What a tangle of thoughts ran through my mind as tears welled up in my eyes and dripped to the ground.
“Are you crying, Pig Sixteen?” Surprised? Yes, she was. But also saddened. Stroking my ears, she looked up at the moon. “My husband,” she said, “with Jinlong dead, the Ximen family has truly come to its end…”
Jinlong, of course, was not dead. If he’d died, the curtain would have fallen on this drama. Baofeng’s medical skills brought him back from certain death, only to have him rant and rave, leaping and jumping, eyes bloodshot, wanting nothing to do with friends or family. “I don’t want to live!” he shouted. “No more for me…” He clutched his chest. “I feel terrible, I can’t stand it, I want to die, Mother…” Hong Taiyue stepped up, grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “Jinlong!” he roared. “What do you think you’re doing? You call yourself a member of the Communist Party? The branch secretary of the Youth League? You disappoint me. You embarrass me!” Yingchun rushed up and pulled Hong’s arms away, then stood between them. “I won’t let you treat my son like that!” she threatened. Then she turned and threw her arms around Jinlong, who was a head taller than she, rubbed his face, and murmured, “Good boy, don’t be afraid, Mother’s here, she won’t let them hurt you…”
Jinlong pushed her away and forced the others, who tried to block his way, to back off; lowering his shoulder, he ran out. The moonlight settled on his arms like a blue curtain of gauze that gently laid him down on the ground, where he rolled around like an overworked donkey. “Mother, I can’t stand it, I want to die. Bring me two more bottles of liquor, two more bottles, two more…” “Is he crazy or is he drunk?” Hong asked Baofeng sternly. Her mouth twitched. “Drunk, I expect,” she said with a sneer. With a look at Yingchun, Huang Tong, Qiuxiang, Hezuo, and Huzhu, Hong Taiyue could only shake his head, like a powerless father. He sighed. “You people have really let me down.” He turned and walked off, swaying slightly, but instead of heading toward the village, he went into the apricot grove, leaving light blue footprints in the carpet of apricot petals.
Meanwhile, Jinlong was still donkey-rolling on the ground. “Go get some vinegar, Hezuo,” Qiuxiang chirped, “and pour it down his throat. Do you hear me, Hezuo? Go home and get it.” But Hezuo had her arms wrapped around an apricot tree and her face pressed up against the bark, until she nearly looked like an outgrowth of the tree itself. “Huzhu, you go then.” But the girl’s silhouette had blended with the distant moonbeams. Once Hong Taiyue had left, the crowd began to disperse. Even Baofeng, medical kit over her back, walked off. “Baofeng!” Yingchun cried out to her, “give your brother an injection of something. All that alcohol will rot his insides…”
“Here’s the vinegar,” Mo Yan called out, holding a bottle in his hand. “I’ve got it.” He was fast, really fast, and an eager helper. He was one of those youngsters who feels the rain as soon as he hears the wind. “I got the snack shop to open,” he announced proudly, “and when the clerk asked me for money I said this was Secretary Hong’s vinegar, so put it on his bill. He gave it to me without a word of protest.”
It took some doing, but Sun Three finally managed to pin donkey-rolling Jinlong to the ground, though not without a struggle – teeth, feet, everything. Qiuxiang put the vinegar bottle up to his lips and began to pour. A peculiar sound tore from his throat, sort of like a rooster that has carelessly swallowed a poisonous bug. His eyes had rolled back in his head – unmistakably all white in the moonlight. “You heartless brat, you’ve killed my son!” Yingchun cried out as Huang Tong thumped Jinlong on the back, driving streams of sour, rank liquid out of his mouth and nose…
28
Hezuo Marries Jiefang against Her Will
Huzhu Is Happily Mated to Jinlong
Two months passed, and neither of the brothers, Lan Jiefang and Ximen Jinlong, was on the road to recovery. Something was wrong with the mental state of the Huang sisters as well. If Mo Yan’s story is to be believed, Lan Jiefang’s madness was real, Ximen Jinlong’s was feigned. Feigning madness is like a red veil that masks shame; when worn, it effectively covers up all scandals. Once madness appears, what else is there to say? By then, the Ximen Village pig farm enjoyed a far-flung reputation. Taking advantage of the short break before the harvest began, the county administration organized another round of activities to observe and learn from the Ximen Village pig-raising experience. Residents from other counties would also be participating. At this critical moment in local history, Jinlong and Jiefang’s madness effectively cut off both of Hong Taiyue’s arms at the shoulder.
A telephone call from the Commune Revolutionary Committee informed him that a delegation from the Military District Logistics Department, accompanied by local and county officials, was on its way to observe and study. So Hong Taiyue called together the best minds of the village to devise ways of dealing with the situation. In Mo Yan’s story, Hong suffered from fever blisters around the mouth and had eyes that were bloodshot day and night. He also wrote that you, Lan Jiefang, lay on your
According to Mo Yan, as the leaders of the Ximen Village Production Brigade were bemoaning their anticipated fate, feeling utterly helpless, he entered the scene with a plan. But it would be a mistake to take him at his word, since his stories are filled with foggy details and speculation, and should be used for reference only.
Mo Yan wrote that when he walked into the room where the meeting was being held, Huang Tong tried to bum-rush him back outside. But rather than leave, he jumped into the air and landed on the edge of the conference table in a seated position, his stumpy legs swinging back and forth like loofah gourds on a trellis. Panther Sun, who by then had been promoted to captain of the local militia and head of security, jumped to his feet and grabbed Mo Yan by the ear. Hong Taiyue waved Sun off.
“Have you gone mad too, young man?” Hong mocked Mo Yan. “I wonder what kind of feng shui this village has to produce a great citizen like you.”
“I am not crazy,” Mo Yan wrote in his infamous “Tales of Pig-Raising.” “My nerves are as thick and tough as gourd vines, which won’t break even when supporting a dozen gourds that swing back and forth in the wind. The rest of the world can go mad, and I’ll keep my sanity” He added humorously: “But your two esteemed members have lost their sanity, and I know that’s what’s got you all scratching your heads, like a bunch of monkeys trapped in a well.”
“That’s exactly what has us concerned,” Mo Yan wrote. “Hong Taiyue said, ‘We’re worse off even than monkeys. We’re like a bunch of donkeys stuck in the mud. What can you do to help us, Mr. Mo Yan?’ “Mo Yan’s story continued:
With his hands clasped in front of his chest, Hong Taiyue bowed like an enlightened lord showing respect to a smart man, though his intention was to ridicule me, to mock me. The best way to deal with ridicule and mockery is to feign ignorance and turn the so-called wit into a matter of playing a zither to an ox or singing to a pig. So I pointed a finger at the bulging pocket in the tunic Hong had worn for at least five winters and six summers without coming in contact with soap and water. “What?” Hong asked as he looked down at his pocket. “Cigarettes,” I said. “You’ve got a pack of cigarettes in your pocket. Amber brand.” In those days Amber cigarettes cost as much as the renowned Front Gates, thirty-nine cents a pack, and even a commune Party secretary smoked them sparingly. Thanks to me, Secretary Hong was forced to pass them around. “Don’t tell me you have X-ray vision, young fellow. Your talents are undervalued here in Ximen Village.” I smoked one of his cigarettes, just like a longtime smoker, blowing three smoke rings and linking them with a smoke pillar. “I know you all think I’m beneath contempt,” he said, “seeing me as no smarter than a dog fart. Well, I’m eighteen years old, an adult, and while I’m small and have a baby face, no one in Ximen Village is as smart as me.”
“Is that so?” Hong said with a smile as he glanced around the table. “I didn’t know you had reached the age of eighteen, and certainly didn’t know of your superior intelligence.” That was met by laughter all around.
Mo Yan continued:
So I kept smoking and said, with impeccable logic, that Jinlong and Jiefang’s unbalanced state came as a result of emotional disturbances. No medicine can cure that. Only ancient exorcisms will work. You must arrange marriages between Jinlong and Huzhu and Jiefang and Hezuo, what people call a ‘health and happiness’ wedding, but more accurately a ‘health through happiness’ wedding to drive away evil spirits.
I see no need to debate whether or not it was Mo Yan who made the weddings between you brothers and the Huang sisters possible, but there’s no disputing that they occurred on the same day, and I personally witnessed
