Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

her.
    “Get the hell up!” he cursed. “Quit faking!”
    I felt a blue flame blaze up inside my head and pawed the ground out of anxiety and rage. I could sense the heavy hearts among the villagers in the compound as the atmosphere turned forlorn. Ximen Nao’s wife was sobbing. She arched her back and tried to get up by supporting herself with her hands. She looked like a wounded frog.
    As Yang Qi swung his foot back for another kick, Hong Taiyue called him to a halt from the steps:
    “What are you doing, Yang Qi? After all these years since Liberation, you are smearing mud on the face of the Communist Party by the way you curse and hit people!”
    The mortified Yang Qi stood there, rubbing his hands and mumbling to himself.
    Hong Taiyue came down the steps and walked up to where Ximen Bai lay on the ground. He bent down and helped her up, but her legs buckled as she tried to go down on her knees.
    “Village Head,” she sobbed, “spare me, I honestly know nothing. Please, Village Head, spare the life of this lowly dog . . .
    “No more of that talk, Ximen Bai,” he said, holding her up so she could not get down on her knees. He looked so obliging, but then he abruptly turned severe. Facing the crowd, he said sternly: “Get out of here! What’s the big idea? What’s there to see? Go on, get out of here!”
    With bowed heads, the people began leaving.
    Spotting a heavyset woman with long, straight hair, Hong signaled to her.
    “Yang Guixiang,” he said, “come over here and help.”
    Yang, a onetime director of the Women’s Relief Society, was now in charge of women’s affairs. She was a cousin of Yang Qi. Happy to assist, she helped Ximen Bai back into the house.
    “Think hard, Ximen Bai, did your husband, Ximen Nao, bury this urn? And while you’re thinking about that, what else did he bury? Tell us, there’s nothing to be afraid of, since you’ve done nothing wrong. Ximen Nao is the guilty one.”
    Sounds of torture emerged from the main house and assailed my ears, which were standing straight up. At this moment, Ximen Nao and the donkey were one and the same. I was Ximen Nao, Ximen Nao was now a donkey, I was Ximen Donkey.
    “I honestly don’t know, Village Chief. That place isn’t my family’s land, and if my husband wanted to bury something, he wouldn’t bury it there. . . .”
    “Smack!” Someone banged the table with the flat of his hand.
    “Hang her up if she won’t tell!”
    “Squeeze her fingers!”
    My wife wailed pitifully, begging for her life.
    “Think hard, Ximen Bai. Ximen Nao is dead, so buried riches cannot do him any good. But if we dig them up, they can make our co-op stronger. There’s nothing to be afraid of, we’ve all been liberated. Our policy is not to beat people, and we’re certainly not about to resort to torture. All you have to do is tell us, and I promise I’ll cite you for meritorious service.” I knew that was Hong Taiyue talking.
    My blazing heart filled with sadness, and I felt as if someone was branding me with a red-hot iron or stabbing me with a sharp knife. The sun had set by then and the moon was climbing high in the sky, its chillingly gray beams trickling down onto the ground, the trees, the militiamen’s rifles, and the glittery glazed urn. That urn does not belong to the Ximen family, and besides, we’d never bury our riches in a place like that. It’s where people have died and bombs have exploded, where ghosts congregate, and it would be folly for me to bury anything there. Ours was not the only wealthy family in the village, why were we the only ones you accused with no proof?
    I could stand it no longer, could not bear to hear Ximen Bai cry; it brought pain and guilt feelings. If only I’d treated her better. After bringing Yingchun and Qiuxiang into the house, I never again visited my wife’s bed, leaving a thirty-year-old woman to sleep alone night after night. So she recited sutras and struck the wooden fish, that hollow block of wood with which my mother had beat out a rhythm when she uttered her Buddhist devotionals: clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack ... I reared back, but I was tied to a hitching post, so I sent a tattered basket flying with a kick by my rear hooves. I lunged to one side, I sprang to the other, white-hot brays tore from my throat. That seemed to loosen the reins. I’d freed myself. I charged through the unlocked gate on my way to the middle of the compound, where I heard Jinlong, who was relieving