it's like a mouse stealing a bit of grease, not worth talking about. So I want to thank you. If there were no United Meatpacking Plant, there'd be no inspection station, and without that, obviously, there'd be no department-level position of Station Chief. Here's to you!’ Lao Han stood up and touched glasses with everyone round the table. Then he tossed down his drink. ‘Good stuff!’ he complimented.
Huang Biao walked in with a steaming platter containing half a pig's head covered in a reddish brown sauce. The aroma filled nostrils at the table, although the taste had been overwhelmed by spices and would not have appealed to a true connoisseur.
Lao Han's eyes lit up. ‘Has this pig's head been injected with water, Huang Biao?’
‘Station Chief Han,’ Huang Biao replied respectfully, ‘what you see here is the head of a wild boar the manager sent me to buy in South Mountain. Not a drop of water has been added. Taste it and see for yourself. We might be able to pull something over your eyes but not your mouth.’
‘I like the sound of that.’
‘You're the expert where meat's considered. I'd never show off in front of you.’
‘All right, I'll give it a try.’ Lao Han picked up his chopsticks and stuck them into the flesh; it immediately fell away from the bones. He chose a piece of lean meat from the cheek, about the size of a mouse, and put it in his mouth. He blinked, he chewed, he swallowed. ‘Not bad,’ he said, dabbing his lips with a napkin, ‘but no match for Wild Mule's.’
Father's face flushed bright red. Mother's face grew pinched.
‘Eat, everyone,’ Lao Lan said loudly, ‘eat it while it's hot. It's no good cold.’
‘Yes, eat it while it's hot,’ said Han in immediate agreement.
Huang Biao slipped away while the diners were sticking their chopsticks into the pig's head. He didn't see me hiding outside the window but I saw him. His servile smile on the way in was replaced by a crafty, malicious smirk on the way out, an alarmingly swift transformation. ‘All right, people,’ I heard him say under his breath, ‘now's the time for you to get a taste of my piss!’
It seemed like such a long time since Huang Biao had pissed in the pot of meat that it had become illusory, unreal, like a dream. It no longer seemed important that a beautiful, succulent pig's head had soaked in the man's urine. My father ate it, my mother ate it. Nothing happened. There was no need to tell them that the meat had been enhanced by Huang Biao's piss. They were getting the meat they deserve. Truth is, they loved it. Their lips glowed like fresh cherries.
It didn't take long for them to eat and drink their fill or for their faces to reflect the contentment that comes only after a satisfying meal.
Huang Biao cleared the table. The uneaten meat that had turned cold—choice cuts that had gone to waste—he tossed to the dog tied up outside the kitchen. Sprawled lazily on the ground, it carefully picked out the pieces that appealed to it and ate only those few. How infuriating, how galling! Whoever heard of a lowly mutt turning up its nose at meat when there are people in this world for whom it is beyond their reach?
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