Free The Iron Bridge: Short Stories of 20th Century Dictators as Teenagers by Anton Piatigorsky

their otherwise fragrant ceremonies.
    Jen-sheng notes the red lacquered box tucked underneath her arm. Empty. Luo has accepted the contract and gifts. The deal is done. “Come here,” he commands his eldest son.
    “No,” replies the tall boy standing firm in the corner. His slender shoulders are pressed against the two whitewashed mud walls as if his body were a post holding up the roof.
    Jen-sheng turns to face his child. “Tse-tung, your bride.”
    Tse-tung cups one of his thin hands around the fingers of the other and looks at Jen-sheng, scowling. He too is dressed in a long cotton robe that stretches down to the floor. His back is rigid and his body still, which accentuates his height.
    “Now!”
    “She’s not my bride,” Tse-tung says calmly.
    Jen-sheng’s small eyes widen for a moment. He knows what’s coming. He’s seen this behaviour from Tse-tung on previous occasions and has secretly feared for weeks that he’d see it again today, when the boy is to be married against his will. Still, he catches himself before he shows too much anxiety. Jen-sheng’s brow falls and his eyes darken. His tight-lipped frown is exaggerated by the descending tails of his moustache, two misty waterfalls plunging off either cheek. “I am your father,” he says. “Come and do your duty.”
    The boy lowers his chubby cheeks and stares at a small pebble on the ground, hiding his blatant defiance. “No,” he repeats. There’s no wavering in his voice.
    Jen-sheng’s shoulders sink and lock, as if he were a large-enough man to pop his chest out and intimidate his opponent. “Come here now, you unfilial beast.”
    The boy, still staring at the floor, grunts in revulsion. “Who are you to say unfilial?”
    Jen-sheng squints at the gross impertinence of this child, this
insect
, and he bares his few remaining black teeth. He cannot accept rebellion on such a solemn day. The boy should be bowing to his father, as would be proper for a respectful eldest son. Instead, Tse-tung remains locked in the darkest of the room’s corners, ready to fight. It will take more than a few harsh commands or even a sound beating with the switch to pry him from that position. Jen-sheng doesn’t know what to do.
    “You let Grandfather rot in his chair without ever once
k’ou-t’ouing
, or asking his opinion, or serving him tea or deferring,” says Tse-tung. “A thousand times you mocked him with Li by the pond, calling him lazy and worthless. I heard you. You cannot deny it. And stupid for pawning his land. Tse-min heard you too. And yet you call me unfilial?”
    “I always do my duty,” hisses his father.
    Tse-tung forces an artificial chuckle. “That’s another one of your futile farts.”
    Jen-sheng lunges a step, but balks. He blinks and sucks his cheeks around his decaying teeth. Jen-sheng wants to hit Tse-tung, but there are too many people around and it is too formal an occasion. All he can do is stomp his foot on the earthen floor, which has been brushed as smooth as tiles. The gesture’s nothing more than a pitiful tantrum, as the hard-packed ground absorbs any sound his foot makes and resists the imprint of his heel. In hisembarrassment, the old man glances around to see if anyone other than Tse-tung is openly mocking him. He finds only the dead stare of his rotund wife, Wen Ch’i-mei, kneeling on the ground beside the ancestral tablets, and the wide-eyed shock of his second son, twelve-year-old Tse-min, sitting near the table with his chair against the wall as if he’s hoping to disappear in the shadows.
    Wen Ch’i-mei pushes herself off the floor, her hand on the wooden table to relieve the pressure from her ruined left knee, her pear-shaped face lowered and expressionless. She shuffles into the kitchen with a slight limp. Tse-tung watches her go.
    “Are you sick?” Jen-sheng asks his eldest son.
    Tse-tung smirks, but tries to hide it with the heel of his hand. Rivulets of sweat drip from his temples along the ridge of