Mo Yan - Sandalwood Death

A palanquin covered in blue wool was part of the contingent emerging onto the parade ground, preceded by wild animals with human heads, all carrying banners and gongs and umbrellas and fans. The chair was carried by horses with human heads and humans with horse heads, plus a few humans with cow heads. A thoroughbred horse trailed the palanquin, a bizarre wolf-headed human in the saddle, and I knew that was the German Plenipotentiary from Qingdao, Clemens von Ketteler. I’d heard that my gongdieh had shot the man’s first horse out from under him with a shotgun, so the one he was riding now he’d probably taken from one of his subordinates. More horses preceded a prison van that held a pair of cages. I thought the sandalwood death was reserved for my gongdieh alone. Why two cages? A long procession spread out behind the prison van, flanked by crowds of local residents. What I actually saw was a sea of hairy skulls, but I knew they were local residents. I was secretly thinking of someone, someone I tried to spot among all those dark heads. Do I need to say who that person was? No. I was searching for my wife. I hadn’t seen her since my dieh had sent her racing fearfully out of the house yesterday morning. I had no idea if she’d eaten or drunk anything, and though she was a white snake, she was a good white snake, like Bai Suzhen, the heroine of The Legend of the White Snake . She was Bai Suzhen, and I was her lover, Xu Xian. But who was the Green Snake Demon and who was the sorcerer Fa Hai? Of course. Yuan Shikai was Fa Hai. My eyes lit up. I see her, I see her! She’s standing with a bunch of women! Her flat white head is raised, her purple tongue flicks in and out, she’s slithering this way. Meow meow , I felt like crying out, but my dieh’s panther eyes were fixed on me.

“Son,” he said, “stop looking around!”

After three bursts of cannon fire, the official in charge of the execution announced loudly to Yuan Shikai and von Ketteler, who had taken seats in the center of the stage:

“Your humble servant, Gaomi County, respectfully reports to His Excellency the Governor that the midday hour has arrived, and the Imperial prisoner Sun Bing has been identified as the condemned. The executioners are in place and await instructions from His Honor!”

Yuan Shikai, seated on the stage, stuck his turtle neck out from under his shell, which looked like a pot lid and gave his official robe the look of an oilpaper umbrella, the very umbrella that Xu Xian had given to the White and Green Snakes. But how had that umbrella wound up on Yuan Shikai’s body? Oh, it’s not an umbrella, it’s a turtle shell. How wonderful that a turtle would be a high official, meow meow . Turtle Yuan stretched his neck toward the mouth of Gray Wolf von Ketteler and sputtered something in turtle-wolf talk; then he took a red command flag from one of his subordinates and swung it in a hard downward chop. This was no meaningless demonstration: like a knife cutting through a tangle of jute or slicing through a cake of bean curd, it was a deft and resolute action, proof that this turtle had reached profound Taoist attainments. This was no ordinary turtle; no, it was exceptional, for official status of this magnitude was beyond the reach of an ordinary reptile. Of course, he was still no match for my dieh. When the official in charge saw Excellency Yuan drop the little red flag, he sprang into action, growing half an inch in height; rays of light, green in color, surged from his eyes, menacing enough to frighten anybody. His tiger whiskers twitched; he bared his fangs. He looked good to me. Drawing on the power of his throat, he announced loudly:

“It is time——let the execution begin——”

His body shrank back to normal as soon as the proclamation ended, and his whiskers retreated to his cheeks. You don’t have to reveal your identity. I know you’re Qian Ding. That may be an official’s cap resting on your tiger head and a red robe girding your body, and while you may be able to hide your tail under your clothes, I knew it was you as soon as I heard you speak. His proclamation ended, he stood beside the execution stand, bent at the waist, his back arched, as his face slowly regained its human form; drenched in perspiration, it made for a pitiful sight. Three more thunderous blasts from the dozen cannons shook the ground. Now that it was nearly time to join Dieh in our spectacle, I took one last look around. There were, I saw, throngs of people surrounding the parade ground—men and women, young and old, some in their true form, others having reverted to their human form, and others still in the midst of changing from one to the other—half human, half beast. At that distance I couldn’t tell Zhang Three from Li Four, whether pigs or dogs or cows or sheep, nothing but a swarm of heads, big and small, all awash in sunlight. Feeling a surge of pride, I threw out my chest and raised my chin, meow meow , and then looked down at the new ritualistic clothes I was wearing: a black Buddhist robe with a vestment over my left shoulder, a wide red sash with long tassels around my waist, black trousers tied at the ankles, and high deerskin boots. I couldn’t see the hat with a circular crown that rested on my head, of course, but everybody else could. My face and ears were smeared with a layer of rooster blood, which had dried and begun to crack, making my skin feel funny. But no matter how it felt, it had to be done, since it was a tradition handed down by our ancestors. My dieh often said that traditions are the essence of any endeavor. Because the dried blood on his face had begun to crack, in my eyes he was looking more and more human—now a half man–half panther dieh. His paws were becoming hands, and his face was changing, but he still had the ears of a panther: thin and nearly transparent, they stuck up in the air and were topped by bristly hairs. Dieh reached out to straighten my clothes and said softly:

“Don’t be afraid, son. Just do as your dieh taught you, courageously. It is time for father and son to show what we can do!”

“I’m not afraid, Dieh!”

Dieh looked at me with tenderness in his eyes.

“You are a good son!”

Dieh Dieh Dieh Dieh, do you know that people say the County Magistrate and I are in the same pot fighting over a ladle…

I noticed right away that there were two cages on the prison van, with a Sun Bing in each of them. Two cages, two Sun Bings. At first glance they looked identical; but a closer look revealed significant differences. The true form of one was a big black bear, the other a big black pig. My wife’s father was too heroic a character to be a pig, so he had to be the bear. The eighty-third story my dieh told me was about a fight between a black bear and a tiger. In the story, the bear and the tiger always fought to a draw, until finally the tiger won. The bear lost not because it was an inferior fighter, but because it was too practical an animal. After each fight, the tiger went hunting for food—pheasants, gazelles, or rabbits—and went to drink from a mountain stream. But there was no food or drink for the bear, which angrily dug up trees on the battlefield, since it never felt there was enough space. Once the tiger had eaten and drunk its fill, it returned to start the fight all over. Eventually, the bear, its strength sapped, was beaten, and the tiger was anointed king of the beasts. I could also tell which of the two was my gongdieh by the look in his eyes. Sun Bing’s eyes were bright and lively, and when they settled on something, they seemed to emit sparks. The fake Sun Bing’s eyes were dark, his gaze evasive, sort of fearful. The fake Sun Bing looked familiar somehow, and it didn’t take much thought to figure out that he was Xiao Shanzi, a member of the beggar community, Zhu Ba’s right-hand man. Each year, on the fourteenth day of the eighth month, Beggars’ Day, a pair of chili peppers hung from his ears in his role as a matchmaker. Now he’d assumed the role of my gongdieh. What did the fool think he was doing?