Pow! (25 page)

Moments of enchantment are inevitably brief while those of suffering endure without respite. But that's only one way of looking at things; another is that moments of enchantment last for long periods, since they remain in the memory of the once enchanted, to be revisited at will and, over time, enhanced and improved, gaining in richness, fullness and complexity until, finally, they are transformed into labyrinths that are easy to enter but difficult to exit. Moments of suffering are, by definition, agonizing, so the sufferer avoids them like, as they say, the plague. That's true even if one suffers by accident. If avoidance is impossible, the next best thing is to soften the impact or simplify the effect or, insofar as possible, put it out of one's mind, blurring the edges until it is a puff of smoke easily blown away.

That's how I found a basis for my narrative of a night so fascinating I was loath to tear myself away from it. I could not bring myself to move forward, to relinquish the star-filled sky, the breezy winds from the north and Hanlin Avenue reflecting the light of the stars but, most of all, the wonderful smell left in the air by the two magnificent horses. My body was standing in front of our gate but my soul had left to follow Lao Lan, Huang Bao and that pair of unreal horses. I'd have stood there till dawn if Mother hadn't taken me inside. I used to think that talk of souls escaping from bodies was superstition, utter nonsense, but in the wake of that sumptuous dinner, when those magnificent horses sped out of sight, I gained a true understanding of what it was for the soul to fly away. I felt myself leave my body, like a chick emerging from its egg. I became as pliant and as light as a feather, immune to the pull of gravity. All I had to do was touch my toe to the ground to spring into the air like a rubber ball. In the eyes of this new me, the northern breezes took on form, like water flowing through the air, and I could lie out flat and let them carry me away. I could come and go at will, do whatever I pleased. If I was headed for a collision with a tree, I willed the wind to lift me high in the air and out of danger. If I couldn't avoid a head-on encounter with a wall, I willed myself into a thin sheet of nearly invisible paper and passed through a gap too small to be detected by the human eye.

Mother dragged me back into the yard and closed the gate with a loud clang, forcing my soul to reluctantly return to my body. Without fear of exaggeration I can say that my head was chilled when my soul made its way
in, much like the feeling a child experiences when he slides under a warm comforter after being out in the cold. If you're looking for proof of the existence of the soul, there it is.

Father carried Jiaojiao, who had fallen asleep, to the
kang
, where he handed Mother the red envelope. She opened it and took out a fistful of hundred-yuan notes, ten altogether, and looked extremely nervous. With a glance at Father, she spat on her hands and counted the notes a second time. Still ten—a thousand yuan.

‘That's too much for a greeting gift,’ she said, with another look at Father. ‘We don't deserve this.’

‘Don't forget Xiaotong's,’ he said.

‘Let me have it,’ she said, now angry.

I hated to but I handed it over. First she gave it a quick count, as with the other envelope, then she spat on her hands and counted it more carefully. Again, ten hundred-yuan notes, a thousand yuan.

In those days, two thousand yuan was a great deal of money, which is why the thought of lending Shen Gang two thousand yuan, never to be returned, had caused Mother such grief and indignation. Back then, you could buy a water buffalo strong enough to pull a plough for seven or eight hundred; a thousand was enough to buy a mule to pull a big wagon. Lao Lan had given Jiaojiao and me enough money to buy two mules. During the land-reform period, any family that owned two adult mules would, without question, have been counted as part of the landlord class and bad times would be waiting just round the corner.

‘Now what do we do?’ Mother mumbled, her forehead creased with worry, like an old woman of seventy or eighty. Her arms were stiff and her back was bent, as if what she held in her hands were bricks, not money.

‘Why not return it to him?’ Father said.

‘How?’ Mother asked, clearly worried. ‘You want to do it?’

‘Send Xiaotong,’ he said. ‘Nothing shames a child, and he won't find fault with the boy.’

‘I say you
can
shame a child!’

‘Then you decide,’ said Father. ‘I'll do whatever you say.’

‘I guess we'd better hold on to it for the time being. We were supposed to be treating him to a meal. But he not only supplied us with carp soup and shark's fin dumplings, he also handed us a gift like this.’

‘That shows he's serious about wanting to mend the relationship,’ said Father.

‘If you want the truth, he's not as petty-minded as you think. When you weren't here, he helped us out quite a bit. He sold me that tractor at scrap-metal cost and didn't ask for anything to approve the foundation of the house. Lots of people gave gifts right and left but still didn't get their approvals. If not for him, this house would never have been built.

‘All on account of me,’ Father said with a sigh. ‘From now on I'll be his advance foot soldier and repay a favour with a favour.’

‘This money is not to be spent. Put it in the bank,’ Mother said. ‘We can send Xiaotong and Jiaojiao to school after the New Year's holiday.’

As dazzling fireworks briefly light up the dark sky, I'm suddenly in the grip of fear, as if I'm straddling the line between life and death, as if I'm glancing at the realms of yin and yang, of dark and light. In one of the brief illuminated moments, I see Lan Laoda meet the ancient nun in front of the temple as she hands him a bundle in swaddling clothes. ‘Esteemed patron
,’
she says, ‘Huiming has broken the bonds of this world. You must carry on as best you can.’ The fireworks die out, throwing the world back into darkness. I hear the cry of a newborn child. At the next burst of fireworks I see the infant's tiny face, especially its wide-open mouth, as well the indifferent look on the face of Lan Laoda. I know that his emotions are cresting, for I see something glisten in his eyes.

Another burst of fireworks blossoms in the sky, and four red circles transmogrify into large green characters—
—spelling out ‘peace on earth’. They disintegrate into dozens of green meteorites that then fizzle in the darkness. Another cluster quickly fills the void, illuminating the lingering smoke from the previous burst and thickens the heavy smell of gunpowder that hangs over the field and makes my throat itch. Wise Monk, I witnessed many celebrations back when I was roaming the city streets, grand parades in daylight and fireworks displays at night, but I've never seen anything to match tonight's display of pyrotechnic words and intricate patterns. Times evolve, society progresses and the skill of fireworks artisans keeps improving, as does the art of barbecuing meat. Going back ten years, Wise Monk, the best we could manage here was lamb kebabs over a charcoal fire. But now there's Korean barbecue, Japanese barbecue, Brazilian barbecue, Thai barbecue and Mongolian barbecue. There's quail teppanyaki, flint-fired lamb's tail, charcoal mutton, pebble-roasted pork liver, pine-bough roast chicken, peach-wood roast duck, pear-wood roast goose…it's hardly farfetched to say that there's nothing in the world that can't be barbecued or roasted. An announcement signals the end of the fireworks display amid whoops and shouts from the spectators. Grand feasts must end some time, good times never last long, a thought that I find especially depressing. The final, and largest, pyrotechnic burst drags a fiery thread five hundred metres into the sky. Then it bursts to form a big red
—meat—from which sparks cascade earthward, like drippings from a hunk of meat as it's removed from the pot. The people's eyes—bigger, it seems, than even their mouths, which in turn are bigger than their fists—are glued to the sight, as if waiting expectantly for the
in the sky to drop into their mouths. In a matter of seconds
breaks up into dozens of white umbrellas that float slowly to the ground, trailing white silk streamers, before being swallowed up by the inky night. It does not take long for my eyes
to adjust to the darkness, allowing me to see hundreds of barbecue stands on the open field across the street. As one, their lights snap on, each covered by a red lampshade, the red rays of light creating an air of mystery in the night. It reminds me of the ghost markets of popular legend: flickering shadows, indistinct features, pointed teeth, green fingernails, transparent ears, poorly hidden tails…The meat-peddlers are ghosts, the meat-eaters human. Or else the meat-peddlers are human, the meat-eaters ghosts. If not that, the peddlers and the eaters of meat are all human, or all ghosts. If an outsider were to wander into a night market like that, he'd be witness to all sorts of unimaginable things. When he thought about them later, they would send chills up his spine but would give him a wealth of things to boast about. Wise Monk, you have left the mortal world and the bitter seas of humanity, and so have escaped the stories of the ghost markets. I grew up in the gory confines of Slaughterhouse Village, and spent much of my childhood listening to those tales. Like the one about a man who walked into a ghost market by mistake and caught sight of a fat man roasting his own leg over a charcoal fire, slicing off edible pieces when it was done. ‘Watch out
!
’ the visitor yelled. ‘You'll turn into a cripple
!
’ With a cry of anguish, the man threw down his knife, knowing he was now a cripple, something that would not have happened if the visitor hadn't shouted out. Then there was the man who got up early to ride his bicycle into town to sell meat. But he lost his way. When he saw lamplight ahead, he discovered a thriving meat market where curling smoke welcomed him with an extraordinary aroma. Peddlers shouted their wares and sweat dotted the diners’ foreheads. Business was lively, to the great joy of the newcomer, who set up a stall, including his butcher block, and laid out an array of aromatic, freshly roasted meat. His first shout drew a crowd of people who fought to place their orders—one
jin
for this person, two for that—without even asking the price. He had trouble keeping up with the demand of people who were in no mood to wait. They flung the money into his rush bag, grabbed the meat with their bare hands and began to stuff their faces. And as they chewed and swallowed, their faces underwent a hideous change and green lights began to shoot from their eyes. Realizing something was seriously amiss, the man scooped up his rush bag and fled, stumbling away and not stopping till the roosters crowed the coming dawn. Then he looked round him and discovered that he was standing in a wildwood. And when he checked his rush bag all he found was
ash. Wise Monk, the barbecuing night market in front of us is an important component of the Twin Cities Carnivore Festival, and should not be a ghost market. But even if it were, would that matter? People these days enjoy nothing more than making contact with ghosts. These days it's the ghosts who are frightened by the people. The meat-peddlers out there all wear chef's hats, and they look top heavy as they busily chop meat and hail customers with their exaggerated claims. Charcoal and meat create a smell that seems to come from a time long ago, from past millennia, blanketing as much as a square kilometre. Black smoke merges with white smoke to form smoky colours that rise into the air and send birds weaving crazily in the sky. Gaily dressed young men and women happily wolf down the meat. A beer in one hand and a skewer of lamb in the other, some take a bite of meat, then a drink of beer and produce a loud belch. Others stand facing one another, man to woman, in a feeding frenzy. More daring couples hold a single piece of meat in their teeth and eat their way closer, until the end of the meat signals the beginning of a kiss, to the raucous delight of people round them. I'm hungry, Wise Monk, and I have a greedy mouth. But I took a vow to abstain from eating meat. I know that what's going on out there is your way to put me to the test, and I'll resist temptation by continuing my narration—