one red sorghum

1

the ninth day of the eighth lunar month, 1939. my father, a bandit’s offspring who had passedhis fifteenth birthday, was joining the forces of commander yu zhan’ao, a man destined tobecome a legendary hero, to ambush a japanese convoy on the jiao-ping highway. grandma, apadded jacket over her shoulders, saw them to the edge of the village. ‘stop here,’ commanderyu ordered her. she stopped.

‘douguan, mind your foster-dad,’ she told my father. the sight of her large frame and thewarm fragrance of her lined jacket chilled him. he shivered. his stomach growled.

commander yu patted him on the head and said, ‘let’s go, foster-son.’

heaven and earth were in turmoil, the view was blurred. by then the soldiers’ muffledfootsteps had moved far down the road. father could still hear them, but a curtain of blue mistobscured the men themselves. gripping tightly to commander yu’s coat, he nearly flew downthe path on churning legs. grandma receded like a distant shore as the approaching sea of mistgrew more tempestuous; holding on to commander yu was like clinging to the railing of a boat.

that was how father rushed towards the uncarved granite marker that would rise above hisgrave in the bright-red sorghum fields of his hometown. a bare-assed little boy once led a whitebilly goat up to the weed-covered grave, and as it grazed in unhurried contentment, the boypissed furiously on the grave and sang out: ‘the sorghum is red – the japanese are coming –compatriots, get ready – fire your rifles and cannons –’

someone said that the little goatherd was me, but i don’t know. i had learned to love northeastgaomi township with all my heart, and to hate it with unbridled fury. i didn’t realise until i’dgrown up that northeast gaomi township is easily the most beautiful and most repulsive, mostunusual and most common, most sacred and most corrupt, most heroic and most bastardly,hardest-drinking and hardest-loving place in the world. the people of my father’s generation wholived there ate sorghum out of preference, planting as much of it as they could. in late autumn,during the eighth lunar month, vast stretches of red sorghum shimmered like a sea of blood. talland dense, it reeked of glory; cold and graceful, it promised enchantment; passionate and loving,it was tumultuous.

the autumn winds are cold and bleak, the sun’s rays intense. white clouds, full and round,float in the tile-blue sky, casting full round purple shadows onto the sorghum fields below. overdecades that seem but a moment in time, lines of scarlet figures shuttled among the sorghumstalks to weave a vast human tapestry. they killed, they looted, and they defended their countryin a valiant, stirring ballet that makes us unfilial descendants who now occupy the land pale bycomparison. surrounded by progress, i feel a nagging sense of our species’ regression.

after leaving the village, the troops marched down a narrow dirt path, the tramping of their feetmerging with the rustling of weeds. the heavy mist was strangely animated, kaleidoscopic. tinydroplets of water pooled into large drops on father’s face, clumps of hair stuck to his forehead.

he was used to the delicate peppermint aroma and the slightly sweet yet pungent odour of ripesorghum wafting over from the sides of the path – nothing new there. but as they marchedthrough the heavy mist, his nose detected a new, sickly-sweet odour, neither yellow nor red,blending with the smells of peppermint and sorghum to call up memories hidden deep in his soul.

six days later, the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the night of the mid-autumn festival. abright round moon climbed slowly in the sky above the solemn, silent sorghum fields, bathing thetassels in its light until they shimmered like mercury. among the chiselled flecks of moonlightfather caught a whiff of the same sickly odour, far stronger than anything you might smell today.

commander yu was leading him by the hand through the sorghum, where three hundred fellowvillagers, heads pillowed on their arms, were strewn across the ground, their fresh blood turningthe black earth into a sticky muck that made walking slow and difficult. the smell took theirbreath away. a pack of corpse-eating dogs sat in the field staring at father and commander yuwith glinting eyes. commander yu drew his pistol and fired – a pair of eyes was extinguished.

another shot, another pair of eyes gone. the howling dogs scattered, then sat on their haunchesonce they were out of range, setting up a deafening chorus of angry barks as they gazed greedily,longingly at the corpses. the odour grew stronger.

‘jap dogs!’ commander yu screamed. ‘jap sons of bitches!’ he emptied his pistol, scatteringthe dogs without a trace. ‘let’s go, son,’ he said. the two of them, one old and one young,threaded their way through the sorghum field, guided by the moon’s rays. the odour saturatingthe field drenched father’s soul and would be his constant companion during the cruel monthsand years ahead.

sorghum stems and leaves sizzled fiercely in the mist. the black water river, which flowedslowly through the swampy lowland, sang in the spreading mist, now loud, now soft, now far,now near. as they caught up with the troops, father heard the tramping of feet and some coarsebreathing fore and aft. the butt of a rifle noisily bumped someone else’s. a foot crushed whatsounded like a human bone. the man in front of father coughed loudly. it was a familiar cough,calling to mind large ears that turned red with excitement. large transparent ears covered withtiny blood vessels were the trademark of wang wenyi, a small man whose enlarged head wastucked down between his shoulders.

father strained and squinted until his gaze bored through the mist: there was wang wenyi’shead, jerking with each cough. father thought back to when wang was whipped on the paradeground, and how pitiful he had looked. he had just joined up with commander yu. adjutant renordered the recruits: right face! wang wenyi stomped down joyfully, but where he intended to‘face’ was anyone’s guess. adjutant ren smacked him across the backside with his whip, forcinga yelp from between his parted lips. ouch, mother of my children! the expression on his facecould have been a cry, or could have been a laugh. some kids sprawled atop the wall hootedgleefully.

now commander yu kicked wang wenyi in the backside.

‘who said you could cough?’

‘commander yu?.?.?.’ wang wenyi stifled a cough. ‘my throat itches.?.?.?.’

‘so what? if you give away our position, it’s your head!’

‘yes, sir,’ wang replied, as another coughing spell erupted.

father sensed commander yu lurching forward to grab wang wenyi around the neck withboth hands. wang wheezed and gasped, but the coughing stopped.

father also sensed commander yu’s hands release wang’s neck; he even sensed the purplewelts, like ripe grapes, left behind. aggrieved gratitude filled wang’s deep-blue, frightened eyes.

the troops turned quickly into the sorghum, and father knew instinctively that they wereheading southeast. the dirt path was the only direct link between the black water river and thevillage. during the day it had a pale cast; the original black earth, the colour of ebony, had beencovered by the passage of countless animals: cloven hoofprints of oxen and goats, semicircularhoofprints of mules, horses, and donkeys; dried road apples left by horses, mules, and donkeys;wormy cow chips; and scattered goat pellets like little black beans. father had taken this path sooften that later on, as he suffered in the japanese cinder pit, its image often flashed before hiseyes. he never knew how many sexual comedies my grandma had performed on this dirt path,but i knew. and he never knew that her naked body, pure as glossy white jade, had lain on theblack soil beneath the shadows of sorghum stalks, but i knew.

the surrounding mist grew more sluggish once they were in the sorghum field. the stalksscreeched in secret resentment when the men and equipment bumped against them, sendinglarge, mournful beads of water splashing to the ground. the water was ice- cold, clear andsparkling, and deliciously refreshing. father looked up, and a large drop fell into his mouth. asthe heavy curtain of mist parted gently, he watched the heads of sorghum stalks bend slowlydown. the tough, pliable leaves, weighted down by the dew, sawed at his clothes and face. abreeze set the stalks above him rustling briefly; the gurgling of the black water river grewlouder.

father had gone swimming so often in the black water river that he seemed born to it.

grandma said that the sight of the river excited him more than the sight of his own mother. at theage of five, he could dive like a duckling, his little pink asshole bobbing above the surface, hisfeet sticking straight up. he knew that the muddy riverbed was black and shiny, and as spongy assoft tallow, and that the banks were covered with pale-green reeds and plantain the colour ofgoose- down; coiling vines and stiff bone grass hugged the muddy ground, which wascrisscrossed with the tracks of skittering crabs.

autumn winds brought cool air, and wild geese flew through the sky heading south, theirformation changing from a straight line one minute to a v the next. when the sorghum turnedred, hordes of crabs the size of horse hooves scrambled onto the bank at night to search for food– fresh cow dung and the rotting carcasses of dead animals – among the clumps of river grass.

the sound of the river reminded father of an autumn night during his childhood, when theforeman of our family business, arhat liu, named after buddhist saints, took him crabbing on theriverbank. on that grey- purple night a golden breeze followed the course of the river. thesapphire-blue sky was deep and boundless, green-tinted stars shone brightly in the sky: the ladleof ursa major (signifying death), the basket of sagittarius (representing life); octans, the glasswell, missing one of its tiles; the anxious herd boy (altair), about to hang himself; the mournfulweaving girl (vega), about to drown herself in the river.?.?.?. uncle arhat had been overseeingthe work of the family distillery for decades, and father scrambled to keep up with him as hewould his own grandfather.

the weak light of the kerosene lamp bored a five-yard hole in the darkness. when waterflowed into the halo of light, it was the cordial yellow of an overripe apricot. but cordial for onlya fleeting moment, before it flowed on. in the surrounding darkness the water reflected a starrysky. father and uncle arhat, rain capes over their shoulders, sat around the shaded lamp listeningto the low gurgling of the river. every so often they heard the excited screech of a fox calling toits mate in the sorghum fields beside the river. father and uncle arhat sat quietly, listening withrapt respect to the whispered secrets of the land, as the smell of stinking river mud drifted overon the wind. hordes of crabs attracted by the light skittered towards the lamp, where they formeda shifting, restless cloister. father was so eager he nearly sprang to his feet, but uncle arhat heldhim by the shoulders.

‘take it easy! greedy eaters never get the hot gruel.’ holding his excitement in check, fathersat still. the crabs stopped as soon as they entered the ring of lamplight, and lined up head to tail,blotting out the ground. a greenish glint issued from their shells, as countless pairs of button eyespopped from deep sockets on little stems. mouths hidden beneath sloping faces released frothystrings of brazenly colourful bubbles. the long fibres on father’s straw rain cape stood up.

‘now!’ uncle arhat shouted. father sprang into action before the shout died out, snatching twocorners of the tightly woven net they’d spread on the ground beforehand; they raised it in the air,scooping up a layer of crabs and revealing a clear spot of riverbank beneath them. quickly tyingthe ends together and tossing the net to one side, they rushed back and lifted up another piece ofnetting with the same speed and skill. the heavy bundles seemed to hold hundreds, eventhousands of crabs.

as father followed the troops into the sorghum field, he moved sideways, crablike, overshootingthe spaces between the stalks and bumping them hard, which caused them to sway and bendviolently. still gripping tightly to commander yu’s coat-tail, he was pulled along, his feet barelytouching the ground. but he was getting sleepy. his neck felt stiff, his eyes were growing dulland listless, and his only thought was that as long as he could tag along behind uncle arhat to theblack water river he’d never come back empty-handed.

father ate crab until he was sick of it, and so did grandma. but even though they lost theirappetite for it, they couldn’t bear to throw the uneaten ones away. so uncle arhat minced theleftovers and ground them under the bean-curd millstone, then salted the crab paste, which theyate daily, until it finally went bad and became mulch for the poppies.

apparently grandma was an opium smoker, but wasn’t addicted, which was why she had thecomplexion of a peach, a sunny disposition, and a clear mind. the crab-nourished poppies grewhuge and fleshy, a mixture of pinks, reds, and whites that assailed your nostrils with theirfragrance. the black soil of my hometown, always fertile, was especially productive, and thepeople who tilled it were especially decent, strong-willed, and ambitious. the white eels of theblack water river, like plump sausages with tapered ends, foolishly swallowed every hook insight.

uncle arhat had died the year before on the jiao-ping highway. his corpse, after being hacked topieces, had been scattered around the area. as the skin was being stripped from his body, hisflesh jumped and quivered, as if he were a huge skinned frog. images of that corpse sent shiversup father’s spine. then he thought back to a night some seven or eight years earlier, whengrandma, drunk at the time, had stood in the distillery yard beside a pile of sorghum leaves, herarms around uncle arhat’s shoulders. ‘uncle?.?.?. don’t leave,’ she pleaded. ‘if not for the sake ofthe monk, stay for the buddha. if not for the sake of the fish, stay for the water. if not for mysake, stay for little douguan. you can have me, if you want.?.?.?. you’re like my own father.?.?.?.’

father watched him push her away and swagger into the shed to mix fodder for the two largeblack mules who, when we opened our distillery, made us the richest family in the village. unclearhat didn’t leave after all. instead he became our foreman, right up to the day the japaneseconfiscated our mules to work on the jiao-ping highway.

now father and the others could hear long-drawn-out brays from the mules they had left behindin the village. wide-eyed with excitement, he could see nothing but the congealed yet nearlytransparent mist that surrounded him. erect stalks of sorghum formed dense barriers behind awall of vapour. each barrier led to another, seemingly endless. he had no idea how long they’dbeen in the field, for his mind was focused on the fertile river roaring in the distance, and on hismemories. he wondered why they were in such a hurry to squeeze through this packed, dreamyocean of sorghum. suddenly he lost his bearings. he listened carefully for a sign from the river,and quickly determined that they were heading east-southeast, towards the river. once he had afix on their direction, he understood that they would be setting an ambush for the japanese, thatthey would be killing people, just as they had killed the dogs. by heading east-southeast, theywould soon reach the jiao-ping highway, which cut through the swampy lowland from north tosouth and linked the two counties of jiao and pingdu. japanese and their running dogs, chinesecollaborators, had built the highway with the forced labour of local conscripts.

the sorghum was set in motion by the exhausted troops, whose heads and necks were soakedby the settling dew. wang wenyi was still coughing, even though he’d been the target ofcommander yu’s continuing angry outbursts. father sensed that the highway was just up ahead,its pale-yellow outline swaying in front of him. imperceptibly tiny openings began to appear inthe thick curtain of mist, and one dew-soaked ear of sorghum after another stared sadly at father,who returned their devout gaze. it dawned on him that they were living spirits: their roots buriedin the dark earth, they soaked up the energy of the sun and the essence of the moon; moistened bythe rain and dew, they understood the ways of the heavens and the logic of the earth. the colourof the sorghum suggested that the sun had already turned the obscured horizon a pathetic red.

then something unexpected occurred. father heard a shrill whistle, followed by a loud burstfrom up ahead.

‘who fired his weapon?’ commander yu bellowed. ‘who’s the prick who did it?’

father heard the bullet pierce the thick mist and pass through sorghum leaves and stalks,lopping off one of the heads. everyone held his breath as the bullet screamed through the air andthudded to the ground. the sweet smell of gunpowder dissipated in the mist. wang wenyiscreamed pitifully, ‘commander – my head’s gone – commander – my head’s gone –’

commander yu froze momentarily, then kicked wang wenyi. ‘you dumb fuck!’ he growled.

‘how could you talk without a head?’

commander yu left my father standing there and went up to the head of the column. wangwenyi was still howling. father pressed forward to catch a glimpse of the strange look onwang’s face. a dark-blue substance was flowing on his cheek. father reached out to touch it; hotand sticky, it smelled a lot like the mud of the black water river, but fresher. it overwhelmedthe smell of peppermint and the pungent sweetness of sorghum and awakened in father’s mind amemory that drew ever nearer: like beads, it strung together the mud of the black water river,the black earth beneath the sorghum, the eternally living past, and the unstoppable present. thereare times when everything on earth spits out the stench of human blood.

‘uncle,’ father said, ‘you’re wounded.’

‘douguan, is that you? tell your old uncle if his head’s still on his neck.’

‘it’s there, uncle, right where it’s supposed to be. except your ear’s bleeding.’

wang wenyi reached up to touch his ear and pulled back a bloody hand, yelping in alarm.

then he froze as if paralysed. ‘commander, i’m wounded! i’m wounded!’

commander yu came back to wang, knelt down, and put his hands around wang’s neck.

‘stop screaming or i’ll throttle you!’

wang wenyi didn’t dare make a sound.

‘where were you hit?’ commander yu asked him.

‘my ear?.?.?.’ wang was weeping.

commander yu took a piece of white cloth from his waistband and tore it in two, then handedit to him. ‘hold this over it, and no more noise. stay in rank. you can bandage it when we reachthe highway.’

commander yu turned to father. ‘douguan,’ he barked. father answered, and commander yuwalked off holding him by the hand, followed by the whimpering wang wenyi.

the offending discharge had been the result of carelessness by the big fellow they called mute,who was up front carrying a rake on his shoulder. the rifle slung over his back had gone offwhen he stumbled. mute was one of commander yu’s old bandit friends, a greenwood hero whohad eaten fistcakes in the sorghum fields. one of his legs was shorter than the other – a prenatalinjury – and he limped when he walked, but that didn’t slow him down. father was a little afraidof him.

at about dawn, the massive curtain of mist finally lifted, just as commander yu and his troopsemerged onto the jiao-ping highway. in my hometown, august is the misty season, possiblybecause there’s so much swampy lowland. once he stepped onto the highway, father feltsuddenly light and nimble; with extra spring in his step, he let go of commander yu’s coat.

wang wenyi, on the other hand, wore a crestfallen look as he held the cloth to his injured ear.

commander yu crudely wrapped it for him, covering up half his head. wang gnashed his teeth inpain.

‘the heavens have smiled on you,’ commander yu said.

‘my blood’s all gone,’ wang whimpered, ‘i can’t go on!’

‘bullshit!’ commander yu exclaimed. ‘it’s no worse than a mosquito bite. you haven’tforgotten your three sons, have you?’

wang hung his head and mumbled, ‘no, i haven’t forgotten.’

the butt of the long-barrelled fowling piece over his shoulder was the colour of blood. a flatmetal gunpowder pouch rested against his hip.

remnants of the dissipating mist were scattered throughout the sorghum field. there wereneither animal nor human footprints in the gravel, and the dense walls of sorghum on thedeserted highway made the men feel that something ominous was in the air. father knew allalong that commander yu’s troops numbered no more than forty – deaf, mute, and crippledincluded. but when they were quartered in the village, they had stirred things up so much, withchickens squawking and dogs yelping, that you’d have thought it was a garrison command.

out on the highway, the soldiers huddled so closely together they looked like an inert snake.

their motley assortment of weapons included shotguns, fowling pieces, ageing hanyang rifles,plus a cannon that fired scale weights and was carried by two brothers, fang six and fang seven.

mute was toting a rake with twenty-six metal tines, as were three other soldiers. father stilldidn’t know what an ambush was, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have known why anyonewould take four rakes to the event.