The Past and the Punishments

by Yu Hua

  Wang Xianghuo looked up to see a piece of iron wire in 212 yu hua

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  the soldier’s hand. It was about as thick as a rice seedling, and both ends had been sharpened to a point. The other soldier was short, compact, and looked very strong. He quickly pulled Wang Xianghuo’s hands from out of his sleeves, stood behind him, and positioned his hands atop one another. The soldier with the wire chuckled and drove the point of the wire into his hand.

  The intense pain made Wang Xianghuo’s head slump

  toward his right shoulder. There was a terrible clarity to the pain, for when the wire encountered the resistance of his bone, he seemed to hear a kind of clicking sound. Finally, the wire curved around the bone, passed through his right hand, and pierced the left. Wang Xianghuo heard the sound of his own teeth begin to chatter.

  Just as the wire had penetrated through both palms, the soldier grinned and began to jerk the wire up and down.

  Wang Xianghuo let out a low moan. Through slitted eyes, he saw that the wire was coated with blood, as if it had been dipped in a can of paint. Gradually, the blood darkened until it was no longer distinguishable from the mud on the ground. The Japanese soldier stopped jerking the wire and began to twist it around his hands. After a moment, the soldier walked away, and he heard a whistling clamor in the distance that might have been the sound of the other soldiers cheering. He felt his whole body shake uncontrollably, and his palms felt hotter and hotter, as if they were on fire.

  His vision dimmed, and he shut his eyes.

  But the translator was screaming at him, a foot was kicking him, not hard enough for him to fall, but hard enough so that his body rocked from side to side. He swayed back and forth, like a little fishing boat bobbing on the steaming surface of a lake.

  He opened his eyes, trying to focus on the translator’s face. His hair had been grabbed hold of by a hand that belonged to that face:

  “Stand the fuck up!”

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  His body curved, stood. Now he could see everything clearly. The sodden fields appeared behind the soldiers, the Japanese officer was yelling something in his direction, and he gazed toward the translator, who said:

  “Move.”

  When the wind blew onto the rolling boil in his hands, he felt a sharp, icy pain. Wang Xianghuo glanced down at his hands. They were spattered with little drops of blood, and the wire seemed to be twisted in a tight coil around them. He caught the edge of his sleeve between his teeth and pulled until his palms were covered. He felt much better, almost as if nothing had happened, as if his hands were clasped under his sleeves just as before. Two of the nuns still knelt on the ground, their mud-splattered faces like mottled walls through which shone two glittering pairs of eyes, gazing at him. He looked pityingly back at them.

  The people in the drainage trench still stood shivering in place. The weeds on the embankment behind lay splayed over by the rain, roots exposed to the air.

  5

  The landlord’s hired hand Sun Xi arrived in Li

  Bridge one afternoon, still clad in a battered old cotton jacket open to the waist. A length of rope hung from his belt as he moved forward, face coated with dust.

  He had heard in a village he had passed through the day before that the soldiers who had taken Wang Xianghuo were going to Songhuang. Just as he got to Li Bridge, the strap on his right sandal broke. He took off both sandals and tied them to his waist, continuing into the small market town with his bare feet slapping against the earth.

  There was a crowd gathered in a circle in the center of town, laughing boisterously and filling the air with grunt-ing catcalls. He had been able to hear the commotion all the 214 yu hua

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  way from the fields on the outskirts of town. Now he also heard the sound of animals squealing from within the clamor. The earthen wall around the town sparkled in the sunlight, and though the ground was still moist and pliant under his bare feet, it was not nearly as muddy as before. If it weren’t for the pebbles that bit into his feet, it would be almost like treading on rice chaff.

  Sun Xi stood for a moment, gazing toward a knot of

  women in embroidered jackets standing under the eaves and wondering whom he should ask about the young master’s whereabouts. He moved to a point directly between the women and the crowd. Noting with a sense of embarrassment the sidelong glances cast toward him by the clump of women, he soon continued on to the periphery of the crowd.

  A wiry man was forcing a ram to mount a sow. The sow let out a constant stream of howls as the ram, bleating and unfazed, mounted her back. But as soon as the wiry man removed his hands, the ram slid back down to the ground.

  The sow turned to butt the ram with its head, and the ram counterattacked with his hoof. The wiry man proceeded to curse them both:

  “Oh-ho! You wanna start a fight just as soon as it gets between your legs! Motherfucker!”

  Another man suggested:

  “Turn the pig on its back with its legs up in the air like a woman with a man.”

  The crowd roared its approval. The wiry man grinned:

  “All right, all right. But you people are all talk and no action. Give me a hand.”

  Four men wearing jackets just as tattered as Sun Xi’s own stepped forward and rolled the sow, exposing its glistening starch-white belly to the sun. Perhaps the sow was overly conscious of its predicament – its thick trotters sliced back and forth in the air amid a chorus of enraged squeals. The four men simply knelt to the ground and held down its legs, as they might a woman’s. The wiry man gathered up the The Death of a Landlord 215

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  ram and prepared to loose it atop the sow, but now it was the ram’s turn to flail his legs in stubborn protest. The wiry man spat out a gob of phlegm and began to curse:

  “A nice fat bitch for you, and you don’t even fuckin’ want any. Worse than a motherfucker!”

  Another four men stepped forward and took hold of the ram’s legs, pressing it down atop the sow. Both creatures let out cries of despair: a loud squeal and a low bleat. The crowd’s laughter erupted like a gale, subsiding only after several moments of merriment. Sun Xi pushed his way to the middle of the circle and saw the two animals’ faces pressed tightly, unwillingly, and rather amusingly together.

  Someone said:

  “Maybe it’s a sheep, not a ram.”

  The wiry man nodded, motioned for the ram to be rolled back to the ground, reached under its belly, and took its reproductive organs in hand:

  “Take a good look, kid. This isn’t a titty, is it?”

  Now Sun Xi began to speak:

  “He can’t find it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I mean the ram can’t find the sow’s thing.”

  The wiry man slapped the side of his own head, as if he’d just seen the light:

  “Ah-hah. You really get right to the point, don’t you.”

  Sun Xi’s face reddened, but he continued excitedly:

  “You have to show him, then it’ll work.”

  “And how do you go about showing him?”

  “All animals pretty much smell the same down there. If you put his nose by her thing for a whiff, he’ll know where to put it.”

  The wiry man clapped his hands:

  “You may look like an idiot, kid, but you’re a real scholar.

  Where you from?”

  “Outside Anchang Gate.” Sun Xi said. “Master Wang Ziqing’s place. Have any of you seen our young master?”

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  “Your young master?” The wiry man shook his head.

  “We heard the Japanese were taking him to Songhuang.”

  Someone told Sun Xi:

  “Go ask that o
ld lady over there. We all ran away when the Japanese came through. She was the only one left. She can even tell you about how the Japanese did her till she was sore.”

  Amid another wave of laughter, Sun Xi looked in the direction in which the man had gestured to see a woman in her sixties sitting in the sun with her back to an earthen wall. Sun Xi walked slowly toward her. She surreptitiously glanced up at him as he approached, hands in her sleeves.

  Sun Xi forced himself to smile broadly in her direction, but this produced no change in her attitude. Under a canopy of unkempt hair lay a wrinkled, wooden face. The closer Sun Xi got to her, the more uncomfortable he felt. Fortunately, the woman was the first to speak, but only after a long moment of cold inspection:

  “What are they up to over there?”

  The woman’s eyes pointed in the direction of the crowd.

  “Ugh,” Sun Xi said. “They’re mating a ram and a sow.”

  The old lady’s mouth twisted with disdain:

  “A bunch of stupid bastards.”

  Sun Xi hurriedly nodded his agreement. Then he asked:

  “They say that you saw the Japanese troops?”

  “Japanese troops?” The old lady scornfully continued,

  “They’re even worse bastards than them.”

  6

  The rain hovered across the misty, ashen sky, plas-

  tering his neck and dripping into his robe. The robe grew heavier and heavier, but his body trembled with fever. His skin felt like it was coated with chili powder, and his joints ached.

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  The rain seemed almost to have come to its end. Wang Xianghuo saw a patch of pale white sky to the west. The rain no longer slid past his eyebrows and onto his face. The Japanese soldiers’ boots gurgled across the mud like frogs, leaving frothy white bubbles in their wake.

  The translator said, “Hey! What’s that place up ahead?”

  Wang Xianghuo squinted toward the market up ahead.

  Li Bridge stood silhouetted against the gray sky like a tomb. Under the rolling black clouds, the town gradually drew near.

  “Hey.”

  The translator pounded a few times on his head. He

  swayed, then said:

  “We’re at Li Bridge now.”

  He heard another stream of Japanese that sounded like popping water bubbles. The Japanese soldiers came to a halt as their commanding officer extracted a map from out of his leather pack. Several of the soldiers stood around the officer, shielding the map from the rain with their overcoats. Dripping wet, they watched for a signal from the officer and, when it came, arranged themselves despite their exhaustion into a ramrod straight column and began to jog spiritedly toward Li Bridge.

  The drizzle-enveloped town greeted them with deep

  silence. Not even a magpie was visible in the moist winter air. A scattering of footprints and one slender tire track were visible in the mud, indicating that it had not been very long since the residents of the town had fled.

  The Japanese troops soon found a relatively large building, which Wang Xianghuo recognized as the private residence of a local silk manufacturing family, the Ma’s. They, too, had fled only a short while earlier – a charcoal brazier was still burning faintly in the living room. The Japanese officer looked around the room, gave a cry of satisfaction, removed his coat, and sat back in an armchair with his leather boots propped up on the brazier. Wang Xianghuo, 218 yu hua

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  detecting a strange odor, noticed that little curls of steam were emerging from the officer’s rain-soaked boots. The officer babbled something or another to a few soldiers, slamming the heel of his boot on the brazier for emphasis. The soldiers left the room. The rest of the soldiers still stood at attention. The officer waved his hands and said something else. The soldiers grinned, took off their coats, and sat in a circle around the brazier. From his position behind the officer, the translator turned toward Wang Xianghuo, saying, “You can sit too.”

  Wang Xianghuo chose a distant corner of the room and sat down on the floor, surrounded by the raucous babble of the soldiers. As he sat, he smelled something rotten hovering around him. He had endured the pain in his hands for so long that it seemed like it had always been there, that it was indeed an essential part of his hands, and now he did not even notice. He saw that his sleeves were glossy with fluid.

  This sight threw him into a quandary, for no matter how hard he tried, he could not recall exactly why his sleeves were so wet and sticky.

  The Japanese soldiers who had left now returned, bringing with them a woman in her sixties. The officer leapt up from his armchair, inspected the woman, and exploded into anger. His hoarse yells seemed to signify the incompetence of his inferiors. One of the Japanese soldiers stretched himself to his full height and croaked for a while. The officer’s anger cooled. He looked the woman over once more before waving his arm at the translator, who hastened toward her:

  “The commandant wants to know if you have any daughters or granddaughters?”

  The old lady glanced at Wang Xianghuo sitting in the corner and then shook her head:

  “All I have is a son.”

  “Then there isn’t one woman in the whole town?”

  “Who says there isn’t?” the woman replied, seemingly upset. “Do I look like a man?”

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  “You don’t fucking count.”

  The translator wheeled toward the officer and spoke. The officer creased his brows in an effort not to look at the woman’s wrinkled and furrowed face. He waved for a pair of soldiers, who dragged the old lady over to a mah-jongg table and held her down on the tabletop. The old lady began to howl in protest – not because she knew what was going to happen to her, but because it hurt.

  Wang Xianghuo watched a Japanese soldier cut her belt with a bayonet while another peeled off her pants. The legs that were revealed were skinny and covered with varicose veins, while her fleshy stomach and buttocks protruded like drums. Her body reminded Wang Xianghuo of a prone

  insect.

  Now, the old lady knew just what was coming. When the officer stretched out his hand and began to finger her vagina, a curse rolled out from deep in her throat:

  “You’re shameless!”

  She looked over at Wang Xianghuo and screamed:

  “I’m already sixty-three years old! They’ll even do a sixty-three-year-old?”

  Realizing that she was quite helpless, the old lady shelved her anger and simply lay prone without putting up any resistance. Instead, she gazed toward Wang Xianghuo and continued, “You’re the young master of the Wang family outside of Anchang Gate, aren’t you?”

  Wang Xianghuo looked back at her but remained silent.

  “You look like him to me.”

  The Japanese officer was clearly disappointed by the looseness of the woman’s vagina. He croaked loudly for a moment, brandishing his whip at her crotch.

  Wang Xianghuo saw her body convulse as she howled in pain, “Aiyo! Aiyo!” The whip crackled through the air as it bore down on her, and the hard snapping noise of its impact confirmed just how painful each blow had been. Despite the 220 yu hua

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  suddenness of this assault, the old lady forced her head up off the table and screamed:

  “I’m sixty-three years old!”

  The translator responded with a slap that sent her head slamming back down on the table:

  “Don’t you know your place, bitch? The commandant’s doing you a favor. He’s helping you recover your youth.”

  The elderly woman could only express her grief with a series of low sobs. Only after she had been whipped swollen and red did the officer throw down his crop. He tested the area with his finger. Gratified by its degree of elasticity, he proceeded
to unbuckle his belt, push his pants down to his thighs, and take two steps forward. The old woman began to cry and scream once more at this point, so a soldier hurriedly draped her ugly, wrinkled face with a Japanese flag.

  7

  When a breathless Sun Xi had run home to report

  on Wang Xianghuo’s whereabouts, an inauspicious augury of things to come – as real as the sunlight bouncing off his bald and shiny pate – had been revealed to Wang Ziqing.

  He tossed Sun Xi a string of cash from the top of the stone steps in front of the house and said:

  “Go take another look.”

  Sun Xi picked up the cash, bowed, and replied:

  “Yes, master.”

  As he watched Sun Xi sprint away, Wang Ziqing mut-

  tered to himself, “The little bastard.”

  After guiding a brigade of Japanese troops to a place called Bamboo Grove, the landlord’s son had veered away from the route to Songhuang and begun to move in an entirely different direction. Wang Xianghuo was leading the brigade toward Orphan Hill. And according to Sun Xi’s The Death of a Landlord 221

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  report, after the brigade had passed through Bamboo Grove, the locals tore down the bridge behind them. Sun Xi also told Wang Ziqing:

  “It was the young master who ordered them to do it.”

  Wang Ziqing’s whole body convulsed, and a gray pallor like that of withered flower blossoms suddenly filled the clear sky above him. He stood in a daze, thinking, “The little bastard’s looking to die.”

  After Sun Xi was gone, the landlord stood on the steps, gazing at the crest of the ridge in the distance. Perhaps because of the distance, the ridge looked as light and insubstantial as a bank of clouds. The rainstorm was over, but the clear winter air was still moist.

  After a while, the landlord went inside. He was greeted by the sobs of his wife and daughter-in-law. He sat in his chair, watching the two huddled, sobbing women as they dabbed their eyes with the corners of silk handkerchiefs.