Red Sorghum

1

FULL PURPLE LIPS, like ripe grapes, gave Second Grandma — Passion — her extraordinary appeal. The sands of time had long since interred her origins and background. Her rich, youthful, resilient flesh, her plump bean-pod face, and her deep-blue, seemingly deathless eyes were buried in the wet yellow earth, extinguishing for all time her angry, defiant gaze, which challenged the world of filth, adored the world of beauty, and brimmed over with an intense consciousness. Second Grandma had been buried in the black earth of her hometown. Her body was enclosed in a coffin of thin willow covered with an uneven coat of reddish-brown varnish that failed to camouflage its wormy, beetle-holed surface. The sight of her blackened, blood-shiny corpse being swallowed up by golden earth is etched forever on the screen of my mind.

In the warm red rays of the sun, I saw a mound in the shape of a human figure rising atop the heavy, deeply remorseful sandbar. Second Grandma’s shapely figure; Second Grandma’s high-arching breasts; tiny grains of shifting sand on Second Grandma’s furrowed brow; Second Grandma’s sensual lips protruding through the golden-yellow sand… I knew it was an illusion, that Second Grandma was buried beneath the black earth of her hometown, and that only red sorghum grew around her gravesite.

Standing at the head of her grave — as long as it isn’t during the winter, when the plants are dead and frozen, or on a spring day, when cool southerly breezes blow — you can’t even see the horizon for the nightmarishly dense screen of Northeast Gaomi sorghum. Then you raise your gaunt face, like a sunflower, and through the gaps in the sorghum you can see the stunning brilliance of the sun hanging in the kingdom of heaven. Amid the perennially mournful sobs of the Black Water River you listen for a lost soul drifting down from that kingdom.

2

THE SKY WAS a beautiful clear blue. The sun hadn’t yet made an appearance, but the chaotic horizon on that early-winter morning was infused with a blinding red light when Old Geng shot at a red fox with a fiery torch of a tail. Old Geng had no peers among hunters in Saltwater Gap, where he bagged wild geese, hares, wild ducks, weasels, foxes, and, when there was nothing else around, sparrows. In the late autumn and early winter, enormous flocks of sparrows flew over Northeast Gaomi Township, a shifting brown cloud that rolled and tumbled above the boundless land. At dusk they returned to the village, where they settled on willows whose naked, yellowing limbs drooped earthward or arched skyward. As the dying red rays of the evening sun burned through the clouds, the branches lit up with sparrows’ black eyes shining like thousands of golden sparks. Old Geng picked up his shotgun, squinted, and pulled the trigger. Two sparrows crashed to the ground like hailstones as shotgun pellets tore noisily through the branches. Uninjured sparrows saw their comrades hit the ground and flapped their wings, rising into the air like shrapnel sent flying high into a lethargic sky.

Father had eaten some of Old Geng’s sparrows when he was young. They were delicious. Three decades later, my older brother and I went into the sorghum field and engaged some crafty sparrows in a heated battle. Old Geng, who was already over seventy by then and lived alone as a pensioner, was one of our most revered villagers. Asked to speak at meetings to air grievances against the old order, he invariably stripped to the waist onstage to show his scars. ‘The Japs bayoneted me eighteen times,’ he’d say, ‘until you couldn’t see my skin for all the blood. But I didn’t die, and you know why? Because I was protected by a fox fairy. I don’t know how long I lay there, but when I opened my eyes all I could see was a bright-red light. The fox fairy was licking my wounds.’

In his home, Old Geng — Eighteen Stabs Geng — kept a fox-fairy memorial tablet, which some Red Guards decided to smash during the Cultural Revolution. They changed their minds and got out of there fast when they saw him kneel in front of the tablet wielding a cleaver.

Old Geng drew a bead on the red fox, knowing exactly which way it would run; but he was reluctant to shoot. He knew he could sell the beautiful, bushy pelt for a good price. If he was going to shoot, it had to be now. The fox had already enjoyed a full life, sneaking over nightly to steal a chicken. No matter how strong the villagers made their chicken coops, the fox always found a way inside and no matter how many traps they set, it always got away. That year the villagers’ chicken coops seemed built solely to store its food.

Old Geng had walked out of the village as the roosters were crowing for the third time and gone straight to a low embankment alongside the swamp in front of the village, where he waited for the chicken thief to show up. Dried-up marsh weeds stood waist-high in the swamp, where a thin sheet of nearly transparent ice, possibly thick enough to bear a man’s weight, covered the stagnant water that had accumulated during the autumn rains. Yellow tassels atop imprisoned reeds shivered in the freezing morning air, as powerful rays of light from far off in the eastern sky gradually illuminated the icy surface, which gave off a moist radiance, like the scales of a carp. Then the eastern sky turned bright, staining the ice and reeds the colour of mottled blood. Old Geng picked up the odour and saw a tight cluster of reeds part slowly like an undulating wave, then close up quickly. He stuck his nearly frozen index finger into his mouth and breathed on it, then wrapped it around the frost-covered trigger.

The fox bounded out of the clump of reeds and stood on the ice, turning it a bright red, as though it had gone up in flames. Congealed blood covered its pointy little snout; a chicken feather the colour of hemp was stuck in its whiskers. It walked with stately grace across the ice. Old Geng cried out, and it froze on the spot, squinting to get a good look at the embankment. Old Geng shivered, closed his eyes, and fired.

Like a little fireball, the fox rolled into the reeds. Old Geng, his shoulder numb from the recoil, stood up under a silvery sky, looking bigger and taller than usual. He knew the fox was hiding amid the reeds and staring at him with loathing. Something suspiciously like a guilty conscience began to stir in Old Geng. He thought back over the past year and the trust the fox had shown in him: it always knew he was hiding behind the embankment, yet it sauntered across the ice as though putting his conscience to the test. And Old Geng had always passed the test. But now he had betrayed this friendship, and he hung his head, gazing into the clump of reeds that had swallowed the fox, not even turning back to look when he heard the clatter of footsteps behind him.

Suddenly he felt a stabbing pain, and stumbled forward, twisting his body, dropping his shotgun to the ice. Something hot squirmed under his pants at the belt line. Running towards him were a dozen uniformed figures armed with rifles and glinting bayonets. Instinctively he yelled in fear, ‘Japan!’

The Japanese soldiers pounced on him and bayoneted him in the chest and abdomen. He screamed pitifully, like a fox howling for its mate. The blood from his wounds pitted the ice beneath him with its heat. He ripped off his tattered shirt with both hands. In his semiconscious state he saw the furry red fox emerge from the clump of reeds and circle round him once, then crouch down and gaze sympathetically. Its fur glowed brilliantly and its slightly slanted eyes shone like emeralds. After a while, Old Geng felt warm fur rubbing against his body, and he lay there waiting for the razor-sharp teeth to begin ripping him apart. If he were torn to shreds, he’d die with no complaints, for he knew that a man who betrays a trust is lower than an animal.

The fox began licking his wounds with its cold tongue.

Old Geng was adamant that the fox had repaid his betrayal by saving his life. Where else could you find another man who had sustained eighteen bayonet wounds yet lived to tell the tale? The fox’s tongue must have been coated with a miraculous substance since Old Geng’s wounds were instantly soothed, as though treated with peppermint oil — or so he said.

3

VILLAGERS WHO HAD gone to town to sell straw sandals announced upon their return: ‘Gaomi has been occupied by the Japanese. There’s a Rising Sun at the entrance!’

The panic-stricken villagers could only wait for the calamity they knew was coming. But not all of them suffered from racing hearts and crawling flesh: two among them went about their business totally unconcerned, never varying their routine. Who were they? One was Old Geng, the other a onetime musician who loved to sing Peking opera — Pocky Cheng.

‘What are you afraid of?’ Pocky Cheng asked everyone he met. ‘We’re still common folk, no matter who’s in charge. We don’t refuse to give the government its grain, and we always pay our taxes. We lie down when we’re told, and we kneel when they order us. So who’d dare punish us? Who, I ask you?’

His advice calmed many of the people, who began sleeping, eating, and working again. But it didn’t take long for the evil wind of Japanese savagery to blow their way: they fed human hearts to police dogs; they raped sixty-year-old women; they hung rows of human heads from electric poles in town. Even with the unflappable examples of Pocky Cheng and Old Geng, rumours of brutality were hard for the people to put aside, especially in their dreams.

Pocky Cheng walked around happy all the time. News that the Japanese were on their way to sack the village created a glut in dogshit in and around the village. Apparently the farmers who normally fought over it had grown lazy, for now it lay there waiting for him to come and claim it. He, too, walked out of the village as the roosters were crowing for the third time, running into Old Geng with his shotgun slung over his back. They greeted each other and parted ways. By the time the eastern sky had turned red, the pile of dogshit in Pocky Cheng’s basket was like a little mountain peak. He laid it down, stood on the southern edge of the village wall, and breathed in the cool, sweet morning air, until his throat itched. He cleared it loudly, then raised his voice to the rosy morning clouds and began to sing: ‘I am a thirsty grainstalk drinking up the morning dew —’

A shot rang out.

His battered, wingless felt hat sailed into the air. Tucking in his neck, he jumped into the ditch beneath the wall like a shot, bumping his head with a resounding thud against the frozen ground. Not sure if he was dead or alive, he tried moving his arms and legs. They were working, but barely. His crotch was all sticky. Fear raced through his heart. I’ve been hit, he thought. He sat up and stuck his hand down his pants. With his heart in his mouth, he pulled out his hand, expecting it to be all red. But it was covered with something yellow, and his nostrils twitched from the odour of rotten seedlings. He tried to rub the stuff off on the side of the ditch, but it stuck to his skin. He heard a shout from beyond the ditch: ‘Stand up!’

He looked up to see a man in his thirties with a flat, chiselled face, yellow skin, and a long, jutting chin. He was wearing a chestnut-coloured wool cap and brandishing a black pistol! A forest of yellow-clad legs was aligned behind him, the calves wrapped in wide, crisscrossed cloth leggings. His eyes travelled slowly upward past protruding hips, stopping at dozens of alien faces, all adorned with the smug smile of a man taking a comfortable shit. A Rising Sun flag drooped under the bright-red sunrise; onion-green rays glinted off a line of bayonets. Pocky Cheng’s stomach lurched, and his nervous guts relinquished their contents.

‘Get up here!’ Chestnut Wool Cap barked out angrily.

Pocky Cheng climbed out of the ditch. Not knowing what to say, he just bowed repeatedly.

Chestnut Wool Cap was twitching right under his nose. ‘Are there Nationalist troops in the village?’ he asked.

Pocky Cheng looked at him blankly.

A Japanese soldier waved a bloodstained bayonet in front of Pocky Cheng’s chest and face. He heard his stomach growl and felt his intestines writhe and twist slowly; at any other moment, he would have welcomed the intensely pleasant sensation of a bowel movement. The Japanese soldier shouted something and swung the bayonet, slicing Pocky Cheng’s padded jacket down the middle and freeing the cotton wadding inside. The sharp pain of parted skin and sliced muscles leaped from his rib cage. He doubled over, all the foul liquids in his body seeming to pour out at once.

He looked imploringly into the enraged Japanese face and began to wail.

Chestnut Wool Cap drove the barrel of his pistol into his forehead. ‘Stop blubbering! The commander asked you a question! What village is this? Is it Saltwater Gap?’

He nodded, trying hard to control his sobs.

‘Is there a man in the village who makes straw sandals?’ Chestnut Wool Cap softened his tone a little.

Ignoring his pain, he eagerly and ingratiatingly replied, ‘Yes yes yes.’

‘Did he take his straw sandals to market day in Gaomi yesterday?’

‘Yes yes yes,’ he jabbered. Warm blood had slithered down from his chest to his belly.

‘How about pickles?’

‘I don’t know… don’t think so….’

Chestnut Wool Cap slapped him across the mouth and shouted: ‘Tell me! I want to know about pickles!’

‘Yes yes yes, your honour,’ he muttered obsequiously. ‘Commander, every family has pickles, you can find them in every pickle vat in the village.’

‘Stop acting like a fucking idiot. I want to know if there’s somebody called Pickles!’ Chestnut Wool Cap slapped him across the face, over and over.

‘Yes… no… yes… no… Your honour… don’t hit me. . Please don’t hit me… your honour…’ he mumbled, reeling from the slaps.

The Japanese said something. Chestnut Wool Cap swept the hat off his head and bowed, then turned back, the smile on his face gone in an instant. He shoved Pocky Cheng and said with a scowl, ‘We want to see all the sandal makers in the village. You lead the way.’

Concerned about the dung basket he’d left on the wall, Pocky Cheng instinctively cocked his head in that direction. A bayonet that shone like snow flashed past his cheek. Quickly concluding that his life was worth more than a dung basket and spade, he turned his head back and set out for the village on his bandy legs. Dozens of Japs fell in behind him, their leather boots crunching across the frost-covered grass. A few grey dogs barked tentatively.

I’m really in a fix this time, Pocky Cheng was thinking. No one else went out to collect dogshit, no one but me, and I ran into some real dogshit luck. The fact that the Japanese didn’t appreciate his good-citizen attitude frustrated him. He led them quickly to each of the sandal makers’ cellars. Whoever Pickle was, he was sure in one now. Pocky Cheng looked off into the distance towards his house, where green smoke curled into the sky from the solitary kitchen chimney. It was the most intense longing for home he’d ever known. As soon as he was finished he’d go there, change into clean pants, and have his wife rub some lime into the bayonet wound on his chest. The great woodwind player of Northeast Gaomi Township had never been in such a mess. Oh, how he longed for his lovely wife, who had grumbled about his pocked face at first, but, resigned at last, had decided that if you marry a chicken you share the coop; marry a dog and you share the kennel.

4

EARLY-MORNING GUNFIRE beyond the village startled Second Grandma out of a dream in which she was fighting Grandma tooth and nail. She sat up, her heart thumping wildly, and, try as she might, she couldn’t decide if the noise had just been part of the dream. The window was coated with pale morning sunlight; a grotesque pattern of frost had formed on the pane. Shuddering from the cold, she tilted her head so she could see her daughter, my aunt, who was lying beside her, snoring peacefully. The sweet, even breathing of the five-year-old girl soothed Second Grandma’s fears. Maybe it was only Old Geng shooting at wild game, a mountain lion or something, she consoled herself. She had no way of knowing how accurate her prediction was, nor could she have known that while she was sliding back under the covers the tips of Japanese bayonets were jabbing Old Geng’s ribs.

Little Auntie rolled over and nestled up against Second Grandma, who wrapped her arms around her until she could feel the little girl’s warm breath against her chest. Eight years had passed since Grandma had kicked her out of the house. During that time, Granddad had been tricked into going to the Jinan police station, where he nearly lost his life. But he managed to escape and make his way home, where Grandma had taken Father to live with Black Eye, the leader of the Iron Society.

When Granddad fought Black Eye to a standstill at the Salty Water River, he touched Grandma so deeply she followed him home, where they ran the distillery with renewed vitality. Granddad put his rifle away, bringing his bandit days to an end, and began life as a wealthy peasant, at least for the next few years. They were troubling years, thanks to the rivalry between Grandma and Second Grandma. In the end, they reached a ‘tripartite agreement’ in which Granddad would spend ten days with Grandma, then ten days with Second Grandma — ten days was the absolute limit. He stuck to his bargain, since neither woman was an economy lantern, someone to be taken lightly.

Second Grandma was enjoying the sweetness of her sorrows as she hugged Little Auntie. She was three months pregnant. A period of increased tenderness, pregnancy is a time of weakness during which women need attention and protection, and Second Grandma was no exception. Counting the days on her fingers, she longed for Granddad. He would be there tomorrow.

Another crisp gunshot sounded outside the village, and Second Grandma scrambled out of bed. She, too, had heard rumours that the Japanese would be coming to sack the village, and she was unable to drive away the dark premonition of impending doom. She’d willingly go home with Granddad, even if it meant putting up with Grandma’s abuse, for it couldn’t be worse than living in Saltwater Gap in constant dread. But Granddad had flatly refused, most likely, I believe, because by then he was cowed by the irreconcilable differences between the two women. He would come to regret this decision, for on the following morning he stood in a yard bathed by the warm rays of the late-October sun and gazed upon the tragic consequences of his mistake.

Little Auntie, awake by now, let out an affected yawn, her eyes shining like small bronze buttons; then she sighed, just as if she were a grown-up. That frightened Second Grandma, whose power of speech momentarily deserted her.

‘Help me get dressed, Mommy,’ Little Auntie said.

As Second Grandma picked up Little Auntie’s padded red jacket, she looked with unconcealed surprise at her daughter, who didn’t have to be coaxed out of bed for a change. There were wrinkles on her face, her eyebrows sagged, and her mouth was drooping — suddenly she looked like a little old woman. Poor Second Grandma’s heart constricted, and the red jacket felt as cold as ice. She called out Little Auntie’s pet name, her voice quivering like a frayed zither string: ‘Xiangguan… Xiangguan… wait a minute… till Mommy warms your jacket over the fire….’

‘That’s okay, Mommy, you don’t have to warm it.’

Unable to hold back her tears, and not having the courage to look into her daughter’s face, she ran to the stove as though fleeing for her life, and lit a fire to warm the jacket, heavy in her hands. The straw crackled like gunfire and burned itself out as easily as it had caught fire, one stalk after another transformed into a cindery replica of its original shape.

Little Auntie’s loud breathing from the inner room brought her out of her daze. She carried the steaming jacket inside, where Little Auntie was sitting up in bed, the deep purple of the comforter contrasting sharply with her delicate white skin. Second Grandma draped the sleeves over Little Auntie’s slight shoulders as explosions rocked the village.

They seemed to be coming from beneath the ground: heavy, rumbling noises that shook the paper window-coverings and sent sparrows scurrying into the air, wings flapping. The sounds had barely died out when another barrage followed, and screams and shouts erupted in the village. Second Grandma picked up Little Auntie and hugged her tightly, mother and daughter trembling as one.

The shouts died out for a moment as a deathly still terror settled over the village, broken only by the dull tramping of feet and the occasional bark of a dog or the harsh crack of a rifle. Then, all of a sudden, the village erupted tumultuously, like a river that has broken through its dikes, producing a cacophony of women’s shrill cries, children’s tortured wails, chickens’ loud cackles as they flew up into trees and onto the village wall, and the braying of mules straining at their tethers.

Second Grandma bolted the front door and wedged two poles up against it, then climbed onto the kang and huddled up against the wall to await the coming disaster. She longed desperately for Granddad, but she hated him, too. When he came tomorrow, she’d have a good cry in front of him, then give him hell. The village was immersed in a hail of gunfire, and women’s screams came from all directions. Second Grandma knew only too well why they were screaming, for she had heard that the Japanese soldiers were like beasts who wouldn’t even spare seventy-year-old women.

The smell of smoke and fire seeped into the room; she heard the crackling of flames, punctuated by the occasional shouts of men. She grew numb with fear when she heard a pounding on her gate and frenzied gibberish. Little Auntie’s eyes widened for a moment, then she started to bawl, but Second Grandma clapped her hand over her mouth. The gate creaked and groaned. Second Grandma jumped down off the kang and ran to the stove, scooped out two handfuls of ashes, and smeared them over her face to make herself appear as ugly as possible. She did the same to Little Auntie’s face. The gate was about to splinter under the assault, and her eyelids fluttered wildly. Maybe they wouldn’t spare an old woman, but they’d surely let a pregnant woman go, wouldn’t they? Taking a bundle from the head of the bed, she undid her pants, stuffed it down the front, and retied her belt with a double knot. Little Auntie huddled against the wall, watching her mother’s strange behaviour.

The gate burst open, one of its broken panels crashing loudly to the ground. Shutting the bedroom door, Second Grandma jumped up onto the kang and wrapped her arms tightly around Little Auntie. The Japanese shouted as they battered down the front door with their rifle butts; flimsier than the gate, it splintered easily, and she heard the poles clatter to the floor. Now that the Japanese were inside, the last remaining obstacle was the paper-thin bedroom door. It was only a matter of whether or not they felt like breaking it down, whether or not they were driven by a desire to seize their prey.

Yet even then she trusted to luck; as long as the door was in place, the dangers would forever remain only in rumours and in her imagination, never becoming a reality. She stared with weak anxiety at the door panels as she heard the heavy footsteps of the Japanese and their urgent conversations. The panels were painted a deep red, the frame was coated with grey dust, and the white wooden bolt was spotted with dark-red stains — the blood of a black-mouthed weasel. Second Grandma remembered how she’d beaten the animal with the wooden bolt and listened to its screeches as its head cracked open like a peanut shell; it rolled on the ground for a moment, its bushy tail swishing back and forth across the powdery snow, before going into convulsions and heaving one final shudder. How she had despised that potent weasel!

On an autumn day in 1931, just as night was falling, she went out to the sorghum field to dig up some bitter greens, and there, at the head of a weed-covered grave mound bathed in the blood-red rays of the setting sun, sat the weasel, its coat golden, its mouth as black as ink. She spotted it while she was squatting down relieving herself. It rested on its haunches, slowly twitching its paws at her, and she reacted as though she’d been struck by lightning: a powerful spasm shot up her back, like a leaping snake. She fell forward, screaming like a madwoman. By the time she’d come to her senses, the field was dark, and bright stars leaped through the black sky, restlessly, mysteriously. She felt her way out of the sorghum field, found the dirt path, and walked back to the village. The fanciful image of the weasel, its golden coat emitting a lustrous sheen like whiskers of grain, appeared and disappeared in front of her eyes, over and over, vivid and real. It was all she could do to contain the screams ready to rip from her throat; some did in fact get loose — she heard them. But they weren’t human screams, and she was shocked and frightened by their sound.

Second Grandma’s deranged state lasted a long time, leading her fellow villagers to conclude that she’d been possessed by the weasel. She was convinced that it had absolute control over her in some deep, dark place. Whatever it ordered her to do, she did: cry, laugh, speak in tongues, perform strange acts. Whenever the lightning bolt hit her in the middle of her back, it was as though she’d been split in two, and was struggling in a dark-red quagmire filled with the seductiveness of lust and death, sinking beneath the surface, then floating back to the top, only to sink once again. Spotting a rope with which she could pull herself out of the quagmire of lust, she grabbed it with both hands, but it too became part of the quagmire of desire, and she sank helplessly beneath the surface again. Always, the image of the potent, black-mouthed weasel swayed before her eyes, grinning hideously and whisking her vigorously with its tail; each time its tail brushed against her skin, a shout of uncontrollable excitement burst from her mouth. Finally, the exhausted weasel walked off, and Second Grandma crumpled to the ground, spittle drooling from the corners of her mouth, her body lathered in sweat, her face the colour of gold foil.

In order to free Second Grandma from her demon, Granddad rode his mule to the market at Cypress Orchid to fetch the Taoist exorcist Mountain Li, who lit incense and burned candles, then drew strange symbols on a piece of paper with a brush dipped in red ink, after which he mixed some dog blood with the incense ashes, pinched Second Grandma’s nose shut, and poured the concoction into her mouth. The stuff streamed down her throat and she cried, she tried to scream, she flailed her arms and legs, as the soulful essence oozed out through her pores.

Her condition began to improve after that, and some time later the weasel came to steal a chicken. While it was locked in a desperate struggle with a large yellow-legged, fiery-red rooster, one of its eyes was pecked out by its feathered adversary. It was writhing in agony in the snow when Second Grandma ran into the yard, stark-naked yet oblivious to the cold, holding the white wooden bolt in her hands and bringing it down with all her might on the weasel’s shameless, pointed snout. Having got her revenge, finally, she stood absently in the snow for quite a while, the bloody wooden bolt still in her hands. Then she bent over and beat her mentor, the weasel, to a pulp. Her madness spent, she turned and went back inside, carrying a residue of hatred with her.

As Second Grandma stared at the dried weasel blood on the white wooden bolt, she was suddenly gripped by a dormant and profoundly disturbing terror; she knew that her eyeballs were rolling wildly, and she heard a terrifying shriek erupt from her throat.

The flimsy door rocked only slightly before it came crashing open, and a golden-hued Japanese soldier, bayonet-tipped rifle in his hands, leaped nimbly into the room. In that shrieking split second, his ratlike features and crafty expression were transformed into the black-mouthed weasel that had died at her hands. His pointy chin, his black moustache above a pointy mouth, and his sly look were the spitting image of the weasel. From a hidden recess of Second Grandma’s memory, her derangement resurfaced, stronger and more violent than before. Little Auntie, her ears still ringing from Second Grandma’s shriek, was scared witless by the sight of her mother’s mouth distorted with hate on her ash-smeared face. Straining with all her might, she broke free of Second Grandma’s vicelike grip and jumped up onto the windowsill, where she stared at the six Japanese soldiers — the first and the last that she would ever see.

Light glinted off the bayonets as the Japanese soldiers walked up to Second Grandma’s kang and stood shoulder to shoulder. To Little Auntie their weasely faces were like sorghum cakes right out of the pan: brown with dark-red edges, warm and beautiful, lovely and inviting. Though she was only slightly frightened by their bayonets, her mother’s face terrified her.

The Japanese soldiers grinned, baring their teeth, some even, some bright. Second Grandma, torn between derangement and terror, stared at the soldiers’ ominous grins. She shrieked as she wrapped her arms tightly around her belly and pressed up against the wall. One of the soldiers, who must have been about five feet four and somewhere between thirty-five and forty years old, edged up to the kang, removed his cap, and scratched his balding scalp. In pidgin Chinese he said, ‘You, pretty girl, no be scared….’ He leaned his rifle against the edge of the kang, then crawled up clumsily, like a fat, squirming maggot. Second Grandma wished she could crawl into the cracks of the wall.

The tears running down her cheeks formed ruts in the ashes on her face. The Japanese soldier’s thick lips parted as he reached out with a coarse, fleshy finger and touched her face, making her skin crawl, as though a slimy toad had wriggled into the crotch of her pants. She shrieked louder than ever, and the soldier grabbed her legs, pulling her towards him, banging her head loudly against the wall. She lay there flat on her back with her belly sticking up like a little mound. The soldier rubbed it with his hand, then, his eyes nearly bursting with anger, drove his fist down into it, hard. Then, pinning her legs with his knees, he reached down and undid his belt. By then she had begun to fight back; struggling to a sitting position, she sank her teeth into his garlic-shoot nose.

The Japanese soldier let out a strange scream and released her belt. Grabbing his bleeding nose, he glared at Second Grandma, as though seeing her in a new light. His buddies roared with laughter as he pulled a grimy handkerchief out of his pocket and held it against his nose. He stood up, his expression swiftly transformed from that of a poet passionately declaiming his undying love into the savage look of a jackal, which suited him better. He picked up his rifle and held the glinting tip of his bayonet against Second Grandma’s belly. The final shriek burst from her mouth as she squeezed her eyes shut.

Little Auntie, still perched on the windowsill, read no malicious intent in the cold soldier’s fleshy round face; in fact, she even tried to grab the curious light reflected off his bald head, and was disgusted with Second Grandma for shrieking like a wild animal. But when she noticed the sudden change in his expression and saw him aim his bayonet at her mother’s belly, fear and an overpowering sense of love flooded her heart. She jumped down from the windowsill and rushed up to Second Grandma.

The rat-faced, shrunken-cheeked Japanese soldier who’d been the first into the room said something to his fat comrade, then jumped up onto the kang and dragged him back down to the floor, mocking him with laughter. Still holding on to the rifle, he reached out his other bony yellow hand and grabbed Little Auntie by the hair, tearing her violently from Second Grandma’s grasp, as if he were yanking a carrot out of the hard ground. He flung her against the window, then back onto the kang. Little Auntie forced back the sobs in her throat as the colour drained from her face. The form and spirit of that part of Second Grandma controlled by the loathsome fanciful image of the weasel was suddenly released, and she flung herself like a she-wolf at the Japanese soldier, who deftly met the charge by kicking her in the belly. Although the force was absorbed by the bundle of clothes, the kick sent her reeling up against the thin connecting wall of the bedroom.

The sobs Little Auntie had been holding back suddenly burst forth, loud and resounding. Second Grandma’s head quickly cleared, and the gaunt Japanese soldier standing in front of her was no longer linked to the phantasm of the weasel. His face was thin, the bridge of his nose high, sharp, and hooked, his eyes black and shiny; he looked like an articulate man of wide experience and considerable learning, someone well read and clever. Second Grandma knelt on the kang and pleaded in a sobbing voice: ‘Mister… honourable Commander… spare us… please spare us…. Don’t you have wives and daughters at home… sisters…?’

The ratty pouches on the soldier’s cheeks twitched a couple of times beneath his black eyes. Although he couldn’t have understood Second Grandma’s tearful pleas, he seemed to know what they meant, for she saw his shoulders slump briefly in the din of Little Auntie’s wails. When Second Grandma glanced furtively at the other five Japanese soldiers, their expressions were all different; but she saw an oily-green, watery softness rolling gently beneath the hard crust of malevolence on their faces. Trying hard to maintain their malicious mockery, they stared at the skinny soldier standing on the kang. He quickly looked away; Second Grandma just as quickly sought out his eyes. Gnashing his teeth as though trying to control some deep emotion, he stuck the tip of his glinting bayonet against Little Auntie’s open mouth.

‘You, drop your pants! You, drop your pants!’ He spoke Chinese as though his tongue were petrified.

At that moment Second Grandma began to crumple under the spell of the weasel again; she saw the Japanese soldier standing on her kang as a gentle, bookish man one instant and the spitting image of the black-mouthed weasel the next. She was racked by loud, spasmodic sobs. The tip of the bayonet was nearly buried in Little Auntie’s mouth. A rush of concern for her young and a total disregard for her own well-being snapped her back to her senses. She quickly took off her pants, her underpants, and her shirt, then lay back and said resolutely, ‘Come on, come on and do it! But don’t touch my child! Don’t you touch my child!’

The Japanese soldier on the kang withdrew his bayonet and dropped his weary arms. Second Grandma lay there, her naked body the burnt, aromatic colour of fried sorghum. A radiant, almost magical ray of sunlight shone between her legs, as though illuminating an ancient, beautiful myth or legend, a fairy grotto, the kindly yet majestic eye of God. As the Japanese gazed at the path through which all mankind must pass, at the same organ possessed by their own loved ones, their eyes glazed over and their faces hardened, like six clay statues. Second Grandma waited for them, her mind a grey void.

I sometimes wonder if Second Grandma might have avoided being ravaged if it had only been one Japanese soldier facing her splendid naked body that day. I doubt it, for a sole virile beast in human form, freed of the need to act like a performing monkey, might have been even more frenzied, shedding his handsomely embroidered uniform and pouncing on her like a wild animal. Under normal circumstances, it is the power of morality that keeps the beast in us hidden beneath a pretty exterior. A stable, peaceful society is the training ground for humanity, just as caged animals, removed from the violent unpredictability of the wild, are influenced by the behaviour of their captors in time. Do you agree? Yes? No? Well, say it, yes or no? If I weren’t a man myself, and if I were holding the sword of vengeance in my hand, I’d slaughter every last man on earth! If there had been just one Japanese soldier facing Second Grandma’s naked body that day, maybe he would have thought of his mother or his wife, and left quietly. What do you think?

The six soldiers didn’t budge. They were gazing upon Second Grandma’s naked body as though it were a sacrificial offering. None was willing to leave; none dared to. She lay outstretched like a huge dogfish baking under a blazing sun. Little Auntie’s voice was hoarse from all her crying, the sound growing weaker, the intervals longer. The once animated soldiers had been subdued by Second Grandma’s offering up of her body, her stretching out on the kang like a loving mother in front of her sons, each of whom was thinking about the path he had travelled.

I believe that if Second Grandma had been able to hold out just a bit longer she might have achieved victory. Second Grandma, why, after lying there like that, did you have to get up and start putting your clothes back on? You had barely managed to stick one leg into your pants when the Japanese soldiers began to get restless. The one you’d bitten on the nose threw down his rifle and climbed onto the kang, and as you looked at him in disgust, your derangement took over. Then the skinny Jap who had found the way to subdue you jumped up and kicked his fat buddy away, swinging his fists and growling at his buddies in a language you didn’t understand. Then, before you knew it, he was on top of you, gasping like a rooster and breathing foul air into your face.

The black-mouthed weasel flashed before your eyes, and once again you shrieked madly. But you only stimulated the madness of the Japanese soldiers; your shrieks were met by a concert of shrieks from them.

It was the balding, middle-aged soldier who dragged the skinny one off you. Then he pressed his savage face up to yours, and you closed your eyes in revulsion. You thought you could feel your three-month-old foetus writhing in your belly, and could hear the desperate screeches of Little Auntie, like a rusty knife being drawn across a whetstone. The balding Jap chewed on your face with his daggerlike teeth, as though he wanted to pay you back for biting his nose. Your face was covered with tears, fresh blood, and his thick, sticky slobber. Hot red blood suddenly gushed from your mouth, and a vile stench filled your nostrils. The squirming foetus in your belly produced waves of liver-rending, lung-filling pain; every muscle, every nerve in your body tensed and knotted up, like so many bowstrings. The foetus seemed to be burrowing into some deep recess of your body to hide from a shame that could never be washed away. Anger festered in your heart, and when the Japanese soldier’s greasy cheeks brushed up against your lips you made a feeble attempt to bite his face. His skin was tough and rubbery and had a sour taste.

The last one to mount Second Grandma was a short young soldier. Only shame showed on his face, and his lovely eyes were filled with the panic of a hunted rabbit. His body smelled like artemisia; the silvery glint of his teeth shone between trembling, fleshy red lips. Second Grandma felt a rush of pity for him, as she recognised his tortured look of self-loathing and shame under a thin layer of beaded sweat. He rubbed against her body at first, but then stopped and didn’t dare move any more. She felt his belt buckle press up against her belly and his body quake.

The soldiers around the kang roared with laughter and shouted derisively at this impotent young soldier. Having got his second wind, the skinny one jumped up onto the kang, jerked the young soldier away roughly, and flaunted his own abilities without a trace of shame or embarrassment, making a grand display. Second Grandma felt dead below the neck. Something yellow spun around in her brain, yellow and elliptical.

Afterwards, way off in the distance, she heard Little Auntie let out a blood-curdling scream. Struggling to open her eyes, she could not believe what she saw. The young soldier with the lovely eyes stood on the kang and lifted Little Auntie on the point of his bayonet, swung her in a couple of arcs, then flung her away. Like a huge bird flapping its wings, she sailed slowly through the air and landed on the floor next to the kang. Her little red jacket fell open in the sunlight and began to spread out like a piece of soft, smooth red silk, gradually filling the room with undulating waves.

During her flight, Little Auntie’s arms froze in the air and her hair stood up like porcupine quills. The young Japanese soldier, rifle in hand, wept clear blue tears.

Second Grandma screamed for all she was worth and strained to sit up. But her body was dead by then. A wave of yellow flashed before her eyes, followed by a green light. Finally, she was swallowed up by an inky-black tide.

Swing your sabres at the heads of Japs!

The sorghum is red, the Japs come from the east.

Trampling our soil and disgracing my second grandma.

Patriotic brethren everywhere, the day of resistance is now!

5

GRANDDAD ARRIVED IN Saltwater Gap the following morning. He had set out before dawn on one of our two black mules, and arrived just as the sun was climbing above the mountains. Dejection accompanied him on his trip, because of an argument he’d had with Grandma as he was leaving. He ignored the kaleidoscope of gorgeous light on the black Gaomi soil as the sun rose above the mountains, and the crows as they soared into the sky on green wings. The mule, whipped mercilessly by the twisted end of the hempen reins, turned to glare at the man on its back, convinced that it was already moving about as fast as it could go. Puddles of water from the autumn rains stood in the deep ruts left by passing wagons. Granddad, his face livid, passively absorbed the bumps and jolts of the mule beneath him. Field voles hunting for breakfast scurried to safety.

Granddad was toasting the ageing Uncle Arhat in the distillery reception hall when he heard rifle and artillery fire from the northwest, and his heart nearly stopped. He rushed outside and looked up and down the street, but when he saw that things seemed normal he went back inside to continue drinking with Uncle Arhat, who was still the distillery foreman. In 1929, the year Granddad was reported murdered and Grandma ran off, the hired hands rolled up their bedding and set out to find work; but Uncle Arhat stayed behind, like a loyal watchdog, to guard the family property, convinced that the dark night was nearly over and that a new dawn would soon be breaking. He maintained his vigil until Granddad cheated death, escaped from prison, and was reconciled with Grandma. With Father in her arms, she followed him from Saltwater Gap back home, where they knocked at the cheerless front gate and roused Uncle Arhat, who, like a living ghost, rushed out of the shed where he’d set up housekeeping. The moment he spotted his master and mistress, he threw himself to the ground, hot tears streaking his leathery old face. He was such a decent, devoted man that Granddad and Grandma treated him like their own father, giving him a free hand in all distillery-related matters, including expenses, no matter how high they ran; they never once questioned him.

The sun was high in the southeast sky when more bursts of rifle fire erupted, and Granddad knew it was coming from somewhere near Saltwater Gap, perhaps from the village itself. Anxious and impatient, he went to get the mule to set out right away, but Uncle Arhat urged him to wait. Uncle Arhat made sense, but Granddad was too restless to stay put, walking in and out of the building as he waited for news from the hired hand Uncle Arhat had sent to investigate. Just before noon, the breathless man returned, sweaty-faced and mud-spattered, to report that the Japanese had surrounded Saltwater Gap at daybreak and that it was impossible to know what was going on there. He’d hidden in a clump of reeds some three li away, where he’d heard demonic cries and wolfish howls and seen thick columns of smoke rising from the village. After the man left, Granddad poured some wine, tipped back his head, and drained the cup, then ran to get his pistol, which he had hidden in a hole in the double-layer wall.

As he rushed outside, he bumped into seven or eight ragged, pale-faced refugees from Saltwater Gap, leading a popeyed, shedding old mule with two baskets slung over its back. A torn jacket with loose padding covered the one on the left; in the one on the right squatted a boy of about four. Granddad examined the boy’s skinny neck, his enlarged head, his fleshy, fanlike ears, as he sat peacefully in the basket, not a care in the world, whittling a white willow switch with a nicked knife so rusty it had turned red. Wooden curlicues flew from the basket. Granddad asked his parents about the situation in the village, never taking his eyes off the child, particularly his large ears, which symbolised good luck, longevity, and great fortune.

The adults vied with one another to describe the actions of the Japanese soldiers in their village. They had managed to escape because their son, who had started bawling the previous afternoon, demanded to be taken to visit his maternal grandma. No threats or promises could get him to change his mind, and they finally gave in and, early the next morning, readied their mule. When the first shots were fired, they were one step ahead of the Japanese, who put the village under siege. Granddad asked about Second Grandma and my little auntie Xiangguan, but they shook their heads and fidgeted, anxious looks on their faces.

The boy in the basket lowered his busy hands to his belly, raised his head, and said weakly, his eyes closed, ‘Why aren’t we moving? Waiting to be killed?’ His parents froze for a moment, perhaps pondering the prophetic possibilities of what he’d said, then awoke to the reality of their situation. The mother looked numbly at Granddad as the father slapped the mule’s rump, and the squad of refugees skittered off down the road. Granddad watched their retreating backs, especially the boy with the big droopy ears. His premonition would prove accurate, for twenty years later the little bastard would become a demonic zealot in this sinful spot known as Northeast Gaomi Township.

Granddad ran to the western wing, where he opened the hole in the double-layer wall to get his pistol. It was gone, but he could see the outline of the spot where it had lain. Something funny was going on here. He turned, and there stood Grandma, a contemptuous grin on her face. Thin eyebrows curved downward on her dark, gloomy face. Granddad glared at her and demanded, ‘Where’s my pistol?’

Her upper lip switched as two blasts of cold air snorted from her nostrils. With a final disdainful look she turned, picked up a feather duster, and began dusting the kang.

‘Where’s my pistol?’ Granddad thundered.

‘How the hell should I know?’ she retorted, mercilessly beating the poor bedding.

‘Give me my pistol,’ Granddad said, trying to keep his anxieties under control. ‘The Japanese have surrounded Saltwater Gap,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I have to see how they are.’

Grandma spun around angrily and said, ‘Then go! It’s none of my damned business!’

‘Give me my pistol.’

‘How should I know where it is? Don’t ask me.’

Granddad pressed up close. ‘You stole my pistol and gave it to Black Eye, didn’t you?’

‘That’s right, I gave it to him! And that’s not all. I slept with him, and I loved it! It was wonderful! One hell of a time!’

Granddad’s mouth split into a grin and he uttered a single ‘Ah!’ as he clenched his fist and hit her squarely in her nose, from which dark blood spurted. She shrieked and crumpled to the floor like a toppled column. As she struggled to her feet, he drove his fist into her neck. The second punch, a real powerhouse, sent her flying into a chest against the wall.

‘Slut! Filthy bitch!’ Granddad lashed out through clenched teeth. Bad blood stored up over the years coursed through his veins like a poison. He was thinking back to the untold shame of being knocked down by Black Eye, and to how often he’d imagined Grandma lying beneath the wolfish man, moaning and panting and crying out shamelessly; with his guts writhing like snakes, and his body as hot as the midsummer sun, he grabbed the date-wood bolt from the door and took aim at Grandma’s blood-smeared head as she tried to get to her feet, vital and tenacious as ever.

‘Dad!’ Father ran in screaming, grabbed the door bolt, and held on for dear life. His shout saved Grandma’s life for sure. So instead of dying at the hands of Granddad, she would one day die from a Japanese bullet, and her death would be as glorious and as brilliant as ripened red sorghum.

Grandma crawled over to Granddad, wrapping her arms around his knees and rubbing his muscular legs. She raised her gloomy face, soaked with tears and blood, and said, ‘Zhan’ao — Zhan’ao — elder brother — dearest eldest brother, kill me, go ahead and kill me! You can’t imagine how it hurts to see you go, you’ll never know how badly I want you to stay. With all the Japanese out there, I fear you’ll never come back. No matter how great you may be, it’s just you and your gun, and even a tiger is no match for a pack of wolves. It’s that little bitch’s doing, it’s all her fault. You were never out of my mind when I was with Black Eye, and I won’t let you go to your death! I can’t live without you. Besides, my ten days aren’t up yet, not till tomorrow. She’s robbed me of half of you…. All right, go if you have to…. She can have one of my days…. I hid your beloved pistol and thirty-one bullets in the rice vat….’

With her face buried in his legs, he was filled with remorse, especially since Father was lurking fearfully behind the door. Despising himself for being so brutal, he bent down, lifted up Grandma, who was nearly unconscious, and carried her over to the kang. He decided not to go to Saltwater Gap until first thing the next morning. Let heaven watch over mother and daughter and keep them from harm!

Granddad rode his mule from the village to Saltwater Gap, a distance of only fifteen li, although it seemed like miles. Even though the black mule ran like the wind, it wasn’t fast enough for Granddad, who whipped it mercilessly with the hempen reins. Clods of earth flew in all directions behind the mule’s hooves, a thin layer of dust hung in the air above the fields, and the sky was filled with rivers of meandering black clouds; a peculiar odour drifted over on the wind from Saltwater Gap.

Oblivious to the sprawling bodies, human and animal, Granddad went straight to Second Grandma’s and rushed into the yard, his heart sinking as he saw the broken gate and smelled the stench of blood. He despaired when he saw the bedroom door, barely hanging on its hinges. Second Grandma lay on the kang in the same position she’d assumed when offering up her body to protect Little Auntie…. Xiangguan was sprawled on the dirt floor in front of the kang, her face puddled in her own blood, her mouth open in a silent scream.

Granddad let out a roar, drew his pistol, and stumbled to the still-panting black mule, which he smacked on the rump with his pistol, wanting to fly to the county town to avenge the murders on the Japanese. He didn’t realise he’d taken the wrong road until he became aware of a patch of withered yellow reeds standing silently and solemnly in the morning sunlight. As he swung the mule around and headed off to town, he heard shouts behind him, but he kept beating the mule wildly without a backward glance. With each blow, the mule bucked, but the more it protested the angrier Granddad became. He was taking his fury out on the poor animal, which bucked and twisted so violently it finally threw its rider into last year’s sorghum.

Granddad climbed to his feet like a wounded beast and aimed his pistol at the narrow head of the lathered mule, which stood rigidly, its head lowered and its rump covered by goose-egg-sized lumps and streaks of dark blood. Granddad levelled the gun with his shaky hand. Just then our other mule came flying down the road out of the red sunrise, Uncle Arhat on its back. Its hide shone as though covered with a coat of gold dust.

Uncle Arhat, exhausted, jumped down off the mule and took a couple of tottering steps before nearly collapsing. Placing himself between Granddad and the black mule, he reached out and forced down the hand holding the pistol. ‘Zhan’ao,’ he said, ‘come to your senses!’

As he looked into the face of Uncle Arhat, Granddad’s seething anger turned into simmering sorrow, and tears slid down his face. ‘Uncle,’ Granddad said hoarsely, ‘both of them, mother and daughter… It’s horrible….’

Overcome by grief, he squatted on the ground. Uncle Arhat helped him up and said, ‘Manager Yu, a noble man can wait a decade to seek revenge. You should be back there taking care of arrangements so the dead can rest in peace.’

Second Grandma wasn’t dead. She gazed into the staring eyes of Granddad and Uncle Arhat as they stood beside her kang. Seeing her thick, heavy lashes, her dimming eyes, bloody nose, gnawed cheeks, and swollen lips made Granddad’s heart feel as though it had been cleaved by a knife, the searing pain mixed with an agitation he couldn’t drive away. Droplets of water began to ooze from the corners of her eyes, and her lips trembled slightly as she uttered a weak cry: ‘Elder brother…’

‘Passion…’ Granddad groaned.

Uncle Arhat backed silently out of the room.

Granddad leaned over the kang and dressed Second Grandma, who cried out when his hand brushed against her skin; she began to rant, just as she had years earlier when possessed by the weasel. He pinned her arms down to keep her from struggling, then slid her pants up over her dead, soiled legs.

Uncle Arhat walked in. ‘Manager Yu, I’ll borrow a wagon from next door… take mother and daughter back to get better….’

He searched Granddad’s face for a reaction. Granddad nodded.

Uncle Arhat picked up two comforters and ran outside, where he spread them out on the bed of the big-wheeled wagon. Granddad cradled Second Grandma, one arm under the nape of her neck, the other under the crook of her legs, as if she were a priceless treasure. He walked past the smashed gate out into the street, where Uncle Arhat waited with the wagon. He had hitched one of the mules to the wagon shafts; the poor mule whose rump Granddad had beaten bloody was tied to the rear crossbar. Granddad laid the now-screaming Second Grandma onto the bed of the wagon. He knew how badly she wanted to be strong, but he also knew she didn’t have the will.

Now that he’d taken care of Second Grandma, he turned to see Uncle Arhat, his weathered face streaked with an old man’s tears, walking up with the corpse of Little Auntie Xiangguan. Granddad’s throat felt as if it were in the grip of a pair of metal tongs. He coughed violently, racked by dry heaves. Gripping the axle to support himself, he looked skyward and saw in the southeast the enormous emerald fireball of the sun bearing down on him like a wildly spinning wagon wheel.

Taking the body of Little Auntie in his arms, he looked down into a face twisted by torment; two stinging tears fell to the ground.

After laying Little Auntie’s corpse next to Second Grandma, he lifted a corner of the comforter and covered the girl’s terror-streaked face.

‘Get up on the wagon, Manager Yu,’ Uncle Arhat said.

Granddad sat impassively on the railing, his legs dangling over the side.

Uncle Arhat flicked the reins and started out slowly, the axles of the wagon turning with difficulty. Long-drawn-out groans emerged from the dry, oil-starved sandalwood, followed by loud creaks that sounded like death rattles as the wagon bumped and rolled out of the village and onto the road heading towards our village, from which the scent of sorghum wine rose into the air. Although Second Grandma looked as if she had been rocked to sleep by the bumpy ride, her misty grey eyes remained open. Granddad put his finger under her nose to see if she was breathing. Weak, but he could feel it; that put him at ease.

A vast open field all around, a wagon of suffering passing through, the sky above as boundless as a dark ocean, black soil flat as far as the eye could see, sparse villages like islands adrift. As he sat on the wagon, Granddad felt that everything in the world was a shade of green.

The shafts of the wagon were much too narrow for our big mule, the spoked wheels much too light. Its belly was squeezed so uncomfortably between the shafts that it wanted to start running; but Uncle Arhat controlled the metal bit in its mouth, so it could only nurse a silent grievance and raise its forelegs as high as possible, as though it were prancing. Mumbled, sobbing curses tumbled from Uncle Arhat’s mouth: ‘Fucking swine… fucking inhuman swine… slaughtered the whole family next door, ripped open the daughter-in-law’s belly… Depraved… Unborn baby looked like a skinned rat…. Potful of soupy yellow shit… Fucking swine…’

The black mule tied to the back of the wagon plodded along behind, its head bowed, although it was impossible to tell whether the look on its long face was one of indignation, anger, shame, or capitulation.

6

FATHER RECALLED THAT the mule-drawn wagon carrying Second Grandma and the corpse of Little Auntie Xiangguan arrived in our village at noon. A strong wind from the northwest raised clouds of dust on the roads and rustled leaves on the trees. Dead skin peeled from his lips in the parched air. When the wagon, one mule in front and another at the rear, appeared in the village, he ran like the wind to meet it. Uncle Arhat was hobbling along beside the bumping, creaking wagon. The mules, Granddad, and Uncle Arhat all had a gummy, dust-covered residue in the corners of their eyes. Granddad sat on the railing, holding his head in his hands like a clay idol or a wooden icon. The scene sucked the words right out of Father’s mouth. At a distance of about twenty yards from the wagon, his sensitive nose detected an inauspicious odour emanating from the wagon. Frightened, he turned and ran back home, blurting out to Grandma, who was anxiously pacing the floor, ‘Mom, Dad’s back, the mule’s pulling a long wagon, dead people in the back.’

Grandma’s face fell. After a momentary pause, she rushed outside with him.

The wagon wheels ground to a bumpy halt, creaking one last time as the wagon stopped just beyond the gate. Granddad climbed down slowly and stared at Grandma with bloodshot eyes. The sight frightened Father; Granddad’s eyes reminded him of the cat’s-eye stones on the banks of the Black Water River, whose colours were forever changing.

‘Well, you got your wish!’ Granddad snarled at Grandma.

Not daring to defend herself, she timidly approached the wagon, Father on her heels, and looked into the bed. The folds of the comforter were filled with black earth, revealing the lumpy outlines of whatever was underneath. She picked up a corner, but let it drop as though her fingers were scalded. Father glimpsed Second Grandma’s smashed, pulpy face and Little Auntie’s rigid, open mouth.

That open mouth called up all sorts of pleasant childhood memories for Father. He’d frequently gone to Saltwater Gap to spend a few days, against Grandma’s wishes. Granddad had told him to call Second Grandma ‘Second Mom,’ and since she treated him like her own son, he thought she was just wonderful. She occupied a special place deep in his heart and seeing her was like coming home. Little Auntie Xiangguan had a mouth as sweet as honey that was forever filling the air with gentle shouts of ‘Elder Brother’. This dark-skinned little sister was one of his favourites, and he was fascinated by the fine, nearly transparent fuzz on her face; most of all he loved her bright eyes, like shiny buttons. Yet, just when they were at the peak of enjoyment, Grandma would send someone over to drag him home, and he would look down at her from his perch in the arms of the messenger on the mule and feel terribly sad. He wondered why Grandma and Second Grandma hated each other so.

Father thought back to the time he’d gone to weigh the dead baby, a couple of years or so earlier. He’d accompanied Mother to the place called Dead Baby Hollow, some three li beyond the village. Since township tradition forbade the burial of babies under the age of five, the tiny corpses were abandoned out in the open. Traditional birthing customs were followed back then, and only the most rudimentary medical treatment was available, so the infant mortality rate was particularly high, and only the strongest survived.

I sometimes think that there is a link between the decline in humanity and the increase in prosperity and comfort. Prosperity and comfort are what people seek, but the costs to character are often terrifying.

When Father went to Dead Baby Hollow with Grandma, she was obsessed with the Flower Lottery, a small-scale form of gambling in which you neither fly too high nor fall too hard, which had captivated the villagers, the women in particular; since Granddad was enjoying a stable, prosperous life, the villagers chose him as the society head and banker. Placing the names of thirty-two flowers in a bamboo tube, he publicly drew out two a day, one in the morning and one at night. The herbaceous peony or the Chinese rose, maybe the common rose, maybe the prickly rose. The gambler whose flower was picked earned thirty times the amount she’d bet. Women caught up in the Flower Lottery devised all manner of methods to guess which name Granddad would draw. Some poured wine down their daughters’ throats in anticipation of babbled visions in their drunkenness. Others forced themselves to dream for the answer. Going to Dead Baby Hollow was Grandma’s unique and appalling method.

It was so dark that Father couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. Grandma had wakened him in the middle of the night, startling him out of a deep slumber and making him feel like screaming at her for frightening him like that. ‘Don’t make a sound,’ she had whispered. ‘Come with me to guess the flowers.’ With his natural curiosity and the promise of a good mystery, Father was immediately awake and eager to go. Quickly putting on their boots and caps, they tiptoed past Granddad and slipped out of the yard and the village. Because they proceeded with caution and walked very quietly, their passage went unnoticed even by the village dogs. Grandma was holding Father’s left hand, leaving his right hand free to carry a red-paper lantern; she was holding him with her right hand, leaving her left hand free to carry her special scale, on which the names of thirty-two flowers were carved.

As they walked out of the village Father heard a southeast wind whistling through the sorghum fields and rustling the broad green leaves; he could smell the Black Water River far off in the distance. After groping along for a li or so, he grew accustomed enough to the dark to distinguish between the brown road surface and the waist-high sorghum by the roadside. The soughing of the wind through the stalks added to the mystery of the dark night, while the screeches of an owl on one of the trees out there cast a patina of terror over the enigma of the dark night.

The owl was perched in a large willow tree directly above Dead Baby Hollow. Had it been daytime, Grandma and Father would have been able to see the growths of blood-red beards on the trunk of the tree, which stood in the middle of a marshy plot of land. Father sensed the owl’s green eyes flashing solemnly amid the willow branches. His teeth chattered and chills snaked from the soles of his feet all the way up to the crown of his head. He squeezed Grandma’s hand, feeling that his head was about to explode from the terror building up inside it.

A sticky odour clung to the air above Dead Baby Hollow. White drops of rain the size of brass coins fell to the ground, gouging out scars in the impenetrable blackness. Grandma tugged on Father’s hand as a sign for him to kneel down, and as he did so his hands and legs touched wild grasses growing in crazy profusion in the marshy land; the coarse, needlelike tips of leaves jabbed his chin, upsetting the harmony in his soul. He felt countless pairs of dead babies’ eyes boring into his back and heard them kicking, squirming, laughing.

Bang bang crack crack. Grandma was striking a flint against a piece of steel. Gentle red sparks illuminated her trembling hands. When the tinder caught fire, she blew on it, and a weak glimmer of light began to spread. She lit the red candle in the paper lantern, from which a ball of red light emerged like a lonely spectre. The owl’s song stopped as dead babies formed ranks to surround Father, Grandma, and the lantern.

Grandma made a search of the marshy hollow while dozens of moths slammed into the red-paper covering of the lantern in her hand. Her bound feet made walking difficult on the wild grasses and the soft ground. Father was curious to know what she was looking for, but didn’t dare ask. He followed her silently.

A rolled-up straw mat lay amid a clump of thick-stemmed, broad-leafed cocklebur. Grandma handed Father the lantern, laid her scale on the ground, then bent over and picked up the mat. In the red light of the lantern her fingers looked like squirming pink worms. The mat fell open to reveal a dead infant wrapped in rags. Its bald head was like a shiny gourd. Father’s knees were knocking. Grandma picked up the scale and hooked it to the rag shroud. Holding the scale in one hand, she adjusted the weight with the other. But with a loud rip the rag gave out and the tiny corpse fell to the ground, followed by the weight, which landed on Grandma’s toe, and the scale, which flew over and hit Father on the head. He yelped in pain and nearly dropped the lantern. The owl let out a hideous laugh, as though mocking their clumsiness. Grandma picked up the scale and jammed the hook through the baby’s flesh. The horrifying sound made Father’s skin crawl. He looked away, and by the time he’d turned back, Grandma was moving the weight across the arm of the scale, notch by notch, higher and lower, until it was in perfect balance. She signalled Father to bring the lantern closer. The scale glowed red. There it was: ‘peony’.

When they reached the village Father could still hear the owl’s angry screeches.

Grandma confidently put her money on ‘peony’.

The winner that day was ‘winter sweet’.

Grandma fell gravely ill.

As Father looked at Little Auntie Xiangguan, he recalled that the mouth of the dead infant also gaped; his ears rang with the songs of the owl, and he yearned for the moist air of the marshy land, since his lips and tongue were parched by a dry northwest wind that sent dust swirling in the sky.

Father saw how Granddad was looking at Grandma, darkly malevolent, like a bird of prey about to pounce. Her back hunched suddenly as she bent over the bed of the wagon and began thumping the comforter, her face covered with tears and snot: ‘Little sister… dear little sister… Xiangguan… my baby…’

Granddad’s anger softened in the face of Grandma’s anguish. Uncle Arhat walked up beside her and said softly, ‘Mistress, don’t cry. Let’s take them inside.’

Grandma picked up Little Auntie Xiangguan’s body and carried it into the house. Granddad followed her with Second Grandma.

Father stayed on the street to watch Uncle Arhat lead the mule out from between the shafts of the wagon, its sides rubbed raw by the narrow shafts. Then he untied the other one from behind the wagon. They shook themselves violently, filling the sky with fine dust clouds, before Uncle Arhat led them into the eastern compound. Father fell in behind him. ‘Go home, Douguan,’ Uncle Arhat said, ‘go on home.’

Grandma was sitting on the floor stoking a fire in the stove, on which a half-filled pot of water stood. As soon as Father slipped into the room, he spotted Second Grandma lying on the kang, eyes open, cheeks twitching ceaselessly. He also saw Little Auntie Xiangguan lying across the top of the kang, a red bundle covering her hideous countenance. Once again he thought back to that night when he had accompanied Grandma to Dead Baby Hollow to weigh the dead infant. The braying of the mules in the eastern compound sounded incredibly like the owl’s screeching. Soon, Xiangguan would be lying in Dead Baby Hollow to feed the wild dogs. He had never dreamed that the dead could look so hideous, yet he could barely resist removing the red bundle to stare at Xiangguan’s repulsive face.

Grandma walked into the room with a brass basin full of hot water and placed it beside the kang. ‘Go outside!’ she said, giving Father a shove.

Reluctantly, resentfully, he went into the outer room and heard the door shut behind him. Unable to control his curiosity, he stuck his eye up against a crack in the door to see what was happening inside. Granddad and Grandma were kneeling beside the kang undressing Second Grandma. When they flung her clothes to the floor, her soaked pants landed with a loud thud. The nauseating stink of blood assailed Father’s nostrils. Second Grandma flailed her arms weakly as ghastly sounds emerged from her mouth.

‘Hold her arms down,’ Grandma pleaded. Both Grandma’s and Granddad’s faces were blurred in the rising steam from the brass basin.

Grandma took a steaming sheepskin towel and wrung it dry, the excess water dripping loudly into the basin. The towel was so hot it scalded her hands, even when she flipped it from one to the other. After shaking it open, she placed it on Second Grandma’s soiled face. Poor Second Grandma twisted her neck, and screams of terror, owl-like screeches, filtered up through the towel. When Grandma removed the towel, it was filthy. She swished it in the basin, then wrung it dry, and slowly wiped down Second Grandma’s body.

Less and less steam rose from the brass basin, while beads of condensed steam dotted Grandma’s face. ‘Dump the dirty water,’ she said to Granddad, ‘and bring me some clean water.’

Father ran out into the yard to watch Granddad. His back was bent as he staggered over to the low wall of the privy to dump the water on the other side. Father ran back and put his eye up to the crack in the door again. By now Second Grandma’s body was glowing like polished sandalwood. Her protests were low and laboured, no more than agonised moans. Grandma had Granddad lift her up so she could remove the kang mat. Then she took a clean one and spread it over the kang. After Granddad laid Second Grandma back down, Grandma put a big wad of cotton between her legs and covered her with a sheet. ‘Little sister,’ she said softly, ‘sleep, go to sleep, Zhan’ao and I will stay with you.’

Second Grandma closed her eyes peacefully.

Granddad went out to dump some more water.

While Grandma was washing Little Auntie Xiangguan’s body, Father slipped rashly into the room and stood in front of the kang. Grandma saw him but didn’t chase him away. As she wiped the dried blood from Little Auntie’s body, pearl-like strands of tears fell from her eyes. When she was finished, she leaned her head against the bedroom wall and didn’t move for a long time, as though she, too, were dead.

At sunset Granddad wrapped Little Auntie’s body in a blanket and held it in his arms. Father followed him to the door. ‘Go on back, Douguan. Stay with Mom and Second Mom.’

Uncle Arhat stopped Granddad at the southern-compound gate. ‘Manager Yu,’ he said, ‘you go back, too. I’ll take care of it.’

Granddad returned to the doorway, where he held Father’s hand and watched Uncle Arhat walk out of the village.

7

ON THE TWENTY-THIRD day of the twelfth month in 1973, Eighteen Stabs Geng celebrated his eightieth birthday. Waking at the crack of dawn, he overheard the weak, sickly voice of an old neighbour woman — ‘Yongqi…’ — and the gravelly voice of a man — ‘Feeling better, Ma?’ The old woman replied, ‘No, I’m dizzier when I wake up than when I go to bed….’

Eighteen Stabs Geng strained to sit up by resting his hands on the icy mat. He, too, felt dizzy this morning. A cold wind whistled outside, driving snow flurries against the murky paper on the window. He threw his moth-eaten dog pelt over his shoulder, reached out for his dragon-head cane leaning against the wall behind the door, and stumbled out the door. The yard was covered by a thick blanket of snow, and as he gazed at the crumbling earth wall all he could see was a sea of silvery white, dotted here and there with sorghum husks.

The snowfall showed no sign of letting up. He turned back, a sense of the survivor’s good fortune in his heart, but when he raised the lids of the rice and flour vats with the head of his cane, both were empty. Last night’s eyes hadn’t tricked him. His stomach had not been visited by food for two days now, and his useless old intestines twitched and twisted. It was time to swallow his pride and ask for some grain. Although his belly was empty and he was shivering from the cold, he knew that getting grain out of the hardhearted branch secretary was not going to be easy. He decided to boil some water to warm his belly before going out for a showdown with that bastard. He raised the lid of the water vat. No water, just chunks of ice.

It dawned on him that he hadn’t lit the stove for three days, and that it had been ten days since his last visit to the well. He went into the yard and scooped up twenty or thirty gourdfuls of snow, which he dumped into his cracked, unscrubbed pot. Then he looked around for some firewood, but there was none. So he went into the bedroom, tore a handful of straw from the mat covering the kang, and hacked up some woven sorghum cushions and a block of straw with his cleaver. He knelt down and started a fire with his flintstone. Matches that used to sell for two fen a box now required a ration coupon, which he didn’t have, and he couldn’t afford matches that didn’t require a coupon. He was a penniless old bastard.

Tongues of red flame began to lick out of the black hole in the stove, so he pressed up close to warm his freezing belly. The chill melted away, but his back was as cold as ever. After quickly stuffing more straw into the stove, he turned his back to the fire. The chill melted from his back, but ice re-formed on his belly. A body cold on one side and warm on the other only increased his misery, so he concentrated on feeding straw into the stove to get some water boiling. With a bellyful of hot water, he could stand up to that little bastard, and if he couldn’t squeeze any grain out of him, at least he’d take him away from his toasty stove for a while.

As the fire began to die out under the pot of water, he shoved the last handful of straw into the greedy, gaping black mouth of the old Kitchen God and prayed it would burn slowly. But the fuel flared up and burned like mad, with no sign of progress in the pot. So he jumped up, more nimbly than even he thought possible, and dashed into the bedroom, where he ripped out the last few handfuls of straw from under the kang mat, and stuffed them into the stove hole, a desperate attempt to melt the ice in the pot. Then, with brutal determination, he shoved his little three-legged stool into the stove hole and jammed his nearly bald broom down the black throat of the Kitchen God, which belched once or twice and vomited clouds of dense black smoke. Turning pale with fright, he frantically fanned the air around the stove, which kept swallowing, then spewing clouds of smoke. A loud crackle preceded the harsh, glowing flames from the stool and the broom, as he paused to catch his breath. Stung by the smoke, his old eyes shed tears like gummy mucus, which coursed down his leathery face.

The water in the pot began to sizzle like chirping cicadas — music to his ears — and a childlike grin spread across his face. However, when the fire began to dim, his smile was quickly replaced by a look of panic. Jumping to his feet, he searched for something, anything, to burn. The beams and crossbars would work, but he wasn’t strong enough to pull them down. Suddenly he remembered the story of Iron Crutch Li, one of the Eight Immortals, who incinerated his own leg. According to legend, Iron Crutch Li stuck his leg into the stove and listened to it crackle. ‘Dear brother,’ his wife had said, ‘you’ll make yourself a cripple.’ And just as she had forecast, the leg was ruined. Of course Geng knew he was no immortal, and even without burning his leg he could barely take a step. But, gimp or no, he was going to make his way to the branch secretary’s home and demand some grain.

Finally, as the fire in the stove was about to die, Geng’s gaze fell upon the spirit shrine set into the wall, and the black tablet it held. He reached up with his dragon-head cane to knock it loose. Dust flew and fear gripped his old heart as a profound misery suddenly penetrated the marrow of his bones. He picked up the ash-covered fox-spirit tablet, to which he’d made offerings for thirty-six years, and flung it into the belly of the stove. Hungry flames began licking the tablet, which sizzled and spat out juicy, dark red drops… scorching the flesh of the red fox that had diligently licked the eighteen wounds on his body with its cool, glorious tongue. Nothing would ever shake his belief that there was something miraculous about the fox’s tongue, since his wounds had been free of infection even after he’d crawled back to the village.

Although he was sure that his miraculous salvation portended good fortune in his future, it somehow never came. Eventually he became a pensioner, protected by the ‘five guarantees’ of food, clothing, medical aid, housing, and burial, and knew that his good fortune had finally arrived. But even that soon vanished, as he was neglected by everyone, including the little bastard who had been squatting in the basket over the mule’s back whittling a willow switch years earlier — the current branch secretary, who would probably be provincial secretary by now had he not been responsible for the deaths of nine people during the Great Leap Forward. The little bastard had cancelled his eligibility for the ‘five guarantees’.

The wooden tablet burned as slowly as a living fox, and as the blood-red tongues of flame barked away, he heard the water in the pot seethe and boil.

After scooping up the scalding water with the cracked gourd, he quickly sipped a mouthful and sent it coursing down to his stomach. He shuddered, then swallowed another mouthful. Now he was an immortal.

By the time he’d drunk two gourds of the hot water, his body was sweaty, and the lice, rejuvenated by the warmth, began to squirm and crawl around. Now he was hungrier than ever, but at least his strength had returned. Supported by his dragon-head cane, he walked out into the snowy landscape, shards of white jade cracking beneath his feet, his mind as clear as a bright August sky. The street was deserted, except for a black dog who stopped every so often to shake the snow off its back.

He followed the dog to the home of the little bastard, whose shiny black gate was closed tight. Fiery winter-sweet blossoms atop the wall drooped down like bright-red droplets. Absent-mindedly admiring them, he walked up the stone steps, breathed deeply, and knocked on the gate. A dog barked, but there were no human sounds. Suddenly gripped by fury, he leaned against the wall to steady himself, raised his dragon-head cane, and pounded the hasp of the shiny black gate. The dog on the other side roared and howled.

Finally the gate opened. A bright-eyed, pudgy little dog darted out and charged at him, but quickly retreated when Old Geng waved his cane in its face. Next out was a fair-skinned middle-aged woman. ‘Oh, it’s you, Master Geng,’ she said genially when she saw Eighteen Stabs standing at the gate. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I want to see the secretary,’ he answered hoarsely.

‘He went to a meeting at the commune,’ she said sympathetically.

‘Let me in,’ he said weakly. ‘I want to ask him what right he had to make me ineligible for a pension. I was bayoneted eighteen times by the Japs, but they didn’t kill me. Did I go through all that just so I could starve to death at his hands?’

‘Master Geng,’ the woman said awkwardly, ‘he’s not home, honest. He went to a meeting at the commune early this morning. If you’re hungry, come in and have something to eat. We don’t have much, but there are plenty of yam cakes.’

‘Yam cakes?’ he said icily. ‘Not even your dog eats yam cakes!’

The woman was losing patience. ‘I won’t force you to eat them. He’s not home. He’s in a meeting at the commune. That’s where you’ll find him!’ She pulled her head back in and slammed the gate shut. He raised his cane and pounded on the gate again, but was so weak he nearly crumpled to the ground. As he shuffled through the foot-deep snow on the street, he mumbled, ‘Go to the commune…. Go to the commune…. Sue the little bastard…. Sue him for oppressing decent folk, sue him for holding back my grain.’ Even after he’d walked a long way, he could still smell the delicate fragrance of winter sweets amid the falling snow; he stopped and turned, then spat in the direction of the shiny black gate. The winter-sweet blossoms waved in the falling snowflakes like crackling tongues of flames.

It was nearly dusk by the time he reached the commune gate, whose steel ribs were as big around as his thumb; each was tipped with a barb. He could see through the spaces that the snow on the ground in the commune yard was black and filthy. People in new clothes and new caps, with large heads, fleshy ears, and greasy mouths, were scurrying back and forth. Some carried debristled pigs’ heads — the tips of the ears were blood-red — others carried silvery ribbonfish, and still others carried recently slaughtered chickens and ducks. He banged his dragon-head cane against the metal ribs, raising a loud clatter; but the people inside were too busy to give him anything but chilly glances before continuing on their way. He shouted angrily, tearfully, ‘Your honour… leader… I’ve been treated unjustly…. I’m starving….’

A young man with three fountain pens in his coat pocket walked over and said coolly, ‘What’s all the racket about, old-timer?’

Seeing all those pens in the young man’s pocket, he assumed he’d caught the attention of a ranking official, so he knelt down in the snow, grabbed hold of two metal ribs in the gate, and said tearfully, ‘Eminent leader, the production-brigade branch secretary has held back my grain rations. I haven’t eaten for three days, I’m starving, eighteen stabs by the Japs didn’t kill me, now I’m going to starve to death….’

‘What village are you from?’ the young man asked him.

‘Don’t you know me, eminent leader?’ he asked. ‘I’m Eighteen Stabs Geng.’

The young man laughed. ‘How am I supposed to know you’re Eighteen Stabs Geng? Go home and see your brigade leader. The commune organisations are on holiday.’

Old Geng banged on the metal gate for a long time, but no one else paid him any attention. Soft yellow light shone down from the windows in the compound, in front of which feathery snowflakes swirled silently. Firecrackers exploded somewhere in the village, reminding him that it was time to send off the Kitchen God to make his report in heaven. He wanted to go home, but as he took his first step he fell headlong to the ground, as though shoved. When his face hit the snow, it felt amazingly warm, reminding him of his mother’s bosom — no, it was more like his mother’s womb. His eyes were closed in the womb, where he swam in complete freedom, with no worries about food, clothes, anything. He was indescribably happy; the absence of hunger and cold brought him extreme joy.

The golden rays of light from the commune windows and the fiery-red winter-sweet blossoms at the home of the branch secretary lit up the world like rapidly licking flames, and the glare blinded him; snowflakes swirled like gold and silver foil as each family sent off its Kitchen God on a paper horse to soar up to heaven. With all that light streaming down on him, his body felt hot and dry, as though he’d caught fire. He quickly stripped off his jacket — hot. Then he took off his padded pants — hot. Took off his padded shoes — hot. Took off his felt cap — hot. Naked, just as he had emerged from his mother’s womb — hot. He lay down in the snow, the snow scalded his skin; he rolled around in the snow — hot, so hot. He gobbled up some snow, it burned his throat as though it were filled with sunbaked pebbles of sand. Hot! So hot! Rising from the snow, he grabbed the metal ribs of the gate, but they scalded him, and he couldn’t pull his hands off the gate. The last thing he wanted to shout was: Hot! So hot!

The young man with the pens in his pocket came out early the next morning to shovel snow. When he casually raised his head and glanced at the gate, his face paled with fright. What he saw was the old man from last night, who’d called himself Eighteen Stabs Geng, stark naked, his hands stuck to the gate, like the crucified Jesus. His face had turned purple, his limbs were spread out, his staring eyes were fixed on the commune compound; hard to believe he was a lonely old man who had died of starvation. The young man made a careful count of the scars on his body. There were eighteen, all right, no more, no less.

8

POCKY CHENG WAS finally set free by the Japs after leading them to all the village sandal workshops, each of which they blew up. ‘Are there any more?’ Chestnut Wool Cap asked sternly.

‘No,’ he asserted, ‘honest, there aren’t.’

Chestnut Wool Cap looked over at the Japanese, who nodded. ‘Get the hell out of here!’ he said, Cheng backed up a dozen or so steps, bowing and scraping, then nodding over and over, as he spun around to get out of there as fast as his legs would carry him. But they were so rubbery, and his heart was pounding so hard, that he froze on the spot. The bayonet wound in his chest throbbed, and the mess in his crotch had turned sticky and cold. As he leaned against a tree to catch his breath, he heard ghostly sobs and screams from the houses around him. His legs buckled as he slid to the ground, his back scraping the dry, brittle bark of the tree. Clouds of smoke filled the sky above the village, the residue of exploding hand grenades, I suppose.

After lobbing hundreds of black muskmelon grenades through overhead windows and doors, the Japanese encircled the sandal workshops while muted explosions tore them apart, making the ground tremble as thick smoke rose from the windows, accompanied by the pitiful screams of those who had survived the blasts. The Japanese soldiers then stuffed straw into the windows, muting the shrieks inside until you had to strain to hear them. With Pocky Cheng as their guide, the Japanese blew up twelve workshops. He knew that three-fourths of the village men made straw sandals and slept in those workshops, so there was little chance any of them could have survived. The enormity of his crime hit him suddenly. Without his lead, the Japanese would never have found the workshop in the remote corner of the eastern section of the village; it was one of the biggest, employing twenty or thirty men, who spent their nights there weaving sandals and joking with one another. The Japanese lobbed over forty grenades into that workshop alone, blasting the roof off the building, which, following the last explosion, became a flattened graveyard. A single willow pole that had supported the roof stood alone in the mud like a rifle barrel pointing to the crimson sky.

He was afraid. He was racked with guilt. All around, familiar, newly dead faces denounced him. He began to defend himself: The Japs forced me at bayonet-point. If I hadn’t led the way, they’d have found the workshops on their own. The murdered villagers glanced at one another in stupefaction, then left quietly. As he gazed at their mangled bodies, he felt like a man soaking in an icy pool, freezing inside and out.

After dragging himself home, Pocky Cheng discovered his beautiful wife and thirteen-year-old daughter lying in the yard, naked, their intestines spread out around them. Everything turned black, and he keeled over. He felt dead one minute, alive the next. He was running after something, heading southwest. A red oval cloud floated in the rosy southwest sky, where his wife, his daughter, and hordes of villagers were standing, men and women, young and old. He ran as though his feet had wings, chasing the slow-moving cloud, his face raised skyward. The people in the cloud spat at him, even his wife and daughter. He hastily defended himself, but the spittle continued to rain down on him. He watched the cloud rise higher and higher in the sky, until it turned into a bright, blood-red dot.

For his beautiful, fair-skinned young wife, marrying a man with pockmarks had been a disgrace. But at the village inn he played his woodwind every night, making it weep and cry, and nearly breaking her heart. It was his woodwind she’d married. Over and over he played it, until she grew tired of it; and his pocked face, which had repulsed her from the very beginning, now became unbearable. So she ran off with a fabric peddlar, but Pocky Cheng went after her and dragged her back spanking her until her buttocks were swollen and puffy: a battered wife, kneaded dough. From then on, she put her heart and soul into domesticity. First she had a little girl, then a little boy, who was now eight. Regaining his senses, Pocky went looking for the boy, and found him, stuffed in the water vat, head down, feet up, his body as rigid as a pole.

Pocky Cheng tied a rope to the top of the door frame, made a noose in the end, then stood on a stool, stuck his head through the noose, and kicked the stool out from under himself. A teenage boy happening on him reached up with his knife and cut the rope in two. Pocky Cheng crashed to the ground.

‘Uncle Pocky!’ the boy fumed. ‘Haven’t the Japanese killed enough of us? Why do their job for them? You can’t get revenge unless you’re alive!’

Pocky Cheng complained tearfully to the boy, ‘Chunsheng, your auntie, Little Orchid, Little Pillar, they’re all dead. My whole family’s gone!’

Chunsheng walked into the yard, knife in hand, and when he returned his face was as white as a sheet and his eyes were red. ‘Uncle,’ he said as he helped Pocky Cheng to his feet, ‘let’s join the Jiao-Gao regiment! They’re at the village of Two Counties recruiting soldiers and buying horses right now.’

‘But my house, my belongings?’ Pocky Cheng said.

‘You crazy old man! You just tried to hang yourself. Who’d have got your house and belongings then? Let’s go!’

It was especially cold in the early spring of 1940. All the villages in Northeast Gaomi Township lay in ruins. Those who had survived were like marmots in burrows. The powerful Jiao-Gao Regiment was beset by the miseries of hunger and cold. From commander to common foot-soldier, the gaunt, thin men all shivered in their unlined jackets. After making camp in a tiny village not far from Saltwater Gap, they lay atop the battered wall when the sun came out, to pick lice off their bodies and soak up the midday heat. All day long they conserved their energy; then, at night, they nearly froze in the cold. They were afraid that if they weren’t killed by the Japs the weather would do them in.

Pocky Cheng was their most fearless fighter, a lionhearted man who had earned the complete trust of the commander, Little Foot Jiang. Hand grenades were his weapons of choice. In battle he would rush to the front line, close his eyes, and hurl one grenade after another at the enemy. Even if they were only six or seven yards away, he refused to take cover; yet, strange as it sounds, with shrapnel flying around him like locusts, he was never hit.

Commander Jiang called a meeting of officers to grapple with the problems of cold and hunger. Pocky Cheng rashly burst in on them, a stern look on his face. ‘What do you think we should do, Old Cheng?’ Little Foot Jiang asked him.

Pocky Cheng held his tongue.

A bookish squad leader volunteered, ‘Holing up here in Northeast Gaomi Township is the same as waiting to die. We should go to the cotton factories in Southern Jiao County to get some clothes. And since there’s plenty of yams there, food won’t be a problem, either.’

Commander Jiang took a mimeographed newspaper from his shirt and said, ‘According to news reports, the situation in Southern Jiao is grimmer than here. The rail brigade was wiped out by the Japanese. By comparison, Northeast Gaomi Township is ideal for guerrilla activity. The land is broad, the villages are few and far between, and the Japanese and their puppet troops are weaker here. Since most of last year’s sorghum crop hasn’t been harvested, we have more places to hide. All we have to do is solve the problems of food and clothing. The chance to attack the enemy will come as long as we stick it out.’

A gaunt-faced officer said, ‘Where are we going to find any cloth? Or cotton wadding? Or food? Except for sorghum that’s sprouting buds, we’ve got nothing to eat. And that alone could wind up killing us! I say we pretend to surrender to the puppet-regiment commander, Zhang Zhuxi. That way, we could get our hands on some lined clothes and stock up on ammo, then pull out.’

The bookish squad leader jumped angrily to his feet. ‘You want us to become a bunch of traitors?’

The officer defended himself: ‘Who asked you to become a traitor? I said pretend to surrender! Back in the Three Kingdoms period, that’s what Jiang Wei did, and so did Huang Gai!’

‘We’re resistance fighters. We don’t bow our heads when we’re starving, and we don’t bend our knees when we’re freezing. Anybody who wants to give allegiance to the invader and cast off his moral courage will do so over my dead body!’

Not to be intimidated, the other officer said, ‘Is the mission of resistance fighters to starve or freeze? No, we must be flexible and resourceful. Tolerance must be one of our stratagems. The only way we’ll win this war of resistance is by conserving our strength.’

‘Comrades,’ Commander Jiang said, ‘that’s enough bickering. If you have something to say, take your turn.’

‘I’ve got a plan, Commander,’ Pocky Cheng spoke up.

When Little Foot Jiang heard Pocky Cheng’s plan, he rubbed his hands in delight and complimented him profusely.

On the night when Pocky Cheng’s plan was implemented by the Jiao-Gao regiment, they ran off with over a hundred dogskins my father and granddad had nailed to the crumbling village walls, and stole the rifles Granddad had hidden in the dry well. Having carried out this phase of their plan, they went out to hunt dogs for some needed nutrition, as well as the warmth of the skins.

That spring, as a freezing cold settled over the land, there appeared in the broad expanse of Northeast Gaomi Township an army of intrepid ‘dog soldiers’ who fought a dozen or more battles, major and minor, with the Japanese and their puppets. That included Zhang Zhuxi’s Twenty-eighth Battalion, who trembled in their boots whenever they heard the barking of dogs.

The first battle occurred on the second day of the second month, by the old calendar — the day, according to legend, when the dragon raises its head. The Jiao-Gao regiment, dogskins draped over their shoulders and rifles in their hands, slipped into Ma Family Hamlet, where they surrounded the Ninth Company of Zhang Zhuxi’s Twenty-eighth Battalion and a squad of Japanese soldiers. The enemy’s headquarters was in Ma Family Hamlet’s onetime elementary school, which consisted of four rows of blue-tiled buildings surrounded by a high wall of blue bricks and barbed wire.

The commander of the puppet Ninth Company was a brutal man from Northeast Gaomi with a deceptively gentle smile. Since the onset of winter, he had begun a campaign to accumulate bricks, stones, and lumber to build new quarters for his company. As a result, his personal worth, all of it ill-gotten, increased dramatically. The locals despised him.

Ma Family Hamlet was in the northwest corner of Jiao County, bordering on Northeast Gaomi Township, about thirty li from the Jiao-Gao regiment headquarters. The two hundred Jiao-Gao soldiers waited until nightfall to set out from the village, dogskins draped over their shoulders, fur on the outside, tails dragging between their legs, and the multicoloured fur shining brightly in the fading sunlight. It was a beautiful, bizarre army of underworld demons on the march.

Their commander, Little Foot Jiang, wore a huge red dogskin — it had to have been Red, the dog from our family — and as he walked at the head of his troops, the fur on his pelt waved in the wind. The bag hanging over Pocky Cheng’s chest was stuffed with twenty-eight hand grenades.

Cold stars filled the night sky when they slipped into Ma Family Hamlet. A couple of dogs barked in friendly welcome, and a mischievous young soldier answered them in kind. An order from the front swept through their ranks: No more barking! No barking! No barking!

They took up positions a hundred yards outside the main gate, where bricks and rocks were piled in readiness for springtime construction.

‘Pocky,’ Little Foot Jiang said to Pocky Cheng, who was sticking close to him, ‘let’s get moving!’

‘Number Six, Chunsheng, you two follow me,’ Pocky whispered.

He removed the bag of hand grenades to lighten his load. After tucking one grenade in his waistband, he handed the bag to a tall soldier and said, ‘When we’ve made it to the gate, bring this to me.’

With stars spreading their weak light over the ground and a dozen or so lit carriage lanterns hanging from the barracks, it looked like dusk in the compound. Two puppet sentries patrolled the gateway, casting long shadows on the ground. An ageing black dog ran out from behind the piles of bricks and stones, followed by a white dog, then a spotted one. They snarled and rolled on the ground, their profiles merging as they approached the gateway. In the shadows of a woodpile no more than a dozen paces from the gate, the dogfight turned nasty. From a distance it looked like three mutts fighting over a choice morsel of food.

Commander Little Foot Jiang watched the masterful performance conceived by Pocky Cheng, and was reminded of the benumbed, cowardly man who had shown up to join the army, snivelling at the drop of a hat, like a useless old woman. Pocky and his comrades continued their dogfight ruse in the shadows as the distracted sentries stood shoulder to shoulder and listened. One picked up a rock and threw it at the dogs. ‘Mangy damned mutts!’

Pocky Cheng yelped like a dog hit by a rock, and Commander Jiang had to stifle a laugh, it sounded so much like the real thing. The Jiao-Gao soldiers had been practising their barking since the assault plan for Ma Family Hamlet was first drawn up. Pocky Cheng, a Peking-opera buff and woodwind player, had wonderful breath control and a loud, booming voice, not to mention a lively tongue; he easily became the regiment’s champion ‘dog’.

Growing impatient, the sentries moved cautiously up to the woodpile, where the dogs were really getting into it. Rifles ready, bayonets fixed, they were only three or four steps from the woodpile when the dogs stopped barking and began to whine, as though afraid.

The sentries advanced another slow, cautious step.

Pocky Cheng, Number Six, and Chunsheng jumped up, fur shimmering in the dim yellow glow, and charged the sentries like bolts of lightning. Pocky Cheng smashed his grenade down on the head of one; Number Six and Chunsheng buried their bayonets in the other’s chest. Both crashed to the ground like sacks of cement.

The Jiao-Gao soldiers looked like a frenzied pack of dogs as they charged the enemy barracks. Pocky Cheng, who had retrieved his bag of hand grenades, ran like a madman towards the tiled buildings.

Rifle fire, exploding grenades, shouts, and the screams of Japs and their puppet allies shattered the winter calm at Ma Family Hamlet. The local dogs were barking like crazy.

Pocky Cheng lobbed twenty grenades into a window, and the pathetic cries of the Japanese inside reminded him of the day years earlier when they had hurled their grenades into the sandal workshops. But instead of satisfying his sense of vengeance, this re-enacted scene caused him such anguish that his heart felt as though it were being sliced open.

This was the most intense battle fought by the Jiao-Gao regiment since its formation, and it ended with the most brilliant and complete victory anywhere in the Binhai region, for which a special committee bestowed a commendation upon the entire regiment. The dog soldiers were caught up in wild joy, until two occurrences caused them great distress: First, the store of weapons and ammunition that fell into their hands after the battle was allocated to the Binhai Independent Battalion. Commander Jiang knew that the special committee’s decision was the right one, but his soldiers grumbled with resentment, and when battalion soldiers came to collect the weapons, looks of shame covered their faces. Second, Pocky Cheng, who had so distinguished himself in the battle at Ma Family Hamlet, was found hanging from a tree at the head of the village. All the evidence pointed to suicide. From the back he looked like a dog, but from the front a man.

9

THERE WERE NO more screams from Second Grandma after Grandma washed her body with hot water. A gentle smile graced her scarred and battered face the day long, but blood kept flowing down below. Granddad called in every doctor in the area, and all sorts of medicinal potions were tried.

The last doctor was someone Uncle Arhat brought over from the town of Pingdu, a man in his eighties with a silvery beard, a broad fleshy forehead, and long curved fingernails. A comb made from a bull’s horn, a silver ear pick, and a bone toothpick hung from the buttons of his mandarin robe. Granddad watched him lay a long finger on Second Grandma’s pulse, and when he was finished he crossed her left hand over her right and said, ‘Make preparations for the funeral!’

Granddad and Grandma felt miserable, but they saw the old doctor out and did as he said. She stayed up to make a set of burial clothes, while he sent Uncle Arhat to the carpentry shop for a coffin.

The next day, with the help of neighbour women, Grandma dressed Second Grandma in the newly made clothes. No resentment showed on Second Grandma’s face as she lay stiffly on the kang in a red silk jacket, blue satin pants, a green silk shirt, and red satin embroidered slippers, a gentle smile on her face, her chest rising and falling, frailly yet tenaciously.

At noon Father spotted a cat as black as ink pacing the ridge of the roof and letting out blood-curdling screeches. He hurled a broken piece of brick at the cat, which sprang out of the way, landed on one of the roof tiles, and pranced off.

When it was time to light the lamps, the distillery hands walked up with the coffin and laid it down in the yard. Grandma lit a soybean-oil light with three wicks, because it was a special moment. Everyone stood around waiting anxiously for Second Grandma to breathe her last. Father hid behind the door staring at her ears, which in the lamplight looked like amber, and were just as transparent, evoking a sense of mystery that danced in brilliant colour in his heart. At that moment he knew that the black cat was stepping on a roof tile again, that its black eyes were flashing, and that it was rending the darkness with obscene screeches. His scalp burned, his hair seemed to stand up like porcupine quills.

Suddenly Second Grandma’s eyes snapped open; and although her gaze was fixed, her lids fluttered, her cheeks twitched, and her thick lips quivered — once, twice, three times — followed by a screech more hideous than that of a cat in heat. Father noticed that the golden light from the soybean-oil lamp had turned as green as onion leaves, and in that flickering green light, the look on Second Grandma’s face was no longer human.

‘Little sister,’ Grandma said, ‘little sister, what’s wrong?’

A stream of epithets poured from Second Grandma’s mouth: ‘Son of a whore, I’ll never forgive you! You can kill my body, but you can’t kill my spirit! I’ll skin you alive and rip the tendons right out of your body!’

It wasn’t Second Grandma’s voice, Father was sure of that, but the voice of someone well over fifty.

Grandma shrank from the force of Second Grandma’s curses.

Second Grandma’s eyelids fluttered as rapidly as lightning; one minute she was screaming, the next cursing, the sound shaking the rafters and filling the room. Her breath was glacial. Father saw that from the neck down her body was as stiff as a board, and he wondered where she found the strength to scream.

Not knowing what to do, Granddad told Father to summon Uncle Arhat from the eastern compound. Even there you could hear the terrifying screams.

Uncle Arhat walked into the room, glanced at Second Grandma, and quickly led Granddad outside by the sleeve. Father followed them. ‘Manager Yu,’ he said softly, ‘she’s already dead. She must be possessed.’

‘He’d barely got the words out when he heard her curse him loudly from inside: ‘Arhat Liu, you son of a whore! No easy death for you! Skin you alive, rip the tendons out of your body, cut off your prick….’

‘Wash her with river water to exorcise the demon,’ Uncle Arhat said after a thoughtful pause.

Second Grandma’s curses kept coming.

When Uncle Arhat walked inside with a jug of filthy river water, he confronted waves of laughter. ‘Arhat, Arhat, pour it, pour the water, your auntie’s thirsty now!’

Father watched one of the hired hands force a funnel into Second Grandma’s mouth, and another pour the water, which eddied momentarily, then disappeared so fast it was impossible to believe it was actually emptying into her stomach.

Second Grandma quietened down. Her belly was as flat as ever, but her chest heaved, as though she were gasping for air.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Okay,’ Uncle Arhat said, ‘she’s old now!’

Once more Father sensed the patter of paws on the overhead tiles, as though the black cat were on the prowl again.

Second Grandma’s rigid face parted in a bewitching smile. She screamed once or twice before a stream or turbid water gushed from her mouth. The fountain rose straight up, at least two feet in the air, then came straight down, fanning out as the drops splashed like chrysanthemum petals on her newly made funeral clothes.

Second Grandma’s fountain trick sent the hired hands running from the room in fright. ‘Run,’ she shouted, ‘run, run, you can’t get away, the monk can run but the temple will never get away!’

Uncle Arhat looked imploringly at Granddad, who returned the look, as Second Grandma’s curses grew more spirited again. Now they were accompanied by spasms in her arms and legs. ‘Jap dogs,’ she cursed, ‘Chinese dogs, in thirty years they’ll be everywhere. Yu Zhan’ao, you can’t get away. Like a toad that eats a blister beetle, the worst is yet to come for you!’

Her body arched like a bow, as though she wanted to sit up.

‘Oh no!’ Uncle Arhat gasped. ‘A sitting corpse! Quick, give me a flintstone.’

Grandma tossed him the flintstone.

Somehow Granddad found the courage to pin Second Grandma down so Uncle Arhat could press the flint down over her heart. It didn’t work.

Uncle Arhat began to back out of the room. ‘Uncle,’ Granddad said, ‘you can’t leave now!’

‘Mistress,’ Uncle Arhat said to Grandma, ‘bring me a spade, quick!’

Once Second Grandma’s chest was pressed down by the spade her body grew still. She was left in the room to suffer alone, as Grandma, Granddad, Uncle Arhat, and Father went into the yard.

‘Yu Zhan’ao,’ Second Grandma shouted from inside, ‘I want to eat a yellow-legged rooster!’

‘Take my gun and shoot one!’ Granddad said.

‘No,’ Uncle Arhat said. ‘Not now. She’s already dead!’

‘Quick, uncle,’ Grandma said, ‘think of something!’

‘Zhan’ao,’ he said, ‘I’ll go get the Taoist at Cypress Orchid Market!’

In the early hours of dawn, Second Grandma’s shouts nearly ruptured the window paper. ‘Arhat,’ she fulminated, ‘you and I are enemies who cannot live under the same sky!’

As Uncle Arhat walked into the yard with the Taoist, her curses turned to long sighs.

The seventy-year-old Taoist wore a black cassock with strange markings on the front and back. A peach-wood sword was slung over his back, and he carried a bundle in his hands.

Granddad went out to greet him and recognised him immediately as Mountain Li, the Taoist who had exorcised Second Grandma’s weasel spirit years before. He was skinnier than ever.

With his sword the Taoist cut the paper out of the window so he could look into the room. As he withdrew his head, the blood drained from his face. Bowing to Granddad, he said, ‘Manager Yu, I’m afraid my power is inadequate to deal with this evil.’

Filled with terror, Granddad pleaded, ‘Mountain, you can’t leave. You must drive it away. You will be amply rewarded.’

He blinked his demonic eyes and said, ‘All right, the Taoist will take a drink of courage and bang his head against the golden bell!’

To this day the legend of how Mountain Li exorcised Second Grandma’s demon still makes the rounds in our village.

In the legend Mountain Li, his hair a wild jumble, performs a dance of exorcism in the yard, chanting as he twirls his sword in the air, while Second Grandma lies on the kang tossing and turning, screaming and cursing.

Finally, the Taoist tells Grandma to bring him a wooden bowl, which he fills half full with clear water. He takes a potion out of his bundle and dumps it into the water, then stirs it rapidly with the tip of his wooden sword, chanting all the while. The water gets redder and redder, until it is the colour of blood. With a greasy, sweaty face, he jumps into the air, falls to the ground, and begins foaming at the mouth. Then he loses consciousness.

When the Taoist came to, Second Grandma breathed her last. The stench of her decomposing body and rotted blood floated out through the open window. When her body was put in its coffin, all the mourners held goatskin chamois soaked in sorghum wine over their noses.

Some people say that when she was placed in the coffin she was still cursing and kicking the lid.

10

FOR TEN YEARS I had been away from my village. Now I stood before Second Grandma’s grave, affecting the hypocritical display of affection I had learned from high society, with a body immersed so long in the filth of urban life that a foul stench oozed from my pores. I had paid my respects at many gravesites before coming to that of the woman whose short but magnificent life constitutes a page in the most heroic and most bastardly history of my hometown. Her eerie, supernatural death had awakened in the souls of Northeast Gaomi Township a mysterious emotion that germinated, grew, and became strong, flowing slowly through the memories of village elders like a sweet scarlet syrup that fortified us and made us capable of facing the world of the future.

On each of my previous visits to the village, the power of that mysterious emotion was revealed in the drunken eyes of those old-timers. Comparisons are always risky, but when I approach them logically, I discover to my horror that in my ten years away from the village I have seen eyes like that only in the fragile heads of pet rabbits, turned red by boundless desire. There are, it appears, two separate human races, each evolving in accordance with its own value system. What frightens me is that my eyes, too, have taken on that crafty look, and that I have begun to utter only the words that others have spoken, themselves repeating the words of still others. Have I no voice of my own?

Second Grandma leaps from her grave holding a golden-hued mirror, the deep lines of a mocking grin tilting the corners of her full lips. ‘You’re no grandson of mine. Look at yourself!’

Her clothes flutter, and everything is the same as when she was put in her coffin, yet she is younger and lovelier than I had imagined; the messages carried by her voice prove that she is infinitely more thoughtful and profound than I. Her thoughts are liberal, dignified, and richly resilient, yet serene and firm, whereas mine float tentatively in the air like the transparent membrane of a reed flute.

I look at my reflection in Second Grandma’s brass mirror. As I’d feared, the clever look of a pet rabbit shines in my eyes; words that belong to others, not to me, emerge from my mouth, just as the words emerging from Second Grandma’s mouth on her deathbed belonged to others, not to her. My body is covered with the seals of approval of famous people.

I am scared to death.

‘Grandson!’ she says magnanimously. ‘Come home! You’re lost if you don’t. I know you don’t want to, I know you’re scared of all the flies, of the clouds of mosquitoes, of snakes slithering across the damp sorghum soil. You revere heroes and loathe bastards, but who among us is not the “most heroic and most bastardly”? As you stand before me now, I can smell the pet-rabbit odour you brought with you from the city. Quick, jump into the Black Water River and soak there for three days and nights — I only hope that when the catfish in the river drink the stench that washes off your body they won’t grow rabbit ears!’

Second Grandma returns swiftly to her grave. The sorghum stands straight and silent; the sun’s rays are wet and scorching hot; there is no wind. The grave is covered with weeds whose fragrance fills my nostrils. It is as though nothing has happened. Off in the distance I hear the high-pitched songs of peasants tilling their fields.

The sorghum around the grave is a variety brought in from Hainan Island; the lush green sorghum now covering the rich black soil of Northeast Gaomi Township is all hybrid. The sorghum that looked like a sea of blood, whose praises I have sung over and over, has been drowned in a raging flood of revolution and no longer exists, replaced by short-stalked, thick-stemmed, broad-leafed plants covered by a white powder and topped by beards as long as dogs’ tails. High yield, with a bitter, astringent taste, it is the source of rampant constipation. With the exception of cadres above the rank of branch secretary, all the villagers’ faces are the colour of rusty iron.

How I loathe hybrid sorghum.

Hybrid sorghum never seems to ripen. Its grey-green eyes seem never to be fully opened. I stand in front of Second Grandma’s grave and look out at those ugly bastards that occupy the domain of the red sorghum. They assume the name of sorghum, but are bereft of tall, straight stalks; they assume the name of sorghum, but are devoid of the dazzling sorghum colour. Lacking the soul and bearing of sorghum, they pollute the pure air of Northeast Gaomi Township with their dark, gloomy, ambiguous faces.

Being surrounded by hybrid sorghum instils in me a powerful sense of loss.

As I stand amid the dense hybrid sorghum, I think of surpassingly beautiful scenes that will never again appear: in the deep autumn of the eighth month, under a high, magnificently clear sky, the land is covered by sorghum that forms a glittering sea of blood. If the autumn rains are heavy, the fields turn into a swampy sea, the red tips of sorghum rising above the muddy yellow water, appealing stubbornly to the blue sky above. When the sun comes out, the surface of the sea shimmers, and heaven and earth are painted with extraordinarily rich, extraordinarily majestic colours.

That is the epitome of mankind and the beauty for which I yearn, for which I shall always yearn.

Surrounded by hybrid sorghum, whose snakelike leaves entwine themselves around my body, whose pervasive green poisons my thoughts, I am in shackles from which I cannot break free; I gasp and groan, and because I cannot free myself from my suffering I sink to the depths of despair.

Then a desolate sound comes from the heart of the land. It is both familiar and strange, like my granddad’s voice, yet also like my father’s voice, and like Uncle Arhat’s voice, and like the resonant singing voices of Grandma, Second Grandma, and Third Grandma, the woman Liu. The ghosts of my family are sending me a message to point the way out of this labyrinth:

You pitiable, frail, suspicious, stubbornly biased child, whose soul has been spellbound by poisonous wine, go down to the Black Water River and soak in its waters for three days and three nights — remember, not a day more or a day less — to cleanse yourself, body and soul. Then you can return to your real world. Besides the yang of White Horse Mountain and the yin of the Black Water River, there is also a stalk of pure-red sorghum which you must sacrifice everything, if necessary, to find. When you have found it, wield it high as you re-enter a world of dense brambles and wild predators. It is your talisman, as well as our family’s glorious totem and a symbol of the heroic spirit of Northeast Gaomi Township!