The Republic of Wine
The second attack commenced, drawing the little demon back into the fray, as he broke free from the brood of children. His movements were too nimble and focused for a mere child. Before the hawk had time to react, the little demon was at its neck, and it suddenly feared for its life. It felt as if an enormous black spider had attached itself to its neck, or a vampire bat with bright red membranes flaring beneath its limbs. It wrenched its head violently to shake the child free, but in vain, for by then the little demon’s claws were buried in its eyes. The excruciating pain took all the fight out of it, and with a tortured howl, it stumbled forward and thudded to the ground like a felled tree.
The little demon jumped off the man’s head, a smirk on his face that can only be described as evil and brutal. Walking up to the children, he said:
Children, comrades, I scooped out the hawk’s eyes. It can’t see us. Now it’s time to play!’
The eyeless hawk writhed on the ground, sometimes arching like a footbridge and sometimes slithering like a dragon. Black blood oozed out from between its fingers, which covered its face, like squirming black worms. It wailed pitifully, a sad, shrill, chilling sound. Instinctively, the children huddled together. The little demon took a vigilant look all around; the compound was deserted, except for a few white butterflies flitting over the grass. Black smoke belched from a chimney on the other side of the wall, sending a cloud of heavy fragrance straight to the little demon’s nostrils. Meanwhile, the wails of the hawk grew increasingly pitiful and shrill So after a couple of frenetic spins, he jumped back onto the hawk’s back, quickly burying all ten claws into its throat. The look on his face was too horrifying for words as his fingers dug deep in the man’s thick neck. Did that give him the same feeling as thrusting his fingers into hot sand or a bucket of lard? Hard to say. Was he enjoying the satisfaction of revenge? Again, hard to say. You, my readers, are more intelligent than the author, something the narrator believes without question. Well, by the time the little demon withdrew his fingers, the hawk’s wails were barely audible; blood spurted from the holes in its neck, rising and falling, as if home to crabs that were foaming at the mouth. Holding up ten bloody fingers, the little demon announced calmly:
‘The hawk is in its death throes.’
The bolder children crowded around, with the others falling in timidly behind, all gazing down at the hawk’s expiring body. It was still twitching, writhing on the ground, though the intensity of movement was weakening. Suddenly the hawk’s mouth opened, as if to release a screech; but instead of sound, only blood emerged, making a pattering sound as it hit the grass, sticky and hot. The little demon picked up a handful of mud and stuffed it into the hawk’s mouth. Sounds rumbled up from the throat, followed by an explosion of mud and blood.
Children,’ the little demon demanded, ‘suffocate him, stuff up the hawk’s mouth, so he can’t eat us.’
The children sprang into action, as ordered. In unity there is strength. Dozens of hands scrambled to dig up mud, grass, and sand, and cram it into the hawk’s mouth; then, like a downpour of rain, they covered its eyes and pinched its nostrils shut. As the children’s enthusiasm mounted, they were in the grip of euphoria, enjoying the game of life as they buried the hawk’s head in mud. That is how children are; they will gang up on a poor frog, or a snake crossing the road, or a wounded cat. And after beating it half to death, they’ll crowd around to enjoy the spectacle.
‘Is he dead?’
A pop of air escaped from the hawk’s bottom.
‘He isn’t dead, he just farted. Keep stuffing.’
Another deluge of mud ensued, nearly burying the hawk - yes, it was all but buried under the mud.
When the person in charge of the Special Purchasing Section of the Culinary Academy heard a series of demonic wails in the yard outside the Meat Child Room, her neck and bladder constricted, and the demon of doom bored insect-like into her mind.
She stood up and walked over to the telephone, but when her right hand touched the handset, what felt like an electric shock shot up her arm from her fingertip, numbing half her body. Dragging her paralyzed body back over to the desk, she sat down, feeling as if she’d been cloven in two, one side cold, the other feverishly hot. Hastily, she opened a drawer and took out a mirror to look at herself. One half of her face was dark and ruddy, the other a ghostly white. Her nerves shot, she somehow made it back to the telephone, but her hand recoiled as if lightning had struck again as soon as she reached out. She seemed on the verge of crumpling to the floor, just as a divine light emerged from her brain to illuminate a road ahead. A lightning-struck tree stood beside the road, half of it a lush green, covered with leaves and luscious fruit, the other half with bronze limbs and an iron trunk, completely denuded, emitting a magical glow in a sea of sunlight. She knew at once: That tree is me. That thought filled her heart with intense warmth, and tears of joy wetted her cheeks. As if mesmerized or infatuated, she gazed at the half of that big tree that had been petrified by lightning, turning away from the green half in disgust. She called out for lightning, summoned it to turn the green half of the tree into bronze limbs and an iron trunk, to transform the tree into one glorious whole. She then reached out to the telephone with her left hand, and her body was as if on fire. Feeling ten years younger, she ran out into the yard and from there to the lawn in front of the Meat Child Room. When she saw the buried hawk, she burst out laughing. Clapping her hands, she said:
‘You’ve killed him well, children, killed him well! Now you must flee, get as far away from this den of murderous monsters as you can!’
With her in the lead, the children passed through a series of iron gates and wound their way through the labyrinthine grounds of the Culinary Academy. But her attempt was doomed to failure. With the exception of the little demon, who made good his escape, every one of the children was caught and dragged back, and the woman was discharged from her post. Why, gentle readers, do you think I've wasted so much ink on this woman? Because she is my mother-in-law. That is to say, she is the wife of Professor Yuan Shuangyu of the Brewer’s College. Everyone says she went crazy, and that’s how I see it. She spends her time these days at home writing letters of accusation, ream upon ream of them, all mailed off, some to the Chairman of the Central Committee, some to the provincial Party Secretary, one even to the legendary magistrate of Kaifeng Prefecture, Magistrate Bao. Now, I ask you, if she’s not crazy, who is? At this rate, she’ll go broke just buying stamps.
When two flowers bloom at once, take care of them one at a time. A gang of white-uniformed men dragged the fleeing boys back to the Meat Child Room. It nearly wore them out, since the boys had undergone the baptism of their mortal battle with the now-dead hawk, and had turned savage and crafty; they had run into a wooded area or into hidden spots in walls, or they had climbed trees, or they [had jumped into latrines. If there was a hiding place, they found it. The fact of the matter is, after my mother-in-law opened the iron gate of the Meat Child Room, the children went absolutely wild. Though she felt she was leading a group of children out of a den of monsters, it was pure fantasy, since the only thing following her was her own shadow. As she stood by the rear gate of the academy, loudly urging the children to flee, her shouts were heard only by old men and old women who lay hidden beside the waterway leading from the Culinary Academy to the nearby river, awaiting the passage of delectable scraps from the kitchen. My mother-in-law could not see them in their hiding spots amid the astonishingly dense foliage. So why did my mother-in-law, who held such an important position, go crazy? Whether or not it was the result of the electric shocks will require another story.
After the children’s escape was discovered, the Culinary Academy’s Security Section called an urgent meeting to map out emergency measures, including sealing off the academy. Once the gates were closed, detachments of crack troops began combing the grounds. During the search, ten of the troopers were bitten savagely by the meat children, and one, a woman, was blinded in one eye by a gouging finger. The
academy leadership showered the wounded troops with sympathy and consoling words, and even distributed lavish bonuses based upon the severity of their injuries. The recaptured meat children were placed under strict surveillance in a secure room, where a roll call turned up one missing child. According to the white-uniformed serving woman, who had regained her senses after some emergency therapy, the escaped
who held such an important position, go it was a result of the electric shocks will meat child was none other than the boy who had wounded her. He must have also been the one who murdered the hawk. She vaguely recalled that he was dressed all in red, and had a pair of gloomy, snakelike eyes.
A few days later, a janitor out cleaning the waterway discovered a set of red clothing, filthy beyond description; but there was no trace of the little demon, the murderer, the leader of the meat children.
Gentle readers, would you like to know what happened to the little demon?
IV
Dear Doctor of Liquor Studies Yidou
Thanks for the letter. I’ve read your story ‘Child Prodigy.’ The little demon, wrapped in his red flag, had my heart pounding and my skin crawling. I couldn’t sleep for days. The language in this story is highly polished, my friend, and the ingenuity of the plot never seems to end; it puts me to shame. If you insist that I air specific views, I suppose I can offer a perfunctory criticism or two: the absence of any background on the little demon, which flies in the face of conventional realism, for instance, or the overly loose organization and relative lack of authorial restraint. Not worth worrying about. In the face of your ‘demonic realism,’ I shy away from any real criticism. I’ve already forwarded ‘Child Prodigy’ to Citizens’ Literature, Since this is an official publication, it’s flooded with manuscripts, most of which wind up at the bottom of towering stacks. So don’t be surprised that you’ve heard nothing about the two earlier stories. I wrote to a couple of renowned editors of Citizens’ Literature, Zhou Bao and Li Xiaobao, and asked them to check into it for me. The two ‘treasures’ [bao] are friends of mine, and I’m sure they’ll help out.
In your letter you mention writing about liquor -witticisms abound, serio.us yet humorous, inspirations from all sides, depth and breadth united - just what I’d expect from a doctor of liquor. You have my undying respect. I look forward to more discussions of liquor with you, since it’s a favorite topic of mine.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry over your claim that pissing in a liquor vat, as I wrote in Red Sorghum, is a technological marvel. I don’t know a thing about chemistry, and even less about the distiller’s craft. I wrote that episode as a practical joke, wanting to poke a little fun at all those esthetes, them with their eyes bloodshot from envy. Imagine my surprise when you proved, through scientific theory, the logic and lofty nature of this episode, and now, to my admiration for you I must add gratitude. This is what’s known as ‘The professional asks How? The amateur says Wow!’ or what we call ‘Plant a flower, and no blooms will show; drop a willow seed, and a shade tree will grow.’
Regarding Eighteen-Li Red, a serious lawsuit is in the works. After Red Sorghum won its prize at the Berlin Film Festival, the head of a distillery in my hometown came running over to the warehouse where I’d set up my study to tell me he wanted to make a batch of Eighteen-Li Red. Unfortunately, he couldn’t come up with the financial backing. A year later, on an inspection trip to our county, members of the provincial leadership asked to try some Eighteen-Li Red. It was an awkward moment, and after the dignitaries left, the county revenue office came up with the money for a task group responsible for a trial production of Eighteen-Li Red. By trial production, I thought that meant they were going to mix up a batch or two, design a new bottle, slap on a label, and that would be that. I don’t know if they added the piss of young boys or not. But when the distillery excitedly sent their new product to the county government office to report their success, Movies for the Masses published a notice about a press conference in Shenzhen, where the Eighteen-Li Red distillery in Henan’s Shangcai county announced to the film community that their brew was the bona fide Eighteen-Li Red from Red Sorghum. The cases of their liquor were stamped with the following (or words to this effect): The heroine of Red Sorghum, Dai Jiu’er, was originally from Shangcai county in Henan province, and only fled to Northeast Gaomi township in Shandong with her father during a famine. She had taken the recipe for Eighteen-Li Red from Shangcai county to Shandong’s Gaomi, which is why Shangcai county must be considered the real hometown of Eighteen-Li Red.
The head of the distillery in my hometown immediately attacked Henan’s Shangcai county for their deviousness, and sent someone with authentic Eighteen-Li Red to Beijing to ask me, as the author of the novel, to help him bring Eighteen-Li Red back to Gaomi township, where it belongs. But the clever people in Henan’s Shangcai county had already registered their Eighteen-Li Red with the trademark office, and since the law is dispassionate, our Eighteen-Li Red no longer had any legal standing. When the Gaomi people asked me to help them initiate a lawsuit, I said it was a suit without merit, that Dai Jiu’er is only a fictional character, not my real grandmother, and that it’s not illegal for the Shangcai county people to insist that she was originally from Henan. There was no way the Gaomi side could win. They’d just have to take their lumps this time. Later on, I heard that the Henan people rode their Eighteen-Li Red into the international market and earned quite a bit of foreign currency. I hope that’s true. For literature and liquor to be integrated like that is pretty terrific. And because of newly promulgated copyright laws, I’m going to go to Shangcai county with the film director Zhang Yimou to get a little of what I’ve got coming to me.
All the wonderful liquors you mentioned are renowned for their quality, but I don’t need any of them. What I do need - and badly - is material about liquor, and I hope youll send me some of the more important items. Naturally, I’ll pay the postage.
Please give my best to Liu Yan the next time you see her. Warmest regards,
Mo Yan
Chapter Four
I
Investigator Ding Gou’er opened his eyes. His eyeballs felt dull and heavy, he had a splitting headache, his breath was foul, and his gums, his tongue, the walls of his mouth, and his throat were coated with a sticky substance. In the murky yellow light of a chandelier he couldn’t tell if it was day or night, if it was dawn or dusk. His wristwatch was missing, his biological clock was out of whack, his stomach was growling, and his hemorrhoids were throbbing in rhythm with his heartbeats. Lightbulb filaments that shimmered as hot current passed through them set up a hum that was translated into a ringing in Ding Gou’er’s ears. He heard his heart beating against the background hum. When he struggled to get out of bed, his arms and legs refused to do his bidding. A long night of drinking drifted into his consciousness like a distant dream, when all of a sudden that golden-hued, perfumed little boy seated in a gilded platter smiled at him. A strange cry escaped from the investigator as his consciousness broke from its confinement, sending currents of ideas racing through his brain and burning their way into his bones and muscles. He flew out of bed like a carp leaping out of the water, forming a beautiful arc through the air and changing the room’s spatial makeup and magnetic field, shattering the light into its prismatic components as the investigator struck a pose not unlike that of a dog fighting over shit just before landing headfirst on the synthetic carpet.
Lying there stripped to the waist, he studied with amazement the four +s [tens] on the wall, as a chill ran down his spine. The vivid image of a scaly youngster and the willow-leaf knife he held in his mouth materialized out of the alcohol. He discovered that he was naked from the waist up; his ribs were nearly poking through his skin, his belly protruded slightly, a shock of tangled brown hair lay limply on his chest, and his belly button was filled with lint. After the investigator splashed cold water over his head and looked in the mirror - puffy face, lifeless eyes, and all - he couldn’t shake the feeling that he might as
well commit suicide right there in the bathroom. He located his briefcase, took out his pistol, and cocked it. Holding it in his hand, he felt the cold but gentle heft of the handle, and as he stood at the mirror, he was struck by a thought that he was staring into the eyes of an enemy, someone he’d never seen before. He put the muzzle up to his nose, the tip boring its way in, highlighting two rows of parasitic-looking blackheads. He then moved the muzzle up to his temple, causing the skin to quiver joyously. Finally he shoved the muzzle into his mouth and clamped his lips tightly, hermetically, around the cold steel - a needle couldn’t have been wedged in - producing such a funny sight that even he felt like laughing. And when he did, so did the reflection in the mirror. The barrel, smelling and tasting of gunpowder, nearly gagged him. When had it been fired? Pow! The little boy’s head had splattered like a watermelon, sending colorful debris sailing in all directions, the fragrant brain matter staining everything in the area, and he had a picture of someone lapping up the gore like a greedy cat. Pangs of conscience rose in his heart, dark clouds of suspicion descended onto his head. Who could guarantee it wasn’t a hoax? That the arms weren’t actually made of fresh lotus root and melon? Or that the boy’s arms had been prepared in such a way as to look like sections of lotus root and melon?
A knock at the door. Ding Gou’er took the muzzle out of his mouth.
The Mine Director and Party Secretary walked in, all smiles.
Deputy Head Diamond Jin entered behind them, handsome and dignified.
‘Did you sleep well, Comrade Ding Gou’er?’
‘Did you sleep well, Comrade Ding Gou’er?’
‘Did you sleep well, Comrade Ding Gou’er?’