She shrieked and hopped around. But the horse-faced young man was too busy puking to pay any attention to her chest.
“Okay, Song,” Zheng said, looking at his watch. “It’s nearly dinner. We’ll finish up here after we eat.”
Whiskers Zhu picked up the pail and ladle, then fell in behind old Zheng and Song Anni.
Gao Yang heard Whiskers Zhu shout into the office phone to speed up delivery of the stuffed dumplings they had ordered, and felt total revulsion; he had to clench his teeth to keep from regurgitating the three badly needed bottles of water he had just finished. The horse-faced young man was still puking, though by now it was just dry heaves. Gao Yang noticed a frothy string of bloody sputum at the corner of his mouth and felt sorry for the sharp-tongued fellow.
The setting sun had lost some of its sting; that and the fact that he had no feeling in his arms instilled in Gao Yang a sense of well-being. A slight breeze rose to cool his scalp, which had been sun-baked, then doused with water until it tingled. All in all, he still felt pretty good-so good, in fact, that he wanted to talk. The horse-faced young man’s dry heaves were getting on his nerves, so Gao Yang cocked his head and said, “Say, pal, can’t you stop that?”
It had no effect. The heaves just kept coming.
A couple of trucks and a blue minivan were parked at the far end of the township compound, where a boisterous gang of supervised men loaded cartons, cabinets, tables, chairs, stools. Probably helping some official move, he surmised as he became absorbed in the activity. But after a while, the sight of all that stuff was more than he could bear, so he looked away.
Fourth Aunt knelt silently, her hair brushing the ground. When he heard a soft rattle in her throat, he assumed she must be asleep. Another image from the Cultural Revolution flashed before his eyes: his aging mother being vilified on her hands and knees. He shook his head to drive away some bottleneck flies straying from the vile puddle in front of the horse-faced young man. Mother was kneeling on bricks, her arms pulled behind her… she rested a hand on the ground to ease the pain, only to have it stepped on by a rough leather boot… she screamed… fingers bent and twisted so badly she couldn’t straighten them out…
“Fourth Aunt,” he whispered. “Fourth Aunt…”
She grunted softly, in what he took to be a reply.
The restaurant delivery boy rode skillfully up on his bike. This time he carried the food in one hand and steered with the other as he threaded his way between a couple of white poplars, trailing the fragrance of vinegar and garlic.
Gao Yang looked at the sinking sun, whose rays were growing gender and friendlier by the minute. He knew that the comrade policemen were by then dipping steamed dumplings in the vinegary, garlicky sauce; this held a hidden and frightful significance. When they finish their meal, he reminded himself, they’ll come out to put me into a shiny red van and take me… where will they take me? Wherever it was, it had to be better than being shackled to a tree, right? But who could say? Actually, it made no difference what happened, as he saw it. “The people’s hearts are made of steel, but the Law is a forge.” If I’m guilty, there goes my head. Another breeze rose up, rusding the leaves of the poplars and carrying the brays of a distant mule, which chilled the nape of his neck. He forced himself to stop thinking about what might happen.
A woman carrying a bundle stumbled up to the compound gate, where she argued with a young man who wouldn’t let her pass. Failing to force her way past him, she took the long way around the poplar grove. Gao Yang watched her approach. It was Jinju, so heavy with child she could barely walk. She was weeping. The bundle in her hands was large and round, the exact shape and size of a human head. But when she got closer, he saw it was only a melon. Not having the heart to look her in the eye, he sighed and lowered his head. Compared with poor Jinju, he had no complaints. People ought to count their blessings.
“Mother… Mother…” Jinju was so close he could all but touch her. “Mother… dear Mother… what’s wrong?”
I’m not crying, Gao Yang reminded himself, I am not crying, I’m not
Jinju fell to her knees besides Fourth Aunt and cupped the old lady’s gray, grimy head. She was sobbing and mumbling like an old woman.
Gao Yang sniffled, closed his eyes, and strained to listen to the shouts of farmers calling their livestock out in the fields. The modulated, rhythmic braying of that mule fell upon his ears. It was the sound he feared most of all, so he looked back at Jinju and Fourth Aunt. The soft orange rays of the sun lit up Fourth Aunt’s face framed in Jinju’s hands.
“Mother… it’s all my fault… Mother… wake up…”
Fourth Aunt’s lids rose slowly, but the whites of her eyes barely showed before the lids closed again, squeezing out a couple of sallow tears, which slid down her cheeks.
Gao Yang watched Fourth Aunt’s white, prickly tongue emerge to lick Jinju’s forehead, like a bitch bathing her pup or a cow cleaning its calf. At first the sight disgusted him, but he reminded himself that she wouldn’t be doing that if her hands were free.
Jinju took the melon out of her bundle, cracked it open with a well-placed thump, then scooped out some reddish pulp and placed it between the lips of Fourth Aunt, who began blubbering like a baby.
Gao Yang’s attention was riveted on the melon, the sight of which twisted his guts into knots. Anger rose in him. What about me? he agonized. There’s enough to go around.
The horse-faced young man, who had stopped heaving (Gao Yang was too busy watching Jinju to notice), had slid down the trunk that held him captive, until he was sitting in a heap at the base of the tree, his head jerking and his body slumping forward. He seemed to be bowing.
Mother and daughter wailed, obviously revived by the melon they had devoured. This Gao Yang assumed, and he was shocked to see that they hadn’t finished even a single wedge. Jinju was cradling her mother’s head in her arms and crying so piteously that her entire body shook.
“Dear Jinju… my poor baby,” wept Fourth Aunt. “I shouldn’t have hit you… I won’t stand in your way anymore… Go find Gao Ma… live happily together.
Trucks, so loaded down with furniture that they nearly bottomed out, sputtered unsteadily toward them. The police, having finished their meal, emerged in a chatty mood, and when Gao Yang heard their approaching footsteps, his fear returned. A truck creaked and groaned as it drove by, the last slanting rays of sun reflecting sharply off its windshield, behind which sat a red-faced driver.
What happened next Gao Yang would never be able to forget. The roadway was narrow, and the driver probably had a bit too much to drink. Fate would have been kinder to the horse-faced young man if he hadn’t had such an elongated head, but a triangular pice of metal jutting out from the heavily loaded vehicle caught him on the forehead and opened up an ugly gash, which showed white for an instant before gushing inky blood. A gasp escaped from his mouth as he slumped further forward; yet even with its extraordinary length, his head stopped short of the ground, since his arms were still held fast around the tree. His blood splattered on the hard-baked roadway in front of him.
The police froze in their tracks.
Old Zheng broke the silence by cursing the red-faced driver with heated fury: “You simple, motherfucking bastard!”
The stammering policeman quickly stripped off his tunic and wrapped it around the young man’s head.
CHAPTER 4
Garlic in the black earth, ginger in sandy soil,
Willow branches for baskets, wax reeds for creek,
Green garlic and white garlic to fry fish and meat,
Black garlic and rotteti garlic to make a compost heap….