Her voice gradually increased in volume, going from dark to bright, and by the time she reached the final line, ‘Hey, little Lian, come massage my feet,’ she was roaring. The entire village was awakened by her shouts, which rang through the peaceful and empty mountain ridge like a thunderstorm, and in no time at all had covered the earth in water. Several dogs came running out and stood in the middle of the street, barking madly. Some people opened their front doors and stuck their heads out. Amidst all of the ruckus, someone’s rooster began crowing, and the cattle asleep in their pens also stood up. The entire village awoke with a start, as the newborn baby’s cries surged through the cracks in the doors, down the streets, and out into the fields.
Fourth Wife You sang her song twice in front of the gate tower, and continued as she walked toward the village entrance.
In the entrance, she saw Stone You and someone else whose face she couldn’t make out walking down from the mountain ridge. At that point, she abruptly stopped singing and returned home, and only after she returned home did she finish the song. Then, she leaned up to the window to the side room to check on Fourth Idiot. When she saw he was sleeping soundly, she proceeded to the central room and slowly folded the sheets, blankets, and bedding, placing them all in a neat bundle for Fourth Idiot to use when he got married. She looked around the room, hung an oil lamp from the wall, then moved the sewing kit from the table to the lid of the box. Next, she wiped the dust from the bed and slowly lay down. As she lay down she seemed to slide on the bed, and a noisy chill seeped into her spine. It was then that she remembered the mat on the bed was a new one that had been placed there at the beginning of the year. She got up and rolled up the mat, put it next to the wall, then looked around the room before slowly lying down again on the hard wooden bed frame. She slammed her eyelids shut like a pair of city gates.
Time rumbled forward like a flour mill.
The sound of footsteps drifted into her room like a spectre.
Eventually, a shout in the front room was violently suppressed – like a leaf that had just been picked up by the wind, only to run into the wall or a closed door. The courtyard, village, and the entire mountain ridge suddenly became as peaceful as a lake after a boat has sunk beneath the surface. The entire world seemed to go back into a dream.
Fourth Idiot was awakened in the middle of the night by an acute thirst. He dreamed he was entering a furnace, as his stomach was dried up and his throat was on fire. After gulping for air several times, he woke up, jumped out of bed, and rubbed his eyes. When he went to the kitchen to get some water, he discovered that there wasn’t a single drop left in the cistern. When he went to the bucket, he found that it was lying upside down on the ground. He then went to the wash basin, which usually had half a bowl of water, but all he saw was the reflection of the moon in the bottom of the basin. He couldn’t find a single drop of water in the entire kitchen. He kicked the cistern and the bucket, then grabbed the wash basin and threw it to the ground as well. Finally, he went into the courtyard and shouted in the direction of the main room.
‘Ma… you’re making me die of thirst…
Ma, you’re deliberately making me die of thirst.’
Hearing no response, he pushed open the door to the main room, walked in, and saw his mother lying peacefully in bed. On the bedside table there was a bowl of dark red soup. Without saying a word, Fourth Idiot stepped forward, grabbed the bowl, and drank its contents. There was a thick, dark red taste in his mouth, throat, stomach, and intestines, which spread between his sinews and his bones. On the verge of vomiting, he noticed that on the table there were two bowl-like white bags. As he was reaching out to open one, he saw lying on it the cleaver with which his mother had frightened him the night before. He suddenly remembered that his mother had asked him to take the contents of the two bags to his eldest and third sisters.
And so, before dawn, he carried the two bags into the depths of the Balou Mountains.
Chapter Seven
They didn’t bury Fourth Wife You until half a month later.
Her pallbearers were her son and three sons-in-law, while her eldest, second, and third daughters followed behind, wailing. When the other villagers came to help with the funeral, they discovered that Fourth Idiot’s illness was completely cured, and he was now as clear-headed as everyone else. Moreover, the three daughters standing beside their mother’s corpse were all pregnant. They had all become wholers and were now beautiful and neatly dressed, even as they cried inconsolably. They had each prepared a present for their mother. Eldest Daughter brought sets of winter burial shrouds made of cotton, Second Daughter brought three sets of summer burial shrouds made of silk, while Third Daughter brought her three sets of Spring and Autumn clothing she had sewn herself, together with origami figures of virgin children of good fortune, mountains of gold, and silver chariots. Fourth Wife You’s four children, who had all become as clearheaded as ordinary people, borrowed money to buy some wooden boards, and then asked someone to make her an inch-and-a-half thick coffin made out of cypress wood. On the day of the burial, Stone You and his neighbours in the graveyard went to meet Fourth Wife You, but her four children all crowded around the coffin, crying their eyes out. As the coffin was being placed in the grave, it was impossible to tear away Fourth Wife You’s children, as one after another they threw themselves onto the lid of the coffin.
Stone You asked, ‘Do you think you can bring your mother back to life with your crying?’
They all kept crying.
Fourth Wife You said, ‘This illness is hereditary. Do all of you know how to treat your own children?’
When then heard this, they all abruptly stopped crying.
They buried Fourth Wife You’s body to the right of Stone You’s.
Preview of Radish by Mo Yan
Chapter One
An autumn morning, the air thickly humid, a layer of transparent dewdrops clung to blades of grass and roof tiles. Leaves on the scholar tree had begun to turn yellow; a rusty iron bell hanging from a branch was also dew laden. The production team leader, a padded jacket draped over his shoulders, ambled toward the bell, carrying a sorghum flatbread in one hand and clutching a thick-peeled leek in the other. By the time he reached the bell, his hands were empty, but his cheeks were puffed out like a field mouse scurrying away with autumn provisions. He yanked the clapper against the side of the bell, which rang out loudly – clang, clang, clang. People young and old streamed out of the lanes to converge beneath the bell, eyes fixed on the team leader, like a crowd of marionettes. He swallowed hard, and wiped his stubble-ringed mouth on his sleeve. All eyes watched that mouth as it opened – to spit out a stream of curses: ‘I’ll be fucked if those stupid commune pricks aren’t taking two of our stonemasons one day and two carpenters the next. He turned to a tall, broad-shouldered young man. ‘They’re breaking up our workforce. The commune plans to widen the floodgate behind the village, mason,’ he said to him. ‘Every team has to send them a mason and an unskilled labourer. It might as well be you.’
The handsome young mason had black eyebrows and white teeth, the contrast lending him a heroic bearing. A gentle shake of his head sent back a lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead. Speaking with a slight stammer, he asked who the unskilled labourer would be.
The team leader folded his arms, as if to fight off the cold, and rolled his eyes like pinwheels. ‘A woman makes the most sense,’ he rasped, ‘but we need them for picking cotton, and sending a man would be a waste of manpower.’ He looked around and his gaze fell on the wall. A boy of ten or so stood in a corner. He was barefoot and stripped to the waist, wearing only a pair of long, baggy, green-striped white shorts that were stained by grass and dried blood. The shorts ended at his knees, above calves shiny with scars.