Seventh Aunt yawned grandly.
‘Hallucinating,’ she said.
‘I saw them clear as day!’
Big Man Liu said, 'When I went down to the river to fetch water this afternoon, I did see the Head of the Women’s League and two old ladies washing legs of lamb.’
‘You’re hallucinating, too,’ Seventh Aunt said.
‘I really did!’
‘Really, my ass!’ Seventh Aunt said. ‘I think you’re crazed with hunger.’
The young stove repairman tried to make peace:
‘Stop arguing, I’ll go take a look. You know, investigate.’
‘Are you crazy?’ Seventh Aunt said. ‘Do you believe in hallucinations?’
The little stove repairman said:
‘You folks wait, I’ll run out there and run right back.’
‘Be careful they don’t catch you and beat you up,’ Seventh Uncle cautioned him.
The little stove repairman was already out the door. A gust of cold wind blew in, nearly snuffing out the lamp.
The stove repairman came rushing back in, gasping for air. A gust of cold wind nearly snuffed out the lamp. He gazed at me with the look of a simpleton, as if he’d seen a ghost. Seventh Aunt asked with a sarcastic grin:
‘What did you see?’
The stove repairman turned and said:
‘Fantastic, fantastic, Little Fish is an immortal, he can see everything.’
The stove repairman said that everything was exactly as I had described it. The banquet had taken place at the Branch Secretary’s house. He’d climbed the low wall to see.
Seventh Aunt said:
‘I don’t believe it.’
The little stove repairman went outside to get a frozen sheep’s head, which he held up to show Seventh Aunt. One look stopped Seventh Aunt’s hiccups.
That night we busied ourselves with cleaning the sheep’s head before tossing it into the pot. Our thoughts were on liquor as the sheep’s head stewed. Seventh Aunt was the one who came up with the idea: Drink ethyl alcohol
Seventh Uncle, a veterinarian, had a bottle of alcohol he used as a disinfectant. Needless to say, we diluted it with water.
Thus began an arduous tempering process.
People who grow up on industrial alcohol will shy away from no alcoholic drinks.
Sad to say, the little stove repairman and Seventh Uncle went blind.
He raised his arm to look at his wristwatch. Dear students, he said, that’s the end of today’s lecture.
Chapter Two
I
The Mine Director and Party Secretary stood facing him; they were holding their left arms bent across their chests, their right arms thrust out, palms straight, like a pair of professional traffic policemen. Their faces were so alarmingly alike they seemed to serve as one another’s mirror. Between them lay a path, about a meter wide and covered with a scarlet carpet, which intersected with a floodlit corridor. Ding Gou’er’s heroic mettle vanished in the face of this genuine show of courtesy, and as he cowered near the two dignitaries, he did not know if he should step forward. Their cordial looks were like redolent grease assailing his nostrils, getting thicker by the moment and not lessened or diluted by Ding Gou’er’s hesitancy. The gods never speak – how true that is. But while the men didn’t speak, their bearing was more infectious and more powerful than the sweetest, most honeyed words ever spoken, and they left you powerless to resist. Partly because he felt he had to, and partly because he was so grateful, Ding Gou’er stepped in front of the Mine Director and Party Secretary, who immediately fell in behind him, the three men forming a triangle. The corridor seemed endless. This baffled Ding Gou’er, for he clearly recalled the layout of the place: Only a dozen or so rooms occupied the space enclosed by sunflowers, too few to accommodate a corridor this long. Every three paces a pair of red lamps shaped like torches hung on facing walls covered with milky white wallpaper. The brass hands holding the torches were shiny bright and remarkably lifelike, as if protruding through the walls themselves. With growing trepidation he imagined two lines of bronze men standing on the other side; walking down the red-carpeted corridor was like marching between a phalanx of armed guards. I’ve become a prisoner, and the Party Secretary and Mine Director are my military escort. Ding Gou’er’s heart skipped a beat as cracks opened in his brain to let in a few threads of cool reason. He reminded himself of the importance of his mission, his sacred duty. Playing house with a young female hadn’t prevented him from carrying out this sacred duty, but drinking might. He stopped, turned, and said:
I’m here to conduct an investigation, not drink your liquor.’
There was more than a hint of inhospitability in his voice. The Mine Director and Party Secretary exchanged looks that were exactly alike; without a trace of irritation, they said with the same warmth and friendliness they had displayed from the beginning:
‘We know, we know, we’re not asking you to drink.’
Poor Ding Gou’er still couldn’t tell which of the two men was the Party Secretary and which was the Mine Director; but, afraid he might offend them by asking, he decided to keep muddling along, particularly since the two men were the spitting image of each other, as were the official positions of Party Secretary and Mine Director.
‘After you, please. Whether you drink or not doesn’t alter the fact that you have to eat.’
So Ding Gou’er kept walking, thoroughly annoyed with the triangular formation of one in front and two in the rear, as if the corridor led not to a banquet but to a courtroom. He tried slowing down so they could walk in a straight line. Fat chance! Every time he hung back, they kept pace, maintaining the integrity of the triangle and leaving him always in the position of the one under escort.
The corridor veered abruptly and the red carpet began sloping downward; the torches were brighter than ever, the hands holding them more menacing, as if they were truly alive. A flurry of alarming thoughts flickered in his head, like golden flies, to which he reacted by instinctively clasping his briefcase even more tightly under his arm, until that lump of cold, hard steel rubbed against his ribs to calm him a bit. Two seconds was all it would take to point the black muzzle at the men’s chests, even if that sent him straight to Hell or right to his grave.
By now, he knew, they were well underground; even though the torches and red carpet were as bright and colorful as ever, still, he felt chilled, chilled but not actually cold.
An attendant with bright eyes and sparkling teeth, in a scarlet uniform and a fore-and-aft cap, was waiting for them at the end of the corridor. Her welcoming smile, mastered through long experience, and the heavy aroma of her hair had the desired calming effect on Ding Gou’er’s nerves. Fighting back the urge to kiss her hair, he conducted a silent self-criticism and self-exoneration. The girl opened a door with a shiny stainless-steel doorknob. At last the triangle disintegrated, and Ding Gou’er breathed a sigh of relief.
A luxurious dining room appeared before them. The colors and lights were soft enough to evoke thoughts of love and happiness, or would have if not for the faint wisps of a very strange odor. Ding Gou’er’s eyes lit up as he drank in the room’s decor: from cream-colored sofas to beige curtains, from a spotless white ceiling with floral etchings to a spotless white tablecloth. The light fixtures were exquisite and delicate, like a string of fine pearls; the floor had a mirrorlike finish, obviously recently waxed. As he was sizing up the room, the Party Secretary and Mine Director were sizing him up, unaware that he was trying to locate the source of that strange odor.
The circular table had three tiers. The first was devoted to squat glasses of beer, long-stemmed glasses of grape wine, and even longer-stemmed glasses of strong colorless liquor, plus ceramic teacups with lids, sheathed imitation-ivory chopsticks, a variety of white ceramic plates, stainless-steel utensils, China-brand cigarettes, wooden matches with bright red heads in specially designed boxes, and fake crystal ashtrays in the shape of peacock tails. Eight plates of cold cuts adorned the second tier: shredded eggs and rice noodles with dried shrimp, hot and spicy beef strips, curried cauliflower, sliced cucumbers, ducks’ feet, sugared lotus root, celery hearts, and deep-fried scorpions. As a man of the world, Ding Gou’er saw nothing special in them. The third tier was occupied only by a potted cactus covered with thorns. Just the sight of it made Ding Gou’er squirm. Why not a vase of fresh flowers? he wondered.