THE TROOPS EMERGED onto the riverbank in a column, with the red sun, which had just brokenthrough the mist, shining down on them. Like everyone else’s, half of my father’s face was red,the other half green; and, like everyone else, he was watching the mist break up over the BlackWater River. A fourteen-arch stone bridge connected the southern and northern sections of thehighway. The original wooden bridge remained in place to the west, although three or four spanshad fallen into the river, leaving only the brown posts, which obstructed the flow of the whitefoam on top of the water. The reds and greens of the river poking through the dissipating mistwere horrifyingly sombre. From the dike, the view to the south was of an endless panorama ofsorghum, level and smooth and still, a sea of deeply red, ripe faces. A collective body, united in asingle magnanimous thought. Father was too young then to describe the sight in such floweryterms – that’s my doing.
Sorghum and men waited for time’s flower to bear fruit.
The highway stretched southward, a narrowing ribbon of road that was ultimately swallowedup by fields of sorghum. At its farthest point, where sorghum merged with the pale vault ofheaven, the sunrise presented a bleak and solemn, yet stirring sight.
Gripped by curiosity, Father looked at the mesmerised guerrillas. Where were they from?
Where were they going? Why were they setting an ambush? What would they do when it wasover? In the deathly hush, the sound of water splashing over the bridge posts seemed louder andcrisper than before. The mist, atomised by the sunlight, settled into the stream, turning the BlackWater River from a deep red to a golden red, as though ablaze. A solitary, limp yellow water-plant floated by, its once fiery blooms hanging in withered pallor among the leafy grooves likesilkworms. It’s crab-catching season again! Father was reminded. The autumn winds are up, theair is chilled, a flock of wild geese is flying south.?.?.?. Uncle Arhat shouts, ‘Now, Douguan,now!’ The soft, spongy mud of the bank is covered with the elaborate patterns of skitteringclaws. Father could smell the delicate, fishy odour wafting over from the river.
‘Take cover behind the dike, all of you,’ Commander Yu said. ‘Mute, set up your rakes.’
Mute slipped some loops of wire off his shoulder and tied the four large rakes together, thengrunted to his comrades to help him carry the chain of rakes over to the spot where the stonebridge and highway met.
‘Take cover, men,’ Commander Yu ordered. ‘Stay down till the Jap convoy is on the bridgeand Detachment Leader Leng’s troops have cut off their line of retreat. Don’t fire till I give theorder; then cut those Jap bastards to pieces and let them feed the eels and crabs.’
Commander Yu signalled to Mute, who nodded and led half the men into the sorghum fieldwest of the highway to lie in ambush. Wang Wenyi followed Mute’s troops to the west, but wassent back. ‘I want you here with me,’ Commander Yu said. ‘Scared?’
‘No,’ Wang Wenyi said, even though he nodded spiritedly.
Commander Yu had the Fang brothers set up their cannon atop the dike, then turned to BuglerLiu. ‘Old Liu, as soon as we open fire, sound your horn for all you’re worth. That scares the hellout of the Japs. Do you hear me?’
Bugler Liu was another of Commander Yu’s longtime buddies, dating back from when he wasa sedan bearer and Liu was a funeral musician. Now he held his horn like a rifle.
‘I’m warning you guys,’ Commander Yu said to his men. ‘I’ll shoot any one of you who turnschicken. We have to put on a good show for Leng and his men. Those bastards like to come onstrong with their flags and bugles. Well, that’s not my style. He thinks he can get us to join them,but I’ll get him to join me instead.’
As the men sat among the sorghum plants, Fang Six took out his pipe and tobacco and his steeland flint. The steel was black, the flint the deep red of a boiled chicken liver. The flint crackled asit struck the steel, sending sparks flying, great big sparks, one of which landed on the sorghumwick he was holding. As he blew on it, a wisp of white smoke curled upward, turning the wickred. He lit his pipe and took a deep puff. Commander Yu exhaled loudly and crinkled his nose.
‘Put that out,’ he said. ‘Do you think the Japs will cross the bridge if they smell smoke?’ FangSix took a couple of quick puffs before snuffing out his pipe and putting it away.
‘Okay, you guys, flatten out on the slope so we’ll be ready when the Japs come.’
Nervousness set in as the troops lay on the slope, weapons in hand, knowing they would soonface a formidable enemy. Father lay alongside Commander Yu, who asked him, ‘Scared?’
‘No!’
‘Good,’ Commander Yu said. ‘You’re your foster-dad’s boy, all right! You’ll be my dispatchorderly. Don’t leave my side once it starts. I’ll need you to convey orders.’
Father nodded. His eyes were fastened greedily on the pistols stuck in Commander Yu’s belt,one big, one small. The big one was a German automatic, the small one a French Browning. Eachhad an interesting history.
The word ‘Gun!’ escaped from his mouth.
‘You want a gun?’
Father nodded.
‘Do you know how to use one?’
‘Yes!’
Commander Yu took the Browning out of his belt and examined it carefully. It was well used,the enamel long gone. He pulled back the bolt, ejecting a copper-jacketed bullet, which he tossedin the air, caught, and shoved back into the chamber.
‘Here!’ he said, handing it over. ‘Use it the way I did.’
Father took the pistol from him, and as he held it he thought back to a couple of nights earlier,when Commander Yu had used it to shatter a wine cup.
A crescent moon had climbed into the sky and was pressing down on withered branches.
Father carried a jug and a brass key out to the distillery to get some wine for Grandma. Heopened the gate. The compound was absolutely still, the mule pen pitch-black, the distillerysuffused with the stench of fermenting grain. When he took the lid off one of the vats in themoonlight, he saw the reflection of his gaunt face in the mirrorlike surface of wine. His eyebrowswere short, his lips thin; he was surprised by his own ugliness. He dunked the jug into the vat ofwine, which gurgled as it filled. After lifting it out, he changed his mind and poured the wineback, recalling the vat in which Grandma had washed her bloody face. Now she was inside,drinking with Commander Yu and Detachment Leader Leng, who was getting pretty drunk, nomatch for the other two.
Father walked up to a second vat, the lid of which was held in place by a millstone. Afterputting his jug on the ground, he strained to remove the millstone, which rolled away and crashedup against yet another vat, punching a hole in the bottom, through which wine began to seep.
Ignoring the leaky vat, he removed the lid from the one in front of him, and immediately smelledthe blood of Uncle Arhat. The two faces, of Uncle Arhat and Grandma, appeared and reappearedin the wine vat. Father dunked the jug into the vat, filled it with blood-darkened wine, and carriedit inside.
Candles burned brightly on the table, around which Commander Yu and Detachment LeaderLeng were glaring at each other and breathing heavily. Grandma stood between them, her lefthand resting on Leng’s revolver, her right hand on Commander Yu’s Browning pistol.
Father heard Grandma say, ‘Even if you can’t agree, you mustn’t abandon justice and honour.
This isn’t the time or place to fight. Take your fury out on the Japanese.’
Commander Yu spat out angrily, ‘You can’t scare me with the Wang regiment’s flags andbugles, you prick. I’m king here. I ate fistcakes for ten years, and I don’t give a damn about thatfucking Big Claw Wang!’
Detachment Leader Leng sneered. ‘Elder Brother Zhan’ao, I’ve got your best interests at heart.
So does Commander Wang. If you turn your cache of weapons over to us, we’ll make you abattalion commander, and he’ll provide rifles and pay. That’s better than being a bandit.’
‘Who’s a bandit? Who isn’t a bandit? Anyone who fights the Japanese is a national hero. Lastyear I knocked off three Japanese sentries and inherited three automatic rifles. You’re no bandit,but how many Japs have you killed? You haven’t taken a hair off a single Jap’s ass!’
Detachment Leader Leng sat down and lit a cigarette.
Father took advantage of the lull to hand the wine jug up to Grandma, whose face changed asshe took it from him. Glaring at Father, she filled the three cups.
‘Uncle Arhat’s blood is in this wine,’ she said. ‘If you’re honourable men you’ll drink it, thengo out and destroy the Jap convoy. After that, chickens can go their own way, dogs can go theirs.
Well water and river water don’t mix.’
She picked up her cup and drank the wine down noisily.
Commander Yu held out his cup, threw back his head, and drained it.
Detachment Leader Leng followed suit, but put his cup down half full. ‘Commander Yu,’ hesaid, ‘I’ve had all I can handle. So long!’
With her hand still on his revolver, Grandma asked him, ‘Are you going to fight?’
‘Don’t beg!’ Commander Yu snarled. ‘I’ll fight, even if he doesn’t.’
‘I’ll fight,’ Detachment Leader Leng said.
Grandma let her hand drop, and Leng jammed his revolver back into its holster.
The pale skin around his nose was dotted with dozens of pockmarks. A heavy cartridge belthung from his belt, which sagged when he holstered his revolver.
‘Zhan’ao,’ Grandma said, ‘I’m entrusting Douguan to your care. Take him along the day aftertomorrow.’
Commander Yu looked at my father and smiled. ‘Have you got the balls, foster-son?’
Father stared scornfully at the hard yellow teeth showing between Commander Yu’s partedlips. He didn’t say a word.
Commander Yu picked up a wine cup and placed it on top of Father’s head, then told him tostand in the doorway. He whipped out his Browning pistol and walked over to the corner.
Father watched Commander Yu take three long strides to the corner – three slow, measuredsteps. Grandma’s face turned ashen. The corners of Detachment Leader Leng’s mouth werecurled in a contemptuous smile.
When he reached the corner, Commander Yu whirled around. Father watched him raise hisarm, as a dark-red cast came over his black eyes. The Browning spat out a puff of white smoke.
An explosion erupted above Father’s head, and shards of shattered ceramic fell around him, onelanding against his neck. He shrugged his shoulder, and it slid down into his pants. He didn’tutter a sound. The blood had drained from Grandma’s face. Detachment Leader Leng sat downhard on a stool. ‘Good shooting,’ he said after a moment.
‘Good boy!’ Commander Yu said proudly.
The Browning pistol in Father’s hand seemed to weigh a ton.
‘I don’t have to show you,’ Commander Yu said. ‘You know how to shoot. Have Mute get hismen ready.’
Gripping his pistol tightly, Father darted through the sorghum field, crossed the highway, andran up to Mute, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground, honing his sabre knife with a shinygreen stone. Some of his men were seated, others lying down.
‘Get your men ready,’ Father said to him.
Mute looked at Father out of the corner of his eye, but kept honing his knife for anothermoment or so. Then he picked up a couple of sorghum leaves, wiped the stone residue from theblade, and plucked a stalk of grass to test its sharpness. It fell in two pieces the instant it touchedthe blade.
‘Get your men ready,’ Father repeated.
Mute sheathed his knife and laid it on the ground beside him, his face creased in a savage grin.
With one of his mammoth hands he signalled Father to come closer.
‘Uh! Uh!’ he grunted.
Father shuffled forward and stopped a pace or so from Mute, who reached out, grabbed him bythe sleeve, jerked him into his lap, and pinched his ear so hard that he grimaced. Father jammedhis Browning pistol up into Mute’s rib cage. Mute grabbed Father’s nose and pinched it untiltears came to his eyes. An eerie laugh burst from Mute’s mouth.
The seated men laughed raucously.
‘A lot like Commander Yu, isn’t he?’
‘Commander Yu’s seed.’
‘Douguan, I miss your mom.’
‘Douguan, I feel like nibbling those date-topped buns of hers.’
Father’s embarrassment quickly turned to rage. Raising his pistol, he aimed it at the manwishfully thinking of date-topped buns, and pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked, but no bulletemerged.
The man, ashen-faced, jumped to his feet and wrenched the pistol away. Father, still enraged,threw himself on the man, clawing, kicking, biting.
Mute stood up, grabbed Father by the scruff of his neck, and flicked him away. He flewthrough the air and crashed into a thicket of sorghum stalks. A quick somersault and he was onhis feet, railing and swearing as he charged Mute, who merely grunted a couple of times. Thesteely look in his eyes froze Father in his tracks. Mute picked up the pistol and pulled back thebolt; a bullet fell into his hand. Holding it in his fingers, he looked at the notch in the casing fromthe firing pin, and made some unintelligible hand signs to Father. Then he stuck the pistol intoFather’s belt and patted him on the shoulder.
‘What were you doing over there?’ Commander Yu asked.
Father was embarrassed. ‘They?.?.?. they said they wanted to sleep with Mom.’
‘What did you say?’ Commander Yu asked sternly.
Father wiped his eyes with his arm. ‘I shot him!’
‘You shot somebody?’
‘The gun misfired.’ Father handed Commander Yu the shiny dud.
Commander Yu took it from him, examined it, and gave it a casual flick. It described abeautiful arc before plopping into the river.
‘Good boy!’ Commander Yu said. ‘But use your gun on the Japanese first. After you’vefinished them off, anybody who says he wants to sleep with your mom, you shoot him in the gut.
Not in the head, and not in the chest. Remember, in the gut.’
Father lay on his belly alongside Commander Yu; the Fang brothers were on his other side.
The cannon had been set up on the dike, aimed at the stone bridge, its barrel stuffed with cottonrags, a fuse sticking out behind. Fang Seven had placed a bundle of sorghum tinder next to him,some of which was already smouldering. A gourd filled with gunpowder and a tin of iron pelletslay beside Fang Six.
Wang Wenyi was to Commander Yu’s left, curled up, holding his long-barrelled fowling piecein his hands. His wounded ear was stuck to the white bandage covering it.
The sun was stake-high, its white core girded by a pink halo. The flowing water glittered. Aflock of wild ducks flew over from the sorghum field, circled three times, then dived down to agrassy sandbar. A few landed on the surface of the river and began floating downstream, theirbodies settling heavily in the water, their heads turning and darting constantly. Father was feelingwarm and tingly. His clothes, dampened by the dew, were now dry. He pressed himself to theground, but felt a pain in his chest, as from a sharp stone. When he rose up to see what it was, hishead and upper torso were exposed above the dike. ‘Get down,’ Commander Yu ordered.
Reluctantly, he did as he was told. Fang Six began to snore. Commander Yu picked up a clod ofearth and tossed it in his face. Fang Six woke up bleary-eyed and yawned so heroically that twofine tears appeared in the corners of his eyes.
‘Are the Japs here?’ he asked loudly.
‘Fuck you!’ Commander Yu snarled. ‘No sleeping.’
The riverbanks were absolutely still; the broad highway lay lifeless in its bed of sorghum. Thestone bridge spanning the river was strikingly beautiful. A boundless expanse of sorghum greetedthe reddening sun, which rose ever higher, grew ever brighter. Wild ducks floated in the shallowwater by the banks, noisily searching for food with their flat bills. Father studied their beautifulfeathers and alert, intelligent eyes. Aiming his heavy Browning pistol at one of their smoothbacks, he was about to pull the trigger when Commander Yu forced his hand down. ‘What thehell do you think you’re doing, you little turtle egg?’
Father was getting fidgety. The highway lay there like death itself. The sorghum had turneddeep scarlet.
‘That bastard Leng wants to play games with me!’ Commander Yu spat out hatefully. Thesouthern bank lay in silence; not a trace of the Leng detachment. Father knew it was Leng whohad learned that the convoy would be passing his spot, and that he’d brought Commander Yuinto the ambush only because he doubted his own ability to go it alone.
Father was tense for a while, but gradually he relaxed, and his attention wandered back to thewild ducks. He thought about duck-hunting with Uncle Arhat, who had a fowling piece with adeep-red stock and a leather strap; it was now in the hands of Wang Wenyi. Tears welled up inhis eyes, but not enough to spill out. Just like that day the year before. Under the warm rays ofthe sun, he felt a chill spread through his body.
Uncle Arhat and the two mules had been taken away by the Japs, and Grandma had washed herbloody face in the wine vat until it reeked of alcohol and was beet-red. Her eyes were puffy; thefront of her pale-blue cotton jacket was soaked in wine and blood. She stood stock-still beside thevat, staring down at her reflection. Father recalled how she had fallen to her knees and kowtowedthree times to the vat, then stood up, scooped some wine with both hands, and drank it. Therosiness of her face was concentrated in her cheeks; all the colour had drained from her foreheadand chin.
‘Kneel down!’ she ordered Father. ‘Kowtow.’
He fell to his knees and kowtowed.
‘Take a drink!’
He scooped up a handful of wine and drank it.
Trickles of blood, like threads, sank to the bottom of the vat, on the surface of which a tinywhite cloud floated alongside the sombre faces of Grandma and Father. Piercing rays emanatedfrom Grandma’s eyes; Father looked away, his heart pounding wildly. He reached out to scoopup some more wine, and as it dripped through his fingers it shattered one large face and one smallone amid the blue sky and white cloud. He drank a mouthful, which left the sticky taste of bloodon his tongue. The blood sank to the base of the vat, where it congealed into a turbid clot the sizeof a fist. Father and Grandma stared at it long and hard; then she pulled the lid over it and rolledthe millstone back, straining to place it on top of the lid.
‘Don’t touch it!’ she said.
Looking at the accumulation of mud and grey-green sow-bugs squirming in the indentation ofthe millstone, he nodded, clearly disturbed by the sight.
That night he lay on his kang listening to Grandma pace the yard. The patter of her footstepsand the rustling sorghum in the fields formed Father’s confused dreams, in which he heard thebrays of our two handsome black mules.
Father awoke once, at dawn, and ran naked into the yard to pee; there he saw Grandma staringtransfixed into the sky. He called out, ‘Mom,’ but his shout fell on deaf ears. When he’d finishedpeeing, he took her by the hand and led her inside. She followed meekly. They’d barely steppedinside when they heard waves of commotion from the southeast, followed by the crack of riflefire, like the pop of a tautly stretched piece of silk pierced by a sharp knife.
Shortly after he and Grandma heard the gunfire, they were herded over to the dike, along witha number of villagers – elderly, young, sick, and disabled – by Japanese soldiers. The polishedwhite flagstones, boulders, and coarse yellow gravel on the dike looked like a line of gravemounds. Last year’s early- summer sorghum stood spellbound beyond the dike, sombre andmelancholy. The outline of the highway shining through the trampled sorghum stretched duenorth. The stone bridge hadn’t been erected then, and the little wooden span stood utterlyexhausted and horribly scarred by the passage of tens of thousands of tramping feet and the ironshoes of horses and mules. The smell of green shoots released by the crushed and brokensorghum, steeped in the night mist, rose pungent in the morning air. Sorghum everywhere wascrying bitterly.
Father, Grandma, and the other villagers – assembled on the western edge of the highway,south of the river, atop the shattered remnants of sorghum plants – faced a mammoth enclosurethat looked like an animal pen. A crowd of shabby labourers huddled beyond it. Two puppetsoldiers herded the labourers over near Father and the others to form a second cluster. The twogroups faced a square where animals were tethered, a spot that would later make people pale withfright. They stood impassively for some time before a thin-faced, white-gloved Japanese officerwith red insignia on his shoulders and a long sword at his hip emerged from the tent, leading aguard dog, whose red tongue lolled from the side of its mouth. Behind the dog, two puppetsoldiers carried the rigid corpse of a Japanese soldier. Two Japanese soldiers brought up the rear,escorting two puppet soldiers who were dragging a beaten and bloody Uncle Arhat. Fatherhuddled close to Grandma; she wrapped her arms around him.
Fifty or so white birds, wings flapping noisily, sliced through the blue sky above the BlackWater River, then turned and headed east, towards the golden sun. Father could see the draughtanimals, with scraggly hair and filthy faces, and our two black mules, which lay on the ground.
One was dead, the hoe still stuck in its head. The blood-soaked tail of the other mule swept theground; the skin over its belly twitched noisily; its nostrils whistled as they opened and closed.
How Father loved those two black mules.
He remembers Grandma sitting proudly on the mule’s back, Father in her lap, the three ofthem flying down the narrow dirt path through the sorghum field, the mule rocking back andforth as it gallops along, giving Father and Grandma the ride of their lives. Spindly legs conquerthe dust of the road as Father shouts excitedly. An occasional peasant amid the sorghum, hoe inhand, gazes at the powdery, fair face of the distillery owner, his heart filled with envy andloathing.
Now one of the mules was lying dead on the ground, its mouth open, a row of long white teethchewing the earth. The other sat suffering more than its dead comrade. ‘Mom,’ Father said toGrandma, ‘our mules.’ She covered his mouth with her hand.
The body of the Japanese soldier was placed before the officer, who continued to hold thedog’s leash. The two puppet soldiers dragged the battered Uncle Arhat over to a wooden rack.
Father didn’t recognise him right away; he seemed just a strange, bloody creature in human form.
As he was dragged up to the rack, his head turned to the left, then to the right, the crusty scab onhis scalp looking like the shiny mud on the riverbank, baked by the sun until it wrinkles andbegins to crack. His useless feet traced patterns in the dirt. The crowd slowly recoiled. Father feltGrandma’s hands grip his shoulders tightly. The people seemed to shrink in size, their faces clay-coloured or black. Crows and sparrows suddenly silenced, the people could hear the panting ofthe guard dog. The officer holding its leash farted loudly. Before the puppet soldiers dragged thestrange creature over to the rack, they dropped it to the ground, an inert slab of meat.
‘Uncle Arhat!’ Father cried out in alarm.
Grandma covered his mouth again.
Uncle Arhat began to writhe, arching his buttocks as he rose to his knees, propped himself onhis hands, and raised his arms. His face was so puffy the skin shone; his eyes were slits throughwhich thin greenish rays emerged. Father was sure Uncle Arhat could see him. His heart waspounding against the wall of his chest – thump thump thump – and he didn’t know if it was fromfear or anger. He wanted to scream, but Grandma’s hand was clasped too tightly over his mouth.
The officer holding the leash shouted something to the crowd, and a crew- cut Chineseinterpreted it for them. Father didn’t hear everything the interpreter said. Grandma’s hand wasclasped so tightly over his mouth that he was having trouble breathing and his ears were ringing.
Two Chinese in black uniforms stripped Uncle Arhat naked and tied him to the rack. The Japofficer waved his arm, and two more black-clad men dragged and pushed Sun Five, the mostaccomplished hog-butcher in our village – or anywhere in Northeast Gaomi Township, for thatmatter – out of the enclosure. He was a short, bald man with a huge paunch, a red face, and tiny,close-set eyes buried alongside the bridge of his nose, held a butcher’s knife in his left hand and apail of water in his right as he shuffled up to Uncle Arhat.
The interpreter spoke: ‘The commander says to skin him. If you don’t do a good job of it, he’llhave his dog tear your heart out.’
Sun Five mumbled an acknowledgement, his eyes blinking furiously. Holding the knife in hismouth, he picked up the pail and poured water over Uncle Arhat’s scalp. Uncle Arhat’s headjerked upward when the cold water hit him. Bloody water coursed down his face and neck,forming filthy puddles at his feet. One of the overseers brought another pail of water from theriver. Sun Five soaked a rag in it and wiped Uncle Arhat’s face clean. When he was finished, hisbuttocks twitched briefly. ‘Elder brother?.?.?.’
‘Brother,’ Uncle Arhat said, ‘finish me off quickly. I won’t forget your kindness down in theYellow Springs.’
The Japanese officer roared something.
‘Get on with it!’ the interpreter said.
Sun Five’s face darkened as he reached up and held Uncle Arhat’s ear between his fingers.
‘Elder brother,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing I can do.?.?.?.’
Father saw Sun Five’s knife cut the skin above the ear with a sawing motion. Uncle Arhatscreeched in agony as sprays of yellow piss shot out from between his legs. Father’s knees wereknocking. A Japanese soldier walked up to Sun Five with a white ceramic platter, into which Sunput Uncle Arhat’s large, fleshy ear. He cut off the other ear and laid it on the platter alongside thefirst one. Father watched the ears twitch, making thumping sounds.
The soldier paraded slowly in front of the labourers and villagers, holding the platter out forthem to see. Father looked at the ears, pale and beautiful.
The soldier then carried the ears up to the Japanese officer, who nodded to him. He laid theplatter alongside the body of his dead comrade, after a moment of silence, he picked it up and putit on the ground under the dog’s nose.
The dog’s tongue slithered back into its mouth as it sniffed the ears with its pointy, wet, blacknose; but it shook its head, with its tongue lolling again, and sat down.
‘Hey,’ the interpreter yelled at Sun Five. ‘Keep going.’
Sun Five was walking around in circles, mumbling to himself. Father looked at his sweaty,greasy face, and watched his eyelids blink like a bobbing head of a chicken.
A mere trickle of blood oozed from the holes where Uncle Arhat’s ears had been. Withoutthem his head had become a neat, unmarred oval.
The Jap officer roared again.
‘Hurry up, get on with it!’ the interpreter ordered.
Sun Five bent over and sliced off Uncle Arhat’s genitals with a single stroke, then put theminto the platter held by the Japanese soldier, who carried it at eye level as he paraded like amarionette in front of the crowd. Father felt Grandma’s icy fingers dig into his shoulders.
The Japanese soldier put the platter under the dog’s nose. It nibbled, then spat the stuff out.
Uncle Arhat was screaming in agony, his bony frame twitching violently on the rack.
Sun Five threw down his butcher knife, fell to his knees, and wailed bitterly.
The Japanese officer let go of the leash, and the guard dog bounded forward, burying its clawsin Sun Five’s shoulders and baring its fangs in his face. He threw himself on the ground andcovered his face with his hands.
The Japanese officer whistled, and the guard dog bounded back to him, dragging the leashbehind it.
‘Skin him, and be quick about it!’ the interpreter demanded.
Sun Five struggled to his feet, picked up his butcher knife, and staggered up to Uncle Arhat.
Everyone’s head jerked upward as a torrent of abuse erupted from Uncle Arhat’s mouth.
Sun Five spoke to him: ‘Elder brother?.?.?. elder brother?.?.?. try to bear it a little longer.?.?.?.’
Uncle Arhat spat a gob of bloody phlegm into Sun’s face.
‘Start skinning,’ shouted the interpreter. ‘Fuck your ancestors! Skin him, I said!’
Sun Five started at the point on Uncle Arhat’s scalp where the scab had formed, zipping theknife blade down, once, twice?.?.?. one meticulous cut after another. Uncle Arhat’s scalp fellaway, revealing two greenish-purple eyes and several misshapen chunks of flesh.?.?.?.
Father told me once that, even after Uncle Arhat’s face had been peeled away, shouts andgurgles continued to emerge from his shapeless mouth, while endless rivulets of bright-red blooddripped from his pasty scalp. Sun Five no longer seemed human as his flawless knife-workproduced a perfect pelt. After Uncle Arhat had been turned into a mass of meaty pulp, his innardschurned and roiled, attracting swarms of dancing green flies. The women were on their knees,wailing piteously. That night a heavy rain fell, washing the tethering square clean of every dropof blood, and of Uncle Arhat’s corpse and the skin that had covered it. Word that his corpse haddisappeared spread through the village, from one person to ten, to a hundred, from this generationto the next, until it became a beautiful legend.
‘If he thinks he can get away with playing games with me, I’ll rip his head off and use it for apisspot!’
The sun seemed to shrink as it rose in the sky, sending down white-hot rays; a flock of wildducks flew through the rapidly dissipating mist atop the sorghum field, then another flock.
Detachment Leader Leng’s troops still hadn’t shown up, and only an occasional wild haredisturbed the peace of the highway. A while later, a wily red fox darted across the highway.
‘Hey!’ Commander Yu shouted after cursing Detachment Leader Leng. ‘Everybody up. It lookslike we’ve been tricked by that son of a bitch Pocky Leng.’
That was just what the troops, tired of lying there, had been waiting to hear. They were ontheir way up before the sound of Commander Yu’s command had died out. Some sat on the diketo enjoy a smoke; others stood to take a long-postponed piss.
Father jumped up onto the dike, the head of the skinned Uncle Arhat floating in front of hiseyes. Wild ducks startled into flight by the sudden emergence of men on the dike began landingin small clusters on a nearby sandbar, where they waddled back and forth, their emerald andyellow feathers glistening among the water weeds.
Mute walked up to Commander Yu, knife in one hand, his old Hanyang rifle in the other.
Looking dejected, with lifeless eyes, he pointed to the sun in the southeastern sky and to thedeserted highway. Finally, he pointed to his belly, grunted, and signalled in the direction of thevillage. Commander Yu thought for a moment, then called to the men on the western edge of thehighway, ‘Come over here, all of you!’
The troops crossed the highway and formed up on the dike.
‘Brothers,’ Commander Yu said, ‘if Pocky Leng’s playing games with us, I’ll lop his damnedhead off! The sun isn’t directly overhead yet, so we’ll wait a little longer. If the convoy hasn’tcome by noon, we’ll go to Tan Family Hollow and settle accounts with Leng. For now, go intothe sorghum field and get some rest. I’ll send Douguan for food. Douguan!’
Father looked up at Commander Yu.
‘Go tell your mom to have the women make some fistcakes, and tell her I want lunch here bynoon. Say I want her to bring it herself.’
Father nodded, hitched up his trousers, stuck the Browning pistol into his belt, and ran downthe dike. After heading north down the highway for a short distance, he cut across the sorghumfield, heading northwest, weaving in and out among the plants. In the sea of sorghum he bumpedinto some long mule bones. He kicked one, dislodging a couple of short-tailed, furry field volesthat had been feasting on marrow. They looked up fearlessly, then burrowed back into the bone.
The sight reminded Father of the family’s two black mules, reminded him of how, long after thehighway had been completed, the pungent smell of death hung over the village every time asoutheastern wind rose.
A year earlier, the bloated carcasses of dozens of mules had been found floating in the BlackWater River, caught in the reeds and grass in the shallow water by the banks; their distendedbellies, baked by the sun, split and popped, released their splendid innards, like gorgeousblooming flowers, as slowly spreading pools of dark-green liquid were caught up in the flow ofwater.
Sorghum and men waited for time’s flower to bear fruit.
The highway stretched southward, a narrowing ribbon of road that was ultimately swallowedup by fields of sorghum. At its farthest point, where sorghum merged with the pale vault ofheaven, the sunrise presented a bleak and solemn, yet stirring sight.
Gripped by curiosity, Father looked at the mesmerised guerrillas. Where were they from?
Where were they going? Why were they setting an ambush? What would they do when it wasover? In the deathly hush, the sound of water splashing over the bridge posts seemed louder andcrisper than before. The mist, atomised by the sunlight, settled into the stream, turning the BlackWater River from a deep red to a golden red, as though ablaze. A solitary, limp yellow water-plant floated by, its once fiery blooms hanging in withered pallor among the leafy grooves likesilkworms. It’s crab-catching season again! Father was reminded. The autumn winds are up, theair is chilled, a flock of wild geese is flying south.?.?.?. Uncle Arhat shouts, ‘Now, Douguan,now!’ The soft, spongy mud of the bank is covered with the elaborate patterns of skitteringclaws. Father could smell the delicate, fishy odour wafting over from the river.
‘Take cover behind the dike, all of you,’ Commander Yu said. ‘Mute, set up your rakes.’
Mute slipped some loops of wire off his shoulder and tied the four large rakes together, thengrunted to his comrades to help him carry the chain of rakes over to the spot where the stonebridge and highway met.
‘Take cover, men,’ Commander Yu ordered. ‘Stay down till the Jap convoy is on the bridgeand Detachment Leader Leng’s troops have cut off their line of retreat. Don’t fire till I give theorder; then cut those Jap bastards to pieces and let them feed the eels and crabs.’
Commander Yu signalled to Mute, who nodded and led half the men into the sorghum fieldwest of the highway to lie in ambush. Wang Wenyi followed Mute’s troops to the west, but wassent back. ‘I want you here with me,’ Commander Yu said. ‘Scared?’
‘No,’ Wang Wenyi said, even though he nodded spiritedly.
Commander Yu had the Fang brothers set up their cannon atop the dike, then turned to BuglerLiu. ‘Old Liu, as soon as we open fire, sound your horn for all you’re worth. That scares the hellout of the Japs. Do you hear me?’
Bugler Liu was another of Commander Yu’s longtime buddies, dating back from when he wasa sedan bearer and Liu was a funeral musician. Now he held his horn like a rifle.
‘I’m warning you guys,’ Commander Yu said to his men. ‘I’ll shoot any one of you who turnschicken. We have to put on a good show for Leng and his men. Those bastards like to come onstrong with their flags and bugles. Well, that’s not my style. He thinks he can get us to join them,but I’ll get him to join me instead.’
As the men sat among the sorghum plants, Fang Six took out his pipe and tobacco and his steeland flint. The steel was black, the flint the deep red of a boiled chicken liver. The flint crackled asit struck the steel, sending sparks flying, great big sparks, one of which landed on the sorghumwick he was holding. As he blew on it, a wisp of white smoke curled upward, turning the wickred. He lit his pipe and took a deep puff. Commander Yu exhaled loudly and crinkled his nose.
‘Put that out,’ he said. ‘Do you think the Japs will cross the bridge if they smell smoke?’ FangSix took a couple of quick puffs before snuffing out his pipe and putting it away.
‘Okay, you guys, flatten out on the slope so we’ll be ready when the Japs come.’
Nervousness set in as the troops lay on the slope, weapons in hand, knowing they would soonface a formidable enemy. Father lay alongside Commander Yu, who asked him, ‘Scared?’
‘No!’
‘Good,’ Commander Yu said. ‘You’re your foster-dad’s boy, all right! You’ll be my dispatchorderly. Don’t leave my side once it starts. I’ll need you to convey orders.’
Father nodded. His eyes were fastened greedily on the pistols stuck in Commander Yu’s belt,one big, one small. The big one was a German automatic, the small one a French Browning. Eachhad an interesting history.
The word ‘Gun!’ escaped from his mouth.
‘You want a gun?’
Father nodded.
‘Do you know how to use one?’
‘Yes!’
Commander Yu took the Browning out of his belt and examined it carefully. It was well used,the enamel long gone. He pulled back the bolt, ejecting a copper-jacketed bullet, which he tossedin the air, caught, and shoved back into the chamber.
‘Here!’ he said, handing it over. ‘Use it the way I did.’
Father took the pistol from him, and as he held it he thought back to a couple of nights earlier,when Commander Yu had used it to shatter a wine cup.
A crescent moon had climbed into the sky and was pressing down on withered branches.
Father carried a jug and a brass key out to the distillery to get some wine for Grandma. Heopened the gate. The compound was absolutely still, the mule pen pitch-black, the distillerysuffused with the stench of fermenting grain. When he took the lid off one of the vats in themoonlight, he saw the reflection of his gaunt face in the mirrorlike surface of wine. His eyebrowswere short, his lips thin; he was surprised by his own ugliness. He dunked the jug into the vat ofwine, which gurgled as it filled. After lifting it out, he changed his mind and poured the wineback, recalling the vat in which Grandma had washed her bloody face. Now she was inside,drinking with Commander Yu and Detachment Leader Leng, who was getting pretty drunk, nomatch for the other two.
Father walked up to a second vat, the lid of which was held in place by a millstone. Afterputting his jug on the ground, he strained to remove the millstone, which rolled away and crashedup against yet another vat, punching a hole in the bottom, through which wine began to seep.
Ignoring the leaky vat, he removed the lid from the one in front of him, and immediately smelledthe blood of Uncle Arhat. The two faces, of Uncle Arhat and Grandma, appeared and reappearedin the wine vat. Father dunked the jug into the vat, filled it with blood-darkened wine, and carriedit inside.
Candles burned brightly on the table, around which Commander Yu and Detachment LeaderLeng were glaring at each other and breathing heavily. Grandma stood between them, her lefthand resting on Leng’s revolver, her right hand on Commander Yu’s Browning pistol.
Father heard Grandma say, ‘Even if you can’t agree, you mustn’t abandon justice and honour.
This isn’t the time or place to fight. Take your fury out on the Japanese.’
Commander Yu spat out angrily, ‘You can’t scare me with the Wang regiment’s flags andbugles, you prick. I’m king here. I ate fistcakes for ten years, and I don’t give a damn about thatfucking Big Claw Wang!’
Detachment Leader Leng sneered. ‘Elder Brother Zhan’ao, I’ve got your best interests at heart.
So does Commander Wang. If you turn your cache of weapons over to us, we’ll make you abattalion commander, and he’ll provide rifles and pay. That’s better than being a bandit.’
‘Who’s a bandit? Who isn’t a bandit? Anyone who fights the Japanese is a national hero. Lastyear I knocked off three Japanese sentries and inherited three automatic rifles. You’re no bandit,but how many Japs have you killed? You haven’t taken a hair off a single Jap’s ass!’
Detachment Leader Leng sat down and lit a cigarette.
Father took advantage of the lull to hand the wine jug up to Grandma, whose face changed asshe took it from him. Glaring at Father, she filled the three cups.
‘Uncle Arhat’s blood is in this wine,’ she said. ‘If you’re honourable men you’ll drink it, thengo out and destroy the Jap convoy. After that, chickens can go their own way, dogs can go theirs.
Well water and river water don’t mix.’
She picked up her cup and drank the wine down noisily.
Commander Yu held out his cup, threw back his head, and drained it.
Detachment Leader Leng followed suit, but put his cup down half full. ‘Commander Yu,’ hesaid, ‘I’ve had all I can handle. So long!’
With her hand still on his revolver, Grandma asked him, ‘Are you going to fight?’
‘Don’t beg!’ Commander Yu snarled. ‘I’ll fight, even if he doesn’t.’
‘I’ll fight,’ Detachment Leader Leng said.
Grandma let her hand drop, and Leng jammed his revolver back into its holster.
The pale skin around his nose was dotted with dozens of pockmarks. A heavy cartridge belthung from his belt, which sagged when he holstered his revolver.
‘Zhan’ao,’ Grandma said, ‘I’m entrusting Douguan to your care. Take him along the day aftertomorrow.’
Commander Yu looked at my father and smiled. ‘Have you got the balls, foster-son?’
Father stared scornfully at the hard yellow teeth showing between Commander Yu’s partedlips. He didn’t say a word.
Commander Yu picked up a wine cup and placed it on top of Father’s head, then told him tostand in the doorway. He whipped out his Browning pistol and walked over to the corner.
Father watched Commander Yu take three long strides to the corner – three slow, measuredsteps. Grandma’s face turned ashen. The corners of Detachment Leader Leng’s mouth werecurled in a contemptuous smile.
When he reached the corner, Commander Yu whirled around. Father watched him raise hisarm, as a dark-red cast came over his black eyes. The Browning spat out a puff of white smoke.
An explosion erupted above Father’s head, and shards of shattered ceramic fell around him, onelanding against his neck. He shrugged his shoulder, and it slid down into his pants. He didn’tutter a sound. The blood had drained from Grandma’s face. Detachment Leader Leng sat downhard on a stool. ‘Good shooting,’ he said after a moment.
‘Good boy!’ Commander Yu said proudly.
The Browning pistol in Father’s hand seemed to weigh a ton.
‘I don’t have to show you,’ Commander Yu said. ‘You know how to shoot. Have Mute get hismen ready.’
Gripping his pistol tightly, Father darted through the sorghum field, crossed the highway, andran up to Mute, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground, honing his sabre knife with a shinygreen stone. Some of his men were seated, others lying down.
‘Get your men ready,’ Father said to him.
Mute looked at Father out of the corner of his eye, but kept honing his knife for anothermoment or so. Then he picked up a couple of sorghum leaves, wiped the stone residue from theblade, and plucked a stalk of grass to test its sharpness. It fell in two pieces the instant it touchedthe blade.
‘Get your men ready,’ Father repeated.
Mute sheathed his knife and laid it on the ground beside him, his face creased in a savage grin.
With one of his mammoth hands he signalled Father to come closer.
‘Uh! Uh!’ he grunted.
Father shuffled forward and stopped a pace or so from Mute, who reached out, grabbed him bythe sleeve, jerked him into his lap, and pinched his ear so hard that he grimaced. Father jammedhis Browning pistol up into Mute’s rib cage. Mute grabbed Father’s nose and pinched it untiltears came to his eyes. An eerie laugh burst from Mute’s mouth.
The seated men laughed raucously.
‘A lot like Commander Yu, isn’t he?’
‘Commander Yu’s seed.’
‘Douguan, I miss your mom.’
‘Douguan, I feel like nibbling those date-topped buns of hers.’
Father’s embarrassment quickly turned to rage. Raising his pistol, he aimed it at the manwishfully thinking of date-topped buns, and pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked, but no bulletemerged.
The man, ashen-faced, jumped to his feet and wrenched the pistol away. Father, still enraged,threw himself on the man, clawing, kicking, biting.
Mute stood up, grabbed Father by the scruff of his neck, and flicked him away. He flewthrough the air and crashed into a thicket of sorghum stalks. A quick somersault and he was onhis feet, railing and swearing as he charged Mute, who merely grunted a couple of times. Thesteely look in his eyes froze Father in his tracks. Mute picked up the pistol and pulled back thebolt; a bullet fell into his hand. Holding it in his fingers, he looked at the notch in the casing fromthe firing pin, and made some unintelligible hand signs to Father. Then he stuck the pistol intoFather’s belt and patted him on the shoulder.
‘What were you doing over there?’ Commander Yu asked.
Father was embarrassed. ‘They?.?.?. they said they wanted to sleep with Mom.’
‘What did you say?’ Commander Yu asked sternly.
Father wiped his eyes with his arm. ‘I shot him!’
‘You shot somebody?’
‘The gun misfired.’ Father handed Commander Yu the shiny dud.
Commander Yu took it from him, examined it, and gave it a casual flick. It described abeautiful arc before plopping into the river.
‘Good boy!’ Commander Yu said. ‘But use your gun on the Japanese first. After you’vefinished them off, anybody who says he wants to sleep with your mom, you shoot him in the gut.
Not in the head, and not in the chest. Remember, in the gut.’
Father lay on his belly alongside Commander Yu; the Fang brothers were on his other side.
The cannon had been set up on the dike, aimed at the stone bridge, its barrel stuffed with cottonrags, a fuse sticking out behind. Fang Seven had placed a bundle of sorghum tinder next to him,some of which was already smouldering. A gourd filled with gunpowder and a tin of iron pelletslay beside Fang Six.
Wang Wenyi was to Commander Yu’s left, curled up, holding his long-barrelled fowling piecein his hands. His wounded ear was stuck to the white bandage covering it.
The sun was stake-high, its white core girded by a pink halo. The flowing water glittered. Aflock of wild ducks flew over from the sorghum field, circled three times, then dived down to agrassy sandbar. A few landed on the surface of the river and began floating downstream, theirbodies settling heavily in the water, their heads turning and darting constantly. Father was feelingwarm and tingly. His clothes, dampened by the dew, were now dry. He pressed himself to theground, but felt a pain in his chest, as from a sharp stone. When he rose up to see what it was, hishead and upper torso were exposed above the dike. ‘Get down,’ Commander Yu ordered.
Reluctantly, he did as he was told. Fang Six began to snore. Commander Yu picked up a clod ofearth and tossed it in his face. Fang Six woke up bleary-eyed and yawned so heroically that twofine tears appeared in the corners of his eyes.
‘Are the Japs here?’ he asked loudly.
‘Fuck you!’ Commander Yu snarled. ‘No sleeping.’
The riverbanks were absolutely still; the broad highway lay lifeless in its bed of sorghum. Thestone bridge spanning the river was strikingly beautiful. A boundless expanse of sorghum greetedthe reddening sun, which rose ever higher, grew ever brighter. Wild ducks floated in the shallowwater by the banks, noisily searching for food with their flat bills. Father studied their beautifulfeathers and alert, intelligent eyes. Aiming his heavy Browning pistol at one of their smoothbacks, he was about to pull the trigger when Commander Yu forced his hand down. ‘What thehell do you think you’re doing, you little turtle egg?’
Father was getting fidgety. The highway lay there like death itself. The sorghum had turneddeep scarlet.
‘That bastard Leng wants to play games with me!’ Commander Yu spat out hatefully. Thesouthern bank lay in silence; not a trace of the Leng detachment. Father knew it was Leng whohad learned that the convoy would be passing his spot, and that he’d brought Commander Yuinto the ambush only because he doubted his own ability to go it alone.
Father was tense for a while, but gradually he relaxed, and his attention wandered back to thewild ducks. He thought about duck-hunting with Uncle Arhat, who had a fowling piece with adeep-red stock and a leather strap; it was now in the hands of Wang Wenyi. Tears welled up inhis eyes, but not enough to spill out. Just like that day the year before. Under the warm rays ofthe sun, he felt a chill spread through his body.
Uncle Arhat and the two mules had been taken away by the Japs, and Grandma had washed herbloody face in the wine vat until it reeked of alcohol and was beet-red. Her eyes were puffy; thefront of her pale-blue cotton jacket was soaked in wine and blood. She stood stock-still beside thevat, staring down at her reflection. Father recalled how she had fallen to her knees and kowtowedthree times to the vat, then stood up, scooped some wine with both hands, and drank it. Therosiness of her face was concentrated in her cheeks; all the colour had drained from her foreheadand chin.
‘Kneel down!’ she ordered Father. ‘Kowtow.’
He fell to his knees and kowtowed.
‘Take a drink!’
He scooped up a handful of wine and drank it.
Trickles of blood, like threads, sank to the bottom of the vat, on the surface of which a tinywhite cloud floated alongside the sombre faces of Grandma and Father. Piercing rays emanatedfrom Grandma’s eyes; Father looked away, his heart pounding wildly. He reached out to scoopup some more wine, and as it dripped through his fingers it shattered one large face and one smallone amid the blue sky and white cloud. He drank a mouthful, which left the sticky taste of bloodon his tongue. The blood sank to the base of the vat, where it congealed into a turbid clot the sizeof a fist. Father and Grandma stared at it long and hard; then she pulled the lid over it and rolledthe millstone back, straining to place it on top of the lid.
‘Don’t touch it!’ she said.
Looking at the accumulation of mud and grey-green sow-bugs squirming in the indentation ofthe millstone, he nodded, clearly disturbed by the sight.
That night he lay on his kang listening to Grandma pace the yard. The patter of her footstepsand the rustling sorghum in the fields formed Father’s confused dreams, in which he heard thebrays of our two handsome black mules.
Father awoke once, at dawn, and ran naked into the yard to pee; there he saw Grandma staringtransfixed into the sky. He called out, ‘Mom,’ but his shout fell on deaf ears. When he’d finishedpeeing, he took her by the hand and led her inside. She followed meekly. They’d barely steppedinside when they heard waves of commotion from the southeast, followed by the crack of riflefire, like the pop of a tautly stretched piece of silk pierced by a sharp knife.
Shortly after he and Grandma heard the gunfire, they were herded over to the dike, along witha number of villagers – elderly, young, sick, and disabled – by Japanese soldiers. The polishedwhite flagstones, boulders, and coarse yellow gravel on the dike looked like a line of gravemounds. Last year’s early- summer sorghum stood spellbound beyond the dike, sombre andmelancholy. The outline of the highway shining through the trampled sorghum stretched duenorth. The stone bridge hadn’t been erected then, and the little wooden span stood utterlyexhausted and horribly scarred by the passage of tens of thousands of tramping feet and the ironshoes of horses and mules. The smell of green shoots released by the crushed and brokensorghum, steeped in the night mist, rose pungent in the morning air. Sorghum everywhere wascrying bitterly.
Father, Grandma, and the other villagers – assembled on the western edge of the highway,south of the river, atop the shattered remnants of sorghum plants – faced a mammoth enclosurethat looked like an animal pen. A crowd of shabby labourers huddled beyond it. Two puppetsoldiers herded the labourers over near Father and the others to form a second cluster. The twogroups faced a square where animals were tethered, a spot that would later make people pale withfright. They stood impassively for some time before a thin-faced, white-gloved Japanese officerwith red insignia on his shoulders and a long sword at his hip emerged from the tent, leading aguard dog, whose red tongue lolled from the side of its mouth. Behind the dog, two puppetsoldiers carried the rigid corpse of a Japanese soldier. Two Japanese soldiers brought up the rear,escorting two puppet soldiers who were dragging a beaten and bloody Uncle Arhat. Fatherhuddled close to Grandma; she wrapped her arms around him.
Fifty or so white birds, wings flapping noisily, sliced through the blue sky above the BlackWater River, then turned and headed east, towards the golden sun. Father could see the draughtanimals, with scraggly hair and filthy faces, and our two black mules, which lay on the ground.
One was dead, the hoe still stuck in its head. The blood-soaked tail of the other mule swept theground; the skin over its belly twitched noisily; its nostrils whistled as they opened and closed.
How Father loved those two black mules.
He remembers Grandma sitting proudly on the mule’s back, Father in her lap, the three ofthem flying down the narrow dirt path through the sorghum field, the mule rocking back andforth as it gallops along, giving Father and Grandma the ride of their lives. Spindly legs conquerthe dust of the road as Father shouts excitedly. An occasional peasant amid the sorghum, hoe inhand, gazes at the powdery, fair face of the distillery owner, his heart filled with envy andloathing.
Now one of the mules was lying dead on the ground, its mouth open, a row of long white teethchewing the earth. The other sat suffering more than its dead comrade. ‘Mom,’ Father said toGrandma, ‘our mules.’ She covered his mouth with her hand.
The body of the Japanese soldier was placed before the officer, who continued to hold thedog’s leash. The two puppet soldiers dragged the battered Uncle Arhat over to a wooden rack.
Father didn’t recognise him right away; he seemed just a strange, bloody creature in human form.
As he was dragged up to the rack, his head turned to the left, then to the right, the crusty scab onhis scalp looking like the shiny mud on the riverbank, baked by the sun until it wrinkles andbegins to crack. His useless feet traced patterns in the dirt. The crowd slowly recoiled. Father feltGrandma’s hands grip his shoulders tightly. The people seemed to shrink in size, their faces clay-coloured or black. Crows and sparrows suddenly silenced, the people could hear the panting ofthe guard dog. The officer holding its leash farted loudly. Before the puppet soldiers dragged thestrange creature over to the rack, they dropped it to the ground, an inert slab of meat.
‘Uncle Arhat!’ Father cried out in alarm.
Grandma covered his mouth again.
Uncle Arhat began to writhe, arching his buttocks as he rose to his knees, propped himself onhis hands, and raised his arms. His face was so puffy the skin shone; his eyes were slits throughwhich thin greenish rays emerged. Father was sure Uncle Arhat could see him. His heart waspounding against the wall of his chest – thump thump thump – and he didn’t know if it was fromfear or anger. He wanted to scream, but Grandma’s hand was clasped too tightly over his mouth.
The officer holding the leash shouted something to the crowd, and a crew- cut Chineseinterpreted it for them. Father didn’t hear everything the interpreter said. Grandma’s hand wasclasped so tightly over his mouth that he was having trouble breathing and his ears were ringing.
Two Chinese in black uniforms stripped Uncle Arhat naked and tied him to the rack. The Japofficer waved his arm, and two more black-clad men dragged and pushed Sun Five, the mostaccomplished hog-butcher in our village – or anywhere in Northeast Gaomi Township, for thatmatter – out of the enclosure. He was a short, bald man with a huge paunch, a red face, and tiny,close-set eyes buried alongside the bridge of his nose, held a butcher’s knife in his left hand and apail of water in his right as he shuffled up to Uncle Arhat.
The interpreter spoke: ‘The commander says to skin him. If you don’t do a good job of it, he’llhave his dog tear your heart out.’
Sun Five mumbled an acknowledgement, his eyes blinking furiously. Holding the knife in hismouth, he picked up the pail and poured water over Uncle Arhat’s scalp. Uncle Arhat’s headjerked upward when the cold water hit him. Bloody water coursed down his face and neck,forming filthy puddles at his feet. One of the overseers brought another pail of water from theriver. Sun Five soaked a rag in it and wiped Uncle Arhat’s face clean. When he was finished, hisbuttocks twitched briefly. ‘Elder brother?.?.?.’
‘Brother,’ Uncle Arhat said, ‘finish me off quickly. I won’t forget your kindness down in theYellow Springs.’
The Japanese officer roared something.
‘Get on with it!’ the interpreter said.
Sun Five’s face darkened as he reached up and held Uncle Arhat’s ear between his fingers.
‘Elder brother,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing I can do.?.?.?.’
Father saw Sun Five’s knife cut the skin above the ear with a sawing motion. Uncle Arhatscreeched in agony as sprays of yellow piss shot out from between his legs. Father’s knees wereknocking. A Japanese soldier walked up to Sun Five with a white ceramic platter, into which Sunput Uncle Arhat’s large, fleshy ear. He cut off the other ear and laid it on the platter alongside thefirst one. Father watched the ears twitch, making thumping sounds.
The soldier paraded slowly in front of the labourers and villagers, holding the platter out forthem to see. Father looked at the ears, pale and beautiful.
The soldier then carried the ears up to the Japanese officer, who nodded to him. He laid theplatter alongside the body of his dead comrade, after a moment of silence, he picked it up and putit on the ground under the dog’s nose.
The dog’s tongue slithered back into its mouth as it sniffed the ears with its pointy, wet, blacknose; but it shook its head, with its tongue lolling again, and sat down.
‘Hey,’ the interpreter yelled at Sun Five. ‘Keep going.’
Sun Five was walking around in circles, mumbling to himself. Father looked at his sweaty,greasy face, and watched his eyelids blink like a bobbing head of a chicken.
A mere trickle of blood oozed from the holes where Uncle Arhat’s ears had been. Withoutthem his head had become a neat, unmarred oval.
The Jap officer roared again.
‘Hurry up, get on with it!’ the interpreter ordered.
Sun Five bent over and sliced off Uncle Arhat’s genitals with a single stroke, then put theminto the platter held by the Japanese soldier, who carried it at eye level as he paraded like amarionette in front of the crowd. Father felt Grandma’s icy fingers dig into his shoulders.
The Japanese soldier put the platter under the dog’s nose. It nibbled, then spat the stuff out.
Uncle Arhat was screaming in agony, his bony frame twitching violently on the rack.
Sun Five threw down his butcher knife, fell to his knees, and wailed bitterly.
The Japanese officer let go of the leash, and the guard dog bounded forward, burying its clawsin Sun Five’s shoulders and baring its fangs in his face. He threw himself on the ground andcovered his face with his hands.
The Japanese officer whistled, and the guard dog bounded back to him, dragging the leashbehind it.
‘Skin him, and be quick about it!’ the interpreter demanded.
Sun Five struggled to his feet, picked up his butcher knife, and staggered up to Uncle Arhat.
Everyone’s head jerked upward as a torrent of abuse erupted from Uncle Arhat’s mouth.
Sun Five spoke to him: ‘Elder brother?.?.?. elder brother?.?.?. try to bear it a little longer.?.?.?.’
Uncle Arhat spat a gob of bloody phlegm into Sun’s face.
‘Start skinning,’ shouted the interpreter. ‘Fuck your ancestors! Skin him, I said!’
Sun Five started at the point on Uncle Arhat’s scalp where the scab had formed, zipping theknife blade down, once, twice?.?.?. one meticulous cut after another. Uncle Arhat’s scalp fellaway, revealing two greenish-purple eyes and several misshapen chunks of flesh.?.?.?.
Father told me once that, even after Uncle Arhat’s face had been peeled away, shouts andgurgles continued to emerge from his shapeless mouth, while endless rivulets of bright-red blooddripped from his pasty scalp. Sun Five no longer seemed human as his flawless knife-workproduced a perfect pelt. After Uncle Arhat had been turned into a mass of meaty pulp, his innardschurned and roiled, attracting swarms of dancing green flies. The women were on their knees,wailing piteously. That night a heavy rain fell, washing the tethering square clean of every dropof blood, and of Uncle Arhat’s corpse and the skin that had covered it. Word that his corpse haddisappeared spread through the village, from one person to ten, to a hundred, from this generationto the next, until it became a beautiful legend.
‘If he thinks he can get away with playing games with me, I’ll rip his head off and use it for apisspot!’
The sun seemed to shrink as it rose in the sky, sending down white-hot rays; a flock of wildducks flew through the rapidly dissipating mist atop the sorghum field, then another flock.
Detachment Leader Leng’s troops still hadn’t shown up, and only an occasional wild haredisturbed the peace of the highway. A while later, a wily red fox darted across the highway.
‘Hey!’ Commander Yu shouted after cursing Detachment Leader Leng. ‘Everybody up. It lookslike we’ve been tricked by that son of a bitch Pocky Leng.’
That was just what the troops, tired of lying there, had been waiting to hear. They were ontheir way up before the sound of Commander Yu’s command had died out. Some sat on the diketo enjoy a smoke; others stood to take a long-postponed piss.
Father jumped up onto the dike, the head of the skinned Uncle Arhat floating in front of hiseyes. Wild ducks startled into flight by the sudden emergence of men on the dike began landingin small clusters on a nearby sandbar, where they waddled back and forth, their emerald andyellow feathers glistening among the water weeds.
Mute walked up to Commander Yu, knife in one hand, his old Hanyang rifle in the other.
Looking dejected, with lifeless eyes, he pointed to the sun in the southeastern sky and to thedeserted highway. Finally, he pointed to his belly, grunted, and signalled in the direction of thevillage. Commander Yu thought for a moment, then called to the men on the western edge of thehighway, ‘Come over here, all of you!’
The troops crossed the highway and formed up on the dike.
‘Brothers,’ Commander Yu said, ‘if Pocky Leng’s playing games with us, I’ll lop his damnedhead off! The sun isn’t directly overhead yet, so we’ll wait a little longer. If the convoy hasn’tcome by noon, we’ll go to Tan Family Hollow and settle accounts with Leng. For now, go intothe sorghum field and get some rest. I’ll send Douguan for food. Douguan!’
Father looked up at Commander Yu.
‘Go tell your mom to have the women make some fistcakes, and tell her I want lunch here bynoon. Say I want her to bring it herself.’
Father nodded, hitched up his trousers, stuck the Browning pistol into his belt, and ran downthe dike. After heading north down the highway for a short distance, he cut across the sorghumfield, heading northwest, weaving in and out among the plants. In the sea of sorghum he bumpedinto some long mule bones. He kicked one, dislodging a couple of short-tailed, furry field volesthat had been feasting on marrow. They looked up fearlessly, then burrowed back into the bone.
The sight reminded Father of the family’s two black mules, reminded him of how, long after thehighway had been completed, the pungent smell of death hung over the village every time asoutheastern wind rose.
A year earlier, the bloated carcasses of dozens of mules had been found floating in the BlackWater River, caught in the reeds and grass in the shallow water by the banks; their distendedbellies, baked by the sun, split and popped, released their splendid innards, like gorgeousblooming flowers, as slowly spreading pools of dark-green liquid were caught up in the flow ofwater.