The Garlic Ballads

and forth behind him, and the parakeets squawked. Off to the south, in the stinking, weed-infested reservoir, frogs croaked to one another, the mournful sound falling unpleasantly on the ear.
    All this reminded Gao Ma of the night three years earlier when he and the regiment commander’s concubine had slipped away together: how the pert-nosed, freckle-faced woman threw herself into his arms, how he held her tight and smelled her heavy body odor. Like holding a wooden log, he embraced her even though he didn’t love her. You’re despicable, he had cursed himself, pretending to be in love in order to enhance your prospects with her patron. Yet things have a way of evening out, and I paid a heavy price for my hypocrisy.
    But it’s different with Jinju. I’d die for Jinju, my Jinju.
    She walked in the shadow of the wall, skirting the starlit threshing floor, and came toward him. His heart pounded wildly, he began to tremble, his teeth chattered.
    She walked around the stack and stopped a few feet from him. “What do you want to talk to me about, Elder Brother Gao Ma?” Her voice quaked.
    “Jinju …” His lips were so stiff he could barely get the words out. He heard his own heartbeat and a voice that quaked like a woman’s. He coughed—it sounded forced and unnatural.
    “Dont … please don’t make any noise,” she pleaded anxiously as she backed up several steps.
    The colt, feeling mischievous, rubbed its flank against the stack, even extracted some chaff with its lips and flung it to the ground in front of them.
    “Not here,” he said. “Let’s go down to the trench.”
    “I can’t…. If you have something to say, hurry up and say it.”
    “Not here, I said.” He walked down the edge of the threshing floor, all the way to the trench. Jinju still hadn’t moved. But when he turned to go back for her, she began walking timidly toward him. He threaded his way through the indigo bushes and waited for her at the bottom of the trench, and when she reached the gently sloping side, he took her hand and pulled her to him.
    She tried to take her tiny hand, but he cupped it tightly in his and stroked it. “I love you, Jinju,” he blurted out. “Marry me!”
    “Elder Brother Gao Ma,” she replied softly, “you know I’ve been betrothed so that my brother can get married.”
    “I know, but I also know it’s not what you want.”
    She loosened his grip with her free hand and liberated its mate. “Yes it is.”
    “No, it’s not. Liu Shengli is a forty-five-year-old man with an infected windpipe. He’s too sickly to even carry a load of water. Are you telling me you’d marry coffin pulp like that?”
    She whimpered in reply, the sound hanging in the air for a long moment. “What can I do?” she sobbed. “My brother’s over thirty … a cripple … Cao Wenling is only seventeen, and prettier than me.…”
    “You’re not your brother, and you’re not required to go to your grave for his sake.”
    “Elder Brother Gao Ma, it’s fate. Go find yourself a good woman…. Me … next life …” Holding her face in her hands, she turned and broke for the indigo bushes. But he grabbed her, making her stumble and fall into his embrace.
    He hugged her so tightly he could feel the heat of her soft belly, but when he tried to find her mouth with his, she covered her face with her hands. Undaunted, he began nibbling her earlobe, as fine strands of hair brushed his face. His chill was replaced by hot cinders deep in his heart. She began to squirm, as if tormented by a powerful itch. Suddenly letting her hands drop, she threw her arms around his neck. “Elder Brother Gao Ma, please don’t nibble my ear,” she begged tearfully. “I can’t bear it….” He moved his mouth back to hers and began sucking on her tongue. She groaned, as hot tears welled up and wetted both their faces. A surge of hot air floated up from her stomach, bestowing on Gao Ma the taste of garlic and fresh grass.
    His hands moved roughly over her body.
    “Elder Brother Gao Ma, not so rough. You’re hurting me.”
    They sat on the slope of the trench in each other’s arms, hands roaming freely. Through cracks in the lush indigo covering they caught glimpses of golden starlight in the deep-blue sky. The crescent moon was sinking. An orbiting satellite tore through the Milky Way, and the air was suffused with the distinctive aroma of indigo.
    “What do you love about me?” she asked, looking up at him.
    “Everything.”
    The