Yan Lianke - The Four Books

“They are eating human flesh. Seven days of sandstorms have buried all of the wild grass along the riverbank, to the point that no one can find any roots to eat.”

As she was saying this, the Physician added some kindling to the fire, and after placing her porcelain bowl over the flames, she lay down and began fanning them, acting as though we weren’t even standing there. The final rays of the setting sun dyed the riverbank the color of strawberry jam, transforming the water from yellow to red. In the distance, under the wall around the ninety-ninth, you could just barely hear the sound of the sun setting, like moist sand. On this side of the wall, there was a ditch in which there was a row of fires, which generated a series of popping sounds that cut through the quiet dusk. There was the smell of ashes and boiled flesh in the air. No one said a word, and they kept their distance from one another, as though in that way no one would notice that anyone else was cooking human flesh, and no one would make a record of their sins. After seeing those plumes of smoke rising into the sky, together with the landscape littered with fires from people cooking human flesh, I turned to the Scholar. The Scholar was standing next to the Physician’s fire, but did not look surprised by what he was seeing. Instead, he had a blank expression, appearing as pale and greenish as the corpses themselves. He gazed at the fires in front of him, and just as I was about to speak, he said,

“Let’s go back!”

So, we left.

The light in the Child’s room was already on, and a pale yellow glow could be seen through his window. When we arrived at the main entrance to the compound, we slowed down and peered in that direction. I wanted to tell the Scholar that we should invite the Child to see all of these fires made by people cooking human flesh. But the Scholar merely continued forward. He did not head back to his room, however, but rather proceeded directly to the morgue located in the first row of buildings, as though he were a warehouse attendant who just noticed that the outer door had been left open. He quickened his pace, to the point that he was panting with exhaustion, and when he arrived he pushed the door and went inside. The final rays of evening light entered the morgue, like the moon’s reflection in a pool of water. He stood there quietly for a while, then gradually began to make out the room’s layout. It was here that, several days earlier, I had come to deposit the Theologian’s corpse, which was lying on a cot with three others. The corpses were all lying there like a row of gunny sacks. In only a few days several more had been placed on that same cot, like a pile of meat. After those original two cots were filled up, the new corpses were then scattered haphazardly onto other cots, like piles of hay in a field after the autumn harvest. Some of the corpses were wrapped in straw mats, others were covered with their own bedding, while others were still dressed in the same clothes the deceased had been wearing when they died. It was frigid inside the room, and the bone-chilling cold emitted by the corpses penetrated the bones of the living. I followed the Scholar into the room, and my joints began to crack, as though countless bells embedded inside them were being rung. I had no choice but to pause and try to calm my trembling legs.

The morgue still had the same four bunk beds as before, with two on either side of the window. Between the cots there was a table, though the stools that had gone with the table had long since been taken away to serve as firewood. Two tables had also been taken away to be burned, together with the upper level of two of the bunk beds, but there remained the room’s four lower cots and splintered remnants of the others. The cot nearest to the door, because it was several steps closer than the others, was piled high with no fewer than six corpses — some of which were facing the door while others were facing away. The innermost bunk, however, had only two corpses — as if even after death they were still able to enjoy the luxury of having a cot virtually to themselves. On the cot under the window, there were three corpses that were all wearing padded jackets and pants, and two of them were facing the window, appearing dark purple and icy green in the light, their hair as messy as a bird’s nest.

In front of the bunk with the six corpses, I could just barely make out whose was lying on the table — it was that of the Linguist, who, years earlier, had arrived several minutes late to a pedagogy meeting organized by his work unit. The higher-up had asked him why he was late, and the Linguist explained that his feet had suddenly started hurting, and he had to walk very slowly. The higher-up looked down and noticed that the Linguist was wearing his shoes on the wrong feet. He then laughed and told the Linguist to report for Re-Ed, whereupon he was sent to the ninety-ninth. The Linguist at that point was sixty-eight years old, and the Chinese dictionaries he had been the editing were still used throughout the country. But now he was lying there, dead. The Scholar had shared a room with him. From the moment the Scholar entered the room he began throwing off bedsheets, cloths, and straw mats, recognizing one corpse after another. After checking to see which corpses had chunks of flesh cut from them, the Scholar went up to the body of the Linguist under the window, and stood there silently. He noticed a shape on the table where the Linguist’s corpse was lying — resembling a dried sweet potato. He reached out to touch it, but quickly pulled his hand back. He paused for a few seconds, then turned to examine the Linguist’s head. The Scholar and I noticed that the Linguist’s ear was missing, and that potato-shaped outline on the table was in fact his left ear. Because it was so cold the corpse had frozen, and when people were cutting up his body, his ear had gotten ripped off.

I retreated to the middle of the room and told the Scholar not to look. The Scholar then walked over to the corpses lying on the innermost cot. As soon as he reached the bed, I recognized that the two bodies belonged to the Theologian and a young associate professor. The Theologian originally had not been on this bunk. Feeling flustered, I went over and pulled back the sheet covering the Theologian’s body, and immediately felt a wave of nausea run through me. The body had no arms or legs, and instead merely his trunk was lying there, like a corpse that has been disinterred after many years. I quickly covered him again with the sheet before the Scholar could see it and retreated from the room. I squatted in the doorway and repeatedly dry-heaved, as though there were a clump of putrid grass wedged in my throat.

“What’s wrong with the Theologian?” the Scholar asked, following me out.

I turned and said, “Every part of him that could be eaten is now gone.”

The Scholar stood behind me. He was silent, then left me and retreated to the morgue rooms. By this point some people were already walking back to the compound with their pots and bowls of boiled meat. The sun had almost completely disappeared, and the last glimmer of light was fading. The courtyard was dark and silent. I noticed that there wasn’t a single person who was having to crawl back. Instead, they were all walking on their own two feet, and furthermore there seemed to be more spring to their steps. Before, when they walked, their feet would make an indistinct scuffling sound, but now each step could be heard distinctly. They headed through the courtyard, and the Scholar emerged from the morgue rooms. I don’t know whether those people said anything when they saw each other. They didn’t look at one another, and instead merely watched as the Scholar emerged and walked over to me. His footsteps were also stronger than before. When he reached me, the Scholar simply stood there with his head lowered, staring intently at me. Softly yet clearly, he uttered a single phrase: