Red Sorghum
An Iron Society soldier followed, holding a long pole with a spirit-calling banner woven from thirty-two white strips of paper, one for each of Grandma’s years; it fluttered and snapped, though there wasn’t a breath of wind. Then came the banner of honour, held ten feet in the air by a strapping young Iron Society soldier, its white silk ornamented with large black letters:
Casket of the Woman Dai, 32-Year-Old Wife of Yu Zhan’ao, Guerrilla Commander of Northeast Gaomi Township, Republic of China.
Behind the banner of honour came the lesser canopy, in which Grandma’s spirit tablet lay, and behind that, the great canopy encasing her coffin. Sixty-four Iron Society soldiers marched in perfect cadence to the mournful strains of the funeral music. Father, white mourning hood over his head and shoulders, a willow grief-stick in his hand, was being carried by two Iron Society soldiers. His desolate wails were the standard dry variety – his eyes were dry, and blank. Thunder with no rain. This sort of dry wailing was more moving than tearful shrieks, and many of the onlookers were deeply touched by his performance.
Granddad and Black Eye walked shoulder to shoulder behind my father, their solemn expressions belying the conflicts raging inside them.
At least twenty armed Iron Society soldiers surrounded Granddad and Black Eye, their bayonets glinting deep blue under the sun’s rays. They in turn were followed by a dozen musicians from Northeast Gaomi Township playing beautiful music, and some men on stilts. Two lion figures brought up the rear, waving their tails and swinging their heads to the antics of a big-headed child who tumbled over the roadway.
The procession snaked along for at least two li, the going made difficult by the crowds of people jamming the narrow roadway and the need to stop at each roadside tent to pay respects to the spirits; when the coffin was halted, incense was burned, and the funeral master, bronze wine vessel in hand, performed an age-old ritual, all of which combined to keep the procession at a snail’s pace.
Three li outside the village, the procession stopped to pay respects to the spirits. As always, the funeral master performed the ritual sombrely and conscientiously. All of a sudden a shot rang out at the head of the procession, and the Iron Society soldier holding the banner of honour slipped slowly to the ground, his bamboo pole crashing down on the onlookers by the side of the road. The gunfire caused the crowd to scurry like ants, screaming and wailing like a raging river that has breached its dikes.
As the sound of the rifle shot died out, a dozen or so shiny black grenades came arching out of the crowds on either side of the road and landed at the feet of the Iron Society soldiers, spewing puffs of white smoke.
‘Villagers, on your bellies!’ someone shouted.
But they were packed so tightly they could barely move, and as the grenades exploded, powerful golden blasts ripped through the sky. At least a dozen soldiers were killed or wounded, including Black Eye, who was struck in the hip. Covering the bleeding wound with his hand, he screamed, ‘Fulai – Fulai –’
But Fulai, who was about Father’s age, was beyond answering, beyond coming to his aid. The night before, when Father had given Fulai the physician’s green marble, he’d put it in his mouth as though it were a precious gem and rolled it around with his tongue. Now Father saw the marble anchored in the fresh blood flowing from Fulai’s mouth, as green as jade, as green as anything could ever be, emitting a radiance like the legendary fox-spirit that spat out the elixir of life.
A piece of shrapnel hit the jugular vein of the funeral master, and he fell to the ground, his bronze wine vessel crashing beside him and spilling its contents onto the black earth, where it turned into a light mist. The great canopy tipped to one side, revealing Grandma’s black coffin.
‘Fellow villagers,’ came another shout, ‘on your bellies!’ Another salvo of grenades. With his arms wrapped around my father, Granddad hit the ground and rolled into a roadside ditch, where dozens of feet trampled on his injured arm. At least half of the Iron Society soldiers had thrown down their weapons and were fleeing helter-skelter. The rest stood mesmerised, quietly waiting for the grenades to explode. Finally, Granddad spotted a man whose face he knew throwing a grenade. It was the Jiao-Gao regiment! Little Foot Jiang’s men!
Another salvo of violent explosions. Gunsmoke rolled up and down the roadway, dust flew into the sky, and chunks of shrapnel shrieked in all directions, as people were cut down like harvested grain.
Granddad drew his pistol, awkwardly, and aimed at the bobbing head of the Jiao-Gao soldier. He squeezed the trigger, and the bullet hit the man right between the eyes, popping his green eyeballs out of their sockets like a pair of moth eggs.
‘Charge, comrades, get their weapons!’ someone shouted from the crowd.
Now that the shock had worn off, Black Eye and his Iron Society soldiers turned their guns on the crowd. Every bullet that left a barrel bit into flesh; every shell passed through at least one body and either embedded itself in another or gouged a lovely curving scar in the black earth.
Granddad scanned the faces of the Jiao-Gao troops. They were struggling like drowning men, and the looks of rapacious brutality hit Granddad like a knife in the heart. One after another, he smashed their faces with awesome precision, confident that he hit no innocent bystanders.
In the village, a bugle sounded the charge, and Granddad saw a hundred or more shouting Jiao-Gao soldiers running towards them, waving rifles, swords, and clubs behind their leader, Little Foot Jiang. In the sorghum field to the south, Five Troubles smacked his dappled horse on the rump and took off at full speed, leading his troops. The Iron Society soldiers reformed ranks on Granddad’s shrill orders and, taking cover behind the cover of funeral flags and memorial tents, fired at Little Foot Jiang’s men.
Granddad’s Iron Society recruiting exploits had seriously depleted the Jiao-Gao strength; yet the poorly armed soldiers advanced courageously, filled with the spirit of sacrifice, and even as their comrades were cut down by bullets, they charged, brandishing primitive weapons good only for hand-to-hand combat. They came in waves, awesome in their display of defiance as they overran the Iron Society soldiers. As soon as they were within range, the Jiao-Gao soldiers hurled grenades, routing the panicky Iron Society soldiers, who were pursued mercilessly by shrapnel that ripped their flesh.
As he watched the rout of his soldiers, Five Troubles grew anxious and confused. Angrily, he hacked at the men around him, while his horse bit anyone within range, like a dog. He led his cavalry troops onto the road, only to be met by a salvo of wooden-handled grenades lobbed by the Jiao-Gao regiment. Years later, Granddad and Father would recall the practised way the Jiao-Gao soldiers used their grenades, much as a chess master recalls his defeat at the hands of an inferior opponent who has employed a trick move.
As they retreated towards the Black Water River that day, Father was hit in the buttocks by a reconditioned bullet from a beat-up old Hanyang rifle fired by a Jiao-Gao soldier. Granddad had never seen a bullet wound quite like it. Since the Jiao-Gao regiment was so short of ammunition, they collected their spent cartridges after each battle to make new shells. Whatever dogshit material they used for the bullet, it melted by the time it left the muzzle, and pursued its target like a gob of warm snot.
The latest salvo of hand grenades cut a swath through Five Troubles’ cavalry troops, sending the men flying and the horses tumbling. Five Troubles’ dappled mount jumped into the air with a pitiful whinny and threw its rider into a shallow ditch beside the road. No sooner had Five Troubles crawled out than he spotted some Jiao-Gao soldiers coming at him with glistening bayonets. After aiming his submachine gun, he opened fire and cut down about ten of them.
But three Jiao-Gao soldiers, gnashing their teeth in anger, buried their bayonets in the chest and belly of the man who had caused the deaths of so many. Five Troubles grabbed one of the heated barrels with both hands and lurched forward. His black eyeballs rolled up and disappeared in his head, and a stream of hot blood emerged from his mouth. The Jiao-Gao sold
iers, straining hard, withdrew their blood-drenched bayonets from Five Troubles, who remained standing for an instant before settling slowly into the ditch, where the sun’s rays shone down on the fine porcelain whites of his eyes.
The extermination of the cavalry unit shattered the Iron Society soldiers’ morale. Those who had fought on stubbornly behind the cover of funeral flags broke and fled to the south, dragging their rifles behind them, and not even Granddad’s and Black Eye’s commands could hold them. Heaving a long sigh, Granddad wrapped his arms around Father, then took off toward the Black Water River, firing as he ran.
The valiant warriors of the Jiao-Gao regiment collected the Iron Society soldiers’ abandoned weapons and mounted the chase, Little Foot Jiang in the lead. Granddad scooped up an abandoned Japanese ‘38’ rifle, threw himself down behind a pile of dung, and pulled back the bolt to send a cartridge into the chamber. His racing heart made his shoulder jerk up and down and caused Little Foot Jiang’s head to slip in and out of his sights. So he aimed for the chest, just to be on the safe side. When the rifle fired, Father heard the crack and saw Little Foot Jiang’s arms fly out as he fell headlong to the ground. The troops behind him threw themselves down in terror. That was what Granddad was waiting for; grabbing Father by the arm, he ran like the wind to catch up with his retreating men.
Granddad’s shot had hit Little Foot Jiang in the ankle. A medic rushed up and bandaged it for him, and, with iron determination, he ordered, ‘Get moving, forget about me, follow them! I want their weapons! Every last one of them. Charge, comrades!’
Invigorated by Little Foot Jiang’s exhortations, the Jiao-Gao soldiers jumped to their feet and mounted an even more furious chase in the face of the occasional round fired their way. The exhausted Iron Society soldiers, not wanting to run any more, threw down their weapons and waited to surrender.
‘Fight!’ Granddad bellowed. ‘Pick up your guns and fight!’
‘Commander,’ a young soldier said, ‘don’t make them madder than they already are. They only want our weapons. Let’s give them what they want, so we can all go home and plant our sorghum.’
Black Eye fired a shot, and the Jiao-Gao soldiers responded with a fusillade of fire from three submachine guns, wounding three Iron Society soldiers and killing another.
Black Eye was about to fire another shot when a burly Iron Society soldier wrapped his arms around him. ‘That’s enough, Commander,’ the man said. ‘Don’t provoke those mad dogs.’
The Jiao-Gao troops were nearly upon them when Granddad reluctantly lowered his rifle.
Just then a machine gun began barking like a dog from behind the Black Water River dike. An even more brutal fight awaited the Iron Society and Jiao-Gao regiments on the other side of the dike.
5
THE GLOOMY, RAINY autumn of 1939 was followed by a freezing winter. Dogs that had been shot to death or blown up by hand grenades hurled by Father, Mother, and their martyred friends lay in the soggy marshland, frozen together with fallen stalks of sorghum. Dogs killed by blasts of Japanese muskmelon grenades in the Black Water River and those that had struggled to become pack leaders, only to die cruelly, lay icebound among withered water grasses and weeds along the banks. Famished crows pecked at the frozen corpses with their purple beaks. Like black clouds they soared in the sky between the riverbank and the marshland.
Granddad, Father, Mother, and the woman Liu hibernated in their dilapidated village through the endless winter. Father and Mother were already aware of the relationship between Granddad and the woman Liu, but it didn’t bother them. The way she looked after everyone during these trying days was something my family remembered even decades later. Her name was formally added to our ‘family scroll’, where she is listed just below Passion, who follows Grandma, who is second only to Granddad.
It was the woman Liu who had consoled Granddad after Father lost one of his testicles. ‘Single-stalk garlic is always the hottest,’ she said. With her encouragement, Beauty, who would become my mother, had aroused Father’s wounded, ugly, strange-looking little pecker, thereby ensuring the continuation of our family line.
All this had happened in late autumn, when migrating wild geese often appeared in the sky, and fangs of ice were forming in the marshland. With the arrival of blustery northwest winds, one of the coldest winters in history began.
The shack was piled high with dry sorghum leaves; and there was plenty of grain in the kitchen. To supplement their diet with more nutritious food and keep up their strength and health, Granddad and Father often went dog-hunting. The death of Red had turned the dogs of Northeast Gaomi Township from a roving pack into a bunch of individual marauders. They were never organised again. Human nature once more won out over canine nature, and the paths gouged out by the dogs were slowly reclaimed by the black earth.
Father and Granddad went hunting every other day, bagging only a single dog each time. The meat provided necessary nutrition and internal heat, and by the spring of 1940, Father had grown two fists taller. Having fed on human corpses, the dogs were strong and husky; eating a winter’s supply of fatty dog meat was, for Father, the same as eating a winter’s supply of human flesh. Later he would grow into a tall, husky man who could kill without batting an eye. I wonder if that had anything to do with the fact that, indirectly, he had cannibalised his own people?
One night a warm southeasterly wind blew, and the next morning they could hear the ice cracking on the Black Water River. New buds the size of rice appeared on weeping willows, and tiny pink flowers exploded onto the branches of peach trees. Early-arriving swallows flew through the air above the marshland and the river, hordes of wild rabbits chased one another in mating rituals, and the grass turned green. After several misty rain showers, Granddad and Father took off their dogskin clothing. Day and night, the black soil of Northeast Gaomi Township was the scene of endless stirrings by a host of living, growing things.
Now that spring had arrived, Granddad and Father felt confined in the shack. They went out to walk along the dikes of the Black Water River, then crossed the stone bridge to visit the graves of Grandma and of Granddad’s fallen soldiers.
‘Let’s join the Jiao-Gao regiment, Dad,’ Father said.
Granddad shook his head.
‘How about joining up with Detachment Leader Leng?’
Granddad shook his head.
The sun shone bright and beautiful that morning. Not a cloud in the sky. They stood speechless before Grandma’s grave.
East of the bridge, far off in the distance, they saw seven horses trotting sluggishly towards them on the northern dike. When they got closer, Father and Granddad recognised the freshly shaved foreheads of the Iron Society. Leading them was a swarthy man with a ring of dark moles around his right eye. It was Black Eye, who had already had an illustrious reputation way back when Granddad was living a bandit’s life. Back then bandit gangs and the Iron Society went their own ways – well water not mixing with river water – and Granddad had held them in contempt. Then, in the early winter of 1929, Granddad and Black Eye had fought on the dusty bank of the Salty River, with no winner and no loser.
The seven horses trotted up to the dike in front of Grandma’s grave, where Black Eye reined in his mount. Instinctively Granddad rested his hand on the handle of his Japanese ‘tortoiseshell’ pistol.
‘So it’s you, Commander Yu!’ Black Eye sat steadily in his saddle.
Granddad’s hand shook. ‘It’s me!’
When Granddad challenged him with a dark look, Black Eye chuckled dully and dismounted. He gazed down at Grandma’s grave. ‘She’s dead?’
‘She’s dead!’ Granddad said tersely.
‘Goddamn it!’ Black Eye spat out angrily. ‘A good woman like that winding up dead as soon as you get your hands on her!’
Flames shot from Granddad’s eyes.
‘If she’d come with me back then, it wouldn’t have turned out like this!’ Black Eye said.
Granddad drew his pistol and aimed
it at Black Eye.
‘If you’ve got the balls,’ Black Eye said calmly, ‘you’ll avenge her. Killing me only proves how chickenhearted you are!’
What is love? Everybody has his own answer. But this demon of an emotion has spelled doom for more valiant men and lovely, capable women than you can count. Based upon Granddad’s romantic history, my father’s tempestuous love affairs, and the pale desert of my own experiences, I’ve framed a pattern of love that applies to the three generations of my family.
The first ingredient of love – fanaticism – is composed of heart-piercing suffering: the blood flows through the intestines and bowels, and out of the body as faeces the consistency of pitch. The second ingredient – cruelty – is composed of merciless criticism: each partner in the love affair wants to skin the other alive, physically and psychologically. They both want to rip out each other’s blood vessels, muscles, and every writhing internal organ, including the heart. The third ingredient – frigidity – is composed of a protracted heavy silence. Icy emotions frost the faces of people in love. Their teeth chatter so violently they can’t talk, no matter how badly they want to.
In the summer of 1923, Granddad lifted Grandma down off her donkey, carried her into the sorghum field, and laid her on his straw rain cape; thus began the tragic ‘internal-bleeding’ phase. In the summer of 1926, when Father was two, Grandma’s servant Passion became the third member of a triangle, thrusting her lovely thighs between Granddad and Grandma; this was when the ‘skinning alive’ began. Their love thus moved from the heaven of fanaticism to the hell of cruelty.