by Mo Yan
When it was his turn, he walked inside, barefoot, and was immediately ankle-deep in a sickening mixture of mud and human waste. An open pit filled the center of the outhouse, and it was all he could do to keep from falling dizzily into it as he dumped his load. The other prisoners lined up beside a rusty water tap near the outhouse to clean their pails. The water came out weakly, like the stream of a little boy pissing into the air. The prisoners swabbed their pails with a balding short-handled broom, as if reaming out their own entrails. He felt like puking, and could nearly see the stringy noodles squirm around his stomach, chased by golden fried eggs. Clenching his teeth, he forced back the soggy lump that had risen to his throat. I can’t throw up. I mustn’t waste good food like that.
Before swabbing out his pail when he reached the tap, Gao Yang stuck his injured foot under the water to remove an accumulation of filth he didn’t dare look at. The man behind thumped him in the rear with his pail. “What the hell are you so picky about?” he growled. “This is no bathhouse!”
He turned and was face to face with a clean-shaven middle-aged inmate with large, jaundiced eyes and crinkled skin—a shriveled face that looked like a soybean soaked in water, then set out to dry. Frightened and chastened, Gao Yang excused himself pathetically: “Elder Brother, I’m new here … don’t know the rules … injured foot—”
The jaundiced-eyed inmate cut him short. “Speed it up, damn it! Exercise period’s almost over.”
Gao Yang hastily rinsed off his feet—the skin on his injured left foot was a ghostly white—then hastily scrubbed the inside of his pail.
Exhausted by the time he returned the refuse pail to its place in the wall, he could scarcely believe that in the space of twenty-four hours a vigorous man like him had been turned into a worthless, panting shell of a human being. The brief stay outside his cell made him aware of how foul the air was inside. He heard a rattle deep down in his chest and was confronted with thoughts of death. I can’t die now, he thought. He steadied himself and moved out through the still-open door into the light of the corridor, a vantage point that gave him a better sense of the prison layout.
Each end of the long, narrow corridor featured a steel cage manned by an armed guard. He spotted two small doors in the gray southern wall of the now-empty corridor, and wondered where the other prisoners were.
“Number Nine,” the guard at the western station called to him, “through that door.”
Doing as he was told, he emerged into the glorious outdoors, or, more exactly, an open-air cage around a concrete slab whose length corresponded to the corridor, but was some thirty feet wide and a good ten or fifteen feet high. Thick bluish steel ribs strung between rust-spotted steel posts formed the barrier between the prisoners and the land beyond the cage, which was planted with greens, potatoes, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Female guards were out picking cucumbers. Beyond the garden area rose an imposing gray wall topped with barbed wire, which reminded him of what he’d heard as a child, that prison walls are equipped with high-voltage wires that electrocute anything that comes into contact with them, even a bird.
Most of the prisoners gripped the steel ribs and gazed outside the enclosure; the spaces between the ribs were about the size of a small bowl, nowhere big enough to accommodate even the smallest head. A few men sat on the ground against the northern wall, sunning themselves, while others paced the outer edges of the cage, which was divided into two sections: the western half for male prisoners, the eastern half for women.
Gao Yang spotted Fourth Aunt Fang holding on to the bars in the women’s side. He barely recognized her, she had changed so much in the day since he’d last seen her. He chose not to hail her.
Under the watchful eyes of silent prisoners holding on to the bars, the guards carried a large bamboo basket over to the tomato patch. They were giggling and having a grand time, especially a short, freckle-faced girl of about twenty, who was laughing the loudest.
Gao Yang heard his young cellmate call out playfully, Officer, be a good girl and toss one of those tomatoes this way, all right?”
The woman just gaped at the cage.
“Come on, be a good girl, and toss me one,” he tried again.
“Call me ‘Great-Aunt,’ “ the freckle-faced guard said, “and maybe I will.”
“Great-Aunt!” the young prisoner shouted without hesitation.
Shocked at first, she then doubled over with laughter.
“Little Liu, you’d better give your great-nephew a tomato,” her companions teased her.
So she straightened up, pulled a half-ripe tomato out of the bamboo basket, took careful aim, and flung it with all her might. It rebounded off a bar and landed a couple of feet from the cage.
“Is that the best you can do, Little Liu?” one of her companions, who was skinny as fishbone, mocked her.
The freckle-faced guard picked up another tomato, aimed it at the young inmate, and let fly again. This one made it through the bars and landed on the cement floor, where it was pounced on by a swarm of prisoners. Gao Yang couldn’t see who wound up with the tomato, but he heard strange, piteous wails.
“Damn it!” the young inmate cursed. “That was a gift from my great-aunt! Damn it to hell! The tiger kills the prey just so the bear can eat.”
By now the tomato was in someone else’s stomach, so the prisoners went back to holding the bars and gazing outside.
“Great-Aunt, one more, please!” the young inmate pleaded.
He was joined by a chorus of shouts—-”Great-Aunt” by some prisoners, “Big Sister” by others—and the unmistakable voice of his middle-aged cellmate: “Fuck your great-aunt!” By then the guards were pelting the cage with tomatoes, over which the prisoners fought like a pack of mad dogs, snarling and growling and forming tight little clusters.
Guards came rushing up from both ends of the corridor, rifles at the ready, followed by turnkeys, who ran into the cage. Rifle bolts clicked as the cloth-shod turnkeys kicked the array of legs and buttocks in front of them. The shriek of a police whisde split the air.
“Get your asses back inside, all of you!” the turnkeys shouted.
Like a tightly packed school of fish, the inmates slipped through the little metal door. It clanged shut and was bolted behind Gao Yang, the last man in. The exercise period was over.
The cage, the garden, the barbed wire—all of it gone. For the first time, Gao Yang realized how narrow the corridor was. He heard a man arguing with the female guards outside. The high-pitched voice of the freckle-faced officer was easy to distinguish from all the others.
4.
Reentering the cell felt like crawling into a cave, one so dark it dulled Gao Yang’s sight and hearing—but not, unfortunately, his sense of smell. The stench of mildew and rot nearly bowled him over.
In a low voice the middle-aged inmate said, “You there, new man, stand up.”
“Elder B-Brother,” he stammered, “what do you want from me?”
The man grinned conspiratorily. “How were those noodles?”
“They were good,” he replied shyly.
“Did you hear that? He said they were good.”
“Good, but hard to digest,” the young inmate said.
“You got special food,” the old prisoner spat out as he rushed Gao Yang and began scratching his head and face.
The middle-aged inmate pulled the old man away and forced Gao Yang to back up. When his back was against the wall, he gazed fearfully at the opening in the door. “Don’t shout, or I’ll strangle you,” the inmate threatened. “An ass-licking, tail-wagging dog is what you are!”
“Elder Brother … please don’t.”
“Tell us what kind of noodles they were.”
He shook his head.
“I know, they were hollow-core noodles. Now we’ll see how hollow your core is!” The inmate signaled the others. “Come on, men, three punches apiece, until we get him to puke!”
The young inmate clenched his fist, took aim at Gao Yang’s breastbo
ne, and delivered three quick, hard punches.
Gao Yang wailed piteously, and while his mouth was open, the mass of noodles came tumbling out. When he was through vomiting, he lay sprawled on the cement floor.
Okay, thief,” the middle-aged inmate said, “I heard you yell for your great-aunt out there, but you didn’t get a single tomato. So now I’m going to reward you.”
“Uncle, I don’t want—”
“Keep your voice down. I’m going to let you lap up the noodles he just deposited on the floor.”
Down on his knees, the young inmate begged softly, “Uncle, good Uncle, dear Uncle, I promise I’ll never again—”
The sudden rattle of keys at the door sent the three men scurrying to their cots.
The door opened with a blaze of light, and an officer standing in the doorway held up a sheet of paper. “Number Nine, out!”
Crawling over to the door as fast as he could, leaving a trail of tears and snot, Gao Yang pleaded, Officer, please, please save me!”
“What’s wrong with you, Number Nine?” the officer asked him.
“He’s sick,” the middle-aged inmate said. “All feverish, talks jibberish. They brought him some food from the infirmary, but he threw everything up.”
“Should we still take him out?” the man asked his partner.
“Let’s try it and see what happens.” • “On your feet!” the guard ordered.
As soon as Gao Yang was standing, the nearest officer snapped a pair of golden handcuffs over his wrists.
CHAPTER 13
A panicky County Administrator Zhong made the watts higher,
Added a topping of broken glass and rings of barbed wire.
But no wall can stop the masses’ shouts, no matter how high,
And barbed wire cannot hold back the people’s fury.
—from a ballad sung by Zhang Kou at the County Building wall,
made scale-proof on orders of County Administrator Zhong Weimin
following an incident in which the people broke into the county
administrator’s office and trounced some long-resented officials
1.
After clambering unsteadily to his feet, Gao Ma toppled over again, just as seven or eight gaily colored parakeets flew in through the open window, made passes above and below the roof beams, then playfully hugged the walls, brushing past Jinju’s hanging corpse. The silkiness of their feathers made them appear bare-skinned. Jinju’s body swung gracefully, causing the doorframe to creak. In the late-night silence even the faintest sounds thudded against his eardrum. Although no pain disturbed his numbed heart, the sickeningly sweet taste in his mouth told him he was about to cough up blood again. “Gao Ma!” He shouted his own name. Gao Ma, you were fated to take a bloody fall from the moment Jinju became yours. You have coughed up blood, vomited blood, spat blood, pissed blood—you are blood-spattered from head to toe.
Clutching the doorframe, he straightened up slowly, like a bent tree reaching for the sky. It was hard, but he managed to stand on his own two feet. It’s all my fault, Jinju. The sight of her sagging belly made the sickeningly sweet taste in his throat stronger than ever. Mounting a bench, he fumbled with the knot in the rope—shaky hands, feeble fingers. The strong, acrid, and garlicky smell of her body hit him full-force; so did the sickeningly sweet taste in his throat. He could discern a slight difference between the smell of her blood and his. A man’s blood is blazing hot, a woman’s icy cold. A woman’s blood is clean and pure, a man’s dirty and polluted. Parakeets flitted under his armpits and between his legs, their malicious squawks making his heart skip a beat. He lacked the strength to loosen the knot. The rope was so thick, and was stretched so taut, that he knew he could never untie it.
He found a match and lit the kerosene lamp; as light flooded the vacant room and cast shadows of flying parakeets on the wall, he seethed with sudden hostility toward those lovely birds. The shadow of Jinju’s body spread out across the wall and the floor.
He brushed against her as he went into the kitchen for the cleaver. In his gropings his hand touched the chimney brush and the spatula, but not his cleaver.
“Have you forgotten that my brothers took your cleaver, Gao Ma?” It was Jinju’s voice. With her face backed by the lamplight, she appeared to be smiling, although he couldn’t be sure. “Elder Brother Gao Ma,” she said with a smile, “I’m sure it’s a son.”
“I’d be just as happy with a daughter. I’ve never favored boys over girls.”
“No, a daughter won’t do. We have to make sure he gets a good education, high school and college, so he can find work in town and not have to suffer the miserable life of a farmer.”
“Jinju, going away with me brought you nothing but misery.” He stroked her head.
“You shared my misery.” She rubbed his bony chest. “My parents shouldn’t have demanded so much money from you,” she said sadly.
“That’s okay, I’ll scrape it together,” he said confidently. “I’ll get at least five thousand for the garlic. And since all the villagers will have plenty of money, I can borrow the rest—I’m sure they’ll help—so we can get married before the baby arrives.”
“Marry me now,” she said. “I can’t live in that house any longer.”
Little green dots played on her face, and he wondered if they were parakeet feathers that had stuck to it.
That was when he remembered the saber, a family relic. He’d been caught handling it when he was a child. “Put it down!” Grandpa had said. Grandpa was still alive then. “It’s rusty. I’m going to sharpen it,” Gao Ma had retorted. “This is no toy!” Grandpa had said, and snatched it out of his hand. “This saber has killed a man,” Mother had said. She was still alive then, too. “Don’t you dare play with it.” And so they had hidden it on a roof beam to keep it away from him.
He moved the stool over, reached up to the beam, and felt around until his hand bumped into something long and hard. He brought it into the light. As he slipped the saber out of its wooden scabbard, the faces of Grandpa and Mother appeared before him.
The blade was dotted with red rust but still plenty sharp. And even though the tip had snapped off, it was made of good steel. Gao Ma’s hand moved through the air until saber met rope. But the saber inexplicably bounced back, sending him crashing to the floor. He scrambled to his feet just as the rope parted and Jinju fell to the floor—toes first, then heels, then the rest of her body, face up: a crumbling mountain of silver, a collapsed jade pillar, raising a pitiful ill wind that made the kerosene lamp flicker. He knelt down and loosened the noose around her neck. A breathy sigh escaping from her mouth drew a shriek of joy from his. But she didn’t make another sound. Her body was cold and stiff, as a touch of his hand proved. He tried to stuff her tongue back into her mouth, but it had puffed up to such an extraordinary thickness that it no longer fit. Yet even then a bewitching smile was visible on her face.
“Have you already scraped the money together, Elder Brother Gao Ma? When can we get married?”
He covered her face and upper body with a blanket.
After wailing piteously for some minutes, he realized how weary he was. Picking up the pitted, rusty saber, he staggered into the yard, the wind in his face and the taste of blood in his mouth. As he gazed up at the moon and the stars in the cloudless sky, the gaily colored parakeets emerged from the house en masse through the open window and front door, slipping through the air with such ease you’d have thought their wings were greased.
He swung at one with his saber. The bird veered, shot past him, and reentered the house. I’ll slaughter you all! Wait till I hone my saber, and I’ll slaughter you all!
He knelt beside a huge whetstone brought down from Little Mount Zhou and began working on his saber. First he scraped it dry to remove the rust; then he fetched a chipped ceramic bowl, filled it half-full with water, and began honing it wet. Through the rest of the night he kept at it. At cockcrow he wiped the blade clean with a handful of weeds, then held
it up to the light. The icy glint of steel sent shivers up his spine. When he moved the blade lightly against his face, he heard a crackle and felt even the softest whiskers, which always bow beneath a dull knife, fall away.
The heft of the saber made him feel like a night-stalking swordsman; his palm itched around the handle. First he bounded into the township compound, quickly decapitating several tall sunflowers around him and leveling others nearer the ground. The razor-sharp saber seemed to cut and slash of its own volition, guiding his hand through the beds of sunflowers. Nothing could stop it. The stems remained suspended in place long after his saber had passed through them; then he watched them shudder once before falling noiselessly to the ground of their own weight, dim starlight falling lightly on the large fanlike leaves. Consumed by murderous intent, he turned his attention to the nearby pine trees. White chips of virgin wood flew, while in the branches above him swarms of frantic parakeets scattered in the sky, then formed a cloud of living color that whirled above the township compound, depositing pale droppings onto the blue roof tiles below until, wing-weary, they fell like stones, thudding like heavy raindrops. After felling three pine trees, Gao Ma watched four scarlet moons climb into the uncommonly expansive sky, one at each point of the compass, lighting up the land as if it were daytime. Parakeet feathers shimmered in many colors; birds’ eyes sparkled gemlike in the blinding light.
He raised the saber in his right hand, then his left. He was a giant. He slashed at the contemptible parakeets who’d risen up to circle him; cold blood from their dismembered bodies splashed onto his face, and as he reached up to wipe it away with his free hand, the stench of parakeet blood filled his nostrils.
Undaunted, the birds entered the house through the windows and door, then flew back out. The moons had long since fallen out of the sky above the gray courtyard, which was dotted by blurred woodpiles. He stood in the doorway, saber in hand, waiting. A parakeet flew up near him, mischievously, rolling its colorful wing feathers. His saber described an arc as it sliced through the bird; half fell at his feet, the other half landed a yard or so away. With a single lack he sent the half-bird at his feet sailing over the wall; then he skewered the other half with the tip of his saber and brought it up close to get a better look. The muscles were still twitching, the exposed innards quivering; a breath of hot air hit him full in the face. Cold, sticky blood slid down the blade and onto the brass guard over the hilt. A flick of the wrist, and the second half of the parakeet sailed over the wall.