Red Sorghum

Granddad climbed down slowly and stared at Grandma with bloodshot eyes. The sight frightened Father; Granddad’s eyes reminded him of the cat’s-eye stones on the banks of the Black Water River, whose colours were forever changing.
    ‘Well, you got your wish!’ Granddad snarled at Grandma.
    Not daring to defend herself, she timidly approached the wagon, Father on her heels, and looked into the bed. The folds of the comforter were filled with black earth, revealing the lumpy outlines of whatever was underneath. She picked up a corner, but let it drop as though her fingers were scalded. Father glimpsed Second Grandma’s smashed, pulpy face and Little Auntie’s rigid, open mouth.
    That open mouth called up all sorts of pleasant childhood memories for Father. He’d frequently gone to Saltwater Gap to spend a few days, against Grandma’s wishes. Granddad had told him to call Second Grandma ‘Second Mom,’ and since she treated him like her own son, he thought she was just wonderful. She occupied a special place deep in his heart and seeing her was like coming home. Little Auntie Xiangguan had a mouth as sweet as honey that was forever filling the air with gentle shouts of ‘Elder Brother’. This dark-skinned little sister was one of his favourites, and he was fascinated by the fine, nearly transparent fuzz on her face; most of all he loved her bright eyes, like shiny buttons. Yet, just when they were at the peak of enjoyment, Grandma would send someone over to drag him home, and he would look down at her from his perch in the arms of the messenger on the mule and feel terribly sad. He wondered why Grandma and Second Grandma hated each other so.
    Father thought back to the time he’d gone to weigh the dead baby, a couple of years or so earlier. He’d accompanied Mother to the place called Dead Baby Hollow, some three li beyond thevillage. Since township tradition forbade the burial of babies under the age of five, the tiny corpses were abandoned out in the open. Traditional birthing customs were followed back then, and only the most rudimentary medical treatment was available, so the infant mortality rate was particularly high, and only the strongest survived.
    I sometimes think that there is a link between the decline in humanity and the increase in prosperity and comfort. Prosperity and comfort are what people seek, but the costs to character are often terrifying.
    When Father went to Dead Baby Hollow with Grandma, she was obsessed with the Flower Lottery, a small-scale form of gambling in which you neither fly too high nor fall too hard, which had captivated the villagers, the women in particular; since Granddad was enjoying a stable, prosperous life, the villagers chose him as the society head and banker. Placing the names of thirty-two flowers in a bamboo tube, he publicly drew out two a day, one in the morning and one at night. The herbaceous peony or the Chinese rose, maybe the common rose, maybe the prickly rose. The gambler whose flower was picked earned thirty times the amount she’d bet. Women caught up in the Flower Lottery devised all manner of methods to guess which name Granddad would draw. Some poured wine down their daughters’ throats in anticipation of babbled visions in their drunkenness. Others forced themselves to dream for the answer. Going to Dead Baby Hollow was Grandma’s unique and appalling method.
    It was so dark that Father couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. Grandma had wakened him in the middle of the night, startling him out of a deep slumber and making him feel like screaming at her for frightening him like that. ‘Don’t make a sound,’ she had whispered. ‘Come with me to guess the flowers.’ With his natural curiosity and the promise of a good mystery, Father was immediately awake and eager to go. Quickly putting on their boots and caps, they tiptoed past Granddad and slipped out of the yard and the village. Because they proceeded with caution and walked very quietly, their passage went unnoticed even by the village dogs. Grandma was holding Father’s left hand, leaving his right hand free tocarry a red-paper lantern; she was holding him with her right hand, leaving her left hand free to carry her special scale, on which the names of thirty-two flowers were carved.
    As they walked out of the village Father heard a southeast wind whistling through the sorghum fields and rustling the broad green leaves; he could smell the Black Water River far off in the