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it there for a long moment. Finally, she looked up. ‘What happened to her?’

    ‘It didn't seem like much,’ he said softly, ‘just a touch of diarrhoea. But that went on for three days, and then she died…’

    The hate on Mother's face was replaced by one of goodwill. But the anger in her voice remained: ‘Retribution, that's what it was, divine retribution!’

    Then she went into the other room, opened a cupboard and brought out a packet of stale biscuits. She tore open the oilpaper wrapping, took some out and handed them to Father. ‘Give them to her,’ she said.

    Father shook his head, refusing to take them.

    Now awkward, Mother laid them on the stove and said: ‘No matter what kind of woman winds up in your arms, a bad life and a cruel death await her. The only reason I'm still alive is that my karma is stronger than yours!’

    ‘I wronged her, and I wronged you.’

    ‘Keep your fine words to yourself, they mean nothing to me. You can talk till the heavens open up, and I still won't share my life with you. A good horse doesn't graze the grass behind it. If you had any backbone, I couldn't keep you here even if I wanted to.’

    ‘Niang,’ I said, ‘let Dieh stay.’

    ‘Aren't you afraid he'll sell the house to feed his face?’ she asked with a snide grin.

    ‘You're right,’ Father said, smiling bitterly, ‘a good horse doesn't graze the grass behind it.’

    ‘Xiaotong,’ Mother turned to me. ‘Let's you and me order some meat and wine at a restaurant. After suffering for five years, we deserve to enjoy ourselves for a change.’

    ‘I won't go,’ I said.

    ‘You little shit! Don't do anything you'll regret.’ Mother turned and walked outside. She'd taken off her sheepskin jacket and her black dogskin cap. Now she was wearing a blue corduroy jacket, and the collar of her red sweater that gave off sparks showed above her jacket. Back straight, head thrown back, she had a spring in her step, like a newly shod mare.

    My anxiety lifted once she passed through the front gate. I picked up one of the baked buns and handed it to the girl, who looked up at Father; he nodded his approval. She took it from me and began eating, big bites followed by little ones.

    Father took out a couple of cigarette butts from his jacket, rolled them both into a torn piece of newsprint and lit it at the stove. Through the blue smoke that emerged from his nostrils, I took note of his grey hair and the oozing chilblains on his ears. I thought back to the times he and I had gone to the threshing ground, where he'd priced the cattle, and to the times he'd taken me to Aunty Wild Mule's house, where I'd been fed plenty of meat, and I was filled with mixed emotions. I turned my back to him to keep from crying.

    Then, out of the blue, I was reminded of our mortar. ‘Dieh,’ I said, ‘we have nothing to fear, no one will ever pick on us again, because we've got a big gun.’

    I ran to the side room, ripped away the carton paper, picked up the heavy base, and, straining mightily, stumbled out into the yard with it in my arms. I set it down carefully in front of the door.

    Father walked out, followed by his daughter.

    ‘Xiaotong, what's this?’

    Without stopping to answer, I ran back into the side room, picked up the heavy tripod, carried it into the yard and laid it beside the base. On my third trip, I carried out the sleek tube, then assembled the whole thing, quickly and expertly, like a trained artilleryman. Then I stepped back and proudly declared: ‘Dieh, you're looking at a powerful Japanese 82 mm mortar!’

    He walked up cautiously to the mortar, bent down and examined it carefully.

    When we'd first accepted the heavy weapon, it had been so rusted it had looked like three hunks of scrap metal. I'd attacked the rust with bricks, knocking off the biggest chunks, then switched to sandpaper and removed it from every inch of the metal, even inside the tube. Finally, I rubbed on several coats of grease, until it recaptured its youth, regained its metallic sheen; now it squatted open-mouthed on the ground, like a lion, ready to roar.

    ‘Dieh,’ I said, ‘look inside the tube.’

    Father turned his attention to the tube as a glare lit up his face. When he looked up, there was a sparkle in his eyes. I could see how excited he was. ‘This is something,’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Really something. Where'd you get it?’

    I shoved my hands into my pockets and pawed the ground as