Red Sorghum

when my granddad died, Father closed his unseeing eyes with his left hand, from which two fingers were missing. Granddad had returned from the desolate Japanese mountains of Hokkaido scarcely able to speak, spitting out each word as though it were a heavy stone. The village held a grand welcoming ceremony in honour of his return, attended by thecounty head. I was barely two at the time, but I recall seeing eight tables beneath the gingko tree at the head of the village set with jugs of wine and dozens of white ceramic bowls. The county head picked up a jug and filled one of the bowls, which he handed to Granddad with both hands. ‘Here’s to you, our ageing hero,’ he said. ‘You’ve brought glory to our country!’ Granddad clumsily stood up, and his ashen eyeballs fluttered as he said, ‘Woo – woo – gun – gun.’ I watched him raise the bowl to his lips. His wrinkled neck twitched, and his Adam’s apple slid up and down as he drank. Most of the wine ran down his chin and onto his chest instead of sliding down his throat.
    I recall our walks in the field; he held my hand and I led a little black dog with my other hand. His favourite spot was the bridgehead over the Black Water River, where he would stand supporting himself on one of the stone pillars for most of the morning or most of the afternoon, staring at the bullet holes on the bridge stones. When the sorghum was tall, he would take me into the field to a spot not far from the bridge. I suspected that was where Grandma had risen to heaven – an ordinary piece of black earth stained by her blood. That was before they tore down our old home.
    One day Granddad picked up a hoe and began digging beneath a catalpa tree. He picked up some cicada larvae and handed them to me. I tossed them to the dog, who chewed them up without swallowing them. ‘What are you digging for, Dad?’ asked my mother, who was anxious to go to the dining hall. He looked up at her with a gaze that seemed to belong to another world. She walked off, and he returned to his digging. When he’d dug a pretty deep hole, he cut through a dozen or so roots of varying thicknesses and removed a flagstone, then took a misshapen tin box out of an old, dark brick kiln. It crumbled when it fell to the ground, revealing a long, rusty metal object taller than me, which was showing through the rotting cloth wrapping. I asked what it was. ‘Woo – woo – gun – gun,’ he said.
    Granddad laid the rifle on the ground to soak up the sun, then sat down in front of it, his eyes open one minute and closed the next, over and over and over. Finally, he got to his feet, picked up an axe, and began chopping up the rifle. Whenit was no more than a pile of twisted metal, he took the pieces and scattered them wildly around the yard.
    ‘Dad, is Mom dead?’ Father asked.
    Granddad nodded.
    ‘Dad!’ Father shrieked.
    Granddad stroked Father’s head, then drew a small sword from his hip and chopped down enough sorghum to cover Grandma’s body.
    A blast of gunfire erupted on the southern dike, followed by sanguinary shouts and the sound of exploding grenades. Granddad dragged Father over to the bridgehead.
    At least a hundred soldiers in grey uniforms burst from the field south of the bridge, driving a dozen or so Jap soldiers onto the dike, where they were cut down by bullets or run through with bayonets. Father saw Detachment Leader Leng, a holstered revolver hanging from his wide leather belt, surrounded by several burly bodyguards. His troops were flanking the burning trucks and heading west. The sight drew a strange laugh from Granddad, who planted his feet at the bridgehead, pistol in hand, and just stood there.
    Detachment Leader Leng swaggered up. ‘You fought a good fight, Commander Yu!’
    ‘You son of a bitch!’ Granddad spat out.
    ‘We almost made it in time, good brother!’
    ‘You son of a bitch!’
    ‘You’d be done for it if we hadn’t arrived!’
    ‘You son of a bitch!’
    Granddad aimed his pistol at Detachment Leader Leng, who flashed a signal with his eyes. Two ferocious bodyguards quickly forced Granddad’s arm down. Father raised his Browning and fired into the ass of the man holding Granddad’s arm.
    The other guard sent Father reeling with a kick, then stepped on his wrist, bent down, and picked up the Browning.
    The bodyguards tied up Granddad and Father.
    ‘Pocky Leng, open your dog eyes and take a look at my men!’
    The dikes on both sides of the road were