our neck of the woods live by a simple rule: they would rather pass on their skills to their sons’ wives than to their daughters. This established practice carries the same weight as the law in certain countries.
Mother said that the distillery was already a going concern under the operation of the Shan family. The wine they made wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t nearly as aromatic and rich as the wine that would come later, and it lacked the honeyed after-taste. The incident that resulted in the unique flavour of our wine occurred after Granddad murdered the Shans, and Grandma, following a brief period of discomposure, pulled herself together to display her natural entrepreneurial skills.
Like so many important discoveries that spring from chance origins or a prankster’s whim, the unique qualities of our wine were created when Granddad pissed in one of the wine casks. How could a man’s piss turn a common cask of wine into a wine of unique distinction? you ask. Well, this takes us into the realm of science, and you won’t hear any nonsense on the subject from me. Let those interested in the chemistry of brewing toss the matter around.
Later on, in order to improve upon the process, Grandma and Uncle Arhat hit upon the idea of substituting the alkali from old chamber pots for fresh piss – it was simpler, more efficient, and more controlled. This secret was shared only by Grandma, Granddad, and Uncle Arhat. I understand that the blending was done late at night, when everyone else was asleep. Grandma would light a candle in the yard, burn a wad of three hundred bank notes, then pour the liquid into the wine casks from a thin-necked gourd. She did it grandly, with an air of sublime mystery, in case there were prying eyes, for the astonished peeping Toms would assume that she was communing with spirits to seek divine assistance for the business. From then on, our wine prevailed over all our competitors’, nearly cornering the market.
2
AFTER THE WEDDING, Grandma returned to her parents’ home to spend three days before heading back to her in-laws’. She had no appetite during those three days, her mind distracted. Great-Grandma cooked all her favourite foods and tried to coax her into eating, but she refused everything and moped around the house like the walking dead. Even then her appearance didn’t suffer: her skin remained milky, her cheeks rosy; her bright eyes, set in dark sockets, looked like small moons glowing through the mist. ‘You little urchin,’ Great-Grandma grumbled, ‘do you think you’re an immortal or a Buddha who doesn’t need to eat or drink? You’ll be the death of your own mother!’ She looked at Grandma, who sat as composed as the Guanyin bodhisattva, two tiny white tears slipping out of the corners of her eyes.
Great-Granddad awoke from his drunken stupor on the second day of Grandma’s return, and immediately recalled Shan Tingxiu’s promise to give him a big black mule. His ears rang with the rhythmic clippety-clop of the mule’s hooves as it flew down the road. Such a mule: fetching black eyes like tiny lanterns, hooves like little goblets. ‘You old ass,’ Great-Grandma said anxiously, ‘your daughter won’t eat. What are we going to do?’
Great-Granddad glanced out of the corner of his drunken eyes and said. ‘She’s spoiled, spoiled rotten! Who does she think she is?’
He walked up to Grandma and said angrily, ‘What are you up to, you little tramp? People destined to marry are connected by a thread, no matter how far apart. Man and wife, for better or for worse. Marry a chicken and share the coop, marry a dog and share the kennel. Your dad’s no high-ranking noble, and you’re no gold branch or jade leaf. It was your good fortune to find a rich man like this, and your dad’s good fortune, too. The first thing your father-in-law did was promise me a nice black mule. That’s breeding…’
Grandma sat motionless, her eyes closed. Her damp eyelashes might have been covered with a layer of honey, each thick, full lash sticking to the others and curling like a swallowtail. Great-Granddad glared at her, his anger rising. ‘Don’t you act deaf and dumb with me. You can waste away if you want to, but you’ll be the Shan family’s ghost, because there’s no place in the Dai family graveyard for you!’
Grandma just laughed.
Great-Granddad slapped her.
With a pop, the rosiness in Grandma’s cheeks vanished, leaving a pallor behind. But the colour gradually returned, and her face became the red morning sun. Her eyes shining, she clenched her teeth and sneered. Glaring hatefully at her dad, she said: ‘I’m just afraid… if you… then you can forget about seeing a single hair of that mule!’
Lowering her head, she picked up her chopsticks and gobbled down the still-steaming food in front of her, like a whirlwind scooping up snow. When she was finished, she threw the bowl high into the air, where it tumbled and spun, sailed over the beam, and picked up two cobwebs before falling to the floor; it bounced around in a half-circle before settling upside down. She picked up another bowl and heaved it; this one hit the wall and fell to the floor in two pieces. Great-Granddad was so shocked his mouth fell open, his sideburns quivered, and he was speechless. ‘Daughter,’ Great-Grandma exclaimed, ‘you finally ate something!’
After throwing the bowls, Grandma broke down and cried. It was an agreeable, emotional, moist sound, which the room couldn’t hold, so it spilled outside and spread to the fields, to merge with the rustling of the pollinated late-summer sorghum. A million thoughts ran through her mind; over and over she relived what had happened from the time she had been placed in the bridal sedan chair until she had returned on the donkey’s back to her parents’ home. Every scene from those three days, every sound, every smell entered her mind… the horns and woodwinds… little tunes, big sounds… all that music turned the green sorghum red. It pounded a curtain of rain out of the clear sky: two cracks of thunder, a flash of lightning, rain falling like dense flax… turning her confused heart to flax, dense rain pouring in at an angle, then straight up, then straight down…
Grandma thought back to the highwayman at Toad Hollow, and to the valiant actions of the young sedan bearer. He was their leader, the main dog of the pack. He couldn’t be more than twenty-four – not a wrinkle on his rugged face. She recalled how close his face had been for a while, and how his lips, hard as mussel shells, had covered hers. Her blood had frozen for an instant, before gushing forth to dilate every blood vessel in her body. Her feet had cramped, her abdominal muscles had jerked madly. Their call to revolt had been aided by the vibrant sorghum – the powder on the stalks, so fine it was barely visible, spreading in the air above her and the sedan bearer…
Grandma hoped that by concentrating on the youthful passion of that moment she could hold on to it, but it kept slipping away, here one moment, then gone. And yet the leper’s face, like a long-buried rotten grape, kept reappearing, along with the ten hooked claws that were his fingers. Then there was the old man, with his tiny queue and the ring of brass keys at his belt. Grandma sat quietly, but even though she was dozens of li away from the spot, the rich taste of sorghum wine and the sour taste of sorghum mash seemed to roll around on her tongue. She recalled how the two male ‘serving girls’ reeked like drunken geese fished out of a wine vat, the smell of alcohol seeping from every pore in their bodies… He had cut a swath through the sorghum, leaving the blade of his razor- sharp sword wet with little horseshoes of inky green, sticky residue from the decapitated plants, their lifeblood. She remembered what he had said: ‘Come back in three days, no matter what!’ Daggers of light had shot from his long, slitted eyes.
Grandma had a premonition that her life was about to change in extraordinary ways.
In some significant aspects, heroes are born, not made. Heroic qualities flow through a person’s veins like an undercurrent, ready to be translated into action. During her first sixteen years, Grandma’s days had been devoted to embroidery, needlework, paper cutouts, foot binding, the endless glossing of her hair, and all other manner of domestic things in the company of neighbour girls. What, then, was the source of her ability and courage to deal with the events she encountered in her adult years? How was she able to temper herself to the point where even in the face of danger she could conquer her fears and force herself to act heroically? I’m not sure I know.
Grandma wept for a long time without feeling much true grief; as she cried, she relived the joys and pleasures of her past, even the suffering and sorrow. The sounds of crying seemed to be a distant musical accompaniment to the beautiful and hideous images appearing and reappearing in her mind. Finally, she mused that human existence is as brief as the life of autumn grass, so what was there to fear from taking chances with your life?
‘Time to leave, Little Nine,’ Great-Granddad said, calling her by her childhood name.
Leave! Leave! Leave!
Grandma asked for a basin of water to wash her face. Then she applied some powder and rouge. As she looked
