Mo Yan - Red Sorghum

Mother prayed silently: Dad! Mom! Come back, hurry! I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, and Brother’s sick. You’ll kill your own children if you don’t come fast!

She heard the faint sounds of a gong from the village wall, or maybe it was from somewhere else, then a distant shout: ‘Is there anybody here — is there anybody left — the Japs are gone — Commander Yu’s here —’

Mother picked Little Uncle up in her arms and got to her feet. ‘Here!’ she shouted hoarsely. ‘Here we are — we’re down in the well — save us, hurry —’ She reached up and began to shake the rope hanging from the windlass, keeping at it for nearly an hour. Gradually her arms grew slack, and her brother fell to the ground with a weak groan. Then silence. She leaned against the wall and slid slowly down, until she was sitting on the cold broken bricks, drained and totally dejected.

Little Uncle climbed into her lap and said calmly, ‘Sis… I want my mama….’

A powerful sadness overcame Mother as she wrapped her arms around Little Uncle. ‘Harmony,’ she said, ‘Mom and Dad don’t want us any more. You and I are going to die here in this well….’

He was burning up with fever, and hugging him was like holding a charcoal brazier. ‘Sis, I’m thirsty….’

Mother’s gaze fell on a puddle of filthy green water in a corner of the well. A scrawny toad sat in the middle of the pool, its back covered with ugly bean-sized warts, the yellowish skin beneath its mouth popping in and out, its bulging eyes glaring at her. She shuddered, her skin crawled, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Her mouth was parched, too, but she’d rather have died of thirst than drink that nasty toad-water.

Since the previous morning, not a minute had passed when Mother wasn’t in the grip of terror and panic: terror caused by the sounds of gunfire in and around the village, panic over her baby brother’s struggle to survive. At fifteen, she was still a frail child, and it was a strain to have to carry her pudgy little brother all the time, especially when he was constantly squirming and making the pitiful sounds of a dying kitten. She spanked him once, and the little bastard responded by sinking his teeth into her.

Now that he was feverish, Little Uncle drifted in and out of consciousness and lay limp in the arms of my mother, who sat on a piece of broken brick until her buttocks were painfully sore, then totally numb. The gunfire, dense one minute and scattered the next, never completely stopped. Sunlight crept slowly over the western wall, then the eastern wall, as darkness spread inside. Mother knew she’d spent a whole day in the well, and that any time now her parents would be coming back. She stroked her baby brother’s scalding face; his breath burned her fingers. She laid her hand over his rapidly beating heart and could hear a wheeze in his chest. At that moment it occurred to her that he might very well die, and she shuddered. But she forced the thought out of her mind. Any minute now, she thought, to keep her spirits up, any minute now. It’s getting dark outside, and even the swallows have gone home to roost, which means that Mom and Dad will be here soon.

The light on the walls turned dark yellow, then deep red. A cricket hidden in one of the cracks began to chirp; mosquitoes warmed up their engines and took off into the air. Just then Mother heard the sound of a mortar barrage from somewhere near the village wall, and what sounded like human and animal screams from the northern end of the village. This was followed by blasts from a machine gun in the southern end. When the gunfire ended, sounds of shouting men and galloping horses swept into the village like a tidal wave. Utter chaos. Pounding of hooves and tramping boots around the opening of the well. Gulugulu — loud Japanese voices. Little Uncle began to whimper, but Mother clapped her hand over his mouth and held her breath. His face twisted violently under her hand, and she could feel the thumping of her own heart.

As the sun’s rays died out, Mother looked up at the red sky. Fires crackled all around, sending hot ashes over the opening of the well; mixed with the sound of licking flames were the cries of children, the screams of women, and the bleating of goats, or maybe it was the tearful lowing of cows. Even from the bottom of the well, she could smell the stench of burning.

She had no idea how long she’d shuddered over the fires raging above her, since she’d lost all sense of time, but she could tell from the tiny slice of darkening sky that the fires were dying out. At first she heard an occasional burst of gunfire and the sound of a roof collapsing. But after a while there was nothing but silence, plus a few dim stars that appeared in the circle of sky above.

Mother fell asleep, and awoke chilled. By now her eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, and when she looked up at the pale-blue sky and the gentle rays of the morning sun reflected off the walls, she felt giddy. Her clothes were soggy from the dampness; the cold air touched her bones. She hugged her little brother tightly. Even though his fever seemed to have abated during the night, he was still much hotter than she. So Mother soaked up Little Uncle’s warmth, while he was cooled by her; during their time together at the bottom of the well, they achieved true life-sustaining symbiosis. Mother, who did not know that her parents were dead, expected to see their faces and to hear their familiar voices at any time; had she known, she might not have survived those days and nights in the well.

When I look back upon my family’s history, I find that the lives of all the key members have at some point been linked inextricably with some sort of dark, dank cave or hole, beginning with Mother. Granddad later outdid all the others, setting a record among civilised people of his generation for living in a cave. Finally, Father would produce an epilogue that, in political terms, would be anything but glorious, but when viewed from the human angle must be considered splendid. When the time came, he would wave his sole remaining arm towards the red clouds of dawn and come running on the wind to Mother, Elder Brother, Elder Sister, and me.

Mother was freezing on the outside but burning up inside. She hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since the previous morning. A searing thirst had tormented her since the night before, when the village was engulfed in flames; then, in the middle of the night, an overwhelming hunger reached its peak. As dawn was about to break, her guts seemed to twist into knots, until all she could feel was the gnawing pain in her belly. But now the mere thought of food nauseated her; it was the thirst she found unbearable. Her lungs felt dry and chapped, each breath producing the rustling sound of withered sorghum leaves.

Once again Little Uncle said meekly through blistered lips, ‘Sis… I’m thirsty….’ Mother didn’t have the heart to look into his small, wizened face, and there were no words to console him. The promises she’d made throughout the day and night had come to nothing. No sound, not even the bark of a dog, emerged from the village. That was when it occurred to her that her parents might be dead or might have been captured by the Japs. Her eyes stung, but she had no more tears to shed — the wretched state of her baby brother had forced her to grow up.

Momentarily forgetting her suffering, she laid him down on the brick floor and stood up to survey the walls around her. They were damp, of course, and the luxuriant appearance of moss briefly gave her new hope; but it offered no relief for their thirst, and it wasn’t edible. She squatted down and picked up a brick, then another. They were very heavy, as though water was stored up inside them. A red centipede crawled out of the hollow where the bricks had been, and Mother jumped away, not daring to pick up any more. Nor did she dare sit down, for something horrible had occurred the morning before that made her realise she was now a woman.