his nose throbbed as if it had met a fist and come out second best. Two trickles of tears materialized on his cheeks.
‘Not much hope for you, I see,’ the old revolutionary said, looking him over. ‘We take the seed from tigers and wolves, and all we get are some snotty worms.’
Once again he dried his eyes with his sleeves and pleaded his case: ‘Gramps, I was brought down by a woman…’
With a look of disappointment, the old revolutionary put on his heavy overcoat, strapped his shotgun over his shoulder, and summoned his trusty companion: ‘Dog, let’s go make our rounds and leave this worthless wretch to his tears.’
The dog got lazily to its feet, cast a sympathetic glance at the investigator, and followed the old revolutionary out of the gate house. The door’s hinge snapped it closed with a bang, but not before a damp, very cold night wind slipped in to make him shiver. Loneliness and fear. ‘Wait for me,’ he shouted, as he pulled the door open and chased after them.
The electric light over the doorway transformed them into shadowy figures. A cold rain fell, the sound crisper and denser than ever, probably because the night had deepened. Instead of walking out through the main gate, the old revolutionary headed toward the heart of the cemetery, directly into gloomy darkness. The dog was on his heels, he was right behind the dog. For a while, the electric light made it possible to discern the shapes of cypresses trimmed to look like pagodas bracketing the narrow cobblestone path; but before long, they too were swallowed up by the converging darkness. Now he knew what it felt like not to be able to see his fingers in front of his face. And the darker it became, the louder the sound of raindrops on the trees; the chaotic, intense tattoo first threw his mind into turmoil, then emptied it. Only from the sounds and smells up ahead did he gain an awareness of the old revolutionary and his yellow dog’s existence. Darkness is so heavily oppressive, it can crush a man flat. Securely in the grip of fear, the investigator could detect the smell of martyrs’ graves hidden amid the green pines and emerald cypresses. To his mind, the trees were sentries standing there holding their shoulders and harboring ill will toward him, with sneers on their faces and evil in their hearts; downy spirits of the brave departed sat on the weedy graves at their feet. Sobered up by raw terror, he reached for his pistol, his hand coated with cold sweat. A weird screech tore through the darkness, followed by flapping sounds moving past him. A bird, he assumed, but what kind of bird? An owl, maybe? The old revolutionary coughed; the dog barked. The two sounds, securely anchored in the mortal world, brought the investigator a measure of comfort; he coughed, loudly, and even he discerned the blustery tone. Up ahead in the darkness, the old revolutionary’s laughing at me, he assumed. And so is that philosophical running dog of his. He saw two green lights in the darkness ahead, and if he hadn’t known it was a dog, he’d have sworn the eyes belonged to a wolf. He began to cough, uncontrollably, when a flash of light blinded him. Covering his eyes with his hand, he opened his mouth to protest, just as the light moved off in another direction and lit upon a carved white tombstone. The words looked to have been freshly painted in shocking red, but the redness so clouded his vision, he couldn’t read them. The light went out as abruptly as it had come on; he still saw spots in front of his eyes, and his brain was awash in red, like the blazing pinewood fire in the stove back at the gate house. He heard the old revolutionary’s heavy breathing up front, as the noisy, chilling rainshower died out suddenly, and an earth-shattering clap near by nearly frightened him out of his wits. He wondered what could have caused the explosion, but only for a moment. All that mattered was, from the instant the light shone on the martyr’s tombstone, an enormous wave of courage surged into his body and drove out the jealousy of sickness wine, the evil weakness of widow wine, and the restlessness and anxiety of love wine, turning them all into a sour stench, into reeking urine. Then vodka, spirited as a proud stallion galloping across a Cossack plain, became him; and cognac, rough and unconstrained, yet with a fine edge to its roughness, rich in the spirt of adventure, rich in audacity, like a Spaniard addicted to the danger of bullfighting, became him. As if, after eating a mouthful of red chilis, sinking his teeth into a bunch of green onions, gnawing on a stalk of purple-skinned garlic, chewing up a hunk of aged, dried ginger, or swallowing a whole jar of black pepper, he would feel like an oil-fed fire, like flowers on a piece of brocade; his spirits would soar like the tail feathers of a rooster – a true cocktail – as he picked up his six- nine service pistol, which had been created with the same loving care as the finest Great Yeast liquor, and charged ahead, his strides as menacing as cheap grappa, as if, in the blink of an eye, he could be back at Yichi Tavern, where he would kick in the jade-white door, raise his pistol, aim it at the lady trucker, who was sitting in the lap of the dwarf Yichi, and –
II
Dear Elder Brother Yidou
I received your latest letter and the story ‘Cooking Lesson.’
As for visiting Liquorland, I’ve already broached the subject with my superior. He’s not particularly keen on letting me go, since I’m in the military. Besides, I’ve just been promoted from captain to major (I lose two stars and gain a bar, and since I think three stars and a single bar would look much better, Fm not as pleased as I might be), and I should go down to company headquarters to eat and live and drill with the troops, so I can write stories or ‘reportage’ that reflect the lives of our soldiers in this new age. Going into the provinces to find material puts me under the jurisdiction of local administrators, which complicates matters, even for Liquorland, which has attracted so much attention in recent years because of everything that’s been going on there. I’m not ready to give up yet, and will keep trying. There are plenty of fine-sounding excuses I could come up with.
Liquorland’s first annual Ape Liquor Festival should be an interesting, successful event. While everybody’s drinking and having a good time, saturating the air with the bouquet of good liquor, I hope this pudgy body of mine can make an appearance among the tipsy, drink-besotted alcoholic troops.
I’ve reached an impasse in my novel. That slippery investigator from the Higher Procuratorate is fighting me every step of the way. I don’t know whether to kill him off or have him go mad. And if I choose to finish him off, I can’t decide whether he should shoot himself or die in a drunken stupor. I got him good and drunk in the previous chapter. And because I'm having trouble reconciling all these tormenting problems, I went ahead and got good and drunk myself. But instead of enjoying a good buzz, all I got was a vision of Hell It’s a lousy place, I tell you.
I spent a whole night reading ‘Cooking Lesson’ (I read it several times). I’m finding it harder and harder to comment upon your stories. But if forced to say something, I guess I’d more or less repeat what I’ve said before: that it lacks a consistency of style, that it’s too capricious, that the characters aren’t well developed, and that sort of thing. I think that instead of bringing up the same old thing again and again, I’m better off keeping my mouth shut. Nonetheless, I did as you asked and made a special trip to
I’m convinced you can write a first-rate story that will be just right for
By my calculations, you’ve sent me a total of six stories to be forwarded for consideration; that includes ‘Yichi the Hero,’ which I have here. If I come to Liquorland, I probably should retrieve the manuscripts from
Don’t worry if you can’t find a copy of
Wishing you
Good writing!
Mo Yan
