After gripping the hunter’s shoulder in my teeth, I raised my head and shook it back and forth. I tasted something sour, unpleasant, and very sticky. As for the crafty, smooth-talking fellow, well, he was on the ground, bleeding from his shoulder, and unconscious.
He could always tell the county chief that one of the wolves had bitten him on the shoulder during the fight. Or he could say that when the wolf buried its fangs in his shoulder, he reacted by biting the animal on the back of its head. As to how he’d managed to finish off the wolf, well, he could say what he wanted.
Our people, meanwhile, saw that things had turned ugly, so they quickly got us on the road home, leaving the wolf carcasses and the wolf hunters on the sandbar.
8
Ouch, Xlmen Donkey Loses a Gonad
A Colossal Hero Arrives at the Estate
January 24, 1955, was the first day of the first month of the Yiwei Lunar Year. Mo Yan settled on that day as his birthday. During the 1980s, officials who hoped to hold positions for several more years or who wanted to climb the bureaucratic ladder even higher would change their age down and their schooling up, but who would have thought that Mo Yan, certainly no official, would join the fad? It was a fine morning, with flocks of pigeons circling in the early morning sky, their melodic cooing coming first from one direction, then the other. My master stopped working to look up into the sky, the blue half of his face making for a pretty sight.
Over the previous year, the eight acres of Lan family land had produced 2,800 catties of grain, an average of 350 per acre. In addition, they had brought in twenty-eight pumpkins planted on the ridges between crops and twenty catties of high-quality hemp. He refused to believe the co-op’s announced harvest of 400 catties per acre, and I heard him say to Yingchun more than once, “Do you think they could grow 400 catties the way they go about it? Who do they think they’re fooling?” Her smile could not hide the worries she felt deep down. “You’re the man of the house, but why must you always sing a different tune than the others? They’ve got numbers, we’re all by ourselves. Remember, a powerful tiger is no match for a pack of wolves.” Lan Lian glared at her. “What are you afraid of? We have the support of District Chief Chen.”
My master, wearing a brown felt cap and a brand-new padded coat cinched at the waist by a green cloth sash, was brushing my coat, which was very comforting physically; his praise did the same for my spirit.
“Old Blackie,” he said, “my friend, you worked hard last year. Half the credit for the good harvest goes to you. Let’s do even better this year. It’ll be like kicking that damned co-op in the nuts!”
I warmed up as the sunlight kept getting brighter. The pigeons were still up in the sky, the ground was covered by shredded red-and-white paper, firecracker debris. The night before, the sky had lit up and explosions had rocked the earth, creating clouds of gunpowder smoke; the compound looked and smelled like a war zone, to which was added the lingering odor of meaty dumplings, year-end cakes of sticky rice, and all kinds of sweets. The master’s wife had placed a bowl of dumplings in water to cool them off, then dumped them into my food trough with my regular feed, patted me on the head, and said:
“Little Blackie, it’s New Year’s, have some dumplings.”
I’m the first to admit that dumplings at New Year’s is an exceptional courtesy to extend to a donkey. They were nearly treating me as one of their own, a human just like them. I’d earned the respect of my master after killing those two wolves and now had the finest reputation of any donkey in the eighteen villages and hamlets within a radius of a hundred li. So what if those three damned hunters got away with the carcasses? The people here knew what really happened. No one denied that the Han family donkey had played a role in that battle, but they knew I’d pretty much carried the day and she’d been a bit player, one whose life I’d saved, by the way. I’d already reached the gelding age, and my master had put the fear of the knife in me. But he didn’t mention it again after my battlefield heroics. The previous fall I’d gone out to work in the fields with my master, followed by Xu Bao, the local veterinarian, pack over his back and a brass bell in his hand, a man who specialized in castrating so-called beasts of burden. His shifty eyes kept returning to a spot between my rear legs. His body reeked of cruelty, and I knew what he had in mind. He was one of those bastards who enjoyed swallowing a donkey or bull gonad with a cup of strong liquor. He was definitely not fated to die in bed. Well, anyway, I watched him carefully and never let my guard down. The minute he walked up behind me, I’d greet him with a pair of flying hooves right in his crotch. I wanted that cruel son of a bitch to know what it felt like to leave the field without his family jewels. And if he approached me from the front, I’d bite him in the head. That’s what I did best. He was real sneaky, turning up suddenly here and there, but always staying a safe distance away and not giving me a chance to go into action. When people on the road saw stubborn Lan Lian walking ahead of his now famous donkey, followed by that castrating son of a bitch, they asked questions like:
“Say, Lan Lian, time to turn your donkey into a eunuch?”
or:
“Xu Bao, did you find something to go with your liquor again?”
“Don’t do it, Lan Lian,” someone shouted. “That donkey had the balls to take on those wolves. Each nut supplies some of an animal’s courage, so he must have as many as a sack of potatoes.”
Some boys on their way to school fell in behind Xu Bao to sing a ditty about him:
Xu Bao Xu Bao, sees an egg and takes a bite!
Without an egg to bite, he sweats all night.
Xu Bao Xu Bao, a donkey dick of a sight.
A scoundrel who won’t stand up and fly right. . .
Xu Bao stopped and glared at the little brats, reached into his pack, pulled out a gleaming little knife, and shouted threateningly:
“You’d better shut up, you little bastards! Master Xu here will cut the balls off the next one of you who makes up something like that!”
The boys huddled together and responded with goofy laughs. So Xu Bao took several steps forward, and the boys matched him, going backward. Then Xu Bao charged, and the boys scattered in all directions. Xu Bao turned back to me, gelding on his mind. The boys came back, formed up, and followed him, repeating their ditty:
Xu Bao Xu Bao, sees an egg and takes a bite!
This time, Xu Bao had no time for those little pests. Taking a wide berth, he ran up in front of Lan Lian and started walking backward.
“Lan Lian,” he said, “I know this donkey’s bitten people. Every time he does that, you have to come up with medical expenses and lots of apologies. I say geld him. He’ll be back in three days, completely recovered, the most obedient donkey you could ask for, guaranteed.”
Lan Lian ignored him; my heart was pounding. My temper was something Lan Lian knew all too well. So he grabbed hold of the bit in my mouth and kept me from going after the man.
Xu Bao scuffled along, raising dust as he walked backward, the bastard, probably something he did a lot. He had a shriveled little face adorned with baggy triangular eyes and front teeth with a big space between them, from which spittle sprayed whenever he talked.
“Take my advice, Lan Lian,” he said, “you need to geld him; gelding is good, it’ll save you trouble. I usually charge five yuan, but for you I’ll do it for nothing.”
Lan Lian stopped, smirked, and said:
“Xu Bao, why don’t you go home and geld your old man?”
“What kind of talk is that?” Xu Bao squeaked.
“If that bothers you, then let’s see what my donkey has to say.” He let go of my reins and said, “Sic him, Blackie!”
With a loud bray, I reared up, the way I’d mounted Huahua, aiming to come down on Xu Bao’s scrawny head. People out on the street screeched in horror; the little brats swallowed their shouts. Now I’m going to feel and hear my hooves landing on Xu Bao’s cranium, I was thinking. But that didn’t happen. I didn’t see the contorted look of
shock I’d expected and didn’t hear the howls of fright I’d hoped for; what I did see, out of the corner of my eye, was a slippery figure darting under my exposed belly, and I had a premonition of bad things to come. Unfortunately, my reactions were too slow; a sudden chill struck my genitals, followed by a sharp, intense pain. I felt an immediate sense of loss and knew I’d been tricked. Twisting my body to look behind me, the first thing I saw was blood on my rear legs. The next things I saw was Xu Bao, standing by the roadside, a bloody gray gonad in the palm of his hand; he was grinning from ear to ear and showing off his prize to a bunch of gawkers, who shouted their approval.
“Xu Bao, you bastard, you’ve ruined my donkey,” my master cried out in agony. But before he could leave my side and tear into the evil veterinarian, Xu Bao dropped the gonad into his bag and flashed his knife in a threatening manner. My master fell back weakly.
“I did nothing wrong, Lan Lian,” Xu Bao said as he pointed to the gawkers. “It was obvious to everyone, including our young friends here, that you let your donkey attack people, and it was my right to protect myself. It’s a good thing I was on my toes, or my head would be a squashed gourd by now. So I’m the good guy here, Lan Lian.”
“But you’ve ruined my donkey. . . .”
“That was my plan, and I’m the one who could have done just that. But I felt sorry for a fellow villager and held back. That donkey has three gonads, and I only took one. That’ll calm him down a bit, but he’ll still be a spirited animal. You should damn well be thanking me. It’s not too late, you know.”
Lan Lian bent over to examine my privates, where he discovered that Xu Bao was telling the truth. That helped, but not enough to thank the man. No matter how you looked at it, the sneaky bastard had taken one of my gonads without prior consent.
“Xu Bao, take heed,” Lan Lian said. “If anything happens to my donkey because of this, you’ll pay, and pay dearly.”
“The only way this donkey won’t live to be a hundred is if you mix arsenic into his feed. I advise you not to work him in the field today. Take him home, feed him nutritious food, and rub on some salt water. The wound will heal in a couple of days.”
Lan Lian took Xu Bao’s advice without any public acknowledgment. That eased my suffering a little, but it was still with me, and still strong. I glared at the bastard who would soon swallow my gonad, and was already planning my revenge. But the honest truth was, this unforeseen incident, sudden and effective, instilled in me a degree of grudging respect toward the unimpressive, bowlegged little man. That there were people like that in the world, someone who made a living castrating animals and was good at his job — relentless, accurate, fast — was something you’d have to see to believe. Hee-haw, Hee-haw — My gonad, tonight you’ll accompany a mouthful of strong liquor down into Xu Bao’s guts, only to wind up in the privy tomorrow, my gonad, gonad.
We’d only walked a short distance when we heard Xu Bao call out from behind:
“Lan Lian, know what I call that gambit I just employed?”
“Fuck you and your ancestors!” Lan Lian fired back.
This was greeted with raucous laughter from the gawkers.
“Listen carefully,” Xu Bao said smugly. “You and your donkey both. I call it ‘Stealing peaches under the leaves.’”
“Xu Bao Xu Bao, stealing peaches under the leaves! Lan Lian Lan Lian, embarrassment teaches . . .” The young geniuses made up new lines, which they sang as they walked behind us all the way to the Ximen estate compound.
Lots of people created a lively atmosphere in the compound. The five children from the east and west rooms, all dressed in New Year’s finery, were running and hopping all over the place. Lan Jinlong and Lan Baofeng had reached school age, but hadn’t yet started school. Jinlong was a melancholy boy, seemingly weighted down with concerns; Baofeng was an innocent little girl, and a real beauty. Though they were the offspring of Ximen Nao, there were no bonds between them and Ximen Donkey. The true bonds had been between Ximen Donkey and the two offspring delivered to the donkey belonging to Han Huahua, but tragically, they and their mother had all died when the youngsters were barely six months old. The death of Huahua was a terrible emotional blow to Ximen Donkey. She had been poisoned; the two babies, the fruits of my loins, died from drinking their mother’s milk. The birth of twin donkeys had been a joyous event in the village, and their deaths, along with their mother, had saddened the villagers. Stonemason Han had nearly cried himself sick, but someone unknown was very happy; that someone was the person who had mixed poison into Huahua’s feed. District headquarters, thrown into turmoil over the incident, sent a special investigator, Liu Changfa — Long-haired Liu — to solve the case. A crude and inept individual, Liu summoned the residents in groups to the village government offices and interrogated them by asking the sorts of questions you might hear on a phonograph record. The results? No results. After the incident, in his story “The Black Donkey,” Mo Yan fixed the blame for poisoning the Han family’s donkey on Huang Tong, and although he made what appeared to be an air-tight case, who believes anything a novelist says?
Now I want to tell you, Lan Jiefang, born on the same day of the same month in the same year as I, I mean you, you know who you are, but I’ll refer to you as He, well, He was five years old, plus a little, and as He grew older, the birthmark on his face got bluer and bluer. Granted, He was an ugly child, but a cheerful one, lively and so full of energy He couldn’t stand still. And talk? That mouth of his never stopped, not for a second. He dressed like his half brother Jinlong, but since He was shorter, the clothes always looked too big and baggy. With his cuffs and shirtsleeves rolled up, He looked like a miniature gangster. But I knew He was a good-hearted boy who found it hard to get people to like him, and my guess is He could thank his nonstop talking and his blue birthmark for that.
Now that we’ve gotten him out of the way, let’s talk about the two girls of the Huang family, Huang Huzhu and Huang Hezuo. They wore lined jackets with the same floral pattern, cinched at the waist by sashes with butterfly knots. Their skin was fair, their eyes narrow and lovely. The Lan and Huang families were neither especially close nor particularly distant, altogether a complicated relationship. For the adults, getting together was awkward and uncomfortable, since Yingchun and Qiuxiang had both shared a bed with Ximen Nao, making them simultaneously rivals and sisters; now they were both remarried, but they still shared the same compound, living with different men in different times. By comparison, the children got along fine, a perfectly innocent and simple relationship. Given his natural melancholy, Lan Jinlong remained more or less aloof. Lan Jiefang and the Huang twins were best friends, with the girls always calling the boy Elder Brother Jiefang; as for him, a boy who loved to eat, he was always willing to save some of his sweets for the girls.
“Mother, Jiefang gave his candy to Huzhu and Hezuo,” Baofeng told their mother on the sly.
“It’s his candy, he can give it to anyone he wants,” Yingchun said to her daughter with a pat on the head.
But the children’s stories haven’t really begun yet. Their dramas won’t take center stage for another ten years or more. So for the time being, they’ll have to stay with their minor roles.
Now is the time for a very important character to come on stage. His name is Pang Hu, which, interestingly, means Colossal Tiger. He has a face like a date and eyes like the brightest stars. He’s wearing a padded army cap and a crudely stitched jacket on which a pair of medals is pinned. He keeps a pen in his shirt pocket, a silvery watch on his wrist. He walks on crutches; his right leg is perfectly normal, but his left one ends at the knee, his khaki pant leg knotted just below the stump. He wears a new leather shoe, with the nap on the outside, on his good leg. The moment he came through the gate, everyone in the compound — adults, children, even me — was awestruck. During those days, men like that could only have been heroic members of China’s volunteer army who had returned from the fighting in Korea.
The battlefield hero walke
d up to Lan Lian, his crutches thudding against the brick path, his good leg landing heavily at each step, as if putting down root, the empty cuff on the other leg swaying back and forth.
“If I’m not mistaken,” he said, “you must be Lan Lian.”
Lan Lian’s face twitched in response.
“Hello, there, volunteer soldier,” Lan Jiefang, the chatterbox, ran up to greet the stranger, oozing reverence. “Long live the volunteer soldiers!” he said. “You’re a war hero, I just know it. What do you want with my father? He’s not much of a talker. I’m his spokesman.”
“Shut up, Jiefang!” Lan Lian barked. “This is adult business, stay out of it.”
“No harm done,” the war hero said with a kindly smile. “You’re Lan Lian’s son, Lan Jiefang, am I right?”
“Do you know how to tell fortunes?” Jiefang sputtered, unable to conceal his surprise.
“No,” the war hero said with a crafty smile, “but I know how to read faces.” That said, he turned serious once more, tucking one crutch under his arm and offering his hand to Lan Lian. “Glad to meet you, my friend. I’m Pang Hu, new director of the district Supply and Marketing Co-op. Wang Leyun, who sells farming implements in the sales department of the production unit, is my wife.”
Lan Lian, at a momentary loss, shook hands with the war hero, who saw in his perplexed look that he was in a bit of a fog. Turning around, the man shouted:
“Gather round, all of you!”
Just then a short, rotund woman in a blue uniform, a pretty little girl in her arms, strode in the gate. The white-framed eyeglasses she wore told everyone that she was not a farmer. Her baby had big round eyes and rosy cheeks like autumn apples. Beaming from ear to ear, she was the perfect example of a happy child.
“Ah,” Lan Lian exclaimed happily, “so this is the comrade you’re talking about.” He turned toward the western rooms and called to his wife. “Gome out here, we have honored guests.”