Mo Yan - Red Sorghum

‘I came to see the owner,’ the soldier said. ‘I bought two crocks of wine a couple of days ago, and ten people died from drinking it. What kind of poison did you put in it?’

While he was stating his case, Little Yan and the other soldiers slipped into the compound and hid quietly by a corner of the wall. The watchdogs surrounded the man with the wine crocks and barked frantically.

Grandma walked out, sleepy-eyed, buttoning up her clothes. ‘Go to the shop if you have business here,’ she said testily.

‘There’s poison in your wine,’ the soldier said. ‘Ten people died from drinking it. I demand to see the owner.’

‘What kind of nonsense is that?’ Grandma shot back. ‘We sell wine all over this area, and we’ve never had any problems. How could members of your family alone die from drinking it?’

As the dispute raged between Grandma and the tall soldier, surrounded by the five dogs, Little Yan signalled his troops, who streaked into the house on his heels. The soldier outside threw down his wine crocks, pulled a pistol from his belt, and aimed it at Grandma.

Granddad was getting dressed when he was pushed down onto the kang by Little Yan and his men, who tied his hands behind his back and dragged him out into the yard.

The dogs rushed up to save him, and the soldiers opened fire. Fur flew, blood was everywhere.

The woman Liu soiled her pants as she slumped to the ground.

‘Gentlemen,’ Grandma protested, ‘we’ve done nothing to harm you, and have no grudge against you. If it’s money or food you want, just say so. There’s no need to use your weapons.’

‘Shut up!’ Little Yan shouted. ‘Take him away!’

Then she recognised Yan. ‘Don’t you work for my fosterdad?’ she asked urgently.

‘This has nothing to do with you,’ he said. ‘Just get on with your life!’

Uncle Arhat ran out of the shop when he heard gunfire in the western compound. But the instant his head popped through the gate, a bullet whizzed past his ear, and he quickly pulled back. There wasn’t a soul on the quiet street, though all the dogs in the village were howling. Little Yan and his men dragged Granddad out of the compound and down the street. The two soldiers left behind had already brought the horses up, and when the men hiding at the village entrance and the heads of the lanes saw that everything had gone smoothly, they left their positions and mounted up. Granddad was tied face down across the back of a horse with a purple mane. On Little Yan’s command, they galloped out of the village on the road to the county town.

When they arrived at the government compound, the soldiers dragged Granddad off the horse. Magistrate Cao walked up to him, stroking his moustache and grinning from ear to ear. ‘So, Spotted Neck, you shot three holes in the magistrate’s hat. Well, the magistrate is going to repay you with three hundred lashes with the sole of a shoe.’

Bruised, shaken, and dazed by the jarring trip, Granddad could do nothing but vomit as they dragged him off the horse.

‘Commence the beating!’ Little Yan ordered.

The soldiers walked up and kicked Granddad to the ground, raised extra-large shoes nailed to long sticks, and began beating him for all they were worth. At first he gritted his teeth, but he was soon shouting for his parents.

‘Spotted Neck,’ Nine Dreams Cao said, ‘now you see what you’re up against with Shoe Sole Cao the Second!’

The beating had cleared Granddad’s head. ‘You’ve got the wrong man!’ he screamed. ‘I’m not Spotted Neck….’

‘So you think you can lie your way out of it! Three hundred more lashes!’ Magistrate Cao shouted angrily.

The soldiers kicked Granddad to the ground again and pelted him again with the shoe soles. By now his buttocks were numb. He looked up and screamed, ‘Nine Dreams Cao, everybody calls you Cao the Upright Magistrate, but you’re nothing but a muddled dogshit official! Spotted Neck has a big spot on his neck. Look at my neck; do you see anything there?’

The startled Nine Dreams Cao waved his hand, and the soldiers backed off. Two others lifted Granddad up so Magistrate Cao could examine his neck.

‘How do you know Spotted Neck has a big spot on his neck?’ Magistrate Cao asked him.

‘I’ve seen him.’

‘If you know Spotted Neck, then you must be a bandit, too. I haven’t got the wrong man!’

‘Thousands of people in Northeast Gaomi Township know Spotted Neck. Does that make them all bandits?’

‘You were sleeping on a widow’s kang in the middle of the night, so, even if you’re not a bandit, you’re still a scoundrel. I haven’t got the wrong man!’

‘Your foster-daughter was willing.’

‘She was willing?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who are you?’

‘One of her hired hands.’

‘Aiyaya! Little Yan, lock him up.’

Grandma and Uncle Arhat rode up to the government-compound gate on their two big black mules just then. Uncle Arhat stood outside the gate holding the reins while Grandma ran into the yard, wailing and screaming. A sentry barred her way with his rifle. She spat in his face. ‘This is the county magistrate’s foster-daughter,’ Uncle Arhat explained. No sentry would stop her now. She barged into the main hall….

That afternoon, the county magistrate sent Granddad back to the village in a curtained sedan chair.

He spent the next two months convalescing on Grandma’s kang.

Grandma rode into the county town to deliver a heavy bundle to her foster-mother as a gift.

THE TWENTY-THIRD day of the twelfth month in the year 1923; the Kitchen God is sent to heaven to make his report. A member of Spotted Neck’s gang had kidnapped my grandma that morning. The ransom demand was received in the afternoon: the distillery was to pay one thousand silver dollars for the hostage’s safe return. If they failed to do so, they could retrieve her body from the Temple of the Earth God at the eastern edge of Li Village.

By rummaging through chests and cupboards, Granddad scraped together two thousand silver dollars, which he stuffed into a flour sack and told Uncle Arhat to deliver on one of the mules.

‘Didn’t they only ask for one thousand?’

‘Just do as I say.’

Uncle Arhat left on the mule.

Uncle Arhat returned with my grandma before nightfall, escorted by two mounted bandits with rifles slung over their backs.

When they spotted Granddad they said, ‘Proprietor, our leader says you can sleep with the gate open from now on!’

Granddad told Uncle Arhat to fetch a crock of the piss-enhanced wine for the bandits to take back with them. ‘See what your leader thinks of this wine,’ he said. Then he escorted the bandits to the edge of the village.

When he returned home, he closed the gate, the front door, and the bedroom door behind him. He and Grandma lay on the kang in each other’s arms. ‘Spotted Neck didn’t take advantage of you, did he?’

Grandma shook her head, but tears rolled down her cheeks.

‘What’s wrong? Did he rape you?’

She buried her head in his chest. ‘He… he felt my breast….’

Granddad stood up angrily. ‘The baby, is he all right?’

Grandma nodded.

In the spring of 1924, Granddad rode his mule on a secret trip to Qingdao, where he bought two pistols and five thousand cartridges. One of the repeaters was German-made, called a ‘waist-drum’, the other a Spanish ‘goosehead’.

After returning with the pistols, he locked himself up in his room for three days, breaking the weapons down and putting them back together over and over and over. With the coming of spring, the ice in the river melted, and fish that had spent a suffocating winter at the bottom swam sleepily to the surface to bask in the sun. Granddad took the pistols and a basketful of cartridges down to the river, where he spent the entire spring picking off fish. When there were no more large ones, he went after little ones. If he had an audience, he shot wildly, hitting nothing; but if he was alone, each round smashed a fish’s head. Summer arrived, and the sorghum grew.