Inhaling another whiff of the yellow flower and humming the anti-Japanese ditty the shepherd had sung, he was determined to make a dignified entrance. But the first step he took landed in thin air, and he tumbled into a hole that had been dug in front of the breach for the sole purpose of catching him. A squad of county policemen who were keeping watch day and night in the field beyond the wall quickly emerged from their hiding places. The black holes of dozens of rifle barrels were pointed at the trapped Sima Ku, whose feet had been cut by sharpened bamboo sticks. “What do you men think you’re doing?” he reviled them as he was racked by pain. “I came to give myself up, so why set a wild boar trap to catch me?”
The chief investigator reached down, pulled Sima Ku up to level ground, and snapped handcuffs on him.
“Release the members of the Shangguan family!” he bellowed. “I’m here to answer for my actions!”
9
To satisfy the demands of Northeast Gaomi residents, the public trial of Sima Ku was held in the square where he and Babbitt had shown their first open-air movie. Originally his family’s threshing ground, it contained a tamped-earth platform that now barely rose above the ground around it; it was the spot where Lu Liren had once led the masses in the land reform campaign. In preparation for the arrival of Sima Ku, district officials had sent armed militiamen to the spot the night before to dig up hundreds of square feet of dirt in order to rebuild the platform until it was as high as the Flood Dragon River dikes, and to dig a trench that ran in front and along the sides of the platform, which was then filled with oily green water. Once that was done, they authorized the expenditure of enough money to purchase a thousand catties of millet, which was then exchanged for two wagonloads of tightly woven, golden yellow matting from a marketplace ten miles out of town, with which they erected a huge tent over the platform, and then covered it with colorful sheets of paper on which were written a variety of slogans, some angry and others jubilant. The leftover matting was spread over the platform itself and its sloping sides, giving it the appearance of golden cascades. The district chief, in the company of the county head, came personally to inspect the interrogation site. Standing on the sleek, easy-on-the-feet platform, which rose like an opera stage, they gazed out at the roiling blue waters of the Flood Dragon River as it flowed east, a cold wind billowing their sleeves and pant legs until they took on the appearance of sausage links. The county head rubbed his red nose as he turned to ask the district chief loudly, “Who’s responsible for this masterpiece?”
Unable to tell if the county head was being sarcastic or complimentary, the district chief replied ambiguously, “I was involved in the planning, but he was in charge of the work.” He pointed to an official from the District Propaganda Committee standing off to one side.
The county head glanced over at the beaming official and nodded. Then, lowering his voice, but not enough to keep the people behind him from hearing, he said, “This looks more like a coronation than a public trial!”
Inspector Yang hobbled up at that moment and bowed respectfully to the county head, who sized him up and said, “The county recognizes your outstanding service in arranging the capture of Sima Ku. But your scheme entailed the torture of members of the Shangguan family, for which you have been censured.”
“Bringing the murdering devil Sima Ku to justice is what counts,” Inspector Yang responded passionately, “and for that I’d have gladly given my good leg!”
The public trial was scheduled for the morning of the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. Residents cloaked in the cold glare of early-morning stars and capped by the chilly countenance of the moon began pouring into the site to be part of the excitement. By dawn the square was black with people, some of whom stood behind railings thrown up on the banks of the Flood Dragon River. When the sun made its shy appearance, casting its rays on the people’s frosty eyebrows and beards, pink mist rose from their mouths. Other people had lost sight of the fact that it was the morning when they normally ate bowls of fruity rice porridge, but not the members of my family. Mother tried to infect us with her feigned enthusiasm, but Sima Liang’s constant weeping had us in a foul mood. Like a little mother, Eighth Sister felt around for a sponge she’d picked up on the sandbar and dried Sima Liang’s copious tears. He wept without making a sound, which made it worse than if he’d been bawling loudly. First Sister stayed close by Mother, who was running around busily, and asked over and over, “Mother, if he dies, will I be expected to die with him?”
“Stop talking nonsense!” Mother reprimanded her. “You wouldn’t be expected to do that even if the two of you had been properly married.”
By the tenth or twelfth time she asked the same question, Mother lost patience and said pointedly, “Laidi, does face mean anything to you? When you hooked up with him, it was nothing more than a brother-in-law taking up with his sister-in-law, a shameful act in anyone’s book.”
First Sister was stunned. “Mother,” she said, “you’ve changed.”
“Yes, I’ve changed,” Mother said, “and yet I’m still the same. Over the past ten or more years, members of the Shangguan family have died off like stalks of chives, and others have been born to take their place. Where there’s life, death is inevitable. Dying’s easy; it’s living that’s hard. The harder it gets, the stronger the will to live. And the greater the fear of death, the greater the struggle to keep on living. I want to be around on the day my children and grandchildren rise to the top, so I expect all of you to make a good showing for my sake!”
Her eyes, wet with tears, yet spitting fire, swept across our faces, resting finally on me, as if I were the repository of all her hopes. That made me incredibly fearful and restive, since, with the exceptions of an ability to memorize school lessons and sing the “Women’s Liberation Anthem” with a degree of accuracy, I couldn’t think of a thing I was particularly good at. I was a crybaby, I was scared of my own shadow, and I was a weakling, sort of like a castrated sheep.
“Get yourselves ready,” Mother said, “so we can give him a proper send-off. He’s a bastard, but he’s also a man worthy of the name. In days past, a man like that would come around once every eight or ten years. I’m afraid we’ve seen the last of his kind.”
We stood as a family on the river dike and watched the people around us slink away. Many sideward glances were cast our way. Sima Liang tried to move up closer, but Mother grabbed hold of his arm. “Stay right here, Liang. We’ll watch from a distance. If we’re too close, it’ll just give him something else to worry about.”
The sun rose high in the sky as truckloads of armed, helmeted soldiers crept across the Flood Dragon River Bridge and through the breach in the dike. They wore the looks of men confronted by a powerful enemy. After the trucks came to a stop beside the tent, the soldiers jumped to the ground in pairs and dispersed rapidly to form a blockade line. Two soldiers then climbed out of one of the trucks and opened the tailgate. Out stepped Sima Ku, wearing a pair of shiny handcuffs, in the custody of a squad of soldiers. He stumbled when he was pushed to the ground, but was immediately picked up by a tall, robust soldier who was obviously handpicked for this assignment. Sima Ku, his swollen legs covered with thick blood, stumbled along with his captors, leaving putrid-smelling footprints in the dirt. They led him over to the tent and up onto the raised platform. Out-of-town witnesses who were seeing Sima Ku for the first time, and had assumed him to be a murderous demon, half man-half beast, a monster with fangs and a ferocious, green face, later said that seeing him in person had been a disappointment. This middle-aged man with his shaved head and big, sad eyes didn’t look threatening at all. In fact, he struck them as a guileless, good-natured fellow, and had them wondering if the police had arrested the wrong man.