Pow! (34 page)

But, having no time to waste on an ill-bred dog, I turned back to watch the adults in the other room. Mother wiped the table with a clean rag and then covered it with a sheet of blue felt. Then she fetched a yellow mah-jongg set from a cabinet against the wall. I knew that villagers played mah-jongg, that some even gambled on it. But Father and Mother had been quite hostile towards the game. Once, when we were walking down an alley, Mother and I passed by the eastern wing of Lao Lan's house and heard the swishing of mah-jongg tiles. With a sneer, she'd said softly: ‘Son, everything is worth learning, everything but gambling.’ I can still see the stern look on her face, but she was obviously no stranger to mah-jongg.

Mother, Father, Lao Lan and Lao Han sat round the table, while a young man wearing the same uniform as Lao Han—his nephew and his aide—poured tea for all four players and then retired to the side to sit and smoke. I spotted several packs of high-quality cigarettes on the table, each costing as
much as half a pig's head. Father, Lao Lan and Lao Han were heavy smokers. Mother didn't smoke, but she made a show of lighting up and, with a cigarette dangling from her lips, expertly arranged her tiles. She looked a bit like one of those femme fatales you see in old films, and I could hardly believe how much she'd changed in a few short months. The poorly dressed and unkempt Yang Yuzhen who'd spent her days dealing in junk had ceased to exist. It was as miraculous a change as a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.

These were not your typical mah-jongg players. No, this was high-stakes gambling. Each player sat behind a stack of money, with nothing smaller than a ten-yuan note. The money fluttered when the tiles were mixed. Lao Han's pile grew as the rounds progressed, those in front of the other three shrank. He had to stop to wipe his sweaty face from time to time and frequently rolled up his sleeves to rub his hands. He had removed his hat and tossed it onto the sofa behind him. Lao Lan never stopped smiling. Father wore a detached look. Mother was the only animated one among them, muttering to herself. There was something about her unhappiness that didn't seem quite real—it was really a ploy to let Lao Han savour his winning ways.

‘No more,’ she said after a while, ‘that's it for me. I've had terrible luck.’

Lao Han straightened his pile of money and counted it. ‘How about taking some of mine?’

‘Not on your life! Lao Han! Thanks to me you've done well today. Next time I'll win it all. Even take that uniform off your back.’

‘Big talk,’ Han said. ‘Unlucky in love, lucky at the table. Since I've never had any luck in love, I'll always win at the table.’

My eyes were glued to Lao Han's hands as he counted his money. In two hours he'd won nine thousand.

Smoke rises, fires blaze and crowds buzz at the barbecue stands across the road, a scene of frenetic activity. But only Lan Laoda's bodyguards are standing, arms folded, in front of the four barbecue stands in the temple yard, while he paces at the gate. He's frowning, as if weighed down with daunting concerns. Hungry participants at the festival glance at us as they come and go but no one approaches us. The cooks keep flipping the meat on the grill, which has begun to smoke. I see they're growing annoyed, but their scowls turn to fawning smiles whenever one of the bodyguards looks their way. The
cook who's grilling goslings cups a cigarette and takes a drag when no one's looking. The sound of singing from across the way comes to us on the wind. They're the songs a Taiwanese chanteuse sang some thirty years ago. They were popular when I was a little boy, travelling across China from city to town to village. Lao Lan said that his third uncle had been the singer's sole patron. Now her songs have returned and the clock has turned back. In a black dress under a white vest, she's cut her bangs just above her eyebrows; like a lovely swallow, she comes flying across the road and throws herself into Lan Laoda's arms. ‘Big Brother Lan,’ she mews coquettishly. He picks her up, twirls her round a time or two and then flings her to the floor. She falls upon a thick wool carpet on which are embroidered a male and female phoenix frolicking amid peonies—a spectacularly colourful display. The singer's now-naked body lies in the light of a crystal chandelier, her eyes glazing over. With his hands clasped behind his back, Lan Laoda takes several turns round her, like a tiger circling its prey. She gets to her knees and says, flirting: ‘Come on, Big Brother.’ He sits on the carpet and crosses his legs to scrutinize her figure. He's in suit and tie, she hasn't a stitch on, a wondrous contrast. ‘What do you plan to do, Lan Laoda?’ she pouts. ‘I had lots of women before you,’ he says, almost to himself. ‘My boss gave me fifty thousand US dollars every month for expenses, and if I couldn't spend it all he called me a stupid arse.’ I can't divulge his name to you, revered Wise Monk, and I swore to Lao Lan that if I ever told a soul I'd die with no offspring. ‘It didn't take me long to learn how to throw money about like dirt,’ he says. ‘I went from woman to woman like a carousel. But since I found her, you're the first woman to take her clothes off for me. She's the line of demarcation, and since you're the first woman on this side of that line you deserve an explanation. I'll never say this to anyone again, not ever. Are you willing to be her stand-in? Are you willing to call out her name while I'm screwing you? Are you willing to pretend to be her?’ The singer mulls that over for a moment. ‘Yes, Lan Laoda,’ she says thoughtfully, ‘I am. Whatever makes you happy. I wouldn't flinch if you told me to kill myself.’ Lan Laoda takes the singer in his arms and cries out emotionally, ‘Yaoyao…’ After they roll and writhe on the carpet for an hour or so, the singer—hair askew, lipstick gone, a woman's cigarette dangling from her lips—sits on a sofa with a glass of red wine, and when two streams of white smoke emerge from her mouth the signs of age on her face cannot be erased. Wise Monk, why has this singer's
youth vanished after having sex with Lan Laoda for only an hour, and why does she have the face of an old woman? Could this be a case of ‘Ten days in the mountains are a thousand years on earth’? Lao Lan has said that Shen Yaoyao was in love with his third uncle. So was the singer. Enough women to form a division have been in love with him. I know that Lao Lan was boasting, Wise Monk, so just laugh off what I‘m saying.

Father and Mother woke up early in the morning on the day the United Meatpacking Plant formally opened for business and got Jiaojiao and me out of bed. I knew this was a day of great importance for Slaughterhouse Village, for my parents and for Lao Lan.

When the Wise Monk purses his lips, a vapid smile forms on his face, which must mean that he has seen the same scene and heard the same words as me. Then again, that smile may have nothing to do with what I saw and heard and may simply be a reflection of his thoughts and whatever he finds funny. But one way or other, let's you and me, Wise Monk, enter a scene of greater splendour. The street beyond the gate of Lan Laoda's mansion is crowded with luxury automobiles, whose drivers are being respectfully directed to parking spots by a gatekeeper in a green uniform and spotless white gloves. The brightly lit foyer is packed with gorgeous women, high-ranking officials and wealthy men. The women are resplendent in evening dresses, like a flower garden in a riot of competing colours. The men are wearing expensive Western suits, all but one old man—supported by a pair of jewelled women—who is wearing a tailored Chinese robe. His long white goatee shimmies, the mystique of an immortal. An enormous scroll with the golden character
,
for longevity, hangs in the great room; an array of birthday gifts is stacked atop a long table beneath the scroll, beside a basket overflowing with pink-lipped peaches of immortality. Placed strategically about the room are vases full of camellias. Lan Laoda wears a flashy white suit and red bow tie; his thinning hair is neatly combed and his face is glowing. A group of gorgeously dressed women rushes up, like a bevy of little birds—chirping, laughing and planting kisses on his cheeks until they are covered with lipstick. Now truly red-faced, he walks up to the goateed old man and bows deeply: ‘Patron, your nominal son wishes you a long life.’ The old man taps him on the knee with his cane and enjoys a hearty laugh. ‘How old are you now, my boy?’ The old man's voice
is as melodic as a brass gong. ‘Patron,’ Lan Laoda replies modestly, ‘I've managed to reach the age of fifty.’ ‘You've grown up,’ the old man says emotionally, ‘you're a man, and I don't need to worry about you any longer.’ ‘Patron, please don't say things like that,’ pleads Lan Laoda. ‘Without you to worry about me, I'd lose the pillar of my existence.’ ‘Aren't you the crafty one, young Lan!’ laughs the old man. ‘An official career is not in your future, young Lan, but riches are. And you'll be lucky in love.’ Pointing his cane at the beautiful women swarming behind Lan Laoda, he asks: ‘Are they all your lovers?’ ‘They are all loving aunts who watch over me,’ replies Lan Laoda with a smile. ‘I'm too old,’ says the old man, his voice heavy with emotion. ‘The spirit's willing but the flesh is weak. You take good care of them, for my sake.’ ‘Don't you worry, Patron, satisfying them is something I'm committed to.’ ‘We're not satisfied, not even a little!’ the women complain coquettishly. ‘In the old days,’ the old man remembers with a smile, ‘the emperor had women in three palaces and six chambers, a harem totalling seventy-two concubines, but you've outdone that, young Lan.’ ‘I owe it all to my Patron,’ replies Lan Laoda. ‘Have you mastered the martial skills I taught you?’ the old man asks him. Lan Laoda backs up a few steps and says: ‘You tell me, Patron.’ Seated on the carpet, he slowly folds his body into itself until his head is hidden in his crotch, his arse sticks up in the air, like the rump of a young colt, and his mouth is touching his penis. ‘Excellent!’ the old man exclaims as he taps the ground with his cane. ‘Excellent!’ echoes the crowd. The women, likely recalling some intimacy, cover their mouths, blush and giggle. A few in the crowd react with open-mouthed guffaws. ‘Young Lan,’ says the old man, sighing, ‘you have gathered all the city's flowers in a single night and I can do nothing but touch their pretty hands.’ And his eyes brim over with tears. The emcee, who is standing beside Lan Laoda, shouts: ‘Strike up the band and let the dancing begin!’ The musicians, waiting patiently in the corner, begin to play—cheerful, light-hearted music followed first by lilting melodies and then by passionate numbers. Lan Laoda takes turns dancing with members of his female entourage while the most seductive among them winds up in the arms of the old man, who shuffles his feet so slightly it looks more like scratching an itch than dancing.

Mother's persistence worked: Father put on his grey suit and, with her help, knotted a red tie. The colour reminded me uncomfortably of blood gushing from the throats of butchered animals. I'd rather he wore another
but I kept that to myself. To be perfectly honest, Mother wasn't much good at knotting the tie. Lao Lan had made the actual knot and now she merely pushed it up under Father's chin and tightened it. He stretched his neck out and shut his eyes, like a strung-up goose. ‘Who the hell invented this stuff?’ I heard him grumble.

‘Stop complaining,’ Mother said. ‘You're going to have to get used to this. From now on there'll be many occasions when you have to wear a tie. Just look at Lao Lan.’

‘There's no comparison. He's the chairman and general manager.’ Father's voice sounded strange.

‘You're the plant manager,’ Mother reminded him.

‘Plant manager? I'm just another worker.’

‘You really need to change the way you look at things,’ Mother said. ‘Times like this, you change or you get left behind. Again, look at Lao Lan, the perennial bellwether. A few years back, during the ‘age of independents’, he was the first to get rich in the butcher trade. Not only that, he helped the village get rich too. And just when the independent butchers began to get a bad name, he founded the United Meatpacking Plant. We've done well by keeping up with him.’

‘I can't help seeing myself play-acting like a monkey in a cap,’ Father remarked glumly. ‘And this outfit makes it worse.’

‘What am I going to do with you?’ Mother said. ‘Like I said, learn from Lao Lan.’

‘He's a monkey in a cap too, as I see it.’

‘Who isn't? And that includes your friend Lao Han. No more than a few months back, wasn't he only a no-account mess cook? But then he put on a uniform and turned into a hypocrite.’

‘Niang's right,’ I said, thinking it was time I said something. ‘The old saying “A man's known by his clothes, a horse by its saddle” got it right. As soon as you put on a suit, you became a peasant-turned-entrepreneur.’

‘These days there are more of those than fleas on a dog,’ Father said. ‘Xiaotong, I want you and Jiaojiao to study hard so you can leave this place and get a decent job out there somewhere.’