Big Breasts & Wide Hips

1

The first snowfall of the era of peace blanketed the corpses, while hungry wild pigeons hobbled about on the snow, their unhappy cries sounding like the ambiguous sobs of widows. The next morning, the sky took on the appearance of translucent ice, and when the sun rose red in the eastern sky, the space between heaven and earth looked like a vast expanse of colored glaze. A carpet of white covered the land, and when the people emerged from their houses, their breath a steamy pink, they tramped through the virgin snow on the eastern edge of the open fields, their possessions on their backs, leading their cattle and sheep behind them as they headed south. Crossing the crab- and clam-rich Black Water River, they were setting out for the baffling, fifty-acre highlands, and Northeast Gaomi Township’s remarkable “snow market” – a marketplace erected on the snowy ground – for their snowbound business transactions, ancestral sacrifices, and celebrations.

This was a rite for which people knew they had to keep all their thoughts bottled up inside, for the minute they opened their mouths to make them known, catastrophes would rain down on them. At the snow market, you engaged your senses of sight, smell, and touch to comprehend what was going on around you; you could think, but you mustn’t speak. Exactly what might befall you if you broke the speech proscription was something no one ever questioned, let alone answered; it was as if everyone knew, but participated in a tacit agreement not to divulge the answer. Northeast Gaomi Township’s survivors of the carnage – mostly women and children – all dressed up in their New Year’s finest and headed through the snow toward the highlands, their noses pricked by the icy smell of the snow at their feet. The women covered their noses and mouths with the sleeves of their thickly lined coats, and although it might appear that they were trying to ward off the biting smell of the snow, I was pretty sure it was to keep them from saying anything. A steady crunching sound rose from the white land, and while the people observed the practice of not speaking, their livestock didn’t. Sheep bleated, cows mooed, and those few aging horses and crippled mules that had somehow made it through the battles whinnied. Rabid wild dogs tore at the corpses along the way with their unyielding claws and howled at the sun like wolves. The only village pet to escape the ravages of rabies, the blind dog belonging to the Taoist priest Men Shengwu, followed its master bashfully through the snow. A three-room hut in front of a brick pagoda on the highlands was home to 120-year-old Men Shengwu, a practitioner of a magical art form known as eschewing grain. Rumor had it that he had not eaten human food for ten years, surviving exclusively on morning dew, like cicadas that live in trees.

In the eyes of the villagers Taoist Men was half man, half immortal. He moved about secretively with light, nimble steps; his head was bald and shiny, like a light bulb, his white beard bushy thick. He had lips like a little mule’s and teeth so bright they glittered like pearls. Both his nose and his cheeks were red, his white eyebrows as long as a bird’s wing feathers. Every year he appeared in the village on the day of the Winter Solstice to carry out his special responsibility of choosing the “Snow Prince” during the annual snow market – or more appropriately, the Snow Festival. This Snow Prince was required to fulfill sacred duties at the snow market, for which he received considerable material rewards, which is why all the villagers hoped that their sons would be chosen.

I – Shangguan Jintong – was chosen as that year’s Snow Prince. After visiting all eighteen villages of Northeast Gaomi Township, Taoist Men had selected me, proof that I was no ordinary boy. Mother wept tears of joy. When I was out on the street, women looked at me with reverence. “Snow Prince, oh Snow Prince,” they’d call out sweetly, “when is it going to snow?” “I don’t know when it’s going to snow, how could I?” “The Snow Prince doesn’t know when it’s going to snow? Ah, you don’t want to give away Nature’s secrets!”

Everyone was looking forward to the first snowfall, especially me. At dusk two days earlier, dense red clouds filled the sky; on the following afternoon, snow began to fall. Starting out as a mere dusting, it grew into a full-fledged snowstorm, with flakes the size of goose feathers and then downy little balls. Huge drifts of falling snow, one on top of the other, blotted out the sun. Out in the marshes, foxes and a variety of canines cried out, while the ghosts of wronged individuals roamed the streets and lanes, wailing and weeping. Wet, heavy snow pounded the paper coverings of people’s windows. White animals crouched on windowsills, beating the lattices with their bushy tails. I was too restless to sleep that night, my eyes filled with many strange sights; I won’t say what they were, because they would sound too mundane to someone who didn’t see them.

It was barely light outside when Mother got out of bed and boiled a pot of water to wash my face and hands. As she cleaned my hands, she said she was tending to the paws of her little puppy. She even trimmed my nails with a pair of scissors. Once I was all cleaned up, she stamped my forehead with her thumbprint in red, like a little trademark. Then she opened the door, and there was Taoist Men standing in the doorway. He’d brought along a white robe and cap, both made of glossy satin, softly pleasing to the touch. He’d also brought me a white horsetail whisk. After outfitting me, he told me to take a few steps around the snow-covered yard.

“Marvelous!” he said. “This is a true Snow Prince!”

I could not have been prouder. Mother and Eldest Sister were obviously pleased. Sha Zaohua gazed at me with a look of adoration. Eighth Sister’s face was adorned with a beautiful smile, like a little flower. The smile on Sima Liang’s face was more like a sneer.

Two men carried me on a litter with a dragon painted on the left side and a phoenix on the right. Wang Taiping, a professional sedan bearer, led the procession; he preceded his older brother, Wang Gong-ping, also a professional sedan bearer. Both brothers spoke with a slight stammer. Some years earlier, they’d tried to avoid conscription into the army, Taiping by cutting off the first finger of his own hand, Gongping by smearing red croton oil over his testicles to make it appear as if he had a hernia. When the village head, Du Baochuan, saw through their hoax, he pointed his rifle at them and gave them a choice between being shot and going up to the front lines as stretcher bearers, carrying wounded soldiers on their backs, and transporting munitions. They stammered incoherently, so their father, Wang Dahai, a mason who had fallen from a scaffold during the construction of the church and wound up crippled, chose for them. The two men carried their loads with a quick, steady gait that earned for them high marks from their superiors, and when they were demobilized, their commander, Lu Qianli, wrote references for them. But then Du Baochuan’s younger brother, Du Jinchuan, who had gone to war with them, died of a sudden illness, and the two brothers carried his body home, a full fifteen hundred li, experiencing untold hardships along the way. When they arrived, Du Baochuan accused them of killing his brother and greeted them with resounding slaps; unable to say anything without stammering uncontrollably, they took out the reference letters from their regiment commander. Du Baochuan snatched them out of their hands and ripped them up on the spot. Then, with a wave of his hand, he said, “Once a deserter, always a deserter.” All they could do was swallow their bitter feelings. Their tempered shoulders were hard as steel, their legs well trained for their profession. Riding on a litter carried by them was like being in a boat floating downstream. Waves of light tumbled across the snowy wasteland.

A stone bridge stood on pine pylons across the Black Water River. It swayed beneath us, making the roadway growl at our feet. After we had crossed, I turned and saw the lines of footprints on the snowy wasteland. I spotted Mother and Eighth Sister, and all the small children of the family, plus my goat, coming up behind me.

The sedan-bearing brothers carried me all the way to the highland, where I was welcomed by the spirited looks and tightly shut mouths of people who had arrived before us, men, women, and children. The adults wore somber expressions; the children all had mischievous glints in their eyes.

Led by Taoist Men, the brothers carried me up to a square earthen platform smack in the center of the highland, where a pair of benches stood behind a large incense burner with three joss sticks. They placed the litter between the benches, so I could dangle my legs as I sat. The silent cold nipped at my toes like a black cat and chewed on my ears like a white one. The sound of burning incense was like that made by worms as the curling ash fell into the burner and rumbled like a collapsing house. Its fragrance crawled up the left nostril of my nose like a caterpillar and out the right. Taoist Men burned a bundle of spirit money in a bronze brazier at the foot of the platform. The flames were like golden butterflies with wings covered with golden powder; the paper was like black butterflies fluttering up into the sky until they were worn out, and then settling down onto the snow, where they quickly died. Taoist Men then prostrated himself before the platform of the Snow Prince and signaled the Wang brothers to lift me up again. I was handed a wooden club wrapped in gold paper, its head formed into a tinfoil bowl – the Snow Prince’s staff of authority. After choosing me as the Snow Prince, Taoist Men had told me that the founder of the snow market was his teacher, Taoist Chen, who had received his instructions from Laozi, the founder of Taoism himself, and that once he’d carried out his instructions, he’d risen up to Heaven to become an immortal, living on a towering mountaintop, where he ate pine nuts and drank spring water, flying from pine trees to poplars, and from there to his cave. Taoist Men explained in great detail the duties of the Snow Prince. I’d already carried out the first – receiving the veneration of the multitudes – and was at that moment carrying out the second, which was an inspection of the snow market.

This was the Snow Prince’s divine moment, as a dozen men in black-and-red uniforms stepped forward; although they held nothing in their hands, they assumed the posture of musicians with trumpets, suonas, bugles, and brass cymbals. The cheeks of some puffed out as if they were trumpeting loudly. Once every few paces, the cymbalist raised his left hand to shoulder height and pretended to strike his cymbal with his right hand; the silent clangs were carried far off in the distance. The Wang brothers bounced and swayed on springy legs as the citizenry ceased their silent transactions and stood straight, eyes gaping, arms at their sides, to watch the procession of the Snow Prince. The colors of those familiar and unfamiliar faces were enhanced by the glare of the snow: reds like dates, blacks like charcoal briquettes, yellows like beeswax, and greens like scallions. I waved my staff of authority in the direction of the crowd, momentarily sending them scurrying in confusion; their hands now swung wildly in the air and their mouths were open, as if screaming. But no one dared or was willing to make a sound. One of the sacred duties bestowed upon me by Taoist Men was to stop up the mouth of anyone who dared make a sound with the tip of my staff, then to jerk it back quickly, pulling the person’s tongue out with it.

I spotted Mother, First Sister, and Eighth Sister in the crowd of people releasing their silent screams. I also saw others, such as Sha Zaohua and Sima Liang. My goat had been fitted with a mask over its mouth; fashioned out of white cotton in the shape of a cone, it was held on by a white cotton strap looped around the ears, for the proscription against making a sound was heeded not only by the Snow Prince’s family, but by its goat as well. I waved my staff in the direction of my family, all of whom greeted me in return by raising their arms. Sima Liang made circles with both hands and raised them to his eyes, as if looking at me through binoculars. Zaohua’s face was radiant, like a fish deep in the ocean.

All variety of things were sold at the snow market. The first stop by my silent honor guard was the shoe market. Only straw sandals were displayed, all made of softened cattails, the kind of footwear that Northeast Gaomi residents wore throughout the winter. Hu Tiangui, the father of five brothers who had survived the war and then been sent into forced labor, stood holding a willow branch, icicles hanging from his chin, white cloth wrapped around his chin; wearing only a tattered burlap sack, he was bent over, two grimy fingers extended as he bartered with Qiu Huangshan, a master sandal-maker. Qiu stuck out three fingers and laid them over Hu’s two. Hu stubbornly reextended his two fingers; Qiu quickly countered with three. Back and forth they went – three, four, five times – until Qiu pulled back his hand and, with a pained look to show his frustration, untied a pair of inferior sandals made of the green tips of cattails from his string of wares. Hu Tiangui’s open mouth was a silent expression of his angry reaction. He thumped his chest, looked heavenward, and then pointed to the ground. What he meant by all this was unclear. With his staff he dug through the pile of sandals, settling upon a superior pair the color of beeswax with thick, sturdy soles, made from cattail roots. Qiu pushed Hu’s staff away, stuck out four fingers, and held them unflinchingly under Hu’s nose. Once again Hu looked heavenward and pointed to the ground, his burlap sack shifting with each movement. He bent down and untied the pair of sandals he’d selected, gave them a squeeze, and shifted his feet; his tattered shoes, with rubber soles that were barely attached to the tops, now lay on the ground in front of him. Supporting himself by his staff, he slipped his trembling feet into the new sandals, then took a crumpled bill out of his patchwork pocket and tossed it at the feet of Qiu Huangshan. With rage written all over his face, Qiu uttered a silent curse and stomped angrily on the ground; but he picked up the frayed bill, flattened it out, held it by one corner, and waved it in the air for the benefit of people nearby. Some shook their heads sympathetically, while others wore silly grins. Inching his way along with the help of his staff, Hu Tiangui walked off on legs that were stiff as boards. I was disgusted with Qiu Huangshan, he with the skillful mouth and nimble fingers, and deep down hoped that his anger would get the best of him, causing him to blurt out something; that way, with my temporary authority, I could jerk that long tongue out of his mouth with my staff. But he cleverly saw what I was thinking and tucked the pink bill into a pair of sandals hanging from his carrying pole. When he took down the sandals, I saw they were nearly stuffed full of brightly colored paper money. One by one he pointed to the sandal-makers around him, who looked at me with fawning expressions and then slowly pointed to the money in his sandals. Once he’d finished, he reverently flung the sandals to me; they bounced off my gut and landed on the ground in front of me. Several of the bills, with images of dumb fat sheep seemingly waiting to be sheared or slaughtered, fell out. As I moved forward, several more pairs of sandals stuffed with money came flying my way.

In the food market, Fang Meihua, the widow of Zhao the Sixth, was anxiously frying stuffed buns in a flat-bottomed wok. Her son and daughter sat on a straw mat with a blanket wrapped around them, their four eyes rolling nonstop. She had set up a number of rickety tables in front of her stove, and at the moment, six burly reed-mat peddlers were squatting in front of the tables eating buns and garlic. The tops and bottoms of the fried buns were a crusty brown color; they were so hot you could hear them sputter in the men’s mouths, and so oily that red grease spurted out with each bite. None of the other bun sellers or flatcake peddlers had any customers; glaring enviously at the spot in front of Widow Zhao’s stand, they stood there banging the sides of their woks.

As my litter passed, Widow Zhao stuck a bill on a bun, took aim at my face, and casually tossed it over. I ducked just in time, and the bun struck Wang Gongping squarely in the chest. Flashing me a look of apology, Widow Zhang wiped her hands on an oily rag. Her eyes were deep-set in her ashen face, ringed with dark purple circles.

A tall, skinny man sidled over from the stand where live chickens were sold; the frightened hens were cackling nervously. The woman who ran the stand nodded repeatedly. The man had a peculiar walk: stiff as a board, he strode rhythmically, his shoulders shrugging with each step as if he were about to take root in the ground. It was Heavensent Zhang, whom people had nicknamed “Old Master Heaven.” A practitioner of the strange occupation of escorting the dead back to their hometowns, he had the gift of getting them back on their feet to walk home. Anytime a resident of Northeast Gaomi died away from home, Zhang was hired to bring the person back. And anytime an out-of-towner died in Northeast Gaomi Township, he was hired to take him back. How could anyone not venerate a man who had the ability of getting a corpse to walk over as many mountains and rivers as it took to get home? A strange smell emanated from the man’s body, and even the meanest dog tucked its tail between its legs, turned, and ran off when he drew near. Taking a seat on the bench in front of the widow’s wok, he extended two fingers. In the flurry of hand signals that passed between him and the woman, it quickly became clear that he wanted two trays of her buns, a total of fifty – not just two and not just twenty. So the widow hurried to serve this big-bellied customer, her face brightening, as green glares converged from neighboring stands. I hoped they’d say something, but even jealousy lacked the power to open their mouths.

Heavensent sat quietly, eyes riveted on the widow as she worked, his hands resting tranquilly on his knees; a black cloth sack hung from his belt, but what it held no one knew. In the late autumn he’d taken on a big job – delivering a New Year’s scroll peddler who had died in Northeast Gaomi County’s Aiqiu Village back to his home in the far-off Northeast. After agreeing to the fee, the man’s son left his address and went on ahead to prepare to receive his father. Given all the mountain ranges Heavensent would have to cross, people doubted that he’d ever make it back. But he had, and by the looks of him, he’d only just returned. Was that money in his cloth bag? His straw sandals were tattered, exposing swollen toes and bony ankles.

As Sleepyhead’s younger sister, Cross-eyed Beauty, walked past my litter with a large head of cabbage, she cast me a flirtatious look. Her hands were red from the freezing cold, and as she passed in front of Widow Zhao’s stand, the widow’s hands began to quake violently. Their gazes met, and mortal enemies’ eyes turned red. Not even the sight of the woman who had killed her husband was enough for Widow Zhao to violate the snow market ban on speaking. Yet I could see that her blood was boiling. Widow Zhao possessed the quality of letting nothing, not even rage, keep her from her work. After filling a large white ceramic bowl with the first rack of buns, she placed it in front of Heavensent, who stretched out his hand. It took Widow Zhao a moment to figure out what he wanted. She smacked her forehead apologetically, then reached into a jar, removed two large purple pungent stalks of garlic, and laid them in front of him. She then filled a small black bowl with sesame-flavored chili sauce and placed it too before Heavensent as a special treat. The reed-mat peddlers looked on with disgruntled expressions, censuring her for toadying up to Heavensent Zhang, who slowly and contentedly peeled the garlic as he waited for the buns to cool. Then he placed the white, unpeeled stalks on the table in a row by size, like a column of soldiers, now and then reaching down to switch one or two to make a perfect column. He didn’t start eating – more like inhaling – the buns until my litter had been carried way over to the cabbage market.

A tiny hut stood silently at the base of the pagoda, one devoted to no particular god or deity. The subtle fragrance of burning incense wafted out the door. A large wooden cauldron standing in front of the incense burner was filled with virgin snow. Behind it was a wooden stool – the “Snow Prince” throne. Taoist Men lifted the gauze curtain that separated the silent hut from the outside, walked in, and covered my face with a piece of white satin. I knew from his instructions that while carrying out this duty I was not to remove the veil. I heard him slip quietly out of the hut, so that only the sounds of my soft breathing, my faint heartbeat, and the tiny sizzle of burning incense remained. Gradually, I heard the gentle crunch of snow as people walked toward me.

A girl with dainty steps walked in. All I could see through my veil was the outline of a large girl whose body reeked of burnt pig bristles. Not likely a girl from Dalan, and quite possibly from Sandy Ridge Village, where a family ran a handicraft business of making brushes. But wherever she came from, the Snow Prince was obliged to be impartial. So I stuck my hands into the snow in the cauldron to cleanse them of impurities. Then I stretched them out to her. The custom was for all women wanting to bear a child in the coming year and those who wanted milk to fill their young, healthy breasts to lift up their blouses and expose their breasts to welcome the outstretched hands of the Snow Prince. It happened just as it was supposed to: two spongy mounds of flesh pressed toward my icy hands. My head spun as warm currents of joy passed through my hands and quickly suffused my body. The woman panted uncontrollably as her breasts brushed my fingertips and then, like a pair of heated doves, flew away.

I’d barely felt the first pair of breasts, and now they were gone. My disappointment gave way to desire as I thrust my hands back into the snow to cleanse and purify them once again. I waited impatiently for the arrival of the next pair, which I was not going to let get away so easily. When they came, I grabbed them and wouldn’t let go. They were small and exquisite, neither too soft nor too firm, like steamed buns fresh from the oven. Even though I couldn’t see them, I knew they were snowy white, smooth, and glossy, their tiny tips like button mushrooms. As I grasped them, I said a silent prayer of good wishes. One squeeze: May you have pudgy male triplets. Two squeezes: May your milk gush like a fountain. Three squeezes: May your milk be as wonderfully sweet as morning dew. She moaned softly before pulling away, to my considerable disappointment. My feelings plummeted, and shame set in. To punish myself, I buried my hands in the snow until my fingertips touched the slick bottom. I didn’t pull them out until the numbness reached halfway up my arms. The Snow Prince raised his purified hands in benediction to the women of Northeast Gaomi Township. I was feeling glum until a sagging, shifting pair of breasts brushed up against my hands. They cackled like stubborn hens as fine bumps rose up on the skin. I pinched the two weary nipples, then pulled my hands back. Rusty puffs of air from the woman’s mouth penetrated the gauzy veil and struck me on the face. The Snow Prince does not discriminate. May your wishes be fulfilled. If you desire a son, may you have a boy; if you desire a daughter, may you have a girl; and may you possess all the milk you desire. Your breasts will be healthy always, but if it is a return to your youth that you desire, the Snow Prince cannot help you.

The fourth pair of breasts were like explosive quails, with brown feathers, unyielding beaks, and short, powerful necks. Those unyielding beaks kept pecking at the palms of my hands.

Two hornets’ nests seemed hidden in the fifth pair of breasts, for they began to buzz the moment I touched them. The surface heated up from all the insects trying to break out, making my hands tingle as they bequeathed their blessings.

That day I fondled at least a hundred and twenty pairs of breasts, gaining layer upon layer of feelings and impressions of women’s breasts, like turning the pages of a book. But the unicorn shattered all those crisp impressions. She was like a thrashing rhino, an earthquake rumbling through the storehouse of my memory, a wild bull crashing into a garden.

I had stretched out my hands, by then swollen and all but desensitized, intent on carrying out the duties of the Snow Prince as I awaited the next pair of breasts. I heard a familiar giggle, but there were no breasts. Red face, red lips, tiny dark eyes – all of a sudden, the face of this flirtatious young woman floated into my mind’s eye.

My left hand touched the fullness of a large breast; my right hand touched nothing, and at that moment I knew that single-breasted Old Jin had arrived. After coming perilously close to being shot following a mass-struggle session, this flirtatious widow, who ran a sesame oil shop, married the poorest man in the village, a homeless beggar named One-eyed Fang Jin, and was now the wife of a poor peasant. Her husband had one eye; she had a single breast. It was a match made in heaven. Old Jin wasn’t really old, but word of her unique style of making love had made the rounds among the village men, and had even reached my ears on several occasions, although I didn’t understand much of what I heard. As I was cupping her breast with my left hand, she grabbed my right hand and brought it over, until her unusually full breast weighted down both hands. Under her guidance, I felt every inch of it. It was a lonely mountain peak spread across the right side of her chest. The top half an easy, relaxing slope, the bottom half was a droopy hemisphere. Hers was the warmest breast I’d ever felt, like a vaccinated rooster, so hot it nearly sparked. It was smooth and glossy, and would have been more so if not for the heat. The end of the droopy hemisphere jutted out like an overturned bowl for wine, tipped by a slightly upturned nipple. It was hard one second, soft the next, like a rubber bullet; several drops of a cool liquid stuck to my hand, and I was reminded of something said to me by a diminutive villager who had traveled to the south to sell silk: he said lusty Old Jin was like a papaya, a woman who oozed white fluids the moment she was touched. Since I’d never seen a papaya, I could only imagine that they were an ugly fruit with a deadly attraction. The discharge of the Snow Prince’s sacred duties was gradually taken off course by Old Jin’s single breast. My hands were like sponges, soaking up the warmth of her breast, and it seemed to me that my fondling brought her contentment as well. Grunting like a little pig, she grabbed my head and buried it in her bosom, where her overheated breast burned my face, and I heard her mutter softly, “Dear boy… my own dear boy…”

The snow market rule was broken.

A single utterance invited disaster.

A green Jeep was parked in the square in front of Taoist Men’s house. Four security police in khaki uniforms with white cotton insignia over the breast pockets piled out and, with nimble precision, burst through Taoist Men’s door; they reappeared moments later with handcuffed Taoist Men in tow. As he was bundled up to the Jeep, he cast a sorrowful look my way, but said nothing. He meekly climbed into the Jeep.

Three months later, the leader of the reactionary sect, Men Shengwu, Taoist Men, who had regularly secreted himself on a high mountain slope to fire signal shots to secret agents, was shot beneath Enchanted Bridge in the county seat. His blind dog ran after the Jeep in the snow, only to have his head blown apart by a sharpshooter riding in the car.

2

I sneezed, and woke myself up. Golden light from the kerosene lamp coated the glistening walls. Mother was sitting beneath the lamp rubbing the golden pelt of a weasel, a pair of shears lying across her knees. The weasel’s bushy tail jumped and leaped in her hand. A grimy, monkey-faced man in a brown army greatcoat sat on a stool in front of the kang. He was scratching the scalp under his gray hair with crippled fingers.

“Is that you, Jintong?” he asked tentatively as a look of pity shone from his black eyes.

“Jintong,” Mother said, “this is your… it’s your elder cousin Sima…”

It was Sima Ting. I hadn’t seen him in years, and just look what those years had done to him! Sima Ting, the township head who had stood atop the watchtower all those years ago, lively and full of energy, where had he gone? And his fingers, red as ripe carrots, where were they?

Back when the mysterious horseman had shattered the heads of Sima Feng and Sima Huang, Sima Ting had jumped out of the horse trough beside the west wing of our house, like a carp leaping out of the water, as the crack of gunfire split his eardrums. He stormed around the mill house like a spooked donkey, circling it over and over. The clatter of horse’s hooves rolled through the lane like a tidal wave. I have to run away, he was thinking. I can’t hang around here waiting to be killed. With wheat husks clinging to his head, he clambered over our low southern wall and landed in a pile of dog shit. As he lay sprawled on the ground, he heard a disturbance somewhere in the lane, and scrambled on his hands and knees over to an old haystack, which he discovered he shared with a laying hen with a bright red comb. The next sounds he heard, only seconds later, were a heavy thud and the crash of a splintering door. Immediately after that, a gang of men in black masks came outside and headed straight for the wall. They trampled the weeds and grass at the base of the wall in their thick-soled cloth shoes. All were armed with black repeater rifles. Moving with the assurance of fearless bandits, they negotiated the wall like a flock of black swallows He wondered why they had covered their faces, but when he later learned of the deaths of Sima Feng and Sima Huang, a glimmer of light filtered into his clouded mind, clearing up things he hadn’t understood until then. The men spilled into the yard. Caring only for his head and letting his rear end take care of itself, he squirmed into the haystack to await the outcome.

“Number Two is Number Two, and I’m me,” Sima Ting said to Mother in the lamplight. “Let’s be clear on that, Sister-in-law.”

“Then he’ll call you Elder Uncle. Jintong, this is your elder uncle, Sima Ting.”

Before I drifted off to sleep again, I watched Sima Ting take a shiny gold medal out of his pocket and hand it to Mother. “Sister-in-law,” he said in a muffled, bashful voice, “I’ve made amends for my crimes.”

After crawling out of the haystack, Sima Ting slipped out of the village in the dark of night. Half a month later, he was dragooned into a stretcher unit, where he was paired with a dark-faced young man. During one of the battles, he lost three fingers of his left hand in an explosion. But he did not let the pain stop him from carrying a squad leader who had lost a leg to the hospital on his back.

I listened to him prattle on and on, relating all his strange adventures, like a young man spinning yarns to divert attention from his errors. Mother’s head rocked in the lamplight, a golden sheen on her face. The corners of her mouth were turned up slightly in what looked like a sneer.

When I woke up early in the morning, a foul smell assailed my nostrils. I saw Mother in a chair, leaning against the wall, fast asleep. Sima Ting was squatting on a bench next to the kang, he too was asleep, looking like a perched eagle. The floor in front of the kang was littered with yellow cigarette butts.

Ji Qiongzhi, who would later be my homeroom teacher, came down from the county government and started a Woman’s Remarriage Campaign in Dalan Town. She brought with her a bunch of female officials who acted like a herd of wild horses; they called a meeting of all the township widows to publicize a campaign to have them remarry. Under their active mobilization and organization, just about all the widows in our village found husbands.

The only widows to become obstacles to this campaign were those of the Shangguan family. No one dared to seek the hand of my eldest sister, Laidi, since all the local bachelors knew she’d been the wife of the traitor Sha Yueliang, had been exploited by Sima Ku, who’d fled the revolution, and that she’d also been the wife of the revolutionary soldier Speechless Sun. Even in death, these three men were no one to get on the bad side of. Mother fell within the age limit set by Ji Qiongzhi, but she refused to remarry. The moment the official stepped foot in the door to try to talk Mother around, she was sent away with a barrage of curses. “Get out of my house!” Mother yelled. “Why, I’m older than your mother!”

But, strangely enough, when Ji Qiongzhi herself came over to give it a try, Mother spoke to her genially: “Young lady,” she said, “who do you plan to have marry me?”

“Someone younger than you would not be a good match, aunty,” Ji Qiongzhi said, “and about the only man in your age group is Sima Ting. Even though there are blemishes in his history, he set everything straight with his meritorious service. Besides, you two have a special relationship.”

With a wry smile, Mother said, “Young lady, his younger brother is my son-in-law.”

“What does that matter?” Ji Qiongzhi said. “You’re not related by blood.”

The wedding ceremony for forty-five widows took place in the decrepit old church. I attended, in spite of the anger I felt. Mother took her place among the widows, with what looked like a pink tinge to her puffy face. Sima was standing with the men, scratching his head with his crippled hand the whole time, maybe to cover his embarrassment.

On behalf of the government, Ji Qiongzhi gave each of the new couples a towel and a bar of soap. The township head presented them with marriage certificates. Mother blushed like a young maiden as she accepted the towel and certificate.

Wicked thoughts burned in my heart. My face was hot with a sense of shame for Mother. There was only dust on the spot on the wall where the jujube Jesus had once hung. And on the platform where Pastor Malory had baptized me stood a bunch of brazen men and women. They seemed to be cowering, their glances evasive, like a gang of thieves. Even though Mother’s hair had turned gray, here she was, about to marry the elder brother of her own son-in-law. One of the female officials scattered some withered China rose petals from a yellow gourd ladle in the direction of the hapless new couples. Some landed on Mother’s gray hair, which was slicked down with elm sap, falling like dirty rain, or shriveled bird feathers.

Like a dog whose soul had taken flight, I slunk out of the church. There, on the ancient street, I saw Pastor Malory, a black robe draped across his shoulders, slowly wandering along. His face was mud-spattered; tender yellow buds of wheat were sprouting in his hair. His eyes, looking like frozen grapes, shone with the light of sorrow. In a loud voice, I reported to him that Mother had married Sima Ting. I saw his face twitch in agony, and watched as his frame and the black robe began to break up and dissolve into curls of black, stinking smoke.

Eldest Sister was in the yard, her snowy white neck bent down as she washed her lush black hair. In that position, her lovely pink breasts were singing like a pair of silky-voiced orioles. When she straightened up, crystalline beads of water coursed down the valley between her breasts. With one hand, she coiled the back of her hair as she narrowed her eyes and looked at me, a smirk on her face. “Are you aware,” I said, “that she’s marrying Sima Ting?” Again that smirk; she ignored me. Mother walked into the house hand in hand with Shangguan Yunii, shameful rose petals still stuck to her hair. Dejected Sima Ting was right behind them. Eldest Sister picked up her basin and flung the water into the air, where it spread into a luminous fan. Mother sighed, but said nothing. Sima Ting handed his medal to me, either to win me over or to prove his worth, but I just stared at him solemnly. A look of hypocrisy was frozen on his smiling face. He averted his eyes and covered his embarrassment with a cough. I flung the medal away. It flew over the rooftop like a bird, trailing a gold-colored ribbon behind it. “Go pick that up!” Mother said angrily. “No,” I replied defiantly.

Sima Ting said, “Let it be, forget it. There’s no need to keep that around.”

Mother slapped me.

I fell backward and rolled around on the ground. Mother kicked me.

“Shame on you!” I spat out venomously. “You have no shame!”

Mother’s head slumped from her weighty sorrow and a loud wail burst from her mouth; she turned and ran tearfully into the house. Sima Ting sighed before squatting beneath the pear tree to have a smoke.

Several cigarettes later, he stood up and said, “Go in and talk to your mother, nephew. Get her to stop crying.” Then he took the marriage certificate out of his pocket, tore it into strips, and tossed them to the ground just before walking out of the yard, stooped over, an old man, like a candle guttering in the wind.

3

At the height of the age of bluster, Sima Ku gave his revered mentor, the nearsighted Qin Er, a pair of rhinestone eyeglasses. Now, with the counterrevolutionary gift perched on his nose, Qin was sitting at a brick rostrum holding an open volume of Chinese literature, his voice trembling as he lectured to us, Northeast Gaomi Township’s first freshman class, a group whose ages varied dramatically. The heavy eyeglasses slid halfway down the bridge of his nose; a single drop of oily green snot hung from the tip of his nose, threatening to drop to the floor, but somehow hanging on. Big goats are big- he intoned. Even though it was already the sixth month, among the hottest of the year, he sat there wearing a lined, black, full-length robe and a black satin skullcap with a red tassel. Big goats are big – we shouted out the words, trying to mimic his tone of voice. Little goats are little – he intoned sorrowfully. The room was stifling, dark and dank, and we sat there, barefoot and shirtless, our bodies covered with greasy sweat, while our teacher, dressed for winter, his face pale and his lips purple, looked as if he were freezing. Little goats are little – our voices resounded in the room, which smelled like stale urine, like a neglected goat pen. Big goats and little goats run up the hill – Big goats and little goats run up the hill – Big goats run, little goats bleat – Big goats run, little goats bleat - given my profound knowledge of goats, I knew that big goats, with their sagging teats, couldn’t run; why, they could barely walk. For little goats to bleat was entirely possible, and, for that matter, to run. Big goats grazed lazily in the pasture, while little goats ran around bleating. I was tempted to raise my hand to ask the venerable teacher his opinion, but I didn’t dare. A discipline ruler lay in front of him, its sole purpose to smack the palms of disobedient students’ hands. Big goats eat a lot – Big goats eat a lot – Little goats eat a little – Little goats eat a little- those were true statements. Of course big goats eat more than little goats, and little goats eat less than big goats. Big goats are big – little goats are little – with that, we went back and started over from the beginning. The teacher intoned on and on tirelessly, but classroom order began to fall apart. One of the students, Wu Yunyu, was a tall, husky eighteen-year-old son of a farm laborer. He was already married to the widowed proprietor of a bean curd shop, who was eight years his senior and in the last stage of pregnancy. He was about to become a daddy. The soon-to-be daddy took a rusty pistol from his waistband and took aim at the red tassel of Qin Er’s cap. Big goats run – Big goats – pow! Ha ha ha ha, run – The teacher looked up, his gray ovine eyes peering down over the top of the rhinestone lenses. He was so myopic he probably couldn’t see a thing. So he went back to reading. Little goats bleat-pow! Wu Yunyu fired off another imaginary shot, and the red tassel on the old teacher’s cap fluttered. Laughter filled the room. The teacher picked up his ruler and smacked the table. “Quiet!” he demanded, like a judge. The recitation recommenced. Guo Qiusheng, the seventeen-year-old son of a poor peasant, left his seat at a crouch and tiptoed up to the rostrum, where he stood behind the teacher, bit his lower lip with his ratlike front teeth, and made gestures of stuffing shells into a mortar, the barrel of which was the top of the teacher’s bony skull. Over and over he fired his imaginary weapon. Chaos took over in the classroom, with all of us rocking back and forth laughing. Xu Lianhe, a big boy, pounded his desk, while the smaller but fatter Fang Shuzhai tore out the pages of his book and flung them into the air, where they fluttered like butterflies.

The old teacher banged the table over and over, but that didn’t quiet things down. He kept peering over his eyeglasses, trying to determine the cause of all the commotion; meanwhile, Guo Qiusheng was furiously acting out his violently humiliating performance behind

Qin Er, eliciting strange yells from all the idiotic boys over the age of fifteen. Then Guo Qiusheng’s hand brushed against the ear of the old teacher, who spun around and grabbed the offending hand.

“Recite your lesson!” the stately old teacher demanded.

Guo Qiusheng stood at the rostrum with his hands at his side, trying to look the part of the obedient student. But the smirk on his face betrayed him. He pointed his lips to turn his mouth into what looked like a belly button. Then he shut one eye and twisted his mouth as far as it would go to one side. He clenched his teeth, making his ears wiggle.

“Recite your lesson!” the teacher roared angrily.

Guo Qiusheng began: Big girls are big, little girls are little, big girls chase the little girls away.

Amid the crazed laughter that followed, Qin Er stood up by gripping the edge of the table. His gray beard quivered as he muttered: “Bad boy! Bad boys cannot be taught!” He groped for his ruler, grabbed Guo Qiusheng’s hand, and pressed it down on the table. “Bad boy!” Pa. The ruler landed savagely on the hand of Guo Qiusheng, who cried out hoarsely. The teacher looked him in the eye and raised the ruler over his head; but his arm froze when he saw the insolent look of a proletarian thug on Guo’s face, those steely black eyes glinting with a hateful defiance. A look of defeat crept into the teacher’s rheumy gaze, and he let his arm drop weakly to his side, ruler in hand. He mumbled and took off his eyeglasses, which he placed in a metal case, wrapped with a piece of blue cloth, and put into his pocket. He also tucked the offending ruler, with which he’d once punished Sima Ku, into his robe. That done, he removed his skullcap, bowed to Guo Qiusheng, then turned and bowed to the class, and finally announced in a mournful voice that evoked both pity and disgust:

“Gentlemen, I, Qin Er, am a thickheaded old fool, no better than the mantis who thought it could stop a wagon, someone who has overrated his own abilities, a man who has outlived his usefulness and has shamed himself by hanging on to life. I have deeply offended you, and can only beg for your forgiveness!”

He then clasped his fists in front of his midriff and respectfully shook them several times, before crouching over like a cooked shrimp and leaving the classroom with light, unsteady steps. Once he was outside, we heard the muddled sound of his coughing.

Thus ended our first class of the day.

Our second class was music.

Music – our instructor, Ji Qiongzhi, who had been sent down by the county government, laid the tip of her pointer on the blackboard, where large words had been written in chalk, and said in a high-pitched voice – “For this class in music, there will be no textbook. Our textbooks will be here” – she pointed to her head, her chest – “and here” – she pointed to her diaphragm. She turned to write on the blackboard as she continued, “There are lots of ways to make music – on a flute or fiddle, humming a tune or singing an aria – it’s all music. You may not understand now, but you will someday. Singing is a form of chanting, but not always. Singing is an important musical activity and, for a remote village like this, will be the most important aspect of our music lessons. So today we will learn a song,” she went on as she wrote on the blackboard. From where I sat, looking out the window, I could see the counterrevolutionary’s son, Sima Liang, and the traitor’s daughter, Sha Zaohua, both of whom had been refused permission to attend classes and were assigned to tending sheep, gazing wistfully at the schoolhouse. They were standing in knee-high grass, backed by a dozen or more thick-stemmed sunflowers, with their broad green leaves and brilliant yellow flowers. All those yellow faces mirrored the melancholy in my heart. Seeing the flashing eyes brought tears to mine. As I took measure of the window, with its thick willow lattices, I imagined myself turning into a thrush and flying outside to bathe in the golden sunlight of a summer afternoon and perch on the head of one of those sunflowers, alongside all the aphids and ladybugs.

The song we were being taught that day was “Women’s Liberation Anthem.” Our teacher bent over at the waist as she scribbled the last few lines at the bottom of the blackboard. The fullness of her upraised backside reminded me of a mare’s rump. A feathered arrow, its tip smeared with sticky peachtree sap, made its lopsided way past me and hit her upraised backside. Evil laughter swept through the classroom. The archer, Ding Jingou, who sat right behind me, waved his bamboo bow triumphantly a time or two before quickly hiding it from sight. Our music teacher retrieved the arrow from its target and smiled as she looked it over, then flung it down on the table, where it stuck straight up after quivering briefly. “Nice shooting,” she said calmly as she laid down her pointer and shed her military jacket, which was white from countless washings. With the jacket gone, her white short-sleeved, V-necked blouse, with its turned-down collar, dazzled our eyes. It was tucked into her trousers, which were cinched by a wide leather belt that had turned black and shiny with age. She had a thin waist, high, arching breasts, and full hips. Her military trousers had also turned white from countless washings. Finally, she had on a pair of fashionable white sneakers. To make her appearance more appealing, she cinched her belt even tighter right in front of us. She smiled and displayed all the charm of a lovely white fox; but the smile disappeared as quickly as it had come, and she now displayed the ferocity of a white fox. “You’ve just driven away Qin Er. What heroes!” With a smirk she removed the arrow from the table and jiggled it with three fingers. “What a remarkable arrow,” she said. “Is it Li Guang’s? Or maybe Hua Rong’s. Anyone dare to stand up and put a name to this?” Her lovely black eyes swept the classroom. No one stood up. She grabbed her pointer. Fowl She smacked the table. “I’m warning you,” she said, “in my classroom you’ll wrap all your little hoodlum tricks in a piece of cotton and take them home to your mothers” – “Teacher, my mother’s dead!” Wu Yunyu shouted-”Whose mother is dead?” she asked. “Stand up.” Wu Yunyu stood up, trying to look unconcerned. “Come up to the front, where I can see you.” Wu Yunyu, wearing a greasy snakeskin cap down low over his wispy head – as it was all year round, even, it was said, when he slept at night or bathed in the river – strutted up to the front of the classroom. “What’s your name?” she asked with a smile. Wu Yunyu told her his name with blustery airs. “Students,” she said, “my name is Ji Qiongzhi. I was orphaned as a baby and spent my first seven years living in a garbage heap. I then joined a traveling circus. There isn’t a hoodlum or delinquent type I haven’t seen. I learned to do stunt cycling, walk a tightrope, swallow a sword, and spit fire. Then I became an animal trainer, starting with dogs and moving to monkeys, bears, and finally tigers. I can teach a dog to jump through a hoop, a monkey to climb a pole, a bear to ride a bicycle, and a tiger to roll over. At the age of seventeen, I joined a revolutionary army. I’ve battled the enemy, my sword entering white and exiting bright red. At twenty, I was sent to the South China Military Academy, where I learned sports, painting, singing, and dancing. At twenty-five I married Ma Shengli, head of intelligence at the Public Security Bureau and a champion wrestler whom I can fight to a draw.” She brushed back her short hair. She had a dark, healthy, revolutionary face; pert breasts that strained proudly against her shirt; a valiant nose, fierce, thin lips, and teeth as white as limestone. “I, Ji Qiongzhi, am not afraid of tigers,” she said as dryly as plant ash, as she glared contemptuously at Wu Yunyu. “So do you think I’m afraid of you?” At the same time she was voicing her contempt, she reached out with her pointer, inserting the tip under the edge of Wu’s cap, and, with a flick of the wrist, tore it off his head, like flipping a flatcake on a griddle, with an audible whoosh. It all happened in a mere second. Wu covered his head with both hands, the scalp looking like a rotten potato; his arrogant expression disappeared without a trace and was replaced by a look of stupidity. Still holding his head, he looked up, searching for the object that kept his disfigurement hidden. It was high up in the air, dancing and spinning on the tip of her pointer, round and round like a circus performer’s prop; the sight of his cap spinning so artfully, so captivatingly, drove the soul right out of Wu Yunyu’s body. Another flick of her wrist, and the cap soared into the air, only to settle back onto the tip of the pointer and spin some more. I was dazzled. She flung it into the air again. But this time, she guided the ugly, smelly thing so that it landed at Wu Yunyu’s feet. “Put that crummy hat back on your head and get your ass back in your seat,” she said with a look of disgust. “I’ve eaten more salt than you have noodles,” she said as she picked the arrow up off the table. Her glare landed on one of the students. “You! I’m talking to you,” she said icily. “Bring me that bow!” Ding Jingou stood up nervously, walked to the platform, and obediently laid the bow on the table. “Back to your seat!” she said, picking up the bow. She tried it out. “The bamboo’s too soft, and the bowstring’s next to useless! The best bowstrings are made from a cow’s tendon.” Fitting the feathered arrow onto the horsehair string, she pulled it back lightly and took aim at Ding Jingou’s head. He scrambled under his desk. Just then a fly buzzed in on the light streaming through the window. Ji Qiongzhi took careful aim. Twang, went the horsehair string. The fly dropped to the floor. “Anyone need more proof?” she asked. Not a peep from any of the students. She smiled sweetly, forming a dimple on her chin. “Now we can begin. Here are the lyrics to our song”:

In the old society, this is how it was:

In the new society, this is how it is:

4

My ability to memorize lyrics and my musical talent stood out among the students in Ji Qiongzhi’s music class. As I was singing “with women at the very very bottom,” Mother held up a towel-wrapped bottle filled with goat’s milk, stood outside the window, and called out repeatedly: “Jintong, come have your milk!”

Her shouts and the smell of the milk diverted my attention, but when class was nearly over, I was the only one who finished the song without missing a beat. There were forty students in the class, and I was the only one Ji Qiongzhi commended. After asking my name, she had me stand up and sing “Women’s Liberation Anthem” from start to finish. Now that class was over, Mother handed me my milk through the window. When I hesitated taking it, she said, “Drink it, son. Mother’s proud to see how well you’re doing.”

There was muted laughter in the room.

“Take it, child. What’s there to be embarrassed about?” Mother said.

Ji Qiongzhi walked up beside me. Leaning on her pointer as she looked out the window, she said in a friendly voice, “I see it’s you, aunty. I ask you please not to do anything to disrupt the class from now on.” Gazing into the classroom, Mother replied respectfully, “Teacher, he’s my only son, and, unfortunately, he hasn’t eaten real food since he was a baby. When he was small, he lived on my milk, and now he gets by with goat’s milk alone. This morning the goat didn’t give enough for a meal, and I want to make sure he has enough to get through the day.” Ji Qiongzhi smiled and said, “Take it. Don’t make your mother stand there holding it.” My face was burning as I took the bottle from her. Ji Qiongzhi said to Mother, “But he needs to eat real food. You don’t expect him to drag a milk goat along when he goes to high school and college, do you?” She was probably trying to picture a college student walking into a classroom with a goat on a tether. But then she laughed, a hearty laugh without a hint of ill will, and asked, “How old is he?” “Thirteen, born the year of the rabbit,” Mother answered. “He worries me too, but he can’t keep other food down. It gives him such a terrible bellyache that he breaks out in a sweat, and that scares me every time it happens.” “That’s enough, Mother,” I said unhappily. “Please don’t say any more. And I don’t want the milk.” I handed her the bottle through the window. Ji Qiongzhi flipped my ear with her finger. “Don’t be like that, student Shangguan. You can gradually overcome your problem, but for now drink your milk.” I turned and saw all those shining eyes and felt deeply ashamed. “Now listen to me,” Ji said. “You are not to laugh at other people’s weaknesses.” She walked out of the classroom.

Facing the wall, I drank down the milk as fast as I could, and handed the bottle out through the window. “Mother,” I said, “please don’t come here anymore.”

During the break between classes, Wu Yunyu and Ding Jingou were on their best behavior, sitting expressionless on their stools. The fat kid Fang Shuzhai took off his belt, stepped up onto his desk, and looped his belt over a rafter to play the hangman’s game. Then, in the high-pitched voice of a widow, he began to sob and voice her grief: Dog Two, Dog Two, how could you do that? With your arms outstretched, you return to your maker, and leave your little woman to sleep alone night after night. A worm gnaws at my heart, so I must hang myself. I'll see you down in the Yellow Springs.

He sobbed and he grieved until, there on his fat little piggy cheeks, two lines of tears appeared. His nose was running, the stuff dripping down into his mouth. “I can’t go on living!” he wailed as he stood on his tiptoes and stuck his head through the loop he’d made with his belt. Grabbing hold of the noose with both hands, he leaned forward and jumped. “I can’t go on living!” he shouted. He jumped again. “I’ve lived long enough!” The laughter in the room had a strange quality. Wu Yunyu, who was still nursing his anger, placed both hands on his desk, stuck out his leg, and knocked Fang Shuzhai’s desk out from under him, leaving him hanging there. He shrieked as he grabbed the rope with both hands and hung on for dear life, his squat, pudgy legs flailing in the air, but more and more slowly by the second. His face began to turn purple, he was foaming at the mouth, and a death rattle sounded deep in his throat. “He’s dead!” several of the younger children screamed in terror as they ran out of the classroom. Out in the yard they stomped their feet and continued to scream: “He’s dead! Fang Shuzhai hanged himself!” Fang Shuzhai’s arms were hanging limply at his sides by now and his legs were no longer flailing. With a jerk, his body stretched out long. A loud fart wriggled out of the crotch of his pants like a snake, while out in the yard, the other students were running around crazily. Ji Qiongzhi came out of the faculty office along with several men whose names and the subjects they taught I didn’t know. “Who’s dead? Who is it?” they asked on their way into the classroom, tripping on all the construction debris that hadn’t yet been cleared away. A bunch of excited and panicky students led the way, stumbling when they turned to look behind them. Leaping like a gazelle, Ji was inside the classroom in seconds. She looked confused as she went from bright sunlight into a dark room. “Where is he?” she demanded. Fang Shuzhai’s body lay fell heavily on the floor like a slaughtered pig. His belt had snapped in two.

Ji knelt down and turned him face-up. She frowned and scrunched up her lips to block her nostrils. Fang Shuzhai stank to high heaven. She reached down and put her finger under his nose and then savagely pinched the ridge between his nose and mouth. Just then, Fang Shuzhai reached up and grabbed her hand. Still frowning, she got to her feet and kicked Fang Shuzhai. “Stand up!”

“Who kicked that desk over?” There was anger in her look and in her voice as she stood facing the class. “I couldn’t see.” “I couldn’t see.” “I couldn’t see.” “Well, then, who did see? Or which of you kicked it over? How about showing some guts for once.” We held our heads way down low. Fang Shuzhai was sobbing. “Shut up!” she said, smacking the table. “If you’re really that eager to die, there’s nothing to it. I’ll teach you some surefire ways a little later. I don’t believe that none of you saw who kicked the desk over. Shangguan Jintong, you’re an honest boy, you tell me.” I let my head droop even lower. “Raise your head and look at me,” she said. “I know you’re scared, but you have my word there’s nothing to be scared of.” I looked up and gazed into that revolutionary face, with those beautiful eyes, and I was immersed in a feeling like an autumn wind. “I believe you have the courage to expose bad people and evil deeds,” she said crisply, “a necessary quality for the youth of new China.” I tilted my head slightly to the left, only to be confronted by an intimidating glare from Wu Yunyu. My head fell back down onto my chest.

“Wu Yunyu, stand up for me,” she said calmly. “It wasn’t me!” he bellowed. She just smiled and said, “Why are you so edgy? Why shout?” “Well, it wasn’t me,” he muttered, tapping the top of his desk with his fingernails. “Wu Yunyu,” she said, “any person of worth takes responsibility for his actions.” He abruptly stopped tapping the desk and slowly raised his head, his expression turning mean. He threw his book to the floor, wrapped his slate board and slate pencil in a piece of blue cloth, tucked it under his arm, and said with a sneer, “So what if I kicked that desk over? I’m not going to stick around this shitty school! I never wanted to be here in the first place, but you talked me into it.” He walked arrogantly toward the door. He was tall and big-boned, the perfect image of a coarse, unreasonable individual. Ji Qiong-zhi stood in the doorway, blocking his way. “Get out of the way!” he said. “What do you think you’re doing?” Ji smiled sweetly and said, “I’m going to show a thieving punk like you” – she struck him in the knee with a flying kick with her right foot – “that if you do something evil” – Wu Yunyu groaned in pain and crumpled to the floor – “that you’ll be punished!” Wu took the wrapped slate board from under his arm and flung it at Ji Qiongzhi. It hit her in the chest. Protecting her injured breast with her arms, she moaned. Wu Yunyu stood up and said in a blustery voice that belied his fear, “You don’t scare me. I’m a third-generation tenant farmer. Every member of my family – aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews – is a poor peasant. I was born by the side of the road where my mother was begging for food!” Rubbing her sore breast, Ji Qiongzhi said, “I hate dirtying my hands on a mangy dog like you.” She laced the fingers of her hands and bent them back. Crack! Crack! Her knuckles popped. “I don’t care if you’re a third-generation tenant farmer or a thirtieth-generation tenant farmer, I’m still going to teach you a lesson!” With a blur, her fist landed on Wu’s cheek. He yelped and staggered from the blow. The next blow landed in his ribs, followed by another kick in the ankle. He lay spreadeagled on the floor, crying like a baby. Ji then grabbed him by the neck and lifted him to his feet, smiling as she looked into his ugly face. As she backed him to the door, she drove her knee into his belly and gave him a shove. Wu Yunyu lay face-up on a pile of bricks. “You,” Ji Qiongzhi announced, “are hereby expelled from this school.”

5

They stopped me on the path between the school and the village, each holding a springy mulberry switch, the bright sunlight casting a waxy sheen onto their faces. The gentle warmth of the sun’s rays brought special luster to Wu Yunyu’s snakeskin cap and swollen cheek, Guo Qiusheng’s sinister eyes, Ding Jingou’s funguslike ears, and the black teeth of Wei Yangjiao, who had a reputation in the village of being particularly crafty. I planned to get past them by hugging the side of the path, but Wei Yangjiao blocked my way with his mulberry switch. “What do you think you’re doing?” I asked timidly. “What are we doing, you little bastard?” The whites of his crossed eyes leaped in their sockets like moths. “We’re teaching a lesson to the bastard son of a redheaded foreign devil!” “I didn’t do anything to you,” I complained. Wu Yunyu’s switch landed on my backside, creating hot currents of pain. Then the others joined in: four mulberry switches landed on my neck, my back, my backside, my legs. By then I was howling, so Wei Yangjiao took out a bone-handled knife and waved it under my nose. “Shut up!” he demanded. “If you don’t stop crying, I’ll cut out your tongue, gouge out your eyes, and slice off your nose!” Sunlight glinted coldly off the blade; properly terrified, I shut my mouth.

I was pinned down under their knees while they attacked the backs of my legs with their switches, like wolves ganging up on a sheep and driving it into the wildwoods. Water flowed silently down the ditches on either side of the path, bubbles bursting on the surface and releasing a stink that grew stronger as dusk settled in. I kept turning back to plead, “Let me go, big brothers,” but that only made them hit me harder, and whenever I cried out, Wei Yangjiao was there to shut me up. I had no choice but to quietly take the beating, go where they wanted to take me.

After crossing a footbridge made of dried stalks, they stopped me in a field of castor flowers. By then my backside was wet – blood or urine, hard to tell. Red rays of sunset were draped across their bodies as they stood in a line. The tips of their mulberry switches were torn and ragged, and so green they looked black. The plump fanlike leaves of the castor plants were home to big-bellied katydids that chirped bleakly, and the strong odor of castor flowers brought tears to my eyes. Wei Yangjiao turned to Wu Yunyu and asked fawningly, “What are we going to do with him, big brother?” As he rubbed his swollen cheek, he muttered, “I say we kill him!” “No,” Guo Qiusheng said, “we can’t do that. His brother-in-law is deputy county head, and his sister’s also an official. If we kill him, our lives are as good as over.” “We can kill him,” Wei Yangjiao said, “and dump the body into the Black Water River. Within days, he’ll be food for ocean turtles, and nobody will be the wiser.” “You can count me out if you plan to kill him,” Ding Jingou said. “His brother-in-law, Sima Ku, who’s killed lots of people, might show up, and he’d capable of wiping out our whole families.”

I listened to them discuss my fate and future like a disinterested observer. I wasn’t afraid, and never entertained the thought of running away. I was in a state of suspended animation. I even had time to look far off in the distance, where I saw the blood-red meadows and golden Reclining Ox Mountain off to the southeast, and the boundless expanse of dark green crops due south. The banks of the Black Water River, as it snaked its way east, were hidden behind tall grain and reappeared behind the shorter stalks; flocks of white birds formed what looked like sheets of paper as they flew over waters I couldn’t see. Incidents from the past flashed into my head, one after another, and I suddenly felt as if I’d been living on this earth for a hundred years already. “Go on, kill me,” I said. “You can kill me. I’ve lived long enough!”

Looks of astonishment flashed in their eyes. After exchanging glances among themselves, they all turned back to me, as if they hadn’t heard me right.

“Go on, kill me!” I said resolutely, before starting to cry. Sticky tears ran down my face and into my mouth, salty, like fish blood. My plea had put them in an awkward position. Again they exchanged glances, letting their eyes talk for them. So I upped the ante: “I beg you, gentlemen, finish me off now. I don’t care how you do it, just make it fast, so I won’t suffer much.”

“You think we don’t have the guts to kill you, is that it?” Wu Yunyu said, cupping my chin in his rough fingers and staring me in the eye.

“No,” I said, “I’m sure you do. All I’m asking is that you make it quick.”

“Men,” Wu Yunyu said, “he’s put us in a sticky situation, and killing him is about the only way out. We can’t back down now, no matter what happens. It’s time to finish him off.”

“You do it, then,” Guo Qiusheng said. “I’m not going to.”

“Is that mutinous talk I hear?” Wu said as he grabbed Guo by the shoulders and shook him. “We’re four locusts on a string, so nobody better think about taking off. If you even try, I’ll make sure people know what you did to that goofy girl in the Wang family.”

“Hold on,” Wei Yangjiao said. “Quit arguing. All we’re talking about is killing him. If you want to know the truth, I’m the one who killed that old woman in Stone Bridge Village. No reason, I just wanted to try out this knife of mine. I used to think that killing someone would be hard to do, but now I know how easy it is. I jammed the knife into her rib cage, and it was like burying it in a cake of bean curd. Slurp. Even the handle went in. She was dead by the time I pulled the knife out. She didn’t make a sound.” He rubbed the blade of his knife against his pants and said, “Watch me.” Taking aim at my belly, he thrust the knife. I shut my eyes happily, and it seemed to me that I could actually see green blood gush from my belly right into their faces. They ran over to the ditch, where they scooped up water to wash off the blood. But the water was like nearly translucent red syrup, and instead of washing their faces clean, it actually made them dirtier than ever. As the blood gushed, my guts slithered out, slipping along the path over to the ditch, where they were caught up in the flow. With a cry of alarm, Mother jumped into the ditch to scoop up my guts, coiling them around her arm, one loop after another, all the way back to where I was standing. Weighted down by my guts, she was breathing hard and looking at me with sorrow in her eyes. “What happened to you, child?” “They killed me, Mother.” Her tears fell on my face as she knelt down and stuffed my guts back into my belly. But they were so slippery that she no sooner got one section in than it slithered right back out, and she wept in frustration and anger. Eventually, she managed to stuff them all back in; she then took a needle and thread from her hair, and sewed me up like a torn overcoat. I felt a strange shooting pain in my belly and felt my eyes snap open. Everything I’d seen up till that moment was an illusion. The real situation was: They’d kicked me to the ground, taken out their impressive peckers, and were pissing in my face. The wet ground was spinning, and I felt as if I were flailing in a pool of water.

“Uncle – Little Uncle -!”

“Uncle – Little Uncle -!”

Shouts from Sima Liang and Sha Zaohua – one low, the other high – rose from behind the patch of castor plants. I opened my mouth to answer them, only to have it fill up with piss. My assailants hurriedly put away their hoses, pulled up their pants, and vanished into the castor patch.

Sima Liang and Sha Zaohua stood by the footbridge, calling out blindly, like Yunii often did. Their shouts hung above the field for a long time, filling my heart with sadness and stopping up my throat. I struggled to my feet, but before I’d managed to straighten up, I fell on my face. I heard Zaohua call out excitedly, “There he is!”

Together they lifted me up by my arms; I was as unsteady as one of those knock-over dolls. When Zaohua got a good look at my face, her mouth cracked open and – wah – she began to bawl. Sima Liang reached down to feel my backside – I yelped in pain. He looked at his hand, red with blood and green from the mulberry switches. His teeth chattered. “Little Uncle, who did this to you?” “They did…” “Who are they?” “Wu Yunyu, Wei Yangjiao, Ding Jingou, and Guo Qiusheng.” “Let’s go home, Little Uncle,” he said. “Grandma’s worried half to death. You out there, Wu Wei Ding Guo, you four bastards, I want you to listen and listen good. You may be able to hide today, but not tomorrow; you might get past the first of the month, but not the fifteenth. You touch another hair of my little uncle, and they’ll be hoisting a flagpole at your house!”

Sima Liang’s shouts still hung in the air when Wu, Wei, Ding, and Guo jumped out of the field of castor plants, laughing loudly. “Well, I’ll be damned. Where did this runt with all the big talk come from? Isn’t he afraid of losing his tongue?” They picked up their mulberry switches and, like a pack of dogs, charged us. “Zaohua, you take care of Little Uncle,” Sima Liang shouted as he pushed me away and rushed to meet the charge of the attackers, all bigger than him. They were shocked by this fearless, almost suicidal charge, and before they could raise the switches, Sima Liang drove his head into the belly of cruel, foul-mouthed Wei Yangjiao, who bent over double and fell to the ground, where he curled up into a ball, like an injured hedgehog. The other three attackers brought their switches down on Sima Liang, who protected his head with his arms and took off running, with them hot on his heels. Compared to the weakling Shangguan Jintong, the little wolf Sima Liang was a more interesting specimen. They shouted excitedly – the chase was on, the battle was launched on the lethargic grassland. If Sima Liang was a little wolf, Wu, Guo, and Ding were massive and savage but very clumsy mongrels. Wei Yangjiao was a hybrid – half wolf and half mongrel – so he had been Sima Liang’s first target. Knocking him out of commission removed the leader of the pack. Sima ran fast for a while, then slowed down, using a tactic designed to deal with zombies, changing directions often to keep them from catching up to him. Several times they lost their footing when they had to change direction. The knee-high grass parted and closed back up as they passed through it, scaring tiny wild rabbits out of their burrows; one couldn’t get out of the way fast enough, and was squashed under Wu Yunyu’s heavy foot. Sima Liang did more than merely run; every once in a while he turned and charged his pursuers. By zigging and zagging, he’d open up enough distance between them that he could turn and make a lightning attack on one. He picked up a dirt clod and flung it in Ding Jingou’s face; he took a bite out of Wu Yunyu’s neck; and he employed the Cross-eyed Beauty tactic against Guo Qiusheng, grabbing the object hanging between his legs and pulling it hard. All three bullies were wounded, but Sima Liang had received plenty of blows to the head in the process. They were slowing down. Sima Liang retreated to the footbridge. His pursuers formed up ranks; they were gasping for breath, spittle flying like an old bellows, as they cautiously took out after him as a group again – by then, Wei Yangjiao had caught his breath and rejoined his pals. He was like a cat on the prowl. Bending down low, he began to crawl, feeling his way with his hands, his bone-handled knife lying coldly on the ground. “You motherfucker! Bastard son of a restitution corps landlord! I’ll kill you or know the reason why!” He cursed softly as he groped along; the white moths of his crossed eyeballs hopping around like hatching eggs. Seeing her chance, Sha Zaohua bounded over like a leaping deer, picked the knife up off the ground, and held it out to me in both hands. Wei Yangjiao stood up and reached out his hand. “Hand it over, you seed of a traitor!” he growled threateningly. Saying nothing, Zaohua backed into me as she shrank from Wei Yangjiao, never taking her eyes off his callused paws. Several times he lunged forward, but quickly backed off at knifepoint. By then, Sima Liang had retreated all the way to the footbridge. “Wei Yangjiao, you fucking asshole!” Wu Yunyu swore loudly. “Come over here and kill this bastard son of a restitution corps landlord! Get your ass over here!” Wei Yangjiao hissed at Zaohua, “I’ll be back to take care of you!” He tried to pull up a castor plant to use as a weapon, but it was too thick, so he just broke off one of its branches and, waving it in the air, charged the footbridge.

Zaohua stuck close to protect me as we staggered up to the narrow footbridge. Water in the ditch flowed rapidly below, as schools of tiny carp were swept along. Some leaped over the bridge, others landed on it and flopped around angrily, their sleek bodies arching in the air. My crotch felt sticky, and everywhere else I’d been beaten – back, buttocks, calves, neck – felt as if it were on fire. A sweet yet bitter flavor, like rusty iron, filled my heart; with each step I took, my body rocked and a moan escaped between my lips. My arm was draped across Sha Zaohua’s bony shoulder, and although I tried to straighten up to lessen the pressure on her, I couldn’t do it.

Sima Liang was loping down the path to the village. Whenever his pursuers got a bit too close, he sped up, and when they slowed down, so did he. He maintained a distance close enough to keep them interested, but not so close that they could catch him. Mist rose from the fields on both sides of the path, dyed red from the setting sun; frogs filled the ditches with dull croaks. Wei Yangjiao whispered something to Wu Yunyu, after which the three of them split up. Wei and Ding crossed the ditch and ran to opposite ends of the field. Wu and Guo continued the chase, but at a leisurely pace. “Sima Liang,” they shouted, “Sima Liang, a true warrior doesn’t run away. Stay where you are if you’ve got the balls, and let’s do battle.”

“Run, big brother,” Sha Zaohua shouted. “Don’t let them trick you!”

“You little bitch!” said Wu Yunyu, as he turned and shook his fist at her. “I’ll beat the shit out of you!”

Sha Zaohua stepped in front of me and held out the knife. “Come on,” she said bravely. “I’m not afraid of you!”

As Wu pressed up closer, Zaohua kept pushing me back with her rear end. Sima Liang came up and called out, “Scabby head, if you so much as touch her, I swear I’ll poison that stinky bean-curd-peddling old lady of yours!”

“Run, big brother!” Sha Zaohua screamed. “Those two mongrels, Wei and Ding, have circled around behind you.”

Sima Liang stopped in his tracks, not knowing if he should advance or retreat. Maybe he stopped for a reason, since both Wu Yunyu and Guo Qiusheng also stopped. Meanwhile, Wei Yangjiao and Ding Jingou emerged from the field, crossed the ditch, and were crawling along the path. Sima Liang stood there looking very much at ease, wiping his sweaty forehead. That was when I heard Mother’s shouts coming on the wind from the village. Sima Liang jumped down into the ditch and ran down a narrow path dividing the two crops – sorghum and corn. “Okay, men,” Wei Yangjiao shouted excitedly, “let’s get him!” Like a flock of ducks, into the ditch they went, slogging in pursuit of their prey. Leaves of the sorghum and corn stalks hid the path from view, so we had to rely on the rustling sounds and barking shouts to follow their progress. “You wait here for Grandma, Little Uncle, while I go help Brother Liang.” “Zaohua,” I said, “I’m scared.” “Don’t be, Little Uncle. Grandma will be here in a minute. Grandma!” she shouted. “They’re going to kill Brother Liang. So shout!” “Mother – I’m over here! Here I am, Mother -”

Zaohua bravely jumped down into the ditch; the water came up to her chest. She splashed, creating green ripples, and I was worried she might drown. But she climbed up the other side, knife in hand, her skinny legs getting bogged down in the mud. She left her shoes behind as she turned onto the narrow path and disappeared from sight.

Like an old cow protecting its young, Mother ran up, rocking from side to side, and by the time she reached me, she was out of breath. Her hair was like golden threads, her face was coated with a warm yellow sheen. “Mother -” I shouted. Tears gushed from my eyes. I didn’t think I could stand any longer. I stumbled forward and tumbled into Mother’s hot, moist bosom.

“My son,” Mother said through her tears, “who did this to you?”

“Wu Yunyu, and Wei Yangjiao…” I was sobbing.

“That bunch of thugs!” Mother said through clenched teeth. “Where did they go?”

“They’re chasing Sima Liang and Sha Zaohua!” I pointed out the path.

Clouds of mist poured from the path; a wild animal called out from deep in the mysterious path; from farther away came the sounds of fighting and shrieks from Zaohua.

Mother looked back toward the village, which was already cloaked in heavy mist. Taking me by the hand, she decided to go down into the ditch, where the water was warm as axle grease as it rushed up through my pant legs. Mother’s heavy frame and tiny feet made the going hard in all that mud. But by clinging to weeds on the side, she managed to make it to ground level.

Still holding my hand, she then turned onto the narrow path. We had to walk at a crouch to keep the sharp edges of the leaves from scratching our faces and our eyes. Creepers and wild grass nearly covered the path, the sharp nettles pricking the soles of my feet. I moaned sorrowfully. Having soaked in the water, my wounds hurt like hell, and the only thing that kept me from crumpling to the ground was Mother’s iron grip on my arm. The light was fading, and the strange beasts out in the deep, serene, and seemingly endless croplands around us were stirring. Their eyes were green, their tongues bright red. Snorts emerged from their pointy noses, and I had this vague feeling that I was about to enter Hell; could that person clutching my hand, panting like an ox, and charging ahead single-mindedly really be my mother? Or was it a demon that had taken her form and was leading me down to the depths of Hell? I tried jerking my hand out of the painful grip, but all that accomplished was that she held it tighter than ever.

At last the frightful path opened out into light. To the south the sorghum field, like a boundless dark forest; to the north a wasteland. The sun was about to set, and the crickets on the vacant land raised a chorus of chirps. An abandoned brick kiln welcomed us with its fiery redness. Behind several piles of unfired bricks, Sima Liang and Sha Zaohua were engaged in a fierce guerrilla war with the four bullies. Each side was dug in behind a row of adobe bricks, which they threw at their enemy. Since they were smaller and weaker, Sima Liang and Zaohua were at a disadvantage, barely able to throw the missiles with their skinny arms. Wu Yunyu and his three buddies were flinging so many pieces of broken brick that Sima Liang and Sha Zaohua didn’t dare poke their heads over the top of their pile.

“Stop it right now!” Mother screamed. “You bullying bunch of swine!”

Caught up in the intoxication of battle, the four assailants paid no attention to Mother’s angry outburst. They kept hurling missiles, all the while sneaking around their pile of bricks to outflank Sima Liang and Sha Zaohua. Pulling the girl along with him, Sima darted over to the abandoned kiln. A piece of tile hit Zaohua in the head. She staggered with a yelp of pain and seemed about to fall. The knife was still in her hand. Sima Liang picked up a couple of bricks, jumped into the open, and flung them at the enemy, who quickly took cover. Mother put me down in the sorghum field, hidden from view, spread out her arms, and charged the battlefield, moving as if she were performing a rice-sprout dance. Her shoes stuck in the mud, exposing her pitifully small feet; her heels left holes in the mud from which water seeped.

Sima Liang and Zaohua showed themselves at the end of the wall of bricks. Hand in hand, they half ran, half stumbled in the direction of the kiln. By then the blood-red moon had already climbed quietly into the sky; Sima Liang and Sha Zaohua’s purple shadows spread out across the ground. The four bullies’ shadows stretched out far longer. Zaohua was slowing Sima Liang down, and when they reached the open ground in front of the kiln, a brick hurled by Wei Yangjiao knocked Sima Liang to the ground. Zaohua ran straight at Wei with the knife, but missed when he sidestepped the attack; Wu Yunyu came up and kicked her to the ground.

“Stop right there!” Mother shouted.

Like vultures spreading their wings, the four attackers bared their arms and began kicking Sima Liang and Sha Zaohua, over and over again. She cried out piteously; he didn’t make a sound. They rolled on the ground, trying to avoid the feet of the attackers, who, in the moonlight, seemed caught up in a strange dance.

Mother stumbled and fell, but got stubbornly back to her feet and grabbed the shoulder of Wei Yangjiao and wouldn’t let go. Known for being sinister and cunning, he drove his elbows back into her, catching her on both breasts. With a loud yelp, she backed off, lost her balance, and sat down hard on the ground. I threw myself down on the ground and buried my face in the mud; it seemed to me that black blood was gushing from my eyes.

And still they kicked Sima Liang and Zaohua in an explosion of savage fury. At that moment, a hulking figure with a mass of unkempt hair, an unruly beard, a face covered with soot, and dressed all in black emerged from the kiln. His movements were stiff as he crawled out and got clumsily to his feet; raising a fist that seemed as big as a pile driver, he swung at Wu Yunyu and shattered his collarbone. This onetime hero sat on the ground and cried like a baby. The other three hardy souls stopped dead. “It’s Sima Ku!” Wei Yangjiao shouted in alarm. He turned to run away, but when he heard the angry roar from Sima Ku, like an explosion out of the earth, he and the others froze in their tracks. Sima Ku raised his fist again; this time it crunched into Ding Jingou’s eye. The next punch drove the bile up and out of Guo Qiu-sheng’s mouth. Before the next punch was launched, Wei Yangjiao fell to his knees and began banging his head on the ground, kowtowing and begging for his life: “Spare me, old master, spare me! Those three forced me to join in. They said they’d beat me up if I didn’t, knock the teeth right out of my mouth… please, old master, spare me…” Sima Ku hesitated for just a moment before delivering a kick that sent Wei Yangjiao rolling backward. He scrambled to his feet and ran off like a frightened jackrabbit. It didn’t take long for his barking voice to break the silence over the road leading to the village: “Go catch Sima Ku – the leader of the restoration corps landlords, Sima Ku, is back – go catch him -”

Sima Ku helped Sima Liang and Sha Zaohua to their feet, then did the same for Mother.

Mother’s voice quaked. “Are you human or are you a ghost?”

“Mother-in-law -” Sima Ku sobbed, but didn’t go on.

“Dad, is it really you?” Sima Liang blurted out.

“Son,” Sima Ku replied, “I’m proud of you.”

Sima Ku turned back to Mother. “Who’s left at home?”

“Don’t ask any questions,” Mother said anxiously. “You must get away from here.”

The frantic beating of a gong and crisp rifle fire came from the village.

Sima grabbed hold of Wu Yunyu and said, slowly so there’d be no misunderstanding, “You piece of shit, you tell that bunch of turtles in the village that if anyone lays a hand on any relative of mine, I, Sima Ku, will personally wipe his family off the face of the earth! Do you understand me?”

“I understand,” Wu Yunyu said eagerly. “I understand.”

Sima Ku released his grip and let Wu fall back onto the ground.

“Hurry, go on now!” Mother slapped the ground with her hand to get him moving.

“Dad,” Sima Ku sobbed, “I want to go with you…”

“Be a good boy,” Sima Ku said, “and go with your grandma.”

“Please, Dad, take me with you.”

“Liang,” Mother said, “don’t get in your father’s way. He has to get out of here.”

Sima Ku knelt in front of Mother and kowtowed. “Mother,” he said sorrowfully, “the boy is going to have to stay with you. Since I could never repay the debt I owe you in this lifetime, you’ll have to wait till my next lifetime!”

“I failed the two girls, Feng and Huang,” Mother replied tearfully. “Please don’t hate me.”

“It wasn’t your fault. And I’ve already exacted vengeance.”

“Go on, then, go on. Run fast and fly far. All vengeance does is lead to more of the same.”

Sima Ku got to his feet and ran back into the kiln. He reemerged a moment later wearing a straw rain cape and carrying a machine gun; shiny ammunition clips hung from his belt. In a flash, he vanished into the sorghum field, making the stalks rustle loudly. Mother called out after him:

“Hear what I have to say – run fast and fly far, and don’t stop to do any more killing.”

Silence returned to the sorghum field. The moonlight cascaded down like water. A tide of human sounds rushed toward us from the village.

Wei Yangjiao led a ragtag bunch of local militia and district public security forces up to the kiln. Carrying lanterns, torches, rifles, and red-tasseled spears, they put on a show of surrounding the kiln. A public security officer named Yang, who had been fitted with a prosthetic leg, lay up against a pile of bricks and said through a megaphone, “Sima Ku, give yourself up! There’s no way out!”

Officer Yang kept it up for a while, with no response from inside the kiln. So he took out his pistol and fired twice at the dark opening of the kiln. The bullets produced echoes when they hit the inside walls.

“Bring me some grenades!” Officer Yang called out. A militiaman crawled up on his belly, like a lizard, and handed him two wood-handled grenades. Yang pulled the pin on one, tossed it in the direction of the kiln, then flattened out behind the bricks waiting for it to go off, which it did. Then he tossed the second one, with the same result. Concussion waves rolled far off into the distance, but still not a sound emerged from the kiln. Yang picked up his megaphone again. “Sima Ku, throw out your weapon, and we won’t harm you. We treat our prisoners well.” The only response was the soft chirping of crickets and the croaking of frogs in the ditches.

Yang found the nerve to stand up, the megaphone in one hand and his pistol in the other. “Follow me!” he called out to the men behind him. A couple of brave militiamen, one with a rifle, the other with a red-tasseled spear, fell in behind Yang, whose prosthetic leg clicked with each lurching step he took. They entered the old kiln without event and reemerged a few moments later.

“Wei Yangjiao!” Officer Yang bellowed. “Where is he?”

“I swear I saw Sima Ku come out of that kiln. Ask them if you don’t believe me.”

“Was it Sima Ku?” Officer Yang turned his glare on Wu Yunyu and Guo Qiusheng – Ding Jingou was lying unconscious on the ground. “No mistake?”

Wu Yunyu glanced uneasily at the sorghum field and stammered, “I think it was…”

“Was he alone?”

“Yes.”

“Was he armed?”

“I think… a machine gun… ammunition clips all over his body…”

The words were barely out of Wu Yunyu’s mouth when Officer Yang and all the men he’d brought with him hit the ground like mowed grass.

6

A class education exhibit was set up in the church. No sooner had the students reached the front door than they burst into tears, as if on command. The sound of hundreds of students – Dalan Elementary had by then become the key elementary school for all of Northeast Gaomi Township – all crying together rocked the street from one end to the other. The newly arrived principal stood on the stone steps and announced in a heavy accent, “Quiet down, students, quiet down!” He took out a gray handkerchief, with which he first wiped his eyes and then blew his nose loudly.

Once the students had stopped crying, they followed their teachers in single file into the church and lined up on a square drawn on the floor in chalk. The walls were covered with colorful ink drawings, all with explanations written beneath them.

Four women with pointers stood in the corners.

The first one was our music teacher, Ji Qiongzhi, who had been punished for beating up a student. Her face was a waxy yellow, her spirit obviously broken. Her once radiant eyes were now cold and lifeless. The new district head, a rifle slung over his shoulder, stood at Pastor Malory’s pulpit while Ji pointed to the drawings behind her and read the descriptions beneath them.

The first dozen or so drawings described Northeast Gaomi Township’s natural environment, its history, and the state of society prior to Liberation. After that came the drawing of a nest of venomous snakes with red forked tongues. A name was written on each snake’s head, and on one of the largest heads was the name of Sima Ku and Sima Ting’s father. “Under the cruel oppression of these bloodsucking snakes,” Ji Qiongzhi intoned with apathetic fluency, “the residents of Northeast Gaomi Township were caught in an abyss of suffering, living lives worse than beasts of burden.” She pointed to a drawing of an old woman with a face like a camel. The woman is carrying a decrepit basket and a begging bowl; a scrawny little monkey of a girl is holding on to the hem of her jacket. Black leaves with broken lines indicating they are falling from the upper left-hand corner of the drawing show how cold it is. “Countless numbers of starving people had to leave their native homes as beggars, only to be attacked by landlords’ dogs that left their legs torn and bloody.” Ji Qiongzhi’s pointer moved to the next drawing: A black, two-paneled gate is opened slightly; above the gate hangs a gilded wooden plaque inscribed with two words: Felicity Manor. A tiny head in a red-tasseled skullcap is poking out through the gate opening – obviously the little brat of a tyrannical landlord. What I found strange was the way the artist had drawn this landlord brat: with his rosy cheeks and bright eyes, what should have been a loathsome image was actually quite fetching. A huge yellow dog had its teeth sunk into the leg of a little boy. At this point, one of the girls began to sob; she was a student from Sandy Ridge Village, a second-grade “girl” of seventeen or eighteen. All the other students turned to look at her, curious to see why she was crying. One of them raised his arm and shouted a slogan, interrupting Ji Qiongzhi’s account. Still, holding her pointer, she stood waiting patiently, a smile on her face. The one who had shouted the slogan then began to wail fearfully, although no tears appeared in his bloodshot eyes. I looked around; all the students were crying, waves of sound rising and falling. The principal, who was standing where he could be seen by all, had covered his face with his handkerchief and was thumping himself on the chest with his fist. Shiny dribbles of slobber ran down the freckled face of the boy next to me, Zhang Zhongguang, and he too was thumping himself on the chest, one hand after the other, either from anger or grief, I couldn’t tell. His family had been labeled tenant farmers, but prior to National Liberation, I’d often seen this son of a tenant farmer in the Dalan marketplace tagging along behind his father, who made a living from gambling; the boy would be eating a chunk of barbecued pig’s head wrapped in a fresh lotus leaf, until his cheeks, and even his forehead, would be spotted with glistening pork grease. Now slobber ran down the chin from that open mouth, which had consumed so much fatty pork. A full-bodied girl to my right had a tender, yellow, budlike extra finger outside the thumb of each hand. I think her name was Du Zhengzheng, but we all called her Six-Six Du. Those hands were now covering her face as she emitted sobs like the cooing of doves, and those darling little extra digits fluttered over her face like the curly tails of little piglets. Two gloomy rays of light emerged from between her fingers. Naturally, I saw a lot more students whose faces were damp with real tears, tears so precious no one was willing to wipe them away. I, on the other hand, couldn’t squeeze out a single one, nor could I figure out how those few badly drawn ink drawings could tear at the students’ hearts like that. I didn’t want to be too obvious, though, since I’d noticed that Six-Six Du’s sinister glare kept sweeping over my face, and I knew she hated my guts. We shared a bench in the classroom, and as we were sitting there one evening, doing our lessons by lamplight, she had touched my thigh with one of her extra fingers on the sly, without pausing in her recitation. Well, I had jumped to my feet in a panic, disrupting the entire class, and when the teacher yelled at me, I blurted out what had happened. It was a stupid thing to do, no doubt about it, since boys are supposed to welcome this sort of contact by girls. Even if you don’t like it, you don’t make a big deal out of it. But I didn’t realize that until decades later, and when I did, I shook my head, wondering why I hadn’t… But at the time, those caterpillar-like digits scared and disgusted me. When I exposed her, she looked for a hole to crawl into from shame; fortunately, it was an evening study session, and in the muted lamplight only a watermelon-sized halo of light lit up the area in front of each student. She hung her head low, and amid the obscene snickers around her, stammered, “It was an accident, I just wanted to use his eraser…” Like a complete idiot, I said, “She meant it, all right. She pinched me.” “Shangguan Jintong, shut up!” So in addition to being ordered to be quiet by our music and literature teacher, Ji Qiongzhi, I had made an enemy out of Du Zhengzheng. One day later, I found a dead gecko in my school bag, and I figured she must have put it there. And now today, as this somber event was unfolding around me, I was the only one whose face was dry – no slobber and no tears. That could mean big trouble. If Du Zhengzheng chose this moment to get even… I didn’t even want to think about it. So I covered my face with my hands and opened my mouth to make crying sounds. But I couldn’t cry, I just couldn’t.

Ji Qiongzhi raised her voice to drown out the sounds of crying: “The reactionary landlord class lived a life of luxury and excess. Why, Sima Ku alone had four wives!” Her pointer banged impatiently against one of the drawings, which was a portrait of Sima Ku, but with the head of a wolf and the body of a bear, his long, hairy arms wrapped around four alluring female demons: the two on the left had snake heads; the two on the right had bushy yellow tails. A clutch of little demons stood behind them, obviously the fruit of Sima Ku’s loins. They included Sima Liang, the hero of my youth. But which one was he? Was he the cat spirit, with triangular ears on both sides of his forehead? Or was he the rat spirit, the pointy-mouthed one in the red jacket, claws reaching up out of the sleeves? I felt Du Zhengzheng’s cold glare sweep past me. “Sima Ku’s fourth wife, Shangguan Zhaodi,” Ji Qiongzhi said in a loud but passionless voice as she pointed to a woman with a long fox tail, “feasted on so many delicacies from land and sea that the only thing left for her to eat was the delicate yellow skin of a rooster’s leg. So a mountain of Sima roosters was slaughtered in order to indulge her extravagant desire!” That’s a lie! When did my second sister ever eat the yellow skin of a rooster’s leg? She never ate chicken. And there was never a mountain of slaughtered Sima roosters! The slander they were heaping onto my second sister filled me with anger and a sense of betrayal. And tears of complex origins gushed from my eyes. I wiped them away as fast as I could, but they kept coming.

Now that she’d completed her indoctrination duties, Ji Qiongzhi moved to one side, breathing heavily from exhaustion. Her place was taken by a woman who had just been sent down from the county government, Teacher Cai. She had thin brows over single-fold eyelids and a clear, melodic voice. Her eyes brimmed with tears before she even began speaking. This portion of the lesson had a fury-spewing topic: Monstrous Crimes of the Landlord Restitution Corps. Cai carried out her task scrupulously, pointing to each heading and reading it aloud, like a vocabulary lesson. The first drawing was of a crescent moon partially hidden behind dark clouds in the upper right-hand corner; in the upper left-hand corner were some black leaves trailing black lines. But this drawing was of an autumn, not a winter wind. Beneath the dark clouds and crescent moon, buffeted by icy autumn winds, the head of all of Northeast Gaomi evils, Sima Ku, in his military overcoat and bandolier – mouth open, fangs bared, blood dripping from his lolling tongue – held a bloody knife in one claw that poked out from his loose left sleeve and a revolver in his right, badly drawn flames spewing from the barrel, which had just fired several bullets. He was wearing no pants; his army overcoat hung all the way down to the top of his bushy wolf’s tail. A pack of savage, ugly beasts was right on his heels. The neck of one of them was stretched out straight; it was a cobra spitting red venom – “This is Chang Xilu, a reactionary rich peasant from Sandy Ridge Village,” Teacher Cai said as she pointed to the head of the cobra. “And this one,” she said as her pointer touched a wild dog, “is Du Jinyuan, the despotic landlord of Sandy Ridge Village.” Du Jinyuan was dragging a spiked club (dripping blood, naturally). Next to him was Hu Rikui, a soldier of fortune from Wang Family Mound; he looked more or less human, but with the long, narrow face of a mule. The reactionary rich peasant Ma Qingyun from Two County Hamlet was a big, clumsy bear. All in all, a pack of armed savage beasts, murderous looks on their faces as they made their assault on Northeast Gaomi Township under Sima Ku’s leadership.

“The Landlord Restitution Corps engaged in frenzied class warfare, and in a matter of only ten days, using every imaginable cruel means at their disposal, killed 1,388 people.” Cai touched the images of one scene of brutal murder by landlord restitution members after another, drawing wails of grief from the students. It was like a magnified dictionary of shocking torture scenes that combined text and vivid drawings. The first few drawings showed traditional execution methods – decapitation, firing squad, and the like. But they gradually became more creative: “Here you see live burials,” Teacher Cai said. “As its name implies, the victim is buried alive.” Dozens of ashen-faced men were standing at the bottom of a large pit. Sima Ku stood at the edge of the pit, directing the gangster members of the restitution corps as they tossed in dirt. “According to the testimony of a survivor, old Mrs. Guo,” Teacher Cai read the text below the drawing, “the restitution corps bandits tired themselves out from their work, and forced the revolutionary cadres and ordinary citizens to dig their own pits and bury each other. When the dirt reached their chests, the victims had trouble breathing. Their chests seemed about to explode, as the blood rushed to their heads. At that point, the restitution corps bandits fired their weapons at their victims’ heads, sending blood and brain three feet into the air.” The face of Teacher Cai, who was feeling lightheaded to begin with, was white as a sheet. The students’ wails shook the rafters, but my eyes were dry. According to the time indicated at the bottom of the drawings, when Sima Ku was leading the restitution corps on the murderous frenzy in Northeast Gaomi Township, I was with Mother and revolutionary cadres and other activists on their retreat along the northeast coast. Sima Ku, Sima Ku, was he really that cruel? Teacher Cai rested her head against the drawing of the live burial. A little restitution corps member was raising a shovelful of dirt over his head, looking as if he was about to bury her. Translucent beads of sweat covered her face. She began to slide toward the floor, bringing the drawing down with her. Now she was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, the drawing covering her face. Gray flakes of the wall fluttered down onto the white paper.

This turn of events brought to an end the students’ wails. Several district officials came running up and carried Teacher Cai out the door. The district chief, a middle-aged man with regular features, but moles all over the side of his face, kept his hand on the wooden butt of the rifle slung across his back as he said sternly, “Students, comrades, we now invite the elderly poor peasant from Sandy Ridge Village, Mrs. Guo, to report on her personal experiences. Send in Mrs. Guo!”

We turned to look at the battered little door that led from the church to what had been Pastor Malory’s residence. Quiet, quiet, quiet that was abruptly shattered by a drawn-out wail that entered the church from the yard out front. A pair of officials opened the door by backing into it and entered, supporting Mrs. Guo, a gray-haired old woman who was covering her mouth with her sleeve and sobbing piteously. Everyone in the church joined her tearful outburst for a full five minutes, until she wiped away the tears, shook out her sleeve, and said, “Don’t cry, children. Tears can’t bring the dead back to life, and we must go on living.”

The students stopped crying and gaped at her. To my ears, what she said was so simple, yet held profound significance. She seemed somehow reserved as she asked in a sort of confused manner, “What am I supposed to say? There’s no need to talk about the past.” She turned as if to leave, but was stopped by the director of the Sandy Ridge Women’s League, Gao Hongying, who ran up to her and said, “Old aunty, you agreed to address us, didn’t you? You can’t back out now.” Gao was visibly upset. The district head said genially, “Old aunty, just tell them how the members of the Landlord Restitution Corps buried people alive. We need to educate our youngsters that the past cannot be forgotten. As Comrade Lenin said, ‘To forget the past is a form of betrayal.’“

“Well, since even Comrade Lenin wants me to talk, that’s what I’ll do.” Mrs. Guo sighed. “There was a full moon that night, so bright I could have embroidered in its light. There aren’t many nights like that. When I was a girl, an old-timer told me he recalled a white moon like that way back during the Taiping Rebellion. I couldn’t sleep, worrying that something bad was about to happen, so I got up to go borrow a shoe pattern from the mother of Fusheng in West Lane and, while I was at it, talk to Fusheng about finding a wife, since I had a niece who had reached marrying age. As I was walking out the door, I spotted Little Lion, carrying a big, shiny sword, with Jincai’s mother and wife and his two kids, the older one only seven or eight years old, and the younger one, a girl, barely two. The older kid was walking with his grandmother, scared and crying. Jincai’s wife was carrying the little girl, who was also scared and crying. Jincai himself had a sword cut, a big, gaping, bloody wound on his slumping shoulder that scared me half to death. Three mean-looking fellows I thought I knew were walking behind Little Lion, also with swords, and I tried to hide so they wouldn’t see me, but it was too late, and that bastard Little Lion spotted me. Now Little Lion’s mother and I are some sort of cousins, so he said, ‘Isn’t that my aunt over there?’ ‘Little Lion,’ I. said, ‘when did you get back?’ He said, ‘Last night.’ ‘What are you doing?’ I asked him. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Just looking for a place for this family to sleep.’ That didn’t sound good, so I said, ‘They’re our neighbors, Lion, no matter how bad things get.’ He said, ‘There are no bad feelings, not even between them and my dad. In fact, my dad and his dad are sworn brothers. But he hung my dad up from a tree and demanded money from him.’ Jincai’s mother said, ‘He didn’t know what he was doing, so forgive him for the sake of the older generation. I’ll get down on my knees and kowtow to you.’ ‘Mother,’ Jincai said, ‘don’t beg.’ Little Lion said, ‘Jincai, you’re starting to sound like a man, so no wonder they made you head of the militia.’ ‘You won’t last more than a few days,’ Jincai said. ‘You’re right,’ Little Lion said, ‘I imagine I’ll last ten days or a couple of weeks. But tonight’s all the time I’ll need to take care of you and your family’ I tried to take advantage of my age by saying, ‘Let them go, Little Lion. If you don’t you’re no nephew of mine.’ He just glared at me and said, ‘Who the hell is your nephew? Don’t pull any of that relation stuff on me! The time I accidentally squashed one of your little chicks that year, you split my head open with a club.’ ‘Lion, what kind of human being are you?’ He turned and asked the men with him, ‘Boys, how many have we killed today?’ One of them said, ‘Counting this family, exactly ninety-nine.’ ‘You old woman, you’re such a distant aunt that you’ll have to sacrifice yourself so I can make it an even number.’ That made my hair stand on edge. That bastard was talking about killing me! I ran into the house, but could I really get away from them? Family meant nothing to Little Lion. When he thought his wife was having an affair, he buried a live grenade in the stove ashes, but his mother got up early to clean out the stove and she was the one who dug out the grenade. I'd forgotten that incident, and now I was going to suffer, all because of my big mouth. They dragged Jincai and his family, plus me, over to Sandy Ridge Village, where one of them starting digging a big pit. It didn’t take him long in that sandy ground. The moon was so bright we could see everything on the ground – blades of grass, flowers, ants, slugs – clear as day. Little Lion walked up to the edge of the pit to take a look. ‘Make it a little deeper, men,’ he said. ‘Jincai’s as big as a fucking mule.’ So the man continued, and wet sand flew. Little Lion asked Jincai, ‘Got anything to say?’ ‘Lion,’ Jincai said, ‘I’m not going to beg. I killed your dad, but if I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have.’ ‘My dad was a frugal man who sold seafood along with your dad. He saved up a little money and bought a few acres of land. Unfortunately for your dad, somebody stole his money. You tell me, what was my dad’s crime?’ ‘He bought land, that was his crime!’ ‘Jincai, tell me the truth, who wouldn’t like to buy some land? How about your dad, for instance? And you yourself.’ ‘Don’t ask me,’ Jincai said. ‘I can’t answer that question. Is the pit deep enough?’ The man said it was. Without another word, Jincai jumped into it. Only his head showed above the ground. ‘Lion,’ he said, ‘I want to shout something.’ ‘Go ahead,’ Lion said. ‘We’ve been friends since we were bare-assed naked kids, so you deserve special treatment. Go ahead, shout whatever you want.’ Jincai thought for a moment, then raised his good arm and shouted at the top of his lungs, ‘Long live the Communist Party! Long live the Communist Party! Long long live the Communist Party!’ Just three shouts. ‘That’s it?’ Little Lion said. ‘That’s it.’ ‘Come on,’ Lion said, ‘let’s hear some more. That’s some voice you’ve got.’ ‘No,’ Jincai said, ‘that’s it. Three times is enough.’ Little Lion nudged Jincai’s mother. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Now you, aunty’ Jincai’s mother fell to her knees and banged her head on the ground, but Little Lion merely took the shovel out of the other man’s hands and used it to push her into the sandy pit. The other men pushed Jincai’s wife and kids in. The kids were bawling. So was their mother. ‘Stop that!’ Jincai demanded. ‘Shut your mouths and spare me the shame.’ His wife and kids stopped crying. Then one of the men pointed to me and said, ‘What about this one, Chief? Toss her down there too?’ Before Little Lion could answer, Jincai shouted, ‘Little Lion, you said this pit was for my family. I don’t want any outsiders down here.’ ‘Don’t worry, Jincai,’ Little Lion said, ‘I understand you perfectly. For this old woman, we’ll -’ He turned to the others. ‘Men, I know you’re tired, but dig another pit to bury this one.’

“The men split into two groups, one to dig a pit for me, the other to fill in the pit with Jincai’s family. Jincai’s daughter began to cry. ‘Mommy, the sand’s getting in my eyes.’ So Jincai’s wife wrapped her wide sleeves around the girl’s head. Jincai’s son struggled to climb out of the pit, but was knocked back down by one of the shovels. The boy began to bawl. Jincai’s mother, on the other hand, sat down, and was quickly buried in sand. She was gasping for air. ‘Communist Party, ah, the Communist Party!’ she grumbled. ‘We women are dying by your hand!’ ‘So you finally got it, now that you’re about to die!’ Little Lion said. ‘Jincai, all you have to do is shout “Down with the Communist Party” three times, and ITI spare a member of your family. That way there’ll be someone to tend your grave in the future.’ Jincai’s mother and wife both pleaded with him, ‘Go ahead, Jincai, do it, and hurry!’ His face nearly covered with sand, Jincai glared fiercely. ‘No, I won’t do it!’ ‘Okay, you’ve got backbone,’ Little Lion said admiringly as he took the shovel from one of his men, scooped up sand, and flung it into the pit. Jincai’s mother wasn’t moving. The sand covered his wife up to her neck; it had already buried his daughter and all but the head of his son, who reached up with his hands to keep struggling to get out. Black blood was seeping out of his wife’s nose and ears, while the words ‘Agony, oh, such agony’ poured out of the black hole that was her mouth. Little Lion paused in his work and said to Jincai, ‘Well, what do you say now?’ Panting like an ox, Jincai, whose head had swelled up like a basket, said, ‘No problem, Little Lion.’ ‘Because we were childhood friends,’ Little Lion said, ‘I’ll give you one more chance. All you have to do is shout “Long live the Nationalist Party,” and I’ll dig you out.’ With wide, staring eyes, Jincai stammered, ‘Long live the Communist Party…’ Infuriated, Little Lion recommenced flinging sand into the pit. Jincai’s wife and kids were quickly buried, but there was still some movement just below the surface, which showed they weren’t all dead yet. All of a sudden, we were shocked to see Jincai’s swollen head stick up in a terrifying manner. He could no longer speak, and blood was seeping from his nose and his eyes. The veins on his forehead were as big as silkworms. So Little Lion started jumping up and down to pack down the sand. Then he squatted down in front of Jincai’s head. ‘Well, what do you say now?’ he asked; Jincai could no longer answer. Little Lion tapped him on the head with his finger and said, ‘Say, men, want to try some human brains?’ ‘Who’d want to eat that stuff?’ they said. ‘It’d make me puke.’ ‘Some people have eaten it,’ Little Lion said. ‘Detachment Leader Chen, for one. Add some soy sauce and strips of ginger, he said, and it tastes like jellied bean curd.’ The man who was digging the other pit climbed out and said, ‘It’s ready, sir!’ Little Lion walked over to take a look. ‘Come over here, my distant aunty, and tell me what you think of this crypt I made for you.’ ‘Lion,’ I said, ‘Lion, show a little mercy and spare this old life.’ ‘What does someone as old as you have to live for? If I let you go, I’ll just have to find someone to take your place, since I need an even hundred.’ So I said to him, ‘Then finish me off with your sword. Being buried alive is just too horrible!’ All that turtle-spawn son of a bitch said was, ‘Life is nothing but suffering. But when you die, you go straight to Heaven,’ before he kicked me down into the pit. That’s when a bunch of people came shouting their way out of Sandy Ridge Village, with Sima Ku, the junior steward of Felicity Manor. I’d taken care of his third wife in the past, and all I could think was, my savior has arrived, swaggering up to us in riding boots. He’d aged a lot in the years since I’d last seen him. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘Me? I’m Little Lion!’ ‘What are you up to?’ ‘Burying people.’ ‘Burying who?’ ‘The head of the Sandy Ridge militia, Jincai, and his family’ Sima Ku walked up to where I was. ‘Who’s that down there?’ ‘Second Master, save me!’ I shouted. ‘I took care of your third wife. I’m the wife of Guo Luoguo.’ ‘Ah, it’s you,’ he said. ‘How did you fall into his hands?’ ‘I talked when I shouldn’t have. Show me some mercy, Second Master.’ Sima Ku turned to Little Lion. ‘Let her go,’ he said. ‘If I do that, Team Leader, I won’t get an even hundred.’ ‘Forget the number. Just kill those who deserve to be killed.’ One of his men reached down with his shovel, so I could climb out of the pit. You can say what you want, but Sima Ku is a reasonable man, and if not for him, that bastard Little Lion would have buried me alive.”

The officials dragged and pushed old woman Guo out of the room.

Ashen-faced Teacher Cai picked up her pointer and returned to the spot where she had collapsed and recommenced her descriptions of torture. Even though tears filled her eyes as she droned on in a desolate tone of voice, the students were no longer crying. My gaze swept the faces of all those people who had been pounding their chests and stomping their feet, now showing the effects of exhaustion and impatience. All those drawings, reeking of blood, had turned insipid, sort of like flatcakes that have soaked in liquid for days then laid out to dry. Compared to what we’d heard from old woman Guo, whose personal experience had given her the voice of authority, the drawings and explanations had lost their appeal to our emotions.

7

They dragged me out of school.

A crowd had gathered on the street, clearly waiting for me. A pair of grimy-faced militiamen walked over and tied me up with a length of rope that was long enough to wrap around me more than a dozen times and still have enough for one of the armed guards to hold on to as he dragged me along. The other man followed, nudging me along with the muzzle of his rifle. Everyone along the way gawped at me as I passed by. Then, from the far end of the street another group of bound individuals came staggering toward me. It was my mother, my first sister, Sima Liang, and Sha Zaohua. Shangguan Yunii and Lu Shengli, who weren’t tied, kept rushing up to Mother, only to be pushed aside by one of the burly militiamen. We met at the district headquarters – Felicity Manor – where we exchanged looks. There was nothing I could say, and I’m sure they felt the same way.

Escorted by the militiamen, we passed through several courtyards, all the way to the far end, where they crowded us into the southernmost room. The window on the southern wall was one big hole, its latticework and paper covering smashed and torn, as if to open up the activities inside to public scrutiny. I spotted Sima Ting, cowering in a corner, his face black and blue, front teeth missing. He gazed sadly at us. The furthermost little garden was just beyond the window, ringed by a high wall, one section of which had been broken through, as if to make a special gate. Guards patrolled the area, their uniforms billowing in the southern winds coming from the fields beyond.

That night, the district official hung four gas lamps in the room, and had a table and six chairs moved in. He also brought along some leather whips, clubs, rattan switches, steel wire, ropes, a bucket, and a broom. In addition to these, he installed a bloodstained slaughter rack for hogs, a butcher knife, a short flaying knife, iron meat hooks, and a bucket for catching blood. Everything you needed for a slaughterhouse.

Escorted by a squad of militiamen, Inspector Yang walked into the room, his prosthetic leg crackling. He had sagging jowls and rolls of fat under his armpits that made his arms stick out from his body, like a yoke hanging down from his neck. He sat behind the table and leisurely began preparations for the interrogation. First he took a Mauser that glistened blue from his back pocket, cocked it, and laid it on the table. Then he told one of the militiamen to hand him a bullhorn, which he laid beside the pistol. Next came a tobacco pouch and a pipe, which he laid beside the bullhorn. Finally, he bent down, removed his prosthetic leg – shoe, sock, and all – and placed it on a corner of the table. The leg was a terrifying pink under the gleaming white lamplight, but was marred by a series of black scars on the calf. The shoe and the sock were both badly worn. The thing rested on the table like one of Inspector Yang’s loyal bodyguards.

Other district officials sat somberly on either side of Inspector Yang, pens poised over notebooks. Militiamen stood their rifles against the wall, rolled up their sleeves, and picked up whips and clubs. Like yamen guards, they lined up in rows across from each other, breathing heavily

Lu Shengli, who had surrendered voluntarily, was grasping Mother’s leg and weeping. Teardrops hung on the tips of Eighth Sister’s long eyelashes, even though she was smiling. She was bewitching even under the most trying circumstances, and I began to feel guilty about keeping her from Mother’s breasts when we were young. Mother was staring at the lamps, expressionless.

Inspector Yang filled his pipe and struck a match against the rough surface of the table. It lit with a pop. His lips smacked noisily as he drew on the pipe to get the tobacco burning. Then he tossed the match away and covered the bowl with his thumb before sucking deeply and noisily and expelling the white smoke through his nostrils. He removed the burnt ashes by knocking the pipe bowl against the leg of his stool. After laying the pipe on the table, he picked up the bullhorn, placed it up to his mouth, so that the open end faced the masses outside the window. “Shangguan Lu, Shangguan Laidi, Shangguan Jintong, Sima Liang, Sha Zaohua,” he announced in a gravelly voice, “do you know why we’ve brought you here?”

We all turned to look at Mother, who was still staring at the lamp.

Her face was so puffy the skin was nearly translucent. Her lips twitched a time or two, but she said nothing. She merely shook her head.

Inspector Yang said, “Shaking your head is no way to answer my question. Based upon revelations by the masses and a full investigation by the authorities, we have gathered a mass of evidence. Over a long period of time, the Shangguan family, under the leadership of Shangguan Lu, concealed the whereabouts of Northeast Gaomi Township’s number one counterrevolutionary, a man whose blood debts are incalculable, the public enemy Sima Ku. In addition, during one recent night, a member of the family vandalized the class education exhibition hall and filled the church blackboard with reactionary slogans. For these crimes alone, your entire family can be shot. But in line with current policy, we’re prepared to give you a chance, a last chance, to save your lives. We want you to reveal the hiding place of the evil bandit, Sima Ku, so that this feral wolf can be brought to justice without delay. Second, we want you confess to vandalizing the class education exhibition hall and writing reactionary slogans, even though we already know who the guilty party is. We expect complete honesty, and for that you can expect leniency. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

We reacted with silence.

Inspector Yang snatched up his pistol and banged it against the table, without so much as lowering the bullhorn, which was still pointed at the window. “Shangguan Lu,” he bellowed, “did you hear what

I said?”

In a steady voice, Mother said, “This is a frame-up.” “A frame-up,” the rest of us echoed her.

“A frame-up, you say? We are not in the business of framing innocent people, nor in the business of letting guilty ones off the hook. String them all up.”

We fought and we cried, but all that did was delay the inevitable. They tied our hands behind us and strung us up from the rafters of Sima Ku’s house. Mother hung from the southernmost end, followed by Shangguan Laidi, Sima Liang, and me at the other hand. Sha Zaohua was behind me. My arms hurt, but that was bearable; the pain in my shoulder joints, on the other hand, was excruciating. Our heads slumped forward, our necks stretched out as far as they would go. It was impossible to keep our legs straight, impossible not to straighten out our insteps, and impossible to keep our toes from pointing straight down to the floor. I couldn’t stop whimpering, but Sima Liang didn’t make a sound. Shangguan Laidi was moaning, but Sha Zaohua kept silent. The weight of Mother’s body stretched the rope as taut as a wire; she was the first to start sweating and the one who sweated the most. Nearly colorless steam rose from her scraggly hair. Shengli and Yunii held on to her legs and swung back and forth, so the militiamen pulled them away like a pair of baby chicks. They rushed back and were pulled away again. “Inspector Yang,” the men said, “want us to string these two up too?” “No!” Inspector Yang said firmly. “We do things by the book.”

Without meaning to, Shengli pulled off one of Mother’s shoes. Her sweat ran all the way down to the tip of her big toe, and from there fell like rain to the floor.

“Ready to talk?” Inspector Yang asked us. “Come clean, and I’ll take you down at once.”

Straining to lift her head and catch her breath, Mother said rasply, “Let the kids down… I’m the one you want…”

“We’ll make them talk!” he announced to the window. “Beat them, and I mean hard!”

The militiamen picked up their whips and clubs and, with terrifying shouts, began to beat us systematically. I shrieked in pain, and so did First Sister and Mother. Sha Zaohua reacted with stony silence, and had probably passed out. As for Inspector Yang and the district officials, they pounded the table and shouted insults the whole time. Several of the militiamen dragged Sima Ting over to the slaughter rack, where they began beating him on his buttocks with a metal club, each stroke followed by a cry of agony. “Second Brother, you son of a bitch, get over here and confess to your crimes! You can’t beat me like this, not after all I’ve done…” The militiaman swung his club over and over, without a word, as if pounding a piece of rotten meat. One of the officials smacked a leather water bag with his whip, while a second militiaman beat a burlap bag with his whip. Shouts and loud cracks, some real and others not, filled the room with a jumble of noises; the whips and clubs danced in the bright light of the gas lamps.

After about the time it takes for a class to end, they untied the rope fixed to the window lattice, and Mother crumpled to the floor. Then they untied another, and First Sister crumpled to the floor. The rest of us followed. A militiaman carried over a bucket of water and flung cold water on our faces with a ladle, bringing us around immediately. Every joint in my body was numb.

“Tonight has just been a warning!” Inspector Yang bellowed. “I want you to think good and hard. Are you going to talk or aren’t you? If you talk, your previous crimes will be forgiven. If you don’t, then the worst is yet to come.” He picked up his prosthetic limb, put away his pipe, and holstered his pistol, then ordered the militiamen to guard us well before turning and hobbling out the door in the company of his bodyguards, creaking with each step.

The militiamen bolted the door and hunkered down by the wall to smoke, their rifles cradled in their arms. We huddled up next to Mother, whimpering and unable to say a word. She stroked our heads with her puffy hand. Sima Ting was moaning from the pain.

“Hey,” one of the militiamen said, “tell him what he wants to know. Inspector Yang can make a stone statue confess. How many days do you think your flesh-and-blood bodies can hold out? You’ll be lucky to make it past tomorrow.”

One of the others said, “If Sima Ku is the man they say he is, he should give himself up. These days he can hide in the green curtain of crops. But come winter, he’ll be out in the open.”

“That son-in-law of yours is one strange tiger. Late last month, a squad of police had him surrounded in a patch of reeds at White Horse Lake, but he got away and managed to kill seven or eight pursuers with one burst of his machine gun. Even the squad leader was wounded in the leg.”

The militiamen seemed to be hinting at something, I wasn’t sure what. But they had let slip news about Sima Ku: after showing himself at the brick kiln, he had disappeared like a pebble in the ocean. We’d wanted him to fly high and far, but he’d stayed close to Northeast Gaomi, raising chaos and bringing us nothing but trouble. White Horse Lake was just south of Two County Hamlet, no more than three or four miles from Dalan.

8

At noon the next day, Pandi rode up from the county seat. Filled with anger, she was intent on making the district officials pay for what they’d done. But she had calmed down by the time she walked out of the office of the district chief, who came with her to see us. Not having seen her for six months, we didn’t know what she was doing at county headquarters. She’d lost a lot of weight, but the dried milk stains on her blouse showed that she was nursing. We glared at her. “Pandi,” Mother asked, “what have we done wrong?” Pandi looked at the district chief, who was staring out the window. As her eyes filled up with tears, she said, “Mother… be patient… trust the government… the government would never hurt the innocent…”

At the same time that Pandi was trying awkwardly to console us, out in the Scholar Ding family graveyard in the dense pine grove beyond White Horse Lake, Cui Fengxian, a widow from Sandy Mouth Village, was rhythmically pounding the tombstone over the grave of Scholar Ding, with its carved commendation for his heroic deeds. The crisp sounds merged with the du-du-du of a woodpecker at work on a tree. The fanlike white tail feathers of a gray magpie slipped through the sky above the trees. After pounding on the marker for a while, Cui Fengxian sat before the altar to wait. Her face was powdered, her clothes neat and clean; a covered bamboo basket hung from her arm, all of which gave her the appearance of a newly married young woman on a trip to her parents’ home. Sima Ku stepped out from behind the grave marker, causing her to jump back in fright. “You damned ghost!” she cursed. “You scared me half to death.” “Since when is a fox spirit like you afraid of ghosts?” “So that’s how it is,” she said, “still as sharp-tongued as ever.” “What do you mean, that’s how it is? Everything is wonderful, never better.” He added, “Those local turtle-spawn bastards think they’ll capture me, do they? Ha ha, dream on!” He patted the automatic rifle draped across his chest, the chrome-plated German Mauser in his belt, and the Browning pistol in its holster. “My mother-in-law wants me to leave Northeast Gaomi. Why would I want to do that? This is my home, the place where my ancestors are buried. Fm intimate with every blade of grass, every tree and mountain and river. This is where I get my enjoyment, and it also has a flaming fox spirit like you, so, I ask you, why would I want to run away?” Off in the reedy marshes a startled flock of wild ducks took to the air, and Cui Fengxian reached out and clapped her hand over Sima Ku’s mouth. He wrenched her hand away and said, “Nothing to worry about. I've taught the Eighth Route Army a lesson over there. Those ducks were frightened off by vultures.” Cui dragged him farther back into the graveyard, where she said, “I’ve got important news for you.”

They threaded their way through a thicket of brambles on their way into a large vault. “Aiya!” Cui Fengxian yelped as a bramble pricked her finger. Sima Ku slipped his machine gun over his head and lit a lantern, then reached back and grabbed her hand. “Did it break the skin?” he asked. “Let me see.” “It’s fine,” she replied as she tried to pull her hand back. But he’d already stuck the finger in his mouth and was sucking hard. She moaned. “You’re a damned vampire.” Sima Ku spat her finger out, covered her mouth with his, and grabbed hold of her breasts with his large, coarse hands. She writhed passionately and let her basket fall to the ground, sending brown eggs rolling around on the brick floor. Sima Ku picked her up and laid her on top of the broad crypt cover…

Sima Ku lay naked atop the crypt cover, his eyes half closed as he licked the tips of his dirty yellow mustache, which hadn’t been trimmed for a long time. Cui Fengxian was massaging the large knuckles of his hand with her soft fingers. All of a sudden, she laid her burning face against his bony chest, which had the smell of a wild animal, and began to bite him. “You’re a demon,” she said, a note of hopelessness in her voice. “You never come to me when things are going well, but as soon as you’re in trouble, you come and wrap your tentacles around me… I know that any woman who gets tangled up with you is in for a bad time. But I can’t control myself. You wag your tail, and I run after you like some bitch… tell me, you demon, what evil power do you have that makes women follow you, even when they know you’re leading them into a pit of fire, one they’ll jump into with their eyes wide open?”

Sima Ku smiled even though her comment had saddened him. He took her hand and pressed it against his chest, where she could feel the strength of his heartbeat. “You have to believe in this, my heart, my true heart. I give my heart to women.”

Cui Fengxian shook her head. “You only have one heart. How can you give it to different women at the same time?”

“However many I give it to, it’s still genuine. And also this,” he said with a lecherous laugh as he moved her hand down his body. Cui Fengxian wrenched her hand free and pinched him on the lips. “What am I going to do with a monster like you? Even when you’re chased to the point where you have to sleep in your grave, you’ve still got time to play your silly games!”

With a laugh, Sima Ku said, “The harder they try, the more I feel like playing. Women are true treasures, treasures among treasures, more precious than anything.” He reached out for her breasts again.

“You lecher,” she said, “that’s enough. Something has happened at your house.” “What?” he asked as he continued fondling her. “They’ve taken them all into custody – your mother-in-law, your eldest and youngest sisters-in-law, plus your son, your little brother-in-law, the daughters of your eldest and fifth sisters-in-law, and your older brother. They have them locked up in the family compound. They string them up from the rafters nightly and beat them with whips and clubs… it breaks your heart, and I don’t think they’ll be able to hold out more than another day.”

Sima Ku’s hands froze in front of Cui Fengxian’s chest. He jumped down off the crypt cover, picked up his automatic rifle, and bent down to scramble out of the vault. Cui Fengxian wrapped her arms around him and pleaded, “Don’t go. You’re just asking to be killed.”

Once he’d calmed down, he sat beside a coffin and bolted down one of the boiled eggs. Sunlight filtering in through the brambles fell on his puffy cheek and the gray temple hair. The egg yolk caught in his throat; he coughed, and his face began to turn purple. Cui Fengxian thumped him on the back and massaged his neck until the food finally slipped down his gullet. Her face was bathed in sweat. “You frightened me half to death!” she said breathlessly as two large tears dropped onto Sima Ku’s cheek and rolled down. He sprang to his feet, his head nearly hitting the vault ceiling, as flames of anger seemed to leap from his eyes. “You sons of bitches, FU flay the skin off your bones!”

“Please don’t go,” Cui Fengxian pleaded as she wrapped her arms around him. “Yang the Cripple has set a trap for you. Even a longhaired old woman like me can see what he’s up to. Use your head. By storming in there alone, you’ll fall right into his trap.”

“So what should I do?”

“Heed the words of your mother-in-law and get as far away from here as possible. Fll go with you if I won’t be a burden, even if I wear out the soles of my feet.”

Sima Ku took her hand and said emotionally, “I’m a lucky man to have met so many good women, each of them willing to throw in her lot with me, heart and soul. What else could a man ask for in this life? But I can’t bring any more harm to you. You go now, Fengxian, and don’t come looking for me anymore. Don’t be sad when you hear that Fm dead. I've had a good life…”

With tears in her eyes, she nodded and removed an ox-horn comb from her head, with which she lovingly combed Sima Ku’s tangled, gray-specked hair, removing bits of grass, broken snail shells, and tiny bugs. She kissed his forehead wetly and said in a calm voice, “I’ll wait for you,” before picking up her basket and crawling out of the vault. Parting the brambles as she went, she left the graveyard. Sima Ku sat there without moving until long after she’d disappeared from view, his eyes fixed on the sunlit, gently swaying brambles.

The following morning, Sima Ku crawled out of the vault, leaving his weapons behind, and walked over to White Horse Lake, where he took a bath. Then, like a man out on a nature stroll, he walked around the lake, looking here and there, striking up a conversation with birds in the reeds one minute and racing with roadside rabbits the next. He walked along the edge of the marshy land, stopping every few minutes to pick red and white wildflowers, which he held up to his nose and breathed in their fragrance. He then made a wide sweep around the pastureland, where he looked off into the distance at Reclining Ox Mountain, which was gilded in the rays of the setting sun. As he was crossing the footbridge over the Black Water River, he jumped up and down, as if trying to gauge how sturdy it was. It swayed and moaned. Feeling mischievous, he opened his pants and exposed himself, then looked down and liked what he saw; he let loose a stream of steaming urine into the river. As it hit the water with loud, rhythmic splashes, he howled: Ah – ah – ah ya ya – the sound soaring over the vast wilderness and circling back to him. Over on the riverbank, a crosseyed little shepherd cracked his whip, which grabbed Sima Ku’s attention. He looked down at the boy, who returned his look, and as they held each other’s gaze, they both began to laugh. “I know who you are, boy,” Sima Ku said with a giggle. “Your legs are made of pear wood, your arms are made of apricot wood, and your ma and I made your little pecker with a mud clod!” Angered by the comment, the boy cursed, “Fuck your old lady!” This vile curse threw Sima Ku’s heart into turmoil; his eyes moistened as he sighed deeply. The shepherd cracked his whip again to drive his goats into the sunset. He cast a long shadow as he sang in his high-pitched childish voice: “In 1937, the Japs came to the plains. First they took the Marco Polo Bridge, then the Shanhai Pass. They built a railway all the way to our Jinan city. The Japs they fired big cannons, but the Eighth Route soldier cocked his rifle, took aim, and – crack! Down went a Jap officer, his legs stretched out as his soul flew into the sky…” Even before the song ended, hot tears spilled out of Sima Ku’s eyes. Holding his burning face in his hands, he squatted down on the stone bridge…

Afterward, he washed his tear-streaked face in the river, brushed the dirt from his clothes, and walked slowly along the dike, which was overgrown with garish flowers. As dusk grew deeper, the birds’ calls were bleak and chilling; the palette of colors in the sky was one gigantic smear, and the odors of the surrounding flowers, some heavy, others subtle, intoxicated Sima Ku, while the sometimes bitter and sometimes spicy grassy smells roused him from his inebriation. Heaven and earth both seemed so remote, eternity seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, thoughts that brought him profound anguish. Egg-laying locusts covered the gray footpath on the crest of the dike; they burrowed their soft abdomens in the hard, muddy ground, leaving the tops of their bodies sticking straight up, a scene of suffering and joy at the same time. Sima Ku squatted down, picked up one of the locusts. Studying its long, undulating, disjointed abdomen, he was reminded of his boyhood days and of his first love – a fair-skinned young woman with plucked eyebrows who was the mistress of his father, Sima Weng. How he had loved to rub his gristly nose against her breasts…

The village was just up ahead; kitchen smoke curled into the air, and the smell of humans grew heavy. He bent down to pick a wild chrysanthemum and breathe in its fragrance to clear his head of bygone images and put a stop to all fanciful thoughts. He then strode purposefully over to a newly opened breach in the southern wall of his family’s compound. A militiaman who had been hiding in the hole jumped out, cocked his rifle, and shouted, “Halt! Don’t come any closer!” “This is my house,” Sima Ku retorted coldly.

Momentarily stunned, the guard fired a shot into the air and screamed wildly, “It’s Sima Ku! Sima Ku is here!”

Sima Ku watched the militiaman run away, dragging his rifle behind him, and murmured, “What’s he running for? Really!”

Inhaling another whiff of the yellow flower and humming the anti-Japanese ditty the shepherd had sung, he was determined to make a dignified entrance. But the first step he took landed in thin air, and he tumbled into a hole that had been dug in front of the breach for the sole purpose of catching him. A squad of county policemen who were keeping watch day and night in the field beyond the wall quickly emerged from their hiding places. The black holes of dozens of rifle barrels were pointed at the trapped Sima Ku, whose feet had been cut by sharpened bamboo sticks. “What do you men think you’re doing?” he reviled them as he was racked by pain. “I came to give myself up, so why set a wild boar trap to catch me?”

The chief investigator reached down, pulled Sima Ku up to level ground, and snapped handcuffs on him.

“Release the members of the Shangguan family!” he bellowed. “I’m here to answer for my actions!”

9

To satisfy the demands of Northeast Gaomi residents, the public trial of Sima Ku was held in the square where he and Babbitt had shown their first open-air movie. Originally his family’s threshing ground, it contained a tamped-earth platform that now barely rose above the ground around it; it was the spot where Lu Liren had once led the masses in the land reform campaign. In preparation for the arrival of Sima Ku, district officials had sent armed militiamen to the spot the night before to dig up hundreds of square feet of dirt in order to rebuild the platform until it was as high as the Flood Dragon River dikes, and to dig a trench that ran in front and along the sides of the platform, which was then filled with oily green water. Once that was done, they authorized the expenditure of enough money to purchase a thousand catties of millet, which was then exchanged for two wagonloads of tightly woven, golden yellow matting from a marketplace ten miles out of town, with which they erected a huge tent over the platform, and then covered it with colorful sheets of paper on which were written a variety of slogans, some angry and others jubilant. The leftover matting was spread over the platform itself and its sloping sides, giving it the appearance of golden cascades. The district chief, in the company of the county head, came personally to inspect the interrogation site. Standing on the sleek, easy-on-the-feet platform, which rose like an opera stage, they gazed out at the roiling blue waters of the Flood Dragon River as it flowed east, a cold wind billowing their sleeves and pant legs until they took on the appearance of sausage links. The county head rubbed his red nose as he turned to ask the district chief loudly, “Who’s responsible for this masterpiece?”

Unable to tell if the county head was being sarcastic or complimentary, the district chief replied ambiguously, “I was involved in the planning, but he was in charge of the work.” He pointed to an official from the District Propaganda Committee standing off to one side.

The county head glanced over at the beaming official and nodded. Then, lowering his voice, but not enough to keep the people behind him from hearing, he said, “This looks more like a coronation than a public trial!”

Inspector Yang hobbled up at that moment and bowed respectfully to the county head, who sized him up and said, “The county recognizes your outstanding service in arranging the capture of Sima Ku. But your scheme entailed the torture of members of the Shangguan family, for which you have been censured.”

“Bringing the murdering devil Sima Ku to justice is what counts,” Inspector Yang responded passionately, “and for that I’d have gladly given my good leg!”

The public trial was scheduled for the morning of the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. Residents cloaked in the cold glare of early-morning stars and capped by the chilly countenance of the moon began pouring into the site to be part of the excitement. By dawn the square was black with people, some of whom stood behind railings thrown up on the banks of the Flood Dragon River. When the sun made its shy appearance, casting its rays on the people’s frosty eyebrows and beards, pink mist rose from their mouths. Other people had lost sight of the fact that it was the morning when they normally ate bowls of fruity rice porridge, but not the members of my family. Mother tried to infect us with her feigned enthusiasm, but Sima Liang’s constant weeping had us in a foul mood. Like a little mother, Eighth Sister felt around for a sponge she’d picked up on the sandbar and dried Sima Liang’s copious tears. He wept without making a sound, which made it worse than if he’d been bawling loudly. First Sister stayed close by Mother, who was running around busily, and asked over and over, “Mother, if he dies, will I be expected to die with him?”

“Stop talking nonsense!” Mother reprimanded her. “You wouldn’t be expected to do that even if the two of you had been properly married.”

By the tenth or twelfth time she asked the same question, Mother lost patience and said pointedly, “Laidi, does face mean anything to you? When you hooked up with him, it was nothing more than a brother-in-law taking up with his sister-in-law, a shameful act in anyone’s book.”

First Sister was stunned. “Mother,” she said, “you’ve changed.”

“Yes, I’ve changed,” Mother said, “and yet I’m still the same. Over the past ten or more years, members of the Shangguan family have died off like stalks of chives, and others have been born to take their place. Where there’s life, death is inevitable. Dying’s easy; it’s living that’s hard. The harder it gets, the stronger the will to live. And the greater the fear of death, the greater the struggle to keep on living. I want to be around on the day my children and grandchildren rise to the top, so I expect all of you to make a good showing for my sake!”

Her eyes, wet with tears, yet spitting fire, swept across our faces, resting finally on me, as if I were the repository of all her hopes. That made me incredibly fearful and restive, since, with the exceptions of an ability to memorize school lessons and sing the “Women’s Liberation Anthem” with a degree of accuracy, I couldn’t think of a thing I was particularly good at. I was a crybaby, I was scared of my own shadow, and I was a weakling, sort of like a castrated sheep.

“Get yourselves ready,” Mother said, “so we can give him a proper send-off. He’s a bastard, but he’s also a man worthy of the name. In days past, a man like that would come around once every eight or ten years. I’m afraid we’ve seen the last of his kind.”

We stood as a family on the river dike and watched the people around us slink away. Many sideward glances were cast our way. Sima Liang tried to move up closer, but Mother grabbed hold of his arm. “Stay right here, Liang. We’ll watch from a distance. If we’re too close, it’ll just give him something else to worry about.”

The sun rose high in the sky as truckloads of armed, helmeted soldiers crept across the Flood Dragon River Bridge and through the breach in the dike. They wore the looks of men confronted by a powerful enemy. After the trucks came to a stop beside the tent, the soldiers jumped to the ground in pairs and dispersed rapidly to form a blockade line. Two soldiers then climbed out of one of the trucks and opened the tailgate. Out stepped Sima Ku, wearing a pair of shiny handcuffs, in the custody of a squad of soldiers. He stumbled when he was pushed to the ground, but was immediately picked up by a tall, robust soldier who was obviously handpicked for this assignment. Sima Ku, his swollen legs covered with thick blood, stumbled along with his captors, leaving putrid-smelling footprints in the dirt. They led him over to the tent and up onto the raised platform. Out-of-town witnesses who were seeing Sima Ku for the first time, and had assumed him to be a murderous demon, half man-half beast, a monster with fangs and a ferocious, green face, later said that seeing him in person had been a disappointment. This middle-aged man with his shaved head and big, sad eyes didn’t look threatening at all. In fact, he struck them as a guileless, good-natured fellow, and had them wondering if the police had arrested the wrong man.

The trial quickly got underway, beginning with the magistrate’s reading of Sima Ku’s crimes and ending with the pronouncement of the death sentence. Soldiers then led him down off the platform. He hobbled as he walked, causing the soldiers to stumble as they held his arms. The procession halted at the edge of the pond, the infamous execution site. Sima Ku turned to face the dike. Maybe he spotted us, and maybe he didn’t. Sima Liang called out, “Daddy,” but Mother quickly clapped her hand over his mouth.

“Liang,” she whispered in his ear, “be a good boy, and do as I say. I know how you feel, but it’s important that we don’t make your daddy feel any worse than he does now. Let him face this last challenge free from worries.”

Mother’s words worked like a magic charm, transforming Sima Liang from a mad dog into a tame sheep.

A pair of powerful-looking soldiers grabbed Sima Ku’s shoulders and forced him to turn around to face the execution pond, whose thirty-year accumulation of rainwater had the appearance of lemon oil, in which his gaunt face and scarred cheeks looked back at him. With his back to the squad of soldiers and facing the pond, he saw countless women’s faces reflected in the water, their smell floating up from the surface, and he was suddenly overcome by a sense of his own frailty; turbulent waves of emotion overwhelmed the calmness in his heart. He wrenched himself from the grip of the soldiers to turn back around, throwing a fright into the director of the Judicial Department of the County Security Bureau, as well as the executioners, who were known for their ability to kill without batting an eye.

“I won’t let you shoot me in the back!” he shouted shrilly.

Facing the stony stares of his executioners, he felt stabs of pain from the scars on his cheeks. Sima Ku, for whom face was so important, was overcome with regret as the events of the day before surfaced in his mind.

When the legal representative had handed down the article of execution, Sima Ku had received it joyfully. The representative had asked if he had any last requests. Rubbing his stubble, he’d said, “I’d like to have a barber shave my head,” to which the representative had replied, “I’ll take that back to my superiors.”

The barber arrived, carrying his little case, and approached the condemned cell with obvious trepidation. After haphazardly shaving his head, he turned his razor to the beard. But about halfway, he nicked Sima Ku on the cheek, drawing a screech from the victim, so frightening the barber that he leaped back toward the cell door and placed himself between the two armed guards.

“That guy’s hair is pricklier than hog bristles,” the barber said as he showed the guards the nicked razor. “The blade’s ruined. And his beard’s even worse. It’s like a wire brush. He must concentrate his strength at the roots of his beard.”

So the barber gathered up his stuff and was about to leave, when he was stopped short by a curse from Sima Ku: “You son of a bitch, what do you think you’re doing? Do you expect me to go to meet my ancestors with half my face shaved?”

“You, there, condemned man,” the barber shot back. “Your beard’s tough enough already, and then you go concentrating your strength there.”

Not knowing whether to laugh or to cry, Sima Ku said, “Don’t blame the toilet when you can’t do your business. I have no idea what you mean by concentrating my strength somewhere.”

“The way you keep grunting, if that isn’t concentrating your strength, what is it?” the barber replied cleverly. “I’m not deaf, you know.”

“You bastard!” Sima Ku said. “I’m groaning from all the pain.”

One of the guards said to the barber, “You’ve got a job to do. So suck it up and finish shaving him.”

“I can’t,” he said. “Go find a master barber.”

Sima Ku sighed and said, “Shit, where in the world did you find this piece of rubbish? Take off these handcuffs, men, and I’ll shave myself.”

“Not on your life!” one of the guards said. “If you used that as a ploy to attack us and run off, or kill yourself, it would be on our heads.”

“Fuck your old lady!” Sima Ku bellowed. “I want to see whoever’s in charge.” He banged his handcuffs noisily against the window bars.

A security officer came running over. “What do you think you’re doing, Sima Ku,” she demanded.

“Look at my face,” Sima said. “He shaved half and then stopped because he said my beard’s too tough. Does that make sense to you?”

“No,” she said as she slapped the barber’s shoulder. “Why won’t you finish shaving him?”

“His beard’s too tough. And he keeps concentrating his strength in the roots…”

“Fuck your ancestors, with all that talk about concentrating strength!”

The barber held up his damaged razor in defense of his position.

“How about acting like a man, friend?” Sima Ku said to her. “Take off these handcuffs, and I’ll shave myself. It’s the last favor I’ll ever ask.”

The officer, who had participated in Sima’s capture, hesitated momentarily before turning to one of the guards and saying, “Take them off.”

With a sense of foreboding, the guard did as he was told, then jumped back out of harm’s way. Sima Ku rubbed his swollen wrists. When he stuck out his hand, the officer took the razor from the barber and handed it to Sima, who took it and gazed at her dark, grapelike eyes, which were topped by bushy eyebrows. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll attack you, or run off, or kill myself?”

“If you did,” she said with a smile, “then you wouldn’t be Sima Ku.”

With a sigh, Sima said, “I never dreamed it would take a woman to really understand me!”

She smiled scornfully.

Sima stared at the woman’s hard, red lips, and then let his gaze move down to her chest, which arched upward under her khaki uniform. “You’ve got nice breasts, little sister,” he said.

Grinding her teeth in anger, she said, “Is that all you can think about the day before you’re going to die?”

“Little sister,” Sima replied somberly, “I’ve screwed a lot of women in my life, and my only regret is that I’ve never screwed a Communist.”

Furious, she slapped him, so loud and so hard that dust rained down from the rafters. He smiled impishly and said, “I’ve got a young sister-in-law who’s a Communist. She has a firm political stance and nice, firm breasts…”

As her face reddened, the officer spat in Sima’s face and said in a low growl, “Be careful, you mangy mongrel, or I might cut your balls off!”

Sima Ting cried out, his voice filled with sadness and anger, rousing Sima Ku from his anguished thoughts. What he saw was a squad of militiamen dragging his elder brother up to the crowd of onlookers. “I’m innocent – innocent! I’ve rendered great service, and I broke off relations with my brother a long time ago!” No one paid any attention to Sima Ting’s tearful pleas. Sima Ku sighed, as threads of guilt filtered into his heart. When the chips were down, the man was a good and loyal brother, even if you couldn’t trust some of the things he said.

Sima Ting’s legs were so rubbery he couldn’t stand. A village official demanded, “Tell me, Sima Ting, where’s the Felicity Manor treasure vault? If you don’t tell me, you can walk down the same road as him!” “There’s no treasure vault. During land reform, they dug down three feet and didn’t find anything,” Sima Ku’s wretched brother pled his case. Sima Ku grinned and said, “Quit your bitching, Elder Brother!” “It’s all your fault, you bastard!” Sima Ting complained. Sima Ku just shook his head with a wry smile. “Stop this nonsense!” a security bureau officer rebuked the village officials, resting his hand on the butt of his holstered pistol. “Take that man away! Don’t you give a damn about policy?” As they dragged Sima Ting away, the village official said, “We figured this might be a good opportunity to get something out of him.”

The man in charge of the execution raised a little red flag and announced in a loud voice, “Ready -”

The firing squad raised their weapons, waiting for the command. An icy grin spread across Sima Ku’s face as he stared down the black muzzles of the rifles aimed at him. A red glare rose above the dike, and the smell of women blanketed heaven and earth. Sima Ku shouted:

“Women are wonderful things -”

The dull crack of rifle fire split Sima Ku’s head like a ripe melon, sending blood and brain in all directions. His body stiffened for a brief moment, and then toppled forward. At that moment, like the climactic scene in a play, just before the curtain drops, the widow Cui Fengxian from Sandy Mouth Village, wearing a red satin jacket over green satin pants, a spray of golden-yellow silk flowers in her hair, flew down from the top of the dike and lay on the ground beside Sima Ku. I assumed she would begin to wail over the corpse, but she didn’t. Maybe the sight of Sima Ku’s shattered skull drove the courage out of her. She took a pair of scissors from her waistband, which I thought she was going to plunge into her breast to accompany Sima Ku in death. But she didn’t. In the midst of all those staring eyes, she plunged the scissors into Sima Ku’s dead chest. Then she covered her face, shattered the stillness with shrieks of grief, and staggered off as fast as her feet would take her.

The crowd of onlookers stood there like wooden stakes. Sima Ku’s decidedly inelegant last words had bored their way into their hearts, tickling them as they crawled around mischievously. Are women really wonderful things? Maybe they are. Yes, women definitely are wonderful things, but when all is said and done, they aren’t really “things.”