The Garlic Ballads

With that the beggar bowed deeply to the handsome couple and laughed until he was rocking back and forth. Then he turned and presented himself before Jinju and Gao Ma. With a bow he said, “Elder Brother, Elder Sister, how about one of those delicious — looking pears? My throat’s dry from all that barking.”

Jinju picked out a big one and thrust it into the beggar’s hand. He acknowledged the handout with a deep bow before gobbling the pear up, one big bite after another, all the while humming a nasal tune. Then, as if there weren’t another soul in sight, he turned and walked off, his head held high.

Another announcement emerged from the PA system, sending more passengers to the gates to have their tickets punched. The woman in red and the young curlyhead rose and dashed off to the gate, dragging a suitcase on rollers behind them.

“What about us?” Jinju asked Gao Ma.

He looked at his watch. “Forty minutes more,” he said. “I’m getting a little impatient myself.”

By this time there were no more passengers sleeping on the benches, although people continued to enter and leave the waiting room, including an old beggar who quaked from head to toe, and a woman with a child in tow, also asking for handouts. A middle-aged man in a beaked cap and a uniform tunic, holding a half-empty bottle of beer in one hand, stood in front of the bulletin board and held forth, waving the bottle in the air for effect. His sleeves were stained and greasy, and there was a piece of skin missing on his nose, exposing the pale flesh beneath. Two fountain pens were clipped in his breast pocket; Jinju assumed he was some kind of party official. He took a swig of beer, waved the bottle once or twice to watch the foam rise, and began to speak. His tongue was thick in his mouth, and his lower lip seemed not to move at all.

“The nine editorials — refuting the Open Letter of the revisionist Soviet Central Committee of the Communist Party… Khrushchev said, ‘Stalin, you are my second father.’ In Chinese it would be, ‘Stalin, you are my true father’—in Paradise dialect it would be, ‘Stalin, you are my big fellow.’ “ Another swig of beer, then he knelt down like Khrushchev the supplicant before Stalin. “But,” he continued, “the heirs of perfidious people are more unbridled than their predecessors. When Khrushchev assumed power, he burned Stalin. Comrades, historical experience demands our attention “ Another swig of beer. “Comrade leaders at all levels, you must give it your full attention. Do not, I repeat, do not be negligent. Wa—” Beer foam oozed from his mouth, which he wiped with his sleeve. “The nine editorials — refuting the open letter of the Soviet Central Committee

Mesmerized by the man, Jinju listened to him rant and rave about things she had never heard of before. The quake in his voice and the way he twisted his tongue around the name “Stalin” appealed to her the most.

Gao Ma squeezed her arm and said softly, “We’ve got trouble, Jinju. Here comes Deputy Yang.”

She turned to look and felt as if her body had turned to ice. Deputy Yang, her lame Elder Brother, and her bull-like Second Brother stood in the waiting-room entrance.

Grabbing Gao Ma’s hand in panic, she stood up.

The middle-aged official took a swig of beer, waved his arm in the air, and shouted, “Stalin …”

4.

The long-bed Jeep bumped and jolted along the edge of the jute field, until Deputy Yang tapped the driver on the shoulder and said, “Stop here, lad.”

The driver slammed on the brakes; the Jeep screeched to a halt.

Deputy Yang jumped down and said, “Want to stretch your legs, Number One?”

Opening his door, Elder Brother jumped down, stumbled briefly, then stood and stretched.

Second Brother nudged Jinju. “Get out,” he told her. Gao Ma was sitting on the other side of Jinju. “Get out!” Elder Brother shouted.

Gao Ma jumped down in a crouch; Second Brother nudged Jinju out of the Jeep.

The sun was directly over the chili-pepper crop that lay on the Pale Horse County side of the road, a virtual sea of blood-red. On the Paradise County side, fields of jute, broad and deep, seemed to go on forever; birds noiselessly skimming the tips of the plants made Jinju feel uncommonly at peace, as if she had already dimly envisioned today’s events. Now everything had fallen into place.

Her hands were bound behind her with hempen cords; her brothers had relented slighdy by tying them at the wrists. With Gao Ma it was a different matter, for he had been hogtied so the ropes would dig deeply into his shoulders and force his neck out unnaturally. It broke her heart to see him like that.

Deputy Yang took a couple of steps into the jute field and relieved himself with casual immodesty. When he had finished, he turned his head and said, “Number One, Number Two, you Fangs are worthless trash!”

Elder Brother gaped at Deputy Yang with his mouth hanging slack.

“Anyone who lets his little sister get tricked into running off with some man is a dumb bastard. If it had been me … hmph!” He glared menacingly at Gao Ma.