by Bi Feiyu
A major shift had occurred one day in Gao’s hospital news report: it was now a live broadcast, a large-scale, lengthy live performance. Du Hong heard Gao whisper, ‘Boss Sha and Wang Daifu have gone outside. Jin Yan walked into the lounge with Xiao Kong after shouting in the hallway, “We’re having a meeting, everyone. Did you all hear me? I’m calling a meeting.” I don’t know what they plan to do.’
Through Gao Wei’s open phone, Du Hong heard Jin Yan say, ‘We thought we weren’t indifferent, but we are, and that has to stop.’
Jin Yan was really the only speaker at the meeting, and she spoke for five or six minutes, until Du Hong realised that the so-called meeting was in fact a collection campaign to encourage everyone to do something for her. Jin Yan spoke in a quivering voice, and it was hard to tell whether she was mad at herself or at others. She shed tears of emotion, making her speech both touching and tough; she was, in a word, issuing a threat. Everyone must make a gesture. No longer speechifying or trying to persuade, she was giving an order – ‘Now that poor Du Hong is in such a state, what can she do? She can do nothing any more, and we cannot stand back and watch without doing a thing.’ It came as a surprise to Du Hong that Jin Yan could be so warm, so eager to help; and she was impressed by how articulate she was. ‘We have the same kind of eyes,’ Jin Yan concluded, ‘the same kind of pupils, but in the end what do our eyes see? Think about what you can do.’ She was not all talk; without checking with Tailai first, she generously made a donation for both of them. Then there was Xiao Kong, who was a famous miser; she treasured every penny, round and black like her own pupils. But in the face of such raging passion, she did not hedge. Wang Daifu was not in the room, so she offered both their shares on his behalf, rousing everyone in the lounge, which was taken over by an emotional high that brought everyone to the brink of tears.
The mobile phone reproduced every sound in the lounge. With her eyes tightly shut, Du Hong began to quake; she clamped her hand over her mouth to stop herself from crying out. She didn’t want them to hear her. They were wonderful sisters and brothers; she felt herself breaking up inside as an indescribable current of warmth coursed through her body. The live broadcast was not over yet; Jin Yan and Xiao Kong were counting the money as they talked, or more accurately, were having a discussion: no one was to breathe a word of this. There was no need to tell Wang Daifu, since ‘you already made the donation for him.’ There was ‘even less need to tell Sha Fuming . . . let’s not worry about what’s going on between him and Du Hong.’
She lay back down after flipping her phone shut and stuffing it under her pillow. Du Hong was both moved and grateful, but her strongest feelings were sadness and despair, as cruel reality proved that she was finished. Deep down she knew she would have to depend on others for the rest of her life; she had no choice but to live in a world of gratitude from now on. She would forever be inferior to everyone else, to both the sighted and the blind. What did she have left? Nothing but her beauty. And what was that? Nothing but the breath in her nostrils, seemingly belonging to her, but not really. It entered and left, coming and going like a shadow.
Du Hong pulled the blanket up over her head, expecting to wail. But all she did was shed silent tears, unusual tears that spilled in great, speedy streams, unlike in the past, when her tears had always fallen drop by drop. Her pillow soaked up the tears, including the sound, leaving a large wet patch. She turned the pillow over and immediately wetted the other side.
Recalling the painful experience, she descended into a state of selfpity. Her pride hit rock bottom, her dignity was gone. It had been affixed to a door and smashed into unrecognisable pieces when a wind blew the door shut. She lost it in the lounge of the Sha Zongqi tuina centre.
No, she said to herself, no. I won’t. I’d rather die first.
Tossing the blanket aside, she sat up and found a towel, and groped her way over to the bathroom. She was about to wash her face when a nurse came in to help her. She turned towards the nurse, smiled, and gently but firmly pushed the arm away. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
No, she said to herself, no. Until she breathed her last, she would not allow herself to become an object of pity in people’s eyes. She wanted to live without having to always be grateful.
She would not owe anyone anything; she refused to be indebted to someone else, not even her closest brothers and sisters. If she did, she’d have to pay them back. If she couldn’t pay them back, that was all the more reason not to owe anyone. All debts need to be repaid, and she had always harboured a deep-rooted fear over repayment. She had come into this world with nothing and wanted to leave the same way.
After washing her face, she made up her mind to leave, to leave the Sha Zongqi tuina centre. She would first go home, where she’d ask her parents to pay back Sha Fuming for the medical expenses, and she’d repay them later. How would she do that? She did not know, and that nearly brought her to tears again, but she forced them back. A phrase leaped into her mind – heaven never seals off all exits. Heaven – Never – Seals – Off – All – Exits.
With her mind made up, she rang for the nurse and asked her to book a train ticket. Naturally she had to ask Gao Wei to bring her a writing board, something she always needed to write on. There was so much she wanted to say to her brothers and sisters, and she wanted to thank them. No matter what, she must show her gratitude. Goodbye, my friends. So long, my brothers and sisters. Heaven never seals off all exits. She would proudly get on the road with dignity and self-respect. She’d leave without owing anything.
Some of the therapists were working; others were resting. The tuina centre had returned to normal. Du Hong placed the thick stack of bills in her locker, shut the door, put on the lock – without locking it – and then hung the key behind it. She went up to Gao Wei and handed her a sheet of paper. That done, she headed out the door. Gao wanted to go with her, but she said no.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Where could I be going, silly girl?’ Du Hong said. ‘Can’t I be alone for a moment?’
Sha Fuming happened to be standing just outside the door, so Du Hong wound up leaving the centre by walking away from him. Holding the sheet of paper in her hand, Gao Wei had looked out the window and, to her surprise, seen Du Hong and Sha Fuming in an embrace. His back was to Gao, but that did not stop her from seeing how happy he was. His shoulders seemed to have swelled high into the heavens. With a smile, she turned and cast a glance at Du Li before walking off. It was all she could do to keep from calling everyone over to see what she’d witnessed.
Naturally, Gao Wei was the first to sense that something was wrong. Still holding Du Hong’s paper, she remained in the lounge, not feeling like going outside or walking the hallway. She fidgeted with the paper, which was filled with tiny holes, mere pinpricks. Not knowing what it was, she decided to ignore it. Nearly half an hour later, when she got to her feet, she realised that no one was outside any more. So she pushed the glass door open, only to see Sha Fuming pacing the area just beyond the entrance. He circled the four- or five-foot area, rubbing his hands the whole time. Not seeing Du Hong, Gao closed the door and went back inside. Then she opened every therapy room door, but there was no sign of her. Where did that damn little girl go? Where could she have gone? Could she be secretly crying somewhere?
Two hours later she began to panic. ‘Hey,’ she muttered, ‘where’s Du Hong?’
‘Isn’t she with you?’ Jin Yan asked.
‘No, she isn’t,’ Gao replied.
Two hours may not be a long time, but it is for a blind person to be absent. That was when everyone realised that something was wrong. They crowded into the lounge, where they sat quietly, looking around.
‘Did she say anything to you?’ Sha Fuming asked Gao Wei.
‘Nothing,’ Gao said, ‘she just gave me a sheet of paper and said she wanted to be alone for a while.’
‘What did it say?’ Jin Yan asked.
‘Nothing.’ Gao held the paper up before her and said i
nnocently, ‘There’s nothing.’
‘Are there tiny pinpricks on it?’ Sha asked.
‘Yes.’
Being the closest to Gao, Wang Daifu reached out and took the paper. He crossed his leg to lay it on his thigh so he could read it with his index finger. After two lines, he raised his head, and Gao saw an awful look on his face; his brows were raised up high. Without a word, he handed the paper to Xiao Kong.
The lounge went quiet again, a different kind of quiet. Du Hong’s note was passed from one hand to the next until it reached Sha Fuming. As she watched the scene of passing the note unfold before her, Gao Wei felt a sense of foreboding, but she was completely in the dark. She turned and caught the eye of Du Li, who was standing by the door. Du looked puzzled. They both looked away. The mystery was solved; it had to have been, but neither of them knew for sure. Their eyes shone, but they saw only darkness. They saw nothing; they were the sighted blind. They could never have imagined that something could have been so real, right in front of their noses, clearly in sight, and yet invisible. The silence in the lounge was getting scary.
Sha’s index finger trembled, his mouth was open, his jaw hung slack. Gao noticed how his finger kept passing over the last line. Finally, he took a deep breath and exhaled before tossing the note to the sofa and standing up. He walked over to Du Hong’s locker, located the lock and key, and opened it. He reached in, felt around, but did not bring anything out. The look on his face showed that he was convinced, that he had verified something, that he was utterly heartbroken. Wordlessly he walked into a therapy room across the way.
Everyone, except Gao Wei and Du Li, knew that the last line of Du Hong’s note was meant for Sha Fuming. She had called him ‘Ge’, elder brother.
‘Fuming Ge, I don’t know how to thank you. I can only wish you happiness,’ she had written.
Something was bound to happen in the lounge that afternoon, not to Du Hong, but to Wang Daifu.
‘Xiao Kong,’ Wang Daifu said out of the blue, ‘was that your idea?’
‘Yes.’
Overtaken by rage, he roared, ‘Who told you to do that?’
As if the question alone were not clear enough, Wang demanded more. ‘Who told you to do that?’ He sounded and looked scary, spittle flying. ‘You’re blind and should know better. You don’t deserve to be blind.’
Everyone was shocked that Wang Daifu, a gentle man, would yell like that at Xiao Kong, costing her a great loss of face.
‘There’s no need to shout, Lao Wang.’ Jin Yan pushed the others away and came up to Wang. ‘It was my idea. Xiao Kong had nothing to do with it, so you can deal with me.’
Wang was enraged. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ He turned around. ‘You think you deserve to be blind, don’t you?’
Jin Yan obviously had too high an opinion of herself, and had not expected that Wang Daifu would treat her like that. His voice was loud and deep, stunning her so much that she froze.
What surprised her even more was that Xu Tailai, a normally spineless man, reached out and pulled her behind him. His voice was not as powerful as Wang’s, but he was not going to hold back.
‘What are you shouting for? Who are you to yell at my wife? You think you’re the only one who deserves to be blind, don’t you? You may be better than me in other respects, but we can have a good contest when it comes to blindness.’
Tailai was the last person Wang ever thought would come forward to challenge him. Caught off guard, he was speechless; his bravado quickly lost its force. Fixing his gaze on Tailai, he knew that Tailai was staring back at him; two sightless men glaring at each other, breathing into each other’s face, neither willing to back off as they panted like overworked beasts of burden.
Laying one hand on Wang’s shoulder and another on Tailai, Zhang Zongqi spoke up. ‘No pissing contest, brothers, please.’
Tailai was about to raise his arm, but Zhang held it down.
‘Not over this,’ he said sternly.
Epilogue
Dinner Party
NO. 109–4, GENERAL Boulevard was the address of a restaurant, or more appropriately, a roadside diner; calling it a restaurant was too formal. Roadside diners, whose primary characteristic and greatest attraction is the absence of cleanliness, seldom serve large groups. The floors, neither carpeted nor tiled, are made of concrete, for the convenience of the diners, who can toss whatever they like – bones, fish bones, cigarette butts, bottle caps – wherever they feel like it. A diner might be dirty, but its food is usually good, due mainly to the heavy sauce and smokiness – so-called family-style cooking. Most of the customers are manual labourers, blue-collar workers who couldn’t care less about an elegant setting, fresh air or a clean floor. They don’t mind the absence of these; all they want is for the food to be to their liking, plentiful and cheap. And if they feel like it, they can bare their chests, put one foot up on their seat, and cradle their knee as they eat, drink and talk. A different kind of enjoyment.
Not all roadside diners are alike. Some do most of their business during the day, others rely on night-time customers. This second type has the feel of ‘ghost’ trade, since business doesn’t really get started until after midnight, catering to night workers such as subletting cabbies, employees at bathhouses or dance halls, customers leaving bars or tea houses, mah-jong players, drug users, and idlers with indeterminate professions, including hookers and pimps. Sometimes local artists visit these places; being the arty and romantic type, they look for something different when they tire of fancy restaurants, but only occasionally.
Those who follow a normal schedule more often than not don’t know how lively and exciting life can be after midnight. Urban management personnel usually slack off at night, while policemen on the night shift prefer not to take on too much, which gives owners of roadside diners free rein to run their business on the kerbs and take over the sidewalks. They drape electric wires over plane tree branches, add lights and put out a few makeshift tables and chairs. Firing up a stove on the kerb, they can handle all the cooking methods: stir-fry, pan-fry, deep-fry, braise and roast, filling the bustling, disordered streets with dense cooking smoke and enticing aromas. A country feel right in the city. They are favoured and frequented by those who are down and out, or, put differently, marginal urbanites.
It was not yet midnight when everyone from the tuina centre walked over to No. 109–4, General Boulevard: Sha Fuming, Zhang Zongqi, Wang Daifu, Xiao Kong, Jin Yan, Xu Tailai, Zhang Yiguang, Gao Wei, Du Li and Xiao Tang. Even Jin da-jie made a point of joining them. It was late and the street seemed deserted as they stood in a group at the diner entrance. The owner and employees had seen them before, but only in twos or threes; this was the first time all the familiar faces had shown up together. The friendly owner came out to welcome them.
‘Why, you’re all here. Is this a celebration?’
No one replied until Sha Fuming smiled and said, ‘Nothing to celebrate. We’ve all been working hard, so it’s time to get together and enjoy ourselves.’
‘I’ll get it started for you.’
Sha was utterly worn out; his smile might have seemed pleasant, but it was forced. Since reading the last line in Du Hong’s note, his strength had left him completely and suddenly; his energy and his soul seemed to have been snatched away by something mysterious. Fortunately, his stomach ache persisted. If not for that, he would have felt completely empty, so empty he could have heard a hollow echo inside when he walked.
He had invited everyone out for a late-night snack to celebrate Du Hong’s discharge from the hospital, but everything had changed in a matter of a few hours. Life can be so unpredictable. Something uncanny can crop up during the most ordinary times. Life is fragile and chimerical, incapable of sustaining minor disruptions. People tend to think that the blind live a monotonous life, but that depends on how you look at it and on whether they are willing to bare what is in their hearts. Even if the life of a blind person is in disarray, everything seems fine, for each d
ay appears to be calm and uneventful, a copy of the previous day, with the same length, width and height. But once they open up, it can be startling, as their lives can turn out to be unusual and bizarre.
Wang Daifu, who was keenly aware of Sha Fuming’s dilemma, had suggested that he postpone the outing to another day. ‘Why not?’ he said. But Sha Fuming wasn’t about to do that. ‘Du Hong getting out of the hospital calls for a celebration,’ he said.
Yes, Du Hong was discharged from the hospital, and that did call for a celebration. But what would the celebration feel like? Only Sha Fuming would know. Wang Daifu had been sincere when he made the suggestion, but he also had an ulterior motive. At lunchtime he’d had a falling-out first with Xiao Kong, then with Jin Yan, and then with Tailai, making a late-night snack an uncomfortable occasion for him. None of the others felt comfortable saying anything to Sha, but they too wished he would cancel the outing. But he wouldn’t. What could they do? Besides, they felt sorry for him – You’re being stubborn. How can you be so stubborn? No one talked along the way, as they sensed his sorrow and dejection. He was devastated.
Zhang Zongqi’s feeling was, by comparison, more complex. He had great sympathy for Du Hong and Sha Fuming, but deep down he was filled with a peculiar elation, which came suddenly out of nowhere and for no obvious reason. After reading Du Hong’s letter, he felt his heart lurch and, with careful examination, discovered to his surprise that he experienced more jubilation than sympathy. He was startled by this realisation, which brought on a sense of self-loathing. How could he feel that way? But the joy was real, coursing and lingering in his veins, unstoppable. A close and prolonged rumination reminded him that he had longed for her departure, but safely, of course. She had not left in the best shape, and that was the reason for his sympathy.
