The Garlic Ballads

soft and gentle, glossy and smooth, like silken strands flowing into his listeners’ hearts, driving the accumulated filth ahead of it, and into their muscles and flesh, ridding them of their earthly dust. With eyes glued to Zhang Kou’s mouth, they listened as a hoarse yet sonorous lyric flowed from the gaping hole in his face:
    “What I’m saying is”—the word “is” soared upward, then settled slowly, languidly, as if it wanted the crowd to follow it from this world into a fantastic realm beckoning to all, asking only that they close their eyes—”what I’m saying is, a breath of fresh air emerged from the Third Plenum of the Central Committee: Citizens of Paradise County will be poor no longer.”
    His
erhu
never varied from the same simple refrain, and his audience, though enraptured by the music, also quietly laughed at him. The source of their mirth was his gaping mouth, which could accommodate a whole steamed bun. The blind bastard had no idea how big his mouth was. Their tittering appeared not to bother him. When Gao Ma heard Jinju giggle, he pictured a smiling face: lashes fluttering, teeth glistening like rows of polished jade. No longer able to restrain himself, he peeked out of the corner of his eye; but her lashes weren’t fluttering, and her teeth were hidden behind compressed lips. Her solemn expression mocked him somehow.
    “The county government called on us to plant garlic—the marketing co-op would buy our harvest—one yuan a pound—put it in cold storage—resell at a profit in the spring….” Having grown accustomed to the sight of Zhang Kous gaping mouth, the crowd forgot its mirthful-ness and listened intently to his ballad.
    “The people celebrated when they sold their garlic / Fried some pork, rolled out flatcakes and filled them with green onions / Big Sister Zhang’s belly as big as an urn / Oh!’ she says, look at me, fm pregnant!’…” The crowd roared playfully. “Damn you, blind old man!” a woman shouted. A heated fart escaped from Big Sister Li: “Ha, ha,” half the women in the audience doubled over laughing.
    Jinju was one of them. Damn you, Zhang Kou, do you have to say things like that? Gao Ma swore to himself. When you bend over, your round, tight rear end sticks straight up and I can see the line of your underpants through your thin trousers. That’s what happens in the field during the day. Try a tale from
Red Crag
, Zhang Kou. I want to hold your hand, Jinju. I’m twenty-seven already; you’re twenty. I want you to be my wife. When you hoe your bean field, I spray my cornfield, my heart sounding like aphids on corn in the dry season. The fields seem endless. Off to the south stands Little Mount Zhou, with its volcanic opening, into which the clouds settle. I ache to talk to you at times like that, but your brothers are always nearby, barefoot and stripped to the waist, their skin burned black by the sun. You are fully dressed, and sweat-soaked. What color are you, Jinju? You are yellow, you are red, you are golden. Yours is the color of gold; you glisten like gold.
    Zhang Kou’s
erhu
grew more melodious as his voice rose with a tale from
Red Crag:
    Jiang Xueqin, out for a stroll,
The police chief swaggers toward her,
A golden watch on his wrist,
His neck a ten-foot garlic stalk.
He crouches as he walks,
He has a Chinese papa and an American mama,
Who joined to produce a living monster.
He hers through slanted eyes,
A pistol held in each hand.
He blocks her way, a sinister hugh,
H eh heh…
Pistols pressed up to Big Sister Jiang’s breasts
.

    She’s
too good for someone like Liu Shengli. Marrying him would be like planting a flower in a pile of cow dung, or seeing a gorgeous butterfly fall in love with a dung beetle. I’m going to hold her hand. Tonight’s the night. He inched closer to her, until he felt their trousers touch. He kept staring at Zhang Kou’s mouth—opening and closing, opening and closing—trying to appear calm and composed. Is there no sound coming from that mouth, or is it being drowned out by the din around me? My heart sounds like corn leaves rustling in the wind. And he remembered when he first felt his heart moving toward Jinju, a year earlier.

    I am lying in the cornfield gazing at clouds being carved up by sharp-edged leaves above me. The clouds vanish, and the sky is clear; the sun-baked ground blisters my back. White sap beads up and dangles from downy filaments, reluctant to fall earthward, like the tears on