Without a second thought, First Sister undid the buttons of her blouse and exposed her perfect breasts. The mute stared straight ahead, his eyes snapping into place; his chin twitched so violently it seemed about to fall off. Cupping his hand under his chin to keep it in place, he opened his mouth and sputtered, “Strip – strip – strip!” First Sister obediently removed her blouse; she was naked from the waist up. Her face was dark, but her body glistened like fine porcelain. On that gloomy morning, she stripped to the waist and engaged the mute in a battle of wills. He walked up to her on bowed legs, looking like a baked snowman, crumbling piece by piece – first an arm, then a leg, intestines coiling on the ground like a snake; a red heart beating in his cupped hands. All those scattered parts came back together with great difficulty when he knelt at First Sister’s feet and wrapped his arms around her waist. His big head rested against her belly.
Lu Liren and the others were stunned to witness this remarkable change, their mouths agape, as if filled with hot, sticky sweets. It was impossible to tell what they were thinking as they observed the scene beside the pond.
“Speechless Sun!” Lu Liren called out weakly, but the mighty Speechless Sun ignored him.
Pandi jumped down off the stage and ran to the pond, where she picked the jacket up off the ground and draped it around First Sister. She had hoped to drag First Sister away, but the lower half of First Sister’s body had already merged with the mute, and how could Pandi pull her away from that? So she picked up the mute’s pistol and hit him on the shoulder. He looked up at her; his eyes were awash with tears.
What happened then remains a puzzle even now. At the moment when Pandi was facing the tear-washed, trancelike face of the mute; at the moment when Sima Feng and Sima Huang stood up hand in hand, still terrified, and began looking around for their grandmother; at the moment when Mother came to her senses and began muttering as she ran toward the pond; at the moment when Xu Xian’er rediscovered his conscience and said, County Head, don’t kill them – my mother didn’t hang herself, and Sima Ku isn’t the only one responsible for the death of my wife; at the moment when a pair of dogs got into a fight in the ruins behind the house of the Muslim woman; at the moment when the sweet recollection of the game I played with Laidi in the horse trough came to me, and my mouth filled with the taste of ashes and the fragrance of elasticity of her nipple; at the moment when everyone was trying to guess where the VIP had come from and where he’d gone; at that moment two men on horseback rode in from the southeast like a whirlwind. One of the horses was white as snow, the other black as charcoal. The rider on the white horse was all in black, including a black bandanna covering the lower half of his face and a black hat. The man on the black horse was all in white, including a white bandanna covering the lower half of his face and a white hat. Both carried a pair of pistols. They were expert horsemen; they leaned slightly forward, legs hanging straight down. As they approached the pond they fired several shots in the air, so frightening the armed soldiers, not to mention the county and district officials, that they all threw themselves to the ground, facedown. The two riders whipped their horses as they circled the pond, their mounts leaning to form beautiful arcs. Then each fired another shot before whipping their mounts again and riding off, the horses’ tails fluttering in the air behind them. They vanished in front of our eyes, truly a case of coming on the winds of spring and leaving on the winds of autumn. They seemed like an illusion, though they were real enough. Slowly we regained our composure, and when we looked down we saw Sima Feng and Sima Huang laid out beside the pond, each with a bullet hole between the eyes. Everyone was paralyzed with fear.
8
On the day of the evacuation, shouting and bawling residents of Northeast Gaomi Township’s eighteen villages led their livestock, carried their chickens, supported their elders, and carried their very young up to the alkaline soil and weed-covered northern bank of the Flood Dragon River, their nerves on edge. The ground was covered with a layer of white alkali, like a coat of frost that wouldn’t melt. The leaves of grasses and reeds unaffected by the alkali were yellow, their cottony tassels waving and fluttering in the cold winds. Crows, always attracted by commotions below, wheeled and filled the sky with the ear-shattering noise of poets-
With the firing of a gun, the evacuation got underway. The dark mass of people moved out with a clamor. Donkeys brayed and cows lowed, chickens flapped into the air and dogs leaped, old ladies cried and children whooped, all at once. A skilled young officer on a white pony raised a red flag that hung dejectedly from the staff and rode back and forth across the bumpy, alkali-covered road leading to the northeast. Leading the procession was a contingent of mules carrying county government files, dozens of them plodding ahead listlessly under the watchful eyes of young soldiers. Behind them came a camel left over from Sima Ku’s time. It carried a pair of metal boxes atop the long, dirty fur of its hump. It had spent so many years in Northeast Gaomi that it was more oxen than camel. Behind it came a dozen or so porters transporting the county printing press and a lathe for the production team repair shop. They were all swarthy, robust young men wearing thin shirts with padded shoulders, shaped like lotus leaves. From the way they swayed as they walked, their brows furrowed and their mouths open, it was easy to see how heavy their loads were. Bringing up the rear was the chaotic mass of locals.
Lu Liren, Pandi, and a host of county and district officials rode up and down the roadside on their mules and horses, trying their best to bring order to the mass evacuation. But the people were shoulder to shoulder on the narrow road, while more spacious roadsides beckoned. More and more of them left the road for the sides, as the route grew wider and wider. The expanded procession tramped noisily heading northeast. It was pandemonium.
We were carried along by the crowd, sometimes on the road, sometimes not; there were times we didn’t know if we were on the road or not. Mother had draped a hemp strap around her neck and was pushing a cart with wooden wheels; the handles were so far apart she was forced to spread her arms out. A pair of rectangular baskets hung from the sides of the cart. The basket on the left carried Lu Shengli and our quilts and clothing. Big Mute and Little Mute were in the basket on the right. Sha Zaohua and I, both carrying baskets, walked alongside the cart, one on each side. Blind little Eighth Sister held on to Mother’s coat and stumbled along behind her. Laidi, vacillating between clarity and confusion, walked ahead, leaning forward as she pulled the family cart with a strap over her shoulder, like a willing oxen. The sound of the creaking wheels grated on our ears. The three little ones in the cart kept looking at all the commotion around them. I could hear the crunching of my feet on the alkali ground and could smell its pungent odor. At first it seemed like fun, but after a few miles, my legs began to ache and my head grew heavy; my strength was ebbing and sweat dripped from my underarms. My little white milk goat, which was strong as an ox, trotted respectfully behind me. She knew what we were doing, so there was no need to tether her.
Strong winds from the north sliced painfully into our ears that day. Little clouds of white dust jumped up in the boundless wilderness all around us. Formed of alkali, salt, and saltpeter, the dust stung our eyes, burned our skin, and fouled our mouths. People forged ahead into the wind, their eyes mere slits. The porters’ shirts were sweat- soaked and covered with alkali, turning them white from head to toe. Once we entered the marshy lowland, keeping the cart’s wheels turning became a real problem. First Sister struggled mightily, the strap digging deeply into her shoulder. Her labored breathing was like a death rattle. And Mother? Tears flowed from her melancholy eyes, merging with the sweat on her face and creating a patchwork of purple ravines. Eighth Sister hung on to Mother, rolling around like a heavy bundle as our cart dug ruts in the road. But they were quickly trampled and torn up by carts, pack animals, and the people behind us. There were refugees everywhere, a great mass of faces – some familiar, others not. The going was treacherous – for the people, for the horses, and for the donkeys. The only ones having a relatively easy time were the chickens in old women’s arms and my goat, which pranced along, even stopping from time to time to nibble on the dead leaves of reeds.
The sunlight raised a painful glare on the alkali ground cover, so bright we had to close our eyes. The glare shimmered along the ground like quicksilver. Wilderness that spread out before us seemed like the legendary Northern Sea.
