A Steel Plate in My Leg

One

There’s a steel plate in my leg, and on cloudy days it predicts the weather better than the forecast does.

Three years ago, on a construction site, I stepped off the scaffolding into thin air. My shin snapped in two. The doctor put a steel plate inside and said, at my age, better to leave it in, let it heal. The way to heal a leg is to walk. Walk a lot, the doctor said, let the plate get acquainted with the flesh.

From then on, I walked along the Yellow River every day. Our village sits right on the bank. The river passes in front of the village—muddy, but it feeds us. I’ve waded this river since I was a boy; I know where it’s deep, where the eddies swirl, all with my eyes closed. When villagers pass the bank, everyone steals a glance at the water. People who live off a river love it, and fear it too.

This year, when the dog days began, it rained three days straight. The river rose, and my leg throbbed and jumped. I sat on the big stone at the old ferry crossing and negotiated with my leg: hold on a little longer, it’ll pass when the rain stops.

The leg didn’t answer.

What answered was a watermelon drifting down from upstream.

Two

The melon had rolled down from somebody’s melon patch upstream, swept away by the floodwater, spinning as it floated.

Three kids along the bank—Handan of the Han family, Maodan of the Zhangs, Hua’er of the Yes—chased the melon along the water, laughing themselves silly. Hua’er’s mother was picking chives on the slope and yelled “Come back!” Before the words had fallen, the rain-soaked cliff crumbled away on one side, and the three kids, one atop another, tumbled into the Yellow River.

Later she couldn’t remember how that cry of “Help!” had come out of her—her voice split like a cracked gong. She only remembered Old Ma springing up from the downstream shallows—a man past fifty, springing like a startled ox, running and stripping off his jacket, not even pausing to kick off his shoes before plunging into that yellow soup.

The Yellow River runs fast. One wave pushed the child away; another pushed the man away. Her calves cramped as she watched Old Ma surface, Hua’er tucked under his arm, thrust toward the bank. He dove again. Surged up again, Maodan under his arm.

When he went under a third time, for a long while there was no sign of him. Everyone on the bank came running; some wept, some bolted screaming back to the village.

And she saw one more thing, something she’d never forget as long as she lived: Old Ma’s left leg, in the water, was straight. It didn’t bend. Rigid as a boatman’s pole.

Afterward she told everyone: that day the Yellow River had swallowed three children, and it was Old Ma who snatched them back, one by one, right out of the river’s mouth.

Three

Underwater is another world.

First I saw green—murky, spinning. My ears buzzed like a hundred bees had gotten inside.

Then I saw a hand.

That hand clamped my arm like iron pincers. My whole body went light, and I was pushed up out of the water. The sky’s light was white. I threw up mouthful after mouthful of water and heard Uncle Ma roar: Grab the tree roots! Hold on tight!

I grabbed a tangle of willow roots and wouldn’t have let go if my life depended on it—it did.

Clutching the roots, I watched Uncle Ma dive again. The water churned and blossomed. Out of that churning place, Handan surfaced, Uncle Ma supporting the boy’s waist with one hand, holding him like something precious, inching toward the shore.

Four

Xiulan was steaming buns in the kitchen when someone pounded on the courtyard gate and shouted: Sister-in-law! Old Ma went into the river!

Six words, each one landing on her heart like a blow.

She remembered three years ago, Old Ma lying in the county hospital, his leg hoisted high in a sling. She couldn’t recall how much the steel plate cost, only that his first words when he woke were: Did the leg make it? It had—except now there was a piece of iron inside, aching on cloudy days, aching when the weather turned, aching for a whole year.

She ran out with flour still on her hands, the buns still raw in the steamer. When she reached the bank she saw Old Ma sitting in the mud, his trouser legs torn to ribbons, cuts streaming down his shin, Maodan—limp as wet mud—gathered in his arms.

She counted in her head, then counted again: three. All three children there, all crying. The louder they cried, the steadier her heart became.

She wanted to scold him: You could have died! But when the words reached her lips they came out as: “Your leg—is your leg all right?”

Old Ma grinned, teeth flecked with mud. “The leg’s buried in the mud. Doing fine.”

Five

At the county hospital, the doctor hung the X-ray up to the light and shook his head: You still have the plate in, and you dared to dive into a river?

I rubbed my hands together like a kid caught doing wrong. “Well… I wasn’t thinking about my leg just then.”

The doctor sighed, lowered his head to write up the chart, then added: Fair enough. In a moment like that, who could think of a leg?

The day I came home, gifts covered the kang. The party secretary squatted on the threshold and smoked half a pipe before speaking. “Zhanhai, what you carried out of that water today was the sky over three families. The Hans have that one boy for three generations. Hua’er is the daughter her parents prayed years for. And Maodan’s family…” He couldn’t go on. He knocked his pipe against his shoe sole.

A few days later, people came from the county and the union, carrying red flowers, sacks of rice and flour and cooking oil, and a certificate with gold lettering. All I could do was rub my hands together. After a long struggle I managed: “I just happened to be there. Anyone who was there would have jumped.”

My son called from Xining. He was silent a long while, then muttered, “Dad—from now on, take your phone when you walk the riverbank.”

The three families talked of bringing a whole sheep as thanks, but I refused flat out. In the end I accepted Hua’er’s mother’s ten eggs and a bundle of chives—refuse more than that, and it’d be an insult.

That night, Xiulan put the certificate into the wooden chest at the head of the kang. At the bottom, beneath it, lay the hospital bill from three years ago. Two papers stacked together: one recording how this leg was broken, one recording what this leg was for.

Six

It’s raining again, and my leg aches again, throbbing and jumping—more reliable than the forecast.

I still walk along the riverbank. Doctor’s orders: walk more, let the plate get acquainted with the flesh.

The water has receded some, but it’s still muddy yellow. The big stone at the old ferry crossing is still wet. I sit down on it and negotiate with my leg: hold on a little longer, it’ll pass when the rain stops.

Behind me, a patter of bare feet. Three kids come chasing—no longer chasing melons, but chasing me now, to see how many steps I can manage. Handan runs in front, this life fished back out of the river, bouncing now like a grasshopper on a hot pan. They shout in unison: Grandpa Ma—have you hit a thousand steps yet?

People say the Yellow River has no heart. I know better. Three years ago, it was this road along the bank that coaxed my leg back, step by step. This July, I carried three children back out of the river, one by one. A river and its people—gifts exchanged, courtesies returned. We’ve gotten to know each other.

The steel plate is still in my leg, and it still aches on cloudy days. But now, whenever it aches, I remember that afternoon: a water-drenched Hua’er, a Maodan clinging to the willow roots, a Handan limp as wet mud—come back to life in my hands, one, and one, and one.

Let it ache.

This is a steel plate that’s done its duty.

This story is adapted from real events. All names are pseudonyms.

COVER_QUERY: farmer rescuing child muddy river