Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

faces a mixture of excitement and anxiety. They couldn’t eat, not yet, because Hong Taiyue was holding forth from behind the tables. Some of the younger — and hungrier — children sneaked bits of oil fritters when no one was looking.
    “Comrade Commune Members, tonight we are celebrating the marriages of Lan Jinlong and Huang Huzhu and Lan Jiefang and Huang Hezuo, outstanding youth of the Ximen Village Production Brigade who made great contributions to the construction of our pig farm. They are model revolutionary workers and models for our program of late marriages, so let’s congratulate them with a round of applause. . . .”
    I was hiding behind the pile of rotting wood, quietly watching the ceremony. Jinlong and Huzhu sat on benches to the left of the tables, Jiefang and Hezuo to the right. Huang Tong and Qiuxiang sat at the end closest to me, so all I could see were their backs. The place of honor, at the far end, was where Hong Taiyue, the speaker, stood. Yingchun sat with her head down, making it impossible to tell if she was happy or sad. Seeing her with mixed emotions at this moment struck me as perfectly reasonable, and that was when it dawned on me that one very important individual was missing at the head table. Who? Why, Northeast Gaomi Township’s celebrated independent farmer, of course, Lan Lian. He was, after all, your biological father, Jiefang, and Jinlong’s nominal father. Jinlong’s formal surname was Lan, after your father. How could a father not be present when both his sons are to be married?
    During my days as a donkey and an ox, I was in almost daily contact with Lan Lian. But after I returned as a pig, my old friend and I were estranged. Thoughts of the past flooded my mind, and the desire to see Lan Lian again began to sprout. As Hong Taiyue was nearing the end of his speech, three riders rode up to the banquet on their bicycles, preceded by the ringing of bells. Who were these people? One had once been in charge of the Supply and Marketing Co-op, but was now director and Party secretary of Cotton Processing Plant Number Five, Pang Hu. Accompanying him was his wife, Wang Leyun, someone I hadn’t seen in years. She had gotten so fat, all the curves had disappeared. Her face was ruddy, the skin glossy, testimony to the good life. The third rider, a young tall, svelte young woman, I recognized immediately as Pang Kangmei, a character in one of Mo Yan’s stories, the girl who nearly came into the world in some roadside weeds. Wearing her hair in two short braids, she had on a red-checked shirt on which was pinned a white badge with “Farm Academy” in red letters. Pang Kangmei was a student specializing in animal husbandry at the “Farm Academy” attached to the Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers University. Standing straight as a poplar tree, she was half a head taller than her father and a whole head taller than her mother. She wore a reserved smile. She had every reason to look reserved: any young woman born into a family of such envious social status was as unattainable as the Lady in the Moon. As Mo Yan’s dream girl, she appeared in much of his fiction, a long-legged beauty whose name changed from story to story. All three members of the family had made a special trip to attend your wedding.
    “Congratulations! Congratulations!” Pang Hu and Wang Leyun said with broad smiles, offering their best wishes to all.
    “Oh, my, oh, my.” Hong Taiyue interrupted his speech and jumped down off of the bench he was standing on. He ran up and enthusiastically shook Pang Hu’s hand. “Director Pang,” he blurted out emotionally, “no, what I mean is, Secretary Pang, Manager Pang, you honor us with your presence! We heard you’d assumed factory leadership and we didn’t wish to disturb you.”
    “Old Hong, I thought we were friends,” Pang Hu said with a laugh. “Holding a momentous wedding in the village without letting us know. You weren’t afraid I’d come and drink up all the wedding liquor, were you?”
    “Not at all. We were afraid that such an honored guest wouldn’t come even if we sent an eight-man sedan chair to bring you here. For Ximen Village, your presence here today—”
    “Your gracious presence lends glitter to our humble surroundings,” Mo Yan proclaimed loudly from his seat at the end of the first row, a comment that not only caught the attention of Pang Hu, but of his daughter, Kangmei, as well. Raising her eyebrows in surprise, she fixed Mo Yan