The winds were picking up, bending the sorghum stalks in ever deeper waves, those on the roadside stretching out to bow their respects to Grandma. The bearers streaked down the road, yet the sedan chair was as steady as a skiff skimming across whitecaps. Frogs and toads croaked in loud welcome to the oncoming summer rainstorm. The low curtain of heaven stared darkly at the silvery faces of sorghum, over which streaks of blood-red lightning crackled, releasing ear-splitting explosions of thunder. With growing excitement, Grandma stared fearlessly at the green waves raised by the black winds.
The first truculent raindrops made the plants shudder. The rain beat a loud tattoo on the sedan chair and fell on Grandma’s embroidered slippers; it fell on Yu Zhan’ao’s head, then slanted in on Grandma’s face.
The bearers ran like scared jackrabbits, but couldn’t escape the prenoon deluge. Sorghum crumpled under the wild rain. Toads took refuge under the stalks, their white pouches popping in and out noisily; foxes hid in their darkened dens to watch tiny drops of water splashing down from the sorghum plants. The rainwater washed Yu Zhan’ao’s head so clean and shiny it looked to Grandma like a new moon. Her clothes, too, were soaked. She could have covered herself with the curtain, but she didn’t; she didn’t want to, for the open front of the sedan chair afforded her a glimpse of the outside world in all its turbulence and beauty.
6
FATHER PARTED THE sorghum and threaded his way northwest, towards our village, as fast as his legs would carry him. Badgers with humanlike feet scattered clumsily across the ditches, but he ignored them. Once he was on the road, and didn’t have to worry about getting tangled up in the sorghum plants, he ran like the wind, his red cotton waistband sagging like a crescent moon under the weight of his Browning. Although the pistol banged painfully against his hip, the growing numbness made him feel like a real man – powerful, even invincible. He could see the village in the distance. The gloomy, faded gingko tree at the entrance, which had stood for nearly a century, waited in sombre greeting. As he ran, he took the pistol from his waistband and aimed at birds gliding gracefully in the sky above him.
The street was deserted, except for somebody’s lame, blind donkey, which was tethered to a crumbling wall; it stood motionless, its head drooping low. A solitary crow with wet dark-blue feathers was perched on a stone-roller. The villagers had gathered in the distillery compound, which had been paved with red gravel in the days when sorghum was purchased and stacked there, back when Grandma ambled unsteadily on her tiny feet, a white horsetail whisk in her hand and the glow of dawn in her cheeks, as she watched the drunken hands buy sorghum. Now the people faced southeast, awaiting the sound of gunfire. Children my father’s age were uncharacteristically well behaved, no matter how they itched to act up.
Father and Sun Five, who had skinned and butchered Uncle Arhat the year before, ran into the square from different directions. Sun Five hadn’t been the same since the skinning. Arms and legs thrashing, eyes staring straight ahead, cheeks twitching, a stream of gibberish pouring from his foaming mouth, he had fallen to his knees and shouted, ‘Elder brother elder brother elder brother, Commander made me do it, couldn’t help myself… You exist in heaven, where you ride a white horse on a carved saddle, wear fine clothes, carry a golden whip…’ When the villagers saw him like this, their loathing abated. A few months after he went mad, his behaviour turned truly bizarre. He would begin shouting, and the corners of his eyes and mouth would turn up as snot and slobber dripped unchecked. No one could make any sense of the gibberish, and the villagers called it heavenly retribution.
Father ran up breathlessly, Browning in hand, his head covered with white sorghum powder and red dust. The ragged Sun Five, his belly a mass of wrinkles, stumbled into the square, his left leg rigid, his right leg rubbery. Everyone ignored him, for they were all too busy watching the impressive figure of my father.
Grandma walked up to him. Although still in her early thirties at the time, she wore her hair in a bun, neat bangs covering her shiny forehead like a beaded curtain. Her eyes were as moist as autumn rains; people blamed that on the wine fumes. More than fifteen years of romantic, soul-stirring adventures had turned her from a virginal teenager into a bold young woman.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
Still trying to catch his breath, Father stuck his Browning into his waistband.
‘Didn’t the Japs come?’
‘We won’t show that son of a bitch Detachment Leader Leng any mercy!’ Father exclaimed.
‘What happened?’
‘Make some fistcakes.’
‘We didn’t hear any fighting.’
‘Make some fistcakes,’ Father repeated. ‘And put in plenty of eggs and onions.’
‘Didn’t the Japs come?’ Grandma persisted.
‘Commander Yu said to make some fistcakes, and he wants
‘Fellow villagers,’ she said, ‘go home and make fistcakes.’
Father turned to go, but Grandma stopped him. ‘Tell me what happened with the Leng detachment, Douguan.’
He wrenched free of her grip and snarled, ‘They never showed up. Commander Yu isn’t going to let them get away with it!’ He ran off, leaving Grandma sighing as she watched the slight silhouette of his back. Sun Five was standing at a tilt in the spacious compound, staring stiffly at Grandma and gesticulating wildly, a stream of slobber running down his chin.
Ignoring Sun Five, Grandma walked up to a long-faced girl leaning against the wall, who smiled weakly, then fell to her knees, wrapped her arms tightly around Grandma’s waist, and began to cry hysterically. ‘Lingzi,’ Grandma consoled her, touching her face, ‘be a good girl. Don’t be afraid.’
The prettiest girl in the village, Lingzi was seventeen at the time. When Commander Yu was recruiting troops, he assembled fifty or so men, one of whom was a gaunt young man with a pale face and long black hair, dressed in black except for a pair of white shoes. Lingzi was rumoured to be in love with him. He spoke with a beautiful Beijing dialect, and never smiled; his brow was forever creased in a frown, with three vertical furrows above his nose. Everyone called him Adjutant Ren. Lingzi felt that beneath Adjutant Ren’s cold, hard exterior raged a fire, and it put her on edge.
Yu Zhan’ao’s troops drilled each morning on the square where we bought our sorghum. As soon as Liu Sishan, Commander Yu’s bugler, sounded reveille, Lingzi dashed out of the house and ran to the parade ground to lie on the wall and await the arrival of Adjutant Ren, his wide leather belt and Browning pistol.
Adjutant Ren strode up to the troops, his chest thrown out proudly, and called them to attention. Two columns of soldiers clicked their heels snappily.
Adjutant Ren commanded, ‘Atten-hut! Legs straight, stomachs in, chests out, eyes forward, like panthers about to pounce.
‘What the hell kind of way is that to stand?’ He kicked Wang Wenyi. ‘Your legs are spread like a mule taking a piss. I’d beat some discipline into you if I could.’
Lingzi liked seeing Adjutant Ren beat up on people and liked the way he chewed them out. His autocratic demeanour thoroughly intoxicated her. His favourite leisure activity was strolling around the parade ground with his hands clasped behind his back. Lingzi would hide behind the wall and drink in the sight.
‘What’s your name?’ Adjutant Ren asked.
‘Lingzi.’
‘Who were you watching from back there?’
‘You.’
‘Do you know how to read?’
‘No.’
‘Want to join the army?’
‘No.’
‘I see.’
Regretting her response, Lingzi told my father that the next time Adjutant Ren asked her if she wanted to join the army she’d say yes. But he never asked her again.
