The Garlic Ballads

by Mo Yan

  Meekly she followed Gao Ma up the stairs and stood beside him on the filthy tiled floor, finally breathing a sigh of relief. The vendors, quiet now, were beginning to doze off. It was probably just my imagination, she comforted herself. They didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. But then a frazzled, slovenly old woman walked out of the building and, with loathing in her dark eyes, glared at Jinju, whose heart shuddered in her chest cavity. The old woman walked down the steps, sought out a secluded corner, dropped her pants, and peed on the ground.

  When Gao Ma wrapped his hand around the door handle, slick from coundess thousands of greasy hands, Jinju’s heart shuddered strangely again. The door creaked as he opened it a crack, releasing a blast of hot, nauseating air into Jinju’s face that nearly sent her reeling. Still, she followed him into the station, where someone who looked like an attendant yawned grandly as she crossed the floor. Gao Ma dragged Jinju over to the person, who turned out to be a very pregnant woman with a faceful of moles.

  “Comrade, when does the bus for Lanji leave?” he asked.

  The attendant scratched her protruding belly and looked at Gao Ma and Jinju out of the corner of her eye. “Don’t know. Try the ticket counter.” She was nice-looking and soft-spoken. “Over there,” she added, pointing with her hand.

  Gao Ma nodded and said “Thank you”—three times.

  The line was short, and he was at the ticket window in no time. A moment later he had their tickets in hand. Jinju, who hadn’t let go of his jacket all the while he was buying the tickets, sneezed once.

  As she stood in the doorway of the huge waiting room, Jinju was terrified by the thought that everyone was looking at her, studying her grimy clothes and mud-spattered shoes. Gao Ma led her into the waiting room, whose floor was carpeted with melon-seed husks, candy wrappers, fruit skins, gobs of phlegm, and standing water. The oppressively hot air carried the stink of farts and sweat and other nameless foul odors that nearly bowled her over; but within a few minutes she had gotten used to it.

  Gao Ma led her in search of seats. Three rows of benches painted an unknowable color, running the length of the room, were filled with sleeping people and a few seated passengers squeezed in among them. Gao Ma and Jinju spotted an empty place on a bench next to a bulletin board for newspapers, but upon closer inspection they saw that it was all wet, as if a child had peed on it. She balked, but he just brushed the water off with his hand. “Sit down,” he said. “ ‘Conveniences at home, trouble on the road.’ You’ll feel better once you get off your feet.”

  Gao Ma sat down first, followed by a scowling Jinju with her swollen, puffy legs. Sure enough, she soon felt much better. For now she could lean back and present a smaller target for prying eyes. When Gao Ma told her to get some sleep, since their bus wasn’t due to leave for an hour and a half, she shut her eyes, even though she wasn’t sleepy. Transported back to the field, she found herself surrounded by jute stalks on the sides and the sharp outlines of leaves and the cold gleam of the sky above. Sleep was out of the question.

  Three of the four glass panes over the gray-green bulletin board were broken, and a couple of sheets of yellowed newspaper hung from shards of broken glass. A middle-aged man walked up and tore off a corner of one of them, all the while looking around furtively. A moment later, the pungent odor of burning tobacco drifted over, and Jinju realized that the newspaper was serving as the man’s roll-your-own paper. Why didn’t I think to use it to dry the bench before we sat down? she wondered, as she looked down at her shoes. The caked-on mud was dried and splitting, so she scraped it off with her finger.

  Gao Ma leaned over and asked softly, “Hungry?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m going to get something to eat,” he said.

  “Why? We’ll have plenty of opportunities to spend our money from here on out.”

  “People are iron,” he said, “and food is steel. I need to keep up my strength to find work. Save my seat.”

  After he laid his bundle beside her on the bench, Jinju had the sinking feeling that he was not coming back. She knew she was just being foolish—he wouldn’t leave her there, he wasn’t that kind of man. The image of him in the field with headphones over his ears—the first real impression he had made on her—flooded her mind. It seemed at turns to be happening right now and ages ago. She opened the bundle and took out the cassette player to listen to some music. But, afraid people might laugh at her, she shoved it back in and retied the bundle.

  A woman looking like a wax figurine sat on a deck chair across from Jinju: her jet-black shoulder-length hair framed an ivory complexion and matched her thin, crescent-shaped eyebrows. She had astonishingly long lashes and lips like ripe cherries, dark red and luminous. She was wearing a skirt the color of the red flag, and her breasts jutted out so pertly they made Jinju feel bashful; reminded of talk that city girls wore padded bras, she thought about her own sagging breasts. I always knew they’d grow big and ugly, and that’s exactly what happened, she thought. But city girls wait in vain for theirs to grow big and sexy. Life is full of mysteries. Her girlfriends had warned her not to let men touch her breasts, or they’d rise like leavened bread in a matter of days. They were right: that’s just what had happened.

  A man—also outlandish looking, of course—had lain his permed head in the lap of the woman in red, who was running her pale, tapered fingers through his hair, combing out the springy curls. She looked up and caught Jinju staring at her, so embarrassing Jinju that she lowered her head and looked away, like a thief caught in the act.

  At some point during all this, the room brightened and the loudspeakers blared an announcement for Taizhen passengers to line up at Gate 10 to have their tickets punched. The heavily accented female voice on the PA system was so jarring it set Jinju’s teeth on edge. Bench sleepers began to stir, and in no time a stream of passengers—bundles and baskets in hand, wives and children in tow—descended on Gate 10 like a swarm of bees. They formed a colorful mob, short and stubby.

  The couple opposite her acted as if there were no one else around.

  A pair of attendants walked up to the rows of benches and began nudging sleepers’ buttocks and thighs with broom handles. “Get up,” they insisted. “All of you get up.” Most of the targets of these nudges sat up, rubbed their eyes, and fished out cigarettes; but some merely started the process, then lay back to continue their interrupted nap as soon as the attendants had moved on.

  For some reason, though, the attendants were reluctant to disturb the curly-haired man. The woman in red, still running her fingers through his hair, looked up at the bedraggled attendants and asked in a loud, assured voice, “What time does the Pingdao bus leave, miss?”

  Her perfect Beijing accent established her credentials, and Jinju, as if given a glimpse of Paradise, sighed appreciatively over both her good looks and her lovely way of speaking.

  The attendants responded politely, “Eight-thirty.”

  In contrast to the well-spoken woman in red, the attendants were beneath Jinju’s contempt. They began sweeping the floor, from one end of the room to the other. It seemed to Jinju that every man and half the women were puffing on cigarettes and pipes, whose smoke slowly filled the room and led to a round of coughing and spitting.

  Gao Ma returned with a bulging cellophane bag. “Is everything all right?” he asked when he saw the look on her face. She said it was, so he sat down, reached into the bag, and pulled out a pear. “The local restaurants were all closed, so I bought you some fruit.” He offered her the pear.

  “I told you not to spend so much,” she groused.

  He wiped the pear on his jacket and took a noisy bite. “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “I’ve got more.”

  A ragamuffin was walking up and down the rows of benches begging from anyone who was awake. Stopping in front of a young military officer, who glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, he struck a pitiful pose and said, Officer, Colonel, could you spare a little change?”

/>   “I don’t have any money!” the moon-faced officer snapped in reply, rolling his eyes to show his displeasure.

  “Anything will do,” the young beggar pleaded. “Wont you take pity on me?”

  “Youre old enough to work. Why don’t you get a job?”

  “Work makes me dizzy.”

  The officer fished out a pack of cigarettes, opened it, removed one, and stuck it between his lips.

  “If you wont give me money, Colonel, how about a smoke?”

  “Do you know what land of cigarettes these are?” The officer looked him in the eye as he whipped out a shiny cigarette lighter and— click—flipped it on. Instead of touching the flame to the tip of his cigarette right away, he just let it blaze.

  “Foreign, Colonel—they’re foreign cigarettes.”

  “Know where they came from?”

  “No.”

  “My father-in-law brought them back from Hong Kong, that’s where. And look at this lighter.”

  “You’re lucky to have a father-in-law like that, Colonel. I can see that life has smiled on you. Your father-in-law must be a big official, and his son-in-law will be one himself one of these days. Big officials are well-heeled and generous. So how about a smoke, Colonel?”

  The young officer thought it over for a moment, then said, “No, I’d rather give you money.”

  Jinju watched him fish out a shiny aluminum two-fen piece and hand it to the beggar, who wore a pained grin as he accepted the paltry gift with both hands and bowed deeply.

  Now the beggar was walking this way, sizing up people as he came. Passing on Jinju and Gao Ma, he went up to the woman in red and her permed young man, who had just sat up. Jinju saw skin show through the beggar’s worn trousers when he bowed.

  “Madam, sir, take pity on a man who’s down on his luck and give me some spare change.”

  “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” the woman in red asked sanctimoniously. “A healthy young man like you should be out working. Don’t you have any self-respect?”

  “Madam, I don’t understand a word you’re saying. I’m only asking for a little change.”

  “Would you bark like a dog for it?” the permed fellow asked the beggar. “I’ll give you one yuan for every bark.”

  “Sure. What do you prefer, a big dog or a little one?”

  The permed young man turned to the woman in red and smiled. “That’s up to you.”

  The young beggar coughed and cleared his throat, then began to bark, sounding remarkably doglike: “Arf arf—arf arf arf—-arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf, arf, arf, arf arf, arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf! That was a little dog. Twenty-six barks. Ruff! Ruff ruff! Ruff ruff! Ruff ruff ruff! Ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff! Ruff ruff ruff! Ruff ruff!! Ruff!!! That was a big dog, twenty-four barks. Big and little together comes to fifty barks, at one yuan apiece, for a total of fifty yuan, sir, madam,”

  The permed young man and the woman in red exchanged glances, both looking quite abashed. He took out his billfold and counted its contents, then turned to his companion and said, “Do you have any money, Yingzi?”

  “Just a few coins,” she replied.

  “Elder Brother,” the permed young man said, “we’ve had a long trip, and this is our last stop. All we’ve got left is forty-three yuan. If you’ll give us an address, we’ll send the seven we owe you as soon as we get home.”

  The young beggar took the money, wetted his finger, and carefully counted the bills—twice. Removing a red one-yuan note with a missing corner, he said, “I can’t take this one, sir. You can have it back, and I’ll take the forty-two. Now you owe me eight.”

  “Write down your address for us,” the young man said.

  “I don’t know how to write,” the beggar said. “Just send it to the President of the United States and ask him to forward it to me. He’s my uncle!”

  With that the beggar bowed deeply to the handsome couple and laughed until he was rocking back and forth. Then he turned and presented himself before Jinju and Gao Ma. With a bow he said, “Elder Brother, Elder Sister, how about one of those delicious -looking pears? My throat’s dry from all that barking.”

  Jinju picked out a big one and thrust it into the beggar’s hand. He acknowledged the handout with a deep bow before gobbling the pear up, one big bite after another, all the while humming a nasal tune. Then, as if there weren’t another soul in sight, he turned and walked off, his head held high.

  Another announcement emerged from the PA system, sending more passengers to the gates to have their tickets punched. The woman in red and the young curlyhead rose and dashed off to the gate, dragging a suitcase on rollers behind them.

  “What about us?” Jinju asked Gao Ma.

  He looked at his watch. “Forty minutes more,” he said. “I’m getting a little impatient myself.”

  By this time there were no more passengers sleeping on the benches, although people continued to enter and leave the waiting room, including an old beggar who quaked from head to toe, and a woman with a child in tow, also asking for handouts. A middle-aged man in a beaked cap and a uniform tunic, holding a half-empty bottle of beer in one hand, stood in front of the bulletin board and held forth, waving the bottle in the air for effect. His sleeves were stained and greasy, and there was a piece of skin missing on his nose, exposing the pale flesh beneath. Two fountain pens were clipped in his breast pocket; Jinju assumed he was some kind of party official. He took a swig of beer, waved the bottle once or twice to watch the foam rise, and began to speak. His tongue was thick in his mouth, and his lower lip seemed not to move at all.

  “The nine editorials—refuting the Open Letter of the revisionist Soviet Central Committee of the Communist Party… Khrushchev said, ‘Stalin, you are my second father.’ In Chinese it would be, ‘Stalin, you are my true father’—in Paradise dialect it would be, ‘Stalin, you are my big fellow.’ “ Another swig of beer, then he knelt down like Khrushchev the supplicant before Stalin. “But,” he continued, “the heirs of perfidious people are more unbridled than their predecessors. When Khrushchev assumed power, he burned Stalin. Comrades, historical experience demands our attention“ Another swig of beer. “Comrade leaders at all levels, you must give it your full attention. Do not, I repeat, do not be negligent. Wa—” Beer foam oozed from his mouth, which he wiped with his sleeve. “The nine editorials—refuting the open letter of the Soviet Central Committee

  Mesmerized by the man, Jinju listened to him rant and rave about things she had never heard of before. The quake in his voice and the way he twisted his tongue around the name “Stalin” appealed to her the most.

  Gao Ma squeezed her arm and said softly, “We’ve got trouble, Jinju. Here comes Deputy Yang.”

  She turned to look and felt as if her body had turned to ice. Deputy Yang, her lame Elder Brother, and her bull-like Second Brother stood in the waiting-room entrance.

  Grabbing Gao Ma’s hand in panic, she stood up.

  The middle-aged official took a swig of beer, waved his arm in the air, and shouted, “Stalin …”

  4.

  The long-bed Jeep bumped and jolted along the edge of the jute field, until Deputy Yang tapped the driver on the shoulder and said, “Stop here, lad.”

  The driver slammed on the brakes; the Jeep screeched to a halt.

  Deputy Yang jumped down and said, “Want to stretch your legs, Number One?”

  Opening his door, Elder Brother jumped down, stumbled briefly, then stood and stretched.

  Second Brother nudged Jinju. “Get out,” he told her. Gao Ma was sitting on the other side of Jinju. “Get out!” Elder Brother shouted.

  Gao Ma jumped down in a crouch; Second Brother nudged Jinju out of the Jeep.

  The sun was directly over the chili-pepper crop that lay on the Pale Horse County side of the road, a virtual sea of blood-red. On the Paradise County side, fields of jute, broad and deep, seemed to go on forever; birds noiselessly skimming the tips of the plants made Jinju feel uncommonl
y at peace, as if she had already dimly envisioned today’s events. Now everything had fallen into place.

  Her hands were bound behind her with hempen cords; her brothers had relented slighdy by tying them at the wrists. With Gao Ma it was a different matter, for he had been hogtied so the ropes would dig deeply into his shoulders and force his neck out unnaturally. It broke her heart to see him like that.

  Deputy Yang took a couple of steps into the jute field and relieved himself with casual immodesty. When he had finished, he turned his head and said, “Number One, Number Two, you Fangs are worthless trash!”

  Elder Brother gaped at Deputy Yang with his mouth hanging slack.

  “Anyone who lets his little sister get tricked into running off with some man is a dumb bastard. If it had been me … hmph!” He glared menacingly at Gao Ma.

  Without waiting for Deputy Yang to say another word, Number Two charged Gao Ma and drove his fist straight into his nose.

  With a loud protest, Gao Ma took three or four rocky steps backwards, trying to keep his balance. His shoulders lurched as if he were trying to touch his face: knocked senseless by the punch, he had apparently forgotten that his arms were bound.

  “Number Two … don’t hit him … hit me,” Jinju pleaded as she shielded Gao Ma’s body with her own.

  With one kick, he sent her flying into the jute field. She took some plants with her as she tumbled head over heels. The rope around her wrists loosened as she rolled, so she immediately wrapped her arms around her knees; the sharp pain in her leg indicated a broken bone.

  “Dont expect any mercy from us,” Number Two shrieked, “you shameless, stinking slut!”

  Trickles of blood oozed from Gao Ma’s ashen nose. It flowed and flowed, black at first, then bright red. “You—against the law—to hit people,” he stammered, his cheeks twitching, his mouth twisted in a grimace.

  “You tricked her into running away with you, and that’s against the law,” Deputy Yang said. “Not only did you steal a man’s future wife, but you destroyed the marriage prospects for three couples. They ought to put you away for twenty years.”