Red Sorghum

white sacks; the one bringing up the rear, like the one in front, was loaded with twenty or more Japanese soldiers.
    They had nearly reached the dike, and their tyres, spinning more slowly now, appeared swollen and awkward. The square nose of the lead truck reminded Father of the head of an enormous locust. As the yellow dust began to settle, loud farts created a dark-blue mist at the rear.
    Father scrunched his head down as a chill the likes of which he’d never known worked its way up from his feet to his belly. He shifted his buttocks back and forth to keep from wetting his pants. ‘Don’t move, you little shit!’ Commander Yu complained sternly.
    Feeling as though his bladder were about to burst, Father got permission to crawl down and pee.
    Once he had retreated into the sorghum field he released a mighty stream the colour of red sorghum, which stung the head of his pecker as it gushed forth. Enormously relieved when he had finished, he glanced casually at the guerrillas’ faces, whose expressions made them appear as malevolent and scary as temple icons. Wang Wenyi’s tongue poked out between his lips; his staring eyeballs seemed frozen, like a lizard’s.
    The trucks, huge beasts on the prowl, held their breath asthey crept forward. Something aromatic struck Father’s nostrils. Just then Grandma, in her sweat-stained red silk jacket, and the panting wife of Wang Wenyi appeared on the dike of the meandering Black Water River.
    Grandma with her baskets of fistcakes and Wang Wenyi’s wife with her pails of mung-bean soup gazed at the miserable stone bridge across the Black Water River, feeling very much at ease. Grandma turned to Wang’s wife and said with relief, ‘We made it, Sister-in-Law.’ Ever since her marriage, Grandma had lived a life of ease and comfort and the carrying pole, with its heavy load of fistcakes, dug deeply into her delicate shoulder, leaving a dark-purple bruise that would accompany her as she departed this world and travelled to the kingdom of heaven. The bruise would be the glorious symbol of a heroic figure from the war of resistance.
    Father was the first to see her. While the others were following the slow progress of the trucks with unblinking eyes, some secret force told him to look to the west, where he spotted her floating towards them like a gorgeous red butterfly. ‘Mom –’
    His shout was like a command: a hail of bullets tore through the air from three machine guns mounted on the Japanese trucks. The sound was dull and muted, like the gloomy barking of dogs on a rainy night. Father watched as two shells opened holes in the breast of Grandma’s jacket. She cried out in ecstasy, then crumpled to the ground, her carrying pole falling across her back. One of the baskets of fistcakes rolled down the southern slope of the dike, the other down the northern slope. Snow-white cakes, green onions, and diced eggs were scattered in the grass on both sides of the dike.
    After Grandma fell, a mixture of red and yellow fluid from the boxy skull of Wang Wenyi’s wife sprayed the area all the way to the sorghum stalks beside the dike. Father watched the diminutive woman stagger backward as the bullet hit her, then topple down the southern slope of the dike and roll into the water. The contents of one pail of mung-bean soup spilled onto the ground, followed by the second, like the blood of heroes. The first pail clanked down the dike into the Black Water River, then bobbed to the surface. It floated down past Mute,banged one or two times into a stanchion, then was picked up by the current and carried past Commander Yu, past my father, past Wang Wenyi, past Fang Six and Fang Seven.
    ‘Mom –’ Father screamed as though his guts were being ripped out as he leaped to the top of the dike. Commander Yu tried to grab him, but was too late. ‘Come back here!’ he bellowed. Father didn’t hear the command, he didn’t hear anything. His skinny little frame flew along the narrow ridge of the dike, shimmering in the sun’s rays. He threw down his Browning pistol, which landed amid the torn leaves of a golden bitterweed. He ran like the wind, his arms thrust out in front like wings, as he ran towards Grandma. The dike was still, but dust swirled noisily; the glimmering water stopped flowing. The sorghum beyond the dike remained dignified and solemn. Father was still running along the dike: Father was a giant, Father was magnificent, Father was gorgeous. He screamed at the top of his