The Garlic Ballads (19 page)

“What now, Eighth Uncle?” Elder Brother asked helplessly.

“Now it’s my turn to suffer over this business of yours,” Deputy Yang grumbled, taking a small opaque vial from his pocket and waving it under the brothers’ eyes. “This is Yunnan medicinal powder. We’ll give it to our young friend here.” He knelt down, removed the stopper from the vial, and dumped a bright red pellet into his palm. Pausing briefly for effect, he said, “Open his mouth.”

Again the brothers exchanged glances. Second Brother signaled Elder Brother to stick his dark fingers into Gao Ma’s mouth and pry it open. Holding the pellet between his fingers, Deputy Yang paused dramatically once more before reluctantly inserting it between Gao Ma’s lips.

“Little Guo,” Deputy Yang shouted to his driver, “bring the canteen.”

The driver climbed lazily out of the Jeep and walked up holding an army canteen whose yellow surface was peeling. A semicircular rut etched in his cheek showed that he had been sleeping facedown on the steering wheel.

Deputy Yang poured some water into Gao Ma’s mouth. It reeked of alcohol.

Then the four men stood over Gao Ma like dark pillars, all eight eyes glued to his face. The chestnut colt ran like the wind, hooves thudding loudly, sparks from its shoes crackling in the air; the circle it described was large enough to embrace Jinju, and as it passed through the field, stalks and branches bent before it like softly yielding willow twigs. Green spots careened off its glossy hide. Little colt… little colt… she wanted to wrap her arms around its satiny neck.

Gao Ma’s hand twitched.

“Good,” Deputy Yang exclaimed. “Excellent. That Yunnan medicinal powder deserves its reputation. Damned good stuff.”

Gao Ma’s eyes opened a crack. Deputy Yang bent down and said in a genial tone, “You’re lucky to be alive, my boy. If not for my Yunnan medicinal powder, you’d be off meeting with Karl Marx right about now.”

Gao Ma lay with a peaceful, happy smile on his face. He managed a barely perceptible nod to Deputy Yang.

“Now what, Eighth Uncle?” Elder Brother asked.

A rumble emerged from Gao Ma’s chest as he pulled his arms back and rested on his elbows, slowly raising his head and body until he was in a sitting position. Frothy, blood-streaked threads oozed from the corners of his mouth. Elder Brother Gao Ma … dear Elder Brother Gao Ma … the chestnut colt is touching your face with its downy muzzle … it’s weeping. Gao Ma’s head fell back. Slowly he raised it again. The chestnut colt is licking Elder Brother Gao Ma’s face with its golden tongue.

“He can take a beating,” Deputy Yang said as he looked down at the now squatting Gao Ma. “Do you know why this happened?” he asked with a ring of genuine appreciation.

Gao Ma smiled and nodded. He’s looking at me. There’s a smile on Elder Brother Gao Ma’s face. The chestnut colt is licking the traces of blood from his face.

“Are you going to try to trick our sister in going off with you again?” asked Elder Brother, limping in place.

Gao Ma smiled and nodded.

Second Brother cocked his leg to kick Gao Ma again.

“Number Two!” Deputy Yang shouted. “You stupid bastard!”

Elder Brother picked up Gao Ma’s bundle and loosened the knot with his teeth, spilling the contents, including the envelope, onto the ground. He got down on his knees and held the envelope down.

“Number One, don’t do it.”

After wetting his finger in his mouth, Elder Brother began counting the bank notes.

“Number One, you shouldn’t be doing that.”

“Eighth Uncle, he corrupted our sister and used up your costly medicine. For that he must pay.”

Elder Brother then dug through Gao Ma’s pockets with his damp hand, fishing out some crumpled ten-fen notes and four shiny aluminum one-fen coins. The chestnut colt reared its head and knocked the coins from his hand. Elder Brother scurried after them, tears filling his eyes.

It was noon. A dazed Fourth Aunt lay in bed, vaguely aware that someone was tugging on her arm. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and was face to face with a young policewoman in a beaked cap and white uniform.

“Why aren’t you eating, Number Forty-seven?” the guard asked. She had big brown eyes and long, fluttering lashes in a face that was as white and round as a goose egg. Fourth Aunt was instinctively drawn to this lovely girl, who removed her hat to fan the air. “We expect you to behave yourself in here and own up to all the charges. Remember, ‘Leniency to those who confess, severity to those who refuse/ Now it’s mealtime, so eat.”

Fourth Aunt’s heart was saturated with warmth, and tears pooled in her aging eyes. She nodded spiritedly. The guard’s glossy black hair, parted on the side, tomboylike, highlighted her soft white complexion.

“Miss …” Fourth Aunt grimaced; she wanted to say something but was too choked up to get the words out.

The guard put her hat back on. “Okay, hurry up and eat. You must trust the government. A good person has nothing to worry about, and a bad person has no place to hide.”

“Miss … I’m a good person. Let me go home,” Fourth Aunt said tearfully.

“You sure talk a lot for an old lady,” the frowning guard said, dimples creasing her cheeks. “It’s not up to me whether you get out of here or not.”

Fourth Aunt wiped her nose with her sleeve, then her tear-filled eyes. “How old are you, miss?”

The guard glared, showing a mean side. “Don’t ask about things that don’t concern you, Number Forty-seven!”

“I didn’t mean anything by it. You’re just so pretty, I thought I’d ask.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“No reason.”

“Twenty-two,” the guard said shyly.

“About the same as my daughter, Jinju, who was born in the Year of the Dragon. I wish that useless daughter of mine could be more

like—”

“I said hurry up and eat. After you’re finished I want you to think about what you did, then make a clean breast of things.”

“What is it you want me to think about, miss?”

“Why were you arrested?”

“I don’t know.” Fourth Aunt grimaced again and was soon crying. “I was home eating,” she said between sobs. “Grainy flatcakes and spicy salted vegetables. Someone called at the gate. When I walked outside, they grabbed my arms I was so scared I just closed my eyes. The next thing I knew, my wrists were locked in shiny bracelets.… Daughter was inside crying. She’s going to have her baby any day now. Laugh if you want, but I’ll tell you anyway—she’s not even married. I screamed, but two officers dragged me away, and another one, taller than you but not as pretty, and not nearly as nice—very mean, in fact— started kicking me—”

“That’s enough,” the guard broke in impatiently. “Hurry up and eat.”

“Am I upsetting you, miss?” Fourth Aunt asked. “With all the criminals out there waiting to be arrested, why waste time on me?”

“You didn’t help demolish the government offices?”

“Those were government offices?!” an astonished Fourth Aunt exclaimed. “I didn’t know that. I had to get help somewhere. My husband—still strong and in good health—was run over by their car….” She wept. “Miss … had to get help somewhere

“Stop that crying,” the guard said. “And stop calling me ‘miss.’ Call me ‘Guard’ or ‘Officer,’ like the others do.”

“Our sister over there said I should call you “Officer’ and not ‘miss,’” Fourth Aunt admitted, pointing to her cellmate, who was lying facedown on her gray cot. “But I forgot. Getting old, memory’s no good.”

“Eat, I said,” the guard insisted.

“Mi—Officer.” Fourth Aunt pointed to the blackened steamed bun and bowl of garlic broth. “Do I have to pay for this food? Do I need ration stamps?” *

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, the guard said, “Just eat. You don’t need money and you don’t need ration stamps. Is that why you weren’t eating, because you thought you had to pay?”

“You couldn’t know, miss, but when my husband was killed, our two useless sons fought like cats and dogs over family property until there wasn’t anything left

The guard turned to go, but before she was out the door, Fourth Aunt asked, “Do you have a husband picked out yet?”

“That’s enough, Number Forty-seven, you crazy old hag!”

“Girls today sure have short fuses. An old lady isn’t even allowed to talk.”

The guard slammed the cell door shut and walked off, her high heels clicking resoundingly down the corridor, all the way to the far end.

Loud squeaks bounced off the rafters above the corridor, sounding like an old waterwheel. Crickets set up a racket in trees out in the yard. Fourth Aunt sighed and picked up the blackened bun, sniffing it before tearing off a chunk and dunking it in the now cold garlic broth; she stuffed it into her nearly toothless mouth and began munching noisily. The middle-aged woman on the opposite cot rolled over to stare at the ceiling. A long sigh escaped from her lips.

“You’ve hardly touched your food, Sister-in-Law,” Fourth Aunt said to the woman, who opened her clouded eyes wide, shook her head, and frowned.

“I’ve got such a lump in the pit of my stomach I can’t force another bite down,” she said wearily. The uneaten half of her steamed bun lay on the gray stand beside her. Green bottleneck flies had settled on it.

“These are made from stale flour,” Fourth Aunt said as she ate her bun. “They taste like mildew. But they’re still better than grainy flatcakes.”

Her cellmate said nothing as she lay motionless on her cot, staring at the ceiling.

After swallowing the last of her bun and slurping down the garlic broth, Fourth Aunt stared at the uneaten half of the other woman’s steamed bun, which was still feeding flies on the gray table. “Sister-in-Law,” she said bashfully, “I’ve still got some drops of oil in my bowl here, and it’d be a shame not to sop them up. What do you say I use a little of the skin from your bun?”

The woman nodded. “You can have the whole thing, Auntie.”

“I can’t take food out of your mouth,” Fourth Aunt demurred.

“I’m not going to eat it, so you go ahead.”

“Well, if you say so.” She climbed down off her cot, edged over to the table, and snatched up the fly-specked bun. “It’s not important who eats it,” Fourth Aunt said, “so long as it isn’t wasted.”

The woman nodded. Then, without warning, two yellow tears slipped from the corners of her gray eyes and down her cheeks.

“What’s bothering you, Sister-in-Law?” Fourth Aunt said.

No response; just more tears.

“Whatever it is, don’t let it get you down.” Even Fourth Aunt was crying now. “Life’s hard enough already. Sometimes I think dogs are better off than we are. People feed them when they’re hungry, and as a last resort, they can survive on human waste. And since they’ve got furry bodies, they don’t have to worry about clothing. But we have to feed and clothe our families, and that keeps us hopping till we’re too old to take care of ourselves. Then, if we’re lucky, our children will take care of us. If not, we’re abused till the day we die.” Fourth Aunt reached up to dry her aging eyes.

The middle-aged woman rolled over and buried her face in her blanket, crying so bitterly her shoulders heaved. So Fourth Aunt climbed unsteadily off her cot, went over and sat down beside her. “Sister-in-Law,” she said softly, patting her back, “don’t do this to yourself. Try to see things as they are. The world wasn’t made for people like us. We must accept our fate. Some people are born to be ministers and generals, others to be slaves and lackeys, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it. The old man upstairs decided that you and I would share this cell. It’s not so bad. We’ve got a cot and a blanket, and free food. If the window was a little bigger, maybe it wouldn’t be so stuffy … but don’t let it get you down. And if you really can’t go on, then you have to find a way to end it all.”

The sounds of crying intensified, drawing the attention of the guard. “Number Forty-six, stop that crying!” she ordered, banging the bars with her fist. “Did you hear me? I said stop crying!”

The order had the desired effect on the sounds but did nothing to lessen the spasms wracking the poor woman’s body.

Fourth Aunt went back to her own cot, where she removed her shoes and sat with her legs under her. Swarms of flies buzzed around the cell, loud one moment, softer the next. Feeling an itch under her waistband, Fourth Aunt reached down and plucked out something fat and meaty. It was a louse, gray in color and very big. She squeezed it between her thumbnails until it was no more than a crusty shell. Since her home was louse-free, this one must have come from the bedding. She held up her gray blanket and, sure enough, the folds were teeming with the squirming insects. “Sister-in-Law,” she blurted out, “there are lice in our blankets!” Gaining no response, she ignored her cellmate and brought the blanket up close to subject it to a careful search. Soon realizing that squeezing each one between her thumbnails slowed down the process, she began flipping them into her mouth and popping them with her molars—she lacked teeth up front to do the job—then spitting out the shells. They had a light syrupy taste, so addictive that she soon forgot her suffering.

Fourth Aunt listened with alarm to the sound of the middle-aged woman retching. She rubbed her eyes, grown tired from her louse hunt, and wiped the remnants of shells from her lips; those that stuck to the back of her hand she scraped off on the wall.

Her cellmate was doubled over with dry heaves, her mouth spread wide, so she shuffled across the cell and began patting her on the back. After wiping the spitde from the corners of her mouth, the woman lay back wearily and closed her eyes; she was gasping for breath.