The Garlic Ballads

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 his arms stiffly out in front, as if cupping a precious, fragile object.

“G-get up!” The policeman’s order rang out. He struggled to his feet, but was no sooner standing than a searing pain tore through his ankle. He lurched sideways and fell to his hands and knees on the stone steps.

The policemen grabbed him under the arms and picked him up. But his legs were so rubbery that his gangly frame dangled in their grasp like a pendulum. The policeman on his right drove his knee into Gao Yang’s tailbone. “Stand up!” he growled. “What happened to the hero who demolished the county offices?”

The comment was lost on Gao Yang, but the rock-hard knee against his tailbone helped him forget the pain in his ankle. With a shudder he planted his feet and stood up. The policemen loosened their grip, and the one with the stammer said softly, “G-get moving, and h-hurry.”

His head was swimming, but he remained confident that he wasn’t crying, even as hot tears welled up and spilled over to cloud his vision. The handcuffs dug deeply into his wrists each time he was shoved forward, and he suddenly — finally — realized what was happening. He knew he had to find the will to force his stiffened tongue to move: not daring to address his tormentors, he gazed pitifully at Gao Jinjiao, who was cowering beneath an acacia tree, and said, “Uncle, why are they arresting me? I haven’t done anything wrong.

Wails and sobs followed. This time he knew he was crying, even though no tears flowed from his now dry, burning eyes. He must plead his case to the village boss, who had tricked him into coming outside in the first place. But Gao Jinjiao was rocking back and forth, bumping against the tree like a penitent little boy. A muscle on Gao Yang’s face twitched. “I haven’t done anything, Uncle, why did you trick me like that?” He was shouting. A large bead of sweat on the village boss’s forehead refused to roll down. With his yellow teeth bared, he looked like a cornered man about to break and run.

The policeman again drove his knee into Gao Yang’s tailbone to get him moving. “Comrade Officer,” he protested, taming to look into the man’s face, “you ve got the wrong man. My name’s Gao Yang. I’m not—”

“W-we’ve got the right man,” the stammerer insisted.

“My name’s Gao Yang.

“Gao Yang is who we want!”

“What did I do?”

“At noon on May twenty-eighth you were one of the leaders of a mob that demolished the county offices.”

The lights went out as Gao Yang crumpled to the ground. When they picked him up again, he rolled his eyes and said timidly, “You call that a crìme?”

“That’s right — now get moving!”

“But I wasn’t alone. Lots of people were involved.”

“And we’ll catch every last one of them.”

He hung his head, wishing he could butt it into the wall and end everything. But he was being held too firmly to squirm free, and he could hear the faint strains of Zhang Kous moving yet dreary ballad:

In the tenth year of the Republic

A hot-blooded young man came out of nowhere

To hoist the red flag in Paradise County

And lead the peasants in a protest against unfair taxes.

Village elders dispatched soldiers to surround them,

Arrested Gao Dayi and sent him to the executioner’s block.

He went to his death proudly, defiantly,

For the Communists, like scallions, could not all be felled.