“Second Master Ma,” my father said, “your brains have spilled out on the ground, and even the Jade Emperor couldn't save you now, so help me be a filial son, won't you?”
Father took the knife from between his teeth and moved it up and down the chest area, trying to find the right place to cut. I saw him press down, but the skin sprang back undamaged, like a rubber tire. He pressed down again with the same result. Father fell to his knees. “Second Master Ma, I know you didn't deserve to die, but if you've got a bone to pick, it's with Chief Zhang, not me. I'm just trying to be a filial son.”
Father had pressed down with the knife only twice, but already his forehead was all sweaty, the stubble on his chin white with icy moisture. The damned wild dogs were inching closer and closer to us – their eyes were red as hot coals, the fur on their necks was standing straight up, like porcupine quills, and their razor-sharp fangs were bared. I turned to Father. “Hurry, the dogs are coming.”
He stood up, waved the knife above his head, and charged the wild dogs like a madman, driving them back about half the distance an arrow flies. Then he ran back, breathless, and said loudly, “Second Master, if I don't cut you open, the dogs will do it with their teeth. I think you'd rather it be me than them.”
Father's jaw set, his eyes bulged. With a sense of determination, he brought his hand down; the knife cut into Ma Kuisan's chest with a slurping sound, all the way to the hilt. He jerked the knife to the side, releasing a stream of blackish blood, but the rib cage stopped his motion. “I lost my head,” he said as he pulled the knife out, wiped the blade on Ma Kuisan's leather coat, gripped the handle tightly, and opened Ma Kuisan's chest.
I heard a gurgling noise and watched the knife slice through the fatty tissue beneath the skin and release the squirming, yellowish intestines into the opening, like a snake, like a mass of eels; there was a hot, fetid smell.
Fishing out the intestines by the handful, Father looked like a very agitated man: he pulled and he tugged; he cursed and he swore; and finally, he ran out of intestines, leaving Ma Kuisan with a hollow abdomen.
“What are you looking for, Father?” I recall asking him anxiously.
“The gall bladder. Where the hell is his gall bladder?”
Father cut through the diaphragm and fished around until he had his hand around the heart – still nice and red. Then he dug out the lungs. Finally, alongside the liver, he discovered the egg-sized gall bladder. Very carefully, he separated it from the liver with the tip of his knife, then held it in the palm of his hand to examine it. The thing was moist and slippery and, in the sunlight, had a sheen. Sort of like a piece of fine purple jade.
Father handed me the gall bladder. “Hold this carefully while I take out Luan Fengshan's gall bladder.”
This time, Father performed like an experienced surgeon: deft, quick, exact. First he cut away the hemp cord that was all Luan Fengshan could afford for a belt. Then he opened the front of his ragged coat and held the scrawny, bony chest still with his foot as he made four or five swift cuts. After that, he cleared away all the obstructions, stuck in his hand, and, as if it were the pit of an apricot, removed Luan's gall bladder.
“Let's get out of here,” Father said.
We ran up the riverbank, where the dogs were fighting over the coils of intestines. Only a trace of red remained on the edges of the sun; its blinding rays fell on all exposed objects, large and small.
Grandma had advanced cataracts, according to Luo Dashan, the miracle worker. The source of her illness was heat rising from her three visceral cavities. The cure would have to be something very cold and very bitter. The physician lifted up the hem of his floor-length coat and was heading out the door when Father begged him to prescribe something.
“Hmm, prescribe something…” Miracle worker Luo told Father to get a pig's gall bladder and have his mother take the squeezings, which should clear her eyes a little.
“How about a goat's gall bladder?” Father asked.
“Goats are fine,” the physician said, “so are bears. Now if you could get your hands on a human gall bladder… ha, ha… Well, I wouldn't be surprised if your mother's eyesight returned to normal.”
Father squeezed the liquid from Ma Kuisan's and Luan Fengshan's gall bladders into a green tea bowl, which he offered up to Grandma in both hands. She raised it to her lips and touched the liquid with the tip of her tongue. “Gouzi's daddy,” she said, “this gall is awfully bitter. Where'd it come from?”
Father replied, “It's gall from a
“A
Unable to stop myself, I blurted out, “Grandma, it's human gall, it's from Ma Kuisan and Luan Fengshan. Daddy scooped out their bladders!”
With a shriek, Grandma fell backward onto the brick bed, dead as a stone.
Love Story
THAT AUTUMN THE TEAM LEADER SENT FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD JUNIOR and sixty-five-year-old Guo Three out into the fields to man the waterwheel. Why? To wheel water. For what? To irrigate the cabbage crop. A “sent- down” city girl named He Li-ping, in her mid-twenties, was in charge of the irrigation ditches.
Once the thirteenth solar period – Autumn Beginning – arrives, the cabbage must be watered daily, or the roots will rot. In his orders, the team leader spared the three workers from mustering for duty each morning, since they had to go into the fields to water the cabbage right after breakfast. Which they did, from Autumn Beginning to Frost's Descent, the eighteenth solar period. Naturally, irrigation wasn't all they did; other tasks included spreading fertilizer, controlling pests, binding up drooping cabbage leaves with sweet potato sprouts, and so on. They took four breaks a day, each lasting half an hour or so. The city girl, He Liping, owned a watch. Frost's Descent arrived, and the temperature plunged; the cabbage curled up into balls, bringing an end to the team's irrigation duties.
They dismantled the waterwheel and transported it back to the production team compound on a handcart, where they turned it over to the storekeeper. After a cursory inspection, he sent them on their way.
The next morning, right after breakfast, they stood beneath the iron bell to wait for new orders from the team leader. He had the old-timer, Guo Three, hitch up the ox to till the bean field and sent Junior out to re-sow millet at the farthest edge of the production team land. “What about me, Team Leader?” He Liping asked. “Go with Junior. You can prepare the furrows while he spreads the seeds.”
One of the commune wags extended the team leader's orders: “Junior,” he teased, “take good aim on He Liping's furrow. Make sure you spread your seed where it belongs.”
While the crowd laughed raucously, Junior felt his heart pound against his chest wall. He sneaked a look at He Liping, who stood stony-faced, obviously unhappy. That really upset him. “Fuck your old lady, Old Qi!” he cursed his playful tormentor.
The cabbage patch was located on the east side of the village, next to the pond. Swollen with rainwater, the pond was a breeding ground for algae and moss, making it greener than green and deeper than anyone could imagine. The main reason the production team had chosen that site to plant cabbage was the proximity of all that water. There was nothing wrong with well water, of course, but it wasn't nearly as good as the water in the pond. Mounted high on the pond's edge, the wa-terwheel looked like a poolside arbor. Junior and the oldster Guo Three stood on a shaky wooden footrest and turned the iron winch handles, one up and one down, squeaking and twisting as water flowed steadily. It didn't rain from Autumn's Beginning to Frost's Descent, not once. The skies were washed clean by the glare of the sun, day in and day out, and the surface of the pond stayed placid, wind or no wind. Clouds in the sky were matched by clouds in the pond that were, if anything, clearer than those above. Sometimes Junior stared at the clouds until he was in a world of his own, and forgot to turn the winch, to Guo Three's vocal displeasure: “Wake up, Junior!” At the northern tip of the pond stood a solitary patch of marshy reeds no larger than a sleeping mat, looking like a mirage. The reeds grew yellower each day, until in the bright rays of the morning sun and slanting rays of the setting sun, they seemed brushed by gold.
Let's say a really large, bright red dragonfly lands on one of the golden leaves, forming a dreamy plateau with the pond and the reeds. Then a dozen or so ducks and seven or eight geese, all pure white, glide across the surface. From time to time the long-necked ganders mount female geese, at other times they grant similar favors to female ducks. Junior stands transfixed when the ganders do that, and of course he forgets to turn the winch, which invariably earns abuse from Guo Three: “Just what are you thinking about?” Quickly averting his eyes from the naughty ganders and ducks, he starts turning the winch extra hard. Out the water gushes, as the rickety
