Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (35 page)

I moved into my new quarters in the fall, when the sunlight was more red than white, and the red sun dyed the leaves of the apricot tree red. Each evening or early morning, when the sun was sinking or rising, breakfast and dinnertime for the pig farmers, the pens were unusually quiet. That’s when I stood up on my hind legs and, with my front legs curled in front of me, began eating apricot leaves right from the tree. Slightly bitter, but loaded with fiber, they helped lower my blood pressure and keep my teeth clean.

One day, when the apricot leaves were bright red, around the tenth day of the tenth lunar month — yes, that was the day, my memory’s still sharp — early on the tenth, just after the sun, big and red and gentle, had climbed into the sky, Lan Jinlong, whom I hadn’t seen in a very long time, returned. He was accompanied by the four Sun brothers, who attended to his every need and desire, and the brigade accountant, Zhu Hongxin, who had bought 1,057 pigs for the astonishingly low cost of 5,000 yuan, or less than 5 yuan apiece. I was performing my morning exercises when I heard the roar of motors. I looked outside in time to see three vehicles with trailers coming my way from beyond the apricot grove. They were so dusty they looked like they’d come straight from the desert, the hoods so dirty it was impossible to see what color they were. They bumped and rattled their way through the grove behind the new pigpens and into a clearing littered with broken bricks and tiles and mud-covered wheat stalks. Looking like long-tailed monsters, they took their time coming to a complete stop, after which I saw Lan Jinlong, his hair a mess and his face covered with grime, climb out of the first cab. Then Zhu Hongxin and Dragon Sun climbed out of the second vehicle, and finally, the remaining three Sun brothers and Mo Yan climbed out of the last one. All four faces in this last group were coated with dust, looking like the terracotta warriors of the First Emperor. Then I heard the
oink-oinks
of pigs in the three trailers, getting steadily louder, until it was a shrill chorus. Was I excited! I knew the day of the pigs had arrived. I couldn’t see these newcomers; I could only hear them and smell the strange odor of their droppings. I was ready to bet they were an ugly lot.

Hong Taiyue rode up like the wind on his brand-new Golden Deer; bicycles were a rarity at the time, and only the branch secretaries were permitted to buy them. Hong parked his bike at the edge of the clearing, up against an apricot tree, half of whose top had been cut off. He didn’t lock it, which shows how fired up he was. He greeted Jinlong with open arms, a conquering hero. Now don’t think he was about to give Jinlong a hug — that’s for foreigners, something Chinese didn’t practice during the pig-raising era. So when Hong reached the spot where Jinlong was standing, he dropped his arms, then reached out and patted Jinlong on the shoulder.

“I see you bought them.”

“One thousand fifty-seven altogether, exceeding the assigned quota!” Jinlong said as he started to sway and, before Hong could catch him, crumpled to the ground.

Almost immediately the four Sun brothers and Zhu Hongxin, who was clutching a Naugahyde briefcase, started to sway as well. Only Mo Yan was full of energy. He raised his arms and shouted:

“We fought our way back! We were victorious!”

The red sun shining down made it a somewhat solemn and tragic scene. Hong Taiyue summoned the brigade’s cadres and militiamen to carry these pig buyers who had performed such meritorious service, and the three drivers, over to the buildings housing the animal keepers.

“Huzhu, Hezuo, go find some women to make noodles and eggs for these men in recognition of their services,” he shouted. “Then get people to unload the trailers.”

I got my first look at the ghastly animals as soon as the tailgates came down. Those aren’t pigs! How could anybody call
them
pigs? Some big, some small, different colors, and every one filthy, covered with their own shit, and stinking to high heaven! I shoved a couple of apricot leaves up my nose. I thought they’d be bringing over some pretty little pigs to keep me company and supply the future king of pigs with a harem. Who came up with the idea of bringing a bunch of freakish offspring of wolves and pigs? I didn’t have the heart to look any longer, but their funny accents piqued my curiosity. Old Lan, I might have the spirit of a man somewhere inside me, but I’m still a pig, and I’d advise you not to expect too much from me. If humans are curious animals, then what do you expect from a pig?

I rested my front hooves and chin in the crotch of the tree to lessen the pressure on my hind legs. The branches sagged and shook. A woodpecker on one of the limbs cocked his head and stared down at me, his beady, black eyes filled with curiosity. Not knowing bird talk, I couldn’t speak to him, but I could tell I was freaking him out. I watched through the leaves of my tree as the newcomers were unloaded. They were all semiconscious, barely able to stand, a pitiful bunch. A sow with a cylindrical snout and pointy ears, apparently too old and weak to travel long distances, passed out as soon as she hit the ground. Some of the rest tilted to one side, others were sprawled on the ground, and some were scratching themselves against the bark of apricot trees —
scrape scrape.
My god, what thick hides! Yes, they had fleas and they had scabies, and I had to be sure to keep my distance. One black male caught my attention. He was scrawny, but looked to be clever and bright. Here’s what he looked like: long snout, tail dragging on the ground, dense, hard bristles, broad shoulders, pointy ass, thick limbs, tiny, keen eyes, two yellow front teeth that stuck out between his lips. In short, the next thing to a wild boar. So while all the others looked wretched from the long trip, this one sauntered around taking in the sights, like a whistling hoodlum walking around with his arms crossed. A few days later, Jinlong gave this one a name: Diao Xiaosan. That was the name of a bad character in the model revolutionary opera
Shajiabang.
Yes, he was the bad guy who snatched a girl’s bundle and wanted to take advantage of her. Diao Xiaosan and I would have some interesting times together, but I’ll get to that later. I watched the commune members, under Hong Taiyue’s direction, herd the pigs into the two hundred pens. It was chaos. The animals, with their low IQs, were used to running wild and oblivious to the reality that once inside the pens, they could live in ease and comfort. They thought they were being rounded up for the slaughterhouse, so they squealed and bawled and ran for their lives and crashed into each other, fighting like cornered beasts. Hu Bin, who’d done all those bad things during my ox years, was put flat on his back by a crazed white pig that butted him in the belly He struggled to sit up, ashen-faced and bathed in a cold sweat, holding his belly with his hands and moaning. This luckless bumpkin who harbored dark thoughts and had too high an opinion of himself wanted to be a part of damned near everything, and he always got the worst of things. So while he was despicable, he was also to be pitied. You probably remember how I got even with him on the sandbar by the Grain Barge River, don’t you? Well, in the years since, he’d gotten old and even had trouble speaking, now that his teeth had fallen out. And here I was, a pig not even a year old, young and sprightly, enjoying life. Being reborn over and over may wear a guy out, but it has its advantages.

Another animal, an angry castrated male with half an ear missing and a ring in its nose, bit Chen Dafu on the finger. This rotten individual, who’d once had illicit dealings with Qiuxiang, screamed so loud you’d have thought the pig had taken off his whole hand. In contrast to these useless men, the slow-moving middle-aged women — Yingchun, Qiuxiang, Bai Lian, and Zhao Lan — bent at the waist, stretched out their arms, made gentle sounds with their tongues, and, with friendly smiles, got close to some of the pigs that had been forced into a corner. Despite the filth covering the animals, there were no looks of disgust on the faces of these women, just genuine smiles. The pigs oinked but didn’t run away, so the women reached out, disregarding the filth on their bodies, and scratched their hides. Pigs never pass up a good scratching, and people love to be flattered. The animals’ fighting will evaporated; shutting their eyes blissfully, they swayed a moment or two and then slumped to the ground. The only thing left was for the women to pick up their velvet prisoners and, still scratching them between their legs, carry them over to the pens.

Hong Taiyue praised the women and scorned the rough-and-tumble men.

Amid an earsplitting clamor, all but three of the 1,057 pigs from the Mount Yimeng area were caught and put into pens. One, a dirty yellow female, died, and so did a young black-and-white. The third one was the black boar Diao Xiaosan, who slipped under one of the vehicles and refused to come out. Wang Chen, a core member of the militia, emerged from the feeding shed with a plane tree pole and tried to poke the pig out with it. Diao Xiaosan bit it in two after a tug-of-war, and though I couldn’t see Diao under the vehicle, I could picture what he looked like down there. When he bit the pole in two, the bristles on his back stood straight up and scary green lights flashed in his eyes. He was no pig, he was a wild beast, one that would teach me lots of things over the months to come. He started out as my enemy and wound up as my adviser. As I said earlier, the story of Diao Xiaosan and me will unfold in the pages to come, all dyed in bold colors.

The muscular militiaman and Diao Xiaosan were perfectly matched, and the pole had made only meager inroads. A crowd that had gathered looked on, spellbound. Hong Taiyue leaned over to look under the vehicle; other people did the same, and I tried to conjure up an image of that stubborn, stalwart scalawag. Finally, some of the gawkers decided to come help Wang Chen, but I scorned them all. A fair fight is one-on-one. A bunch of men can’t take pride from ganging up on one pig! I was worried that sooner or later the pole would force him out from under the vehicle, like digging a big turnip out of the ground, but then I heard a
crack,
and the men holding the pole fell backward in a heap, bringing half the pole with them, teeth marks on the truncated end.

A roar of approval went up from the crowd. Everybody’s like that: they hate the little wrongdoings and minor eccentricities, but revere the big sins and the grotesque. Diao Xiaosan’s behavior hadn’t reached the level of big sin or grotesque, but it had moved well beyond little wrongdoing and eccentricity. Someone brought out another pole and probed around with it. A
crack
from under the vehicle, and the man threw down his pole and ran away in fear. The ideas came fast and furious after that: some suggested shooting him, others recommended stabbing him with a spear, and some recommended smoking him out. Hong Taiyue shot down all those cruel suggestions. “Those ideas stink worse than shit!” he said sternly. “We’re supposed to be ‘raising’ pigs, not ‘braising’ pigs.” So then someone recommended having one of the bolder women crawl under the vehicle and start scratching him. Even the wildest boar will respect the fairer sex, won’t it? Not even the meanest pig can stay wild if a woman is scratching it, can it? A good idea, but who to send was the obvious question. Huang Tong, still supposed vice chairman of the Revolutionary Committee, but wielding no real authority, supplied an answer: “When great rewards are offered, brave women will respond! Whoever crawls under the vehicle and subdues that wild boar gets a bonus of three days’ work points!” With a sneer, Hong Taiyue said, “That sounds like a good job for your wife!” Wu Qiuxiang quickly moved to the back of the crowd. “You and your big mouth,” she berated Huang Tong. “It gets you into trouble every time! I wouldn’t go under there for three hundred work points!” Her words still hung in the air when Ximen Jinlong emerged from the pig feed preparation room of the pig-tenders dormitory, at the far end of the apricot grove, between the lovely Huang daughters. He pushed them away, but they came together and followed him, like a pair of comely bodyguards. Bringing up the rear of this procession were Ximen Baofeng, medical kit on her back, Lan Jiefang, Bai Xing’er, Mo Yan, and others. Except for Ximen Jinlong, whose face was grimy, they were all carrying buckets of pig feed. I could smell the fragrance even with apricot leaves stuffed up my nose: it was a mash made of cottonseed cake, sweet potatoes, black bean paste, and sweet potato leaves. Milky white steam rose from the sunlit wooden buckets, spreading the fragrance around. Great clouds of steam poured from the buckets. It was a motley procession, yet there was a certain solemnity about it, sort of like mess cooks taking food to frontline soldiers, and I knew that the half starved Mount Yimeng pigs would be chomping and chewing in no time; their days of ease and comfort were under way.

“Here he is,” the crowd roared, “he’ll save the day.”

“Jinlong,” Hong Taiyue said, “be careful. That’s a crazed animal down there. I don’t want to see it injured, and I certainly don’t want you to be hurt. You’re both too valuable to the Ximen Village Brigade.”

Jinlong bent down and looked under the vehicle, then picked up a piece of broken tile and threw it in. In my mind’s eye I could see Diao Xiaosan crunch the tile into pieces, an angry, bone-chilling glare spewing from his tiny eyes. Jinlong stood up, the hint of a smile on his cheeks. It was a look I knew well, one that meant he had a plan, and it was almost always an intriguing plan. He whispered something to Hong Taiyue, as if keeping a secret from Diao Xiaosan. There was no need for that, since, as far as I knew, no pig in the world, except me, understood human language.

Hong smiled, thumped Jinlong on the shoulder, and said: “Only you could come up with something like that!” After about as long as it takes to smoke half a cigarette, Ximen Baofeng came running over with a couple of snow-white steamed buns that had been soaked in liquid, the redolence of liquor heavy in the air, and I knew what Jinlong had in mind. He’d get Diao Xiaosan drunk. If I’d been Diao, I wouldn’t have fallen for it. But he was, after all, a pig, and he lacked the intelligence to match his wildness. Jinlong tossed the liquor-soaked buns under the vehicle. Don’t eat those, brother, I muttered to myself. You’ll fall into human hands if you do. He ate them. How did I know? By the triumphant grins on Jinlong and Hong Taiyue’s faces.