“Damn,” Sima Ku said under his breath. “The tiger kills the prey just so the bear can eat.”
“What did you say?” the escort officer asked, clearly displeased.
“Nothing.”
“If I’m not mistaken, you’ll be the famous Sima Ku.” “In person,” Sima said.
“Well, Commander Sima,” the man said, “we’ll take good care of you as long as you cooperate. The last thing we want is to carry your corpse back.”
With a laugh, Sima said, “I wouldn’t dare do anything. You escorts are crack shots, and I’m not about to present myself as a human target.”
“That’s what I’d expect you to say. Okay, then, Commander Lu, that’ll do it. After you, Commander Sima.” Sima Ku boarded the raft and sat down.
The leader of the escort team shook hands with Lu Liren again, turned, and jumped aboard. He sat at the rear, facing Sima Ku, his hand resting on his holstered pistol. “You don’t have to be that cautious,” Sima said. “My hands are tied, so if I jumped overboard, I’d drown. Sit up closer so you can help out if the raft starts to rock.”
Ignoring Sima, in a soft voice the man said to the soldiers manning the oars, “Start rowing, and make it quick.”
All the members of our family stood together on the bank, knowing something the others didn’t know. We waited to see what would happen.
The raft eased out into the river and floated off. The two soldiers sped across the dike, gradually letting out the ropes wrapped around their arms. When the raft reached the middle of the river, it picked up speed, sending waves toward the banks. Zunlong, slightly hoarse by now, called out the cadence, as the soldiers bent to their oars. Gulls followed the raft, flying low. Where the water flowed the fastest, the raft began to rock violently, and Zunlong flipped over backward, right into the river. The leader of the escort team jumped fearfully to his feet and was about to draw his pistol when Sima Ku, having snapped his bindings to free his hands, threw himself at the man like a hungry tiger, sending both of them into the raging water. The mute and the other oarsmen panicked. One by one, they too fell into the river. The soldiers on the dike let go of their ropes, freeing the raft, which went sailing downstream like a big, black fish, tossed by the waves.
All this seemed to occur simultaneously, and by the time Lu Liren and his soldiers realized what had happened, there was no one left to man the raft.
“Shoot him!” Lu Liren demanded.
A head popped up out of the murky water every few moments, but the soldiers couldn’t be sure it was Sima Ku, and didn’t dare fire. Altogether nine men were in the water, which meant there was a one-in-nine chance that the exposed head belonged to Sima Ku. Besides, the river was tearing along like a runaway horse, so even if they fired, the odds of hitting their target were slim.
Sima Ku had gotten away. Having grown up on the banks of the Flood Dragon River, he was a practiced swimmer who could stay underwater for five minutes before coming up for air. Besides, all those flatcakes and scallions had given him plenty of energy.
Lu Liren was livid. A cold glint emanated from his dark eyes as his gaze swept past us. Sima Liang, still holding the bowl of bean paste, huddled up against Mother’s legs, pretending to be scared witless. Cradling Shengli in her arms, Mother walked wordlessly down the dike, with the rest of us on her heels.
Several days later, we heard that only the mute and Zunlong had managed to make it back to dry ground. The rest, including the boastful leader of the escort team, simply vanished, and their bodies were never found. But no one doubted that Sima Ku had gotten away safely.
We were, however, more concerned about the fate of Sixth Sister, Niandi, and her American husband, Babbitt. During those days, as the flooded river continued to roar along, Mother went outside every night to pace the yard and sigh, the sound seeming to drown out even the roar of the river. Mother had given birth to eight daughters: Laidi had gone mad, Zhaodi and Lingdi were dead, Xiangdi had gone into prostitution and might as well be dead; Pandi had taken up with Lu Liren and, with bullets constantly flying around her, could die in a minute; Qiudi had been sold to a White Russian, which wasn’t much better than being dead. Only Yunii remained at her side, but, unhappily, she was blind. Maybe her blindness was the only reason she remained at Mother’s side. Now, if something were to happen to Niandi, nearly all the eight young beauties of the Shangguan family would be nothing but a memory. So amid Mother’s sighs, we heard her utter loud prayers:
Old Man in Heaven, Dear Lord, Blessed Virgin Mary, Guanyin Bodhisattva of the Southern Sea, please protect our Niandi and all the children. Place all the heavenly and worldly miseries, pains, and illnesses on my head. So long as my children are well and safe …”
A month later, after the waters had receded, news of Sixth Sister and Babbitt came to us from the opposite bank of the Flood Dragon River: There had been a horrific explosion in a secret cave deep in Da’ze Mountain. Once the dust had settled, people entered the cave and found three bodies huddled together, two women and a man. The man was a young blond foreigner. Although no one was prepared to say that one of the women was our sixth sister, when Mother heard the news, a bitter smile spread across her face. “It’s all my fault,” she said, before breaking into loud wails.
In the late fall, Northeast Gaomi’s most beautiful season, the flood had finally passed. The sorghum fields were so red they seemed black, and reeds, which grew in profusion, were so white they seemed yellow. The early-morning sun lit up the vast fields that were covered by the first frost of the year. Soldiers of the 16th Regiment moved out silently, taking with them their herds of horses and mules; after tramping across the badly damaged footbridge above the Flood Dragon River, they disappeared over the dike on the northern bank, and we saw no more of them.
Once the 16th Regiment had departed, their commander, Lu Liren, took up the newly created posts of Northeast Gaomi county head and commander of the county militia. Pandi was appointed commander of the Dalan Army District, with the mute serving as its district team leader. His first assignment was to remove everything from the Sima mansion — tables, chairs, stools, water vats, jugs, everything — and distribute it among the local villagers. But that very night, everything found its way back to the mansion gate. Next the mute delivered a carved bed frame to our front yard. “I don’t want that,” Mother said. “Take it away!” “Strip! Strip!” the mute said. So Mother turned to Commander Pandi, who was darning socks at the time, and said, “Pandi, get this bed out of here.” “Mother,” Pandi said, “it’s a trend of the times, so don’t fight it.” “Pandi,” Mother said, “Sima Ku is your second brother-in-law. His son and daughter are here in my care. What will he think when he returns one day?” Pandi put down her darning, picked up her rifle, slung it over her back, and ran outside. Sima Liang followed her out the door; when he returned, he said, “Fifth Aunt’s gone to the county government office.” He added that a two-man sedan chair had brought a VIP, with eighteen armed bodyguards, to the office. County Head Lu welcomed him with all the courtesies of a student greeting his mentor. Word had it that he was a famous land reformer, who was reputed to have come up with a slogan in Shandong’s Northern Wei area: “Killing a rich peasant is better than killing a wild rabbit.”
The mute sent men over to take the bed away. Mother sighed in relief.
“Granny,” Sima Liang said, “let’s get away from here. I think something bad is going to happen.”
“Good luck is always good,” Mother said, “and you cannot escape bad luck. Don’t worry, Liang, even if the man above sent Heavenly Generals and Celestial Troops down to Earth, what more could they do to a bunch of widows and orphans?”
The VIP never appeared in public. Two armed sentries stood at the Sima mansion gate, where county officials with rifles slung over their backs shuttled in and out. One day, after taking our goats out to pasture, we met the mute’s district team and several county and military officials on our way home. They were walking down the street with Huang Ti
anfu, the coffin shop proprietor, Zhao Six, the steamed bun vendor, Xu Bao, who ran the cooking oil extracting mill, single-breasted Jin, who owned the oil shop, and the local academy teacher, Qin Two, in custody. The distressed prisoners walked with hunched shoulders and bent backs. “Men,” Zhao Six said, screwing his neck around, “what are you doing this for? I’ll forget what you owe me for the steamed buns, how’s that?” One of the officers, a man with a Mount Wulian accent and a mouthful of brass-capped teeth, slapped Zhao. “You prick!” he screeched. “Who owes you anything? Where did your money come from?” The prisoners did not dare say another word as they shuffled along with bowed heads.
That night, as a freezing rain fell, a shadowy figure climbed the wall into our yard. “Who’s there?” Mother whispered. The man rushed up and knelt on the path. “Help me, Sister-in-law,” he said. “Is that you, Sima Ting?” “It’s me,” he said. “Help me. They’re going to hold a big assembly tomorrow and put me in front of a firing squad. We’ve been fellow villagers for all these years, and I’m asking you to save my life.” Mother opened the door, and Sima Ting slipped quickly inside. He was trembling in the darkness. “Can I have something to eat? I’m starving!” Mother handed him a flatcake, which he grabbed out of her hand and gobbled down. Mother sighed. “It’s my brother’s fault,” he said. “He and Lu Liren have become mortal enemies, even though we’re all related.” “That’s enough,” Mother said. “I don’t want to hear any more. You can hide out here, but I am, after all, his mother-in-law.”
At last the mysterious VIP showed his face. He was seated in a tent, writing brush in hand. A large inkstone carved with a dragon and a phoenix lay on the table in front of him. He had a pointed chin and a long, narrow nose; he was wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses, behind which his tiny black eyes glistened. His fingers were long, thin, and ghostly pale, like the tentacles of an octopus.
The greater half of the Sima family’s threshing floor was thronged with poor-peasant representatives from Northeast Gaomi Township’s eighteen villages. They were ringed with sentries every four or five paces, members of the county and military district production teams. The VIP’s eighteen bodyguards were lined up on the stage, faces hard as steel, murderous looks in their eyes, like the Eighteen Arhats of legend. Not a sound from the area below the stage, not even the crying of children old enough to know better. Those too young to know better had nipples stuffed in their mouths at the first whimper. We sat around Mother. In contrast with the anxious villagers sitting nearby, she was surprisingly calm, absorbed in strips of hemp lying on her exposed calf, which she twisted into shoe soles. The white strips rustled as they turned on one leg and merged into identical strands of twisted rope on the other. That day a freezing northeast wind brought cold air over from the icy Flood Dragon River and turned the people’s lips purple.
Before the assembly was called to order, a disturbance occurred as the mute and members of the military district team marched Zhao Six and a dozen or so other men up to the edge of the threshing floor. They were bound and wore placards with black lettering over which red Xs had been drawn. When the villagers spotted them, they lowered their heads and said nothing.
People tucked their heads between their legs to keep the VIP from actually seeing their faces as his black eyes swept the crowd. But Mother kept twisting hemp, her eyes never leaving the work in front of her, and I sensed that the sinister gaze rested on her for a long time.
Lu Liren, wearing a red headband, addressed the audience, spittle flying everywhere. He had been suffering migraine headaches, and nothing worked to stop them, although the headband lessened the pain a little. When he was finished, he asked the VIP for instructions. The man slowly got to his feet. “Welcome Comrade Zhang Sheng, who will instruct us on what to do,” Lu Liren said as he began to clap. The villagers sat dumbfounded, wondering what was going on.
The VIP cleared his throat and began to speak, slowly drawing out each and every word. His speech was like a strip of paper dancing in the cold northeast wind, and over the decades that followed, whenever I saw one of those white funeral paper cutouts that are filled with incantations to ward off evil spirits, I was reminded of that speech.
When the speech ended, Lu Liren stepped up and ordered the mute and his men, plus several officers with holstered Mausers, to drag the prisoners up to the stage like a string of pinecones. The men filled the stage and blocked the villagers’ view of the VIP. “Kneel!” Lu Liren commanded. Quick-witted men fell to their knees. Dull-witted ones were kicked to theirs.
Below the stage, people glanced at one another out of the corners of their eyes. A few of the bolder ones stole a glance at the stage, but the sight of all those men kneeling, snot dripping off the tips of their noses, drove their heads back down.
A skinny man in the crowd stood up on shaky legs and announced in a hoarse, quaking voice, “District Commander… I… I have a grievance …”
“Good!” Pandi shouted excitedly. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Come up onto the stage!”
The crowd turned to look at the man. It was the one called Sleepyhead. His gray silk robe was ripped and torn; one sleeve hung by a thread, exposing his swarthy shoulder. His hair, once neatly combed and parted, had turned into a crow’s nest. He quaked in the cold wind as he looked around fearfully.
“Come up and speak your piece!” Lu Liren said.
“It’s no big deal,” Sleepyhead said. “I’ll tell you from down here, all right?”
“Come up!” Pandi said. “You’re Zhang Decheng, aren’t you? I recall that your mother was once forced to go around with a basket begging for food. You have suffered bitterly and your hatred is deep. Come up and tell us about it.”
Bowlegged Sleepyhead made his way through the crowd up to the front of the stage, which, made of rammed earth, was a meter or so high. He jumped, but only managed to further dirty his robe. So a soldier bent down, grabbed his arm, and jerked him into the air, his legs curling beneath him as he cried out in pain. The soldier deposited him on the stage; he landed on unsteady legs, which swayed as if he were standing on springs until he was finally able to steady himself. Raising his head, he looked out over the crowd below and was startled by gazes that hid countless emotions. His knees knocked as he bashfully stammered out something that no one could hear, let alone understand, then turned to climb down. Pandi grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him back, nearly causing him to lose his footing. Looking increasingly pathetic, he said, “Please let me go, District Commander. I’m a nobody, please let me go.” “Zhang Decheng,” she said truculently, “what are you afraid of?” “I’m a bachelor, stiff when I’m lying down and straight when I’m standing up. I’ve got nothing to be afraid of.” Pandi said, “Well, since you’re afraid of nothing, why don’t you speak up?” “I told you, it’s no big deal,” he said. “So let’s just forget it.” “Do you think this is some sort of game?” “Don’t get mad, District Commander. I’ll talk. What happens happens.”
Sleepyhead walked up in front of Qin Two and said, “Mr. Two, you’re an educated man. That time I went to study with you, all I did was fall asleep, right? So why did you smack my hand with a ruler until it looked like a warty toad? Not only that, you gave me a nickname. Remember what you said?” “Answer him!” Pandi roared. Mr. Qin Two looked up until his goatee stuck out straight and muttered, “That was a long time ago. I’ve forgotten.” “Of course you don’t remember,” Sleepyhead said, with rising excitement and increasing clarity. “But I’ll never forget! What you said, old master, was ‘Zhang Decheng, in my book you’re a sleepyhead.’ That is all it took for me to be saddled with the name Sleepyhead from then on. That’s what men call me and what women call me. Even snot-nosed kids call me Sleepyhead. And because I’m stuck with a rotten name like that, I still don’t have a wife at the age of thirty-eight! What girl would marry a man called Sleepyhead? That name ruined me for the rest of my life.” Poor Sleepyhead was so upset by then that his face was awash with snot and tears. T
he county official with the brass-capped teeth grabbed a handful of Qin Two’s gray hair and jerked his head back. “Speak up!” the man demanded. “Is what Zhang Decheng said true?” “Yes, yes it is,” Qin Two replied as his goatee quivered like a goat’s tail. The official shoved Qin Two’s head forward until his face was in the dirt. “Let’s hear more accusations,” he said.
Sleepyhead wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, squeezed a gob of snot with his fingers, and flung it away; it landed on the tent. Scowling in disgust, the VIP took out a white handkerchief to clean his glasses. “Qin Two,” Sleepyhead continued, “you’re an elitist. Back when Sima Ku was going to school, he stuffed a toad down your chamber pot and climbed up on the roof to sing a bad song about you. Did you smack him? Yell at him? Give him a nickname? No, no, and no!”
“This is wonderful!” Pandi said excitedly. “Zhang Decheng has brought a serious problem out into the open. Why didn’t Qin Two have the guts to punish Sima Ku? Because of Sima Ku’s wealthy family. And where did their wealth come from? They ate buns made of white flour, but never worked a field of wheat. They wore silk, but never raised a silkworm. They were drunk every day, but never distilled a drop of liquor. Fellow villagers, these rich landlords have fed on our blood, sweat, and tears. Redistributing their land and wealth is simply taking back what’s rightfully ours.”