Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (27 page)

I need to talk about my dad here. His injury was not yet healed. At first, everything he saw was veiled in red. Then this happened, and he had no idea where he was. All he could do was stumble along after the ox, but he quickly gave that up, wrapped his arms around his head, and was dragged behind the ox like an embroidered ball. Fortunately, he was wearing a padded coat that absorbed most of the bumps and he sustained no major injuries. When the ox lost its horn and stopped running, Dad wasted no time in standing up and untying the rope around his waist. If the ox started running again, this time he wouldn’t be dragged along. But then he looked down and saw the severed half of the ox’s horn on the ground, and cried out in horror, nearly passing out from the shock. My dad had said that the ox was his family, his whole family, so how could he not be anxious, be pained, be enraged, when his family suffered an injury? His gaze moved to the fat, oily face of the pig butcher, Zhu Jiujie. At a time in history when no Chinese had enough oil in their diet, the officials and pig butchers like him not only ate the fattest, oiliest food, but did so with smug self-satisfaction, proudly enjoying the good life that Communism offered. As an independent farmer, my dad had no interest in the affairs of the commune. But now this People’s Commune pig butcher had lopped off our ox’s horn, and my dad cried out in horror, My ox! before fainting dead away. I knew that if he hadn’t fainted at that moment, he’d have picked up the butcher knife and gone for the pig butcher’s big, fat head. I hate to think what that would have led to. I was glad he fainted. But the ox was very much awake, and you can imagine how losing that horn hurt. With a loud bellow, he lowered his head and charged the fat butcher. What caught my attention at that instant was the cluster of long hairs sticking out from the ox’s navel, like a fine, wolf-hair writing bush. It too was on the move, rising and falling, as if composing a line of seal characters. I looked away from this mystical writing brush just in time to see the ox twist his head to one side and bury his good horn in Zhu Jiujie’s plump belly. His head kept moving, so the horn didn’t sink in to the hilt. Then he jerked his head upward like an erupting mountain of flesh, and out from the hole in Zhu Jinjie’s belly poured big yellow clumps of fat.

My dad came to after everyone else had run away, and the first thing he did was pick up the butcher knife to stand guard in front of his one-horned ox. Although he said nothing, the determined look in his eyes made an unmistakable statement to the Red Guards who were encircling him: You’ll have to kill me to get to this ox. Zhu Jiujie’s spilled fat reminded the Red Guards of the man’s tyrannical disposition and disgusting conduct, and they could not have been happier. Holding the butcher knife in one hand and the tether in the other, Dad walked off with his ox like a man who has raided an execution ground to rescue the condemned, all the way home. The blazing sun had long since vanished and gray clouds had gathered in the sky. Light snowflakes danced in the light breezes before settling onto Northeast Gaomi Township’s land.

During that long winter, when every third day saw a light snowfall and every fifth day a heavy one, the telephone lines connecting Ximen Village to the commune and the county town were downed by snow. At the time, all broadcasts from the county traveled on telephone wires, so when the wires went down, the broadcasting stations went mute. And when the roads were blocked by snowbanks, there was no newspaper delivery. Ximen Village was cut off from the outside world.

You ought to recall that winter’s snows. Every morning my dad took you outside the village. If it was a nice day, the red sunbeams would drench the snow and ice with brilliance. My dad would hold your reins with his right hand and carry the knife he’d taken from the pig butcher in his left. You both exhaled pink steam from your mouths and nostrils. The hair around your mouth and my dad’s beard and eyebrows were coated with frost. You headed out into the wild, into the sun, crunching the snow under your feet.

Armed with revolutionary fervor, my half brother Ximen Jinlong called upon his imagination in leading the four Sun brothers — his four warrior protectors — and a pack of bored kids — his shrimp soldiers and crab generals — as well, it goes without saying, as a bunch of adults who dearly loved a show, in taking the Great Cultural Revolution into its second year, when spring arrived on the land.

They built a platform under the apricot tree with a wooden plank, then hung hundreds of red cloth streamers from the branches of the tree to represent flowers in bloom. Every night, the fourth Sun brother — Tiger Cub — climbed up onto the platform and, puffing out his cheeks, blew his bugle to call the masses to gather round. It was a lovely little bronze bugle, adorned with a red tassel. When it first fell into his hands, Tiger Cub puffed his cheeks out and practiced on it every day, making sounds like a lowing cow. But he mastered the instrument in the days leading up to spring, and was able to produce sweet music, mostly from popular folk tunes. He was a talented youngster, a quick study, no matter what he put his hand to. My brother had people mount a rusty old cannon on top of the platform and scoop several dozen holes out of the compound wall for gun ports, then had them stack cobblestones alongside each hole. Though there were no firearms to hand out, village youngsters with red-tasseled spears stood sentry beside the holes. Every few hours, Jinlong would climb onto the platform and survey the surroundings with a pair of homemade binoculars, creating the impression of a general observing enemy activities. The air was so cold his fingers were like carrots that had been washed in ice water; his cheeks, fittingly, were as red as late-autumn apples. Dressed only in his military tunic and unlined pants, in order to preserve the desired image, he kept his sleeves rolled up high and wore only a brown imitation army cap. Pus and blood oozed from chilblains on his ears; his nose ran continuously. Physically, he was a mess, but he was bursting with energy. The fires of passion burned in his eyes.

Seeing him out there like that, my mother worked through the night to make a padded coat for him; to preserve the image of a commanding officer, Huzhu helped to give the coat a military look. They even sewed a floral pattern into the collar with white thread. My brother refused to wear it. Mother, he said somberly, don’t fuss like an old woman. The enemy could attack at any minute, and my men are manning their stations in the snow and ice. Should I be the only person wearing a padded coat? My mother glanced all around and discovered that my brother’s “four warrior attendants” and his running dogs were similarly dressed in imitation military uniforms they’d dyed brown, and that they too suffered from running noses, the frozen tips of which looked like hawthorn fruit. And yet, a look of sacred dignity was frozen on each little face.

My brother mounted his platform every morning, a bullhorn fashioned out of sheet metal in his hand as he held forth to his running dogs below, to villagers who came to be entertained, and to the entire snowbound village, adopting the tone of a great man, which he had learned at the feet of Braying Jackass, exhorting his little revolutionary generals and poor and lower-middle peasants to wipe the scales from their eyes and sharpen their vigilance, to hold their ground to the very last, to wait patiently for spring to arrive with its warmth and new flowers, when they would link up with the main forces under the command of Commander in Chief Chang. His oration was frequently interrupted by a spell of hacking coughs; wheezing sounds like clucking chickens emerged from his chest, hacking sounds emerged from his throat, and we knew that signified the presence of phlegm. But clearing his throat and spitting out the phlegm as he stood on the platform would not become a military commander, so he swallowed the offensive material, to the disgust of all My brother’s hacking coughs were not the only cause of interruption; shouted slogans from the foot of the platform frequently broke into his oration. The second Sun brother — Tiger Sun — took the lead in shouting slogans. He had a booming voice, was somewhat educated, and knew just when to shout to incite the crowd into reaching the apex of revolutionary fervor.

During a particularly heavy snowstorm one day, as if the sky had opened up and sent ten thousand eiderdown pillows to earth, my brother mounted the platform, raised his megaphone, and was about to harangue his audience when he rocked back and forth, dropped his megaphone, and tumbled to the ground, landing with a thud. Stunned by what they’d just seen, people screamed and ran up to him, all talking at once: What’s wrong, Commander? Commander, what’s wrong? My mother ran crying out of the house, with only a tattered goatskin coat thrown over her shoulders to ward off the cold, and which made her appear unusually big.

That goatskin coat had been one of a lot of tattered coats our village’s former public security chief Yang Qi had bought from Inner Mongolia on the eve of the Cultural Revolution. Emitting a rank odor, it was stained by cow dung and dried sheep’s milk. When he tried to peddle those coats, Yang Qi was accused of profiteering and brought under escort to the commune by Hong Taiyue, who threw him in jail. The coats were locked in the storeroom awaiting final disposition by the commune. Then the Cultural Revolution was launched, and Yang Qi was released and sent home, where he joined Jinlong’s rebel faction and was the strongest voice of the people when Hong Taiyue was held up to public criticism. Yang worked hard to curry favor with my brother, desperate to be appointed deputy commander of the Ximen Village Red Guard detachment. My brother refused his request. The Ximen Village Red Guard detachment, he said decisively, is under unified leadership. There are no deputies. Deep down, he was contemptuous of Yang Qi, a repulsively ugly man with shifty eyes. Considered one of the proletarian thugs, he possessed a belly full of wicked thoughts and was exceedingly destructive. He could be used, but not in a position of authority. I personally overheard my brother say that to his trusted followers in the command headquarters. In a foul mood over having failed in his attempt to gain favor, Yang Qi then conspired with the locksmith Han Liu to break into the storeroom and retrieve the coats that had been taken from him, which he decided to sell out on the street. With winds whistling and snow falling, icicles hanging like sawtooth fangs from the eaves, this was ideal weather for goatskin coats. Villagers crowded round, turning the coats — stained and dirty, patchy, covered with mouse droppings, and nauseatingly foul smelling — over in their hands. Smooth-tongued Yang Qi spoke of his tattered, rotting goods as if they’d once been part of the imperial wardrobe. He picked up a short, black coat, slapped the greasy, worn-out fur —
pow pow.
Listen to that. Take a look. Feel it, try it on. Listen, it’s like a brass gong. Look, it’s like silk and satin. Look again, the fur is black as paint, and you’ll start to sweat when you slip it on. With one of these coats over your shoulders, you can crawl on ice and lie in the snow without feeling the least bit cold! A nearly new black goatskin coat for only nineteen yuan, about the same as finding one lying in the street. Go ahead, Great-Uncle Zhang, try it on. Oh, oh, my dear uncle. That coat fits like the Mongolian tailor made it just for you. One inch more and it’s too long, one inch less and it’s too short. So, what do you think, hot enough for you? It’s not? Touch your forehead, you’re sweating, and you say it’s not hot? Eight yuan? If not for the neighborhood connection, I wouldn’t sell it for fifteen. You won’t go higher than eight? Old Uncle, what can I say? Last autumn, I smoked a couple of your pipes, so I owe you for that. A man can’t rest till he pays off a debt. All right, then, nine yuan, and I lose money on this sale. Nine yuan and it’s yours. Take it home with you, but first get a rag and wipe the sweat from your forehead. You don’t want to catch cold. Eight, you say? How about eight-fifty? I’ll lower it a bit and you raise it a bit. After all, you’re a generation older than me. If it was anybody else I’d smack him in the ear so hard he’d roll all the way down to the river. Eight yuan, it’s like I’m giving you a transfusion of my own blood, type O, the same as Dr. Bethune. All right, eight yuan, but Old Zhang, now you’re the one who owes me a favor. He counted the sticky bills: five, six, seven, eight, all right, the coat is yours. Now take it home and show the missus. Sit around in it for half an hour, and I guarantee the snow on your roof will melt. The heat you give off, even from a distance, will turn the snow in your yard into little rivers and the icicles hanging from your eaves will clatter to the ground. . . .

With my brother valiantly leading the way, his “four warrior attendants” arrayed spiritedly around him, the Red Guard forces came raucously up the street. A weapon was tucked into my brother’s belt, a starter’s pistol he’d taken from the elementary school PE instructor. Light glinted off the chrome barrel, which was shaped like a dog’s dick. The “four warrior attendants” were also sporting belts, made from the hide of a Production Brigade cow that had recently starved to death. Not completely dry and not yet tanned, the belts stank something awful. Each of them had a revolver tucked into his belt, the ones used by the village opera troupe, all beautifully carved out of elm by the skilled carpenter Du Luban, and then painted black. They were so real-looking that if they fell into the hands of bandits, they could be used in robberies. The back part of the one in Dragon Sun’s belt had been hollowed out to make room for a spring, a firing pin, and a detonating cap. When fired, it produced a louder crack than a real pistol. My brother’s pistol used caps, and when he pulled the trigger, it popped twice. The underlings behind the “four warrior attendants” were all carrying red-tasseled spears over their shoulders, the metal tips polished to a shine with sandpaper and razor sharp. If you buried one in a tree, it was hard work pulling it out. My brother led his troops at a fast clip. The eye-catching red tassels against the virgin snow created a spectacular tableau. When they were about fifty yards from the spot where Yang Qi was selling his rank goods, my brother drew his pistol and fired it into the air:
Pow! Pow!
Two puffs of smoke quickly dissipated above him. Comrades! he shouted. Charge! Holding their spears as weapons, the words
Kill Kill Kill
thundered overhead as they sloshed through the snow, turning it to mud with loud crunches. As soon as they reached the spot, my brother gave them a signal, and they surrounded Yang Qi and a dozen or so of his potential goatskin coat customers.