her. I don't think she wants to hear it. For years I haven't been able to talk with anyone in the region. Now that she is here, I have someone to talk with.

LIAO: Do you still think about Xu Meiying?

ZHANG: Oh, well . . . I have to blame the evil dragon. Not long after she was gone, her elder brother's wife also fell under the spell of the dragon and got very ill. According to the Taoist monk who was invited to exorcise the evil spirit, Xu's brother needed to feed the dragon with human brain marrow. So Xu's brother snuck into the cemetery at midnight, dug up a recently buried corpse, and extracted some brain marrow. He took it home to feed his wife. He told me that he could hear the dragon screaming angrily under a bridge.

LIAO: The brain marrow from a dead person is filled with germs and viruses. That's probably what made her ill.

ZHANG: Oh well, I don't know.

LIAO: Time seems to have stopped here. Every day, all you can hear is the sound of wind blowing.

ZHANG: Yes, but we also hear the trucks pass by. We are very grateful to Dr. Sun. His church helped me rebuild my house. I'm now a believer in God. Thanks to God, I have a doctor visit me and take me to a church down on the other side of the mountain every month. Nobody in the church shuns me. They are all very nice. I pray to God every day, hoping that the evil dragon will not come back and harm people again.