The Republic of Wine
The colors emanating from your eyes are incredibly moving. Only people who speak to God can create colors like that. You see sights we cannot see, you hear sounds we cannot hear, you smell odors we cannot smell. What grief we feel! When speech streams from that organ called your mouth, it is like a melody, a rounded, flat river, a silken thread from the rear end of a spider waving gossamerlike in the air, the size of a chicken’s egg, just as smooth and glossy, and every bit as wholesome. We are intoxicated by that music, we drift in that river, we dance on that silken spider thread, we see God. But before we see Him, we watch our own corpses float down the river…
Why were the owls’ screeches so gentle that night, like the pillow talk of lovers? Because there was liquor in the air. Why were geese, wild and domestic, coupling in the freezing night, when it wasn’t even the mating season? Again, because there was liquor in the air. My nose twitched spiritedly. Fang Nine asked in a soft, muffled voice:
‘Why are you scrunching up your nose like that? Going to sneeze?’
‘Liquor,’ I said. I smell liquor!’
They scrunched up their noses too. Seventh Uncle’s nose was amass of wrinkles.
‘I don’t smell liquor,’ he said. ‘Where is it?’
My thoughts were galloping. ‘Sniff the air,’ I said, ‘sniff it.’
Their eyes darted all around the room, searching every corner. Seventh Uncle picked up the grass mat covering the brick bed, to which Seventh Aunt reacted angrily:
‘What are you looking for? You think there’s liquor here in bed? You amaze me!’
Seventh Aunt was an intellectual, as I said earlier, so she was amazed.’ Back when she was still a newlywed, she criticized my mother for washing the rice so hard she scrubbed away all the ‘vitamins.’ ‘Vitamins’ had my mother gaping in stupefaction.
The smell of liquor includes protein, ethers, acids, and phenols, as well as calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, potassium, chlorine, sulfur, iron, copper, manganese, zinc, iodine, and cobalt, plus vitamins A, B, C, D, E, H, and some other materials - but look at me, listing the ingredients of liquor for you people, when your Professor Yuan Shuangyu knows them better than anyone -my father-in-law’s neck deltoids had reddened over being praised by Deputy Head Diamond Jin. I couldn’t see the excitement in his face, though basically I could, or nearly so - but there is a pervasive something in the smell of liquor that transcends the material, and that is a spirit, a belief, a sacred belief, one that can be sensed but not articulated - language is so clumsy, metaphors so inferior - it seeps into my heart and makes me shudder. Comrades, students, is it possible that we still need to demonstrate whether liquor is a harmful insect or a beneficial one? No way, no way at all. Liquor is a swallow it’s a frog it’s a red-eyed wasp it’s a seven star ladybug, it’s a living pesticide! His spirits soared, and he waved his arms fervently, lost in the exuberance of the moment. The atmosphere in the lecture hall was white-hot; he stood there looking like Hitler. He said:
‘Seventh Uncle, just look, the smell of liquor seeps in through the window, settles in through the ceiling, enters wherever there’s a hole or a crack…’
‘The boy is losing his mind,’ Fang Nine said as he sniffed the air. ‘Do smells have color? Can you see them? This is lunacy…’
Doubt clouded their eyes; they looked at me the way they’d look at a child who had truly lost his mind. But to hell with them. On flying feet, I crossed a bridge of colors paved with the smell of liquor, feet flying… and a miracle occurred, my dear students, a miracle occurred! His head sagged from the weight of his emotions. Then, as he stood at the podium in the General Education Lecture Hall at the Brewer’s College, he intoned in a hoarse but extraordinarily infectious voice:
The picture of a glorious banquet on a snowswept night formed in my mind’s eye: A bright gas lamp. An old-fashioned square table. A bowl sits on the table, steam rising from within. Four people sit around the table, each holding a small bowl of liquor, as if cupping a rosy sunset. Their faces are kind of blurred … Aiie! They’ve cleared up, and I know who they are,…the Branch Secretary, the Brigade Accountant, the Militia Commander, the Head of the Women’s League … they’re holding stewed legs of lamb, dipping them into garlic paste laced with soy sauce and sesame oil… pointing my finger, I was talking to Seventh Uncle and the others, like an announcer, but my eyes were blurred, and I couldn’t see their faces clearly. Yet I didn’t dare strain too hard for fear that the picture would dissolve… Seventh Uncle grabbed my hand and shook it hard.
‘Little Fish [Yu], Little Fish! What’s happened to you?’
As he shook my hand with his left hand, Seventh Uncle smacked the back of my head with his right. The thumping in my head sounded like a chipped brick or a splintered roof tile breaking the placid, mirrorlike surface of a pond; the water splashed in all directions, raising ripples that tumbled upon one another. The picture shattered, and my mind went blank. Angrily I shouted:
‘What are you doing? What are all you people doing?’
They gazed at me anxiously. Seventh Uncle said:
‘Are you dreaming, boy?’
I’m not dreaming. I saw the Branch Secretary, the Brigade Accountant, the Head of the Women’s League, and the Militia Commander. They were all drinking, and they were dipping legs of lamb into garlic paste, under a gas lamp, around a square table,’
Seventh Aunt yawned grandly.
‘Hallucinating,’ she said.
‘I saw them clear as day!’
Big Man Liu said, 'When I went down to the river to fetch water this afternoon, I did see the Head of the Women’s League and two old ladies washing legs of lamb.’
‘You’re hallucinating, too,’ Seventh Aunt said.
‘I really did!’
‘Really, my ass!’ Seventh Aunt said. ‘I think you’re crazed with hunger.’
The young stove repairman tried to make peace:
‘Stop arguing, I’ll go take a look. You know, investigate.’
‘Are you crazy?’ Seventh Aunt said. ‘Do you believe in hallucinations?’
The little stove repairman said:
‘You folks wait, I’ll run out there and run right back.’
‘Be careful they don’t catch you and beat you up,’ Seventh Uncle cautioned him.
The little stove repairman was already out the door. A gust of cold wind blew in, nearly snuffing out the lamp.
The stove repairman came rushing back in, gasping for air. A gust of cold wind nearly snuffed out the lamp. He gazed at me with the look of a simpleton, as if he’d seen a ghost. Seventh Aunt asked with a sarcastic grin:
‘What did you see?’
The stove repairman turned and said:
‘Fantastic, fantastic, Little Fish is an immortal, he can see everything.’
The stove repairman said that everything was exactly as I had described it. The banquet had taken place at the Branch Secretary’s house. He’d climbed the low wall to see.
Seventh Aunt said:
‘I don’t believe it.’
The little stove repairman went outside to get a frozen sheep’s head, which he held up to show Seventh Aunt. One look stopped Seventh Aunt’s hiccups.
That night we busied ourselves with cleaning the sheep’s head before tossing it into the pot. Our thoughts were on liquor as the sheep’s head stewed. Seventh Aunt was the one who came up with the idea: Drink ethyl alcohol
Seventh Uncle, a veterinarian, had a bottle of alcohol he used as a disinfectant. Needless to say, we diluted it with water.
Thus began an arduous tempering process.
People who grow up on industrial alcohol will shy away from no alcoholic drinks.
Sad to say, the little stove repairman and Seventh Uncle went blind.
He raised his arm to look at his wristwatch. Dear students, he said, that’s the end of today’s lecture.
Chapter Two
I
The Mine Director and Party Secretary stood facing him; they were holding
their left arms bent across their chests, their right arms thrust out, palms straight, like a pair of professional traffic policemen. Their faces were so alarmingly alike they seemed to serve as one another’s mirror. Between them lay a path, about a meter wide and covered with a scarlet carpet, which intersected with a floodlit corridor. Ding Gou’er’s heroic mettle vanished in the face of this genuine show of courtesy, and as he cowered near the two dignitaries, he did not know if he should step forward. Their cordial looks were like redolent grease assailing his nostrils, getting thicker by the moment and not lessened or diluted by Ding Gou’er’s hesitancy. The gods never speak - how true that is. But while the men didn’t speak, their bearing was more infectious and more powerful than the sweetest, most honeyed words ever spoken, and they left you powerless to resist. Partly because he felt he had to, and partly because he was so grateful, Ding Gou’er stepped in front of the Mine Director and Party Secretary, who immediately fell in behind him, the three men forming a triangle. The corridor seemed endless. This baffled Ding Gou’er, for he clearly recalled the layout of the place: Only a dozen or so rooms occupied the space enclosed by sunflowers, too few to accommodate a corridor this long. Every three paces a pair of red lamps shaped like torches hung on facing walls covered with milky white wallpaper. The brass hands holding the torches were shiny bright and remarkably lifelike, as if protruding through the walls themselves. With growing trepidation he imagined two lines of bronze men standing on the other side; walking down the red-carpeted corridor was like marching between a phalanx of armed guards. I’ve become a prisoner, and the Party Secretary and Mine Director are my military escort. Ding Gou’er’s heart skipped a beat as cracks opened in his brain to let in a few threads of cool reason. He reminded himself of the importance of his mission, his sacred duty. Playing house with a young female hadn’t prevented him from carrying out this sacred duty, but drinking might. He stopped, turned, and said:
I’m here to conduct an investigation, not drink your liquor.’
There was more than a hint of inhospitability in his voice. The Mine Director and Party Secretary exchanged looks that were exactly alike; without a trace of irritation, they said with the same warmth and friendliness they had displayed from the beginning:
‘We know, we know, we’re not asking you to drink.’
Poor Ding Gou’er still couldn’t tell which of the two men was the Party Secretary and which was the Mine Director; but, afraid he might offend them by asking, he decided to keep muddling along, particularly since the two men were the spitting image of each other, as were the official positions of Party Secretary and Mine Director.
‘After you, please. Whether you drink or not doesn’t alter the fact that you have to eat.’
So Ding Gou’er kept walking, thoroughly annoyed with the triangular formation of one in front and two in the rear, as if the corridor led not to a banquet but to a courtroom. He tried slowing down so they could walk in a straight line. Fat chance! Every time he hung back, they kept pace, maintaining the integrity of the triangle and leaving him always in the position of the one under escort.
The corridor veered abruptly and the red carpet began sloping downward; the torches were brighter than ever, the hands holding them more menacing, as if they were truly alive. A flurry of alarming thoughts flickered in his head, like golden flies, to which he reacted by instinctively clasping his briefcase even more tightly under his arm, until that lump of cold, hard steel rubbed against his ribs to calm him a bit. Two seconds was all it would take to point the black muzzle at the men’s chests, even if that sent him straight to Hell or right to his grave.
By now, he knew, they were well underground; even though the torches and red carpet were as bright and colorful as ever, still, he felt chilled, chilled but not actually cold.
An attendant with bright eyes and sparkling teeth, in a scarlet uniform and a fore-and-aft cap, was waiting for them at the end of the corridor. Her welcoming smile, mastered through long experience, and the heavy aroma of her hair had the desired calming effect on Ding Gou’er’s nerves. Fighting back the urge to kiss her hair, he conducted a silent self-criticism and self-exoneration. The girl opened a door with a shiny stainless-steel doorknob. At last the triangle disintegrated, and Ding Gou’er breathed a sigh of relief.
A luxurious dining room appeared before them. The colors and lights were soft enough to evoke thoughts of love and happiness, or would have if not for the faint wisps of a very strange odor. Ding Gou’er’s eyes lit up as he drank in the room’s decor: from cream-colored sofas to beige curtains, from a spotless white ceiling with floral etchings to a spotless white tablecloth. The light fixtures were exquisite and delicate, like a string of fine pearls; the floor had a mirrorlike finish, obviously recently waxed. As he was sizing up the room, the Party Secretary and Mine Director were sizing him up, unaware that he was trying to locate the source of that strange odor.
The circular table had three tiers. The first was devoted to squat glasses of beer, long-stemmed glasses of grape wine, and even longer-stemmed glasses of strong colorless liquor, plus ceramic teacups with lids, sheathed imitation-ivory chopsticks, a variety of white ceramic plates, stainless-steel utensils, China-brand cigarettes, wooden matches with bright red heads in specially designed boxes, and fake crystal ashtrays in the shape of peacock tails. Eight plates of cold cuts adorned the second tier: shredded eggs and rice noodles with dried shrimp, hot and spicy beef strips, curried cauliflower, sliced cucumbers, ducks’ feet, sugared lotus root, celery hearts, and deep-fried scorpions. As a man of the world, Ding Gou’er saw nothing special in them. The third tier was occupied only by a potted cactus covered with thorns. Just the sight of it made Ding Gou’er squirm. Why not a vase of fresh flowers? he wondered.
There was the usual polite deferring all around before they sat down, and it seemed to Ding Gou’er that, given the circular shape, there was no seat of honor to worry about. But he was put right on that score when the Party Secretary and Mine Director insisted that he sit nearest the window, which was in fact the seat of honor. He acquiesced, and was immediately sandwiched between the Party Secretary and Mine Director.
A bevy of attendants fluttered around the room like so many red flags, sending drafts of cool air his way and spreading that strange odor to every corner of the room; it was, to be sure, mixed with the fragrance of their face powder and the sour smell of sweat from their armpits, plus smells from other parts of their bodies. The more the odor merged with the other smells, the less poignant it became, and Ding Gou’er’s attention was diverted.
A steaming apricot-colored hand towel dangling from a pair of stainless-steel tongs appeared in front of Ding Gou’er, catching him by surprise. As he reached for the towel, instead of cleaning his hands, he allowed his eyes to trace the tongs up to a snowy white hand and beyond that a moon face with dark eyes beneath a veil of long lashes. The folds of the girl’s eyes made it seem as if she had scarred eyelids, but that was not the case. Now that he’d had a good look, he wiped his face with the towel, then his hands; the towel was scented with something that smelled a bit like rotten apples. He’d no sooner finished his ablutions than the tongs whisked the towel away from him.
As for the Party Secretary and Mine Director, one handed him a cigarette, the other lit it.
The strong colorless liquor was genuine Maotai, the grape wine was from Mount Tonghua, and the beer was Tsingtao. Either the Party Secretary or the Mine Director, one or the other, said:
‘As patriots we boycott foreign liquor.’
Ding Gou’er replied:
‘I said I wasn’t drinking.’
‘Comrade Ding, old fellow, you’ve come a long way to be with us. How does it make us look if you don’t drink? We’ve dispensed with the formalities, since this is just a simple meal. We can’t show the intimate relationship between official ranks if you won’t drink with us, can we? Have a little, just a little, to let us save face.’
With that the two men raised their liqu
or glasses and held them out to Ding Gou’er, the colorless liquid sloshing around ever so gently, its distinctive bouquet very tempting. His throat began to itch and his salivary glands kicked in, sending spittle pressing down on his tongue and wetting his palate. He stammered:
‘So sumptuous … more than I deserve…’
‘What do you mean, sumptuous, Comrade Ding, old fellow? Are you being sarcastic? We have a small mine here, with little money and few frills, and a mediocre chef. While you, old Ding, come from the big city, have traveled widely, and have seen and done everything. I imagine there isn’t a fine beverage anywhere you haven’t sampled, or a game animal you haven’t tasted. Don’t embarrass us, please,’ said either the Party Secretary or the Mine Director. Try to put up with this meager fare the best you can. As ranking cadres, we must all respond to the call of the Municipal Party Committee to cinch up our belts and make do. I hope you’ll be understanding and make allowances.’
A torrent of words flowed from the two men as they eased their glasses ever closer to Ding Gou’er’s lips. With difficulty he swallowed a mouthful of sticky saliva, reached for his own glass, and held it out, feeling the exceptional heft of the glass and the quantity of liquid it held. The Party Secretary and Mine Director clinked glasses with Ding Gou’er, whose hand shook for a moment, spilling a few drops of liquor between his thumb and forefinger, where the skin turned joyously cool. As that joyous coolness sank in, he heard voices on either side of him say: ‘A toast to our honored guest! A toast!’