“That’s no pig, it’s a goddamned baby donkey!” Hong Taiyue shouted excitedly
“You’re right,” Huang Tong agreed. “See how it kicks with its hind legs.”
I spat out the now dry teat, stood up, and strutted around the pen. Raising my head, I looked at them and let loose with two loud oinks. That threw them.
“Get those other seven piglets out of there,” Hong Taiyue said. “We’re keeping this one for stud. Let him have all her milk so he’ll grow big and strong.”
Jinlong jumped into the pen and made a noise to call to the other piglets. The old sow raised her head and gave Jinlong a menacing look, but he was so quick he had two of them in his hands before she knew it. She jumped up and charged him; he forced her back with a kick. The two pigs hung in the air, squealing frantically. Huzhu managed to take one of them from Jinlong; Huang Tong took the other. I could tell they both wound up with their eight dull-witted siblings in the pen next to mine, where those eight little assholes took out after the two new little assholes; they’d get no sympathy from me, I was too happy. By the time Hong Taiyue had smoked a cigarette, Jinlong had removed all seven of the little morons. The pen next to mine turned into a battlefield, with the eight early arrivals fighting it out with the seven late arrivals. Me? I was alone, casually taking it in. I looked at the old sow out of the corner of my eye and saw that she was grief-stricken. But she’d also been relieved of a heavy burden. Let’s face it, she was just an ordinary pig, incapable of having her emotions stirred, humanlike. Look, she’s already forgotten the torment of losing her litter. She’s standing at her trough gobbling up the food.
The smell of food came rushing toward me on the wind. Huzhu walked up to the gate with a bucket of feed wearing a white apron with “Ximen Village Production Brigade Apricot Garden Pig Farm” embroidered in big red letters. She also had white protective sleeves covering her arms and a soft white cap on her head. She looked like a baker. Using a metal ladle, she scooped the contents into the feed trough. Mother Sow raised up and buried her front legs right in the middle of it. The slops splashing all over her face looked like yellow shit. It had a sour, rotten smell I found disgusting. It was a product of the minds of the brigade’s two most intelligent members, Lan Jinlong and Huang Huzhu, a fermented feed made of chicken droppings, cow dung, and greens. Jinlong emptied the bucket into the trough. The sow had no choice but to eat it.
“Is that all she gets?” Hong Taiyue asked.
“Up till a few days ago we added some bean cake,” Huzhu said, “but yesterday Jinlong said no more bean cakes.”
Hong stuck his head inside the pen to get a closer look at the sow. “We want to be sure the little porker gets what he needs, so let’s prepare food for her separately.”
“There isn’t enough fodder in the brigade stock room as it is,” Huang Tong said.
“I thought there was a storage shed filled with corn.”
“That’s part of our combat readiness! If you want to tap into that you have to get permission from the Commune Revolutionary Committee.”
“This pig is destined to be part of combat readiness!” Hong said. “If war comes, our People’s Liberation Army soldiers will need to eat meat to win the battles.” Seeing that Huang Tong was still hesitant, he said firmly, “Open up the shed. I’ll take the responsibility. I’ll report to the commune this afternoon. Feeding pigs takes precedence over other political tasks, so I don’t expect any opposition. What’s most important,” he said, sounding somewhat mysterious, “is to expand our pig farm and increase the numbers of animals. There’ll come a day when all the grain in the county stockrooms will be ours.”
Knowing smiles spread across Huang Tong and Jinlong’s faces as the agreeable smell of millet gruel approached them and stopped at the next pen over.
“Ximen Bai,” Hong called out, “starting tomorrow you’re to feed this sow too.”
“Yes, Secretary Hong.”
“Dump half the bucket you’re carrying into the sow’s trough.”
“Yes, Secretary Hong.”
Ximen Bai – that had a familiar ring to it. Ximen Bai. I tried to recall what that name meant to me. Then a kindly but weary face appeared in front of my pen, and I was racked by spasms, as if I’d been given an electric shock. At the same time, the gate to my memory was flung open and the past came flooding in. “Xing’er,” I shouted, “you’re still alive!” But what emerged from my throat was a long, shrill pig noise. It not only scared the people outside the pen, it scared me. Tragically, I had no choice but to return to reality, to the present, no longer Ximen Nao but a little pig, the son of the white sow I shared this pen with.
I tried to calculate her age, but the fragrance of sunflowers confused me. Yet even though no number emerged, I knew she was over fifty, because the hair at her temples had turned white, there were fine wrinkles around her eyes, and her once beautiful white teeth had begun to yellow and wear out.
Slowly she scooped the millet into the trough with a wooden ladle.
“You heard what I said, didn’t you?” Hong Taiyue asked harshly.
“You needn’t worry, Secretary Hong,” Ximen Bai said in a soft but firm voice. “I have no children of my own, so these pigs will be my sons and daughters.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Hong said, satisfied with her response. “What we need is more women who are willing to raise our pigs as their own sons and daughters.”
23
Piglet Sixteen Is Moved to a Cozy Nest
Diao Xiaosan Mistakenly Eats an Alcohol-laced Bun
Brother, or should I say, Uncle, you seem upset. Your eyes are hooded by puffy lids, and you seem to be snoring, Big-head Lan Qiansui said harshly. If you’re not interested in the lives of pigs, let me tell you about dogs.
No, no, no, I’m interested, I really am. You know, I assume, that I wasn’t always at your side during those years you were a pig. At first I worked in the pig farm, but my job was not to feed you. Then, later, Huang Hezuo and I were sent to work in the cotton mill, and most of what we learned about your illustrious accomplishments came to us as hearsay. I really want to hear you talk about your experiences, down to the last detail. Don’t give another thought to my puffy eyelids, because when my eyes are hooded, that means I’m concentrating.
The events that followed were varied and very complex. I can only touch on the highlights and the more spectacular incidents, Big-head Lan Qiansui said.
Even though Ximen Bai painstakingly fed my sow mother, I went on suckling like a crazed piglet – what you might call extraction – which led to the paralysis of the rear half of her body. Her hind legs were like dried-out loofahs, so she had to drag herself around the pen by her front legs. By this time I was nearly as big as she was. My hair was so glossy it looked waxed; my skin was a healthy red color with a wonderful odor. My poor mother’s skin was filthy, the foul-smelling rear half covered in shit. She howled every time I took one of her teats in my mouth, and tears spilled out of her tiny eyes. She dragged herself along the ground, trying to get away from me and pleading: Son, my good son, show your mother some mercy. You’re sucking the marrow out of my bones. Can’t you see the miserable shape I’m in? You’re a full-grown pig, so you should be eating solid food like me. I turned a deaf ear to her pleading, nudged her onto her side with my snout, and wrapped my lips around two teats at the same time. As my ears filled with her shrill cries of agony, I couldn’t help feeling that the teats that had once secreted that sweet-tasting milk had turned rubbery and tasteless and produced no more than a tiny amount of rank, salty, sticky liquid that was closer to poison than milk. In disgust, I rolled her over with my snout. I could hear the pain in her voice as she cursed me: Oh, Sixteen, you are a beast with no conscience, a demon. You were sired by a wolf, not a pig…