Red Sorghum

rowdies capable of anything, no matter how depraved.
    They began rocking the chair so violently that poor Grandma couldn’t keep her seat without holding on tight.
    ‘No answer? Okay, rock! If we can’t shake any words loose, we can at least shake the piss out of her!’
    The sedan chair was like a dinghy tossed about by the waves, and Grandma held on to the wooden seat for dear life. The two eggs she’d eaten for breakfast churned in her stomach, the flies buzzed around her ears; her throat tightened, as the taste of eggs surged up into her mouth. She bit her lip. Don’t throw up, don’t let yourself throw up! she commanded herself. You mustn’t let yourself throw up, Fenglian. They say throwing up in the bridal chair means a lifetime of bad luck. . . .
    The bearers’ banter turned coarse. One of them reviled my great-granddad for being a money-grabber, another said something about a pretty flower stuck into a pile of cowshit, a third called Shan Bianlang a scruffy leper who oozed pus and excreted yellow fluids. He said the stench of rotten flesh drifted beyond the Shan compound, which swarmed with horseflies. . . .
    ‘Little bride, if you let Shan Bianlang touch you, your skin will rot away!’
    As the horns and woodwinds blared and tooted, the taste of eggs grew stronger, forcing Grandma to bite down hard on her lip. But to no avail. She opened her mouth and spewed a stream of filth, soiling the curtain, towards which the five flies dashed as though shot from a gun.
    ‘Puke-ah, puke-ah. Keep rocking!’ one of the bearersroared. ‘Keep rocking. Sooner or later she’ll have to say something.’
    ‘Elder brothers . . . spare me . . .’ Grandma pleaded desperately between agonising retches. Then she burst into tears. She felt humiliated; she could sense the perils of her future, knowing she’d spend the rest of her life drowning in a sea of bitterness. Oh, Father, oh, Mother. I have been destroyed by a miserly father and a heartless mother!
    Grandma’s piteous wails made the sorghum quake. The bearers stopped rocking the chair and calmed the raging sea. The musicians lowered the instruments from their rousing lips, so that only Grandma’s sobs could be heard, alone with the mournful strains of a single woodwind, whose weeping sounds were more enchanting than any woman’s. Grandma stopped crying at the sound of the woodwind, as though commanded from on high. Her face, suddenly old and desiccated, was pearled with tears. She heard the sound of death in the gentle melancholy of the tune, and smelled its breath; she could see the angel of death, with lips as scarlet as sorghum and a smiling face the colour of golden corn.
    The bearers fell silent and their footsteps grew heavy. The sacrificial choking sounds from inside the chair and the woodwind accompaniment had made them restless and uneasy, had set their souls adrift. No longer did it seem like a wedding procession as they negotiated the dirt road; it was more like a funeral procession. My grandfather, the bearer directly in front of Grandma’s foot, felt a strange premonition blazing inside him and illuminating the path his life would take. The sounds of Grandma’s weeping had awakened seeds of affection that had lain dormant deep in his heart.
    It was time to rest, so the bearers lowered the sedan chair to the ground. Grandma, having cried herself into a daze, didn’t realise that one of her tiny feet was peeking out from beneath the curtain; the sight of that incomparably delicate, lovely thing nearly drove the souls out of the bearers’ bodies. Yu Zhan’ao walked up, leaned over, and gently – very gently – held Grandma’s foot in his hand, as though it were a fledgling whose feathers weren’t yet dry, then eased it back inside the carriage. She was so moved by the gentleness of the deed shecould barely keep from throwing back the curtain to see what sort of man this bearer was, with his large, warm, youthful hand.
    I’ve always believed that marriages are made in heaven and that people fated to be together are connected by an invisible thread. The act of grasping Grandma’s foot triggered a powerful drive in Yu Zhan’ao to forge a new life for himself, and constituted the turning point in his life – and the turning point in hers as well.
    The sedan chair set out again as a trumpet blast rent the air, then drifted off into obscurity. The wind had risen – a northeaster – and clouds were gathering in the sky,