7
shangguan laidi hadn’t led her sisters more than a few dozen paces when she heard a seriesof sharp noises that sounded like strange bird cries. she looked into the sky to see what it was,just in time to hear an explosion in the middle of the river. her ears rang, her brain clouded. ashattered catfish came on the air and landed at her feet. threads of blood seeped from its splitorange head; its feelers twitched, and its guts were spread all over its back. when it landed, aspray of muddy hot river water drenched laidi and her sisters. numbed and sort of dreamy,she turned to look at her sisters, who returned the look. she saw a gob of sticky stuff inniandi’s hair, like a wad of chewed grass; seven or eight silvery fish scales were stuck toxiangdi’s cheek. dark waves churned in the river no more than a few dozen paces fromwhere they stood, forming a whirlpool; heated water rose into the air, then fell back down intothe whirlpool. a thin layer of mist hovered above the surface, and she could smell thepleasant odor of gunpowder. she struggled to figure out what had just happened, gripped by aforeboding that something was very wrong. wanting to scream, all she could manage was ashower of tears that fell noisily to the ground. what am i crying for? no, i’m not reallycrying, she was thinking, and why should i? maybe they were drops of river water, not tearsat all. chaos reigned inside her head. the scene arrayed before her — the sun glinting off thebridge beams, the churning, muddy river, densely packed shrubbery, all the startled swallows,and her stunned sisters — enveloped her in a chaotic mix of images, like a tangled skein ofstring. her eyes fell on her baby sister, qiudi, whose mouth hung slack and whose eyes weresqueezed shut; tears ran down her cheeks. a sizzle filled the air around them, like beanspopping in the sun. secrets hidden amid the riverbank bushes produced a rustling sound likeskittering little critters, but no sound from the men in green she’d seen in the bushes a fewminutes before. the shrub branches pointed silently upward and their gold-coin-like leavesshimmied slightly. were they still there? if so, what were they doing? then she heard a flat,distant shout: “little sisters, hit the ground … little sisters … down on your bellies …”
she searched the landscape to locate the source of the shouts. deep down in her brain acrab crawled around, and it hurt terribly. she saw something black and shiny fall from thesky. a pillar of water as thick as an ox rose slowly out of river just east of the stone bridge,and spread out once it reached the height of the dike, like the branches of a weeping willow.
within seconds the smells of gunpowder, river mud, and shattered fish and shrimp rushed intoher nostrils. her ears stung so badly she couldn’t hear a thing, but she thought she saw soundwaves spreading through the air.
another black object fell into the river, sending a second pillar of water skyward.
something blue slammed into the riverbank, its edges curled outward like a dog’s tooth.
when she bent down to pick it up, a wisp of yellow smoke rose from the tip of her finger, anda sharp pain shot through her body. in a flash, the crashing noises of the world rushed at heragain, as if the now searing pain in her finger came from her ear, breaking up the blockage.
the water was lapping noisily, smoke was rolling upwards. explosions rumbled in the air.
three of her sisters were howling, the other three were lying on the ground with their handsover their ears, their fannies sticking up, like those stupid, awkward birds that bury their headsin the sand when they’re pursued, forgetting all about their hindquarters.
“little sisters!” again she heard a voice in the bushes. “down on your bellies, hit theground and crawl over here …”
she lay on her belly and searched for the man in the bushes. finally, she spotted him amidthe lithe branches of a red willow. the dark-faced stranger with the white teeth was wavingher over. “hurry!” he shouted. “crawl over here.”
a crack opened up in her confused mind and let in rays of light. hearing the whinny of ahorse, she turned to look behind her and saw a gold-colored colt, its fiery mane flying as itgalloped onto the stone bridge from the southern end. the lovely, halterless colt was unruly,lively, reveling in its youth. the son of third master fan’s japanese stud horse, it belonged tofelicity manor; in other words, the golden colt was another of his grandsons. she knew thatlovable colt, and she liked it. she often saw it galloping up and down the lane, throwingaunty sun’s dogs into a frenzy. when it reached the middle of the bridge, it stopped as ifbrought up short by the wall of straw, or made woozy by the liquor it was soaked in. it cockedits head and scrutinized the straw. what could it be thinking? she wondered. another shriektore through the air as a lump of blinding molten metal crashed into the bridge with athunderous roar, seemingly having traveled a great distance. the colt disintegrated before hereyes; one of its charred legs landed in the bushes nearby. a wave of nausea drove a sour,bitter liquid up from her stomach into her throat, and at that moment, she understoodeverything. the colt’s severed leg showed her what death was all about, and a sense of horrormade her quake, made her teeth chatter. jumping to her feet, she dragged her sisters into thebushes.
all six younger sisters huddled around her, holding on to each other like stalks of garlicwrapped around the stem. laidi heard that now familiar hoarse voice shouting at her, but theseething waters of the river swallowed up the sound.
folding her baby sister into her arms, she felt the searing heat of the little girl’s face. acalmness returned to the river for the moment, giving the layer of smoke a chance to dissipate.
more of those hissing black objects flew over the flood dragon river, dragging long tailsbehind them before landing in the village with muffled explosions, followed by faint screamsfrom women and the thud of collapsing structures. not a soul in sight on the opposite dike,nothing but a solitary locust tree. on the riverbank below stood a line of weeping willowswhose branches touched the surface of the water. where were these strange, scary flyingobjects coming from? she wondered stubbornly. a shout — ai ya ya — broke herconcentration. the sight of the felicity manor assistant steward, sima ku, riding his bicycleup onto the bridge appeared through the branches. what’s he doing? she wondered. it must bebecause of the horse. but he was holding a lit torch, so it wasn’t the horse, whose corpse wassplattered all over the bridge and whose blood stained the water below.
sima ku slammed on the brakes and flung the torch into the liquor-soaked straw, sendingblue flames into the sky. jerking his bicycle around, but too rushed to climb onto it, he ran itdown the bridge, the blue flames licking at his heels. the eerie ai ya ya shouts kept spillingfrom his mouth. when a sudden loud crack sent his wide-brimmed straw hat flying into theriver, he let go of his bicycle, bent low at the waist, stumbled, and fell face-first onto thebridge flooring. crack, crack, crack, a string of noises like firecrackers. sima ku hugged thebridge flooring and crawled like a lizard. suddenly he was gone, and the cracking noisesstopped. the bridge all but disappeared in blue, smokeless flames, those in the center risinghigher than the others and turning the water below blue. laidi’s chest constricted in thestifling air and waves of heat; her nostrils were hot and dry. the waves of heat changed intogusting, whistling winds. the bushes were wet, sort of sweaty; the leaves of trees curled upand withered. then she heard the high-pitched voice of sima ku emerge from behind thedike:
“fuck your sisters, you little nips. you may have crossed marco polo bridge, but you’llnever cross fiery dragon bridge!”
then he laughed:
“ah ha ha ha, ah ha ha ha, ah ha ha ha …”
sima ku’s laughter seemed endless. on the opposite bank, a line of yellow caps popped upover the top of the dike, followed by the heads of horses and the yellow uniforms of theirriders. dozens of horse soldiers were now perched atop the dike, and though they were stillhundreds of meters away, laidi saw that the horses looked exactly like third master fan’sstud horse. the japs! the japs are here! the japs have come …avoiding the stone bridge, which was engulfed in blue flames, the japanese soldiers easedtheir horses down the dike sideways, dozens of them bumping clumsily into each other all theway down to the riverbed. she could hear the men’s grunts and shouts and the horses’ snortsas they entered the river. the water quickly swallowed up the horses’ legs, until their belliesrested on the surface. the riders sat their mounts comfortably, sitting straight, heads high,their faces white in the bright sunlight, which blurred their features. with their heads up, thehorses appeared to be galloping, which in fact was impossible. the water, like thick syrup,had a sticky, sweet smell. struggling to move ahead, the massive horses raised blue ripples onthe surface; to laidi, they looked like little tongues of fire singeing the animals’ hides, whichwas why they were holding their large heads so high, and why they kept moving forward,their tails floating behind them. the japanese riders, holding the reins with both hands,bobbed up and down, their legs in a rigid inverted v. she watched a chestnut-colored horsestop in the middle of the river, lift its tail, and release a string of droppings. its anxious riderdug his heels into the horse’s flanks to get it going again. but the horse, refusing to move,shook its head and chewed noisily on the bit.
“attack, comrades!” came a yell from the bushes to her left, followed by a muted soundlike tearing silk. then the rattle of gunfire — crisp and dull, thick and thin. a black object,trailing white smoke, hit the water with a loud thunk and sent a pillar of water into the air. thejapanese soldier on the chestnut horse was thrown forward at a bizarre angle, then sprangback, his arms flailing wildly in the air. fresh black blood gushing from his chest soaked thehead of his horse and stained the water. the horse reared, exposing its muddy forelegs and itsbroad, shiny chest. by the time its front hooves crashed through the surface of the wateragain, the japanese soldier was draped face-up across the animal’s rump. a second japanesesoldier, this one on a black mount, flew headfirst into the river. another, riding a blue horse,was thrown forward out of his saddle, but wrapped his arms around the animal’s neck andhung there, capless, a trickle of blood dripping from his ear into the river.
chaos reigned on the river, where riderless horses whinnied and spun around to struggleback to the far bank. all the other japanese soldiers lay forward in their saddles, clampingdown with their legs as they aimed their shiny rifles at the bushes and opened fire. dozens ofsnorting horses made their way to the shoals the best they could. with beads of water drippingfrom their bellies and mud covering their purple hooves, they dragged long glistening threadsall the way out to the middle of the river.
a sorrel with a white forehead, a pale-faced japanese soldier on its back, jumped andleaped toward the dike, its hooves thudding clumsily and noisily into the shoals. thesquinting, tight-lipped soldier on its back smacked its rump with his left hand and brandisheda silvery sword in his right, as he charged the bushes. laidi saw beads of sweat on the tip ofhis nose and the thick lashes of his mount, and she could hear the air forced out through thehorse’s nostrils; she could also smell the sour stench of horse sweat. all of a sudden, redsmoke emerged from the sorrel’s forehead, and all four of its churning legs stiffened. its hidewas creased with more wrinkles than she could count, its legs turned to rubber, and before itsrider knew what was happening, both he and the horse fell crashing into the bushes.
the japanese cavalry unit headed south along the riverbank all the way up to where laidiand her sisters had left their shoes. there they reined in their horses and cut through thebushes up to the dike. laidi kept looking, but they were gone. she then turned to look down atthe dead sorrel, its head bloody, its big, lifeless blue eyes staring sadly into the deep blue sky.
the japanese rider lay facedown in the mud, pinned beneath the horse, his head cocked at anawkward angle, one bloodless hand stretched out to the riverbank, as if fishing for something.
the horses’ hooves had chewed up the smooth, sundrenched mud of the shoals. the body of awhite horse lay on its side in the river, rolling slowly in the shifting water, until it flipped overand its legs, tipped by hooves the size of clay jugs, rose terrifyingly into the air. a momentlater, the water churned and the legs slipped back into the water to wait for the nextopportunity to point to the sky. the chestnut horse that had made such an impression on laidiwas already far downriver, dragging its dead rider with it, and she wondered if it might be offlooking for its mate, imagining it to be the long-separated wife of third master fan’s studhorse.
fires were continued to burn on the bridge, the now yellow flames sending thick whitesmoke out of the piles of straw. the green bridge flooring arched high in the air as it groanedand gasped and moaned. in her mind, the burning bridge was transformed into a giant snakewrithing in agony, trying desperately to fly up into the sky with both its head and tail naileddown. the poor bridge, she thought sadly. and that poor german bicycle, the only modernmachine in gaomi, was now nothing but charred, twisted metal. her nose was assailed by thesmells of gunpowder, rubber, blood, and mud that turned the heated air sticky and thick, andher breast was suffused with a foul miasma that seemed about to explode. worse yet, a layerof grease had formed on the roasted bushes in front of them, and a wave of sparking heatrushed toward her, igniting crackling fires in the bushes. scooping qiudi up in her arms, shescreamed for her sisters to leave the bushes. then, standing on the dike, she counted until theywere all there with her, grimy-faced and barefoot, their eyes staring blankly, their earlobesroasted red. they scampered down the dike and ran toward an abandoned patch of groundthat everyone said was once the foundation and crumbled walls of a muslim woman’s housethat had since been reclaimed by wild hemp and cocklebur. as she ran into the tangle ofundergrowth, her legs felt as if they were made of dough, and the nettles pricked her feetpainfully. her sisters, crying and complaining, stumbled along behind her. so they all satdown amid the hemp and wrapped their arms around each other, the younger girls buryingtheir faces in laidi’s clothing; only she kept her head up, gazing fearfully at the fire ragingover the dike.
the men in green uniforms she’d seen before trouble arrived came running out of the sea offlames, shrieking like demons. their clothes were on fire. she heard the now familiar voiceshout, “roll on the ground!” he was the first to hit the ground and roll down the dike, like afireball. a dozen or more fireballs followed him. the flames were extinguished, but greensmoke rose from the men’s clothes and hair. their uniforms, which only moments earlier hadbeen the same eye-catching green as the shrubbery in which they were hiding, were now littlemore than black rags that clung to their bodies.
one of the men, not heeding the order to roll on the ground, screamed in agony as he ranlike the wind, carrying the flames with him all the way up to the wild hemp where the girlswere hiding, heading straight for a big puddle of filthy water; it was covered by a profusion ofwild grasses and water plants, with thick red stems and fat, tender leaves the color of goosedown, and pink, cottony flower buds. the flaming man threw himself into the puddle, sendingwater splashing in all directions and a host of baby frogs leaping out of their hiding places.
white egg- laying butterflies fluttered into the air and disappeared into the sunlight as ifconsumed by the heat. now that the flames had sputtered out, the man lay there, black as coal,gobs of mud stuck to his head and face, a tiny worm wriggling on his cheek. she could notsee his nose or his eyes, only his mouth, which spread open to release tortured screams:
“mother, dear mother, i’m going to die …” a golden loach accompanied the screams out ofhis mouth. his pitiful writhing stirred up mud that had accumulated over the years and sent anawful stench into the air.
his comrades lay on the ground, moaning and cursing, their rifles and clubs scattered about— except for the thin man with the dark face, who still held his pistol. “comrades,” he said,“let’s get out of here. the japanese will be back!”
as if they hadn’t heard him, the charred soldiers stayed where they were on the ground. acouple of them climbed shakily to their feet and took a few wobbly steps before their legsgave out. “comrades, let’s get out of here!” he bellowed, kicking the man nearest him.
the man crawled forward and struggled into a kneeling position. “commander,” he criedout pitifully, “my eyes, i can’t see anything …”
now she knew that the dark- faced man was called commander. “comrades,” he saidanxiously, “the japs are coming. we must be ready for them …”
off to the east, she saw twenty or more japanese horse soldiers in two columns on the topof the dike, riding down like a tide in tight formation in spite of the flames around them, thehorses trotting across the ridge, heads thrust out, one close on the heels of the other. whenthey reached chen family lane, the lead horse turned and negotiated the slope, the othersquickly falling in behind it. they skirted a broad expanse of open land (the land, which servedas a grain-drying ground for the sima family, was flat and smooth, covered by golden sand),then picked up speed, galloping in a straight line. all the japanese horsemen brandished long,narrow swords that glinted in the sun as they bore down on the enemy like the wind, their warwhoops shattering the silence.
the commander raised his pistol and fired at the onrushing cavalry troops, a single puff ofwhite smoke emerging from the mouth of the barrel. then he threw down the pistol andlimped as fast he could toward where laidi and her sisters were hiding. a speeding apricot-colored horse brushed past him, its rider leaning over in the saddle as he slashed the air withhis sword. the commander hit the ground in time to keep his head from being struck by thesword, but not quickly enough to avoid having a chunk of his right shoulder sliced off; itsailed through the air and landed nearby. laidi saw the palm-sized piece of flesh twitch like askinned frog. with a scream of pain, the commander rolled on the ground, then crawled upagainst a large cocklebur and lay there without moving. the japanese soldier spun his mountaround and headed straight for a big man who was standing up holding a sword. with fearwritten on his face, the man swung his sword weakly, as if aiming for the horse’s head, but hewas knocked to the ground by the animal’s hooves, and before he knew it, the rider leanedover and split his head open with his sword, splattering the japanese soldier’s pants with hisbrains. in no time at all, a dozen or more men who had escaped from the burning bushes layon the ground in eternal rest. the japanese riders, still in the grip of frenzied excitement,trampled the bodies beneath their horses’ hooves.
just then, another cavalry unit, followed by a huge contingent of khaki-clad foot soldiers,emerged from the pine grove west of the village and joined up with the first unit; thereinforced cavalry forces then turned and headed toward the village along the north-southhighway. the helmeted foot soldiers, rifles in hand, fell in behind their mounted comradesand stormed the village like locusts.
on the dike the fires had died out; thick black smoke rose into the sky. laidi could see onlyblackness where the dike was, while the ruined bushes gave off a pleasant charred odor.
swarms of flies, seemingly dropping out of the sky, fell upon the battered corpses and thepuddles of blood near them, and on the scarred branches and leaves of the shrubs, and on thecommander’s body. the flies seemed to blot out everything within sight.
her eyes felt dull and heavy, her lids sticky, in the presence of a world of strange sightsshe’d never seen before: there were the severed legs of horses, horses with knives stuck intheir heads, naked men with huge members hanging between their legs, human heads rollingaround on the ground clucking like mother hens, and little fish with skinny legs hopping onhemp plants in front of her. but what frightened her most was the commander, whom shethought was long dead; climbing slowly to his knees, he crawled over to the chunk of fleshfrom his shoulder, flattened it out, and stuck it onto the spot where it had been cut off. but itimmediately hopped back off and burrowed into a patch of weeds. so he snatched it up andsmashed it on the ground, over and over, until it was dead. then he plucked a tattered piece ofcloth from his body and wrapped the flesh in it.
