Sandalwood Death: A Novel (Chinese Literature Today Book Series)

a father on her deathbed, and then he shows up, like he’d dropped out of the sky or popped up out of the ground. What could he possibly be except a ghost?”
    “Go fuck yourself!” Meow meow . I rushed those tongue-wagging bastards with a cleaver. I went without a dieh for more than twenty years, and now, by some miracle, I suddenly have one, and you people have the nerve to say not only that is he not my dieh, but that he’s a ghost. You’re as brazen as rats that’ll lick a cat’s ass. I raised my cleaver and ran at them. Meow meow . With one swing of my cleaver I could chop them in two, from their heads all the way down to their heels. My dieh said that particular chop is called the “big cleave,” and today I’m going to use it on any son of a bitch who has the guts to say my dieh isn’t really my dieh. Well, they nearly shit their pants when they saw the look of rage on my face, and could not get out of there fast enough. Meow meow , watch out, you bunch of long-tailed rats. Provoke my dieh, and you’re asking for trouble. The same goes for me. Meow meow . Come give it a try if you don’t believe me, any of you. My dieh is an executioner who sits in the Emperor’s chair. His Majesty gave him leave to report an execution after it had been carried out, to kill without constraints, man or dog. And when I take my place, knife in hand, at my dieh’s side, I can kill a man as easily as I can butcher a pig or a dog.
    I pleaded with Dieh to tell me another story. He said:
    “Quit dawdling and get things ready. I don’t want you rushing around when it’s time to do our job.”
    I knew that a spectacle was planned for today—spectacles always made for happy days for Dieh and me—and that there would be plenty of time later for stories. Good food needs to be savored. Once the sandalwood death was successfully carried out, Dieh would be in a good mood, and there’d be nothing holding him back from spitting out all the stories he held inside, for my ears alone. I walked out behind the shed to relieve myself—numbers one and two—and took a look around while I was at it. The opera stage and Ascension Platform were there, and I watched a flock of wild pigeons, their wings flapping loudly, fly past in the bright sunlight. The parade ground was surrounded: soldier, wooden post, soldier, wooden post. A dozen cannons hunkered down at the field’s edge. People called them turtle cannons, I called them dog cannons. Turtle cannons, dog cannons, slick and smooth, loud barks, green moss on the turtles’ shells, dogs’ bodies covered with fur, meow meow .
    I retraced my steps to the front of the shed, itching for something to do. I needed a job of some sort. By this time on most days, I’d already have slaughtered the day’s pigs and dogs and hung the carcasses on the a rack, letting the smell of fresh meat join the birds in the sky. Customers would be lined up in front of the shop, while I stood at the butcher block, cleaver in hand to chop off a hunk of the still-warm fatty meat, giving my customers the exact amount they asked for, not an ounce more or an ounce less. They’d give me a thumbs-up. “Xiaojia,” they’d say, “you’re quite the man!” I didn’t need them to tell me that. But this was the first time I was to be part of a spectacle with Dieh, one that was a lot more important than butchering pigs. But what about all those customers? What do we do? Sorry, folks, I guess you’ll have to be vegetarians for a day.
    I was getting bored now that there were no more stories, so I went up to the stove, where the fire had gone out. There were no ripples on the surface of the glistening oil. It was no longer a cauldron of oil, but a mirror, a big bronze mirror, brighter than my wife’s mirror at home, and so clear that I could count the whiskers on my face. There were dried stains in the mud in front of the stove and on the stand—Song Three’s blood. And those weren’t the only places his blood had landed; some had splattered into the cauldron. Was that why the oil had such a bright sheen? After this business of the sandalwood death is done with, I’m going to move this cauldron into the yard back home and let my wife see her face in it, but only if she refrains from mistreating my dieh. Last night I was half asleep when I heard a loud pop. Song Three’s head was buried in the churning oil, and before they could pull it out, it was about half cooked. I got a kick out of that. Meow meow