Red Sorghum

Adjutant Ren nodded. ‘He did himself proud!’ He stuck his pistol into his belt and strode into the village.
    Father watched Commander Yu slowly raise his weapon and aim it at Adjutant Ren’s retreating back. The funeral party was stunned, but no one made a sound. Adjutant Ren, unaware of what was happening, strode confidently into the village, the bright yellow gear-wheel in the sky shining in his face. Father saw the pistol jerk once, but the explosion was so weak and so distant he wasn’t sure he heard it. He watched the bullet’s low trajectory as it parted Adjutant Ren’s shiny black hair before moving on. Without so much as turning his head or breaking stride, Adjutant Ren continued on into the village.
    The sound of whistling drifted towards Father’s ears. It was the familiar sound of ‘The sorghum is red, the sorghum is red!’ Hot tears filled his eyes. The receding figure of Adjutant Ren grew larger and larger. Commander Yu fired another shot; this time it was so loud it rocked the earth and startled the heavens. Father saw the bullet’s flight and heard the explosion at the same time. The bullet struck a sorghum plant, severing its head, which was shattered by a second bullet as it settled slowly to the ground. Father was vaguely aware that Adjutant Ren bent over and plucked the yellow blossom from a bitter-weed at the roadside, then held it up to his nose and savoured its fragrance for a long time.
    Father told me that Adjutant Ren was a rarity, a true hero; unfortunately, heroes are fated to die young. Three months after he had walked so proudly away from the heroic gathering, his Browning pistol went off while he was cleaning it and killed him. The bullet entered his right eye and exited through his right ear, leaving half of his face covered with a metallic blue powder. A mere three or four drops of blood seeped out ofhis right ear, and by the time the people who heard the shot had rushed over, he was lying dead on the ground.
    Wordlessly, Commander Yu picked up Adjutant Ren’s Browning pistol.

7
    GRANDMA, CARRYING BASKETS of fistcakes on the pole over her shoulder, and Wang Wenyi’s wife, carrying two pails of mungbean soup, rushed towards the bridge across the Black Water River. Though they had planned at first to head southeast through the sorghum field, they found the going too hard. ‘Let’s take the road, Sister-in-Law,’ Grandma suggested. ‘The long way round is fastest.’
    They were like high-flying birds making good headway through the open sky. Grandma had put on a scarlet jacket and oiled her hair until it glistened like ebony. Wang’s wife, a vigorous but diminutive woman, was nimble on her feet. Back when Commander Yu was recruiting troops, she had brought Wenyi over to the house and asked Grandma to speak to Commander Yu to sign him up as a guerrilla. Grandma had promised she would, and Commander Yu had taken him on for her sake.
    ‘Are you afraid of dying?’ Commander Yu had asked him.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘When he says yes he means no, Commander,’ Wang’s wife had explained. ‘Japanese planes bombed our three sons into pulp.’
    Wang Wenyi was not cut out to be a soldier. His reactions were slow, and he couldn’t tell his right from his left. During marching drills on the parade ground, he was hit by Adjutant Ren more times than you could count. His wife had an idea: he would carry a sorghum stem in his right hand, so when he heard a right-turn command he’d turn in that direction. Since he had no weapon, Grandma gave him our fowling piece.
    When the women reached the bank of the twisting Black Water River they headed south, without stopping to enjoy the chrysanthemums on the bank or the dense thickets of blood-red sorghum beyond it. Wang Wenyi’s wife had lived a life of suffering, Grandma one of privilege. Grandma was drenched with sweat, Wang Wenyi’s wife was as dry as a bone.
    Father had since returned to the bridgehead, where he reported to Commander Yu that the fistcakes would be there soon. Commander Yu patted him on the head for a job well done. Most of the soldiers lay around the sorghum field, soaking up the sun. Growing fidgety with impatience, Father strolled over to the field west of the road to see what Mute and his troops were up to. Mute was still honing his knife, so Father stopped in front of him, his hand resting on the Browning at his belt, a victor’s smile on his face. Mute looked up and grinned broadly.
    Father presumed that the four