The Garlic Ballads (33 page)

My second son said, “Since Secretary Wang killed my father, the least he could do was show up and admit it. My father may have been a poor man, low on the social ladder, but he was a living, breathing human being. If you run over a dog, at least you offer your apologies to its owner!”

With a squint, Deputy Yang said, “Number Two, when your sister ran off with another man and broke the marriage contract, my poor nephew was an emotional wreck. Now all day long he cries like a baby or laughs like a madman. But even that doesnt alter the fact that we’re family. Like they say, a deal gone sour doesnt affect justice and humanity. Now don’t take me wrong, but what you say proves you’re not using your head. Secretary Wang wasn’t driving the car, so how could he have killed your father? The driver was wrong to run into your father, and the courts will deal with him. But by bringing the body to the township compound and attracting hundreds of curious bystanders, you re obstructing township work. By ‘township I mean the government, so obstructing the township is obstructing the government, and that’s illegal. You were on the right side of the law at first, but keep this up and you’ll wind up on the wrong side. Am I right or not?”

Unswayed by the argument, Number Two replied, “I don’t care. Secretary Wang is responsible for what happened, since he was riding in an official car and making deals for garlic when it ran my father down. Now he won’t even show his face. That land of behavior is unacceptable anywhere.”

“Number Two, you get farther off the track every time you open your mouth,” Deputy Yang said. “Who told you Secretary Wang was making garlic deals? That’s slander! Secretary Wang is at an emergency meeting on public security at the county seat. What’s more important, an emergency meeting on public security or this affair with your father? When he returns from his meeting, he’ll announce measures to deal with criminal behavior that disrupts social order. What you’re doing here is a perfect example.”

That shut the boy up. So it was his elder brother’s turn. “Eighth Uncle, our father’s dead, which isn’t uncommon for a man in his sixties. It must have been fate. Otherwise, how come out of all the millions of people walking this earth, he was the one who got hit by the ear? Fate had this tragic end planned for him all along. If King Yama of the Underworld wants to claim somebody during the third watch, who would dare hold on till the fifth? I reckon the Underworld has its rules and regulations, just like any other place. So tell us what to do, Eighth Uncle.”

“If you ask me,” Deputy Yang said, “you should take him home and have him cremated as soon as possible, like the first thing tomorrow, since it’s too late today. You can have the crematorium send a hearse for forty yuan. The price of everything else keeps going up, but they still only charge forty yuan for the hearse. A real bargain. If you agree to do it tomorrow, I’ll make arrangements for the hearse. I think you should wash him, give him a shave, and dress him in some decent funeral clothes, then stay up with the body tonight, like good filial sons and daughters. The hearse will show up at your door first thing in the morning. Your father never rode in a car while he was alive, so you might as well splurge a bit now that he’s gone. Meanwhile I’ll talk to the man in charge of the crematorium and get him to fill the urn more than usual with your father’s ashes. Then after you take him home, call your friends and relatives together for a wake. That should bring in some needed cash. The head of the household may be gone, but the rest of you have to go on living, don’t you? But if you go on like this, not only will you ruin your reputation, you’ll make things tough on yourselves for the rest of your lives. Am I right or aren’t I, Fourth Aunt?”

Well I told him I was only a woman, so what did I know? I said I’d leave it up to him.

“What worries me,” Number Two said, “is that once Father’s been cremated, Secretary Wang won’t admit to anything.”

“Don’t talk like a fool, Number Two,” Deputy Yang scolded him. “Secretary Wang is a party secretary, after all. More wealth passes through his fingers every day than you can count. As long as you don’t make things difficult for him, you won’t have to worry about being taken care of. The township government may be small, but it’s still government, and the money that slips through the cracks would be enough for you folks to get by on from here on out.”

Number One said, “Eighth Uncle, people say we should report this to the county. What do you think?”

“It’s your father who’s dead, not mine,” Deputy Yang replied, “so it’s up to you. But I wouldn’t, if it were me. It’s too late to do anything for him now, so it’s time to think about yourselves—in other words, money. I say get it any way you can. If you take your case to the county, even if the driver goes to jail, what good does that do you? Once a case gets into the courts, things have to be done by the book. The most you can hope for then is a few hundred for funeral expenses. With Secretary Wang’s connections at the county level, even if the driver is sent to jail, he’ll be out in a couple of months and back on the street, doing whatever it is he does. And by offending Secretary Wang, you’ll have marked yourselves as undesirables. In that case, you boys can forget about ever seeing a wedding day. On the other hand, if you forget about reporting it, and worry about taking care of the funeral arrangements instead, people will call you just plain folks, and with the reputation of a good family, Secretary Wang will be happy to settle things amicably, to your advantage. Now go do what you think is right.”

“Is money the only thing people live for?” Gao Ma asked.

“Aha!” Deputy Yang said. “So you’re here, too, are you? What are you up to? First you entice their daughter away, then you get her pregnant without marrying her, and wedding plans for three families—Cao, Fang, and Liu—are scrapped, all because of you. You ruined everything, so what does that make you? Boys, do what you want. There’s nothing in it for me, anyway. I don’t have to worry about people talking behind my back.”

The older Fang boy spoke up: “Gao Ma, you’ve done enough harm for one person. Go scrape up the ten thousand and take Jinju with you. We don’t want a sister like that, and we sure as hell don’t want a brother-in-law like you!”

Gao Ma, his face scarlet, walked off without another word.

As she lay in her jail cell, Fourth Aunt relived the events surrounding the return of Fourth Uncle from the government compound. Once again it was the lame elder brother in front and the younger brother in the rear, which caused the door to rock and Fourth Uncle’s head to loll from side to side. The sound of his head thumping against the door wasn’t nearly as crisp as it had been on the way over. No sooner had they emerged onto the street than the gate was closed behind them. Troubled by feelings of emptiness, Fourth Aunt turned to take a last look inside, where she saw a group of administrative types stream into the yard as if popping out of the ground, to gather around Deputy Yang; there were sneers and grins on their faces, Deputy Yang’s included.

The passage of Fourth Uncle’s corpse attracted far less attention than it had on the way over, when anyone who could walk fell in behind the grisly procession. Now the cortege comprised only a few yapping dogs.

Back home, the brothers laid their poles in front of the gate, making the door thud against the ground and raising clouds of noise from Gao Zhileng’s parakeets. Jinju, a blank look in her eyes, opened the gate. “Carry your father inside and lay him on the kang,” Fourth Aunt said. Neither son spoke or budged.

“Mother,” Number One broke the silence, “people say you shouldn’t lay the corpse of someone who’s died a violent death on the kang—”

Fourth Aunt cut him off. “Your father worked like a dog all his life, and now that he’s dead is he to be denied the comfort of a warm kang? That would be more than I could stand.”

Number Two remarked, “He is dead, after all, so a regular bed is just as good. ‘Death is like extinguishing a light,’ as the saying goes. ‘Breath becomes a spring breeze, flesh and bones turn to mud.’ If you put him on a heated kang, he’ll turn bad even faster.”

“In other words, do you plan to let your own father lie outside?”

“It’s as good a place as any,” Number Two replied. “The cool winds will cut down on the smell, and we’ll be spared the trouble of having to carry him outside tomorrow morning.”

“And let the dogs get at him?”

“Mother,” Number One spoke up, “we’ll be skinning the cow and carving up the meat to take to market tomorrow. What Deputy Yang said made sense, especially the part about how the dead are gone, but the survivors have to keep on living.”

Poor Fourth Aunt had no choice. Between sobs she said, “Husband, since your sons won’t let you sleep on the kang, you’ll have to lie out here tonight.”

“Don’t make yourself feel worse, Mother,” the older son said. “Go in and lie down. We’ll take care of things out here.” He then lit the lantern and set it on a stone roller alongside the threshing floor, while his brother brought out a pair of stools and placed them several feet apart on the ground. They picked up the door on which Fourth Uncles corpse lay and rested it on the stools.

“Go inside and get some rest, Mother,” her older son urged. “We’ll watch the body. Say what you want, but Father was fated to die like this, so there’s no reason to be so sad.”

But she sat down beside the raised door and cleaned maggots out of Fourth Uncle’s various openings with a twig while her sons spread a beat-up old tarp out on the threshing floor and rolled the dead cow up onto it until its belly was facing skyward. Then they propped the animal in that position by placing bricks on either side of its backbone. Four legs, stiff as boards, stuck straight up in the air.

Number One picked up a carving knife, Number Two a cleaver. Beginning in the center of the abdomen, they sliced the animal open, then began skinning it, Number One to the east, Number Two to the west. Fourth Aunt’s nostrils picked up the powerful stench of the dead cow and of Fourth Uncle.

Sister-in-Law, the murky light from that lantern fell on my husband’s face, and his black eyes bored into me until blasts of cold air shot out of every joint in my body. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t dig those maggots out of him. I know it sounds disgusting, but it didn’t seem so to me at the time. I hated those maggots, and I squashed every one I got my hands on. And my sons, all they cared about was skinning that cow. Not a thought for their own father. But my daughter carried a basin of water outside to clean his face with damp cotton. And since we didn’t have another knife, she trimmed the gray stubble on his chin with a pair of scissors, and even cut back his nose hairs. He cut quite a figure when he was young, but got all shriveled up when he was old, and was a real sight. Then she brought out his dark-green jacket, and the two of us put it on him. I know it doesnt seem right for a couple of women to be dressing a man, but right after I asked my sons to help, I noticed their bloody hands and told them to forget it. Jinju, I said, this is your own father, not some strange man, so let’s you and me do it. He was skin and bones, and the clothes helped a lot. All this time, my sons were’s truggling with that cowhide, until their faces were all sweaty. That reminded me of a joke. An old man calls his three sons to his deathbed. ‘I’m going to die soon. How do you boys plan to dispose of my body?” The eldest son says, “Dad, we’re so poor we can’t afford a decent coffin, so I say we buy a cheap pine box, put you in it, and bury you. How does that sound?”

“No good,” his father says, shaking his head, “no good at all.”

“Dad,” the second son says, “I think we ought to wrap you in an old straw mat and bury you that way. How’s that?”

“No good,” his father says, “no good at all.” The third son says, “Dad, here’s what I recommend: we chop you into three pieces, skin you, and take everything to market, where we palm you off as dogmeat, beef, and donkey. What do you think of that?” Their father smiles and says, “Number Three knows his father’s mind. Now don’t forget to add a little water to the meat to keep the weight up.” Are you asleep, Sister-in-Law?