Yao Qi tried to calm things down. ‘Young brother,’ he said to Su Zhou, ‘you don't hit a man in the face and you don't try to humiliate him, especially in the presence of his son and daughter. Now that you've brought this out in the open, how is Luo Tong supposed to hide his shame?’
‘Fuck your old lady, Yao Qi!’ I screamed.
Jiaojiao threaded her way up front and joined me: ‘Fuck your old lady, Yao Qi!’
‘A couple of brave children,’ Yao Qi said with a smile. ‘Always ready to fuck someone's old lady. But do you know how do that?’
‘Mind your language, everyone,’ said Chen Tianle. ‘We've heard enough. I'm the master of ceremonies and what I say goes. Lift the coffin!’
No one paid him any attention—they couldn't take their eyes off Father, who had backed into a corner, his head raised, as if studying the patterns in the ceiling. Neither Su Zhou's curses nor Yao Qi's sarcasm seemed to have had any effect on him.
Outside, the sleeting rain splashed loudly. The monks and the musicians stood like wooden statues, unmoved by the downpour. A yellow-bellied swallow swooped into the room and darted round in a panic, the gusts of wind from its flapping wings making the candle flames flicker.
Father breathed a sigh and walked away from the wall, taking slow steps—one, two, three, four…blank stares followed him—five, six, seven, eight. He stopped in front of the hatchet, looked at it, then bent over and picked it up, holding the wooden handle with the thumb and index finger of his right hand. He wiped the chicken blood off the blade on the front of his jacket with the meticulous care of a carpenter cleaning his tools. He then took hold of the hatchet with his left hand. My father was the village's most famous lefty—I was one too and so was my sister. Lefties are known for being smart; but when we were at the table eating, our chopsticks invariably clashed with Mother's, since she was right-handed. Father walked up to Yao Qi, who hid behind Su Zhou. He then walked up to Su Zhou, who hid behind his sister's coffin, followed at once by Yao Qi in an effort to keep Su Zhou between him and Father. The truth is, they meant nothing to Father. He walked up to Lao Lan, who got to his feet and nodded calmly. ‘Luo Tong, I once thought highly of you but the truth is that you were no match for Wild Mule and you're no match for Yang Yuzhen.’
Father raised the hatchet over his head.
‘Father!’ I shrieked as I ran to him.
‘Father!’ Jiaojiao shrieked as she ran to him.
The local reporter raised his camera.
The cameraman turned his lens to Father and Lao Lan.
The hatchet circled the air above Father then swung down and split open Mother's head.
She stood as still as a post for a few seconds and then slumped into Father's arms.
POW! 40
Two nimble-footed electricians pound a nail into the temple's interior wall, attach a wire and hang a floodlight from it. When it's switched on its blinding light turns the dusky hall as pale as an epileptic. I squint to protect my eyes as spasms wrack my arms and legs, and the loud buzz of a cicada rings in my ears. I fear a relapse and desperately want to urge the Wise Monk to let us into his room behind the idol to escape from that light. But he sits there calmly, looking quite comfortable. That's when I discover a pair of fancy sunglasses on the floor beside me, possibly forgotten by the medical student—I can't be sure if she is in fact Lao Lan's daughter, since the world is full of people with the same name. I owe her for saving my life, and returning the glasses would be the right thing to do. But she's gone without a trace, so I put them on to keep the bright light out of my eyes. If she comes back I'll give them to her. If not I'll keep wearing them. I know a young woman like her would not want her glasses worn by someone like me. Everything has changed colour, taken on a soft, creamy hue, and I feel comfortable again. Lao Lan strides through the door, brings his uninjured arm up to his chest in a salute, then bows deeply and says almost in jest: ‘Revered Horse Spirit, to atone for my ignorance and for offending you, I will put on an opera especially for you. I ask you to help me in my goal of becoming rich. When I do I will donate whatever it takes to refurbish your temple and give you a new coat of gold paint. I will even supply you with a bevy of young women to enjoy at leisure, so you will no longer have to enter people's homes in the dead of night’ His vow draws titters from his entourage; they cover their mouths with their hands. Fan Zhaoxia curls her lip. ‘Are you asking for something from the Spirit or trying to make it angry?’ she asks. ‘What do you know? The Spirit understands me. Revered Horse Spirit, what do you think of this wife of mine? I'll be glad to offer you her services if you like’ Fan Zhaoxia gives him a swift kick. ‘You really do have a dog's mouth that can't spit out ivory,’ she says. ‘The Horse Spirit will show itself and use its hooves to put you out of your misery.’ ‘Papa, Mamma,’ their daughter calls from the yard, ‘I want some cotton candy’ Lao Lan pats the Horse Spirit's neck and says: ‘Goodbye, Horse Spirit. Let me know in a dream if you spot the woman you like, and I'll see that you get her. Women these days go for big guys’ Lao Lan exits the temple with his large retinue. A bunch of children holding sticks of cotton candy dart this way and that. A peddler of roasted corn on the cob fans his charcoal brazier with a moth-eaten fan. ‘Ro-o-oasted cor-r-r-n’ he shouts, drawing out each word. ‘One RMB an ear, free if it's not sweet’ The crowd has swollen in front of the opera stage, and the musicians fill the air with the clang of cymbals, the pound of drums and the twang of stringed instruments. A boy with tufts of hair standing up on either side of his head, wearing a red stomacher, his face heavily rouged; a Qingyi in a side-buttoned robe and baggy trousers, her hair gathered in a bun; an old man in a bamboo hat and straw sandals, sporting a white goatee; a blue-faced comic actor; and his female counterpart with a medicinal patch at her temple. They all clamour their way into the temple. ‘You call this an actor's lounge?’ the Qingyi is angry. ‘There isn't even a chair! ‘Try to make the best of it, can't you?’ pleads the old man with the goatee. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I'm going to talk to Troupe Leader Jiang. This is no way to treat people’ Jiang walks in as he hears his name: ‘What's the problem?’ ‘We're not famous actors, Troupe Leader,’ the Qingyi says, and we don't make unreasonable demands. But we are human beings, aren't we? When there's no hot water we drink it cold, when we have to do without rice and vegetables we eat bread and when we don't have a dressing room we get ready in a car or truck. But a simple stool isn't asking too much, is it? We're not mules that can sleep standing.’ ‘Put up with it as best you can, Comrade’ he says. ‘I dream of getting you to Changan Municipal Theatre or the Paris Opera House, where you'd want for nothing. But what are the chances, I ask you? Let's be frank. We are high-class beggars, or not even that. Beggars can smash a pot just because it's cracked, but we—we can't stop thinking that we're better than that’ ‘Then why don't we go out and start begging?’ the woman snaps. ‘I guarantee we'd make more than we do now. Look at all the beggars who live in Western-style houses.’ ‘You can say that if you want,’ reasons the troupe leader. ‘But you'd never make it as beggars even if you had to. Comrades, try to make do. I damn near had to kiss Lao Lan's arse for the extra five hundred. I'm a drama-school graduate, I'm supposed to be an intellectual. Back in the 1970s, a play I wrote even won second prize in a provincial contest. But if you'd seen how I degraded myself in front of Lao Lan's lackeys, well, I'm ashamed of the sickening talk that came out of my mouth. Afterwards, when I was alone, I actually slapped myself. And so, assuming we are all reluctant to give up this bit of income and still cling to this poor, pedantic art of ours, we must all endure a bit of humiliation to do what we've come to do and, as you said, when there's no hot water drink it cold, when you have to do without rice and vegetables eat bread. And if there are no stools please stand. Actually, standing is better, for you can see farther.’ The young boy, the one made up to look like the legendary celestial Prince Naza, scoots between me and the Wise Monk and leaps onto the back of the Horse Spirit. ‘Aunty Dong,’ he cries out br
ightly, ‘come up here, it's great! ‘You're a silly little meat boy,’ the Qingyi says. I'm not a meat boy, I'm a meat god, a meat immortal,’ he says as he bounces up and down atop the horse. Its water-soaked, crumbling back soon gives way and the frightened boy quickly slides off. ‘The Horse Spirit's back is broken,’ he shouts. ‘That's not the only thing that's broken,’ the Qingyi says as she surveys the temple. ‘The whole place looks like it's about to collapse. I hope it doesn't tonight and make meat patties out of all of us.’ ‘Don't worry, miss,’ says the man with the goatee, ‘the Meat God will protect you, for you are his mother! The troupe leader runs in with a rickety chair. ‘Get ready to go on stage, meat boy,’ he says and places the chair behind the Qingyi. ‘Sorry, Xiao Dong,’ he says, ‘but this is the best I've got.’ The meat boy dusts himself off, rubs his hands to clean off the mud, bounds out of the temple and mounts the wooden steps to the stage. The drums and the cymbals fall silent and give way to the two-stringed huqin and flute. ‘I've come to rescue my mother,’ the meat boy says in his high voice, ‘travelling day and night,’ and then runs to the centre of the stage as he finishes his line. Peeking through the gap between old blue curtains behind the stage, I see him turn a couple of somersaults. The drums and the cymbals set up a raucous din that merge with the crowd's ardent shouts of approval for the boy. ‘I cross mountains, ford rivers and pass through a sleepy town—to see a physician of great renown—he prescribes a concoction for mother mine—what a mix of ingredients—croton oil, raw ginger, even bezoar, a strange design—at the pharmacy I hand up the slip—the clerk demands two silver dollars for this trip—from a family with no money to enjoy—causing agonizing distress for this dutiful meat boy.’ He rolls about the stage to display his agonizing distress. With the beat of drums and clang of cymbals all round me, I feel like he and I have fused into one. What's the relationship between the story of the meat-eating Luo Xiaotong and the me who's sitting across from the Wise Monk? It's like some other boy's story, while my story is being acted out up on the stage. In order to get the concoction for his mother, the boy goes looking for the woman who buys and sells children to offer himself up for sale. The child merchant mounts the stage, bringing with her a happy, humorous air. Her lines all rhyme: ‘A child-seller, that's me, my name is Wang. My clever mouth takes me far and long. A chicken, you know, can be a duck, a donkey's mouth on a horse's arse is stuck. You'll believe me when I say the dead can run, the living in the underworld a sad song have begun…’ As she speaks, a naked woman, her hair in disarray, climbs up a post and then tumbles onto the stage. An uproar at the foot of the stage ends in excited shouts of Bravo! that split the clouds. ‘Wise Monk!’ I cry out in alarm. I can see the face of the crazed nude and—my God!—it's the actress Huang Feiyun. The meat boy and the child-seller move out of her way; she circles the stage as she were all alone until her attention is caught by the Meat God at the stage's edge. She walks up and pokes it in the chest with a tentative finger. Then—smack smack—she slaps it across the face. Men rush up to her, perhaps to drag her off stage, but she slips out of their grasp as if she were greased. Several leering men rush up, link their arms, form a wall round her and close in. She smirks and backs up slowly. ‘Back, back…Leave her alone, you bastards!’ That's my heart shouting. But the unfolding tragedy is inescapable. Huang Feiyun falls off the stage, drawing cries of alarm from below. A moment later I hear a woman's shout—it's the medical student Tiangua—‘She's dead, you sons of bitches!’ Why did you have to do that? That breaks my heart, Wise Monk, I can't hold back my tears. I feel a hand on my head—it's ice cold. Bleary-eyed, I can see it's the Wise Monk's hand. This time he doesn't try to mask the sadness he feels. A soft sigh escapes from his mouth. ‘Go on with your tale, son,’ I hear him say. ‘I'm listening—’
Mother was dead, Father was under arrest. Lao Han, who supposedly knew the law, said that Father was guilty of a capital crime and that the best he could expect was a death sentence with a two-year reprieve. A death sentence without a reprieve was a distinct possibility.
Jiaojiao and I were now orphans.
I'll never forget the day they arrested Father. It was ten years ago today. It had rained heavily the night before, and the morning was as hot and humid as it is today, with the same blistering sun. A municipal police car drove into the village a little after nine in the morning, siren blaring. People poured out of their homes to stare. The car stopped in front of the village office, where Lao Wang and Wu Jinhu of the local militia brought Father out of the Township Station house. Wu removed the handcuffs and a municipal policeman came up and cuffed Father with a new pair.
Jiaojiao and I stood by the side of the road staring at Father's puffy face; his hair had turned white overnight. My tears flowed (although I must confess that I didn't feel all that bad). Father nodded to us, a signal for us to go over, which we did, hesitantly. We stopped a few steps before we reached him, and he raised his hands as if he was going to touch us. But he didn't. His handcuffs sparkled in the sunlight, temporarily blinding us. ‘Xiaotong, Jiaojiao,’ he said softly, ‘I lost my head out there…If you need anything, go see Lao Lan, he'll take care of you.’
I thought my ears were deceiving me. I looked to where he was pointing, and there was Lao Lan, his arms hanging loose, bleary-eyed from drink. His freshly shaved scalp was a mass of bumps and dents. He'd also just shaved, revealing a big, strong chin. His deformed ear was uglier than ever, actually quite pitiful looking.
After the police car drove off, the staring crowd slowly dispersed. Lao Lan wove his way up to us on unsteady legs, a look of abject sadness on his face. ‘Children,’ he said, ‘from now on you'll stay with me. You'll never go hungry as long as I've got food, and I'll make sure you always have clothes to wear.’
I shook my head to drive out all the emotional turmoil and concentrate my energy on thinking clearly. ‘Lao Lan,’ I said, ‘we can't stay with you. We haven't got everything figured out yet, but that's not going to happen.’
I took my sister's hand and walked back to our house.
Huang Biao's wife, in black, with white shoes and a yellow hair clasp shaped like a dragonfly, was waiting at the gate with a basket of food. She couldn't look us in the eye. I wanted to send her away because I knew she was there on Lao Lan's order. But I didn't have to; she laid the basket on the ground and left before I could speak to her, walking off quickly, wiggling her bottom and without another glance in our direction. I felt like kicking the basket away but the meaty fragrance stopped me. With a dead mother and a departed father, we were filled with sorrow, but we hadn't eaten for two days and hunger gnawed at our insides. I could go without, but Jiaojiao was just a child; every missed meal cost her tens of thousands of brain cells. Losing a little weight was all right but, as her older brother, how could I do justice to Father and Aunty Wild Mule if I let hunger turn her mad? I recalled some films and illustrated storybooks where revolutionaries capture an enemy field cauldron filled with fragrant meat and steaming white buns. In high spirits, the commander says, ‘Dig in, Comrades!’ So I picked up the basket and took it inside; I removed the food, laid it out on the table and, like the commander, said to my sister, ‘Dig in, Jiaojiao!’
We gobbled up the food like starving beasts and didn't stop till our bellies bulged. I rested briefly, and then it was time to think about life. Everything seemed like a bad dream. Our fate had changed almost before we knew it. Who'd caused this tragedy? Father? Mother? Lao Lan? Su Zhou? Yao Qi? Who were our enemies? Who were our friends? I was confused, I was undecided; my intelligence was being put to its greatest test. The face of Lao Lan flickered in front of me. Was he our enemy? Yes, he was. We were not about to take Father's advice. How could we possibly live at his house? I was still young but I'd led the meat-cleansing workshop and I'd participated in a meat-eating contest and, in the process, seen all those grown men bow their heads before me in defeat. I had been pretty tough to begin with; I was even tougher now. ‘When mother-in-law dies, daughter-in-law is mat
riarch. When father dies, eldest son is king of the roost.’ My father hadn't died but he might as well have. My time as king of the roost had arrived, and I had revenge on my mind.
‘Jiaojiao,’ I said to her, ‘Lao Lan is our mortal enemy and we're going to kill him.’
She shook her head: ‘He's a good man!’
‘Jiaojiao,’ I said earnestly, ‘you're young and inexperienced, and you can't tell what a man is like by his appearance alone. Lao Lan is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Do you understand what that means?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Jiaojiao said. ‘Let's kill him then. Shall we take him to the workshop first and give him the water treatment?’
‘“For a gentleman to see revenge, even ten years is not too long,” as they say. It is for me but we can't be in too big a hurry. Not today but not in ten years either. First, we need to get our hands on a good, sharp knife. Then, we wait for the right moment. We need to pretend that we're a couple of pitiful children, make everyone feel sorry for us, lull them to sleep. Then strike! He's a powerful man—if we fight him on his terms we'll lose, especially because he has the protection of the martial-arts master Huang Biao.’ I had to consider our situation from every angle. ‘As for the water treatment, let's wait and see.’
‘Whatever you say, Elder Brother.’
One morning, not much later, we were invited to share a pot of bone soup at the home of Cheng Tianle. Nutritious and loaded with calcium, the soup was just the sort of thing Jiaojiao, who was still growing, needed. It was a big pot, with lots of bones. If anyone knew his bones it was me—horse, cattle, sheep, donkey, dog, pig, camel and fox. Mix a donkey bone in with a pile of cow bones and I could pick it out every time. But the bones in this pot were new to me. The well-developed leg bones, the thick vertebra and the rock-solid tailbone put the thought of a fierce feline in my mind. Cheng Tianle was a good man, that I knew, and he liked me. He'd never do anything to hurt me, so there would be nothing wrong with what he fed us. Jiaojiao and I sat at a square little table next to the pot and began to eat, one bowlful followed by another and another, until we'd each had four. Cheng's wife stood by with a ladle, filling our bowls as soon as they were empty while Cheng urged us to eat our fill.