The Republic of Wine

  My mother-in-law screamed:

  ‘Who cares if he comes back? I don’t want him to come back! I’ll be disgusted if he comes back! I hope he dies up on White Ape Mountain. I hope he turns into a hairy ape!’

  Her words made my hair stand on end; cold sweat seeped from every pore of my body. Prior to this moment, I’d only vaguely sensed that they lived in disharmony, and that there were some minor frictions. I’d never dreamed that her hatred for her husband was deeper than that which a poor peasant feels for the landowner, deeper than a worker’s enmity toward a capitalist. The creed that ‘Class hatred is stronger than Mount Tai,’ which had been pounded into me for decades, crumbled. If one person’s hatred for another could reach such proportions, it was an unquestioned form of beauty, a magnificent contribution to humanity. How closely it resembled a purple, poisonous poppy blooming in the swamp of human emotions; as long as you don’t touch or ingest it, it will exist as a form of beauty, possessing an attraction that no kindly, friendly flower could ever have.

  Then she began recounting my father-in-law’s misdeeds - every word, every sound, was filled with blood and tears. She said:

  ‘How can he call himself human? How can he call himself a man? For decades, he has treated his liquor like a woman. It was he who started the evil practice of comparing a beautiful woman to vintage liquor. Drinking has taken the place of sexual intercourse. He has devoted all his sexual appetite to liquor, to his bottles, to his wine glasses…’

  ‘Dr Li, I’m not really your mother-in-law. I never gave birth -how could I? Your wife was an abandoned infant I picked out of a trash can.’

  The truth was out. I let out a deep breath, as if a big load had been lifted from my chest.

  ‘You’re an intelligent person, Doctor. Sand in the eyes doesn’t throw you off the track. You must have sensed that she wasn’t my biological daughter. That is why I think we can become close friends, and I can tell you everything. Doctor, I’m a woman, not a stone lion outside the Palace Museum, or a weather vane on a rooftop, and surely not a lowly, androgynous worm. I have a woman’s desires, but I am denied any… Who can know the pain I feel?’

  I said:

  ‘Then why haven’t you divorced him?’

  I’m weak, I’m afraid of people’s scorn …’

  I said:

  ‘That’s absurd.’

  ‘Yes, it is. But the absurd days are over now. Doctor, I can tell you why I never divorced him. It was because he distilled a strong herbal liquor especially for me, which he called “Ximen Qing,” after the licentious hero of classical novels. Drinking this liquor creates mind-blowing illusions, some even better than sex…’

  I detected a sweet shyness in her voice.

  ‘But when you showed up, the power of the liquor mysteriously disappeared.’

  I didn’t feel like rapping on the door anymore.

  ‘There’s this woman who, like a bear’s claw drenched in spices, has been stewing over a low heat for decades. Now she has finally ripened. Her fragrance is overpowering. Don’t tell me you can’t smell it, my dear Doctor…’

  The door opened wide. The aroma of braised bear’s paw rolled out in waves. I held tightly to the door frame, like a drowning man with a death-grip on a ship’s railing…

  IV

  After the swarthy dwarf was shot, his body flew upwards, as if he were about to fly away. But the hot lead had destroyed his central nervous system, and his limbs twitched spastically. The spasms made one thing abundantly clear: He could no longer call forth the mystical powers described in Doctor of Liquor Studies’ story ‘Yichi the Hero,’ where he soared into the air and stuck to the ceiling like an oversized lizard. Quite the opposite: after jerking a few centimeters into the air, he slid off the lady trucker’s lap and landed on the floor, where Ding Gou’er watched him struggle to straighten himself out, his thigh muscles stretched as taut as utility wires in a gale. Blood and brain matter oozing from the hole in his head fouled the polished floorboards. Then one of his legs began to jerk in and out like the neck of a rooster as the knife enters; his body, wracked by powerful spasms, spun around in smooth, easy circles. After about a dozen revolutions, his legs quit banging the floor, and what happened next was this: The spasmodic flailing stopped, but he began to quake. At first the trembling involved his whole body, creating a steady twang; but then it became localized, his muscle groups acting like sports fans performing the wave. Starting from the tip of his left foot, it moved up to his left calf then to his left thigh then to his left hip and then to his left shoulder, where it crossed over to his right shoulder and moved down to his right hip then to his right thigh then to his right calf then to the tip of his right foot, and from there changed direction and headed back to the starting point. This movement continued for a long while before the trembling stopped altogether. Ding Gou’er heard a loud release of air from the dwarf’s body just before it went limp and lay spread out on the floor.

  Dead as a doornail, he looked like a leathery alligator in a swamp. Not for a second while he was watching the death-throes of the dwarf did Ding lose sight of the lady trucker. At the instant when the dwarf slid to the floor from her glossy, bare knees, she fell over backwards onto the inner-sprung mattress, which was covered by a snow-white bedsheet and a jumble of odd-shaped pillows and cushions. The pillows were down-filled, Ding Gou’er noted as he watched delicate goose feathers ooze from the seam of a large pillow with pink floral borders and soar skyward when the pillow was crushed by her falling head. Her legs spread wide and hung limp over the side of the bed as she lay face-up, a posture that stirred the sediment in Ding Gou’er’s mind. Reminded of the lady trucker’s wild passion, he felt stabs of jealousy, and even as he bit down on his lower lip, wicked thoughts consumed him, sending pains like those of a mortally wounded hunter’s prey tearing through his heart. Agonizing moans slipped through his clenched teeth. He gave the dwarf’s lifeless body an angry kick, then threw himself onto the bed alongside the lady trucker, the smoking gun still in his hand. Her sprawled body reawakened love-hate feelings toward her; he hoped she was dead yet prayed that she had just fainted from fear. Lifting up her head, he saw a faint sparkle of light reflected off barely glimpsed shell-like teeth between soft yet brittle, slightly parted lips. Scenes from that late autumn morning at the Mount Luo Coal Mine flashed before the investigator’s eyes; back then those lips crushing down on his mouth had felt cold, yielding, devoid of elasticity, and altogether weird, like clumps of used cotton wadding … there between her eyes he spotted a dark hole the size of a soy bean, around which tiny metallic filings were arrayed; he knew they had come from a bullet. His body rocked to one side, as once again he felt a sickeningly sweet liquid rise up into his throat. As he threw himself at her feet, a stream of fresh blood spewed from his mouth, painting her flat belly a bright red.

  I’ve killed her! he thought, terror-stricken.

  He reached out and felt the hole with his forefinger. It was hot to the touch, the splintery skin around it scraped his fingertip. It was a familiar feeling. By jogging his memory, he finally managed to recall the youthful sensation of feeling a new tooth with the tip of his tongue. Then he was reminded of the time he scolded his son for doing the same thing. The little boy, with his moon face and big, round eyes, looking slovenly no matter how new or clean his clothes might be, a book bag strapped to his back, a red bandanna tied haphazardly around his neck, a willow switch in one hand, walked up to him, moving a loose tooth around with his tongue. The investigator patted him on the head, for which he was rewarded by a crack across the leg from the willow switch. Stop that! the boy had demanded unhappily. Who said you could pat the top of my head? Don’t you know that can make a person stupid? He cocked his head and squinted, a no-nonsense look. With a laugh, the investigator said, You stupid little boy, a pat on the head can’t make you stupid! But playing with new teeth with your tongue will make them grow in crooked… powerful nostalgia sent his juices nearly to the boiling point, and as he
jerked his hand back, tears spilled from his eyes. Softly intoning his son’s name, he thumped his own forehead and cursed:

  You son of a bitch! Ding Gou’er, you son of a bitch. How could you do something like this?

  The little boy stared at him disgustedly, then turned and walked off, his chubby little legs pumping. He was quickly swallowed up in the cross-traffic.

  Murder’s a tough rap to beat, he thought to himself. But I want to see my son one last time before I die. Then his thoughts drifted to the provincial capital, which seemed at this moment to be on the other side of the world.

  He picked up his pistol, which had only one bullet left, and ran out the gate of Yichi Tavern; the two dwarf gatewomen grabbed his clothes as he passed, but he shook them off and darted among the cars on the street, risking life and limb. He heard the jarring sound of screeching brakes to his left and right, and one car probably bumped his hip as he ran; but this only spurred him on, until he reached the safety of the pedestrian lane. He heard a chorus of noises from the Yichi Tavern gate; people were shouting. Following the leaf-strewn pedestrian lane, he ran for all he was worth, sensing vaguely that it was early morning, and that the rain-washed sky was filled with blood-streaked clouds. A cold rain that had fallen all night long made it slippery going; a coat of icy dewdrops beautified the low-hanging branches. In what seemed like no time, he found himself on the familiar cobblestone street. Opaque steam rose from the roadside ditch, on the surface of which floated delicacies like roasted pig’s head, fried meatballs, turtle shell, braised shrimp, spicy pig’s knuckles. Some old-timers in rags were fishing the delicacies out of the water with nets on long poles. Their lips were greasy, their faces flushed, bearing witness, he thought, to the nutritive value of the garbage they salvaged. Some passersby on bicycles reacted with disgust just before, with shrieks of alarm, they careened into the ditch. They and their bicycles shattered the calm surface and sent the heavy smell of distiller’s grains and animal carcasses into the air, nearly making him gag. He hugged the wall as he ran, but lost his footing on the rocky road. Shouts and heavy footsteps behind him. Scrambling to his feet and turning to look, he saw a crowd jumping up and down, and shouting loudly, but not daring to chase after him. He continued on his way, more slowly now, his heart pounding so hard his chest ached. There on the other side of the stone wall was the familiar Martyrs’ Cemetery, over which the white canopies of towering pagoda evergreens lent an aura of purity and sanctity.

  Why am I running? he was thinking as he ran. Heaven casts its net wide. I can run but I can’t hide. And still his legs kept churning. He spotted the giant ginkgo tree, and under it the old wonton seller, standing straight as the tree itself; puffs of steam rising from his wonton baskets blotted out his face, like the hideous countenance of the moon fronted by floating clouds. He vaguely recalled the old man standing there holding a copper bullet as payment for the wonton he had consumed. He ought to retrieve that bullet, he thought to himself as the taste of pork-and-scallion wonton rose from his stomach; early winter scallions are the best, and the costliest. Hand in hand, he and she are buying groceries in the provincial capital’s open-air market, where vegetable peddlers from the outskirts hunker down behind their baskets and poles to chew on cold stuffed buns, which leave their teeth spotted with bits of scallion. The old man opened his hand to show off the beautiful bullet that lay in his palm, a supplicating look showing through the mist that was trying to obscure his face. As he strained to figure out what the old man wanted, a dog’s barks shattered his concentration. The big striped canine appeared before him like an apparition, without warning, although its barks seemed to be coming from far, far away, rolling across the tips of grass in a distant meadow and losing most of their timbre by the time they got to this point. He watched as the dog’s heavy head sagged in a strange nod; it opened its great mouth, but no sound emerged, producing a dreamlike, furtive effect. Under the bright red morning sun, faint shadows from the sparse leaves on the ginkgo tree cast a loose net over the dog’s body. He could see that the look in the animal’s eyes was non-threatening; its barks were a friendly hint or a sign for him to get moving again. He mumbled something to the old wonton peddler, but a gust of wind carried the sound off. So when the old-timer asked him what he said, he stammered:

  I want to go find my son.

  Nodding to the dog and giving it a wide berth, he walked to the back of the ginkgo tree, where he spotted the elderly caretaker of the Martyrs’ Cemetery, leaning against the tree and cradling his shotgun, its muzzle pointing into the tree’s canopy. The same look - a friendly hint or a sign to get moving again - showed in the old man’s eyes. Deeply touched, he bowed respectfully to the old-timer before running over to a block of cold, uninviting, and apparently deserted buildings up ahead. A shot rang out behind him. He hit the ground instinctively, then rolled sideways to take cover behind the chilled leaves in a bed of roses. Then another shot. This time he looked back to see where it had come from, just in time to see the canopy of the ginkgo tree shudder and several yellow leaves flutter earthward in the reddish rays of sunlight. The old cemetery caretaker was still up against the tree, not moving a muscle. Blue smoke curled from both barrels of his shotgun. By then the big yellow dog had shambled over from the other side of the tree and was crouching beside the caretaker, its eyes reflecting the sun’s rays like gold nuggets.

  Before entering the block of buildings, he crossed a desolate sidewalk park where some old men were out airing birds in cages and some kids were jumping rope. Tucking his pistol into his waistband and acting as if he hadn’t a care in the world, he sauntered past them and headed for the buildings. But the minute he reached his objective, he discovered he’d made a big mistake, for he’d walked into the middle of an early morning flea market. Crowds of peddlers were hunkering down beside their secondhand goods, which included used clocks and watches, Mao Zedong badges and plaster busts from the Cultural Revolution, and things like old wind-up gramophones. Plenty of sellers, but not a single buyer. The peddlers eyed each infrequent passerby greedily. It felt like a trap to him, a lure for the unwary, and that the peddlers were actually plainclothes cops. And the more closely Ding Gou’er observed them, the more a lifetime of experience told him that’s exactly what they were. Alertly, he retreated to a spot behind a white poplar to observe the goings-on. He saw seven or eight youngsters, boys and girls, sneak out from behind one of the buildings, their expressions and demeanor telling Ding Gou’er that this was a group of kids involved in some unlawful activity. The girl in the center, wearing a knee-length gray coat, a red cap, and a necklace of Qing dynasty brass coins, was their leader. All of a sudden, he noticed the wrinkles in the girl’s neck and detected the acrid smell of foreign tobacco on her breath, so close it was as if she were nearly on top of him. He focused his attention on her, watching the lady trucker’s features slowly take form on the face of this unfamiliar girl, the way a cricket emerges from the thin casing of its cocoon. A trickle of rose-colored blood oozing from a bullet hole between her eyes ran down her nose and dripped from the tip to divide her mouth into two equal halves; from there it slid to her navel, down and down, neatly cleaving her body in two and forcing gurgles out of her internal organs. With a shout of alarm, the investigator turned and ran, but no matter how fast his legs churned, they could not take him out of the flea market. Finally, he hunkered down in front of a peddler selling used handguns and pretended to be a customer, as he examined the rusty old guns laid out in front of him. He sensed that the girl who had been cloven in half was standing behind him wrapping herself in green paper bindings. She worked very fast; at first she was wearing cream-colored rubber gloves as her hands flew through the air, but before long, they were yellow blurs that were quickly swallowed up in wet green paper the color and consistency of seaweed. The green was such a transcending green it exuded a powerful life force. And then the paper bindings began to move on their own, and in a matter of seconds had her wrapped in a tight cocoon. He felt a chill on
his back, but tried to act nonchalant, picking up a beautifully crafted revolver and trying to spin its rusty cylinder. It wouldn’t budge. He asked the peddler, Do you have any aged Shanxi vinegar? The peddler said he didn’t. Disappointed, he heaved a sigh. The peddler said, You act like a pro, but you’re actually a rank amateur. I don’t have any aged Shanxi vinegar, but I do have some Korean white vinegar, which is a hundred times better at removing rust than the Shanxi stuff. He watched the peddler reach into his shirt with a pale, delicate hand and feel around as if looking for something. Ding Gou’er caught an occasional glimpse of two little glass bottles tucked into a lacy pink bra. They were green, but frosty, not see-through, the sort of bottle so many famous foreign liquors come in. The frosty green looked especially expensive; even though they were obviously made of glass, somehow they didn’t look it, which was why they were so precious. Capitalizing on the structure and logic of this sentence, he came up with a parallel: Even though it was obviously a real boy on the platter, somehow it didn’t look it, which was why it was so precious. Finally, the hand brought one of the bottles out of its hiding place in the bra. Some squiggly writing was stamped on the bottle. He couldn’t read a word of it, but his vanity forced him to blurt out cockily: That’s either ‘hoo-wis-key’ or ‘ba-lan-dee’, as if he’d never met a foreign language he couldn’t handle. This is the Korean white vinegar you wanted, the peddler replied. Taking the bottle from him, Ding glanced up and saw an expression that was identical to that of his superior when he’d handed him the carton of China cigarettes. A closer look showed that the two men weren’t all that similar, after all. The peddler smiled, flashing a pair of glittering canines that made him look infantile. He opened the bottle, releasing a frothy head. How come this vinegar looks like beer? he asked. Are you trying to say that beer is the only liquid in the world that froths? the peddler replied. Ding pondered that for a minute. Crabs aren’t beer, but they froth at the mouth, he said, so you’re right and I’m wrong. When he poured some of the frothy liquid over the revolver’s cylinder, his nostrils were assailed by the strong smell of alcohol. Bathed in the frothy bubbles, the revolver made clicking sounds, like a big green crab; and when he reached out to touch it, something nipped his finger painfully, like a scorpion sting. Are you aware, he demanded in a loud voice, that dealing in firearms is against the law? With a sneer, the peddler said, Do you honestly think I’m a peddler? Thrusting his hand into his shirt, he pulled out the bra and shook it in the air; the outer layer fell away to reveal a pair of shiny, American-made, stainless steel spring handcuffs. With the investigator looking on, the peddler was transformed into a bushy-browed, big-eyed, hawk-nosed, brown-stubbled, garden-variety police captain, who grabbed Ding Gou’er’s hand and - click click - snapped the cuffs on his and Ding’s wrists. You and I are now joined at the wrist, neither of us can get away. Unless, that is, you’ve got the strength of nine oxen or a couple of tigers, and can carry me over your shoulder. Blessed with strength born of desperation, Ding Gou’er picked up the burly police captain and threw him over his shoulder, as if he were no heavier than a paper cut-out. By then, the froth had evaporated, revealing a silvery revolver, rust-free. With no strain he bent over and picked up the pistol, feeling its heft in his wrist and its warmth in his palm. What a handgun! he heard the police captain say with a sigh from where he lay, across Ding’s back. With a mighty shrug of his shoulder, he flipped the man into the air and smack into an ivy-covered wall The intertwining tendrils, some thick and some thin, created patterns on the wall; red leaves here and there lent it considerable beauty. He watched as the police captain bounced slowly off the wall and landed flat on his back right at his feet. The handcuffs, stretched like a rubber band, were still fastened to both men’s wrists. These are American handcuffs, the police captain said. If you think you can break loose, forget it! As panic began to grip Ding Gou’er, he stuck the muzzle of the revolver up against the virtually transparent metal and pulled the trigger. The recoil jerked his arm upward, and the pistol nearly leaped out of his hand. He looked down. Not a scratch on the handcuffs. He tried again, with the same result. With his free hand, the police captain took a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his pocket. The cigarettes were American, the lighter Japanese, both top quality. You Liquorland folks have a pretty high standard of living, don’t you? The police captain sneered. In times like this, he said, gluttony claims the bold and starvation takes the timid. With banknotes flying all over the place, it’s just a matter of whether or not youVe got the guts to reach out and grab them. If that’s true, Ding Gou’er said, it must also be true that you Liquorland people really do cook and eat little boys. Cooking and eating little boys is no big deal! the police captain replied. Have you ever eaten one? Ding Gou’er asked him. Don’t tell me you haven’t, the police captain retorted. What I ate was a fake boy made from a variety of materials, Ding Gou’er replied. How do you know it wasn’t real? the police captain asked. How could the Higher Procuratorate send such a numbskull to us? Good brother, Ding Gou’er said, I won’t lie to you. I’ve fallen under the spell of a woman in recent days. I know, the police captain said. You killed her, that’s a capital offense. I know, Ding Gou’er admitted, and now all I want is to return to the provincial capital to see my son once more before turning myself in. That’s a worthwhile reason, the police captain said. Pity the poor parents. All right, I’ll let you go. Bending down and opening his mouth, he bit through the handcuffs. Unfazed by Ding Gou’er’s bullets, the hard metal parted like a soggy noodle in the man’s mouth. Good brother, the police captain said, you’re wanted in the city, to be captured alive. I’m taking a big chance by letting you go, but I have a son of my own, and I know what you’re feeling, which is why I’m letting you go. Bending low in gratitude, Ding Gou’er said, Good brother, I’ll never forget your kindness, not even if I wind up in the Nine Springs of Hell.