Red Sorghum

three days? The old lady must have rotted by now!’
    ‘Is there anything else?’ Passion asked him.
    He lowered his head and, after a pensive moment, said, ‘No, that’s all.’
    Passion bit her lip again, smiled, and walked out, wiggling her hips.
    Darkness returned to the room, and the grey curtain of rain beyond the window was thicker and heavier than ever.
    Passion walked back in and leaned up against the door frame, watching Granddad through misty eyes. He felt the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands began to sweat.
    ‘What do you want?’
    She smiled demurely. The room was once again filled with golden light.
    ‘Do you feel like drinking?’ Passion asked him.
    ‘Will you join me?’
    ‘All right.’
    She brought in a decanter of wine and sliced some salted eggs.
    Outside, the rain beat like thunder, and a chilling air seeped in through the window, causing Granddad’s nearly naked body to shudder.
    ‘Cold?’ Passion asked disdainfully.
    ‘I’m hot!’ he fired back testily.
    She filled two bowls with wine, kept one, and handed him the other.
    After tossing their empty bowls onto the kang, they just gazed at each other. Two blue flames danced in the golden glow in the room. The golden flames singed his body, the blue flames singed his heart.
    ‘A noble man gets his revenge, even if it takes ten years!’ Granddad said icily as he shoved his pistol into its holster.
    Black Eye straightened up and walked from the dike down to Grandma’s grave. He circled it once, kicked the earth, and sighed. ‘People live but a generation, and grass dies each autumn! Old Yu, the Iron Society is going to fight the Japanese. Join us!’
    ‘Join a superstitious society like yours?’ Granddad sneered.
    ‘Don’t get on your high horse! The Iron Society is protected by the gods. Heaven smiles on us and the people trust us. Being asked to join is an honour.’ Black Eye stamped his foot at the head of Grandma’s grave and continued: ‘Your black master here is willing to take you on for her sake.’
    ‘I don’t need your damned pity! One of these days, you and I are going to settle things, once and for all. Our business isn’t finished!’
    ‘You don’t scare me!’ Black Eye patted the revolver on his hip. ‘I know how to use one of these, too.’
    A handsome young Iron Society soldier walked down from the dike and stayed his leader’s hand. With modest self-control, he said, ‘Commander Yu, the soldiers of the Iron Society have long respected you, and we’d be honoured if youjoined us in our mission to keep the country whole. We must put aside our squabbles and drive off the Japanese! Individual scores can be settled later.’
    Granddad was intrigued by the man, who reminded him of his own valiant young Adjutant Ren, who had died tragically while cleaning his gun. ‘Are you a member of the Communist Party?’ he asked derisively.
    ‘Not the Communist Party,’ the young man replied, ‘and not the Nationalist Party. I hate them both!’
    ‘I like your spirit!’ Granddad said approvingly.
    ‘They call me Five Troubles.’
    ‘I’ll remember that,’ Granddad said.
    Father had been standing motionless beside Granddad for a long time, gazing curiously at the shaved foreheads of the Iron Society soldiers. That was their identifying mark, but its significance escaped him.

6
    PASSION AND MY Granddad made wild love for three days and nights, until her already thick lips were puffy and swollen. Trickles of blood seeped into the cracks between her teeth, and when Granddad kissed her, the taste of blood nearly drove him crazy. The rain didn’t let up during those three days, and when the blue-and-gold light vanished from the room, the rustling of grey-green sorghum, the watery croaks of frogs, and the nibbling sounds of wild rabbits came on the air from the fields. The chilled, fetid air was saturated with a thousand smells.
    When Granddad awoke on the morning of the fourth day, he looked at Passion lying beside him and discovered how gaunt and bony she had become; her closed eyes were rimmed with dark-purple circles, her thick lips were cracked and peeling. Hearing the loud crash of a house collapsing somewhere in the village, he quickly dressed and stumbled down off the kang, only to fall flat on his face; he was stunned. As he layon the floor, his stomach rumbled from hunger. Managing to get to his feet, he called out weakly for the woman Liu. No answer. He went into the room that Passion