luxuriantly content . . . like my gandieh when he climbs off my body . . .
That was before I knew that he was a renowned executioner, and when all I could think about were the silver certificates tucked into his clothes. “Gongdieh, I said in as solicitous a tone as I could manage, “it seems I’ve made you comfortable. Well, I expect my dieh’s life to end either tonight or tomorrow morning, and given our family connection, won’t you help me think of something? Mull that over while I go inside and prepare a bowl of congee with forbidden rice and pig’s blood.”
I felt empty inside as I washed rice at the well. When I looked up, I saw the flying eaves of the towering City God Temple, where pigeons were cooing and crowding together, and I wondered what they found so interesting. The crisp clack of horse hooves resounded on the cobblestone road beyond the gate. Some German devils were riding by, their tall, rounded, feathered hats visible above the wall. The sight made my heart pound, since I was sure that my dieh was what was on their minds. Xiaojia, who by then had sharpened his butcher knife and readied the necessary tools, picked up a hooked Chinese ash pole and went into the sty, where he selected a black pig and quickly hooked it under the chin. Squeals tore from its mouth, and the bristles on its neck stood straight as it struggled to back up, its hind legs and rump flat on the ground, blood seeming to seep from its eyes. It was no match for Xiaojia, who hunkered down and pulled so hard that his feet sank at least three inches into the dirt, like a pair of hoes, as he backed up, one powerful step at a time, pulling the pig along like a plow, its feet digging furrows in the sty. In less time than it takes to tell, Xiaojia had pulled the pig up to the killing rack. Then, gripping the hooked pole in one hand and the pig’s tail in the other, he straightened up and, with a loud grunt, lifted a creature weighing two hundred jin up onto the rack, so disorienting it that it forgot to struggle—but not to squeal. Now that all four legs were sticking straight up, Xiaojia removed the hook from the pig’s chin and tossed it to the side, picking his razor-sharp butcher knife out of the blood trough in the same motion. Then—slurp—with the sort of casual indifference of slicing bean curd, he plunged his knife high in the pig’s chest. A second push and it was buried deep inside the animal, bringing an end to the squeals, which were replaced by moans that lasted only a moment. Now all that remained were the twitches—legs, skin, even the bristles. Xiaojia pulled the knife out and turned the pig over to let its blood spill into the trough below. Great quantities of bright, hot blood the color of red silk pulsed into the waiting trough.
The stench of fresh blood hung over the half acre of our courtyard, which was big enough to accommodate dog pens and pigsties, Chinese roses and peonies, plus a rack for curing meat, vats to hold fermented drink, and an open-air cook pit. The odor attracted blood-drinking bluebottle flies that danced in the air, a testament to their keen sense of smell.
Two yayi, attired in soft red leather caps, black livery secured around the middle with dark cloth sashes, and soft-soled boots with ridges down the middle, swords in scabbards on their hips, opened the gate. I knew they were constables, fast yayi from the yamen who tracked down criminals, but I did not know their names. Feeling a lack of self-assurance, since my dieh was in their jail, I smiled. Normally I would not have deigned to look their way, not at contemptuous toadying jackasses who were a scourge of the people. They returned my courtesy with nods and tiny smiles squeezed out of their fiendish faces. But only for a second. One of them reached under his tunic and pulled out a black bamboo tally, which he waved in the air and intoned somberly:
“We bring orders from His Eminence the County Magistrate to escort Zhao Jia to the yamen for questioning.”
Xiaojia came running up, bent humbly at the waist, still gripping his bloody butcher knife, and, with a bow, asked: