Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

by Mo Yan

  “Oh, Pig King — to the boat — Oh, Pig King — to the boat —”

  Diao Xiaosan’s body had begun to stink and was stiff as the door it lay on; the freezing air was all that kept it from decomposing altogether. When they laid his body on the deck, the boat settled more deeply in the water. I was thinking that among the three of us — me, Pig Sixteen, Split Ear, and Diao Xiaosan — Old Diao was the true king. Even lying on the boat’s deck he had a commanding presence, which was further enhanced by the pale moonlight. It almost seemed that he could, whenever he wanted, get up and jump into the river or leap onto the bank.

  Finally the four hunters emerged, so drunk they had to be supported by local officials, and staggered toward the pier. They too were led by young women in red carrying a red lantern. By that time I had stealthily made my way to a spot no more than ten yards from the pier, where the liquor-and-tobacco stench from the hunters’ mouths fouled the air. I was actually quite calm, calm as could be, as if totally divorced from the scene in front of me. I watched them board the boat.

  Now safely aboard, they thanked their hosts with mouthfuls of hypocrisy, and received the same in return from the people seeing them off. Once they were seated, Liu Yong pulled the rope ignition to start the diesel motor, but it appeared to have frozen up in the icy air. He decided to warm it up with a torch he made by soaking some cotton in the diesel oil. The yellow flames drove the moonbeams away and lit up Qiao Feipeng’s sallow face and sunken mouth; they lit up Lü Xiaopo’s puffy face and bulbous red nose; and they lit up Zhao Yonggang’s face, stamped with a sneer. When it lit up Diao Xiaosan’s mouth, with its missing fangs, I grew even calmer, like an old monk standing before a sacred idol.

  In the end, the motor took hold, and its horrible sound on the river assaulted the night air and the moon. The boat moved slowly out into the river. By stepping on the ice at the river’s edge with a swagger, I made my way to the pier, looking like a domestic pig that had stepped out from the crowd of people seeing the hunters off. The red lanterns waved back and forth like balls of fire, creating just the right atmosphere for my leap through the air.

  I wasn’t thinking anything, I just acted, just moved.

  The boat lurched to one side and Diao Xiaosan seemed about to stand up. Liu Yong, who was bent over starting the motor, went flying into the river, raising blue-white shards of water into the air. The motor sputtered, emitting black smoke and weak complaints. My ears seemed waterlogged. Lü Xiaopo teetered, his open mouth reeking of alcohol, as he fell backward, his body half in the boat and half in the water for a moment, his waist fulcrumed on the steel plate railing, until he tipped headfirst into the river, he too raising blue-white, silent shards of water into the air. I started jumping up and down, five hundred jin of pig making the boat lurch from side to side. Qiao Feipeng, the hunters’ adviser, who years before had had dealings with me, fell weakly to his knees and kowtowed. How funny was that! Without a thought running through my head, I picked him up and threw him out of the boat. More silent shards of water. That left only Zhao Yonggang, the only one who looked like a worthy opponent. He swung a club and hit me in the head. The sound of it breaking in two went from my skull to my ears; one half of the club flew into the water, the other half was still in his hand. I didn’t have time to consider the pain in my head. My eyes were fixed on what remained of his club as it came straight toward my mouth; I grabbed it in my teeth and held on. He put all his considerable strength in trying to pull it out until his face turned as red as a lantern trying to outshine the moon. I let go, and he flew backward into the water; you might think I planned it like that, but I really didn’t. At that moment all sound, all color, all smells rushed toward me.

  I jumped into the river, sending a column of water several yards into the air. The water was cold and felt sticky, like liquor that had aged for years. I saw all four of them floating on the surface. Liu Yong and Lü Xiaopo were so drunk they could neither function nor think clearly, so there was no need for me to hasten their departure from the world. Zhao Yonggang was the only real man among them, and if he could make it to dry land, then I’d let him live. Qiao Feipeng was the nearest to me; he struggled to keep his purple nose above water. Disgusted by the way he was gasping for air, I conked him on the head with my hoof. He didn’t move after that, except for his rear end, which floated to the surface.

  I let the current take me downriver. Water and moonbeams formed a silvery liquid, like donkey milk about to freeze. Behind me, the boat’s motor was making crazy noises, while from the riverbank came a chorus of shouts. The only one I could distinguish was:

  “Shoot him! Shoot!”

  The six ex-soldiers had taken the assault rifles with them back to town. Since it was peacetime, the planners of the massacre were punished for using such advanced weapons to hunt wild animals.

  I dove to the bottom, leaving all sound above and behind me, just like a certain first-rate novelist.

  36

  Thoughts Throng the Mind as the Past Is Recalled

  Disregarding Personal Safety, Pig Saves a Child

  Three months later, I was dead.

  It all happened one afternoon when the sun was hidden. A bunch of kids were playing on the gray ice covering the river behind Ximen Village. They ranged in age from three and four up to seven and eight. Some were sledding across the ice, others were playing with tops, and I was watching this next generation of Ximen Village residents from the woods. I heard the welcoming call from the other side of the river:

  “Kaifeng Geming Fenghuang Huanhuan — all you kids, come home.”

  I saw the weathered face of the woman, the blue kerchief over her head waving in the wind, and I recognized her. It was Yingchun. I would be dead an hour later, but for now I was so caught up in turbulent memories of the past ten years or so I forgot all about my pig body. I knew that Kaifeng was the son of Lan Jiefang and Huang Hezuo, that Geming was the son of Ximen Baofeng and Ma Liangcai, that Huanhuan was the adopted son of Ximen Jinlong and Huang Huzhu. Fenghuang was the daughter of Pang Kangmei and Chang Tianhong, and I knew that her biological father was Ximen Jinlong, conceived beneath the renowned lover’s tree in Apricot Garden.

  The children were having too much fun to climb up the bank, so Yingchun walked gingerly down the slope, just as the ice broke and the children fell into the icy water.

  At the moment I was a human, not a pig; by no stretch of the imagination was I a born hero, but I was basically good and willing to do anything for a just cause. I jumped into the water while Yingchun scrambled back up the bank and shouted for help from the village. Thank you, Yingchun, my beloved. To me the water felt warm, not cold, and as the blood coursed through my veins I swam like a champion. I was not intent on saving the three children who were carrying on my line; I just swam for the nearest ones. I bit down on the pants of one of the boys and flung him back onto the ice. One after the other I tossed the children back onto the ice. They quickly crawled to safety. I took the foot of the fattest of the children in my mouth and brought him up out of the water; icy bubbles shot from his mouth as he hit the surface, just like a fish. The boy landed on the ice, which cracked under the weight, so this time I rammed my snout into his soft belly, moved all four of my legs as fast as I could — even with four legs treading water, I was still human — and flung him far off onto the ice. This time it held, thank goodness. The inertia from the effort drove me under the surface; water rushed up my nose, and I choked. When I made it back to the surface I coughed and gasped for air. I saw a crowd of people racing down the slope. Stay where you are, you stupid people! I put my head back under the water and dragged another child, a chubby little boy whose face was coated with ice, like syrup, when he broke the surface. The other kids I’d saved were still crawling along the ice, some of them crying, proof they were still alive. Go on, cry, all of you. In my mind’s eye I could see a bunch of girls, one after the other, crawling along the ground in the Ximen family compound and then climbing up the big apricot tree
. The first girl in line passed gas. That was met by laughter. They all slid back down to the ground and dissolved into giggles. I saw their laughing faces. Baofeng’s laughing face, Huzhu’s laughing face, Hezuo’s laughing face. Back underwater I went, this time swimming after a boy who had been carried downriver. I caught him and raced for the surface, where the ice was thick and hard. I was running out of air; my chest felt as though it was about to explode. I rammed my head into the ice. Nothing. I did it a second time. Still nothing. So I turned and swam against the current. When I finally surfaced I saw red. Was it the setting sun? I flung the nearly drowned boy onto the ice. Through the red haze I saw Jinlong, Huzhu, Hezuo, Lan Lian, and many more . . . they all seemed made of blood, so red, poles and ropes and hoes in their hands as they crawled out onto the ice to rescue the children . . . how smart and how good they were. I had nothing but good feelings for all of them, was grateful even to the ones who had made my life as a pig so difficult. My thoughts were of a mysterious play being performed on a stage seemingly thrown up at the edge of a cloud as I hid among a copse of rare trees with golden limbs and jadeite leaves; music curled into the air above the stage, a song sung by a female opera performer dressed in a costume made of lotus petals. I was deeply moved, though I couldn’t say why. I felt hot all over; the water around me was getting warmer. It felt so good as I sank slowly to the bottom, where I was met by a pair of smiling blue-faced demons who looked very familiar.

  “Well, old pal, you’re back!”

  Book Four

  Dog Spirit

  37

  An Aggrieved Soul Returns as a Dog

  A Pampered Child Goes to Town with His Mother

  The two underworld attendants grabbed my arms and dragged me out of the water. “Take me to see Lord Yama, you rotten bastards!” I raged. “I’m going to settle scores with the damned old dog!”

  “Heh heh,” Attendant One giggled. “After all these years, you’re still a hothead.”

  “As they say, You can’t keep a cat from chasing mice or a dog from eating shit,” Attendant Two mocked.

  “Let me go!” I railed. “Do you think I can’t find the damned old dog on my own?”

  “Calm down,” Attendant One said, “just calm down. We’re old friends by now. After all these years, we’ve actually missed you.”

  “We’ll take you to see the damned old dog,” Attendant Two said.

  So they raced down the main street of Ximen Village, dragging me along with them. A cool wind hit me in the face, along with feather-light snowflakes. We left dead leaves fluttering on the road behind us. They stopped when we reached the Ximen family compound, where Attendant One grabbed my left arm and leg, Attendant Two took my right arm and leg, and they lifted me off the ground. After swinging me back and forth like a battering ram slamming into a bell, they let go and I went flying.

  “Go on, go see that damned old dog!” they cried out together.

  Wham! My head really did feel as if I’d rammed it into a bell, and I blacked out. When I came to, well, you know without my saying so, I was a dog, after landing in the kennel belonging to your mother, Yingchun.

  In order to keep me from causing a scene in his hall, that is the underhanded tactic rotten Lord Yama had stooped to: shortening the reincarnation process by sending me straight into the womb of a bitch, where I followed three other puppies out through the birth canal.

  The kennel I landed in was unbelievably crude: two rows of brick remnants under the house eaves for walls, wooden planks topped by tarred felt as a roof. It was my mother’s home — what was I supposed to do? I had to call her Mother, since I popped out of her body. My childhood home too. Our bedding? A winnowing basket full of chicken feathers and leaves.

  The ground was quickly covered by a heavy snowfall, but the kennel was nice and bright, thanks to an electric light hanging from the eaves. Snowflakes slipping in through cracks in the felt turned the kennel bone-chillingly cold. Along with my brothers and sister I kept from shivering by nuzzling up against our mother’s warm belly. A series of rebirths had taught me one simple truth; when you come to a new place, learn the local customs and follow them. If you land in a pigpen, suck a sow’s teat or starve, and if you’re born into a dog kennel, nuzzle up to a bitch’s belly or freeze to death. Our mother was a big white dog with black tips on her front paws and tail.

  She was a mongrel, no doubt about that. But our father was a purebred, a mean German shepherd owned by the Sun brothers. I saw him once: a big animal with a black back and tail and a brown underbelly and paws. He — our father — was kept on a chain in the Suns’ yard. He had blood-streaked yellow eyes, pointy ears, and a perpetual scowl.

  Dad was a purebred, Mom a mongrel, which made us mongrels. No matter how different we might look when we were grown, you could hardly tell the difference between any of us when we were first born. Yingchun was probably the only person who knew which of us came when.

  When your mother brought out some steaming broth with a soup bone for our mother, snowflakes circled her head like white moths. My eyesight hadn’t sharpened to the point where I could see her face clearly, but I had no trouble picking up her unique odor, that of toon tree leaves rubbed together. Not even the smell of the pork bone could overwhelm it. My mother cautiously lapped up the broth while your mother swept the snow off our roof. That let in plenty of daylight and plenty of cold air. Wanting to do something good for us, she’d actually managed to do just the opposite. Having come from peasant stock, how could she not know that snow is a blanket that keeps wheat sprouts warm? She had rich experience in raising children, but was woefully ignorant about nature. But then when she saw that we were nearly frozen to death, she carried us into the house and laid us down on the heated kang.

  “You poor little darlings,” she said.

  She even brought our mother inside, where Lan Lian was feeding kindling into the kang opening. His skin was bronze, and golden lights shone off his white hair. Wearing a thickly padded jacket, he was smoking a pipe like a very contented head of household. Now that peasants had been given land, everyone was an independent farmer, just like the old days. So your father and mother once again were eating together and sleeping together.

  The kang was so warm it quickly drove the chill from our nearly frozen bodies, and as we started moving around, I could tell by looking at my canine brothers and sister what I must have looked like. The same thing had happened back when I’d been reborn as a pig. We were clumsy, covered with fuzz, and cute as hell — I guess. There were four children on the kang with us, all about three years old. A boy and three girls. We were three males and a female.

  “Would you look at that!” your mother exclaimed in happy surprise. “The exact opposite of the children!”

  Lan Lian snorted noncommittally as he took the charred remains of a mantis egg capsule from the kang opening. He cracked it open; inside were two steaming mantis eggs that smelled bad. “Who wet the bed?” he asked. “Whoever did it has to eat these.”

  “I did!” Two of the boys and the girl answered in unison.

  That left one boy who said nothing. He had fleshy ears, big eyes, and a tiny little mouth that made him seem to be pouting. You already know that he was the adopted son of Ximen Jinlong and Huang Huzhu. Word had it that he was the biological son of a pair of high-school students. Jinlong was rich enough to get anything he wanted, and powerful enough to back his wishes up. So a few months before the deal was made, Huzhu began wearing padding around her middle to fake a pregnancy. But the villagers knew. The boy was named Ximen Huan — they called him Huanhuan — and he was the pearl in their palm.

  “The guilty party keeps his mouth shut, his innocent brothers and sister can’t confess fast enough!” Yingchun said as she passed the hot mantis eggs from one hand to the other while blowing on them. Finally, she held them out to Ximen Huan. “Here, Huanhuan, eat them.”

  Ximen Huan took them from his grandmother and, without even looking at them, flung them to the floor. They l
anded in front of our mother, who gobbled them down without a second thought.

  “That child, I don’t know what to say!” Yingchun said to Lan Lian.

  Lan Lian shook his head. “You can always tell where a child comes from.”

  All four children looked curiously at us puppies and reached out to touch us.

  “One apiece, just right,” Yingchun said.

  Four months later, when buds began to appear on the old apricot tree in the front yard, Yingchun said to the four couples — Ximen Jinlong and Huang Huzhu, Ximen Baofeng and Ma Liangcai, Chang Tianhong and Pang Kangmei, and Lan Jiefang and Huang Hezuo:

  “It’s time for you to take your children home with you. That’s why I asked you here. First, since we don’t know how to read or write, I’m afraid that keeping them here will slow their development. Second, we’re getting old. Our hair is white, our eyesight dimmed, and our teeth are loose. Life has been hard on us for many years, and I think we deserve a little time for ourselves. Comrades Chang and Pang, it’s been our good fortune to have your child with us, but Uncle Lan and I’ve talked it over, and we feel that Fenghuang ought to start kindergarten in town.”

  The moment had arrived with all the solemnity of a formal handover ceremony: four little children were lined up on the eastern edge of the kang, four little puppies on the western edge. Yingchun picked up Ximen Huan, kissed him on the cheek, and handed him to Huzhu, who cradled him. Then Yingchun picked up the oldest puppy, rubbed his head, and put him in the arms of Huanhuan. “This is yours, Huanhuan,” she said.

  She then picked up Ma Gaige, planted a kiss on his cheek, and handed him to Baofeng, who cradled him. She picked up the second puppy and put him in Ma Gaige’s arms. “Gaige,” she said, “this is yours.”