1
It was early morning and the little Siberian survival village of Xin Changzhi was quiet and overflowing with peace. Dogs were stirring and some were already wandering the village streets and alleys. When the orders had come for the great migration from northern China to Xiboliya [the Chinese name for Siberia] to escape the worldwide famine brought on by global warming, there had been no plans for pets to come along. Nevertheless, there were always the exceptions, the children who could not leave their dogs behind and stowed them away, hidden from their parents and the other adult authorities. The dog population gradually grew and because they kept the village free of varmints and provided an early warning system for intruders, they were accepted as a fact of village life.
It was still dark, but a hint of morning glow in the east was already rousing the roosters and they began their boastful calls of welcome to the sun and the new day. The survival plan for Xin Changzhi also had not included livestock, forbidden in China before they left as an extravagance no longer affordable. Yet here as well several cows and a bull found their way in the first caravan. However, chickens were still a part of the Chinese culture. They were found darting about everywhere, even inside houses. They were given free rein to wander, not because they were considered holy, as with Indian cattle of old, but because they were a part of the harmonious web of relationships of the village and were respected for that reason. When a time came to sacrifice one for food, it was done with respect and the process was seen as a serious act to be done seriously.
Jiao, as with most of the women of Xin Changzhi, was awake with the roosters. She quickly checked her son, eight months old Congshen, who was fast asLip in the cradle his grandfather, Wu Renshou, had made for him before he was born. He was growing quickly and soon would need his own little bed. She left Congshen to continue his peaceful sLip while she washed and began preparations for breakfast. As the fragrance of her cooking began to permeate the air of the little cottage, Jiao’s husband, Jonas Marshall, began to stir.
In a nearby cottage, Sylvia and James Marshall, parents of Jonas, were likewise beginning to welcome the new day. Life could not be more different for them from the one they foresaw for themselves when they moved from America to Beijing to follow their jobs with The World Federation. Back then, The World Federation dominated the new world order and Sylvia and James both had important roles to play. They came to Beijing fifteen years ago filled with hope for a sustainable and prosperous future for all mankind. They left six years ago in despair. The World Federation was bankrupt and catastrophic environmental collapse was spreading rapidly across the globe like mushrooms that emerged overnight. In reality, however, the warning signs had been lurking everywhere, every day.
In an unexpected twist of fate, the Marshall family did not leave Beijing to return to the United States where they would take their chances with survival. Instead Sylvia and James left on a mission to find their runaway thirteen-year-old son, Jonas. That quest led them on a long and dangerous land journey to Chinese-occupied Siberia, known among the Chinese as Xiboliya, and to the little Chinese refugee village named by its founders Xin Changzhi, New Changzhi. And there, once again, their lives were transformed. In Xin Changzhi they found Jonas, adopted the village agrarian way of life, adjusted to an English-free society requiring that they master Mandarin, became “in-laws” and recently acquired the honored title of grandparents.
James and Sylvia Marshall were among the lucky few who survived the collapse of practically everything. The world economy had collapsed. National boundaries had collapsed. Food production and drinkable water sources had collapsed. Hope had collapsed. The asymmetric warming of Earth, leaving parts of the northern hemisphere warmer than the corresponding locations in the southern hemisphere, provided a survival opportunity for those in the north and despair for those in the south.
Less than a fifth of the world population prior to mid-century had survived. Yet here they were, the Marshall family, not only still intact, but growing, prospering in what had been southern Siberia, living a simple, satisfying life. They had dodged perhaps humanity’s biggest challenge in historic times. They were appropriately grateful.
Sylvia looked out the small window of their cottage and saw Jiao outside the cottage where she, Jonas and Congshen lived. Although it was early, Jiao was watering the surrounding flowerbeds. Water was not scarce in Xin Changzhi so the community encouraged the aesthetic luxury of flowers. Sylvia could not watch her daughter-in-law without smiling with admiration and love.
Jiao at nineteen was no longer the shy and frail girl of ten when Sylvia first met her. She had grown into a young woman whom any Chinese mother could look at with satisfaction and pride. She had grown a little taller than the average Chinese woman. She held herself erect. Jiao had learned a great deal from her mother, Huifang, and as her knowledge grew so did her body. As her body filled and gradually developed into that of a beautiful young women, so did she acquire a disarming whimsy. She had a quirky sense of style that frequently left her neighbors laughing happily when they saw her walking along the village paths, wearing a coolie hat adorned with flowers or ribbons or small branches from the nearby berry bushes. Or she would weave her hair into exotic structures and patterns. Or she would embellish her ankle-length gown with drawings or paintings. She made the drawings using charcoal bits she would retrieve from her or a neighbor’s banked down, outside fire pit. She made the paintings from paint pigments she prepared using ancient, traditional formulations.
The villagers loved Jiao’s amusing quirkiness, but they respected her intelligence even more. Jiao was highly admired among her peers. The Chinese revered wisdom acquired through many years of struggle and challenge and believed long-term survival was prima facieevidence of intelligence. Yet at the tender age of nineteen, Jiao’s friends would nevertheless come to her rather than to the elders to settle a dispute or recommend a solution to some tortured romantic relationship. Whenever Jiao was consulted, after careful thought, having listened to the facts, she would give her opinion or recommendation, but always with her impenetrable smile that somehow seemed to reassure. For some, her smile projected a kind of wise, philosophical resignation, as if she was saying, “In the great scheme of things, this matter really is not all that important. Trust the universe that whatever happens, happens for a reason.” But others who came to her for help interpreted her smile differently, as a kind of humility display, and admired her all the more for her seeming self-deprecation. Everyone loved Jiao. Especially, Jonas.
Jonas met Jiao when they both were ten years old. Now they were nineteen. When they first met, Jonas thought she didn’t like him, but as he got to know her better, he realized she was just very shy. Over time, working in the summers as a volunteer, side by side with Jiao in the fields on Father Wu’s farm west of Beijing, the shyness gave way to friendship and then as if drawn by an invisible force of nature, to love. It was that love that drove him to run away at thirteen to follow her when the whole northern Chinese population was ordered to migrate through Mongolia into Siberia.
Jonas stood decidedly tall at just over 190 centimeters. He had a good ear for languages and mastered Mandarin with Jiao’s critical assistance and corrections. She encouraged perfection from him and as a result his Mandarin was near perfect. Jonas was always involved with sports, even in Xin Changzhi, where he organized soccer competitions. He was lean and strong. Yet, despite his friendly relations with his peers, he lacked a certain self-confidence. He believed himself to be slightly ridiculous at nineteen to be both married and a father, things about which those around him seemed totally at ease. However, he was gradually adjusting to the pace of life in a country culture. In the meantime, he had grown a mustache and a small beard. He felt these provided some measure of maturity to accompany his elevated social status as a head of household. He knew that his facial hair was simply a costume, but one he would promote temporarily and abandon when the time was right.
There was a knock on the door that woke Jonas from a reverie as he ate the breakfast Jiao had prepared for him. It was Huifang, Jiao’s mother. Almost every day she walked to their cottage to bid a good morning to Jiao and Jonas and to play for a bit with Congshen before plunging into the never-ending stream of chores inherent in rural living.
“Good morning, Mother Wu,” Jonas said, ushering Jiao’s mother into their home.
“Good morning, my son,” Huifang said with her usual good cheer. She was dressed in work clothes. Her hair was beginning to turn gray, but was long and lustrous and did not convey a feeling of advancing age. It was straight and pulled back and secured in a ponytail. Her hands were the rough hands of a farmer’s wife, but her face was round and unwrinkled. She had one missing tooth in her upper jaw that she searched for unconsciously from time to time with the tip of her tongue.
Jonas pulled a chair from the table in the center of the room and gestured for his mother-in-law to be seated.
“May I offer you some tea, Mother?” Jonas asked with a slight bow of respect.
Just then little Congshen awoke with a kick of his feet and an excited gurgle hearing the voices of his father and maternal grandmother. Huifang rose immediately and lifted Congshen from his cradle. He was almost the same length as the cradle with his head and feet just missing the inner walls. Congshen opened his arms to Huifang while giving her a broad smile that she returned with a close, playful hug.
Huifang turned to Jonas. “Grandfather Wu is finished with Congshen’s new bed. He will bring it this evening. I made the mattress and Grandmother Marshall made the sheets and blanket and pillow. It will serve him for at least ten more years. Is it not a wondrous time?” she said, twirling about the room making Congshen laugh with each spin. “Tonight you get a new bed, my little prince.”
After a moment, Huifang gently placed Congshen on the floor whereupon he quickly rose and wandered about the room. After Huifang returned to her seat, one of Congshen’s stops in his perambulation of the room was the chair where she was sitting. Congshen would embrace Huifang for a moment each time and then move on. Finally, he changed course and embraced his father. He looked up at Jonas and said, “Father, I want to eat!”
“Okay,” Jonas said.
Congshen turned to Huifang. “Grandmother, please you feed me?”
Jonas looked at Huifang and shrugged, whereupon Huifang approached Jonas and Congshen, smiling broadly at her grandson. Jonas put a cushion on the chair next to him and placed Congshen on it. Jiao had left the preparations for a hot, oatmeal porridge before she left. Huifang took Jonas’s seat that he abandoned to her and getting quickly settled began to feed Congshen. He greedily ate every bit as it was offered to him.
When Congshen was finished Jonas said, “Okay my son, time to get dressed for work.”
He turned to Huifang and said, “We will be weeding today. I will bring Congshen with me. He can watch and learn.”
“I will just finish my tea and then return home. The grandfathers have decided a new bed for a young man deserves a celebration. The grandmothers have work to do. A celebration requires friends, food and drink. Mother Marshall and I will take the day to prepare. We will all gather at our cottage. Grandfathers Wu and Marshall will bring additional chairs after they return from the fields.” Jonas nodded his understanding and moved away quietly so Huifang could finish her tea in peace. By the time Jonas finished dressing Congshen, Huifang waved goodbye to both and left for her own cottage. When Jonas stepped outside after getting Congshen ready, he noticed Jiao was gone. She probably went with her mother, Jonas decided.
As Jonas opened the cottage door to leave for the cornfield, a chicken walked into the house. Congshen had made friends with several of them so it was not the first time this had happened. The chickens usually caused no damage. He decided to leave the cottage door open when he left for the field with Congshen. The chicken would find its way out. He also left the remaining porridge in a dish by the front door for any dogs that might pass by.
Jonas did not understand why the dogs did not eat the chickens. About a year ago, cats began to appear in the village. When the cats began to eat the chickens, the dogs began to kill the cats until once again there were only dogs in Xin Changzhi. He could not explain this, nor could Huifang, when he asked her.
***
