Notes of a Crocodile

by Qiu Miaojin

  A campus patrol car passed. We lay naked, hidden in a patch of tall grass, and the entire time I felt wild and free, not self-conscious in the least. Suddenly Meng Sheng let out a howl.

  “You have to stop hurting yourself! You’re not okay at all!” He practically exploded. For the first time, I realized that he was in pain, that my tragedy had become his own.

  With that revelation, a hole was blown through the earth’s crust. That reckless lunatic felt sorry for me, and I truly loved him. Numb to my own feelings, I never saw it coming. Faraway sounds drifted toward us. The charade was over. It was no use.

  3

  Tun Tun. She was the first person I went to whenever I needed help. If I learned anything about life during college, it was to turn away from my shattered ego and move on, and I owed it all to her.

  “Tun Tun, is it okay if I come over to your place? Shui Ling and I had another falling out, and I feel vulnerable right now. I don’t want to be home alone!” My cry for help came at eleven p.m.

  “Sure, hurry up! I’ll be waiting!” The sound of concern on her end came through the line.

  On the taxi ride over to her place, all kinds of memories drifted through my mind. My bond with Tun Tun was a safety rope whose resilience had been proven every time she’d been there for me over the past year. The countless late-night talks. The countless times I’d been feeling down. I remembered the warmth of her room, and the sound of her voice and her laughter. She’d been by my side at so many crucial moments.

  I’d been burning myself before I left for Penghu. Tun Tun unexpectedly rang my doorbell as I was frantically packing my bags. As always, she listened intently while I opened up about my feelings and experiences. With her sagacity, she tried to guide me away from despair toward broader horizons, toward hope. She’d come over to tell me that she was taking a leave of absence from school to cure her insomnia. In spite of her own troubles, her innate humor, optimism, and wit were there to pull me through.

  She accompanied me to Songshan Airport and told me to come back to Taipei in one piece. I passed through the ticket gate, then turned to look at her. Her face betrayed her heartfelt worry. She was the one person I could let into my sanctum, and there she stood, urging me to cross over into her reality as she waved goodbye. Shui Ling, Meng Sheng, Chu Kuang, Zhi Rou—everyone else was a mirage. They were on the same side as I was, while Tun Tun was on the other.

  “Tun Tun, I’ve been lost all these years. How come it never gets better for me? No matter how hard I try to improve my life, everything falls apart. There’s a saying: ‘By the time a man celebrates his creation, it has already half turned to dust.’ I always end up back at square one. This is a hateful, dog-eat-dog world.”

  “You must be tired. Why don’t you lie down and rest for a while? When you wake up tomorrow, the world will be different.” Tun Tun’s room was downstairs, and the rest of her family had already gone to bed. She tiptoed out to pour me a glass of milk and slice some fruit.

  “Are you going to move again?” she asked me.

  “Yeah, I’m going to look at places tomorrow. I really need to do it tomorrow. If I keep living there, I’ll go insane. All I can think about is whether she’ll call or write or knock on my door. I’ve had enough. I have to get a grip. I keep checking my mailbox and picking up the phone. It’s the only way I can make myself stop!”

  “You should make me your real estate broker. Every few months, when you move out of a place, I can bring in a new tenant and collect a commission.”

  “Why don’t you rent me out, too? On the ad you can write: Special lady to keep you company at night. Available Sundays.”

  “That won’t work because you won’t use protection,” she said, grinning. “You’d better memorize your current phone number tonight. Last time you had to get in touch with your old landlord about your deposit, you asked me what your old number was, and it was only the day after you moved!”

  “How’s your insomnia? Are you up all night working on handicrafts? Or chopping asparagus? Peeling oranges? Mending fish-nets—”

  “Right, and embroidering satchels,” she finished. “Taking a leave of absence was the right move. I keep a strict regimen. I get ready for bed around eleven, and before I go to sleep, I do yoga. When I lie down, if I feel lonely or sad, I’ll recite the Great Compassion Mantra. My mother taught it to me. Then my mind winds down, and soon enough, I’m asleep. My dreams are weird and funny. I take yoga classes by the teachers’ college on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Yoga is awesome. I have to keep working my way up until I become a guru.”

  “How is yoga different from Buddhist practices?”

  “Yoga is liberal. It’s not anti-sex. Sex is actually a technique in yoga! The anti-sex aspect of Buddhism is just a slant that was adopted later on. The Buddha was never anti-sex. Oh, it’s so great, Lazi. I want to do yoga with A and set up a learning center with experts who can teach people how to achieve orgasm. A true orgasm is like being at one with the cosmos.”

  “Nice! You’re going to be on TV one of these days. What about zoology, then?”

  “Ugh, that’s a headache. Science is fun all right, but it’s also boring. You spend all your time reading incredibly dry material. I remember you said it was like moving bricks. Science is about plowing through it all until you reach the one interesting point. How is biology going to help us to understand man’s nature? But because I got in through the recommendation system, the department chair loves me to death. The other day I went to the office to talk about my return, and we had a talk about my insomnia. He turned into a bodhisattva. He had such compassion in his eyes, like he was afraid I would start crying at any moment. He was so fatherly toward me. Lazi, I could have seduced him in a second. He totally likes me,” she said excitedly.

  “That’s great. Seducing the department chair sounds like a blast! Just don’t get pregnant,” I said with mock seriousness.

  “Don’t worry, I know of sixteen different types of contraception. I even taught my mother a few!” she said proudly. “Lazi, we don’t need to study. Why don’t we start a business instead? My dad bought me a Singer sewing machine. I’ve been sitting at it every day. I love sewing things. It builds character. I made a purse for myself and a pencil case for a student that I tutor—”

  “No kidding. Sewing builds character?” I didn’t know how to respond.

  “Look. Aren’t these pajamas nice? Lazi, I can make some sexy sleepwear for you, how about it?” Tun Tun gestured toward the white silk pajamas she was wearing. They were well made, thin, and form-fitting. On her slender figure, they looked refined and elegant. Suffice it to say that Tun Tun had turned living into an art form.

  “Forget it. They’re too tight. My legs would look like pork hocks!”

  “Suit yourself. Last week I had a dream where Zhi Rou and I were sitting in a classroom for military training. You were dressed in a green tailcoat, and you entered our classroom and motioned for me to come out. You said, ‘Hello, tailcoat here! Let me give you this book as a gift.’ ”

  “See? Your dreams understand me. They even dressed me in a tailcoat!” I teased her.

  “So what do you say? I can sew some things on the machine or by hand, and you can sell them. We can be creative entrepreneurs. Hey, I never told you this before, but a fortune-teller told me that the DIY route would be my road to riches. I just read in the paper about a cosmetics company that’s holding an open call to offer training to the next generation of makeup artists. Part of me got really excited and wanted to sign up. God, why did I hold back all these years, when I’ve been free to do things that are fun?”

  “Working is nice for a while, but in the long run, it turns you into a pile of shit-covered garbage. I’m sure whatever we do will be a success, as long as you’re involved.”

  “Yay! I feel the same way. Together we can achieve anything.”

  It was almost one in the morning. We were both starving. Her family’s house was near the night market. We headed out for
a bite to eat, walking side by side, cutting through the dingy, desolate back alleys of the market’s scattered stalls.

  “I remember back in high school, we were a bunch of misfits, always having fun. There was something going on every day. We were part of a community. Now life’s all about being tied down by a man. Falling in love is all there is to do, and there’s no going back. It’s all Zhi Rou’s fault. She dragged me over to the other side, and ever since, there’s been a constant stream of people coming over. . . .”

  “Doesn’t sound too cozy. Tun Tun, what’s going on with the guys in your life?”

  “With guys?” Her voice squeaked as she glanced at me. “Not much. There’s maybe three or four, but it’s mainly still A.”

  “The rest are just there for reference?”

  “What am I supposed to do if they come to me? It’s like Luo Chih Cheng’s poem: ‘I never knew so many stars secretly adored me.’ ” She couldn’t resist a wisecrack.

  “I’m so proud to call you my little sister. You’re up there with the Li Tang Hua Stunt Team. You can flip a man with your bare hands as you head-butt another.”

  “And with a kick of my leg, I can spin around a skinny one.” She struck a pose to demonstrate. “Ah, it’s an age-old problem. Lazi, if I could take A’s brains, B’s money and apartment, C’s upper body, and D’s lower body, and put them all together, I wouldn’t be at the supermarket picking out fruit.”

  “Someday you’ll find someone who’s the total package. Right now you’re sowing your oats, and that’s not a bad thing. Life is a process of awakening by degrees, in depth and in scope. At its most profound moments, you experience wholeness. That’s what this one philosopher wrote,” I said, comforting her.

  “When I celebrate my twentieth birthday, there’s one thing I really want to do—go swimming in Drunken Moon Lake!” she said.

  Back in her bedroom, I started to feel lonely again. Tun Tun said she wanted to play guitar and sing for me. Tun Tun, her guitar, and her singing. I never knew what beautiful memories those three elements could evoke. . . .

  The first image that comes to mind is the time Zhi Rou and Tun Tun sang and played music together in the rain. To me, it’s the most evocative memory, the very definition of bliss. It’s followed by the first time Zhi Rou and Tun Tun performed as a band. I presented them with a bouquet of flowers, hardly able to contain myself. The show was at seven p.m. in the courtyard in front of the cafeteria. There was no elevated stage, just an audience of students gathered around them, their anticipation building. Tun Tun had a shirt tied around her waist. In her slim-fitting jeans and tank top, she had the fierce air of an avant-gardist. She was the lead singer, leaning over a keyboard as her high-pitched vocals brought a song with English lyrics to a howling climax. I was exhilarated. Only then did I understand the core of my friendship with Tun Tun—that maybe I wanted to be just like her, that maybe she was my favorite person in the whole entire world. . . .

  “Tun Tun, I want Shui Ling. . . .” My mood sank.

  “And I want Zhi Rou. . . .” She sounded childlike.

  “Tun Tun, will you play that song ‘Cherry Came Too’ for me?”

  “I can’t play that song, I can’t stand it! Me and Zhi Rou’s favorite band used to be the Smiths. They’re these five guys. The lead singer and the guitarist act like a couple, where the guitarist is the father and the lead singer is the mother. Their lyrics are ironic, like ‘I’d like to smash every tooth in your head.’ There’s one that goes, ‘Manchester, so much to answer for’ in this callous, unfeeling tone. They grew up there, and it made them who they are. In another song he’s walking on the beach and he meets this girl who only wants to hook up with him, and he sings, ‘But she’s too rough and I’m too delicate.’ She’s the one who’s rough, and he’s the one who’s delicate. . . .” She hummed it for me, beaming.

  “Tun Tun, how could you possibly not go after her?” I mustered the courage to ask that taboo question.

  “Don’t even start. How am I supposed to approach her? Lazi, in the past two years, I’ve become a woman. Nothing’s the same anymore. I’m not pure anymore. I can’t face her now. I just want our sweetest memories to stay in the past. That was probably the one time when it was totally pure. She’s the only one who made me live fearlessly. . . .” Her voice grew weak. I patted her.

  “Lazi, I have complete confidence that you’ll get through this rough patch. Human beings are endowed with both yin and yang. When you become too dependent on one, the other becomes inhibited. You have to let both sides develop fully. That way, you’ll have the ability to love anyone, as long as you harness your yin and cultivate more yang when you need it. You give up too easily. With a change of perspective, will things still be the same? You need to develop your feminine side!”

  “I wish I could fall in love with a man, but there are too many beautiful women.”

  “You can ride an ox all the way to Beijing, but it’s still no horse, right? Women are beautiful and mysterious, aren’t they?” She clicked her tongue. The two of us sounded like such pigs whenever we indulged in talk about women. Once we got started, neither of us could stop the buffoonery.

  “Tun Tun, I’m hungry.” Shamelessly, I turned to her.

  “I bet you are. I have to conduct photosynthesis just to feed you,” she said teasingly.

  “I’ll have to write a story called ‘My Sis: The Plant Who Nurtured Me.’ ” We were cracking up.

  That night, she let me sleep in her bed while she slept on the floor. Her comforter was soft. I’d never felt so safe in my entire life. On that occasion, I avoided revealing to her the true depths of my pain. Though it was killing me, I kept my heartbreak hidden. My will was broken, and I felt drained. There are times when affection between family members is so deep that emotional burdens become too much to share. When the boundaries are nearly nonexistent, who has the heart to impinge on the other?

  All I could do was lie there beside her and go to sleep. Things were looking up for me as it was. I had to get up early the next day. There was an apartment hunt for me to get excited about.

  4

  Xiao Fan. This woman, five years older than me, came into my life and took me to an even more desolate place than Shui Ling had, tearing my youth apart before suturing it back into one piece. From that point on, I had a face that was whole again, a face covered in stitches. While she managed to reconstruct my entire visage, I can only describe a few fragments of her. Yet those fragments add up to an important chapter. And there, where the stitches were, the pain still remained, lacerating my flesh. . . .

  “Yeah, when I was sixteen, I was tricked into leaving home. My mom took me to the bus stop. Some friends and I had to take the Zhongxing Line to Taipei for high school. My mom stood in the ticket line, smiling and waving. The bus started to pull away, and my mom was caught in the crowd. Her eyes flooded with tears as she was pushed to the front of the line. She was crying helplessly. At the time, I didn’t realize what was going on. I just felt bad for her. Only years later did I finally understand.”

  I can still recall the first time we met. We were volunteering at the same organization. In the evenings, between shifts, we’d all get bento boxes and eat together. I’d developed a reputation as something of a ham, so I had to inject a little melodrama into my story. One of my female colleagues sat in a far-off corner, eating in silence. She listened attentively, smiling at us. Once in a while she’d chime in, and when she did, it was always with something witty that made everyone laugh. Suddenly, she turned to me and said, “Tricked is the word for it, all right. I was about that age when I left home, and I’ve been in Taipei for ten years now. I used to go back to Taoyuan every time I had a long break. Home was where this squabbling old couple lived, and I was obligated to watch TV with them every so often. That’s all there was to it! In fact, after being tricked into leaving, I eventually stopped going back.”

  And with those words, we had officially met. I sensed she was much older than me b
ut on the same wavelength. She knew what I was talking about. I started to feel intimidated.

  “Is your blood type A?” I unwittingly engaged in small talk.

  “Do I look like I am? No one ever guesses I’m type A based on first impressions. What makes you think so?” I’d taken the initiative, yet there were no signs of awkwardness or aloofness on her face, and the way she answered me was friendly and relaxed.

  “Your neediness.”

  “Neediness? What about my appearance makes me seem needy? Hey, what you’re saying is kind of unusual. No one has ever told me before that I’m needy. As far as I know, my friends really wish I were a little needier, especially my fiancé. Tell me more. I’m really interested.”

  “No, no, there’s no basis for what I said. It’s just my gut feeling. You look like you’re independent. But did you know that first off, you come across as warm and feminine? My next thought is that you seem neat and organized, like you do everything thoroughly and methodically. On the outside, you act like you don’t need other people. You can get things done quickly and well on your own, but at the same time, your mannerisms make you seem sensitive, like you pay strict attention to every last detail.”

  “You’re right about that. I like to fight my own battles. Whenever I encounter an obstacle or a setback, I turn to others to figure out the solution. You don’t have to comfort me or anything. I’ll listen calmly, then I’ll go and get the job done on my own. Even with my fiancé, I don’t talk that much about my feelings. . . .” Then, half jokingly, she added, “You know how I talk to him on the phone? He calls me and says, ‘It’s me,’ and I say, ‘I know.’ He asks me how everything is going, and I say everything’s fine. He says, ‘I’ll let you go then,’ and I say, ‘Okay.’ And that’s it.” There was a tinge of sadness in her words.

  “Maybe because you project the opposite, you have a type-A kind of neediness that’s hidden, since you rarely need to express it. It lies dormant and stays intact. I have a friend I’ve known for years, and she puts all her needs out in the open and doesn’t spare any details, so I’ve come to recognize these things. Your neediness comes out inadvertently. You never exercise that part of yourself, so of course you’re not conscious of it. You’re just overly independent. Why not let yourself be needy once in a while?”