Pow!

couldn't help but hear them talk. I even covered my head with the comforter to keep out the conversation but every word made its way into my ears.

    ‘A heavy snowfall will guarantee a good harvest next year,’ said Father.

    ‘You ought to let some new thoughts into your head,’ Mother said coolly. ‘Farmers are different these days. They used to live off what they planted in the ground. It all depended on how the old master in the sky felt about things. Good winds and plenty of rain meant a bumper crop—buns in the pot and meat in their bowls. Bad winds and no rain meant soup in the pot and husks in their bowls. But things have changed. No one's fool enough to work the fields. Drenching ten acres of land with your sweat can't bring in as much as selling one pigskin…but why am I telling you this?’

    ‘Someone has to work the farms…’ Father mumbled under his breath. ‘That's what a farmer does.’

    ‘I do believe the sun is rising in the west,’ Mother said, mocking him. ‘You hardly ever went out into the field when you were home. Are you planning to become a farmer now that you're back?’

    ‘Farming's all I know,’ said Father, clearly embarrassed. ‘There's no more need for someone to rate cattle. Or I can go out collecting rubbish with you.’

    ‘I won't let you do that,’ she said. ‘You're not cut out for that kind of work. Rubbish collecting is for people with no sense of shame, no face at all. It's halfway between robbing and stealing.’

    ‘After the life I've led, how much face can I have left? If you can do it, so can I.’

    ‘I'm not a brainless woman,’ she said. ‘You're back and we've got a house, so Xiaotong and I won't go out any more. If you want to leave I won't stop you. It doesn't make sense to keep someone around who doesn't want to be there. It's better for someone like that to just leave…’

    ‘I said what I wanted to say earlier today, in front of the children,’ Father said. ‘I didn't do well. A poor man is short on ambition. A skinny horse has long hair. I came looking for you with a dogskin round my head, and I'm grateful you took me back. We are, after all, husband and wife. Like a bone and a tendon—if you break the bone, it's still connected to the tendon.’

    ‘You've accomplished something. If nothing else,’ said Mother, ‘since you've been away you've learnt how to sweet-talk a person…’

    ‘Yuzhen.’ Father's voice softened. ‘I owe you. From now on, I'll pay you back if I have to be your slave.’

    ‘We'll see who's the slave,’ Mother said. ‘How do I know you won't run off with another Wild Mule one of these days?’

    ‘Why must you hit me where it hurts?’

    ‘You think you know pain?’ Mother's anger boiled over. ‘I don't mean as much to you as one of her toes…’ She was crying now. ‘Do you know how many times I threw a rope over the rafters? If it hadn't been for Xiaotong—even if there'd been ten Yuzhens, they'd all be dead now.’

    ‘I know…’ The words were spoken with difficulty. ‘There's nothing worse than what I did to you. I don't deserve to live.’

    He probably reached out and touched her then, because I heard her growl: ‘Don't you lay a hand on me…’ But from what she said next, I knew he didn't move his hand: ‘Go grope her. What good does it do you to grope an old hag like me?’

    The strong odour of cooking meat flooded into my room through the slightly open door.

POW! 16

    A large truck converted into a float is at the head of a line of marchers from East City. The front is decorated with an enormous cream-coloured laughing cow's head. Of course I know how absurd that is. All the animal images at the Carnivore Festival are emblematic of the bloody business of butchering. In my life I've seen more than my share of grievous looks on the faces of animals just before they're slaughtered, and have heard more than my share of plaintive cries. I know that people these days promote humane slaughter methods, bathing the animals with warm water, playing soft music, even giving them full-body massages to hypnotize them, all by way of a prelude to the knife. I once saw a TV show that promoted these humane methods, hailing them as a major advance for humanity. Human beings have extended the concept of benevolence to the animal world but continue to invent and manufacture powerful, cruel weapons for the excruciating death of humans. The more powerful, the more lethal the weapon, the greater