The Garlic Ballads

Shovel in hand, he forded the river, heading back; the water, which had risen precipitously, was now above his chin.

    The young inmate groped his way over to the window, yanked open the tiny door in the wall, and pissed into the plastic pail, his splashing urine adding to the cell’s rank odor. Fortunately, the window glass had long since been smashed and cleared away; there was a small opening at the bottom of the door where the food was passed in, and the ceiling had a small skylight, all of which admitted some cool night breezes from the outside, making the air inside tolerable.
    Wiping his mind clean of all extraneous thoughts, he concentrated on his reveries.

    Heaven and earth had turned a misty gray, and the wet pounding noise of rain falling violendy on branch and trunk rose from the wild-wood. Once he was safely home, he stripped naked, wrung most of the water out of his tattered clothes, and hung them up to dry. The room leaked terribly—water was everywhere, especially at the junction of eaves and mud walls, where rivulets of dirty scarlet ran down to the muddy floor. He tried to catch the drips with an array of pots and pans, but resigned himself to sitting on the edge of the kang and letting the water go where it wanted.

    Stretching out on his back, he gazed through the barred window at a faint strip of sky.

    This is the unluckiest time of my life, he mused. Father is dead, Mother has joined him, and my roof leaks.

    He stared up at the grimy, greasy roof beam until his attention was caught by a mouse crouching on the stove after being driven out of hiding by the rain. He thought about hanging himself from the roof beam, but lacked the resolve.
    When the rain stopped and the sun came out, he put on his damp clothes and, expecting the worst, went outside to see how his roof, pitted and weakened by the rain, was holding up. Gao Jinglong, the local police chief, came charging into the yard just then, leading seven militiamen armed with .38-caliber rifles. They wore black rain boots and conical hats woven of sorghum stalks, and had draped fertilizer sacks over their shoulders; they advanced like a moving wall.
    “Gao Yang,” the police chief said, “Secretary Huang wants to know if you secretly buried your mother, that ancient member of the landlord class.”
    Gao Yang was stunned by how quickly the news had spread and amazed that the production brigade would be so concerned about one of their deceased members. “In rainy weather like this,” he said, “she’d have started to stink if I’d waited. … How was I supposed to get her to town in pouring rain like that?”
    “I didn’t come here to argue,” the police chief said. “You can plead your case with Secretary Huang.”
    “Uncle …” Gao Yang clasped his hands, lowered his head, and bowed at the waist. “Uncle … cant you just let me go?”
    “Get moving. Doing what you’re told is your only chance of staying out of trouble,” Gao Jinglong said.
    A beefy man walked up and prodded him with his rifle butt. “Get moving, my boy.”
    Gao Yang turned to the man. “Anping, we’re like brothers.
    Anping prodded him again. “I said get going. The ugly bride has to meet her in-laws sooner or later.”
    A table had been set up in the brigade office. Secretary Huang sat behind it smoking a cigarette. The glaring red of posters and slogans papering the walls terrified Gao Yang. His teeth chattered as he stood in front of the table.
    Secretary Huang smiled genially. “Gao Yang, you’ve sure got nerve.”
    “Master … I …” His legs buckled, and he was on his knees.
    “Get up!” Secretary Huang demanded. “Who’s your master?”
    “Get your ass up!” ordered the police chief, who kicked him.
    He stood up.
    “Are you aware of the regulation to send all bodies to the crematorium?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then you knowingly broke the law?”
    “Secretary Huang,” Gao Yang defended himself, “it was pouring out there. … I live so far from town, and can’t afford the cremation fee @ or an urn for the ashes. I figured I’d have to bury them when I got home, anyway. That takes up space in the field, too.”
    “Well, aren t you a paragon of reason!” Secretary Huang said sarcastically. “The Communist Party is no match for you.”
    “No, Secretary Huang. What I meant was—”
    “I don’t want to hear another word from you!” Secretary Huang banged the table and jumped to his feet. “Go dig up your mother and take her