Laidi snapped out of her state of panic, picked up the stool lying next to her pillow, and jumped out of bed, naked. As soon as her feet touched the floor, she attacked the mute’s arms with the stool, but with no more effect than if she were hitting the trunk of a tree. So she then swung at his head, creating a thump like hitting a ripe melon, before dropping the stool and picking up the heavy door bolt, which she swung in the air and brought down on the mute’s head. He groaned, but his body remained upright. After the second hit, the mute let loose of Birdman’s throat, wobbled for a moment, then crashed headlong to the floor. Birdman slumped over on top of him.
The clamor in the side room woke Mother, who shuffled up to the door; it was over by then, and the outcome was sorrowfully obvious. She saw Laidi, naked, leaning weakly against the door, then watched as she dropped the bloody door bolt and walked out into the downpour, as if in a trance. The rain skittered off her body, her ugly feet sloshing through muddy puddles on the ground. She squatted down in front of the water basin and washed her hands.
Mother went over and dragged Birdman off of the mute and, with her shoulder under his arm, helped him over to the bed. With a sense of disgust, she covered him with the blanket. She heard him moan, which meant that this legendary hero was in no danger of dying. Walking back over to the mute and lifting him up like a sack of rice, she noticed two streams of black liquid running from his nostrils. After placing her finger under his nose to detect any sign of life, she let her hand drop; the mute’s still warm corpse was sitting up straight, no longer ready to topple over.
After wiping her bloody finger on the wall, Mother walked back to her room, her mind a fog, and lay down in her clothes. Episodes from the mute’s life drifted in and out of her mind, and when she recalled how the young mute and his brothers had straddled the wall, pretending they were the kings of the world, she laughed out loud. Out in the yard, Laidi scrubbed her hands over and over, the soapy lather covering the ground around her. That afternoon, Birdman walked outside, one hand around his throat, the other cupped around his crotch. He picked Laidi up off the ground, her body icy cold; she wrapped her arms around his neck and giggled idiotically.
Somewhat later, a young military officer with pink lips and sparkling white teeth, in the company of the district chief’s secretary, walked into the yard carrying a basin covered with red paper. They called out, and when no one answered, went straight to Mother’s room.
“Aunty,” the secretary said to her, “this is Commander Song of the heavy artillery company. He’s here to pay a courtesy call on Comrade Speechless Sun.”
“My apologies, aunty,” Commander Song said bashfully. “One of our trucks nearly ran Comrade Sun over, and raised a lump on his forehead.”
Mother sat up in bed with a start. “What did you say?”
“The road was slick,” Commander Song said, “and the bumper of one of our trucks hit him in the head.
“After he returned home,” Mother said tearfully, “he groaned awhile and then died.”
The young company commander paled. He was nearly in tears when he said, “Aunty, we slammed on the brakes, but the road was slick…”
When the medical expert came over to examine the body, Laidi, neatly dressed and carrying a small bundle, said, “I’m leaving, Mother.
I’ll take things as they come, but I cannot let those soldiers take the blame.”
“Go tell the authorities,” Mother said. “It’s always been the rule that a pregnant woman has to give birth before…”
“I understand. In fact, I’ve never in my life understood anything as clearly as this.”
“I’ll raise your child for you.”
“I have no more worries, Mother.”
She walked over to the side room, where she reported, “There’s no need for an investigation. I hit him with a stool and then killed him with the bolt of a door. He was choking Birdman Han when I did it.”
Birdman walked into the yard carrying a string of dead birds. “What’s going on?” he asked. “The world now has one less half-man piece of garbage, and I’m the one who killed him.”
The police handcuffed Laidi and Birdman Han and placed them under arrest.
Five months later, a policewoman brought a baby boy to Mother, scrawny as a sick cat, and reported that Laidi was to be shot the next day. The family was free to retrieve the body, but if they chose not to, it would be sent to the hospital to be dissected. The policewoman also told Mother that Birdman Han had been sentenced to life imprisonment and that he would soon begin serving his sentence at Tarim Basin, in the Uighur Autonomous Region, far from Northeast Gaomi. The family would be permitted a last visit.
By then Jintong had been expelled from school for destroying trees on campus, while Zaohua had been expelled from the drama troupe for stealing.
“We’re going to retrieve the body,” Mother said.
“I don’t see why,” Zaohua said.
“She committed a capital crime, and deserves a bullet. But it wasn’t a heinous crime.”
More than ten thousand people turned out for Shangguan Laidi’s execution. A truck brought the condemned prisoner to the execution ground at the Bridge of Sorrows. Birdman Han was in the truck with her. In order to avoid any last-minute vocal outbursts, the execution team had sealed both their mouths.
Not long after Laidi’s execution, the family received word of Birdman Han’s death. On his way to prison, he had managed to break free and died under the wheels of the train.
4
In order to reclaim tens of thousands of acres of Northeast Gaomi Township’s wasteland, all of Dalan’s able-bodied young men and women were mobilized into teams at the state-run Flood Dragon River Farm. On the day the work assignments were handed out, the director asked me, “What are you good at?” At the time, I was so hungry my ears were buzzing, and I didn’t hear him clearly. His lips parted, exposing a stainless steel tooth right in the middle, as he asked me again, louder this time, “What are you good at?” I’d just spotted my teacher, Huo Lina, on the road carrying a load of manure, and I recalled her saying that I had a natural talent for the Russian language. So I said, “I speak Russian well.” “Russian?” he said with a sneer, his stainless steel tooth glinting in the sunlight. “How well?” he asked derisively. “Good enough to be an interpreter for Khrushchev and Mikoyan? Can you handle a Sino-Soviet communiqué? Listen to me, young man. People who have studied in the Soviet Union tote manure around here. Do you think your Russian is better than theirs?” All the young laborers awaiting assignments had a good laugh over that. “I’m asking you what you do at home, what you do best.” “At home I tended a goat, that’s what I did best.” “Right,” the director said with a sneer. “Now, that’s what you’re good at. Russian and French, or English and Italian, none of those are worth a thing.” He scribbled something on a slip of paper and handed it to me. “Report to the animal brigade. Tell Commander Ma to assign you.”