The Garlic Ballads

  “He’s afraid I’ll skim off all the profits,” Number Two said sarcastically.

  “Father’s just thinking about our well-being,” his elder brother rebuked him.

  “Who asked him to?” Number Two grumbled on his way inside to go back to bed.

  Fourth Aunt heaved a sigh as she stood in the yard listening to the creaking axles of the wagon slowly taper off in the murky darkness. Gao Zhileng’s parakeets set up a frenzy of squawks, and poor Fourth Aunt was a bundle of nerves as she faltered in the yard, which was now draped in dull yellow moonlight.

  The cell door swung open and the policemen removed Number Forty-six’s handcuffs. She took a couple of jerky steps before flopping onto her cot, where she lay as if dead.

  “Officers,” Fourth Aunt implored as they were closing the door, “please let me go home. My husband’s fifth-week memorial service is coming up.…”

  The clanging door was her only answer.

  CHAPTER 10

  County Boss Zhong, put your hand over your heart and think:

  As government protector, where is the kindness in your soul?

  If you are a benighted official, go home and stay in bed;

  If you are an upright steward, take charge and do some good….

  —from a lament by Zhang Kou, sung standing on the steps of the government office after a glut in garlic had driven thousands of villagers to seek aid from the county administrator, who refused to get out of bed

  1.

  Jinju had nearly made it to Gao Ma’s yard when, with an anguished yelp, she collapsed. The fetus raised his fists and thundered, “Let me out! God damn it, let me out of here!”

  “Gao Ma … come here … help me … come mind your son.

  She crawled across the yard, then stood up by holding on to the door jamb. Four bare walls, a rusted pot, puddles of black water, and some rats that jumped out from behind the pot were all she saw inside. It looked as if a bull had been turned loose, and a sense of impending doom gripped her. As the child in her belly struck out with fists and feet, she wailed, “Gao Ma … Gao Ma …”

  The baby punched her. “Stop shouting! Gao Ma’s a fugitive, a criminal! How did I wind up with parents like you?” He kicked her, sending shivers up her spine; again she yelped, and everything turned black. As she fell, she banged her head against the one table not smashed by her brothers.

  Father, worn out from the beating he had administered, sat on the doorstep smoking his pipe. Mother, equally tired, sat on the bellows to catch her breath and wipe her tear-filled eyes. Jinju lay curled atop a pile of grass and weeds, neither crying nor complaining, a grin frozen on her face.

  Her brothers returned, the older one carrying a couple of metal pails and a string of dried peppers, the younger one pushing a nearly new bicycle with some military uniforms on the rack. They were breathless. “He didn’t have much worth taking,” the younger one said. “I had to stop this one from smashing the pot,” chided his older brother, “so we could leave him something.”

  “Tell me, do you still plan to run away with Gao Ma?” Father’s anger was rekindled.

  The sound of music from Gao Ma’s cassette recorder filled her ears. Father’s words, out there somewhere, were irrelevant.

  “Are you deaf? Your father asked if you still plan to run away with him!” Mother shouted, jumping down off the bellows and tapping her daughter on the forehead with a poker.

  She closed her eyes. “Yes,” she replied softly.

  “Beat her! Beat her! Beat her!” Father jumped up from the doorstep and stomped his feet. “String her up! I’ll show this little whore what it means to defy me!”

  “I can’t, Father,” the older son dissented. “She’s my sister. She doesn’t know what she’s doing right now, that’s all. Go ahead, yell at her, that’ll do it. Jinju, you’re smart enough to know you’re bringing shame to the family by what you’re doing. People will be laughing at us for generations. Admit you’re wrong and start living a normal life. Mistakes are part of growing up. Be a good girl and say you’re sorry.”

  “No,” she said softly.

  “String her up!” Father repeated. “What’s the matter with you?” he railed at his sons. “Are you dead, or deaf, or what?”

  “Father, we …” The older son was full of misgivings.

  “She’s my daughter, and if I say she dies, she dies! Who’s going to stop me?” He stuck his pipe into his waistband and gave his wife a malignant look. “Go out and bolt the gate!”

  She was quaking. “Let her do what she wants, all right?”

  “Are you looking for a beating, too?” He slapped her. “Get out there and bolt the gate, I said.”

  Mother backed up a couple of steps, her eyes starting to glaze over, then turned, like a marionette, and staggered out toward the gate. Jinju felt sorry for her.

  Father took a coil of new rope down from the wall, shook it out, and ordered his sons, “Strip her!”

  The older brother turned white as a sheet. “Dont beat her, Father. I don’t need to get married.”

  Father lashed out with the rope, wrapping it around his son’s waist. That straightened him up in a hurry. He and his brother went up to Jinju and looked away as they groped for her buttons. But she jerked their hands away and removed her own jacket, then her trousers, and stood before them in a tattered undershirt and red underpants.

  Father tossed one end of the rope to Elder Brother. “Tie her arms,” he commanded.

  Holding the rope in his hand, Elder Brother begged Jinju, “Please, ask Father’s forgiveness.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  Second Brother pushed Elder Brother away, then jerked Jinju’s arms behind her and tied them at the wrists. “The fact that this family has produced a Communist Party member who’d actually rather die than surrender amazes me.”

  She laughed in his face. He tossed the loose end of the rope over the roof beam and looked over at his father.

  “String her up!”

  Jinju felt her arms jerk out and up. Her tendons went taut; her shoulders popped. All the slack went out of the skin on her arms, and sweat oozed from her pores. She bit down on her lip, but too late to hold back the pitiful wails that burst from her throat.

  “Now what do you say—still plan to run away?”

  She strained to raise her head. “Yes!”

  “Pull, pull harder—pull her up!”

  Green sparks flew past her eyes; the sound of crackling flames exploded around her ears; jute plants swayed in front of her. The chestnut colt was standing beside Gao Ma, licking his face clean of dried blood and grime with its purplish tongue as golden layers of fog rose from the roadside, from thousands of acres of jute plants, and from the pepper crop in Pale Horse County. The colt disappeared, then reappeared in the golden fog Elder Brother’s face was ashen, Second Brother’s was blue, Father’s was green, and Mother’s was black; Elder Brother’s eyes were white, Second Brother’s were red, Father’s were yellow, and Mother’s were purple. As she hung in the air, she looked down at them and felt enormously gratified. Another shout from Father. She stared into his green face and yellow eyes; with a grin she shook her head. He ran into the yard, fetched the whip from the oxcart, and lashed her with it; wherever the tip landed, her skin erupted in flames.

  She regained consciousness in a corner of the wall; people were talking, including, it seemed to her, Deputy Yang. She struggled to her feet; lightheaded and leg-weary, she collapsed at the foot of her parents’ kang. A hand reached out to help her up; she didn’t know whose it was. She found her parents’ faces. “You can beat me to death if you want, but even then I’ll belong to Gao Ma, because I slept with him and I’m carrying his baby.” With that she dissolved in tears and loud wails.

  “I give up,” she heard Father say. “Tell Gao Ma to bring me ten thousand yuan. We’ll hand over the girl when he gives us the cash.”

  Jinju smiled.

  2.

  Gao Ma’s scowling son roared, ?
??Let me out of here! Let me out this minute! What kind of mother wouldn’t even let her own son out?”

  Her eyes bled. Pushing away the cool head of the chestnut colt, she said, “Don’t come out, child. Mother knows what’s best for you. What do you plan to do out here? Do you have any idea how tough life is?”

  He stopped struggling. “What’s it like out there? Tell me.”

  The chestnut colt tried to lick her face with its warm, purplish tongue. “Can you hear the cries of the parakeets, child?” she asked. “Listen carefully.”

  His ears stood straight up as he concentrated on the sound. “Those are parakeets in Gao Zhileng’s yard—yellow ones, red ones, blue ones, every imaginable color. They’ve got curved beaks and topknots on their crowns. They eat meat, drink blood, and suck brains. Do you still have the nerve to come out, child?”

  This struck fear into the boy, who drew into himself.

  “Look, child, see how that broad expanse of garlic looks like a nest of poisonous serpents, all intertwined? They’re also meat eaters, blood drinkers, and brain suckers. Do you still have the nerve to come out, child?”

  His hands and feet curled inward; his eyes frosted over.

  “I wanted to come out and see the world when I was like you, child, but once I got here, I ate pig slops and dog food, I worked like an ox and a horse, I was beaten and kicked, I was even strung up and whipped by your grandfather. Do you still want to come out, child?”

  He scrunched his neck down between his shoulders, becoming a virtual ball with staring, pathetic eyes.

  “Child, your father’s a fugitive from justice, and his family is so poor they cant even raise rats. Your grandfather was struck down by a car, your grandmother has been arrested, and your uncles have divided up all our property. The family no longer exists—some members are gone, others are dead, and there’s no one to turn to. Do you still want to come out, child?”

  The boy closed his eyes.

  The chestnut colt stuck its head in through the open window to lick her hand with its warm tongue. The bell around its neck clanged loudly. She stroked its smooth head and sunken eyes with her free hand. The colt’s hide had the cool sheen of costly satin. Tears welled up in her eyes; there were also tears in the colt’s eyes.

  The boy began to squirm again. “Mother,” he said, squinting, “I want to come out and look around. I saw a spinning fireball.”

  “That’s the sun, child.”

  “I want to look at the sun.”

  “You can’t do that, child—its flames burn your mother’s flesh and skin.”

  “I saw flowers in the fields, and smelled their perfume.”

  “Those flowers are poisonous, child, and their perfume is a miasma. They will cause your mother’s death!’’

  “Mother, I want to come out and stroke the red colt’s head.”

  She reached up and slapped the horse, momentarily stunning it before it withdrew its head from the window and galloped away.

  “There’s no colt, child—it’s an apparition.”

  The boy squeezed his eyes shut and stopped moving.

  She found some rope in the corner, tossed it over a beam, and made a noose in the other end. Then she fetched a stool and stood on it. The coarse fibers of the rope pricked her fingers. Maybe she should rub some oil on it. She was beginning to waver. Then she heard the colt whinny outside the window, and to protect the boy from any further shocks, she thrust her head through the noose and kicked the stool away. The colt stuck its head through the window again. She wanted to reach out and stroke its cool, glossy forehead, but she couldn’t lift her arms.

  CHAPTER 11

  Paradise County once produced bold, heroic men.

  Now we see nothing but flaccid, weak-kneed cowards

  With furrowed brows and scowling faces:

  They sigh and fret before their rotting garlic….

  —from a ballad by Zhang Kou urging garlic farmers to storm the county government offices

  1.

  As Gao Ma scrambled over the wall, two shots rang out, raising puffs of smoke and sending tiny shards of the mud wall down on him. He stumbled into a pigpen, scattering muck in all directions and causing a couple of startled pigs to squeal and run around in panic. Not knowing which way to turn, he quickly crawled into the covered area. A loud buzz erupted above his head, and sharp pains tore at his cheeks and scalp. He jerked his head up and saw that he had disturbed a hornets’ nest hanging from the sorghum-stalk covering. With hundreds of agitated hornets descending on him like a yellow cloud, he flattened out in the muck, afraid to move. But, reminded that the police were right on his heels, he wrapped his arms around his head, wriggled back outside, grabbed the enclosure fence, and leapt over it, landing behind a woodpile. He quickly rolled out into the yard, jumped to his feet, and turned to head east, when someone grabbed him by the arm and held him fast. Panic-stricken, he looked up into the face of a fair-skinned man. Recognition set in almost at once: it was Schoolmaster Zhu from the local elementary school. Having suffered a broken pelvis at the hands of the Red Guards, Zhu could no longer stand straight; the frames of his glasses were held together with tape.

  Gao Ma fell to his knees, like an actor in a soap opera, and pleaded for Schoolmaster Zhu to save him from the police, who were trying to arrest him in connection with the garlic incident.

  Zhu grabbed his hand and led him into a dark room where chicken feathers and garlic leaves nearly covered the floor and a pickling vat filled with sweet-potato slops stood in the corner. “Climb in,” Zhu said.

  Undeterred by the stench, Gao Ma climbed into the vat and squatted down, raising the level of slops to the rim, where it frothed noisily. He was up to his neck in the stuff, but Schoolmaster Zhu pushed him until it covered his mouth. “Dont make a sound,” Zhu said, “and hold your breath.” He covered Gao Mas head with a well-used gourd, then slid a battered lid over the vat, leaving just a crack.

  Footsteps sounded in the yard. Gao Ma raised his head to listen. He could tell the police had reached the sty. “You … you’re hiding in the p-pigpen, don’t think I wont f-find you. C-come out of there.”

  “Come out or well shoot!”

  “Comrades, what’s going on out here?” Zhu asked them.

  “C-catching a c- counterrevolutionary ! ”

  “In my pigpen?”

  “Stay out of the way. We’ll get to you after we’ve caught him,” the policeman demanded. “Come out of there, or we’ll shoot! We can use deadly force if you resist arrest.”

  “Comrades, is this a joke or something?”

  “W-who’s joking?” the stammerer said. “I’m going in to see for myself.”

  With his hands on the low wall, he leapfrogged into the pigpen, then waded into the covered area and stuck his head in, where he was greeted by a couple of hornets that stung him on the mouth.

  “Comrades,” Schoolmaster Zhu said, “what do you take me for, a Nationalist spy? Do you really think I’d try to put something over on you? I heard shots, and when my pigs started to squeal, I came out to see what was going on, just in time to spot a dark figure running like hell toward the southern wall.”

  “Aiding a fugitive is a felony,” the policeman said. “I want you to be clear on that score.”

  “I know,” Zhu replied.

  “W-what’s your name?” the stammerer asked.

  “Zhu Santian.”

  “Y-you say you spotted a dark figure running toward the southern wall?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a teacher.”

  “A p-party member?”

  “I was in the Nationalist Party before Liberation.”

  “The Nationalist Party? That must have been the life. I’m t-telling you. if you’re 1-lying, you’ll be up on charges, no matter what party you belong to.”

  “I understand.”

  Both policemen jumped out of the pigpen and ran toward the southern wall in search of the dark fi
gure. Gao Ma knew that the lane beyond the southern wall dead-ended at a noodle mill alongside a ditch of putrid stagnant water.

  Schoolmaster Zhu removed the beat-up gourd from Gao Mas head and said urgently, “Get moving. Head east down the lane.”

  Gao Ma pulled himself out of the gooey slops. He was covered with rotting sweet-potato leaves, and a dark-red liquid dripped from his arms and legs. The room was filled with the stink. Again he bent over as if wanting to kneel in front of Schoolmaster Zhu to show his gratitude. “None of that,” Zhu said. “Get moving!”

  Dripping wet, Gao Ma was greeted in the yard by a chilling wind as he tore through Schoolmaster Zhu’s gate and headed east down a narrow lane that opened into a wider north-south lane after about fifty paces. He paused at the intersection, fearful that a hard leather boot was waiting for him no matter which way he ran. The wide lane appeared to be deserted. He stood for a moment in front of a waist-high bamboo fence, then took a step backward for leverage and shot forward, clearing the fence and landing in a field of coriander about two hands high, emerald green in color, and sweedy redolent. It was wonderful. But this was no time to sightsee, so he jumped up and headed east down a field dike as fast as his legs would carry him. White-haired old Gao Ping-chuan, unseeing, crouched on his hands and knees, tending some cabbages. Another bamboo fence blocked his way, so once again he leapt over it. This time he wasn’t so lucky. The handcuff dangling from his wrist caught on a sorghum stalk, which snapped in two. “Who’s there?” Gao Pingchuan called out.

  Gao Ma didn’t linger, but entered another broad north-south lane, where a group of women sitting under a shade tree at the southern end were enjoying a noisy visit. Since a row of linked houses blocked his way east, he headed north, reaching the sandy riverbank in a minute or so; after stumbling into a grove of red willows, he turned east instinctively. The untended grove was like a maze, with branches growing every which way, their limbs serving as home for millions of light-brown poisonous caterpillars the locals called “scar creepers.” Just touching their little brisdes turned the skin all red and puffy and made it itch horribly. Gao Ma didnt realize he’d encountered the scar creepers until he was well past them, and far too busy trampling over the puncture vines that grew in wild profusion on the sandbar to notice their stings; even now, running barefoot over the vines, he felt no pain.