The Garlic Ballads Read online

  A cracked iron pot lay upside-down beneath the window of one of the red-roofed houses, and he saw the policeman holding the black prod—the one with the stammer—stand on it and crane his neck to see Gao Ma sleeping on his kang. The village boss, Gao Jinjiao, leaned against a tree and bumped it rhythmically with his back. Chickens with mud-encrusted white feathers were squatting in a clump of grass under the blazing sun, stretching out their wings to soak up its energy. “Chicken wings absorbing rays, it’ll rain within three days.” That was a comforting thought. By craning his neck, Gao Yang caught a glimpse of sky through a fork in the branches. It was bright blue and cloudless; purple rays of sunlight streamed earthward, making the chickens stir and part the grass with their claws. The stammering policeman’s partner was right behind him, revolver at the ready, its blue metal glistening. His mouth gaped as he held his breath.

  Gao Yang lowered his head, sending drops of cooled sweat sliding down the tree to the ground. The policemen exchanged glances; then the pushing and shoving began: You first. No, you. Gao Yang knew what that was all about. Then it was settled, apparently, for the stammering policeman hitched up his belt, and his partner clamped his hps so tightly that Gao Yang saw only a thin, shiny slit in his face. A long, languid fart fanned out under Gao Jinjiao’s tree. The policemen tensed like tomcats about to pounce on a mouse.

  “Run, Gao Ma, run! It’s the police!” The moment the shout left his mouth he felt cold all over and his teeth chattered. It was fear, no mistaking that. Fear and regret. Squeezing his trembling lips shut, he stared straight ahead. The stammering policeman spun around, tripped on the rusty pot, and all but crashed to the ground. His partner, meanwhile, burst into the room, pistol in hand, the stammerer hard on his heels. A crash; then the clang of something hitting a wall.

  “Hands up!”

  “Put your hands up!”

  Gao Yangs eyes were awash with tears, fm not crying, he reassured himself, I am not crying. He could all but see a pair of gleaming bracelets like the ones he had now encircling Gao Ma’s powerful wrists. His hands felt puffy and heavy, although he couldn’t see around the tree trunk to confirm that. The sensation was one of blood distending the veins until they were about to release geysers of the dark red liquid.

  Following a brief but noisy scuffie, the window banged open and a shadowy figure burst through. It was Gao Ma, wearing only a pair of olive-drab underpants. He stumbled over the upturned pot but scrambled back to his feet. The linked actions were clumsy: with his rear end sticking up in the air and his feet and hands clawing at the ground, he looked like a baby that has just learned to crawl.

  Gao Yang’s lips parted, and from somewhere deep in his cranium he heard a voice, similar to his own yet somehow different, say, You’re not laughing, did you know that? You’re not.

  The rainbow vanished, the sky turned blue-gray, and the sun blazed.

  Pow!

  The stammering policeman jumped through the window and embedded his booted foot in the overturned pot. He fell to his hands and knees, one foot stuck in the pot, the other resting against it; one hand was empty, the other grasped the black prod. His partner ran out the door, pistol in hand. “Stop right there!” he screamed. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” But he didn’t shoot, not even when Gao Ma leapt over the crumbling wall and took off running down the lane, sending the sunning chickens scurrying from their grassy redoubts, only to close in behind him like a squawking shadow. The stammering policeman’s wide-brimmed cap, dislodged on his way out the window, perched precariously on the sill before landing on its owner’s upraised rump, and from there fell to the ground, where it rolled around until the other policeman kicked it ten or fifteen feet as he turned and jumped the wall, leaving his partner to bang on the pot with his prod, filling the air with slivers of metal and loud clangs.

  Gao Yang had an unobstructed view of the man extricating his foot from the pot. An isolated image popped into his head: a policeman’s leg. The policeman scooped up his cap and jammed it on his head as he followed his partner over the wall.

  Gao Ma tore through the acacia grove with such speed that Gao Yang nearly wrenched his neck following Gao Ma’s progress as he crashed and thudded his way along blindly, bumping into trees when he glanced over his shoulder; young trees swayed, old ones groaned. Gao Yang was frantic. Can’t you make those powerful legs and muscular arms go any faster? Move! They’re right behind you! His anxiety mounted. White and yellow spots shimmered gracefully on Gao Ma’s sunburned skin under the mottled shade of acacia trees. His legs seemed lashed together, like a great horse in fetters. He was flailing his arms. Why look back, you dumb bastard? With his bared teeth and long, drawn face, Gao Ma looked just like his namesake, ma, the horse.

  As he followed his partner through the grove, the stammering policeman limped from his run-in with the pot. Serves you right! The pain in Gao Yang’s ankle was excruciating, as if it had separated from its moorings. Serves you right, damn you! The sound of gnashing teeth rose from somewhere deep inside his ears.

  “Stop, damn you, stop where you are! One more step and I’ll shoot!” the policeman warned for the second time. But still he didn’t shoot. Instead he ran from the protection of one tree to another at a crouch, his weapon at the ready. The hunter was beginning to look like the hunted.

  The far edge of the acacia grove was bordered by a shoulder-high wall topped by woven millet stalks. Gao Yang twisted himself around the tree just in time to see Gao Ma stymied by the obstacle. His pursuers had their weapons drawn. “Don’t move!” Gao Ma pressed up against the wall. Blood seeped through the cracks between his teeth. A steel loop dangled from his right wrist; attached to the other end was its mate, linked by a short chain. They had managed to cuff only one of his wrists.

  “Stand right there and don’t move! You’ll only make things worse by resisting arrest!”

  They approached him shoulder to shoulder, the stammering policeman’s limp as noticeable as ever.

  Gao Yang quaked so violently he set the leaves of the tree in motion. He stopped looking at Gao Ma’s face as it faded into the distance. The policemen’s white backs, Gao Ma’s tanned face, and the black leaves of the acacia trees flattened out and were stamped on the yellow earth.

  What happened next took both Gao Yang and the policemen by surprise: Gao Ma crouched down, scooped up some dirt, and flung it in their faces. The powdery soil covered them like dust clouds as they instinctively raised their arms to protect their eyes and stumbled backwards, regaining their three-dimensional form. Gao Ma spun around and climbed up onto the wall. Two shots rang out; two puffs of dust rose from the wall. Gao Ma screamed—”Mother!”—and tumbled over to the other side.

  Gao Yang screamed, too, and banged his head against the tree trunk. The shrill cries of a little girl emerged from the acacia grove behind Gao Ma’s home.

  The soil beyond the grove was barren and sandy; after that came a sandbar dotted with red willows, which sloped into a dry riverbed. A second sandbar rose on the other side, fronting a government compound ringed by white poplars, and an asphalt road that led to the county seat.

  CHAPTER 2

  Paradise County garlic is long and crunchy—

  For pork liver or fried mutton forget the onions and ginger:

  Planting leeks and selling garlic will make you rich—

  You’ll have new clothes, new homes, even a new bride….

  —From a ballad sung one summer night in 1986

  by Zhang Kou, the blind minstrel

  1.

  The garlic stalks had all been sold, and braids of bulbs hung from the eaves. Next came the millet crop, which was spread out to dry before being stored in vats and barrels. The threshing floor in front of Fourth Aunt’s home was swept clean by dusk, with stacks of aromatic chaff rising darkly beneath shimmering starlight. June breezes sweeping in from the fields made the lantern flame dance, despite the glass shade, against which green moths banged noisily—tick tick tick. No one was paying any attention to th
is except for Gao Ma. All the others sat or stood or squatted in the lamplight, absorbed by the sight of Zhang Kou, the blind minstrel, on a stool, his high cheekbones illuminated by golden lamplight that transformed his dark, gaunt face.

  I’m going to hold her hand tonight, that’s all there is to it, Gao Ma resolved with growing excitement. Waves of cool contentment rippled from his body as, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fourth Aunt’s daughter, Jinju, standing no more than three steps from him. As soon as Zhang Kou picks up his erhu to sing the first line of his ballad, I’ll grab her hand and squeeze it, squeeze each finger. That face, round like a golden-petaled sunflower, is enough to break your heart. Even her ears are golden. She may not be tall, but she’s strong as a baby ox. I can’t wait any longer; she’s twenty already. The heat from her body warms me.

  Zhang Kou coughed, and Gao Ma silently moved a step closer to Jinju. Now, like everyone else, he kept his eyes on Zhang Kou.

  The fresh aroma of horse manure drifted over from the far edge of the threshing floor, where a chestnut colt galloped noisily, whinnying with spirit. Stars shone brightly in the deep, dark, downy-soft canopy of heaven, beneath which cornstalks, straining to grow tall, stretched and rustled. Everyone was watching Zhang Kou and murmuring unintelligibly from time to time. Zhang Kou sat straight as a board as he fingered his erhu with one hand and pulled the horsehair bow with the other, making the two strings sing out with a muffled scratchiness slowly rounding out into crisp, mellow notes that tightened around his listeners’ eager hearts. Eyelashes buried in his sunken sockets fluttered, and as he stretched his neck toward his audience, he tilted his head backward as though gazing into the starry night.

  Gao Ma edged up so close to Jinju he could hear the faint sound of her breathing and feel the heat of her voluptuous body. His hand moved timidly toward hers, like a pet wanting to nuzzle. Fourth Aunt, perched on a high stool in front of Jinju, coughed. Gao Ma shuddered and jammed his hand into his pants pocket; with an impatient shrug of his shoulders, he stepped out of the ring of light and hid his face in the shadow of someone’s head.

  Zhang Kou’s erhu wept, but the sound was soft and gentle, glossy and smooth, like silken strands flowing into his listeners’ hearts, driving the accumulated filth ahead of it, and into their muscles and flesh, ridding them of their earthly dust. With eyes glued to Zhang Kou’s mouth, they listened as a hoarse yet sonorous lyric flowed from the gaping hole in his face:

  “What I’m saying is”—the word “is” soared upward, then settled slowly, languidly, as if it wanted the crowd to follow it from this world into a fantastic realm beckoning to all, asking only that they close their eyes—”what I’m saying is, a breath of fresh air emerged from the Third Plenum of the Central Committee: Citizens of Paradise County will be poor no longer.”

  His erhu never varied from the same simple refrain, and his audience, though enraptured by the music, also quietly laughed at him. The source of their mirth was his gaping mouth, which could accommodate a whole steamed bun. The blind bastard had no idea how big his mouth was. Their tittering appeared not to bother him. When Gao Ma heard Jinju giggle, he pictured a smiling face: lashes fluttering, teeth glistening like rows of polished jade. No longer able to restrain himself, he peeked out of the corner of his eye; but her lashes weren’t fluttering, and her teeth were hidden behind compressed lips. Her solemn expression mocked him somehow.

  “The county government called on us to plant garlic—the marketing co-op would buy our harvest—one yuan a pound—put it in cold storage—resell at a profit in the spring….” Having grown accustomed to the sight of Zhang Kous gaping mouth, the crowd forgot its mirthful-ness and listened intently to his ballad.

  “The people celebrated when they sold their garlic / Fried some pork, rolled out flatcakes and filled them with green onions / Big Sister Zhang’s belly as big as an urn / Oh!’ she says, look at me, fm pregnant!’…” The crowd roared playfully. “Damn you, blind old man!” a woman shouted. A heated fart escaped from Big Sister Li: “Ha, ha,” half the women in the audience doubled over laughing.

  Jinju was one of them. Damn you, Zhang Kou, do you have to say things like that? Gao Ma swore to himself. When you bend over, your round, tight rear end sticks straight up and I can see the line of your underpants through your thin trousers. That’s what happens in the field during the day. Try a tale from Red Crag, Zhang Kou. I want to hold your hand, Jinju. I’m twenty-seven already; you’re twenty. I want you to be my wife. When you hoe your bean field, I spray my cornfield, my heart sounding like aphids on corn in the dry season. The fields seem endless. Off to the south stands Little Mount Zhou, with its volcanic opening, into which the clouds settle. I ache to talk to you at times like that, but your brothers are always nearby, barefoot and stripped to the waist, their skin burned black by the sun. You are fully dressed, and sweat-soaked. What color are you, Jinju? You are yellow, you are red, you are golden. Yours is the color of gold; you glisten like gold.

  Zhang Kou’s erhu grew more melodious as his voice rose with a tale from Red Crag:

  Jiang Xueqin, out for a stroll,

  The police chief swaggers toward her,

  A golden watch on his wrist,

  His neck a ten-foot garlic stalk.

  He crouches as he walks,

  He has a Chinese papa and an American mama,

  Who joined to produce a living monster.

  He hers through slanted eyes,

  A pistol held in each hand.

  He blocks her way, a sinister hugh,

  H eh heh…

  Pistols pressed up to Big Sister Jiang’s breasts.

  She’s too good for someone like Liu Shengli. Marrying him would be like planting a flower in a pile of cow dung, or seeing a gorgeous butterfly fall in love with a dung beetle. I’m going to hold her hand. Tonight’s the night. He inched closer to her, until he felt their trousers touch. He kept staring at Zhang Kou’s mouth—opening and closing, opening and closing—trying to appear calm and composed. Is there no sound coming from that mouth, or is it being drowned out by the din around me? My heart sounds like corn leaves rustling in the wind. And he remembered when he first felt his heart moving toward Jinju, a year earlier.

  I am lying in the cornfield gazing at clouds being carved up by sharp-edged leaves above me. The clouds vanish, and the sky is clear; the sun-baked ground blisters my back. White sap beads up and dangles from downy filaments, reluctant to fall earthward, like the tears on her lashes … millet moves in waves, then is stilled when the wind stops. The ripe stalks bow low as a pair of screeching magpies flies past, one nipping at the other’s tail. A curious sparrow follows them, mixing its cries with theirs. The air is pungent with the smell of garlic fresh from the ground.

  Jinju is alone in the field, bent over as she cuts down the millet, dropping handful after handful between her legs, where it rustles heavily, hits the ground, and curls upward like a bushy yellow tail. My millet is all bundled and stacked. Emaciated lines of corn trying to see the sun fill the gaps between the stacks, the results of intercropping; but the millet bullies the puny cornstalks. Two acres isn’t enough for a bachelor like me. I’ve had my eye on her ever since I was discharged from the army last year. She’s no beauty; but then neither am I. Not that she’s ugly; but then neither am I. She was just a gangly little girl when I left; now she’s so grown up, and so robust. I like robust women. I’ll take my millet home this afternoon. My Shanghai-made Diamond-Brand wristwatch, which runs about twenty seconds fast every day, says 11:03.1 set it with the radio a few days ago, so it’s actually right on eleven. I can take my time getting home.

  Gao Ma’s sense of pity ran deep as he stood, scythe in hand, secretly watching Jinju, who worked with the same concentration as the magpies chasing one another overhead, followed closely by the solitary sparrow. She didn’t know someone was behind her. Gao Ma kept a small cassette player in his pocket, listening to it with earphones. The rundown batteries distorted the sound. But it was good mu
sic, and that’s what counted. A young girl is like a flower. Jinju’s back was broad and flat, her hair damp. She was breathing hard.

  The good-hearted Gao Ma removed the earphones and lay them against his neck, where the distorted music was still audible. “Jinju,” he called out softly. Music coming through the spongy earphone tips vibrated against his throat, making it itch. He reached up and adjusted them.

  She straightened up slowly, a blank look on her sweaty, dusty face. She was holding a scythe in her right hand and a bundle of millet in her left. Wordlessly she gazed into the face of Gao Ma, who was mesmerized by the curve of her bosom beneath the pockets of a tattered, faded blue tunic. He said nothing. Jinju tossed down her scythe, split the millet into two bundles, and laid them on the ground. Then she took out a piece of hemp and wrapped up the bundles.

  “Jinju, why do you have to do this alone?”

  “My brother went to market,” she replied softly, wiping her face with her sleeve and pounding her waist with a fist. Sweat had turned her face pale. Wet strands of hair stuck to her temples.

  “Cramp in your side?”

  She smiled. Faint green stains dotted her front teeth, but the others sparkled. A missing collar button revealed an expanse of soft, white cleavage that unnerved him. The open throat was dotted with tiny red marks from the millet spikes, which had also deposited bits of white powder on her skin.

  “Your older brother went to market?” He wished he hadn’t said that, since her older brother was a cripple; it was the second brother who normally went to market.

  “No,” she replied evenly.

  “Then he should be out here helping you.”

  She squinted in the sunlight. He felt sorry for her.