Scrolls were ripped off the walls, and one young fellow even smashed a filing cabinet with a dumbbell, sending files, documents, and books tumbling out into a pile. He then used the same dumbbell to smash two telephones on the desk.
Meanwhile, Fourth Aunt was grabbing everything in sight, including some green satin curtains, which she pulled down and began tearing to shreds, as if ripping a rival’s hair. “Give me back my husband!” she screamed through her tears. “I want my husband back!”
While farmers rifled desk drawers, the young fellow put his dumbbell to work smashing the glass top and metal ashtray. The county administrator had cleared out so fast that his cigarette was still smoldering in the ashtray. Spotting a tin of ginseng cigarettes and a box of matches on the desk, the young fellow stuck one of the former between his lips and announced, “I’m going to try out the old magistrate’s throne.” With that he sat down in the county administrator’s rattan chair, leaned back, lit up, and crossed his feet on the desk, looking mighty pleased with himself, as the other farmers rushed up to fight over the remaining cigarettes. Fourth Aunt, who had made a pile of the torn curtains, scrolls, and files, lit a match from the box on the desk and touched it to the satin curtains, which began to burn at once. Amid puffs of smoke, the paper then caught fire, sending tongues of flames snaking up the smashed cabinets by the wall. Falling to her knees, she banged her head on the floor in a kowtow and muttered, “Husband,? ve avenged your death!”
The fire quickly spread, forcing the farmers into the hallway. On his way out the door, Gao Yang grabbed Fourth Aunt and yelled, “Run for your life!”
Dense smoke swirling up and down the hallway indicated that more than one office had been torched. Everything was shaking-the ceiling above and the stairs below. People ran and clawed for their lives. As Gao Yang dragged Fourth Aunt out the entrance, he thought about the black and orange goldfish, but only for a fleeting moment, since with a thousand heads and twice that many legs fighting over limited space, anyone who stumbled was sure to be trampled-already you could hear the screams. Holding Fourth Aunt’s hand in a deathlike grip, he virtually flew out of the compound, past the blurred faces of seven or eight armed policemen.
3.
“Was it you who led the mob that demolished the county administrator’s office?”
“Mr. Jailer, I didn’t know it was his office… I stopped as soon as I found out.” He was on his knees.
“Sit down like you’re supposed to!” the policeman demanded roughly. “Do you mean to say if it had been somebody else’s office it would have been okay?”
“Mr. Jailer, I didn’t know what I was doing. I got swept along with the crowd… I’ve been a model citizen all my life. I’ve never done anything bad.”
“If you weren’t such a model citizen you’d have torched the State Council Headquarters, I suppose,” the policeman said derisively.
“1 didn’t start the fire. Fourth Aunt did that.”
A policewoman handed a sheet of paper to the policeman in the center, who read it aloud. “Is this an accurate statement of what you said, Gao Yang?” he asked. “Yes.”
“Come over here and sign it.”
One of the policemen dragged him over to the desk, where the policewoman handed him a pen. His hand shook as he held it. Were there two vertical strokes in “Yang,” or three? “Three,” the policewoman told him.
“Take him back to his cell.”
“Mr. Jailer,” Gao Yang fell to his knees again and begged, “I’m afraid to go back there.
“Why?”
“Because they gang up on me. Please, Mr. Jailer, put me in another cell!”
“Let him bunk with the condemned prisoner,” the policeman in the center said to his colleagues.
“Want to bunk with a condemned man, Number Nine?”
“Anything, just so you don’t put me back with them!”
“Okay, but make sure he doesnt try to kill himself. That’ll be your job, for which you’ll get an extra bun at each meal.”
4.
The condemned man, sallow-faced, clean-shaven, with green eyes that rolled around his sunken sockets, terrified Gao Yang, who was in his new cell only a few seconds before realizing what a terrible mistake he’d made. Except for a single cot, the cell was furnished only with a rotting straw mat. The condemned man, manacled hand and foot, hunkered in the corner and glared menacingly at Gao Yang, who nodded and bowed slightly. “Elder Brother, they sent me to keep you company.”
The condemned man’s lips split into what passed for a smile. His face was the color of gold foil, and so were his teeth. “Come over here,” he said with a nod.
Gao Yang was wary, but the manacles were reassuring-how much damage could he do all trussed up like that? Cautiously he approached the condemned man, who smiled and nodded, urging him to come closer, and closer, and closer.
“Elder Brother, is there something you want?”
The words were barely out of Gao Yangs mouth when the condemned man reached out and banged Gao Yang’s head with the handcuff chain. With a cry of pain, Gao Yang crawled and rolled over to the cell door, followed by the condemned man, who hopped in pursuit, murder in his eyes, his manacles scraping the floor. Gao Yang slipped under the outstretched arms and darted over to the bed, only to be driven back to the door when the man came after him again. That went on another dozen times or so, until the condemned man plopped down on the bed and said through clenched teeth, “Don’t come near me or I’ll bite your head off. Since I’m going to die, I want somebody to lead the way.”
An exhausted Gao Yang forced himself to stay away that night. The overhead light, which was left on twenty-four hours a day, allowed a measure of well-being as he curled up on the floor alongside the door, putting as much distance between him and his cellmate as possible.
The condemned mans greenish eyes stayed open all night long, and whenever Gao Yang started to doze off, he stood up. Gradually the threat of danger sharpened Gao Yang’s senses: at the first sign of a rattle he sprang to his feet and readied himself for another confrontation.
At dawn the condemned man finally rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes. He looked dead already. Gao Yang recalled hearing people talk when he was just a boy about the scary business of spending the night with a corpse. They said that late at night, when everyone’s asleep, the dead rise to haunt the living, chasing them round and round until cockcrow, when they finally lie down again. The night just past was pretty much like that, except that spending the night with a corpse could earn you a tidy sum, while all he’d get for watching his condemned cellmate was an extra bun at mealtime.
At this rate, he thought, I’ll be dead in a month.
He could kick himself.
Old man upstairs, get me out of here. If you do, I’ll never complain, never fight, never ask for help, even if someone dumps a load of shit on my head.
CHAPTER 17
Townsfolk, hard work and sweat never hurt anyone.
Dig wells, lug water, fight the drought:
Watering the garlic makes it grow an inch a night-
Each inch is the gold you turn into cash….
– from a ballad by Zhang Kou urging the townsfolk to fight the April drought
1.
A bright full moon rose slowly like a voluptuous flower, its beams carrying a strong bouquet of new posies that settled over the vast wild-woods. Dry, warm breezes, unique to April, swept across the fields. No rain had fallen in months, leaving the land as parched and chapped as the farmers’ lips. Crops were coated with rust; newly emerged garlic shoots hung their heads in dejection.