Grandma covered his mouth again.
Uncle Arhat began to writhe, arching his buttocks as he rose to his knees, propped himself on his hands, and raised his arms. His face was so puffy the skin shone; his eyes were slits through which thin greenish rays emerged. Father was sure Uncle Arhat could see him. His heart was pounding against the wall of his chest – thump thump thump – and he didn’t know if it was from fear or anger. He wanted to scream, but Grandma’s hand was clasped too tightly over his mouth.
The officer holding the leash shouted something to the crowd, and a crew-cut Chinese interpreted it for them. Father didn’t hear everything the interpreter said. Grandma’s hand was clasped so tightly over his mouth that he was having trouble breathing and his ears were ringing.
Two Chinese in black uniforms stripped Uncle Arhat naked and tied him to the rack. The Jap officer waved his arm, and two more black-clad men dragged and pushed Sun Five, the most accomplished hog-butcher in our village – or anywhere in Northeast Gaomi Township, for that matter – out of the enclosure. He was a short, bald man with a huge paunch, a red face, and tiny, close-set eyes buried alongside the bridge of his nose, held a butcher’s knife in his left hand and a pail of water in his right as he shuffled up to Uncle Arhat.
The interpreter spoke: ‘The commander says to skin him. If you don’t do a good job of it, he’ll have his dog tear your heart out.’
Sun Five mumbled an acknowledgement, his eyes blinking furiously. Holding the knife in his mouth, he picked up the pail and poured water over Uncle Arhat’s scalp. Uncle Arhat’s head jerked upward when the cold water hit him. Bloody water coursed down his face and neck, forming filthy puddles at his feet. One of the overseers brought another pail of water from the river. Sun Five soaked a rag in it and wiped Uncle Arhat’s face clean. When he was finished, his buttocks twitched briefly. ‘Elder brother…’
‘Brother,’ Uncle Arhat said, ‘finish me off quickly. I won’t forget your kindness down in the Yellow Springs.’
The Japanese officer roared something.
‘Get on with it!’ the interpreter said.
Sun Five’s face darkened as he reached up and held Uncle Arhat’s ear between his fingers. ‘Elder brother,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing I can do…’
Father saw Sun Five’s knife cut the skin above the ear with a sawing motion. Uncle Arhat screeched in agony as sprays of yellow piss shot out from between his legs. Father’s knees were knocking. A Japanese soldier walked up to Sun Five with a white ceramic platter, into which Sun put Uncle Arhat’s large, fleshy ear. He cut off the other ear and laid it on the platter alongside the first one. Father watched the ears twitch, making thumping sounds.
The soldier paraded slowly in front of the labourers and villagers, holding the platter out for them to see. Father looked at the ears, pale and beautiful.
The soldier then carried the ears up to the Japanese officer, who nodded to him. He laid the platter alongside the body of his dead comrade, after a moment of silence, he picked it up and put it on the ground under the dog’s nose.
The dog’s tongue slithered back into its mouth as it sniffed the ears with its pointy, wet, black nose; but it shook its head, with its tongue lolling again, and sat down.
‘Hey,’ the interpreter yelled at Sun Five. ‘Keep going.’
Sun Five was walking around in circles, mumbling to himself. Father looked at his sweaty, greasy face, and watched his eyelids blink like a bobbing head of a chicken.
A mere trickle of blood oozed from the holes where Uncle Arhat’s ears had been. Without them his head had become a neat, unmarred oval.
The Jap officer roared again.
‘Hurry up, get on with it!’ the interpreter ordered.
Sun Five bent over and sliced off Uncle Arhat’s genitals with a single stroke, then put them into the platter held by the Japanese soldier, who carried it at eye level as he paraded like a marionette in front of the crowd. Father felt Grandma’s icy fingers dig into his shoulders.
The Japanese soldier put the platter under the dog’s nose. It nibbled, then spat the stuff out.
Uncle Arhat was screaming in agony, his bony frame twitching violently on the rack.
Sun Five threw down his butcher knife, fell to his knees, and wailed bitterly.
The Japanese officer let go of the leash, and the guard dog bounded forward, burying its claws in Sun Five’s shoulders and baring its fangs in his face. He threw himself on the ground and covered his face with his hands.
The Japanese officer whistled, and the guard dog bounded back to him, dragging the leash behind it.
‘Skin him, and be quick about it!’ the interpreter demanded.
Sun Five struggled to his feet, picked up his butcher knife, and staggered up to Uncle Arhat.
Everyone’s head jerked upward as a torrent of abuse erupted from Uncle Arhat’s mouth.
Sun Five spoke to him: ‘Elder brother… elder brother… try to bear it a little longer…’
Uncle Arhat spat a gob of bloody phlegm into Sun’s face.
‘Start skinning,’ shouted the interpreter. ‘Fuck your ancestors! Skin him, I said!’
Sun Five started at the point on Uncle Arhat’s scalp where the scab had formed, zipping the knife blade down, once, twice… one meticulous cut after another. Uncle Arhat’s scalp fell away, revealing two greenish-purple eyes and several misshapen chunks of flesh…
Father told me once that, even after Uncle Arhat’s face had been peeled away, shouts and gurgles continued to emerge from his shapeless mouth, while endless rivulets of bright-red blood dripped from his pasty scalp. Sun Five no longer seemed human as his flawless knife-work produced a perfect pelt. After Uncle Arhat had been turned into a mass of meaty pulp, his innards churned and roiled, attracting swarms of dancing green flies. The women were on their knees, wailing piteously. That night a heavy rain fell, washing the tethering square clean of every drop of blood, and of Uncle Arhat’s corpse and the skin that had covered it. Word that his corpse had disappeared spread through the village, from one person to ten, to a hundred, from this generation to the next, until it became a beautiful legend.
‘If he thinks he can get away with playing games with me, I’ll rip his head off and use it for a pisspot!’
The sun seemed to shrink as it rose in the sky, sending down white-hot rays; a flock of wild ducks flew through the rapidly dissipating mist atop the sorghum field, then another flock. Detachment Leader Leng’s troops still hadn’t shown up, and only an occasional wild hare disturbed the peace of the highway. A while later, a wily red fox darted across the highway. ‘Hey!’ Commander Yu shouted after cursing Detachment Leader Leng. ‘Everybody up. It looks like we’ve been tricked by that son of a bitch Pocky Leng.’
That was just what the troops, tired of lying there, had been waiting to hear. They were on their way up before the sound of Commander Yu’s command had died out. Some sat on the dike to enjoy a smoke; others stood to take a long-postponed piss.
Father jumped up onto the dike, the head of the skinned Uncle Arhat floating in front of his eyes. Wild ducks startled into flight by the sudden emergence of men on the dike began landing in small clusters on a nearby sandbar, where they waddled back and forth, their emerald and yellow feathers glistening among the water weeds.
Mute walked up to Commander Yu, knife in one hand, his old Hanyang rifle in the other. Looking dejected, with lifeless eyes, he pointed to the sun in the southeastern sky and to the deserted highway. Finally, he pointed to his belly, grunted, and signalled in the direction of the village. Commander Yu thought for a moment, then called to the men on the western edge of the highway, ‘Come over here, all of you!’
The troops crossed the highway and formed up on the dike.
‘Brothers,’ Commander Yu said, ‘if Pocky Leng’s playing games with us, I’ll lop his damned head off! The sun isn’t directly overhead yet, so we’ll wait a little longer. If the convoy hasn’t come by noon, we’ll go to Tan Family Hollow and settle accounts with Leng. For now, go into the sorghum field and get some rest. I’ll send Douguan for food. Douguan!’