I looked up at the moon and could see that the night was coming to an end. During the summer months, the days are long, the nights are short, and in an hour, no more, birds would be chirping; people would be out airing their caged birds and others would practice tai chi with their swords. I tapped Vice Chairman Ma on the shoulder.
“Adjourn the meeting,” I said.
Ma threw down the beer bottle he was holding, stretched out his neck, and released a shrill cry toward the moon. All the canine participants tossed away their beer bottles and, drunk and sober alike, gave me their undivided attention. I jumped up onto the platform.
“Tonight’s meeting is hereby adjourned. All of you must vacate the square within the next three minutes. The date of our next meeting will be announced later. Adjourn!”
He released another shrill cry, and the dogs began heading home as fast as their bloated bellies would allow. Those who had drunk too much reeled from side to side, frequently losing their footing in their haste to clear the square. My third sister and her Norwegian husky husband piled their three pups into a fancy Japanese import stroller and left quickly, one pushing, the other pulling. The pups stood up with their paws on the outer edge and yelped excitedly. Three minutes later the clamorous square was deserted, littered with empty beer bottles and odorous chunks of leftover sausage, and befouled by countless puddles of dog piss. I nodded with a sense of satisfaction, slapped paws with Vice Chairman Ma, and left.
After quietly making it back home, I looked into the eastern side room, where your wife was still making flat breads, labor that seemed to bring her peace and happiness. An enigmatic smile graced her face. A sparrow on the plane tree chirped, and within ten or fifteen minutes the whole town was blanketed by birdcalls. The moonlight weakened as dawn was about to break.
44
Jinlong Plans to Build a Resort Village
Jiefang Sends Emotions Through Binoculars
I thought I was reading a document submitted by Jinlong, who wanted to turn Ximen Village into a resort with a Cultural Revolution theme. In his feasibility report, he wrote dialectically: While the Cultural Revolution was destroying culture, it also created a new culture. He wanted to paint new slogans on walls where they had been removed, reinstall loudspeakers, build another lookout perch in the apricot tree, and erect a new Apricot Garden Pig Farm on the site where the old one had been ruined in a rainstorm. Beyond that, he wanted to build a golf course on five thousand acres of land east of the village. As for the farmers who would lose their cropland, he proposed that they act out the village tasks they’d had during the Cultural Revolution, such as: organizing criticism sessions, parading capitalist-roaders in the streets, performing in Revolutionary Model Operas and loyalty dances. He wrote that Cultural Revolution artifacts could be turned out in large quantities: armbands, spears, Chairman Mao badges, handbills, big character posters… Tourists would be permitted to participate in Recalling Bitterness meetings, watch Recalling Bitterness plays, eat Recalling Bitterness meals, and listen to elderly poor peasants relate tales of the old society… And he wrote: The Ximen family compound will be converted into an Independent Farming Museum, with wax statues of Lan Lian, his donkey with the prosthetic foot, and his ox with the missing horn. He wrote that the piece of land farmed by the independent farmer Lan Lian would be covered by an enormous clear plastic canopy to protect a sculpture garden that included pieces of statuary showing the independent farm at each historical juncture, employing the tools he’d used to plant and harvest crops. All these postmodern activities, Jinlong said, would greatly appeal to urbanites and foreigners, which would lead them to generously open their pocketbooks. They’d spend, we’d earn. Once they’d toured our Cultural Revolution village, he wrote, they’d be taken to a glitzy modern-day adult entertainment complex. With obsessive ambition, he planned to gobble up all the land from Ximen Village east to the Wu Family Sandy Mouth and turn it into the finest golf course anywhere in the world, plus a massive amusement park that left nothing to be desired. Then on the sandbar at Wu Family Sandspit he wanted to build a public bath fashioned after ancient Rome’s bathhouses, a gambling casino to rival Las Vegas, and yet another sculpture garden, the theme of this one being the stirring battle between men and pigs that had occurred on this spot more than a decade earlier. The theme park would be primarily intended to get people thinking about environmental protection and underscore the concept that all sentient beings are endowed with a form of intelligence. The incident in which a pig sacrificed himself by diving into icy water to save a child was one that needed to be played up. Also included in the document was the author’s intent to build a convention center in which annual international meetings of family pets would be convened, bringing both foreign visitors and foreign exchange to the nation…
As I read the feasibility report he’d sent to all pertinent county offices, plus the approving comments by big shots on the Party committee and in the county government, I could only shake my head and sigh. In essence I’m a man who is most comfortable with the old ways. I love the land and the smell of manure; I’d be content to live the life of a farmer; and I have enormous respect for old-school peasants like my father, who live for the land. But someone like that is too far behind the times to survive in today’s society. I actually went and fell so madly in love with a woman that I asked my wife for a divorce, and it doesn’t get much more old-school than that; again, out of step with the times. There was no way I could state my personal views in regard to the report, so I merely drew a circle, signifying approval, near my name. But something was bothering me. Who had actually been responsible for drafting such an outlandish report? Just then, Mo Yan’s head, a wicked smile on his face, appeared at my window. Now how in the world was that possible, since my third-floor window was maybe fifteen yards from the ground?
Suddenly some noise erupted out in the hallway, so I opened the door to see what it was. It was Huang Hezuo, a cleaver in one hand and a long rope in the other. Her hair was a fright and there was blood at the corners of her mouth. She was limping toward me, a vacant stare in her eyes. My son, schoolbag on his back, was right behind her, carrying a handful of steaming, greasy oil fritters, no discernible expression on his face. Behind him came that brute of a dog, my son’s cartoon-decorated plastic water bottle hanging around his neck and, since it was so long, banging into his knees as it swung back and forth with each step.
I screamed, and woke myself up. I’d fallen asleep in my clothes on the sofa. My forehead was covered with cold sweat, my heart was racing. My head felt numbed, thanks to the sleeping pill I’d taken, and the sunlight streaming in the window stung my eyes. I managed somehow to get up and splash water on my face. The clock on the wall said 6:30. The phone rang. I picked it up. Silence. I didn’t dare say anything. I just stood there waiting. “It’s me,” she said, her voice cracking. “I didn’t sleep all night…” “Don’t worry, I’m fine.” “I’ll bring you something to eat.” “No, don’t come over,” I said. “It’s not that I’m afraid, I’d be willing to stand on a rooftop and announce to the world that I love you, but I shudder to think what it might lead to…” “I understand.” “I think we should see a bit less of one another for a while. I don’t want to give her an opportunity to-” “I understand. I’ve done a terrible thing to her…” “Don’t ever think that. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. Besides, didn’t Engels say that a loveless marriage is a sin against morality? Truth is, we’ve done nothing wrong.” “I’ll go buy some stuffed buns and leave them for you in the receptionist’s office-” “No,” I said, “I don’t want you to come, Chief. Don’t worry, if an earthworm won’t starve neither will I. I can’t say how things will be later on, but for now I’m still a deputy county head, so I’ll go get something to eat at the guesthouse, where there’s plenty of food.” “I miss you-” “Me too. When you go to work, stand in the bookstore entrance and look toward my window. That way I’ll be able to see you.” “But I won’t be able to see you-” “You’ll know I’m up here. Okay, my dear…”