Chapter 12

EVEN BEFORE THE SUN WAS UP SOME OF THE pigs in the village had already gone to their deaths in honor of the Glorious Soldiers' Families. From a distance their shrill, hoarse cries sounded like desperate long blasts on a rusty whistle.
In midmorning Big Uncle turned his own pig loose in the compound—an unpaved, sunken square in the middle of the village, with stone steps leading up to the sur-rounding houses. Long gray stains of various shades streaked the white walls of the houses-the cheerless water color done by rain.
"Don't kill the pig out there," fussed Big Aunt. "Do it in our own courtyard. Outside, with lots of people watching, somebody might say something that is not auspicious. Have to be careful, with the New Year so near.'
"It does not matter. This time we are not doing it for ourselves," Big Uncle said wearily. "If we do it properly we will have to light the incense and candles and then kill it, since this is only a few days before the New Year."
The pig had already been starved for a whole day to cleanse its stomach. It nosed eagerly around on the bare, pale brown earth of winter, searching for edibles. Sud-denly it uttered a loud cry-one of Big Uncle's neighbors had grabbed it by its hind legs. Somebody else came to help drag it, and presently it was turned on its back, lying on a raised wooden frame. Big Aunt held its front and hind legs while Big Uncle bent down to reach for his knife from his basketful of instruments. But first he re-moved his long pipe from his mouth and thrust it through the end of the basket handle. The basket was beautiful with a surplus length of bamboo split which the weaver had not bothered to cut off and so it was left to sprout forth from one side with the long, graceful sweep of an orchid leaf in a Chinese painting.
The pig went right on calling out with undiminished volume long after the pointed knife had been plunged into its throat. And the sound never changed-always a flat, expressionless, grating cry, uglier than the horse's neigh. But it was considered bad luck when the pig screamed too much, so toward the end Big Uncle put out a hand to hold its mouth. After a while it made a low grunt as if saying: No use arguing with these people. And it became silent.
White steam continued to issue from its snout. The weather was very cold.
The old man had wrapped flaxen bags on his legs to keep warm. A dog of the same shade of pale yellow as his leggings came and lapped up the blood that streamed down to the ground from the pig's throat. Then it nosed around the place, hoping to find more of it. Lifting its head, it happened to knock against the pig's leg, stretched out stiffly in the air. It smelled the leg curiously. What-ever conclusion it reached was obviously to its satisfac-tion. It trotted around, ducking now and then under the pig's legs, an unmistakably smiling expression in its shining black eyes.
Sister-in-law Gold Have Got came with a flat-pole on her shoulder, carrying two buckets of hot water which she poured into a big wooden tub. They lowered the pig into the tub, forcibly pressing its head into the water. When the head emerged again into view, the black hair was all messed up and fluffy like that of a child taking a bath. Big Uncle picked its ears with an ear spoon, for the first time in its experience. Then he shaved the body with a big razor that furled inward at both ends. Big balls of hair fell off at each deft stroke. Then, digging a little pick into the hoof, he removed the claws one by one with great ease. The little snow-white ankle ending in a tiny pink sole looked as if it belonged to a woman with bound feet, where the toes were all bunched together.
The old man had to blow from the hoof to inflate the pig. That would make it easier to pluck off the hairs. He had done this countless times in his life, and yet he hesi-tated a little, as he always did, before inserting the hoof into his mouth.
A circle of spectators had collected around the scene. The few comments they made were confined to estimates of how many catties this pig weighed as compared to the weight of some other family's pig killed yesterday and the record-making weight of another family's pig slaughtered last year.
"This pig is only fat in the front quarters," said a tall, cadaverous old man with square, high shoulders, wearing a long gray gown.
Nobody said anything to that. All their remarks were monologues.
The tall old man went back to his own house and soon turned up again with a blue-rimmed bowl and a pair of chopsticks and ate up his bowl of steaming gruel as he stood there looking on.
Sister-in-Law Gold Have Got came with a kettle of boiling water and poured it on the pig. Finally all the hairs were removed except for a patch on the head. Made to sprawl over the-side of the tub, face downward, the pig now looked alarmingly human, the plump white form bald except for this black patch at the back of the head. And when at last Big Uncle and Big Aunt hoisted the carcass around and the hairless porcine face came into view, it was a laughing face, the merry little eyes squeezed into curved slits.
Later the carcass was brought indoors and laid on a table, refrigerated by the intense cold of the end of the Lunar Year. The head had been cut off. The big white snout rested contentedly on the table. Following tradition a tradition that showed a somewhat grotesque sense of fun-they made the slain pig hold its curly little tail in its mouth with a playful, kittenish air.
Their pigsty also served as a privy, as was usual in the village. Tall wooden pails stood precariously on the bor-der of the pit in which the pig used to be kept. In the afternoon, when the old man went to empty the urine pails, he glanced briefly into the darkness. The room seemed very silent without the familiar grunts and vague stirrings of the recumbent form in the pit.
He felt shaken and spent as he walked out of the empty sty into the thin yellow sunshine. His daughter-in-law was in the courtyard scrubbing grease off the wooden tub. His wife was sitting on the doorsill wiping his butchering tools with a piece of rag before putting them away in the basket. He went and stood under the eaves, his hands thrust under his blue work skirt, tucking it up.
"I will never rear a pig again," he said aloud.
"You have said that before," said the old woman. See-ing that he made no remark to that, she added with a cruel insistence, "That was what you said the other time."
"Whoever rears a pig again is the son of a bitch," he said in a loud voice, not looking at her.
Sister-in-Law Gold Have Got had begun to cry. Her hands being greasy, she just raised a shoulder and wiped her eyes on the upper part of the sleeve. Warm tears streamed down her face and the wind quickly fanned them cold.
All three of them were thinking of "the other time." That was years ago, during the Japanese occupation.
The house they lived in had been built by the only branch of the family that had prospered and produced mandarins. The dilapidated white mansion that now housed a clan of small farmers still proclaimed in a gilded signboard over the front gate, "Residence of a Ching Sse," a ching sse being one who had passed the highest imperial examination. The signboard had been removed after the Communists came, but during the war it was still there.
The innumerable courtyards were connected by stone‑paved dark passages that were more like alleys, though they were roofed in. Hawkers were free to come and go through the house, peddling their wares along those pas-sages. And a blind beggar might wander into the house, his bamboo stick tapping a crisp, clear "tick tick" on the stone pavement. This other time, too, it was near the end of the year, like now. The blind man had chanted loudly a jingle full of auspicious sayings, wishing the house-wives good luck in the coming year:
. . . EVERY STEP SAFE, AND EVERY STEP A RAISE,
FOR YOU LADIES WHO'RE MAKING NEW YEAR CAKES. . ."
After him came a hawker of sesame oil, with two earthen jars dangling from a flat-pole on his shoulder, calling out "Shicmg yiu yao ba-shiang yiu? Fragrant oil want fragrant oil?"
After the hawker passed, the stillness of the afternoon fell upon the house and the village around it. Big Aunt had been alone in the courtyard grinding maize. Standing in the shadows, now and then she would put out a hand into the sunlight, smoothing the layer of corn over the grindstone. The golden corn flour descended in a sluggish stream, a slow cascade of desert sand.
She suddenly raised her head, listening hard at a faint tap-tap along the passage. It was not the blind man's stick but leather soles striking against the stone pavement. There were soldiers of the Ho Ping Kuan, the Peace Army of the puppet government, stationed at the Temple of the Militant Sage, and they often came into the village.
Even as she was listening, somebody crashed through their back door that led into the passage and she heard loud, excited voices in the room behind her.
"Let me stay here for a while," gasped the hawker of sesame oil. "They are coming! I saw them coming!"
"No use your hiding here, if they are coming this way," said Big Uncle.
"Let me out then, through the other door." The hawker rushed into the courtyard, banging his oil jars against the door.
"Careful, careful!" said Big Uncle.
"They are coming!" Big Aunt whispered stupidly to her husband. Then she dashed out of the gate and stooped to pick up the balls of freshly made rice-flour noodles which were set out to dry in the sun, like little nests of straw on the ground.
"Never mind those." The old man came panting after her. "Come and help me with the pig."
"I know just where to hide it," Big Aunt whispered excitedly. "Take it into the room."
They both rushed to the pigsty. The big fat sow was a wriggly, unwieldly weight in the old man's arms as he tried to lift her. Sister-in-Law Gold Have Got, who was breast-feeding a baby, bustled in and, passing the child to the old woman, stooped down to lend a helping hand.
Big Aunt stamped her feet at her daughter-in-law. "What are you doing here? Run off and hide yourself—hurry!"
"Ai, quick, quick! Hide yourself!" With horror the old man looked up at her from the ground.
"Here, you forgot the baby," Big Aunt cried out with annoyance, running after her daughter-in-law and thrust-ing the child into her arms.
Seeing her reminded the old man of her husband. "Hey, where is Gold Have Got?" he shouted. "He mustn't be seen. The soldiers will tie him up and take him away for a recruit!"
"Ai, tell him to hide himself, quick," quavered the old woman. "Here, let me have the baby, stupid! You want him to burst out crying, and ruin you?"
She propped the baby up against the wall and went back to help the old man with the pig. The two of them managed to move the animal into their living quarters. Even under those circumstances they felt a fleeting thrill of pride at the great weight it had achieved.
"The bed," gasped Big Aunt. "Put it on the bed and cover it up."
Grunting protests, the sow was dumped on the bed and covered with an old padded blanket of bright red cotton with little white flowers. The old woman drew the blanket over its head and tucked it in all round. For the finishing touch she bent down and fished under the bed for a pair of shoes, placing them in front of the bed.
They could already hear voices at the gate.
"You didn't bolt the door, did you?" she asked anx-iously. "No use bolting the door-it will only make them angry.
The soldiers had already stomped in, heralded by the agitated hen they were chasing.
"Hey, nobody home?" one of them shouted. "Every-body dead in this house?"
The old couple hurried forth, smiling welcome. There were three of them, all from the north, speaking a dialect that was hard to grasp.
"Huh-pretending to be deaf," they said impatiently.
Finally it was made clear that they were asking if there was anything to eat in the house. The old woman started on her familiar tale of poor harvest and starvation. Mean-while, one soldier, the one whose face was badly pocked with the scars of smallpox, had been doing some individ-ual exploring over the other side of the courtyard. A slip of yellow paper pasted on a doorframe announced a re-cent death in the family. Gold Root's mother had just died about a month ago. The unpainted coffin was still in the room, the body sealed inside waiting to be buried after the mourning was over. The orphans, Gold Root and Gold Flower, happened to be out in the hills digging for bamboo shoots. The pockmarked soldier walked into their room and saw the coffin. Spitting on the ground to safeguard himself against the bad luck thus incurred, he turned and went into the next room, which was Big Uncle's pigsty.
"Hey, old man, where is your pig?" he called out from inside.
"I have sold it, Captain," said the old man.
"Nonsense! How can the place be so filthy without a pig?" said the soldier, who had been a farmer before he joined up.
"These country people are real scoundrels. Full of lies," said one of them, who was much older than the rest, hollow-cheeked and sallow, with tired, hooded eyes that had faded to a pale brown. Turning those eyes on the old man, he said loudly, 'Where is the pig? Hrrmph?" This last was a savage grunt that seemed to come from a foreigner who did not speak the language. He found that very effective sometimes.
The old man quailed visibly, but the old woman came to his aid, all smiles. "Captain, the pig has really been sold. Not yet big enough to fetch a good price, but we could not hold out any longer. We need rice. Ai-yah, I cried when we took it to the market. We country people are really pitiful, Captains!"
"Listen to her!" The veteran smiled wearily.
His companion, a ruddy-faced boy holding a hen under each arm, stepped up threateningly to the old man. "Speak up!" he shouted, lifting the butt of his rifle. In-stantly the air was loud with the flapping of wings and excited squawking. One of the hens had escaped and had run indoors, sailing over the high doorsill. The ground was strewn with feathers.
"—its grandmother!" cursed the young soldier, laugh-ing and chasing after it. The hen flew on top of a table, and bowls and bottles fell crashing to the floor.
The others strolled in after him and stood around guf-fawing, leaning on their rifles as he struggled with the hen.
"Twist its neck," counseled the pockmarked one. "Make sure it is dead, if you don't want your uniform dirtied by droppings."
The veteran lifted the padded blue curtain at the door, peering into the inner room. The old woman immedi-ately placed herself at his elbow, pleading with a smile, "We have a sick person at home, Captain. That room is filthy. Come and sit over here, Captain, sit over here."
Ignoring her words, the soldier walked in with the other two at his heels. The old woman followed them into the room, babbling, "Very sick. High fever. Mustn't be exposed to cold air. It will be fatal to catch cold at this stage." A fleeting glance at the bed reassured her that everything was just as she had left it.
The men walked around the room fingering this and that.
"Well, look around, look around," the old woman said, smiling helplessly. "There is nothing to see in a poor man's house." No sooner were the words out of her mouth when she was horrified to discover that the blanket had started to heave. The pig was growing restive.
Big Aunt went quickly to the head of the bed and clutched at the blanket, drawing it firmly over the great snout coming out for air. "You fool, you want to catch cold and die?" she scolded. "Now be good. Cover up your head and let yourself perspire all over, so you will get well quick. Have patience. Don't you dare let the cold air touch you before the perspiration has dried thoroughly. You hear?"
She tucked the blanket tightly around it, and, surpris-ingly enough, the pig stopped moving.
The veteran's experienced eyes swept over the room, looking for signs of newly turned earth on the dirt floor or patches on the mud wall which spoke of hidden treas-ures. The other two, failing to find anything of interest, were already arguing over ways of cooking the hens.
"Stew one and boil one," said the young soldier.
"They are too old to taste good in a stew," said the pockmarked one.
Big Aunt's heart stood still as the veteran walked up to the bed. He bent down and looked under the bed for trunks or suspicious patches on the earthen floor. Then he straightened up and was turning to go when the shoes in front of the bed happened to catch his eyes. They were homemade blue cloth shoes with a strap starting at the back of the ankle. They must belong to a young woman they were much too large for old women with bound feet.
Big Aunt went all hollow inside with the feeling of imminent doom when she saw the sudden gleam come into his eyes.
"Hey, Pockmark!" he called out, laughing, "we have a hua ku niung here, a flowerlike maid!"
The pockmarked one rushed to the bed and whisked off the blanket. After the first moment of incredulous silence they all burst into laughter and profanity.
"--his mother," cried Pockmark, "how did they ever think of such a thing! Hiding a pig in bed!"
The veteran went after the old woman, threatening her with the butt of his rifle. "You dare cheat your father, eh? Tired of living, aren't you?"
The squealing pig had hurled itself on the ground and was making for the door. In the act of grabbing its hind legs the young soldier had to let go of both his hens, which circled around the room clucking frantically, add-ing to the furor.
"Come and help me, somebody," shouted the boy. "Don't just stand there. Hey—block off the door!"
Pockmark helped him to catch the pig. Presently the boy found that he was carrying it on his back and it was too heavy for him. As he staggered to his feet, Pockmark jumped up and down, laughing and slapping his thighs.
"Hey, look, look!" he yelled. "Win Victory Li is com-ing with his mother on his back!"
Flushed with annoyance, Win Victory Li loosened his hold on the pig so that it slid down his back, dropping to the ground with a terrific thud. And he threw himself on Pockmark, grappling with him. It was the veteran's turn to catch the pig.
"Don't stand there pretending to be dead, old woman," he called out in exasperation. "Get a rope and tie it up. And sling it on a flat-pole. Otherwise how do you expect us to carry it? Such a filthy thing."
The old couple found a rope and tied up the pig. Meanwhile Pockmark, haying shaken off the young boy, had picked up one of the shoes in front of the bed.
'Where is this person?" he asked the old woman "Now don't tell me those are your shoes. One more lie out of you and I'll beat you to death."
"Yes, where is the :ma ku niung?" said the veteran with renewed interest.
"It's no hua ku niung, it's only my daughter-in-law, and she has gone home to see her mother in Peach Creek Village."
"Lying again!" Pockmark slapped her hard on the face with the sole of the shoe. He kept at it. "You old addled egg! Never a word of truth. If your father doesn't beat you to death today, I'll be surprised!"
"Don't be angry, Captain," the old woman called out, smiling, with one cheek red with the slapping. "But she is not here. I cannot produce her like a magi-cian. Thunder strike me dead if I am not telling the truth!"
"I'll do it for him," Pockmark promised grimly.
Win Victory Li and the veteran turned on the old man. Although they slapped him and waved their bayo-nets at his face he also stuck to the story that their daughter-in-law was visiting with her mother.
"Let's go and look for her ourselves," said Pockmark. "And if we find her here," the veteran warned the old couple, "don't expect to live."
The old man smiled and the old woman laughed, pro-testing that they had nothing to worry about, since it was a fact that their daughter-in-law was twenty li away, in Peach Creek Village.
"All right then, don't run away." They made the old couple accompany them as they searched the house, through deserted courtyards and rooms vacated in a hurry. They came to a haystack. The veteran thrust his bayonet into the hay, making several stabs at it. He thought he heard a half-stifled moan.
"Ai, the hua ku niung is here," he said, smiling.
"All right, let's pull the hay down. Don't stab at it any more," Pockmark said hastily, "you'll kill her."
"Don't worry," said the veteran. "Look at him! His heart is aching already because she is hurt. Crazy about her, sight unseen."
Pockmark gave him a shove that nearly threw him off balance.
"Come out," shouted the veteran. "Come out at once, or we are going to shoot."
The old couple watched in silence as a trouser leg emerged from the hay, then another. Their first feeling was of relief when they saw it was their son Gold Have Got who leaped to the ground.
"Who is this?" Pockmark cried out with disappoint-ment.
"Your son?" asked the veteran.
Yes, Captain," said the old woman.
"Take him with us, Win Victory Li," said the veteran. He can carry the pig."
"No, no, kindhearted Captains," shouted Big Aunt. "He is the only son we have. His father is eighty and I am eighty-one. Who is going to see us off when we die if you take him away?" She broke down crying, falling to her knees and tugging at their legs, and she turned to tell her husband to do the same. 'Beg them. They are kindhearted and generous. They will take pity on us.
Win Victory Li pointed his bayonet at Gold Have Got's back, making him march before him into the house to collect the pig. Gold Have Got was of medium height and frail like his father. He stopped once, stooping a little and laying a hand on his left shoulder where there was
a spreading red stain on his clothes.
"Pretending to be dead," said Win Victory Li, giving him a kick. "Let it go—we'll patch you up when we get back to camp."
The old couple's last glimpse of their son was of his narrow back retreating down the road. The pig, its four feet all tied together, dangled ball-like from the flat-pole on his shoulder. The other end of the rope looped up his arm and was held by Win Victory Li. In the light of the setting sun they could see even from a distance the bits of straw sticking to his clothes.
Pockmark refused to leave until he had found the woman.
"She must be around somewhere," he said.
"Come on!" the veteran said. "If you don't hurry up and trail along, you have seen the last of that pig. Once it gets to the barracks, the sergeant will want his share; the lieutenant will want his share; the cook will keep the best portions for his cronies and his mistress. You'll be lucky to get some of the blood to boil bean curd with."
Pockmark grunted and they went off together.
Two days after they had taken the pig and the son, the platoon pulled out of the village before dawn. Other units came and went. And some of the men taken away by the soldiers managed to escape and found their way back to their home village. Big Uncle's family hoped all the time that Gold Have Got would do the same. Then one morning they heard the soldiers drilling in a clearing outside the village. There came a pause in the drills, and in the silence a broad, long, raucous howl broke out. Several well-spaced howls with silence in between. Afterward it was whispered in the village that those were deserters being punished by having their ears cut off. There were big splotches of blood in the clearing.
People could not help smiling as they passed the story around. There was something funny in the idea of having one's ears cut off. But it was not funny to Big Uncle's family. They could feel at once a whiff of cold wind blowing past their ears, leaving two bleeding holes. Big Aunt had a dream in which her son came home with his hands over his ears and she could not coax him to take off his hands and let her treat the wounds. He had always been stubborn as a child. And in her dream she was try-ing hard to figure out a way of saving money to buy one of those fur caps with ear flaps on them, as if that would solve his problem. She cried and cried after she woke up.
They had told the story to others, but seldom in its entirety, for fear that it would cast doubts on the chastity of their daughter-in-law. People might have a sneaking suspicion that the soldiers did find her, after all, and that the family were just saying they never found her, to save face.
As time went on and it became apparent that Gold Have Got was probably never coming back, his mother became very touchy on the subject, flying into a rage whenever anybody dared hint that he must be dead. And now, seven years later and another pig gone, she shouted at her daughter-in-law who was bending over the wooden tub in the courtyard, blubbering chokingly in the wind.
"What are you weeping for, all of a sudden?" she de-manded. "With the New Year so near, it is bad luck to have all this weeping in the house. Your father-in-law and I are old but not dead yet. Wait till we are dead, then you can weep all you want."
But for once Sister-in-law Gold Have Got took no notice of her whatsoever and abandoned herself to her grief.
At length the old woman shouted in exasperation, "Stop it. Even if he is not dead, your weeping will be a curse to him and he will die. You want him to die so you can marry somebody else?"
Heartbroken at the injustice of the accusation, Sister-in-Law Gold Have Got sobbed louder than ever.
Suddenly the old woman also broke down and wept, calling out, "My hardhearted son! So many years, and never even a letter home! The hardhearted child! If you don't come back soon you will never see me again. How many more years can I wait for you?"
"All right, say no more," said the old man. "Comrade Ku is at home today," he reminded her in a whisper.
"What are you afraid of? It was the Ho Ping Kuan who did this to us. The Ho Ping Kuan dragged him off."
"Well, lots of Ho Ping Kuan were taken into the Nationalist Army when the war ended. If he is still alive he might be fighting for the other side."
For a moment Big Aunt was struck dumb with fear. That would make them a Counterrevolutionist Family. But she soon rallied and said brazenly, "Who knows? He might have been captured by the Communists and have become a soldier in the Liberation Army. That will make us a Soldier's Family. And we will also get half a pig and forty catties of New Year cakes."
"What crazy talk," Big Uncle said disgustedly. "Gone crazy thinking of pork and New Year cakes."