Pow!

  ‘Xiaotong,’ he said, ‘this is your sister.’

  The girl had beautiful eyes that reminded me of the woman who always cooked meat for me. I liked her at once. I nodded.

  With a sigh of relief, Father picked up his knapsack, then took me by one hand and the little girl by the other, and walked up to the house. Mother's wails came in waves, each swell greater than the last; by the sound of it, she wasn't going to stop anytime soon. Father lowered his head to think for a minute and then he rapped on the door. ‘Yuzhen, I've been a terrible husband…I've come back to apologize and make it up to you…’

  Tears gathered in his eyes, and in mine.

  ‘I've come back to help make a good life for us all. The facts prove that the Yang family knows how life is supposed to be lived, and that the Luo family doesn't. If you can forgive me…I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me…’

  Father's profound self-criticism both moved and disappointed me. If he was serious about doing what he said, then if he stayed, he'd quit eating pig's head, wouldn't he? Mother yanked the door open and stood there, hands on her hips, her face ashen, her eyes red, her gaze searing. Father stumbled backward and the little girl scooted behind him, shaking from head to toe.

  Mother spewed words like lava from a volcano: ‘So this is what you've become, Luo Tong, you heartless bastard! Five years ago, you abandoned your wife and son to run off with that fox demon and live the good life. How dare you come back?’

  ‘I'm scared, Daddy,’ the little girl sobbed.

  ‘How nice for you, a bastard child thrown into the bargain!’ said Mother as she glared at the girl. ‘The spitting image!’ she snarled. ‘A little fox demon! Why haven't you brought the big fox demon back with you? If she showed her face round here, I'd rip her cunt right out of her!’

  Father smiled in embarrassment, his body language clearly saying ‘You have to lower your head when you're under someone else's eaves.’

  Mother slammed the door shut again. ‘You take that bastard child and get the hell out of here,’ she shouted from the other side. ‘I don't want to see either one of you again! You didn't give us a thought until the fox demon tired of you and threw you out. Go away! You're already dead in the hearts of your wife and son.’

  She stormed into her room and began to cry once more.

  His eyes closed, Father was breathing like an asthmatic on his last legs. ‘Xiaotong,’ he said, once his breathing returned to normal, ‘I hope you and your mother have a good life. I'll be going now…’

  He rubbed my head a second time, then squatted to let the girl climb onto his back. But she was too small, and her coat too bulky; she made it halfway before sliding back to the ground. So he reached behind him, grabbed her by the legs and boosted her onto his back. Then he stood up and leaned forward, sticking his neck out as far as it would go, like an ox in a slaughterhouse. His bulging knapsack swayed under his arm, like a cow's stomach hanging from a butcher block.

  ‘Don't go, Dieh,’ I cried, grabbing his overcoat. ‘I won't let you go!’

  I banged on the door. ‘Niang!’ I shouted to Mother. ‘Niang, please let Dieh stay…’

  ‘Tell him to get the hell out of here,’ she screamed, ‘the farther the better.’

  I stuck my hand in through the gap where the glass pane had been, unlatched the door and flung it open.

  ‘Go in, Dieh,’ I said. ‘You're staying for me.’

  He shook his head and began to walk away with the girl on his back. But I grabbed his coat and began to cry again at the same time as I tried to pull him back through the door. As soon as we were inside, the heat from the stove wrapped itself round us. Mother was still cursing but not as loudly as before. And each outburst was followed by sobs.

  Father set down the girl while I arranged a pair of stools round the stove for them. Perhaps no longer as frightened by Mother's crying, the girl seemed to gain a bit of courage. ‘Daddy,’ she said, ‘I'm hungry.’

  Father reached into his knapsack and took out a cold bun, which he broke into pieces and set on top of the stove. The smell of toasted buns quickly filled the room. He untied his ceramic mug and cautiously asked: ‘Is there any hot water, Xiaotong?’

  I fetched the vacuum bottle from the corner and filled his cup with warm, murky water. After making sure it wasn't too hot, he said: ‘Here, Jiaojiao, have some water.’

  The girl looked at me, as if seeking my permission. I nodded, trying to be friendly. So she took the cup and began to drink, gurgling like a thirsty calf. Mother burst out of her room, snatched the mug out of the girl's hand and flung it into the yard, where it clattered noisily. Then she turned and slapped her. ‘There's no water here for you, you little fox demon!’

  The girl's cap was knocked off her head, exposing a pair of braids that had been curled up and pressed down under it, little white ties on the ends. ‘Wah!’ she burst out crying, turned and ran into Father's arms, who jumped to his feet, trembling violently, his fists clenched. I knew it was wrong but I was hoping he'd slug Mother; but he slowly unclenched his fists and held the girl close. ‘Yang Yuzhen,’ he said softly, ‘I know how you must loathe me, and I wouldn't blame you if you flayed me with a knife or shot me dead. But you have no right to hit a motherless child…’

  Mother stumbled backwards, the icy look in her eyes beginning to thaw. She fixed her gaze on the little girl's head, and kept it there for a long moment. Finally, she looked up. ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘It didn't seem like much,’ he said softly, ‘just a touch of diarrhoea. But that went on for three days, and then she died…’

  The hate on Mother's face was replaced by one of goodwill. But the anger in her voice remained: ‘Retribution, that's what it was, divine retribution!’

  Then she went into the other room, opened a cupboard and brought out a packet of stale biscuits. She tore open the oilpaper wrapping, took some out and handed them to Father. ‘Give them to her,’ she said.

  Father shook his head, refusing to take them.

  Now awkward, Mother laid them on the stove and said: ‘No matter what kind of woman winds up in your arms, a bad life and a cruel death await her. The only reason I'm still alive is that my karma is stronger than yours!’

  ‘I wronged her, and I wronged you.’

  ‘Keep your fine words to yourself, they mean nothing to me. You can talk till the heavens open up, and I still won't share my life with you. A good horse doesn't graze the grass behind it. If you had any backbone, I couldn't keep you here even if I wanted to.’

  ‘Niang,’ I said, ‘let Dieh stay.’

  ‘Aren't you afraid he'll sell the house to feed his face?’ she asked with a snide grin.

  ‘You're right,’ Father said, smiling bitterly, ‘a good horse doesn't graze the grass behind it.’

  ‘Xiaotong,’ Mother turned to me. ‘Let's you and me order some meat and wine at a restaurant. After suffering for five years, we deserve to enjoy ourselves for a change.’

  ‘I won't go,’ I said.

  ‘You little shit! Don't do anything you'll regret.’ Mother turned and walked outside. She'd taken off her sheepskin jacket and her black dogskin cap. Now she was wearing a blue corduroy jacket, and the collar of her red sweater that gave off sparks showed above her jacket. Back straight, head thrown back, she had a spring in her step, like a newly shod mare.

  My anxiety lifted once she passed through the front gate. I picked up one of the baked buns and handed it to the girl, who looked up at Father; he nodded his approval. She took it from me and began eating, big bites followed by little ones.

  Father took out a couple of cigarette butts from his jacket, rolled them both into a torn piece of newsprint and lit it at the stove. Through the blue smoke that emerged from his nostrils, I took note of his grey hair and the oozing chilblains on his ears. I thought back to the times he and I had gone to the threshing ground, where he'd priced the cattle, and to the times he'd taken me to Aunty Wild Mule's house, where I'd been fed plenty of
meat, and I was filled with mixed emotions. I turned my back to him to keep from crying.

  Then, out of the blue, I was reminded of our mortar. ‘Dieh,’ I said, ‘we have nothing to fear, no one will ever pick on us again, because we've got a big gun.’

  I ran to the side room, ripped away the carton paper, picked up the heavy base, and, straining mightily, stumbled out into the yard with it in my arms. I set it down carefully in front of the door.

  Father walked out, followed by his daughter.

  ‘Xiaotong, what's this?’

  Without stopping to answer, I ran back into the side room, picked up the heavy tripod, carried it into the yard and laid it beside the base. On my third trip, I carried out the sleek tube, then assembled the whole thing, quickly and expertly, like a trained artilleryman. Then I stepped back and proudly declared: ‘Dieh, you're looking at a powerful Japanese 82 mm mortar!’

  He walked up cautiously to the mortar, bent down and examined it carefully.

  When we'd first accepted the heavy weapon, it had been so rusted it had looked like three hunks of scrap metal. I'd attacked the rust with bricks, knocking off the biggest chunks, then switched to sandpaper and removed it from every inch of the metal, even inside the tube. Finally, I rubbed on several coats of grease, until it recaptured its youth, regained its metallic sheen; now it squatted open-mouthed on the ground, like a lion, ready to roar.

  ‘Dieh,’ I said, ‘look inside the tube.’

  Father turned his attention to the tube as a glare lit up his face. When he looked up, there was a sparkle in his eyes. I could see how excited he was. ‘This is something,’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Really something. Where'd you get it?’

  I shoved my hands into my pockets and pawed the ground as nonchalantly as possible.

  ‘From an old guy and his wife, who brought it on the back of an old mule.’

  ‘Have you fired it?’ he asked as he turned his attention back to the tube. ‘I'm sure it'll fire, this is the real thing!’

  ‘I was planning on going to South Mountain Village in the spring to look up that old man and his wife. They must have shells. I'll buy every one they've got, and the next person who picks on me will see what this thing can do to his house!’ I looked up at Father and, with an ingratiating look, said, ‘We can begin by blasting Lao Lan's house!’

  With a bitter smile, Father shook his head but said nothing.

  The girl had finished her baked bun. ‘Daddy,’ she said, ‘I'm still hungry.’

  Father went back inside and came out with the charred buns.

  The girl was shaking. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I want a biscuit.’

  Father looked at me, obviously embarrassed. I ran inside, picked up the packet of biscuits Mother had tossed down by the stove and held them out to her. ‘Here,’ I said, ‘eat.’

  She reached out to take them but Father swept her up in his arms like a hawk taking a chicken.

  She burst out crying.

  ‘Be a good girl, Jiaojiao,’ he said, wanting her to stop crying. ‘We don't eat other people's food.’

  That unexpected comment chilled my heart.

  He shifted the girl, who would not stop crying, onto his back and patted me on the head with his free hand. ‘Xiaotong,’ he said, ‘you're a big boy now, and you'll do better than your dieh ever did. Now you've got this mortar, and I know I won't have to worry about you.’

  With his daughter settled on his back, he turned and walked to the gate. I struggled to hold back my tears as I ran after him.

  ‘Do you have to go, Dieh?’

  He cocked his head to look at me. ‘Be careful with that mortar. Use it only when you have to, and don't use it on Lao Lan's house.’

  The hem of his overcoat slipped through my fingers. After bending forward to make it easier for his daughter to hold on, he walked down the frozen road in the direction of the train station. He'd taken only a dozen steps or so when I shouted. ‘Dieh—’

  Though he didn't turn back to look, she did. A radiant smile spread across her tear-streaked face, like an orchid in spring or a chrysanthemum in autumn. She waved, sending sharp pains through that ten-year-old heart of mine. I sat down on my haunches and watched as, in about the time it takes to smoke a pipeful, the figures of my father and the little girl disappeared round a bend in the road. Then, after about twice as long, but from the opposite direction, Mother came rushing down the road with the head of a pig, white with red showing through. ‘Where's your dieh?’ she asked, alarmed, when she reached me.

  Full of revulsion over the pig's head, I pointed towards the station.

  Somewhere far off a rooster crows, weak but clear, and I know we've reached that moment when total darkness precedes the dawn. The sun will be up soon, and the Wise Monk still hasn't moved. Somewhere in the room a mosquito drones wearily. The candle has burnt down, the cool wax in the candleholder is shaped like a chrysanthemum. The woman lights a cigarette and squints as the smoke drifts into her eyes. Then, with a burst of energy, she stands and shrugs her shoulders, sending her robe sliding to the floor, like dry tofu crust, gathering pathetically round her ankles. She steps on it with both feet before sitting back in her chair, where she spreads her legs and first rubs, then pinches, her nipples, spewing white streams of milk. I am both aroused and mesmerized. As I sit, I watch as the slough of my body maintains its shape, like a cicada, on the stool, while another me, this one stripped naked, walks towards the streams of milk. They spray onto his forehead and into his eyes, leaving drops on his face, like pearly tears. The milk spews into his mouth; the strong taste of human milk fills mine. He kneels in front of the woman and rests his head, with its chaotic mop of hair, on her belly, keeping it there for a long time. Finally, he looks up and asks, as if talking in his sleep: ‘Are you Aunty Wild Mule?’ She shakes her head, then nods, then sighs and says: ‘You foolish little boy.’ She cups her right breast and stuffs the nipple into his mouth…

  POW! 12

  A loud noise overhead sends down a mixture of broken tiles, rotting grass and mud from the sky; it smashes a bowl and drives a bamboo chopstick into the mildewed wall like an arrow. The woman who has sated me with her full breasts, the woman who is as warm as a sweet potato fresh from the oven, shoves me away. As she extracts her nipple from my mouth, stabbing pains attack my heart, I feel light-headed and fall to the floor on all fours. I try to scream but hardly any sound emerges, as if hands are choking me. Her eyes are glassy as her gaze sweeps the area as if seeking something. She wipes the wet nipples with her fingers and glowers at me. I jump to my feet, rush over and throw my arms round her. Bending, I begin to kiss her neck. She reaches down and pinches my belly, hard, then pushes me away and spits in my face. Then she turns and walks out of the room, buttocks swaying. I follow her, driven to distraction, and watch as she walks up to the Horse Spirit and mounts it from behind. The human-headed statue, with her on its back, flies out of the temple, filling the air with the sound of clattering hooves. I hear birds welcome the dawn with their chirps and, farther away, bovine mothers calling to their calves. I know that this is the hour they feed their young, and in my mind's eye I can see the calves hungrily bumping the teats with their heads as the happy yet agonizing mothers hunker down; but the breast that had been suckling me has vanished, so I sit on the cold, damp ground and cry shamelessly. After I have run out of tears, I look up and spot a hole the size of a basket in the roof, through which early morning sunlight enters like a tide. I smack my lips, as if I'd just awakened from a dream. But if this has been a dream, why does the taste of milk linger in my mouth? The injection of this mysterious liquid into my body carries me back to my youth, and even my adult body begins to shrink. If it hasn't been a dream, then where did the Aunty Wild Mule who isn't my Aunty Wild Mule go? I sit there staring woodenly at the Wise Monk, whom I'd forgotten, as he slowly returns to wakefulness, like a python emerging from hibernation. Folding up his body in that room, suffused with the golden glow of dawn, he begins his qigong brea
thing exercises. The Wise Monk is dressed in ordinary clothing—yes, it is the threadbare robe the woman who suckled me had worn. He has a unique way of exercising. Folding up his body, he takes his penis in his mouth and rolls round on his wide bed like a wind-up toy with a taut spring. Steam rises from his shaved head in seven distinct colours. At first, I didn't think much of his trifling exercise regimen, but when I tried it I realized that rolling round on the bed is no big deal, nor is folding up my body that way, but taking my penis in my mouth—now that's a challenge.

  Once he's finished, the Wise Monk stands on his bed to limber up, like a horse that's been rolling in soft sand. A horse will shake its body to send loose sand flying; the Wise Monk shakes his body to create a rainfall of sweat. Some of the drops hit me in the face, and one flies into my mouth. I am astounded to discover that his sweat has the fragrance of osmanthus, which now spreads throughout the room. He is a big man with large, whirlpool-shaped scars on his left breast and belly. Though I've never seen bullet wounds, I know that is what they are. Most people shot in those vital areas go straight down to the underworld, and to be not just alive but hale and hearty can only mean that he enjoys great good fortune and an enviable karma, a man born under a lucky star. As he stands on the bed, his head nearly brushes against the rafters, and it seems to me that if he stretched himself as tall as he could, then he might be able to stick his head out through the hole in the roof. Wouldn't that be a fright—his head, with its incense scars, sticking up through the roof tiles at the rear of the temple? Just think how stunningly strange that would look to the hawks wheeling low in the sky. As the Wise Monk limbers up, his body is exposed. It's a young man's body, in contrast to his old man's head. If not for a slight paunch, it could be mistaken for the body of a thirty-year-old man; but once he puts on his threadbare robe and sits cross-legged in front of the Wutong Spirit, no one who saw only his face and bearing would doubt that he was a man just shy of a hundred. Now that he's shaken the sweat off his body, and is good and limber, he climbs off the bed. What I observed has vanished under a robe that seems about to disintegrate. This has all the qualities of a hallucination. I rub my eyes and, like the heroes in wildwood tales who ponder their reactions to strange encounters, I bite my finger to see if I am dreaming. A pain shoots through my finger, proof that I am in the flesh and that what I observed was real. The Wise Monk—at this moment he is a faltering Wise Monk—seems to have at that moment discovered me as I crawl up to him; he reaches out, pulls me to my feet, and, in a voice dripping with compassion, says: ‘Young patron, is there something this aged monk can do for you?’ ‘Wise Monk,’ I say, a myriad feelings welling up inside me, ‘Wise Monk, I haven't finished my story from yesterday.’ The Wise Monk sighs, as if recalling events of the day before. ‘Do you want to continue?’ he asks compassionately. ‘If I keep it inside, Wise Monk, and don't let it all out, it will become an open sore, a toxic boil! He shakes his head ambiguously. ‘Come with me, young patron,’ he says. I follow him into the temple's main hall, where we stop in front of the Horse Spirit, one of the five. In this just and honourable place, we kneel on the rush mat, which looks so much more tattered than it did yesterday, dotted, as it is, with grey rain-produced mushrooms. The flies that seemed to have crawled round in his ears the day before now swarm back and cover them completely; two hang in the air for a moment before landing on his exceptionally long, twisting eyebrows which shake like branches supporting squawking birds. I kneel beside the Wise Monk, my buttocks resting on the heels of my feet, to continue my story. But I am beginning to wonder if I am still firm in my goal to become a monk. It seems to me that, in the space of one night, my relationship with the Wise Monk has undergone a significant change. The image of his young, robust body, which radiates sexual passion, keeps appearing in front of my eyes and his threadbare monk's robe turns transparent, throwing my heart into turmoil. But I still feel like talking. As my father taught me: anything with a beginning deserves to have an ending. I continue—