Mo Yan: The Garlic Ballads

An anguished roar tore from Gao Mas throat, followed by a mouthful of bright red blood.

4.

A major snowstorm fell shortly after New Year’s Day.

Prisoners shoveled the snow into piles and loaded it onto handcarts to be deposited in a nearby millet field.

Gao Ma, the first to volunteer, pulled a snow-laden handcart out the main gate. Extra guards had not been posted, since only a few prisoners were let out the gate. Instead, one of the camp officers stood watch at the gate, his arms folded as he chatted with a tower guard.

Old Li,” the guard said, “has your wife had the baby yet?”

The officer, worry written all over his face, replied, “Not yet. She’s a month overdue.”

“Don’t worry,” the guard comforted him. “As the saying goes,? melon drops when it’s ripe.’ “

“Don’t worry? How would you like it if your old lady was a month overdue? Talk’s cheap.”

Gao Ma, sweat-soaked, returned with an empty cart.

The officer looked at him sympathetically. “Take a break, Number Eighty-eight. Somebody else can wresde with the cart for a while.”

“I’m not tired,” Gao Ma said as he passed through the gate.

“That Number Eight-eight’s a pretty good guy,” the guard remarked.

“A veteran,” the officer said. “A little too high-spirited is all. Well, nothing surprises me these days.”

“Those shitty Paradise County officials went too far, if you want my opinion,” the guard said. “The common folk don’t deserve all the blame for what happened.”

“That’s why I recommended that this one’s sentence be trimmed. They came down too hard on him, if you ask me.”

“But that’s how things go these days.”

Gao Ma approached the gate with another load of snow.

“Didn’t I tell you to take a break?” the officer asked him.

“After this load.” He headed toward the millet field.

“I hear Deputy Commissar Yu is being reassigned,” the guard said.

“I’d like to be reassigned,” the officer said wistfully. “This job stinks. No holidays, not even New Year’s, and miserable wages. I’d get out in a minute if I had someplace else to go.”

“You can always quit, if it’s that bad,” the guard noted. “Me, I’ve decided to become an entrepreneur.”

“In times like these, if you’re smart you’re an official. But if you can’t manage that, make some money any way you can.”

“Hey, where’s Number Eight-eight?” the guard asked with alarm.

The officer turned toward the field, where the sunshine made the snow sparkle with extraordinary beauty.

The watchtower siren wailed loudly.

“Number Eight-eight,” the guard shouted, “halt or I’ll shoot!”

Gao Ma was running straight into the sun, nearly blinded by its brightness. The fresh air of freedom rolled like waves over the snowy fields. He ran like a man possessed, oblivious to his surroundings, hellbent on revenge. He rose into the air as if riding the clouds and soaring through the mist, until he realized with wonder that he was sprawled in the icy snow, facedown. He sensed something hot and sticky spurting out of his back. With a soft “Jinju …” on his lips, he buried his face in the wet snow.

The translator is grateful to William Tay for bringing this novel to his attention soon after its appearance in a Chinese magazine; to Joseph Lau and Xiaobing Tang for ideas and encouragements;- and to Courtney Hodell for her editorial insights and unflagging enthusiasm. The Taiwan Hung-fan 1989 edition was used, while other versions were consulted. Parts of Chapter Nineteen and all of Chapter Twenty have been revised, in conjunction with the author.

Surnames (family names) always precede given names and titles (our author is Mr. Mo, not Mr. Yan). It is common in rural villages for a single surname to predominate; it is also common for rural and urban Chinese alike to address one another not by name but by family hierarchical title — Elder Brother, Aunt, Cousin — even in the absence of blood relationships. The major characters in the novel are:

GAO YANG (“Sheep” Gao): a garlic farmer

HIS WIFE XINGHUA: his blind daughter

GAO MA (“Horse” Gao): a garlic farmer

GAO ZHILENG: a parakeet raiser

GAO JINJIAO: the village boss (formally “director”)

The FANG family:

FANG YUNQIU (Fourth Uncle): head of the household

FOURTH AUNT: his wife

FANG YIJUN (also Number One, Elder Brother): his son FANG YIXIANG (also Number Two, Second Brother): his son

FANG JINJU (Golden Chrysanthemum): his daughter

DEPUTY YANG (Eighth Uncle): a local dignitary

SECRETARY WANG (Wang Jiaxiu): the local party boss

YU QIUSHUI: a peasant

ZHANG KOU: a blind minstrel

The proximate pronunciation of modern Chinese has not been materially aided by the pinyin (“spell-sound”) system. For the most part, the key is in the vowels:

a as in father (except after y , when it is the same as e)

e as in met

i as in see (in and ing are the same as in English)

O as in pork

u as in mood

ao as in cow

ei as in hay

iu as in use

ou as in old

u after j, q, x , and y , as the German ü (über)

c is pronounced as ts (its)

q is pronounced as ch (chill)

x is pronounced as sh (she)

z is pronounced as ds (yards)

zh is pronounced as j