The Garlic Ballads

Fourth Aunt grimaced; she wanted to say something but was too choked up to get the words out.
    The guard put her hat back on. “Okay, hurry up and eat. You must trust the government. A good person has nothing to worry about, and a bad person has no place to hide.”
    “Miss … I’m a good person. Let me go home,” Fourth Aunt said tearfully.
    “You sure talk a lot for an old lady,” the frowning guard said, dimples creasing her cheeks. “It’s not up to me whether you get out of here or not.”
    Fourth Aunt wiped her nose with her sleeve, then her tear-filled eyes. “How old are you, miss?”
    The guard glared, showing a mean side. “Don’t ask about things that don’t concern you, Number Forty-seven!”
    “I didn’t mean anything by it. You’re just so pretty, I thought I’d ask.”
    “Why do you want to know?”
    “No reason.”
    “Twenty-two,” the guard said shyly.
    “About the same as my daughter, Jinju, who was born in the Year of the Dragon. I wish that useless daughter of mine could be more
    like—”
    “I said hurry up and eat. After you’re finished I want you to think about what you did, then make a clean breast of things.”
    “What is it you want me to think about, miss?”
    “Why were you arrested?”
    “I don’t know.” Fourth Aunt grimaced again and was soon crying. “I was home eating,” she said between sobs. “Grainy flatcakes and spicy salted vegetables. Someone called at the gate. When I walked outside, they grabbed my arms I was so scared I just closed my eyes. The next thing I knew, my wrists were locked in shiny bracelets.… Daughter was inside crying. She’s going to have her baby any day now. Laugh if you want, but I’ll tell you anyway—she’s not even married. I screamed, but two officers dragged me away, and another one, taller than you but not as pretty, and not nearly as nice—very mean, in fact— started kicking me—”
    “That’s enough,” the guard broke in impatiently. “Hurry up and eat.”
    “Am I upsetting you, miss?” Fourth Aunt asked. “With all the criminals out there waiting to be arrested, why waste time on me?”
    “You didn’t help demolish the government offices?”
    “Those were government offices?!” an astonished Fourth Aunt exclaimed. “I didn’t know that. I had to get help somewhere. My husband—still strong and in good health—was run over by their car….” She wept. “Miss … had to get help somewhere
    “Stop that crying,” the guard said. “And stop calling me ‘miss.’ Call me ‘Guard’ or ‘Officer,’ like the others do.”
    “Our sister over there said I should call you “Officer’ and not ‘miss,’” Fourth Aunt admitted, pointing to her cellmate, who was lying facedown on her gray cot. “But I forgot. Getting old, memory’s no good.”
    “Eat, I said,” the guard insisted.
    “Mi—Officer.” Fourth Aunt pointed to the blackened steamed bun and bowl of garlic broth. “Do I have to pay for this food? Do I need ration stamps?” *
    Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, the guard said, “Just eat. You don’t need money and you don’t need ration stamps. Is that why you weren’t eating, because you thought you had to pay?”
    “You couldn’t know, miss, but when my husband was killed, our two useless sons fought like cats and dogs over family property until there wasn’t anything left
    The guard turned to go, but before she was out the door, Fourth Aunt asked, “Do you have a husband picked out yet?”
    “That’s enough, Number Forty-seven, you crazy old hag!”
    “Girls today sure have short fuses. An old lady isn’t even allowed to talk.”
    The guard slammed the cell door shut and walked off, her high heels clicking resoundingly down the corridor, all the way to the far end.
    Loud squeaks bounced off the rafters above the corridor, sounding like an old waterwheel. Crickets set up a racket in trees out in the yard. Fourth Aunt sighed and picked up the blackened bun, sniffing it before tearing off a chunk and dunking it in the now cold garlic broth; she stuffed it into her nearly toothless mouth and began munching noisily. The middle-aged woman on the opposite cot rolled over to stare at the ceiling. A long sigh escaped from her lips.
    “You’ve hardly touched your food, Sister-in-Law,” Fourth Aunt said to the woman, who opened her clouded eyes wide, shook her head, and frowned.
    “I’ve got such a lump in the pit of my stomach I can’t force another bite