Mother’s mouth was twisted to one side, her cheekbones jerking up and down so violently she couldn’t utter a single intelligible comment. Tears filled her eyes. She reached out to touch Second Sister’s forehead, then cupped her daughter’s chin in her hand and managed to say, “Zhaodi, my little girl, you and your sisters chose the men you went with and the paths you took. You wouldn’t listen to your mother, so I couldn’t save you. All of you… trusted to fate…”
Sima Ku let go of Second Sister’s corpse and walked toward Lu Liren, who was surrounded by a dozen or more bodyguards as he walked toward the mill house. He stopped when he was a couple of paces from the other man. Two pairs of eyes were locked, seemingly in mortal combat, sparks flying, as if from crossed swords. No victor emerged after several rounds. Three dry laughs emerged from Lu Liren’s mouth: “Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha ha!” They were met with three from Sima Ku: “Heh heh! Heh heh! Heh heh heh!”
“I trust you’ve been well since we last met, Brother Sima,” Lu said. “It was a year ago that you drove me from the area. I’ll bet you never imagined the same fate would befall you one day!”
“A six-month debt is quickly repaid,” Sima said. “But Brother Lu, you’ve demanded too much interest.”
“I am deeply pained over the tragic loss of your wife. But that is the nature of revolutions. When cutting out a tumor, some good cells must be sacrificed. But that cannot stop us from cutting out the tumor. I hope this is something you can understand.”
“Don’t waste your spittle,” Sima Ku said. “You may kill me now!”
“Nothing so simple is planned for you.”
“Then you’ll forgive me if I take matters into my own hands.”
He reached in and pulled out a silver-plated pistol, cocked the hammer, and turned to Mother. “I’m doing this to avenge your loss,” he said as he put the pistol to his head.
Lu Liren roared with laughter. “So you’re a coward, after all! Go ahead, kill yourself, you pathetic worm!”
Sima Ku’s hand began to shake.
“Daddy!” It was Sima Liang.
Sima Ku turned to look at his son. Slowly his hand dropped to his side. He let out a self-mocking laugh and handed the pistol to Lu Liren. “Here, you take this.”
Lu Liren took the pistol and hefted it in his hand. “This is a woman’s toy,” he said as he flipped it disdainfully to one of the men behind him, and then stomped his water-soaked, muddy feet on the ground. “Actually, once you handed over the weapon, your fate was no longer in my hands. My superiors will choose where you wind up – in Heaven or in Hell.”
With a shake of his head, Sima Ku said, “I’m afraid you’ve got it all wrong, Commander Lu. There is no seat reserved for me in either Heaven or Hell. My seat exists between those two places, and when it’s all over and done with, you will be in the same boat as me.”
Lu Liren turned to the men beside him. “Take them away.”
Guards moved up, nudged Sima Ku and Babbitt with their rifles, and said, “Get moving!”
“Let’s go,” Sima Ku said to Babbitt. “They can kill me a hundred times, but they won’t touch a hair on your head.”
Still holding Sixth Sister up, Babbitt walked up to Sima Ku.
“Mrs. Babbitt can stay behind,” Lu Liren said.
“Commander Lu,” Sixth Sister said, “I ask you to spare the two of us as a reward for helping Mother raise Lu Shengli.”
Pushing up his glasses, with their broken rim, he said to Mother, “You talk some sense into her.”
Mother shook her head and sat down on her haunches. “Give me a hand, children,” she said to Sima Liang and me.
So Sima Liang and I hoisted Zhaodi’s body up on Mother’s back.
With her daughter on her back, Mother headed down the muddy road home, barefoot, with Sima Liang and me beside her, each holding up one of Zhaodi’s stiffening legs to ease Mother’s burden. The deep footprints she made in the muddy road with her crippled, once-bound feet were still discernible months later.
6
The Flood Dragon River had reached flood stage; by looking out the window from my bed, I could see murky yellow water roaring along at the crest of the dike. A detachment of soldiers stood atop the dike gazing at the river as they engaged in a loud discussion.
Out in the yard Mother was making flatcakes on a griddle, while Zaohua kept the fire going. Because the firewood was still wet, the flames burned dark yellow and filled the air with dense black smoke. The sun’s rays were muted.
Sima Liang came inside, bringing with him the acrid smell of scholar tree. “They’re planning to take my dad plus Sixth Aunt and her husband back to military headquarters,” he said in a low voice. “Third Aunt’s husband and the others are making a raft to sail downriver.”
“Liang,” Mother called out from outside. “Go down to the river with your uncle and aunt and keep the others there. Tell them I want to see them off.”
The river flowed fast and dirty, carrying grain stalks, yam vines, dead animals, even – out in the deepest part – entire uprooted trees. The Flood Dragon River Bridge, three pylons of which Sima Ku had burned down, had disappeared under the raging water, its existence signaled only by swirling eddies and the loud crashing of waves. Scrub brush on both sides of the river had also disappeared, though every once in a while a branch poked through the surface, green leaves still attached. Gray-blue gulls skimmed the tips of waves, from time to time coming up with a small fish. The opposite bank looked like a black rope that kept popping in and out of view, dancing atop sprays of glistening water. No more than a few inches kept the river from swamping the dikes; in some spots, yellow tongues of water lapped seductively at the crests, formed eddies, and slithered over the outer edges.
When we reached the riverbank, Speechless Sun was holding his impressive organ in his hand and pissing into the water, the whiskey-colored liquid making bell-like sounds when it hit the surface. He smiled when he saw us, took out a whistle he’d fashioned from a cartridge, and entertained us with birdcalls: the throaty call of the thrush, the shallow moan of the oriole, and the sad wail of the lark. It was enchanting; even his warty face softened. After running through his repertoire, he flicked the saliva out of his whistle and, with a guttural gr-ao, thrust it toward me, obviously intending it as a gift. But I backed up fearfully and just looked at him. Speechless Sun, you demon, I’ll never forget the look on your face when you were cutting down people with your sword! Again he reached out toward me, followed by another gr-ao, as a look of agitation spread across his face. I backed up. He came toward me. Sima Liang, who was standing behind me, said in softly, “Don’t take it, Little Uncle. ‘The whistling mute, confronted by a brute.’ He uses that thing to call ghosts in the cemetery.” Gr-ao! Beginning to get angry, Speechless Sun forced the brass object into my hand, before turning and walking over to a group of men who were making wooden rafts, ignoring us altogether. Sima Liang dug the whistle out of my hand and examined it carefully in the sunlight, as if expecting to have some secret revealed. “Little Uncle,” he said, “I was born under the sign of the cat, not one of the twelve signs of the zodiac, so no ghost is a match for me. I’ll hold on to this for you.” He put the whistle into one of the many hidden pockets in his knee-length, liberally patched pants. A great many strange and interesting objects filled those pockets: a stone that changed color in the moonlight, a little saw used for cutting roof tiles, apricot pits in a variety of shapes, even a pair of sparrow talons and the skulls of two frogs. He also carried baby teeth – his, Eighth Sister’s, and mine – which Mother had thrown into the yard behind the house; he’d retrieved every one of them, which was no mean feat, considering all the dog shit hidden in the tall weeds. But he said, “If you really want to find something, it’ll jump right out of its hiding place.” Now to the hidden treasures in his pants was added a demonic little whistle.