We heard him bellow in the adjoining room, “We have to catch Sha Yueliang. If he finds his way into a rathole, we must go in and dig him out.” Then we heard the sound of a telephone receiver being slammed down.
With pity in her eyes, Mother looked over at First Sister, who sprawled in the chair looking as if all the bones in her body had been removed. She walked over, took her daughter’s nicotine-stained hand, and examined it; she shook her head. First Sister slid down to her knees on the floor and wrapped her arms around Mother’s legs. When she looked up, her lips were twitching like a suckling infant. A strange noise emerged from between those lips. At first I thought she was laughing, but I quickly realized she was crying. She wiped her tears and snot on Mother’s legs. “Mother,” she said, “if you want to know the truth, not a day went by that I didn’t think of you and my sisters and my brother…”
“Do you regret what you did?” Mother asked her.
First Sister did not react right away. Then she shook her head.
“That’s good,” Mother said. “The Lord points out the way for you, and regret only makes Him unhappy.”
Mother handed Zaohua to First Sister. “Take a look at her.”
First Sister stroked Sha Zaohua’s dark little face. “Mother,” she said, “if they execute me, you’ll have to raise her for me.”
“Even if they don’t execute you,” Mother said, “I’m still the one who should raise her.”
First Sister handed the girl back to Mother, who said, “You hold her for a while. I need to feed Jintong.”
Mother walked over to the chair and lifted up her blouse. She bent over at the waist, while I kneeled on the chair and began sucking. “In fairness, that Sha fellow is no coward, and I’m obliged to accept him as my son-in-law, if for no other reason than the fact that he hung all those rabbits from the tree. But he’ll never amount to a whole lot. How do I know that? The fact that he hung all those rabbits from the tree. The two of you together are no match for that Jiang fellow. With Jiang, it’s a needle hidden in downy cotton. He’s got teeth in that belly of his.”
In the darkness just before daybreak, a flock of exhausted magpies that had served as a bridge across the Milky Way flew down and perched on our roof ridge, where they chirped listlessly and woke me up. I saw Mother sitting in a chair holding Sha Zaohua, while I was sitting on Laidi’s ice-cold knees, her long arms wrapped tightly around my waist. Sixth Sister and the Sima heir were sleeping head to head, just as before. Eighth Sister was resting against Mother’s leg. There was no light in Mother’s eyes, and the corners of her mouth drooped from exhaustion.
Commissar Jiang walked in, took one look at us, and said, “Mrs. Sha, would you like to go see Commander Sha?”
First Sister pushed me off and jumped to her feet. “You’re lying!” she cried hoarsely.
Commissar Jiang crinkled his brow. “Lying?” he said. “Why would I lie?” He walked up to the table, bent over, and blew out the lamp. Red rays of sunlight immediately striped in through the open window. With a courteous – but maybe it wasn’t meant to be courteous – wave of his hand, he said, “After you, Mrs. Sha. As I told you before, we don’t want to block every single avenue. If he admits the error of his ways and sets back out on the right path, we will welcome him as vice commander of the demolition battalion.”
First Sister walked stiffly to the door, but turned back to look at Mother before going outside. “You may come, too, aunty,” Commissar Jiang said. “And your other children as well.”
We passed under all the many gates of the Sima manor and through several identical courtyards. In the fifth courtyard, we saw a dozen or more wounded soldiers lying on the ground. The female soldier, Miss Tang, was bandaging the leg of one of the wounded men, assisted by my fifth sister, Pandi. She was so focused on the task before her, she didn’t even see us. Mother whispered to First Sister, “That’s your fifth sister.” First Sister glanced over at her. “We paid a stiff price,” Commissar Jiang said. A large wooden gate had been placed on the ground in the sixth courtyard to serve as a makeshift bier for several corpses, their faces covered with white cloth. “Our Commander Lu heroically gave up his life. That has been an incalculable loss.” He bent down and removed the cloth from a blood-spattered, whiskered face. “The men begged us to let them skin Commander Sha alive, but that goes against our policy. Mrs. Sha, our good faith is enough to move even the ghosts and spirits, wouldn’t you say?” At the seventh courtyard, he led us around a screen wall, and we found ourselves standing on the high steps of the Felicity Manor main gate.
Soldiers of the demolition battalion were running back and forth on the street, their faces covered with dust. Several of them were leading a dozen or more horses, from east to west, while several others were supervising several dozen civilians who were pulling a Jeep by rope, from west to east. The two groups halted when they met in front of the gate, and two men who looked like junior officers came running up. They stopped, saluted, and reported to Commissar Jiang, at a pitch that sounded like an argument. One reported that they’d captured thirteen warhorses; the other reported that they’d captured an American Jeep. Unfortunately, the radiator was blown, so it had to be towed over. Commissar Jiang complimented them on a job well done. As their commander’s praise washed over them, they stood there, chests out, heads up, lights flashing in their eyes.
Commissar Jiang then led us over to the church, the gate of which was guarded by sixteen armed sentries. Jiang raised his hand, and the sentries slapped the butts of their rifles, clicked their heels, and snapped off a rifle salute. There we were, a bunch of women and children, suddenly transformed into generals on a military inspection.
At least sixty, maybe more, prisoners in olive drab uniforms were crowded into the southeast corner of the main hall. White mushrooms sprouted on the ceiling above, which was crumbling and mildewed from rain that had leaked through. A squad of four soldiers with assault rifles guarded the prisoners. They were holding magazines of ammunition in their left hands, while four of the fingers of their right hands were wrapped around rifle stocks that were as smooth and glossy as a maiden’s thigh; their fifth finger was on the curved trigger. They stood with their backs to us. On the floor behind them was a pile of leather belts, looking like a nest of snakes. The only way the prisoners could walk was by holding up their trousers.
The corners of Commissar Jiang’s mouth turned up in a barely detectable smile. He coughed lightly, maybe to announce his presence, I don’t know. Lazily, the prisoners raised their heads and looked at us. In an instant, their eyes flashed – once for some, twice for others, five, six, or seven times, nine at the most, for yet others. Those will-o’-the-wisp flickers of recognition must have been intended for Shangguan Laidi, if, as Commissar Jiang asserted, she was Commander Sha’s right arm. Whatever complex emotions were running through Laidi’s heart turned her eyes red and her face ashen; her head slumped onto her chest.
The prisoners reminded me of the black donkeys belonging to the musket band. When they were corralled in the church yard, they too huddled together in a corner – twenty-eight individual donkeys becoming fourteen pairs: you nibble my rectum while I gently bite you in the flank. Mutual concern, mutual protection, mutual aid. Where had this intimate group of donkeys met its end? Who was it that wiped them out? At Ma’er Mountain by Sima Ku’s guerrilla forces? Or was it at Biceps Mountain by Japanese secret police? Mother was brutalized on that sacred day when I was baptized. They were all members of the musket band, my mortal enemies. Now you should be punished by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.