The Garlic Ballads (25 page)

“Uncle …” Gao Yang clasped his hands, lowered his head, and bowed at the waist. “Uncle … cant you just let me go?”

“Get moving. Doing what you’re told is your only chance of staying out of trouble,” Gao Jinglong said.

A beefy man walked up and prodded him with his rifle butt. “Get moving, my boy.”

Gao Yang turned to the man. “Anping, we’re like brothers.

Anping prodded him again. “I said get going. The ugly bride has to meet her in-laws sooner or later.”

A table had been set up in the brigade office. Secretary Huang sat behind it smoking a cigarette. The glaring red of posters and slogans papering the walls terrified Gao Yang. His teeth chattered as he stood in front of the table.

Secretary Huang smiled genially. “Gao Yang, you’ve sure got nerve.”

“Master … I …” His legs buckled, and he was on his knees.

“Get up!” Secretary Huang demanded. “Who’s your master?”

“Get your ass up!” ordered the police chief, who kicked him.

He stood up.

“Are you aware of the regulation to send all bodies to the crematorium?”

“Yes.”

“Then you knowingly broke the law?”

“Secretary Huang,” Gao Yang defended himself, “it was pouring out there. … I live so far from town, and can’t afford the cremation fee @ or an urn for the ashes. I figured I’d have to bury them when I got home, anyway. That takes up space in the field, too.”

“Well, aren t you a paragon of reason!” Secretary Huang said sarcastically. “The Communist Party is no match for you.”

“No, Secretary Huang. What I meant was—”

“I don’t want to hear another word from you!” Secretary Huang banged the table and jumped to his feet. “Go dig up your mother and take her straight to the crematorium.”

“Secretary Huang, I beg you, please dont…” He was back on his knees, crying and pleading. “My mother suffered her whole life. Death was a release for her. Now that she’s in the ground, let her lie there in peace—”

Secretary Huang cut him off. “Gao Yang, you d better straighten out your thinking! Your mother enjoyed a life of leisure and luxury by exploiting others. It was only proper that she be reeducated and reformed through labor after Liberation. Now that she’s dead, cremation is just as proper. That’s what will happen to me when I die.”

“But Secretary Huang, she told me that before Liberation she wouldn’t even allow herself a single meal of stuffed dumplings, and that she’d get up before dawn, whether she’d had enough sleep or not, to earn money to buy land.”

“Are you asking to have the party’s verdict overturned?” an enraged Secretary Huang demanded. “Are you saying that land reform was a mistake?”

A rifle butt thudded into the back of Gao Yang’s head. Golden flowers danced before his eyes as he fell forward, his face banging the brick floor.

A militiaman jerked him to his feet by his hair so the police chief could smack him across both cheeks with a shiny wooden switch.
Crack! Crack!
—loud and crisp.

“Lock him up in the west wing,” the police chief said. “Dai Zijin, call an immediate meeting of the branch-committee members here in the office—use the PA system.”

Gao Yang was locked in an empty room in the west wing of the brigade headquarters, under the watchful eye of two armed militiamen sitting on a bench across from him. Thunder rolled outside, and the skies sent buckets of rain thudding into the leaves of parasol trees in the compound and onto the red-tiled roof in a deafening cadence.

The loudspeakers crackled for a moment, then sent forth the voice of Dai Zijin. Gao Yang knew the names released into the air.

“Gao Yang,” one of the militiamen said, “you re in big trouble this time.”

“Little Uncle,” replied Gao Yang, “I didn’t bury my mother on brigade land.”

“What you did with her body isn’t what this is all about.”

“What
is
it all about?” he asked fearfully.

“Aren t you trying to get the verdict on her reversed?”

“I only told the truth. Everybody knows that. My father was a famous skinflint who only cared about saving up money to buy land. He’d beat my mother if she bought an extra turnip.”

“You’re wasting your time telling me,” the militiaman said indifferently.

That evening, in spite of the heavy rainfall, a meeting of all brigade members was held, and although Gao Yang eventually forgot most of the particulars, he would always remember the sound of the rain and the shouted slogans, which continued without letup from early evening to late at night.

The following morning a squad of militiamen tied Gao Yang to a bench and placed four bricks strung together with hemp around his neck; it felt like a piece of garroting wire that would lop off his head if he so much as moved. Then in the afternoon the police chief tied his thumbs together with a piece of wire and strung him up from a steel overhead beam. He didn’t feel much pain, but the moment his feet left the ground, sweat seemed to squirt from every pore in his body.

“Now tell us, where’s the landlord’s wife buried?”

He shook his head, which swelled with images of a weed-covered plot of land and a swollen stream. The clumps of grass he had dug up and replanted had been soaking up rain all this time, until they must look as if they had never been moved. His footprints, too, would have been washed away by the rain; so long as he kept his mouth shut, Mother could rest in peace. He vowed never to reveal his secret, not if it cost him his life.

Not that his determination remained rock-solid the whole time: he screamed in agony when the police chief rammed a thorny branch several inches up his ass: “Uncle, spare me, please … I’ll take you there “

The bloody branch was removed and he was lowered from the steel beam. “Where’s she buried?”

He looked into the police chief’s dark face, then peeked down at his own body, and finally gazed out the window at the misty sky. “Mother,” he said, “wait for me, I’ll be there soon….” Lowering his head, he made a mad dash for the wall, but was restrained by two militiamen.

Indignation filled his heart. “Brothers,” he shouted hoarsely, “I—Gao Yang—have always done what’s right, ever since I was a little boy. There’s no bad blood between us, so why are you doing this to me?”

The police chief stopped hitting him, but then the traces of sympathy in his eyes were driven out by his stern response: “We’re talking about class struggle here!”

Since Gao Yang was to be detained that night, the militiamen carried two benches into the room. The plan was to sleep in turns, but before the night was very far gone, they were both snoring.

The window frame in the otherwise vacant room was made of wood, so if he wanted to run away, a well-placed kick would do the trick. But he neither felt like escaping nor had the leg strength to smash the window frame. The police chief’s branch had so swollen his rectum that he couldn’t pass the gas that was making his belly bulge and his guts swell. A kerosene lamp hung from the roof beam, its shade turned black by an accumulation of smoke that dimmed the light and cast a shadow the size of a millstone on the brick floor. When he looked at the two militiamen, clutching their rifles to their chests as they slept, fully dressed, he felt guilty for putting them to all this trouble. Once or twice he thought about snatching one of the rifles from its owner, smashing the window with the butt, and making his getaway into the yard. But it was a fleeting thought at most, replaced each time with a conviction that his punishment was simply the price he must pay to keep his mother from the flames of the crematorium. He’d just have to grit his teeth and bear whatever came along. Otherwise, she’d have suffered in vain.

The militiamen had slept like babies, but not him. Just like tonight—his cellmates were fast asleep, but he wasn’t the least bit drowsy after awaking from his nightmares.

Stars blazed beyond the barred window above parasol-tree leaves and roof tiles that found their voices under a light drizzle. But there was another sound, too, a distant roar that could only mean a floodtide in Following Stream to the south and Sandy River, north of the village. Inexplicably, he grew anxious for farmers in fields that would turn into swampland if the rivers overflowed their banks. Taller stalks might hold out for a few days, but the shorter ones were doomed.

He curled up in the corner, his back pressed against the damp wall. Someone darted past the window, and a small paper bundle landed at his feet. He picked it up, unwrapped it, and was treated to a wonderful smell. It was a fried onion roll—still warm—and he had to fight to keep from bawling like a baby. Taking care not to disturb the sleeping militiamen, he nibbled at the onion roll, carefully chewing and swallowing each tasty bite. He had never before realized how noisy people are when they eat; heaven looked after him, he thought, since he managed to finish the roll without waking his guards.

After finishing the onion roll, Gao Yang again felt that life was worth living. So he closed his eyes and slept for a couple of hours, until he had to piss. Then, neither daring nor caring to awaken the militiamen, he searched for a mouse hole in which he could quietly relieve himself. Unfortunately, the brigade buildings all had brick floors, and he couldn’t find even a good-sized crack, let alone a mouse hole. To his surprise he found an empty wine bottle, which served his purpose just fine. But he hadn’t figured on the noise—like tossing rocks into a canyon— and he held back as much as possible to keep from disturbing his guards. Froth spilled over the neck of the bottle long before it was full, so he stopped the flow to let it subside before continuing; he repeated the process—three times in all—until the bottle was brimming. Then, holding it by its neck, he placed it in the corner, where it caught the dim light of dawn just enough to highlight the label. Quickly realizing that the militiamen couldn’t miss it there, he moved it to another corner. Just as noticeable. So he put it on the windowsill. Even worse.

Just then one of them woke up. “What are you doing?”

His cheeks burned from embarrassment.

“Where’d you get that wine?”

“It’s not wine…. I … my …”

The militiaman laughed. “What a character!”

The police chief opened the door. When the guards told him about the wine bottle, he laughed.

“Go ahead, drink up,” the police chief said.

“Chief, I didn’t want to wake them up…. I wouldn’t have … I’ll dump it.” An embarrassed Gao Yang tried to talk and beg his way out of a bad situation.

“No need for that,” the smiling police chief said. “A man’s piss can clean the poisons out of his body. Go on, drink it.”

Suddenly exhilarated by a strangely wonderful emotion, he blurted out, “Uncle, it’s really a bottle of fine wine.”

The police chief grinned and exchanged looks with the two militiamen. “If it’s a fucking bottle of fine wine,” he said, “then drink it!”

Without another word, Gao Yang picked up the bottle and took a mighty swig. It was still warm, and on the salty side, but not bad, all in all. Tipping the bottle back a second time, he gulped about half of the remaining urine, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve as hot tears gushed from his eyes. With a smile frozen on his face, he said, “Gao Yang, oh Gao Yang, you bastard, how could you be so lucky? Who else could have the good fortune to feast on a delicious onion roll and wash it down with fine wine?”

He finished off the bottle, then sprawled out on the brick floor and cried his eyes out.

Later that day Party Secretary Huang came to tell him that the police had to deal with containing the floodwaters of the Sandy River, and hadn’t time to waste looking for the body of his mother, anyway. So he was fined two hundred yuan and released.

The roads were already a sea of mud when he trudged home at dawn, and it was raining again; large drops pelting him on the head felt wonderful. “Mother,” he thought aloud, “I wasn’t a filial son while you were alive, but at least I managed to give you a decent burial. The poor and lower-middle-class peasants go to the crematorium when they die, but not you. That makes it all worth it.”

As he turned into his yard he witnessed the roof of the three-room hut he called home slowly caving in, sending pockets of water and mud splashing in all directions. Then the whole thing collapsed with a roar, and there in front of him, all of a sudden, was the acacia grove and the roiling yellow water of the river that flowed behind his house.