First Pages: Heartland (Upmarket/ Book Club Fiction)

Opening Scene: Introduces the voice of the omniscient narrator, sets tone for novel, introduces protagonist and hints at the beginnings of her internal conflict.

Chapter 1: Hooks

It is a place of staggering beauty, this place tucked away in the middle of nowhere at the heart of the Middle Kingdom. The land is rich with the darkest of soil and, at the right time of year, the hills are thickly carpeted with greenery so bold that the land seems to cry with life. However, for the men and women who dot this landscape with their hard-fought lives, knowledge of the land’s capriciousness in delivering good fortune renders the image less vibrant.

In between the fields, outlined by mud irrigation canals furrowed by hand, wooden shacks protrude from the land. They lean this way and that, lacking any sense of fortitude; not a single one stands straight. When the heavy rains flood the fields, the people of this land dare not complain that their leaky roofs leave them drenched to the bone. They humbly accept that these meekest of shelters, while not able to keep them dry, allow them to stay in one spot, sparing the mud beneath them from softening to silt that may carry them away. The walls still stand and bear hooks that serve to pin all that these families own- collections of pots and hoes, of plastic bags filled with roughly folded clothes and worn slippers, quilted coats and sacks of rice- to their spot on the land. Without these rains life would be lost. The tiny rice seedlings, each one transplanted by hand to its spot in a row on these carefully tilled fields, would be lost.

The children of the land are not told stories of mythical monsters. Rather they are regaled with the horrors of a famine that once stripped this land bare. Their nightmares are filled with the howl of empty bellies and their daydreams are filled with abundant rains that fall as rice grains into an eternally filled bowl.

Squinting to avoid the glare of a brilliant harvest sun, if one focused on the dark dots scattered on the fields, one would come upon Fang Lei, bent over at the waist and knee deep in water cold enough to leave her feet unfeeling. She is surrounded by others similarly disposed, human hooks stuck in the soft earth.

“Hurry up! Cut faster!” Fang Bo, Lei’s husband, spat as he talked to his young wife. “Get your stems tied up quickly. I want to catch up with the others.” He stared after Pung and Shu as the brothers waddled their way through the field, their full bodies wading steadily through the muddied water. Pung, who had been called by this common word for fat since he was a young boy, was hampered neither by his own corpulence nor by the considerable weight of the bundled rice stalks that he carried on one shoulder. Shu, though smaller than Pung, was no less robust of a man and waded stride for stride with his brother.

Bo’s stomach churned at the thought of food. He was hungry and dreaded the long walk from the field to the Farmer Master’s house. A thin strip of a man, Bo would only manage half the haul of either Pung or Shu. He would have to face the embarrassment of having his day’s work weighed on the farmer master’s scale, his hand stretched out to receive just half the wage collected by each of the brothers.  

But this was no fault of his own. As a boy he had not had a belly filled up on the ill-gotten rewards of a mother who curried favor with the party leader, whoring herself for extra rations of sugar and white pork fat. Bo had swallowed hard on the saliva that spilled into his mouth when, on his daily walk to school with the pudgy pair, he had noticed the glistening ring of animal oil smeared around their mouths. The smell of the pork fat on their breaths teasing at his stomach. The thought of it now still soured him.

“You are so slow. You will do nothing but cost us our dinner. I don’t want to wait for you. I will not wait for you.” He kept his eyes on the brothers, on their backs stained with sweat, watching them move further and further from him. Bo didn’t look at Lei when he spoke.

Lei, did not take her eyes off of Bo, though he would not have known that. She was careful to keep her head bowed to her work, stealing a look at his face from under the brim of her hat. His words did not turn her this way or that, neither did her heart jump nor strain at his harshness, simply for the fact that she did not yet know him. She searched his face for clues. Its smallness and tightness reminded her of a fist. His dark eyes were so black, almost absorbing all of the light even on this brightest of days. She hoped there was a softness hidden behind them that she merely could not see. She had looked for this same softness on the night of their marriage, but the moon was shuttered out of his hut so completely that not a single ray of light had fallen across his face. She had become a woman in complete darkness with a man who was invisible to her.

Lei reached her left hand deep into the chilly water. She focused on clutching onto a handful of stems tightly and did not let her mind indulge thoughts of what may lie beneath the surface other than what was in her grasp. Her right hand wielded a small sickle with a short wooden handle and a blade dulled from a full day’s labor. She now worked the blade against the stems. Hacking repeatedly, she used the full weight of her body to compensate for its dullness. The tension of the grasped stems slackened as they were successfully hewed. Never loosening her grip, Lei deftly pulled the newly released bundle of stems out from beneath the water, while hooking the sickle by its blade through a leather loop that hung from the rope belt tied tightly around her waist.  She had several pre-cut lengths of this same caliber of rope in her pocket, three of which she now used to tie up her bundle of stems, starting with the stiff, green root end and working her way up towards the golden crowns. Lei’s face was wet and her body moist with sweat and heat even as her hands remained stiffened from their time in the icy water. She ran her hands softly over the rice crowns, grateful for the weight of their studded golden tassels. She knew that each of these studs represented the plant’s seeds. Seeds that after many more days of tending to would release soft tender grains of rice.

“What are you doing?” Bo barked.

“I am finished now.” Lei answered softly.

Bo started off across the field, carrying his load with some difficulty, not looking back at her even once. She supposed he didn’t need to as she was following right behind him, carrying a load equal in size to his own. She was close enough to hear his heavy breathing and the small grunts he let out every few steps as he readjusted his slipping load upwards and back onto the scrawny ridge of his shoulder.  The knobs of his spine protruded through the woven cloth of his shirt and she wondered what they would feel like if she ran her fingers over them. She hadn’t touched them once in their time together and wondered might he like it if she did.