Now Father and the others could hear long-drawn-out brays from the mules they had left behind in the village. Wide-eyed with excitement, he could see nothing but the congealed yet nearly transparent mist that surrounded him. Erect stalks of sorghum formed dense barriers behind a wall of vapour. Each barrier led to another, seemingly endless. He had no idea how long they’d been in the field, for his mind was focused on the fertile river roaring in the distance, and on his memories. He wondered why they were in such a hurry to squeeze through this packed, dreamy ocean of sorghum. Suddenly he lost his bearings. He listened carefully for a sign from the river, and quickly determined that they were heading east-southeast, towards the river. Once he had a fix on their direction, he understood that they would be setting an ambush for the Japanese, that they would be killing people, just as they had killed the dogs. By heading east-southeast, they would soon reach the Jiao-Ping highway, which cut through the swampy lowland from north to south and linked the two counties of Jiao and Pingdu. Japanese and their running dogs, Chinese collaborators, had built the highway with the forced labour of local conscripts.
The sorghum was set in motion by the exhausted troops, whose heads and necks were soaked by the settling dew. Wang Wenyi was still coughing, even though he’d been the target of Commander Yu’s continuing angry outbursts. Father sensed that the highway was just up ahead, its pale-yellow outline swaying in front of him. Imperceptibly tiny openings began to appear in the thick curtain of mist, and one dew-soaked ear of sorghum after another stared sadly at Father, who returned their devout gaze. It dawned on him that they were living spirits: their roots buried in the dark earth, they soaked up the energy of the sun and the essence of the moon; moistened by the rain and dew, they understood the ways of the heavens and the logic of the earth. The colour of the sorghum suggested that the sun had already turned the obscured horizon a pathetic red.
Then something unexpected occurred. Father heard a shrill whistle, followed by a loud burst from up ahead.
‘Who fired his weapon?’ Commander Yu bellowed. ‘Who’s the prick who did it?’
Father heard the bullet pierce the thick mist and pass through sorghum leaves and stalks, lopping off one of the heads. Everyone held his breath as the bullet screamed through the air and thudded to the ground. The sweet smell of gunpowder dissipated in the mist. Wang Wenyi screamed pitifully, ‘Commander – my head’s gone – Commander – my head’s gone -’
Commander Yu froze momentarily, then kicked Wang Wenyi. ‘You dumb fuck!’ he growled. ‘How could you talk without a head?’
Commander Yu left my father standing there and went up to the head of the column. Wang Wenyi was still howling. Father pressed forward to catch a glimpse of the strange look on Wang’s face. A dark-blue substance was flowing on his cheek. Father reached out to touch it; hot and sticky, it smelled a lot like the mud of the Black Water River, but fresher. It overwhelmed the smell of peppermint and the pungent sweetness of sorghum and awakened in Father’s mind a memory that drew ever nearer: like beads, it strung together the mud of the Black Water River, the black earth beneath the sorghum, the eternally living past, and the unstoppable present. There are times when everything on earth spits out the stench of human blood.
‘Uncle,’ Father said, ‘you’re wounded.’
‘Douguan, is that you? Tell your old uncle if his head’s still on his neck.’
‘It’s there, Uncle, right where it’s supposed to be. Except your ear’s bleeding.’
Wang Wenyi reached up to touch his ear and pulled back a bloody hand, yelping in alarm. Then he froze as if paralysed. ‘Commander, I’m wounded! I’m wounded!’
Commander Yu came back to Wang, knelt down, and put his hands around Wang’s neck. ‘Stop screaming or I’ll throttle you!’
Wang Wenyi didn’t dare make a sound.
‘Where were you hit?’ Commander Yu asked him.
‘My ear…’ Wang was weeping.
Commander Yu took a piece of white cloth from his waistband and tore it in two, then handed it to him. ‘Hold this over it, and no more noise. Stay in rank. You can bandage it when we reach the highway.’
Commander Yu turned to Father. ‘Douguan,’ he barked. Father answered, and Commander Yu walked off holding him by the hand, followed by the whimpering Wang Wenyi.
The offending discharge had been the result of carelessness by the big fellow they called Mute, who was up front carrying a rake on his shoulder. The rifle slung over his back had gone off when he stumbled. Mute was one of Commander Yu’s old bandit friends, a greenwood hero who had eaten fistcakes in the sorghum fields. One of his legs was shorter than the other – a prenatal injury – and he limped when he walked, but that didn’t slow him down. Father was a little afraid of him.
At about dawn, the massive curtain of mist finally lifted, just as Commander Yu and his troops emerged onto the Jiao-Ping highway. In my hometown, August is the misty season, possibly because there’s so much swampy lowland. Once he stepped onto the highway, Father felt suddenly light and nimble; with extra spring in his step, he let go of Commander Yu’s coat. Wang Wenyi, on the other hand, wore a crestfallen look as he held the cloth to his injured ear. Commander Yu crudely wrapped it for him, covering up half his head. Wang gnashed his teeth in pain.
‘The heavens have smiled on you,’ Commander Yu said.
‘My blood’s all gone,’ Wang whimpered, ‘I can’t go on!’
‘Bullshit!’ Commander Yu exclaimed. ‘It’s no worse than a mosquito bite. You haven’t forgotten your three sons, have you?’
Wang hung his head and mumbled, ‘No, I haven’t forgotten.’
The butt of the long-barrelled fowling piece over his shoulder was the colour of blood. A flat metal gunpowder pouch rested against his hip.
Remnants of the dissipating mist were scattered throughout the sorghum field. There were neither animal nor human footprints in the gravel, and the dense walls of sorghum on the deserted highway made the men feel that something ominous was in the air. Father knew all along that Commander Yu’s troops numbered no more than forty – deaf, mute, and crippled included. But when they were quartered in the village, they had stirred things up so much, with chickens squawking and dogs yelping, that you’d have thought it was a garrison command.
Out on the highway, the soldiers huddled so closely together they looked like an inert snake. Their motley assortment of weapons included shotguns, fowling pieces, ageing Hanyang rifles, plus a cannon that fired scale weights and was carried by two brothers, Fang Six and Fang Seven. Mute was toting a rake with twenty-six metal tines, as were three other soldiers. Father still didn’t know what an ambush was, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have known why anyone would take four rakes to the event.
2
I RETURNED TO Northeast Gaomi Township to compile a family chronicle, focusing on the famous battle of the banks of the Black Water River that involved my father and ended with the death of a Jap general. An old woman of ninety-two sang to me, to the accompaniment of bamboo clappers: ‘Northeast Gaomi Township, so many men; at Black Water River the battle began; Commander Yu raised his hand, cannon fire to heaven; Jap souls scattered across the plain, ne’er to rise again; the beautiful champion of women, Dai Fenglian, ordered rakes for a barrier, the Jap attack broken…’ The wizened old woman was as bald as a clay pot; the protruding tendons on her chapped hands were like strips of melon rind. She had survived the Mid-Autumn Festival massacre in ’39 only because her ulcerated legs had made walking impossible, and her husband had hidden her in a yam cellar. The heavens had smiled on her. The Dai Fenglian in her clapper-song was my grandma. I listened with barely concealed excitement, for her tale proved that the strategy of stopping the Jap convoy with rakes had sprung from the mind of my own kin, a member of the weaker sex. No wonder my grandma is fêted as a trailblazer of the anti-Japanese resistance and a national hero.