Pow!

by Mo Yan

  ‘Barbecue, Mongolian barbecue!’

  ‘Barbecued lamb kebabs, genuine Xinjiang lamb kebabs!’

  ‘Beef teppanyaki!’

  ‘Barbecued goslings!’

  At a wave of Lan Laoda's hand, the bodyguards shout in unison: ‘One of each, and hurry!’

  Four large platters of fragrant, steaming, sizzling, grease-dripping meat are brought up to one of the nannies, who hurriedly sets up a folding table and places it in front of the boy. The other woman ties a pink bib, with a little embroidered teddy bear, under his chin. The table is only big enough for two platters, so the bodyguards stand holding the other two, waiting to replace the first two as soon as they're empty. The nannies stand on either side to help the boy eat, which he does with his hands. He stuffs the meat, piece after piece, into his mouth. His cheeks bulge so much I can't see him actually chew, but I envision the chunks of meat working their way down his outstretched neck like little mice. I'd always considered myself a champion carnivore, and seeing this child putting meat away is like seeing a carnivorous twin, though I've taken a vow to never eat meat again. This boy is a carnivorous genius, way ahead of where I was as a youngster. I could eat meat, but I had to chew it awhile before swallowing it. There's no chewing with this five-year-old—he just stuffs it into his mouth. Two large platters of barbecued meat are gone in no time—he's definitely earned my respect. No matter how good you are, there's always someone better—how true that is! The nannies whisk away the empty platters and the bodyguards lay the next two onto the table. The boy wastes no time in grabbing a goose drumstick. His teeth are so sharp they clean away tendons better than any knife. Lan Laoda's eyes don't leave the boy's mouth for a moment. Unconsciously, his mouth moves along with the boy's, as if he too were eating. That movement epitomizes his deep feelings for the child. Only one's flesh and blood could inspire such a depth of emotion. At this point I conclude that the young carnivore is the son of Lan Laoda and the now cloistered Shen Yaoyao.

  As I mulled the relationship between man and meat, I arrived at the entrance to Father's meatpacking plant. The main gate was closed and so was a smaller side gate. I knocked on the latter, which made a loud, scary noise. Since school was still in session, Father and Mother would not have been happy to see me, no matter what excuse I came up with. Lao Lan had already poisoned their minds into thinking that only by attending school could I rise above others, something they assumed was a foregone conclusion. They couldn't possibly understand me, even if I revealed everything that went on in my head. That, in essence, is the agonizing cost of genius. This was no time to show up in front of my father's plant but I was defenceless against the smell of meat rushing at me from the kitchen. I looked into the sunny blue sky and saw that it wasn't yet time for a meal at Lao Lan's. Why go to his house for lunch? Neither Father nor Mother went home to eat. Nor did Lao Lan. Instead, he had Huang Biao's daughter-in-law do all the cooking and look after his invalid wife. Lao Lan's daughter, Tiangua, was a third-grader in school. I'd never much cared for the light-haired girl, although that had now changed, for the simple reason that she was a dimwit. Her thoughts were always remarkably shallow, and getting as much as one question wrong in an exam had her in tears, the moron. Jiaojiao always joined me for lunch at Lao Lan's. She too was gifted. And, like me, she was in the habit of falling asleep in class. And, like me, going without meat at even one meal made her listless. But not Tiangua—not only did she not eat meat, she actually called us ravenous wolves when she saw how much we enjoyed it. In return, we took one look at her pathetic vegetarian fare and called her a goat. Huang Biao's wife, a shrewd woman with fair skin and big eyes, wore her hair short and had a pretty mouth—red lips over white teeth. She was always smiling, even when she was alone in the kitchen doing the dishes. She knew that Jiaojiao and I were there to eat but, since Tiangua and her mother were her primary responsibility, she mainly prepared vegetarian food. Only occasionally did she prepare a meat dish, invariably bland and tasteless, something simply thrown together. Needless to say, eating at Lao Lan's house was no treat, but it was all right, since a good meaty dinner awaited us at home in the evening.

  The changes in our lives during the six months Father had been back were monumental. Things I hadn't dared dream of in the past had now become realities. Both he and my mother were different people, and issues that had led to quarrels in the past were now brushed away as trivial. I knew that their transformation had come about because of the new relationship with Lao Lan. Honestly, a person takes on the colour of his surroundings. You learn from those nearest you. If it's a witch, then you learn the dance of a sorceress.

  Though Lao Lan's wife was an invalid, she managed to retain her poise through her illness. We were never told what she suffered from, but she had a sickly, pale complexion and was extremely frail. For me, the best comparison was of potato sprouts in a dank cellar. We often heard moans coming from her bedroom, but they stopped abruptly when she heard footsteps. Jiaojiao and I called her Aunt, and she gave us the funniest looks, with hints of a mysterious smile at the corners of her mouth. We couldn't help noticing that Tiangua didn't act like a dutiful daughter round her, almost as if she wasn't her real mother. I was well aware that mysterious relationships often infect the homes of influential people, and Lao Lan was an influential man whose home gave rise to matters most people could never comprehend.

  So I left that small iron gate, the thoughts galloping through my mind like wild horses and, hugging the wall, made my way to the kitchen. As the distance shrank between me and the meat being cooked inside, the aroma intensified and I could visualize great hunks of the lovely stuff stewing in a big pot. The already high wall seemed to tower over me as I stood there looking up. Not even a grown-up—let alone a child my size—could scale a wall that high, especially since it was topped by barbed wire. But, as they say, where there's a will there's a way. Just as I was about to give up, I spotted a sewage ditch for funnelling foul water out of the kitchen. Was it dirty? Of course it was—it was a sewer. I picked up a fallen branch and moved away pig bristles and feathers and created a passage. Any hole that could accommodate my head, as I knew from experience, was big enough to crawl through, since that's the only body part that can't be made smaller. By using the dead branch as a measuring stick, I determined that the hole was larger than my head, but before squeezing my way in I took off my jacket and my pants, then spread some dirt over the sewage to keep from getting wet. I looked round—there were no people on the street, and a tractor had just passed by; a horse cart was too far away to see what I was up to. I couldn't have asked for a better time to make my move. But even though it was larger than my head, squeezing through that little hole would not be easy. I flattened on my belly and stuck my head in. A complex mixture of smells rose out of the sewer, so I held my breath to keep the foul air out of my lungs. About half way in my head got stuck, and I panicked. But only for a moment. I had to stay calm, because I knew that panicky thoughts make your head grow bigger, and then I'd really be stuck. If that happened, this sewer was where I'd end my days, and the death of Luo Xiaotong would have been a terrible waste. My first reaction was to pull my head back out. It didn't work. I knew then that I was in trouble, but I stayed calm and turned my head until I felt it loosen up a bit. Next, I stretched out my neck to free my ears; once that was done I knew I'd made it past the hardest part. Now all I had to do was shift my body slightly and I could make it through to the other side. So I did, and a moment later I was standing inside Father's plant. After hooking my clothes on the other side with a piece of wire, I cleaned most of the sewer filth off my body with a handful of grass and got dressed. Then, in a crouch, I negotiated the narrow path between the brick wall and the kitchen. When I reached the first window, I was swathed in meaty aromas, almost as if I was immersed in a sticky meat broth.

  With a piece of rusty metal I jimmied the two window sections until the last obstacle to a view of the inside fell open. A blast of meaty aromas hit me, as a huge pot ato
p a blazing stove about fifteen feet from the window caught my attention. Soup was boiling so fiercely that waves of it nearly splashed over the sides. Huang Biao, in a white apron and over-sleeves walked into the room. I frantically scurried away from the window so he wouldn't spot me. He picked up a long-handled hook and stirred the mixture in the pot, bringing into view sections of oxtails, pig's knuckles, dog's leg and sheep's leg. Pig, dog, cow and sheep, together in one pot. They danced, they sang, they greeted me. Their aromas blended into a heavy fragrance, though I could pick out the individual smells.

  Huang Biao snared a pig's knuckle and examined it. What was he looking for? It was soft and fully cooked, and would be overdone if he let it stew any longer. But he threw it back in, picked out a dog's leg and then went through the same motions, although this time he sniffed it too. What are you doing, you moron? It's ready to eat, so turn down the heat before it turns to mush. Next came a sheep's leg, and once again it was examine and smell. Why don't you taste it, you fool? Finally, satisfied that it had cooked long enough, he pulled out the partially burnt kindling and stuffed the hot ends into a sand-filled metal pail, which sent a pall of white smoke into the air and injected the meaty fragrance with a charcoal-like odour. Now that the heat had diminished, the liquid was no longer roiling, although a few ripples remained in the spaces between the cuts of meat, whose song had softened as they waited to be eaten. Huang Biao brought up a sheep's leg with his hook and laid it on a metal platter behind a smaller stove next to the first one. Then he added a dog's leg, two sections of oxtail and a pig's knuckle. Free of the crowd, they cried out happily and waved me over. They had tiny hands, about the size of hedgehog paws. What happened next was, to say the least, entertaining. Huang Biao walked to the door, looked round, then came back in and shut the door behind him. I just knew the bastard was about to dig in and eat all the meat that had invited me to feast on it. Pangs of jealousy rose in me. But he did nothing of the sort—not a single bite (a bit of a relief—at first). Instead, he moved a stool up to the pot, climbed onto it, undid the buttons of his pants, took out a demonic tool and then released a stream of yellow piss into the meaty mixture.

  The meat cried out shrilly and huddled up, trying to hide by crowding together. But there was no escape. The powerful stream subjected them to crippling humiliation. Their smell changed. They frowned and they wept. When he was finished, he put the now-contented object back inside his pants, climbed off the stool with a smirk and picked up a spade-like object, which he dipped in the pot to stir the meat, which whined as it tumbled in the fouled soup. After laying down the spade, Huang Biao picked up a small copper ladle, scooped up some of the liquid and held it under his nose. With a satisfied smile, he said: ‘Just right. Now you bastards can eat my piss.’

  I threw open the window, intending to voice my outrage. But the shout caught in my throat. I felt sullied and was filled with uncommon loathing. Startled by the sound, Huang Biao dropped the ladle, spun round and stared at me. As his face turned purple, he grimaced and then gave a sinister little laugh. ‘Oh, it's you, Xiaotong,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  I glared at him without answering.

  ‘All right, boy, come here,’ he said, waving me over. ‘I know how much you love meat. Today you can eat as much as you want.’

  I sprang through the window and landed on the kitchen floor. Huang Biao solicitously moved over a campstool for me to sit on, followed by the stool he'd stood on, and then laid a platter on it. Flashing a crafty smile, he picked up his hook and dragged a sheep's leg out of the pot, broth dripping from it as he placed it before me.

  ‘Eat up,’ he said. ‘Stretch your stomach as far as it'll go. Here's a sheep's leg. There are dogs’ legs in there, pig's knuckles and oxtails. Take your pick.’

  I looked down at the tortured expression on the sheep's leg.

  ‘I saw everything,’ I said coldly.

  ‘You saw what?’

  ‘Everything.’

  Huang Biao scratched his neck and released yet another sinister laugh. ‘I hate those people,’ he said. ‘They come here every day for a free meal, and I hate them. This has nothing to do with your parents—’

  ‘But they'll eat this too!’

  ‘Yes, they will,’ he said with a smile. ‘The ancients have said, “What the eye does not see cannot be dirty.” Don't you agree? If you want the truth, the urine makes the meat fresher and more tender. What you saw as urine is really fine cooking wine.’

  ‘Then you eat it.’

  ‘Now that poses a psychological problem, because people aren't supposed to drink their own urine.’ He laughed. ‘But since you saw what happened, I guess I can't expect you to eat any of it.’ He dumped the sheep's leg back into the pot, picked up the platter with the meat he'd taken out before urinating and set it down in front of me. ‘You saw that this meat was taken out before the “cooking wine” was added, old friend, so you can eat it with no worries.’ Next he picked up a bowl of garlic paste off the chopping board and set it in front of me. ‘Dip the meat in this. Your Uncle Huang cooks the best meat. Fully cooked but not mushy, fatty but not greasy. They hired me for one reason alone—so they could enjoy the meat I prepare.’

  I cast my eyes at the platter brimming with joyous promise, observed the expressions of excitement, marvelled at the little hands that quivered like tendrils on a grapevine and listened to the mellifluous buzzing of speech, all of which moved me to my soul. It spoke softly, but what it said was clear and distinct, each word a gem of comprehensible speech. It called my name and described itself as wonderful, it revealed to me how pure and untainted it was, it spoke to me of its youth and beauty: ‘We were once part of a living dog or a cow or a pig or a sheep,’ it said, ‘but we were washed three times and then steeped in boiling water for three hours and we are now independent living beings with powers of thought and, of course, emotion. The infusion of salt imbued us with souls, the injection of vinegar and alcohol supplied us with emotions and the addition of onions, ginger, anise, cinnamon, cardamom and pepper imbued us with expression. We belong to you, to you alone, you are whom we sought. We called out to you when we were suffering the agonies of boiling water, we longed for you. We want you to eat us and we are fearful of being eaten by anyone but you. Yet we have no say in the matter. A woman has the ability to end her life to preserve her chastity but even that is denied us. We were born in debased circumstances and are resigned to our fate. If you had not come to feast upon us, who knows to which low and vulgar mouths that privilege would be granted. They might take a single bite before tossing us onto a table to soak in cheap liquor spills. Or they might stub out their cigarettes on our bodies and poison our souls with nicotine and pungent smoke. Together with the skins of shrimp and crabs and soiled paper napkins, they will sweep us into garbage pails. The world can boast a handful of individuals like you, people who love, understand and appreciate meat, Luo Xiaotong. Dear Luo Xiaotong, you love meat and meat loves you. We love you, so come eat us. Being eaten by you makes us feel like a bride being taken by the man she loves. Come, Xiaotong, our virtual husband, what are you waiting for? What is bothering you? Come, don't waste another minute. Tear us apart, chew us up, send us straight down into your guts. Whether or not you know it, all the meat in the world longs for you, it admires you. All the meat in the world considers you its lover, so what is holding you back? Ah, Luo Xiaotong, our lover, might you be worried that we're unclean? Worried that when we were still attached to dogs, cows, sheep and pigs, we were contaminated by feed that included growth hormones, lean meat powder and other poisons? You are right to be concerned about this cruel reality. Unadulterated meat is a rarity in this world—you can look high and low and still be frustrated in your search for animals untainted by poisons in their sheds cotes sties and pens, finding instead only hormonal cows, chemical sheep, garbage pigs and prescription dogs. But we are clean, Xiaotong, we have been brought here from deep in South Mountain by Huang Biao on orders from your father. We are w
e are cows and sheep that have grown to maturity grazing grassy fields and drinking spring water, we are pigs that ran wild in remote mountain ravines and we are local dogs that have grown to adulthood eating bran and wild plants. Not once, either before or after being slaughtered, were we subjected to the injection of water, and we never came into contact with a drop of formaldehyde. You will not easily find meat as pure and uncontaminated as us. So hurry up and eat, Luo Xiaotong. If you don't, Huang Biao will. Though he pretends to be a dutiful son, though he treats a cow as his mother and though he supplies his dogs, his hormonal animals, with her milk, he injects his butchered dogs with water and he's the last person we want to eat us…’

  I was nearly moved to tears by how the meats poured out their hearts to me. But before I could cry, anguished wails erupted from their counterparts in the pot. ‘Luo Xiaotong,’ they said, ‘please eat us too. Even though that bastard Huang Biao doused us with his urine, we're still much cleaner than any meat on the street. We are free of toxins, we are highly nutritious, we are clean. Please eat us, Xiaotong, we beg you…’