Mo Yan - Sandalwood Death

The Magistrate grabbed Sun Bing by the neck and lifted him off the ground.

“Sun Bing,” he said, “where are the three German hostages?”

“Qian,” Sun Bing said with a teeth-grinding snarl, “go ahead, kill me, if that’s what you want. Everyone else in my family is dead, so it makes no difference to me if I live or die.”

“Tell me where the Germans are.”

“Them?” With a sarcastic grin, he began to sing: “When you ask where all the German dogs are~~that makes this Supreme Commander’s spirits fly far~~they are sleeping in heaven~~they are hidden deep in the ground~~they exist in latrines~~they line the stomachs of dogs, that is where they are~~”

“Have you killed them?”

“They are alive and well, and it is up to you to go find them.”

“Sun Bing,” the Magistrate said as he let go of the neck and adopted a friendlier tone, “I have to tell you that Meiniang is now in the hands of the Germans, and if you do not release their people, they will hang her from the city gate.”

“That is up to them,” Sun Bing replied. “Marrying off a daughter is like spilling a pail of water. She is no longer my concern.”

“But she is your only daughter, and you owe her a lifetime of debts. If you refuse to free your German hostages, then I have no choice but to take you back with me today.” The Magistrate took Sun Bing by the arm and walked him out of the shed, where they were met by a burst of crowd noise. There on the dry riverbed, hundreds of men in their red kerchiefs, red sashes, and painted faces, under the leadership of several other men in stage costume, were heading their way, a bawling, raucous wave of black heads closing in and surrounding the Magistrate and Sun Bing before they could react. One of them, a general in a tiger-skin apron, his face painted like a monkey, leaped into the center, pointed his iron cudgel at the Magistrate’s head, and, affecting an accent from somewhere, said:

“Alien evildoer, how dare you cause our Supreme Commander to suffer such an outrage!”

“I, Gaomi County Magistrate, have come to negotiate the release of hostages and to take Sun Bing into custody!”

“County Magistrate, you shall do nothing of the sort! You are an evil spirit in human form. Destroy his evil powers, my children!”

Before he knew it, the people behind the Magistrate had dumped a pail of dog’s blood over his head, followed by a coating of manure. This was more filth than had ever degraded and soiled the fastidious Magistrate’s body. As his stomach lurched and nausea began to claim him, he bent over to vomit and, in the process, let go of Sun Bing’s arm.

“Sun Bing, bring the hostages to the north gate of the county seat tomorrow at noon, or your daughter will suffer grievously.” The Magistrate wiped his face with his hand, revealing a pair of eyes clouded with manure and blood; he presented a sad sight, and yet spoke with firm self-assurance: “Do not let what I say drift past your ears on the wind!”

“Kill him! Kill this dog-shit official!” many in the crowd shouted.

“I am doing this for your own good, fellow townsmen.” The Magistrate spoke from his heart. “After you deliver the hostages tomorrow, you may do whatever you please. Do not make the mistake of following Sun Bing.” He turned to the pair of Righteous Harmony Boxers and said in a mocking tone, “Then there’s you two. His Excellency Yuan, Governor of the Province, has sent an edict that Boxers are to be killed, down to the last man. None are to be spared. But since you have come from far away, that makes you guests of a sort, and I am willing to send you on your way in peace. Leave now, before provincial troops arrive, for by then it will be too late.”

His words had a stupefying effect on the men in the roles of Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie, so he quickly took advantage of the changed mood. “Sun Bing,” he called out loudly, “your daughter’s life is at stake, and you must meet your responsibility. At noon tomorrow I will be waiting for you at the San Li River Bridge outside the north gate.” With that, he parted the crowd and strode purposefully down the street. His carriers rushed to pick up the palanquin and trot after him. He was also followed by the slightly off-tune strains of a Maoqiang opera, intoned by Sun Wukong:

“Righteous Harmony, we sacred Boxers~~slaughter the foreigners to preserve our land! Boxers of Righteous Harmony~~our power is great~~indestructible ~~together we band…”

Once he was on the outskirts of town, the Magistrate began to run, faster and faster, his carriers and attendants straining to keep up, like a flock of sheep. The stink of the man’s body easily reached them, and the sight he presented, a mixture of red and brown, so completely flummoxed them that they dared not laugh, they dared not cry, and they dared not ask what had happened; so they just kept running. When they reached the Masang River Bridge, the Magistrate jumped in, spraying water in all directions.

“Eminence!” Chunsheng and Liu Pu shouted together.

Suicide was what they were thinking. They ran down to the riverbank, prepared to jump in and save their Magistrate, until they saw his head break the surface. Though it was by then the fourth lunar month, a bit of wintry weather lingered on, and a chill rose from the clear blue water. Still in the middle of the river, the Magistrate shed his official clothing and rinsed it out in the river. He repeated the action, this time with his hat.

With his clothing now clean, he waded unsteadily up to the riverbank, aided by his attendants. He seemed shrunken, thanks to the cold water, and had trouble straightening up, but after draping Chunsheng’s jacket over his shoulders and stepping into Liu Pu’s pants, he crawled into his palanquin. Then, once Chunsheng spread his official garments over top of the palanquin and Liu Pu hung his hat from one of the shafts, the carriers picked up the chair and hurried home, followed by the Magistrate’s troops and attendants.

“Damn!” he was thinking as he was carried along, “I look like one of those opera-stage adulterers!”

The story that the Germans had taken Sun Meiniang hostage was a complete fabrication, either something the Magistrate had made up on the spot or what he had assumed the Germans would do if Sun Bing refused to repatriate their countrymen. Now he led his personal attendants to meet the German Plenipotentiary, von Ketteler, and his entourage at the prearranged site on the San Li River bridgehead near the city’s north gate, where they awaited the arrival of Sun Bing. The Magistrate had not mentioned a hostage swap to the German official, telling him only that a repentant Sun Bing had agreed to release the hostages. The Plenipotentiary, inordinately pleased by the news, told the Magistrate through his interpreter that if his countrymen were returned unharmed, he would praise the Magistrate’s efforts to Excellency Yuan himself. This did little to ease the Magistrate’s misgivings, and he responded with a bitter smile as he recalled the dreadful premonition that Sun Bing’s ambiguous comments had left him with the day before, a fear that the three German captives had already come to grief. He prepared for the meeting trusting to luck that all would end well, and with that in mind, he mentioned Sun Meiniang to no one, including Chunsheng and Liu Pu. He merely told them to ready a two-man palanquin, in which he had them place a large rock.

The Plenipotentiary, who was growing impatient as the sun rose high in the sky, kept looking at his pocket watch and telling his interpreter to ask whether Sun Bing was playing them for fools. The Magistrate equivocated as much as possible, avoiding a direct response to the man’s questions and his growing suspicions. Though he was churning with anxiety, he put on a brave, jovial face.