For generations, people have spoken of all the Tatars, they with the light-brown hair and beards, who are buried in Tatar Cemetery; this fact, it goes without saying, is not unrelated to murder. Apparently, back then, people baked great big dough figurines in which they hid weapons so sharp they glittered, although most were less than imposing: daggers, even women's scissors. The people 'were ruled by a truly benighted government, which decreed that in the name of security, only one kitchen knife was allowed for each ten families. The people were not happy. (If you history buffs ponder for a moment, you will recall the one regime that instituted that particular measure: the Yuan dynasty of the Mongols; that narrows the time frame for this part of my story.) So the people baked dough figurines in which they hid their weapons; as a result, many unfortunate men whose beards were not dark enough paid the price. The slaughtered Tatars were then tossed helter-skelter into a pit, like so many pigs or dogs. This is one of Fritter Hollow's tales of murder.
If there is a kernel of doubt anywhere, it is why in the year 1981, people suddenly decided to go to Tatar Cemetery and dig up the remains, then sell pile after pile of bleached bones to the county pharmacy. Small Stuff Wu, who was still alive at the time, dug up a leg bone bigger than anyone had seen before, and people wondered how their ancestors could have been so much larger than they. Had their forefathers passed on defective genes? But then somebody informed the others that it wasn't a human bone at all; strangers in spectacles came, then concluded their investigation, announcing that these were dragon bones.
That being the case, Fritter Hollow did not have a history of murder after all.
Good! Now I feel free to relate a murder that
did
happen.
Another Tale of Murder
Most murder stories are set in the dark of night. On the twenty-eighth of March 1986, light snowflakes fell on Fritter Hollow. Local men usually settled down with a bottle on such nights, which was just fine with their womenfolk, since that meant two things: the men would stay home and, after the lamps were put out, would perform much better than usual. Fritter Hollow's birthrate during this period outstripped that of all the neighboring communities; the women stretched their midriffs to the bursting point, and the babies just kept coming. Official investigators concluded that alcohol had increased the local men's vigor, and not until much later did they admit that alcohol was not the culprit. The high birthrate was a result of nonelectrification. Precious Li of the Family Planning Commission and Talented Wu once had a discussion that would be quoted often afterward:
"How the fuck can you people have so many babies?" Precious Li asked, his face dark.
"What do you expect people to do at night when there's no electricity?" Talented Wu was smiling.
This brief exchange was reported to the higher-ups, who received it with such hilarity that the chairman of the meeting had to call for order.
It was on the night when light snowflakes fell that Talented Wu and his sons, Golden Oil and Silver Oil, forced their way into Wheatie Liu's yard. Talented Wu carried a knife that sent sheep to their maker on New Year's; Golden Oil brought a hammer with a redwood handle; and Silver Oil came armed with a spade. As they neared Wheatie Liu's gate, Golden Oil snatched the knife out of his father's hand. "I'm younger than you," he said; "I should have the knife. Nothing scares me, certainly not that motherfucker!"
Simply put, the gate wasn't bolted. When Talented Wu and his sons entered the yard, they spotted Wheatie Liu and his wife laughing loudly in the pigpen off to the left, where their sow was delivering a litter of piglets. Golden Oil leaped into the pigpen, knife in hand, and attacked Wheatie Liu, who didn't even have time to stand up. Instinctively, he raised his right arm to protect his head. The arm quickly sustained seven cuts, so he raised his left arm over his head; that arm sustained five. Silver Oil, meanwhile, raised his spade over Wheatie Liu's wife. "Don't harm my wet nurse!" Golden Oil shouted. Silver Oil lowered his arm. As a baby, Golden Oil had suckled at Wheatie Liu's wife's breast. At that moment, Wheatie Liu's daughter, Maple Leaf, heard the commotion in the yard and came charging into the pigpen. Having been in the middle of making bean dough at the time, her arms were covered with bean powder to the elbows. Seeing what was happening, she shrieked and turned to run. Talented Wu, the murderer, sneaked up behind her and attacked with his hammer. Another shriek- from pain this time-and Maple Leaf was writhing on the ground.
Golden Oil resumed the attack on Wheatie Liu, whose arms were torn and bleeding, turning his fury on the buttocks, which sustained five cuts. Then came the pigs: the sow suffered nine cuts; each member of her litter suffered one. The sky resounded with screams-human and porcine; the ground ran red with the blood of people and swine. Right about then, someone vaulted into the pigpen and reached down for Maple Leaf, who was still writhing in the muck; he wondered what that thing swinging back and forth across her cheek was. Once he had her in the house, he held her up to the lamp, where he discovered it was her eyeball.
"Cram it back in!" the old devil Kiddie Wu urged the people crowding round, but how in the world were they to do that?
Back in the pigpen, Wheatie Liu's wife had soiled herself; she could neither stand nor speak, and as she sat amid the muck and blood, she heard the shouts of someone running around the yard in a panic: "The former village chief has killed the current one!"
Wheatie Liu
Wheatie Liu had an older brother named Millet; his younger brothers were Rice and Beans. Most place and personal names in Fritter Hollow have something to do with food. If, for instance, someone is called Hundred Cereals, pretty soon there'll be someone named Thousand Cereals, then Ten Thousand Cereals; since the people of Fritter Hollow have no concept of million, the next in the series will be Heavenly Cereals, reaching the apex-until, that is, a rival family has a newborn baby whom they promptly name Gobble Cereals! Heavenly Cereals' family accepts the challenge, and the battle is engaged-fisticuffs, brandishing lit torches, and the like; few ever go so far as to pick up a knife and actually commit murder, as Talented Wu did.
Wheatie Liu was so fit that Talented Wu's attacks did not prove fatal, surprising no one. He even continued as village chief. No problem. Or hardly any. For three days after the death of Talented Wu, Wheatie Liu fell seriously ill. He'd never been sick a day in his life prior to 1992, as nearly as anyone could recall-not even a headache or a high fever. What could this mean?
Matters Relating to Wheatie Liu
Like most villages, Fritter Hollow boasted a school, which was located in a local temple, whose clay idols, painted or not, had long since disappeared. The school was charged with teaching the local tots how to read some basic words, such as
attend school
and
finish school, cow
and
sheep, boy
and
girl
; how to write New Year's couplets, like "The earth is our mother" and "Nature rewards hard work"; and how to make banners for house-raisings that say RAISE THE ROOF BEAM FOR ETERNAL GOOD FORTUNE. There was a time when everyone had to know how to write "Fight selfishness, repudiate revisionism" and "Serve the people," but no one studied those things anymore.
Besides the school, Fritter Hollow had a country store, also like all villages, which had once been called a purchasing co-op; but now that name had fallen out of favor, and it was simply called the country store. Behind the country store, which was situated neither too far east nor too far south, stood a scrawny old tree of medium height, covered by fat red wriggling caterpillars known as hairy worms; actually, the name doesn't fit since they never grow real hair. Some people cook them over an open fire and eat them. Like all country stores, this one boasted a counter, some wooden shelves for stock, and blackened vats filled with soy sauce and vinegar. The shelves were lined with colorful canned goods and narrow-necked liquor bottles; ready-to-eat snacks and simple cotton goods were available plus, of course, hard candies. In the past, none of this stuff would have sold, but the coal mines changed that, and now it nearly flew out the door.
Every country store must have a proprietor; Fritter Hollow's proprietor had a scar on his neck, so everyone called him Scarface; a bit wide of the mark, perhaps, but Scarneck sounded funny, so Scarface it was. A man of thirty-five, Scarface was unusually fat. When there were no customers, he could normally be found sleeping atop the store counter. But on this particular day, he was running around busily, taking care of a steady stream of customers, until finally he asked one of them what was going on and learned that Wheatie Liu had fallen ill.
The first to buy canned goods and snacks to take along when calling on Wheatie Liu were men from the mines. They drifted in, made their purchases, and drifted out. Then came the villagers, who also drifted in, made their purchases, and drifted out. They came, and they came, and by nightfall the shelves were empty.
Broad Bean, the final customer of the day, was carrying a flashlight.
"Why so damned late? I've got nothing to sell," Scarface said.
"Who all's going?" Broad Bean could have kicked himself for being so late and letting the others buy up everything.
"People these days are all fucked up," Scarface blurted out. "Smell that," he continued, sniffing the air. "The guy's been dead for days now, and nobody's doing anything about it."
"Why don't you bring it up with Wheatie Liu?" Broad Bean said, flashing his light back and forth across Scarface's face. Back and forth, then straight in his eyes, then back and forth again. "Got the nerve?" Broad Bean asked.
A Conversation of Sorts
In twenty or thirty years' time, when members of the next generation of Fritter Hollow's inhabitants look back on their glorious history, they may well talk about the time Wheatie Liu took ill and received 500 gifts of canned food. If that's all they say, of course, the word
history
is being ill served, so I must break in with a more revealing look at what happened that time Wheatie Liu took ill.
A conversation was recorded between Broad Bean and Wheatie Liu as the latter sat on his own kang, leaning up against a colorful backrest; the sides of the brick bed were decorated with depictions of colorful pomegranates, peonies, plum blossoms, watermelons, rabbits, bananas, pears, peanuts, apricots, and of course, magpies and goldfish.
Wheatie Liu had been enjoying a leisurely smoke when Broad Bean entered; the table, the kang, and the windowsill were all but covered with canned goods and packaged treats brought by well-wishers. It was a lovely sight, but to Broad Bean the real significance was the number of visitors it represented.
"Are you sick?" Broad Bean walked up and observed Wheatie Liu, who just smiled.
Here we must be reminded that Broad Bean's full name was
Broad Bean Tian and that Wheatie Liu's wife's name was Bean Sprout Tian, which tells you all you need to know about the relationship between Wheatie Liu and Broad Bean.
"Me, sick? No fucking way!" Wheatie Liu scooted up next to Broad Bean and whispered, "I just wanted to see if people would treat my death as meaningless, like they did with that other guy."
"How could anybody compare that murderer to you?" Broad Bean stared wide-eyed.
"What about that murderer?"
"Well, maggots are starting to wriggle into his yard," Broad Bean said with a shudder.
"It's still not time." Wheatie Liu smiled again. "Let him stink," he continued as he looked at the red scars on his arms.
Broad Bean held his tongue and studied his fingernails, first the left hand, then the right.
"Count them, see how many there are." Wheatie Liu, his eyes mere slits from the broad grin, pointed to the colorful array of canned goods. "See for yourself. I told people not to come, but they came anyway, didn't they?"
Broad Bean started counting, from the table all the way to the windowsill. "Three hundred and twenty-seven," he said.
"Now count the ones inside."
Surprised that there were more in the other room, Broad Bean froze for a moment before going in to see for himself. "A hundred and seventy-three," he said as he reentered the room.
"Go tell Scarface I want to see him," Wheatie Liu said. "It's business." He tossed a cigarette to Broad Bean.
That's as far as I need to go with this conversation. While I can't comment on its broader significance, on the surface at least we have learned that Wheatie Liu wasn't sick at all; and that is the beginning of yet another story. I've thought about whether I ought to see where this story takes us. I could, for example, say:
Fritter Hollow once had a village chief named Wheatie Liu, an upright, fair-minded, and handsome individual. One day, he took ill and was visited by a steady stream of well-wishers, young and old, male and female, all bearing gifts of canned food and prepared snacks, nearly wearing out his threshold. They wished him a speedy recovery. Fritter Hollow's accountant, Broad Bean Tian, dropped by, discovering to his surprise that Wheatie Liu wasn't really sick at all. This gave rise to an intricate tale. Listen up, for this is what happened…
A pretty common opening, if you ask me. What do you think? I realize that my readers are concerned about why Wheatie Liu would feign illness following the death of Talented Wu. So here goes.
Yet Another Conversation
In Fritter Hollow, July is the best month to eat corn. On one particular night, Broad Bean's wife, Jade Beauty Wu, sweat oozing from every pore in her body, was boiling a pot of corn. Broad Bean was eating fragrant kernels right off a cob, using both hands. As he munched away, he told his wife to light a coil of mosquito incense. She walked over to the kang and lit one. "That guy pocketed seven or eight hundred just by getting sick," she muttered for the umpteenth time. His patience long since worn thin, Broad Bean reached out and poked her a couple of times on one of those fleshy spots of hers. "Fuck you!" he said.