The Republic of Wine

dining room. Ding Gou’er’s bullet had struck the braised boy right between the eyes, shattering the head and sending brain matter splattering against the wall, a mixture of reds and whites, steaming and redolent, releasing an abundance of emotions. The braised boy was now a headless boy. The unsmashed parts of his skull had tumbled to the edge of the table’s second tier, between a platter of sea cucumbers and another of braised shrimp, pieces of head like shattered watermelon rind, or pieces of watermelon rind like shattered head, watermelon juices dripping like blood, or blood dripping like watermelon juices, soiling the tablecloth and soiling the people’s eyes. A pair of eyes like purple grapes or purple grapes like a pair of eyes rolled around on the floor, one skittering behind the liquor cabinet, the other rolling up to a red serving girl, who squashed it with her foot. She rocked back and forth briefly, a shrill ‘Waaf emerging from between her lips.
    In the wake of that ‘Waa!’ Party spirit, principle, and morality - all those qualities that combine to make a leader - returned to their minds and coordinated their actions. The Party Secretary or Mine Director stuck out his tongue and tasted pieces of the boy’s brains that had bespattered the back of his hand. It must have been delicious, because he smacked his lips and said:
    ‘He’s ruined a perfectly good plate of food!’
    Diamond Jin gave the fellow tasting the splattered brain a dirty look, bringing embarrassment to his face.
    ‘Help Comrade Ding to his feet.’ Deputy Head Jin said, ‘and be quick about it! Clean off his face and feed him a bowl of sobering-up soup.’
    The red serving girls sprang into action. After helping Ding Gou’er to his feet, they wiped his mouth and face, but didn’t dare clean his hands. He was still holding the pistol, which could go off again at any time. They swept up the broken glass and mopped the floor, then propped up his head and pried open his mouth with a sterilized stainless-steel tongue-depressor to insert a hard plastic funnel, through which they fed him sobering-up soup, one spoonful after another.
    ‘What grade soup is that?’ Diamond Jin asked.
    ‘First,’ the red serving girl in charge replied.
    ‘Use second grade,’ Diamond Jin said. ‘It’ll sober him up faster.’
    The serving girl went into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of gold-colored liquid. As the wooden stopper was removed, a cool, refreshing odor went straight from the bottle into the hearts of the people in the room. They poured more than half of the golden liquid into the funnel. Ding Gou’er coughed, he choked, the liquid shot up out of the funnel like a geyser.
    He felt a cool stream of liquid enter his digestive tract, where it extinguished the fires and reawakened his mental faculties. Now that his body had come back to life, he recaptured the beautiful butterfly of consciousness that was trying to climb out of his skull. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the headless little boy sitting in the gilded platter; that sent stabbing pains straight to his heart. Dear mother! he blurted out involuntarily. Oh the agony! He raised his pistol.
    Diamond Jin raised his chopsticks.
    ‘Comrade Ding Gou’er,’ he said, ‘if we really are monsters who eat little boys, you have every right to shoot us dead. But what if we aren’t? The Party gave you that pistol to punish evil-doers, not to indiscriminately snuff out the lives of the innocent.’
    ‘If you have something to say, out with it,’ Ding Gou’er said.
    Diamond Jin took one of his chopsticks and thrust it into the headless little boy’s darling little erect penis. The boy crumbled in the platter and turned into a pile of body parts. Using his chopstick as a pointer, Diamond Jin launched into his clarification:
    ‘This is one of the boy’s arms, it’s made of rich lotus root from Moon Lake, melon, and sixteen herbs and spices, fashioned with extraordinary artistry. This leg is actually a special ham sausage. The boy’s torso is made from a processed suckling sow. The head, to which your bullet put an end, was fashioned out of a silver melon. His hair was nothing more than strings of the hirsute vegetable. Now it’s impossible for me to give you a detailed and accurate description of all the materials or the meticulous and complex workmanship that went into the preparation of this famous dish, since it’s patented here in Liquorland.