At that moment, we saw that half of Big Mute’s head had disappeared and that a fist-sized hole had appeared in Little Mute’s belly. Not yet dead, he showed us the whites of his eyes. Mother grabbed a handful of alkaline dirt and pressed it up against the hole, but too late to hold back the sizzling green liquid and white intestines that squirmed out. She rammed more and more dirt up into the hole, but couldn’t stop the flow. Little Mute’s intestines began filling up the basket. My goat’s front legs buckled, drawing a series of strange-sounding complaints; then its belly contracted violently and its back arched, as it threw up a mouthful of half-eaten grass. First Sister and I both bent over and vomited. Mother, her hands smeared with fresh blood, stood there gaping in bewilderment at the mass of intestines. Her lips were quivering; suddenly, her mouth flew open, releasing a jet of red liquid, followed by loud, grief-stricken wails.
Shortly after that, volleys of black artillery shells tore into the sky like flocks of crows from the artillery blind in the little stand of trees, heading straight for our village. Blue flashes of light turned the sky above the grove the color of lilacs. The sun was a dull, colorless gray. After the first volley, the ground trembled, followed by the shrieks of the shells overhead; then came the muted thuds of explosions, sending columns of white smoke into the air above our village. Finally, the shooting stopped, producing a momentary silence that was quickly shattered when guns on the opposite bank of the Flood Dragon River sent their answer our way with even bigger shells; some landed among the trees, others fell in the open wilderness. And so it went, like a series of family visits. Waves of hot air swept across the wilderness. After an hour or so, the stand of trees went up in flames as the guns fell silent. But not those from our village, as their shells fell farther and farther off in the distance. All of a sudden, the sky above the sandy ridge was blue with flying shells that whistled through the air and landed on our village. The volleys dwarfed those that had come from the trees, both in numbers and impact. I’ve described the volleys from the grove as flocks of crows. Well, those that burst from behind the sandy ridge were like neat formations of little black pigs, with loud oinks and twitching tails until they chased each other straight into our village. When they landed, they were no longer little black pigs, but big black panthers, tigers, wild boars, biting everything they touched with fangs like ripsaws. As the artillery battle raged, the airships returned; but this time there were twelve of them, flying in pairs, wingtip to wingtip. From high up in the sky, they dropped their eggs, creating holes over the landscape. And then? A column of tanks rumbled out of our village. At the time I didn’t know those clumsy machines with long, trunklike gun barrels were called tanks. Once the column reached the alkaline wilderness, the tanks spread out, followed by helmeted foot soldiers, trotting at a crouch and firing into the air. Pow pow pow. Pow pow pow. Pow pow pow pow pow pow pow. Hit-or-miss. We dashed over to one of the artillery craters, where some of us sat and others flattened out on the ground, yet calmly, as if unafraid.
The caterpillar tracks under the tanks sped along, one link following the other, carrying the tank ahead with a loud rumble. Ruts and humps didn’t faze them; their trunks kept pointing forward. They raced along, wheezing, sneezing, spitting, a column of outrageous tyrants. Tiring of spitting their phlegm, they began spitting fireballs, the trunks recoiling with each burst. All they had to do was spin back and forth a time or two to flatten out a ditch, sometimes burying khaki-colored little men in the process. Everywhere they passed was now a mass of newly plowed soil. They rolled up to the sandy ridge, where bullets rained down on them — pow pow. They just bounced off. But not off the soldiers behind them, who crumpled in droves. A platoon of men ran out from behind the sandy ridge with sorghum-stalk torches, which they flung beneath the tanks. Explosions sent some of the tanks leaping off the ground and men rolling on the ground in front of them. A few of the tanks died, others were wounded. More men on the sandy ridge reacted like rubber balls, rolling down the sides to do battle with the helmeted soldiers. Jumbled shouts, incoherent screams. Flying fists, well-aimed kicks, choke holds, squeezed groins, bitten fingers, grabbed ears, gouged eyes. Silvery swords went in, red swords emerged. No form of battle went untried. A little soldier was losing to a bigger one, so he picked up a handful of sand and said, “Elder brother, you and I are distant cousins. The wife of a cousin on my father’s side is your kid sister. So please don’t use that rifle butt on me, okay?” “All right,” the bigger soldier said, “I’ll spare you this time, since I’ve sat in your house and enjoyed a few drinks. That wine decanter at your place is finely crafted. Those things are called Mandarin Duck decanters.” Without warning, the little soldier flung his sand into the bigger soldier’s face, blinding him temporarily. He then ran around behind the man and cracked his head open with a hand grenade.
There was so much happening that day that I’d have had to grow ten pairs of eyes to see it all and ten mouths to tell it. Helmeted soldiers charged in waves, the dead piling up like a wall; and still they couldn’t break through. Then they brought over flamethrowers that spurted death and crystallized the sand on the ridge. And more airships came, dropping great flatcakes and meat-filled buns, as well as bundles of colorful paper money. Exhausted by nightfall, both sides stopped to rest, but only for a short while, before the battle recommenced, so heated that sky and earth turned red, the frozen ground softened, and wild rabbits died in droves, their lives ending not by weapons but from fright.
The rifle fire and artillery barrages were unending; flares lit up the sky so brilliantly we could barely open our eyes.
As dawn broke, the helmeted soldiers threw up their arms in surrender.
On the first morning of 1948, the five members of our family, plus my goat, cautiously crossed the frozen Flood Dragon River and crawled up the opposite bank. Sha Zaohua and I helped First Sister drag the cart to the top, where we stood and gazed out at the patches of shattered ice, where artillery shells had landed, and at the water gushing out of the holes; as we listened to the crisp sound of ice cracking, we were thankful that none of us had fallen in. Sunlight fell on the battleground north of the river, where the smell of gunpowder lingered on; shouts, whoops of delight, and an occasional burst of gunfire kept the place alive. Fallen helmets looked like toadstools, and I was reminded of Big and Little Mute, whom Mother had placed in a bomb crater, where they lay uncovered, even by dirt. I told myself to turn and look toward our village, which had somehow avoided being reduced to rubble — a true miracle. The church was still standing, as was the mill house. Half of the tiled buildings in the Sima compound had been leveled, but our buildings were still standing, marred only by a hole from one of the artillery shells in the roof of the main house. We exchanged glances as we walked into the yard, as if we were all strangers. But then there were hugs all around, before we broke down and cried, Mother leading the way.
The sound of our crying was abruptly drowned out by the precious weeping of Sima Liang. We looked up and spotted him crouching in an apricot tree, looking like a wild animal. A dog pelt was draped over his shoulders. When Mother reached out to him, he leaped out of the tree like a puff of smoke and threw himself into her arms.
Chapter Five
1
The first snowfall of the era of peace blanketed the corpses, while hungry wild pigeons hobbled about on the snow, their unhappy cries sounding like the ambiguous sobs of widows. The next morning, the sky took on the appearance of translucent ice, and when the sun rose red in the eastern sky, the space between heaven and earth looked like a vast expanse of colored glaze. A carpet of white covered the land, and when the people emerged from their houses, their breath a steamy pink, they tramped through the virgin snow on the eastern edge of the open fields, their possessions on their backs, leading their cattle and sheep behind them as they headed south. Crossing the crab- and clam-rich Black Water River, they were setting out for the baffling, fifty-acre highlands, and Northeast Gaomi Township’s remarkable “snow market”
— a marketplace erected on the snowy ground — for their snowbound business transactions, ancestral sacrifices, and celebrations.
This was a rite for which people knew they had to keep all their thoughts bottled up inside, for the minute they opened their mouths to make them known, catastrophes would rain down on them. At the snow market, you engaged your senses of sight, smell, and touch to comprehend what was going on around you; you could think, but you mustn’t speak. Exactly what might befall you if you broke the speech proscription was something no one ever questioned, let alone answered; it was as if everyone knew, but participated in a tacit agreement not to divulge the answer. Northeast Gaomi Township’s survivors of the carnage — mostly women and children — all dressed up in their New Year’s finest and headed through the snow toward the highlands, their noses pricked by the icy smell of the snow at their feet. The women covered their noses and mouths with the sleeves of their thickly lined coats, and although it might appear that they were trying to ward off the biting smell of the snow, I was pretty sure it was to keep them from saying anything. A steady crunching sound rose from the white land, and while the people observed the practice of not speaking, their livestock didn’t. Sheep bleated, cows mooed, and those few aging horses and crippled mules that had somehow made it through the battles whinnied. Rabid wild dogs tore at the corpses along the way with their unyielding claws and howled at the sun like wolves. The only village pet to escape the ravages of rabies, the blind dog belonging to the Taoist priest Men Shengwu, followed its master bashfully through the snow. A three-room hut in front of a brick pagoda on the highlands was home to 120-year-old Men Shengwu, a practitioner of a magical art form known as eschewing grain. Rumor had it that he had not eaten human food for ten years, surviving exclusively on morning dew, like cicadas that live in trees.
In the eyes of the villagers Taoist Men was half man, half immortal. He moved about secretively with light, nimble steps; his head was bald and shiny, like a light bulb, his white beard bushy thick. He had lips like a little mule’s and teeth so bright they glittered like pearls. Both his nose and his cheeks were red, his white eyebrows as long as a bird’s wing feathers. Every year he appeared in the village on the day of the Winter Solstice to carry out his special responsibility of choosing the “Snow Prince” during the annual snow market — or more appropriately, the Snow Festival. This Snow Prince was required to fulfill sacred duties at the snow market, for which he received considerable material rewards, which is why all the villagers hoped that their sons would be chosen.
I — Shangguan Jintong — was chosen as that year’s Snow Prince. After visiting all eighteen villages of Northeast Gaomi Township, Taoist Men had selected me, proof that I was no ordinary boy. Mother wept tears of joy. When I was out on the street, women looked at me with reverence. “Snow Prince, oh Snow Prince,” they’d call out sweetly, “when is it going to snow?” “I don’t know when it’s going to snow, how could I?” “The Snow Prince doesn’t know when it’s going to snow? Ah, you don’t want to give away Nature’s secrets!”
Everyone was looking forward to the first snowfall, especially me. At dusk two days earlier, dense red clouds filled the sky; on the following afternoon, snow began to fall. Starting out as a mere dusting, it grew into a full-fledged snowstorm, with flakes the size of goose feathers and then downy little balls. Huge drifts of falling snow, one on top of the other, blotted out the sun. Out in the marshes, foxes and a variety of canines cried out, while the ghosts of wronged individuals roamed the streets and lanes, wailing and weeping. Wet, heavy snow pounded the paper coverings of people’s windows. White animals crouched on windowsills, beating the lattices with their bushy tails. I was too restless to sleep that night, my eyes filled with many strange sights; I won’t say what they were, because they would sound too mundane to someone who didn’t see them.
It was barely light outside when Mother got out of bed and boiled a pot of water to wash my face and hands. As she cleaned my hands, she said she was tending to the paws of her little puppy. She even trimmed my nails with a pair of scissors. Once I was all cleaned up, she stamped my forehead with her thumbprint in red, like a little trademark. Then she opened the door, and there was Taoist Men standing in the doorway. He’d brought along a white robe and cap, both made of glossy satin, softly pleasing to the touch. He’d also brought me a white horsetail whisk. After outfitting me, he told me to take a few steps around the snow-covered yard.
“Marvelous!” he said. “This is a true Snow Prince!”
I could not have been prouder. Mother and Eldest Sister were obviously pleased. Sha Zaohua gazed at me with a look of adoration. Eighth Sister’s face was adorned with a beautiful smile, like a little flower. The smile on Sima Liang’s face was more like a sneer.
Two men carried me on a litter with a dragon painted on the left side and a phoenix on the right. Wang Taiping, a professional sedan bearer, led the procession; he preceded his older brother, Wang Gong-ping, also a professional sedan bearer. Both brothers spoke with a slight stammer. Some years earlier, they’d tried to avoid conscription into the army, Taiping by cutting off the first finger of his own hand, Gongping by smearing red croton oil over his testicles to make it appear as if he had a hernia. When the village head, Du Baochuan, saw through their hoax, he pointed his rifle at them and gave them a choice between being shot and going up to the front lines as stretcher bearers, carrying wounded soldiers on their backs, and transporting munitions. They stammered incoherently, so their father, Wang Dahai, a mason who had fallen from a scaffold during the construction of the church and wound up crippled, chose for them. The two men carried their loads with a quick, steady gait that earned for them high marks from their superiors, and when they were demobilized, their commander, Lu Qianli, wrote references for them. But then Du Baochuan’s younger brother, Du Jinchuan, who had gone to war with them, died of a sudden illness, and the two brothers carried his body home, a full fifteen hundred li, experiencing untold hardships along the way. When they arrived, Du Baochuan accused them of killing his brother and greeted them with resounding slaps; unable to say anything without stammering uncontrollably, they took out the reference letters from their regiment commander. Du Baochuan snatched them out of their hands and ripped them up on the spot. Then, with a wave of his hand, he said, “Once a deserter, always a deserter.” All they could do was swallow their bitter feelings. Their tempered shoulders were hard as steel, their legs well trained for their profession. Riding on a litter carried by them was like being in a boat floating downstream. Waves of light tumbled across the snowy wasteland.
A stone bridge stood on pine pylons across the Black Water River. It swayed beneath us, making the roadway growl at our feet. After we had crossed, I turned and saw the lines of footprints on the snowy wasteland. I spotted Mother and Eighth Sister, and all the small children of the family, plus my goat, coming up behind me.
The sedan-bearing brothers carried me all the way to the highland, where I was welcomed by the spirited looks and tightly shut mouths of people who had arrived before us, men, women, and children. The adults wore somber expressions; the children all had mischievous glints in their eyes.
Led by Taoist Men, the brothers carried me up to a square earthen platform smack in the center of the highland, where a pair of benches stood behind a large incense burner with three joss sticks. They placed the litter between the benches, so I could dangle my legs as I sat. The silent cold nipped at my toes like a black cat and chewed on my ears like a white one. The sound of burning incense was like that made by worms as the curling ash fell into the burner and rumbled like a collapsing house. Its fragrance crawled up the left nostril of my nose like a caterpillar and out the right. Taoist Men burned a bundle of spirit money in a bronze brazier at the foot of the platform. The flames were like golden butterflies with wings covered with golden powder; the paper was like black butterflies fluttering up into the sky until they were worn out, and then settling down onto the snow, where they quickly died.
Taoist Men then prostrated himself before the platform of the Snow Prince and signaled the Wang brothers to lift me up again. I was handed a wooden club wrapped in gold paper, its head formed into a tinfoil bowl — the Snow Prince’s staff of authority. After choosing me as the Snow Prince, Taoist Men had told me that the founder of the snow market was his teacher, Taoist Chen, who had received his instructions from Laozi, the founder of Taoism himself, and that once he’d carried out his instructions, he’d risen up to Heaven to become an immortal, living on a towering mountaintop, where he ate pine nuts and drank spring water, flying from pine trees to poplars, and from there to his cave. Taoist Men explained in great detail the duties of the Snow Prince. I’d already carried out the first — receiving the veneration of the multitudes — and was at that moment carrying out the second, which was an inspection of the snow market.
This was the Snow Prince’s divine moment, as a dozen men in black-and-red uniforms stepped forward; although they held nothing in their hands, they assumed the posture of musicians with trumpets, suonas, bugles, and brass cymbals. The cheeks of some puffed out as if they were trumpeting loudly. Once every few paces, the cymbalist raised his left hand to shoulder height and pretended to strike his cymbal with his right hand; the silent clangs were carried far off in the distance. The Wang brothers bounced and swayed on springy legs as the citizenry ceased their silent transactions and stood straight, eyes gaping, arms at their sides, to watch the procession of the Snow Prince. The colors of those familiar and unfamiliar faces were enhanced by the glare of the snow: reds like dates, blacks like charcoal briquettes, yellows like beeswax, and greens like scallions. I waved my staff of authority in the direction of the crowd, momentarily sending them scurrying in confusion; their hands now swung wildly in the air and their mouths were open, as if screaming. But no one dared or was willing to make a sound. One of the sacred duties bestowed upon me by Taoist Men was to stop up the mouth of anyone who dared make a sound with the tip of my staff, then to jerk it back quickly, pulling the person’s tongue out with it.