The members of the funeral detail walked toward the sunset on their way home. Mother and my sisters were well behind the ragged column of people, which stretched for at least a quarter of a mile, with Pastor Malory bringing up the rear on unsteady legs. Thick human shadows lay across the fields of wheat. Under the sun’s blood-red rays, the seemingly endless expanse of quiet was broken by the tramping of feet, the whistling of the wind past the stalks of wheat, the hoarse sounds of my crying, and the first drawn-out mournful hoot of a fat owl as it woke from a day’s sleep in the canopy of a mulberry tree in the cemetery. It had a heart-stopping effect on everyone who heard it. Mother stopped to look back at the cemetery, where purple mist rose from the ground. Pastor Malory bent down to pick up my seventh sister, Qiudi. “You poor things,” he said.
His words hung in the air when a chorus of millions of chirping insects rose all around him.
2
It was on the morning of the Mid-Autumn Festival, a hundred days after my sister and I were born, when Mother took us to see Pastor Malory. The church gate facing the street was tightly shut and marred by blasphemous, antireligious graffiti. We took the path to the rear of the church, where our raps on the door echoed in the wilderness. The emaciated goat was tied to a stake beside the door. She had such a long face that she looked more like a donkey or a camel or an old woman than a goat. She raised her head to look gloomily at Mother, who clipped her on the chin with the toe of her shoe. After a lingering complaint, she lowered her head to continue grazing. A rumbling noise was accompanied by the sound of Pastor Malory’s coughs. Mother rang the bell. “Who is it?” Pastor Malory asked. “Me,” Mother replied softly. The squeaky door opened a crack, and Mother slipped inside with us in her arms. Pastor Malory shut the door behind her, then turned, reached out and embraced us with his long arms. “My adorable little ones, the fruit of my loins …”
Sha Yueliang and his newly formed band of men, the Black Donkey Musket Band, walked spiritedly up the road we’d just taken on the funeral procession, heading straight for our village. On one side of the road, sorghum grew tall amid the wheat; reeds stretched to the edge of the Black Water River on the other side. A sun-drenched summer, with plenty of sweet rain, had made it a wildly fruitful growing season. The leaves were fat and the stalks thick, even before there were silks atop the head-high sorghum; river reeds were lush and black, the stems and leaves covered by white fuzz. Even though it was already mid-autumn, there wasn’t a hint of autumn in the air. And yet, the sky was the rich blue of autumn, the sun autumnally beautiful.
Sha Yueliang had a band of twenty-eight men, all riding identical black donkeys from the hilly south country of Wulian County. With their thick, muscular bodies and stumpy legs, the donkeys were easily outrun by horses; but they had amazing stamina and could be ridden for long distances. Sha had selected these twenty-eight donkeys from over eight hundred: not gelded, blessed with loud, strident voices, young, black, and energetic. Those were their mounts. The twenty-eight animals formed a black line, like a flowing stream. A milky white mist floated about the road; sunbeams were reflected off the donkeys’ backs. When he spotted the battered clock tower and watchtower, Sha reined in his lead donkey. The ones behind kept coming stubbornly. Looking back into the faces of his band, he told the men to dismount, then ordered them to wash up and clean their donkeys. A look of sobriety and seriousness adorned his dark, gaunt face as he dressed down his band of men, who lazed around after dismounting. He had elevated washing up and cleaning mounts to glorious heights. He told his men that the anti-Japanese guerrillas were popping up everywhere, like mushrooms, and that the Black Donkey Musket Band was going to take its place ahead of all others, owing to its unique style, until it became the sole occupying force of Northeast Gaomi Township. In order to impress the villagers, they needed to carefully watch what they said and did. Under his mobilization, the band’s morale surged; after taking off their shirts and spreading them on the ground, they stood in the shallows of the river and sent water spraying as they washed up. Their newly shaved heads glinted in the sunlight. Sha Yueliang took a bar of soap from his knapsack and cut it into strips, which he handed out to his men, telling them to wash every speck of dust off their bodies. Joining them in the river, he bent down until his scarred shoulder nearly touched the water, so he could scrub his dirty neck. While their riders were washing up, the donkeys grazed among the leafy water reeds or chewed the leaves of sorghum stalks or nibbled at one another’s rumps; some just stood there deep in thought or slipped the meaty clubs out of their sheaths and beat them against their bellies. As the donkeys busied themselves with whatever pleased them, Mother struggled free of Pastor Malory’s embrace. “You’re crushing the babies, you foolish donkey!”
Pastor Malory smiled apologetically, revealing two neat rows of white teeth; he reached out to us with one of his big red hands, paused for a second, then reached out with the other. Grabbing hold of one of his fingers, I began to gurgle. But Eighth Sister lay there like a log, neither crying nor squirming nor making any noise at all. She had been born blind. Cradling me in one arm, Mother said, “Look at him, he’s laughing.” She then deposited me into those big, sweaty waiting hands. He put his head down next to mine, so close I could see every strand of red hair on his head, the brown whiskers on his chin, his hawkish nose, and the benevolent gleam in his eyes. Suddenly I felt sharp pains up and down my back; taking my thumb out of my mouth, I let out a howl and a gusher of tears as the pain seemed to penetrate the marrow of my bones. I felt his whiskery lips on my forehead — they seemed to be trembling — and got a powerful whiff of his goat’s milk and oniony breath.
He handed me back to Mother. “I frightened him,” he said sheepishly.
Mother handed Eighth Sister to Pastor Malory after taking me from him. She patted and rocked me. “Don’t cry,” she purred. “Do you know who he is? Are you afraid of him? Don’t be, he’s a good man, your very own … very own godfather …”
The pains in my back continued, and I cried myself hoarse. So Mother pulled open her blouse and stuck a nipple into my mouth. I seized it like a drowning man clutching at a straw and sucked desperately. Her milk had a grassy taste as it poured down my throat. But the shooting pains in my back forced me to let go so I could cry some more. Wringing his hands anxiously, Pastor Malory ran over to the base of the wall, where he pulled up a tasseled weed and flicked it back and forth in front of me to stop me from crying. It didn’t work. So he ran back and pulled up a sunflower, as big as the moon and ringed with golden petals, then brought it over to wave in the air for me. I was drawn to the flower’s smell. All during Pastor Malory’s frantic running back and forth, Eighth Sister slept peacefully in his arms. “Look at that, darling,” Mother said. “Your godfather plucked the moon out of the sky for you.” I reached out for the moon, but was stopped short by more shooting pains. “What’s wrong with him?” Mother asked, her lips pale, her face bathed in sweat. Pastor Malory said, “Maybe something’s pricking him.”
With Pastor Malory’s help, Mother took off the red outfit she’d made for me in celebration of my hundredth day in this world, and discovered a needle caught in one of the folds. It had drawn dozens of bloody pinpricks on my back. She flung it over the wall. “My poor baby,” she said tearfully, “it’s all my fault! My fault!” She slapped herself, hard. Then a second time. Two crisp smacks. Pastor Malory grabbed her hand, then walked behind her and put his arms around both of us. He kissed Mother on her cheeks, her ears, and her hair with his moist lips. “It’s not your fault,” he said. “It’s mine. Blame me.” His tenderness had a calming effect on Mother, who sat in the doorway and stuffed the nipple back into my mouth. Her sweet milk moistened my throat, as the pain in my back gradually disappeared. With my lips around a nipple and my hands cupping one breast, I kneaded and protected the other one with my foot. Mother pushed my foot away, but as soon as she let go, it sprang right back up there.
“I checked the clothes when I put them on him,??
? she said uncertainly, “so where did that needle come from? The old witch must have put it there! She hates all the females in this family!”
“Does she know? About us, I mean,” Pastor Malory asked.
“I told her,” Mother said. “She kept pressuring me, until I could no longer take her abuse. She is an outrageous old witch.”
Pastor Malory handed Eighth Sister back to mother. “Feed her,” he said. “They are both gifts from God, and you should not play favorites.”
Mother’s face colored as she took the baby from him. But when she tried to give her the nipple, I kicked my sister in the belly. She started bawling.
“Did you see that?” Mother said. “What a little tyrant! Go get her some goat’s milk.”
After Pastor Malory had fed Eighth Sister, he laid her down on the kang. She didn’t cry and she didn’t squirm. He then studied the downy fuzz on my head. Mother noticed his quizzical look. “What are you looking at? Do we look like strangers to you?” “No,” he said with a shake of his head, a foolish smile on his face. “The little wretch suckles like a wolf.” “Like someone else I know.” Mother replied mischievously. He smiled even more foolishly. “You don’t mean me, do you? What sort of child was I?” His eyes grew clouded as he thought back to his youth, which he’d spent in a place spent many thousands of miles away. Two teardrops fell from those eyes. “What’s wrong?” Mother asked. He tried to hide his embarrassment with a dry laugh as he wiped his eyes with thickly knuckled fingers. “It’s nothing,” he said. “I’ve been in China … how long now?” A note of displeasure crept into Mother’s voice: “I can’t remember a time when you weren’t here. You’re a local, just like me.” “No,” he said, “I have roots in another country. I was sent by the archbishop as one of God’s messengers, and I once owned a document to prove it.” Mother laughed. “Old man,” she said, “my uncle says you’re a fake foreign devil, and that your so-called document was a forgery from an artisan in Pingdu County.” “Nonsense!” Pastor Malory jerked upright, as if deeply offended. “That Big Paw Yu is a stupid ass!” “Don’t talk like that about my uncle,” Mother said unhappily. “I’ll forever be in his debt.” “If he weren’t your uncle,” Pastor Malory said, “I’d relieve him of his manhood.” Mother laughed. “He can fell a mule with his fist.” “If you won’t believe I’m Swedish,” he said dejectedly, “then no one will.” He took out his pipe, filled it with tobacco, and began smoking silently. Mother sighed. “Isn’t it enough that I admit you’re an authentic foreigner? Why be angry with me? Have you ever seen a Chinese as hairy as you?” A childlike smile appeared on Pastor Malory’s face. “I’ll return to my home someday,” he said. Then, after a thoughtful pause, he added, “But if I really had the opportunity to do it, maybe I wouldn’t go. Not unless you came with me.” “You’ll never leave here,” she said, “and neither will I. So why not make the best of it? Besides, don’t you always say that it doesn’t make any difference what color hair a person has — blond, black, or red — that we’re all God’s lambs? And that all any lamb needs is a green pasture. Isn’t a pasture the size of Northeast Gaomi enough for you?” “It’s enough,” Pastor Malory replied emotionally. “Why would I go anywhere else when you, my grass of miracles, are right here?”
Seeing that Mother and Pastor Malory were otherwise occupied, the donkey at the millstone began nibbling the flour on the stone. Pastor Malory walked up and gave it a loud smack, sending it quickly and noisily back to work. “The babies are asleep,” Mother said, “so I’ll help you sift the flour. Go get a straw mat, and I’ll spread it out in the shade.” Pastor Malory brought a mat over and spread it under a parasol tree; yet even as Mother was laying me on the cool mat, my mouth was clamped defiantly around her nipple. “This child is like a bottomless pit,” she said. “He’ll suck the marrow right out of my bones before I know it.”
Pastor Malory kept the donkey moving: the donkey turned the millstone, the millstone crushed the kernels of wheat, which turned to coarse powder and fanned out atop the stone. As she sat beneath the parasol tree, Mother put a willow basket on the mat and fixed the rack atop it. She then poured the coarse powder into her sieve and began shaking it back and forth rhythmically at an even pace; the snow white flour floated down into the basket, leaving the broken husks behind at the bottom of the sieve. Bright sunlight filtered through the leafy cover and fell on her face and shoulders. An air of domesticity hung over the courtyard, as Pastor Malory followed the donkey round and round the millstone to keep it from slacking off. It was our donkey; Pastor Malory had borrowed it that morning to help mill the wheat. The sweat on its back darkened its hide as it trotted to avoid the sting of the switch. The bleat of a goat beyond the wall heralded the arrival at the gate of the mule that had entered the world the same day I had. The donkey kicked out with its rear hooves. “Let the mule in,” Mother said, “and hurry.” Malory ran over to the gate and shoved the young animal’s lovely head backward to put some slack in the tethering chain. He then unhooked it from the post and jumped back as the mule burst through the gate, ran up to its mother, and grabbed a nipple in its mouth. That calmed the donkey. “Humans and animals are so much alike,” Mother said with a sigh. Malory nodded in agreement.
While our donkey was nursing its bastard offspring around the open-air millstone in Malory’s compound, Sha Yueliang and his band of men were scrubbing their mounts. After brushing the mane and sparse hair of their tails, they dried the donkeys’ hides with fine cotton cloths and waxed them. The twenty-eight donkeys emerged from the grooming like new animals; twenty-eight riders stood proud and energetic and twenty-eight muskets shone brightly. Each man had two gourds tied to his belt, one large and one small. The larger one held gunpowder, the smaller one held birdshot. Each gourd had been treated with three coats of tung oil. All fifty-six polished gourds glinted in the sunlight. The men wore khaki trousers and black jackets, their heads covered by coolie hats woven from sorghum stalks. As squad leader, Sha Yueliang wore a red tassel in his hat. With a satisfied look at his men and their mounts, he said, “Stand tall, brothers. We’ll show those people what a band of men with shiny black donkeys and muskets is made of.” He mounted his donkey, smacked it on the rump, and rode off. Now, horses may be swift, but donkeys are model parade animals; men on horses ride with an air of majesty, while men on donkeys ride with a sense of fulfillment. Before long, the squad appeared on the streets of Dalan. After being pounded by a summer of rain, the streets were hard and sleek, unlike the harvest season, when they would be so dry and dusty that a galloping horse would raise a cloud of dust. Sha’s band of men left a trail of white hoofprints and, of course, the clopping sounds that formed them. Sha’s donkeys were all shod, just like horses. A stroke of genius, thanks to Sha. The crisp clatter first attracted neighborhood children, then Yao Si, the township’s bookkeeper, who came out in a Mandarin robe that belonged to an earlier age, a pencil tucked behind his ear, and planted himself in front of Sha Yueliang’s donkey. Bowing deeply and smiling broadly, he asked, “What troops do you command? Will you take up residence here or are you just passing through? I am at your service.”
Sha leaped down off his donkey and replied, “We’re the Black Donkey Musket Band, an anti-Japanese commando unit. We have been ordered to set up a resistance in Dalan. For that we need quarters, feed for our mounts, and a kitchen. Simple food, like eggs and flatbread, will do just fine for us. But our donkeys are resistance troop mounts, and must be fed well. The hay must be fine and free of impurities, the fodder made of crumbled bean cakes and well water. Not a drop of muddy water from the Flood Dragon River.”
“Sir,” Yao Si said, “duties of this magnitude cannot be entrusted to the likes of me. I must seek instructions from the venerable township head, who has recently been appointed head of the Peace Preservation Corps by the Imperial Army.”
“That cocksucker!” Sha Yueliang cursed darkly. “Anyone who serves the Japanese is a traitorous dog!”
“Sir,” Yao Si explained, ?
??he did not accept the assignment willingly. As the owner of vast acres of land and many draft animals, he wants for nothing. The duty was forced upon him. Besides, someone has to do it, and who better than our steward….”
“Take me to him!” Sha demanded. His men dismounted to rest at the township office while Yao Si escorted Sha to the gate of the township head’s residence, a compound with seven rows of fifteen rooms, each with a connecting garden and separate gate, one leading to the next like a maze. Sha Yueliang’s first sight of Sima Ting was in the midst of an argument with Sima Ku, who was lying in bed nursing wounds sustained in a fire on the fifth day of the fifth month. He had burned down a bridge, but instead of immolating the Japanese, had managed only to burn the skin off his own backside. Taking far too long to heal, his injuries were now compounded by bedsores, which forced him to lie on his belly with his backside elevated.
“Elder brother,” Sima Ku said as he propped himself up on his elbows and raised his head high, “you bastard, you stupid bastard.” His eyes were blazing. “The head of the Peace Preservation Corps is a running dog of the Japanese, a donkey belonging to the guerrilla forces, a rat hiding in a bellows, a person hated by both sides. Why did you accept the job?”
“That’s shit! What you’re saying is pure shit!” Sima Ting defended himself. “Only a damned idiot would take on the job willingly. The Japanese stuck a bayonet up against my belly. Through Ma Jin-long, the interpreter, their commander said, ‘Your younger brother Sima Ku joined the bandit Sha Yueliang to burn a bridge and launch an ambush. They inflicted heavy casualties on the Imperial Army. At first we planned to burn down your residence, Felicity Manor, but since you seem like a reasonable man, we have spared you.’ So you are one of the reasons I am the new head of the Peace Preservation Corps.”