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  <p id="1">
    <s id="1:1">FULL PURPLE LIPS, like ripe grapes, gave Second Grandma – Passion – her extraordinary appeal.</s>
    <s id="1:2">The sands of time had long since interred her origins and background.</s>
    <s id="1:3">Her rich, youthful, resilient flesh, her plump bean-pod face, and her deep-blue, seemingly deathless eyes were buried in the wet yellow earth, extinguishing for all time her angry, defiant gaze, which challenged the world of filth, adored the world of beauty, and brimmed over with an intense consciousness.</s>
    <s id="1:4">Second Grandma had been buried in the black earth of her hometown.</s>
    <s id="1:5">Her body was enclosed in a coffin of thin willow covered with an uneven coat of reddish-brown varnish that failed to camouflage its wormy, beetle-holed surface.</s>
    <s id="1:6">The sight of her blackened, blood-shiny corpse being swallowed up by golden earth is etched forever on the screen of my mind.</s>
    <s id="1:7">In the warm red rays of the sun, I saw a mound in the shape of a human figure rising atop the heavy, deeply remorseful sandbar.</s>
    <s id="1:8">Second Grandma's shapely figure; Second Grandma's high-arching breasts; tiny grains of shifting sand on Second Grandma's furrowed brow; Second Grandma's sensual lips protruding through the golden-yellow sand . . .</s>
    <s id="1:9">I knew it was an illusion, that Second Grandma was buried beneath the black earth of her hometown, and that only red sorghum grew around her gravesite.</s>
    <s id="1:10">Standing at the head of her grave – as long as it isn't during the winter, when the plants are dead and frozen, or on a spring day, when cool southerly breezes blow – you can't even see the horizon for the nightmarishly dense screen of Northeast Gaomi sorghum.</s>
    <s id="1:11">Then you raise your gaunt face, like a sunflower, and through the gaps in the sorghum you can see the stunning brilliance of the sun hanging in the kingdom of heaven.</s>
    <s id="1:12">Amid the perennially mournful sobs of the Black Water River you listen for a lost soul drifting down from that kingdom.</s>
    <s id="1:13">THE SKY WAS a beautiful clear blue.</s>
    <s id="1:14">The sun hadn't yet made an appearance, but the chaotic horizon on that early-winter morning was infused with a blinding red light when Old Geng shot at a red fox with a fiery torch of a tail.</s>
    <s id="1:15">Old Geng had no peers among hunters in Saltwater Gap, where he bagged wild geese, hares, wild ducks, weasels, foxes, and, when there was nothing else around, sparrows.</s>
    <s id="1:16">In the late autumn and early winter, enormous flocks of sparrows flew over Northeast Gaomi Township, a shifting brown cloud that rolled and tumbled above the boundless land.</s>
    <s id="1:17">At dusk they returned to the village, where they settled on willows whose naked, yellowing limbs drooped earthward or arched skyward.</s>
    <s id="1:18">As the dying red rays of the evening sun burned through the clouds, the branches lit up with sparrows' black eyes shining like thousands of golden sparks.</s>
    <s id="1:19">Old Geng picked up his shotgun, squinted, and pulled the trigger.</s>
    <s id="1:20">Two sparrows crashed to the ground like hailstones as shotgun pellets tore noisily through the branches.</s>
    <s id="1:21">Uninjured sparrows saw their comrades hit the ground and flapped their wings, rising into the air like shrapnel sent flying high into a lethargic sky.</s>
    <s id="1:22">Father had eaten some of Old Geng's sparrows when he was young.</s>
    <s id="1:23">They were delicious.</s>
    <s id="1:24">Three decades later, my older brother and I went into the sorghum field and engaged some crafty sparrows in a heated battle.</s>
    <s id="1:25">Old Geng, who was already over seventy by then and lived alone as a pensioner, was one of our most revered villagers.</s>
    <s id="1:26">Asked to speak at meetings to air grievances against the old order, he invariably stripped to the waist onstage to show his scars.</s>
    <s id="1:27">'The Japs bayoneted me eighteen times,' he'd say, 'until you couldn't see my skin for all the blood.</s>
    <s id="1:28">But I didn't die, and you know why?</s>
    <s id="1:29">Because I was protected by a fox fairy.</s>
    <s id="1:30">I don't know how long I lay there, but when I opened my eyes all I could see was a bright-red light.</s>
    <s id="1:31">The fox fairy was licking my wounds.'</s>
    <s id="1:32">In his home, Old Geng – Eighteen Stabs Geng – kept a fox-fairy memorial tablet, which some Red Guards decided to smash during the Cultural Revolution.</s>
    <s id="1:33">They changed their minds and got out of there fast when they saw him kneel in front of the tablet wielding a cleaver.</s>
    <s id="1:34">Old Geng drew a bead on the red fox, knowing exactly which way it would run; but he was reluctant to shoot.</s>
    <s id="1:35">He knew he could sell the beautiful, bushy pelt for a good price.</s>
    <s id="1:36">If he was going to shoot, it had to be now.</s>
    <s id="1:37">The fox had already enjoyed a full life, sneaking over nightly to steal a chicken.</s>
    <s id="1:38">No matter how strong the villagers made their chicken coops, the fox always found a way inside and no matter how many traps they set, it always got away.</s>
    <s id="1:39">That year the villagers' chicken coops seemed built solely to store its food.</s>
    <s id="1:40">Old Geng had walked out of the village as the roosters were crowing for the third time and gone straight to a low embankment alongside the swamp in front of the village, where he waited for the chicken thief to show up.</s>
    <s id="1:41">Dried-up marsh weeds stood waist-high in the swamp, where a thin sheet of nearly transparent ice, possibly thick enough to bear a man's weight, covered the stagnant water that had accumulated during the autumn rains.</s>
    <s id="1:42">Yellow tassels atop imprisoned reeds shivered in the freezing morning air, as powerful rays of light from far off in the eastern sky gradually illuminated the icy surface, which gave off a moist radiance, like the scales of a carp.</s>
    <s id="1:43">Then the eastern sky turned bright, staining the ice and reeds the colour of mottled blood.</s>
    <s id="1:44">Old Geng picked up the odour and saw a tight cluster of reeds part slowly like an undulating wave, then close up quickly.</s>
    <s id="1:45">He stuck his nearly frozen index finger into his mouth and breathed on it, then wrapped it around the frost-covered trigger.</s>
    <s id="1:46">The fox bounded out of the clump of reeds and stood on the ice, turning it a bright red, as though it had gone up in flames.</s>
    <s id="1:47">Congealed blood covered its pointy little snout; a chicken feather the colour of hemp was stuck in its whiskers.</s>
    <s id="1:48">It walked with stately grace across the ice.</s>
    <s id="1:49">Old Geng cried out, and it froze on the spot, squinting to get a good look at the embankment.</s>
    <s id="1:50">Old Geng shivered, closed his eyes, and fired.</s>
    <s id="1:51">Like a little fireball, the fox rolled into the reeds.</s>
    <s id="1:52">Old Geng, his shoulder numb from the recoil, stood up under a silvery sky, looking bigger and taller than usual.</s>
    <s id="1:53">He knew the fox was hiding amid the reeds and staring at him with loathing.</s>
    <s id="1:54">Something suspiciously like a guilty conscience began to stir in Old Geng.</s>
    <s id="1:55">He thought back over the past year and the trust the fox had shown in him: it always knew he was hiding behind the embankment, yet it sauntered across the ice as though putting his conscience to the test.</s>
    <s id="1:56">And Old Geng had always passed the test.</s>
    <s id="1:57">But now he had betrayed this friendship, and he hung his head, gazing into the clump of reeds that had swallowed the fox, not even turning back to look when he heard the clatter of footsteps behind him.</s>
    <s id="1:58">Suddenly he felt a stabbing pain, and stumbled forward, twisting his body, dropping his shotgun to the ice.</s>
    <s id="1:59">Something hot squirmed under his pants at the belt line.</s>
    <s id="1:60">Running towards him were a dozen uniformed figures armed with rifles and glinting bayonets.</s>
    <s id="1:61">Instinctively he yelled in fear, 'Japan!'</s>
    <s id="1:62">The Japanese soldiers pounced on him and bayoneted him in the chest and abdomen.</s>
    <s id="1:63">He screamed pitifully, like a fox howling for its mate.</s>
    <s id="1:64">The blood from his wounds pitted the ice beneath him with its heat.</s>
    <s id="1:65">He ripped off his tattered shirt with both hands.</s>
    <s id="1:66">In his semiconscious state he saw the furry red fox emerge from the clump of reeds and circle round him once, then crouch down and gaze sympathetically.</s>
    <s id="1:67">Its fur glowed brilliantly and its slightly slanted eyes shone like emeralds.</s>
    <s id="1:68">After a while, Old Geng felt warm fur rubbing against his body, and he lay there waiting for the razor-sharp teeth to begin ripping him apart.</s>
    <s id="1:69">If he were torn to shreds, he'd die with no complaints, for he knew that a man who betrays a trust is lower than an animal.</s>
    <s id="1:70">The fox began licking his wounds with its cold tongue.</s>
    <s id="1:71">Old Geng was adamant that the fox had repaid his betrayal by saving his life.</s>
    <s id="1:72">Where else could you find another man who had sustained eighteen bayonet wounds yet lived to tell the tale?</s>
    <s id="1:73">The fox's tongue must have been coated with a miraculous substance since Old Geng's wounds were instantly soothed, as though treated with peppermint oil – or so he said.</s>
    <s id="1:74">VILLAGERS WHO HAD gone to town to sell straw sandals announced upon their return: 'Gaomi has been occupied by the Japanese.</s>
    <s id="1:75">There's a Rising Sun at the entrance!'</s>
    <s id="1:76">The panic-stricken villagers could only wait for the calamity they knew was coming.</s>
    <s id="1:77">But not all of them suffered from racing hearts and crawling flesh: two among them went about their business totally unconcerned, never varying their routine.</s>
    <s id="1:78">Who were they?</s>
    <s id="1:79">One was Old Geng, the other a onetime musician who loved to sing Peking opera – Pocky Cheng.</s>
    <s id="1:80">'What are you afraid of?'</s>
    <s id="1:81">Pocky Cheng asked everyone he met.</s>
    <s id="1:82">'We're still common folk, no matter who's in charge.</s>
    <s id="1:83">We don't refuse to give the government its grain, and we always pay our taxes.</s>
    <s id="1:84">We lie down when we're told, and we kneel when they order us.</s>
    <s id="1:85">So who'd dare punish us?</s>
    <s id="1:86">Who, I ask you?'</s>
    <s id="1:87">His advice calmed many of the people, who began sleeping, eating, and working again.</s>
    <s id="1:88">But it didn't take long for the evil wind of Japanese savagery to blow their way: they fed human hearts to police dogs; they raped sixty-year-old women; they hung rows of human heads from electric poles in town.</s>
    <s id="1:89">Even with the unflappable examples of Pocky Cheng and Old Geng, rumours of brutality were hard for the people to put aside, especially in their dreams.</s>
    <s id="1:90">Pocky Cheng walked around happy all the time.</s>
    <s id="1:91">News that the Japanese were on their way to sack the village created a glut in dogshit in and around the village.</s>
    <s id="1:92">Apparently the farmers who normally fought over it had grown lazy, for now it lay there waiting for him to come and claim it.</s>
    <s id="1:93">He, too, walked out of the village as the roosters were crowing for the third time, running into Old Geng with his shotgun slung over his back.</s>
    <s id="1:94">They greeted each other and parted ways.</s>
    <s id="1:95">By the time the eastern sky had turned red, the pile of dogshit in Pocky Cheng's basket was like a little mountain peak.</s>
    <s id="1:96">He laid it down, stood on the southern edge of the village wall, and breathed in the cool, sweet morning air, until his throat itched.</s>
    <s id="1:97">He cleared it loudly, then raised his voice to the rosy morning clouds and began to sing: 'I am a thirsty grainstalk drinking up the morning dew –'</s>
    <s id="1:98">A shot rang out.</s>
    <s id="1:99">His battered, wingless felt hat sailed into the air.</s>
    <s id="1:100">Tucking in his neck, he jumped into the ditch beneath the wall like a shot, bumping his head with a resounding thud against the frozen ground.</s>
    <s id="1:101">Not sure if he was dead or alive, he tried moving his arms and legs.</s>
    <s id="1:102">They were working, but barely.</s>
    <s id="1:103">His crotch was all sticky.</s>
    <s id="1:104">Fear raced through his heart.</s>
    <s id="1:105">I've been hit, he thought.</s>
    <s id="1:106">He sat up and stuck his hand down his pants.</s>
    <s id="1:107">With his heart in his mouth, he pulled out his hand, expecting it to be all red.</s>
    <s id="1:108">But it was covered with something yellow, and his nostrils twitched from the odour of rotten seedlings.</s>
    <s id="1:109">He tried to rub the stuff off on the side of the ditch, but it stuck to his skin.</s>
    <s id="1:110">He heard a shout from beyond the ditch: 'Stand up!'</s>
    <s id="1:111">He looked up to see a man in his thirties with a flat, chiselled face, yellow skin, and a long, jutting chin.</s>
    <s id="1:112">He was wearing a chestnut-coloured wool cap and brandishing a black pistol!</s>
    <s id="1:113">A forest of yellow-clad legs was aligned behind him, the calves wrapped in wide, crisscrossed cloth leggings.</s>
    <s id="1:114">His eyes travelled slowly upward past protruding hips, stopping at dozens of alien faces, all adorned with the smug smile of a man taking a comfortable shit.</s>
    <s id="1:115">A Rising Sun flag drooped under the bright-red sunrise; onion-green rays glinted off a line of bayonets.</s>
    <s id="1:116">Pocky Cheng's stomach lurched, and his nervous guts relinquished their contents.</s>
    <s id="1:117">'Get up here!'</s>
    <s id="1:118">Chestnut Wool Cap barked out angrily.</s>
    <s id="1:119">Pocky Cheng climbed out of the ditch.</s>
    <s id="1:120">Not knowing what to say, he just bowed repeatedly.</s>
    <s id="1:121">Chestnut Wool Cap was twitching right under his nose.</s>
    <s id="1:122">'Are there Nationalist troops in the village?' he asked.</s>
    <s id="1:123">Pocky Cheng looked at him blankly.</s>
    <s id="1:124">A Japanese soldier waved a bloodstained bayonet in front of Pocky Cheng's chest and face.</s>
    <s id="1:125">He heard his stomach growl and felt his intestines writhe and twist slowly; at any other moment, he would have welcomed the intensely pleasant sensation of a bowel movement.</s>
    <s id="1:126">The Japanese soldier shouted something and swung the bayonet, slicing Pocky Cheng's padded jacket down the middle and freeing the cotton wadding inside.</s>
    <s id="1:127">The sharp pain of parted skin and sliced muscles leaped from his rib cage.</s>
    <s id="1:128">He doubled over, all the foul liquids in his body seeming to pour out at once.</s>
    <s id="1:129">He looked imploringly into the enraged Japanese face and began to wail.</s>
    <s id="1:130">Chestnut Wool Cap drove the barrel of his pistol into his forehead.</s>
    <s id="1:131">'Stop blubbering!</s>
    <s id="1:132">The commander asked you a question!</s>
    <s id="1:133">What village is this?</s>
    <s id="1:134">Is it Saltwater Gap?'</s>
    <s id="1:135">He nodded, trying hard to control his sobs.</s>
    <s id="1:136">'Is there a man in the village who makes straw sandals?'</s>
    <s id="1:137">Chestnut Wool Cap softened his tone a little.</s>
    <s id="1:138">Ignoring his pain, he eagerly and ingratiatingly replied, 'Yes yes yes.'</s>
    <s id="1:139">'Did he take his straw sandals to market day in Gaomi yesterday?'</s>
    <s id="1:140">'Yes yes yes,' he jabbered.</s>
    <s id="1:141">Warm blood had slithered down from his chest to his belly.</s>
    <s id="1:142">'How about pickles?'</s>
    <s id="1:143">'I don't know . . . don't think so. . . .'</s>
    <s id="1:144">Chestnut Wool Cap slapped him across the mouth and shouted: 'Tell me!</s>
    <s id="1:145">I want to know about pickles!'</s>
    <s id="1:146">'Yes yes yes, your honour,' he muttered obsequiously.</s>
    <s id="1:147">'Commander, every family has pickles, you can find them in every pickle vat in the village.'</s>
    <s id="1:148">'Stop acting like a fucking idiot.</s>
    <s id="1:149">I want to know if there's somebody called Pickles!'</s>
    <s id="1:150">Chestnut Wool Cap slapped him across the face, over and over.</s>
    <s id="1:151">'Yes . . . no . . . yes . . . no . . .</s>
    <s id="1:152">Your honour . . . don't hit me . . .</s>
    <s id="1:153">Please don't hit me . . . your honour . . .' he mumbled, reeling from the slaps.</s>
    <s id="1:154">The Japanese said something.</s>
    <s id="1:155">Chestnut Wool Cap swept the hat off his head and bowed, then turned back, the smile on his face gone in an instant.</s>
    <s id="1:156">He shoved Pocky Cheng and said with a scowl, 'We want to see all the sandal makers in the village.</s>
    <s id="1:157">You lead the way.'</s>
    <s id="1:158">Concerned about the dung basket he'd left on the wall, Pocky Cheng instinctively cocked his head in that direction.</s>
    <s id="1:159">A bayonet that shone like snow flashed past his cheek.</s>
    <s id="1:160">Quickly concluding that his life was worth more than a dung basket and spade, he turned his head back and set out for the village on his bandy legs.</s>
    <s id="1:161">Dozens of Japs fell in behind him, their leather boots crunching across the frost-covered grass.</s>
    <s id="1:162">A few grey dogs barked tentatively.</s>
    <s id="1:163">I'm really in a fix this time, Pocky Cheng was thinking.</s>
    <s id="1:164">No one else went out to collect dogshit, no one but me, and I ran into some real dogshit luck.</s>
    <s id="1:165">The fact that the Japanese didn't appreciate his good-citizen attitude frustrated him.</s>
    <s id="1:166">He led them quickly to each of the sandal makers' cellars.</s>
    <s id="1:167">Whoever Pickle was, he was sure in one now.</s>
    <s id="1:168">Pocky Cheng looked off into the distance towards his house, where green smoke curled into the sky from the solitary kitchen chimney.</s>
    <s id="1:169">It was the most intense longing for home he'd ever known.</s>
    <s id="1:170">As soon as he was finished he'd go there, change into clean pants, and have his wife rub some lime into the bayonet wound on his chest.</s>
    <s id="1:171">The great woodwind player of Northeast Gaomi Township had never been in such a mess.</s>
    <s id="1:172">Oh, how he longed for his lovely wife, who had grumbled about his pocked face at first, but, resigned at last, had decided that if you marry a chicken you share the coop; marry a dog and you share the kennel.</s>
    <s id="1:173">EARLY-MORNING GUNFIRE beyond the village startled Second Grandma out of a dream in which she was fighting Grandma tooth and nail.</s>
    <s id="1:174">She sat up, her heart thumping wildly, and, try as she might, she couldn't decide if the noise had just been part of the dream.</s>
    <s id="1:175">The window was coated with pale morning sunlight; a grotesque pattern of frost had formed on the pane.</s>
    <s id="1:176">Shuddering from the cold, she tilted her head so she could see her daughter, my aunt, who was lying beside her, snoring peacefully.</s>
    <s id="1:177">The sweet, even breathing of the five-year-old girl soothed Second Grandma's fears.</s>
    <s id="1:178">Maybe it was only Old Geng shooting at wild game, a mountain lion or something, she consoled herself.</s>
    <s id="1:179">She had no way of knowing how accurate her prediction was, nor could she have known that while she was sliding back under the covers the tips of Japanese bayonets were jabbing Old Geng's ribs.</s>
    <s id="1:180">Little Auntie rolled over and nestled up against Second Grandma, who wrapped her arms around her until she could feel the little girl's warm breath against her chest.</s>
    <s id="1:181">Eight years had passed since Grandma had kicked her out of the house.</s>
    <s id="1:182">During that time, Granddad had been tricked into going to the Jinan police station, where he nearly lost his life.</s>
    <s id="1:183">But he managed to escape and make his way home, where Grandma had taken Father to live with Black Eye, the leader of the Iron Society.</s>
    <s id="1:184">When Granddad fought Black Eye to a standstill at the Salty Water River, he touched Grandma so deeply she followed him home, where they ran the distillery with renewed vitality.</s>
    <s id="1:185">Granddad put his rifle away, bringing his bandit days to an end, and began life as a wealthy peasant, at least for the next few years.</s>
    <s id="1:186">They were troubling years, thanks to the rivalry between Grandma and Second Grandma.</s>
    <s id="1:187">In the end, they reached a 'tripartite agreement' in which Granddad would spend ten days with Grandma, then ten days with Second Grandma – ten days was the absolute limit.</s>
    <s id="1:188">He stuck to his bargain, since neither woman was an economy lantern, someone to be taken lightly.</s>
    <s id="1:189">Second Grandma was enjoying the sweetness of her sorrows as she hugged Little Auntie.</s>
    <s id="1:190">She was three months pregnant.</s>
    <s id="1:191">A period of increased tenderness, pregnancy is a time of weakness during which women need attention and protection, and Second Grandma was no exception.</s>
    <s id="1:192">Counting the days on her fingers, she longed for Granddad.</s>
    <s id="1:193">He would be there tomorrow.</s>
    <s id="1:194">Another crisp gunshot sounded outside the village,</s>
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