‘No tea for us,’ Mother said. ‘We've already taken up too much of your time. We'll just sit a moment longer and then be on our way.’
‘You're already here, so what's the hurry? Lao Luo, seeing you here is a rare treat. Of all the men in the village, you're the only one who never dropped by, until today.’ He stood up, went across to the cabinet and selected five long-stemmed glasses. ‘Instead of pouring tea, let's have a drink. That's how the Westerners do it.’
He took out a bottle of imported liquor—Remy Martin XO, brandy that sold in the mall for at least a thousand yuan. Mother and I once bought some for three hundred yuan a bottle in the city's infamous Corruption Lane, then resold it to a little store near the train station for four-fifty apiece. We knew that the people who sold them to us were relatives of officials who'd received them as gifts.
Lao Lan poured brandy into all five glasses.
‘Not for the children,’ Mother said.
‘A little taste won't hurt.’
The amber liquid created a strange light show in the glasses. Lao Lan held out his glass; we did the same. ‘Happy New Year!’
Our glasses clinked, a crisp, pleasant sound.
‘Happy New Year!’ we echoed.
‘Well, how do you like it?’ he asked as he swirled the liquid in his glass, watching it closely. ‘You can add ice, you can even add tea.’
‘It has an interesting aroma,’ Mother said.
‘How's a farmer supposed to tell good from bad?’ asked Father. ‘It's wasted on us.’
‘Don't say things like that, Lao Luo,’ responded Lao Lan. ‘I want you to be the Luo Tong before he went to the northeast, not this passive shell of a man. Stand straight, my brother. Once a bent back becomes a habit, it's impossible to break.’
‘Lao Lan's right, Dieh,’ I said.
‘Xiaotong, who do you think you are,’ Mother bawled at me as she gave me a slap, ‘calling him Lao Lan?’
‘Great!’ Lao Lan said with a smile. ‘That's exactly what I want you to call me. From now on it's Lao Lan. I love the sound of it.’
‘Lao Lan!’ Now it was Jiaojiao's turn.
‘Terrific!’ said Lao Lan excitedly. ‘Just terrific!’
Father held his glass out, tipped his head back and drained his glass. ‘Lao Lan,’ he said, ‘I have only one thing to say. I work for you.’
‘No, you don't—we work together. I'll tell you what I'm thinking. We can take ownership of the one-time commune canvas factory and refit the buildings for a meatpacking plant. My sources tell me that officials in town are up in arms over the injection of water in the meat and are about to mount a “safe meat project”. The next step will be to outlaw independent butchers, which will put an end to our prosperity. We need to act before that happens by opening a meatpacking plant. We'll welcome any villager willing to join our consortium. As for the rest, well, we'll never have a shortage of manpower, since unemployment is rampant in all villages…’ The phone rang. He picked it up, dealt briefly with his caller and then hung up. ‘Lao Luo,’ he said, looking up at the digital clock on the wall, ‘something's come up, so we'll have to continue this another day.’
We stood up and said our goodbyes, but not before Mother reached into her black, faux-leather bag, took out the bottle of Maotai and placed it on the tea table.
‘Yang Yuzhen,’ Lao Lan said, looking displeased, ‘what's this?’
‘Don't be angry, Village Head, this isn't a gift,’ Mother said, smiling meaningfully. ‘Yao Qi brought this to our house last night as a gift for Luo Tong. How could we presume to drink anything as expensive as this? We'd rather you had it.’
Lao Lan picked the bottle up and held it close to the light to get a better look. Then he smiled and handed it to me. ‘Xiaotong, you be the judge. Is this the real thing or a knock-off?’
Without even looking at the bottle, I said with complete assurance: ‘A knock-off.’
Lao Lan tossed the bottle into a bin against the wall and laughed heartily. ‘You are very discriminating, worthy Nephew!’
POW! 27
Tongue stiff, cheeks numb, eyes dull and heavy, one yawn after another. I fight to keep going, muddling along with my tale…a car horn startles me awake. Morning sunlight streams into the temple; there's bat guano on the floor. An ambiguous smile adorns the little, basin-like face of the Meat God; just looking at it gives me a sense of pride, mixed with remorse and trepidation. My past is a fairy tale or, more accurately, a big lie. I stare at him, he stares back, lively and expressive, almost as if he's about to speak to me. I feel as if I could animate him with a single puff of air, send him running happily out of the temple over to the feast and the meat forum to eat his fill and join the discussion. If the Meat God is really anything like me, then he's someone who can talk and talk and talk. Wise Monk continues to sit, lotus position, on his rush mat, unchanged. He casts a meaningful look at me before shutting his eyes. I recall my sleep being interrupted by pangs of hunger in the middle of the night, but when I awoke this morning I wasn't hungry at all. I'm now reminded of how, I think, the woman who resembles Aunty Wild Mule nourished me with her spurting milk. I lick my lips and detect its sweet taste again. This is the second day of the Carnivore Festival, when forums and discussion groups on a variety of topics will take place in guest houses and restaurants in the twin cities, followed by all manner of banquets. Barbecue stands will continue in operation in the field across the temple, albeit with a new batch of cooks. At the moment, none of them and no prospective customers have arrived. No one but fast-moving cleanup crews are up and working at this hour, busy as battlefield mop-up units.
My parents sent me to school soon after New Year's, not the normal time to begin. But, thanks to Lao Lan's intervention, the authorities were happy to let me enrol. They also enrolled my sister in the Early Red Academy, or, as it's called now, preschool.
The school gate was just outside the village, a hundred metres on the other side of Hanlin Bridge. The one-time manor of the Lan family, it had fallen into a state of rot and disrepair. The buildings, with green brick walls and blue tiled roofs, had once heralded the glories of the Lan family to all who laid eyes on them. Locally, the Lans were not thought of as rustic rich. Members of Lao Lan's father's generation had studied in America, which gave him something to be proud of. Four metal characters in red—
—that spelt out ‘Hanlin Primary School’ were welded onto the cast-iron arch spanning the gate. Already eleven, I was placed in the first grade, which made me nearly twice the age of, and a head taller than, my classmates. I was the centre of attention for students and teachers alike during the morning flag-raising ceremony, and I'll bet they thought that a boy from one of the upper classes had mistakenly lined up with them.
I was not cut out to be a student. It was sheer agony to sit on a stool for forty-five minutes and behave myself. And not just once a day, but seven times, four in the morning and three in the afternoon. I began to feel dizzy at about the ten-minute mark and wanted nothing more than to lie down and go to sleep. I could hear neither my teacher's murmurs nor my classmates’ recitations. The teacher's face faded from view and was replaced by what looked like a cinema screen across which danced images of people, cows and dogs.
My homeroom teacher, Ms Cai, a woman with a moon face, a head of hair like a rat's nest, a short neck and a big arse—she waddled like a duck—hated me from the beginning but chose to ignore me. She taught maths, which invariably put me to sleep. ‘Luo Xiaotong!’ she shouted once, grabbing me by the ear.