Pow! (36 page)

After concluding the interview, the reporters turned to Father, who couldn't stop fidgeting and swaying from side to side, as if looking for something to lean on—a wall, a tree, something. But nothing came to his rescue, and his eyes darted this way and that, looking everywhere but into the camera. The woman holding the microphone said: ‘Manager Luo, try not to move so much.’

He froze.

Then she focused on his eyes. ‘Manager Luo, don't keep looking to the side.’

He stared straight ahead.

The answers he gave bore little relevance to the reporter's questions.

‘You have my word that we will not inject our meat with water,’ he said.

‘We are going to supply city residents with top-quality meat products,’ he said.

‘We invite you to come often to supervise our operations,’ he said.

Those few statements were repeated by him over and over, regardless of the question. Finally, the reporter let him go with a good-natured smile.

A dozen or so automobiles—some black, some blue, some white—drove up, and out stepped men in suits and ties and highly polished shoes. Officials, clearly. The leading VIP, a short, thickset, ruddy-faced man, smiled radiantly. All the others lined up behind him and made their way towards the plant gate. The reporters quick-stepped their way ahead of the approaching officials and then walked backward to film and photograph them. The video cameras were silent but the still cameras clicked with each shot. Their subjects, well used to the attention, talked and laughed and gestured, perfectly naturally, unlike
my father who shrank from the cameras, unnerved by the limelight. I thought the men surrounding the leading official looked familiar. Perhaps I'd seen them on TV. They stuck close to him, leaning his way and vying to get a word in. Saccharine smiles seemed in danger of dripping off their faces.

Lao Lan trotted out through the gate, followed by my father. They'd seen the official and his entourage arrive but had waited for the right moment to step out and to be photographed and filmed, just as they'd rehearsed an hour earlier at the municipal propaganda office under the supervision of one of the secretaries.

Mr Chai, a gaunt beanpole of a man with a small head, had a vegetative appearance. But for all that, he owned a booming voice. ‘You there, Yang Yuzhen,’ he instructed Mother, and then turned to the girls who were to be hostesses. ‘You, you and you, you three girls pretend that you're members of the official contingent approaching the gate. Yang Yuzhen, Lao Luo, you wait behind the gate. When the group reaches the chalk mark, come out to receive your guests. OK? Let's give it a try.’ Secretary Chai stood by the gate. ‘Yang Yuzhen,’ he shouted, ‘lead them this way.’ The girls behind Mother giggled, holding their hands over their mouths. That made Mother laugh. ‘What's so funny?’ Chai barked. With a dry little cough, Mother managed to stop and assume a stern look. ‘That's enough,’ she said to the girls. ‘No more giggles. Let's go.’ Jiaojiao and I watched as Mother, dressed in a blue blouse and skirt, with an apple-green scarf round her neck, threw out her chest and held her head high. She looked the part. ‘Not so fast,’ Chai called out, ‘slow down! Pretend you're talking. Good, that's it, now keep walking. Lao Lan, Lao Luo, get ready. OK, now! Go on, walk, Lao Lan in front, a little more natural, speed it up, shorter steps, don't run. Raise your head, Lao Luo, don't look down like you've lost something. OK, good, now keep walking.’ Taking their cues from Secretary Chai, Lao Lan and Father were all smiles as they met Mother's contingent at the chalk mark. Lao Lan shook hands with Mother. ‘Welcome,’ he said, ‘a hearty welcome.’ Secretary Chai said: ‘Now one of the staff will make the introductions. Lao Lan, you have to let go of the official's hand. Once you've shaken his hand, move to the side to let Lao Luo shake hands with Lao Yang, no, not Lao Yang, I mean the VIP. Let them shake hands.’ Lao Lan let go of Mother's hand and, laughing, moved to the side, leaving Father and Mother standing face to face, both looking quite uncomfortable. ‘Lao Luo,’
Chai said, ‘offer her your hand. She's a VIP, not your wife.’ Grumbling under his breath, Father reached out, shook Mother's hand and shouted angrily: ‘Welcome, a hearty welcome! That'll never do, Lao Luo,’ scolded Chai. ‘What kind of a welcome is that? You sound like you want to start a fight!’ ‘I won't do it like that with a real official,’ Father responded, his temper rising. ‘What the hell is this, a circus?’ Secretary Chai smiled understandingly: ‘Lao Luo, you're going to have to get used to this. Who knows, before long your wife might become an official and your boss.’ Father's response was a snort of disdain. ‘OK,’ Chai said, ‘that wasn't bad. Let's try it again.’ ‘That's all for me,’ Father complained. ‘We could do it ten more times and nothing would change.’ ‘Me, too,’ Mother said, ‘I'm done. Being an official is hard work.’ She wiped her face with her hand. ‘Look at my sweaty face,’ she said exaggeratedly. ‘We can stop here, Secretary Chai,’ Lao Lan said, ‘we know our parts. Don't worry, we'll get it right.’ ‘All right, then,’ Chai said. ‘Just be as natural as you can, and outgoing. You need to treat the VIPs with respect, but don't come across as a lackey.’

Despite the rehearsal, Father was stiff and unnatural; when the time came he was, if anything, worse. I felt deeply embarrassed. Just look at Lao Lan—standing straight, chest out, a broad smile on his face, making a wonderful impression. One look told you that he was a man of the world yet one who remained simple, honest and trustworthy. But then my father followed him, head down, shifty-eyed, evasive, like a man harbouring sinister thoughts. He stepped on Lao Lan's heel at least once as he stumbled along, and it looked as if an invisible brick in the road had tripped him. His arms were like clubs hanging from his shoulders, incapable of bending or moving. It was almost as if he was wearing a suit of armour. His expression was something between a laugh and a sob, a sorry sight to behold, and all I could think was how much better a job Mother would have done, or, me, for that matter. I'd have done better, perhaps even outdone Lao Lan.

Lao Lan grabbed the leading official's hand with both of his and shook it hard. ‘Welcome, a hearty welcome!’

A minor official introduced Lao Lan to his superior: ‘This is Lan Youli, Chairman of the Board and General Manager, Huachang Corporation.’

‘A peasant-turned-entrepreneur!’ said the man with a smile.

‘A peasant, yes,’ Lao Lan said modestly, ‘but hardly an entrepreneur.’

‘Just do a good job,’ said the official. ‘I don't see a Great Wall separating peasant and entrepreneur these days.’

‘Our leader is very wise,’ Lao Lan said. ‘We will, as you say, do a good job.’

Lao Lan shook the official's hand a second time before relinquishing his spot to Father.

‘This is Luo Tong,’ introduced the minor official, ‘the plant manager, an expert on meat. He has an unerring eye, like the legendary chef Pao Ding.’

‘Really?’ the official remarked as he shook Father's hand. ‘I guess in your eyes there's no such thing as a living cow—just an accumulation of flesh and bones.’

Father glanced down at the tips of the minor official's shoes as his face turned red and he muttered unintelligibly.

‘Pao Ding,’ official said to him, ‘it's up to you to see that no water is injected into the meat.’

Finally Father managed a few words: ‘I guarantee…’

Lao Lan led the VIP and his entourage into the plant compound. As if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, Father moved away and watched the party pass by.

His inability to perform in the limelight made me feel terrible. I'd have liked to run up, grab hold of his tie and throttle him till he snapped out of his muddle-headedness, till he stopped standing at the side of the road like some moron. All the spectators followed the VIPs through the gate but Father stayed where he was, looking lost. When I couldn't take it any longer, I went up to him; to avoid destroying the last vestige of his dignity, I did refrain from grabbing his tie. I just nudged him in the waist and said: ‘Don't stand here, Dieh. You need to stand next to Lao Lan. You have to give the guided tour.’

‘Lao Lan can handle it by himself,’ he replied, looking timid.

Pinching his leg savagely, I whispered: ‘You really disappoint me, Dieh!’

‘You're stupid, Dieh!’ Jiaojiao remarked.

‘Now go!’ I said.

‘You're just children.’ Father looked down at us. ‘You can't understand how your father feels…but all right, I'll go.’

He strode off towards the meeting site, as determined as I'd ever seen him, and I saw Yao Qi, who was standing by the gate, arms folded, reward him with a meaningful nod.

The ceremony finally got underway and, as Lao Lan loudly made the opening remarks, Father walked over to the drainage ditch in front of the inspection station. He then lit a torch, held it high and waved it for the benefit of the spectators. Reporters rushed up and aimed their cameras at the torch in his hand. He spoke, though no one asked him to: ‘I guarantee that we will not inject our meat with water.’

With that he flung the torch onto the pile of rotting, reeking kerosene-soaked meat.

Seemingly before the torch actually touched it, flames roared into the sky and shrill screeches—a mixture of excitement and agony—emerged from the conflagration, carrying with them a sweet yet disagreeable smell. The flames leapt high into the sky, and twisting columns of black smoke accompanied the sound and the smell. The flames, a deep red, looked especially dense, and my thoughts were taken back a year or so, to the fires Mother and I set to burn discarded rubber tyres and plastic waste. There was a definite resemblance with the fire in front of me now, but also a fundamental difference. The fires back then had been industrial burns—plastic, chemical, toxic—while this fire was agrarian—animal, life, nutrients. Though spoilt, it was still meat, and incinerating meat like this made me hungry. I knew that Lao Lan had told my parents to buy it at the local market and then store it inside to let it rot. It had not been purchased for consumption but to be burnt, to play the role of an inferno. Which is to say, it was edible when my parents sent someone to buy it. Which is also to say, if they hadn't sent someone to buy it, someone else would have consumed it. Had fortune smiled upon the meat or hadn't it? The most cherished fate for meat is to be eaten by someone who both understands and loves it. The least cherished fate is to be incinerated. And so, as I watched it curl up in agony, struggle, moan and shriek in the flames, solemn and tragic feelings rose up in me, creating the illusion that I was that meat, that I was sacrificing myself for Lao Lan and my parents. The sole purpose of the spectacle was to show that we, the residents of Slaughterhouse Village, would never again produce water-injected
or otherwise corrupted meat. The fire was the concrete expression of that resolve. Reporters filmed and photographed it from all angles, and the flames attracted a crowd round the plant gate. Including a fellow from a neighbouring village with the unusual name of October. People said he was a mental midget but he didn't seem stupid to me. He elbowed his way up to the fire and stabbed a hunk of meat with a steel pike. Then he ran off, holding the flaming meat over his head, like a torch. Shaped like a large shoe, it dripped grease, tiny, sizzling drops of liquid fire as October shouted excitedly and ran up and down the street. A young reporter snapped his picture, although none of the video cameras turned towards him.

‘Meat for sale,’ he shouted, ‘cooked meat for sale…’

October's performance made him the centre of attention, even as the grand opening ceremony was in progress and the VIP in the middle of his speech. The reporters rushed back with their cameras, though I'd have bet that the younger ones would have preferred to film October's antics. Professional diligence, however, did not allow for impetuous actions.

‘The creation of the United Meatpacking Plant is a historic event…’ The VIP's amplified voice swirled in the air.

October twirled the skewer over his head, like a spear-wielding actor in an opera. The chunk of flaming meat popped and crackled, sending hot drops of grease flying like tiny meteors. A spectator screamed as grease spatter landed on her cheeks. ‘Damn you, October!’ she cursed.

People ignored her, preferring to watch October and reward him with the odd encouraging shout of ‘Bravo, October, bravo!’ People in the crowd jumped out of the way with a skill and a vigour to match his.

‘In line with our goal to supply the masses with worry-free meat, we have created the Huachang brand and ensure its reputation…’ Lao Lan was speaking now.

I took my eyes off October, just for a moment, to see if I could find my father. In my mind, the plant manager ought to be on the speaker's platform at this important moment, and I fervently hoped he wasn't still hanging round the fire. I was in for another disappointment, for that's exactly where he was. The attention of most of the people there had been drawn by October, all but a few old-timers hunkered down alongside the drainage ditch and
close to the fire, probably trying to keep warm. Two people were standing: one was my father, the other a uniformed man who worked for Lao Han and who was poking the flaming pile with a steel pole as if it were a sacred duty. My father's unblinking eyes were fixed on the flames and the smoke as he stood almost reverently, his suit curling from the heat. From where I stood he looked like a charred lotus leaf that would crumble at the slightest touch.