Pow!

POW! 21

Contingents from both East City and West City gradually disperse as night begins to fall, leaving the grassy field and the road littered with empty drink cans and torn flags, with paper flowers and used manure bags. A small army of sanitation workers in yellow vests hurriedly cleans up as foremen with bullhorns shout instructions. At the same time, walking tractors, three-wheeled flatbeds, horse-drawn carts with rubber wheels and a host of other vehicles are transporting barbeque braziers, electric grills, deep fryers and other cooking equipment onto the grounds. A Carnivore Festival night market where meats of all varieties will be available is being set up on the grounds in order to lessen the environmental impact on urban centres. The enormous generator truck remains in place to supply power. The night promises to be one for the record books. After talking up a storm during the day and witnessing all sorts of enthralling sights, I'm running out of steam. Although the several bowls of mystery porridge I'd finished off the night before have moved more slowly through my digestive system than most foods, it was, after all, soupy porridge, and as the sun begins to set, my stomach growls and the first pangs of hunger rise up inside me. I steal a look at the Wise Monk, hoping he'll notice the passage of time and lead me over to the little room in the rear to get some rest and something to eat. I might even run into that mysterious woman I met last night. Once again she may magnanimously undo her blouse and nurture my body and enrich my soul with her sweet milk. But the Wise Monk's eyes remain shut and the hairs in his ears twitch, a sure sign that he's concentrating on my tale—

After I finished my carp soup and polished off the shark's fin dumplings on that memorable evening, Jiaojiao whined that she was sleepy. Time for Lao Lan to get up from the table and say his goodbyes. Father and Mother jumped to their feet—Father was cradling Jiaojiao in his arms and patting her bottom with practised clumsiness—to see the village's most eminent individual to the door.

Huang Bao—his timing perfect, as always—came into the room to drape Lao Lan's overcoat over his shoulders, and then glided over to open the door for his superior's exit. But Lao Lan was in no hurry to leave. There was apparently something more that he had to say to my parents. He turned first to Father and then looked down into the face of my sister, tucked into the crook of Father's arm.

‘She looks like she came out of the same mould,’ he said emotionally.

These words of praise, whose deeper meaning was unclear, immediately dampened the mood. Mother coughed drily, a sign of how ill at ease Lao Lan's comment had made her, while Father twisted his head into an awkward angle to look at his daughter's face.

‘Jiaojiao,’ he said, ‘thank the good man.’

Lao Lan took a red envelope out of his overcoat pocket and tucked it between Father and Jiaojiao: ‘That's a good luck gift on our first meeting.’

Flustered, Father reached down for it: ‘We can't accept this.’

‘Why not? It's for her, not you.’

‘That doesn't matter…’ Poor Father was reduced to mumbling.

Then Lao Lan took out a second red envelope and handed it to me: ‘You'll give a little face to an old friend, won't you?’ he said with a sly wink.

I took it without a second's hesitation.

‘Xiaotong…’ Mother's voice was full of anguish.

‘I know what you're thinking,’ Lao Lan said as he stuck his arms into the sleeves of his overcoat. ‘I'm telling you, money's no damned good. You aren't born with it and you can't take it with you when you die.’

His words were as heavy as lead weights thudding to the floor. Mother and Father were dumbstruck and incomprehension filled their eyes as they struggled in vain with the mystery Lao Lan had just revealed to them.

‘Yang Yuzhen, there's more to life than the pursuit of money,’ Lao Lan said from the doorway. ‘The children need an education.’

I was clutching my red envelope; Father had tucked Jiaojiao's down between them. Having accepted them we could not, under any circumstance, refuse to keep them. Complex emotions clouded our minds as we saw him to the door. Light from both the lantern and the candles burst through the opening and spread across the yard and shone on Mother's tractor and the little mortar I hadn't yet moved into the house. A yellow canvas tarp covered the tube, making it look like a doughty warrior in disguise, lying in the grass and waiting for the call from its commander to attack. I thought back to a few days earlier, when I'd vowed to fire at Lao Lan's house, an unsettling thought at this moment. What was I thinking? There's nothing wrong with Lao Lan. Hell, he's a good man, a role model, and I wondered about the source of my loathing for him. Since my thoughts were beginning to confuse me, I cast them out. Perhaps it was all just a strange dream—dream dream dream—the opposite of the opposite—that's what Mother used to say to break the spell of her bad dreams, and did the same for mine. Tomorrow, no, as soon as Lao Lan leaves, I'll move it into the storeroom. ‘Put weapons into a storeroom, turn horses loose on South Mountain,’ that is how peace will reign on earth.

Lao Lan walked briskly but with a bit of a wobble. Who knows, perhaps it wasn't Lao Lan who was wobbling but me. This was my first time with alcohol, also my first time keeping company with adults, and not just any adults but the eminent Mr Lao Lan—a distinct honour. I felt like I'd made my entry into the world of grown-ups, and left behind Fengshou, Pingdu and Pidou, ignorant children who'd looked down on me, still stuck in childhood.

Huang Bao had opened our gate. His vigilant demeanour, his vigorous strides and his nimble, precise actions impressed me greatly. All the time we'd been inside the heated room, eating and drinking, he'd been standing outside in the cold and the snow, his nerves as taut as an armed bowstring, his eyes and ears on constant alert, concerned with only one thing—Lao Lan's safety from human and animal attack—although we, who had just dined with his boss, were collateral beneficiaries of that protection and would have done well to emulate that spirit of self-sacrifice. And there was more to his vigil than protection, for not a second went by that he wasn't prepared to respond to Lao Lan's signal—a clapping of the hands—and, in silent, spectral fashion, materialize at the man's side, ready to carry out his bidding, vigorously, to the letter, resolutely, and completely. Lao Lan's request for carp soup can serve as an example. Without any warning, he managed to set a bowl of the soup on our table in half an hour, as if it had been kept warm on a stove not far from our house and he had simply gone to bring it for us. It was so hot when it arrived that we'd have burnt our tongues if we'd eaten it too fast. Then, before it had cooled, he returned with the shark's fin dumplings. They too were steaming hot, as if they'd just been plucked from boiling water. I was amazed and found it all quite unfathomable, absolutely alien to anything I'd ever experienced. More than anything, it resembled the ‘treasure transport’ power of the fictional monkey of legend. Huang Bao brought in the dumplings, tranquil, hands steady, breathing relaxed, as if they'd been prepared a step away from where we sat. Laying them on the table, he turned and left. His arrivals and departures were more akin to a magician's disappearing act. At the time I entertained the thought that if I worked extra hard I could become someone like Lao Lan. But nothing I did could conceivably prepare me to be another Huang Bao. He was born to be a bodyguard, two hundred years too late to fulfil his destiny as a member of the Qing Court Palace Guard. His very existence was a reminder of classical sensibilities and a prod for us not only to reflect upon our past but also to retain our unquestioned beliefs in historical legends and tales of the marvellous.

Not until we were standing in the gateway did we realize that two big, black stallions were hitched to a roadside light post. A half-moon hung at the edge of the sky, its light muted, in contrast to the twinkling stars whose light was reflected on the animals’ skin; their eyes were like pearls shining through the darkness. What I could make out of their silhouettes was insufficient to gauge how handsome they were, but I could sense that they were not run-of-the-mill animals and assumed at once that they were heavenly steeds. The blood raced through my veins, a surge of emotions filled my heart and I was overcome by a desire to run over to them, to throw my arms round one of their necks and to leap onto its back. But Lao Lan had already nimbly mounted one, with the help of Huang Bao, who then somersaulted onto the back of the other. They then carried their extraordinary riders out onto Hanlin Avenue, which ran through the centre of the village, trotting at first but then quickly breaking into a gallop that took them down the road like fiery meteors. They shot out of view and left our ears ringing with the tattoo of hooves pounding the earth.

Spectacular, truly spectacular! It was a magical evening, the most memorable evening in all my days on this earth. The significance of that evening to my family and to me in particular would become clearer over time. At that moment we could only stand there, gazing blankly through the gateway at the image of the trees frozen in a splendid golden autumn.

A breeze from the north swept across my face and cooled the alcohol's heat just below the skin. Were my parents enjoying the same sensation? I didn't know then; I'd know later. I'd know that my mother belonged to a type of drinker known as hot-and-dry. In the winter she'd drink herself into a heavy sweat and then begin to disrobe: off first was her overcoat, followed by her sweater and then her blouse. Then she'd stop. I'd know that my father belonged to a type of drinker who couldn't stand the cold—the more he drank the deeper he shrank into himself and the paler his face grew, until it resembled window paper or a whitewashed wall. Little bumps would break out over his face, like chicken skin, and his teeth would begin to chatter. When he'd had too much to drink, he shivered like a man struck with malaria; my mother, on the other hand, would break out in a sweat even on the coldest days of winter. For Father, if he was drinking, it could be the dog days of summer and he'd still have the cold shakes, like the death throes of a cicada clinging to the tip of a leafless willow after ‘Frost's Descent’. And so, I assume, while we were seeing Lao Lan and Huang Bao out to the street in the wake of an evening that held such great significance for my family, that breeze comfortably caressed my mother's face whereas my father suffered under its touch, no less painful to him than the slice of a knife or the lash from a whip soaked in salt water. I don't know how it affected Jiaojiao because she'd had nothing to drink.

The sun has slipped unnoticed below the horizon, bringing darkness to the earth. Except for the field across the way, which blazes with lamplight. Fancy cars stream onto the field, flickering headlamps lighting the way, horns announcing their arrival—a scene of wealth and prosperity. The cars disgorge their loads of fashionable ladies and respectable gentlemen. Most are casually dressed, giving an initial impression of men and women of the people when, in fact, designer labels abound. While I narrate events of the past, my eyes miss nothing outside. A fireworks display lights up the inside of the temple. A gilded sheen covers the Wise Monk's face; he looks like he's been transformed into a gilded mummy. The fireworks continue, each explosion rolling my way. Every burst draws oohs and ahs from the upturned faces of observers. Just like the fireworks, Wise Monk—

Moments of enchantment are inevitably brief while those of suffering endure without respite. But that's only one way of looking at things; another is that moments of enchantment last for long periods, since they remain in the memory of the once enchanted, to be revisited at will and, over time, enhanced and improved, gaining in richness, fullness and complexity until, finally, they are transformed into labyrinths that are easy to enter but difficult to exit. Moments of suffering are, by definition, agonizing, so the sufferer avoids them like, as they say, the plague. That's true even if one suffers by accident. If avoidance is impossible, the next best thing is to soften the impact or simplify the effect or, insofar as possible, put it out of one's mind, blurring the edges until it is a puff of smoke easily blown away.

That's how I found a basis for my narrative of a night so fascinating I was loath to tear myself away from it. I could not bring myself to move forward, to relinquish the star-filled sky, the breezy winds from the north and Hanlin Avenue reflecting the light of the stars but, most of all, the wonderful smell left in the air by the two magnificent horses. My body was standing in front of our gate but my soul had left to follow Lao Lan, Huang Bao and that pair of unreal horses. I'd have stood there till dawn if Mother hadn't taken me inside. I used to think that talk of souls escaping from bodies was superstition, utter nonsense, but in the wake of that sumptuous dinner, when those magnificent horses sped out of sight, I gained a true understanding of what it was for the soul to fly away. I felt myself leave my body, like a chick emerging from its egg. I became as pliant and as light as a feather, immune to the pull of gravity. All I had to do was touch my toe to the ground to spring into the air like a rubber ball. In the eyes of this new me, the northern breezes took on form, like water flowing through the air, and I could lie out flat and let them carry me away. I could come and go at will, do whatever I pleased. If I was headed for a collision with a tree, I willed the wind to lift me high in the air and out of danger. If I couldn't avoid a head-on encounter with a wall, I willed myself into a thin sheet of nearly invisible paper and passed through a gap too small to be detected by the human eye.

Mother dragged me back into the yard and closed the gate with a loud clang, forcing my soul to reluctantly return to my body. Without fear of exaggeration I can say that my head was chilled when my soul made its way in, much like the feeling a child experiences when he slides under a warm comforter after being out in the cold. If you're looking for proof of the existence of the soul, there it is.

Father carried Jiaojiao, who had fallen asleep, to the kang, where he handed Mother the red envelope. She opened it and took out a fistful of hundred-yuan notes, ten altogether, and looked extremely nervous. With a glance at Father, she spat on her hands and counted the notes a second time. Still ten—a thousand yuan.

‘That's too much for a greeting gift,’ she said, with another look at Father. ‘We don't deserve this.’

‘Don't forget Xiaotong's,’ he said.

‘Let me have it,’ she said, now angry.

I hated to but I handed it over. First she gave it a quick count, as with the other envelope, then she spat on her hands and counted it more carefully. Again, ten hundred-yuan notes, a thousand yuan.

In those days, two thousand yuan was a great deal of money, which is why the thought of lending Shen Gang two thousand yuan, never to be returned, had caused Mother such grief and indignation. Back then, you could buy a water buffalo strong enough to pull a plough for seven or eight hundred; a thousand was enough to buy a mule to pull a big wagon. Lao Lan had given Jiaojiao and me enough money to buy two mules. During the land-reform period, any family that owned two adult mules would, without question, have been counted as part of the landlord class and bad times would be waiting just round the corner.

‘Now what do we do?’ Mother mumbled, her forehead creased with worry, like an old woman of seventy or eighty. Her arms were stiff and her back was bent, as if what she held in her hands were bricks, not money.

‘Why not return it to him?’ Father said.

‘How?’ Mother asked, clearly worried. ‘You want to do it?’

‘Send Xiaotong,’ he said. ‘Nothing shames a child, and he won't find fault with the boy.’

‘I say you can shame a child!’

‘Then you decide,’ said Father. ‘I'll do whatever you say.’

‘I guess we'd better hold on to it for the time being. We were supposed to be treating him to a meal. But he not only supplied us with carp soup and shark's fin dumplings, he also handed us a gift like this.’

‘That shows he's serious about wanting to mend the relationship,’ said Father.

‘If you want the truth, he's not as petty-minded as you think. When you weren't here, he helped us out quite a bit. He sold me that tractor at scrap-metal cost and didn't ask for anything to approve the foundation of the house. Lots of people gave gifts right and left but still didn't get their approvals. If not for him, this house would never have been built.

‘All on account of me,’ Father said with a sigh. ‘From now on I'll be his advance foot soldier and repay a favour with a favour.’

‘This money is not to be spent. Put it in the bank,’ Mother said. ‘We can send Xiaotong and Jiaojiao to school after the New Year's holiday.’

As dazzling fireworks briefly light up the dark sky, I'm suddenly in the grip of fear, as if I'm straddling the line between life and death, as if I'm glancing at the realms of yin and yang, of dark and light. In one of the brief illuminated moments, I see Lan Laoda meet the ancient nun in front of the temple as she hands him a bundle in swaddling clothes. ‘Esteemed patron,’ she says, ‘Huiming has broken the bonds of this world. You must carry on as best you can.’ The fireworks die out, throwing the world back into darkness. I hear the cry of a newborn child. At the next burst of fireworks I see the infant's tiny face, especially its wide-open mouth, as well the indifferent look on the face of Lan Laoda. I know that his emotions are cresting, for I see something glisten in his eyes.