Red Sorghum

by Mo Yan

  Green smoke rose from the seared coffin. In the muted light of the dying flames, it seemed as sturdy as ever. The curled body of the mule lay beside it, the stench of its scorched hide filling the air.

  2

  THE DATE FOR Grandma’s funeral wasn’t changed in spite of the unforeseen events of the night before. The old Iron Society groom bandaged Granddad’s injury as best he could, while Black Eye watched with a mocking look and recommended postponing the funeral. Granddad emphatically rejected the suggestion. He didn’t sleep a wink that night; he sat on a bench without moving, his bloodshot eyes half open, his cold hand resting on the rough Bakelite handle of his pistol, as though he were glued to the spot.

  Father lay on a grass mat and stared at Granddad until he drifted off into a troubled sleep. He woke before daybreak and cast a furtive glance at Granddad, intransigent in the flickering candlelight. His arm was stained with the dark dried blood that had oozed out from under the bandage. Not daring to say anything, Father closed his eyes again until the five funeral musicians hired for the event ran up against the envious local musicians, and their battle of horns disrupted everyone’s sleep. Father’s nose began to ache; scalding tears flowed from his eyes and ran into his ear. Here I am, he was thinking, nearly sixteen already. I wonder if these turbulent days will ever end. He looked at his father’s bloody shoulder and waxen face, and a feeling of desolation that didn’t suit his tender years entered his heart.

  A lone village rooster announced the coming day, and a predawn breeze carried the acrid smell of spring into the tent, where it caused the candles to flicker. The voices of early risers were now discernible; warhorses tethered to nearby willows began pawing the ground and snorting; Father curled up comfortably, and thought of Beauty, who would one day be my mother, and the tall, robust woman Liu, who should rightfully be considered my third grandma. They had disappeared three months earlier, when Father and Granddad had gone for training with the Iron Society to a remote little outpost south of the railway tracks; when they returned, their huts were empty and their loved ones gone. The sheds they’d thrown up in the winter of 1939 were covered with cobwebs.

  As soon as the red morning sun had made its entrance, the village came to life. Food peddlars raised their voices to attract customers, as the steamy, tantalising odours of buns in ovens, won tons in pots, and flatcakes in skillets began to waft through the air. A pockfaced peasant argued with a peddlar of buns, who refused to accept North Sea currency; the peasant had none of the Iron Society’s tiger-mount currency. By then twenty of the little buns had already found their way into the peasant’s stomach. ‘That’s all I’ve got,’ he said. ‘Take it or leave it.’ The crowd urged the peddlar to accept the North Sea currency, whose value would be restored as soon as the Jiao-Gao regiment fought its way back. He did, and moved on, raising his voice: ‘Buns! Meat-filled buns! Fresh from the oven!’

  The tent showed the effects of the raging fire of the night before. Iron Society soldiers had dragged the physician and his scrawny mule the fifty paces or so to the inlet, where the stench of their scorched bodies attracted scavenger birds. The area around Grandma’s coffin had been swept clean of torn canvas, and the occasional unbroken wineglass lying in the cinders had been smashed by rakes. Grandma’s coffin shone in the early-morning light, hideous and scary. The deep-scarlet surface, once so sombre and mysterious, had been eaten away by flames, and the thick varnish had melted and split, leaving a maze of deep cracks. The coffin was so enormous that, as my father stood at its sweeping head, it seemed like the tallest thing in the world, and he had trouble breathing. He recalled how the coffin had been seized, and how its owner, an old man who must have been at least a hundred and still wore his white hair in a little queue, had refused to let go of the front edge:

  ‘This is my home. . . . No one else can have it. . . . I was a licentiate in the Great Qing dynasty, even the county magistrate called me “elder brother”. . . . You’ll have to kill me first . . . you pack of brigands. . . .’ His tears had given way to curses.

  Granddad had stayed behind that day, sending a cavalry detachment under the command of his trusted lieutenant to confiscate the coffin. Father tagged along. He had heard that this particular coffin had been made in the first year of the Republic from four pieces of cypress, four and a half Chinese inches thick. It had been varnished yearly ever since, thirty coats already. The ancient owner rolled on the ground in front of the coffin, and it was impossible to tell if he was laughing or crying. Clearly he had lost his mind. The lieutenant tossed a bundle of Iron Society tiger-mount currency into his hands and said, ‘We pay for what we take, you old bastard!’ The old man ripped open the bundle and began tearing at the bills with his few remaining teeth as he cursed: ‘You bunch of bandits, not even the emperor stole people’s coffins. . . . You brigands . . .’ ‘You old bastard offspring of a stinking donkey!’ the cavalry-detachment commander shouted back. ‘Now, you listen to me. Everybody has a role in the war of resistance against Japan. Consider yourself lucky if they roll you up in sorghum leaves and dump you in the ground. How the hell do you rate a coffin like this? This coffin is for a hero of the resistance!’ ‘What hero?’ ‘The wife of Commander Yu, who is now in charge of the Iron Society, that’s who.’ ‘Heaven and earth won’t allow it, they won’t allow it! No woman can sleep in my home. . . . I’ll kill myself first. . . .’ He ran towards the coffin and rammed his head straight into it, producing a hollow thud. Father saw the scrawny neck bury itself in his chest and the flattened head sink into the space between his bony shoulders. . . . Father could still see the tufts of white hair in the old man’s nostrils and the wispy goatee on his chin, which jutted up like a gold ingot.

  Granddad made a sling out of black cloth for his injured right arm; his gaunt face was deeply etched with exhaustion. The commander of the cavalry detachment walked over from the ring of horses and asked him something. Father heard him answer, ‘Five Troubles, you don’t need to ask my permission. Go ahead!’

  Granddad looked long and meaningfully into the eyes of Five Troubles, who nodded, turned, and walked back to the horses.

  Just then Black Eye emerged from one of the other sheds and stood in front of Five Troubles to block his way. ‘What the hell are you up to?’ he asked angrily.

  ‘I’m posting sentries on horseback,’ Five Troubles said with a scowl.

  ‘I didn’t give the order!’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  Granddad walked up and said with a wry smile, ‘Blackie, are you sure you want to take me on?’

  ‘Do whatever you want,’ Black Eye said. ‘I was only asking.’

  Granddad patted his broad, round shoulder with his good hand and said, ‘You’ve got a role in this funeral, too. We can settle our differences afterwards.’

  Black Eye just shrugged the shoulder Granddad had patted and screamed angrily at the people milling around the village wall, ‘Don’t stand so damned close! You women there, are you going to wear sackcloth head coverings or not?’

  Five Troubles took a brass whistle out of his shirt and blew it three times. Fifty Iron Society soldiers scrambled out of tents near the willow grove and ran up to their tethered horses, which whinnied with excitement. The men were crack soldiers and carried light, excellent weapons: razor-sharp sabres in their hands and Japanese rifles slung over their backs. Five Troubles and four of his burliest men had Russian submachine guns. They mounted, closed ranks, and formed two tight columns. The horses trotted out of the village towards the bridge at the Black Water River. The hair fringing their hooves quivered in the morning breeze; silver light flashed from their glistening metal shoes. Five Troubles led on his powerful dappled colt. Father watched the horses gallop across the smooth black earth like a dark gathering cloud rolling off into the distance.

  The funeral master, dressed in a Chinese robe and traditional overjacket, stood on a stool and shouted at the top of his lungs, ‘Drum-and-bugle corps –’

  A drum-and-bugle
corps in black uniforms with red caps squeezed through the crowd and ran over to the six-foot-high roadside bandstands, built of wood and reeds. They took their positions.

  The funeral master raised his voice: ‘Ready –’

  Horns and woodwinds took up sound and the excited people crushed forward, craning their necks to get a good look. Those behind pushed forward in waves, causing the rickety bandstands to creak and sway. The frightened musicians broke ranks, screaming like demons, and the oxen and donkeys tied to nearby trees raised a noisy complaint.

  ‘What now, Blackie?’ Granddad asked courteously.

  Black Eye shouted, ‘Old Three, bring out the troops!’

  Fifty or more Iron Society soldiers appeared at once. They prodded the crowd, by then out of control, with their rifles. It was impossible to calculate how many thousands of people had converged on the village to watch the funeral, but they simply overwhelmed the exhausted soldiers.

  Black Eye whipped out his pistol and fired into the sky, then again, over the sea of black heads. When the soldiers also began firing wildly into the sky, the front ranks of the surging crowd scurried backward, while those behind kept pushing forward, leaving straight up as the only direction left for those caught in the middle; the crowd looked like a black inchworm in motion. Shrieking children were knocked to the ground. Musicians plunged off the swaying bandstands, their screams merging with those of the people being trampled to create the most piercing scream in a whirlpool of chaotic screams. At least a dozen old and infirm people were trampled to death in the stampede, and months later the rotting carcasses still drew flies.

  The soldiers finally managed to quell the riot, and the hapless musicians returned to their bandstands. Realising the danger, most of the people headed to the outskirts to line the road to Grandma’s gravesite and wait for the procession to pass. Five Troubles ordered his troops to patrol the road.

  The badly shaken funeral master stood on his tall stool and shouted, ‘Lesser canopy!’

  Two Iron Society soldiers with white sashes around their waists carried up a small, sky-blue canopy, a yard tall, and rectangular, with a ridge down the middle and curled-up ends, like the heads of dragons. Inlaid pieces of glass the colour of blood formed the crown.

  ‘Host tablet, please!’ the funeral master shouted.

  Mother once told me that a host tablet is used for the ghost of the deceased. Later on, I learned that the host tablet actually indicates the social status of the deceased at the time of the funeral, and has nothing to do with ghosts; its common name is ‘spirit tablet’. Leading the procession, amid the flags of the honour guard, it provides testimony of status. Grandma’s original host tablet had been burned to a cinder during the fire, and the black paint on the hurried replacement, carried by two handsome Iron Society soldiers, was still wet. The script read:

  Born on the Morning of the Ninth Day of the Sixth Month in the Thirty-second Year of the Great Manchu Emperor Guangxu. Died at Midday on the Ninth Day of the Eighth Month in the Twenty-eighth Year of the Republic of China.

  Daughter of the Dai Family, First Wife of Yu Zhan’ao, Guerrilla Commander from Northeast Gaomi Township, Republic of China, and Leader of the Iron Society. Age at Time of Death: Thirty-two. Interred in the Yang of White Horse Mountain and the Yin of Black Water River.

  Grandma’s spirit tablet was draped with three feet of white bunting that lent it graceful solemnity. The Iron Society soldiers carefully placed it in the lesser canopy, then stood at attention beside the opening.

  The funeral master shouted, ‘Great canopy!’

  The drum-and-bugle corps struck up the music as a stately procession of sixty-four Iron Society soldiers carried in the large scarlet canopy, on which blue crowns the size of watermelons had been inlaid. The buzzing of the onlookers stopped, until the only sounds in the air were the sad strains of the musicians’ pipes and flutes and the anguished wails of mothers whose children had been trampled in the riot.

  A solitary, repulsive horsefly flitted around Granddad’s injured arm, intent on getting at the clotted dark blood. It darted away when he swatted at it and flew around his head, buzzing angrily. The mournful sound of a brass gong seized his heart and called up a string of tangled memories from the fleeting past.

  He was only eighteen when he murdered the monk, an act that forced him to flee his home and wander the four corners of the earth. By the time he returned to Northeast Gaomi Township at the age of twenty-two to become a bearer for the Wedding and Funeral Service Company, he had endured all the torments of the society of man, and had suffered the humiliation of sweeping streets in the red-and-black pants of a convict. With a heart as hard as fishbone and the physique of a gorilla, he had what it takes to become a formidable bandit. He carried with him always the humiliation of being slapped in the home of the Qi-family Hanlin scholar, an incident that occurred in Jiao City in 1920.

  Golden rays of blazing light shone down on the musicians in the tilted bandboxes, their cheeks bouncing like little balls as they tooted away, sweat dripping from their faces. People stood on tiptoe to watch the funeral, and the light from hundreds of pairs of eyes settled like anxious moonbeams over real people and papier-mâché figurines inside the circle, over an ancient, resplendent culture, as well as a reactionary, backward way of thinking.

  Father was wearing thick white knee-length mourning clothes, tied at the waist by a length of grey hemp, and a square mourning hat covered the shaved part of his scalp. The sour odour of sweat from the crowd and the smell of burned varnish from Grandma’s coffin fouled the air and made him weak-kneed. Grandma’s pitted coffin had grown hideous beyond belief: it lay on the ground, high at the front end and low at the rear, like a huge muddleheaded beast. Father had the feeling that at any moment it might stand up with a yawn and charge the black-massed crowds. In his mind the black coffin began to billow like a cloud, and Grandma’s remains, encased in thick wood and the dust of red bricks, seemed to form before his eyes. She had looked remarkably lifelike when Granddad dug up her grassy mound beside the Black Water River and raked up layer after layer of rotted sorghum stalks. Just as he would never forget the sight of Grandma looking up at the bright-red sorghum as she lay dying, he would also never forget the sight of her face as it came into view in her grave.

  He relived these spectacular experiences as he carried out his complicated filial obligations to the deceased. The funeral master gave the order: ‘Move the coffin. . . .’

  The sixty-four soldiers who had borne the great canopy rushed up to the coffin like bees. ‘Heave!’ they shouted. It didn’t budge, as though it had taken root. Granddad swatted the fly away and stared at the men with scorn in his eyes. He signalled to the officer and said, ‘Get some cotton ropes. Without them you could struggle with the coffin until sunup and never get it into the canopy!’ The officer stared at Granddad with apprehension, but Granddad averted his eyes, looking at the Black Water River, which cut a swath through the black plain.

  Two flagpoles, whose red paint had peeled off completely, stood in front of the Qi family home in Jiao City, the ancient, rotting wood standing as a symbol of the family’s status. The old man, a Hanlin scholar in the latter years of the Qing dynasty, was dead, and his sons and grandsons, who had shared the good life with him, made elaborate funeral preparations. Although everything was ready, they delayed their announcement of the date of interment. The coffin had been placed in a building at the rear of the vast family compound, and in order to move it out to the street they would have to trundle it through seven narrow gates. The managers of a dozen wedding-and-funeral-service companies had come to look at the coffin and the lay of the land, and all had left hanging their heads, even though the Qi family had promised an astonishingly high fee.

  Then the news reached the Northeast Gaomi Township Wedding and Funeral Service Company. Payment of five hundred silver dollars to move a coffin was tempting bait to Granddad and his fellow bearers, and threw them into the confusion of a pining young woma
n who has been given the eye by a handsome young lad.

  They went to see the manager, Second Master Cao, and swore they could put Northeast Gaomi Township on the map with this job, not to mention the five hundred in silver the company would make. Second Master Cao sat stiffly in his wooden armchair without so much as passing wind. The only movement was in his cold, intelligent eyes, and the only sound was the gurgling of the water pipe. ‘Second Master, it’s not for the money!’ Granddad and the others argued. ‘A man only lives once. Don’t let the world look down on the people of Northeast Gaomi Township!’ At this point Second Master Cao shifted his buttocks and slowly farted. ‘You men go and get some rest,’ he said. ‘If you botch the job and some of you are crushed to death, so what? But if you lose face for Northeast Gaomi Township and ruin my business, that’s another matter altogether. If you’re short of money, maybe I can help you out.’

  With that, he closed his eyes. But the bearers began to clamour: ‘Second Master, don’t destroy our prestige while furthering the ambitions of others!’ Second Master Cao replied, ‘Don’t swallow a scythe if your stomach isn’t curved. You think earning that five hundred is going to be easy? Well, there are seven gates in the Qi compound, through which you have to carry a coffin filled with quicksilver! Do you hear me? I said quicksilver! Mull that over in your dog brains for a while, and figure out how much that coffin must weigh.’ He looked at his bearers out of the corner of his eye, then snorted derisively. ‘Go on, get out of here,’ he said. ‘Let the true heroes earn the real money! As for you, well, little men leave little records. Go out and earn your twenty or thirty yuan, and be happy to carry the paper-thin coffins of the poor!’

  His comments went straight to the bearers’ hearts like poison arrows. Granddad strode forward before anyone else moved and said loudly, ‘Second Master Cao, working for someone as stupid as you is goddamned suffocating! A dogshit soldier is one thing, but a dogshit general is another! I quit!’