Pow! (9 page)

Unable to get our tractor started, Mother walked out into the street, perhaps to seek some advice. Would she go to Lao Lan? Perhaps, since the tractor was his castoff and he knew the thing better than anyone. She hurried back in a little while. ‘Son,’ she said, excitedly. ‘Light a fire. We're going to burn this son of a bitch!’

‘Did Lao Lan tell you to do that?’

She hadn't expected that. ‘What's wrong with you?’ She stared into my eyes. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Let's burn it.’

She went over to the wall and came back with an armload of discarded rubber, which she laid on the ground under the tractor. Then she went into the kitchen and returned with a piece of burning kindling with which she touched off the rubber, sending black, noxious smoke into the air. Over the years we'd accumulated lots of discarded rubber, which we could sell only by melting it down and making cubes out of it. Our house was in the heart of the village, and our unhappy neighbours had been quite vocal about the
noxious fumes, since the black, oily residue rained down on them. Granny Zhang, who lived to the east, even showed Mother a ladleful of water as proof. Mother ignored her, but I took a look: black tadpole-like things floated on the surface, obviously bits of our ash and dust. ‘Doesn't it bother you that we have to drink water like this?’ said Granny Zhang angrily. ‘It'll make us sick!’ ‘No, it doesn't bother me, not at all!’ replied Mother, no less angrily. ‘I won't be happy until all you people who sell doctored meat are dead and buried.’ Granny Zhang thought twice about saying anything in return when she saw the red glare of fury in Mother's eyes. This was followed by a visit from some men who complained to Mother; but she rushed out into the street, bawling and protesting that she and her son were being harassed, and quickly drew a crowd. Lao Lan, whose house was directly behind ours, had the authority to approve building sites. Before my father left home, Mother had nagged him into asking Lao Lan for permission to build a house, for which he waited to have his palm greased. Father let that palm go ungreased, since he wasn't interested in building a house in the first place. ‘Son,’ he said to me when Mother wasn't around, ‘if we had meat in the house, we'd eat it ourselves. Why give it to him?’ After Father left home, Mother went over to get his permission, taking a packet of biscuits as tribute. She'd barely walked out of his door when those biscuits came flying out and landed on the street. Then, less than six months after we'd started burning rubber, we ran into him on the road to the county seat. He was riding a green, three-wheeled motorbike with the word Police on the windshield. He was wearing a white helmet and a black leather jacket. A big, well-fed hunting dog sat in the sidecar, a pair of sunglasses perched on its snout, giving it a scholarly air, until it snarled at us and my hair stood on end. Our tractor wasn't working at the time, and poor Mother was frantic, flagging down vehicles and pedestrians, asking for help but being rebuffed each time. This time she grabbed hold of the man's handlebars, without knowing who he was—until he took off his helmet. He climbed off his motorbike and kicked the tractor's rusty bumper. ‘You should get rid of it,’ he snorted, ‘and get another one.’ ‘I will,’ said Mother, ‘after I build a house.’ Lao Lan nodded. ‘I see you've got your pride.’ He got down on his haunches and helped us with the repairs, for which we—Mother dragged me over—thanked him profusely. ‘Keep your shitty thanks,’ he said as he wiped his hands on a rag. Then he patted me on the head: ‘Has your father
come back home?’ I shoved his hand away and glared at him. ‘Temper, temper!’ he laughed. ‘Your father's a bastard, if you ask me!’ ‘You're a bastard!’ I replied. Mother smacked me. ‘How dare you talk to the nice uncle like that!’ she scolded. ‘That's all right,’ he said, ‘not to worry. Write to your father and tell him he can come back. Tell him I've forgiven them both.’ He climbed back on his motorbike and started it up. It coughed and black smoke belched out of the exhaust pipe. The dog barked. ‘Yang Yuzhen,’ he shouted to my mother, ‘stop burning rubber. I'll let you build your house. Come over tonight and pick up the permit!’

The captivating smell of millet gruel fills the room. The woman takes the lid off the pot, and I'm amazed to see how much gruel there is, easily enough for three people. She fetches three black bowls from the corner and fills them with a wooden spoon that's discoloured from searing. One spoonful, a second and a third; one spoonful, a second and a third; one spoonful, a second and a third. All three bowls are filled to the brim, and there's plenty more in the pot. I'm puzzled, surprised, flabbergasted. Has all that gruel really come from those few dozen kernels of grain? That woman, just who, or what, is she? A demon? A genie? The two foxes that have taken refuge in the temple during the downpour saunter into the room, lured by the smell of the gruel, female in front, male at the back and the three furry little kits stumbling in between. They're as cute as can be, especially the silly way they walk. They say that animals tend to have their offspring when there's thunder and lightning and the sky opens up. There's truth in that saying. The adult foxes sit in front of the pot, looking up at the woman, their eyes pleading one moment and staring greedily at the pot the next. Their stomachs growl, the sound of hunger. The kits scurry under their mother's belly in search of her teats. The male's eyes are moist, its lively expression seems to indicate that it's about to say something. I know exactly what it will say if it opens its mouth and speech emerges. The woman glances at the Wise Monk, who sighs and pushes his bowl of gruel over to the female fox. Following his lead, she pushes her bowl over to the male. Both animals nod to the Wise Monk and the woman to show their appreciation, then begin to eat, carefully, since the gruel is hot, their eyes filling with tears. Imagine my embarrassment as I look down at my bowl, not knowing if I should eat. ‘Go ahead, eat,’ the Wise Monk says. I know I'd never have a chance to eat gruel this good again, so I join the foxes and we each polish off three bowls. When they finish, they belch in satisfaction and, trailed by the kits, amble out of the room. At that moment I realize that the pot is empty, that not a kernel
remains. I am contrite, but the Wise Monk is already seated on the
kang
fingering his beads, seeming half asleep. And the woman? She is sitting in front of the briquette stove playing with an iron poker. A dying fire casts its weak light onto her face, which is as lively and expressive as ever. A smile hints at the recollection of fond memories, but perhaps also at the absence of thought altogether. I rub my slightly bulging belly as the sound of newborn foxes sucking their mother's teats drifts in from outside. The sound of kittens nursing in the tree trunk is beyond my range of hearing, but I think I actually see them suckle. Which gives rise to a powerful urge to suckle. But where is there a tit for me? I'm not sleepy, but I need to overcome the urge to suckle, so I say, ‘Wise Monk, I'll go on with my story
—’

Mother was overcome with excitement, chattering like a sparrow, once she had the building permit in hand. ‘Xiaotong,’ she said, ‘Lao Lan isn't so bad after all. I thought he had something else in mind but he handed me the permit without a word.’ For the second time, she unrolled the document, with its red seal, for me to see. Then she sat me down to talk about the difficult road that we—mother and son—had walked since Father ran off. Her narration was tinged with sadness but not enough to diminish her sense of joy and pride. I was so sleepy I could barely keep my eyes open; my head drooped and I fell asleep. When I woke up, she was sitting on the floor in the dark, leaning against the wall, a jacket thrown over her shoulders, still talking. If I hadn't been endowed with steel nerves from the day I was born, I tell you, she'd have scared the life out of me. Her long-winded narration was only a dress rehearsal; the real performance began six months later, on the night our big house, with its tiled roof, was completed. It was our last night in the tent we'd set up in the yard, and light from an early winter moon lit up our new house beautifully, the mosaic tiles embedded in the walls absolutely radiant. We nearly froze from the wind blowing into the tent from all four sides; Mother's narration raced out into the night, reminding me of the pig's guts flung round by the butchers. ‘Luo Tong,’ Mother said, ‘Luo Tong, you heartless bastard, you thought your son and I couldn't survive without you, didn't you? Well, we not only survived, we even built a big house! Lao Lan's house is fifteen feet high, ours is a foot higher! Lao Lan's walls are made of concrete, ours are decorated with mosaic tiles!’ Her incorrigible vanity repelled me. Lao Lan's walls may have been made of concrete but the house
had suspended ceilings decorated with fancy ceramic tiles, and a marble floor. Our outer walls had mosaic tiles but they were whitewashed on the inside, the posts exposed, and a layer of stove cinders covered the pitted floor. Here is what you can say about Lao Lan's house: ‘The meat in buns doesn't show in the creases’ while ours was more a case of ‘Donkey droppings are shiny on the outside.’ A moonbeam lit up Mother's mouth, much like a film close-up. Her lips never stopped moving; saliva bubbled at the corners. I pulled the damp blanket up over my head and fell asleep to the drone of her voice.

‘Don't say any more, child. It's the first time the woman has spoken. The cadence of her voice brings to mind filigrees of honey and gives the impression that there is little in life that she hasn't experienced. She smiles, hinting at deep mysteries, then takes a few steps back and sits on a rosewood chair that magically appeared when I wasn't looking (but perhaps it's been there all along). She waves to me and speaks for the second time: ‘Don't say anything, child. I know what you're thinking! I can't take my eyes off her. I watch as she slowly, dramatically, undoes the brass buttons of her robe, then snaps her arms out to the sides like an ostrich spreading its wings, giving an unobstructed view of the gorgeous flesh hidden by that plain, threadbare robe. My heart is intoxicated, my soul possessed; I've taken leave of my senses. A buzzing erupts in my ears; my body is chilled; my heart is pounding; my teeth are chattering; I feel like I'm standing naked on ice. Beams of light emerge from her eyes and her teeth as she sits illuminated by flames from the stove and the candle. Her breasts, like ripe mangoes, sag slightly in the centre to form fluid arcs, the nipples rising gracefully, like the captivating mouths of hedgehogs. They summon me intimately but my feet feel as if they have taken root. I sneak a glance at the Wise Monk, who is sitting with his hands pressed together, looking more dead than alive. ‘Wise Monk,’ I say softly, painfully, as if wanting to take strength from him to save myself but also seeking his approval to act upon my desire. But he doesn't stir; he might as well be carved from ice. ‘Child! The woman speaks again, but the words do not appear to have come from her mouth; they seem to have emerged from somewhere above her head or low in her belly. Sure, I've heard stories about ventriloquists who can speak without opening their mouths but those people are either martial- arts masters, buxom women or circus clowns, not ordinary people. They're strange, mysterious individuals one associates with black magic and infanticide. ‘Come here, child. There's that voice again. ‘Don't deny what you feel in your heart. Do what it
tells you to do. You're a slave to your heart, not its master.’ But I keep up the struggle, knowing that if I take a step forward I won't be able to go back, not ever. ‘What's the matter? Haven't I been on your mind all along? When the meat touches your lips, why won't you eat it?’ I'd sworn off meat after my little sister died, and remained true to that vow. Now, just looking at meat turns my stomach, makes me feel guilty somehow and reminds me of all the trouble it's caused in my life. Thoughts of meat restore my self-control—some of it, at least. She snickers, and the sound is like a blast of cold air from deep down in a cave. Then she says—this time I'm sure the words come from her mouth, which opens and closes contemptuously, ‘Do you really think you can lessen your sins by not eating meat? Do you really think that not sucking on my breasts will be proof of your virtue? You may not have eaten meat for years but it has never been far from your mind. Even though you pass up the opportunity to suck on my breasts today, they will not be far from your mind for the rest of your life. I know exactly what you're like. Don't forget, I've watched you grow up and I know you as well as I know myself.’ Tears gush from my eyes. ‘Are you Aunty Wild Mule? You're still alive? You didn't die, after all?’ It feels as if an affectionate wind were trying to blow me over to her; but her mocking grin stops me. ‘What business is it of yours if I am or am not Wild Mule?’ she sneers. ‘And what business is it of yours if I'm alive or dead? If you want to suck on my breasts, come here. If you don't, then stop thinking about it. If sucking on my breasts is a sin, then not sucking on them, though you want to, is a greater one! Her piercing mockery makes me want to crawl into a hole, makes me want to cover my head with a dog pelt. ‘Even if you could cover your head with a dog pelt,’ she says, ‘what good would that do you? Sooner or later you'd have to take it off. And even if you vowed to never take it off, it would slowly rot away and fall apart to expose that ugly potato head of yours! ‘So what should I do?’ I stammer, beseechingly. She covers herself with her robe, crosses her left leg over her right and says (commands): ‘Tell your tale
—’

The tractor's frozen engine crackled and popped from the blaze of burning rubber. Mother turned the crank. The engine sputtered and black smoke rolled out of the exhaust. Excitedly, I jumped to my feet, even though I really didn't want her to start up the engine; it died as quickly as it had come to life. She replaced the spark plug and turned the crank again. Finally, the engine caught and set up a mad howl. Mother squeezed the gas lever and the
flywheel whirred. Though it hardly seemed possible, the shuddering of the engine and the black smoke from the exhaust told me that this time she'd succeeded. On that morning, as water turned to ice, we were going to have to go to the county seat, travel down icy roads into a bone-chilling wind. Mother went into the house and came out wearing a sheepskin coat, a leather belt, a black dogskin cap and carrying a grey cotton blanket. The blanket, of course, was something we'd picked up, as were the coat, the belt and the cap. She tossed the blanket on top of the tractor, my protection against the wind, then took her seat up front and told me to open the gate, the fanciest gate in the village. No gate like it had ever been seen in our century-long history. It was double-panelled, made of thick angle iron, impenetrable even by a machine gun. Painted black, it sported a pair of brass animal-head knockers. The villagers held our gate in awe and reverence; beggars stayed away. After removing Mother's brass lock, I strained to push the panels open as the icy wind streamed into the yard from the street. I was freezing. But I quickly realized I couldn't let that bother me, for I spotted a tall man slowly walking our way from the direction in which the cattle merchants entered the village; he was holding the hand of a four- or five-year-old little girl. My heart nearly stopped. Then it began to pound. Even before I could make out his face I knew it was Father, that he had come home.