The Republic of Wine

a leaf spring; she grunted from the exertion like an ox caught by the horns. She looked so fetching, Ding Gou’er couldn’t help but laugh.
    ‘What are you laughing at?’ she demanded.
    Ding Gou’er let go of her wrists and removed a business card from his pocket.
    I’ll be on my way, young lady. If you miss me, you can find me at this address. Mum’s the word.’
    She sized him up, studied the card for a moment, then his face, with the keen intensity of a border guard examining a visitor’s passport.
    Ding Gou’er reached out and flicked the lady trucker’s nose with his finger, then tucked his briefcase under his arm and opened the passenger door. ‘So long, girl,’ he said. ‘Remember, I’ve got the right fertilizer for alkaline soil.’ When he was halfway out the door, she grabbed his shirttail.
    The look of timidity mixed with curiosity in her eyes now convinced him that she was probably quite young, never married, and unspoiled. Lovable and pitiable at the same time. He rubbed the back of her hand and said with genuine feeling: ‘Girl, you can call me uncle.’
    ‘You liar,’ she said. ‘You told me you worked at a vehicle control station.’
    ‘What’s the difference?’ He laughed.
    ‘You’re a spy!’
    ‘You might say so.’
    ‘If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have given you a ride.’
    Ding Gou’er took out a pack of cigarettes and tossed it into her lap. ‘Temper, temper.’
    She flung his liquor flask into the roadside ditch. ‘Nobody drinks out of something that tiny,’ she remarked.
    Ding Gou’er jumped out of the cab, slammed the door shut, and walked off down the road. He heard the lady trucker yell after him:
    ‘Hey, spy! Know why this road’s in such terrible shape?’ Ding Gou’er turned to see her hanging out the driver’s window; he smiled but didn’t answer.
    The image of the lady trucker’s face stuck in the investigator’s head for a moment like dried hops, frothing briefly before vanishing like the foam on a glass of beer. The narrow road twisted and turned like an intestinal tract. Trucks, tractors, horse carts, ox carts … vehicles of every shape and hue, like a column of bizarre beasts, each linked by the tail of the one in front and all jammed up together. The engines had been turned off in some, others were still idling. Pale blue smoke puffed skyward from the tractors’ tin exhaust stacks; the smell of unburned gasoline and diesel oil merged with the stink of ox and horse and donkey breath to form a foul, free-floating miasma. At times he brushed against the vehicles as he shouldered his way past; at other times he had to lean against the squat, misshapen roadside trees. Just about all the drivers were in their cabs drinking. Isn’t there a law against drinking and driving? But these drivers were obviously drinking, so the law must not exist, at least not here. The next time he looked up, he could see two-thirds of the towering iron frame of the windlass at the mouth of the coal mine.
    A silver gray steel cable turned noisily on the windlass. In the sunlight, the iron frame was a deep, dark red, either because it was painted or maybe just rusty. A dirty color, a mother-fucking dirty dark red. The huge revolving drum was black, the steel cable turning on it gave off a muted yet terrifying glint. As his eyes took in the colors and radiant light, his ears were assailed by the creaking of the windlass, the moans of the cable, and the dull thuds of underground explosions.
    An oval clearing bordered by pagoda-shaped pine trees fronted the mine. It was crowded with vehicles waiting to haul away the coal. A mud-spattered donkey had thrust its mouth up into the needles of a pine tree, either for a snack or to work on an itch. A gang of grubby, soot-covered men in tattered clothes, scarves tied around their heads and hemp ropes cinching up their waists, had squeezed into one of the horse carts, and as the horse ate from its feedbag, they drank from a large purple bottle, passing it around with great enjoyment. Ding Gou’er was not much of a drinker, but he liked to drink, and he could tell the good stuff from the bad. The pungent smell in the air made it obvious that the purple bottle was filled with poor-quality liquor, and from the appearance of the men drinking it, he guessed that they were farmers from the Liquorland countryside.
    As he passed in front of the horse, one of the farmers shouted hoarsely, ‘Hey, comrade, what time does that watch of