The Republic of Wine (36 page)

The investigator, unable to restrain himself, howled loud and long. What did you say? What the hell did you say? the old revolutionary, Gramps Qiu, asked. The big yellow dog started to bark.

Then she shrieks in alarm and jerks the blanket up over her naked body - like you see in the movies all the time - under the blanket her body quakes - at that moment he lays eyes on the flesh he knows so well… voluptuous … firm … sweet smelling … as if ten thousand arrows have pierced his heart, a sorrow he's never known before - a blue light flashes before his eyes, his face the color of cold steel with rigid lines, a sneer, skin like ice - he raises his pistol, slips his finger into the trigger guard, waves the pistol slightly, turning it handsomely, takes careful aim, and -
pow!
- a loud explosion, and the mirror behind Yu Yichi's head disintegrates, sending glittering, splintering shards of glass raining to the floor - Yu Yichi lies petrified on the floor - then the investigator holsters his weapon, turns without a word - do
not
look back - and strides out of Yichi Tavern - Forgive me forgive me she wails as she kneels on the floor, wrapped in the bedsheet - do
not
look back - and he walks down the sun-drenched Liquorland street, between crowds of people staring at him with a mixture of reverence and fear - men and women, young and old, one of the old women looking exactly like his mother, with tears in her eyes, her haggard lips quivering. Child, she says, my child - a girl in a virginal white dress, long golden tresses flowing over her shoulders, pushes her way through the crowd, eyes beneath thick, curly lashes glistening with tears, her arching breasts heaving, gasping for breath as she elbows her way through the tightly packed crowd, shouting in a tearful yet still sweet voice, Ding Gou'er -Ding Gou'er - but Ding Gou'er does not turn to look, he keeps his eyes straight ahead, striding forward with resounding, determined steps, heading into the sunlight, into the bright-colored sunset, onward and onward, until he becomes one with the red wheel of the sun …

The old revolutionary laid his hard hand on Ding Gou'er's shoulder. The investigator, having become one with the sun, shivered as he struggled to regain consciousness. His heart was pounding; the tears of a tragic hero welled in his eyes.

‘What goddamned demon possessed you?' the old revolutionary asked scornfully.

Quickly wiping his eyes with his sleeve, the embarrassed investigator laughed drily.

In the wake of his turbulent fantasy, he felt as if cracks had suddenly appeared in his chest amid the melancholy that lay there, while his exhausted brain felt weighted down, and there was a dull ringing in his ears.

It looks like you've got a fucking cold,' the old revolutionary said, ‘Your face is as red as a monkey's ass!'

The old revolutionary reached into the fire hole beneath his bed and took out a white bottle of liquor with the brand stamped in red. He waved it in front his guest's eyes. ‘This'll do it. The alcohol will kill the virus and get rid of the poison in your body. Alcohol is good medicine, it'll cure what ails you. Back when I crossed the Red River four times with Mao Zedong, we passed through Maotai township twice. I had to drop out because of a case of malaria, so I hid in a distillery. When the Kuomintang “white bandits” opened fire outside, I was quaking. Drink up, it'll chase away the fear! So,
glug glug
, I downed three bowlfuls, one right after the other. Well, it not only calmed me down, but it gave me courage and stopped the shakes. I picked up a board, ran out of the distillery, and clubbed two of the white bandits to death. Then I took one of their rifles, ran off, and caught up with Mao's troops. Back then, Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, and Wang Jiaxiang all drank Maotai. When Mao drank it, his mind was sharp as a tack and full of strategies. If not for that, his small band of soldiers would have been wiped out easily. So Maotai liquor played a key role in the Chinese revolution. You probably think it was chosen as our national liquor by a fluke, right? Hell no, it was to commemorate it! And after a lifetime of making revolution, I ought to be able to drink a little Maotai. That son of a bitch Section Chief Yu wants to cut off my supply and replace it with - what's it called? - Red-Maned Stallion. Well, he can stick it up his grannie's you know what!'

The old revolutionary poured some liquor into a chipped ceramic mug, tipped back his head, and drank it down. ‘Now it's your turn,' he said. ‘Genuine Maotai, down to the last drop.' Seeing tears in Ding Gou'er's eyes, he said scornfully, ‘Scared? Only turncoats and traitors are scared to drink, afraid they'll get drunk and tell the truth or divulge some secrets. Are you a turncoat? A traitor? No? Then how come you're scared to drink?' He downed another mugful, the liquor gurgling as it cascaded down his throat. ‘Don't worry, I'm not going to force you! I suppose you think I came about this little bit of Maotai easily! Well, that Trotskyite Section Chief Yu watches me like a hawk. On the ground a phoenix is worse off than a chicken, and a tiger on the open plain is at the mercy of dogs!'

Ding Gou'er found the bouquet of the liquor irresistible; emotional moments are made for drinking good liquor. He snatched the mug out of the old revolutionary's hand, put it up to his lips, took a deep breath, and sent a flood of liquor straight down to his stomach. A spray of pink lotuses blossomed in front of his eyes, spreading their thought-provoking light in the surrounding haze. It was the light of Maotai, the essence of Maotai. In that split second, he watched the world turn incredibly beautiful, including Heaven and earth and trees and the virgin snow on the Himalayan peaks. With a satisfied laugh, the old revolutionary took back his mug and refilled it; the liquor gurgled as it spilled across the mouth of the bottle, setting his ears ringing and making his mouth water. The old revolutionary's face was suffused with indescribable benevolence. As Ding reached out, he heard himself say, ‘Give it to me, I want more.' The old revolutionary was jumping around in front of him, nimble as a young man. I'm not giving you any more, it's too hard to get.' ‘I want some,' he bellowed, I want it. You're the one who woke the serpent of gluttony in me, so why you won't you give me any more?' The old revolutionary slugged down another mugful. Fuming, Ding grabbed the mug, with the man's finger still firmly in the handle. He heard the sound of teeth against ceramic and felt a wetness on his skin as the cold liquor spilled over his hand. As his anger rose in the struggle over the mug, his knee recalled a trick his buddies had taught it: with the calf bent backwards, you propel yourself into your enemy's groin. When he heard the old revolutionary cry out, the mug passed into his hand. Impatiently he poured the mugful of liquor down his throat. Wanting still more, he looked around for the bottle, which lay on its side on the floor like a handsome young battle casualty. He was suddenly wracked by inconsolable grief, as if he had somehow killed the young man. Wanting to bend down to pick up the white-skinned bottle with its red sash - to help the handsome young man to his feet -inexplicably, he fell to his knees. And the handsome young man rolled over to a corner of the wall, where he righted himself and began to grow, taller and taller until he stood over three feet tall and stopped growing. He knew that was the liquor's soul - Maotai liquor's soul - standing in the corner, smiling at the investigator. Jumping to his feet to grab it, he managed only to bang his head against the wall.

As he was luxuriating in the sensation of the room spinning around him, he sensed a cold hand grab him by the hair. He guessed whose hand it was. He followed the pain in his scalp upward, his body acting like a pile of pig's guts, slipping and sliding on the floor - cold and slippery and coiled and nauseatingly foul - now being uncoiled and straightened, though he knew that the minute the old revolutionary let go, the mass of pig's guts would slump back to the floor, dripping wet. The big hand turned, bringing him face to long swarthy face with the old revolutionary, and he saw that the benevolent smile had been replaced by a fossilized scowl The cold-blooded nature of class contradictions and class struggle was driven home. You counter-revolutionary son of a bitch, I give you liquor, and you pay me back by kneeing me in the balls! You're worse than a dog. If a dog drinks my liquor, it wags its tail to show its gratitude. The old revolutionary sprayed him with saliva, stinging his eyes so badly he cried out in pain; two great paws landed on his shoulders. The dog had his neck in its mouth, its bristly fur was jabbing into his skin; involuntarily he tucked his neck into his shoulders, like a tortoise sensing danger. He felt the heat of the dog's breath and smelled its sour stink. The feeling that he was a mass of coiled pig's guts returned abruptly, and a white-hot terror rose in his heart. Dogs gobble up pig's guts like a child slurps up rice noodles. Terror-stricken, he cried out, just before blackness closed in around him.

How much later he didn't know, the investigator, believing himself blinded by the dog, opened his eyes to light once again. It spread like the sun breaking through the clouds, and then -
bang-
all the sights of the Martyrs' Cemetery gate house pounded into his eyes at once. He saw the old revolutionary sitting under a lamp polishing his double-barreled shotgun, absorbed in his task, working earnestly and meticulously, like a father bathing his one and only daughter. The striped hunting dog was sprawled lazily in front of the stove, its long snout resting on a pile of pine kindling, as it stared at the sweet-smelling golden flames, looking pensive, sort of like a philosophy professor. What was it thinking? The investigator was mesmerized by the dog, which was immersed in deep thought. The dog watched the flames as if in a trance, he watched the dog as if in a trance, as gradually the brilliant tableau inside the dog's head - one he'd never seen before - began to take shape in his own head, accompanied by peculiar and amazingly moving music - like drifting clouds. He was stirred to the depths of his soul, his nose throbbed as if it had met a fist and come out second best. Two trickles of tears materialized on his cheeks.

‘Not much hope for you, I see,' the old revolutionary said, looking him over. ‘We take the seed from tigers and wolves, and all we get are some snotty worms.'

Once again he dried his eyes with his sleeves and pleaded his case: ‘Gramps, I was brought down by a woman …'

With a look of disappointment, the old revolutionary put on his heavy overcoat, strapped his shotgun over his shoulder, and summoned his trusty companion: ‘Dog, let's go make our rounds and leave this worthless wretch to his tears.'

The dog got lazily to its feet, cast a sympathetic glance at the investigator, and followed the old revolutionary out of the gate house. The door's hinge snapped it closed with a bang, but not before a damp, very cold night wind slipped in to make him shiver. Loneliness and fear. ‘Wait for me,' he shouted, as he pulled the door open and chased after them.

The electric light over the doorway transformed them into shadowy figures. A cold rain fell, the sound crisper and denser than ever, probably because the night had deepened. Instead of walking out through the main gate, the old revolutionary headed toward the heart of the cemetery, directly into gloomy darkness. The dog was on his heels, he was right behind the dog. For a while, the electric light made it possible to discern the shapes of cypresses trimmed to look like pagodas bracketing the narrow cobblestone path; but before long, they too were swallowed up by the converging darkness. Now he knew what it felt like not to be able to see his fingers in front of his face. And the darker it became, the louder the sound of raindrops on the trees; the chaotic, intense tattoo first threw his mind into turmoil, then emptied it. Only from the sounds and smells up ahead did he gain an awareness of the old revolutionary and his yellow dog's existence. Darkness is so heavily oppressive, it can crush a man flat. Securely in the grip of fear, the investigator could detect the smell of martyrs' graves hidden amid the green pines and emerald cypresses. To his mind, the trees were sentries standing there holding their shoulders and harboring ill will toward him, with sneers on their faces and evil in their hearts; downy spirits of the brave departed sat on the weedy graves at their feet. Sobered up by raw terror, he reached for his pistol, his hand coated with cold sweat. A weird screech tore through the darkness, followed by flapping sounds moving past him. A bird, he assumed, but what kind of bird? An owl, maybe? The old revolutionary coughed; the dog barked. The two sounds, securely anchored in the mortal world, brought the investigator a measure of comfort; he coughed, loudly, and even he discerned the blustery tone. Up ahead in the darkness, the old revolutionary's laughing at me, he assumed. And so is that philosophical running dog of his. He saw two green lights in the darkness ahead, and if he hadn't known it was a dog, he'd have sworn the eyes belonged to a wolf. He began to cough, uncontrollably, when a flash of light blinded him. Covering his eyes with his hand, he opened his mouth to protest, just as the light moved off in another direction and lit upon a carved white tombstone. The words looked to have been freshly painted in shocking red, but the redness so clouded his vision, he couldn't read them. The light went out as abruptly as it had come on; he still saw spots in front of his eyes, and his brain was awash in red, like the blazing pinewood fire in the stove back at the gate house. He heard the old revolutionary's heavy breathing up front, as the noisy, chilling rainshower died out suddenly, and an earth-shattering clap near by nearly frightened him out of his wits. He wondered what could have caused the explosion, but only for a moment. All that mattered was, from the instant the light shone on the martyr's tombstone, an enormous wave of courage surged into his body and drove out the jealousy of sickness wine, the evil weakness of widow wine, and the restlessness and anxiety of love wine, turning them all into a sour stench, into reeking urine. Then vodka, spirited as a proud stallion galloping across a Cossack plain, became him; and cognac, rough and unconstrained, yet with a fine edge to its roughness, rich in the spirt of adventure, rich in audacity, like a Spaniard addicted to the danger of bullfighting, became him. As if, after eating a mouthful of red chilis, sinking his teeth into a bunch of green onions, gnawing on a stalk of purple-skinned garlic, chewing up a hunk of aged, dried ginger, or swallowing a whole jar of black pepper, he would feel like an oil-fed fire, like flowers on a piece of brocade; his spirits would soar like the tail feathers of a rooster - a true cocktail - as he picked up his six-nine service pistol, which had been created with the same loving care as the finest Great Yeast liquor, and charged ahead, his strides as menacing as cheap grappa, as if, in the blink of an eye, he could be back at Yichi Tavern, where he would kick in the jade-white door, raise his pistol, aim it at the lady trucker, who was sitting in the lap of the dwarf Yichi, and -
pow pow
- two heads would shatter. The sequence of events unfolded like the world-famous Knife Liquor: full-bodied and strong, with a sweet, tart flavor, it zips down the gullet like a razor-sharp knife slicing through tangled rope.