The Garlic Ballads

corridor, where she heard frequent footsteps.

    Out in the yard Fourth Aunt felt chilled. A sleek cat streaked across the top of the wall and was gone. She shivered and scrunched her head down between her shoulders as she gazed into the sky, where stars twinkled brighdy. The Milky Way seemed denser than last year. She sought out her three familiar stars. There they were, in the southeastern sky, beside the brilliant half-moon. It was still the middle of the night. She headed over to the new catde shed at the foot of the eastern wall and, by groping in the dark, added some straw to the trough. Their spotted cow, bought the previous spring, lay on the ground chewing her cud, green lights emerging from her eyes. But when she heard the activity near her trough she got up and ambled over, bumping Fourth Aunt’s head with her short, curved horns. “Ouch!” Fourth Aunt exclaimed as she rubbed her head. “Are you trying to kill me, you stupid animal?”
    The cow was already busily munching straw, so Fourth Aunt moved up and felt her belly. Another three months and it would be time to calf.
    “Well?” Fourth Uncle asked her when she returned to the kang.
    “It’s still the middle of the night,” she replied. “Get some more sleep. I fed the cow while I was up.”
    “I’m awake now,” he said, “so I might as well get on the road. Yesterday was a wasted trip, so I want to get there early today. It’s fifteen miles to town, and the way that cow plods along, it’ll be light out by the time we get there.”
    “Are there really that many people selling garlic?”
    “Believe me, there are. The streets are jammed with farmers, trucks, oxcarts, horsecarts, tractors, bicycles, even motorbikes. The line runs from the cold-storage warehouse all the way to the railroad tracks. Garlic, nothing but garlic. They say the warehouse will be full in another day or two.”
    “These are bad times. It’s getting harder to sell anything.”
    “Wake the boys and have them load the wagon and hitch up the cow,” Fourth Uncle said. “I’m in no mood to do it. That tramp Jinju has me so upset the slightest thing gets my heart acting up.”
    “Do you know that your sons are talking about dividing up the family property and going their own way?”
    Tm not blind. Number Two’s afraid his brother will ruin his own marriage prospects. Number One sees how determined Jinju is to be with Gao Ma, and with the marriage contract now a worthless piece of paper, he figures hell take what he can get and live a bachelor’s life. Damned ingrates, that’s what they are!” Fourth Uncle was beside himself. “Once I sell this garlic crop we can add on three rooms, then divide everything up.”
    “Will Jinju stay with us?”
    “She can get her ass out!”
    “Where’s Gao Ma going to get the ten thousand yuan we demanded?”
    “He homesteaded four acres of land this year along with the two he already had, and planted it all with garlic. I passed his field the other day, and I can tell you he’s going to have a bumper crop, six thousand pounds at least, which he’ll sell for five thousand yuan. I’ll take that and tell him he can give me the other half next year. The little tramp’s getting off cheap, but I won’t let her raise some bastard kid here at home.”
    “After she’s gone and We have Gao Ma’s money, she’ll really suffer.”
    “Are you starting to feel sorry for her?” He tapped his pipe on the kang. “I don’t care if the little slut starves.”
    He turned and went out to the cow shed, where Fourth Aunt heard him tap on the west-wing window. “Number One, Number Two—time to get up, load the garlic.” She got down off the kang, lit the lamp, and hung it beside the door, then poured a ladleful of water from the vat into the pot.
    “What’s that for?” Fourth Uncle asked her when he returned.
    “To make some broth,” she replied. “You’ll be walking half the night.”
    “Don’t worry about me,” he snapped back. “I’m not going to walk. I’ll ride the whole way. Go water the cow if you want to make yourself useful.”
    The brothers emerged from their room and stood in the middle of the yard, shivering in the cold night air and not saying a word.
    Meanwhile Fourth Aunt dumped three ladlefuls of water into a basin, spread a layer of bran husks over the top, and stirred it with a poker. Then she carried it outside and laid it on the path as Fourth Uncle led the cow out of the shed. But it just stood