Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused - Fiction From Today`s China [редактор Говард Голдблатт]

Opening

I have enormous respect for storytellers. I tried to teach myself how to do it once, but in the end I had to admit it was not to be. The story that follows, for instance, should be packed with entertainment value, but it isn't much of a story when I get through with it. Way back in 1990, I was all set to study the art of storytelling with Comrade New Day Tian when of all things, he was swept away in a windstorm of unprecedented ferocity. The additional costs of that windstorm to Fritter Hollow included seven old oxen, eight colts, and fifty-two goats (some say fifty-six); it also shattered the grammar school windows and sent snowy shards of glass swirling into the air. What that means, of course, is that I'll have to grope my way through the story, starting with the following opening:

In the heart of Fritter Hollow lies Fritter Village, home to a carpenter by the name of Tian, who had a son called Broad Bean. To ensure that Broad Bean would have a long life, the carpenter Tian gave him the name Broad Bean, and after a dizzying procession of springs and autumns, Broad Bean appeared as a grown man of thirty-one. Our story opens in 1992, at noon one summer day, when Broad Bean, lathered with sweat, came running breathlessly up to the village boss, Wheatie Liu, informing him that not a single person had dared enter the home of the murderer Talented Wu all morning. Since it was an abnormally hot day, Broad Bean fanned himself with his straw hat as he watched seven or eight average-sized drops of sweat line up on Wheatie Liu's forehead and drop neatly to the ground, followed by a second, virtually identical formation. But instead of looking at Broad Bean, Wheatie Liu gazed fixedly at the knife scars on his arms, which had been there for years: five on the left arm, seven on the right, red in color and very deep.

"Check it out again," Wheatie Liu said without looking up.

At twilight, two or three average-sized pale yet pretty stars appeared in the sky, sort of to the south and sort of to the west, as Broad Bean ran breathlessly into the village for the second time. "No one dared enter the home of the murderer Talented Wu all afternoon!" Broad Bean reported. This time he did not fan himself with his straw hat.

"Sit down, have a drink," Wheatie Liu said, patting the edge of the red-lacquered brick bed, his kang. Broad Bean saw a bottle and some snacks on little plates on the nearby red-lacquered table- only three plates, and what they held is not important. "You're drinking again?" Sitting cautiously on the edge of the kang, Broad Bean kept his eyes glued to Wheatie Liu.

"Why shouldn't I?" Liu said. "I'm happy!"

So Broad Bean joined him. He held out one of the little ceramic cups, which was filled noisily; they clinked cups and drained them. A noisy refill, more clinking and draining. "I'll drain his old lady!" Wheatie Liu said, opening his mouth wide. He turned thoughtful, refilled his cup, and drained it. "That murderer got off cheap!" Liu said, turning thoughtful again as he refilled his cup and drained it. This time, Broad Bean fumbled with his cup to catch up. He tossed down the wine, and the blood drained from his face. "No more for me!" he said as he leaned over the edge and heaved twice. "That murderer stinks to high heaven!" He jumped off the kang, hand over his mouth, and ran outside, where he emptied the contents of his stomach for the benefit of a black pig strolling through the yard: urrp-the stuff landed right on the pig's tail. A quick swish transferred it up to its snout, all but the little bit that soared over to the window-splat.

"So the murderer stinks that bad, does he?" Wheatie Liu asked tensely as he walked into the yard, undid his pants, and sent a stream of piss into the pigsty.

The Background

Time for some background:

Now I won't bore you with talk about what kind of mountains Fritter Hollow has or what its waters are like. Suffice it to say that Fritter Hollow has both mountains and waters, heavy on the former-a whole undulating range of them, like a string of cow patties-and you could probably walk for five or six days without reaching the end. Not much in the way of waters, however. In fact, one scrawny, twisting stream is about it.

The people here are not rice eaters-that should be obvious. The barren slopes of the mountains yield only stumpy buckwheat, stumpy oats, and stumpy millet-that and some long millet and huge quantities of mountain yams, with an occasional crop of mung beans. Naturally, you'll also find wild hemp, with its bright-blue flowers. Not much in the way of legumes and tubers: mostly yellow yams, purple yams, yellow radishes, and carrots. People are quick to admit that yellow-skinned radishes, those coarse, chunky things, are pretty awful, but they keep pushing out their red-skinned cousins, which can't gain a toehold no matter how hard they try. The other green you see sometimes is cabbage, which carefully forms itself into tight little circles, each layer of leaves wrapping itself around the treasure lying at the center, which, when the thing is sliced open, is revealed to be nothing more than a skimpy cabbage heart.

In truth, Fritter Hollow was once a bitterly barren place. Now while people often equate the word bitter with poverty, in 1992 no one was prepared to call Fritter Hollow impoverished. That is because our great and wise government decided to permit the locals to dig tunnels into the mountains, some deep and some shallow, from which black rock was extracted. Narrow, twisting asphalt roads were built, pale-faced folk from the south moved in, and that led to a surfeit of tales regarding loose behavior. Generally speaking, southerners call that black, flammable stuff coal, but in Fritter Hollow it's called charcoal; it stands to reason that the black tunnels are called charcoal pits. The discovery that the term charcoal pits was unacceptable is linked to Wheatie Liu, Fritter Hollow's village chief, which meant he had the responsibility of overseeing activities at the charcoal pits even though people could no longer call them that; when 1992 rolled around, Wheatie Liu was being called the mine boss. Which is also what people once called the murderer Talented Wu.

Who, then, is Talented Wu?

A Village Tale

In order to tell this story reasonably well, it is necessary to introduce Talented Wu, the murderer. Strictly speaking, you'd be lucky to find a single person in Fritter Hollow with anything good to say about Talented Wu. The explanation is as apparent as the cobblestones in the road. Talented Wu, the murderer, led a bunch of men over to the mountain quarries west of the village, where they dug seyen or eight tunnels without extracting a single lump of coal; not only that, he wound up owing the village the grand sum of 140,000 yuan. That does not take into account the two hard-luck fellows who were crushed to death, both of whom were posthumously admitted into the Party: one was Small Stuff Wu, who had incredibly small genitals-about the size of lima beans-hence the name Small Stuff, and the other was Greater Principle Zhou, about whom more later (although the randy things I'll have to say about him should probably be kept from any women present).

People familiar with the history of Fritter Hollow do not have to be reminded of the following list of village chiefs:

Dog Killer Li 1948-1952 Nine Changes Li 1953-1959 Rich Furs Wu 1959-1965 Good Stuff Wu 1965-1967 Defend the

East Liu

1967-1976 Talented Wu 1976-1986 Wheatie Liu 1986-

And now the rest of you know that Talented Wu was village chief for an entire decade. People who emerged from their mother's womb in 1942 are, for the most part, considered to have been born in the year of the horse, but some who arrived on the scene a little late might well be considered a sheep. Talented Wu was born in the year of the horse, making his appearance in the twelfth month. He was a soldier for a time, serving in the western province of Qinghai, where there's a whole lot of salt; Talented Wu once said he had frequent nosebleeds. From there, he went to Sichuan to repair a cavernous pit that was dark as pitch and wet as an underground spring. After that, he came home, where his ability to use a gun got him elected head of the local militia, and his subsequent experience as militia head got him chosen village chief. That, more or less, is Talented Wu's story. But it is necessary to describe him physically, his good looks, as it were: of medium height, he had an oblong face with fair skin and dark, bushy brows. He was so good-looking that he managed to bring a sloe-eyed Sichuan girl home with him. There was talk that he had got her pregnant up on the Sichuan mountain where he was working, and sure enough, not long after she arrived in Fritter Hollow, she lay down one day, and out popped a baby boy.

Everybody called the girl the Sichuan dolt. If she had been from the northeast they would have called her the Northeast dolt; if from Hunan, they would have called her the Hunan dolt; and so forth. Easier that way.

Altogether, the Sichuan dolt presented Talented Wu with two sons: Golden Oil (the elder brother) and Silver Oil (his younger one). Both inherited their father's good looks. The older boy enjoyed his share of conquests in the corn patch, including one with the wife of Greater Principle Zhou. But now both boys are tasting the bitterness of prison life. How they keep themselves busy during the day is not documented, but at night they hunt for lice. As a rule, rather than pop lice between their thumbnails, people in prison set them free to find a new home elsewhere in the cell. While in prison, Golden Oil and Silver Oil exhaustively debate the question, Do lice eat grass?

A Tale of Murder

People familiar with the topography of Fritter Hollow and its surrounding area would never overlook the Tatar Cemetery at the western end of town. A mound of earth where nothing grows, it looks like a big steamed bun, which is why it is also called Bun Hill. It's too flat to resemble a corn muffin, which is pointier; but if you travel west from Tatar Cemetery just a little ways, you'll come across a place actually called Muffin Hill.

For generations, people have spoken of all the Tatars, they with the light-brown hair and beards, who are buried in Tatar Cemetery; this fact, it goes without saying, is not unrelated to murder. Apparently, back then, people baked great big dough figurines in which they hid weapons so sharp they glittered, although most were less than imposing: daggers, even women's scissors. The people 'were ruled by a truly benighted government, which decreed that in the name of security, only one kitchen knife was allowed for each ten families. The people were not happy. (If you history buffs ponder for a moment, you will recall the one regime that instituted that particular measure: the Yuan dynasty of the Mongols; that narrows the time frame for this part of my story.) So the people baked dough figurines in which they hid their weapons; as a result, many unfortunate men whose beards were not dark enough paid the price. The slaughtered Tatars were then tossed helter-skelter into a pit, like so many pigs or dogs. This is one of Fritter Hollow's tales of murder.

If there is a kernel of doubt anywhere, it is why in the year 1981, people suddenly decided to go to Tatar Cemetery and dig up the remains, then sell pile after pile of bleached bones to the county pharmacy. Small Stuff Wu, who was still alive at the time, dug up a leg bone bigger than anyone had seen before, and people wondered how their ancestors could have been so much larger than they. Had their forefathers passed on defective genes? But then somebody informed the others that it wasn't a human bone at all; strangers in spectacles came, then concluded their investigation, announcing that these were dragon bones.

That being the case, Fritter Hollow did not have a history of murder after all.

Good! Now I feel free to relate a murder that did happen.

Another Tale of Murder

Most murder stories are set in the dark of night. On the twenty-eighth of March 1986, light snowflakes fell on Fritter Hollow. Local men usually settled down with a bottle on such nights, which was just fine with their womenfolk, since that meant two things: the men would stay home and, after the lamps were put out, would perform much better than usual. Fritter Hollow's birthrate during this period outstripped that of all the neighboring communities; the women stretched their midriffs to the bursting point, and the babies just kept coming. Official investigators concluded that alcohol had increased the local men's vigor, and not until much later did they admit that alcohol was not the culprit. The high birthrate was a result of nonelectrification. Precious Li of the Family Planning Commission and Talented Wu once had a discussion that would be quoted often afterward:

"How the fuck can you people have so many babies?" Precious Li asked, his face dark.

"What do you expect people to do at night when there's no electricity?" Talented Wu was smiling.

This brief exchange was reported to the higher-ups, who received it with such hilarity that the chairman of the meeting had to call for order.

It was on the night when light snowflakes fell that Talented Wu and his sons, Golden Oil and Silver Oil, forced their way into Wheatie Liu's yard. Talented Wu carried a knife that sent sheep to their maker on New Year's; Golden Oil brought a hammer with a redwood handle; and Silver Oil came armed with a spade. As they neared Wheatie Liu's gate, Golden Oil snatched the knife out of his father's hand. "I'm younger than you," he said; "I should have the knife. Nothing scares me, certainly not that motherfucker!"

Simply put, the gate wasn't bolted. When Talented Wu and his sons entered the yard, they spotted Wheatie Liu and his wife laughing loudly in the pigpen off to the left, where their sow was delivering a litter of piglets. Golden Oil leaped into the pigpen, knife in hand, and attacked Wheatie Liu, who didn't even have time to stand up. Instinctively, he raised his right arm to protect his head. The arm quickly sustained seven cuts, so he raised his left arm over his head; that arm sustained five. Silver Oil, meanwhile, raised his spade over Wheatie Liu's wife. "Don't harm my wet nurse!" Golden Oil shouted. Silver Oil lowered his arm. As a baby, Golden Oil had suckled at Wheatie Liu's wife's breast. At that moment, Wheatie Liu's daughter, Maple Leaf, heard the commotion in the yard and came charging into the pigpen. Having been in the middle of making bean dough at the time, her arms were covered with bean powder to the elbows. Seeing what was happening, she shrieked and turned to run. Talented Wu, the murderer, sneaked up behind her and attacked with his hammer. Another shriek- from pain this time-and Maple Leaf was writhing on the ground.

Golden Oil resumed the attack on Wheatie Liu, whose arms were torn and bleeding, turning his fury on the buttocks, which sustained five cuts. Then came the pigs: the sow suffered nine cuts; each member of her litter suffered one. The sky resounded with screams-human and porcine; the ground ran red with the blood of people and swine. Right about then, someone vaulted into the pigpen and reached down for Maple Leaf, who was still writhing in the muck; he wondered what that thing swinging back and forth across her cheek was. Once he had her in the house, he held her up to the lamp, where he discovered it was her eyeball.

"Cram it back in!" the old devil Kiddie Wu urged the people crowding round, but how in the world were they to do that?

Back in the pigpen, Wheatie Liu's wife had soiled herself; she could neither stand nor speak, and as she sat amid the muck and blood, she heard the shouts of someone running around the yard in a panic: "The former village chief has killed the current one!"

Wheatie Liu

Wheatie Liu had an older brother named Millet; his younger brothers were Rice and Beans. Most place and personal names in Fritter Hollow have something to do with food. If, for instance, someone is called Hundred Cereals, pretty soon there'll be someone named Thousand Cereals, then Ten Thousand Cereals; since the people of Fritter Hollow have no concept of million, the next in the series will be Heavenly Cereals, reaching the apex-until, that is, a rival family has a newborn baby whom they promptly name Gobble Cereals! Heavenly Cereals' family accepts the challenge, and the battle is engaged-fisticuffs, brandishing lit torches, and the like; few ever go so far as to pick up a knife and actually commit murder, as Talented Wu did.

Wheatie Liu was so fit that Talented Wu's attacks did not prove fatal, surprising no one. He even continued as village chief. No problem. Or hardly any. For three days after the death of Talented Wu, Wheatie Liu fell seriously ill. He'd never been sick a day in his life prior to 1992, as nearly as anyone could recall-not even a headache or a high fever. What could this mean?

Matters Relating to Wheatie Liu

Like most villages, Fritter Hollow boasted a school, which was located in a local temple, whose clay idols, painted or not, had long since disappeared. The school was charged with teaching the local tots how to read some basic words, such as attend school and finish school, cow and sheep, boy and girl; how to write New Year's couplets, like "The earth is our mother" and "Nature rewards hard work"; and how to make banners for house-raisings that say RAISE THE ROOF BEAM FOR ETERNAL GOOD FORTUNE. There was a time when everyone had to know how to write "Fight selfishness, repudiate revisionism" and "Serve the people," but no one studied those things anymore.

Besides the school, Fritter Hollow had a country store, also like all villages, which had once been called a purchasing co-op; but now that name had fallen out of favor, and it was simply called the country store. Behind the country store, which was situated neither too far east nor too far south, stood a scrawny old tree of medium height, covered by fat red wriggling caterpillars known as hairy worms; actually, the name doesn't fit since they never grow real hair. Some people cook them over an open fire and eat them. Like all country stores, this one boasted a counter, some wooden shelves for stock, and blackened vats filled with soy sauce and vinegar. The shelves were lined with colorful canned goods and narrow-necked liquor bottles; ready-to-eat snacks and simple cotton goods were available plus, of course, hard candies. In the past, none of this stuff would have sold, but the coal mines changed that, and now it nearly flew out the door.

Every country store must have a proprietor; Fritter Hollow's proprietor had a scar on his neck, so everyone called him Scarface; a bit wide of the mark, perhaps, but Scarneck sounded funny, so Scarface it was. A man of thirty-five, Scarface was unusually fat. When there were no customers, he could normally be found sleeping atop the store counter. But on this particular day, he was running around busily, taking care of a steady stream of customers, until finally he asked one of them what was going on and learned that Wheatie Liu had fallen ill.

The first to buy canned goods and snacks to take along when calling on Wheatie Liu were men from the mines. They drifted in, made their purchases, and drifted out. Then came the villagers, who also drifted in, made their purchases, and drifted out. They came, and they came, and by nightfall the shelves were empty.

Broad Bean, the final customer of the day, was carrying a flashlight.

"Why so damned late? I've got nothing to sell," Scarface said.

"Who all's going?" Broad Bean could have kicked himself for being so late and letting the others buy up everything.

"People these days are all fucked up," Scarface blurted out. "Smell that," he continued, sniffing the air. "The guy's been dead for days now, and nobody's doing anything about it."

"Why don't you bring it up with Wheatie Liu?" Broad Bean said, flashing his light back and forth across Scarface's face. Back and forth, then straight in his eyes, then back and forth again. "Got the nerve?" Broad Bean asked.

A Conversation of Sorts

In twenty or thirty years' time, when members of the next generation of Fritter Hollow's inhabitants look back on their glorious history, they may well talk about the time Wheatie Liu took ill and received 500 gifts of canned food. If that's all they say, of course, the word history is being ill served, so I must break in with a more revealing look at what happened that time Wheatie Liu took ill.

A conversation was recorded between Broad Bean and Wheatie Liu as the latter sat on his own kang, leaning up against a colorful backrest; the sides of the brick bed were decorated with depictions of colorful pomegranates, peonies, plum blossoms, watermelons, rabbits, bananas, pears, peanuts, apricots, and of course, magpies and goldfish.

Wheatie Liu had been enjoying a leisurely smoke when Broad Bean entered; the table, the kang, and the windowsill were all but covered with canned goods and packaged treats brought by well-wishers. It was a lovely sight, but to Broad Bean the real significance was the number of visitors it represented.

"Are you sick?" Broad Bean walked up and observed Wheatie Liu, who just smiled.

Here we must be reminded that Broad Bean's full name was

Broad Bean Tian and that Wheatie Liu's wife's name was Bean Sprout Tian, which tells you all you need to know about the relationship between Wheatie Liu and Broad Bean.

"Me, sick? No fucking way!" Wheatie Liu scooted up next to Broad Bean and whispered, "I just wanted to see if people would treat my death as meaningless, like they did with that other guy."

"How could anybody compare that murderer to you?" Broad Bean stared wide-eyed.

"What about that murderer?"

"Well, maggots are starting to wriggle into his yard," Broad Bean said with a shudder.

"It's still not time." Wheatie Liu smiled again. "Let him stink," he continued as he looked at the red scars on his arms.

Broad Bean held his tongue and studied his fingernails, first the left hand, then the right.

"Count them, see how many there are." Wheatie Liu, his eyes mere slits from the broad grin, pointed to the colorful array of canned goods. "See for yourself. I told people not to come, but they came anyway, didn't they?"

Broad Bean started counting, from the table all the way to the windowsill. "Three hundred and twenty-seven," he said.

"Now count the ones inside."

Surprised that there were more in the other room, Broad Bean froze for a moment before going in to see for himself. "A hundred and seventy-three," he said as he reentered the room.

"Go tell Scarface I want to see him," Wheatie Liu said. "It's business." He tossed a cigarette to Broad Bean.

That's as far as I need to go with this conversation. While I can't comment on its broader significance, on the surface at least we have learned that Wheatie Liu wasn't sick at all; and that is the beginning of yet another story. I've thought about whether I ought to see where this story takes us. I could, for example, say:

Fritter Hollow once had a village chief named Wheatie Liu, an upright, fair-minded, and handsome individual. One day, he took ill and was visited by a steady stream of well-wishers, young and old, male and female, all bearing gifts of canned food and prepared snacks, nearly wearing out his threshold. They wished him a speedy recovery. Fritter Hollow's accountant, Broad Bean Tian, dropped by, discovering to his surprise that Wheatie Liu wasn't really sick at all. This gave rise to an intricate tale. Listen up, for this is what happened…

A pretty common opening, if you ask me. What do you think? I realize that my readers are concerned about why Wheatie Liu would feign illness following the death of Talented Wu. So here goes.

Yet Another Conversation

In Fritter Hollow, July is the best month to eat corn. On one particular night, Broad Bean's wife, Jade Beauty Wu, sweat oozing from every pore in her body, was boiling a pot of corn. Broad Bean was eating fragrant kernels right off a cob, using both hands. As he munched away, he told his wife to light a coil of mosquito incense. She walked over to the kang and lit one. "That guy pocketed seven or eight hundred just by getting sick," she muttered for the umpteenth time. His patience long since worn thin, Broad Bean reached out and poked her a couple of times on one of those fleshy spots of hers. "Fuck you!" he said.

Broad Bean's wife giggled. Picking up the mosquito coil, she walked over and set it down on the windowsill, then leaned her head back to sniff the air. "What a stink! If fucking doesn't kill me, the stink will."

Broad Bean also leaned his head back, then gagged and turned to run outside; before he got there, he puked all over the floor.

"You're supposed to do that in the pigpen," his wife said. "Who do you expect to eat it in the house? Your father?".

"Fuck you! I'll feed it to your mother if I feel like it! What if somebody heard you?" Broad Bean wiped his mouth. "I think I'm going to do it again."

His wife went outside and returned with the family pig in tow to clean up Broad Bean's yellow mess, but the animal turned its nose up at it.

"Fuck you, you old sow!" Broad Bean kicked the pig. "You're more pampered than Wheatie Liu!"

"That Wheatie Liu is no one to fool with," Broad Bean's wife said from the side. "I guess everyone's scared to make a phone call to the district office."

"Not so loud. Why don't you go?" Broad Bean said. "Take a look outside, make sure there's nobody around."

Telephone

Fritter Hollow had a telephone, but hardly anyone ever used it. Countryfolk don't need such things; if they have something to say, that's what fences are for. If the district office called, it was always to talk to someone in charge about tying off tubes or wearing diaphragms or fertilizer costs or planting trees or water conservation. So there isn't much to say about telephones. The only reason they ever came into the lives of the citizens of Fritter Hollow was because of the episode when Talented Wu cut Wheatie Liu seventeen times, an incident that resulted in the loss of one of Maple Leaf's eyes. Big Eye Liu at the district clinic later had this to say: "You didn't think of making a phone call? If you'd called the clinic, would she be blind in one eye today?" Now that caused a real stir among the people.

In the final analysis, residents of Fritter Hollow thought about many things in their day-to-day lives: plows, hoes, axes, spades, picks, baskets, hampers, creels, carrying poles, wicker ornaments, pickle vats, manure sacks, rats, insects, dogs, pigs, donkeys, cows, cats, mules, goats, sheep, peppers, aniseed, salt, vinegar, children, women, eating, sex, and more; but they never thought about telephones. Until August 2, 1992, that is. That was five days after the death of Talented Wu, and Greater Principle Zhou's younger brother, Lesser Principle, suddenly thought about the telephone. "Why doesn't somebody call the epidemic-prevention station?"

Greater Principle Zhou spread himself across the counter and said to Scarface, "Let the epidemic-prevention people come over and collect the body of that fucker Talented Wu."

"Who will make the call?" Scarface asked as he handed over the telephone. "You?"

Greater Principle Zhou clammed up at that and rolled his eyes. "You want me to offend Wheatie Liu?" He spat in disgust.

No one else advocated telephoning the district office either, even though the stench from the ripening corpse was getting to them all, and they were dabbing wine on their upper lips to counteract it. Whose idea that was no one knows, but soon everyone was doing it; even the notoriously henpecked Kiddie Wu managed to talk his wife into giving him some wine, which he then guzzled down, having suffered a long dry spell.

How Do I Wrap This Up?

Comrade New Day Tian once said that telling a story is a bit like weaving a basket: hard to start and hard to wrap up. But my stories seem to start out all right; it's wrapping them up that I have trouble with. This story about Fritter Hollow is a case in point; I have no idea how to end it. But I'll give it a try:

Neither Broad Bean Tian nor Scarface went straight home that day, since Wheatie Liu seemed to be softening his position a bit. They talked and they cajoled until Wheatie Liu decided to go with the current; he gave the OK to bury Talented Wu and put his own vengeance to rest. Broad Bean Tian and Scarface wasted no time getting on with the preparations, heading immediately for Talented Wu's home, where they were greeted with the revolting sight of a steady stream of maggots crawling out the door…

Sorry, I can't do it. That ending simply doesn't work since in point of fact, it was Wheatie Liu who summoned Broad Bean Tian, and not as I have given it above. This, then, is how the tale is supposed to end:

Without warning, Wheatie Liu summoned Broad Bean to his home. Seated all nice and proper, he smiled and said, "Call the fucking epidemic-prevention station, and have them dispose of that murderer!"

Broad Bean could hardly believe his ears. "You want me to call the district?" he asked with staring eyes.

"That's right."

It was another scorcher that day, and Broad Bean's shirt was soaked through by the time he reached the country store, where several men were drinking. They were quickly let in on the news that Wheatie Liu had told Broad Bean to phone the district.

Lime

Before I take up the matter of lime, I need to deal with the aftermath of Broad Bean's telephone call to the district. The very next day, two very ordinary individuals-one tall, the other short, but enough of that-came to the village; when they strode into Talented Wu's courtyard, they drew the attention of Fritter Hollow villagers, who followed behind them-at some distance-to see what they would do inside the house of Talented Wu, the murderer. Everyone had pretty much stayed clear of the place over the past six days, but now a few people rested against the compound wall just in time to see the two district personnel come charging out of the house, ashen faced, and run straight to the medium-sized tree outside his yard, where they emptied the contents of their stomachs.

"What are those chickens doing in the yard?" someone asked.

"Eating maggots!" one of the district personnel replied. He had been vomiting so energetically that tears clouded his eyes.

Repulsion quickly showed on the villagers' faces.

"We have to spread some lime," the man said, "and put something under our noses."

Just before dark, Fritter Hollow villagers saw the two men from the district epidemic-prevention station enter Talented Wu's house and spread lime all over the floor; it showed up very white in the fading light of dusk but was quickly marked up by chicken tracks.

That evening, villagers repeatedly chased chickens out of the yard, sending the squawking birds flying over the wall in the direction of the tree.

How about that, enough of an ending for you?

No? Then, how about this (briefly):

The day after the epidemic-prevention personnel spread lime in and around the house was yet another scorcher. The villagers, having learned that Wheatie Liu had said it was OK to put Talented Wu into the ground, rushed over to watch, turning it into a festive occasion and raising clouds of dust. There they saw Wheatie Liu, in his straw hat, walk over to the shade of the tree in the company of the two district personnel; people at the rear of the crowd were too far away to hear what was being said but not too far away to see the strangers put on rubber gloves and spread a sheet of plastic on the ground, then dip their gauze masks in strong wine.

"Hell, I'll go inside and take a look," Wheatie Liu announced out of the blue. Everyone close enough to hear him stared as he lit a cigarette, took several casual puffs followed by several deep, violent ones. He then walked in the direction of Talented Wu's house, scattering the hungry chickens as he passed through the yard; one particular rooster knocked a bedpan off the wall and onto the head of a child on the ground. The startled victim screeched in pain as blood trickled down his scalp.

Like everyone else, Broad Bean watched Wheatie Liu enter Talented Wu's house; but instead of just standing there, he felt compelled to go inside and take a look for himself. Picking up a nearby bottle, he dabbed some wine on his upper lip, then stormed into Talented Wu's yard. He had a fit of sneezing, which made him feel, if anything, worse.

Talented Wu's room was too dark for the men to see anything. So Broad Bean closed his eyes to accustom them to the dim light; when he opened them, he was in for a shock. Wheatie Liu, who had lit the lamp, was looking down into the face of the murderer Talented Wu and stabbing him over and over with a pointed stick- always where the eyes had been.

"Scooping out maggots," Wheatie Liu said as he looked up at Broad Bean. "Those damned things go straight for the eyes," he added without a pause in his violent stabbing.

Broad Bean heard a snapping sound, not particularly loud but loud enough to scare the hell out of him. Wheatie Liu was holding half a stick in his hand; the other half was buried in one of Talented Wu's eye sockets!

The True and Final Ending

Truth be told, I really don't have anything to add to the above; force me, and I'll say the obvious, that presently they went ahead and buried Talented Wu. Closely related to this event was a trip to the county seat by Wheatie Liu and his daughter, where she was fitted for a glass eye. Not much to that either, but since the thing had to be taken out and washed on a regular basis, the following was bound to happen: one night, Maple Leaf removed the eye and placed it in a drinking glass before going to bed, and Wheatie Liu came home from drinking with some friends from the district office; feeling particularly thirsty, he picked up his daughter's glass and gulped down every last drop. You can guess the rest.

Sometime later, Wheatie Liu's stomach started acting up, and he couldn't move his bowels no matter what. He went to see the district doctors, who put him through a rigorous examination of his digestive tract. When New China Fan, a renowned internist, looked through his anoscope, he nearly keeled over. After regaining his composure, he turned to the others and said something so funny they nearly died laughing: "I've looked up a lot of assholes in my life, but this is the first time I've had one look back at me!"

And that, dear reader, is the end of my tale, except to say that Maple Leaf got another glass eye, and Wheatie Liu regretted not gouging out one of Talented Wu's eyes when he was alive, and so on and so forth…

Translated By Howard Goldblatt