Red Sorghum

part of Second Grandma controlled by the loathsome fanciful image of the weasel was suddenly released, and she flung herself like a she-wolf at the Japanese soldier, who deftly met the charge by kicking her in the belly. Although the force was absorbed by the bundle of clothes, the kick sent her reeling up against the thin connecting wall of the bedroom.
    The sobs Little Auntie had been holding back suddenly burst forth, loud and resounding. Second Grandma’s head quickly cleared, and the gaunt Japanese soldier standing in front of her was no longer linked to the phantasm of the weasel. His face was thin, the bridge of his nose high, sharp, and hooked, his eyes black and shiny; he looked like an articulate man of wide experience and considerable learning, someone well read andclever. Second Grandma knelt on the kang and pleaded in a sobbing voice: ‘Mister . . . honourable Commander . . . spare us . . . please spare us. . . . Don’t you have wives and daughters at home . . . sisters . . . ?’
    The ratty pouches on the soldier’s cheeks twitched a couple of times beneath his black eyes. Although he couldn’t have understood Second Grandma’s tearful pleas, he seemed to know what they meant, for she saw his shoulders slump briefly in the din of Little Auntie’s wails. When Second Grandma glanced furtively at the other five Japanese soldiers, their expressions were all different; but she saw an oily-green, watery softness rolling gently beneath the hard crust of malevolence on their faces. Trying hard to maintain their malicious mockery, they stared at the skinny soldier standing on the kang. He quickly looked away; Second Grandma just as quickly sought out his eyes. Gnashing his teeth as though trying to control some deep emotion, he stuck the tip of his glinting bayonet against Little Auntie’s open mouth.
    ‘You, drop your pants! You, drop your pants!’ He spoke Chinese as though his tongue were petrified.
    At that moment Second Grandma began to crumple under the spell of the weasel again; she saw the Japanese soldier standing on her kang as a gentle, bookish man one instant and the spitting image of the black-mouthed weasel the next. She was racked by loud, spasmodic sobs. The tip of the bayonet was nearly buried in Little Auntie’s mouth. A rush of concern for her young and a total disregard for her own well-being snapped her back to her senses. She quickly took off her pants, her underpants, and her shirt, then lay back and said resolutely, ‘Come on, come on and do it! But don’t touch my child! Don’t you touch my child!’
    The Japanese soldier on the kang withdrew his bayonet and dropped his weary arms. Second Grandma lay there, her naked body the burnt, aromatic colour of fried sorghum. A radiant, almost magical ray of sunlight shone between her legs, as though illuminating an ancient, beautiful myth or legend, a fairy grotto, the kindly yet majestic eye of God. As the Japanese gazed at the path through which all mankind must pass, at the same organ possessed by their own loved ones, their eyesglazed over and their faces hardened, like six clay statues. Second Grandma waited for them, her mind a grey void.
    I sometimes wonder if Second Grandma might have avoided being ravaged if it had only been one Japanese soldier facing her splendid naked body that day. I doubt it, for a sole virile beast in human form, freed of the need to act like a performing monkey, might have been even more frenzied, shedding his handsomely embroidered uniform and pouncing on her like a wild animal. Under normal circumstances, it is the power of morality that keeps the beast in us hidden beneath a pretty exterior. A stable, peaceful society is the training ground for humanity, just as caged animals, removed from the violent unpredictability of the wild, are influenced by the behaviour of their captors in time. Do you agree? Yes? No? Well, say it, yes or no? If I weren’t a man myself, and if I were holding the sword of vengeance in my hand, I’d slaughter every last man on earth! If there had been just one Japanese soldier facing Second Grandma’s naked body that day, maybe he would have thought of his mother or his wife, and left quietly. What do you think?
    The six soldiers didn’t budge. They were gazing upon Second Grandma’s naked body as though it were a sacrificial offering. None was willing to leave; none dared to. She lay outstretched like a huge dogfish baking under a blazing sun. Little