Just as he always did when he walked past Enbo's house, he unconsciously quickened his step and peeped into the courtyard. "It's ok" , he told himself. The old woman wasn't in the courtyard, and neither was Bunny, who had recently taken his first clumsy steps. His breathing relaxed, but just as his pace slowed down again, he bumped into something soft. His foot shot backward as if from scalding water. Bunny was sitting on the ground, looking straight at him with his mouth wide open in a big, goofy grin. Gela turned to run, but just then, old Er Chiang materialised in the courtyard without warning, as if she had risen from the earth. There was panic painted on her face:
"You wild little thing, you can't just take our Bunny off gallivanting with you who knows where!"
Now it was Gela's turn to pull a goofy smile. How could a toddler who had just learned to walk possibly keep up with him, a feral child? Let alone that, who would ever give permission for their child to run around with a little wildling like him?
Er Chiang's face quickly rearranged itself into a benevolent smile.
"Oh alright, there's no need to just stand there. Just make sure you bring your new little brother back home when you're done."
Bunny made the first move, stretching out his little hand. After much hesitation, Gela took hold of it. Bunny's hand was still soft, though not as soft as a year ago, and it wasn't warm anymore, but decidedly cold. Gela heard a sound even softer than the feel of the toddler's hand emerge from his own mouth:
"Come on, little brother, let's go. Let's go, little brother Bunny!"
That same day, Granny Er Chiang gave him a small piece of cheese.
Spring came quickly, and left just as quickly. By the time summer came round, Gela already felt like Bunny really was his little brother. The toddler grew quickly and before long was running all over the village with his older brother Gela.
The very first time that Gela led Bunny out of the courtyard, Er Chiang yelled after them:
"Gela! How could you take Bunny so far from home?!"
Hurrying to assuage the note of panic he heard in her voice, Gela led Bunny back towards his grandmother.
The old woman's face smoothed over again, and with a wave of her hand she dismissed her little grandson's errant new older brother:
"Go on, off you go" .
With nothing left to be said, the children walked out of the courtyard, and into the village. They traversed a narrow, crooked alley, passing by the hedges of three different houses before the cramped box of sky and earth in the alley flew wide open as it emptied out into the village's main square. The main door of Gela's house—that is, if a two-room, single-floor shack tacked on to the side of a storehouse can be called a house—faced directly on to the square. There was no courtyard, no hedge of white birch and woven willow strips. Noon was approaching, and the village was almost entirely silent. The cattle and sheep were grazing on the mountainside pastures and all the adults were out working in the fields. Well, all except Sangdan, who was sunning herself in her doorway. She made an enchanting picture of idleness. Her eyes lit up when she saw her son standing hand in hand with Bunny, but the excitement in her eyes didn't show in her body language, which remained languid. She beckoned the two children towards her with a lazy bend of her wrist. Gela brought Bunny before her, whom she immediately wrapped in her arms and smothered with kisses, punctuating each kiss with contented, soft little noises.
"Oh look at the little darling, he's so tiny, oh, let me kiss him, such a tiny little darling!"
The kissing flurry subsided, and suddenly Sangdan's face was once more a blank canvas. She waved them away, saying:
"Gela, you can take the little darling away now."
"Ah-ma, all the grown-ups are out in the fields, so … why aren't you out there working, too?" he asked her, not quite in return.
Sangdan looked directly into her son's eyes with uncharacteristic clarity of focus, but that clarity gradually faded back into the usual blankness over the space of the next few moments. It was as if she'd attempted the beginnings of an answer, but had been defeated by the question's profundity. This question, Gela had kept hidden inside himself for a very long time; he didn't expect to find himself blurting it out without thinking twice. He was well aware that if his mother joined in with the field work, then the other villagers would treat them both a little more kindly, and that they would get a bigger grain ration, as well as a share of the communal output of beef, mutton, and butter. Food allocation and distribution was always carried out in the entrance of the storehouse—in other words, right on Gela and Sangdan's doorstep. Without a courtyard hedge, there was nothing to screen it from view. They did receive a small amount of grain from the production team, but it was a product of the villagers' pity; clearly it would have been hopelessly extravagant to hope for meat and butter as well.
Within a few days, Gela started to take Bunny further afield on their wanderings. On the first day that they ventured out of the village, Gela led him to some meadows at the edge of the forest on the mountain slope behind the village, where they ate the first wild strawberries of the season. Having eaten to their hearts' content, Gela asked his little companion:
"Bunny, are you having a good time with your older brother?"
Bunny opened his eyes as wide as they'd go and stretched out his slender neck, unfurling his head in a great swinging nod of affirmation.
