He raises his hand and checks the time on his wristwatch: half past seven already. Without saying good-bye, he strides off toward the signal post, pushing the pram to a run. The kid laughs out loud. Meeting, lovers’ meeting. What delight! What joy! As the sight of the signal post comes into view, his heartbeat quickens.
Over the grass lawn, through the throngs of shoppers and pedestrians, he gets through to the meeting place. But there is no girl. Nobody, not the ghost of a person, male or female. He checks the time again. Already five minutes past the appointed time. A sudden dismay overwhelms him. It is all because of that other girl . . . otherwise . . .
He stands motionless. How is he going to explain it to the boy? At such a tender age, the delicate soul can easily be irreparably damaged. Something is drumming in his head, like a train passing over the bridge. No, it’s impossible. The boats start to twirl in the river; even the brightly lit bridge and the buildings soaring above the riverbanks seem to be spinning out of control. He feels faint, begins to see stars. The next instant, the stars turn into a tall girl carrying a bag in one hand and a toy gun in the other. It is she. But isn’t she the other girl?
“It’s you, isn’t it?”
His voice is shaking. He picks up the flowers from the pram.
“Yes, of course it’s me. Can’t you see?” she says with mischief in her eyes.
The boy, seeing the toy gun in her hands, shouts out in excitement, “Mommy, I want the gun! Daddy says the gun is for me!”
With trembling lips she pronounces the words she has been turning over for days. When she gives the gun to the boy, the boy grabs hold of her by the neck and cries out tearfully, “Mommy, you’re back! Mommy, hold me.”
This heartrending cry from this tiny child was not scripted in her plan. Yet it will leave an indelible impression on the young woman and influence her future occupation. She picks the kid up and starts running her lips all over his sweet little face. Hot tears stream down her cheeks.
“I’ve done it. The play is a success,” she murmurs, wiping tears from her face.
He, too, is crying.
Translated by Liu Yuan
Huang Weiping
Born in 1954 in Haimen, Jiangsu, Huang Weiping graduated from the Party and Government Cadre Higher Education Division, Northwest University, in 1984. He has worked in the countryside and as a well puller in a coal mine; he was also on the editorial staff of the Tongchuan Mining Administration, compiling mining history. He has served as editor in chief, president, and senior reporter of Tongchuan Daily. He has been director of the Shaanxi Provincial Writers Association, chairman of the Tongchuan Writers Association, and expert with outstanding contributions in Shaanxi Province. He made his literary debut in 1978 and joined the Chinese Writers Association in 2001.
Huang Weiping’s works include the novel Soul of Dashun Flowers; the collection of short stories Magic Tunnel; essay collections Sunshine Tour and Oriental Ceramic Town; and the cultural monograph A Woman Named Meng Jiang. His work has won the Black Gold Literature Prize given by the Chinese Writers Association and China Coal Mine Federation of Literature and Art. A variety of Huang Weiping’s works have been adapted for radio and broadcast in the central and Shaanxi broadcasting stations, and Blacksmith Liu won the first-ever National Award for the Best Mini-Novel.
20
HUANG WEIPING
Wife, or Otherwise
Wu Ran was critically ill.
Wu Ran’s illness was incurable. Doctor Shangguan, the authority of the Central Hospital in the coal city, claimed that he had never seen such an unusual case during his medical career of forty years. Wu Ran was thought to have a cancer; when operated on, he was found to have necrosis of internal organs and had to be sewn up again as before. Doctor Shangguan added that man’s body has many secrets, one instance of which is spontaneous combustion. Such cases had been found all over the world, yet the reason was still unknown. His implication was that Wu Ran, who had a rare case of illness, would be well known . . . even if not treated.
When the news spread, his department was buzzing and many ideas followed, all of them new. Perhaps this is what we mean when we say, “No final verdict can be pronounced on a man until after his death.”
“What a good man! He was once the youngest member of an administrative section in the 1960s.”
“That hunchbacked Lao Wu? How could he have that kind of illness? A good person should be rewarded with good!”
Women were talking in whispers too. “He’s such a good man, so nice to Caidi . . .”
“Caidi will bear hardships.”
“Maybe Lao Wu will free himself instead . . .”
Caidi was indifferent to the heavy blow, as if she had already expected the result. She remained extremely calm; only a little blush appeared over her pale cheeks, a color frequently found on the faces of heart attack patients. At noon, she carried a bowl quietly and went to the canteen as if she were a poor single soul. She had her meal quietly and went out of the gate afterward. As she picked up her feet, she realized she wasn’t sure where to go: home or to the hospital? Her legs were rooted to the ground.
Lao Wu was a nice man—at least other women thought so. Before he’d go away on official business, he would be busy buying vegetables, breaking coal, chopping some logs piece by piece for firewood, piling them up afterward for her, and only then leaving at ease.
Never in the past twenty years had she carried a bowl like today, acting like a beggar in the restaurant. On hearing the bad news, she was able to remain extremely calm; wasn’t that itself excessive behavior?
It was Lao Wu who’d taught her to remain so calm, directing her to stay calm while writing applications and reading them in the department meetings. He would not criticize her performance today.
He was also the one who’d recommended her for Party membership and served as a guide. In those days, she had been still young and rather naive. He was wooing her—wooing her in a crazy way. Caidi had come to the Northwest from a small town in the South. She had just finished middle school then. Her mum did not want her to go to the barren land where Caidi “could not earn even some pennies,” so the woman had locked her daughter in a small room—yet Mum herself gave a warm send-off with a small flag to those who supported the border areas in the neighborhood. Hearing the deafening sound of gongs and drums, Caidi escaped through the window and ran to the train station in one breath.
Half a month later, she became a tracer in the headquarters of Weibei Coal Construction Base, which was then being built. The people there were all interested in her—her thoughts, her progress, her work, and even her private life. She yearned for a bright future: tranquil, satisfactory, and full of poetic happiness.
At that time, Wu Ran was the section chief of techniques. On a dim, cheerless, moonlit night when she was waiting for someone, Wu Ran came unexpectedly. It happened that the dormitory power was out, or the fuse had blown, and then . . .
Everything had happened.
Everything had not actually happened. Among the section chiefs, Wu Ran was the youngest, most promising, and most likely to be promoted (some section chiefs had already become deputy heads of other departments). He married the most beautiful girl from the South, a girl with an almondlike face, big eyes, and curly hair. A talented young man and a beautiful young woman—they were obviously a well-matched couple, and their marriage was one created by nature. The perfectly fulfilled Wu Ran would smile to everyone he met. Meanwhile, Caidi had a deep hatred inside, and her mind was like the overturned Sichuaner’s castor—full of strange tastes. She could not speak the truth, but grinned with bitterness in her heart. He who laughs last laughs best, doesn’t he? Just wait and see!
Now Caidi found herself walking back home without even realizing it. The paint on the door had almost peeled off, leaving it stark naked. She dreaded going inside. Since that winter, she always had that peculiar feeling in front of the door.
That winter had looked the same as that dim, cheerless,
moonlit night, and it scared her.
One evening there had been a knock at the door; she wondered if it was Wu Ran. Opening the door, she found a man with a large beard.
“Is Gu Caidi living here?”
It was he, her old . . . what? A college friend, a southerner, who had been so earnest to teach her to trace. She hardly recognized him now with his slovenly clothes and unshaved face.
Wu Ran was not at home; he was away on business. Her heart fluttered like a banner gently swaying in the breeze. Her face was suddenly beaming.
She controlled herself.
“Pingping,” she called to her neighbor’s girl. “Pingping, come and sit here. Have some candy and enjoy it.”
She held five-year-old Pingping next to her on the bench.
“Caidi.”
“Where have you been, all these years?”
“An accident,” he said. “Well, technically. Someone said that I modified the plan without authorization . . . and then . . .”
“But why didn’t you send me a message?”
“Xiao Wu said . . . you . . .” The big-bearded man took a careful look at the simple decorations in the room. “You have a happy life.”
Caidi’s heart thumped and sank instantly. She asked, “Are you . . . married?”
“Well . . .” The big-bearded man smiled reluctantly. “I just left home and was planning to go to Tankegou . . .”
Tankegou was the farthest place away from the city, where the large fault zone was discovered two years ago and the new wells were abandoned.
“Is this . . . your child? So cute.” He touched Pingping’s chubby hands and then changed the subject.
Pingping was cute. Caidi had always expected to have a child like her. She’d amuse herself by saying, “Pingping, you are my child. I left you with that other family, so that’s why your surname is Shangguan.” She would joke this way with Pingping and then hug her.
“I don’t believe it,” Pingping would say, “I don’t believe it.” Pingping spoke indistinctly because her front teeth were missing. Her “I don’t believe it” sounded like “I don’t relieve it.”
Caidi would parrot: relieve.
Since then, Caidi had taken an icy view toward everything. She was stupefied with the household, her life, and everything, acting like a puppet.
That year, she was pregnant.
That year, she was sick.
She came back to the South where she had not been for many years. When she and Mum saw each other, they wept and smiled, over and over again. She’d returned home with a slender figure and a thin face, yet much fairer.
Wu Ran was eager to have a baby of his own. One time, chatting with her, he claimed he would happily do anything to have a child. To him, a child meant happiness and the family line. He pleaded.
“Since you’re so fond of Pingping, we should have a child like Pingping too.”
She challenged him coldly: “I am sick. Who forced you to marry me?”
She was sick indeed—mentally sick.
She had not given birth to a child so far.
She started feeling afraid to be alone at home. She would think too much when she was alone. Her mind would wander and she’d think of all her miserable experiences in the past. Recalling what she had suffered, she would always feel bitter inside and would weep.
In public, however, she never showed her true emotions. To her, recalling the past was a sort of intoxication, just as bitter wine could make one intoxicated.
But if she had to be alone at home, then she would fear being bothered. One day Wu Ran went out, saying that he was going to a friend’s place for drinks. She didn’t hear clearly the name of the friend. Coming home late at night, he was locked out. He knocked and called to her in a soft voice. She didn’t answer at all.
Wu Ran never liked to quarrel with her, even at that moment when he knocked so impatiently and she kept silent. Afraid of losing face, he didn’t dare knock more loudly. Instead he ran to his office.
However, walls have ears. Many people in the department heard about Wu Ran being locked out. Some even gossiped among themselves: “Hey, poor Lao Wu, his wife must have some hold on him. He’s so nice to her, yet still . . .”
“Who knows?”
“God knows!”
Wu Ran lost face, and so he planned to fight with her for the first time in his life.
Caidi, however, had no desire to argue about it. She just insisted firmly, “I was asleep. I didn’t hear you.”
“You! I’ve already endured enough.”
“Good. You are bound to endure. I’ve already endured enough, too, but who can I speak to? If I’m forced to lose my temper, I will speak the truth to everyone I meet.”
She was always acting like this. Her words were light and simple—yet to him, they were like thorns on a rose. He was afraid, rendered speechless; he didn’t dare to go out anymore. If he wanted to see a friend, he had to ask for “leave of absence.” If not allowed it, he would stay at home; if permitted, he would leave at once and come back as soon as possible.
He used to enjoy drinking. One who can’t drink cannot serve as a coal official, he believed. But from then on, his drinking companions were estranged from him, and insider information became hard to come by. He was gradually forgotten by his peers.
Whenever his name did come up, people would say, “He got tied up by his wife.”
Caidi heard the gossip as well, but she paid no attention. She observed that he hated to be neglected or overlooked; the truth, she said, was merely that he didn’t earn many opportunities.
One day, he cooked a very fine meal and was behaving especially warmly toward her. She knew he must have something up his sleeve, and she waited to hear what he had to say.
“Tonight, I have to visit the section chief of our department,” he told her. “You’d better come with me.”
“Why?”
“The office is making some adjustments . . . in the leadership of the various departments.”
“Well, if you wanted to be the section chief of the department,” Caidi sneered, “why didn’t you marry a kind and devoted wife?”
“Look at our house,” he pleaded, “not only old but also small.”
“Two people have already been ruined because of you. Why aren’t you satisfied?”
Caidi’s sneering was the plague of his life. He knew it well:
He had not really made it.
He was still a clerical worker.
They still lived in their old house.
The house was always deserted. Without him, it seemed more spacious. She trembled with fear.
“Pingping!” she called. Pingping was going to be a mother soon, coming back to her parents’ home to give birth. Soon there would be another generation.
Not a sound was heard next door.
She needed something to drink. The faucet rumbled with noise, offering no water. If Lao Wu had been there, he’d have taken care of it. He was like a stone that had once had edges and corners, newly dislodged from the bottom of a well, but had worn away in the water, year after year, until it was good and round.
“Now, wash the bowls. Now, wash the clothes. Now, buy some vegetables.” “Now” became his nickname. Occasionally, when she wanted to complain about certain matters, she would intentionally call him “Section Chief.” Since the headquarters had been changed into bureaus, the sections had been eliminated. Since then, those words—section chief—caused him fear, as if that was not his history but a debt that he owed.
He would run as quickly as possible to please her.
Sometimes, if he did not come running fast enough, she would glare angrily, loudly calling him Section Chief. She had a talisman—hence she never needed to shout abuses in the street like a shrew.
Seeing that Wu Ran was scared out of his wits at her unbridled bitterness, she would feel satisfied. At those times, everything was as peaceful as a wind that stills and waves that subside.
But once everything was peace
ful, she would feel pain. She often thought that she was not a woman. In her mind, women and girls were different: a woman’s charm was different from that of a girl, and a woman’s affection toward men was different from that of a girl as well. To be a woman was to be a mature person, while to be a girl was to be a dried flower forever.
She was a woman. But she was not a woman. She had neither a woman’s charm nor her affection and happiness. Standing in front of other women, Caidi always felt the lack of something. She felt shorter than them and imbued with a sense of nameless melancholy.
As if she belonged to a different species.
In general, she was restless with anxiety. However, once Wu Ran was beside her, she would maintain a hysterical hatred. She would think of that dim, cheerless, moonlit night and that powerless, pitch-dark time as the beginnings of her misery. How could she muster up any passion? Anxiety and suffering still haunted her like an invisible hand trying to strangle her. She would try to resist it. She’d stretch out her own hand to push away the invisible force. She’d reach out her hand to touch, to grab, and to scratch at her own body as if the outer form were not hers, instead belonging to someone else; as if the hand were there expressly for her to fight and give vent to her resentment. Gradually it started to give her a sense of satisfaction. She’d had to make herself drop the habit.
As time passed, she became more like a woman. She never stood in front of men, nor did she sit down or chat before them. Wherever other women assembled, she would seldom seek their company. The house became her whole world.
Life was going round and round and again round and round.
Enemies are bound to meet on a narrow road; they must accept each other, become accustomed to each other. Once in a while, he would try to please her and bring some harmony to their home. She recognized those times.
One day, Wu Ran reported some news he’d heard: “Big-Beard was promoted from Tankegou Coal Mine to the bureau. He did well there and produced some papers, too.”
As a matter of fact, she’d already known about it.
Old Land, New Tales: Twenty Short Stories by Writers of the Shaanxi Region in China Page 40
