The Garlic Ballads

1.

    “Gao Yang!”
    The noonday sun beat down fiercely; dusty air carried the stink of rotting garlic after a prolonged dry spell. A flock of indigo crows flew wearily across the sky, casting a shadowy wedge. There had been no time to braid the garlic, which lay in heaps, reeking as it baked in the sun. Gao Yang, whose eyebrows sloped downward at the ends, was squatting alongside a table, holding a bowl of garlic broth and fighting back the waves of nausea rising from his stomach. The urgent shout had come in through his unlatched gate as he was about to take a sip of the broth. He recognized the voice as belonging to the village boss, Gao Jinjiao. Hastily laying down his bowl, he shouted a reply and walked to the door. “Is that you, Uncle Jinjiao? Come on in.”
    This time the voice was gentler. “Gao Yang, come out here for a minute. I have to talk to you about something.”
    Knowing the consequences of slighting the village boss, Gao Yang turned to his blind eight-year-old daughter, who sat frozen at the table like a dark statue, her black, beautiful, sightless eyes opened wide. “Dont touch anything, Xinghua, or you might scald yourself.”
    Baked earth burned the soles of his feet; the intense heat made his eyes water. With the sun beating down on his bare back, he scraped caked-on dirt from his chest. He heard the cry of his newborn baby on the kang, a brick platform that served as the family’s bed, and thought he heard his wife mumble something. Finally, he had a son. It was a comforting thought. The fragrance of new millet drifted up on a southwestern breeze, reminding him that harvest was approaching. Suddenly his heart sank, and a chill worked its way up his spine. He wanted desperately to stop walking, but his legs kept propelling him forward, as the pungent odor of garlic stalks and bulbs made his eyes water. He raised his bare arm to wipe them, confident that he wasn’t crying.
    He opened the gate. “What is it, Uncle?” he asked. “Ow! … Mother—!” Emerald bits streaked past him, like millions of green garlic stalks swirling in the air; something struck his right ankle, a dull, heavy, gut-wrenching blow. Momentarily stunned, he closed his eyes and assumed that the sound he heard was his own scream as he slumped to one side. Another dull thud behind his left knee. He screamed in pain— there was no denying it this time—and pitched forward, winding up on his knees on the stone steps. Dazed, he tried to open his eyes, but the lids were too heavy, and the pungent, garlicky air drew tears. Still, he knew he wasn’t crying. He raised his hand to rub his eyes, only to discover that his wrists were snared painfully by something cold and hard; two faint metallic clicks knifed into his brain.
    Finally he opened his eyes. Through the film of tears—I’m not crying, he thought—he saw two policemen in white tunics and green pants with red stripes down the legs; they towered over him, pale smudges on their pants and dark stains on their tunics. But what caught his attention were the pistols and the dark nightsticks that hung from wide, cordovan-colored, artificial-leather belts cinching up their tunics. The buckles glinted in the sun. He looked up into the mens expressionless faces, but before he could utter a sound, the man on the left waved a sheet of paper with an official red seal in front of him and said with a slight stammer, “Y-you’re under arrest.”
    That was when he noticed the shiny steel bracelets on his sunburned wrists. They were linked by a slack, heavy, silvery chain that swayed lazily when he raised his hands. A powerful shudder wracked him. The blood flowed sluggishly through his veins, and he felt himself shrinking: his testicles retreated into his body and his guts knotted up. Chilled drops of urine on his thighs informed him that he was peeing his pants, and he tried to hold it back. But the lilting, mournful cries of the blind minstrel Zhang Kous two-stringed
erhu
reached his ears, and his muscles turned slack and useless; an icy stream of urine ran down his leg, soaked his buttocks, and washed the callused soles of his feet as he knelt. He actually heard it slosh around in his crotch.
    The policeman on the left took Gao Yang’s arm in his ice-cold hand to help him up. Another slight stammer. “G-get up.”
    Still dazed, Gao Yang reached for the policeman’s arm, but the handcuffs, clanking softly, dug into his flesh and forced him to let go. Fearfully, he held