Pow! A gunshot. Sima Ku. A black cape thrown over his shoulders, and backed up by bodyguards, he strode angrily up to the crowd in the company of Babbitt, Zhaodi, and Niandi. “Stop that!” one of the soldiers shouted. “If you don’t, there’ll be no movie.”
In fits and spurts the crowd quieted down. Sima Ku and his entourage took their seats. By then the sky had turned purple and total darkness was on its way. A thin crescent moon sent down enchanting light from the southwest corner of the sky: caught in its embrace, a single star twinkled brightly.
The horse company, the mule company, and the plainclothes soldiers had all shown up; formed into two columns, their weapons cradled in their arms or slung over their backs, they gazed at the array of women around them. A pack of lustful dogs streamed into the area. Clouds swallowed up the moon and darkness settled over the earth. Insects perched on trees set up a mournful din amid the noisy flow of the river.
“Turn on the generator!” Sima Ku ordered from where he sat off to my left. He lit a cigarette with his lighter and then extinguished the flame with a grand wave of his hand.
The generator had been set up in the ruins of the Muslim woman’s home. Black images flickered and a flashlight sent out a beam of light. At last the machine came noisily to life, the pitch alternating between high and low sounds that quickly evened out. A lamp right behind our heads lit up. “Ao! Ao!” the crowd shouted excitedly. I watched as the people in front of me spun around to look at the lamp, which turned their eyes a sparkling green.
It was a repeat of the first night, with the light searching for the screen, illuminating the moths and grasshoppers caught in its beam and projecting their huge, darting bodies on the white cloth. Soldiers and civilians gasped in surprise. But there were many more differences from the first night: to begin with, Sima Ku didn’t jump to his feet and let the beam of light shine through his ears. The darkness all around deepened, magnifying the intensity of the light. It was a humid night, with damp air from nearby fields sweeping over us. Wind whistled softly through the trees. The cries of birds gathered in the sky overhead. We could hear fish break the surface of the river, that and the snorts of mules tethered on the riverbank, animals that had transported the visitors from far away. Dog noises came from deep in the village. Green bolts of lightning flashed in the low curtain of sky off to the southwest, followed by rumbling thunder. A train loaded with artillery shells sped down the Jiaoji Line, the rhythmic clack of huge metal wheels on iron tracks wonderfully compatible with the flowing clicks of the projector. One distinct difference that night was my lack of interest in the movie playing on the screen. That afternoon, Sima Liang had said, “Little Uncle, my dad brought a new movie back from Qingdao with him, filled with images of women bathing naked.” “You’re lying,” I said. “Honest. Little Du said the head of the plainclothes soldiers went to get it on his motorcycle, and he’ll be right back.” But we wound up with the same old movie, and since Sima Liang lied to me, I pinched him on the leg. “I wasn’t lying. Maybe they’ll show this one first, and then show the new one. Let’s wait.” What happened after the bear was shot was old hat to me, and so was the scene where the hunter and the woman roll around on the ground. All I had to do was close my eyes to see every bit of it, which allowed me to turn my gaze to other people, sneaking looks here and there, and trying to see to what was going on around me.
Zhaodi, still weak from childbirth, was sitting in a red lacquered armchair specially brought out for her; a green wool overcoat was draped over her shoulders. On her left was Commander Sima, also in an armchair, his cape draped across the back of the chair. Niandi sat on his left, in a spindly rattan chair. She wore a white dress, not the one with the long train, but a tight-fitting one with a high collar. At first they all sat up straight, necks rigid, although from time to time Commander Sima’s head tilted to the right so he could whisper something to Niandi. By the time the hunter was smoking his cigarette, Zhaodi’s neck had begun to tire and a soreness had crept into her waist. She slipped down in her chair until her head rested on the back; I had only a vague glimpse of the glint from her hair ornaments and a faint whiff of camphor from her dress, but could easily hear the sound of her uneven breathing. When the big-breasted woman jumped down off the wagon and started running, Sima Ku shifted and Zhaodi was on the verge of falling asleep. Niandi, on the other hand, continued to sit up straight. Sima Ku’s left arm started to move, very slowly, a fuzzy dark shape like the tail of a dog. His hand, I saw it, his hand came to rest on Niandi’s leg. Her body stayed as it was, as if it weren’t her leg being touched. The sight displeased me, not exactly angry and not exactly afraid. My throat was dry; and I felt a cough coming on. A bolt of green lightning, crooked as a gnarled branch, split a gray cloud that hung like worn-out cotton above the marsh. Sima Ku’s hand darted in and back, lightning quick; he coughed like a little goat, and then shifted in his seat as he turned to look in the direction of the projector. I turned to do the same. Babbitt was staring idiotically at a small hole in the machine that was sending out the beam of light.
The man and woman on the screen were wrapped in each other’s arms and kissing. Sima Ku’s men were breathing heavily. Sima Ku jammed his hand roughly down between Niandi’s legs. Slowly she raised her left hand, very slowly, until it was behind her head, as if she were touching up her hair. But she wasn’t touching up her hair, she was removing a hairpin. Then the hand descended. She sat there as straight and proper as ever, seemingly absorbed in the movie. Sima Ku’s shoulder twitched; he sucked in his breath — hot or cold, I couldn’t tell. He slowly pulled his left hand back. Again he coughed like a little goat, an empty-sounding cough.
With a sigh, I turned back to the screen, but saw only fuzzy images. My palms were sweating, cold sweat. Should I let Mother in on the secret I’d discovered in the dark? No, I couldn’t tell her. I hadn’t revealed yesterday’s secret, but she had guessed anyway.
The green bolts of lightning were like molten steel that lit up the sandy ridge occupied by Birdman Han’s men, all its trees and all its huts and mud walls. They were like meandering liquid fingers that stroked the dark trees and the brown houses. Thunder grumbled like vibrating sheet metal covered with rust. The man and woman were rolling around on the grassy riverbank, and I was reminded of what I’d seen the night before.
The night before, Sima Ku had talked Mother and Second Sister into going to the church to watch the movie. During the scene where they were rolling around on the grassy ground, Sima Ku got up quietly and left. I followed him as he hugged the wall, looking more like a thief than a military commander; he must have been a thief at one time. He climbed the low southern wall into our yard, the very path my third brother-in-law, Speechless Sun, had taken; it was also a path the Bird Fairy knew well. I didn’t have to climb the wall, since I knew another way in. Mother had locked the gate and hidden the key between two nearby bricks; I could find it with my eyes closed. But I didn’t need that either, since there was a hole at the bottom of the gate that had been put there for dogs during Shangguan Lü’s time. The dogs were gone; the hole remained. I was small enough to wriggle through, and so were Sima Liang and Sha Zaohua. So now I was inside the gate, in a small room that served as a passageway leading to the western part of the compound. Two steps and I was standing at the gate to the west wing. Everything was where it had always been: millstone, feeding trough for the mules, and Laidi’s grass mat. It was there on that patch of grass that she’d lost her bearings and gone mad. In order to keep her from bursting in on Babbitt’s wedding ceremony, Sima Ku had tied her by the wrist to the window frame and left her there for three days. I assumed that he wanted to liberate First Sister and help open her eyes. So what happened?
Sima Ku’s frame seemed larger than ever in the hazy starlight. He didn’t spot me as he groped his way in, since I was hiding in a corner. I heard a thump shortly after he entered the room — he’d bumped into a metal bucket that we’d put there as a chamber pot for Laidi. She giggled in the
dark. A tiny flame lit the room up, and there was Laidi, lying on her straw mat, her hair spread out around her, teeth white as snow; her black robe couldn’t cover her completely. Scary? She was nothing less than a demon. Sima Ku reached out and touched her face; that didn’t frighten her. The cigarette lighter went out. Goats in the pen pawed the ground. Sima Ku’s laughter. He said, “We’re brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and there’s nothing wrong with that, so why not give it a go? I thought you really wanted it. Well, here I am …” Laidi shrieked, a crazed sound that tore through the roof. “It’s pretty much what you said that day — lust, suffering! You’re a wave and I’m a boat. You’re a drought, and I am rain. I’m your savior.” The two of them gyrated together, as if submerged in water, as if clearing out a hollow filled with eels. Laidi’s shrieks were more shrill than the Bird Fairy’s ever were … Without a sound, I wriggled through the dog door and went back into the lane, cold sweat sticking to my body.
The movie was nearing its end when Sima Ku quietly reentered the church. Seeing that it was the commander, the people made room for him to return to his seat. As he walked by, he rubbed my head, and I detected the smell of Laidi’s breasts on his hand. He whispered something to Second Sister once he was in his seat, and she appeared to laugh in response. The lights came on, bringing the viewers up short, as if for a moment they didn’t know where they were. Sima Ku stood up and announced, “Tomorrow night the movie will be shown at the threshing floor. Your commander wants to bring benefits to this area through the introduction of Western culture.” That brought the people back to reality, and the clamor that followed drowned out the sound of the projector. Later, after all the visitors had left, Sima Ku said to Mother, “Well, madam, what do you say? It was worth coming to see, wasn’t it? The next thing I’m going to do is build a movie house for all of Northeast Gaomi. This Babbitt fellow can do just about anything, and you have me to thank for getting him as a son-in-law.” “That’s enough,” Second Sister said. “Let’s take Mother home.” “You can stop wagging your tail,” Mother said. “Nothing good comes of being proud, like dogs eating shit in a crowd.”
Somehow or other, Mother found out what had happened that night with Laidi. The next morning Sima Ku and Second Sister came by with the grain ration, and as they were about to leave, Mother said, “I want to talk to my son-in-law about something.” “Whatever it is,” Second Sister said, “you can say it in front of me.” “You go on,” Mother insisted as she took Sima Ku into the next room. “What do you plan to do with her?” Mother asked him. “Do with who?” “Don’t play dumb with me!” Mother said. “I’m not playing dumb,” he said. “Choose the path you’re going to take,” Mother said. “What paths are you talking about?” Sima Ku asked. “I’ll tell you,” she said. “The first path is to marry her, either as first wife or as second wife or as one of two equal wives. You can work that out with my second daughter. The second is to kill her!” Sima Ku rubbed the sides of his trousers with both hands, although in a different frame of mind from the previous time he’d done the same thing. “I’ll give you three days to make your choice. You can leave now.”
Sixth Sister sat there without moving, as if nothing had happened. I heard Sima Ku cough, a sound that both thrilled and saddened me. On the screen, the man and woman were lying together under a tree, the woman’s head resting on the man’s chest. She was gazing up at the fruit on the tree, while the man was chewing on a blade of grass, lost in thought. The woman pushed herself up into a sitting position and turned to face him, the upper half of her bulbous breasts exposed above her dress. Her cleavage showed up purple, like an eel’s hollow in the shallows of a river. This was the fourth time I’d seen that nest, and I yearned to wriggle into that hollow. But she moved slightly, and the hollow disappeared. She gave the man a shove and growled something at him. But he kept his eyes shut and continued chewing the blade of grass. Eventually, she slapped him and burst into tears. The sound of her crying wasn’t much different than that of Chinese women. The man opened his eyes and spat the pulpy blade of grass into the woman’s face. A strong gust of wind made the tree on the screen sway, sending pieces of fruit bumping against each other. The sound of rustling leaves drifted over from the riverbank, and I couldn’t tell if the wind on the screen was rustling leaves on the river or wind from the river was rustling leaves on the screen. Another bolt of lightning sent a green light through the sky, followed by the rumble of thunder. The wind was picking up, and the viewers began to fidget. A swarm of sparkles flew through the beam of light. “It’s raining,” somebody shouted, just as the man was walking toward the wagon, the barefoot woman on his arm, her dress hanging crooked on her body. Sima Ku stood up abruptly. “Turn it off, that’s it!” he said. “Water will ruin the projector!” He was blocking the light, bringing roars of disapproval from the crowd, so he sat back down. Sprays of water showed up on the screen. The man and woman jumped into the river. Another bolt of lightning snaked through the sky, its crackle hanging in the air for a long time and darkening the beam of light from the projector. A dozen or so black objects flew in, giving the impression that the lightning bolt had sent down a shower of turds. A violent explosion erupted from somewhere in the ranks of Sima Battalion soldiers. A thunderous blast, flashes of green and yellow light, accompanied by the pungent smell of gunpowder at about the same time. I wound up sitting on somebody’s belly, and I felt something hot and wet on my head. I reached up and touched my face; it was sticky. The air was thick with the stench of blood. Screams and shouts erupted from panicky, blinded people. The beam of light shone on undulating backs, bloody heads, terrified faces. The man and woman frolicking in the American river had been blown to bits. Lightning. Thunder. Green blood. Pieces of flesh flying through the air. An American movie. A hand grenade. Golden flames snaking out of the barrel of a gun. Don’t panic, brothers. Another series of explosions. Mother! Son! A living, severed arm. Intestines twisted around a leg. Raindrops bigger than silver coins. Eye-searing light. A night of mystery. “Get down on your stomachs, villagers, and don’t move! Officers and men of the Sima Battalion, don’t move! Lay down your weapons if you want to live! Lay them down or die!” The commands came from all directions, bearing down on us …
5
Before the concussion waves died out, seemingly countless burning torches bore down on us, as the soldiers of Lu Liren’s independent 16th Regiment menacingly pushed their way toward us, black palm-bark capes draped over their shoulders, rifles with fixed bayonets at the ready, shouting in cadence. The torchbearers were civilians with white bandannas tied around their heads, mostly women with pageboy haircuts. Their blazing torches, made of old cotton wadding and rags soaked in kerosene, were held high to shine down on soldiers of the 16th Regiment. The crackle of gunfire emerged from the center of the Sima Battalion, sending a dozen or so 16th Regiment soldiers crumpling to the ground like kernels of grain. But soldiers behind them quickly took their places, and a dozen hand grenades flew through the air toward us, the explosions sounding like the sky had fallen and the earth split. “Give it up, men!” Sima Ku shouted. Weapons were thrown willy-nilly to the ground lit up by all those torches.
Sima Ku was holding Zhaodi in his bloody arms. “Zhaodi!” he screamed. “Zhaodi, my dear wife, wake up …”
A shaky hand grabbed my arm. I looked up and, in the light of the torches, saw Niandi’s ashen face. She was also lying on the ground, pressed down by several broken bodies. “Jintong, Jintong …” She could barely get the words out. “Are you all right?” My nose ached and tears gushed from my eyes. “I’m okay, Sixth Sister,” I sobbed. “How about you, are you okay?” She reached out with both hands. “Dear little brother,” she pleaded, “help me. Take my hands.” My hands were green and oily; so were hers. I grabbed hold of her hands, like catching live loaches, but they slipped out of my grip. By then, everyone else was lying on the ground; no one dared to stand up. The beam of light was still fixed on the white screen, where the clash between the American coup
le was reaching its climax. The woman was holding a knife above the snoring figure of the man. The young American, Babbitt, was shouting anxiously from alongside the projector, “Niandi, Niandi, where are you?” “Here I am, Babbitt, help me, Babbitt…” Sixth Sister reached a hand out to her Babbitt. She was wheezing, her face covered with tears and snot. Babbitt’s tall, slender frame began to move as he struggled to reach Niandi. He was having trouble walking, like a horse stuck in the mud.
“Stand where you are!” someone bellowed as he fired into the air. “Don’t move!”
Babbitt flattened himself out on the ground as if a sword had cut him down.
Sima Liang came crawling out of somewhere. A trickle of sticky blood was seeping out of his wounded ear onto his cheek and neck and into his hair. He lifted me up and felt me all over with his stiff fingers to see if I was all right. “You’re fine, Little Uncle,” he said. “Your arms and legs are still whole” Then he bent down and lifted the bodies off of Sixth Sister, then helped her to her feet. Her high-collared white dress was blood-spattered.