Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

the Commune Revolutionary Committee, worked day and night for a week. Happily, it was a slack time in the fields, with no crops in the ground, so there was no interference with village farm work; but it wouldn’t have mattered even had it occurred during the busiest time of the season, since politics came first, production second. Raising pigs was a political enterprise, and politics was everything; all else had to give way to it.
    News of the impending gathering lent a holiday mood to the village. Party secretary Hong Taiyue made the announcement over the loudspeaker, the excitement in his voice bringing villagers out of their houses, even though it was after nine at night, and the “Internationale” had already been played over that same loudspeaker. Normally, at this time, commune members would be in bed, including the newlyweds of the Wang family who lived at the western edge of the village, and who would be having sex about then. But the good news fired up the villagers and introduced a change in their lives. Now why haven’t you asked me how a pig living in a pen in the depths of an apricot grove would know what was going on in the village? Well, I’ll admit that by then I was in the habit of jumping over the wall at night to check out the other pigpens and flirt with the young sows from Mount Yimeng, and then take a risky stroll through the village, so I was privy to all its secrets.
    The commune members paraded up and down the streets with torches in their hands and smiles on their faces. Why were they so happy? Because the village would derive great benefits from becoming a model. The procession ended in the brigade compound, where the people awaited the arrival of the Party secretary and other dignitaries. Hong Taiyue, a jacket draped over his shoulders, stood in the light of the gas lantern and said: Comrade commune members, holding a countywide pig-raising on-site conference in our village demonstrates the Party’s affection for us and, at the same time, is a test of our abilities. We must make every effort in planning for this gathering and take advantage of the east wind it creates to elevate our pig-raising to new heights. We now have only a thousand head, but we must increase that to five thousand, to ten thousand, and then when we reach twenty thousand pigs, we will travel to the capital to report to Chairman Mao!
    The people were in no mood to leave after the Party secretary had spoken, especially young men and women, who were always looking for a way to release their bottled-up energy. They were fired up, ready to climb trees and go down in wells, to commit murder and arson, to fight the imperialists, revisionists, and reactionaries to the death; this was no night for sleeping! The four Sun brothers burst into the office without the Party secretary’s permission and took the cymbals and drums from the desk, where they had gathered dust for a very long time. Mo Yan, who always wanted to be a part of everything and was a real pain most of the time, someone who was not easily shamed and could not care less, led the way by putting the drum on his back; after that the other youngsters furnished themselves with Cultural Revolution banners, and the whole bunch of them formed a loud, colorful procession that wound its way from east to west, then turned and wound its way back from west to east, throwing such a scare into perching crows that they flew off with loud caws. The procession ended in the center of the pig farm. Slightly west of my pen and north of the two hundred pens holding the Mount Yimeng pigs, on the very spot where the wild boar Diao Xiaosan had gotten drunk, Mo Yan recklessly, if boldly, lit a bonfire of limbs and branches of apricot trees left over from construction of the pens. With flames licking upward and creating a sound like gale winds, the unique aroma of burning fruit trees spread throughout the compound. Hong Taiyue was of a mind to chastise Mo Yan until he saw the excitement on the faces of youngsters who danced around the fire and sang at the top of their lungs, so he changed his mind and joined in. The people celebrated boisterously; the pigs were frightened witless. As Mo Yan fed the fire, the flames cast a blinding glow onto his face, giving him the appearance of a freshly painted temple demon. Now, though I hadn’t formally been anointed Pig King, my authority among the pigs was well established. So I rushed up to the rows of pens.
    “Don’t be frightened,” I