The Garlic Ballads

in sight, including some green satin curtains, which she pulled down and began tearing to shreds, as if ripping a rival’s hair. “Give me back my husband!” she screamed through her tears. “I want my husband back!”
    While farmers rifled desk drawers, the young fellow put his dumbbell to work smashing the glass top and metal ashtray. The county administrator had cleared out so fast that his cigarette was still smoldering in the ashtray. Spotting a tin of ginseng cigarettes and a box of matches on the desk, the young fellow stuck one of the former between his lips and announced, “I’m going to try out the old magistrate’s throne.” With that he sat down in the county administrator’s rattan chair, leaned back, lit up, and crossed his feet on the desk, looking mighty pleased with himself, as the other farmers rushed up to fight over the remaining cigarettes. Fourth Aunt, who had made a pile of the torn curtains, scrolls, and files, lit a match from the box on the desk and touched it to the satin curtains, which began to burn at once. Amid puffs of smoke, the paper then caught fire, sending tongues of flames snaking up the smashed cabinets by the wall. Falling to her knees, she banged her head on the floor in a kowtow and muttered, “Husband, ? ve avenged your death!”
    The fire quickly spread, forcing the farmers into the hallway. On his way out the door, Gao Yang grabbed Fourth Aunt and yelled, “Run for your life!”
    Dense smoke swirling up and down the hallway indicated that more than one office had been torched. Everything was shaking—the ceiling above and the stairs below. People ran and clawed for their lives. As Gao Yang dragged Fourth Aunt out the entrance, he thought about the black and orange goldfish, but only for a fleeting moment, since with a thousand heads and twice that many legs fighting over limited space, anyone who stumbled was sure to be trampled—already you could hear the screams. Holding Fourth Aunt’s hand in a deathlike grip, he virtually flew out of the compound, past the blurred faces of seven or eight armed policemen.

3.

    “Was it you who led the mob that demolished the county administrator’s office?”
    “Mr. Jailer, I didn’t know it was his office. … I stopped as soon as I found out.” He was on his knees.
    “Sit down like you’re supposed to!” the policeman demanded roughly. “Do you mean to say if it had been somebody else’s office it would have been okay?”
    “Mr. Jailer, I didn’t know what I was doing. I got swept along with the crowd.… I’ve been a model citizen all my life. I’ve never done anything bad.”
    “If you weren’t such a model citizen you’d have torched the State Council Headquarters, I suppose,” the policeman said derisively.
    “1 didn’t start the fire. Fourth Aunt did that.”
    A policewoman handed a sheet of paper to the policeman in the center, who read it aloud. “Is this an accurate statement of what you said, Gao Yang?” he asked. “Yes.”
    “Come over here and sign it.”
    One of the policemen dragged him over to the desk, where the policewoman handed him a pen. His hand shook as he held it. Were there two vertical strokes in “Yang,” or three? “Three,” the policewoman told him.
    “Take him back to his cell.”
    “Mr. Jailer,” Gao Yang fell to his knees again and begged, “I’m afraid to go back there.
    “Why?”
    “Because they gang up on me. Please, Mr. Jailer, put me in another cell!”
    “Let him bunk with the condemned prisoner,” the policeman in the center said to his colleagues.
    “Want to bunk with a condemned man, Number Nine?”
    “Anything, just so you don’t put me back with them!”
    “Okay, but make sure he doesnt try to kill himself. That’ll be your job, for which you’ll get an extra bun at each meal.”

4.

    The condemned man, sallow-faced, clean-shaven, with green eyes that rolled around his sunken sockets, terrified Gao Yang, who was in his new cell only a few seconds before realizing what a terrible mistake he’d made. Except for a single cot, the cell was furnished only with a rotting straw mat. The condemned man, manacled hand and foot, hunkered in the corner and glared menacingly at Gao Yang, who nodded and bowed slightly. “Elder Brother, they sent me to keep you company.”
    The condemned man’s lips split into what passed for a smile. His face was the color of gold foil, and so were his teeth. “Come over here,” he said with a nod.
    Gao Yang was