Commissar Jiang cleared his throat. “Men of the Sha Brigade,” he said. “Are you hungry?”
Again the prisoners raised their heads. Some obviously wanted to reply, but didn’t dare to. Others had no desire to reply.
Commissar Jiang’s bodyguard said, “What’s wrong, little uncles, lost your voices? Our political commissar asked you a question.”
“Be civil to them!” Commissar Jiang rebuked his bodyguard, who blushed and lowered his head. “Brothers,” he continued, “I know you’re hungry and thirsty, and any of you with stomach problems are probably suffering right now, seeing spots in front of your eyes and breaking out in a cold sweat. Try to hold on just a little longer. Food is on its way. We don’t have a lot of the things we need here, so the food isn’t very good. We’ve prepared a pot of mung bean soup to take care of your thirst and cool you down. At noon there’ll be white flour steamed buns and fried horsemeat with chives.”
Happiness was written on the prisoners’ faces, and some of the men worked up the courage to talk quietly among themselves.
“There are lots of dead horses,” Commissar Jiang said, “all of them fine animals. What a shame you had to stumble into our minefield. When you’re eating horsemeat in a little while, who knows, you may be eating your own mounts, even though, as people say, ‘mules and horses may be as fine as gentlemen, but they’re still only mules and horses.’ So go ahead, eat as much as you can, since man is at the top of the food chain.”
He was still talking about horses when a pair of elderly soldiers carried in a large cauldron, grunting from the effort. Two younger soldiers staggered along behind, each carrying a stack of bowls from their navel all the way up under their chins. “Here’s the soup! Soup!” the old soldiers shouted, as if someone were blocking their way. The young soldiers strained to see over their stacked bowls to find a place to put them down. The two old soldiers squatted down and put the cauldron on the floor, nearly sitting down in the process. The young soldiers kept their upper bodies straight as they crouched down, placed the stacks of bowls on the floor, and pulled their hands out from under them. The stacks rocked back and forth. Freed of their burden, the men stood up and mopped their sweaty brows.
Commissar Jiang picked up a large wooden ladle and stirred the soup. “Did you add brown sugar?” he asked the old soldiers. “Reporting, sir, we couldn’t find brown sugar, so we went out and got a jar of granulated sugar. We took it from the Cao house. Old lady Cao didn’t want to part with it, and held on to it for dear life…”
“That’s enough. Dish it out to the men here!” Commisar Jiang said as he tossed down the ladle. Then, suddenly seeming to recall our presence, he turned and asked invitingly, “Would you each like a bowl?”
With a smirk, Laidi said, “The commissar did not invite us here to drink mung bean soup, did he?”
“Why shouldn’t we?” Mother said. “Old Zhang, each of the girls and I will have a bowl.”
“Mother,” Laidi said, “what if it’s poisoned?”
Commissar Jiang had a big laugh over that. “Mrs. Sha, you have quite an imagination.” He picked up the ladle, scooped out some of the soup, held it high, and let it drip back into the vat to show off the appearance and the aroma. Then he threw down the ladle again. “We put a packet of arsenic and two packets of rat poison into this soup. One drink and your stomach will burst within five paces, you’ll crumple to the ground in six, and blood will spurt from all the holes in your body. Now, anyone dare to drink it?”
Mother stepped up, picked up a bowl and dusted it with her sleeve, then reached for the ladle, with which she filled the bowl with soup and handed it to First Sister, who refused it. So Mother said, “Then this bowl is mine.” After blowing on the liquid, she took a couple of sips. After a couple more tentative sips, she filled three more bowls, which she handed to Sixth Sister, Eighth Sister, and the young Sima. “Our turn,” shouted some of the prisoners. “Give us some. We’ll drink three bowls of the stuff, poisoned or not.”
With the two old soldiers manning the ladles, the two younger ones passed out the bowls. The armed guards moved off to the sides and faced us at an angle; we could see their eyes, which were fixed on the prisoners, now on their feet and lining up, holding up their pants with one hand and ready to take bowls of mung bean soup with the other. Once they had the bowls in hand, they looked down cautiously, fearful that the hot liquid might burn their fingers. One by one, they returned slowly to the rear of the hall, where they hunkered down, freeing up both hands to hold the soup, which they blew on to cool before starting to eat. A puff of air, followed by noisy sips, the practiced way to eat without burning the inside of your mouth. Young Sima, lacking that experience, slurped up a mouthful, which he could neither spit out nor swallow, and wound up with a burned mouth. While he was taking his bowl of soup, one of the prisoners said softly, “Second Uncle…” The old soldier with the ladle looked up and stared into the young face before him. “Don’t you recognize me, Second Uncle? It’s me, Little Chang…” The old soldier reached out and whacked the back of Little Chang’s hand with the ladle. “Who are you calling Second Uncle?” he scolded. “You’ve got the wrong man. I’ve got no nephew who’s willing to be a turncoat and wear a green uniform!” With a cry of Aiya, Little Chang dropped his bowl onto his foot, giving him a nasty burn. With another Aiya, he let go of his pants to reach down and rub his foot; his pants slipped to his knees, revealing a dirty, tattered pair of underpants. A third Aiya escaped as he reached down to pull up his trousers and stand up straight; tears filled his eyes.
“Old Zhang, you have your orders!” Commissar Jiang said angrily. “Who gave you the authority to strike a prisoner? Report to the sergeant-at-arms. Three days in the stockade!”
“But,” Old Zhang protested, “he called me Second Uncle…”
“I’m betting you are his second uncle,” Commissar Jiang said. “Why try to hide it? If he does what he’s told, he can become a member of our demolition battalion. How’s that burn, youngster? We’ll have a medic put some salve on it in a little while. Meanwhile, he spilled his soup, so give him another bowl, and add a few extra beans.”
The unfortunate young nephew hobbled back to the rear of the hall with his thicker-than-average soup, as the prisoners behind him in line stepped up to get their bowls.
Now all the prisoners were drinking their soup, filling the church with loud slurps. For the moment, the old and young soldiers had nothing to do; one of the young ones was standing there licking his lips, the other had his eyes fixed on me. One of the older ones was scraping the bottom of the vat with his ladle, the other had taken out a tobacco pouch and pipe and was preparing to take a smoke break. Mother put her bowl up to my lips, but I pushed it away, disgusted by its coarseness. My mouth was adapted to one thing and one thing only: her nipples.
First Sister snorted disdainfully. Commissar Jiang was looking at her, and she made sure she rewarded him with an expression of contempt. “I guess I should have a bowl of mung bean soup too,” she said.
“Of course you should,” Commissar Jiang said. “Just look at your face. It reminds me of a dry eggplant. Old Zhang, a bowl of soup for Mrs. Sha, and hurry. Make it thick.”
“I want it thin,” First Sister said.