Any Deadly Thing

by Roy Kesey

  Just as the man knocked on his door, the screaming from above went quiet. Wenyuan invited him in, and they both stood listening. Wenyuan began to fear that the supervisor would think him foolish or dishonest, would never believe another complaint, but then the screaming started again, as loud as it had ever been. The supervisor’s eyes widened. He agreed that it was louder than he had imagined. Louder, in fact, than he could quite believe. He said that he would investigate further, would find the source of the problem, would solve it immediately.

  Wenyuan did not hear from the man for five days. During that time the noise grew still louder. It haunted him even when he knew the foreigners were out; the banging and screaming hung in the shadows of his mind, waiting for him to grow too tired to fight them back. He complained to the Tenants Association, to the Owners Commission, to the chairman of the company that had built the complex and still owned its grounds. He began pounding on the ceiling with whatever he had at hand—a yardstick, a broom, once even with the hilt of the Japanese sword. In response to his pounding there was always an hour or so of quiet, and then the noise would begin again.

  Only once had he and the Americans met face to face. He had pressed the button to bring the elevator, watched as it slid down from the floor above, and there they were, husband and wife and child, all three quiet for once, and he had not looked directly at them, had slid to one side and huddled in the corner, glaring at the wall. Surely they must have known that he was the one who pounded on their floor every night. He felt noise surging from them though no one had made a sound, felt movement though no one had budged. When the elevator door opened he raced out and didn’t look back.

  That evening he wrote a letter to his son, planning it carefully beforehand, making it clear that Chongyi was welcome to answer in any way he pleased, to downplay the situation or travel up from Shanghai when he had the time, however he saw fit. The letter was nearly finished when there was a tremendous crash from upstairs, followed by almost an hour of screaming. Wenyuan tore up the letter and wrote another, much shorter one, asking his son for whatever help he could provide as soon as he could provide it.

  The cricket hadn’t sung for him in days, and no longer ate anything he put in the cage. Wenyuan tried doing his research in the reading room, and even there the noise of children followed him: the playhouse was down the hall, far enough away that the sounds of their games hadn’t disturbed him before, but now the children seemed louder, as if somehow infected by the Americans. He tried nearby cafés and teahouses, even the faculty room at the university, but there too he spent all his time unintentionally rereading sentences, paragraphs, whole pages, and dreading the moment when he would have to return to his apartment.

  Finally the supervisor came to see him. There were circles under the young man’s eyes. He said that he had worked ceaselessly on the issue since the two men had last spoken. He had talked with the foreigners, with the chief engineer of the complex, with the landlord of the apartment above and the company that had done the renovation.

  It was clear that the problem was not entirely the Americans’ fault. Errors had been made in the course of renovating the apartment. The supervisor wasn’t sure whether it was a case of the landlord trying to save money, or the renovation company trying to improve its profits, or incompetence on the part of the workers, but the fact was that after the old wooden flooring had been removed, no insulation had been put in before new flooring was laid.

  Wenyuan listened partly to the supervisor’s explanation and partly to an argument going on upstairs, the wife’s voice rising and rising, the child whimpering in the background. He waited until the supervisor went quiet, and then everything welled up and he began to shout in the young man’s face. He knew nothing about landlords or workers or insulation, he said. He knew only that his life had become impossible, a keening wailing hell, and if the supervisor was not able to—

  Here the man interrupted him. It was an unfortunate problem, yes, but not insoluble. He had met with the Americans earlier that morning, had explained the situation in detail, and they had agreed to let the parent company pay to carpet the hardwood floors of the apartment, which would serve the same function as insulation. The carpet was being brought from the company’s warehouse at that very moment, and there would be a bit of noise as it was installed.

  Wenyuan stared at the supervisor, wanting to believe. It had been so long since he had slept well. And perhaps the carpet would work. A few more hours, he thought, and he might as well spend them in the reading room. He nodded, showed the man to the door, and listened to the voices, quiet at first, then raised in anger.

  A week later, and Wenyuan paced back and forth through his living room, his hands on his temples, the screaming of the child echoing from wall to wall. One more moment, he thought, you can last one more moment, and one more, and one more. Apparently, when the foreigners had seen that the carpet from storage was slightly used, they’d refused to accept it. New carpet had been ordered from a warehouse in Hong Kong, and the shipment had been delayed, had arrived only today, and though he had spent as much time as possible away from the apartment, wandering streets, sitting in parks, there were still the nights, the noise driving him from room to room, voices and lights and images at times and he fought them and often lost.

  He was now calling his son every day, but had not yet been able to reach him—the line was busy, or no one answered, or he was out of the office and no one knew when he would return. Wenyuan left long messages on Chongyi’s voicemail, begging him to call back, to sell this apartment and buy another one in the same complex, or in some other complex, anywhere he could find peace.

  Awake, he dreamed of meeting the American man in the elevator, and the man attacked but Wenyuan drew his sword, fended him off and counterattacked, the sound of the body hitting the floor, the blood on the stainless steel walls. Asleep he dreamed of a small screaming child, a girl, and it was not the girl from upstairs, not American but Chinese, and the apartment in which they stood was not one he had ever seen before. He opened the front door but instead of the hallway there was a subway station, a train pulled up and the screaming girl pushed past him and got on, the doors closed, the conductor leaned out and waved and it was his wife, she was blond for some reason and had round blue eyes but it was her all the same and the train pulled away as he woke.

  Wenyuan heard scuffling overhead, the slamming of a door, and silence. Then there was a new sort of pounding, and it took him a second to understand: the carpet was being installed. He listened, grateful, unbelieving, to four hours of long soft dragging and muffled thumps. When all was silent again, he went to his library and sat in his chair. He was too exhausted to read, but for the moment this was enough, this quietude, this knowing that he was back in his life.

  And perhaps the cricket would start singing again. He went to his study, took down the cage and peered inside. The cricket was dead. Wenyuan began to tremble. He crushed the cage in his hands, and heard the foreigners tromping back into their apartment. Their noise was not quite as loud as before, their voices not quite as clear, but somehow the muffled sound was even worse; it was fighting or singing, it was laughing or choking, it was chanting or retching and he called the supervisor immediately. When the man arrived he began to rant, his cricket, these foreigners, what right did they have, and him, he had survived everything, starvation and war and imprisonment, his wife disappearing, her death, torture re-education soybeans—soybeans! Four years of soybeans! Did the supervisor have any idea, no, he was too young, the soybean fields, the heat, the blood dripping from his blistered hands onto the blade of his shovel as he, and the—but he had survived, had defiled no one, not even himself, had lost his wife but kept his son alive and now listen to that girl how she runs and laughs and screams and chokes and there was no question, they had to leave, they had to leave today.

  The supervisor stood with his back against the door. He nodded. His eyes closed and opened. He promised Wenyuan that something would be do
ne, some solution found. Then he disappeared.

  It had gotten still worse, all of it, the noise continuous, a waiting with no fixed end. The supervisor had promised that the foreigners would soon be moving out, but could not say when. They had raged and shouted when he told them there was no other possible solution, he said, and he did not blame them. They had demanded a triple refund of their deposit, and their landlord was unwilling to pay it, which meant the building management would have to put up the money themselves. They had refused his help in looking for a new apartment, had insisted that they would find one in their own good time, that the problem was not their problem and they would not be forced to hurry.

  Wenyuan sat in his living room for hours, listened to the little girl laughing, laughing at him, at his misery. There was no point in calling the supervisor anymore, the man could do nothing, and still Wenyuan called, ten and twelve times a day, screaming. His insomnia was complete, he heard children crying and coughing and shrieking no matter where he was, he pounded on the ceiling nightly and the noise no longer went quiet, not even momentarily.

  For three solid nights the girl had screamed and cried and perhaps there were moments when she was quiet and the girl who screamed was the one from his dream and there was no way to know. Now, the fourth night, Wenyuan sat on his couch in his pajamas, staring at a letter that had arrived that morning from his son. Chongyi had written that he was very busy, far too busy to deal with such a situation, he had problems of his own, allegations to address, and besides, the apartment had a high long-term resale value—it would make no sense to sell it, so Wenyuan would simply have to be patient, and surely things would turn out all right.

  Wenyuan waited and the screaming continued and he waited and it continued and he waited and everything surged to the surface. He ran to his library and pulled down the sword, ran from bathroom to kitchen and back again pounding on the pipes, pounding on the ceiling and walls, shrieking. When he stopped there was silence. A brief scream from above, and more silence. Wenyuan sat back down on his couch, the sword across his lap.

  It was silence or it was not, was real or was not, and he didn’t care, didn’t care, wanted only to sleep. He closed his eyes. There was more pounding and he opened his eyes, still more pounding and it came from too close at hand, not from above but at his door and he sat and waited and stared. Silence and shouting and more pounding. Shouting and silence and then his door exploded and the American was standing huge in the doorway, screaming at him, holding the girl in his arms, and she too was screaming and Wenyuan jumped up and screamed back at them, screamed that he would not be driven out, held up the sword and the American stepped forward, they were real or they were not and Wenyuan swung at the air to force them back and the scabbard flew off the sword, the American ducked and it just missed his head, cracked against the wall behind him, clattered to the floor of the apartment.

  The blade was very bright. They were all silent now. Wenyuan stared at the girl, and she stared at him. Then she retched and the father held her and she retched again and a thick stream of white poured out of her mouth. Her body convulsed and she vomited a second time. The smell hit Wenyuan and he knew, finally, what they were: a man, and a girl. And the girl was very sick. That was all.

  He looked at the American’s eyes. The man had not slept for days either. And these nights of screaming, the daughter, surely they had taken her to one of the hospitals nearby but perhaps the doctor hadn’t known what was wrong. That happened sometimes. The girl lay quiet against the man’s chest.

  Wenyuan nodded at the American, at the girl, set the sword on the floor and went to his bathroom. He came back with a towel, and motioned for the man to sit down. The man didn’t move. Wenyuan went to him, reached out a hand, was surprised when the man let himself be touched, let himself be led to the couch.

  The American put his daughter down. Wenyuan knelt to mop up the sick, and now the man was walking into his kitchen. Wenyuan watched as he took up a dishrag, came back, knelt alongside, and the two of them worked at this cleaning. Wenyuan decided that when they were done he would take them to the best children’s hospital in Beijing, would find the best doctor, one who spoke English—that was a thing he could do, a thing he knew to do. The daughter would grow healthy again, and tomorrow he would buy her a cricket. Did Americans like crickets? He had no idea, but he could ask, and if they did he would buy one to keep her company as she regained her strength. There was the noise of other people in the hallway, surely his neighbors from either side, and he ignored them. The American spoke to his daughter from where he knelt. Wenyuan spoke to her as well, told her about the cricket he would buy her if she liked crickets and her parents said it was okay, and he spoke to the man and the man spoke to him, and no one understood anything, and it was fine.

  Learning to Count in a Small Town

  1

  stands in his garden at dawn. On the trunk of his apricot tree is a swallowtail fanning its wings still wet with birth. Ven, he calls to his wife. Ha nacido la mariposa.

  2

  pushes her cart through the supermarket, around and around in the cool air. Her mouth is crusted with dirt. When she tires, she rests. She buys a bag of dog food, and the clerk knows she has no dog. He nods and hands her the receipt.

  3

  hasn’t yet learned to swim. Her brother taunts her from the far side of the river. The light on the water hurts her eyes. She looks down at her feet and wishes they were smaller.

  4

  leans on the bathroom sink and stares at himself in the mirror. There is more yellow in his left eye than in his right. The phone rings. He goes on staring.

  5

  hammers on the podium, shouts about immigrants. In the park outside the auditorium, men are playing softball, swearing and spitting, and their wives pretend to watch.

  6

  leans back in her hammock and knows that the afternoon heat will never end. The stink of tarweed weights the air. Crows harry a red-tailed hawk through the sky.

  7

  just makes it to his mailbox. Inside is the water bill and a postcard from his granddaughter. I hope you’re okay, she has written. I hope everything is fine.

  8

  never leaves her apartment. She rests on the floor, stares out the screen door at the dusk and her empty bird feeder.

  9

  sits up in bed and lights a cigarette. If she holds her breath she can hear the television in the next room.

  0

  has heart trouble. From his barstool he listens to conversations and has thoughts of football. He asks for one more drink and the barman says, Sorry, bud. We’re finished here. It’s time to get you home.

  Gorget

  IN THE MEAT MARKETS of Cajamarca, the women call to me. Gringo lindo, they say. Gringo bello, come here, come to me, come see what I have to offer.

  These calls that ring through the meaty air, they are sadly undisinterested, and I revel in them all the same. I walk and look, and what the women have to offer is beef and pork and lamb, all freshly slaughtered and in some cases boned and filleted. Because this is Peru there are also meats that would be surprising in most other places—iguana, guinea pig, alpaca. Additionally there are unusual parts of unsurprising animals: cow hearts like sloppy bowling balls, and goat heads for soup. And of course there is fowl, chicken and duck and turkey. Perhaps they should interest me ornithologically, but my professional focus is hummingbirds. Was hummingbirds. Was and is or should be.

  There is also the other sort of meat market here. The only time I’ve been to such a place was back home in Connecticut, not recently but years ago, somewhere near the end of college. I went at the invitation of a good friend named Kirk, a marketing major capable of entering any habitat—known or unknown, mirror ball or no mirror ball—and rapidly locating a woman who wished him to accompany her home so that together they might make blurry, beery love.

  We sat down in a booth, and for a time we observed a group of women standing at the bar. All four we
re tall and narrow-waisted, with splendidly symmetrical facial features. Kirk said to me, You know what you’ve got going for you? Your hidden potential. It’s well hidden, but it’s definitely there, and women can sense that. Let’s hear that nuclear rap, Shaddick. Go rap that nuclear rap.

  Kirk’s words made me strong. I walked to the women, and chose the shortest one, whom I estimated to be no more than two inches taller than me, or seven inches counting her high heels. I opened my mouth to begin rapping my nuclear rap, but just then I choked on saliva. A piece of phlegm landed on the woman’s cheek. I executed a strategically flawless retreat, and went home as soon as seemed feasible.

  It was a week before I learned that in the sixty-two hours subsequent to my departure from the bar, Kirk had slept with all four of those women, either individually or in small groups. For me the immediate future held chess with friends on Friday and Saturday nights, except when it was solitaire. Graduate school began in similar ways, with chess and advisory committees, solitaire and teaching assistantships, chess and solitaire and research proposals.