Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (50 page)

Radio stations throughout China were of one voice those days, aided by the finest equipment, so naturally, Jinlong turned the volume on his radio all the way up, and whenever he met someone along the way he announced in a manner and style we’d gotten used to, “Chairman Mao is dead!” This announcement was invariably met with stupefied looks. The faces of some contorted in agony; other people merely shook their heads, and others beat their chests and stomped their feet. All fell meekly in line behind Jinlong, and by the time we reached the village a long line stretched out behind me.

Hong Taiyue emerged from brigade headquarters, but before he could ask what was going on, Jinlong announced, “Chairman Mao is dead!” Hong reacted by doubling up his fist to punch Jinlong in the face. But his fist stopped in mid flight when he realized that virtually the entire village had turned out and saw how the radio in Jinlong’s hands was so loud it vibrated. He pulled his fist back and pounded his own chest, as a shriek of desolation tore from his throat: “Ah, Chairman Mao . . . you have left us . . . how will we get through the days to come?”

A dirge began to play over the radio, and the slow, solemn strains had Huang Tong’s wife, Wu Qiuxiang, and all the village women wailing piteously Overcome by grief, they sat down in the mud, many of them pounding the ground with their fists and sending water splashing in all directions. Some covered their mouths with hankies and gazed heavenward, others covered their eyes and released grief-stricken cries. As the wails mounted, words followed:

“We are the earth, Chairman Mao the sky — Now Chairman Mao has died, the sky has fallen—”

As for the men, lamentations came from some, silent tears from others. When they heard the news, even the landlords, rich peasants, and counterrevolutionaries came running to stand off a short distance and weep silently.

As a member of the beastly kingdom, who was nonetheless influenced by my surroundings, I was saddened by the news, but maintained my emotional equilibrium. I walked among the crowd, watching and thinking. The death of no other man in recent Chinese history had the effect on people that the passing of Mao Zedong did. Those who didn’t shed a tear even when their own mothers died wept over Mao Zedong until their eyes were red. As always, there were exceptions. Among the thousand or more residents of Ximen Village, when even landlords and rich peasants, who should have held a grudge against Chairman Mao, wept openly over his death, and all who heard the news laid down their work, two individuals neither wailed nor wept silently but kept right on with what they were doing. One was Xu Bao, the other was Lan Lian.

Xu Bao mixed stealthily among the crowd, following behind me. At first I wasn’t aware of his presence, but it didn’t take long to spot that greedy, malignant look of his, and as soon as I realized that his eyes were fixed on my substantial testicles, I felt greater shock and anger than I’d ever known before. At a time like this, all Xu Bao had on his mind was getting his hands on my testicles. Obviously, he was not saddened by Chairman Mao’s death, and if I could have found a way to inform the people what he was thinking, he might well have died at the hands of the mourners. Too bad I was still incapable of human speech, and too bad the people were so caught up in their grief they paid no attention to Xu Bao. Fine, then, I thought. I admit I was once afraid of you, Xu Bao, and I’m still leery of that quick hand of yours. But since even a man like Chairman Mao cannot live forever, I might as well not worry about whether I live or die. I’m here waiting for you, Xu Bao, you bastard. Tonight the fish dies or the net breaks.

The other person who shed no tears for Mao Zedong was Lan Lian. While everyone else was at the Ximen family compound keening over Chairman Mao, he sat alone on the doorstep of his room to the west, honing his rusty scythe with a whetstone. The scraping sound set people’s teeth on edge and chilled their hearts. It certainly didn’t suit the occasion, and it hinted at something dark. Jinlong, unable to stand it a moment longer, handed the radio to his wife and, with the entire village looking on, ran up to Lan Lian, bent down, grabbed the whetstone out of his hand, and flung it to the ground. It broke in two.

“Are you human or aren’t you?” Jinlong cursed between his teeth.

Lan Lian narrowed his eyes to size up Jinlong, who was shaking in anger. He stood up slowly, still holding his scythe.

“He’s dead,” he said, “but I have to keep on living. There’s millet that needs harvesting.”

Jinlong picked up a metal bucket with a rusted bottom next to the ox pen and threw it at Lan Lian, who let it hit him in the chest without even trying to get out of the way. It fell at his feet.

Jinlong’s eyes were red. Picking up a carrying pole, he raised it high and was about to hit Lan Lian in the head when, fortunately, Hong Taiyue stopped him.

“What kind of a man are you, old Lan?” Hong said unhappily.

Tears began to flow from Lan Lian’s eyes as he got down on his knees.

“I loved Chairman Mao more than any of you imposters,” he said indignantly.

Everyone just stared terrified, at a loss for words.

Lan Lian pounded the ground with his fists and keened:

“Chairman Mao — I’m one of your people too — I received my plot of land from you — you gave me the right to be an independent farmer—”

Yingchun, still weeping, walked over and bent down to help him up. But his knees seemed to have taken root. Yingchun fell to her knees in front of him.

A yellow butterfly flitted down from the apricot tree and settled like a dead leaf on a white chrysanthemum she wore in her hair.

Wearing a white chrysanthemum in the hair to mourn a loved one was a village custom. Other women rushed over to Yingehun’s door to pick white mums, hoping that the butterfly would flit over to their heads; but after landing on Yingehun’s head, it tucked in its wings and stayed put.

I quietly walked away from the compound, left the perplexed crowd around Lan Lian. I saw the evil eyes of Xu Bao half hidden amid the crowd and guessed that the old thief didn’t dare make his move quite yet, leaving me time to ready myself to fight him head-on.

Not a single person remained at the farm, and as night began to fall — mealtime for us seventy or so survivors — the sounds of hunger rose. I’d have opened the pens and freed all the pigs, if not for the possibility that they’d pepper me with questions. Go ahead, pals, make as big a scene as you want. I don’t have time to worry about you, since I see the slippery figure of Xu Bao behind the crooked apricot tree. Actually, it’s more a case of sensing the murderous aura emanating from that cruel man’s body. My mind was spinning as I worked on strategies from my hiding spot in the pen. I backed into a corner, figuring that was the best way to keep my jewels out of harm’s way. I hunkered down, feigning ignorance; but I had a plan: observe, wait, and employ passive resistance. Come on, Xu Bao. You think you’re going to get your hands on my jewels to go with your liquor. Well, I’ll bite yours off and avenge all the animals you mutilated.

The evening sky darkened, and steam rose from the wet ground. The pigs were so hungry they stopped clamoring. The only sounds were the croaks of frogs. The murderous aura seemed to be drawing nearer, and I knew he was about to strike. His dry little face appeared, like a greasy walnut. No eyebrows, no eyelashes, no chin stubble. The guy actually smiled, and I nearly wet myself. But, goddamn it, I don’t care how much you smile! He opened the gate and stood in the opening, where he waved to me and uttered a greeting: “Soo-ee.” He wanted to trick me into leaving my pen, I saw that immediately. He’d leap into action as I walked out the gate and make off with my jewels. Well, you little bastard, nice try, but old Pig Sixteen isn’t about to fall for your tricks today. The pen could collapse but I won’t budge, and you can give me gourmet food but I won’t eat. Xu Bao tossed a corn cake into my pen. Pick it up and eat it yourself, you little bastard. Xu Bao played every trick he knew, but I stayed hunkered down in my corner.

“That’s one demonic damned pig!” he cursed angrily.

If Xu Bao had quit at that moment, would I have had the guts to run up and take him on? Hard to say. The son of a bitch was so addicted to eating animals’ testicles that he didn’t leave; he was so attracted by those objects hanging between my hind legs that he got down on his hands and knees in the mud and crawled into my pen.

A mixture of anger and fear, like blue and yellow flames, flared up in my mind. The hour for revenge had arrived. Clenching my teeth and keeping still, I forced myself to stay calm. Okay, here I am. Come closer, a little closer. Wait till the enemy is in your house before you strike. Close combat, night combat, I’m ready. He wavered when he was a yard or so away and made faces to tempt me to come out to meet him. Forget that, you little bastard. Come on, here I am, just a dumb pig, no danger to you. Probably thinking he’d overestimated my intelligence, Xu Bao let his guard down and approached slowly, with hopes of scaring me into moving. He bent down a yard in front of me, and I felt my muscles tense, like a bow pulled taut. The arrow was on the string. I knew if I attacked then, he could hop like a flea and still not get away.

It was no longer a case of will commanding body; it attacked on its own, driving itself right into Xu Bao’s belly and lifting him off the ground. His head hit the wall, and he thudded to the ground right where I normally relieved myself. His scream hung in the air well after he landed. His fighting capacity was gone. He lay in my refuse like a cadaver. I decided to carry out my complete plan in order to avenge my mutilated friends. I’d use the man’s own strategy against him. I was feeling slightly disgusted and hesitant, but since I’d put my idea into play, I had to see it through to the end. I bit down between his legs. I came up empty! Nothing but pants material. I pulled back and ripped the material off his crotch, and what I saw terrified me. Xu Bao, it turned out, was a natural-born eunuch. I was stupefied, but now I knew what he was all about, I understood why he had such loathing for testes in other males, why he’d honed his special skill, and why he’d developed such a taste for that delicacy. Gome to think of it, he was a luckless creature. Maybe he believed in the idea that you are what you eat, which is on the order of believing you can get blood out of a turnip or that a dead tree can sprout new leaves. In the heavy darkness I saw two lines of green blood snake out of his nostrils. How could he be so fragile that one head butt did him in? I stuck a hoof under his nose. I could feel no air coming out. Damn, the little bastard really was dead. I’d overheard someone from the country hospital tell villagers about GPR, and I’d personally seen Baofeng bring a drowning victim back to life. So I laid the guy out straight and pressed down on his chest with both hooves. Once, twice . . . Pushing with all my might, I could hear his rib cage creak, and I saw more blood come out of his mouth and nose. . . .

As I stood in the gateway of my pen I made the most important decision of my life: Chairman Mao had died, which meant great changes were unavoidable in the human world. As for me, I’d become a homicidal pig, and if I stuck around, all I could look forward to was the butcher’s knife and a pot of boiling water. At that moment I thought I heard a voice summoning me from the distance:

“Rebel, brothers!”

Before fleeing into the wild, I opened the gates on the pens of the pigs who had survived the Red Death and let them out.

“Brothers,” I said to them from a high spot of ground, “rebel!”

They just stared at me blankly, having no idea what I was saying, all but one skinny immature sow — an unspoiled body with a black-and-white belly — who emerged from the crowd and said, “I’ll follow you, my king.” The rest of them just rooted around in their pens looking for something to eat. A few walked back inside to lie down lazily and wait to be fed by the humans.

So with the little sow behind me, I headed southeast on ground so soft our legs sank in up to the knees. We left a clear trail. When we reached the bank of the deep, water-filled canal, I asked her:

“What’s your name?”

“They call me Little Flower, my king.”

“Why do they call you that?”

“Because there are two little floral patterns on my belly, my king.”

“Did you come here from Mount Yimeng, Little Flower?”

“No, my king.”

“Then where did you come from?”

“I don’t know, my king.”

“You’re the only one who came with me. Why?”

“I worship you, my king.”

As I looked this simple little animal over, naive Little Flower, I was both moved and saddened. I nudged her belly with my snout as a sign of friendship.

“All right, Little Flower,” I said, “humans no longer have any control over us, just like our ancestors. We’re free. But starting today, we’ll dine on the wind and drink the dew. It will be a hard life, and it’s not too late for you to change your mind.”

“I’m not going to change my mind, my king,” she said decisively.

“That’s wonderful news, Little Flower. Can you swim?”

“Yes, my king, I can.”

“Great!” I patted her on the rump and jumped into the water.

The water was warm and gentle, and it felt wonderful to be immersed in it. I’d originally planned to swim to the opposite bank and walk from there, but I changed my mind. At first the surface of the water looked frozen in place, but once we were in it I realized that it flowed northward, toward the great canal once used by the Manchu government to transport grain, at a speed of at least five yards a minute. The speed of flow and our buoyancy would make our passage an effortless one. By barely kicking with my front legs, I sailed through the water like a shark, and when I turned to look, there was Little Flower, right behind me, all four legs churning in the water, head high, eyes flashing; she was breathing through her nose.

“How’re you doing, Little Flower?”

“I’m doing fine, my king.” But with that brief bit of conversation her nose dipped beneath the surface, which led to snorts and a spurt of frantic leg kicks.