The Garlic Ballads

  “Yixiang,” she had said to her son after dinner, “aren’t you going out to meet your father?”

  “What for?” he replied. “If he’s not coming home, what good would going out to meet him do? And if he is, what harm would not going out to meet him do?”

  Fourth Aunt was speechless. “I wonder why we ever took the trouble to raise you,” she said after a while.

  “I didn’t ask you to. You should have stuffed me down the septic tank when I was born and let me drown. That way you could have spared me years of grief.”

  Choked with sobs, Fourth Aunt sat on the edge of the kang and let her tears flow. Her shadow spread across the floor, painted by yellow moonlight.

  A frantic pounding at the door.

  Fourth Aunt rushed to open it. Gao Yang stumbled into the room.

  “Fourth Aunt,” he muttered through his sobs, “Fourth Uncle was killed by a car.…”

  Fourth Aunt crumpled to the floor, where she lay without twitching. Gao Yang picked her up and thumped her back and shoulders until she spat out a mouthful of phlegm. “Number One, Number Two, Jinju … get up, all of you. Your father’s been killed by a car….”

  Jinju, far along in her pregnancy, came running into the room, followed by her brothers.

  2.

  Two horse-drawn wagons entered the lane at dawn and stopped in front of the threshing floor. Fourth Aunt ran outside, shouting for her husband. The area was packed with people, including even the village boss, Gao Jinjiao. Elder and Younger Brother stood impassively beside the wagon.

  “Your father, where’s your father?” Fourth Aunt demanded, her hands spread out questioningly in front of her.

  Elder Brother squatted down and held his head in his hands as he wept softly. “Father … my dear father

  His younger brother, dry-eyed, flung back the sheet of plastic covering the bed of the wagon to reveal the rigid corpse of Fourth Uncle. His mouth was open, his eyes staring, his cheeks spattered with mud.

  Husband, my husband, such a cruel way to die! Let me touch your face, your hands. Your face is cold as ice; so are your hands. Last night you were full of life, this morning just a cold cadaver! Fourth Aunt rubbed Fourth Uncle’s bald pate, then his ears. Through rips in his thin jacket she glimpsed his dark, sunken abdomen. Shredded pant legs revealed a gory mess of skin and blood.

  Husband, bringing down a farmer is supposed to be so hard. A bump on the leg shouldn’t do it. She felt his cold scalp for wounds. And found one: a dent the size of an egg in the center of his cranium. Here it is, the spot where they cracked your skull and drove bone splinters into your brain—this is how they killed you.

  Two of the villagers dragged Fourth Aunt away, teeth clenched and gasping for breath. Fearful that she was about to follow her husband in death, a couple of the bystanders forced her mouth open with a chop-stick; Jinju’s tearful, pathetic cries sounded in the background. “Take it easy, not so hard! Dont gouge her teeth out,” the one holding her head cautioned the one holding the chopstick. Once they had her lips parted, a mouthful of cold water brought her to her senses.

  The dead cow lay on its side in the second wagon, its stiff legs poking over the side of the wagon like gun barrels. Inside its belly an unborn calf squirmed and wriggled.

  A burst of weeping, followed by one of wailing. When the people next looked up, they saw that the sun was high in the sky. “Fang Yijun,” the village boss, Gao Jinjiao, said, “your father’s dead, and no amount of tears can bring him back. In this heat hell start to stink pretty soon, so dress him up in the newest clothing you can find, then hire a truck and take him to the county crematorium. As for the cow, skin it and sell the meat—tomorrow’s market day, and the price of beef has gone through the ceiling. What you get for the hide and meat will be more than enough for your father’s funeral expenses.”

  “Uncle,” Fang Yijun said to the village boss, “do you expect us to accept our father’s death without a murmur? Gao Yang says they were parked by the side of the road, and that the car swerved into them.”

  Oh?” Gao Jinjiao commented. “Is that how it happened? Then the driver should go to jail, and the owner should pay restitution. Whose car was it?”

  “The township government. Party Secretary Wang Jiaxiu was in the car when it happened,” Gao Yang said.

  Gao Jinjiao blanched. “Gao Yang,” he said sternly, “I want the truth. Are you sure?”

  “That is the truth, Uncle. The car sprung a leak and broke down a few seconds later. I was holding Fourth Uncle in my arms and crying when Secretary Wang and his driver came running back. Little Zhang was shaking like a leaf, and he reeked of alcohol. ‘You don’t have anything to be scared of as long as I’m around, Little Zhang,’ Secretary Wang assured him. Then he asked what village I was from, and when I told him, he breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Little Zhang,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing to be afraid of. They’re peasants from our township. That’s easy. A little cash for the family will take care of everything.’ “

  “Enough of that crazy talk, Gao Yang!” Gao Jinjiao said. “What about the license number?”

  “Ifs a black car, with no license plate. The only time they dare drive it is at night,” Gao Zhileng, the neighbor who raised parakeets, remarked angrily. “The driver’s a cousin of Secretary Wang’s wife. Used to be a tractor driver, and doesnt have a passenger-car license.”

  “Gao Zhileng!” Gao Jinjiao shouted.

  “What?” Gao Zhileng asked, glaring defiandy. “You want me to keep my mouth shut, is that it? Well, you may be afraid of him, but I’m not! My uncle is deputy director of the Municipal Committee Organization Department, and that makes our Wang Jiaxiu look like a cunt hair!”

  “Okay, do what you want,” Gao Jinjiao said. “As long as it includes cremating the body and paying the village committee an administrative fee of ten yuan from the sale of the cow.”

  “If you Fang boys weren’t such worthless garbage you’d carry your father over to the township compound and force Wang Jiaxiu’s hand,” Gao Zhileng said.

  The older one stood there shilly-shallying, but his brother’s eyes blazed. “Let’s go, Brother!” he said resolutely. “Jinju, watch the house. Mother, you come with us.”

  Well, the boys lifted their father’s body off the wagon and lay it facedown on the ground like a dead dog. “Hold on, Number Two,” I said. “Dress your father up first. He’s got a new lined jacket in the house. He needs to look good if he’s going to see an official.” “To hell with looking good!” Number Two said. “He’s dead.” He took down a door and laid his father on it, still facedown. “Turn him face-up, Number Two,” I said. So he rolled my husband over, to let him stare blindly at the sky. Good old Gao Zhileng went home to fetch a couple of ropes to tie the body down. Then the boys carried their father off to the township compound, the older one limping along up front, the younger one behind, and me bringing up the rear. Villagers crowded around me, and even that bastard Gao Ma showed up. But no matter what anyone says about him, he still would have been our son-in-law. Well, he walked up and grabbed the pole out of my oldest son’s hands. Since Gao Ma and my second son are the same height, the door leveled out and the old man’s head stopped lolling from side to side.

  But when we reached the compound, the gatekeeper tried to stop us from entering, so Gao Ma shouldered him aside. The place was deserted except for a big barking dog that was squatting by the kitchen door. The car that killed my husband was parked there. The top was almost covered by a wagonload of green garlic, and the hood was all bloody.

  The three of us waited in the compound with my husband’s body. We waited and we waited, all the way to high noon, but nobody came up to ask what we wanted. Flies were crawling all over my husband’s face, trying to find their way into his eye sockets and mouth and nostrils and ears to put their gunk inside. What’s gunk? You know, maggots. It didn’t take them long to start squirming all over the place. They were everywhere. When one swarm of flies left, another took its place. T
hen it flew off. I tried to cover the old man’s face with a sheet of newspaper, but the flies kept finding their way under it. Villagers from all over came to gawk—East Village, West Hamlet, Northville, and Southburg— everyone but the officials who should have been there.

  My younger son went to the local café and bought a bunch of oil fritters, brought them back wrapped in newspaper, and tried to get me to eat. But I just couldn’t, not with my husband lying dead in front of me. He’d been there all morning and was starting to smell. My oldest son couldn’t eat, either. In fact, his brother was the only one who could. He scraped a handful of garlic off the car, then stood there with garlic in one hand and fritters in the other, taking a bite out of the left hand, then the right, back and forth, over and over. His eyes were wide and his cheeks puffed way out, and I could tell that deep down he felt bad.

  Finally our waiting paid off. An official turned up, though by then the sun was good and red. It was Deputy Yang, a distant relative until he disowned us for letting our daughter go off with Gao Ma. But at least he’s no stranger. In fact my older son calls him Eighth Uncle, and my younger one does chores for him, like helping him build his house, put up walls, deliver manure, stuff like that. He’s almost one of his hired hands.

  Well, he rode his bicycle through the gate. At last, I thought. After waiting for the stars and the moon, our savior from heaven had arrived! My sons ran up to greet him, with me right on their heels. But what was I supposed to call him? “Eighth Uncle” seemed the safest, I figured. “Eighth Uncle, we need your help. Here, I’ll get down on my knees and beg. As the saying goes, ‘Kneeling is the weightiest form of respect’ “ Well, that was more than Deputy Yang could bear, and he quickly helped me to my feet. I didn’t realize it was all for show until later on. He even took out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. Then he lifted up the sheet of newspaper and looked into my husband’s face. The flies took off with a buzz, and he jumped back in fright. “Fourth Aunt,” he said to me, “you can’t leave him here. That won’t solve anything.”

  My second son said, “Since Secretary Wang killed my father, the least he could do was show up and admit it. My father may have been a poor man, low on the social ladder, but he was a living, breathing human being. If you run over a dog, at least you offer your apologies to its owner!”

  With a squint, Deputy Yang said, “Number Two, when your sister ran off with another man and broke the marriage contract, my poor nephew was an emotional wreck. Now all day long he cries like a baby or laughs like a madman. But even that doesnt alter the fact that we’re family. Like they say, a deal gone sour doesnt affect justice and humanity. Now don’t take me wrong, but what you say proves you’re not using your head. Secretary Wang wasn’t driving the car, so how could he have killed your father? The driver was wrong to run into your father, and the courts will deal with him. But by bringing the body to the township compound and attracting hundreds of curious bystanders, you re obstructing township work. By ‘township I mean the government, so obstructing the township is obstructing the government, and that’s illegal. You were on the right side of the law at first, but keep this up and you’ll wind up on the wrong side. Am I right or not?”

  Unswayed by the argument, Number Two replied, “I don’t care. Secretary Wang is responsible for what happened, since he was riding in an official car and making deals for garlic when it ran my father down. Now he won’t even show his face. That land of behavior is unacceptable anywhere.”

  “Number Two, you get farther off the track every time you open your mouth,” Deputy Yang said. “Who told you Secretary Wang was making garlic deals? That’s slander! Secretary Wang is at an emergency meeting on public security at the county seat. What’s more important, an emergency meeting on public security or this affair with your father? When he returns from his meeting, he’ll announce measures to deal with criminal behavior that disrupts social order. What you’re doing here is a perfect example.”

  That shut the boy up. So it was his elder brother’s turn. “Eighth Uncle, our father’s dead, which isn’t uncommon for a man in his sixties. It must have been fate. Otherwise, how come out of all the millions of people walking this earth, he was the one who got hit by the ear? Fate had this tragic end planned for him all along. If King Yama of the Underworld wants to claim somebody during the third watch, who would dare hold on till the fifth? I reckon the Underworld has its rules and regulations, just like any other place. So tell us what to do, Eighth Uncle.”

  “If you ask me,” Deputy Yang said, “you should take him home and have him cremated as soon as possible, like the first thing tomorrow, since it’s too late today. You can have the crematorium send a hearse for forty yuan. The price of everything else keeps going up, but they still only charge forty yuan for the hearse. A real bargain. If you agree to do it tomorrow, I’ll make arrangements for the hearse. I think you should wash him, give him a shave, and dress him in some decent funeral clothes, then stay up with the body tonight, like good filial sons and daughters. The hearse will show up at your door first thing in the morning. Your father never rode in a car while he was alive, so you might as well splurge a bit now that he’s gone. Meanwhile I’ll talk to the man in charge of the crematorium and get him to fill the urn more than usual with your father’s ashes. Then after you take him home, call your friends and relatives together for a wake. That should bring in some needed cash. The head of the household may be gone, but the rest of you have to go on living, don’t you? But if you go on like this, not only will you ruin your reputation, you’ll make things tough on yourselves for the rest of your lives. Am I right or aren’t I, Fourth Aunt?”

  Well I told him I was only a woman, so what did I know? I said I’d leave it up to him.

  “What worries me,” Number Two said, “is that once Father’s been cremated, Secretary Wang won’t admit to anything.”

  “Don’t talk like a fool, Number Two,” Deputy Yang scolded him. “Secretary Wang is a party secretary, after all. More wealth passes through his fingers every day than you can count. As long as you don’t make things difficult for him, you won’t have to worry about being taken care of. The township government may be small, but it’s still government, and the money that slips through the cracks would be enough for you folks to get by on from here on out.”

  Number One said, “Eighth Uncle, people say we should report this to the county. What do you think?”

  “It’s your father who’s dead, not mine,” Deputy Yang replied, “so it’s up to you. But I wouldn’t, if it were me. It’s too late to do anything for him now, so it’s time to think about yourselves—in other words, money. I say get it any way you can. If you take your case to the county, even if the driver goes to jail, what good does that do you? Once a case gets into the courts, things have to be done by the book. The most you can hope for then is a few hundred for funeral expenses. With Secretary Wang’s connections at the county level, even if the driver is sent to jail, he’ll be out in a couple of months and back on the street, doing whatever it is he does. And by offending Secretary Wang, you’ll have marked yourselves as undesirables. In that case, you boys can forget about ever seeing a wedding day. On the other hand, if you forget about reporting it, and worry about taking care of the funeral arrangements instead, people will call you just plain folks, and with the reputation of a good family, Secretary Wang will be happy to settle things amicably, to your advantage. Now go do what you think is right.”

  “Is money the only thing people live for?” Gao Ma asked.

  “Aha!” Deputy Yang said. “So you’re here, too, are you? What are you up to? First you entice their daughter away, then you get her pregnant without marrying her, and wedding plans for three families—Cao, Fang, and Liu—are scrapped, all because of you. You ruined everything, so what does that make you? Boys, do what you want. There’s nothing in it for me, anyway. I don’t have to worry about people talking behind my back.”

  The older Fang boy spoke up: “Gao Ma, you’ve done enough ha
rm for one person. Go scrape up the ten thousand and take Jinju with you. We don’t want a sister like that, and we sure as hell don’t want a brother-in-law like you!”

  Gao Ma, his face scarlet, walked off without another word.

  3.

  As she lay in her jail cell, Fourth Aunt relived the events surrounding the return of Fourth Uncle from the government compound. Once again it was the lame elder brother in front and the younger brother in the rear, which caused the door to rock and Fourth Uncle’s head to loll from side to side. The sound of his head thumping against the door wasn’t nearly as crisp as it had been on the way over. No sooner had they emerged onto the street than the gate was closed behind them. Troubled by feelings of emptiness, Fourth Aunt turned to take a last look inside, where she saw a group of administrative types stream into the yard as if popping out of the ground, to gather around Deputy Yang; there were sneers and grins on their faces, Deputy Yang’s included.

  The passage of Fourth Uncle’s corpse attracted far less attention than it had on the way over, when anyone who could walk fell in behind the grisly procession. Now the cortege comprised only a few yapping dogs.

  Back home, the brothers laid their poles in front of the gate, making the door thud against the ground and raising clouds of noise from Gao Zhileng’s parakeets. Jinju, a blank look in her eyes, opened the gate. “Carry your father inside and lay him on the kang,” Fourth Aunt said. Neither son spoke or budged.

  “Mother,” Number One broke the silence, “people say you shouldn’t lay the corpse of someone who’s died a violent death on the kang—”

  Fourth Aunt cut him off. “Your father worked like a dog all his life, and now that he’s dead is he to be denied the comfort of a warm kang? That would be more than I could stand.”