The Republic of Wine

I

The lady trucker’s comment knifed into the investigator’s heart. He pressed his hand against his breast like a love-struck teenager and bent over in agony. He saw her pink feet, which were livelier than her hands, rubbing back and forth across the carpet. His heart was inundated with a wicked passion. Clenching his teeth, he cursed – ‘Slut!’ – before turning and striding toward the door. He heard a shout thud into his back: Where do you think you’re going, you whoremonger? Who the hell do you think you are, bullying a woman that way?’ He kept walking. A sparkling drinking glass whizzed past his ear, bounced off the door, and landed on the carpet. Turning to look back, he saw her standing there, thrusting her chest out and breathing heavily, moisture glistening in her eyes. Beset by mixed emotions, he struggled to keep his voice under control: ‘How could you be so shameless as to sleep with a dwarf? Was it for money?’ She burst into tears, sobbing and sobbing, until suddenly she raised her voice, hoarse yet shrill, setting the metal decorations of the frosted-glass hanging lamps tinkling loudly. She tore open her blouse, began pounding her breasts, scratching her face with her fingernails, tearing her hair, and smashing her head against the cream-colored wall. In the midst of her frenzied self-abuse, she shrieked hysterically, nearly bursting the investigator’s eardrums:

‘Get out – get out – get the hell out -’

The investigator was scared witless. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He felt as if the Angel of Death were rubbing his nose with its cold hand and red-painted nails. Spurts of urine ran down his leg. He knew how inelegant, not to mention uncomfortable, it was to be pissing his pants, yet he couldn’t help himself. It was all that kept him from falling apart. But even as he was pissing his pants, he experienced the joy of shedding an enormous emotional burden. Voice cracking with emotion, he said:

‘Don’t do that… please, I beg you…’

Unmoved by his plea or by his loss of bladder control, the lady trucker forged ahead with her self-abuse and loud wails. As she banged her head with increased vigor, the wall protested loudly, until it seemed inevitable that it would soon be splattered with her brains. The investigator ran over and threw his arms around her waist, only to have her straighten up and break his grip. Now she changed tactics: instead of banging her head against the wall, she began tearing at the back of her hands with her teeth, as if gnawing on a pig’s foot. She was really digging in, not play-acting, for soon her hands were a bloody mess. The investigator, in an act of desperate futility, fell weakly to his knees and began knocking his head on the floor in supplicating kowtows.

‘Dear woman,’ he said. ‘Does that help, calling you dear woman? My dearest woman, don’t be offended by someone as worthless as I. Be forgiving, like a wise and tolerant prime minister. Pretend that what you heard was a fart, a loud, stinky fart.’

Surprisingly, that did the trick. She stopped chewing the backs of her hands, closed her eyes, opened wide her mouth, and bawled like a baby. The investigator straightened up. Then, like something right out of the movies, he started slapping his own face – hard -first one cheek, then the other, berating himself as he did:

'I'm not human, I’m a bastard, a bandit, a hooligan, a dog, a wriggly maggot in a vat of shit. Smack, I’ll smack you to death, you lousy son of a bitch…’

The first few slaps stung, but by the fourth or fifth one, it was about the same as hitting a piece of cowhide – no pain, no sting, just numbness. Several slaps more, and even that disappeared, leaving only the horrible, loud smack, as if he were slapping the carcass of a debristled hog or the ass of a dead woman. And he kept it up, one vicious slap after another, gradually feeling an odd sense of pleasure from this act of self-vengeance. At some point, he stopped berating himself, and the energy conserved by not speaking was transferred to his hand, increasing the force of each slap and turning up the volume of the resounding smacks. He watched as her mouth closed and the wails died out; she watched his performance as if in a trance. The investigator was pleased with himself. So after a few more vicious slaps, he dropped his hands. He heard a commotion on the other side of the door. Very tentatively, he asked:

‘You’re not mad at me any more, are you, young lady?’ She didn’t move. With staring eyes, a gaping mouth, and an expression that sent shivers through the investigator, she simply stood there like a malevolent statue. Slowly he got to his feet and began to sweet-talk the woman, masking the anger in his heart, as he edged toward the door. ‘Don’t be mad at me anymore, please don’t be mad. I’ve always had a filthy mouth, as filthy as any asshole. My mouth has always gotten me into trouble, and nothing I do seems to help.’ His backside brushed against the door. ‘You didn’t deserve that, and I apologize with all my heart.’ He applied pressure on the door with his backside. It creaked loudly. I’m the lowest of the low, a disgusting creature, I mean it,’ he mumbled as a cool breeze brushed against his back. Giving her one last look, he slipped through the narrow opening and let the door close behind him. With her now on the other side, he ran toward the far end of the corridor without a second thought; but halfway there he was met by a neatly dressed little man rushing along behind a tiny serving girl. With a long stride he virtually leaped over both short people’s heads, ignoring the girl’s frightened shriek. Finally reaching the end of the corridor, he turned the corner and pushed open a greasy door, where he was greeted by a potpourri of smells – sweet, sour, bitter, spicy – and a cloud of hot steam that swallowed him up. A bunch of little men were rushing around in the steamy room, coming in and out of view as they bustled about like a covey of little sprites. Some, he saw, were carving, others were plucking hairs and feathers, yet others were washing dishes, and others still were mixing ingredients. Chaotic at first appearance, there was a distinct sense of order there. He tripped over something, and discovered it was a string of frozen donkey vaginas. He immediately thought of Dragon and Phoenix Lucky Together and the all-donkey banquet. Several of the little kitchen helpers stopped what they were doing to size him up with curious looks. Backing quickly out of the room, he turned and ran until he spotted a staircase, which he descended, guiding himself along by holding on to the banister. When he heard a woman’s heart-stopping scream, what was left in his bladder ran down his leg. Deathly silence followed that single scream, and an unhappy thought flashed through his mind. ‘To hell with her!’ Without a thought for the gaily dressed boys and girls dancing nimbly across a dance floor laid with Laiyang Red marble, and unavoidably shattering the beautiful rhythms of the dance music, like a whipped, mangy dog smelling of rancid piss, he crashed through the main hall of Yichi Tavern, a place noted for scenes of debauchery.

Only after hotfooting it into a darkened little lane did it dawn on him that the twin dwarfs in the doorway were so surprised and frightened by his passage that they screeched bloody murder. Leaning against the wall to catch his breath, he looked back at the bright lights of Yichi Tavern. A neon sign over the door kept changing color, turning the slanting raindrops red, then green, then yellow; meanwhile, he was aware that he was standing in the cold rain of an autumn night, leaning up against a frigid stone wall. Only the walls of a cemetery could be that cold, he was thinking. After all the misfortunes that had tied him inextricably to Liquorland, if tonight could not count as an escape from the jaws of death, at the very least he’d made it out of the tiger’s lair. Strains of lovely music from Yichi Tavern drifted over on the wind and faded out in the night air. As he strained to listen to the music, pangs of sorrow touched his heart and chilled tears of self-pity spilled from his eyes. For a brief moment he fancied himself to be a little prince in distress; but there was no princess to rescue him. The air was cold and damp; his aching hands and feet told him that the thermometer had dropped below zero. Liquorland’s weather had abruptly turned cruel and unfeeling; the raindrops froze on their way down, splintering when they hit the ground, then skittering around to form slicks all over the street. A solitary automobile slid and skidded its way along a distant roadway illuminated by streetlights. The memory of a herd of black donkeys running up Donkey Avenue returned like an ancient dream. Had it really happened? Does such a bizarre lady trucker truly exist? Has an investigator by the name of Ding Gou’er really been sent to Liquorland to investigate a case of child-eating? Is there even such a person as Ding Gou’er? If so, is that really me? He rubbed the wall with his hand; it was icy cold. He stomped the ground with his foot; it was hard as á rock. He coughed; pains shot through his chest. The sound of his cough carried far into the distance before being swallowed up by the darkness. This proved that it was all real, and the oppressive feelings lingered on.

The icy raindrops falling on his cheek were refreshing, like an itch being scratched by a kitten’s claws. He sensed that his face must be burning up, which reminded him of his shameless face-slapping exhibition. Feelings of numbness returned, then a stinging sensation. The numbness and the stinging sensation were followed by thoughts of the lady trucker’s hideous face, which swayed back and forth in front of his eyes and wouldn’t go away. Her hideous face was replaced by a lovely one, which also swayed back and forth in front of his eyes and wouldn’t go away. Then came the image of the lady trucker and Yu Yichi, side by side, and after that feelings of anger and jealousy, side by side, merging like a strange, inferior liquor that began to poison his soul. As his mind cleared, he realized that the unthinkable had occurred: He’d fallen in love with the woman, and now their lives were bound together like a pair of locusts on a string.

The investigator pounded the stone wall of the cemetery or the martyrs’ shrine, or whatever it was, with his fist. ‘Slut!’ he cursed. ‘Slut! Rotten slut! A rotten slut who’ll drop her pants for a dollar!’ The searing pain in his knuckles lessened the ache in his heart, so he doubled up his other fist and drove it into the stone wall. Then it was his head’s turn.

A powerful beam of light trapped him. A pair of patrolmen asked sternly:

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

He turned around slowly and shielded his eyes with his hand. Suddenly his tongue froze and he lost the power to speak.

‘Search him.’

‘What for? He’s nuts.’

‘Knock that off, you hear me?’

‘Go on home. Any more of that and we’ll take you in.’

The patrolmen walked off, leaving the investigator surrounded by inky blackness. He was cold and hungry. He had a splitting headache. The darkness brought him back to his senses, the patrolmen’s brief interrogation reminded him of his glorious past. Who am I? I’m Ding Gou’er, a famous investigator of the provincial Higher Procuratorate. Ding Gou’er is a middle-aged man who has rocked and rolled in brothels, so he has no business going ga-ga over a woman who’s slept with a dwarf. That’s absurd! he grumbled as he took out his handkerchief to stop the flow of blood from his forehead and spat out several mouthfuls of bloody saliva. If news of my ridiculous behavior made it back to the Procuratorate, my brothers there would die laughing. He reached down to see if that critical piece of metal was still there; it was, and he felt much better. Time to go find some lodging for some food and a good night’s sleep, then back to work tomorrow. I won’t rest till I have this gang by the tails. Forcing himself to walk straight ahead, without turning back for a last look, he left the Yichi Tavern and its demonic activities behind him.

The investigator had barely started walking down the dark lane when his feet flew out from under him and he fell backward, banging his head loudly on the cold, slippery ground. Climbing slowly to his feet, he set out again, staggering and reeling with each step he took on the rugged, icy terrain; it was the most treacherous footing he’d experienced. When he turned to glance behind him, the bright lights of Yichi Tavern filled his eyes and stabbed at his heart. Like a wild animal brought down by a hunter’s rifle, he fell to the ground with a moan; blue flames burned inside his brain, hot blood rushed to his head and swelled his skull until it seemed about to pop, like an over-inflated balloon. The forces of agony pried open his mouth; he felt like howling, but as soon as the first howl broke from his throat, it rolled and rumbled atop the stones in the roadway like a wooden-wheeled water-wagon. Prompted by the rumbling sound, his body began to roll around on the ground uncontrollably, first chasing the wooden wheels, then rolling out of the way so they wouldn’t crush him, then being transformed into a wooden wheel and fastening itself to other wooden wheels; as he rumbled along with those other wooden wheels, he could see the street, the wall, trees, people, buildings… all turning round and round, over and over, in an endless revolution, from 0° to 360°. During his tumbling performance, a sharp object jabbed him painfully in the waist. The pistol Taking it out of his waistband, he wrapped his hand around the familiar handle, and his heart began beating wildly, as past glories flooded into his mind. Ding Gou’er, how could you have fallen so low? Rolling around in the dirt like a common drunk. You’ve turned into a pile of urban garbage, and all for the sake of a woman who’s slept with a dwarf. Is it worth it? No, it isn’t! Get up, stand on your own two feet, show a little dignity! His head spun as he propped himself up with his hands. The bright lights of Yichi Tavern were very seductive. One glimpse of those bright lights ignited green flames in his brain, snuffing out the light of rationality. He turned away from those evil lights, which illuminated drug use and carnal indulgence, and shone down on monstrous crimes, as powerfully seductive as a whirlpool, while he was but a single blade of grass on the edge of that whirlpool He gouged the tender flesh of his thigh with the muzzle of his pistol, hoping to drive away the fanciful thoughts with sharp pain. On his feet again, he walked slowly into the darkness, groaning with each step.

The narrow lane seemed to go on forever. There were no lights to show the way, but dim starlight at least lent form to the walls alongside him. Snow and rain fell more heavily in the dark night, accompanied by a soft, heart-warming rustle that hinted at pine and cypress beyond the walls, and symbolized the ghosts of individuals sacrificed over the years in this place. If tens of thousands could be martyred for the good of the people, is there any form of suffering the living cannot cast aside? By paraphrasing this famous line by Mao, the pain in his heart abated a bit. The lights of Yichi Tavern had been swallowed up behind several layers of buildings, the lane sandwiched between two stone walls had been swallowed up by his tangled thoughts; time passed inexorably, the dark night pressed onward through the icy rain and the rustlings; the barely discernible barking of a dog somewhere added to the sense of mystery in this town in the darkness of night. Without being aware of it, he emerged from the small cobblestone lane, and was greeted by the hiss of a gas lamp up ahead. He headed straight for it, like a moth drawn to the light.

A portable stand selling wonton was framed in the halo of lamplight; flashes of gold leaped from an oven where kindling crackled and popped, and sent burning cinders into the air; he detected the odor of charred beans and heard the gurgling of wonton boiling in a pot. Its fragrance tugged at his soul He couldn’t begin to calculate how long it had been since he’d last eaten, but his coiling intestines complained loudly, and his legs were too rubbery to support him any longer. He shuddered, cold sweat dotted his forehead, and he collapsed face-down in front of the wonton stand.

As the old wonton peddler was picking him up by the arms, he said:

‘Gramps, I need some wonton.’

The old fellow sat him down on a campstool and handed him a bowl of wonton. Grabbing the bowl and the spoon, and not caring whether it was hot or cold, he wolfed it down. But with one bowlful nestling in his stomach, his sense of hunger was stronger than ever. Even four bowlfuls failed to satisfy his hunger, but when he looked down, some of the wonton cut loose from his stomach and made the return trip.

‘More?’ the old fellow asked.

‘No more. What do I owe you?’

‘No need to ask,’ the old fellow answered with a sympathetic look in his eyes. ‘If it’s convenient, you can give me four cents. If not, just count it as my treat.’

Stung by the patronizing reply, the investigator fantasized that he had a crisp new hundred-dollar bill in his pocket, its edges sharp as a razor, which he would flick with his finger to make it snap, then fling it at the old man, before flashing him a superior look, turning on his heels, and walking off whistling, the sound slicing through the vast night like a dagger, teaching the old man a lesson he’d never forget. Unhappily, the investigator was broke. When he wolfed down the wonton, he simultaneously wolfed down his embarrassment and awkwardness. One piece after another, the wonton rose from the investigator’s stomach, only to be chewed up and sent back down. Now, finally, he could taste them. With a sense of deep sadness, he thought, I’ve turned into an animal that chews its cud. Anger welled up as he recalled the scaly little demon who had stolen his wallet, wristwatch, cigarette lighter, papers, and electric shaver; recalled the oily Diamond Jin; recalled the bizarre lady trucker; recalled the celebrated Yu Yichi. And as he recalled Yu Yichi, he envisioned the lady trucker’s firm, voluptuous body, and the green flames of jealousy burned anew. Hurriedly he extracted himself from these dangerous recollections and returned to the awkward scenario of having eaten a vendor’s wonton without being able to pay for it. For a measly four cents, I’ve descended to the level of a beggar. A hero brought low by a few coins. He turned his pockets inside-out – no money, not a cent. His shorts and T-shirt were both hanging from the chandelier in the lady trucker’s place, which he’d fled like a rat running from danger. The cold night air chilled him to the bone. With nowhere to turn, he took out his pistol and laid it gently in a white ceramic bowl with blue flowers. Light glinted off the blue steel barrel. He said:

‘Gramps, I’m an investigator sent down by the province. I ran into some bad people who stole everything I had, all except for this pistol. This ought to prove I’m not someone who goes around eating food without paying for it.’

The old fellow, slightly flustered, picked up the bowl with both hands.

‘A man of action,’ he said eagerly, ‘a real man of action. It’s my good fortune that you’ve chosen my wonton. Now please take this thing back, it scares me.’

After retrieving his pistol, Ding Gou’er said:

‘Old fellow, since you only wanted four cents, you must have known I was penniless. Supplying me with all the wonton I could eat, even though you knew I was penniless, can only mean that you took me for a bad person who could put you out of business if he felt like it. You didn’t serve me that wonton because you wanted to, and I can’t let this misunderstanding go unchecked. Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll leave my name and address, and if you ever find yourself in a pickle, look me up. Do you have a pen?’

I’m an illiterate old wonton peddler. Why would I have a pen?’ the fellow said. ‘Besides, Boss, I know you’re an important person, here on an undercover assignment. You don’t need to leave your name and address. All I ask is that you spare my life.’

“Undercover assignment? Bullshit! I'm the unluckiest man alive. And I'm going to find a way to pay for that wonton, come hell or high water. Tell you what…’

Pushing a release button on his pistol, he removed the ammunition clip, took out a single bullet, and handed it to the old fellow.

‘You can keep this as a souvenir,’ he said.

Frantically waving off the gesture, the old fellow said:

‘No, I really can’t. A few bowls of inedible wonton, Boss, what can it be worth? Just the opportunity to meet a good and decent man like you is my great fortune, enough to last me three lifetimes, no, I really can’t…’

Unwilling to let the old fellow prattle on and on, the investigator grabbed his hand and forced him to take the bullet. The old man’s hand was hotter than blazes.

Just then he heard a snicker behind him, like the sound of an owl on a tombstone, which scared him into hunching his head down into his shoulders. Another spurt of urine ran down his leg.

‘Some investigator!’ It was an old man’s voice. ‘I see an escaped convict!’

Trembling with fear, he turned to see who it was. There beside the trunk of a French kolanut tree stood a skinny old man in a tattered army uniform, pointing a double-barreled shotgun at him; a long-haired tiger-striped dog sat motionless and menacingly on its haunches beside him, eyes like laser beams. The dog frightened the investigator more than the man did.

‘Gramps Qiu, I’ve disturbed you again,’ the peddler said softly to the old man.

‘Liu Four, how many times have I told you not to set up shop here? And still you refuse to listen to me!’

‘Gramps Qiu, I didn’t mean to anger you, but what can a poor man do? I have to come up with my daughter’s tuition. I’ll do anything for my kids, but I don’t dare go into the city, because they’ll fine me if they catch me, and there goes half a month’s income.’

Gramps Qiu waved his shotgun in the air. ‘You there,’ he said sternly, ‘toss that pistol over here!’

Like an obedient child, Ding Gou’er tossed the pistol over to to where Gramps Qiu was standing.

‘Put your hands up!’ Gramps Qiu demanded.

Slowly Ding Gou’er raised his hands, then watched as the skinny old man whom the aging wonton peddler had called Gramps Qiu held his shotgun in one hand to free up the other. Then, bending his legs while keeping his upper body straight – so he could shoot if necessary – he picked up the six-nine service pistol Gramps Qiu studied the gun from every angle, before announcing disdainfully, ‘A beat-up Luger!’ Ding Gou’er, seeing his opportunity, said, ‘I can tell you’re a weapons expert.’ The old man’s face lit up. In a high and scratchy yet infectiously powerful voice, he said, ‘You’re right there. I’ve handled at least thirty, maybe even fifty different weapons in my time, from the Czech rifle to the Hanyang, the Russian submachine gun, the tommy gun, the nine-shot repeater… and that’s only the rifles. As for handguns, I’ve used the German Mauser, the Spanish Waist-Drum repeater, the Japanese Tortoise Shell Mauser, the Chinese Drumstick revolver, and three kinds of Saturday-night specials, not counting this one here.’ He tossed Ding Gou’er’s pistol into the air and caught it on its way down, in a nimble practiced fashion that belied his years. He had an elongated head, narrow eyes, a hooked nose, no eyebrows and no sideburns; his deeply wrinkled face was dark as a tree trunk that’s been charred in a kiln. ‘This pistol,’ he said scornfully, ‘is better suited for women than for men.’ The investigator replied evenly, ‘It’s very accurate.’ The old man examined it again, then said authoritatively, ‘It’s fine within ten meters. More than that, it isn’t worth shit.’ To which Ding Gou’er replied, ‘You know your business, Gramps.’ The old man stuck Ding Gou’er’s pistol into his waistband and snorted contemptuously.

The wonton peddler said, ‘Gramps Qiu is a veteran revolutionary. He’s in charge of Liquorland’s Martyrs’ Cemetery.’

‘No wonder,’ Ding Gou’er said.

‘What about you?’ the old revolutionary asked.

‘I’m an investigator for the provincial Higher Procuratorate.’

‘Let’s see your papers.’

‘They were stolen.’

‘You look like a fugitive to me.’

‘I know I look like one, but I’m not.’

‘Can you prove it?’

‘Call your Municipal Party Secretary, or your Mayor, or your Police Chief, or your Chief Prosecutor, and ask if they know a special investigator by the name of Ding Gou’er.’

‘Special investigator?’ The old revolutionary couldn’t suppress a giggle. ‘Where’d they find a dogshit special investigator like you?’

‘I was brought down by a woman,’ Ding Gou’er said. Intending to laugh at himself, he was surprised by the heart stabs this simple admission produced. Falling to his knees in front of the wonton stand, he began pummeling his already bloody head with his already bloody fists and screeching, ‘I was brought down by a woman, by a woman who slept with a dwarf…’

The old revolutionary walked up, poked Ding Gou’er in the back with his shotgun, and demanded:

‘Get your ass up!’

Ding Gou’er looked up through his tears at the dark, elongated head of the old revolutionary, as if seeing a friend from home or like an underling looking at his superior or, most fitting of all, like a son laying eyes on his father for the first time in years. In the grip of strong emotions, he wrapped his arms around the old revolutionary’s legs and said tearfully, ‘Gramps, I’m a useless sack of shit to have been brought down by a woman…’

The old revolutionary jerked Ding Gou’er to his feet by his collar. His shiny, tiny eyes bored mercilessly into the wretched man for about half as long as it takes to smoke a pipeful, before he spat on the ground, drew the pistol from his waistband, and threw it down at his feet. Then he turned and swaggered off without so much as a grunt. The big yellow dog followed on his heels, also without a grunt, its damp fur glistening like a coat of tiny pearls.

The wonton peddler laid the shiny bullet down next to the pistol, picked up his stand, turned down the gas lantern, hoisted the whole rig onto his shoulder, and walked off without a sound.

Standing petrified in the dark, Ding Gou’er watched the man’s retreating back until all he could see was pale yellow lamplight, flickering like a will-o’-the-wisp; the canopy of the French kolanut overhead kept the raindrops off him and made a rustling sound that seemed louder now that the other people had left, taking the lamplight with them. In a state of utter stupefaction, he managed to stay upright; he had the presence of mind to pick up his pistol and the bullet. The night air was cold and damp, he ached all over, and he was a stranger in a strange land; he felt as if his day of reckoning had arrived.

The menacing look in the old revolutionary’s eyes had implied that Ding Gou’er was not up to snuff, and felt a need to pour out his heart to the man. What power could, in such a short time, transform a man so tough he could eat nails and shit springs into a mangy cur who had lost his soul? And was it possible that an ordinary-looking woman could possess that power? The answer was no, so putting all the blame on her was unfair. Something mysterious was going on here, and the old man who patrolled the night with his dog was at the heart of that mystery. Sensing that great wisdom was contained in that elongated head, Ding Gou’er made up his mind to go looking for him.

He set out on legs that had turned stiff, heading in the direction the old man and his dog had taken. From off in the distance came the sound of night trucks driving across a steel bridge, a steady clang-clang that deepened the night and its mystery. The road rose and fell beneath his feet, and at the top of one particularly steep hill, he sat on the ground and slid down. When he looked up, he saw a pile of broken bricks in the halo of a streetlight. A layer of white, like frost, blanketed the pile. A few steps more, and he was standing beside an ancient gateway. A light burning in the window of the battlement above illuminated a wrought-iron gate and a white placard on which red letters proclaimed:

LIQUORLAND MARTYRS’ CEMETERY

He rushed up to the gate and grabbed hold of the steel rods rising above the gate, like a man in jail; they were sticky enough to peel the skin right off his hands. The big yellow dog ran up to the gate, barking frantically, but he held his ground. Then the loud, scratchy voice of the old revolutionary emerged from the other side of the battlement; the dog stopped barking and hopping around, then hung its head and wagged its tail. The old revolutionary appeared before Ding Gou’er, shotgun slung over his shoulder, the brass buttons on his overcoat emblematic of his commanding authority,

‘What the hell are you up to?’ he demanded sternly.

With a loud sniffle, Ding Gou’er replied tearfully, ‘Gramps, I really am a special investigator for the provincial Higher Procuratorate.’

‘What are you here for?’

‘To investigate a very serious matter.’

‘What serious matter might that be?’

‘A gang of cannibalistic dignitaries are cooking and eating infants.’

Til kill every last one of them!’

‘Don’t go off half-cocked, Gramps. Let me in and I’ll tell you the whole story.’

The old revolutionary swung open a small side gate. ‘Squeeze in through there,’ he said.

Ding Gou’er hesitated, because he’d spotted some fine yellow hairs stuck in the corner.

‘Are you coming in or not?’

Ding Gou’er bent down and slipped through the gate.

‘Stuffed bellies like you can’t hold a candle to my dog.’

As Ding Gou’er followed the old revolutionary into a gate house, he was reminded of the gate house at the Mount Luo mine and the gateman with the wild mop of bristly hair.

The gate house was ablaze with light, the walls a snowy white. A fire-heated brick bed occupied half the room’s space; a wall as wide as the bed separated it from a stove on which a wok rested. Pine kindling kept the fire roaring and filled the air with its fragrance.

The old revolutionary unstrapped his shotgun and hung it on the wall, removed his overcoat and tossed it onto the bed, then rubbed his hands and said:

‘Burning firewood and sleeping on a heated bed is my one special privilege.’ He looked at Ding Gou’er and asked, ‘After decades of making revolution, which left me with seven or eight scars the size of ricebowls, don’t you think I deserve it?’

So mellowed by the pervading warmth that he was about to doze off, Ding Gou’er replied, ‘Yes, of course you do.’

‘But that rotten son of a bitch Section Chief Yu wants to have me start burning acacia instead of pine. I’ve made revolution all my adult life, even had the head of my prick shot off by the Jap devils – I’ll never have sons or grandsons to carry on my line – so what’s the big deal in burning a little pine in my old age? I’m already eighty, how many pine trees can I use up in the years left to me, hm? I tell you, if the King of Heaven came to earth, he couldn’t stop me from burning pine!’ Waving his arms and slobbering, the old fellow was getting increasingly agitated.’What was it you said just now? Something about people eating infants? Cannibals? They’re worse than animals! Who are they? Tomorrow I’ll go kill every last one of them! I’ll shoot ‘em first and make my report later. At worst I’ll get a demerit or two. I’ve killed hundreds of people in my lifetime, all of them bad – traitors, counterrevolutionaries, invaders – and now that I’m old, it’s time to kill a few cannibalistic animals!’

Ding Gou’er itched all over; his clothes reeked of moist, steamy ashes. ‘That’s what I’m here to investigate,’ he said.

Investigate, my ass!’ the old revolutionary cackled. ‘Take ‘em out and shoot ‘em, I say! Investigate, my ass!’

‘Gramps, we’re living under a system of laws these days. You can’t just go around shooting people without hard evidence.’

‘Then get on with your investigation. What the hell are you hanging around here for? What happened to your class consciousness? What happened to your work ethic? The enemy’s out there eating infants, and you’re in here getting toasty warm! I’ll bet you’re a Trotskyite! A member of the bourgeoisie! A running dog of imperialism!’

This flood of invective from the old revolutionary snapped Ding Gou’er out of his dreamy stupor, as if his head had been splattered with dog’s blood, his chest filled with roiling waves of heat. He tore off his clothes, until he was standing there naked, except for his scuffed shoes. Squatting down in front of the stove, he stirred the fire inside and added some oily pine kindling, sending white smoke reeking of pine up his nostrils; he sneezed, and it felt good. Draping his clothing over pieces of kindling, he held it up to the fire to dry; it sizzled like a reeking donkey hide. The fire also heated his bare skin, making it sting and itch. The more he scratched and rubbed himself, the better he felt.

‘Have you got fucking scabies?’ the old revolutionary asked. I got scabies once from sleeping in a haystack. The whole platoon got them. Itch? We scratched and rubbed until we bled. It didn’t help. Even our damned insides itched, and we weren’t a fighting unit anymore. We lost men without a fight. The assistant squad leader of Squad 8, Ma Shan, had a brainstorm. He bought a bunch of green onions and garlic, smashed them to a pulp, then added some salt and vinegar, and rubbed it all over our bodies. It stung like hell, it numbed the skin, it felt like a dog scratching its balls. I’ve never felt anything so good! All those fucking mites, gone just like that with a home remedy. You get sick, the government takes care of you. That’s how it’s done. I hung my head on my belt and fought for the revolution, so by rights they should take care of me…’

The investigator detected a note of bitterness, a grumbling tone in the old revolutionary’s words, a history of revolutionary hardship and suffering. What was supposed to have been a chance to pour out his heart had elicited a litany of grievances from the old-timer. Sadly disappointed, he was beginning to realize that no one can really rescue anyone else, that everyone has his own problems, and talking about them doesn’t help – the hungry man’s belly is just as empty, the thirsty man’s mouth stays just as dry. He shook out his clothes, knocked off some of the dried mud, and got dressed. The hot fabric burned his skin, transporting him to Seventh Heaven. But now that he was swathed in comfort, his spiritual suffering swelled, as a picture of the naked lady trucker and the pigeon-breasted, bow-legged humpback together in bed flashed into his head, clear as day and lifelike as a movie, the sort of thing he’d seen once through a keyhole. The longer he let the picture roll, the livelier it got, and the richer. The lady trucker was the golden color of a plump female loach, covered with oily, slippery mucus that gave off a subtle and not very pleasant odor. Yu Yichi, that warty little toad, was pawing her with his webbed feet, frothy bubbles popping in the corners of his mouth as he croaked and croaked… Ding’s heart was like a leaf shuddering in the wind; how he wished he could rip open his chest, gouge out that heart, and fling it in her face. Slut slut filthy slut! He could, it seemed, see, and see conclusively: Investigator Ding Gou’er, majestic as a statue hewed from pure marble, kicks in the cream-colored door with the tip of his leather shoe. There in front of him a bed, a solitary bed, on which the stupefied lady trucker and Yu Yichi sit – he rolls off the bed like a toad, his belly covered with hideous red spots – he stands cowering at the base of the wall – pigeon breast, humped back, bowed legs (or knock-kneed), an oversized head, white eyes, a crooked nose, no lips, yellow teeth with wide gaps, a mouth like a black hole that gives off a festering stench, big, dry, almost transparently thin and slightly yellow, twitching ears, black apelike arms that nearly scrape the ground, bushy hair all over his body, mutant-looking feet with more than the usual supply of toes, not to mention his black-as-ink donkey dick – How could you possibly sleep with a hideous creature like that?

The investigator, unable to restrain himself, howled loud and long. What did you say? What the hell did you say? the old revolutionary, Gramps Qiu, asked. The big yellow dog started to bark.

Then she shrieks in alarm and jerks the blanket up over her naked body – like you see in the movies all the time – under the blanket her body quakes – at that moment he lays eyes on the flesh he knows so well… voluptuous… firm… sweet smelling… as if ten thousand arrows have pierced his heart, a sorrow he’s never known before – a blue light flashes before his eyes, his face the color of cold steel with rigid lines, a sneer, skin like ice – he raises his pistol, slips his finger into the trigger guard, waves the pistol slightly, turning it handsomely, takes careful aim, and -pow! – a loud explosion, and the mirror behind Yu Yichi's head disintegrates, sending glittering, splintering shards of glass raining to the floor – Yu Yichi lies petrified on the floor – then the investigator holsters his weapon, turns without a word – do not look back – and strides out of Yichi Tavern – Forgive me forgive me she wails as she kneels on the floor, wrapped in the bedsheet – do not look back – and he walks down the sun-drenched Liquorland street, between crowds of people staring at him with a mixture of reverence and fear – men and women, young and old, one of the old women looking exactly like his mother, with tears in her eyes, her haggard lips quivering. Child, she says, my child – a girl in a virginal white dress, long golden tresses flowing over her shoulders, pushes her way through the crowd, eyes beneath thick, curly lashes glistening with tears, her arching breasts heaving, gasping for breath as she elbows her way through the tightly packed crowd, shouting in a tearful yet still sweet voice, Ding Gou’er -Ding Gou’er – but Ding Gou’er does not turn to look, he keeps his eyes straight ahead, striding forward with resounding, determined steps, heading into the sunlight, into the bright-colored sunset, onward and onward, until he becomes one with the red wheel of the sun…

The old revolutionary laid his hard hand on Ding Gou’er’s shoulder. The investigator, having become one with the sun, shivered as he struggled to regain consciousness. His heart was pounding; the tears of a tragic hero welled in his eyes.

‘What goddamned demon possessed you?’ the old revolutionary asked scornfully.

Quickly wiping his eyes with his sleeve, the embarrassed investigator laughed drily.

In the wake of his turbulent fantasy, he felt as if cracks had suddenly appeared in his chest amid the melancholy that lay there, while his exhausted brain felt weighted down, and there was a dull ringing in his ears.

It looks like you’ve got a fucking cold,’ the old revolutionary said, ‘Your face is as red as a monkey’s ass!’

The old revolutionary reached into the fire hole beneath his bed and took out a white bottle of liquor with the brand stamped in red. He waved it in front his guest’s eyes. ‘This’ll do it. The alcohol will kill the virus and get rid of the poison in your body. Alcohol is good medicine, it’ll cure what ails you. Back when I crossed the Red River four times with Mao Zedong, we passed through Maotai township twice. I had to drop out because of a case of malaria, so I hid in a distillery. When the Kuomintang “white bandits” opened fire outside, I was quaking. Drink up, it’ll chase away the fear! So, glug glug, I downed three bowlfuls, one right after the other. Well, it not only calmed me down, but it gave me courage and stopped the shakes. I picked up a board, ran out of the distillery, and clubbed two of the white bandits to death. Then I took one of their rifles, ran off, and caught up with Mao’s troops. Back then, Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, and Wang Jiaxiang all drank Maotai. When Mao drank it, his mind was sharp as a tack and full of strategies. If not for that, his small band of soldiers would have been wiped out easily. So Maotai liquor played a key role in the Chinese revolution. You probably think it was chosen as our national liquor by a fluke, right? Hell no, it was to commemorate it! And after a lifetime of making revolution, I ought to be able to drink a little Maotai. That son of a bitch Section Chief Yu wants to cut off my supply and replace it with – what’s it called? – Red-Maned Stallion. Well, he can stick it up his grannie’s you know what!’

The old revolutionary poured some liquor into a chipped ceramic mug, tipped back his head, and drank it down. ‘Now it’s your turn,’ he said. ‘Genuine Maotai, down to the last drop.’ Seeing tears in Ding Gou’er’s eyes, he said scornfully, ‘Scared? Only turncoats and traitors are scared to drink, afraid they’ll get drunk and tell the truth or divulge some secrets. Are you a turncoat? A traitor? No? Then how come you’re scared to drink?’ He downed another mugful, the liquor gurgling as it cascaded down his throat. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to force you! I suppose you think I came about this little bit of Maotai easily! Well, that Trotskyite Section Chief Yu watches me like a hawk. On the ground a phoenix is worse off than a chicken, and a tiger on the open plain is at the mercy of dogs!’

Ding Gou’er found the bouquet of the liquor irresistible; emotional moments are made for drinking good liquor. He snatched the mug out of the old revolutionary’s hand, put it up to his lips, took a deep breath, and sent a flood of liquor straight down to his stomach. A spray of pink lotuses blossomed in front of his eyes, spreading their thought-provoking light in the surrounding haze. It was the light of Maotai, the essence of Maotai. In that split second, he watched the world turn incredibly beautiful, including Heaven and earth and trees and the virgin snow on the Himalayan peaks. With a satisfied laugh, the old revolutionary took back his mug and refilled it; the liquor gurgled as it spilled across the mouth of the bottle, setting his ears ringing and making his mouth water. The old revolutionary’s face was suffused with indescribable benevolence. As Ding reached out, he heard himself say, ‘Give it to me, I want more.’ The old revolutionary was jumping around in front of him, nimble as a young man. I’m not giving you any more, it’s too hard to get.’ ‘I want some,’ he bellowed, I want it. You’re the one who woke the serpent of gluttony in me, so why you won’t you give me any more?’ The old revolutionary slugged down another mugful. Fuming, Ding grabbed the mug, with the man’s finger still firmly in the handle. He heard the sound of teeth against ceramic and felt a wetness on his skin as the cold liquor spilled over his hand. As his anger rose in the struggle over the mug, his knee recalled a trick his buddies had taught it: with the calf bent backwards, you propel yourself into your enemy’s groin. When he heard the old revolutionary cry out, the mug passed into his hand. Impatiently he poured the mugful of liquor down his throat. Wanting still more, he looked around for the bottle, which lay on its side on the floor like a handsome young battle casualty. He was suddenly wracked by inconsolable grief, as if he had somehow killed the young man. Wanting to bend down to pick up the white-skinned bottle with its red sash – to help the handsome young man to his feet -inexplicably, he fell to his knees. And the handsome young man rolled over to a corner of the wall, where he righted himself and began to grow, taller and taller until he stood over three feet tall and stopped growing. He knew that was the liquor’s soul – Maotai liquor’s soul – standing in the corner, smiling at the investigator. Jumping to his feet to grab it, he managed only to bang his head against the wall.

As he was luxuriating in the sensation of the room spinning around him, he sensed a cold hand grab him by the hair. He guessed whose hand it was. He followed the pain in his scalp upward, his body acting like a pile of pig’s guts, slipping and sliding on the floor – cold and slippery and coiled and nauseatingly foul – now being uncoiled and straightened, though he knew that the minute the old revolutionary let go, the mass of pig’s guts would slump back to the floor, dripping wet. The big hand turned, bringing him face to long swarthy face with the old revolutionary, and he saw that the benevolent smile had been replaced by a fossilized scowl The cold-blooded nature of class contradictions and class struggle was driven home. You counter-revolutionary son of a bitch, I give you liquor, and you pay me back by kneeing me in the balls! You’re worse than a dog. If a dog drinks my liquor, it wags its tail to show its gratitude. The old revolutionary sprayed him with saliva, stinging his eyes so badly he cried out in pain; two great paws landed on his shoulders. The dog had his neck in its mouth, its bristly fur was jabbing into his skin; involuntarily he tucked his neck into his shoulders, like a tortoise sensing danger. He felt the heat of the dog’s breath and smelled its sour stink. The feeling that he was a mass of coiled pig’s guts returned abruptly, and a white-hot terror rose in his heart. Dogs gobble up pig’s guts like a child slurps up rice noodles. Terror-stricken, he cried out, just before blackness closed in around him.

How much later he didn’t know, the investigator, believing himself blinded by the dog, opened his eyes to light once again. It spread like the sun breaking through the clouds, and then -bang- all the sights of the Martyrs’ Cemetery gate house pounded into his eyes at once. He saw the old revolutionary sitting under a lamp polishing his double-barreled shotgun, absorbed in his task, working earnestly and meticulously, like a father bathing his one and only daughter. The striped hunting dog was sprawled lazily in front of the stove, its long snout resting on a pile of pine kindling, as it stared at the sweet-smelling golden flames, looking pensive, sort of like a philosophy professor. What was it thinking? The investigator was mesmerized by the dog, which was immersed in deep thought. The dog watched the flames as if in a trance, he watched the dog as if in a trance, as gradually the brilliant tableau inside the dog’s head – one he’d never seen before – began to take shape in his own head, accompanied by peculiar and amazingly moving music – like drifting clouds. He was stirred to the depths of his soul, his nose throbbed as if it had met a fist and come out second best. Two trickles of tears materialized on his cheeks.

‘Not much hope for you, I see,’ the old revolutionary said, looking him over. ‘We take the seed from tigers and wolves, and all we get are some snotty worms.’

Once again he dried his eyes with his sleeves and pleaded his case: ‘Gramps, I was brought down by a woman…’

With a look of disappointment, the old revolutionary put on his heavy overcoat, strapped his shotgun over his shoulder, and summoned his trusty companion: ‘Dog, let’s go make our rounds and leave this worthless wretch to his tears.’

The dog got lazily to its feet, cast a sympathetic glance at the investigator, and followed the old revolutionary out of the gate house. The door’s hinge snapped it closed with a bang, but not before a damp, very cold night wind slipped in to make him shiver. Loneliness and fear. ‘Wait for me,’ he shouted, as he pulled the door open and chased after them.

The electric light over the doorway transformed them into shadowy figures. A cold rain fell, the sound crisper and denser than ever, probably because the night had deepened. Instead of walking out through the main gate, the old revolutionary headed toward the heart of the cemetery, directly into gloomy darkness. The dog was on his heels, he was right behind the dog. For a while, the electric light made it possible to discern the shapes of cypresses trimmed to look like pagodas bracketing the narrow cobblestone path; but before long, they too were swallowed up by the converging darkness. Now he knew what it felt like not to be able to see his fingers in front of his face. And the darker it became, the louder the sound of raindrops on the trees; the chaotic, intense tattoo first threw his mind into turmoil, then emptied it. Only from the sounds and smells up ahead did he gain an awareness of the old revolutionary and his yellow dog’s existence. Darkness is so heavily oppressive, it can crush a man flat. Securely in the grip of fear, the investigator could detect the smell of martyrs’ graves hidden amid the green pines and emerald cypresses. To his mind, the trees were sentries standing there holding their shoulders and harboring ill will toward him, with sneers on their faces and evil in their hearts; downy spirits of the brave departed sat on the weedy graves at their feet. Sobered up by raw terror, he reached for his pistol, his hand coated with cold sweat. A weird screech tore through the darkness, followed by flapping sounds moving past him. A bird, he assumed, but what kind of bird? An owl, maybe? The old revolutionary coughed; the dog barked. The two sounds, securely anchored in the mortal world, brought the investigator a measure of comfort; he coughed, loudly, and even he discerned the blustery tone. Up ahead in the darkness, the old revolutionary’s laughing at me, he assumed. And so is that philosophical running dog of his. He saw two green lights in the darkness ahead, and if he hadn’t known it was a dog, he’d have sworn the eyes belonged to a wolf. He began to cough, uncontrollably, when a flash of light blinded him. Covering his eyes with his hand, he opened his mouth to protest, just as the light moved off in another direction and lit upon a carved white tombstone. The words looked to have been freshly painted in shocking red, but the redness so clouded his vision, he couldn’t read them. The light went out as abruptly as it had come on; he still saw spots in front of his eyes, and his brain was awash in red, like the blazing pinewood fire in the stove back at the gate house. He heard the old revolutionary’s heavy breathing up front, as the noisy, chilling rainshower died out suddenly, and an earth-shattering clap near by nearly frightened him out of his wits. He wondered what could have caused the explosion, but only for a moment. All that mattered was, from the instant the light shone on the martyr’s tombstone, an enormous wave of courage surged into his body and drove out the jealousy of sickness wine, the evil weakness of widow wine, and the restlessness and anxiety of love wine, turning them all into a sour stench, into reeking urine. Then vodka, spirited as a proud stallion galloping across a Cossack plain, became him; and cognac, rough and unconstrained, yet with a fine edge to its roughness, rich in the spirt of adventure, rich in audacity, like a Spaniard addicted to the danger of bullfighting, became him. As if, after eating a mouthful of red chilis, sinking his teeth into a bunch of green onions, gnawing on a stalk of purple-skinned garlic, chewing up a hunk of aged, dried ginger, or swallowing a whole jar of black pepper, he would feel like an oil-fed fire, like flowers on a piece of brocade; his spirits would soar like the tail feathers of a rooster – a true cocktail – as he picked up his six-nine service pistol, which had been created with the same loving care as the finest Great Yeast liquor, and charged ahead, his strides as menacing as cheap grappa, as if, in the blink of an eye, he could be back at Yichi Tavern, where he would kick in the jade-white door, raise his pistol, aim it at the lady trucker, who was sitting in the lap of the dwarf Yichi, and – pow pow – two heads would shatter. The sequence of events unfolded like the world-famous Knife Liquor: full-bodied and strong, with a sweet, tart flavor, it zips down the gullet like a razor-sharp knife slicing through tangled rope.

II

Dear Elder Brother Yidou

I received your latest letter and the story ‘Cooking Lesson.’

As for visiting Liquorland, I’ve already broached the subject with my superior. He’s not particularly keen on letting me go, since I’m in the military. Besides, I’ve just been promoted from captain to major (I lose two stars and gain a bar, and since I think three stars and a single bar would look much better, Fm not as pleased as I might be), and I should go down to company headquarters to eat and live and drill with the troops, so I can write stories or ‘reportage’ that reflect the lives of our soldiers in this new age. Going into the provinces to find material puts me under the jurisdiction of local administrators, which complicates matters, even for Liquorland, which has attracted so much attention in recent years because of everything that’s been going on there. I’m not ready to give up yet, and will keep trying. There are plenty of fine-sounding excuses I could come up with.

Liquorland’s first annual Ape Liquor Festival should be an interesting, successful event. While everybody’s drinking and having a good time, saturating the air with the bouquet of good liquor, I hope this pudgy body of mine can make an appearance among the tipsy, drink-besotted alcoholic troops.

I’ve reached an impasse in my novel. That slippery investigator from the Higher Procuratorate is fighting me every step of the way. I don’t know whether to kill him off or have him go mad. And if I choose to finish him off, I can’t decide whether he should shoot himself or die in a drunken stupor. I got him good and drunk in the previous chapter. And because I'm having trouble reconciling all these tormenting problems, I went ahead and got good and drunk myself. But instead of enjoying a good buzz, all I got was a vision of Hell It’s a lousy place, I tell you.

I spent a whole night reading ‘Cooking Lesson’ (I read it several times). I’m finding it harder and harder to comment upon your stories. But if forced to say something, I guess I’d more or less repeat what I’ve said before: that it lacks a consistency of style, that it’s too capricious, that the characters aren’t well developed, and that sort of thing. I think that instead of bringing up the same old thing again and again, I’m better off keeping my mouth shut. Nonetheless, I did as you asked and made a special trip to Citizens’ Literature. Zhou Bao and his co-editor were away from the office, so I left the story on their desk with a note. You’ll have to trust to luck on this one, but my gut tells me it’ll be hard to publish. You and I have never met, but since we’re like old friends by now, I’m giving it to you straight.

I’m convinced you can write a first-rate story that will be just right for Citizens’ Literature. It’s just a matter of time. It’ll happen sooner or later, so don’t be disappointed or downcast.

By my calculations, you’ve sent me a total of six stories to be forwarded for consideration; that includes ‘Yichi the Hero,’ which I have here. If I come to Liquorland, I probably should retrieve the manuscripts from Citizens’ Literature, so I can return them to you in person. Sending them by mail is risky and bothersome. Every time I go to the post office, I’m a bundle of nerves for days after confronting the stony faces of the ladies or gentlemen at the windows. It’s as if they’re waiting to unmask a spy or nab a bomber, or something. They make you feel as if the package you want to mail is filled with counter-revolutionary tracts.

Don’t worry if you can’t find a copy of Strange Events in Liquorland. Plenty of oddball books like that have appeared in recent years, most simply thrown together to make money. They’re pretty much worthless.

Wishing you

Good writing!

Mo Yan

III

Dear Mo Yan, Sir

Greetings!

Just knowing there’s a chance youll visit Liquorland has me jumping for joy. I look forward to your visit with the anticipation of ‘Waiting for the stars, waiting for the moon, I long to see the sun rise over the mountain.’ Some classmates of mine work for the Municipal Party Committee and for the government (not menial jobs, either, but official posts, some more important than others), so if you need a formal invitation from either organization, or something along that line, I can ask them to help out. Chinese in leadership positions are impressed by official seals, and I’ll bet it’s no different in the army. As for the stories, I must admit I’m disappointed and downcast. No, it’s more than that – I’ve got a bone to pick with Zhou Bao and Li Xiaobao. They’ve sat on those manuscripts, without even a letter of acknowledgment, which doesn’t say much about their attitude toward people. I know they’re busy, and that if they answered every letter from an amateur writer, they wouldn’t have time for anything else. I understand that perfectly well, but I’m angry just the same. If they won’t do it for the sake of the monk, then do it for the sake of the Buddha. After all, I’ve got you to recommend me. Sure, I know it’s not healthy, that low morale is harmful to the creative process, and I’m working hard to keep my morale problem in check. Being one of those who will ‘Never give up till he sees the Yellow River,’ and ‘Never calls himself a man till he reaches the Yangtze.’ I’m determined to keep writing, undaunted by setbacks.

Everyone at the college is up to his ears in preparations for the Ape Liquor Festival. The department has given me the job of using the sickness wine in our storeroom to make an alcohol base and distill a special liquor for sale during the Ape Liquor Festival If I’m successful, I can expect substantial monetary rewards. That’s very important to me. Of course I won’t abandon my stories for the sake of monetary rewards. No, I’ll keep writing, devoting ten percent of my energy to working on the sickness wine, and the other ninety percent to my fiction.

I’m sending you my latest, a story called ‘Swallows’ Nests.’ Your criticisms are welcome. I’ve summed up my feelings toward my earlier work: I believe that the reason my stories haven’t been published has to do with intervening in society. So I’ve corrected that failing in ‘Swallows’ Nests.’ It’s a story far removed from politics and from the capital. If this one doesn’t get published, then I’ve been ‘abandoned even by Heaven’!

Peace, as always,

Li Yidou

IV

Swallows’ Nests, by Li Yidou

Why does my mother-in-law never age or lose her beauty, and why does she still have arching breasts and a curvaceous derriere even though she’s over sixty? Why is her belly as flat as fine steel plate, without an ounce of fat? Why is her face as smooth as the mid-autumn moon, not a wrinkle anywhere, and why are her teeth so white and clean, neither broken nor loose? Why is her skin as smooth and silky as priceless jade? Why are her lips bright red, why does her kissable mouth always smell like barbecue? And why is she never sick, unvisited even by the symptoms of menopause?

As a son-in-law, maybe I’m out of line, but as a dyed-in-the-wool materialist, I say what needs to be said. And what needs to be said here is, although my mother-in-law is in her sixties, she could produce a dozen little brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law for me if the law permitted and she was willing. Why does she seldom fart, and on those rare occasions when she does, why, instead of smelling bad, do her farts actually smell like sugar-fried chestnuts? Generally speaking, a beautiful woman’s belly is filled with bad odors; in other words, beauty is only skin deep. How, then, can my mother-in-law be not only pretty on the outside, but fragrant and appetizing inside as well? All these question marks have snared me like fish hooks, turning me into a balloon fish that has blundered into choice fishing waters. They torment me as much as they probably bore you, dear readers. You’re probably saying, Can you believe the way this Li Yidou guy is auctioning off his own mother-in-law? My dear friends, I am not ‘auctioning off’ my mother-in-law, I am studying my mother-in-law. My research will greatly benefit the human race, and I shall not falter, even if it angers my mother-in-law.

At first I assumed it was primarily because she was born into a family of swallows’-nests gatherers that I inherited a mother-in-law like Oloroso sherry- a beautiful, uniform color, a rich, invigorating bouquet, full-bodied yet mellow, a sweet, silky flavor, a wine well suited for cellaring, and one that improves with age – rather than one like some rustic wine made of sweet-potatoes, with a murky color, a pungent, disagreeable aroma, flat and characterless, and a flavor not much different from insecticide.

In line with a current trendy narrative strategy, I may now say that our story is about to begin. But before entering the story proper, which belongs both to me and to you, please allow me three minutes to impart some specialized know-how you will need in order to avoid obstacles as you move along. I had planned to write just enough for you to read for a minute and a half, and leave the rest of the time for you to think. So let’s cut the crap about stuff like ‘As soon as the fox starts thinking, the tiger laughs,’ or ‘You can’t stop the sky from hailing or your mother from marrying,’ which, as everyone knows, was a comment by Mao when Lin Biao was trying to get away. Let them laugh. If a few hundred million of them laughed themselves to death, there’d be no need for birth control and my mother-in-law could use her still healthy organs to present me with some little brothers-in-law or sisters-in-law. Please, no more BS. OK, no more BS. I hear your angry shouts, and take note of your impatience, like the prairie liquor produced in Inner Mongolia. You’re still a lot like a bottle of that roiling 120-proof Harbin liquor made from sorghum chaff, the one that packs such a wallop.

Collocalia restita, Aves class, the rain-swallow family, is about 18cm long, has black or brown feathers with a blue sheen, and a gray-white belly. Its wings are long and pointed, its legs short and pink, with four front-facing talons. Gregarious, insectivorous, they build their nests in caves. The male secretes saliva from glands in the throat; once it has solidified, it is called ‘swallow’s nest.’

Collocalia restita are found in Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and deserted islands off the coastal provinces of Guangdong and Fujian in southeast China. Early June is when they build nests to raise their young. But before that, the male and female mate following an animated courtship, after which the male perches on the cave’s stone wall, flicking its head back and forth as it secretes the saliva, like spring silkworms spinning silk. Threads of transparent, sticky saliva stick to the stone wall and solidify to form swallow’s nest. According to reports from observers, the male bird neither sleeps nor eats during this nest-building process, which demands of the bird that it flick its head tens of thousands of times. It is an arduous process, more difficult than shedding one’s heart’s blood. The first nest, formed completely with bird saliva, contains virtually no impurities, so its color is pure white and crystal clear and its quality so fine that it is commonly referred to as ‘white nest’ or ‘official nest.’ When this nest is removed, the bird will make a second one, but an insufficient amount of saliva forces it to mix in its own feathers. And, since the bird has to exert itself to produce more saliva, it is often streaked with blood. The end result, which is of lower quality, is called ‘feathered nest’ or ‘bloody nest.’ If the second nest is also removed, the bird will make yet a third one, but it has no culinary value, since it is mainly made of algae, with little saliva.

The first time I saw my mother-in-law, she was using a silver needle to remove impurities from a nest soaked in soda water: blood, feathers, and seaweed. Now we know that was a ‘bloody nest.’ Pouting like an angry platypus, my mother-in-law grumbled, Would you look at this, how can this be called a swallow’s nest? It’s nothing but a jumbled feather nest, a magpie’s nest, or a crow’s nest. Calm down, said my teacher, Yuan Shuangyu, as he took a sip of the blended liquor he himself had made – it had the elegant, noble bouquet of orchids. In this day and age, everything’s adulterated. Even the swallow has learned the trick. In my view, ten thousand years down the road, if humans are still around, swallows will be using dog shit to build their nests. The fermenting bird’s nest jiggled in her hands. She was looking at her husband, my future father-in-law, dumbstruck. I can’t imagine how something as repulsive as a dog’s brain could be more valuable than gold. Is it really as wondrous as you folks claim? He sized up the thing in her hand with a cold look. She said, You don’t know anything about anything, except liquor. Her face reddened slightly as she threw down the bird’s nest and took off to who-knows-where like a little whirlwind. It was my first visit to my wife’s house. She said her mother wanted to show off her culinary skills, and I was surprised and perplexed to see her fling the bird’s nest away like that and just walk off. But the old man said, Never mind, she’ll be back. She knows swallow’s nests as well as I know liquor. We’re both top in our fields.

As my father-in-law predicted, my mother-in-law returned before long. Having removed all the impurities from the nest, she made some bird’s nest soup for us. My father-in-law and my wife refused to drink any; he said it smelled like chicken shit, she said that, given the smell of blood, it was a bowl of heartless soup replete with extreme cruelty, emblematic of the fact that human beings are the source of all evil. My wife, who has a heart filled with abundant love, was applying for membership in the Worldwide Animal Protective League in Bonn. At the time my mother-in-law said, Little Li, don’t pay any attention to these fools. Their so-called love of humanity is a sham. Confucius said that a gentleman should stay away from the kitchen, but he never had a meal without meat sauce. One must be meticulous about fine food and choice meats. When he accepted students, he demanded ten packets of dried meat in lieu of tuition. If they don’t want any, that’s fine, let’s drink ours. My mother-in-law said, We Chinese have been eating swallows’ nests for a thousand years. It’s the most valuable tonic in the world. Don’t underestimate its nutritional value just because it’s ugly, for it can aid a child’s growth and development, maintain a woman’s youthful appearance, and prolong an old man’s life. Not long ago, a Professor Ho of Hong Kong’s Chinese University discovered an ingredient in swallows’ nests that prevents and cures AIDS. If she ate swallow’s nest, my mother-in-law said, pointing to my wife, she wouldn’t look like she does. To which my wife replied angrily, I’d rather look like this than eat that stuff. Turning to stare at me, she said, Tell me, is it good? Not wanting to offend my wife or my mother-in-law, I muttered, What can I say? How should I put it? Ha ha ha ha ha. My wife said, Aren’t you the slick one! My mother-in-law put some more into my bowl and looked at her daughter provocatively. My wife said, You’ll both have nightmares. Like what? my mother-in-law asked. My wife said, Flocks of swallows pecking at your brains. My mother-in-law said, Little Li, just drink your soup, and ignore this daffy girl. She ate a crab yesterday, so why isn’t she afraid that crabs will attack her nose with their pincers? She went on, When I was a little girl, I hated people who gathered swallows’ nests. But after moving to the city, I realized that my hatred was groundless. More and more people are eating them these days, because there are so many more rich people. But money is no guarantee that you can get your hands on top-quality ‘official nests.’ The best nests, the Siamese Tributes from Thailand, never get past Beijing. These blood nests are the best that people in small cities like Liquorland can hope for. And they sell for eight thousand a kilogram in People’s Currency, well out of reach for the average person. All this she said with appropriate gravity and at least a hint of braggadocio. Swallows’ nests may be wonderful, and all that, but, honestly, it doesn’t taste very good, and I’d much prefer something as satisfying as braised pork.

Unstintingly, my mother-in-law continued my education on swallows’ nests. After dealing with their nutritional value she moved on to preparation, which didn’t interest me much. What did interest me was the story she told of gathering swallows’ nests, the story of her family, her story.

My mother-in-law was born into a family with a long history of gathering swallows’ nests. When she was still in her mother’s womb, she heard the painful chirpings of the swallows and absorbed the nutrients of their nests. Her mother was a gluttonous woman whose appetite grew even more rapacious when she was pregnant. She often ate swallows’ nests behind her husband’s back and was never discovered, because she was so skilled at stealing food. My mother-in-law said her mother was born with a set of teeth that were harder than steel, teeth that could chew through tough dry swallows’ nests. She never stole a whole nest – her husband always kept count – but would skillfully gnaw off an inch or so from the bottom of each nest where it had been scarred by knives during removal, leaving undetectable marks. My mother-in-law said her mother ate nothing but the best ‘official nests,’ for those that hadn’t gone through the refinement process were the most nutritious. My mother-in-law said that all prized food items lose a significant amount of their nutritional content in the cooking process. Progress, she said, always comes at a cost. Humans invented cooking to please their taste buds, and sacrificed their fierce, brave nature. The reason Eskimos who live near the North Pole have such strong bodies and the ability to endure extreme cold is unquestionably tied to the fact that they eat raw seal meat. If one day they master the complicated and delicate culinary techniques of the Chinese, they will no longer be able to live there. My mother-in-law’s mother ate a great amount of raw swallows’ nests, so my mother-in-law was a healthy newborn with dark black hair and pink skin, a voice far louder than any baby boy, and four teeth in her mouth. Her father, being a superstitious man who believed that a newborn baby with teeth will bring bad luck to the family, dumped my mother-in-law outside in the weeds. It was the middle of winter. Although it’s never terribly cold in Guangdong, the December nights can still be bone chilling. My mother-in-law slept through the night there in the weedy cold, and survived, which changed her father’s mind; he carried her back into the house.

According to my mother-in-law, her mother was very pretty; according to my mother-in-law, her father was born with bushy downward-slanting eyebrows, deep-set eyes, a flat nose, thin lips, and a goatee on his pointy chin. My mother-in-law’s father was older than his years and skin and bones due to long hours of climbing steep hills and squeezing between cliffs, while her mother sneaked nutritious swallows’ nests daily, which gave her a rosy complexion and fair skin from which water could be squeezed, like lilies in June. When my mother-in-law was a year old, her mother ran off to Hong Kong with a swallows’-nests merchant, so my mother-in-law was raised by her father. She said that after her mother ran off, her father cooked a swallow’s nest for her every day; it’s safe to say that she grew up on swallows’ nests. My mother-in-law said she didn’t have a single bite of swallow’s nest when she was pregnant with my wife, because that was in the early sixties, when life was so difficult. Which is why my wife looks like a black monkey. My wife would improve if she ate swallows’ nests, but she refuses. Still I knew it would have been difficult even if she’d wanted some, because my mother-in-law had only been director of the Gourmet Section of the Culinary Academy for a short while, and it would have been virtually impossible to acquire any swallow’s nest prior to assuming the directorship. The inferior swallow’s nest she made for me had not come through normal channels, which showed that she was quite fond of me, fonder than my wife was. I married my wife in part because her father was a teacher who had been good to me, and one of the major factors keeping me from divorcing my wife has been my affection for my mother-in-law.

By drinking swallow’s nest soup and eating baby swallows, my mother-in-law grew into a strong, healthy child. At the age of four, her height and intelligence reached the level of a normal ten-year-old, and she was convinced that her swallows diet was the reason. My mother-in-law said that, in some respects, she was nurtured and raised by male swallows and their precious saliva, since her own mother was afraid to breast-feed her, given the presence of the four teeth with which she was born. “What kind of mammal would do that?’ she said grudgingly. She contended that humans were the cruelest, most ruthless mammals of all, for only a human would refuse to breast-feed her own baby.

My mother-in-law’s family lived in a remote corner of the southeastern coast. On clear days, she sat on the beach, within sight of the shadowy, steel-green islands whose giant, rocky caves were home to the swallows. Most of the villagers were fishermen; only my mother-in-law’s father and six uncles gathered swallows’ nests for a living, as had their ancestors. It was a dangerous, profitable occupation. Most families couldn’t have managed it even if they’d wanted to. That is why I stated earlier that my mother-in-law grew up in a swallows’-nests gathering family.

My mother-in-law said her father and uncles were all strong, exceptionally fit men without an ounce of fat, nothing but lean, protein-rich, ruddy-colored muscles that looked as if they were twisted hemp. Anyone with muscles like that must be more than an ape. Her father actually kept two apes, which he called their teachers. During the off seasons, her father and uncles lived on the income from nests collected the previous year, while making preparations for the next round of nest-gathering. Nearly every day, they took the apes up the mountain and had them scale cliffs and climb trees while they themselves imitated the actions. My mother-in-law said that some nest-gatherers on the Malay Peninsula had tried to train apes to gather nests, but weren’t very successful. The apes’ unreliability affected production. She said that even in his sixties, her father was agile as a swallow and could climb slippery bamboo stalks like a monkey. In any case, due to their genes and to their training, everyone in my mother-in-law’s family was adept at scaling cliffs and climbing trees. My mother-in-law said that the most outstanding climber was her youngest uncle, who, with skills like a gecko, could climb a cliff several meters high, bare-handed, without the help of any equipment, in pursuit of swallows’ nests. She said she’d nearly forgotten what the other uncles looked like, but clearly remembered this uncle. His body was covered with aging skin like fish scales; he had a lean, dry face, in which two deep-set blue eyes reflected sparkles of melancholy.

My mother-in-law said she was seven years old the first summer she accompanied her father and uncles to the islands to gather swallows’ nests. They owned a double-masted boat made of pine and covered with thick layers of paulownia varnish that gave off the fragrance of a forest. A southeastern wind blew that day, sending long, billowing waves chasing after each other. The white sand on the beaches shone bright in the sunlight. My mother-in-law said she was often startled awake by a blinding white light in her dreams. In her bed in Liquorland she could hear the waves from the south sea and smell the seawater. Her father, smoking a pipe, was directing his brothers to load supplies, fresh water, and green bamboo poles on board the boat. Finally, one of her uncles brought over a burly male water buffalo with a strip of red satin tied to its horns. The animal’s eyes were bloodshot, white froth gathered at its mouth, as if wild with anger. The kids from the fishing village came out to see the nest-gathering boat set sail. Among them were some of my mother-in-law’s playmates, Sea Swallow, Tide Birth, Seal… An old woman stood on a rock at the entrance of the village shouting, Seal, Little Seal, come home. Reluctantly, the little boy left, but before he walked off, he said to my mother-in-law, Yanni, can you catch a swallow for me? If you get a live swallow, I’ll trade you one of my marbles. He showed her the marble clasped in his palm. I was surprised to learn that my mother-in-law had such a wonderful pet name, Yanni – Swallow Girl. Good heavens! It was the same name as Mrs Karl Marx. Mother-in-law said sadly, That boy, Little Seal, is now a military commander. Obviously, she was airing her dissatisfaction with my father-in-law. What’s so great about a military commander? my wife said. My father’s a college professor and a distilling specialist, every bit as impressive as some little military commander! My mother-in-law glanced over at me. She always sides with her father, she complained. It’s the Electra complex, I said. My wife stared daggers at me. My mother-in-law said, 'On the day the boat set sail, the most exciting event was getting the buffalo on board.'

'Buffaloes are very intelligent,' she said. 'Particularly when they’re not neutered. Knowing what was in store for it, the animal’s eyes turned red as soon as it neared the pier. Panting heavily, it tugged mightily on the harness, nearly jerking my uncle off his feet.' My mother-in-law said, A narrow gangplank connected the boat at a slant to the stone steps of the pier. Beneath it only muddy seawater. The buffalo’s front hooves stopped at the edge of the gangplank and it refused to move another inch. My uncle tugged with all his might, like a baby at the nipple, until the steel nose ring stretched the buffalo’s nose to bursting point; the pain must have been unbearable. But the buffalo held its ground and refused to go on board. In a life-and-death struggle, what does it matter to lose a nose? My mother-in-law said that her other uncles rushed up to help get the buffalo aboard, but no matter how hard they pushed they couldn’t budge it. Not only that, the buffalo kicked out angrily and crippled the leg of one of her uncles.

My mother-in-law said her youngest uncle was not only stronger than his brothers, but more intelligent as well He took the rope from his brother and walked the buffalo along the beach while talking to the animal, leaving a trail of their footprints in the sand. Finally, he removed his shirt, covered the buffalo’s head, and led it back to the gangplank all by himself. The wooden plank sagged heavily from the weight of the animal, turning it into a bow. The animal knew it was walking a dangerous path, for it placed its hooves as carefully as a circus goat on a tightwire. Once the buffalo was aboard, the people boarded, and the gangplank was cast off. With a whoosh the sails were set. Her youngest uncle removed his shirt from the buffalo’s head. The animal was quaking, its hooves skittering on the deck. It let out a mournful cry. Gradually, the land disappeared, and the island loomed larger and larger, shrouded in mist and fog, a fairy mountain, a mythical palace.

My mother-in-law said that after her father and uncles anchored their boat in a cove, her youngest uncle took the buffalo ashore. The expression on everyone’s face was grave, almost religious. As soon as they set foot on the desolate, thorn-covered ground, the irritable buffalo turned as docile as a lamb. The blood-red color vanished from its eyes, replaced by a deep ocean blue, the same color as her youngest uncle’s eyes.

My mother-in-law said it was dusk when they landed on the deserted island. Red lights flickered on the sea, flocks of circling birds filled the air with deafening shrieks. The party of gatherers slept under the night sky, hardly speaking to one another. Early the next morning, after breakfast, her father said, 'Let’s do it.' The mysterious, risky job of gathering swallows’ nests had begun.

A great many dark caves dotted the island. My mother-in-law said that her father set up an altar outside a large cave, burned a bundle of spirit money, kowtowed several times, then commanded, Kill the sacrificial animal! His six brothers rushed up and shoved the buffalo onto its side. Strangely enough, the powerful buffalo put up no resistance; rather than being pushed off its feet by the six men, it was as if it lay down on its own. Its legs simply crumpled, as if made of dough, and it fell to the ground, where it lay quietly, its powerful neck resting on the rocky surface, connected awkwardly to its gigantic head with its steel-green horns, as if they were welded together. The way it lay there showed that it was willing to accept its fate of serving as a sacrifice to the god of the cave. My mother-in-law said she vaguely sensed that the swallows’ nests were the private property of the god of the cave, and that her father and uncles were offering this powerful buffalo as trade with the god, which must have been a ferocious monster, if it could eat a whole buffalo. My mother-in-law said that just thinking about it terrified her. After pushing the buffalo to the ground, her uncles stood aside, and she saw her father remove a glistening ax from his waistband. Holding it in both hands, he walked up to the animal. Her heart, seemingly in the grip of a massive hand, was barely able to start again after each beat. Her father mumbled something, a look of fear danced in his black eyes. Suddenly she felt immensely sorry for her father and for the buffalo. She sensed that this man, who was as skinny as a monkey, was as pitiable as the buffalo that lay stiffly on the rocky ground: this was not something that either the butcher or the butchered wanted, but both were driven by an overpowering force to do what must be done. When my mother-in-law saw the immense, oddly shaped opening of the cave, heard the strange noises coming from inside, and felt the ominous air spewing from the mouth, she was inspired by the thought that what scared the daylights out of both her father and the buffalo was the god inside. She saw the buffalo’s tightly closed eyes, the long lashes squeezed by the eyelids into a thin line. An emerald-green fly was picking at something in the corner of its moist eye. My mother-in-law was so troubled by the disgusting fly that the corners of her eyes began to itch, but the buffalo didn’t so much as twitch. My mother-in-law’s father walked up alongside the buffalo, looking around as if in a trance. What was he thinking? My mother-in-law said that, as a matter of fact, he saw nothing, that looking around was a sign that his mind was empty. Holding the ax in his left hand, he spat into his right palm, then switched the ax to his right hand and spat into his left palm. Finally, he held the ax in both hands and shifted his legs slightly, as if trying to stand more firmly. He took a deep breath and held it; as his face darkened and his eyes bulged, he raised the ax high over his head and brought it down hard. My mother-in-law heard a thump as the ax split the buffalo’s head. Her father exhaled and stood there weakly, as if his body were falling apart. A long time passed before he bent down to pry the ax from the buffalo’s head. The animal let out a dull cry; it made several attempts to stand up, but failed. It was unable to raise its head, for the ligaments in its neck were severed. Then different parts of its body began to twitch, one after another, seemingly beyond the control of its brain. My mother-in-law’s father raised his ax again and chopped down savagely, enlarging the wound above the buffalo’s neck. He made a ‘hey-hey’ sound as he hacked away, each chop right on target, making the wound deeper and deeper, until black blood spewed from the buffalo’s neck. The smell of hot, raw blood streaked into my mother-in-law’s nostrils. Her father’s hands were covered in blood; she could feel the slipperiness of the ax in the way her father repeatedly dried his hands with grass. Following the further enlargement of the wound, fresh blood splashed over her father’s face. Bubbles gurgled out of the buffalo’s severed windpipe. With her hands around her own neck, my mother-in-law turned away; when she turned back, her father had already chopped off the head. He threw down the ax, picked up the head by its steely horns with his bloody hands, and carried it over to the altar outside the cave. What puzzled my mother-in-law was the buffalo’s eyes, which had been tightly closed before it died, but were now wide open. Still as blue as the ocean, they reflected the people around them. My mother-in-law said her father stepped back after arranging the buffalo’s head on the altar. Mumbling something unintelligible, he knelt on the ground and kowtowed by the cave opening. Her uncles also knelt down on the rocky ground and kowtowed to the cave opening.

After the sacrifice was completed, her father and uncles went into the cave with their tools, leaving her outside to guard the boat and equipment. My mother-in-law said that silence followed their entry into the cave, like a stone sinking to the bottom of the sea. Terrified of facing the buffalo’s head with its staring eyes and the body from which blood continued to flow, she gazed out to where the sea and the sky merged. The mainland had disappeared behind the sea. Flying over the island were many giant birds whose names she didn’t know. Some fat, chattering rats crawled out from cracks between rocks and swarmed over the buffalo’s corpse. My mother-in-law tried to drive them away, but they jumped half a meter high, and turned their attack to my mother-in-law, who was just a little girl at the time. As the rats began clawing at her chest, she ran screaming into the cave.

Crying out for her father and uncles, she threaded her way through the darkness. Suddenly the cave lit up in front of her and seven blazing torches appeared above her head. My mother-in-law said that her father fashioned torches out of treetops soaked in resin during the off season. The torches were about a meter long, with a thin handle that could be held in the mouth. My mother-in-law said she stopped crying as soon as she saw the light from the torches, for a sacred and grave force clutched her throat. Compared to the work her father and uncles were engaged in, her petty fears weren’t worth mentioning.

It was a gigantic cave, about sixty meters high and eighty meters wide, but these estimates of size came from my mother-in-law’s adult assessment of a childhood memory. Exactly how long the cave was, she couldn’t say. There were sounds of water flowing in the cave and dripping from the ceiling; a cool breeze blew. She looked up at the torches burning above her; the flames were reflected on her father’s and uncles’ faces, particularly her handsome, youngest uncle, whose skin had turned amber. His face even had the texture of amber; it was a moving, unforgettable sight, like the champagne called Italian Widow Wine, which is refreshing and rich, with a wonderful aftertaste that surpasses all others. Holding a crackling torch in his mouth and pressing his body against an indentation in the rocky cliff, he stretched his knife toward a sparkling, creamy-white object – a swallow’s nest.

My mother-in-law said that what first caught her attention when she entered the cave wasn’t the resin torches above her head, or her young uncle’s handsome face lit up in the flame, but the flocks of swallows flying all over the cave. Startled by the fires, they came flying out of their nests, but were unwilling to stray too far from them. The flapping wings in the cave were like brilliant flowers on mountain slopes, like swarms of circling butterflies. Their chirping sounds filled the cave, as if they were weeping blood and crying blood. My mother-in-law said she could hear the bitterness and anger in their voices. Her father, perched atop tall green bamboo stalks high above her head, reached the other side of the cave, where over a dozen nests had crystallized. With a strip of white cloth wrapped around his head, her father lifted up his face, his dark black nostrils flaring, looking like a roasted piglet. He reached out with a white-handled knife and, with a single stroke, cut down a nest, which he caught in the air and placed into the sack with a forked opening that hung at his waist. Several little black things fell off and landed at my mother-in-law’s feet with a light pop. Bending down and feeling around with her hand, she picked up pieces of broken eggshell with yolk and egg white clinging to them. My mother-in-law said she was deeply saddened. She also felt terrible watching her father risk his life to gather swallows’ nests dozens of meters above the ground, supported by only a few rickety stalks of green bamboo. Swarms of swallows rushed toward the torch in her father’s mouth, as if trying to put out the fire to protect their nests and their offspring; but they were always forced back at the last minute by the heat. Their wings quickly veered off just as they were about to be singed by the flames; blue feathers flickered in the light of the fire. My mother-in-law said her father paid no attention to the harassing swallows. Even when their wings slapped against his head, his eyes were still trained on the nests stuck to the cliff; one by one he scraped them off with steady, accurate, determined skill.

My mother-in-law said her father and uncles slid down from the bamboo stalks leaning against the cliff when their torches were about to burn out. They gathered together and lit up another batch of torches, while they emptied the nests in their bags and stacked them on a sheet of white cloth. She said that the usual arrangement was that her father only gathered nests for the duration of a single torch. His younger brothers continued working for the duration of three more torches, while he stayed down to guard the nests from the rats. In the meantime, he rested his already weakened body. They were surprised and pleased when my mother-in-law appeared. In a scolding voice, her father asked why she’d entered the cave on her own. She said she was afraid to be alone outside the cave. My mother-in-law said that as soon as she uttered the word afraid,’ her father’s expression changed abruptly. He slapped her and said, Shut up. She said she learned later that no one was allowed to use words like ‘falling,’ ‘slipping,’ ‘death,’ or ‘afraid.’ Otherwise, they would meet with a great calamity. She started to cry from being slapped. Her youngest uncle said, Don’t cry, Yanni. I’ll catch a swallow for you later.

The men smoked a pipeful, wiped their sweaty bodies with the bags at their waists, then stuck the torches between their teeth and went back into the depths of the cave. Her father said, Now that you’re here, guard the nests while I go up to work through another torch.

My mother-in-law said her father went off with a torch held between his teeth. She saw running water on the cave floor, and snakes swimming in the water; the floor was littered with rotten bamboo stalks and vines. Layers of swallows’ droppings covered the rocks on the cave floor. Her eyes followed her youngest uncle, since he had promised to catch a live swallow for her. She saw him climb up several green bamboo stalks and, as if on flying feet, quickly reach a height of a dozen or more meters. He found a foothold on a crack in the cliff, then bent down, lifted up the bamboo stalk under his feet and stuck it into the crack; then he lifted up another one, which he laid sideways, and another to prop up the others. Now three bamboo stalks formed a profoundly scary scaffold. Stepping on this tottering overpass, her youngest uncle approached the arched firmament, where a dozen extra large, white swallows’ nests hung from a mushroom-shaped stalactite. When the other swallows were fleeing their nests, these swallows, seemingly undisturbed, stayed where they were. Maybe they knew their nests were built in an absolutely safe spot. The heads of two sprightly swallows stuck out from one of the nests. Several more of the birds were hanging upside down from the stalactite, their heads moving rapidly as they pulled the snowy white, crystal-clear threads to weave their delicate, elegant nests. They probably didn’t know that her youngest uncle’s hands and feet were negotiating the cold, slippery cliff like a large, scary lizard, inching closer and closer to them. My mother-in-law said the swallows used their forward-facing talons to grip the rocks, toiling and suffering the hardships of building a nest. Their short beaks were like a nimble weaver’s shuttle, moving swiftly back and forth on the arched surface. After pulling the shiny threads for a while, they would tense their bodies, flap their wings, jerk their tail feathers, and cough up more of the precious saliva from their throats, which they held in their beaks to pull into shiny threads again. In an instant, the threads crystallized to form transparent, white jade. My mother-in-law said that the process was a rare sight in nature, but those dignitaries and eminent personages could never understand the nests’ true value, unaware of the hardships the birds endured; nor did they know the difficulty undertaken by the nests’ gatherers.

My mother-in-law’s youngest uncle was hanging nearly upside down on an outcropping of the mushroom-like stalactite. It was incomprehensible that, using only his feet, he could hold on to a grooved surface that was so slippery. The torch hung sideways, its flame burning bright above his head. The bag around his waist also hung upside down, like two torn flags drooping shyly in the rain. Obviously, he couldn’t open his mouth to speak, but his situation also made it impossible for him to put the nests into his bag. My mother-in-law said that her father, who had already slid down from the cliff, was now holding the torch and looking up at his youngest brother, whose very life was suspended upside down from the ceiling, ready to pick up the nests as soon as they hit the ground.

My mother-in-law said she’s never seen nests that big since, not once. They were ancient nests. She said that all swallows instinctively build their nests on top of previous ones. As long as the nests aren’t damaged, the birds can build a new one the size of a conical hat. And, of course, the undamaged nests are made of pure saliva, with no impurities – top-quality nests.

He stretched out his hand, which held a sharp, triple-edged razor. His body was stretched to a frightening length, like a snake. My mother-in-law said she saw shiny beads of sweat dripping down from the ends of his hair. His razor was nearly touching the edge of the giant nest; it did, it touched it! His body stretched even longer, his razor jabbed at the base of the nest, his hand sawing the razor back and forth, while sweat poured from his head. The swallows flew out of the nest; displaying unusual courage, they crashed into his face again and again, showing no fear for their own lives. My mother-in-law said that the nest was firmly anchored to the rock surface, particularly since it was an ancient nest, and actually seemed to be growing out of the rock itself. That made her youngest uncle’s task particularly difficult; ignoring the frenzied swallows that were smacking against his face, he kept a cool head and a firm hand, gritting his teeth and closing his eyes to persevere. He bit his lip and tasted his own blood.

My mother-in-law said, My God, it was like a hundred years had passed. The colossal nest finally started to tip over and hung by a thread; one more cut, and it would fall off, like an enormous piece of white gold.

'Little uncle, try a little harder!' my mother-in-law cried out despite herself. Following her cry, his body thrashed forward and the white nest fell from the rock. Drifting and whirling in the air, after the longest time, it landed at her and her father’s feet. Tumbling down with the fallen nest was her little uncle, the one with unsurpassable skills. Normally he could glide down from a height of several feet without hurting himself; but this time he was too high and his body was twisted the wrong way. His brains splashed all over the swallow’s nest; the torch was still burning when it fell to the ground, sputtering out only after it hit the shallow water on the cave floor.

My mother-in-law said that her father also fell to his death in a cave five years after her youngest uncle. But the job of gathering swallows’ nests didn’t stop just because someone died. She could not continue her father’s line of work, but didn’t want to depend on her uncles either. So, on one hot summer day, carrying the colossal nest stained with her uncle’s blood, she set off on a long journey of her own. She was fourteen years old.

My mother-in-law said that, under normal circumstances, she could never have become a famous chef of swallows’ nests, for those heart-breaking, soul-stirring scenes flew past her eyes every time she plucked impurities from a nest with a needle. She was able to cook every nest with extreme respect and care only because she knew the bitter hardships – those of the swallows and those of the nest-gatherers – behind each one. She had gained invaluable experience in regard to swallows’ nests. But deep down she was uneasy. The connection between the nests and human brains made her uncomfortable, feelings that disappeared only after Liquorland accomplished the glorious coup of cooking and eating meat boys.

Clearly worried, my mother-in-law said, 'The demand for swallows’ nests in mainland China rose sharply in the 1990s, while the occupation of gathering the nests in southern China all but disappeared. Now the gatherers take modern equipment like hydraulic lifts into the caves, which not only destroy the nests but kill the swallows in the process. There are, in fact, no more nests to be harvested in China, Under these circumstances, China must import huge quantities of nests from Southeast Asia to supply the demands of the Chinese people, and that has caused the price of swallow’s nest to skyrocket. In Hong Kong, each kilogram costs twenty-five hundred US dollars and the price keeps going up. That, in turn, has driven the gatherers in other countries into a gathering frenzy. In the old days, my father and his brothers only harvested nests once a year, but now gatherers in Thailand harvest them four times annually. Twenty years from now, children will no longer know what a swallow’s nest looks like, my mother-in-law said as she finished the soup in her bowl

I said, As a matter of fact, even today, there are no more than a thousand Chinese children who have tasted swallow’s nest. The availability of the stuff doesn’t matter to the average person, or to the masses. So why worry about it?