Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

bright-colored pheasant clucked as it dragged its tail feathers along the ground and flapped its wings, quickly flying off into the brush behind a deserted graveyard. After skirting the two buildings that had once housed the generator, we reached a dense grove with dozens of apricot trees so big around it took two people to circle it with their arms. The canopies formed a virtually seamless cover high above us. There were red flowers, pink ones, and white ones, and from a distance they took on the appearance of clouds. Owing to the complex root systems of these enormous trees and the villagers’ reverence for big trees, this grove had been spared during the 1958 iron-smelting campaign and the pig-raising disaster of 1972. I’d personally seen Ximen Jinlong and Huang Huzhu choose an old tree whose trunk leaned slightly to one side and climb it like a couple of squirrels. But now there was no sign of them. A breeze rose up and set the upper branches in motion. The petals of fragile flowers rained down on the ground like snowflakes, forming a layer of what looked like fine jade. “I asked you what you want to show me,” Lan Jiefang repeated, this time much louder, as he balled up his fists. In Ximen Village, in fact, throughout Northeast Gaomi Township, the blue-faced father and son were famed for their stubbornness and bad temper, so I had to be careful not to provoke this youngster. “With my own eyes I saw them climb the tree—” “Saw who?” “Jinlong and Huzhu!” Jiefang thrust out his neck, the way he might if an invisible fist had landed on his chest, right above the heart. Then his ears twitched and the sun’s rays danced on the blue half of his face, lighting it up like jade. He seemed hesitant for some reason, struggling to make up his mind, but in the end a devilish force propelled him in the direction of the tree ... he looked up . . . half his face like blue jade ... he let loose with a loud wail and threw himself down on the ground . . . flower petals rained down as if to bury him. .. . Ximen Village apricot blossoms are renowned far and wide; in the 1990s city folk arrived by car every spring, children in tow, just to admire the apricot blossoms.
    At the end of the essay, Mo Yan wrote:
    I never imagined this incident would cause Lan Jiefang such anguish. People came out to pick him up and carry him back to his kang. They pried open his teeth with a chopstick and poured some ginger water into his mouth to revive him. What in the world did he see up there in the tree, they asked me, that could put a spell on him like this? I said that the boar had taken the little sow called Butterfly Lover up the tree with romance on his mind. . . . That can’t be, they said doubtfully. When Lan Jiefang came to, he rolled around on the kang like a young donkey. His wails sounded like the boar imitating an air-raid alarm. He pounded his chest, pulled his hair, clawed at his eyes, and scratched his cheeks.... Some kind-hearted people had no choice but to tie his arms to keep him from doing serious injury to himself.
    I couldn’t wait to tell people all about the celestial beauty of the sun and the moon, as they vied to outshine each other, but was stopped from doing so by Lan Jiefang, who, having lost his mind, threw the pig farm into sheer chaos. Party Secretary Hong, who had just gotten out of a sickbed, came as soon as he heard. He walked with a cane, his pallor, sunken eyes, and chin stubble showing the effects of an illness serious enough to turn a hard-as-nails member of the Communist Party into an old man. He stood at the head of the kang and banged on the floor with his cane, as if hoping to strike water. The harsh light made him look even more sickly and turned the face of Lan Jiefang, who was lying on the kang wailing, piteously hideous.
    “Where’s Jinlong?” Hong asked, the tone showing his frustration.
    The people in the room exchanged glances, apparently unaware of what had happened to him. Finally it was left to Mo Yan to answer timorously:
    “Probably in the generator room.”
    The comment reminded everyone that this was the first time they’d had electricity since the generator had been shut down the previous winter, and they were puzzled over what Jinlong was up to.
    “Go get him.”
    Mo Yan slipped out of the room like a slippery mouse.
    At about that time I heard the sad sounds of a woman crying out on the street. My heart nearly stopped, and my brain froze. What happened next came