Mo Yan - Red Sorghum

The valiant warriors of the Jiao-Gao regiment collected the Iron Society soldiers’ abandoned weapons and mounted the chase, Little Foot Jiang in the lead. Granddad scooped up an abandoned Japanese ‘38’ rifle, threw himself down behind a pile of dung, and pulled back the bolt to send a cartridge into the chamber. His racing heart made his shoulder jerk up and down and caused Little Foot Jiang’s head to slip in and out of his sights. So he aimed for the chest, just to be on the safe side. When the rifle fired, Father heard the crack and saw Little Foot Jiang’s arms fly out as he fell headlong to the ground. The troops behind him threw themselves down in terror. That was what Granddad was waiting for; grabbing Father by the arm, he ran like the wind to catch up with his retreating men.

Granddad’s shot had hit Little Foot Jiang in the ankle. A medic rushed up and bandaged it for him, and, with iron determination, he ordered, ‘Get moving, forget about me, follow them! I want their weapons! Every last one of them. Charge, comrades!’

Invigorated by Little Foot Jiang’s exhortations, the Jiao-Gao soldiers jumped to their feet and mounted an even more furious chase in the face of the occasional round fired their way. The exhausted Iron Society soldiers, not wanting to run any more, threw down their weapons and waited to surrender.

‘Fight!’ Granddad bellowed. ‘Pick up your guns and fight!’

‘Commander,’ a young soldier said, ‘don’t make them madder than they already are. They only want our weapons. Let’s give them what they want, so we can all go home and plant our sorghum.’

Black Eye fired a shot, and the Jiao-Gao soldiers responded with a fusillade of fire from three submachine guns, wounding three Iron Society soldiers and killing another.

Black Eye was about to fire another shot when a burly Iron Society soldier wrapped his arms around him. ‘That’s enough, Commander,’ the man said. ‘Don’t provoke those mad dogs.’

The Jiao-Gao troops were nearly upon them when Granddad reluctantly lowered his rifle.

Just then a machine gun began barking like a dog from behind the Black Water River dike. An even more brutal fight awaited the Iron Society and Jiao-Gao regiments on the other side of the dike.

THE GLOOMY, RAINY autumn of 1939 was followed by a freezing winter. Dogs that had been shot to death or blown up by hand grenades hurled by Father, Mother, and their martyred friends lay in the soggy marshland, frozen together with fallen stalks of sorghum. Dogs killed by blasts of Japanese muskmelon grenades in the Black Water River and those that had struggled to become pack leaders, only to die cruelly, lay icebound among withered water grasses and weeds along the banks. Famished crows pecked at the frozen corpses with their purple beaks. Like black clouds they soared in the sky between the riverbank and the marshland.

Granddad, Father, Mother, and the woman Liu hibernated in their dilapidated village through the endless winter. Father and Mother were already aware of the relationship between Granddad and the woman Liu, but it didn’t bother them. The way she looked after everyone during these trying days was something my family remembered even decades later. Her name was formally added to our ‘family scroll’, where she is listed just below Passion, who follows Grandma, who is second only to Granddad.

It was the woman Liu who had consoled Granddad after Father lost one of his testicles. ‘Single-stalk garlic is always the hottest,’ she said. With her encouragement, Beauty, who would become my mother, had aroused Father’s wounded, ugly, strange-looking little pecker, thereby ensuring the continuation of our family line.

All this had happened in late autumn, when migrating wild geese often appeared in the sky, and fangs of ice were forming in the marshland. With the arrival of blustery northwest winds, one of the coldest winters in history began.

The shack was piled high with dry sorghum leaves; and there was plenty of grain in the kitchen. To supplement their diet with more nutritious food and keep up their strength and health, Granddad and Father often went dog-hunting. The death of Red had turned the dogs of Northeast Gaomi Township from a roving pack into a bunch of individual marauders. They were never organised again. Human nature once more won out over canine nature, and the paths gouged out by the dogs were slowly reclaimed by the black earth.

Father and Granddad went hunting every other day, bagging only a single dog each time. The meat provided necessary nutrition and internal heat, and by the spring of 1940, Father had grown two fists taller. Having fed on human corpses, the dogs were strong and husky; eating a winter’s supply of fatty dog meat was, for Father, the same as eating a winter’s supply of human flesh. Later he would grow into a tall, husky man who could kill without batting an eye. I wonder if that had anything to do with the fact that, indirectly, he had cannibalised his own people?

One night a warm southeasterly wind blew, and the next morning they could hear the ice cracking on the Black Water River. New buds the size of rice appeared on weeping willows, and tiny pink flowers exploded onto the branches of peach trees. Early-arriving swallows flew through the air above the marshland and the river, hordes of wild rabbits chased one another in mating rituals, and the grass turned green. After several misty rain showers, Granddad and Father took off their dogskin clothing. Day and night, the black soil of Northeast Gaomi Township was the scene of endless stirrings by a host of living, growing things.

Now that spring had arrived, Granddad and Father felt confined in the shack. They went out to walk along the dikes of the Black Water River, then crossed the stone bridge to visit the graves of Grandma and of Granddad’s fallen soldiers.

‘Let’s join the Jiao-Gao regiment, Dad,’ Father said.

Granddad shook his head.

‘How about joining up with Detachment Leader Leng?’

Granddad shook his head.

The sun shone bright and beautiful that morning. Not a cloud in the sky. They stood speechless before Grandma’s grave.

East of the bridge, far off in the distance, they saw seven horses trotting sluggishly towards them on the northern dike. When they got closer, Father and Granddad recognised the freshly shaved foreheads of the Iron Society. Leading them was a swarthy man with a ring of dark moles around his right eye. It was Black Eye, who had already had an illustrious reputation way back when Granddad was living a bandit’s life. Back then bandit gangs and the Iron Society went their own ways — well water not mixing with river water — and Granddad had held them in contempt. Then, in the early winter of 1929, Granddad and Black Eye had fought on the dusty bank of the Salty River, with no winner and no loser.

The seven horses trotted up to the dike in front of Grandma’s grave, where Black Eye reined in his mount. Instinctively Granddad rested his hand on the handle of his Japanese ‘tortoiseshell’ pistol.

‘So it’s you, Commander Yu!’ Black Eye sat steadily in his saddle.

Granddad’s hand shook. ‘It’s me!’

When Granddad challenged him with a dark look, Black Eye chuckled dully and dismounted. He gazed down at Grandma’s grave. ‘She’s dead?’

‘She’s dead!’ Granddad said tersely.

‘Goddamn it!’ Black Eye spat out angrily. ‘A good woman like that winding up dead as soon as you get your hands on her!’

Flames shot from Granddad’s eyes.

‘If she’d come with me back then, it wouldn’t have turned out like this!’ Black Eye said.

Granddad drew his pistol and aimed it at Black Eye.

‘If you’ve got the balls,’ Black Eye said calmly, ‘you’ll avenge her. Killing me only proves how chickenhearted you are!’