The Garlic Ballads (5 page)

“You don’t know her.”

“I know she’s just trying to scare you.”

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you had a younger sister? She could marry my brother and I could be your wife.”

Gao Ma sighed and rubbed her chilled shoulder. He was nearly in tears.

“Elder Brother Gao Ma, we can be secret lovers. Then when he dies, we’ll get married.”

“No!” Gao Ma exploded. He kissed her, and could feel the heat in her belly. A hairy mouth above them touched their heads, as the sound of raspy breathing and the smell of fresh grass settled around their necks. It scared them half to death, until they discovered to their relief that it was only the colt, up to a little mischief.

Jinju showed Gao Ma the fateful wedding contract. She had come to his home at noon, a month after their tryst amid the indigo. They had met nearly every night after that first one—in the trench, then later in the fields, hiding in farmland planted with shallots. They watched the progress of full moon and crescent moon, with or without cloud cover; leaves were dusted with silver, insects chirped and screeched, cool dew moistened the dry earth below. She wept and he laughed; he wept and she laughed. The fiery passions of love made the young couple grow haggard, but their eyes glowed and crackled like hot cinders.

Jinju’s parents had sent an angry message to Gao Ma: there has never been hostility or rancor between our families, and you have no right to interfere with our arranged marriages.

Jinju burst through the door like a whirlwind and looked anxiously over her shoulder, as if she were being followed. Gao Ma led her over to the kang, where she sat down. “They wont come for us, will they?” she asked in a tremulous voice.

“No,” he assured her, handing her a cup of water. But she scarcely moistened her lips before setting the ebony-colored cup down on the table. “Dont worry, no one will come,” he reassured her. “And what if they did? We have nothing to be ashamed about.”

“I brought it.” She removed a folded piece of red paper from her pocket and dropped it onto the table before sprawling out on the kang, burying her face in her arms and bursting into tears.

Gao Ma gendy rubbed her back to get her to stop crying; but when he saw it was futile, he unfolded the sheet of red paper, which was covered with black calligraphy:

On the auspicious tenth day of the six month in the year nineteen hundred and eighty-five we betroth the eldest grandson of Liu Jiaqing,
Liu Shengli
, to
Fang Jinju
, daughter of Fang Yunqiu; the second daughter of Cao Jinzhu,
Cao Wenling
, to the eldest son of Fang Yunqiu,
Fang Yijun;
and the second granddaughter of Liu Jiaqing,
Liu Lanlan
, to the eldest son of Cao Jinzhu,
Cao Wen
. With this agreement, our families are forever linked, even if the rivers run dry and the oceans become deserts. Witness the three principals: Liu Jiaqing, Fang Yunqiu, Cao Jinzhu.

Dark fingerprints were affixed to the paper beside the names of the three men.

Gao Ma refolded the contract and stuffed it into his pocket, then opened a drawer and removed a booklet. “Jinju,” he said, “stop crying and listen to the Marriage Law. Section 3 says, Arranged marriages, mercenary marriages, and all other types that restrict individual freedom are prohibited/ Then in Section 4 it says, ‘Both marriage partners must be willing. Neither they nor any third party may use coercion to force a marriage upon the other party/ That’s national policy, which is more important than this lousy piece of paper. You have nothing to worry about.”

Jinju sat up and dried her eyes with her sleeve. “What am I supposed to say to my parents?”

“That’s easy. You just say, ‘Father, Mother, I don’t love Liu Shengli and I won’t marry him.’ “

“You make it sound so easy. Why don’t you tell them?”

“Don’t think I won’t,” he replied testily. “Tonight. And if your father and brothers don’t like it, we’ll settle it like men.”

It was a cloudy evening, hot and muggy. Gao Ma wolfed down some leftover rice and walked out onto the sandbar behind his house, still feeling empty inside. The setting sun, like a halved watermelon, lent its red to the scattered clouds on the horizon and the tips of the acacia and willow trees. Since there wasn’t a breath of wind, chimney smoke rose like airy pillars, then disintegrated and merged with the residue of other pillars. Doubt crept in: Should he go to her house or not? What could he say when he got there? The dark, menacing faces of the Fang brothers floated before his eyes. So did Jinju’s tear-filled eyes. Finally he left the sandbar and headed south. A lane he had always felt was agonizingly long suddenly seemed amazingly short. He had barely started out, and already he was there. Why couldn’t it have been longer—much longer?

As he stood in front of Jinju’s gate, he felt emptier than ever. Several times he raised his hand to knock, but each time he let it drop. At dusk the parakeets raised a maddening din in Gao Zhileng’s yard, as though taunting Gao Ma. The chestnut colt was galloping alongside the threshing floor, a newly attached bell around its neck clanging loudly and drawing loud whinnies from older horses off in the distance; the colt ran like an arrow in flight, trailing a string of peals behind it.

Gao Ma clenched his teeth until he nearly saw stars, then pounded on the gate, which was opened by Fang Yixiang, the impetuous and slightly preposterous second son. “What do
you
want?” he asked with undisguised displeasure.

Gao Ma smiled. “Just a friendly visit,” he said, sidestepping Fang Yixiang and walking into the yard. The family was eating dinner outside, surrounded in darkness that made it impossible to see what was on the table. Gao Ma’s courage began to desert him. “Just now having dinner?” he asked.

Fourth Uncle merely snorted. “Yes,” Fourth Aunt said impassively. “And you?”

Gao Ma said he had already eaten.

Fourth Aunt roughly ordered Jinju to light the lantern.

“What do we need a lantern for?” Fourth Uncle said abusively. “Afraid you’ll stuff the food up your nose?”

But Jinju went inside and lit a lantern anyway, then brought it outside and placed it in the center of the table, where Gao Ma noticed a willow basket filled with flatcakes and a bowl of thick bean paste. Garlic was strewn about.

“Are you sure you don’t want some?” Fourth Aunt asked.

“I just ate,” Gao Ma replied, glancing at Jinju, who sat with her head down, neither eating nor drinking. Fang Yijun and Fang Yixiang, on the other hand, were loading up flatcakes with bean paste and garlic, then rolling them and stuffing them into their mouths with both hands until their cheeks bulged. As he noisily smoked his pipe, Fourth Uncle watched Gao Ma out of the corner of his eye.

Fourth Aunt glared at Jinju. “Why don’t you eat instead of sitting there like a block of wood? Are you trying to become an immortal?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I know what’s going on in that sneaky mind of yours,” Fourth Uncle said, “and you can forget it.”

Jinju glanced at Gao Ma before saying in a strong voice, “I wont do it—I wont marry Liu Shengli!”

“Just what I’d expect from a slut like you!” Fourth Uncle cursed as he banged his pipe on the table.

“Who
do
you want to marry?” Fourth Aunt asked her.

“Gao Ma,” she said defiantly.

Gao Ma stood up. “Fourth Uncle, Fourth Aunt, the Marriage Law stipulates—”

“Beat the bastard up!” Fourth Uncle cut him off. “He can’t come into our home and act like this!”

The two brothers tossed down the food in their hands, picked up their stools, and charged. “Using violence is against the law—it’s illegal!” Gao Ma protested as he tried to ward off the blows.

“No one would blame us if we beat you to death!” Fang Yijun countered.

“Gao Ma,” Jinju said tearfully, “get away from here!”

His head was bleeding. “Go ahead, beat me if you want. I wont even report you. But you can’t stop Jinju and me!”

From her seat across the table, Fourth Aunt picked up a rolling pin and struck Jinju a glancing blow on the forehead. “Doesn’t the word ‘shame’ mean anything to you? You’ll kill your own mother.”

“Fuck your ancestors, Gao Ma!” Fourth Uncle growled. “I’d kill my daughter before I’d let her marry you!”

Gao Ma wiped some blood off his eyebrows. “You can hit me all you want, Fourth Uncle,” he said. “But if you raise a finger against Jinju, I’ll report you to the authorities.” Fourth Uncle picked up his heavy bronze pipe and hit Jinju hard on the head. With a feeble “Oh” she crumpled to the ground.

“Go report that!” Fourth Uncle said.

As Gao Ma bent down to help her up, Fang Yixiang clubbed him with a stool.

When Gao Ma regained consciousness, he was lying in the lane with a large shape standing over him. It was the chestnut colt. A few stars poked pitifully through the cloud cover. The parakeets in Gao Zhileng’s yard shrieked. By lifting one of his arms slowly, he touched the satiny neck of the colt, which nuzzled the back of his hand as its bell tinkled crisply.

The day after the beating, Gao Ma went to the township government compound to see the deputy administrator, who, drunk as a lord, sat on a beat-up sofa, slurping tea. Instead of greeting Gao Ma, he glared at him bleary-eyed.

“Deputy Yang,” Gao Ma said, “Fang Yunqiu is violating the Marriage Law by forcing his daughter to marry Liu Shengli. When she protested, he bloodied her head.”

The deputy laid his glass on the table beside the sofa. “What’s she to you?” he asked snidely.

“She’s the woman I’m going to marry,” Gao Ma said after hesitating for a moment.

“As I hear it, she’s the woman Liu Shengli is going to marry.”

“Against her will.”

“That’s none of your business. I’ll look into the matter when
she
comes to see me, but not before.”

“Her father won’t let her out of the house.”

“Out, out, out!” The deputy waved him off as if shooing away a housefly “I’ve got better things to do than argue with you.”

Before Gao Ma could protest, a hunched-over, middle-aged man walked into the room. His wan complexion contrasted sharply with his purple lips; he looked like a man at death’s door. Gao Ma stepped aside and watched him take a bottle of liquor and some canned fish out of a black imitation-leather bag and set them on the table. “Eighth Uncle,” he said, “what’s this I hear about an incident involving the Fang family?”

Not deigning to respond to his nephew’s comment, the deputy got off his sofa and touched Gao Ma’s head. “What happened here?” he asked playfully.

The skin around the wound grew taut, and shooting pains nearly made Gao Ma cry out. There was a ringing in his ears. In a shrill, tinny voice, he said, “I fell … banged my head.”

“Because somebody hit you?” the deputy asked with a knowing smile.

“No.”

‘ “The Fang boys are a couple of useless turds,” the deputy continued, no longer smiling. “If it had been me,” he said spitefully, “I’d have broken your damned legs and let you crawl home!”

The deputy sprayed Gao Ma with spittle, which he wiped off with his sleeve as the man shoved him out the door and slammed it shut after him. Gao Ma hopped awkwardly on the cement steps, trying to keep his balance, so lightheaded he had to lean against the wall to keep the world from spinning. When the faintness finally eased up a bit, he gazed at the green gate; like the opening of a crack in a paste head, his consciousness returned slowly. Something warm and wet slithered into his nasal cavities, then continued down his face. He tried but couldn’t hold it back; whatever it was spurted out of his nostrils and entered his mouth. It had a salty, rank taste; and when he lowered his head, he watched the bright red liquid drip onto the pale cement steps.

Gao Ma lay dazed on his kang, with no idea how long he had been there or how he had gotten home from the township compound; in fact, all he could recall was fresh blood dripping silently from his nose onto the steps.

Little red pearl drops splashing like fragile cherries—shattering, splashing … The sight of those fracturing red pearls comforted Gao Ma. They linked into a string; all the heat in his body was concentrated in one spot, gushing out through his nostrils until a pool of blood formed on the steps. The tip of his tongue, already familiar with the cloying taste, touched his chilled lips, and another crack opened up in his brain; the chestnut colt stood in the township compound before the green gate, where yellow hollyhocks bloomed in lush abundance; it observed him with its moist, crystalline eyes. Gao Ma stumbled toward it and reached out to grab a branch covered with spiny hollyhocks. The suns rays blazed down, and he felt the heavy flowers dance on top of his head; he tried to look up, but the sunlight stung his eyes. He ripped a hollyhock leaf in half and wadded it into balls, which he stuffed up his nostrils. But the buildup of hot blood swelled his head, and as the salty taste spread through his mouth, he knew the blood was flowing down his throat. All human orifices are connected.