The Garlic Ballads

his eyes, and strained to listen to the shouts of farmers calling their livestock out in the fields. The modulated, rhythmic braying of that mule fell upon his ears. It was the sound he feared most of all, so he looked back at Jinju and Fourth Aunt. The soft orange rays of the sun lit up Fourth Aunt’s face framed in Jinju’s hands.
    “Mother … it’s all my fault…. Mother … wake up….”
    Fourth Aunt’s lids rose slowly, but the whites of her eyes barely showed before the lids closed again, squeezing out a couple of sallow tears, which slid down her cheeks.
    Gao Yang watched Fourth Aunt’s white, prickly tongue emerge to lick Jinju’s forehead, like a bitch bathing her pup or a cow cleaning its calf. At first the sight disgusted him, but he reminded himself that she wouldn’t be doing that if her hands were free.
    Jinju took the melon out of her bundle, cracked it open with a well-placed thump, then scooped out some reddish pulp and placed it between the lips of Fourth Aunt, who began blubbering like a baby.
    Gao Yang’s attention was riveted on the melon, the sight of which twisted his guts into knots. Anger rose in him. What about me? he agonized. There’s enough to go around.
    The horse-faced young man, who had stopped heaving (Gao Yang was too busy watching Jinju to notice), had slid down the trunk that held him captive, until he was sitting in a heap at the base of the tree, his head jerking and his body slumping forward. He seemed to be bowing.
    Mother and daughter wailed, obviously revived by the melon they had devoured. This Gao Yang assumed, and he was shocked to see that they hadn’t finished even a single wedge. Jinju was cradling her mother’s head in her arms and crying so piteously that her entire body shook.
    “Dear Jinju … my poor baby,” wept Fourth Aunt. “I shouldn’t have hit you…. I won’t stand in your way anymore.… Go find Gao Ma … live happily together.
    Trucks, so loaded down with furniture that they nearly bottomed out, sputtered unsteadily toward them. The police, having finished their meal, emerged in a chatty mood, and when Gao Yang heard their approaching footsteps, his fear returned. A truck creaked and groaned as it drove by, the last slanting rays of sun reflecting sharply off its windshield, behind which sat a red-faced driver.
    What happened next Gao Yang would never be able to forget. The roadway was narrow, and the driver probably had a bit too much to drink. Fate would have been kinder to the horse-faced young man if he hadn’t had such an elongated head, but a triangular pice of metal jutting out from the heavily loaded vehicle caught him on the forehead and opened up an ugly gash, which showed white for an instant before gushing inky blood. A gasp escaped from his mouth as he slumped further forward; yet even with its extraordinary length, his head stopped short of the ground, since his arms were still held fast around the tree. His blood splattered on the hard-baked roadway in front of him.
    The police froze in their tracks.
    Old Zheng broke the silence by cursing the red-faced driver with heated fury: “You simple, motherfucking bastard!”
    The stammering policeman quickly stripped off his tunic and wrapped it around the young man’s head.

C HAPTER 4

    Garlic in the black earth, ginger in sandy soil,
Willow branches for baskets, wax reeds for creek,
Green garlic and white garlic to fry fish and meat,
Black garlic and rotteti garlic to make a compost heap…
.
—from a ballad by Zhang Kou sung to township public servants during a garlic glut

1.

    Fourth Uncle hit Jinju on the head with the red-hot bronze bowl of his pipe. She crumpled to the ground, angered and humiliated. “Brute!” she shrieked, “You hit me!”
    “You asked for it!” replied an enraged Fourth Aunt. “You re lucky we don’t kill someone as immoral as you!”
    “Zw immoral? What about you?” Jinju screamed. “You re a pack of thugs—”
    “Jinju!” Elder Brother Fang Yijun cut her off sternly. “I wont have you talking to our mother like that!”
    After beating Gao Ma to the ground, the Fang brothers stood over him in the flickering lamplight, looming large. Jinju reached up to wipe her burning forehead, and when she pulled back her hand she saw the blood. “Look what you did!” she screeched.
    Elder Brother Fang Yijuns silhouette shifted unevenly in the lamplight. “The first rule for a son or daughter,” he said, “is to listen to your