Mo Yan - Pow!

Back when Father used to go to town to share a meaty meal with Uncle Han, he'd usually let me tag along. Once, when he left me home, I ran the ten li into town and found them at a restaurant called Wenxiang Lai, where they appeared to be having a serious discussion. A steaming pot of dog meat on the table saturated the area round them with its fragrance. I burst out crying the minute I saw them—no, better to say I burst out crying the minute I smelt the dog meat. I was terribly upset with Father. Unconditionally loyal, firmly in his camp in all his disputes with Mother, I even went so far as to keep secret his relationship with Aunty Wild Mule. And he went off for a meal of good meat leaving me at home! No wonder I burst out crying. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked coldly when he saw me. ‘Why didn't you bring me along if you knew there was going to be meat? Am I your son or aren't I?’ Embarrassed, he turned to Uncle Han: ‘Lao Han, have you ever seen anyone with a greedier mouth than this son of mine?’ ‘You came here to enjoy some meat and left me home with Yang Yuzhen to eat turnips and salted greens, and you call me greedy? What kind of dieh are you?’ Just talking like that upset me even more. With the fragrance of the dog meat filling my nostrils, tears gushed from my eyes and ran down my cheeks until my face was wet. Uncle Han laughed. ‘That son of yours, Lao Luo, he's quite a boy. He sure knows how to talk. Come here, young man,’ he said. ‘Sit down and eat to your heart's content. I hear you're a boy who lives to eat meat. Youngsters like you are the smart ones. Come see me anytime. I guarantee you won't go hungry. Boss lady, bring this boy a bowl and chopsticks.’

That was a wonderful meal. I ate and I ate, keeping the ‘boss lady’ busy adding dog meat and soup to the pot. I ate with single-minded concentration, not even stopping to answer Uncle Han's questions. ‘He can eat half a dog at one sitting,’ Father said to the owner. ‘What's wrong with you, Lao Luo?’ Uncle Han asked, ‘How could you neglect your son like this? You have to let him eat. Meat makes the man. Know why we Chinese are no good at sports? It's because we don't eat enough meat. Why not give Xiaotong to me, let me raise him as my son? He'd have meat at every meal.’

I swallowed the piece of dog meat I was chewing and, moved to tears, stared at Uncle Han with an unprecedented depth of emotion. ‘What do you say, Xiaotong, want to be my son?’ He patted me on the head. ‘You have my word you'll never go hungry.’ I nodded enthusiastically…

Poor Uncle Han now lay in the roadside ditch, anxiously watching as we ran past his motorbike, which lay at the foot of the poplar tree, engine running, wheels twisted out of shape by the tree trunk yet still turning—barely—the rims rubbing against the fenders.

‘Are you going into town, Yang Yuzhen?’ he called out from behind us. ‘Tell them to come to my rescue…’

I doubt Mother understood what he was shouting, for she was full of annoyance and anger, perhaps even of remorse and hope. I could only guess. Even she may not have known for certain. I recalled with gratitude the meal that Uncle Han had treated me to, and I wouldn't have minded helping him out of the ditch, if only I could have pulled my arm free of Mother's grip. But no luck.

A fellow on a bicycle shot past, like he was afraid of us. It was Shen Gang, who owed us two thousand yuan. Actually, it was a lot more than that, since he'd borrowed the money two years earlier, at 20 per cent interest per month. Interest upon interest, which meant—I heard Mother say—it was now over three thousand. We'd gone more than once to collect. At first he acknowledged the debt and said he'd pay us back soon. Later, he tried the dead-dog trick. Staring at Mother, he'd say: ‘Yang Yuzhen, I'm like a butchered pig that has no fear of boiling water. I've got no money and my life's not worth a thing to you. My business failed, and if you see anything worth taking then please do so. Either that or turn me over to the police—I don't mind a place that provides food and lodging.’ We looked round in his house, and all we could see were a pot loaded with pig bristles and a rickety old bicycle. His wife lay on the sleeping platform, moaning like she was desperately ill. He'd come to us two years before, on the eve of the lunar New Year, wanting to borrow money to import a batch of cheap Cantonese sausage and then sell it over the holidays at a profit. Won over by his alluring scheme, Mother agreed to lend him the money. She pulled out the greasy notes from an inside pocket, then wet her fingers and counted them, again and again.

Before handing them over, she said: ‘Shen Gang, don't forget how hard it's been for a single mother, with her poor child, to save up this money.’

‘If you don't think you can trust me, Big Sister,’ Shen Gang replied, ‘then don't lend it to me. There are people out there, lots of them, who can't wait to lend me the money. I just feel sorry for the two of you, and want you to have the opportunity to make a packet…’

Well, he did bring in a truckload of sausage, which he unloaded, crate after crate, and stacked it in his yard in piles that rose higher than his fence. Everyone in the village said: ‘Shen Gang, this time you've really struck it rich!’ With a piece of sausage dangling from his lips, like a big cigar, he announced smugly: ‘The money will roll in so fast I won't be able to stop it.’ But Lao Lan dampened the mood when he walked by: ‘Don't let it go to your head, young man, unless you've arranged for some cold storage. Otherwise, one breath of warm air will have you lying in the yard and crying your eyes out.’ Those were particularly cold days, so cold that the dogs tucked their tails between their legs when they walked. Shen Gang bit down on the frozen sausage and said indifferently: ‘Lao Lan, you prick of a village head, you should be happy to see one of your villagers get rich. Don't worry, you'll get your tribute.’ ‘Shen Gang,’ replied Lao Lan, ‘don't take a good man's heart for a donkey's guts, and don't be in too big a hurry to congratulate yourself. The day will come when you'll beg me to help. The man who runs the township's cold storage is my sworn brother.’ ‘Thanks,’ said Shen Gang, still cocky, ‘many thanks. But I'll let my sausage turn to dog shit before I come begging at your door.’ Lao Lan's eyes narrowed into a smile. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘you've got spine, and if there's one thing we Lans admire, it's that. Back during our wealthier days, we always placed a pair of vats outside our gate over lunar New Year's. One was filled with white flour, the other with millet, and any family too poor to celebrate the holiday was encouraged to take what they needed. There was only one man, a beggar, Luo Tong's grandfather, who stood in the gateway and cursed my grandfather: “Lan Rong, can you hear me, Lan Rong? I'll die of hunger before I take a kernel of your rice!” My grandfather summoned all my uncles and said: “Hear that? The man out there shouting insults at us has balls! You can offend other people but not him. If you meet up with him, bow your heads and bend low!”’ ‘That's enough,’ Shen Gang interrupted. ‘You can stop boasting about your glorious past.’ ‘Sorry about that,’ Lao Lan said. ‘Worthless descendants simply can't forget their predecessors’ glories. Good luck with your get-rich scheme.’

Unfortunately for Shen, what happened next proved the wisdom of Lao Lan's words. During the holidays, a freak warm southeast wind rose up and turned the willow trees green. The cold-storage building in town was full, and there was no room for Shen Gang's meat. Moving his sausage crates out onto the street, he bellowed through a battery-powered bullhorn: ‘Village elders, fellow citizens, help me, please. Take a crate of sausage home to your tables. Pay me only if can. If you can't, consider it a respectful gift.’ But no one came to claim any of the gloomy, rapidly spoiling sausages. Except for the dogs, for whom spoilt meat was still meat. They tore open the crates and ran off with lengths of sausage, turning the village into a big banquet table and adding a new unpleasant odour to air already heavy with the fetid smell of slaughter. It was a year to remember for the wild dogs. The day the meat began to spoil, Mother paid him her first visit. But the loan remained unpaid until…