The Garlic Ballads

The procession had left them far enough behind that all they could see was an expanse of that strange crop. Not a soul anywhere, but there were unmistakable signs of people passing through the foliage. The white underbellies of large green leaves showed the path the procession had taken. Lifting Gao Yang up until his feet left the ground, the policemen began trotting with their prisoner.

Eventually they caught up with the others at a railroad crossing, which, for all they knew, could have been the same one as a while ago. Nine prisoners and eighteen policemen, standing in three rows, were waiting for them on the elevated track bed. A half-turn, and the procession trebled its length, one black sandwiched between two whites, like a stiff black-and-white snake. Fourth Aunt was the only female prisoner, her escorts the only policewomen. They were shouting, the sound loud and lingering, the words indistinguishable.

After rejoining the procession and forming up again into three columns, the procession entered an unlighted tunnel, where the water was ankle deep and dripped from the overhead arch, making a hollow sound in the inky darkness. Some wagons shot past, the horses’ hooves splashing loudly.

They emerged from the tunnel onto May First Boulevard, to their surprise, and five minutes later were in May First Square, walking on a layer of rotting, disgustingly slippery garlic. Gao Yang felt miserable about his new shoes.

Throngs of peasants lined the square. The frost on their faces, dusted with grime, didn’t look as if it would ever melt. Tears streamed down the cheeks of the few who were looking up into the sun, nearly blinded by its rays. One of them looked like an ape man, the kind he’d seen in a Schoolbook — narrow, jutting forehead, wide mouth, long, apelike arms. Anyway, this strange creature leaped out of the crowd, raised one of his long arms, opened his mouth wide, and bellowed, “Hua-lala, hua-lala, one hand on a nice big tit, add soy sauce and vinegar …” Gao Yang had no idea what he meant, but he heard his gaunt police escort mutter angrily, “A loony, a real loony!”

After passing through the square, they turned into a narrow lane, where a boy in a nylon jacket had a pigtailed girl pinned up against a hollow in the wall and was nibbling at her face. She was trying her best to push him away. Mud-spattered geese strutted back and forth behind them. The procession passed so close behind the boy that the girl wrapped her arms around his waist and drew him to her so the column could squeeze by.

They emerged from the lane, and there in front of them, amazingly, was May First Boulevard — again. Across the street a multistoried building was going up behind a rumbling cement mixer tended by a boy and a girl no more than eleven or twelve years old. He was shoveling sand and pouring lime and cement into the funnel, while she squirted water into the funnel with a black plastic hose that shook so violently from the high pressure that she could barely hold it. The mixing oar scraped loudly against the funnel. Then the pale-yellow derrick slowly lifted a prefab concrete slab with airholes. Four men in hard hats sat on it playing poker, shocking observers by their nonchalance.

After another tum around the square, the prison wall was in front of him once again. The electrified wire crackled and gave off blue sparks. The piece of red cloth still hung from it. “Team Leader Xing,” one of the policemen shouted, “shouldn’t we be heading back to rest?”

A tall, heavyset fellow with a dark face glanced at his wristwatch, then looked up at the sky. “Half an hour,” he shouted back.

The prison gate opened with a clang, and the police herded the prisoners inside the yard. Rather than put them back into their cells, they had them sit in a circle on the lush green grass, where they were told to stretch their legs out in front of them, hands on their knees. The police walked off lazily, their place taken by an armed guard who kept watch over the prisoners. Some of the policemen went to the toilet, others did stretching exercises on a horizontal bar.

After ten minutes or so, Fourth Aunt’s escorts emerged with red lacquer trays holding soft drinks in opened bottles with drinking straws. There were two lands. “The colors are different, but they taste exactly the same,” they announced. “One bottle apiece.” One of them bent down in front of Gao Yang. “Which do you want?”

He looked uncertainly at the bottles on her tray. Some were the color of blood; others appeared to be filled with ink.

“Hurry up, choose one. And no changing your mind later.”

“I’ll take a red one,” he said firmly.

She handed him a bottle filled with the red liquid, which he accepted with both hands, then held, not daring to start right away.

After all the drinks were distributed, Gao Yang noticed that everyone but Gao Ma had chosen red.

“Go on, drink,” one of the policewomen said.

But the prisoners just looked at each other, not daring to take a drink.