Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

by Mo Yan

  “Why would I do that? Jinlong still has a bit of conscience left. He’d have no problem getting people to kill me the same way the people in Pingnan County killed their independent farmer. But his heart isn’t in it. He’s hoping I’ll die on my own. If I do, the last black spot in the county, in the province, in all of China, will erase itself. But I’m not about to die. If they want to kill me, there’s nothing I can do about it, but it’s wishful thinking to expect me to die on my own. I’m going to live, and live well. China’s going to have to get used to this black spot!”

  20

  Lan Jiefang Betrays Father and Joins the Commune

  Ximen Ox Kills a Man and Dies a Righteous Death

  I took my one-point-six acres of land, a wooden plow, a seeder, and the ox into the commune. When I led you out of the shed, firecrackers exploded, cymbals and drums filled the air with their noise. A group of half-grown kids wearing gray imitation army caps ran in amid the smoke and confetti to grab up all the firecrackers with their fuses intact. Mo Yan mistakenly picked up one without a fuse and, bang, his lips parted as it tore a hole in his hand. Serves you right! A firecracker nearly blew off my finger as a kid, and the memory of Dad treating it with paste flashed in my mind. I turned and looked back at Dad, and it was almost more than I could bear. He was sitting on a pile of cut straw, staring at the coiled rope in front of him.

  “Dad,” I called out anxiously “Don’t you dare think of. . .”

  He looked over and, appearing disheartened, waved a couple of times. I walked into the sun and left Dad in the dark. Huzhu pinned a big red paper flower on my chest and smiled at me. I could smell the Sunflower brand lotion on her face. Hezuo hung a paper flower the same size on the ox’s deformed horn. The ox shook his head and sent the flower to the ground.

  “The ox tried to gore me!” Hezuo shrieked, exaggerating the movement.

  She turned and bolted into the arms of my brother, who pushed her away with an icy look and walked up to the ox. He patted it on the head, then rubbed its horns, first the whole one, then the deformed one.

  “Ox,” he said, “you’ve set out on a bright, sunny road, and we welcome you.”

  I saw lights flash in the ox’s eyes, but it was only tears. My dad’s ox was like a tiger whose whiskers had been pulled off, no longer awesome, gentle as a kitten.

  My dream had come true: I was admitted into my brother’s Red Guard organization. Not only that, I was given the role of Wang Lianju in the revolutionary opera The Red Lantern. Every time Li Yuhe called me a traitor, I was reminded of how Dad had used the same word on me. The feeling that I had in fact betrayed Dad by joining the commune grew stronger as time passed, and I couldn’t shake the worry that one day he’d take his own life. But he didn’t; he neither hanged himself from a rafter nor jumped into the river. Instead, he moved out of the room and began sleeping in the ox shed, where he set up a stove in a corner and used a steel helmet as a wok. In the long days that followed, since he had no plow, he worked his land with a hoe, and since he couldn’t manage a wheelbarrow by himself, he carried fertilizer into the field in baskets over his shoulder and used a gourd as a seeder. From 1967 to 1981, his one-point-six acres were a thorn in the side of the authorities, a tiny plot of land smack in the middle of the People’s Commune. His existence was both absurd and sobering; it aroused pity and commanded respect. In the 1970s, Hong Taiyue, back in his role as Party secretary, came up with a variety of schemes to eliminate the last independent farmer, but my dad thwarted all of them. Each time he’d throw the length of rope at Hong’s feet and say:

  “Go ahead, hang me from the apricot tree!”

  Jinlong had been counting on my surrender to the commune and the successful performance of a revolutionary opera to make Ximen Village a model for the county, and when that happened, as a village leader, he’d enjoy a meteoric rise through the ranks. But things did not turn out as he had hoped. First of all, despite the waiting, day and night, by him and by my sister, Little Chang never did come back on the tractor to direct the opera, and then one day word reached them that he had been removed from his post for his unsavory dealings with women. With him gone, my brother’s backing crumbled.

  Then, as the days grew warmer, my brother’s situation worsened, since the masses rejected his plans to stage more revolutionary operas. Some old-timers from redder-than-red poor peasant backgrounds said to him one day while he was smoking a cigarette up in the apricot tree:

  “Commander Jinlong, shouldn’t you be organizing some farm work? Neglecting the land for even a short time can cost a whole year. When workers make revolution, the state pays their wages, but the only way we peasants survive is by planting crops!”

  While they were speaking their piece, they saw my dad walk out the gate with two baskets of manure. The smell of fresh dung in that early spring air energized them.

  “Crops are to be planted in revolutionary land. Production is fine, but only when it’s an integral part of the revolutionary line!” My brother spat out the butt and jumped down out of the tree, landing awkwardly and falling in a heap. The old peasants tried to help him up, but he shoved them away with a snarl. “I’m on my way to see the Commune Revolutionary Committee. You wait here, and don’t do anything foolish.”

  After changing into high-topped galoshes, he went over to the makeshift toilet to relieve himself before heading out on the muddy road to the commune. There he met Yang Qi. They had become enemies over the affair with the goatskin coats, but that was hidden below the surface.

  “Commander Ximen,” Yang said with an irritating grin, “where are you off to? You look more like a Japanese MP than a Red Guard.”

  Shaking his penis, Jinlong snorted to show his contempt for Yang Qi, who continued to grin and said:

  “You’ve lost your backing, buddy, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you were next. If you’re smart, you’ll give up your position and hand it to someone who knows something about farming. Singing opera doesn’t put food on the table.”

  With a sneer, my brother said, “The County Revolutionary Committee made me chairman, and they’re the only ones who can take it away from me. The Commune Revolutionary Committee does not have that authority.”

  Trouble was sure to come, and when my brother spoke so angrily to Yang Qi, the big ceramic Chairman Mao badge fell off his tunic, right into the latrine pit. My brother was stunned. Yang Qi was stunned. When my brother had gotten his bearings back and was about to jump into the latrine to retrieve the badge, Yang Qi also got his bearings back. He grabbed my brother by the lapels and shouted:

  “Counterrevolutionary, I’ve caught a counterrevolutionary!”

  My brother, along with the landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements, and capitalist-roader Hong Taiyue, was assigned to supervised labor. As for me, I was sent to the brigade feeding tent to feed the livestock, working for Old Fang Liu and Hu Bin, who had been released after serving out his sentence.

  By moving my bedding to the sleeping platform in the feeding tent, I was finally able to leave the compound I loved and hated in equal measure. My departure also freed up a bit of space for Dad, who had begun sleeping in the ox shed when I told him I was joining the commune. For all its virtues, the shed was still a lean-to made to house an ox; in spite of its shortcomings, it was still a roof over his head. I urged him to move back into the room I vacated and told him not to worry, that I’d keep looking after our ox.

  Although it was Yang Qi who had denounced my brother, costing him his position as chairman and pinning on him the label of active counterrevolutionary, he was not chosen to be the new chairman; the Commune Revolutionary Committee chose Huang Tong as chairman of our village committee, since he had performed well over the years as director of the Production Brigade. He would stand in the middle of the threshing ground like a commander deploying his forces when he passed out work assignments. Those from good families were given light work; those with bad backgrounds were sent out into the fields to man the
plows. My brother stood with Yu Wufu, the onetime security chief, Zhang Dazhuang the turncoat, Wu Yuan, the rich peasant, Tian Gui, who had run the distillery, and Hong Taiyue, the capitalist-roader. A look of anger was stamped on my brother’s face; Hong Taiyue wore a sneer. Bad elements who had been undergoing labor reform for years showed no expression. By now used to spring plowing, they already knew which ox and which plow they were assigned. So they walked into the storeroom, brought out their plows and harnesses, and went over to the oxen that were waiting for them. Those animals have rested all winter and aren’t in shape, Fang Liu said, so go easy on them the first day. Let them lead. Then he picked out a black, gelded Bohai ox and a Western Shandong for Hong Taiyue, who deftly harnessed them; though he’d spent years as Party secretary, he was born a farmer and knew what he was doing. After watching the others, my brother lined up his plow, laid out the harness, and, curling his lip to show his unhappiness, said to Fang Liu:

  “Which two animals do I get?”

  Fang looked my brother over and said under his breath, but loud enough for my brother to hear, It’s good for a young man to temper himself. He untied a female Mongol ox from the tethering pole, one my brother was very familiar with. Early one spring years before, when we were tending oxen by the river, my brother’s figure had been reflected in her eyes. She stood obediently beside him chewing her cud, and a large chunk of chewed grass slid noisily down her throat. He tossed the halter over his shoulder, getting no resistance from her. Fang Liu’s gaze swept over the tethering pole and fell on our ox as if he’d just that moment discovered what a good animal it was, for his eyes lit up and he made a clicking noise with his mouth.

  “Jiefang,” he said, “you can take the one you brought us and let it team up with its mother.”

  Jinlong took the reins and commanded the ox to walk over to where he could be harnessed. But the ox kept his head low, leisurely chewing his cud. So Jinlong tugged at the reins to get the animal to move; that didn’t work either. Our ox had never had a ring placed through his nose, so his head was immovable. It was, as it turned out, his strength that brought about the punishment of a nose ring. Ox, that didn’t have to happen, and wouldn’t have if you’d displayed the same human understanding that was so evident when you were with Dad. Your obedience could well have established you as the only ox in the history of Northeast Gaomi Township to never have a nose ring. But you chose to ignore the attempts to get you to move.

  “How does anyone get an ox to do what it’s told without a nose ring?” Fang Liu asked. “Does Lan Lian use magic incantations to get it to do what he wants?”

  Ximen Ox, my friend, they hogtied you and stuck a hot poker through the septum of your nose. Who did it? My brother Jinlong. I didn’t know then that you were a reincarnation of Ximen Nao, so I couldn’t appreciate what you were feeling at that moment. The person who fitted a brass ring through the burned hole in your nose was your own son. How did that make you feel?

  Once the nose ring was in place, they led you out into the field, where springtime, the season of rebirth, was making itself felt everywhere. But as soon as you reached the plot of land to be plowed, you lay down on the ground. All the farmers, veterans of many spring plowings, had watched you pull a plow by yourself, seemingly with ease, spreading waves of soil as you created one straight row after the other. They were curious, even mystified, by your behavior. What’s this all about? My dad was out on his narrow strip of land that day, a handheld hoe a substitute for an ox and a plow. Bent at the waist, eyes fixed on the ground at his feet, he moved slowly, one swipe of his hoe at a time. “This ox,” a farmer said, “wishes it could be working with him, the way it used to.”

  Jinlong stepped backward, took his whip off his shoulder, and brought it down on the ox’s back. It left a white welt on your hide. You were in the prime of your life then, so your hide was tough and resilient. Jinlong’s lashing did no serious damage. If you’d been old and weak or young and underdeveloped, it would have split your hide.

  There’s no denying that Jinlong was a very talented young man. Whatever he put his hand to, he did better than anyone. There weren’t more than a handful of men in the village who could handle one of those four-yard-long whips with accuracy, and he was one of them. The dull sound of the whip on your hide dispersed in the air around you, and I know Dad must have heard it. But he didn’t look up or pause in his work. I knew the depth of his feelings toward you, so the punishment you were taking must have hurt him a great deal. But rather than run over to protect you, he kept working. My dad was suffering as much from the lashing as you were!

  Jinlong gave you twenty lashes and only stopped from exhaustion; he was gasping for breath, his forehead was bathed in sweat. But you lay there, head on the ground, hot tears squeezed out of your tightly shut eyes and darkening your face. You didn’t move and you didn’t make a sound, but the spastic ripples on your hide proved that you were still alive. If not for that, no one witnessing the scene would have doubted that they were now looking at a dead ox. With a steady stream of curses on his lips, my brother walked up and kicked you in the face.

  “Get up, damn you,” he snarled. “Get up!”

  You stayed where you were, eyes still shut. Enraged by your defiance, he kicked you in the head and the face and the belly, over and over and over, and from a distance he looked like a shaman in a dance of exorcism. You put up with the assault without moving, while the Mongol ox beside you, your mother, trembled as she watched what was happening to you; her crooked tail went stiff, like a petrified snake. Out in the field, my father sped up the pace of work, digging deeply into the earth.

  The other farmers, having finished their plowing, returned, surprised to see that Jinlong’s ox was still lying on the ground. As they gathered round, the good-hearted rich peasant Wu Yuan said:

  “Is he sick?”

  Tian Gui, who consistently played the role of a progressive, said, “Look how plump he is, how glossy his coat is. Last year he pulled Lan Lian’s plow, this year he’s lying on the ground pretending he’s dead. This ox opposes the People’s Commune!”

  Hong Taiyue glanced over at my dad, who still hadn’t looked up from his labors. “The kind of master you have determines the kind of ox you get,” he said coldly. “Like master, like ox.”

  “Let’s beat him!” the traitor Zhang Dazhuang said. “I don’t believe he’ll keep lying there if we really beat him.” The others agreed.

  And so, seven or eight plowmen formed a circle around the ox, took their whips off their shoulders, held the handles, and let the lashes hang down behind them. They were getting ready to start the beating when the Mongol ox crumpled to the ground like a toppled wall. But she immediately began pawing at the ground and got back to her feet. She quaked from head to tail, her eyes were glazed over, her tail was tucked between her legs. The men laughed.

  “Would you look at that!” one of them said. “She’s paralyzed with fear before we even begin.”

  My brother untied the Mongol ox and led her off to the side, where she stood as if she’d been spared from something horrible. She was still quaking, but a look of calm was in her eyes.

  And still you lay there, Ximen Ox, like a sandbar, as the plowmen stood back and, one after the other, as if it were a competition, expertly swirled their whips in the air and brought them down on your hide, filling the air with a tattoo of loud cracks. The ox’s back was crisscrossed with lash marks. Before long, there were traces of blood, and now that the tips of the whips were bloodied, the cracks were louder and crisper. Harder and harder they came, until your back and your belly looked like cutting boards covered with chunks of bloody flesh.

  My tears started to flow as soon as they began beating you. I wailed, I begged, I wanted to throw myself on top of you to share your suffering, but my arms were pinned to my sides by the mob that had gathered to watch the spectacle. I kicked and I bit, but the pain I caused had no effect on the people, who refused to let go. How could such decent villagers, young
and old, get any enjoyment out of such a bloody tragedy, as if their hearts had turned to stone?

  Eventually, they tired. Rubbing their sore arms, they walked up to see if you were dead. You weren’t. But your eyes were tightly shut; there were open wounds on the side of your face, staining the ground around your head with blood. You were gasping for breath, and there were violent spasms in your belly, like a female in labor.

  The men who had used their whips on you were sighing over a stubborn streak the likes of which they’d never seen before. The looks on their faces were awkward, almost remorseful. They’d have felt better if you’d been a defiant animal, but you weren’t, you submitted meekly to their cruelty, and that they found perplexing. So many ancient ethical standards and supernatural legends stirred in their hearts and minds. Is this an ox or some sort of god? Maybe it’s a Buddha who has borne all this suffering to lead people who have gone astray to enlightenment. People are not to tyrannize other people, or oxen; they must not force other people, or oxen, to do things they do not want to do.

  As feelings of compassion rose up in the whip-wielding men, they urged Jinlong to bring things to a halt. But he refused. The traits he shared with that ox burned in him like sinister flames, turning his eyes red and changing the features on his face: his twisted mouth reeked, his whole frame trembled, and he seemed to be walking on air, like a common drunk. By then he had lost his grip on reality and was under the control of a demonic being. In the same way that the ox displayed its iron will and preserved its dignity by refusing to stand up, even in the face of death, my brother Jinlong was prepared to do whatever it took, at whatever cost, to make the animal stand in order to display his iron will and preserve his dignity. There could be no better example of a meeting of mortals, a clash of unyielding personalities. My brother led the female Mongol ox up to Ximen Ox, where he tied the rope affixed to your nose ring to the shaft. My god, he’s going to pull Ximen Ox by the nose with the strength of his mother. Everyone there knew that the nose is an ox’s most vulnerable spot, and that it is the nose ring that ensures an ox’s obedience. The mightiest ox is turned submissive as soon as its nose is controlled by humans. Stand up, Ximen Ox. You’ve already taken more punishment than any ox could be expected to take, and your reputation won’t be tarnished if you stand now. But you did not stand — I knew you wouldn’t. If you had, you wouldn’t have been Ximen Ox.