Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh (11 page)

He walked over to look at the foxes beneath an oak tree. Bottleneck flies were already swarming over them. Always afraid of flies, he backed off. Sap flowing from a pine tree gave off a fragrant odor. Bears were sleeping inside the hollows of trees; wolves were nursing their strength in rocky lairs. Granddad knew that he should return to his mountain cave, but he was drawn to the comforting sound of ocean waves and defied his own pattern of staying hidden in the day and going out only at night. Boldly — he was never afraid — he walked toward the sound of the waves.

The ocean sounded very near, but was actually some distance away. Granddad passed through the forest, as long and narrow as the valley, and climbed a gently sloping ridge where the trees gradually began to thin out. The ground was dotted with stumps of felled trees. He knew this ridge well, even though until today he had only seen it at night. The colors were different, and so were the smells. Amid the wooded areas were spots where anemic stalks of corn and mung beans had been planted. Granddad squatted down between two rows and ate a few green mung beans, which left a grainy residue on his tongue. He felt serene and unhurried, like a peasant with no concerns. It was a mood he'd experienced only a few times during his fourteen years on the mountain. The time he'd extracted salt from the inlet with his aluminum teapot was one of those. The time he'd stuffed himself with potatoes was another. Each had been a special situation, memorable in its own way.

After eating the mung beans, he walked the last few hundred meters to the top of the ridge, where he looked at the blue waters of the ocean that had drawn him to this spot and at the gray village below the ridge. The seaside was quiet; an old-looking man was turning over the strips of seaweed that lay drying in the sun. The village began to stir, starting with the sound of cattle cries. This was the first time he'd approached the village in the light of day, and he had an unobstructed view of what a Japanese village really looked like. Aside from the unusual style of the buildings, it was strikingly similar to farming villages in Northeast Gaomi Township. The odd bark of a sick, feeble dog warned him that he mustn't brave going any closer. If he were spotted in the daylight, escape would be difficult, if not impossible. So he hid behind some brambles and watched the village and the ocean for a while. Growing bored, he headed back in a relaxed mood. But then he was reminded of the cleaver and scissors he'd lost in the valley, and panic set in. Without those little treasures, just getting by would be nearly impossible. He quickened his step.

On the ridge he saw a cornfield where the stalks were rustling in wind that sounded very near. He squatted down and hid behind a tree. The field was no larger than a few acres, and the thin, stumpy ears of corn did not look healthy, apparently deprived of both fertilizer and water. Drifting back in time, he detected the smell of burning mugwort. Mosquitoes were buzzing around the edges of the smoke; a cricket in a pear tree chirped shrilly; in the darkness a horse was eating bran mixed with hay; an owl in a graveyard cypress hooted sorrowfully; and the deep, thick night was drenched with dew. Someone coughed in the cornfield. It was a woman. Granddad was startled out of his reveries, excited and afraid.

People were what he feared the most, and also what he missed the most.

In the grip of excitement and fear, he held his breath and focused his eyes, wanting to have a look at the woman in the cornfield. She'd only coughed once, lightly, but he could tell it was a woman. His hearing sharpened and he smelled the scent of a Japanese woman.

She finally appeared in the cornfield. Her face was ashen, her large, single-fold eyes gloomy. She had a thin nose and a small, delicate mouth. Granddad felt no malice toward her. She removed her tattered scarf to reveal uncombed brown hair. She was obviously undernourished, just like starving women in China. Granddad's fear was quietly replaced by a sort of pity wholly inappropriate to the situation. She set a basket of corn on the ground and wiped her sweaty brow with her scarf, streaking her ashen face.

She wore a loose, bulky, badly faded yellow jacket, which gave rise to wicked thoughts in Granddad. Thin autumn breezes blew. From the forest came the monotonous tapping of a woodpecker. Behind him the ocean was panting. Granddad heard her mutter something in a low, hoarse voice. Like most Japanese women, her neck and chest were white. Brazenly, she unbuttoned her clothing to allow in the breeze, observed fixedly by Granddad. He saw from her swollen breasts that she was a nursing mother. When Douguan squirmed as he hung at Grandma's breast, she had spanked his round bottom. Now the spare, stalwart Douguan was sitting high on the back of his steed, holding the reins loosely as he galloped past Tiananmen Gate. The clatter of the horse's iron shoes rang out on the stone-paved avenue, as he and his companions shouted slogans that rocked heaven and earth. He wanted to turn to look at the men standing atop the wall, but strict discipline kept him from doing so. All he could do was catch a glimpse of the great men standing beneath the red lanterns out of the corner of his eye.

She had no reason to cover herself on that bleak, deserted mountain ridge as she urinated. The entire process was aimed straight at Granddad, who felt his blood surge; his wounds throbbed painfully. He stood up in a crouch, mindless of the noise his arms made as they bumped into branches of the tree.

The woman's lackluster gaze suddenly focused, and Granddad watched her mouth open wide. A cry of apparent terror tore from her mouth. Off balance, yet with lightning speed, Granddad rushed toward the woman. How frightening he must have looked.

Not long afterward, he would see his reflection in the clear water of the stream, and realize why the Japanese woman had crumpled like a rag doll there in the cornfield.

Granddad laid her down, her body yielding to his positioning. Ripping open her blouse, he saw her heart pounding wildly beneath her breasts. The woman was skin and bones, her body sticky with sweat and filth.

Granddad tore at her, spewing words of foul revenge, one string after another, echoing in his ears: Japan! Little Japanese! Jap bastards! You raped and killed my women, bayoneted my daughter, enslaved my people, slaughtered my troops, trampled on my countrymen, and burned down our houses. The blood debt between us is as great as the ocean. Ha ha. Today your woman has fallen into my hands!

Hatred turned his eyes blood red. His teeth itched. An evil flame hardened him like steel. He slapped her. He tore at her hair and squeezed her breasts. He dug his fingers into her flesh. She trembled and moaned, as if talking in her sleep.

Granddad's voice continued to roar in his ears, spewing filth: Why don't you fight? I'm going to rape you, kill you! I'm going to fuck you to death! An eye for an eye! Are you dead? Even if you are, I won't let go of you!

He ripped off her lower garments, the tattered cloth tearing easily, like cardboard. Granddad told me that when her lower garments fell, the hot blood that had been surging through his body abruptly turned cold, and his body, hard as rifle steel, suddenly went limp, like a rooster that's lost a cockfight, hanging its head in defeat, its feathers torn and ragged.

Granddad said he saw a black patch sewn in the crotch of her red underwear, and lost heart.

Granddad, how could a hardened son of China like you be afraid of a patch? Did it violate some taboo of your Iron Society?

My grandson, it wasn't a patch that your granddad feared!

Granddad said that seeing the black patch on the crotch of the woman's red underpants was like being hit in the head with a club.

The Japanese woman became an icy corpse. The field of fiery red sorghum from twenty-five years earlier once again surged before him, like a galloping horse. It muddled his vision and flooded his mind. Desolate music resounded deep in his soul, each note a hammer pounding against his heart, and in that sea of blood, in that fiery oven, on that holy sacrificial altar, was Grandma, laid out face-up like a lovely piece of jade, the body of a sweet young girl. Her clothing too had been ripped open to expose the same sort of red underwear, with a similar black patch over the crotch. That time Granddad had not turned limp and weak, and that black patch had become a symbol that was burned into his memory, never to disappear. His tears flowed down to the corners of his mouth, where he tasted a mixture of sweetness and bitterness.

Granddad roughly straightened the woman's clothes with his weary hands. The bruises on her body brought him deep remorse. Staggering to his feet, he started to walk away. His legs were sore and numb. The hot, swollen wound on his neck throbbed, as if engorged with pus. The trees and the mountain peak before him were transformed into a dazzling crimson. Way up high, in the upper reaches of heaven, there in the clouds, Grandma, her chest riddled with bullets, fell slowly into Granddad's outstretched arms. When all her blood had flowed out, her body became as light as a beautiful red butterfly. Cupping her in his hands, he walked ahead, down a path opened amid the supple stalks of sorghum. Light from the path streaked skyward; light from the heavens streamed down, fusing heaven and earth. He was standing on the tall embankment of the Black Water River, where yellow weeds grew and white flowers bloomed. The water, the brilliant color of blood, congealed into oil, so bright it was a mirror that reflected the blue sky and white clouds, the dove and the goshawk. Granddad fell headlong into the cornfield on the Japanese mountain ridge; it was like falling into a sorghum field in his homeland.

Granddad never actually had intercourse with that woman, so the furry baby described in Japanese historical materials, the one she eventually bore, is not related to him. But even having a young uncle who is half Japanese and has a body covered with hair would be no disgrace to our family, and could, in fact, be considered our glory. One must honor the truth.

Soaring

A
FTER PAYING RESPECTS TO HEAVEN AND EARTH, HONG
Xi,
A BIG
, swarthy man, could not contain his excitement. His bride's veiled face was hidden from him, but her long, shapely arms and willowy waist revealed that she was more beautiful than most girls in Northern Jiaozhou Township. Forty years old, and badly pockmarked, Hong Xi was one of Northeast Gaomi Township's most prominent bachelors. His aging mother had recently arranged for him to marry Yanyan in exchange for his sister, Yanghua, one of Northeast Gaomi's true beauties, who was to marry Yanyan's elder brother, a mute. Deeply touched by his sister's sacrifice, Hong Xi thought about her bearing children for the mute, and amid his confused emotions was born a hostility toward his new bride. Mute, if you mess up my little sister, I'll take it out on yours.

It was noon when Hong Xi's new wife entered the bridal chamber. A cluster of prankish children had poked holes in the pink paper window covering to gawk at the bride as she sat on the edge of the brick bed. A neighbor woman patted Hong Xi on the shoulder and giggled, “Pocky, you're a lucky man! That's a tender little lotus bud you've got, so handle it gently.”

Hong Xi fidgeted with his trousers and snickered. The marks on his face glowed red.

The sun hung motionless in the sky, as Hong Xi paced back and forth in the yard, waiting for night to fall. His mother hobbled up with her cane and said, “Xi, there's something about my new daughter-in-law that bothers me. Be careful she doesn't run off.”

“Don't worry, Mother. With Yanghua over there, this one's not going anywhere. They're like locusts tied together with a string. One can't get away without the other.”

While mother and son were talking, the new daughter-in-law walked out into the yard accompanied by two bridesmaids. Hong Xi's mother muttered disapprovingly, “Whoever heard of a bride getting up off the bed before dark to relieve herself? That just shows the marriage won't last. I think she's up to something.”

But Hong Xi was too taken with his wife's beauty to share his mother's concern. She had a long face, fine eyebrows, a high nose, and slanted eyes like those of a phoenix. But when she spotted Hong Xi's face, she stopped in her tracks and, after a long quiet moment, let out a screech and took off running. The bridesmaids reached out to grab her by the arms, and
rip
, tore her red gown to reveal the snowy white skin of her arms, her slender neck, and the front of the red camisole she wore underneath.

Hong Xi was stunned. Rapping him on the head with her cane, his mother shouted, “Go after her, you fool!”

That snapped him out of it, and he staggered after her.

Yanyan flew down the street, trailing her loosened hair like the tail of a bird.

“Stop her!” Hong Xi shouted. “Stop her!”

His shouts brought villagers swarming out of their houses into the street and drew frantic barks from a dozen or more big, ferocious dogs.

Yanyan turned down a lane and headed south into the field, where wheat stalks bent in the wind, their flowered tips dipping like waves in an ocean of green. Yanyan crashed through the waist-high waves of wheat, their green contrasting with her red camisole and milky white arms, a lovely painting in motion.

A bride fleeing from her wedding disgraced all of Northeast Gaomi Township. So the village men took up the chase with a vengeance, coming at her from all sides. The dogs, too, which leaped and bounded in the waves of green.

As the human net closed in, Yanyan dove headfirst into the waves of wheat.

Hong Xi breathed a sigh of relief. The pursuers slowed down, breathing heavily; grasping hands, they moved with great care, like fishermen tightening a net.

As anger gripped his heart, all Hong Xi could think about was the beating he'd give her once she was in his grasp.

All of a sudden, a beam of red light rose above the wheat field, startling and confusing the mob below, who fell to the ground. Then they spotted Yanyan, her hands flapping in the air, her legs held together like a gorgeous butterfly, as she rose gracefully out of the encirclement.

The people froze like clay statues, gaping as she flapped her arms and hovered above them, then began to fly, slowly enough for them to keep stepping on her shadow if they ran after her. She was only six or seven meters above their heads, but, oh, so graceful, so lovely. Just about every oddity you could think of had occurred in Northeast Gaomi Township, but this was the first time a woman had taken to the sky.