The Man Who Stopped Coming for Wine

Zuiquiu Winery sat at the very end of the west alley in Qingshi Town. The storefront was small; step inside and you were wrapped at once in the heavy, sweet smell of fermenting grain. Granny Zhou was sixty-one, the third generation of brewers to run the place. Her hands were rough and her knuckles swollen, yet she could read a wine vat better than any thermometer: a touch told her the water's warmth, a sniff told her whether the starter had woken.

Most of the town drank her wine. Who liked it strong, who liked it warm, who ran a tab, who paid on the nail, she kept it all in a ledger she never wrote down.

Old Shen had been a regular for thirty years. He used to do odd jobs around town; now retired, he came every day at four sharp, bought exactly two liang of head-distilled liquor, slapped copper coins on the counter, and never lingered or owed a cent. Zhou remembered how he always smelled the wine first, sipped half, then let out a long breath, as if he had poured the whole day's tiredness into that cup.

On the seventeenth day of winter, Shen did not come.

For a few days Zhou thought he had simply had his fill. But a month passed with no sign of him. She asked Qin, the vegetable seller next door, to check on him. Qin came back with word: Shen's door was locked, and a neighbor said he had packed his things days ago, apparently gone south to live with relatives.

Zhou said nothing, but something turned cold in her chest.

She remembered clearly: Shen's only son had drowned in the river beyond town ten summers back. He had no kin left in this town to visit. The last time he bought wine, he had told her he wanted to set aside a good jar for himself, "when my day comes, have the neighbors splash it on my grave, so someone sees me off." A man who had settled his own funeral would not slip away without a word.

Zhou set down the wine ladle and left the winery.

She did not go knocking at his gate. Shen's place was at the alley's end, and she knew it well. She slipped around to the back, peered over the low wall, and saw it at once: the little gourd he never parted with still hung under the eaves, sloshing with wine. If he had truly left, he would never have abandoned his treasure. The stove was cold, yet the water vat in the yard wore a thin skin of ice, and the ice had been broken by a ladle; wet footprints led away from it, small, like a child's.

She found Ergou, the mute boy who carried Shen's water. After much gesturing, Zhou understood: Shen had not left. He had fallen ill, lain down and could not rise. Afraid of burdening anyone, he had forbidden Ergou to tell, allowing only a half-bowl of rice broth slid through the window each day.

Then Zhou understood it all. Shen had decided his time had come. Not wanting to die owing wine money or kindness, he had invented the story of going south, to send everyone away.

She told no one. Before dawn the next day, she fetched a jar of freshly warmed rice porridge from her own kitchen, took a three-year-old jar of head-distilled from the cellar, climbed the low wall, and passed them through the window. Shen lay under a threadbare quilt, face burning red. He tried to sit up when he saw her, then fell back.

"I am keeping your account," Zhou said, pressing the porridge bowl into his hands. "The wine money waits. Survive this winter, then come settle it with me, jar by jar."

Shen's lips trembled. He said nothing.

She left the jar of head-distilled where it was, at the head of his bed.

And Shen did survive that winter. When spring came he came leaning on a stick to pay his debt, and Zhou waved him off. Neither of them spoke of what became of that jar of wine. The town went on as if nothing had happened; the winery smelled of grain as always, and at four each afternoon the alley filled again with that familiar sweet breath.

Only in Zhou's ledger, the line of Shen's unpaid tab had been quietly crossed out. Not forgiven, marked 'repaid.'