Mo Yan - The Garlic Ballads

Gao Yang felt his heart go thump as he listened to Deputy Director Pang’s harangue. That’s right, he’s in charge of the whole county, and we can’t expect him to sell our garlic for us, can we? Of course not, even if we have to let it rot. He wished he could quiedy leave and go home, but he was boxed in by wagons and farmers. He was nearly in tears.

“Tell him to come out and talk to us!”

“Right! Bring out the county administrator! Bring out the county administrator!”

“Garlic farmers,” Deputy Director Pang shouted, “I’m warning you — turn around and go home, right now, or we’ll call the police and let them teach you some manners!”

“Fellow townsmen,” the horse-faced young man raised his voice, “don’t fall for their scare tactics! We’re not breaking any law. Who says it’s illegal for the people to ask to see the county administrator? He’s an elected public servant, and we’re within our rights to see him.”

“Who the fuck elected him? I couldn’t tell you if his face was black or white! How did he get elected?”

“Zhong Weimin, get out here! Zhong Weimin, get out here!”

“Now you’ve gone too far!” Deputy Director Pang thundered.

“Down with corrupt officials! Down with bureaucrats!” Gao Yang saw Gao Ma climb onto the oxcart and shake his fist.

Gao Ma picked up a bundle of garlic and flung it into the compound. “We don’t want this stuff. Put it on the old masters’ dinner tables!”

“Right, we don’t want it. It’s worthless, anyhow! Get rid of it! Throw it into the county compound to feed the old masters!”

Frenzy gripped the crowd, as thousands of bundles of garlic sprouted wings and flew across the wall, landing in heaps inside the government compound.

Deputy Director Pang turned to make a dash for the building. “Stop him!” someone shouted. “He’s going to call the police!”

The heavy gate shuddered violendy as the people up front crashed into it. Clubs, fists, feet, shoulders, bricks, and tiles all became weapons as the gate began to yield to the assault.

“Storm the compound! If the county administrator wont come talk to us, we’ll go find him!”

Emitting one last gasp, the lock snapped, and the gate flew open in the face of a surging tide of people. Poor Gao Yang was swept along, powerless to resist. He hadn’t thrown a single bundle of his precious garlic, and was worried that his donkey might get trampled. But he was not even able to look behind him.

The crowd carried him along, his feet barely touching the octagonal slabs of cement covering the ground; his face was moistened by an icy spray as he passed the fountain. The crowd surged into the office building, where a grand clatter echoed across the tiled floor, compounded by the crisp tinkle of shattering glass, the thud of splintering cabinets, and the shrieks of terrified women. A sense of ecstasy crept into Gao Yang’s mounting anxiety as he saw the destruction of luxurious trappings that induced in him feelings of envy and hatred. As an initial probe, he picked up a flowering cactus in a shallow red-and-pink vase and flung it at a window whose glass was polished until it shone. It parted without a murmur, allowing the vase and its contents to pass slowly through. He ran to the window in time to see the red-and-pink vase, the green cactus, and shards of window glass dance and skitter across the concrete ground. The vase broke, the detached petals scattered in all directions. A gratifying sight. Then he went back, picked up an oval aquarium, and admired the plump black and orange goldfish for a moment. The sloshing water and filthy debris rising from the bottom alarmed the aquarium’s denizens, which began splashing frantically, releasing a fishy odor that he found extremely disagreeable. He flung it against another window, which also disintegrated slowly as he ran up to watch the aquarium float downward, followed by glistening drops of water and sparkling shards of glass. The black and orange goldfish swam in midair. When it hit the concrete below, the aquarium shattered without a sound.

Unsettled by the sight of goldfish flapping around on the concrete below, he looked up and saw that the square was alive with people and animals, all in motion. His donkey and wagon were nowhere in sight, he noted with chagrin. Throngs of people poured into the compound, as a phalanx of armed policemen in white uniforms emerged from a lane east of the square and swarmed over it like tigers on a flock of sheep, swinging their batons to clear a path to the compound. He turned away from the window, concentrating on getting out of there as fast as his legs would carry him. But his way was blocked by dozens of people who by then had flocked into the office. He could hardly believe his eyes when he spotted Fourth Aunt Fang, who had hobbled in on tiny bound feet. A youngster in a white vest with an anchor logo shouted, “This is the county administrator’s office. Let’s hunt him down!” Oh my God! Gao Yang thought, the young man’s shout hitting him like a thunderbolt. The county administrator’s office! It was his vase, his aquarium, his windows. He would have fled if he could, but there were too many sticks and clubs fanning the air between him and the door. Vases with exotic plants came off the floor and began flying out the windows like so many artillery shells. One of them must have hit someone, if the string of screams and curses below were any indication.

Scrolls were ripped off the walls, and one young fellow even smashed a filing cabinet with a dumbbell, sending files, documents, and books tumbling out into a pile. He then used the same dumbbell to smash two telephones on the desk.

Meanwhile, Fourth Aunt was grabbing everything in sight, including some green satin curtains, which she pulled down and began tearing to shreds, as if ripping a rival’s hair. “Give me back my husband!” she screamed through her tears. “I want my husband back!”

While farmers rifled desk drawers, the young fellow put his dumbbell to work smashing the glass top and metal ashtray. The county administrator had cleared out so fast that his cigarette was still smoldering in the ashtray. Spotting a tin of ginseng cigarettes and a box of matches on the desk, the young fellow stuck one of the former between his lips and announced, “I’m going to try out the old magistrate’s throne.” With that he sat down in the county administrator’s rattan chair, leaned back, lit up, and crossed his feet on the desk, looking mighty pleased with himself, as the other farmers rushed up to fight over the remaining cigarettes. Fourth Aunt, who had made a pile of the torn curtains, scrolls, and files, lit a match from the box on the desk and touched it to the satin curtains, which began to burn at once. Amid puffs of smoke, the paper then caught fire, sending tongues of flames snaking up the smashed cabinets by the wall. Falling to her knees, she banged her head on the floor in a kowtow and muttered, “Husband,? ve avenged your death!”

The fire quickly spread, forcing the farmers into the hallway. On his way out the door, Gao Yang grabbed Fourth Aunt and yelled, “Run for your life!”

Dense smoke swirling up and down the hallway indicated that more than one office had been torched. Everything was shaking — the ceiling above and the stairs below. People ran and clawed for their lives. As Gao Yang dragged Fourth Aunt out the entrance, he thought about the black and orange goldfish, but only for a fleeting moment, since with a thousand heads and twice that many legs fighting over limited space, anyone who stumbled was sure to be trampled — already you could hear the screams. Holding Fourth Aunt’s hand in a deathlike grip, he virtually flew out of the compound, past the blurred faces of seven or eight armed policemen.