The Garlic Ballads

frost on their faces, dusted with grime, didn’t look as if it would ever melt. Tears streamed down the cheeks of the few who were looking up into the sun, nearly blinded by its rays. One of them looked like an ape man, the kind he’d seen in a Schoolbook—narrow, jutting forehead, wide mouth, long, apelike arms. Anyway, this strange creature leaped out of the crowd, raised one of his long arms, opened his mouth wide, and bellowed, “Hua-lala, hua-lala, one hand on a nice big tit, add soy sauce and vinegar …” Gao Yang had no idea what he meant, but he heard his gaunt police escort mutter angrily, “A loony, a real loony!”
    After passing through the square, they turned into a narrow lane, where a boy in a nylon jacket had a pigtailed girl pinned up against a hollow in the wall and was nibbling at her face. She was trying her best to push him away. Mud-spattered geese strutted back and forth behind them. The procession passed so close behind the boy that the girl wrapped her arms around his waist and drew him to her so the column could squeeze by.
    They emerged from the lane, and there in front of them, amazingly, was May First Boulevard—again. Across the street a multistoried building was going up behind a rumbling cement mixer tended by a boy and a girl no more than eleven or twelve years old. He was shoveling sand and pouring lime and cement into the funnel, while she squirted water into the funnel with a black plastic hose that shook so violently from the high pressure that she could barely hold it. The mixing oar scraped loudly against the funnel. Then the pale-yellow derrick slowly lifted a prefab concrete slab with airholes. Four men in hard hats sat on it playing poker, shocking observers by their nonchalance.
    After another tum around the square, the prison wall was in front of him once again. The electrified wire crackled and gave off blue sparks. The piece of red cloth still hung from it. “Team Leader Xing,” one of the policemen shouted, “shouldn’t we be heading back to rest?”
    A tall, heavyset fellow with a dark face glanced at his wristwatch, then looked up at the sky. “Half an hour,” he shouted back.
    The prison gate opened with a clang, and the police herded the prisoners inside the yard. Rather than put them back into their cells, they had them sit in a circle on the lush green grass, where they were told to stretch their legs out in front of them, hands on their knees. The police walked off lazily, their place taken by an armed guard who kept watch over the prisoners. Some of the policemen went to the toilet, others did stretching exercises on a horizontal bar.
    After ten minutes or so, Fourth Aunt’s escorts emerged with red lacquer trays holding soft drinks in opened bottles with drinking straws. There were two lands. “The colors are different, but they taste exactly the same,” they announced. “One bottle apiece.” One of them bent down in front of Gao Yang. “Which do you want?”
    He looked uncertainly at the bottles on her tray. Some were the color of blood; others appeared to be filled with ink.
    “Hurry up, choose one. And no changing your mind later.”
    “I’ll take a red one,” he said firmly.
    She handed him a bottle filled with the red liquid, which he accepted with both hands, then held, not daring to start right away.
    After all the drinks were distributed, Gao Yang noticed that everyone but Gao Ma had chosen red.
    “Go on, drink,” one of the policewomen said.
    But the prisoners just looked at each other, not daring to take a drink.
    “You can’t repair a wall with dog shit!” the policewoman complained angrily. “Drink up, I said. On three: one, two, three, drink!”
    Gao Yang took a timid sip; a liquid tasting like garlic slid tickling down his throat.
    When the soft drinks were finished, the police regrouped, taking up their positions alongside the prisoners to form three ranks. After proceeding out the prison gate, they turned north, crossed the street, and climbed the steps of a large building with a spacious hall. It was packed with spectators, and you could have heard a pin drop. Solemn airs.
    A booming voice broke the silence: “Bring up the prisoners associated with the Paradise County garlic incident!”
    Two policemen removed Gao Yang’s handcuffs, pulled his shoulders back and forced his head down, then dragged and carried him to the defendants’ dock.

2.

    The first thing Gao Yang saw when he looked past the railing was a