Granddad smiled wryly. ‘I can barely read two hundred words. I’m an expert in murder and arson, but you might as well take me to the slaughterhouse if you want me to talk about national affairs!’
‘Then who do you think we ought to turn the country over to after we drive out the Japanese?’
‘That has nothing to do with me. All I know is that no one would dare take a bite out of my dick.’
‘What would you say if the Communists were in charge?’
Granddad snorted contemptuously out of one nostril.
‘How about the Nationalists?’
He snorted out of the other nostril.
‘That’s what I say. What China needs is an emperor! I’ve got it all figured out: struggles come and go, long periods of division precede unity and long periods of unity precede division, but the nation aways falls into the hands of an emperor. The nation is the emperor’s family, the family is the emperor’s nation. That’s why he governs so benevolently. But if a political party is in charge, everybody’s got his own idea, with Grandpa saying it’s too cold and Grandma complaining about the heat, and everything’s all fucked up.’
He reined in his dappled colt and waited for Granddad to catch up. Then, leaning over secretively, he said, ‘Commander Yu, I’ve been reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Outlaws of the Marshes since I was a kid, and I know them like the back of my hand. The seat of my courage is as big as a hen’s egg, but unfortunately I don’t have a wise leader to serve. I used to think Black Eye was one. That’s why I left home, to join up with him and do something worthwhile before I got married and settled down.
‘Who’d have guessed that he was as stupid as a pig and as dumb as an ox, short on courage and long on bullshit? All he cares about is his little plot of land in Saltwater Gap. Our ancestors had a saying: Birds perch on the best wood, a good horse neighs when it sees a master trainer. After thinking it over, I’ve concluded that in all of Northeast Gaomi Township you, Commander Yu, are the only true leader. My comrades and I demanded that Black Eye bring you into the society. It’s what they call “inviting the tiger into the house”. When you’re one of us, if you can sleep on firewood and drink gall, like the famous king of Yue, you’ll gain everyone’s sympathy and respect. Then I’ll wait for a chance to get rid of Black Eye and nominate you to replace him. With a change in the ruling house, discipline will be tightened. Once we bring Northeast Gaomi Township under our control, we’ll move north and occupy Southeast Pingdu Township and Northern Jiao Township, then unite all three areas.
‘When that’s done, we can set up our capital in Saltwater Gap under the flag of the Iron Society, with you in command. From there we’ll send our forces in three directions, taking Jiao, Gaomi, and Pingdu counties, annihilating the Communists, the Nationalists, and the Japs. With the three capitals in our hands, we can set up our own nation!’
Granddad nearly fell off his horse. He looked with amazement at this handsome young man who was bursting with ideas of statehood, and his insides ached with excitement. Reining in his horse, he tumbled out of the saddle and, since it didn’t seem appropriate to kneel before Five Troubles, reached up, grabbed his sweaty hand, and said in a tremulous voice, ‘Sir! Why couldn’t I have met you before this? Why did it take so long?’
‘A leader shouldn’t talk like that. Let’s put our hearts and minds together to do something really important!’ Five Troubles said with tears in his eyes.
Black Eye, who was more than a li ahead of them, reined in his horse and shouted, ‘Hey – are you two coming or not?’
Cupping his hand over his mouth, Five Troubles yelled, ‘We’re coming! Old Yu’s girth broke. We’re fixing it now!’ He turned to look at Father, who was sitting bright-eyed on his horse. ‘Young Master Yu,’ he said, ‘we’ve been discussing serious matters. Don’t breathe a word of our conversation to anyone!’
Father nodded vigorously.
Granddad felt more clearheaded than ever before in his life. Five Troubles’ words were a rag that had wiped his heart clean, until it shone like a mirror; finally, he could see the purpose of his struggles, and he uttered something that even Father, who was sitting in front of him, didn’t hear clearly: ‘Heaven’s will!’
Alternating between a gallop and a trot, the horses arrived at the banks of the Black Water River at noon. That afternoon they left the river behind them, and as night was about to fall, Granddad rose up in the saddle to gaze out at the Salty Water River, which was half as broad as the Black Water River and meandered through alkaline plains. Its grey waters looked like dull glass that gave off a murky glare.
8
COUNTY MAGISTRATE NINE Dreams Cao had used a brilliant stratagem in the late autumn of 1928 to wipe out the bandits of Northeast Gaomi Township led by my granddad. Decades later, when Granddad was in the mountains of Hokkaido, this tragic page in history was always before him. He thought back to how smug he had felt as he was driven in his black Chevrolet sedan on the bumpy Northeast Gaomi Township mountain road, an unwitting decoy who had led eight hundred good men into a trap. His limbs grew ice-cold at the memory of those eight hundred men lined up in a remote gulley outside Jinan City to be mowed down by machine guns. While he was roasting fine-scaled silver carp from Hokkaido’s shallow rivers, he agonised over the eight hundred deaths…
After making a pile of broken bricks, Granddad climbed over the high wall around the Jinan police station in the small hours of the morning, then slid down the other side into clumps of scrap paper and weeds, frightening off a couple of stray cats. He slipped into a house, changed from his black wool military uniform into some tattered clothes, then went out and merged with the crowds on the street to watch his fellow villagers and his men being loaded onto boxcars. Sentries stood around the station with dark, murderous looks on their faces. Black smoke poured out of the locomotive, steam hissed from the exhaust pipes… Granddad walked south on the rusty tracks.
At dawn, after walking all day and night, he reached a dry riverbed that reeked of blood. The bodies of hundreds of Northeast Gaomi Township bandits were piled up in layers, filling half the riverbed. He felt remorseful, horrified, vengeful. He was fed up with a life that was little more than an unending cycle of kill-or-be-killed, eat-or-be-eaten. He thought of the chimney smoke curling in the air above his quiet village; of the creaking pulley as a bucket of clear water was brought out of the well to water a fuzzy young donkey; of a fiery red rooster standing on a wall covered with date branches to crow at the radiant rays of dawn. He decided to go home.
After spending his whole life in the confines of Northeast Gaomi Township, this was the first time he’d ever travelled so far, and home seemed to be on the other side of the world. Recalling that the train to Jinan had travelled west the entire trip, he thought that all he had to do was follow the tracks east and he’d have no trouble getting back to Gaomi County. When one of the trains came down the tracks, he hid in a nearby ditch or amid some crops to watch the red or black wheels rumble past, bending the curved tracks.
Granddad ate when he could beg food in a village and drank when he came upon a river. Always he headed east, day and night. After two weeks, he finally spied the two familiar blockhouses at the Gaomi train station, where the county aristocracy was gathered to see off their onetime magistrate Nine Dreams Cao, who had been promoted to police commissioner for Shandong Province. Granddad crumpled to the ground, not sure why or how, and lay with his face in the black earth for a long time before becoming aware of the pungent taste of blood in the dirt.
He decided not to go home, even though he had often seen Grandma’s snow-white body and Father’s strangely innocent smile in the cold realm of his dreams. He awoke to find his grimy face bathed in hot tears and his heart aching. When he gazed up at the stars, he knew how deeply he missed his wife and son. But now that the decisive moment had arrived, and he could smell the intimate aroma of wine mash permeating the darkness, he wavered.