Pow!

POW! 19

Finally, all the contingents of marchers are in their assigned spots on the grassy field and, for the moment, the highway in front of the temple looks deserted. A white utility van speeds in our direction from West City, turns off the highway when it reaches the temple and stops under a gingko tree. Three brawny men jump out. One is middle-aged and dressed in an old army uniform faded nearly white from too many launderings. Lively and spry despite his age, he is clearly a man of unusual abilities. I recognize him right away—Lao Lan's follower Huang Bao, a man who's had considerable dealings with our family and who yet remains a mystery, at least to me. The men take a large net out of the van and then spread it open. Then two of them, one on each end, begin walking towards the ostriches, and I know that the end is nigh. Huang Bao has obviously been sent on a mission for Lao Lan, and as such is playing the role of commander. The ignorant ostriches run straight towards the net, and the necks of three of them are immediately snagged by its holes. All the rest, flustered by the trap the others have stumbled into, turn and run, leaving the unfortunate three to struggle and complain hoarsely. After fetching a pair of garden shears from the van, Huang Bao goes up to the net, and—snip, snip, snip—separates the birds’ heads from their bodies at the thinnest part of the necks. The now-headless torsos perform a brief macabre dance before toppling over, spurts of dark blood gushing like a runaway hose from their truncated, python-like necks. The stink of blood seeps into the temple just as Huang Bao and his crew's mortal enemy arrives on the scene, a manifestation of the saying ‘Every evil man fears someone worse.’ Five stony-faced men in black emerge from somewhere behind the temple. The tallest among them, wearing sunglasses, a cigar dangling from his lips, is the mysterious Lan Daguan. As his four henchmen charge Huang Bao and his men, they draw rubber truncheons from their belts and, without a ‘by your leave’, begin cracking open heads. The sickening crunches and spurts of blood chill my heart. No matter what, Huang Bao has been counted as one of us, a fellow villager. I see him holding his head in pain. ‘Who are you?’ he shouts. ‘Who gave you orders to attack us?’ Blood oozes from between his fingers. His attackers remain silent and simply raise their truncheons once more. Huanb Bao has lost this battle; stumbling over to the highway, he runs away, shouting: ‘Just wait, you guys…’ Now you may think none of this makes any sense but it's all happening before my eyes. Lan Daguan crouches in front of one of the ostrich heads, reaches out and touches hairs that are still quivering. Then he stands up, takes out a white silk handkerchief, cleans his blood-stained finger with it and then throws it away. It is swept up by a gust of wind before it hits the ground and, like an oversized white butterfly, flaps its way over the temple roof and disappears from view. He now walks up to the temple and stands there a moment before removing his sunglasses, as if to show his face. I see the ravages of time on that face and the depths of melancholy in those eyes. A piercing crackle fills the air, a burst of loudspeaker static, followed by a man's husky announcement: ‘Stand by for the Tenth Annual Twin Cities Carnivore Festival and Foundation-Stone-Laying Ceremony for the Meat God Temple!’

At last, Lao Lan, a brown wool overcoat over a military uniform, appeared in the circle of light cast by the lantern and candles in our house, preceded by a hearty ‘Ha-ha!’ His uniform was the real thing: the collar and shoulders still bore traces of insignias and epaulettes. His overcoat, with its bright shiny buttons, was that of a field officer. A dozen or so years earlier, woollen uniforms like that were worn only by local Party cadres, a sign of their status, in much the same way as the legendary grey Dacron Mao tunics symbolized a commune cadre. Lao Lan had the nerve to go out in a woollen uniform despite the fact that he was only a village cadre, which proved that he did not consider himself a minor official. It was rumoured in the village that he and the town mayor were sworn brothers; as a result, in his estimation, all the county and township heads were beneath him. And with justification, since they found it necessary to get in his good graces for their promotions and personal wealth.

Lao Lan stepped into our brightly lit living room and, with a shrug, let his overcoat slip into the hands of the seemingly simple-minded but actually brilliant Huang Bao, who had entered right on his heels and now stood there respectfully holding the coat and looking like a flagpole. He was the cousin of Huang Biao, who had put down his butcher's knife and begun raising dogs, and of course, the brother-in-law of Huang Biao's pretty wife. A martial-arts master, he was a wizard with spears and clubs and able to fly over eaves and walk up walls; nominally, he was the leader of the village militia while in fact he was Lao Lan's personal bodyguard.

‘Wait outside,’ Lao Lan said to him.

‘Why?’ Mother said generously. ‘He can sit with us.’

But Huang Bao stepped nimbly out of the living room and disappeared into our yard.

Lao Lan rubbed his hands and apologized: ‘Sorry to have kept you waiting. I returned late from an appointment in the city. With all the snow and ice on the ground, I told my driver to go slow.’

‘You honour us by taking time out of your busy schedule, with so many village matters to attend to…’ Father spoke with obsequious formality from where he stood behind the round table, trying to make himself as unobtrusive as possible. ‘We are extremely grateful.’

‘Ha-ha, Luo Tong,’ Lao Lan said with a dry laugh. ‘You've changed since I last saw you.’

‘Getting old,’ Father said as he took off his cap and rubbed his shaved scalp. ‘Nothing but grey hair.’

‘That's not what I'm talking about. Everyone grows old. What I meant was you've got better at expressing yourself since I last saw you. And you've lost that old fight you used to have. These days you talk like an intellectual.’

‘Now you're making fun of me,’ Father said. ‘I've done lots of strange things in the past but the troubles I've had since then have shown how wrong I was. All I can do is beg your forgiveness…’

‘What kind of talk is that?’ Lan subconsciously reached up and touched his damaged ear as he carried on magnanimously, ‘Who doesn't do weird things at some point in their life? And that includes sages and emperors.’

‘All right, you two, enough of that talk,’ Mother said warmly. ‘Village Head, please sit.’

Lan deferred to Father a time or two before taking the chair Mother had borrowed from her cousin.

‘Come sit, all of you, don't stand about. Yang Yuzhen, you've worked hard enough.’

‘The food's getting cold,’ Mother said. ‘I'll go fry some eggs.’

‘I'd rather you sit,’ Lao Lan said. ‘You can fry the eggs when I say so.’

Lao Lan sat in the seat of honour, surrounded by Mother, Jiaojiao, Father and me.

Mother opened a bottle and filled glasses. Then holding up hers, she said: ‘Thank you, Village Head, for the honour of visiting this humble abode.’

‘How could I refuse an invitation from someone so renowned as the man of the hour, Luo Xiaotong?’ He emptied his glass. ‘Have I got that right, Mr Luo Xiaotong?’

‘No one's ever been a guest in our house,’ I said. ‘No one's ever deserved it before today.’

‘What kind of talk is that?’ Father said with a censorious look in my direction. Then he apologized. ‘Youngsters will say anything. Just ignore him.’

‘I see nothing wrong in what he said,’ said Lao Lan. ‘I like boys with a bit of spunk. Xiaotong's future as a man looks bright from what I see of him as a boy.’

Mother placed a drumstick on Lao Lan's plate. ‘Talk like that gives him a big head, Village Head. Best to avoid it.’

Lao Lan picked up the drumstick and laid it on my plate, then picked up the second one and laid it on the plate in front of Jiaojiao. She was timidly pressed up against Father, and I saw sadness mixed with affection in his eyes.

‘Say thank you.’

‘Thank you!’

‘What's her name?’ Lao Lan asked Father.

‘Jiaojiao,’ Mother answered. ‘She's a good girl, and smart too.’

Lao Lan kept placing morsels of meat and fish onto Jiaojiao's and my plates.

‘Eat up, children,’ he said. ‘Go ahead, eat whatever you like.’

‘What about you?’ Mother said. ‘Not to your taste?’

He picked up a peanut with his chopsticks and popped it into his mouth.

‘Do you think I came here for the food?’ he asked as he chewed the peanut.

‘We know,’ Mother said. ‘You're the village head, with many honours and awards, someone who's well known at the city and provincial levels. I can't imagine there's any food you haven't tasted. We invited you here to express our regard for you.’

‘Pour me another,’ Lao Lan said as he held out his glass.

‘Oh, I'm sorry…’

‘Him, too,’ he said, pointing to Father's empty glass.

‘I am sorry,’ she said as she obeyed his instructions. ‘You're the first guest we've ever had, and I have a lot to learn…’

Lao Lan held his glass out to Father and said: ‘Lao Luo, there's no need to talk about the past in front of the children. For the future, if you will do me the honour, bottoms up!’

Father held out his glass with a shaky hand: ‘Like a plucked rooster and a scaled fish, I have nothing to show.’

‘Nonsense,’ Lao Lan said as he banged his now-empty glass on the table and looked hard into Father's face. ‘I know who you are—you're Luo Tong!’