Mo Yan - Pow!

‘You think he's a fool?’ said an old fellow with four dogs on his pole. He seemed to know us, but we didn't know him. His jacket draped over his shoulders, his arms crossed, he held a pipe between his teeth. ‘He's no fool,’ he said as he launched a mouthful of phlegm. ‘Look at those shifty eyes, how they take in everything. He's not an honest man,’ he continued under his breath, ‘not with those eyes.’

I knew what he was getting at. ‘We know,’ I said softly, ‘he's a thief.’

‘So call the police.’

I called the old fellow's attention to the queue of animals and their sellers. ‘We've got plenty on our hands already, Uncle.’

‘Thunder always rumbles after a temple festival. There are thieves everywhere you look these days,’ he said. ‘I was going to feed these four dogs another month before taking them out of their pens, but I couldn't take the chance. The thieves toss knockout drugs into dog pens—ones that are effective for days—then steal the dogs and sell them outside the area.’

‘What can you tell me about those drugs?’ I asked, trying to sound nonchalant. Now that the days were turning cold, men in the city were looking for tonics to increase their vitality, which meant that dog meat pots were getting fired up. We supplied the city with dog meat, and had to attend to the issue of canine water-cleansing. The animals could inflict serious damage if they were spooked, and a knockout drug could solve that problem. Once the dogs were doped, we could hang them up and start the treatment. That done, it wouldn't matter if they came to, since they'd be more like pigs than dogs and no longer a threat. All that remained then was to drag them over to the killing room, not dead but barely alive.

‘I'm told it's a red powder bomb that makes a muffled noise when it hits the ground and releases a pink mist and a strange smell somewhere between fragrant and noxious. Even an attack dog will keel over after one whiff.’ In a tone that was equal parts anger and dread, he added, ‘Those thieves are no different than women who drug and kidnap children. They all belong to secret societies, and ordinary peasants have no way of laying hands on their formulas. It's probably some strange concoction we could never track down.’

My eyes travelled down to the old fellow's bleary-eyed dogs. ‘Did you get that bunch drunk?’

‘Two jin of liquor and four steamed buns,’ he replied. ‘Liquor these days has lost its punch.’

Jiaojiao was squatting in front of the dogs, prodding their oily lips with a reed stem, occasionally revealing a white fang. Their breath reeked of alcohol. From time to time one would roll its eyes and make dreamy sounds.

A man pushed a scale on squeaky wheels over to the dog pens from the warehouse, the hook swaying back and forth. For the sake of convenience, we'd built a pen exclusively for dogs near the one that held sheep and pigs. What made that necessary was an incident involving a worker who'd entered the pen holding all the animals together to pick out one of the pigs, and had been badly bitten by dogs turned half mad from being penned up too long. He was still in the hospital receiving daily shots of anti-rabies vaccine—vaccine that had already expired, according to someone from the hospital who spoke in confidence. Whether or not he'd begin to show symptoms was an open question. Naturally, the fact that a worker had been bitten wasn't the only reason we'd invested in the construction of a separate dog pen. Another was that dogs that had been plied with liquor were capable of wreaking havoc once they sobered up, attacking the sheep and pig penmates. Peace was rare in the pen, day or night. One day, after planning the production schedule, I took Jiaojiao over to see what was going on in the pen. Nothing, as it turned out, one of those rare peaceful moments. We saw dozens of dogs, some standing, others sprawled on the ground, forcibly occupying most of the space in the pen and forcing the pigs to huddle in one corner—some white, some black, some spotted—and sheep—along with a few billy goats and a couple of milch goats—in another. There was hardly any space between the pigs, who faced the railing, thus leaving their rumps vulnerable. The sheep too were clustered together, with some long-horned billy goats standing protectively. Almost none of the animals were injury-free, thanks, of course, to the dogs. Despite the peaceful moment—a rest for the dogs—the pigs and the sheep were preparing for the worst. Even when the dogs were relaxed, internal flare-ups were inevitable, including semi-serious fights between the males and the occasional cluster-fuck. At those times the pigs and sheep were so quiet that they hardly seemed to exist. But then a sort of gang fight broke out among several dozen dogs, which sent fur flying and blood spraying and resulted in some serious injuries, including a few broken legs. This was no longer a game. Jiaojiao and I wondered what the pigs and sheep must have been thinking as battles raged among the dogs. She said they weren't thinking about anything, that they were taking advantage of the dogfights to catch up on lost sleep. I would have challenged her on that, but I looked into the pen and, just as she'd said, the animals were sprawled on the ground, their eyes shut as they dozed. But dogfights were a rarity. Most of the time, the dogs, sporting sinister grins, launched attacks on the sheep and pigs. At first, the larger boars and billy goats bravely fought them off. The goats reared up on their hind legs, heads high, and charged, but the dogs nimbly sidestepped the attacks. ‘I thought you said that meat dogs are stupid animals,’ some might ask. ‘Then how could they be as alert as wolves in a forest?’ Yes, they entered the pens as stupid animals but, after being starved for a week, their wild nature returned accompanied by a surge in intelligence. They reverted to being predators, and, not surprisingly, the sheep and pigs penned up with them became their prey. After the first assault failed, the billy goats prepared for a second, rearing up as before, raising their heads and aiming their horns at the prowling dogs. But their movements were stiff, their tactics predictable and once again they were easily sidestepped by the dogs. They then steeled themselves for a third attempt, but it was a weak one, so weak that the dogs barely had to move to get out of the way. By now, all the fight had left the goats. The dogs, grinning hideously, charged their ovine prey and sank their fangs into sheep tails, sheep ears and sheep throats. The victims bleated piteously while a few somewhat more fortunate ones stampeded like headless flies. Many of them rammed their heads into the pen railings and crumpled to the ground, unconscious. The dogs made short work of the dead sheep, eating everything but the feet—unappetizing—the horns and any skin with too much fleece attached. The pigs quaked as they watched the sheep being slaughtered, for they knew they were next. Some of the larger boars tried to ward off the attack by emitting low grunts and charging like black bombs. The dogs leapt out of the way and set their sights on the pigs’ rumps or ears, which they bit savagely. With yelps of pain, the boars tried to turn the tables but were immediately set upon by other opportunistic dogs that knocked them to the ground. Their screeches filled the air, but only for a few moments. Blood soaked the ground as their bellies were ripped open and their intestines torn out and dragged round the pen.

Anyone could see why the animals had to be separated, even if a dog had not bitten our worker. We'd have lost much high-quality lamb and pork, and would have raised savage dogs that we'd then have had to poison or shoot. Viewed from the perspective of entertainment, I'd have preferred not to separate them. But I was not your typical youngster—no, I was the head of one of the plant's workshops, laden with heavy responsibilities, and the last thing I wanted to do was cause financial setbacks just so I could be entertained by scenes of carnage. So we packed thirty pounds of beef with two hundred sleeping pills, and, once the killer dogs were under, dragged them over to a pen built exclusively for them. They woke up groggy after three days and their eyes glazed over as they took in their new surroundings. They then circled the outer limits of the pen, howling their displeasure. An animal's temperament and demeanour are ruled by its stomach. Before being brought to us, these dogs had been raised on a prescribed feed. Now they had to subsist on leftovers from the killing rooms and the blood of cows and sheep, reason enough for even the dumbest and tamest among them to revert to their wolfish ways only days after entering the dog pen. Part of the logic behind our decision was related to the disposal of the offal on the killing rooms floors. But we also wanted to improve the quality of the meat, and knew that these dogs would produce better meat than those animals that had been raised on a meatless diet. Winter was on its way, Lao Lan said, the season when the consumption of dog meat spikes, and it was up to us to supply a product that enhanced consumers’ vitality. Added to that was a plan to present meat from these dogs as gifts to expand the plant's customer base. On many starlit nights, my sister and I watched as some of these dogs crouched alongside the pen railings, looked up at the stars in the sky and howled, a chilling wolfish cry. A single animal baying at the moon would have had little effect on us. But joined by dozens of fellow creatures, the din turned the plant into a hell on earth. One such night, Jiaojiao and I bravely stole up to the pen to peer through the gaps in the railing. The dogs’ green eyes flashed like a panorama of bright little lanterns. Some of them howled into the night sky, others lifted their legs to urinate against the railing, still others ran and leapt, their hardened bodies leaving visible streaks in the air and their moonlit fur gleaming like fine silks and satins. This was no collection of dogs, but a wolf pack, plain and simple. That got me thinking that there must be a huge difference between carnivores and herbivores—one look at those dogs told us that. As tame as sheep and as stupid as pigs when they were on a prescribed diet, but as fierce as wolves once they began eating meat. Jiaojiao seemed to read my mind. ‘Did you and I come from wolves?’ she whispered. ‘I made a face and said, ‘Yes, that's exactly what we came from. You and I are wolf children.’