Mo Yan - The Garlic Ballads

He found a match and lit the kerosene lamp; as light flooded the vacant room and cast shadows of flying parakeets on the wall, he seethed with sudden hostility toward those lovely birds. The shadow of Jinju’s body spread out across the wall and the floor.

He brushed against her as he went into the kitchen for the cleaver. In his gropings his hand touched the chimney brush and the spatula, but not his cleaver.

“Have you forgotten that my brothers took your cleaver, Gao Ma?” It was Jinju’s voice. With her face backed by the lamplight, she appeared to be smiling, although he couldn’t be sure. “Elder Brother Gao Ma,” she said with a smile, “I’m sure it’s a son.”

“I’d be just as happy with a daughter. I’ve never favored boys over girls.”

“No, a daughter won’t do. We have to make sure he gets a good education, high school and college, so he can find work in town and not have to suffer the miserable life of a farmer.”

“Jinju, going away with me brought you nothing but misery.” He stroked her head.

“You shared my misery.” She rubbed his bony chest. “My parents shouldn’t have demanded so much money from you,” she said sadly.

“That’s okay, I’ll scrape it together,” he said confidently. “I’ll get at least five thousand for the garlic. And since all the villagers will have plenty of money, I can borrow the rest — I’m sure they’ll help — so we can get married before the baby arrives.”

“Marry me now,” she said. “I can’t live in that house any longer.”

Little green dots played on her face, and he wondered if they were parakeet feathers that had stuck to it.

That was when he remembered the saber, a family relic. He’d been caught handling it when he was a child. “Put it down!” Grandpa had said. Grandpa was still alive then. “It’s rusty. I’m going to sharpen it,” Gao Ma had retorted. “This is no toy!” Grandpa had said, and snatched it out of his hand. “This saber has killed a man,” Mother had said. She was still alive then, too. “Don’t you dare play with it.” And so they had hidden it on a roof beam to keep it away from him.

He moved the stool over, reached up to the beam, and felt around until his hand bumped into something long and hard. He brought it into the light. As he slipped the saber out of its wooden scabbard, the faces of Grandpa and Mother appeared before him.

The blade was dotted with red rust but still plenty sharp. And even though the tip had snapped off, it was made of good steel. Gao Ma’s hand moved through the air until saber met rope. But the saber inexplicably bounced back, sending him crashing to the floor. He scrambled to his feet just as the rope parted and Jinju fell to the floor — toes first, then heels, then the rest of her body, face up: a crumbling mountain of silver, a collapsed jade pillar, raising a pitiful ill wind that made the kerosene lamp flicker. He knelt down and loosened the noose around her neck. A breathy sigh escaping from her mouth drew a shriek of joy from his. But she didn’t make another sound. Her body was cold and stiff, as a touch of his hand proved. He tried to stuff her tongue back into her mouth, but it had puffed up to such an extraordinary thickness that it no longer fit. Yet even then a bewitching smile was visible on her face.

“Have you already scraped the money together, Elder Brother Gao Ma? When can we get married?”

He covered her face and upper body with a blanket.

After wailing piteously for some minutes, he realized how weary he was. Picking up the pitted, rusty saber, he staggered into the yard, the wind in his face and the taste of blood in his mouth. As he gazed up at the moon and the stars in the cloudless sky, the gaily colored parakeets emerged from the house en masse through the open window and front door, slipping through the air with such ease you’d have thought their wings were greased.

He swung at one with his saber. The bird veered, shot past him, and reentered the house. I’ll slaughter you all! Wait till I hone my saber, and I’ll slaughter you all!

He knelt beside a huge whetstone brought down from Little Mount Zhou and began working on his saber. First he scraped it dry to remove the rust; then he fetched a chipped ceramic bowl, filled it half-full with water, and began honing it wet. Through the rest of the night he kept at it. At cockcrow he wiped the blade clean with a handful of weeds, then held it up to the light. The icy glint of steel sent shivers up his spine. When he moved the blade lightly against his face, he heard a crackle and felt even the softest whiskers, which always bow beneath a dull knife, fall away.

The heft of the saber made him feel like a night-stalking swordsman; his palm itched around the handle. First he bounded into the township compound, quickly decapitating several tall sunflowers around him and leveling others nearer the ground. The razor-sharp saber seemed to cut and slash of its own volition, guiding his hand through the beds of sunflowers. Nothing could stop it. The stems remained suspended in place long after his saber had passed through them; then he watched them shudder once before falling noiselessly to the ground of their own weight, dim starlight falling lightly on the large fanlike leaves. Consumed by murderous intent, he turned his attention to the nearby pine trees. White chips of virgin wood flew, while in the branches above him swarms of frantic parakeets scattered in the sky, then formed a cloud of living color that whirled above the township compound, depositing pale droppings onto the blue roof tiles below until, wing-weary, they fell like stones, thudding like heavy raindrops. After felling three pine trees, Gao Ma watched four scarlet moons climb into the uncommonly expansive sky, one at each point of the compass, lighting up the land as if it were daytime. Parakeet feathers shimmered in many colors; birds’ eyes sparkled gemlike in the blinding light.

He raised the saber in his right hand, then his left. He was a giant. He slashed at the contemptible parakeets who’d risen up to circle him; cold blood from their dismembered bodies splashed onto his face, and as he reached up to wipe it away with his free hand, the stench of parakeet blood filled his nostrils.

Undaunted, the birds entered the house through the windows and door, then flew back out. The moons had long since fallen out of the sky above the gray courtyard, which was dotted by blurred woodpiles. He stood in the doorway, saber in hand, waiting. A parakeet flew up near him, mischievously, rolling its colorful wing feathers. His saber described an arc as it sliced through the bird; half fell at his feet, the other half landed a yard or so away. With a single lack he sent the half-bird at his feet sailing over the wall; then he skewered the other half with the tip of his saber and brought it up close to get a better look. The muscles were still twitching, the exposed innards quivering; a breath of hot air hit him full in the face. Cold, sticky blood slid down the blade and onto the brass guard over the hilt. A flick of the wrist, and the second half of the parakeet sailed over the wall.

The surviving parakeets, enraged by what he had done, raised a terrifying screech of protest. Assuming a fighting stance, he accepted the challenge: “Come on, you bastards, here I am!” He then rushed headlong into the thick flock of birds, swinging the saber over his head. A shower of parakeets thudded earthward, some dead when they hit the ground, others mortally wounded, hopping in the dirt like frogs. But the birds, having a numerical advantage, launched a counterattack. Now he was fighting for his own survival.

Finally he collapsed wearily onto a heap of small, bloody corpses, as the surviving parakeets circled above, screeching piteously, the fight taken out of them.