Mo Yan - Pow!

Round nightfall, the snowfall intensified, and before long our compound lay beneath a blanket of white. Mother picked up her broom and had barely begun to sweep the snow away when Father took it from her. His movements were strong and firm, and I was reminded of what people in the village said about him: Luo Tong is good at what he does. Too bad ‘you can't make a thoroughbred till a field’. As darkness fell, he seemed to grow larger, especially in the light reflected off the snow. A clear path opened up behind him in hardly any time. Mother walked down path and shut the gate, the metal latch making a resounding clang that shook the snowy dusk. Darkness took over, the only light a misty reflection of the snow on the ground and in the air. Mother and Father stomped their shoes beneath the eaves and shook their clothes free of snow; I think they even dusted it off each other with a towel. I was sitting in the corner no more than half a step from the pig's head, and I could smell its cold, raw aroma, but I was more interested in trying to penetrate the darkness and see their expressions. Unfortunately, I wasn't very successful, and all I could make out were their swaying shadows. I heard my sister's laboured breathing in front of me, like a little wild beast hiding in the dark. I'd gorged myself at noon; by nightfall, undigested pieces of sausage and noodles rose up my throat, only to be chewed once more and sent back down. I've heard people say that's a disgusting thing to do, but I wasn't about to throw out any food. Now that Father was home, my diet was likely to change, but exactly how and to what extent remained a puzzle. He looked so dejected, so docile and submissive, that I had an uncomfortable feeling that my hopes—of his return resulting in more meat on the table—were doomed to be dashed. But be that as it may, the event had created an opportunity to stuff myself with the sausage, which, admittedly, was long on starch filler and short on meat, although the thin casing did come from an animal. And I mustn't forget that, when the sausage was gone, I'd enjoyed two bowls of noodles. Then there was the pig's head, which rested on the chopping board, so close I could reach out and touch it. When would it find its way into my digestive system? Mother wasn't planning on selling it, I hoped.

I'd shocked Father by how much and how fast I'd eaten at lunch. Afterwards, I heard Mother say the same thing about my little sister. I hadn't noticed—I was too busy eating. But it was easy to imagine the sorrowful looks on the adults’ faces as they watched us, brother and sister, gobble our food like starving, other-worldly beasts, even stretching our necks and rolling our eyes as we tried to swallow partially chewed pieces of sausage. Our rapacious style didn't so much disgust them as cause them deep distress and self-recrimination. It's my guess that that was when they decided not to divorce after all. Time for the family to live a decent life, for them to supply their children with the food and clothing they deserved. I belched in the darkness and, as I chewed my cud, I heard a belch from my sister, something she did with practised familiarity. If I hadn't known it was her sitting across from me, I swear, on pain of death, I'd have never guessed that a four-year-old girl could have made that sound.

Without doubt, a stomach full of sausage and noodles placed a heavy burden on my intestines and diminished my desire for meat on that snowy night, but it did nothing to erase thoughts of that pig's head, whose muted light gleamed in the darkness. In my mind's eye I watched it chopped in half and dumped into a pot of boiling water, the scene so vivid I could even smell the unique aroma. And my thoughts didn't stop there—I saw a family of four sitting round a big platter from which meat-flavoured steam billowed into the air. It smelt so good that I was nearly transported to that intoxicating moment between sleep and wakefulness. I watched Mother, looking solemn and dignified, stick a red chopstick into the head and twist and turn it a few times to neatly separate the meat from the bones. ‘Eat up, children,’ she announced proudly, picking the bones out of the pot. ‘Eat until you're full. Today you can have as much as you want!’

That night, Mother did something totally out of character—she lit the room's glass-shaded oil lamp, flooding our house with light for the first time and casting enlarged shadows onto a white wall from which hung strings of leeks and peppers. Jiaojiao, who had perked up after a difficult day, brought her hands together in the beam of light to form a dog's head on the wall.

‘A dog, Daddy,’ she said excitedly, ‘it's a dog!’

Father shot a quick glance at Mother before he said somewhat forlornly: ‘Yes, it's Jiaojiao's little black puppy.’

Jiaojiao then moved her hands and fingers to form the silhouette of a rabbit, not perfect but definitely recognizable. ‘No, it's not a dog,’ she said, ‘it's a bunny, a little bunny.’

‘You're right, it's a bunny. Our Jiaojiao's a clever little girl.’ But having praised his daughter, he turned to Mother apologetically, ‘She's still a child, hasn't figured out the world yet.’

‘Do you really expect her to, at her young age?’ Mother said tolerantly and then surprised us all by putting her hands together to decorate the wall with the silhouette of a rooster, complete with cockscomb and tail, and then finished it off with a crisp cock-a-doodle-doo ! What a shock! I'd become so used to her constant complaints and scolding over the years, plus the ever-present scowl and sour demeanour, that the possibility of her knowing how to do hand shadows, not to mention how to crow like a rooster, never occurred to me. I have to admit that once again I had mixed emotions. From the moment Father appeared at our gate that morning with his daughter on his shoulders, I'd experienced nothing but mixed emotions. I don't know any other way to describe what I was feeling.

Joyful laughter burst from Jiaojiao's throat, and what passed for a smile appeared on Father's face.

Mother looked tenderly at Jiaojiao, heaved a sigh, and said: ‘It's always the adults who cause these messes, never the children.’

‘That's right,’ said Father without looking up. ‘One mistake after another, and always by me.’

‘We've all made mistakes, so no more of that talk.’ Mother stood up and deftly slipped on her over-sleeves. ‘Xiaotong,’ she said, raising her voice, ‘you little rascal, I know you hate me, a stingy old bag who hasn't let you so much as taste meat over the last five years. Am I right? Well, today is going to be different. I've cooked this pig's head as a reward to the troops. You can eat till you burst!’

She placed the chopping board alongside the stove, laid the pig's head on it, then picked up her little hatchet, took the target's measure and swung.

‘We just had sausage…’ Father stood up. ‘Earning enough to get by has been hard on you two,’ he said to stop her. ‘Why not sell this pig's head? A person's stomach is like a sack you fill up no matter what you put in it, chaff and vegetables or meat and fish…’

‘Is that really you talking?’ Mother's dripped sarcasm but then quickly changed her tune: ‘I'm as human as the next person,’ she said, deadly serious, ‘with a red mouth, white teeth, flesh and blood. I know how good meat tastes. I never ate it, but back then I was foolish and ignorant. When it comes down to it, the mouth is the most important thing in life.’

Wringing his hands, Father began to say something, but stopped. Instead, he took a few steps back, then strode forward, reached out and said to Mother: ‘Here, let me.’

She hesitated briefly before laying down the hatchet and stepping away.

Father rolled up his sleeves, pushed up the tattered cuffs of his vest beneath his shirtsleeves, picked up the hatchet and raised it over his head. Without, it seemed, taking aim, he took an easy swing, then another, and the pig's head split right down the middle.