it appeared to have frozen up in the icy air. He decided to warm it up with a torch he made by soaking some cotton in the diesel oil. The yellow flames drove the moonbeams away and lit up Qiao Feipeng’s sallow face and sunken mouth; they lit up Lu Xiaopo’s puffy face and bulbous red nose; and they lit up Zhao Yonggang’s face, stamped with a sneer. When it lit up Diao Xiaosan’s mouth, with its missing fangs, I grew even calmer, like an old monk standing before a sacred idol.
In the end, the motor took hold, and its horrible sound on the river assaulted the night air and the moon. The boat moved slowly out into the river. By stepping on the ice at the river’s edge with a swagger, I made my way to the pier, looking like a domestic pig that had stepped out from the crowd of people seeing the hunters off. The red lanterns waved back and forth like balls of fire, creating just the right atmosphere for my leap through the air.
I wasn’t thinking anything, I just acted, just moved.
The boat lurched to one side and Diao Xiaosan seemed about to stand up. Liu Yong, who was bent over starting the motor, went flying into the river, raising blue-white shards of water into the air. The motor sputtered, emitting black smoke and weak complaints. My ears seemed waterlogged. Lu Xiaopo teetered, his open mouth reeking of alcohol, as he fell backward, his body half in the boat and half in the water for a moment, his waist fulcrumed on the steel plate railing, until he tipped headfirst into the river, he too raising blue-white, silent shards of water into the air. I started jumping up and down, five hundred
I jumped into the river, sending a column of water several yards into the air. The water was cold and felt sticky, like liquor that had aged for years. I saw all four of them floating on the surface. Liu Yong and Lu Xiaopo were so drunk they could neither function nor think clearly, so there was no need for me to hasten their departure from the world. Zhao Yonggang was the only real man among them, and if he could make it to dry land, then I’d let him live. Qiao Feipeng was the nearest to me; he struggled to keep his purple nose above water. Disgusted by the way he was gasping for air, I conked him on the head with my hoof. He didn’t move after that, except for his rear end, which floated to the surface.
I let the current take me downriver. Water and moonbeams formed a silvery liquid, like donkey milk about to freeze. Behind me, the boat’s motor was making crazy noises, while from the riverbank came a chorus of shouts. The only one I could distinguish was:
“Shoot him! Shoot!”
The six ex-soldiers had taken the assault rifles with them back to town. Since it was peacetime, the planners of the massacre were punished for using such advanced weapons to hunt wild animals.
I dove to the bottom, leaving all sound above and behind me, just like a certain first-rate novelist.
36
Thoughts Throng the Mind as the Past Is Recalled
Disregarding Personal Safety, Pig Saves a Child
Three months later, I was dead.
It all happened one afternoon when the sun was hidden. A bunch of kids were playing on the gray ice covering the river behind Ximen Village. They ranged in age from three and four up to seven and eight. Some were sledding across the ice, others were playing with tops, and I was watching this next generation of Ximen Village residents from the woods. I heard the welcoming call from the other side of the river:
“Kaifeng Geming Fenghuang Huanhuan – all you kids, come home.”
I saw the weathered face of the woman, the blue kerchief over her head waving in the wind, and I recognized her. It was Yingchun. I would be dead an hour later, but for now I was so caught up in turbulent memories of the past ten years or so I forgot all about my pig body. I knew that Kaifeng was the son of Lan Jiefang and Huang Hezuo, that Geming was the son of Ximen Baofeng and Ma Liangcai, that Huanhuan was the adopted son of Ximen Jinlong and Huang Huzhu. Fenghuang was the daughter of Pang Kangmei and Chang Tianhong, and I knew that her biological father was Ximen Jinlong, conceived beneath the renowned lover’s tree in Apricot Garden.
The children were having too much fun to climb up the bank, so Yingchun walked gingerly down the slope, just as the ice broke and the children fell into the icy water.
At the moment I was a human, not a pig; by no stretch of the imagination was I a born hero, but I was basically good and willing to do anything for a just cause. I jumped into the water while Yingchun scrambled back up the bank and shouted for help from the village. Thank you, Yingchun, my beloved. To me the water felt warm, not cold, and as the blood coursed through my veins I swam like a champion. I was not intent on saving the three children who were carrying on my line; I just swam for the nearest ones. I bit down on the pants of one of the boys and flung him back onto the ice. One after the other I tossed the children back onto the ice. They quickly crawled to safety. I took the foot of the fattest of the children in my mouth and brought him up out of the water; icy bubbles shot from his mouth as he hit the surface, just like a fish. The boy landed on the ice, which cracked under the weight, so this time I rammed my snout into his soft belly, moved all four of my legs as fast as I could – even with four legs treading water, I was still human – and flung him far off onto the ice. This time it held, thank goodness. The inertia from the effort drove me under the surface; water rushed up my nose, and I choked. When I made it back to the surface I coughed and gasped for air. I saw a crowd of people racing down the slope. Stay where you are, you stupid people! I put my head back under the water and dragged another child, a chubby little boy whose face was coated with ice, like syrup, when he broke the surface. The other kids I’d saved were still crawling along the ice, some of them crying, proof they were still alive. Go on, cry, all of you. In my mind’s eye I could see a bunch of girls, one after the other, crawling along the ground in the Ximen family compound and then climbing up the big apricot tree. The first girl in line passed gas. That was met by laughter. They all slid back down to the ground and dissolved into giggles. I saw their laughing faces. Baofeng’s laughing face, Huzhu’s laughing face, Hezuo’s laughing face. Back underwater I went, this time swimming after a boy who had been carried downriver. I caught him and raced for the surface, where the ice was thick and hard. I was running out of air; my chest felt as though it was about to explode. I rammed my head into the ice. Nothing. I did it a second time. Still nothing. So I turned and swam against the current. When I finally surfaced I saw red. Was it the setting sun? I flung the nearly drowned boy onto the ice. Through the red haze I saw Jinlong, Huzhu, Hezuo, Lan Lian, and many more… they all seemed made of blood, so red, poles and ropes and hoes in their hands as they crawled out onto the ice to rescue the children… how smart and how good they were. I had nothing but good feelings for all of them, was grateful even to the ones who had made my life as a pig so difficult. My thoughts were of a mysterious play being performed on a stage seemingly thrown up at the edge of a cloud as I hid among a copse of rare trees with golden limbs and jadeite leaves; music curled into the air above the stage, a song sung by a female opera performer dressed in a costume made of lotus petals. I was deeply moved, though I couldn’t say why. I felt hot all over; the water around me was getting warmer. It felt so good as I sank slowly to the bottom, where I was met by a pair of smiling blue-faced demons who looked very familiar.
“Well, old pal, you’re back!”
Book Four: Dog Spirit
