Red Sorghum

‘No!’ Father said emphatically.

  ‘Here I go!’

  He burst out of the encampment and ran like the wind towards the sorghum field, with dozens of dogs on his heels. They quickly caught him and began tearing him to shreds. But Father didn’t dare watch Dezhi’s agonies, for Red continued to stare at him without blinking.

  Two Japanese grenades exploded in the sorghum field where Dezhi had fled. Bent by the concussion, the stalks emitted a sigh that made the skin on Father’s cheeks crawl. First the sounds of broken canine bodies crashing to the ground, then the pitiful wails of dogs wounded in the blasts frightened the ones circling Father and Mother. They backed off, giving Mother the chance she needed to take out a muskmelon grenade and lob it into their midst. They watched the scary black object arch toward them, then let out a howl before scattering in panic. But the grenade fell harmlessly to the ground – she had forgotten to pull the pin. All the dogs fled, all except Red. When he saw Father turn to look at Mother, he sprang like lightning; the silvery rays of the sun struck this leader of dogs, his body forming a beautiful arc in the sky. Instinctively Father fell back, as Red’s claws slashed across his face.

  The initial assault had failed, although a piece of skin the size of Father’s mouth had been ripped from his cheek, which was immediately covered with sticky blood. Red charged again, and this time Father raised his rifle to ward him off. Forcing the barrel of the rifle upward with his front paws, Red lowered his head to avoid the bayonet and lunged at Father’s chest. Father spotted the clump of white fur on Red’s belly and aimed a kick, just as Mother fell forward and knocked him flat on his back. Spotting his opportunity, Red fell on Father and shrewdly sank his teeth in his crotch at the very moment that Mother brought the butt of her rifle crashing down on his bony skull. Momentarily stunned, he backed up a few steps, then sprang forward in another attack. He was maybe three feet in the air when his head suddenly slumped forward as a shot rang out. One of his eyes was smashed. Father and Mother looked up to see a spindly, hunched-over, white-haired old man, holding a scorched-looking wooden staff in his left hand and a smoking Japanese pistol in his right – it was Granddad.

  He took a few faltering steps forward and cracked Red over the head with his staff. ‘Rebel bastard!’ he cursed. Red’s heart was still beating, his lungs were still heaving, his powerful hind legs were scratching two deep furrows in the black earth. His rich, beautiful red fur blazed like a million tongues of flame.

  8

  THE BITE HAD been absorbed with less than full force, possibly because Father was wearing two pairs of pants, but the results were bad enough: the dog’s teeth had ripped open one side of his scrotum, leaving an elliptical testicle the size of a quail’s egg hanging by a thin, nearly transparent thread. When Granddad moved him, the little red thing dropped into the crotch of his pants. Granddad cupped it in the palm of his hand. It seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, bent over the way he was. His large, rough hand shook as though the thing were burning a hole in it. ‘Uncle,’ Mother asked him, ‘what’s wrong with you?’

  She was watching the muscles in his face twitch painfully, and noticed that his pale skin seemed covered with a yellow cast; despair filled his eyes.

  ‘It’s all over. . . . Everything ended in that instant . . .’ Granddad mumbled in a voice that quavered like an old, old man’s.

  He took out his pistol and shouted, ‘You’ve ruined me! Dog!’

  He aimed the weapon at Red, who was still panting faintly, and pumped several shots into him.

  Father struggled to his feet, rivulets of fresh, warm blood coursing down the inside of his thigh. He didn’t seem to be in much pain. ‘Dad,’ he said, ‘we won.’

  ‘Uncle, hurry up and take care of Douguan’s wound!’ Mother said.

  Father looked at the testicle cupped in Granddad’s hand and asked with a note of astonishment, ‘Dad, is that mine? Is it?’ A wave of nausea hit him. He fainted.

  Granddad threw down his staff, tore off two clean sorghum leaves and gently wrapped the thing up, then handed it to Mother. ‘Beauty,’ he said, ‘hold it carefully. I’m taking him to Dr Zhang Xinyi.’ He bent over, picked Father up, and then hobbled off down the road. Dogs wounded by the exploding grenades in the marshland whimpered pitifully.

  Dr Zhang Xinyi, a man in his fifties, parted his hair right down the middle, something you seldom saw in the countryside. He wore a long, dark-blue gown, and had a pale face atop a frame so thin he seemed incapable of withstanding even the slightest breeze.

  By the time Granddad had carried Father to the doctor, his back was bent almost double and his face had a ghostly pallor.

  ‘Is that you, Commander Yu? You certainly look different,’ Dr Zhang said.

  ‘Name your price, Doctor.’

  Father had been laid out on the wooden-plank bed. ‘Is this your son, Commander?’ Dr Zhang asked him.

  Granddad nodded.

  ‘The one who killed the Japanese general at the Black Water River bridge?’

  ‘I only have one son!’

  ‘I’ll do the best I can!’ Dr Zhang took some tweezers, a pair of scissors, a bottle of sorghum wine, and a vial of iodine out of his instrument bag, then bent over to examine the injury on Father’s face.

  ‘Take a look down there first, please, Doctor,’ Granddad said sombrely. Then he turned to Mother and took the sorghum leaves in which the testicle was wrapped out of her hands. He placed it on the wooden cabinet beside the bed. The leaves spread open.

  Dr Zhang picked up the messy thing with his tweezers. His long, nicotine-stained fingers shook as he stammered, ‘Commander Yu . . . not that I’m unwilling to do my best, but your son’s wound . . . My skills are not great, and I haven’t the proper medication. . . . You must see someone more talented than I, Commander. . . .’

  Granddad bent over and stuck his face right up into Dr Zhang’s, his rheumy eyes boring into the man. ‘Where can I find someone more talented?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘Tell me, where can I go? Should I take him to the Japanese?’

  ‘Commander,’ Zhang Xinyi defended himself, ‘that’s not what your humble servant meant. . . . Your esteemed son is injured in a critical place, and the slightest slip could bring an end to your glorious line. . . .’

  ‘I brought him here,’ Granddad said, ‘because I have faith in you. Do what you can.’

  ‘Since Commander Yu says so,’ Zhang Xinyi said, gritting his teeth, ‘I’ll do it.’

  He soaked a cotton ball in the wine and cleaned the wound. The pain brought Father to. He tried to slide off the bed, but Granddad climbed up and held him down.

  ‘Commander Yu,’ Zhang Xinyi said, ‘we’ll have to strap him down.’

  ‘Douguan!’ Granddad said. ‘You’re my son, and I expect you to tough it out. Bite down hard!’

  ‘But, Dad,’ Father groaned, ‘it hurts. . . .’

  ‘Tough it out!’ Granddad said sternly. ‘Think about Uncle Arhat!’

  Father didn’t dare argue. Sweat covered his forehead.

  Zhang Xinyi took out a needle and sterilised it in the wine before threading it. Then he began stitching the torn scrotum closed.

  ‘Sew that back inside!’ Granddad said.

  Zhang Xinyi looked at the testicle lying in the open sorghum leaves on the wooden cabinet and said with embarrassment, ‘Commander Yu . . . it won’t do any good. . . .’

  ‘Is it your intention to bring the Yu line to an end?’ Granddad asked glumly.

  Large beads of sweat glistened on Dr Zhang’s gaunt face. ‘Commander Yu . . . think about it. . . . Connecting blood vessels were severed. If I put it back in, it would still be dead.’

  ‘Sew the blood vessels together.’

  ‘Commander Yu, nobody in the world can reconnect blood vessels. . . .’

  ‘Then . . . is that the end of it?’

  ‘That’s hard to say, Commander Yu. He might still be all right. The other one’s just fine. Maybe he’ll be all right with just one. . . .’

  ??
?You think so?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Damn it to hell!’ Granddad swore sorrowfully. ‘Bad things always happen to me!’

  After the wound down below had been taken care of, Father’s face was attended to. Dr Zhang’s sweat-soaked clothing stuck to his back as he sat on a stool and panted breathlessly.

  ‘How much, Dr Zhang?’

  ‘Don’t worry about a fee, Commander Yu. As long as your esteemed son gets better, I consider myself lucky,’ he said weakly.

  ‘Dr Zhang, I, Yu Zhan’ao, am strapped at the moment. But someday I’ll thank you properly.’

  He picked up Father and carried him out of Dr Zhang’s house.

  Granddad looked down attentively at my father, who lay semiconscious in the shack, his face covered with gauze, with only his shifting eyes exposed. Dr Zhang had dropped by once to change his dressings. ‘Commander Yu,’ he said, ‘there’s no infection, and that’s a good sign.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Granddad, ‘didn’t you say he’d be all right with just one?’

  ‘Commander, we can’t worry about that yet. Your esteemed son was bitten by a mad dog, and we’re lucky he’s still alive.’

  ‘He might as well be dead if that thing’s useless.’ Observing the murderous look in Granddad’s eyes, Dr Zhang mumbled something obsequious and slinked away.

  Granddad picked up his gun and walked over to the marshland to sort out his chaotic thoughts. Mournful signs of autumn were all around: the ground was covered with frost, and there were sharp, icy brambles on the soggy marshland floor. Granddad was sick and very weak, his son was hovering between life and death, the family was broken up, some gone and some dead, the people were suffering, Wang Guang and Dezhi were dead, Gimpy had gone far away, the ulcer on the woman Liu’s leg was still oozing pus and blood, Blind Eye did nothing all day long but sit, the girl Beauty was too young to know anything, he was being pulled by the Jiao-Gao troops and squeezed by Pocky Leng’s troops, the Japanese saw him as their mortal enemy. He climbed to the top of a rise in the marshland to gaze out over the scattered, broken remains of human bodies and sorghum stalks, utterly disheartened. What had he got from decades of fighting and vying over women? Only the desolate scene in front of him.

  The autumn of 1939 was one of the most difficult periods in Granddad’s life: his troops had been wiped out, his beloved wife had been killed, his son had been severely wounded, his home and the land around it had been torched, his body was racked with illness; war had destroyed nearly everything he owned. His eyes roamed over the corpses of men and dogs, a skein of threads getting more and more tangled wherever he looked, until it became a blur. Several times he drew his pistol, thinking of saying goodbye to this lousy, fucking world. But a powerful desire for revenge won out over cowardice. He hated the Japanese, he hated the troops of Pocky Leng and of Jiao-Gao.

  On this very spot, the Jiao-Gao forces had taken over twenty rifles from him, then vanished without a trace. There was no sign that they’d engaged the Japanese; he had heard only that they’d clashed with the troops of Pocky Leng. And Granddad suspected that it was the Jiao-Gao forces who had stolen the fifteen rifles he and Father had hidden in the dry well.

  The woman Liu, who still had a pretty face even in her forties, came to the edge of the marshland to find Granddad, trying to comfort him with affectionate gazes at his silver hair. She touched his arm with her large, rough hand and said, ‘You shouldn’t be sitting here thinking like that. Let’s go back. As the ancients said, “Heaven never seals off all the exits.” You should concentrate on getting your health back by eating and drinking and breathing as much and as hard as you can. . . .’

  Her words touched him. He looked up at her kind face and tears began to fill his eyes. ‘Sister-in-law,’ he moaned.

  She stroked his bent back. ‘Just look,’ she said, ‘a man barely forty reduced to this by his suffering.’

  She supported him as they walked back together. He looked at her lame leg and asked with concern, ‘Is it any better?’

  ‘The ulcer has healed, but it’s thinner than the other one.’

  ‘It’ll fill out later.’

  ‘I don’t think Douguan’s injury is as serious as it looks.’

  ‘What do you think, will he be all right with only one?’

  ‘I think so. Single-stalk garlic is always the hottest.’

  ‘You really think so?’

  ‘My younger brother-in-law was born with only one, and look how many kids he’s got.’

  Late at night, Granddad rested his weary head in the warmth of the woman Liu’s bosom as she stroked his bony frame with her large hands. ‘Can you do it again?’ she whispered. ‘Do you still have the strength? Don’t despair. Doesn’t it make you feel better to do it to me . . . ?’

  Granddad smelled the slightly sour, slightly sweet odour of the woman Liu’s breath and fell fast asleep.

  Mother could not rid her mind of the picture of Dr Zhang picking up that purplish, flattened ball with his tweezers. He had examined it carefully before tossing it into a dish filled with dirty cotton balls and pieces of skin and dead flesh. Yesterday it had been Douguan’s jewel; today it lay in a dish of filthy debris. Mother, who was fifteen and had begun to understand a thing or two, felt both bashful and frightened. While she was taking care of Father, she kept staring at his gauze-wrapped penis; her heart fluttered, her cheeks burned, she blushed deep red.

  Then she learned that the woman Liu was sleeping with Granddad.

  ‘Beauty,’ the woman Liu said to her, ‘you’re fifteen now, and no longer a child. Try playing with Douguan’s penis; if it gets hard, he’s your man.’

  Mother was so embarrassed she nearly cried.

  Father’s stitches were removed.

  Mother slipped into the shack where Father was sleeping and tiptoed up to his kang, her cheeks burning. She knelt beside him and carefully pulled down his pants. In the light streaming into the room she looked at his injured, grotesque penis. The head, wild and proud, had an air of defiance. Timidly she held it in her sweaty hand and felt it gradually get warmer and thicker. It began to throb, just like her heart. Father woke up and squinted at her. ‘Beauty, what are you doing?’

  Mother shrieked in alarm, jumped to her feet, and ran out, bumping smack into Granddad in the doorway.

  Granddad grabbed her by the shoulders and demanded, ‘What’s wrong, Beauty?’

  Mother burst out crying, wrenched free of Granddad’s grip, and ran away.

  Granddad rushed into the shack, then rushed out again like a man crazed and ran straight to the woman Liu. He grabbed her breasts and squeezed them tightly. ‘Single-stalk garlic is the hottest!’ he said almost incoherently. ‘Single-stalk garlic is the hottest!’

  Granddad fired three shots in the air, then brought his hands together in front of his chest and screamed: ‘Heaven has eyes!’

  9

  GRANDDAD TAPPED THE wall with his knuckles. Sunlight streaming in through the window reflected off the Gaomi statuette on the highly polished kang table. The window was covered by paper that Grandma had cut into strange, ingenious designs. In five days everything in the place would be reduced to ashes in a terrible battle. It was the tenth day of the eighth lunar month, 1939. Granddad had just returned from the highway, his arm in a sling and reeking of gasoline. He and Father had buried the Japanese machine gun with the twisted barrel and were searching the house for the money Grandma had hidden.

  When the wall produced a hollow sound, Granddad smashed a hole in it with the butt of his pistol, then reached in and pulled out a red cloth packet. He shook it. It jingled. He poured its contents out onto the kang – fifty silver dollars.

  Pocketing the silver dollars, he said, ‘Let’s go, son.’

  ‘Go where, Dad?’

  ‘Into town to buy bullets. It’s time to settle scores with Pocky Leng.’

  The sun had nearly set when they reached the northern outskirts of the city. Snaking darkly through the sorghum fi
elds, a black locomotive chugged along the tracks of the Jiao-Ping–Jinan railway line, belching puffs of dark smoke above the sorghum tips. Sunlight reflecting off the tracks nearly blinded them. The loud shriek of the whistle terrified Father, who squeezed Granddad’s hand.

  Granddad led Father to a large grave mound, in front of which stood a white tombstone twice as tall as a man. The chiselled words had been rubbed so smooth they were barely discernible, and the area was surrounded by trees so thick it would have taken at least two people to wrap their arms around any one of them. The black canopy of leaves rustled even when there was no wind, and the grave itself was walled off, like a black island, by stalks of blood-red sorghum.

  Granddad dug a little hole in front of the tombstone and tossed his pistol in. Father also threw his Browning in the hole.

  After crossing the tracks, they looked up at the high gateway in the city wall, over which flew a Japanese flag, its rising sun and spokelike rays catching the red rays of the setting sun. Sentries stood on both sides of the gate, a Japanese to the left and a Chinese to the right. While the Chinese soldier questioned and searched locals entering town, his Japanese counterpart stood watching, his rifle ready.

  Now that they’d crossed the tracks, Granddad hoisted Father up onto his back and whispered, ‘Pretend you’ve got a bellyache. Groan a little.’

  Father groaned. ‘Like that, Dad?’

  ‘Put a little more feeling into it.’

  They fell into a line of people heading into the city. ‘What village are you from?’ the Chinese soldier asked haughtily. ‘What’s your business in town?’

  ‘Fish Beach, north of town,’ Granddad answered meekly. ‘My son has cholera. I’m taking him to see Dr Wu.’

  Father was so wrapped up in the conversation between Granddad and the sentry he forgot to groan. But he screamed in pain when Granddad pinched him hard on the thigh.

  The sentry waved them past.

  ‘You little bastard!’ Granddad cursed angrily when they were safely out of earshot. ‘Why didn’t you groan?’