Pow!

ticket-collector was waiting, her arms crossed, next to the gate at the platform.

    As the train rumbled up it sent a shudder through the floor. The next thing I heard was a long, shrill whistle, and an old steam engine suddenly loomed up behind the gate, belching thick black smoke as it clanked its way into the station.

    As soon as the woman opened the gate to punch the tickets, the line surged forward, like under-chewed meat hurrying down your throat. Before I knew it, it was Father's turn—this was it. Once he went through the gate, he'd disappear from my life forever.

    I was standing no more than fifteen feet from him. As he handed the crumpled ticket to the woman, I shouted at the top of my lungs: ‘Dieh—’

    Father's shoulders jerked, as if he'd been shot. But still he refused to turn. Snowflakes blown in through the gate by a northern breeze stuck to him as if he were a dead tree.

    The ticket-collector eyed Father suspiciously, then turned to me with a strange look. Then she squinted at the ticket he'd handed her, examining it front and back as if it were counterfeit.

    Much later, no matter how hard I try, I can never recall exactly how Mother materialized in front of me. She still held the pig's head, white with a tinge of red, in her left hand, while she pointed assertively at Father's shiny back with her right. Somewhere along the line she'd undone the buttons of her blue corduroy overcoat; the red polyester turtleneck sweater peeked out from underneath. That image has stuck with me all these years and always gives way to mixed feelings. ‘Luo Tong,’ she began, pointing at his back, ‘you son of a bitch, what kind of a man walks out on his family like that?’

    If a moment before my shout hit Father like a bullet in the back, then Mother's angry outburst was like the spray from a machine gun. I saw his shoulders begin to quake and Jiaojiao, who had been secretly watching me with her dark little eyes, tucked her head deeper in his arms.

    With a dramatic gesture, the ticket-collector punched Father's ticket and then stuffed it into his hand. Out on the platform, passengers were disembarking from the train, like beetles rolling their precious dung, threading their way past lines of people impatient to board. With a barely concealed smirk, the ticket-collector looked at Mother, then at me and then finally at Father. Only she could see his face. The canvas bag, to which his enamel mug was attached, slipped off his shoulder, forcing him to reach out and grab the strap. Mother chose that moment to fire a lethal salvo: ‘Go, then, just go! What kind of man are you? If you had an ounce of pride, you'd walk off holding your head high and not slink away like a dog to that bitch of yours! You obviously don't have an ounce of pride, or you wouldn't have come back this time. And not just come back, but laden with excuses and apologies. A few unkind words and you crumple, is that it? Did you give a single thought over the past few years to how your wife and child were getting along? Do you even care that they've suffered things no human being should be put through? Luo Tong, you are a heartless bastard, and any woman who falls into your hands is fated to wind up just like me—’

    ‘That's enough!’ Father spun round. His face was the colour of clay tiles that never see the sun; his scraggly beard like frost on those tiles. But he'd no sooner spun round than his body, displaying some momentary vigour, shrank back in on itself, and he said again—‘That's enough’—but this time in a shaky voice that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his throat.

    Out on the platform, a whistle jogged the ticket-collector back to life.

    ‘The train's departing,’ she shouted, ‘it's about to leave the station. Are you going or aren't you? What's your problem?’

    Father turned back, again with difficulty, and stumbled forward. The bag slipped off his shoulder but this time he didn't care if it dragged along the floor like a cow's stomach stuffed with rotting grass.

    ‘Hurry!’ the ticket-collector urged.

    ‘Wait!’ Mother shouted. ‘Just wait until the divorce papers are signed. I'm not going to be a straw widow any longer.’ Then, to emphasize her contempt, she said: ‘I'll pay for the ticket.’

    Mother grabbed me by the hand and bravely headed towards the exit. I could hear her crying, though she tried to stifle the sobs. When she let go of my hand to open the door, I looked back, and there was