solitary kitchen chimney. It was the most intense longing for home he’d ever known. As soon as he was finished he’d go there, change into clean pants, and have his wife rub some lime into the bayonet wound on his chest. The great woodwind player of Northeast Gaomi Township had never been in such a mess. Oh, how he longed for his lovely wife, who had grumbled about his pocked face at first, but, resigned at last, had decided that if you marry a chicken you share the coop; marry a dog and you share the kennel.
4
EARLY-MORNING GUNFIRE beyond the village startled Second Grandma out of a dream in which she was fighting Grandma tooth and nail. She sat up, her heart thumping wildly, and, try as she might, she couldn’t decide if the noise had just been part of the dream. The window was coated with pale morning sunlight; a grotesque pattern of frost had formed on the pane. Shuddering from the cold, she tilted her head so she could see her daughter, my aunt, who was lying beside her, snoring peacefully. The sweet, even breathing of the five-year-old girl soothed Second Grandma’s fears. Maybe it was only Old Geng shooting at wild game, a mountain lion or something, she consoled herself. She had no way of knowing how accurate her prediction was, nor could she have known that while she was sliding back under the covers the tips of Japanese bayonets were jabbing Old Geng’s ribs.
Little Auntie rolled over and nestled up against Second Grandma, who wrapped her arms around her until she could feel the little girl’s warm breath against her chest. Eight years had passed since Grandma had kicked her out of the house. During that time, Granddad had been tricked into going to the Jinan police station, where he nearly lost his life. But he managed to escape and make his way home, where Grandma had taken Father to live with Black Eye, the leader of the Iron Society.
When Granddad fought Black Eye to a standstill at the Salty Water River, he touched Grandma so deeply she followed him home, where they ran the distillery with renewed vitality. Granddad put his rifle away, bringing his bandit days to an end, and began life as a wealthy peasant, at least for the next few years. They were troubling years, thanks to the rivalry between Grandma and Second Grandma. In the end, they reached a ‘tripartite agreement’ in which Granddad would spend ten days with Grandma, then ten days with Second Grandma – ten days was the absolute limit. He stuck to his bargain, since neither woman was an economy lantern, someone to be taken lightly.
Second Grandma was enjoying the sweetness of her sorrows as she hugged Little Auntie. She was three months pregnant. A period of increased tenderness, pregnancy is a time of weakness during which women need attention and protection, and Second Grandma was no exception. Counting the days on her fingers, she longed for Granddad. He would be there tomorrow.
Another crisp gunshot sounded outside the village, and Second Grandma scrambled out of bed. She, too, had heard rumours that the Japanese would be coming to sack the village, and she was unable to drive away the dark premonition of impending doom. She’d willingly go home with Granddad, even if it meant putting up with Grandma’s abuse, for it couldn’t be worse than living in Saltwater Gap in constant dread. But Granddad had flatly refused, most likely, I believe, because by then he was cowed by the irreconcilable differences between the two women. He would come to regret this decision, for on the following morning he stood in a yard bathed by the warm rays of the late- October sun and gazed upon the tragic consequences of his mistake.
Little Auntie, awake by now, let out an affected yawn, her eyes shining like small bronze buttons; then she sighed, just as if she were a grown-up. That frightened Second Grandma, whose power of speech momentarily deserted her.
‘Help me get dressed, Mommy,’ Little Auntie said.
As Second Grandma picked up Little Auntie’s padded red jacket, she looked with unconcealed surprise at her daughter, who didn’t have to be coaxed out of bed for a change. There were wrinkles on her face, her eyebrows sagged, and her mouth was drooping – suddenly she looked like a little old woman. Poor Second Grandma’s heart constricted, and the red jacket felt as cold as ice. She called out Little Auntie’s pet name, her voice quivering like a frayed zither string: ‘Xiangguan… Xiangguan… wait a minute… till Mommy warms your jacket over the fire…’
‘That’s okay, Mommy, you don’t have to warm it.’
Unable to hold back her tears, and not having the courage to look into her daughter’s face, she ran to the stove as though fleeing for her life, and lit a fire to warm the jacket, heavy in her hands. The straw crackled like gunfire and burned itself out as easily as it had caught fire, one stalk after another transformed into a cindery replica of its original shape.
Little Auntie’s loud breathing from the inner room brought her out of her daze. She carried the steaming jacket inside, where Little Auntie was sitting up in bed, the deep purple of the comforter contrasting sharply with her delicate white skin. Second Grandma draped the sleeves over Little Auntie’s slight shoulders as explosions rocked the village.
They seemed to be coming from beneath the ground: heavy, rumbling noises that shook the paper window- coverings and sent sparrows scurrying into the air, wings flapping. The sounds had barely died out when another barrage followed, and screams and shouts erupted in the village. Second Grandma picked up Little Auntie and hugged her tightly, mother and daughter trembling as one.
The shouts died out for a moment as a deathly still terror settled over the village, broken only by the dull tramping of feet and the occasional bark of a dog or the harsh crack of a rifle. Then, all of a sudden, the village erupted tumultuously, like a river that has broken through its dikes, producing a cacophony of women’s shrill cries, children’s tortured wails, chickens’ loud cackles as they flew up into trees and onto the village wall, and the braying of mules straining at their tethers.
Second Grandma bolted the front door and wedged two poles up against it, then climbed onto the kang and huddled up against the wall to await the coming disaster. She longed desperately for Granddad, but she hated him, too. When he came tomorrow, she’d have a good cry in front of him, then give him hell. The village was immersed in a hail of gunfire, and women’s screams came from all directions. Second Grandma knew only too well why they were screaming, for she had heard that the Japanese soldiers were like beasts who wouldn’t even spare seventy- year-old women.
The smell of smoke and fire seeped into the room; she heard the crackling of flames, punctuated by the occasional shouts of men. She grew numb with fear when she heard a pounding on her gate and frenzied gibberish. Little Auntie’s eyes widened for a moment, then she started to bawl, but Second Grandma clapped her hand over her mouth. The gate creaked and groaned. Second Grandma jumped down off the kang and ran to the stove, scooped out two handfuls of ashes, and smeared them over her face to make herself appear as ugly as possible. She did the same to Little Auntie’s face. The gate was about to splinter under the assault, and her eyelids fluttered wildly. Maybe they wouldn’t spare an old woman, but they’d surely let a pregnant woman go, wouldn’t they? Taking a bundle from the head of the bed, she undid her pants, stuffed it down the front, and retied her belt with a double knot. Little Auntie huddled against the wall, watching her mother’s strange behaviour.
The gate burst open, one of its broken panels crashing loudly to the ground. Shutting the bedroom door, Second Grandma jumped up onto the kang and wrapped her arms tightly around Little Auntie. The Japanese shouted as they battered down the front door with their rifle butts; flimsier than the gate, it splintered easily, and she heard the poles clatter to the floor. Now that the Japanese were inside, the last remaining obstacle was the paper-thin bedroom door. It was only a matter of whether or not they felt like breaking it down, whether or not they were driven by a desire to seize their prey.
Yet even then she trusted to luck; as long as the door was in place, the dangers would forever remain only in rumours and in her imagination, never becoming a reality. She stared with weak anxiety at the door panels as she heard the heavy footsteps of the Japanese and their urgent conversations. The panels were painted a deep red, the frame was coated with grey dust, and the white wooden bolt was spotted with dark-red stains – the blood of a black-mouthed weasel. Second Grandma remembered how she’d beaten the animal with the wooden bolt and listened to its screeches as its head cracked open like a peanut shell; it rolled on the ground for a moment, its bushy tail swishing back and forth across the powdery snow, before going into convulsions and heaving one final shudder. How she had despised that potent weasel!
On an autumn day in 1931, just as night was falling, she went out to the sorghum field to dig up some bitter greens, and there, at the head of a weed-covered grave mound bathed in the blood-red rays of the setting sun, sat
